Freedom Run Read online

  Running Naked

  One of the things I have been asked about often is why I don’t wear a watch while running. When I started training for the Richmond Marathon in the summer of 2009, I promised myself I wouldn’t become a slave to my times. I wanted to do this to enjoy it, to better myself. I enjoy running “naked,” as it’s termed in the running community, because then I’m not tempted to keep looking at my time and pushing myself for a PR (personal record). I’ve often told my wife, “The morning I wake up and am not happy with work, that’s the day I change careers.” That relates to my running as well. I don’t want missing a PR by seconds or minutes affecting my mood and minimizing my ability to run for the pure enjoyment of the sport. I want to be happy and satisfied with the fact that I can get out and do it because I love to run, and not be so focused on having to achieve a specific time that, if I happen to fall short of, will cause me to get upset. I’m not wired to run as fast as a lot of the amazing runners I encounter at races, but I think I am wired to enjoy it for what it is—me against the trail and being able to take in what is around me because I just love being outdoors.

  I’m also one who never runs with headphones or music playing as a distraction to help me get through a training run. I wasn’t always that way, though. When I started training for my first marathon in June 2009, I would not go on a run without wearing my headphones. Based on reading articles and having conversations with other runners at the time, many runners believe that listening to music while they trained was the only way they could get through two or three hours of running as they prepared for a big race. It made perfect sense to me as well. What could I possibly think about during three hours of running that would help keep me sane? There is no way I could go through pounding the pavement for long periods of time without music blaring in my ears or an audio book to listen to in order to help pass the time. So I ventured off on each run wearing my headphones, letting the music kill time and occupy my mind as I set out to train for the Richmond Marathon. I found myself getting lost in the music or the stories being told, and I was proving to myself that it was indeed the only way to get through those long training runs. I also didn’t particularly enjoy running with people because I didn’t feel like I was in good enough shape to carry on a conversation with anyone while running, so the music became my running partner.

  I planned my training schedule for Richmond to work out so that the day I started training was exactly 24 weeks before the race. Because of where I was physically, I knew it was going to take a little bit of time to get a good base under my feet before I kicked the training into high gear. I had never in my life run more than 12 miles at once, which I did two separate times around the base at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, South Carolina, where I was stationed. Those runs were just runs to celebrate the retirement or discharge of friends from the Marine Corps. Tackling a run that was 26.2 miles in one shot seemed like an intimidating task, but one I knew I could complete if I could stay healthy. But I also knew I needed to be mentally prepared for what was to come. I did a lot of research and had many discussions with friends of mine who were runners, and most who had completed a marathon utilized training plans that had been put together by Hal Higdon. Hal is a highly respected author, runner and all-around authority for runners worldwide. After looking at the plans, which varied from Novice to Professional, I decided on an Intermediate track. I felt confident that I could handle the training schedule and the miles seemed pretty doable.

  For me, running has been much more of a mental than physical journey. I knew that if I could get through the first six weeks of the plan, especially reaching the 12-mile mark in Week 5, then what I would do is start the program back over again from the beginning. That way I had a good base, and also the confidence in my mind that I had already run those initial miles from the first six weeks. For me, running has become a mental chess game against my mind and my body, seeing how far I could push myself. I also learned from previous life experiences that I have to be able to convince myself I can do something, not just jump in headfirst without thinking it through a little bit. This warm-up section through the training program would be great for me. I knew it would only build my confidence.

  Shedding Pounds and Bad Habits

  In committing to running the Richmond Marathon, I also had to take a look at my lifestyle and examine which things were really important to me. As I said, when I do something I tend to tackle it head on, and I knew that running a marathon required more than just logging the training miles. I had to be all in. One aspect of my life that I had to evaluate and subsequently alter was my sleeping pattern. At this point in my life, I was still very much a night owl. I have never really slept much—maybe four to six hours a night—so I usually would stay up late, many nights way past midnight, then get up around 6 a.m. and really struggle to get myself going in the mornings. My career was also an accomplice to my sleep pattern. I have been in the information technology (IT) industry for most all of my adult working life. With an IT job comes constant concerns with security and uptime, so I always kept my phone or pager by my bed so I could answer the call at any time.

  Knowing that I was about to step into a training routine that would require many hours on the trails, I made a commitment to my wife that I would do all of my training early in the morning. My family time in the evening was very important to me. We have two young children who are involved in sports and other activities, and evenings were also reserved for spending time with my wife, and I did not want to sacrifice that time. This was something I knew I would initially struggle with, but as people talked with me about becoming more active, they found that they slept better and it generally made them more productive in life. Tiffany was very happy that I was making this commitment as well, which I knew could only help our marriage in the long run, too.

