Ahhhemmm!!!

It's not a secret that I cough to mask my farts. It's my way of keeping as many eyes off me as possible (being invisible would have come in handy the time I accepted that hose-down wearing only a cheap sports bra).

But what about the times I want presence known, like if I'm coming upon a person or, in this example from my latest 4-miler, what looked like a maltipoo whose leash seemed to go on for 5K? I needed his owner to know I was coming -- she's got to get a handle on this dog or I'm going down.

"I could cough", I thought, but learned that people just think you're coughing and do absolutely nothing, especially women. I have found that we don't yield to eachother -- that's a guy thing. Tell me I'm wrong. You haven't noticed that? A woman is NOT going to walk on the little strip of grass so you can enjoy the entire girth of the sidewalk. Men do that. So, immediately, I knew even if I had a stroke while throwing up and yelling "fire" after getting shot and stabbed, statistically, she wasn't gonna' flinch. I needed her to know I was coming in time for her to make that dog heel.

So, I did what any runner under the delusion that they're experienced would -- I said, "Excuse me" as I passed her and my nightmare played out in a way that made me wish I'd done those drills and exercises that stengthen your core muscles: I had to swerve around the dog attached to the leash then went on for days, held by the woman who remained partially asleep the entire time.

WANTED: a workout whose success I can define in terms of how many calories were burned, how much conditioning was achieved, or how it improved my outlook, not whether or not I got run-over, knocked-unconscious or bitten.