What's my age again?

After the disaster that was my track and field coaching debut, I was bound and determined to avenge my horrible experience with a much warmer, much drier, much more awesome day at the track.

I showed up to my second track meet as a coach with two umbrellas, a rain poncho, a parka, hand-warmers and a box of Hot Tamales. (Have you ever noticed that sucking on cinnamon-flavored candy makes you feel warmer? If not, you clearly live in California.)

Naturally, it was 75 degrees and sunny.

This unseasonably warm April day gave me an opportunity to not only work on my “base burn,” but also to more comfortably engage fellow meet-goers in friendly conversation. (Because there’s just something about 45-mile-an-hour wind gusts that sort of kills the mood for chit-chat.)

Somewhere in between the jokes, pleasantries and track talk, there were a couple of awkward moments that I feel obliged to share not only for sheer entertainment purposes, but also as a way to therapeutically address some underlying insecurities.

You see, I was feeling pretty darn grown-up there at the finish line, clutching a very official-looking clipboard and yelling things like, “Don’t leave the track! Stay in your lanes!”

I was in charge. I was in control. I had authority. Kids were actually listening to me.

Then, in between heats of the 100-meter-dash — my favorite* race of all time — an older-looking gentleman in a Crocodile Dundee hat struck up a conversation with me. It went something (exactly) like this:

Man: So, what grade are you in?

Me: Oh, me? I graduated.

Man: Oh really! From here [as in, the high school at which we are currently volunteering]?

Me: From college.

Man: [Slightly embarrassed] Oh! Gosh, I must be getting old. I guess you do look like you could be 22.

Me: I’m 24.

Thankfully, we were saved by the gun and did not have to continue talking. Suddenly, I did not feel so official, even with the official clipboard containing the official results sheets that I was officially responsible for. Clearly, I might as well have been at the concession stand selling candy bars to raise money for the senior prom.

I’m not a teenager! I thought. I have a job, and an apartment, and a plant-watering schedule. I care about things like gas mileage and taxes and 12-hour cereal sales!

As I stood there, deflated and wondering whether a Crocodile Dundee hat would make me look more like an adult, a sprinter came up to me, huffing and puffing after racing the 100.

“Excuse me, do you know what my time was? I was in lane eight,” he gasped.

“Fifteen-point-six-two,” I replied. (Obviously, he was a distance runner but didn’t know it yet.)

“Thanks ma’am,” he said.

Ma’am? Did he just call me ‘ma’am?’ I thought. Ma’am is something you call…like…OLD people!

I was sort of outraged but sort of flattered at the same time. If the kids can tell that I am ma’am-worthy, that’s all that counts, right?

But, you know, a little anti-aging night cream never hurt anybody.

*We’ve been over this. The 100-meter-dash is not my favorite race of all time. In fact, it is the opposite of my favorite race of all time. Yes, I realize that doesn’t make sense. Watch me not care.

Why I need to stop watching Nancy Grace

I do the majority of my runs close to home, in a neighborhood comprised mostly of retired couples and rich Canadians who think it’s super hip to have a summer home south of the border.

As such, I usually pass by several old people walking small dogs over the course of my usual route, but I hardly ever see other runners. Which is fine with me—whenever I catch a glimpse of another runner in the distance, my competitive juices start flowing, and I feel compelled to somehow “beat” them, either by being the first to reach a certain point along the road (if they are running towards me) or passing them before I reach a certain point along the road (if they are ahead of me).

So to be honest, I’d much rather smile and wave at Dr. Nelson and his bichon frise, Princess Beatrice, than enter into an involuntary speed showdown that, whatever the outcome, will almost certainly leave me feeling like a complete nerd/loser.

Today, however, was different.

As I exited the land of late-onset empty-nest syndrome and turned right onto the main road, a flash of motion jumped into my peripheral field of vision.

I turned my head and squinted into the morning sun, trying to get a better look at this mystery exerciser—the first one I had seen in days. But he was completely backlit, and all I could see was the distant silhouette of a…roller blader?

Hold the phone, I thought. Did I really just see a freaking roller blader?

