The Right 'Meet-Cute' Story, the Wrong Time

A ‘meet-cute’ is when two people have an amusing or charming first encounter that ultimately leads to a romantic relationship between them. Interestingly, despite it seeming like a recent term, meet-cute originates from 1938. It was coined by film director Ernst Lubitsch to describe the first encounter between the characters in the movie Bluebeard's Eighth Wife, starring Claudette Colbert and Gary Cooper.

For me, when I think of meet-cutes in my life, I go back to 2004 when I was introduced to a girl through my work at the time. I was immediately smitten with her and needed to hold on to a chair to keep my shaking legs from giving way. Yes, we did end up in a serious romantic relationship.

That being said, that particular meeting was a setup. It didn’t happen serendipitously, which I think is necessary in a real meet-cute. In terms of a true meet-cute, I do have a story that has not been told much, mostly because it doesn’t turn out the way a meet-cute should. For this story, we go back to the days of yore in 2016. This is the right meet-cute story that happened at the wrong time.



In the early fall of 2015, I had a serious, or in my mind serious, relationship end. I had spent years, too many of them, chasing someone that I thought was worth it. I was thinking with the wrong organ, and must have been briefly colorblind to not see all of the red flags surrounding this person. Lies, secrets, and hooking up with someone else turned what I thought was the real deal into a life lesson that virtually destroyed my sense of self-worth and self-esteem.

I had to find out much of these things from mutual friends at our gym who had spotted her with this other guy. Humiliated and distraught, I had to change gyms and pick up the pieces of my broken soul and try to pretend like it didn’t hurt as much as it did. I felt cold, alone, and helpless.

One thing I had gotten into, thanks to this now-ex girlfriend, was running. It had helped turn me into the best version of myself, at least physically, in my late 30s. Despite her breaking my heart, I didn’t want to give up running, as that had brought me so much joy. I also didn’t want to risk running into her at any local races since she ran them as much as me. Thus began my quest to find races off the beaten path. I looked for races just far enough away that I knew she wouldn’t be there.



We move ahead to May 29, 2016. I found a race that would be the perfect combination of exercise and a fun travel day. The Oak Bluffs Memorial Day Road Race was a 5K (3.1 miles) taking place on the island of Martha’s Vineyard.

I needed to take a car, then a boat, and then a bus to get to the starting line. The weather was sunny and in the low 70s, pretty much perfect for running. I brought with me a small black Adidas drawstring backpack to keep belongings in and a long-sleeved shirt for after the race. I left them in the lobby of the Summercamp Hotel. The funny thing is that I had no worries about anything being stolen. I had learned through dozens of races that runners are just decent people.

The race began on Lake Avenue in Oak Bluffs, not far from Ocean Park, for those who know the area. One of the best parts of my day was getting to do my stretching warmup among the gingerbread cottages of the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association (MVCMA). My favorite in particular is an orange cottage. Preparing mentally for a race was easy in those surroundings.

The orange cottage I love so much.

Much of the actual race is lost to time in my mind. I remember there being more hills than I thought there would be. I know we passed by several spots I wanted to go back and photograph. The finish line was back in front of the Summercamp Hotel.

The results were as good as I could have hoped for. I finished the race in 21:30, good for 31st out of more than 500 runners. It was a 6:55 per mile pace, which ends up being about 8.7mph if anyone wants to jump on a treadmill and see what it feels like.

I had run in all black as was tradition, in skin-tight UnderArmour compression gear. Hey, I was 8% body fat and enjoyed showing it off. My prize was a blue ribbon, but I think that was for completing the race, not for anything time-related.

After regaining my composure, I grabbed my gear from the hotel lobby and headed for lunch at the ArtCliff Diner in Vineyard Haven. It’s highly recommended by me. I delayed my time leaving the Vineyard to return to Cape Cod, as I could have easily grabbed the next ferry. This is where the meet-cute begins.

After the race, with my ribbon

It must have been mid-afternoon. I could tell by how far the child’s shadow stretched out. Wait, sorry, I slipped into Dishwalla’s Counting Blue Cars. So it was mid-afternoon when I boarded the Steamship Authority ferry back to Woods Hole on Cape Cod.

