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| After the finish of the 2016 North County Wine Run Half Marathon. |
About two years ago, I had the experience of having to start wearing size 40 pants. That event really messed with my head for a long time. I think that it shattered my sphere of deniability. I was truly more than chubby. I was fat. I was a dangerous kind of fat. It wasn't until about 6 months later that I actually started to do something about it.
Toward the end of June 2016, I got on the scale and it said that I weighed almost 300 pounds. There are some people in this world were that weight is expected. They are NFL linemen and centers in the NBA. Since I am about 6'2" and my day job is as an engineer, so I don't think that I can tell the truth by saying that 300 pounds was a healthy weight for me. If you have ever heard Dave Ramsey talk on his show, or in his books about the "I've had it!!!!" moment, than you can understand what I was feeling. He talks about it in the frame of reference of getting out of debt, but, for me, it was in terms of my weight. I had that moment in my mind when I screamed, to myself, "I'VE HAD IT!!!!!!" I knew that I had to do something, but I had to come up with something where my chances of finding a reason to give up was small.
I live in a really small community of less than 10000 people. We do have a couple of grocery stores, a post office and more than one stop light, but, it isn't like Portland, or where I grew up. As a consequence of this, there was no gym here. I like to lift weights and do other kinds of exercising like that. I quickly realized that the only real think I could do, for exercise, was run. I have a treadmill, which works perfectly fine, but, my foot strikes are kind of loud and I really didn't want to wake up the whole house with an early morning run on the treadmill.
I figured that the only thing I had really any control of was my schedule, so I started to get up early so that I could start to walk/run before work. Early is an interesting thing, because, it means different things to different people.
My early is 4am.
This is the time of day when rock stars start thinking about going to sleep and I get up that early. I really haven't had any trouble getting up that early. This is the time of day that works for me to run. Mt family is asleep, so I am not taking any time away from them. Also, there are very few people out, so nearly no cars on the road and I don't see many people outside. Running in the dark is not something that scares me, but, people my size don't get jumped often, unless it is by a mob. My experience has actually been the reverse. I have sensed a feeling of peacefulness this time of morning. It is just me, the road, and whatever podcast is playing in my ears.
Fast forward to today. As the titular question asks, why do I run? The physical reason is that it is how I like to exercise. I am about 60 pounds lighter as a result of running and changing what I am eating. There has been a social component to the experience. I have met people at races and started talking to people in running groups all over the country. There is a competitive aspect to it as well. The other night, my wife gave me a bit of a hard time calling the half marathon a race as opposed to a run. Yes, there is a price for first place, but, I see it as my racing against a former version of me. A slower version of me. A heavier version of me. I finished with a time of 1:57:35, which is my third personal record in 3 races this year. I get faster with each race. I also wanted to finish in under 2 hours today, so I am really happy with my performance. There are different kinds of results that can be looked at. During those times when my weight plateaus, I can see the gains in my time improving.
This journey is not over by any means. I am not the weight I want to be yet. I am not as fast as I want to be yet. I want to run longer races. I am still a work in progress. I don't think anyone is completely finished until the end. I am just being really intentional about who I want to become.
