No kidding. Really?

I was hungry today at around 11:30. Not hungry as in, "I think I'll go and grab a bag of chips". Nope, I was hungry as in "Get the hell outta my way, I'm eating whatever falls in front of me first, and that includes your dog."

Hungry.

So I went down the street to "Sobik's", a Central Florida Based sub shop in the mold of a New York or New England deli. I ordered a 12" meatball sub, all slathered in melted cheese, Parmesan cheese sprinkled all over the top of it, and a bag of Baked Lays potato chips. Baked of course, because I don't want anything unhealthy to go into my body - like fried foods, for example. This sandwich is a cholesterol bullet, fired from a 12 inch bleached white bread howitzer of a roll, and I friggin' love it!

I grabbed a free magazine from the rack. My choices were several real estate periodicals and a magazine that I had not seen before called "Florida Sports". Cool, I can woof my sub and read about sports while I do it. I sat down, opened the bag of chips, broke off half of the sub to eat, and opened the magazine. Turns out, it wasn't about sports at all. It was about running, triathlete's, triathlons, and cycling. I suppose technically that stuff is sports, but so is NASCAR and skateboarding if you want to get technical.

As I sat there reading about fitness freaks, no less than three times the tomato sauce from my sub splatted on the pages of the magazine. It takes someone like me to see the humor in that. Anyways, looking at that magazine got me to thinking about one of the most annoying segments of our society, and that is the "Running Crowd".

Last November I was at one of my son's soccer games. A mom of another player on my son's team had been gone for a week or so. I walked over to her and had the following conversation:

Me: Where ya been?
Her: I ran the Grand Canyon last week.

Is anyone out there familiar with that awkward moment when one person is trying to think of what to say to another, while simultaneously struggling mightily to keep their facial expressions as passive and unresponsive as possible? Well that was me, except the pause was more like 8 to 10 seconds, an eternity in awkwardness. Of the 35 different responses that flew through my mind in those 10 seconds, the only thing that escaped my mouth was:

Me: You did what?
Her: I got on a plane, flew to Flagstaff, rented a car and drove it to the Grand Canyon. When I got there, I ran it.

Again, the internal struggle to both comprehend this topic and maintain an air of normalcy was overwhelming.

Me: Wow.
Her: No kidding, huh? It was a seriously tough run. 13 miles total, with the last 4 a grueling uphill climb out of the canyon.

Why in the hell would anyone want to do that? The plane fare was probably $650 round trip - and for what? To bust your own chops doing something that is totally unnecessary. I don't get it. I was in the service for 21 years, and we ran 2, 3, 4, 6 miles - whatever they felt like doing - 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year, rain, sleet, or snow. I did it because I had to, not because it was fun. When I retired, I said I wasn't going to do it any more, and I haven't.

I think it's nice that many people take fitness seriously, but you can go overboard with it too. While your weight stays similar to that of an anorexic church-mouse, your knees and ankles are silently breaking down from all the pavement you're pounding. But I think the thing that makes them totally annoying are the excessively boring conversations about the topic, especially the food conversations.

Me: What is that you're eating?
Her: This? Oh this is a watercress sandwich with a side of ginger root sauteed in a dandelion and lizard gill sauce, which is enhanced with crushed lava rock. It's not only delicious, it will aid your digestive tract like nothing else and has 0 calories and only 4 carbs. The proteins will boost your energy levels and grow thicker and healthier hair.

Again...the awkward moment.

Ma'am, can you spoon me out a couple extra meatballs on the side? I'll pay for them.