And After You're Done Running, You Get to Just Keep Running

The short explanation for why I’m writing this post is that I never pass up a discount.

The long explanation isn’t much more interesting, frankly, but you’re already here, so you may as well make yourself comfortable and get the most out of your click. (It’s all about the clicks here, baby. We’re angling for that Under Armour sponsorship and we don’t care who knows it)

High School Me was a moderately in-shape fellow played a lot of sports and tag/manhunt, marched with a sousaphone (core strength!), and ate whatever he damn well pleased. College Me was very similar, except for where High School Me supplemented his incessant eating with general adolescent frolicking, College Me paired his incessant eating with additional incessant eating and, eventually, an equivalent amount of drinking.

Professional Me didn’t exactly make things better by securing a desk job that did everything but stamp “SEDENTARY” on my work badge, and developing a new football superstition that required a trip to KFC at halftime of every Eagles game because they had a comeback victory in the first game of the season after I housed an extra-crispy combo. The Eagles’ win streak ended around Week 6. The KFC streak remained unbroken most of the season. It was truly a dominant year for the Colonel.

About 8 months after graduating college, I stumbled upon a scale in my roommate’s bedroom (the washer/dryer was attached to his room, relax) and, since it’d been so long since I’d seen one let alone stepped on it, I decided to see if they still worked the way they did back in the olden days.

It sure did. 267 lbs. Yikes.

Ladies.

Now, I’m 6’3”, and being 6’3” is a great way to conceal a lot of extra pounds. I highly recommend it. But unless you’re a blocking tight end, being 6’3” and 267 lbs. is not a great way to live your life, especially if – like me – you clocked in around 160-170 in high school. I knew my metabolism wasn’t what it used to be, but this was still a huge wakeup call. It was also an explanation for why I was getting caught from behind a lot more in our annual turkey bowl game, or why a lot of my expendable income was going towards new pants that actually fit, or why I’d get serious pangs of self-consciousness whenever I saw myself in photos.

I changed my diet and actually started to look at that little chart with all the numbers on it that they put on the back of boxes of food to tell you how many troughs of lard are in the package of Oreos you’re considering. But working out was still a bridge too far. I rarely went to the gym even in high school, unless it was mandated by the basketball team or the Presidential Fitness Exam. (pauses for national anthem) I got enough exercise playing sports, so why bother?

Then, in summer 2012, my friend Tim gave me a reason: Tough Mudder.

If you’re not familiar with Tough Mudder, just picture a 10-mile adult playground with a tailgate waiting at the end. It’s an obstacle course through hills, woods, monkey bars, quarter-pipes, and the like. Tim had done a few before and said there was another one in New Jersey just a couple months away that we should get a group together for.

If there’s one thing that will get you inspired to whip yourself into shape, it’s the prospect of looking like a complete jackass in front of your buddies and a bunch of strangers, hacking and wheezing 20 minutes into a four-hour race because you cruised right past the Planet Fitness on your way to your weekly night of quizzo at Slappy’s or wherever. So I started running. And eventually started lifting. And in October, by the skin of my teeth, I tumbled my way over the finish line of a motocross track in Cranberry NJ a filthy, sore, exhausted mess. And I loved it.

Remarkably, no white dudes were
harmed in the making of this photo

So I did another one the next year. And the year after that, with a couple 5K’s mixed in. And then a Savage Race the year after that, and the year after that. With a new event consistently on the calendar, I always had impetus to go lift, or run up to the reservoir by my place and back, or run to the nearby Dominos and back with an order for me and my roommate. (I did this at least six times in four years. Keeping a pizza steady and not slopped all over the box while running a mile and a half should be our country’s new benchmark for physical fitness)

But after my last race in October 2016, I had nothing else lined up. I’d just gotten engaged, so my fiancé and I were juggling planning for the wedding, looking for a place to live, and eventually moving into our new house, in addition to our normal jobs and my night classes. In short, exercise took a comfortable spot on the back-burner.\

I started running again this fall, but not nearly as much - I still had nothing to train for, so the only incentive I had to keep working out was for my own personal well-being, which, bahahahaha. .Then, two months ago, I ran into my coworker and flag football teammate Joe in the hall.

“Hey, you interested in running the Chicago Marathon?”

“Huh?”

“In October. Me and Ryan (another coworker) are doing it. I know you run, so I figured I’d ask.”

“Run” is a very relative term here. Joe ran cross country in college. I…did not run cross country in college. I said I’d take a look.

Turns out, a marathon is still 26.2 miles long – who’d a thunk it? I’ve never run 26.2 miles in a week, let alone in one shot. But it was in a cool city in one of the flattest parts of the country, I had a little over 10 months to get ready, training would get me into better shape for wedding photos, and – because my employer sponsors the marathon – I got a discount and guaranteed entry. Otherwise, I’d have to submit an application stating my credentials (i.e. “I’ve run X marathon before” or “I’m a former service member”), and stating that the walk from my parking spot to my office entrance is “kinda far when you think about it” probably wasn’t going to cut it. Apparently, they’re cool with you going into traction halfway through the race if you’ve got your employee ID on hand.

So here we are. My next event to inspire me to work out is on the calendar, and it’s unlike any I’ve set out to do before. Mud runs are really more geared towards general fitness – run a couple miles and make sure you can do some pull-ups, and you’re probably good to at least finish. This is no mud run, with obstacles to break up the distance. It’s no fun run 5K with glow sticks or dyed corn starch or what have you. This is a straight up, all running, federal pound-me-in-the-ass marathon. And I’m mildly terrified.

So join me in my terror, won’t you? Come along as I attempt to transform my body from the oddly-shaped blob of honey-roasted nuts and Diet Dr. Pepper it is today into what I can only assume will be something resembling the Six Million Dollar Man. We’ll talk about the best music/podcasts/natural sounds to run to, the horrors of the local gym, and how to keep yourself going even when it just seems easier to get horizontal on the couch and drone in front of the comforting hum of a television set – because that is plainly always easier. It’s going to be a grind, but I’ll try to sprinkle in enough dick jokes to make it worth your while.

And hey, if I blow it, at least I didn’t pay full price.