Why I Started Running

Yesterday I officially began training for the Flying Pig Marathon with a 10 mile run. Other than a bit of stiffness from the cold, it was a good run and things are off to a fine start. As I ran I listened to a sermon called 'before you change, don't change anything' by Steve Daugherty from Crosspointe Church in Cary, NC and a podcast from This American Life. Well...I say I listened. I did, but, as is often the case, my mind wandered all over the place.

One place it stopped was Louisville, KY for a brief visit to the event which inspired me to take up running in the first place.

Christmas 2001. We celebrated with my in laws, the Whitlocks. I don't remember much about that Christmas. My kids were 6 and 10. I'm sure that Christmas, like most others with the Whitlocks, was great fun...all the cousins were children, so there'd have been the music of their toys and laughs and exclamations of approval for their gifts.

One of the gifts from my mother in law to our family was a bathroom scale; the first one we'd own after 12+ years of marriage. The picture above is of me just after opening it. I'm not sure what I was thinking. From the look on my face, it was probably something like, 'I'd have preferred a German chocolate cake...or a larger belt.' I'm sure I sucked in my gut (or tried to), as if to deny the need for being aware of my weight. Clearly it was an appropriate, if somewhat awkward gift.

In December 2001 it had been at least 2 years since I'd stood on a bathroom scale. The last time I'd weighed what was, for me, an alarming 190 pounds. At 5'10", 190 is most definitely not a healthy weight, although, still a little shy of clinically obesity.

In the time between we'd moved to Pittsburgh and taken on the stress of leading a church whose collective age was about 21 and average annual income not much more than 21. Dollars. We loved New Hope...its youth; its raw, open worship services; its many amazing people. But, I had no clue what I was doing Monday-Saturday trying to lead a church, and it was crazy stressful for me. Having given up every other vice, and not having developed any healthy coping skills, I ate. A lot.

I knew I was gaining weight, but, without a scale to confirm this, I kind of ignored it. Yes, it was getting hard to breath when walking from the house to the car, but, hey, I did have to walk uphill to get there. Yes, wearing a seatbelt was nearly unbearably uncomfortable, but that was a pretty poofy winter coat I'd bought, and those seatbelts are overly restrictive. Yes, wrestling my 10 year old son sometimes made me fear I'd faint on top of him causing him to suffocate, but, he was pretty quick and he would most likely squirm out of the way before that happened.

So, at the end of the holidays, we politely packed that scale with the rest of our things and headed back to Pittsburgh. I'm not sure how long it was before I got up the nerve to step on that thing. But, I remember quite clearly the event when it finally took place.

I rolled out of the shower, dried off with my sail sized towel, chucked it down the laundry shoot - launching my towel off my big toe into the laundry shoot was sometimes one of the most exciting things I did all day - and the little devil caught my eye, glaring at me out from under the sink.

I pulled it out, tapped the button with my extremely talented toe, waited (weighted?) for the numbers to flash to zero, and clambored on.

Because I try not to use such words on the internet, I will leave out what I said, but I will tell you that I said it right out loud and that while it included several words, most of them contained only 4 letters.

190 I could ignore, even laugh about. 'Maybe I should cut back on the cookies, or even, haha, exercise.'

225, I could not ignore and I didn't find it very funny. I like 'The Hobbit,' but I didn't want to BE one!

I pictured my dad, lying in the hospital waiting for one of his bi-annual angioplasties. I didn't like the look of those beds much.

I saw my kids graduating from Harvard and Oxford, giving their valedictorian speeches, saying, that while they were glad my life insurance had made this day possible, they'd gladly have gone to community college instead if it meant I'd be alive to share it with them.

I saw Denise, thanking God that it wasn't my habit to mow the yard shirtless.

I knew something had to change. Not soon. Now.