A True Convert


This week I’m attending a conference in Jacksonville,  Florida.  Earlier in my career–back when flying was a pleasant and enjoyable experience–I wouldn’t have even considered skipping.  But the last few years its been held in locations too far for me to reach by car, so I stayed home.

It’s great catching up with colleagues I haven’t seen for several years.  Time marches on. Everyone looks at least a little older.  Like most of the rest of America, quite a few have gained weight, too.

Travel completely disrupts my new healthy lifestyle.  Eating out once or twice a week when I’m at home makes it hard to lose weight.  Eating every meal out is a recipe for disaster.

As with my trip back to Kentucky last month for my high school reunion, I’m on “vacation” from my diet.  I’m not going hog wild. But I’m not tracking my Weight Watcher points, mostly because I’d rather not know.

Which brings me to the point of today’s post. Yesterday I got up at five o’clock, got dressed, and headed to the fitness center in my hotel.  I checked it out the day before. It’s really nice with lots of treadmills, ellipticals, stationary bikes, and even weight machines.  Imagine my surprise to find a line of people waiting for treadmills and ellipticals to open up.

Seriously.

I hopped the elevator down to the lobby and asked the lovely lady at the front desk if it was safe to run in the area. She said it was and handed me a baseball-card-sized map with running routes.  Even with my glasses on it’s too small for me to read, but I appreciated the idea.

The hotel is right on the river which features a lovely, well-lit walkway. I set my Nike Trainer to 5K, started my podcast and took off running.  Besides me and a few homeless people, there were quite a few joggers, walkers, and bikers on the river walk.  Discounting the one hundred percent humidity, it was a nice run.

This morning I got up at five-thirty to run only to discover it was raining. I didn’t even bother going up to the fitness center. I turned on the television news and saw that the rain was part of a thin band that was expected to clear out of the area within the next thirty to forty-five minutes–just enough time to knock out a blog post.

I see now the rain has stopped. Time for me to get my run on. Yes, I have become one of those people. I really can’t believe it myself, but it’s true. I hope the running is enough to keep the scale from moving upward when I weigh in on Monday back in…

My Glass House


2 responses to “A True Convert”

  1. Well, if you gotta turn into “one of those people” at least it’s due to exercising and not talking during movies or driving slow in the fast lane. 🙂