My name is Allen Ladner, more popularly known as Fat Guy Running.  I started this entire persona because when I turned 41 I looked at my life and I was oh so NOT happy.  I was and still am overweight, I don't have a successful career, my writing hasn't "taken off" yet, and I was a couch potato.  I have always loved Extreme Sports, BASE Jumping, skydiving, scuba diving, rock climbing, cliff diving, repelling, hiking, biking, motorcycles.  You name it and I love it.  I don't do "normal sports" nor do I really like anything sub-normal, which is to say a dirivitive of "normal" i.e. soccer vs football, bowling, tennis, fishing or hunting.

The whole idea here is that I want to touch the lives of people just like me.  I am an avid gamer, we are notorious for being overweight, eating at the computer, never getting off the game until we just have to.  Being sleep deprived and bags under the eyes.  Our language is the language of games and not a language that everyone else speaks.  So I want to combine my love for video games, extreme sports, the need to lose weight and "shape up", and an avid love of the outdoors into one AWESOME blog/fb page/google+ montage/website.

First I want to cover who I really am.  I write books, not for a living yet, but only because it is what I have always wanted to do but could never really do.  I work for a national cable company as a tech support agent for broadband internet.  I love video games, as I have already pointed out, I love to hike, swim, and repel.  I haven't done any of those things until recently, in the last 20 years.  I weighed 250 lbs in January, today I am down to 225 lbs with a goal of 200 lbs by the end of August.  I want to repel off a local red clay cliff in August is why I have that goal set.  If I don't make it I will continue to push myself towards my goals.

I am surrounded by friends, have my best friend, my brother from a different mother, whom I don't get to spend enough time with.  I have family and people who love me but for the most part I always feel alone or alienated.  It is my own doing most of the time and they would never think I was.  I am not happy with my body, health, or current status in the world and it affects how I look at things and how I feel about my success in this life.  To me I am not successful, I struggle from paycheck to paycheck, I am not a well known writer yet, I don't feel like I give myself the time or even have the will power most of the time to do what I need to do.  Like I said, my fault usually.  It is up to me and ONLY me to change all of these things.  I just have to do it.

I have a very long way to go but I am proud of what I have done so far.  I still smoke, I'm still overweight, I still need to finish up my dental appointments so that I can get my "pretty" smile back, lol.  I need to finish my three current writing projects and I need more money in the bank.  This isn't even touching my ExtremeMS website, ezine, and lifestyle.  I want to hike more, bike more, and live on a boat, lol.  I miss the water more than anything else I think.

So now you know my basics.  I will continue to add to this blog as I can, I have a plan.  I just want to touch the world and ride the wind.  I want to taste the moment.