Why Ask Me!?! Were They Desperate to Fill a Speakers Spot? Kiwanis Club Speaking Report

Brad called me, probably about a month ago and asked me to be the speaker at the Kiwanis Club Luncheon today.  Why in heaven’s name he asked me, I’ll never understand.  The only thing I can figure is he got stuck with providing the speaker for today and couldn’t think of anybody else?  I agreed to speak and today was the day.  This is a report of today’s “speech.”

First, backtrack how I know Brad:

He works at our County Utility Coop.  One day I was doing, I think it was a 28 mile training run and part of my route took me past his office, the County Coop Headquarters.  It had been a particularly difficult run in regards to traffic.  There is a lot of fleet truck traffic along this road and to be frank, the drivers were being rude.

I noticed after a while that if I saw a white pickup truck, I didn’t have to worry about diving for the ditch because all those drivers were very polite.  They’d slow, move into a further away lane if at all possible and wave as they drove by.  After this had happened a half a dozen times, I noticed without fail the drivers worked for the County Coop.

Seeing as I was running past the headquarters, I decided I’d pop in and thank whoever was in charge of the fleet drivers for their polite drivers!  I mean, it’s always nice to hear something good about your employees, right?

Brad was the guy I ended up talking to.  He’s a super nice guy, too, and we had a nice chat and I thought that was that.

Over the past few years, we’ve had opportunity to speak a few other times and I guess he decided to ask me to be today’s speaker.

He wanted me to talk about my journey from being obese to becoming an ultra runner.

Now, I don’t find my journey all that amazing?  Let’s think about it.  I let myself get very large.  I’m 4’11” and was tipping the scale at 275lbs.  That’s pretty rolly polly.

Losing the weight took an eternity.  I joined My Fitness Pal and started logging my food.  I didn’t diet!  MFH (My Favorite Husband) and I went to the bookstore and bought a few cookbooks for Diabetics and I started cooking the recipes from them and simply increased my activity level!  Nothing fancy.  No weird diets or shakes, pills, powders…I still had my treats~a Nutty Bar and a beer, because I don’t believe in cutting out foods, labeling them “Illegal” or “bad.” No, I simply made smarter food choices and moved more.

Three and a half years later, I had dropped 170lbs and it has stayed off.  Maybe it’s because it took so long to lose the weight I haven’t had problems with regaining?  Dunno.  I do know that I’m a very blessed and fortunate woman!

That’s what I was supposed to share with the group today.  I shared about my amazing running buddy, Aiden.

I shared about how wonderful and supportive MFH is.  I’m just a very lucky girl!

AND, I was supposed to take up 20 minutes with this!!!  It took you what, 5 minutes tops to read this far!?!

Yikes!!!

Somehow, the time passed and I was supposed to open it up for a Q/A.  I figured nobody would have any questions and they’d be relieved I’d shut up!  Quite frankly, I was afraid of putting people to sleep.

Instead, during different parts of the, about 15 minutes I talked, they’d start applauding!  Now, this wasn’t anything that I’d expected!  I was soooo embarrassed!  I would quickly move on and cross my fingers they’d stop.

Okay, they weren’t QUITE that enthusiastic.  LOL!!!

My 15 minutes I allowed myself were over and I was going to park my rumpatootis when people started asking question.  I’m guessing the Q/A lasted close to 20 minutes!

It wasn’t anything that I had expected and quite frankly, I was out of my depth.

Of course I got asked about my knees.  Wasn’t I having problems with my knees? My knees are just fine, thank you.

And I got the, 100k that’s 62 miles!  I don’t even like to drive that far!

Those two things really tickled me.

They seemed genuinely interested, not the, “We’re just being polite” interested, AND I got a free lunch!

Oh!  I totally forget to lead with a joke!  #MissedOpportunity

#IRun4Aiden

 

 

One thought on “Why Ask Me!?! Were They Desperate to Fill a Speakers Spot? Kiwanis Club Speaking Report

  1. Sue

    I’m glad you dipped your toe in. Sounds like you had fun and inspired others at the same time.
    Better have your calendar at the ready. 🙂

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