I have been striving to reach my goals ever since I pulled off my shitty diaper, climbed up on the toilet, and with the biggest grin plopped my kids off in the pool like it was a hot summer day.
In 2000, I was working in the Emergency Room and another nurse was telling me that I was really wasting my comedic talent telling my stories to patients who were unresponsive or suffering from Alzheimer's. She encouraged me to do everything in my power to make it in Hollywood. Hollywood?
I had never even been to California and this bitch had me moving to Hollywood and waiting tables until I was discovered. That was not for me. I knew that I would never like TV. If there was one thing that I knew about myself, and this has been ever since I could walk, was that I thrive on instant gratification. Who wants to work in front of a camera and nervously wait for weeks for confirmation that people find them amusing? I needed instant success.
Theatre Downtown was having auditions for a play so I went for a cold reading and didn’t have any clue of what the fuck I was doing. I would have had a better audition from the restroom. I was so unprepared. My fellow thespians, and lesbians, had head shots, scripts, and they knew each other. It was like a high school reunion, which I would understand once I was involved in theatre, but at that moment I was walking on the most wobbliest legs on the East Coast. The director kindly thanked me and asked me, as a personal favor, to never audition for another stage performance for the rest of my life. In his words, “If you care anything about the arts – don’t come back.”
I walked out of that theatre with my head hanging between my knees and thinking that I would never have the chance to prove to the world that I belonged in the middle of the cast bowing and taking in all the love from the crowd. It took me two years to get over that rejection but I eventually received the applause I so deserved. I was bitten multiple times by the “bug” and starred in 10 plays before I retired in 2007 to follow my next goal.
Traveling has always been my number one passion. When I am passionate about something I will do whatever I can to make it happen. My desire was to become a Flight Attendant so I could travel and see the world. There was only one problem, I was afraid to fly. Did I let that stop me? No! I not only got over my fear of flying, thank you Virgin Atlantic, but I was hired by one of the best domestic airlines in the United States. I loved being a Flight Attendant but before I knew it I started getting pulled from the aircraft to do special projects for the company. I hadn’t celebrated my second anniversary and I was writing new policies, filling in as a Supervisor, and being a voice and advocate for other Flight Attendants.
Being unstoppable is a great feeling and before I could even get sick of flying the unfriendly skies I was promoted to a Supervisor and starting my next chapter with a company that I had only been at for 2 1/2 years.
In February I was checking out iPhone apps and came across one called Couch to 5K. I read about this app and decided that this was something that I wanted to do. I had never run before in my life but that meant nothing to me. I’ve always had a desire to run but I let my bad knee hold me back. I let this uncooperative knee control what I really wanted. I didn’t want to sit on the sofa and be a vegetable for the rest of my life. I wanted to get out there and put one foot in front of the other and feel alive. I bought this application and the next day I started running.
When I started I could barely run for one minute without stopping and crying out in pain. Yes, pain. The heat of an undetermined amount of hot pokers pushing into my heart and chest every time I ran almost pushed me to give up. I didn’t. Giving up was not an option for me. This was something that I was determined to do.
After only a few weeks of running I went from running one minute without stopping to seven minutes, ten minutes, 15 minutes, and then I ran without stopping for 21 minutes.
Who was I? I didn’t know this Joe. The Joe that I knew could barely get off the sofa without moaning and having his bones snapping and cracking like rice krispies.
I liked this new guy. My knee stopped hurting and I was starting to become more flexible. I could actually squat. I haven’t done a squat since I was 13 and here I was just doing them in the living room to show Matt, “Look. I can squat. This is amazing. My knee doesn’t even hurt. Who am I? Who. Am. I?”
I know who I am. I am the guy who started running to prepare for a corporate 5K and finished it without stopping. That’s me. The fat kid who would walk less than two miles twice a month and conclude that I had met my work out quota for the month.
I ran for seven weeks to prepare for the 5K. I ran inside at the gym on the treadmill and outside on the uneven streets and loved it.
