I first learned about Meetup.com from two strangers at a birthday party. It’s a social website where people can create groups to “meet up” with persons of similar interests, and there are groups for everything! Central Los Angeles obviously has the most variety in groups, with meetups becoming more sparse the farther north you go. But really, before the internet, I don’t know how people met new people. I don’t think it’s acceptable anymore to knock on a neighbor’s door and introduce yourself. Suburbia definitely doesn’t seem conducive to that idea, especially with it’s gated communities, closed-curtained windows and double-locked doors. People in suburbia tend to work and then return home to their spacious homes and widescreen TVs. It’s a comfortable lifestyle, but it’s not very communicative.

So, to counteract the lifestyle and shake things up, I went to Meetup.com, found a group based in my city and joined. Three months passed in which I did nothing but worked, drove home and watched cable on my widescreen TV from my very comfortable couch. Obviously, I had not taken my advice seriously.

So, I went back to the group and just signed up for an event: a 5k marathon to benefit breast cancer research. It wasn’t my first marathon nor was it one I planned to take seriously. Instead, I decided to handle the situation the way I’ve handled many unknown situations - by winging it while pretending to know exactly what was going on.

The marathon started at 8 A.M. on a Sunday morning a the city’s central park. When I arrived, I thought that I had gotten something wrong because I saw no crowds, no booths and no signs. I was really expecting some bright and gaudy signs. However, I was not wrong - this was the park, this was the day and the crowd was present if not large. There were, perhaps, fifty or so runners and walkers or all ages, 5-50, warming up in the park’s back field. There were two tables for registration and one booth. I wandered over, signed in, got my goody-bag and then, as one would expect from such a name, met up with two other members from the online group.

The marathon reminded me a lot of the marathons I saw in Japan. There were warm up exercises lead by a group official, a welcome speech and a signal to go. It was all the same and yet so different. There’s really no better way to explain it. But, I do want to say that my attitude changed from start to finish. I came because I had originally thought that if I was going to do a marathon then I might as well fight cancer. However, while warming up with all the participants, who happened to be female, I began to wonder how many of them were survivors of breast cancer or currently battling against it. From the look of any of them, there was no way to tell. But it struck me greatly nonetheless.

Anyway, I walked my marathon, finished it in 50 or so minutes and sauntered across the finish line to good-natured laughs. All in all, it was a good experience and a beautiful Sunday morning to step out and go for a walk.