Thank you, Karl Ravech

"Who is that guy?", you might be asking. If you live in a household like mine where ESPN is on for approximately 25 out of the 24 hours in the day, you probably know he's the guy from Baseball Tonight. He also is the back-page, "I'm a Runner" story from a recent issue of Runner's World. Here is a link, but the story is one that has been told before. Paragraph 2 gets to the meat of the story:

My wife had nagged me to get into running. I was always of the mind that if I was an athlete, I didn't need to go do that stuff. I was in good enough shape so that stuff was not for me. Then in November of 1998, following the World Series, I came home and suffered a heart attack at the age of 33. That ultimately led me to the running revolution in my life. That changed everything.

Since it is now 2008 and he is featured in RW, you can probably guess how the story turns out.

I met the Hubs for lunch and he proudly announced to me that, starting TODAY, he was going to be running "on the treadmill, for about 20 minutes, three times a week." I covered my shock nicely and somehow avoided doing a spit take on the water I was drinking. I have been asking...begging...nagging for him to go run with me for a year and a half. Or to at least ride his bike while I run, something, anything! We did have a magical three weeks last winter what involved a few trips to the cardio room together, but that fizzled out.

A few minutes later I asked what brought this on. Well, there was a copy of RW sitting next to the toilet and he needed something to read. And he happened upon this little story. Who knew that some bathroom reading material that contained the words ESPN, age 33, and heart attack were going to be the trick.

The Hubs is a little guy. He's not overweight by any stretch of the imagination, but he does have a pretty high-stress job and he already has high blood pressure. And he has a wife and a mother that nag him to work out just a little bit - for his own good.

So a big thank you to Karl Ravech (and do you really do your stretching on the set of Baseball Tonight? Does it get in the way of the guys from NFL Live or Mike & Mike?). I am not looking for the Hubs to train for a marathon with me or anything, but 20 minutes/3X per week is fine with me.