As I strode along, I racked my brain for the last time I had ever laid eyes on a pair of roller blades. I finally decided that it must have been at least a decade, since everyone knows roller blades haven’t been cool since “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It” was on the Billboard Hot 100.

No, wait—I thought—I think I saw a pair at that white trash garage sale I stopped at a couple of years back, the one where I almost got talked into buying a set of Harry Potter Happy Meal toys from a 6-year-old with a Kool-Aid mustache.

My train of thought was suddenly interrupted as an elderly gentleman zoomed by me on some sort of wheeled contraption that can only be described as the awkward lovechild of a mountain bike and a Nordic Track ski machine.

So it wasn’t a roller blader, I thought, shrugging my shoulders with an inexplicable feeling of disappointment—like I’d just seen Bigfoot but then realized it was only Jack Black with his shirt off.

I ran on, wondering why I had never seen this guy out on the roads before. About a mile down the road, I heard the faint sound of an approaching set of motorless wheels.

Then, from behind me: “You’re beautiful.”

My heart jumped. Oh crap, I thought. It’s finally happening. I’m going to have to karate-chop some pervert and make a run for the nearest dog-walking senior citizen.

I had reviewed my response to this exact scenario many times in my mind. The only problem is that, despite my best intentions, I still haven’t taken the martial arts self-defense class I’ve been meaning to enroll in for the last six years.

With no bank of kick-ass ninja moves to draw from, I picked up my pace and stole a quick look to my right to size up my attacker. He was skinny and at least 60 years old.

I breathed a sigh of relief. I knew I could escape from him with nothing more than a swift kick to the crotch and a few hundred meters of sprinting in the opposite direction.

“Your form, I mean—it’s absolutely perfect,” he said as he glided past my right shoulder.

I think he knew he had startled me, because he kept a comfortable distance between us as he continued on with his somewhat flattering commentary of my gait.

“I just love watching you run,” he said. “I can see the winner inside you.”

“Oh, um, thank you,” I said, not knowing how else to respond to such an odd compliment.

The winner inside me? Was that some kind of cryptic sexual reference?

I picked up the pace another notch and made a sharp turn onto a small footpath that led to a narrow canal bridge, hoping it would prove too great an obstacle for his bike-ski hybrid.

“Oh, I see we have the same route,” he said, following me down the path.

I was on the verge of veering off into someone’s backyard and screaming, “Help! I need an adult!” But before I had the chance, he opened his mouth again.

“I’m Bob, by the way,” he said. “I ran competitively for 30 years, and I can always pick out the best runners just by looking at their form.”

After Bob introduced himself, the strength of his creeper vibe diminished considerably. I got the feeling that he was just like me—a lonely runner in a world of tiny sissy dogs with out-of-shape owners.

“My name’s…” I hesitated for a second, weighing the consequences of giving him my real name and ultimately deciding it probably wouldn’t hurt. “…Brooke. I actually ran in college, and my coaches always said I had good form too.”

Bob rode his ski apparatus next to me for another half-mile or so. We chatted about cross training and cartilage breakdown—you know, normal running small talk.

After we parted ways, I wondered if I had just seen a glimpse into my future. Would that be me someday, riding a funny-looking bike thing and striking up unsolicited conversations with young whippersnapper runners?

I can accept that as my fate, as long as I never reach the point where I have a miniature Schnauzer named Prince Charles.

That's what she said

I’ve always been a fan of running in the summer rain, but when thunder and lightening show up to the party, I turn into a total scaredy cat.

So the other day, when the forecast called for an afternoon thunderstorm, I opted to employ my contingency plan: the elliptical.

I was about 20 minutes in to my plan B workout when…dun, dun, duunnnnnn…a mid-storm power outage killed the lights and all of the electronic exercise machines.

“Uhhhhhhh,” groaned the extremely tan, extremely wrinkly woman to my right.

Of course, this was the ONE time I didn’t have my iPod. So as the back-up generator kicked in and brought the machines—but not the lights or the TVs—back to life, I was forced to interact with Whiny Wendy.

Actually, I guess Whiny Juanita would be a more appropriate sarcastic nickname for this particular woman, since her accent would suggest some sort of Latino nationality.

