From There to Here

As long as I can remember even back into grade school, I was not the kid winning the foot races. That didn't really change much as I got into middle school or high school either. In fact, I am probably faster at the age of forty-five than I ever was growing up.


What I did have was determination. Growing up in the small Midwestern town of Holland, Michigan was interesting enough. Good values were instilled, good morals were taught and a good solid work ethic. Other than that not a whole lot for someone like me.


When I grew up it was kind that era when you graduated high school and either went to college or married your high school sweetheart or someone close to that. I did not go to college. I had planned to work for a builder. In fact that's what I had done during my senior year of high school. I figured, I would learn the business and maybe someday become a general contractor, right there in Holland.


The building industry, particularly new homes took a major dive in the early eighties and fresh out of high school my dream of being a builder was washed away.


I did get married, not to my high school sweetheart, in fact she had gone to our cross town rival. Boy was she beautiful though. I thought I was the luckiest man on earth. This too would pass. Maybe neither of us was ready to be married, more likely just me, but in less than two years it was over.


For some reason, I just didn't feel like I clicked in Holland, Michigan. Even today, I love to visit and yet can't stay. There was always a yearning to be somewhere else. Somewhere far away from the small town I grew up in.


So, when my younger brother went into the Marine Corps and ended up in Southern California there was nothing on earth that could keep me from making my way out to Orange County. I still remember my first few days in California like they were yesterday. It was absolutely gorgeous. It was March of 1990 and although it was in the 20's back in Michigan, it was a perfectly beautiful 75 degrees in Costa Mesa, California. I was home!


Within a few weeks, my brother and I were running together. This was runners' paradise. Running in Michigan in March meant freezing temperatures and snow drifts and miserable. By contrast, Costa Mesa had absolutely beautiful weather from sun up to sun down every day.


Add to that the fact that maybe even more then than now, everyone was into fitness! What more could a young man ask for? I think it was actually sometime in this new era of my life that I first caught the "bug" of interest in marathons. I think it was more of a curiosity at this point. My brother and I were much more of the "gym rat" type than avid runners. Running was just something that I had enjoyed once and now used to try to keep lean and mean after a good gym session.


There was a lot of gym time, a lot of job time (I was in the car business actually before I even moved to CA), and the occasional 5k fun run when we got inspired to do something different. At the end of the late nineties, after another failed marriage, a few extra pounds and some real frustrating months, I got bit by the running bug again.


This time was different. Instead of running after the fact to keep the extra pounds away. The gym became the place to do my cross training when I wasn't running.


I was getting closer this time. It was 1999 and I decided to go for it. Not knowing the first thing about training for a marathon, I decided the best thing for me to do would be to join a team in training group, you know the ones where you raise funds for a charity and they help you to train for a marathon? I chose the Arthritis Foundation as both my mother and my grandmother had struggled with it for years.


Training was going well. I was running on our long runs at a pace that for me was astronomical. Around a eight and a half minute mile pace. Not fast for some folks, but for me, as big as I was, that was light speed. I was truly getting faster for the first time in my life. I ran a 5k in 23 minutes. Not light speed but a solid pace for what is affectionately referred to in the race circuit as a "Clydesdale".


Things couldn't have been going better and when I got the opportunity to take a new job with better pay, it just seemed like the natural thing to do. I mean after all everything was going so well, it must be an omen.


One little detail... my previous job was about two miles from home which put me home getting ready for a run in five minutes. I got home so fast that even on really late work nights I still had plenty of time to put in a solid run. My new job... forty miles from home and in Southern California that means no less than an hour and a half on the freeway.


My dream soon turned into a nightmare as I found it harder and harder to keep up with the training schedule. More responsibility at work meant less time to train. It soon became clear that aside from leaving my job which I wouldn't, something had to give and that something was the marathon.


Close but no cigar!


For awhile I tried to keep up with my running, but the stress of work and the schedule finally got the best of me. If I ran more than ten times a year over the next four years I'd be surprised. When you quit running, you miss it for a while, then it becomes like everything else you no longer do in life... just something you used to do back when.


After not having been to Michigan for a few years, I had the opportunity to spend a couple of months there at the end of 2003. It was cold. So be it! I proceeded to spend a lot of time walking around my old hometown. A place you haven't been in a while can be very different when you just walk around and absorb it. It was refreshing and reviving. On top of all that I dropped a good forty pounds from all of the walking. Again I loved visiting but now I was anxious to be home in California.


