Keen sports follower
I have always been a keen follower of several sports and had my favourite teams and individuals. From the 80s, I have been watching Cricket (Kapil Dev, Sachin Tendulkar and now MS Dhoni are my favourites), Tennis (Ivan Lendl, Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras and Roger Federer), Football / Soccer (Brazil and Germany), Olympics and several others.
Deteriorating Fitness
Staying fit and being in good shape has always been an aspiration for me. But several years of sedentary lifestyle by spending a lot of time in front of computer at work and TV at home, coupled with commuting predominantly in cars and elevators started taking a toll on my health. I started feeling tired even after 6 hours of work. I got my wake-up call in 2006!
Exercise regimen
I reacted by starting to jog in the mornings at a nearby park. Around the same time, an open-air badminton court was inaugurated in my apartment. I switched from running to playing badminton with my neighbours and was soon the champ there! After about a year, interest on badminton started to fade out among my neighbours and I started to scout for fellow players. Eventually, my daughter started going to school and I had the responsibility to drop her at school. So, I dropped out as well.
Luckily, there is a beautiful park right in front of my kids school and I started walking / jogging / running there after dropping my kids at school every morning. Though my fitness levels gradually deteriorated along with an expanding waistline, I had the excuse of some minimal exercise in the form of relaxed walking every morning without breaking a sweat.
Then I bought a hybrid bike Trek 7.1 and started cycling in 2013. Once I added running into the mix in 2014, my passion for fitness increased manifold. Eventually, I got into endurance events completing 4 full marathons and completing over a dozen brevets to become a super randonneur. With competing priorities in life, I had to scale back but continue with cycling and running as part of my fitness regime.