245. The Spotted Dog Trot

Hey, this is a new inven­tion. It must be new because I just invented it. Don’t count the mil­lions of out-of-breath grand­pas flee­ing from bears and angry ladies over the last two mil­lion years. Here’s how it works: jog 50 metres, then walk 50 metres, then jog 50 metres, then walk 50 metres … for an hour and a half. If you think that sounds stu­pid, try it. Or maybe it is stu­pid, but it is amaz­ing how fast you can stir up a sweat. Maybe the bio­log­i­cal machin­ery gets con­fused and keeps pound­ing away at a higher level all the time. Any­way, it works, and any­body should be able to do it. This inven­tion hap­pened because some­times I walk, but walk­ing never feels like exer­cise. Most days I run. I’ve been run­ning for 50 years and love it. But every few days should be a “rest day”. That’s when the walk­ing hap­pens. Now I can cheat and do “real” exer­cise while I’m walk­ing. Well, guys, I’m going out to have a bit of spot­ted dog.

[Secret dic­tio­nary mes­sage for non-Anglos:  In Aus­tralian tra­di­tional cul­ture we never ate rice in a main meal. It was (is?) often served as a desert after the main meal, sweet­ened in a bowl with milk. Spot­ted dog is this sweet rice desert with raisins mixed into it  – a children’s favourite].