Living with a SEAL: Day 1

DAY 1 — The Arrival

“I’m trained to disappear.”- SEAL

New York City

14°

0638

I pour oatmeal into a bowl, fill the pot with water, light the stove and set the timer. I click play on the remote and position Lazer, my 18-month-old son, so he can see his Baby Einstein video. I peek into the guest room to make sure the bed is made. My son is giggling, which comforts me. I check on my wife, Sara, who’s still sleeping, and then recheck the guest room to make sure it’s ship-shape, or whatever the heck they say in the Navy. I hear the timer go off. I cut up some bananas and pour honey on them. I look at the clock on the microwave: 6:38 a.m.

ETA: twenty-two minutes.

I’m filled with nervous energy.

I sit with my son, feed him breakfast, and watch the rest of Baby Einstein. The bananas are still in my bowl. I’m not hungry. I go into the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror. I push my hair back with my hands. I grin at my reflection to check my teeth. They’re clean.

I come back to the living room.

I do as many pushups as I can: 22.

I look at the clock.

6:44 am

What if he has trouble getting a cab? Does a guy like him even take a cab? Maybe he’s going to run to my house? The plane might be delayed? He could’ve changed his mind? Maybe I should call? What am I talking about? The guy’s parachuted into Fallujah, he has to know how to get to my house on time. Right?

But he NEVER asked for my address, NEVER inquired what to bring. He WOULDN’T give me his flight information and DIDN’T request a car service. NOTHING. In fact, the only thing the man said was:

“I arrive at oh-seven hundred.”

*****

I first saw “SEAL” at a 24-hour relay race in San Diego. After several marathons, this was my first ‘ultra’. I was on a team of six ultra-marathoners who would each take turns running 20- minute legs. The objective: run more miles than every other team in 24 hours.

There were teams registered from all over the country. It’s friends coming together to test themselves physical and mentally. SEAL, however, didn’t have a team. He was running the entire race…himself.

The race was “low budget,” really low budget. The entire course was set around a one-mile loop in an unlit parking lot near the San Diego Zoo. It was “unsupported,” meaning you bring your own supplies.

My team and I flew in the night before to get ready. We walked the course and mapped out our strategy that night. Before we went to sleep, we laid out our race gear and supplies so we were ready to go when we woke up. Water. Gatorade. Bananas. PowerBars. We were ready.

Before the race, my team stretched in a small circle on the grass. I was nervous and excited, but I couldn’t help notice the guy ten feet away. To say he “stood out” would be an understatement. For starters, he was the only African American in the race. He weighed over 260 pounds whereas most ultra-runners weighed between 140–165 pounds, and third, whereas everyone else was talkative and friendly….this guy was pissed. I mean he looked very angry.

He just sat there all by himself in a folding chair waiting for the race to start. No stretching, no prep, no fancy shoes, and no teammates. No smiling. He just sat quietly with a don’t-fuck-with-me expression on his face. His supplies… a box of crackers and water. That’s it.

The guy was a cross between a gladiator and the G.I. Joe action hero my son has, but life- sized. He looked indestructible. Battle tested. Dangerous. Alone. Determined.

Even the way he spit was scary, like if he hit you with it, it would leave a scar. He was intimidating. Physically, the man looked like someone sprayed muscle paint all over his body. Ripped. Flawless.

Once the race started, in between our individual “legs” of running, we stretched and stayed hydrated to avoid injury, and applied plenty of Vaseline. As a friend of mine likes to say: “Brother, ultras are chaffy.” But as the race continued and I cheered on my teammates, I couldn’t help but keep tabs on the guy who was running ALONE. Who was this guy?

There was magnetism to his fury. Underneath his scowl I sensed something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Maybe it was a sense of honor or integrity. Or purpose. Yeah, that’s it. He ran with a sense of purpose that I couldn’t quite comprehend. He ran as though lives depended on it, like he was running into a burning house to save someone, a kitten, or an old woman. With each stride he took it seemed like he was creating mini-earthquakes beneath his feet, but at all times his form was perfect, his eyes locked in a stare, a focus that was diamond tip PRECISE. He just ran…checked his “splits” on his watch…and ran for 100 miles straight.

When the 24-hour race was over I was cooked. My thighs were so tight I could barely walk a yard. As my teammates and I slowly gathered our extra sneakers, lawn chairs and personal belongings, I noticed him again, this massive, two hundred-plus pound block of carbon steel, being helped to the parking lot by a woman (whom I would later find out was his wife), looking like he just survived a plane crash.

I concluded two things:

1) I had never seen anyone like this and,

2) I had to meet him.

Back home, after some topnotch investigating and some Googling, I was able to ascertain a few pertinent things about him, including the fact that he was a Navy SEAL, a highly decorated Navy SEAL at that. Then I tracked down a contact number and called him cold. He was on the West Coast.

“Yeah?” he answered. “Is this SEAL?”

“That depends on who’s asking,” he said.