In March I started a new job. Again, forty some miles from home. But my recent weight loss had left me feeling much more capable of handling the extra work load and still maintaining a running routine late night. This time when the demands of the drive got to great, I moved. I went from two hours in the car one way to a ten minute drive if I got stuck at a traffic light.


Finally I could train again, right?


Still didn't happen. You might think at this point, how bad did he really want this?


Sometimes life is just that way. Don't get me wrong, I don't believe for a moment that life just happens to us without our consent. It's just that we let ourselves get distracted. Pretty soon all of the extra time I had gained by moving close to work, became extra time to hang out at the local pub. I mean it was conveniently located between work and my home. And beside, there's always tomorrow.


How quickly the pounds add up and the dreams fade. Funny thing, kind of an observation I finally made not that long ago. I was told by friends that a certain gal kind of had a thing for me. Sounds like Jr High doesn't it. Not really though because I'm one of those people who really doesn't pay attention to those sorts of things. I really love people and so I could sit and have a two hour conversation with someone and never realize that they were interested in more than conversation. Maybe that's kind of sad on my part, but I don't really think so. To finish up the observation. Armed with my new found knowledge, I observed this person stating on several occasions that she liked her men a little older and "chunky".


What? There must be some mistake. How could this person be interested in me and chunky guys all at the same time? Oh! I get it now! Ouch! Self-denial, self-denial, self-denial.


A year later came the big kick in the teeth I'd been apparently waiting for all of my life. My younger brother decided to get in the best shape of his life and as a part of his renewed commitment to fitness he ran the Los Angeles... yes you guessed it... Marathon!


I have never been so proud and devastated both at the same time. I was working that particular Sunday in March 2005 and yet I tracked him every step of the way online. I was absolutely inspired!


I signed up within 45 minutes of the time he crossed the finish line for the Long beach Marathon in October of that year, but didn't run. In fact, I never really got my training off the ground.


Next year, brother runs the 2006 LA Marathon, again I sign up for Long Beach to run in October. Now this is killing me! I have got to get off my duff and start training.


And I did, successfully train. Ten times during that next seven month period.


If anyone ever tells you a marathon is all about physical conditioning, they have never run one! 2006 was going to be my year no matter what. I may not have been physically ready, but I was in complete control of my mind game.


In October of 2006, I was better prepared mentally to run a marathon than I had ever been and quite frankly four marathons later I was never more ready after that date. When that fateful day arrived, I was calm and I was ready... at least in my mind. I remember being at the starting line with my brother. He was as nervous as you can get. And I can relate because quite frankly that's the way I normally feel before a race. This day I was just ready! No nerves, no jitters, no nothing but ready.


Had I really fully understood what I was getting myself into I might have been at least a little ill at ease, but there I was calm as could be. I have run three marathons in fair physical condition but this was not one of those three. Physically, I had no business being anywhere near the starting line of that marathon.


When the gun went off we started the slow "death march" (unless you're an elite runner things start kind of slow) and shortly after crossing the starting line I told my brother to go ahead and run his race. I'll see you at the "Beer Garden"! For novice marathoners a combination of running and walking is not uncommon. In fact many of the teams in training teach their first timers to run with regularly scheduled walk breaks. For me at some point during this whole thing it went from walk breaks to run breaks. It was a long march with intermittent runs thrown in just to keep it interesting.


And it's true. You absolutely will experience every emotion you own over the course of a marathon. 26.2 miles is a long way for a human being to run. Whether you are struggling to finish the distance or trying for a personal best time you are going as "all out" as you can for a huge distance. No matter how well you prepare, it is going to hurt somewhere in your body or deep down in your soul.


I went from elation that I was doing this finally to deep dark depression over the fact that I had such a long way to go to happy to tears to disappointment that I wasn't going to make the "Beer Garden" cut-off time to anger at how far it seemed the next mile marker was away yet to compassion to the runners who had stopped along the side of the road in pain to ultimate joy... literal tears of joy when I crossed the finish line and saw my brother waiting for me.


I'm pretty sure I have some emotions I didn't run through but it sure felt like I'd gone through them all.


