I fucking hate running, no seriously I really hate it, I climb so I don’t have to run, I hike so I can go slower then if I were running, I was on my HS track team because if you can’t dribble a ball or catch a football, they just tell you to run around till you get tired, hence the track team. For PE class I would spend days playing volleyball so I wouldn’t have to move fast and because I guess that’s where you stuck the unathletic Asian kids.
Back in 2011 Gordon convinced me to sign up for the Chicago marathon, you’ll like this reason, not because we were athletic, not because we wanted to become marathoners, but because our girlfriend had broken up with us around the same time and we needed to get our minds off of it. Most men would just turn to the bottle, we turned to high endurance competition.
I had never run more than 3 miles in my life at that point, so 26.2 would be a lot more. I was young, heartbroken and stupid at that point in my life. We signed up a year in advances, I hated running so I figured I would train 2 months before the race. Fast forward 2 months before the race, I had no clue what to do, smartphones were not as powerful and I had a tendency to get lost, so I started running around my apt complex, so I wouldn’t get lost. I eventually mustered up the courage to run to the local deli and back, maybe run up some stairs to my 3rd floor apt and almost as I timed it, it would always take an hour or 2. I didn’t even run with a watch because quite frankly I never thought I would run after that race, why waste the money, I would later learn that the most I ever ran when I trained was 5.6 miles. No coach, no plan and no watch. We do the race and I still don’t have a watch so I keep asking Gordon are we doing good? I don’t know how but my body held up for the first 17 miles and we were running well under 4hr pace. Afterward predictably my body started failing, 17 miles down and 9 more to go. A slow jog and walk to the finish line, proceed me.
I loved the excitement of the race, the crowds cheering, the views are great, you think you the shit until your body becomes shit, or as I’ve seen some people shit on themselves during the race. I finish Chicago and we both run around 4 hours, which is respectable but I had gotten in my mind to actually be respectable as a marathoner you have to break 4hrs. The only problem is I still hated to run I can do races every day but the training I detested the hours on end you would have to waste running by myself hoping to not get lost, cause God forbid I ran a little bit more to train for a marathon. I would sign up for more marathons over the years to try and break 4hrs l, each time never training and actually thinking I could do it. I would will my way towards Respectability in my deranged mind, only to have my ass handed to me after each race, I can finish a marathon I just wasn’t good at it, and that to me was unacceptable. I’m pretty competitive so after my fifth marathon in NY, I was only getting older, slower and less ambitious of breaking 4hrs.
In 2014 after the NYC marathon I decided to quit. No more goals of breaking 4, no more training or dieting, no more charities I would have to raise money for, my career was over. Now I know what your thinking, why do you care so much about breaking 4, well because as a distance runner you're defined by your time, it’s like someone asking you in the gym how much can you lift. That 4hr time is the hardest competition I’ve ever had, I wasn’t running again anyone its self-competition that’s the hardest, telling yourself you can do something and not giving up. I had run 5 marathons each time getting my ask kicked, each time being emotionally and physically spent, watching others run past you, around you, and probably pitying me, saying glad I’m not waking like that loser. These races the whole world sees how little you prepared for it, and walking past the finish line didn’t give me joy, it was heartache and despair watching others celebrate while I dissipate into the crowd.
Gordon who is now happily married asked me to run Berlin, 8 years after our first marathon together, I don’t know why I said yes but I figured I had gotten my ass kicked domestically in these races let’s try internationally as well. The one thing that was different this time is that I would now train!! I figured I’m only getting older, not better if I was going to break 4 now would be the time, so I trained harder then I ever trained in my life. I did 20-mile runs, I found friends who would run with me after work, I start watching what I ate again. Race day comes and I’m primed and ready to go, nothing stopping me from breaking 4, I even bought an expensive watch for this race. Berlin is known for being a fast course because it’s so flat, I flew all the way to Germany for this race, with one goal, and as you probably saw I failed. My best friend and my cousin who I love, who were rooting for me hard saw that I failed, that was the hardest part telling them how bad I did because they really wanted me to get it. It was a brutal race the rain started coming down at mile 4, I got colder and colder as the race went on, my body felt worst and worst till it got to that same routine of walking and jogging to the finish line. my number ripped off from the rain, so there wouldn’t even be a picture of me, except this one that the @adidasrunners took of me. I had nothing left to give I had failed for a 6th time, this runner's high people talk about it’s a mystery to me, I hated to run eight years ago, I hated more now because of emotional, physical, financial toll it had taken on me, why couldn’t Gordon have just asked me to play badminton 8 years ago…
