You know I'm doing whatever it takes. Put out,
never hitting the price. Getting the medals,
I'm ready to race. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Time to
get it on. Life is not a dash. Living like a
marathon. Who ready? Who running? This is your
time. It's your moment. Who ready? Who running?
Strap season, let's go. Welcome. to Not Another
Running podcast, where we talk all things running.
I am your host, Lion 6, and in today's episode,
I will be sharing with you how I fell in love
with the sport of running. In October of 2022,
I decided to finally go ahead and get surgery
on my left knee. I went from working out six
days a week to laying on the couch doing nothing
but eating Reese's peanut butter cups, McDonald's
french fries, pizza. You name it, I was consuming
it. I did not care. For the first time in my
life, I was going to get fat. That was my sole
objective. I'm talking dad bod in full effect,
big back season. So at the start of my quest
for achieving the almighty dad bod, I weighed
175 pounds. By the end of that, sitting around
doing nothing but binge eating junk, I was up
to 200 pounds. Your boy had gotten big. To go
from being athletic and fit to out of shape is
a very humbling pill to swallow. I mean, I became
super self -conscious about myself and naturally
what I would do, even though probably nobody
really cared, really probably didn't notice how
out of shape I had gotten, I just cracked jokes
on myself. That was my security blanket, my way
of putting up a front so people wouldn't laugh
at me. It was me being self -conscious about
myself. I look in the mirror and I didn't like
the dude that was looking back at me. I knew
I couldn't return to work now until the end of
January, so I decided I would try to clean my
diet up just a little bit. Long story short,
that didn't happen. I could not kick my Reese's
Peanut Butter Cup habit at all. So I'm sitting
on the couch chilling and my son come down the
stairs and he's like, hey man. Then pants is
looking a little tight on you. I look over at
him. I'm like Yeah, I know man, but I Just don't
have anything to motivate me to really get me
to want to do better I'm in a rut He says You
should do a marathon Like with anything first
thing I did is Google Marathon near me First
result that pops up is capital city marathon
Sunday, May 17 2023 I look at my son. I'm like
bet we in there. This gives me like five months
to get in shape I'm motivated now. Let's go So
obviously the first thing I do is sign up for
the marathon just to make it official Then I
scroll down the page and I see capital city marathon
training group. So I'm like, hey, I might as
well sign up for this too So I get the email
from the training group and it just so happens
that the first day of the running group training
that first Saturday Happens to be when I can
start training again. So it was like it was meant
to be essentially so the group meets every Saturday
at 730 and pretty much the way the program works
is this 17 weeks and each week it It's designed
to help you build up your mileage to get you
to the point to where you could complete the
marathon distance. At this point, I didn't know
anything about running. I was completely green
to marathon training. I would go to the Saturday
group runs. And then Tuesday through Friday,
I run for 60 minutes each day at the same speed,
as hard as I could go. I didn't understand. anything
about running at all. I just always grew up knowing
go as hard as you can, go as hard as you can.
So that's essentially how I trained for the marathon.
In fact, I was so silly that every time I run,
I'd be wearing a 10 pound weighted vest thinking
that it's gonna make me more explosive and the
marathon distance way easier. How foolish was
that? So fast forward through the training cycle.
I'm going to all these Saturday long runs with
the group and Like a fool, I'm sitting there
thinking I'm racing people, and these people
are just, you know, running how runners are supposed
to run, just out there to build the mileage,
get the mitochondria, and I'm out here thinking
I'm impressing people, and I'm racing. I'm like,
oh, look at me. I'm the fastest, yada, yada,
yada, this and that. So I was really out there
feeling myself. The weight was coming off. I'm
finishing these training runs first. I was so
naive. I'm coming home telling my son, like,
look. These dudes can't touch me. Come race day,
ain't nobody beat me. Don't nobody have the willpower
I have. Like, if there's somebody in front of
me, nobody's mentally tougher than me, man. I'm
about to go out there and I'ma eat. I was such
a fool. I didn't even have a running watch for
crying out loud. So it's race day. We finally
here. I am super excited. Can't nobody tell me
nothing. I'm about to dominate. I stepped to
the start line. I got a smooth SpongeBob baseball
cap. I got it turned backwards. I'm wearing Adidas
UltraBoost 2019. These things aren't even running
shoes. I don't know no better. Bang, the gun
goes off. So I take off. I'm like, ah! Going
as fast as I can. I'm looking to the side, this
tall dude beside me, and he just gliding like...
He's not even trying. Here I am, and I'm in an
all -out sprint. Keep in mind, I don't have a
GPS watch, so I don't know the speed that we're
going or anything, but I'm sitting there in an
all -out sprint. I'm like... I keep looking over
at this dude, and he's just gliding like a gazelle,
and I'm thinking, I'm not gonna be able to hold
this up. So I say we get to the mile -two marker,
and I'm thinking, okay... Fast horse don't run
long. This dude will tire out. I'm just sit back
and gather myself. And as long as I can see him,
I got the heart that I'm a hocking down. So I
slow down. I'm sitting back in the cuts. And
then one person passed me, two person passed
me, three person passed me. We get to around
mile eight. And there's this couple. And they're
walking. And the guy looks at me. He's like,
good job. You're number 10 right now. And I'm
sitting here thinking like, Number 10 I'm fighting
for my life at this time. My legs feel heavy.