Oddly enough, within a few hours of finishing, I didn't even really feel any pain. But apparently, that's because I was in the eye of the storm. The next morning as I headed for work, I almost fell going down the stairs to the parking garage. It was kind of a little, "Hello" from my legs to my brain, just to let it know they hadn't gone away all together.


Four days later I was actually out for a short run. After what I had gone through in Long Beach, there was no way I was going to be that far out of shape for the LA Marathon I had just signed up for.


This time I ran at least twenty times in the five months leading up to the marathon. I would be a little better prepared physically, but I was without my brother who had knee surgery very close to the date of the marathon. There's a lot to be said for running with a partner or in a group. Even though my brother and I have never actually run together (yes, he's faster than I am, and thanks for reminding me!), just knowing that he is out there on the course somewhere and will be there at the finish line gives me a feeling of support.


It hit me particularly hard in this marathon. After a miserably cold wait before the start and an uphill start much steeper than they made it seem, I was already to crack at around mile five. My brother and sister-in-law had come out early and ridden the Bike Tour so I knew they were there somewhere. At some point though as I was running and watching all of the team-in-training groups with their precision running formations and cadences and such, it dawned on me that I was completely alone. For a moment amidst a sea of some twenty five thousand runners, I was struggling through this event completely on my own. Yes, I know that's absurd, but we are talking about a marathon where in your mind over the course of 26 miles anything can happen. In fact, my brother tells of running one of his marathons thinking our Dad was running with him. This is not one of those spirit visitation things, he's alive and well in Michigan, but during this particular portion of that particular marathon my brother would have sworn he was there. So when I say that in the middle of all those people I felt completely alone... it's not that unusual during a marathon.


I can see it as clearly as if it is happening right now, I remember coming around a corner somewhere about mile 18 and there was my brother at the side of the road with a bottled water. He actually ran with me for about a hundred yards. The whole time it was all I could do to keep from balling my eyes out I was so happy to see him.


Two more marathons have gone under my belt, so to speak, since I ran my first LA Marathon. Both of them miserable right up to the very end. So why do I keep going after them?


What makes a guy do something that by all accounts he's just too big to do more than maybe once?


What makes me think that there are ultra marathons in my future? Am I nuts? Am I unbalanced?


Well perhaps I am a little bit crazy, but what happened to me this year 2008, is reason enough to say as long as there is air for me to breathe I will run farther and farther and I will do so in better and better shape and I will work to inspire more and more people to do the same and get in the best possible condition they can.


If I can inspire you to do just one marathon, you will thank me profusely, one time! If I can inspire you to get in good condition, you will thank me for the rest of your life!


How do I know?


Because this year, I had a heart attack. I'm telling you right now that give me enough time I can teach anybody the mental skills they need to run a marathon one time. It's not much different than teaching someone to firewalk or anything else that requires conquering your fears and overcoming.


You and I are not so very different from each other. We both have things we want to do in life, And, we both allow ourselves to be distracted by life and get off course. It is human nature and it happens. The difference between me and a lot of people is, I've been given a second chance in life. Many people like me who have heart attacks, never get that second chance. Quite frankly, if you had met me before my heart attack, you would not have picked me out of the crowd to be the guy.


That's the sad part, not only did I not see it coming, neither did anyone else. BUT... deep down inside, I knew I was not living up to my own standards. I just chose to ignore it. You know how you look at yourself in the mirror everyday and you say "Hello good looking!" Then you see yourself in a picture and get freaked out. Oh, the camera adds 10 pounds! In my case the camera would have had to be adding about 60 pounds.


That picture of me lying in the hospital bed, that hangs in my living room so that I see it everyday, doesn't lie. I want to cry when I see me lying there with an oxygen tube in my nose, helpless and in pain. I don't because that's over! I can not go back and change the past. Not one single second of it.


I do control what my future will be like.


Funny thing is, I didn't get to where I am today because I didn't know any better. Quite the contrary. I have always been a student of fitness. I have always known it would be a major part of my life. I don't think I ever imagined it would be a matter of life and death for me, but it is. I guess that's just part of our human naivety. That part that says we're invincible. I actually admire that quality in people. It helps us overcome fears in life. It's just the part that denies reality that can be dangerous.


Believing that anything is possible allows us to accomplish great things. Choosing to ignore where we are at is a whole different thing. Knowing the difference between the two is something that now that I've been there I can definitely help you understand.


We'll explore that difference in the next section; The Power of Decision.