I hadn’t experienced these kind of butterflies since I called Sue my senior year in high school to ask her to the prom. I started talking about the race and babbling on, until halfway through my rap I realized that I sounded like someone I would’ve hung up on. In fact, I wasn’t completely sure he hadn’t hung up — there was dead-silence coming from his end of the phone.

This was way worse than the call to Sue. “Hello?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Just give me 15-minutes to propose something to you in person,” I said finally. “I’m in New York City but can fly out tomorrow.” Silence.

“Hello?”

Silence.

“SEAL?”

Silence.

Finally:

“You wanna come out…it’s on you,” he said.

Twenty-four hours later I was in California.

We met in a local restaurant in San Diego. After some small talk, which consisted of me talking and him saying nothing in response, I asked him to move into my house to train me.

He stared at me with cold, flat eyes. I couldn’t tell if he thought I was nuts or if he was figuring out if I was worth his time. He was sizing me up.

One minute passes. Then another.

“Ok, I’ll do it with one condition,” he said in a tone that was slightly motivational in a psychopathic drill sergeant type of way:

“You do everything I say.” “Yes.”

“And that means EVERYTHING.”

“Ok.”

“I can wake you at any time; I can push you to any extreme.”

“Ummm.”

“NOTHING is off limits. NOTHING.”

“Well…”

“By the time we’re done you’ll be able to do a thousand pushups in a day.”

“A thousand?”

This wasn’t going to be anything like the prom, I thought.

****

At exactly 0700 there’s a knock on my door.

He has NO LUGGAGE. NO SUITCASES. NO EXPRESSION. In spite of the fact that it’s December and it’s FREEZING out, he’s wearing NO COAT. NO Hat. NO GLOVES. And there’s NO GREETING.

He simply says, “You ready?”

That’s it? No warm up-pitch? No, “Nice to see you again?” No, “It’s cold out, huh?” Maybe something nice and easy, right down the middle? Instead, I get a Mariano Rivera cut fastball.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” I say.

“Anything you need, please feel free to help yourself. Make yourself at home. Our home is your home.”

“Nah bro! Not at all, this is YOUR home. I don’t have a home.”

I laugh.

SEAL doesn’t laugh.

“That’s NOT how I operate man,” he says.

“It was only an expression,” I answer meekly. “Make yourself at home, that’s an expression.”

“I don’t operate in expressions, dude,” he says. “I operate in actions. That needs to be clear immediately,” he says. “Understand?”

“Okay.”

“Huh?”

“Yes…. Sir?”

“I’m trained to disappear. You won’t EVER even know when I’m here.”

“Okay.”

“Ah’ite. Let’s get into this shit. Meet me here in nine minutes.”

I change into my standard cold weather workout gear, which consists of two sweatshirts, two hats, gloves and thermal pants. I walk back out to the front door where SEAL is already standing, looking at his watch. It’s 14 degrees out and nippy. He’s wearing shorts, a T-shirt and a knit hat. Nothing else.

“Man, I may need to borrow some gloves,” says SEAL.

“You MAY need gloves?”

“Yeah, or some kinda mittens or some shit like that.”

“That’s it. Only gloves?”

“That’s it.”

“It’s 14 degrees outside,” I say.

“To you it’s 14 degrees cause you’re telling yourself it’s 14 degrees!”

“No. It really is. It’s 14 degrees. Like that’s the real actual temperature outside. It says so on my computer.”

SEAL pauses for a moment like I may have disappointed him.

“On your computer, huh?”

He begins to laugh, but it’s a looming laugh, like The Count on Sesame Street after he just counted: “SEVEN — -SEVEN flowers. Ah, ah, ah, ah, ahhhhh…”

“The temperature is what you think it is bro, not what your computer thinks it is. If you think it’s 14 degrees… Then it’s 14 degrees. Personally, I’m looking at it like it’s in the mid 50’s.”

Rather than argue…after all, we’re still just getting to know each other, I just say: “Got it.”

“You ever spent any time in freezing water, Jesse?” SEAL asks.

I’m thinking to myself, like on purpose? But I respond with a “No.”

“Well, is it freezing? OR, is your MIND just saying its freezing? Which is it?” He laughs again. “Control your MIND Jesse.”

“Got it.” (I’m going to have to put that on the “to-do” list: Control Mind.)

“Exactly. Enjoy this shit. If you want it to be 70 and sunny… it’s 70 and sunny. Just run. The elements are in your mind. I don’t ever check the temperature when I run. Who gives a fuck what the temperature on the computer says? The computer isn’t out there running, is it?”

He’s got me there, but instead of saying, “got it” again, I try to keep the banter going.

“Does that work the same way in heat? I mean, if it’s 95 degrees outside can you make it

snow in your mind?”

“Nah man, it’s a one way system bro. Cold-to-hot only. When it’s hot outside… it’s just hot!”

If one of my friends tried to give me the same logic I’d laugh at them, but coming from SEAL’s mouth I almost believe him, however I can feel the draft coming from our windows and I don’t care what SEAL says — it really is 14 degrees outside.

“Well, then what’s the strategy in the heat?”