I'm like, oh boy What did I get myself into?
So the capital city marathon course is a very
rural course like you're on a lot of back roads
where there's nobody around So I'm sitting here.
I'm looking around and I don't see nobody around
me. I'm like, man This ain't no good. So I'll
just keep on going going through the course like
anybody else would, I'm in pain, I just wanna
tap out at this point. We get to around mile
18 and the lead female car is pulling up behind
me and I look over my shoulder and I see a lady
coming up behind me and I'm like, ain't no way
I'm about to let no woman beat me. So I'm sitting
here. moving and flapping around, floundering,
trying to move faster, and she just comes gliding
right by me. I'm like, how is this happening
to me? Like, what is going on? I literally was
giving it my all, but I could not move. It's
hard to explain. It's like being in a scary movie
where somebody's chasing you or a scary dream
and somebody's chasing you, and you're going
all out, but you can't escape that person. That's
how this was. I'm looking, I'm like, oh, this
is just pathetic. I cannot believe this. By now,
reality set in. I wasn't coming in first. I wasn't
coming in second. Heck, I wasn't even coming
in 10th place. At this point, I just needed to
figure out a way to finish. So before the race,
I made it up in my mind that no matter what,
I would not walk. Well, the marathon had different
plans. I'm at like mile 24 and all of a sudden
coming up behind me is a lady that was significantly
older than me. She passed me by and she has a
nice calm smile on her face and she says, good
job. And I'm thinking, man, screw this. I'm about
to just walk. I don't even care no more. So my
slow trot turned into a walk of shame. I wasn't
walking because physically, My body quit. I was
walking because I was being a brat. I was embarrassed.
I was mad. I just couldn't believe that this
was happening to me after all the crazy stuff
I was talking. And to have this happen to me,
I just couldn't handle it. I crossed the finish
line in three hours and 28 minutes, finished
19th overall out of 247 participants. I was in
pain, both physically and mentally. My pride
was hurting. I remember walking back to the car,
and my wife and son, they were helping me. And
I stopped, and they stopped, and I waved them
forward like, go ahead, I'll catch up to you.
I got to stretch. I was lying. I bent down and
acted like I was stretching, but I was actually
crying. I was crying because... I never want
to let my son down. I always want to be somebody
that my son could look up to. And at that point
in time, I felt like I failed him as a father.
I failed him as a man. I've always preached to
him mental toughness. And I just couldn't do
what I told him I was going to do. And it really
hurt my pride to come up short to my son. And
he had said to me, good job dad I'm still proud
of you and the fact that he said I'm still proud
of you that just I just lost it so I was like
hey go forward and I remember bending down that
thing like I'm tying my shoe and I'm sitting
there just bawling or acting like I'm stretching
so fast forward to June Father's Day and my wife
bought me a Coral's Paste II I looked at her
and I was like I don't know what you bought me
this for I'm not about to run no more And she's
like, no, but you are. I was like, what you mean?
Well, I didn't tell you, but while you were out
there running, Iverson asked the guy that was
tracking the runners, hey, is Ricky Reed in first
place? And he looked at Iverson and laughed.
See, that's one thing about my wife. She knows
exactly what buttons to push and how to bring
out the best in me. I was like, really? She was
like, yeah. I was like, OK. Yeah, I'm going to
train. I'm going to make sure this dude never
laugh at my son ever again. So first thing I
did was Google marathon training books. I came
across this book called Advanced Marathon by
Pete Fizer, I think his name is. And so I read
that book from cover to end, set the kitchen
table, read it in like three hours. Then I devised
my game plan. My next order of business was to
figure out a goal finish time So once again,
I used my good friend Google and I said what's
a good finish time considered a Standard finish
time for somebody wants to be a good marathoner
and it says sub 3 So then I'm like, alright then
this sub 3 season. So my whole mantra that summer
was sub 3 I joined a Facebook group called Sub
3 Marathon, and I would go in the group, and
I'm asking questions. And this guy said, in the
marathon block, you should try to get multiple
20 -mile runs. So me being the guy I am, I said,
OK, cool. Every Saturday, I'm going to run and
do a 20 -mile run. And I remember every Saturday
that I'd go and do these 20 -mile runs. Each
time it got easier and easier to compartmentalize
the distance. During those 20 mile runs, I had
so much time to think, so much time to reflect,
and I just loved them. It became an addiction.
So to sum it up, pretty much that whole summer,
I followed the outline of the book. One speed
day a week, and then a long run on the weekend.
I would do my speed session every Tuesday, pretty
much. go and I try to run fast as I could for
60 minutes I mean pedal to the metal I didn't
have no understanding of fart licks or workouts
it was just 60 minutes as hard as I could trying
to keep under 645 pace during that marathon build
I peaked my mileage around 75 miles per week
I would say I was averaging around 60 miles per
week That October I ran the Portland Marathon
and I reached my goal of attaining the sub -3.
I finished in 2 hours and 58 minutes. This time
when I crossed the finish line, I didn't have
the feeling of failure and depression. I could
actually face my son a winner. I completed my
mission. I made him proud. I made myself proud.
And that's how I fell in love with running. catch
a flight.