First Steps – August 21, 2003

“Man … this is going to take a while.”

That was the only thought that my brain could muster as my oxygen-deprived legs came to a stop, my heart pounded like a jackhammer, and my lungs burned from the exertion.

It was the first night in my endeavor to run around our 2-mile block, and my body had just informed me in no uncertain terms that I was ill-prepared for such a feat. I say “night” because I had waited until 9pm for the sun to go down sufficiently enough so that nobody would be able to see me as I attempted to propel my pudgy, 20-pound overweight body down our neighborhood street.

It was almost exactly 8 months after I had blurted out to Jenny that “I want to run a marathon someday”, and I had finally taken my first steps, just for the sake of running, since high school cross country nearly 23 years earlier.

For her part, Jenny had been training for nearly 10 weeks for the Chicago Marathon, which was now only 6 weeks away. There was no doubt in my mind that she was going to conquer the 26.2 miles.

And there I was, huffing and puffing in the darkness and wondering – how far had I just run? After estimating that I had made it roughly halfway from my “Start Line” at 35th and Kincaid to the corner at Croco, the dispiriting realization sunk in…

A quarter mile.

About 400 meters.

One lap around a track.

I was going to have to run the equivalent of 8 laps simply to achieve my goal of running around our 2-mile block.

And a marathon?

Well, a marathon is 26.2 miles, or 42,195 meters. If you “do the math” this equates to… 105 laps.

As I walked the remaining 1 ¾ miles around the block, it dawned on me that I had not even run 1% of a marathon. My admiration for what Jenny was doing grew exponentially, as did my sense of despondency for even voicing the foolish notion of running a marathon.

At that moment 26.2 miles seemed ridiculously unattainable, and the goal of running 2 miles became even more important. If nothing else, I owed it to my wife and kids to lose the extra weight that I was carrying.

I decided to be patient and to set smaller goals, breaking the 2-mile square block into its 4 half-mile sides. So the first goal was to run the first half-mile stretch to Croco Road. Okay, Croco Road … that’s the goal.

While driving to work the next morning, I spent a little bit of extra time at the Stop sign at Croco Road, visualizing what it would be like to run that far. (Over the years I have driven or run past that sign literally thousands of times, and to this day it still stands as a symbol of those early running nights.)

So the next night, as I left the corner of Kincaid and 35th St., I clung to the optimistic thought that I could double the previous night’s run and make it to Croco Road. Again, the legs and lungs said, “Not so fast.” I had basically made it to one more mailbox.

All right, so we will just aim to go one more mailbox each night. As I walked the remainder of the block that night, I counted that there were 51 more mailboxes to conquer in order to complete the 2-mile block.

And how many days until Jenny’s marathon in Chicago? Exactly 51 days.

The coincidence was jarring. All right, we will run one more mailbox each night with the hope of completing the 2-mile block by the time Jenny runs her marathon.

During each day, a sense of dread would hang over me about that evening’s run. It was hard, and it didn’t seem to be getting any easier. Would I be able to make it to another mailbox?

Some nights, the “next” mailbox was relatively close to the previous night’s.

Others, there would be what seemed like an insurmountable gap.

After about a week of this, a mental breakthrough occurred as I made it to my first (half-)milestone … the Stop sign at Croco Road. I was both figuratively and literally turning the corner!

While this certainly was cause for celebration, my jubilation quickly wore off when I turned the corner and realized that the next half-mile of my journey was going to be uphill (that night it looked like Mount Everest) to North Fairview Elementary School, where my kids attended. Ten more mailboxes, up the hill.

So again, each night I dutifully dragged my body to the Start Line around 9pm and trudged my way along the road, hopeful of reaching another mailbox. And each night, after vanquishing that night’s finish line, I would walk around the remainder of the block, counting mailboxes and dreaming of the night when it would hopefully start to get easier.

Finally, the night arrived when I made it to the school. I had finally run something that actually had a name.

A mile.

One thing that I began to notice was that it was becoming slightly easier, and over the course of the 16 nights it had taken to reach the school, I was starting to feel better, slept better, seemed less anxious, and my pants didn’t seem as tight. (I had decided not to weigh myself until AFTER completing the entire 2-mile block)

I was actually starting to look forward to it. (Years later I read that rockets must travel about 62 miles to leave Earth’s atmosphere. Because of the decreasing pressure as they gain altitude, they consume more fuel in the first mile than in the remaining miles combined. This reminded me of my “first mile” and how, as long as we persevere, things will often get easier. Remember that the next time you are facing challenges while in the “first mile” of a new endeavor.)

We were now halfway to the goal of 2 miles, with 35 more mailboxes to go.

Given my newfound confidence, combined with the fact that the next leg of the journey was predominately downhill, I decided to stretch it out to TWO extra mailboxes each night. It truly was getting much easier, and my nightly runs were becoming an important part of not only my physical, but also my mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Following the two-mailbox approach, in ten days we had made it to the next corner at 39th and Kincaid, and were ready for the homestretch.

Half a mile to go.

By this time I was brimming with confidence, and decided to run the remaining 16 mailboxes FOUR at a time. It was now late September, the evenings were getting slightly cooler, and my conditioning was drastically improving.

Finally the day arrived when I would make my attempt to run the entire 2-mile block. It was all that I could think about all day at work. I could barely contain my excitement as I made my way to the Start (which I later hoped would also be my Finish) Line at 35th and Kincaid.

The cooler air was beginning to carry a hint of Autumn, and unlike that first night in August, my breathing was controlled and easy. While making the turns at each corner, I would reach up and tap the Stop sign, each of which had seemed like an impossible goal only weeks before.

As I made my way to the final Stop sign at the corner where it had all begun, I thrust my arms into the air and punched the darkness. It felt like I had won the Olympics!

As I weighed myself that evening for the first time in a month, my elation was heightened even more. I had lost nearly 10 pounds!

While the whole experience had certainly been humbling, that night I was convinced that, with patience and perseverance, a marathon was at least possible.

Only 24.2 more miles to go.