"you and your crazy exercise thing"

Yes, that was the reaction of one of my former students who stopped by to see me today. We'd had a nice visit but I looked up and saw that it was 5:00 p.m. and I needed to leave so that I could make it to spin class. She said, "Oh, you and your crazy exercise thing." I just laughed and said, "Yes, me and my crazy exercise thing." I didn't have the heart to say, "That crazy exercise thing is now called Ironman training, and so far in week 1 I've already logged about 5 hours." Nah. Instead we both walked away laughing. And I realized I will forever be known in the minds of some of my students as the teacher that did that "crazy exercise thing", as the teacher who baked for them, and as the teacher who had the couch in her office where they came to tell a her a funny story or complain about their parents or cry when they'd had a bad day. And actually, that would all be okay with me. I could be remembered for far worse things!
(As a side note: a parent asked me today, quite out of the blue, what I was training for now and it is becoming more and more real the more people who discover what I'll be doing between now and June 21...and then a college rep who visited last fall sent me a t-shirt from her school today and on it wrote a note that wished me luck in my triathlons. She's a runner so she gets it!)
Off to bed so that I can get up again and do that crazy exercise thing...namely core first thing in the morning. Got to love it!