People ask me all the time why do I run. My simple response is to get into better shape. My other response is because of my black belt test for karate. It’s actually a lot more than that. The full reason is I have a heart murmur and had high blood pressure. While I wasn’t exactly severely overweight, I had weight to lose for sure. I was at my peak of 188lbs. My heart murmur makes endurance types of things a bit more difficult, although not impossible. I had been taking high blood pressure medication for the last 3 years. That made me very angry. I was 42 years old and taking high blood pressure medicine. I asked the Dr. how long do I have to take it. She told me, usually people have to take it the rest of their life. I accepted that blindly. Then I went to get a echocardiogram and was told my heart was slightly enlarged due to the heart murmur and high blood pressure. Since it’s a muscle and it was working harder, it grew. In this case, that is a muscle you don’t want to grow.
If I was angry before, now I was very upset. Not so much for me, but because I could only see an earlier death for me. I could not do that to my boys. I didn’t have a father in my life and my boys are my world. I cannot get rid of my heart murmur, but I can try to get rid of the high blood pressure. I was on a mission. There was no Dr. that was going to tell me I had to be on high blood pressure medicine the rest of my life. The first step was to stop drinking soda. That was one of the hardest things to do. I was drinking 2 liters a day. Once I stopped that, I was getting headaches for a month. I was addicted to the caffeine and didn’t even know it. Who would have thought that the caffeine in soda was enough to get you addicted to it. First week was migraines, then the following 3 weeks was a constant headache that wouldn’t go away. So I got over that hurdle, now is the weight part.
It’s now April2009 and there were signs put up near my house for the Coopersburg 5K. That race was in May 2009. I had one month to train. I started running and the best I was able to do was 1 mile. I would run up and down the hill where I live. In 1 month I was up to 2 miles. The race was here. I was determined to finish it without stopping.
My heart is pumping and the race begins. I start running and within a short period of time, my heart feels like it’s going to pound out of my chest. I get water at every station and try to drink it while running. I think more poured down my face than in my mouth. Apparently there is a technique to do this I think. No time to figure it out now, I have to concentrate on ignoring the pain – and there was plenty. Each mile marker seemed like it was so far away. For those of you that don’t know, a 5K is 3.1 miles. Not very far, but when you aren’t a true runner, or just starting out, that seems like a marathon. I was able to get thru it without stopping. It took me a little over 30 minutes. I thought that was one of the toughest things I had done to date. I never thought much of going further than that.
I was texting my friend April. She had run the Via Marathon, the previous year, as a relay. The race was in September 2009, which was 4 months away. She had been part of a team of 5 and they each ran a leg of the relay that ultimately added up to a full marathon. Each leg was around 5-6 miles. I asked her if she was going to do it again and if someone dropped out, let me know because I’ll take their place. Instead of saying sure I’ll let you know. That crazy girl tells me, she is going to run the half marathon instead and I should run it also! I am thinking she is insane. I could barely finish the 5K (3.1 miles) and she is telling me I can run a half marathon (13.1 miles). I tell her there is no way I could do that. She said absolutely I could.
I decided to give it a shot. This was my chance to really make a change in my life. I hadn’t lost much weight while training for the 5K. All I was really doing was running. I had stopped drinking soda a while ago but that didn’t make much of a change in my weight. I was sleeping better but that was it.
It was time for a transformation. I was determined now with a number of goals. I was going to lose weight, lower my blood pressure to the point where I was going to need medication anymore and I was going to finish the Via Half Marathon in September 2009.
I started with joining the gym in June 2009. I was around 182 lbs at this point and still taking high blood pressure medication. Furthest I had run was the 5K. I found a 16 week training program to run a half marathon and decided to follow it. I changed my diet completely. I was very well known at work for eating all day. I ate anything and everything – constantly. I sought out all foods that I would like to eat and made sure I they were healthy. I was still going to eat all day, but it was going to be healthy food. I was going to the gym 4-6x a week, eating lots of protein and eating every 2-3 hours. Regular bread is replaced with wheat bread. Candy is replaced with grapes, bananas and multi-grain Cheerios. Soda is replaced with sugar free Kool Aid. I had my diet worked out mostly. I felt as long as I stuck to my plan, going to the gym, running and maintain the diet; I’d be good to go.
