Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for January 16, 2022

Hey, the aching joints, muscles and burning lungs are worth it.

I prefer Pig’s lies.

I really thought it was gonna be a dream sequence.

Rat lied. He only ran 5 feet. He set his Peloton scenery on high speed.

Either way, Rat had a taxing experience.

Even I (emphasis on “I”) have a hard time jogging; I’m usually out of breath by halfway through the first block on the way to my church building (on days I try to find time to jog). As for the nearby park, I get tired after one quarter of the first lap around.

Rat’s approach to running is kind of how I approach working out in general!

Whatever gets you motivated a Rat! I am obsessed with the rings on my iwatch!

Pig’s got it. After all, pudgy IS a shape!

That’s how I gave up smoking—just wanted if I could go another 15 minutes without lighting up. I took it one cigarette at a time. Painful as hell but it worked.

I use that technique to lose weight. I set 1 Kilogram goals. They are easy to achieve and then I set the next one. I am now down 12 of the 18 Kilograms I eventually want to achieve. I started in July.

Rat Power !

Exercising too much, especially when you is tired, kills.

Huh, after all these years Mr. Pastis reveals he’s a fellow runner. That’s exactly it for distance events, after 50m you’ve done all the running you want to do, so you spend the next 14950m coming up with increasingly dodgy reasons to not stop.

Rat exercising? Now I have seen everything.

He is just preparing for the REAL Rat Race!

For a small rat to do 3 miles, he must have ran up a hell of a number on his pedometer.

I really do exactly this…

I seem to be the opposite — I need that goal there at the beginning and count down to the end.

Now if Rat does it on a bicycle, he can be Jef. :-O

This very unrat like. This is someone who smokes cigs and drinks beer. I think it would be nearly impossible for him to run three miles

If I ever feel the need to exercise, I just quote Garfield the cat: “I am in shape! Round is a shape!”

It’s not easy to jog in cold weather.

I have to admit, I’ve done this.

I had figured Rat would be a gym… well, rat.

I ran for about 20 years, almost all on pavement, and now my right foot is not letting me forget it. Orthotic inserts or underpronation shoes for the rest of my life.

As a former distance runner, I can attest to the accuracy of rat’s comments. It’s more of a mind game than a leg game. That’s why having a buddy to run with is better; especially one who is in better condition and can talk the entire time to distract you.

What Pig said.

Didn’t realize just how out of shape I really am until all 6 of my horses got loose the other day. Couldn’t lie about it even to myself since I didn’t have the breath to speak..

At least you did it…..gotta work on your lying, though….

Rat wouldn’t run for exercise if you paid him.

I thought it was the IRS who lied to us or was at least used by a certain President to punish his political opponents.

Rat do exercises? Unbelievable!!!

Pig lies better…..

I’ve actually had this kind of internal monologue on “low energy” exercise days. You’d be surprised how far you can get when you set small attainable intermediate goals.

Well friends, if we don’t curtail this right now, he’s going to team up with the spandex running guy.

I got used to running 3 miles very quickly at Parris Island, twice a day. That was over 50 years ago, though-no more 3 mile runs, but I have plenty of yard work, and still enjoy walking fast, even with a clogged artery on the back side of my heart. Drives me nuts when I get stuck behind slow walking people….

I do the same thing as Rat! “I’m only going to have one Beer. Ok… One more. Ok… three is hardly any. Ok… Just one more…” I can go all DAY!

That’s how I ended up riding my bike around the local lake three or four times a day back in high school. Went from "I’ll just turn around at the end of the street to “I’ll just go down to the town beach road and turn around” to I’ll just turn down on the road that goes around the lake and go about ten to twenty yards and turn around" to “Ah, heck, I’ll just ride around the lake then go home” to “Hey, let’s do another lap” to “Hey, I’m doing two laps let’s do another”. I ended up looking it up years later and found what I’d been doing as close to a mile for a single lap.

Nice of Steven to give us a cartoon without puns.

We walk. Every day. Rain or shine. I love it! It’s always an adventure. For years I was a runner but my joints won’t stand for THAT anymore.

That’s like me and my rowing machine.

Got exhausted reading this.

“Run and not faint.”

I was running on a routine basis until age 79 when I slipped and fell on a wet ramp and my left knee made hard contact with the asphalt. (Yeah, it was my fault as I was rushing out to hook up my generator because of a power outage.) As a result of that fall, I had severed my left quadriceps (that stretches from heel to pelvis. I am fortunate if I can walk a half mile now after eight weeks of physical therapy. Bummer!

At my age, I don’t even exercise good judgement.

Yeah, rat. I know that feeling – but it works!

Rat jogging does not compute.

I’d rather stand and fight than run… but I’m a little old to rely on either one.

Rat’s line(s) of reasoning is sorta like my own. Always do a little more. But in the end, I guess Pig’s approach is more the norm….

I just say I’m fat and we’re all going to die.

Someone needs to give that Rat a hamster wheel.

yep, that’s exactly how (and why) exercise works.

This how I got through exercise for my entire Army career, except I started earlier in the process. “I have to get dressed, but I don’t hafta go to the gym/track.” “I have to go to the gym/track, but I don’t have to exercise.” “I’m going to exercise, but I don’t have to go at my regular speed or distance.” …and most days, I went for the full distance and regular speed.

Do you know why this worked? Because once or twice a year, when I really, really wasn’t up to exercising, I DIDN’T. I went home and had the day off from exercising. I didn’t have to lie to myself. When I really couldn’t do it, I didn’t. The other 363-364 days of the year (less than that actually, since I didn’t exercise on weekends), I had enough left in the gas tank, to get through what I needed to do. It also saved me from burnout and overtraining, I’m sure.

It wasn’t really a lie when I told myself, “I have to go to the gym/track, but I don’t have to exercise.” because, deep down, I understood that I was meaning “I have to go to the gym/track, but I don’t have to exercise, if I really am not up to it.”

I must have clicked on the wrong comic. Rat exercising?

I could play tennis or volleyball (or recently, pickleball) for hours. But straight out running, ugh. Running for the pure sake of running is a mystery to me.

“I’m Huge i hurt people and i’m misunderstood”

“Just like the I.R.S” -- Cosmo