‘Dear Mom, So I did a thing …’

Dear Mom,

So, I did a thing yesterday. It was not something I had ever imagined myself doing, and as recently as a year ago wasn’t even on my radar.

I ran in and finished the Indy Mini Marathon.

I’m aware that this is a relatively routine thing for some people, but not for me. In fact, it was one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done, despite mounds of mostly self-inflicted frustration leading up to the start. Everyone who knew I was going to do this was convinced I could, except one guy—me.

I showed him.

And in the process, I proved to myself and hopefully to others that it’s never too late to start taking better care of oneself.

On August 25, 2016, you died unexpectedly. But your death was preventable because you failed to push through the pain and discomfort that came with exercising after your knee replacement surgeries a few years earlier. You became mostly sedentary, put on extra weight and your extremities became swollen from your lack of exercise. Eventually, a blood clot that no one was aware of dislodged from behind your knee and planted itself in your lung. You became ill on Sunday, we took you to the hospital on Monday and you died early that Thursday morning.

I’m convinced that had you gone to rehab like you were supposed to; continued to go golfing with your husband, my stepfather; and walked around the house and yard instead of sitting at your computer all day long, you’d still be with us.

But some good must always come from the bad, right?

I had already decided to take better care of myself a few weeks before you died. Linda and I were following a couch-to-5k program and as I improved, I realized that standard-issue tennis shoes weren’t cutting it for me. So in early July of that year, I bought my first pair of running shoes.

Historically, I’m a walker. I love to walk. You remember how, in my teens, I enjoyed hiking as a Boy Scout, and when Linda ran her first 5k in December 2013, I walked rapidly alongside her. It was a last-second decision I made the morning of the race and wound up finishing second in my age group, and earning a medal. You were so proud of us both.

I also love a challenge, and running was just that. I struggled as I progressed through the couch-to-5k program but reached a wall that I just couldn’t punch through. So like you, I quit.

Fast forward a few months, however, and I decided to force myself into running by entering my first 5k race as a runner. I did my best to train during the weeks leading up to that June 2017 race, but it was a struggle. Nonetheless, I finished, and in doing so established a new method of running for myself that involved alternating between running and walking (what I later learned was Jeff Galloway’s Run-Walk-Run Method). The 37 minutes, 51 seconds that it took me to finished was achieved in intervals of running for two minutes and walking for two minutes. At that time, every two-minute run felt like the longest two minutes of my life.

Finishing, though, felt exhilarating. I started to sense just slightly what I’d heard about the runner’s high. So we decided to run four more 5k races last year and signed up for the Red, White and Rosé Wine Run Series. Each race started and finished at a Central Indiana winery, and there was—of course—wine at the finish line.

Each one was another struggle, but I once again felt exhilarated at each finish.

Check out this video Linda made of me from the 2018 Indy Mini Marathon!

Also, on August 1, I started a lifestyle change that included semi-regular workouts in addition to running, and a diet that consisted of closely monitored caloric intake and portion control. When I started, I weighed about 175 pounds (which was down quite a bit from the low- to mid-180s where I’d been for a couple of years, and as much as the upper 190s several years before that), and my goal was to get down to 150 pounds or less. Through our health insurance provider, we were able to enroll in a one-year program that would help guide and support me to my goal. Diligently I stuck to my guns and in early November I hit my goal. Since then I’ve lost another 10 pounds or so and am at a maintenance point now in the program where I’m keeping my weight between 140 and 145 pounds.

Then last November—the 8th, in fact—the mini-marathon gauntlet was thrown down. My very good friend Mary Branham proposed that we run the Indy Mini together. I was intrigued (see my earlier reference about how much I love a challenge) and a couple of months later, I committed to running with her. The race was to be held on May 5, which would have been your 76th birthday, and I could think of no better way to pay tribute to you than to push through my own pain and discomfort in order to stay healthy and (hopefully) live longer.

Linda and I had already joined the local YMCA and I learned that I could wake myself up early on a semi-regular basis, trek the half-mile or so to the gym, and run. My distances were getting better and my times improving, so I convinced myself that I had this.

Until I got lazy. Linda began struggling with some health issues that prevented her from joining me at the Y, and I soon found every excuse in the book not to go. Every once in a while I’d become motivated and get back on schedule for a few days, but for the most part, I failed at training for this race.

Meanwhile, Linda and I determined that we want to run an average of one 5k race per month this year, and on March 3 we ran our first. It was the Pink Power 5k in Columbus, Indiana, and I felt awful afterward. That exhilarating sensation I’d felt at the finish line of every previous 5k was nowhere to be found and I was convinced that finishing a mini-marathon would be impossible.

Still, I tried to keep training—but continued to let myself down. Our next 5k was about a month away, so I set my sights on doing well in it. But right before that race, I learned that my friend Mary—due to a number of unexpected events—most likely wasn’t going to be able to run the Indy Mini.

That was the out I needed. If Mary wasn’t running, I didn’t have to run either, right? Suddenly, I was on the fence about what to do. Then came the next 5k on April 7, and I killed it. I didn’t intend to, but I ended up setting a new personal record, finishing in less than 30 minutes for the first time (29:44.7). The funny thing was, I tried to slow down to what I thought would be a good pace for a mini-marathon. Now I was again convinced once more that I could do it. Not only that, my friend, neighbor and co-worker Carmen was also going to run Indy, as was my niece, Ariel. Challenge: (once-again) Accepted.

But laziness took hold once more, however, and as it turns out, that April 7 5k was the last time I ran before yesterday. At all. I did absolutely zero training for 28 days leading up to yesterday. I did start doing some walking around town during my lunch breaks about a week and a half before the mini, but that was only to help keep my legs from becoming useless, lifeless chunks of flesh and bone. At the very least, surely I could walk the 13.1 miles fast enough to keep from being picked up by the street-sweeping stragglers’ bus at the back of the course, I thought.

