How long are you gonna do this?

For quite a while now, I've been posting workouts and run reports to this blog, along with Facebook, Twitter, RunSaturday, MapMyFitness, Garmin Connect, and most recently, Dailymile, and just about every social network I'm involved with.

Why? I find it's a great way to stay accountable. By posting every day, if I miss a few days, I find that I feel guilty, not only about not posting, but for not working out if that's the case. I feel motivated to keep up the work if I know people will see it if I don't.

There's also the motivation that comes when people respond, even with something simple, "Great work, keep it up."

That's why it was so strange when, in response to one of my posts, someone posted the following: "How long are you gonna do this?"

My first question was, do what? Post to Facebook, work out, or both?

The answer to that, and the answer I posted to Facebook was, "Until I've done it longer than I didn't." What?

I turned 40 this year. It'd be great if I could say that I was an athlete in high school, then fell away, or say that I'd been working out my whole life, but that just isn't the case. In school, the only reason I exercised was that it was a requirement. I wasn't athletic, and when I tried, all I got was grief. I did poorly, and the punishment for doing poorly was do more of what I did poorly, so my response was, who needed it?

So I gained weight. I got sedentary. I did damn near nothing for 35 years, and got rewarded with bad health. I finally did something about it, started exercising, and started telling people about it.

The way I figure it, I sat on my butt for 35 years, the least I can do is exercise and tell the world about it for the next 35. So yeah, "How long are you gonna do this?" "For as long as I can. Enjoy."