T Junior’s whimpering behind the baby gate at the bottom of the stairs.
I unlatch Lucy’s crate door, and she practically knocks me over tearing out of it. Next AJ. And Annie. The three boxers punch each other in the face, skip around the master bedroom and then out the door to thunder up and down the staircase like a herd of elephants (as my mom would say).
Thump, thump, thump, thump. Pause. Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump. Pause. Thump, thump. Pause. Thump, thump, thump…(you get the idea).
I open the bottom drawer of my pine dresser for a pair of workout pants and see nothing but PJ bottoms. Top drawer. No sports bra either. When did I last do laundry? What kind of marathoner wears jeans to exercise? Well, I guess it is just a walk today.
I quickly trade my blue button-up for a white Peterbilt logo t-shirt (a memento from a previous life), decide to just leave my black trouser socks on, sweep my grown-out bob into a pony tail with an elastic band and hurry down the stairs to let the dogs out.
I shoo the three stooges out the door and off the deck to potty, then come back inside to put T Junior’s shoes on for our walk. He’s not allowed to ride in his red plastic car without some protection on his feet since he can’t resist dragging his toes on the serrated cement sidewalk. But I get distracted when out of the corner of my eye, I spot AJ sniffing around in the grass when he’s supposed to be in the dog run’s wood chips. I rush to the sliding glass door and rip it open.
“Hey! AJ! Chips! AJ! Chips!”
He keeps his nose in the lawn, but moseys toward the designated area.
I sit on the kitchen floor with T Junior and tie on my running shoes. They are dusty from 24 days of training. Now there’s a dirt film on my fingertips.
The dogs are done. I let them in, find my phone, make sure the pantry door is shut, pick up T Junior, find his shoes, loop my finger through my key ring and exit through the garage door.
Sometimes getting ready to exercise is more tiring than the actual workout.