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!

I currently weigh 174 as of this morning. At my peak before I decided to start losing weight I was at 188. For the last month I have been lifting weights at least 3x a week pretty hard. As a warmup I was running at least 1 to 1.25 miles at a pretty brisk pace. Well brisk for me 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.

My goal is to run 4 miles at least 3x this week.

I let the boys cut the grass with me. Both of them took turns sitting on the tractor and driving around until we eventually cut the grass.

The boys and I watched some TV shows and played baseball outside.

We ended the day by eating dinner together with Frank and Nelly.

We were practicing catching at flag football practice and the subject of his loose tooth came up. I asked him if he wanted me to pull it out. He said, “yes”, then “no”, then “yes”, then “no”. He wanted it to come out, but was still afraid. I asked him team mates if any have lost teeth yet. One kid said, “I have.” He smiled and in the front you could clearly see at least 4 teeth missing. He looked like a jack-o-lantern. I asked him if it hurt when they came out and he said, “no.” I asked the team to vote if we should pull the tooth out. Unanimously they all voted yes. So he said ok. We went off to the side, I rinsed out his mouth, washed my hands and in I go. The tooth was so ready to come out. It was almost pointing 90 degrees out from where it should have been. The mouth guard was pushing it away. So I wiggle it back and forth three or four times and out it came. He barely felt it. It bled a little but he was ok. I poured some water in his mouth a few times and he spit it out. Soon enough the blood stopped and we were back practicing. That night the tooth fairy came and he got $5! When I was a kid, the tooth fairy left me 25 cents. What a difference.

arbor-day-2009 Best Quality

arbor-day-2009 Medium Quality

I am currently a green belt and I am sparing with a ~ 20 year old who is a yellow belt, lifts weights and is pretty good shape.  There isn’t supposed to be any punches to the head, although open hand slaps to the head are allowed just not at full force.  Then kicks are allowed since you have pads on your feet.   So we are going at it I’m getting the better of him.  Did I mention this was his 1st time sparing? Well he might be new to sparing but not to fighting as he has had his share of bar fights   Anyhow, at one point I get in too close and BAM he hits me square in the jaw with his ELBOW!  I have only actually gotten smacked once in the head while sparing so this was new to me AND NOT ALLOWED AT ALL!  I immediately take a knee.  This was a full on elbow shot full swing.  After taking enough time to recoup I get up and we continue.  A couple of minutes later, a kick to my cup!  I go down again.  His discipline and accuracy is way off. 

My sensei decided I needed to spar with someone else so off I go to another 20 something year old that is 6′ 5″ about 250lbs and a green belt like myself.  I am 5′ 9″ and 185lbs.  So we begin.  I have spared with him a number of times and hold my own.  This time he is throwing a lot of kicks pretty low.  I couldn’t figure out what he was doing because he hadn’t done that before and where he would have hit me wouldn’t really hurt that much if we were really fighting in the street.  To cut to the chase, he ultimately kicks me two times in the cup.  Full power round kicks dead on.  Cup or not, these hurt like crazy.  After an elbow to the jaw and three kicks to the cup I am sent to spar with the bag.  I haven’t gotten kicked in the cup sparing until that point but it must have been a magnet this time. 

I get home and my jaw is pretty sore.  No buises, just sore.  I make a slice bread sandwich and go to take my 1st bite.  WOW WHAT PAIN!  I practically had to let it soak in my mouth just so I could eat it.  The next day it hurts less but is still sore.  The following day the pain is mostly gone and its Friday. 

On Friday I have a lunchtime racquetball game against someone that is pretty good at getting to the ball.  We are in the middle of our game and its a ceiling shot.  The normal return is to return it back to the ceiling.  I turn to follow the ball and make sure that is indeed what he is doing and I see a blue rocket coming at my face.  He smashes the ball straight into my left cheek where I was just elbowed 3 days earlier.  Boy does it hurt!  After the game I see myself in the mirror and it is 1/2 a circle and totally bruised (redish and purple).  Then Sunday comes and its mother’s day.  As I am out with Millie people keep telling me I have lipstick on my face (it sorta looks like 1/2 a lip print also).  I have to tell them its a bruise, not lipstick.  I’ll be posting a picture soon.

Now its Tuesday, one week from when I had gotten the elbow to the face.  I have a T-Ball game with Johnathan (5 and 6 year old kids).  There is a kid on the team that tended to throw the bat.  I have been telling him constantly to NOT throw the bat after he hits.  I enfoce it just before he gets up to bat, and he forgets right after he hits and the bat goes flying again.  The other coach was working batting with the kids and I was trying to pay attention to when this kid gets up to bat to tell him again not to throw the bat.  He had told me he had been working on not throwing the bat this past weekend.  So I watch one by one as the kids get up to bat.  A parent starts asking me a question and when I turn to see where he is in the lineup THE BAT IS COMING RIGHT AT ME!  WHAM!!! The metal bat hits me right on the elbow.  So that has buised and gotten a bump.

To sum it up in a 8 day period I got elbowed in the face, three kicks to the cup, a racquetball hit to the face and hit on the elbow with a metal bat. 

We all bundle up warm because its a bit chilly and we have to wear our Karate uniforms.  Well all except Millie since she decided to wash her and my uniform 5 minutes before we are about to need them.  I had bought a spare uniform so I was able to wear that one.  Was it an accident?  Probably.  Subconsciously though it was probably on purpose

We park our car a few blocks from where we are supposed to meet up with everyone.  We get there just in time – or so I thought.  It turns out we are waiting a little over an hour until its our turn to start going down the parade route.  Its now like 8:00 and Johnathan, Mark Jr. and Millie are all beat.  I have to be in the front holding the banner.  So we start marching and I’m holding the banner.  On paper the route seems like its not that big.  Boy I should have checked the scale of how that route was drawn.  This march took about 1:20 minutes.  Along the way Johnathan got piggy back rides from Lance and Melissa.  Then they put him in the wagon after they ran out of candy.

I figured thank goodness we are done!  No we aren’t, Millie promised the kids ice cream somewhere along the way.  So off to Friendly’s we go.  I just wanted to go home and sleep.  The kids shared a meal and Millie and I got burgers.  Then Johnathan got his usual, the Candy Shop.  Mark Jr. got a double scoop cone.  Millie got a soft serve sundae with caramel.  I ate whatever Millie left me.

The kids played dodgeball, sensei says, the clapping game and just had a great time. The got a bag of candy on their way out.  I later found the candy they didn’t like in the back of my car