September 2009 was here and the results are in. I stepped on the scale and I was 158 lbs. I had lost 30lbs. The weight had come off! I was super psyched.
My friends April and Carrie were running the Via Half Marathon as well. It wasn’t a huge race in terms of the number of entrants, but it was big for me. It was my life is all I was thinking. If I can do this, then nothing is impossible. The race starts and I start to run. I had bought a gps watch but the battery wasn’t charged so I was up to myself to determine how I was feeling every step of the way. I ran and ran and ran. Every few minutes another mile marker would be passed. I was feeling good and kept running.
A run of this distance takes about 2 hours. There is a lot that goes on in your mind during that time. There are moments during race of euphoria, happiness and sadness. Around mile 8-10, on every race I have run to date (I have run a few as of today), I invariably think very hard about why am I doing this. I actually don’t like to run. People think I do since I am doing so much of it. Truth is I am not very fond of it. I like the races, but the training leading up to them are very boring to me. As I reflect on why I am running, I start to cry. I have at every race I have run. I am comfortable with myself these days to accept my feelings as they are. I want to see my boys grow up, get married, have kids and play with my grand kids. Not being able to have all this and it was within my control to achieve would be a failure as a father I always think. If you know me from my youth, you have a good idea of what I came from, how my relationship with my father was and how angry as a child to mid 20s I was.
As I cry, I think if I don’t continue and just give up because I am tired or it hurts, then I have failed. I will have let my family down. It’s a bit extreme, maybe, but it’s how I live my life. It’s all or nothing. You either give 100% or you don’t show up! Every race I feel like quitting. I have all kinds of pain, my heart beats pretty hard (of course it is I am running a half marathon), but it’s a bit different for me due to the heart murmur. I continue on, push forward and eventually get thru it. Pain, tears, emotion and ultimately success in finishing the race is all part of a run for me. Growing up in the South Bronx, you were not supposed to show fear or emotion. It was a sign of weakness. Show weakness and you were picked on or worse (let your imagination go here – it was the South Bronx after all.) It took major events in my life for me to just let it all go and be free with my emotions. My boys are my world. I live the childhood I wanted to have thru them. I have cried at every school performance they have. My wife looks over to me and says, “there he goes again.” One day I will be able to share with them what it was like for me growing up. Knowing me as a child and knowing me today you know what type of person I have changed into. Anyhow, back to my saga…
Since that time I have continued to go to the gym 4-6x a week, dieted (although modified) and ran a few more half marathons and trail runs. I went to the cardiologist 2 months ago and the great news is that my blood pressure is back to normal. I no longer have to take high blood pressure medicine. From going to the gym, I have put on 15 lbs. of muscle. When I spar or grapple in my karate school, I am not as tired as I used to be. I feel so much better now. I have encouraged others at work to join the gym and now there is a group of us going each day at lunch time. My mission has encouraged others to change their ways as well. It’s all part of paying it forward.
We all have different reasons for going to the gym and/or running. Now I have 2 more life goals to accomplish. I am signed up to run the Lehigh Valley Full Marathon in September 2010. I’m also going for the Goofy medal in Disney in January 2011. In Disney they have a Half Marathon that is run on a Saturday. They give those participants a Donald Duck medal. The Full Marathon they run on Sunday. Those participants get a Mickey Mouse medal. If you run both the Half Marathon on Saturday and the Full Marathon on Sunday, you get a Goofy medal. That is my long term goal as of right now.
So why do I run? For my boys!
The first day I started running on June 1 (about) I was running at 6. Now I am running at 7. That is an 8 minute mile. Again, not a great time, but its better than it was a month ago. 
