The Neighborhood Exercise Squad

I see them in the morning sometimes when I'm forced to open my front door before noon for a deliveryman or when I’m running something out to my husband that he left behind. They are usually found in pairs sporting designer workout clothes and Velcro wrist weights as they walk their little, fluffy, white dogs. They smile at me and wave and I return the greeting only to go back inside and sneer. I’ve been invited along on one of the morning excursions conducted by the group I like to refer to as the Neighborhood Exercise Squad, but I am usually able to come up with some half-baked excuse to decline.

I have nothing against exercise. I workout four nights a week at home in the comfort and solitude of the spare room. However, the idea of participating in group exercise seems contradictory to the whole point of working out in the first place. Exercising, to me, is like praying. You do it in a room full of others who are participating in the same thing, but you do it on your own. When I was going to a gym, I did it solo. In fact, those women, and sometimes men, who would go in pairs and have conversations while sitting side by side on the machines really pissed me off. Here I was, sweaty and pumped up, trying to blast through my workout while they were discussing what dish they were going to bring to the Ladies Auxiliary Potluck.

I workout in my room, alone, on my recumbent exercise bike for 45 minutes, while listening to an MP3 player loaded with hard-assed rock. Even if I tried my best to join the Neighborhood Exercise Squad, I would be an automatic standout. Most of those ladies are in excellent shape, and I am not. I put on a ton during my pregnancy, because YAHOO I was pregnant and I could live off of spicy Thai food and chocolate ice cream. I thought I would have the baby weight gone by my daughter’s first birthday, but I procrastinated and only recently had the desire to look good naked again.

Besides my ass being larger than the other speed-walking mavens, I do not have the proper attire required for membership. They are often seen wearing designer workout ensembles such as Tommy Hilfiger, Juicy Couture, and other expensive duds. This is a completely ridiculous concept to me: spend a fortune on clothes just to sweat in them. My workout uniform is quite different. I grab an old t-shirt usually from a rock show that I attended back in the day. If it’s winter, I wear the sweatpants that I stole from my husband, if it’s summer I wear the bicycle shorts that I stole from my sister, both of which are bleach-stained and have a small hole in the crotch. I tie my hair back, and usually workout barefoot. The only item in my stylish workout outfit that I have made any effort to spend money on is my sports bra, because it’s better to have good support than to have to get those suckers surgically relocated when you hit your 40s.

I do have a dog, but I can tell you right now, he’s not up for the walk. The dogs that accompany the Neighborhood Exercise Squad are those peppy, little furballs with as much energy as their owners. Unfortunately, my dog’s energy level is equal to mine in the morning, so he collapses like a lump on the kitchen floor after his morning pee until the baby and I make our way upstairs for her bath around 9:30 a.m. Fozzy is a curly black-haired, Cocker Spaniel/Poodle mix that looks like a fuzzy beer keg with legs. He is a sweet dog, but the term “well fed” would be an understatement for him. We do walk Fozzy, but keep the distance to and from the house reasonable, and we never come close to a brisk pace.

Aside from the lack of attire and the portable pet, I have no desire to carry on any kind of a decent conversation in the morning, especially one where the subject would fall along the lines of neighborhood gossip, my husband’s work, or my child’s school activities. I am a proper yenta and do love gossip, but I could care less who in the neighborhood just bought a new car or might be getting divorced. My husband hates his current job, so I don’t really take any joy in re-hashing that situation to strangers, and since we are the only Jewish family in the neighborhood, my daughter doesn’t attend the same pre-school as her neighborhood toddler counterparts. I would just be trailing behind the Neighborhood Exercise Squad silently looking like a schlep, and wondering why the hell anyone would want an “exercise buddy” when they aren’t lifting heavy amounts of weight.

For now I’m content getting into my grungy clothes at around 10:00 p.m. and sweating my guts out to a delicious blend of Disturbed, Godsmack, Slipknot, and Danzig, while my lazy dog plays dead in the hall relieved that he doesn’t have to try and outdo the decorative furballs at the first crack of dawn.