  When I decided to start getting myself into better shape in early 2009, I was at my heaviest weight ever. Just years removed from being that physically fit Marine, here I was standing 5-foot-9 and weighing 198 pounds. The day I stepped on the scale and saw that I was about to reach the 200-pound mark was an eye opener. “How in the world did I let myself get this far out of shape!” I asked myself.

  I had always worked to stay in pretty good shape throughout the years, but at this point in my life I started to drift away from those healthy habits. I wasn’t paying attention to what I was eating. It was common for me to have two or three beers with dinner, or an extra glass of wine with my wife. Snacks had also become a part of my diet that I just accepted. I enjoy eating tremendously, and have learned over the years to enjoy the taste of many healthy alternatives thanks to the encouragement of my wife, but I wasn’t doing anything to burn off those calories I was consuming every day.

  I made the decision to change my eating habits. When I did snack, I ate healthier foods that were prepared in advance. And based on how bad I felt after eating a cheeseburger from a fast-food restaurant, I made a concerted effort to try to cut out the drive-thru meals we ate as a family. Through research and experimentation, I also learned how to balance my consumption of carbohydrates and protein. In essence, I retrained myself from eating for enjoyment and taste to eating in order to fuel my body, which really is the primary reason for consuming food.

  Aside from my desire to keep from tipping 200 pounds on the scale, another reason I altered my diet and began running at that time was because I wanted to be able to keep up with my children. My son was beginning to participate in sports and I didn’t want to be one of those parents who sit on the sideline watching their kids, unable to participate with them because I was too overweight or out of shape. I wanted to be able to actively participate in those activities with him, which required some physical activity on my part.

  I hated the feeling of being winded after running up and down the soccer field or basketball court with my kids. The sharp pain in my side, the difficulty in breathing and the overall exhaustion I experienced were simply embarrassing. I wanted to be able t
o enjoy those times and not embarrass my children or myself. I wanted to be able to be an active participant in that part of their lives, and I knew I needed to make some changes in my own life to make that happen. I also reflected back to my childhood, when I made a promise to myself that when I became a father I would spend quality time with my children. I was not going to go back on that promise.

  I also had some personal inspiration in my life that helped motivate me to make this change. A very close friend of mine had made some very dramatic changes in his life during the past few years, and I was fascinated at what he had accomplished and was continuing to pursue in his life. Jason Thomas was actually my boss at a job I held for a number of years and he was someone I looked up to tremendously. He was a couple of years younger than me, but was a highly motivated individual, a very hard worker and could inspire those around him in a matter of minutes with his passion for life and learning. He also struggled, however, with his weight, and it was something that he confronted after some pretty hard-hitting things happened in his life. When he left our organization in 2004, he was about my height, but also weighed about 245 pounds. Within a few short years, he was running marathons and completing Ironman triathlons, and he had dropped down to about 155 pounds. He changed his diet, his activity level and most importantly his outlook on life.

  I only had a chance to see him a couple of times after he left the company, and at the time he stated that he was going to start working out and running. But many people talk of such things and never follow through. We met for lunch in 2008, and when I walked into the Boston Beanery and looked around the room for him, I figured I must have beaten him to the restaurant. But then I realized that as my eyes scanned the faces of the business men and women and college students that sat at the bar and tables, I had actually looked right at him several times without realizing who he was. It was amazing to see the transformation in his physical appearance. But after talking with Jason for a few minutes, I was equally amazed by the transformation of the outlook on life he now had.

  It wasn’t necessarily anything that he said that day, but it was the way he said things and the confidence that he exuded that really affected me. It was almost as if I could literally see confidence and a greater self-worth oozing out of him. I was struck by the fact that not only had he lost so much weight, but he had gained a new perspective on what was important in life. The stories he shared about enjoying outdoor adventures with his wife and family inspired me to examine my own life and ponder the things that I was missing out on by being that person on the couch watching the world go by on an LCD screen. Jason’s energy and renewed passion for life caused me to reconsider my focus and what it was I wanted out of my own life. I knew I wasn’t happy with the direction I was headed. I walked away from that conversation with Jason that day a changed person. I know it was not his intention to influence me, but I couldn’t help but be influenced after the changes I witnessed in him. I knew when I walked out of that restaurant that day that I wanted to change the direction of my life and accomplish something greater than I had ever imagined for myself.

  Even though I knew that day that I wanted to cast a new vision for my life, I still had no idea at the time that three years later I would have transformed into an ultramarathon distance runner who had completed a nearly 3,500-mile run across America. But it’s amazing what the human body and mind are capable of accomplishing if the proper motivation and inspiration are in place. For me, that inspiration was the desire to aid and assist communities in realizing ways to support our military heroes returning home and encourage wounded veterans by showing them the admiration, love and support I have for each and every one of them. I never realized, however, that the message would become so much more than that. What my family and I were about to embark on would make an impact in more ways than we ever imagined.

