BFF Kathy lives with her husband and two children in a beautiful seaside neighborhood, about a mile away from the beach. If you visit at the right time of day you can walk among the tide pools when the tide is low and touch sea anemones.
Usually we drive the mile or so down to the beach when I come to visit. This last time, though, Kathy suggested that we take the double stroller with her 5-year-old daughter and 3-year-old son. I volunteered to navigate the stroller, knowing that it was a mostly downhill trip to the beach. And it wasn't so bad, especially when we stopped at a sandwich shop for turkey and avocado with Swiss cheese on squaw bread.
Near the beach, there was a small children's game carnival at a rec center. Kathy's kids threw bean-bags and hooked plastic fish to win various plastic toys. Everyone thought that I was the dad, which we no longer bother to correct since we are used to it, by now.
I also volunteered to push the double stroller back to their house, even though it was uphill all the way. Kathy does it every week, so I could do it at least once.
I thought.
It kicked my ass.
I have long had the theory that having your own child would be like owning the perfect exercise equipment. Your muscles could warm up with a newborn and then develop as they got used to the child's gradually increasing weight. Babies in car seats are great for building your biceps.
Simply carrying a child around would allow you to naturally incorporate lunges and ab work into your daily routine.
And I figured, if you can teach your toddler to hold her body as stiff as a board, then you've got an instant bench press. Your pecs would get bigger as your child got older.
Pushing Kathy's kids uphill in their double stroller wailed on my hamstring muscles and my glut's. I was out of breath for most of the return trip. It was good thing I flaked on my morning jog that day. No wonder Kathy's so amazingly thin, again, at age 41!
The next time we do this, I told them, I'll take my scooter down to the beach and just meet them there.
3 comments:
For some bizarre reason this post reminded me of this photo I saw, which I now cannot find, of a woman speedwalking with her small dog in one of those small-dog-pouches.
In other words, she was walking her dog with her dog getting precisely no exercise.
The caption was "FAIL."
She needs to have a kid or two.
it's god's way of paying us back for going though hemorrhoids, gas, stretch marks, saggy breasticles, and labour.
we deserve something after all of that.
Best workout yet...my kids in a double stroller on a steep mountain hill that was just a tease to the steep driveway we had....
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