Everyone else would tell me, “Gross. I hate cardio, I hate to run,” but I couldn’t get enough.
Each day I would successfully beat my goal from my previous run. It was sensational. I was a machine and despite the fact that I had hurt my ankle back in March, yes from running, I let it heal and didn’t give up. I was right back and didn’t let the fact that I was scared of hurting myself rule me. I didn’t let my fear control me – I ran. I put all my fears and pessimistic thoughts into my Nike sneakers and beat the hell out of them.
The day of the 5K I will admit I was anxious. How would I do? What if people thought, “Who is this fat guy kidding with the RUNNER tag on his shirt? The only place this bitch is running to is the nearest cake shop.”
Seriously – those were my thoughts. While I was driving downtown I was stuck in traffic and my first reaction was to turn around and go home. I didn’t want to get there late. What I was I thinking? It’s a fucking race. I could have gotten there late and just caught up by running like I was suppose to. Our minds can play such disgusting tricks on us but I fought my instincts to run scared and just focused on running proud.
When the run started I put myself into my own zone and focused on me. That was hard at times with walkers and fat people in front of me. I darted in and out of the crowd like I had been running for seven years instead of seven weeks. I kept a steady pace only speeding up for a few minutes and then slowing back down to maintain my stamina for the long distance run.
My goal was to finish without stopping; I didn’t want to walk for one second. I focused on my music and my feet. One foot in front of the other and even though I looked up to make sure I didn’t slam into someone slower than me I could see that I was passing people and the rush of success pushed me faster and harder. Running side by side with strangers is something that I had never had the opportunity to do before. I always run alone and have to depend on my own energy to push me to my limits. During the 5K I was able to fuel off the energy of complete strangers. These fellow racers who I did not know, and would never know, were pulling me along and they were blind to it. I wanted to thank them as I passed them but I had to focus on finishing.
I passed the first mile with ease and by the second mile I was in my zone and determined that the only way I would stop would be if I had a sudden heart attack, and that was even pushing it with reasons of why I would stop. It would have had to be one of those heart attacks where my heart flickers, I look down thinking, ‘What was that popping sound?’ and fall flat on my stomach surrounded by the 14,000 other participants standing over my dead body.
The third mile marker was painful to reach and at one point I didn’t think I would make it. I thought I would have to stop. My heart was pounding against my chest like a base drum and I could barely catch my breath. My head band could have provided a small village with enough water for a week and I had sweat out the potassium from my pre-run banana. My legs were locking up and I didn’t remember stopping but it felt like at some point during the run someone strapped bricks to my feet. When I first started running my feet were light as paper and now they felt like tree trunks being dragged off to the shredder.
All my worry vanished when I turned the corner and saw the over-the-top sign marking the finish line. I quickly gained some base in my run and picked up pace like I was running from the cops after a wild night out. I was overheated and there wasn’t enough antifreeze in the world to cool my motor down. The only thing I wanted was to cross that finish line. I rapidly approached the completion of this 5K and my eyes welled up with tears from this overwhelming emotion that struck me as if I slammed into one of the fat walkers in front of me.
I couldn’t hear anything. My music was blaring in my ears but everything was silent. I could see people in front of me passing the finish line but I didn’t care about them. I could only focus on my fast steps bringing me closer and closer to reaching my goal. Satisfaction. I crossed under the marquee that validated me as a runner and certified my completion of my first 5K.
I have experience many victorious moments in my life and nothing, I really mean this, nothing has ever felt so good as going from a sedentary sloth, who didn’t want to get up off the sofa to take a piss, to an individual who can run a 5K without stopping and actually enjoy it.
There is no rest for me now. I enjoyed my victory until I walked back to my car and then I started planning the 10K I want to run in January. Sure it’s great to complete a goal but you are nothing if you don’t have further ambitions.
Reaching for the stars is easier than we all think.
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