The one mile run was the only event I excelled at in gym class, which meant I was in the top tier of my classmates one class a year—the day we ran as part of the Presidential Fitness Award. Any satisfaction I took from beating the varsity athletes on the track or lapping around the gym was short-lived, though. My tall, gangly frame and poor depth perception made me a mediocre team sport player at best, and a round of dodgeball or a pickup basketball game would quickly restore the rightful order.
I never thought to join the track team when I was at Honeoye Falls-Lima, which is a shame, because I probably would have been a fair middle-distance runner. I could run a sub-5:20 mile (once a year) without feeling terribly winded, and though I hiked and skied, I never ran outside of gym class. With a proper training regimen and better, which is to say, any kind of technique, I probably would have been in the four-minute range.
We moved to Honeoye before I started 10th grade; Honeoye now boasts a fine cross-country team, but the team came about long after I graduated in the mid 80s, and the school lacked a track. Basketball, softball, and soccer were the sports of choice, and I excelled at none of them.
Instead, I took up cycling, a sport more suited to my physique and temperament. I was reasonably competitive in the citizen’s races held at any one of a number of villages and towns in the area, but I lacked the knowledge, discipline, and once I started working long summer hours in a concrete factory, time, to truly excel.
I was also a terrible sprinter. There wasn’t much I could do about that. But it didn’t matter, for as much as I loved the thrill and terror of riding in a pack, what I enjoyed most was the freedom to ride for miles, alone or with friends, through the Finger Lakes.
My times improved dramatically after I joined Nazareth College’s swim team in my junior year. I was a decidedly sluggish swimmer, but the hours of low-impact cross training kept me injury free, and I started the 1989 season in better form than ever before. That season would culminate with a age group podium, my first and only real success as a cyclist. It would also be my last competitive year as a cyclist, as graduate school consumed most of the 90s.
Prior to 2001, my weight had never topped 150 pounds. I attribute most of this to my having the metabolism of a Humming Bird (living on a graduate assistant’s stipend probably helped for a few years as well). The bird died in my early thirties: I gained over forty pounds in 2001. That brought me back to cycling. I entered a few races, only to discover that the field was faster and I . . . wasn’t.
I stopped riding when my teaching schedule simply became too hectic. Predictably, the weight I’d kept at bay returned. The pounds brought some friends. When we moved back to the Pittsburgh area in 2008, I got back on the bike to keep the pounds off. It worked for a number of years, until I had a few too many close encounters with motorists who, unwilling to share the narrow, empty country roads, chose to voice their opinions by passing inches away from my left shoulder. Weekly.
Once again, I gradually gained weight. I went past the 190 pounds that sent me back to the bike in 2001 and 08. I went past 200. Then I stopped keeping track.
In 2017, we moved to Syracuse to be closer to my parents. Syracuse, with its trails and coffee shops, is a highly walkable city, and I took to exploring our new home daily. It was too little, too late. I started to have episodes of acid reflux that involved intense, debilitating pain. I found myself getting winded when I climbed a few flights of stairs.
Then, in March of 2018, I spent four days in the hospital. I developed a large deep being thrombosis in my left leg, parts of which migrated to my lungs. I was fortunate in that I didn’t require surgery or a longer stay.
A battery of tests never revealed a definitive cause. This is not uncommon—about 40% of clots are unprovoked, but there is a fairly substantial correlation between clots and obesity. At this point, my weight was around 216 pounds, probably down somewhat from a peak the previous summer, but enough so that with my six-foot frame, my BMI was pushing 30. Nobody lectured me about my weight at the hospital or in my subsequent physicals—where I learned that I had high cholesterol and an A1C on the upper end of normal, so I can’t definitively say that my weight was the only factor, but combined with my being male and turning 50, it substantially increased my odds of developing the clots, even with no family history of such problems.
