January 9, 2006

Pride

There’s an old adage that when you’re thrown off a horse, it’s best to get back on it and ride. I’ve been trying to apply that principle to my Schwinn stationary bike.

Of course, the last time I rode it, I wasn’t thrown off, I just got off — gingerly. My legs gave out well before my lungs started in on the asthma two-step. I doubt if I ever even got up to that pulse level determined by subtracting your age from some mystical number set by the National Institutes for Health or whomever.

Maybe what I need is one of those mechanical bulls one finds in saloons. They’ll throw a person half way across the room before you can get a hold on the reins. But then, there’s not much cardio-respiratory exercise in that endeavor, just a large exposure of one’s pride.

Pride is probably what exercise is all about, anyway. More endurance. A better pectoral girdle. And abs, for heaven’s sake, abs. Like that guy on the underwear package, those I bought at the Christmas sale that are the next size larger than the ones I threw away during Advent.

Back to the Schwinn. I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions, mostly because there’s less demand on my guilt that way. But like Archie Bunker always said, one of these days…

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