Sneaking Out to Run Barefoot & More Workplace Fitness Bigotry

It's was a half day today for the students during exam days here at the secondary institution that supplies me with my career and lifestyle. They got out at 1:30. We have to stay until 3:45 on these half days. I have almost everything done for the year. So I brought my running clothes and felt like I was doing something illegal as I sneaked out the back door and ran laps around the fields out back. I started in shoes, but the grass was in surprisingly good condition. After the first 1.5 mile lap, I had no choice but to scrap the shoes and run the rest of the time barefoot. On one of the laps there was a group of gossipy teachers checking out somebody's new car in the parking lot right next to the edge of the field I was lapping. I tried really hard not to look at them, thinking that if I didn't look at them they would perhaps not recognize me. But they did. Crap - now I have to put up with more workplace fitness bigotry. The fattest gossipy woman yelled to me, "I hope you step on a bee!" Why would anyone yell that? (By the way, I have stepped on a bee while running barefoot and it wasn't that bad.) I am hoping she was just busting my chops in a friendly way. Yet, many a truth is said in jest and all that. So, shoot, who knows....

And this makes me think a bit about my plan for my 50th year. My plan is to complete an Ironman, a 50K and a 50 mile run. I have this crazy mid-life crisis redirect of trying to inspire people to say to themselves, "Jeeze, if he can do this at 50, so can I." It is going to require more visible bike commutes and runs out the back door during the next academic year. So will my intended effect be thwarted? I wonder how many of my coworkers are going to secretly hate me for it?