West Seattleite and legend, Peter Beeson, is the kind of fitness enthusiast I have always been in the pursuit of.

I can't claim him as my own, in that I did not raise him as my client. I simply found him at possibly the height of his six-year fitness career.

At his heaviest, six years ago, he tipped the scales at roughly 350 pounds and was once a size XXX-Large+2. Today, he is 170 pounds and a size medium. That alone is impressive to most. This is what is impressive to me. He found his passion in cycling. The 170 pounds of weight he lost, he now rides more miles than that in a single trip! He lives and breathes the wind against his face, mountainsides, sunrise, sunset, and sometimes even a little car exhaust, or even roadrash from a fall across the asphalt.

To all of my clients I try to encourage the kind of life where one incorporates fitness into everything else one does. A life where fitness is not separate but a part of everything. If one has to go to a brewery for dinner all sweaty, take dry socks, a hat, and a clean shirt. When I walk into the local favorite and find a group with sunburn, messy hair, and dressed in the latest whicking material I say to myself, "It looks like they had fun! I wonder who they are." I never notice the well kept and proper.

When a client begins a training program, I set up routines to help them lose weight and eventually I encourage them to find something that they love and train for it this way. Then training becomes about something bigger than the scale. Successful clients achieve this. Unfortunately not everyone does.

Peter exemplifies this to the nth degree. On Sunday, June 10, he set out for the Elite Transcontinental Tour, which is essentially a ride across America, a bicycling race/qualifying ride that starts in San Diego and ends in Tybee, Ga. The race continues in any weather condition from the desert heat to rainstorms and goes through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Alabama. In this race Peter will ride 12 to 14 hours per day and 150 to 200 miles for 17 consecutive days maintaining an average speed of 14 miles per hour to qualify.

There's even something else that is cool about this story. Peter can name the two people that inspired him to take his first ride six years ago. Vic Groening and Shawn Terjeson. These two men Peter met in a local West Seattle Toastmasters club, where members work on public speaking skills. During their meetings Groening, then 82 years old, spoke of how he began running at age 50 and how it turned his aging the opposite way. He actually looked and felt younger. Mr. Terjeson spoke of how cycling was a time for him to process his fathers recent passing.

Well, Peter was listening. He turned around with his Alaska card and filled it up with all kinds of bicycle equipment.

Now Peter did not one day decide to get on a bike and go for a 200-mile bike ride. He started out humbly with some short rides around the 13-mile Fauntleroy/Lincoln Park/Alki loop. He took just enough change in his pocket to catch the bus from the bottom of the Avalon hill to the top. One day some time after Peter began cycling Mr. Terjeson and Mr. Groening asked Peter to go along for a ride around that very same West Seattle loop. When they got to the Avalon hill, they told Peter to take all the time he needs. They'd wait for him at the top. Peter eventually finished the bike ride.

"The others were well into a cigar and a poker game, but I made it," he says.

Now 200-plus mile days are quite normal for him. It's difficult for him to contain the excitement he feels toward cycling. He has ridden every mountain pass in Washington. One ride he ended up being tossed across the road like a hockey puck. In the doctor's office afterward, he was told he had to lay off for a while. Peter insisted he was fine because his leg still moved. The doctor's response went something like this, "Was the road that you skated across sterilized?"

I wish everyone had as much enthusiasm for adventure and exercise as they do for pizza, fish and chips, and hamburgers. It's not as hard as it seems if you start with something that's the right size for you today.

The Race Across America endures due to its amazing effect on the human consciousness and for its incredible feats of willpower, skill, and heart.

Why does this matter? He became extremely fit by participating in his passion.

Annette Herrick may be reached via wseditor@robinsonnews.com