I was coming down from the runner's high and a slight food coma. I walked my way around the ferry and could have chosen any seat anywhere, but I chose one and sat down. I had my headphones and smartphone, so I zoned out watching the waves and settling in for roughly a forty-five-minute trip across Vineyard Sound.

Now I am pretty sure I had my music loud enough to drown out any sounds from around me. Still, through my music came an odd sound from nearby. I paused my music and listened. It was a violin. I sat with my headphones still on but listening. Someone was playing their violin in a seat a few rows behind me.

I could have turned my music back up and zoned out again, but I didn’t. This person was actually really good, and so I took my headphones off. Slowly, I turned my head so I could see who was playing. To my surprise, it was a really cute girl two rows back.

She noticed me watching and stopped playing. Almost instinctively, she apologized and asked if she was bothering me. I told her no and that I had paused my music so I could listen to her play. She smiled, and I felt like I could melt into my seat. This had caught me off guard.

This girl, we’ll call her J, had brown wavy hair and eyes that nearly disappeared when she smiled. She wore a flowy spring dress, which when put together with her smile and her violin, made me think she was right out of a storybook. I never turned back around. We continued to chat, talking about what brought us to the Vineyard. When the ferry docked, I didn’t want the chance meeting to end, and it didn’t.

We jumped on a shuttle back to where we had both parked in Falmouth. We sat across from each other on the bus, not in the same seat. But on a bus where there was mostly silence among the other passengers, J and I chatted like we had known each other for years.

J was a personal trainer like I was. Believe me, I could tell when looking at her. As we got to know each other, I felt repeatedly like I was in a movie. I had gone to the Vineyard for a race and ended up sitting across from this beautiful, talented girl who was actually interested in talking to me. When the bus arrived at the parking lot, the story could have ended, but again it didn’t.

I don’t remember who asked who, but somehow it came out that J’s family had a summer home near Sandy Neck Beach in West Barnstable, although they lived primarily up near Boston. Sandy Neck was a little over twenty minutes away from me.

J told me that she was driving back to Boston but would be back relatively soon. She invited me over to hang out around their fire pit, meet the family, and just have a good time when she returned. I accepted the invite and tried hard not to seem too eager.

We parted ways by exchanging business cards, not phone numbers. I had totally forgotten about my race, you know, the reason I was over on the Vineyard? It was not lost on me that this meeting on the ferry seemed like destiny. Yet, in the back of my mind, something was holding me back.



By this point, it had been six months since I was crushed by someone I loved and trusted. My heart and mind were barely put together with tape. It was like I felt the possibility of this chance meeting, but I also felt cold and dead inside. Still, I was intrigued by what might lie ahead.

I had time to think before reaching out via email to J. By this point, we had begun following each other on Instagram, so I mentioned a few of her posts to show my interest. I told her I’d love to support her in her Women Running Wild 5K race later in June. I also finally gave her my number.

She got back to me a few days later, and after one email, which I went back and found, we began texting. It was while texting that I got the official invite to the fire pit near Sandy Neck. It was like a continuation of the movie I was living on the ferry and the bus.

On the day I was to meet everyone, J gave me the address and headed over to her family’s house right before sunset. It was no coincidence that there was a fire pit going as I was thrown right into the fire, meeting her parents and sister. There were also their next-door neighbors over for a visit. Being an introvert, when thrust into a room with strangers, I sat back and let conversations come to me.

J tried her best to make me feel at ease. Everyone there was so warm and inviting. The problem was me. I had my confidence shattered by my ex, so I didn’t know how close to get to this new girl. I didn’t know if I should play it cool or if I should let her know of my interest. I was calm on the outside but a mess on the inside.

We all sat around the fire pit. I chatted a lot with the husband of the family next door. He had an interesting story and a barbecue food truck that sounded like it would make for a fun story to write. But I wasn’t there to make business contacts, I was there to spend time with J.

