Oh, the people you’ll meet.

“And now the only piece of advice that continues to help is anyone that’s making anything new only breaks something else.” – Dawes

I’m back in Chicago after a very short weekend and a very long trip home. The plane was late, and then sat on the tarmac when it pulled into the airport for a good 20 minutes waiting for a gate. Apparently Chicago airports don’t deal well with rainy weather, because the flight after mine was cancelled. And weirdly, it wasn’t raining when I got here. I hope it does, though, because I love the rain.

I rarely talk to strangers. I don’t mean that in a 5-year-old-eating-candy sort of way. I just keep to myself. But tonight, I did something new-ish. I talked to the guy next to me for a bit; he was reading a book called “Iron War” about two guys who competed against each other in an Iron Man competition in the late 80s. I asked him if he had ever done an Iron Man or triathlon competition and he said, “A few times.”

A few times. As in, more than once. And, to make the situation even more complicated (or simplistic), he acted like it was NO. BIG. DEAL. We talked about the effects of exercise, how it helps, how it takes a while to get used to it, how you can get addicted, and how sometimes, you hate it.

Now, granted, I will most likely never talk to this person again in my life; however, it was nice to be able to talk to someone without any pretenses or bravado or anything. We weren’t talking about PRs or mileage or our training schedules. We were just talking about something he (obviously) loves to do, and me – well, I’m getting used to it.

I haven’t run in a couple of weeks due to some health issues, but I’m going to the doctor tomorrow to get everything checked out before I start training for this marathon. And maybe this will be the start of one of many marathons for me, or maybe it’ll be something I can say that I did once and be proud of it.

Either way, I hope to feel that level of intensity along with humility that I got from a 20-minute conversation with a stranger. Sometimes, you never do know where life will take you.