I didn’t need lectures to know that I needed to lose the weight. I faced weeks of pain and swelling in my leg, and the extra pounds exacerbated the soreness. So I began to make changes. Nothing drastic; in my experience, sudden, sweeping changes are hard to maintain. Instead, I focused on small, easily contollable changes—I cut out my daily bottle of soda. I reduced portion sizes and limited the number of snacks we kept around the house,
Finally, I started to walk more. It was painful at first, but over time, the walking actually started to resolve the aches. My walks grew longer and faster, and I kept at it, logging 4-5 miles a day rain, shine, or eventually, snow.
I don’t know why I started toying with the idea of running. Perhaps it was some long-dormant competitive streak or a break from routine. At this point, that’s all it was—toying. I wasn’t sure how my soon-to-be 51 year-old joints would handle the pounding. I worried about getting injured or developing arthritis. This from someone who used to delight in descending at 55mph down a sketchy hill near Cross Creek. But things were different now.
I’d never been injured riding a bicycle because I was lucky, then experienced, and finally, a combination of the two. But I’d seen enough crashes and injuries and barely avoided others to know how dangerous cycling can be, and with the probability of being on blood thinners for the rest of my life, I wouldn’t be taking that sport up again soon.
I was on the fence about running as well. A few people warned me that I’d ruin my knees. I listened. I didn’t run a step in 2018.
My weight loss strategy, which really wasn’t a strategy at all, was working. I fell below 200 by August; by October, I was down to 190 and feeling better. My leg still tingled and ached, but my heartburn was subsiding and I could take several flights of stairs without gasping for breath.
I hit 180 the following summer. This was a milestone; I hadn’t been at this weight since 2012, when I rode over 8,000 miles. And iy was around that time that the running bug bit me again. I started jogging short stretches between blocks from time to time, just to see how it felt. I thought about buying a decent pair of running shoes, lighter shorts, and possibly even entering a race, just for something different.
Then, as I searched for information about the local running scene, I spotted an ad for the Syracuse Half Marathon. 13.1 miles. I’d never run for more than one. Heck, I hadn’t walked that far since I was in the scouts. But it gave me a concrete goal with what I hoped to be a realistic timeline—about four months. I bought a pair of running shoes, laced up, and went for my first real run in over thirty years on July 19.
This isn’t a couch to 5K story. I had over a year of base miles and some lengthy speed walking under my belt, but I was green as hell. I joined a fun run ay Onondaga Lake Park in August, less than a month after I started running. I hoped to break 30 minutes. I broke 30 minutes. It felt like I broke my hip in the process. I could barely move when I got home. Stair frightened me for a couple of days afterward.
I had a decent endurance base. That would have allowed for steady, if slow training rides on a bike. Running is not like riding a bicycle; I hadn’t given my bones and muscled enough time to adjust to the pounding, not my tendons time to adapt to the low-drop shoes I was wearing. My runs, while not overly long, were simply too much, too soon.
After a few days off, additional research, and hard-earned realism, I resumed, entered my first official 5K in September, and caught the racing bug. I even started place in my age group, something that only happened once after five years of bicycle racing. And on November 10, 2019, though I was probably an hour behind the winners, I finished the Syracuse half marathon.
Since then, I’ve become increasingly aware of how wonderful Syracuse’s running community is, how our trails and parks give us extraordinary access to safe training and competition venues, and how we’re spoiled by an array of local companies geared toward our community. I’ve met dozens of fellow runners, joined group runs and training that I desperate miss in these days of physical distancing, and I’ve seen how important this sport is to the physical and economic health of the community.
Most of all, I’ve been touched by the generosity of many; people who volunteer their time to coach, to assist with races, to cheer us on, and to support local and regional events in these troubled times, events that bring in thousands for charity and research.
I still have flickers of doubt, often when I’m at the redline in a 5K or slogging through the final miles of a long run. But I’ve learned to take intrinsic pleasure in the act of running, and I see myself continuing without long breaks for years to come.
