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Jim Fouts, Warren mayor and fitness devotee: "Allow me time to jog."
Warren Mayor Jim Fouts is a...singular man. Yes, we're all one of a kind, but Fouts is particularly so. The hair, the reluctance to be 100 percent upfront about his birthday, the fondness for dating women significantly younger -- it all adds up to a politician who is emphatically not cut from a cloth woven by a focus group.
So no one should have been surprised by the mayor's Facebook post Tuesday, currently racing through social media as residents seek to understand what, exactly, might have prompted it.
Taken at face value, Fouts is only asking for just a little bit of time to himself, and is that so much to ask? Apparently a constituent tried to waylay him while the mayor was exercising, and he declined to stop and chat. But the details? Well:
When I'm exercising I am trying to stay fit and that means not stopping so that I get a complete cardio exercise for my heart. If I stop then I must start all over again. So I cannot stop to visit or even talk to someone. Please understand that, if I jog by you and don't stop to talk. I'm available 24/7 but NOT when I'm jogging. Apparently some seem to think I'm obligated to stop and talk and that is not the case. Allow me time to jog without the encumbrance of stopping.
We have so many questions (who still calls it "jogging," for starters), but this sentence was the real wait-what:
I do jog twice a day for about 45 minutes each time.
Fouts is in his 70s, as near as anyone can tell, and he does two-a-days? And always running, er, jogging? No cross-training? No weight work, no yoga, maybe some Pilates on rainy or snowy days? Does he keep workout clothes at the office? What's his average mile pace? Does he run in the Turkey Trot, maybe in costume?
We'll give Fouts privacy while he jogs; no one likes to be stopped when your Fitbit or Apple watch is tracking every step. But maybe the mayor should start working with a trainer, who could show him that "a complete cardio exercise" doesn't mean 45 minutes without stopping. And even if it did, you can run in place while you chat up the constituents. Win-win.