“Oh jeeeeeeeeez,” she went on. “How loooooonggg is it gonna take them to feeeeeeex theeeees?”

I really wasn’t in the mood for conversation, so I tested out the “non-response method” for a few seconds. But I could feel her pleading eyes staring in my direction, and they weren’t going to move until I had supplied a satisfactory answer.

“Um, well, last time this happened I think it took, like, five minutes,” I finally replied.

“Fiiiiiiiiiiiivaah meeeeenutes? I neeeeeeedd my TeeeeeVeeeeeee when I workooouuuuutttt!”

“Me too,” I muttered under my breath.

I don’t know what it was about her voice that annoyed me so much, but I knew that if one more high pitched, overly annunciated word came out of her mouth, there was a 95 percent chance that I would involuntarily slap her in the face.

But at that very moment, I received a critical dose of comic relief from a pair of old-timers whose lifting workout had been interrupted by the blackout.

“Come on, Jerry, we don’t have all day. Martha’s aqua-cise class gets out in 20 minutes, and if she has to wait for me, I’ll be in big trouble,” said the first guy.

“Sorry Frank, I just can’t do it in the dark,” replied the second guy.

“That’s what she said!” quipped the first guy, with spot-on comedic timing.

I bit my lip as I tried in vain to suppress my giggles. But I just couldn’t help myself—it was the best-executed “that’s what she said” joke that I’d heard in a long time.

Guy number two, however, was not nearly as amused by his friend’s impeccable wit as I was.

“Frank, that was absolutely terrible,” he said in a tone that made him sound like a disappointed father. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

I almost piped up with something like, “Ah, relax Jerry. Don’t be such a buzzkill.”

But before I could say anything, the lights came back on and the latest episode of Sports Center was blasting into my headphones. I guess the sound on the built-in TVs automatically resets to maximum volume following a power outage.

Of course, not even that could drown out Juanita’s excessively emotional reaction to the electrical reboot.

“Well, thaaaaaaaannnk God,” she declared. “Eeeeett’s abouuuuuuuttt tiiiiimmee!”

Ay, Dios mio.

Exhalation inspiration

There’s nothing worse than a cold, rainy Memorial Day weekend.

Scratch that—there’s nothing worse than running on a treadmill on a cold, rainy Memorial Day weekend.

Wait, it gets worse—there’s nothing worse than being stuck next to an old guy with bad breath while running on a treadmill on a cold, rainy Memorial Day weekend.

You know what I’m talking about. We’ve all been there at one time or another. But just in case you’ve somehow avoided this treadmill rite of passage, take a moment to imagine yourself in the following scenario:

You’ve just passed the halfway mark on a grueling five-mile pace-progression run.

Your breathing is growing increasingly labored as you struggle to convince yourself that hey, it isn’t so bad. At least you pretty much have the joint to yourself, since everyone else is out trying to light their barbecues in the rain.

But then…dun, dun, duuunnnnnn…in walks the old dude with the most severe case of halitosis known to man. He has his pick of machines. He could literally have his own row if he so desired. But guess which one he chooses? Oh yeah, that’s right: the one directly to your left.

To make matters worse, he is positioned approximately halfway between you and the wall fan you have cranked up to maximum speed, so whatever disgusting odor comes out of his face is blown directly into yours.

You are flooded with feelings of utter frustration and helplessness as you think, “Dear Lord, why me?”

You wince as he repetitively presses the “speed up” button, finally settling on a rate of 4 mph—a blistering pace for a 65-year-old in jeans with an elastic waistband.

It’s only a matter of time before he’s sucking air—and then blowing it back out, infused with an odor that can only be described as a mixture of coffee, taco seasoning and moth balls.

And so, on that fateful Memorial Day weekend, as I desperately tried to invent a new breathing pattern that did not involve the use of my nose (an attempt which, by the way, failed miserably), the old wheels started a-turnin’ and the old light bulb started a-blinkin’. I had an idea.

More on my stroke of brilliance in my next post. Sorry, I know the suspense is killing you, but you’ll just have to wait.