Two

She likes to sweat from exercise. There are three sets of stairs in her neighborhood. A few times a week she carries out the following routine in a tee-shirt, hooded sweatshirt, and shorts (summer) or leggings (winter). Usually the tee-shirt and sweatshirt sleeves are soaked at the end. And her underwear, on a good day.

She runs down step by step and takes every other step up the first set of stairs. She does this four more times. There are xxx steps. They are one way to get from Ocean Boulevard to Corona Del Mar Beach. As one might imagine, this first set gets very crowded and sandy on the weekends during the summer.

She takes water and walks a hundred yards to the second set. These steps are more shallow than the first and she always thinks about this set as the "easy" one. They lead to a driveway for a house by a tiny beach called China Cove, which no one really knows about. When you get to the bottom, it looks like you are trespassing so that really keeps foot traffic, and sand, away. She goes up and down five times again, but now keeping her arms circled over her head like a ballerina on the way up. It looks strange, but it's usually what gets the sweat to break. If she's not sweating by the fourth time up, she gets worried she's not well.

She takes water again, squatting to lift it up, and heads to the third set of xxx stairs. She goes up and down ten times then returns to the second, then the first set, to complete her regimen. She will have gone up and down each set ten times. But the third set always feels long.

Trainers take their clients there so these stairs are usually busy with other exercisers and sometimes other people looking to cardio to their walking route. This "double" set always goes by faster when she listens to other people's conversations.

"What kind of dog is that?"

"A Karen, with a really bad haircut"

The thought of a dog getting a bad haircut has never crossed her mind before.

"Honey, you should do that."

A man says to his wife who has birthed and raised three children. She thinks his wife should do what she wants. If he wants her to get in better shape, using a twenty six year old dripping in sweat from exercising on the stairs as an example is inconsiderate. She thinks his wife might feel bad about her appearance now and she feels bad. Why couldn't he have just said "we" should do that?

When people ask her what she's training for she smiles and says "Tomorrow." This is funny to her.