Thank you obese man

As I was walking through the parking lot today I saw a man fumbling as he was nearing me. He was kind of cupping everything to his enormous stomach. In his hands, he had a full cup of coffee (I could tell it was full because is was spilling onto his sweat shirt) he also had some sort of wrapped pastry next to the coffee, and the best part was the smart phone, onto which he was texting super important messages. Then as we passed one another, cockeyed on his head was a blue baseball cap with the letters DEA on it. Did I mention he looked stoned out of his mind?

I want to thank you obese man. You brought a smile to my day.

Speaking of perfect everything, I found a gym to work out in over the winter, so I can officially make this announcement.

I am training for a marathon.

Here's the thing, many years ago when I was going through a somewhat bitter divorce, I found peace of mind on a cycle. I was fat and lazy there at the end of that relationship, pictures of me from that time show early onset of obesity and a general look of severe unhappiness. It was not really to get into better shape that motivated me though, it was that sense of accomplishment, of riding hard on a daily basis and being healthier about everything.

What I detested then was how everything had fallen apart and I felt like I had certainly been dishonest on a variety of levels and I felt like I never got the full truth from a number of people. Riding was a solitary thing I could do that made me healthy and happy. Hard to argue with that.

One of the goals I set while I was our riding was that someday I would ride a century ride. These rides happen all over the place. Basically they are sponsored rides for people to cycle fairly safely for 100 miles. When I first got on a cycle I was not sure I could ride 10 or 20 miles and pretty positive I could never do 100 in a day. Within a year I had done a few organized rides and almost every weekend I found a way to put at least that many miles on my cycle.

A few years ago I was involved in a pretty ugly bike accident and I have had trouble riding fast on streets since that time. So, I have been searching. Again I got kind of lazy and probably gained 20 extra fatty pounds. This was not a new years resolution, except that at some point I probably needed to get fat out of my life. Again, it seemed like a time to reevaluate where I was going, healthy wise and relationship wise.

In fact this afternoon I had a realization. All my relationships have ended with betrayal and discovering that I had been lied to, or having a partner discover I was lying to them. A few years ago I set out to only have healthy relationships with seemingly healthy people, only to find out that seeming healthy clean and sober people often times lie too. My big realization? The only thing all the bad relationships have in common is me. What would be the odds that the only people I could ever attract would be skeezy liars? No, my realization was that the only people I attract are skeezy liars because that is who I like to be around. It is not their fault they are skeezy liars, they just are. It is my fault that I would have dated them in the first place.

So, instead of searching for a relationship, I decided to get back into shape. Having a gym in my work building only firmed up how easy it will be for me to run after or before work. I contacted a good friend who is also a long distance (serious) runner. Hopefully he will guide me through these first few months. When I was cycling a lot I knew I was always a week or two away from being in the type of shape to ride 100 miles. As I slid down the workout hole, I became less and less likely to be in shape for any serious riding. I am probably 6 months away from either serious riding or true long distance running, but one thing I know, if you do it daily and watch what you eat, in 6 months you can be ready for anything.