The night before, Mary messaged me. Within the many encouraging things she told me was this: “Just remember to run your race, your pace. And keep to your training plan. If you didn’t eat or drink it during training, don’t try it on race day.” I thought to myself, “Great. I’ll wake up in the morning and talk myself out of running, just like I trained!”

But Mary’s support and the support of everyone else who knew what I was trying to do was what I truly needed to balance out the negativity I was throwing at myself. My internal struggle lasted all the way up to the morning of the race, fueled even further by Ariel’s unfortunate withdrawal from the race, sinus problems that kept my nasal passages almost completely blocked for the previous two weeks and my getting only 3 1/2 hours of sleep the night before. Even standing in the corral waiting to start the race I believed I couldn’t do it.

Until I began running. As I crossed the starting line and ran through the first 100 yards or so, my mind began to turn. On the fly, I decided not to listen to anything during the race except that usually annoying voice in my head, which was now filling me instead with the sounds of the people who were so supportive. I was determined to prove them right and myself wrong. At the first mile marker, I was genuinely surprised about how good I felt. At the second, I told myself I was beyond halfway of the first 5k. And when I reached that 5k point, my internal voice said, “You’re almost 25 percent done. You’ve got this.”

And I knew you were with me, too. Twenty-one minutes into the race I looked at my watch to see a notification from Facebook, reminding me that it was your birthday.

In the beginning, I did exactly what Mary said: I ran as I trained—when I trained—alternating between 1 1/2-minute runs and 30-second walks. After every three miles or so, I walked for 4 1/2 minutes, then returned to my intervals. That’s how I did my longest training run (which was only 7 miles way back on February 18) and it seemed to work then.

I made a few changes to that routine based on location, but mostly stuck to it through the first 8 1/2 miles, when, as exhaustion started to take hold I added 30 seconds to my walking interval. A sharp pain developed in my left knee around mile 10, so to keep from injuring myself I walked exclusively from then until just beyond the 12-mile marker. By then, I had walked most of the pain out and started my intervals back up with reduced running so that I was doing a minute of each. That took me across the finish line with a time of 2 hours, 42 minutes and 34 seconds, which was far beyond my expectations from earlier in the morning. I nearly cried as I thought about you and how proud I hoped you be of me.

I’m still surprised at how good I felt at the finish. In training, I usually was panting to breathe by the end of each 5k, but not yesterday. Nor was I overly thirsty or feeling dehydrated or hungry. I did eat a few squares of a Clif Shot Blok Energy Chew at a couple of points later in the race, and that completely satisfied any cravings I was having at the time.

I also changed my tune about whether or not I would ever run another mini-marathon. Within a minute of crossing the finish line, I received a text message from Mary. In our subsequent conversation she said, “The next one you run, I want to run, too.”

I thought about that for a little bit, then determined that I want that, too. Now that I have the first one out of the way, I know I can do more. Even Linda, who, like me, had strayed from the exercise regimen we’d created for ourselves, told me this morning that she’s ready to get back to running. Which means the world to me, because I don’t want to lose anyone else in my life due to inactivity—including myself.

So I’m going to put this out there right now for you and the universe to see: I WILL do this again (hopefully, several more times) and I think I’ll start with the Kentucky History Half Marathon, which will be held this September in Frankfort, Kentucky, where Mary lives. She says it’s a beautiful course, but that it’s also hilly, which will definitely be a challenge. But you should know how I will react to that.

Challenge: Accepted.

Love,
Rod

My take-aways from the Indy Mini Marathon:

• I had hoped to wear something special in memory of my mom, but that was among the things that I didn’t do in preparation for the race. Her favorite color, though, was red and whenever I wear something red, I think of her. So my red shorts yesterday were in her memory. Happy birthday, Mom!
• Running around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was especially symbolic for me. I spent as much time there as I possibly could each May between 1979 and 2000 as a photographer. For several years, if the track was open for race cars, I was there. But since my last Indy 500 and Brickyard 400 in 2000, I’ve not been back, mostly for personal reasons. Running that track was very meaningful.
• I worried about what to consume besides water during the race. Since I hadn’t run that distance before, I wasn’t sure what—if anything—to do. At the pre-race Expo the night before, one of the sponsors, Clif Bar, was giving away CLIF SHOT Energy Gel and CLIF BLOKS Energy Chews. I snagged a couple of each and put them in my running belt just in case I needed them. I didn’t notice any hunger along the way, but I did feel like I was lacking something, so I bit off a couple of the energy chews and was amazed at how much better that made me feel. Later, when I felt just the slightest twinge of nausea coming on, I ate a few more chews and it completely disappeared (I had the ginger ale-flavored ones). I will definitely be using these during future runs.
• Originally, I hoped I could finish the race in 2 hours, 30 minutes. But as the day grew nearer (and in consideration of my lack of training the preceding month), I began to think that maybe 2 hours, 45 minutes, or even 3 hours was a more appropriate goal. After seeing my pace for the first mile or two, the voice in my head kept repeating 2:44. In fact, I nearly texted that time to Linda and Ari just so I’d have it on record. Finishing in 2:42:34 was perfect.
• Like nearly any endeavor, this was not a one-person accomplishment. There’s no way I could have done this without the love, encouragement, food, transportation, or some combination of those things provided by my family and friends, each of which deserves more accolades than this simple shout-out can provide. So thank you from the bottom of my heart to Linda (duh), Ari, Mary, Tyler, Zach, Megan, Alex, Mark, Frank, Carmen and Greg. I know I’m forgetting people, and for that I’m sorry.