“In extreme heat it’s a totally different mindset, bro. You have to get Mid-Evil. Embrace it! Grind it out. Think about how others are suffering. Smile and enjoy the pain!”

“Yours or theirs?” I ask.

SEAL levels me with his stare.

Over the course of my relationship with SEAL there would be moments when I wasn’t completely sure that my life wasn’t in danger. It wasn’t anything he said — or the way he didn’t say it — that led me to believe this. It was more like some type of invisible electrical pulse, like the feeling you probably get when a plugged-in hair dryer first falls into your bath water, just before you’re electrocuted.

“Both,” he says.

SEAL nods at me, the signal that it’s “go” time.

We head to Central Park and run six miles at a nine-minute mile pace. Although I have run several marathons at this point in my life, I was never a fast runner. I can run at a seven-minute pace, but I prefer not to. I like to take my time running and adhere to the “you should be able to talk to a friend while running” type pace. It’s more enjoyable. I’m also way more of an “endurance” guy than a “sprint” guy. I find that endurance running is way more of a mental challenge than a physical challenge and I’m pretty good at blocking out the pain and boredom of long runs.

This pace suits me well. I think to myself, I can do this.

1300

After a warm shower and quickly returning some work emails, I give SEAL a quick tour of our apartment. We live at 15 Central Park West on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The building has been written and blogged about and also been featured for its amazing views, architecture and famed tenants. Some people consider the building to be famous.

Many of the world’s top CEOs, athletes and entertainers live in the building. Although my wife, Sara, and I don’t consider ourselves to be “fancy,” the building sure is. In fact, when we first moved in, the elevator “concierge” (not the elevator operator — the elevator concierge) told me to get out of the elevator because the elevators are “only for tenants.” I guess I didn’t look the part in my ski hat and shorts.

I start the tour by showing SEAL how to use the remotes for the television. I figure that is something a guest who is staying with us for over a month will want to know, right?

“This is how you turn it on,” I say pointing to the power button.

“We won’t be watching much TV,” he says immediately interrupting me. “Okay then… Moving on,” I say.

I set the remote down and then lead him over to the kitchen. If we aren’t going to be watching television then we certainly will be eating, I assume. I pull out the first drawer.

“So this is where all the forks, spoons, and knives are,” I say.

“I won’t be using your utensils,” he says.

Huh? I close the drawer.

Maybe I’ll have more luck in the laundry room.

As I am about to show him how to use the washer and dryer he interrupts me again and says, “Yo man, you can skip all this tour shit. Just tell me how to get to the gym.”

We head to the gym.

For the first time I can see SEAL’s front teeth as a smile starts to form. He is ecstatic; I can see the change in his expression just from walking inside of the gym. It’s almost like watching the Wizard of Oz for the first time when you see the screen go from black and white to color. It’s a whole new world. He walks over to the pull up bar, jumps up, grabs the bar and hangs. He starts to swing and swing some more and swing until he finally jumps off. I guess he approves because his smile has grown.

“You ready?” he asks.

“For what?”

“Your pulls.”

“You mean like right now?”

“Give me ten. All the way down and all the way up. Let’s see where you’re at.”

I jump up and grab the bar and pull my 200 pounds of body weight up until my chin is over the bar. “One.”

I go down. When I get to number eight I start kicking my legs frantically around to try and get some momentum. I need to get my chin over this damn bar, but I can’t. I drop to the floor. SEAL tells me to take a forty-five second break and do it again.

Forty-five seconds later I jump back up and grab the bar. I’ve never been good at doing pull-ups. In fact I hate doing them. Somehow I manage to squeak out six more before I drop back to the ground. This time I think for good. SEAL tells me to take another forty-five seconds and then do it again.

Another forty-five seconds go by and this time I’m able to get three solid pull-ups in before I drop to the ground. Each time I’m dropping my legs give out a little more. That’s 17 pull-ups.

I’m DONE. I’m literally maxed out. I don’t think I have ever done 17 pull-ups so fast, or EVER for that matter. I grab my left bicep with my right hand and my right bicep with my left hand and squeeze. It feels like there are nails in my biceps.

As soon as my feet hit the floor SEAL tells me we are going to stay here until I do 100.

WHAT?

“I can’t do 100. That’s impossible,” I say.

“You better find a way,” he says to me like a father might tell his son to clean his bedroom.

I do one and drop to the floor.

I walk around the gym trying to delay the inevitable. My arms sag at my sides and SEAL watches me. I can’t procrastinate any longer. I return the pull-up bar. I do another one and drop to the ground. I take another lap around the gym and I’m back to the pull up bar. I drop. Lap…Pull up… Drop… Lap… Pull up… Drop…

90 minutes later I’m on 97. Training is definitely under way.

Workout totals: 6 miles and 100 pull-ups

Excerpted from Living with a SEAL by Jesse Itzler printed from the FREE Buzz Books 2015 with permission of Center Street, a division of Hachette Book Group. For more information and to download all of the excerpts, go to Buzz Books 2015.