  Chapter 2: Rising Before the Sun

  How do you prepare your body to run across America? One step at a time. That answer sounds simple and even sarcastic, but there really is no other way to train for such a monumental task. If you aspire to accomplish greatness, it is not going to happen overnight. An aspiration, dream or vision becomes nothing more until it is fertilized with hard work and commitment. It requires planning and setting a series of difficult but achievable benchmarks. It also requires dedication to reach those benchmarks, and persistence to push forward when things don’t necessarily go as planned. So when my idea to run across the country went from conception to implementation, I knew the best way to train for the next 20+ months was to break things down into segments.

  I already had a good base when I started thinking about doing the coast-to-coast run. I had recently completed the Highlands Sky 40-mile race in Davis, West Virginia, and the Big Bear Lake 12-Hour Trail Run in Hazelton, West Virginia, and was in the midst of preparing for the Cheat Mountain Moonshine Madness, a 50-mile overnight race that began in Beverly, West Virginia, the night of a full moon in August 2010. I was out on a long, five-hour training run leading up to Cheat Mountain when—partly in an attempt to take my mind off the fatigue I was experiencing as my legs began to feel more like a pair of heavy logs—I began to reflect back on how quickly I had been able to increase my weekly running mileage from the time I began training for the Richmond Marathon.

  It became clear that being registered to compete in a challenging distance race was an incentive that helped me to push farther than I had previously run. So I decided that in the 20 months of training that loomed ahead, I needed to set specific goals in front of me that were manageable yet challenging. The benefit of doing that was that I would have smaller, more manageable goals to focus on rather than investing nearly two full years with just one target in sight. Additionally, I knew that each time I conquered a new, longer distance it would give me a needed confidence boost that the ultimate goal was actually attainable.

  After completing the 50-miler in the Monongahela National Forest, I did three 50-kilometer (31 miles) ultramarathons from December 2010 through March 2011. The Mason-Dixon Madness in Morgantown, West Virginia, the Frozen Sasquatch Trail Run in the Kanawha State Forest near Charleston, West Virginia, and the Lt. J.C. Stone 50K in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, all provided me with distinct lessons that assisted me in my training. But those were only a primer for what awaited me in the summer of 2011—the Laurel Highlands Ultra, one of the country’s oldest ultramarathon trail races, which takes place on the Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail in southwestern Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Mountains, and the Burning River 100 Mile Endurance Run, which also serves as the USA Track & Field 100 Mile Trail National Championship and runs from Cleveland to Akron, Ohio.

  Heading into Laurel Highlands in early June 2011, my longest run had been 50 miles. Adding what was supposed to be an additional 20 miles onto my longest run ever definitely presented me with a challenge. I actually had planned on having someone pace me in for the final 20 miles of the run, which is a relatively common practice. But two weeks prior to the race, I decided that I wanted to get through the entire run on my own. This would enable me to simulate the solitude I would experience during my cross-country run, when I wouldn’t have anyone to help “bring me in” if I was struggling to reach my destination on a particular day.

  Even though seven weeks later I would complete a 100-mile run, Laurel Highlands was actually my most challenging training event. The run presented some steep, rocky climbs on the trail that were technically challenging and mentally and physically exhausting. The race began in Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania, and I was able to run the first couple of miles with the participants at a 9 minute-per-mile pace. But then the course came to a huge mile-long climb that slowed me and most other runners to around a 14-minute pace. It was one of those climbs that runners who have previously competed in the event warn you about, but the horror stories aren’t just to frighten rookies. It really was as difficult as advertised! The climb was so steep and challenging that it was simply impossible to actually run, so a brisk walk was all most of us coul
d manage.

  The course also took us up through Seven Springs Mountain Resort. When I think of spending time at a resort, I think of being relaxed and pampered. My time running through Seven Springs, though, was obviously not relaxing! Additionally, the Laurel Highlands Ultra is advertised as a 70.5-mile race. But because of a detour due to a bridge being out, an additional 6.5 miles were added to the distance. So this annual 70-mile run was actually a 77-miler on the year I chose to participate. Lucky me! Normally a 6.5-mile run would have been like a walk in the park. But when those additional miles are added onto a 70-mile run and they are on the road in full exposure of the sun, they are definitely noticed! Despite the mental and physical challenges of the 77-miler, I managed to finish in 20 hours and 39 minutes and enjoyed a huge sense of accomplishment after having completed a long, grueling race.

  One of the most valuable lessons I took from Laurel Highlands was that watermelon was my best friend. During ultramarathons it is absolutely necessary to consume a considerable amount of various foods and beverages in order to refuel your body. What I found was that watermelon worked the best at hydrating and refueling my body. As a result, watermelon became a staple during my stops while on my run across America. There were times when I was running across the US and the sun was beating down on the back of my neck that the anticipation of popping several pieces of the sweet, juicy melon into my mouth is what pushed me to get to my next aid stop.