70 Miles From Home

As Rodney Dangerfield used to say, “My doctor told me I should run five miles a day for exercise. I called him after two weeks and said, ‘Doc, I’m 70 miles from home!’” Rodney would add, “That’s a math joke.”

My pediatrician (not Dr. Vinnie Boombatz, Rodney’s physician) told me the same thing when I was 17. Having just gotten my learner’s permit, the first thing I did was stop riding my bike everywhere. “You need to join a gym or one of your school’s teams,” he advised, “so you can stay in shape.”

I weighed 98 pounds so team sports did not seem a viable option. The only local gym was a trek that required taking the bus. But I lived about one mile from the track behind the junior high school, an easy enough bike ride if I didn’t have access to one of my parents’ cars.

I chose a weekend morning for my first attempt, driving over and mirroring the warm-up stretching of a truly toned couple wearing matching warmup suits. There were a handful of people already doing their laps on the inner lanes (which I later learned was a no-no, as those are generally reserved for members of the school track team).

I alternated running and walking laps but it seemed interminable. Someone wearing headphones lapped me and the lightbulb went off in my head. Of course! I had dozens of cassette tapes and a Walkman. This was the right time and place to utilize…