The core of the problem

I have a core musculature the Pillsbury Dough Boy would appreciate. If you catch me in the right mood, I might even giggle if you poke me in the belly. Although it seems only fair to warn everyone I’m almost never in the right mood.
For the most part, I’m OK with my relative lack of abdominal strength. The closest I’ll probably come to a washboard is a Zydeco concert, and in my mind a six pack is part of the problem, not the desired end result. For most of my life I’ve had roughly the same attitude toward weight training that I’ve had toward Major League Baseball. I know it’s there, and I know many people find value in it, but I just don’t get it. I realize this is an approach that could come back to haunt me if I’m ever trapped beneath rubble, or, I don’t know, forced to compete in a life-or-death sit-up competition, but, frankly, I’m willing to take my chances.
Until a couple of years ago, I’m not sure I even realized I had a core. I just assumed cores were things for planets or apples or other things with readily identifiable centers – like Tootsie Pops.
It was Kevin Garnett who straightened me out. He was sharing his workout secrets during halftime of a Timberwovles game. I was paying close attention because I like to compare myself to Kevin in as many ways as possible. So far, he’s ahead in basketball skill and bank balance while I have commanding leads in column writing and awkward conversational pauses. The poor guy never saw me coming.
Anyway, KG, as I like to call him, demonstrated some exercises and mentioned that his personal trainer likes to have him work on his core. “Oh,” I thought. “That’s what we’re calling our midsections these days.” Then I went back to lounging on the couch and eating chips.
That arrangement worked just fine until my brother got it into his head to do something called an ultramarathon. I’m a little fuzzy on the details, but essentially it involves getting on a bike really early one morning and riding nearly non-stop for the next 35 to 48 hours. As part of his training, he started attending a core fitness class and, mostly because I didn’t want my younger brother to lord his sculpted abs over me, I decided to do it too.
(I should mention here that I’m not clear why my brother – or anyone else, for that matter – would lord sculpted abs over anyone, but I figure I can’t take that chance.)
So far as I can tell, core workouts go something like this: spend half an hour Monday night straining to hold your body in awkward, unnatural positions and the rest of the week praying you never have to support your own upper body weight. Repeat indefinitely, and eventually you have a rugged, masculine body that will drive the ladies wild. That’s the theory, anyway. After two weeks I’m not entirely convinced my abdomen won’t suddenly just collapse in on itself.
Frankly, I blame Kevin Garnett.