I looked at her in the orange glow of the fire. She looked like someone who could be an important part of my life, yet twelve hours earlier, she was a stranger. I wanted to get her alone and talk more one-on-one, but I didn’t. Maybe I was afraid of a ‘no,’ but I think in my fragile mindset, I was more afraid of a ‘yes’ and not being able to live up to expectations.

J made the move by saying she was headed to bed. Oh, believe me, I wanted to ask if she wanted some company, but come on, her parents were there. All I could do was say good night and watch her walk off into the house. I felt deflated.

Had I blown it? Surely J had some level of interest in me, right? She didn’t have to invite me to her family’s house. She could have said ‘nice to meet you’ and gone on her way off the ferry, but she didn’t. The story could have ended right there, but there was one more chapter.



We texted off and on during the next three weeks leading up to her race. By this point, I had written the article about her neighbor and his barbecue food truck. She didn’t know about my writing career until she just happened to see the article I had written in Cape Cod Life magazine that was on her kitchen table.

I downplayed it a bit. I could have rambled about my writing and probably should have, but again, my confidence was in the gutter, so I didn’t feel I had anything worth offering. No matter my interest inwardly, my broken self gave off ‘friend’ vibes outwardly.

We did a location share with our phones, and I met J at a park in Osterville before the Women Running Wild 5K race. I was there to be her cheerleader, which I found very surreal. I had consistently been a cheerleader for my ex, so it was weird being at a race supporting a different girl.

The starting line of the Women Running Wild 5K

The race was fine. I watched as the runners started and then waited for J to finish. I took a few photos, ironically, the one I snapped of her moments after she finished, I can’t find anywhere. That’s probably a sign.

During the aftermath of the race, I was on the periphery. J had a few people there, and I was just part of the crowd. I think part of me knew that I had already blown it, and I was feeling the defeat. I wished I could do and say more, but it was like my heart was trapped inside a cage.

When J left with her friends, there were no concrete plans for any future meetups. The texts became fewer and fewer. I didn’t push it because I didn’t feel the urgency to. As I've said repeatedly, my confidence was so low that I was afraid to put myself out there. So instead, it was like I watched J like a ship vanish into the horizon.

That is the story of my true meet-cute. If J and I had started a relationship, this story would have been much more impactful. Seriously, I went to the Vineyard to run a race and ended up by chance meeting this beautiful girl. There were so many moments that needed to happen to even get to that point of sitting around the fire pit with her family.

I had to take a later ferry. I had to choose that particular seat. I had to hear the violin over my music. I had to turn to see where the violin was coming from. I had to actually engage her in conversation. We had to park in the same lot.

Overall, I do wish I had done more to try to see where things could have gone with J. Maybe it would have been a no, and we would have moved on. In my mind, after my bad breakup, I just assumed it would be a no and didn’t bother trying. Who knows what I missed because of that?

In the end, J met someone, got married, had kids, and is very happy. So that part makes me happy as well. She was, and I’m sure still is, a really cool, sweet, and talented person. Her husband is very lucky. Then again, I was lucky to get what little face time I had with J. I’m glad to have had the meet-cute with her, even if it was the wrong time for me in my life.

For me, I am still chasing the next meet-cute. Maybe it will happen tomorrow? Maybe it will never happen, but who knows? A lot of these meetings happen when you stop looking and let them find you. I didn’t expect to meet someone on the ferry home after a race. If it can happen in that setting, it can happen almost anywhere.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #24: Crow Shadows, Sick As A Dog, 'Flu Game' Race, etc.

 

1. For a few days at my work a pair of crows sat on top of the building overlooking the parking lot when I arrived at work and were also there when I went home. I don’t think they just sat there all day waiting, maybe they have got my office bugged and they know when I’m getting ready to leave? They are one of the smartest animals.

2. For fans of edibles I must say I really enjoy the 1906 Go pills. It’s a mix of THC, CBD, and caffeine. I can only describe it as an 8-hour runner’s high without all of that pesky running that goes along with it.

3. It’s always fun to burn your throat with hot food. Ugh, then for the next day or two it feels like you have a sore throat but it’s not sore, it’s burned. Wait, that’s no better. Maybe I need to eat only cold foods until I can be trusted to eat like a normal human.

4. Training and dieting for 2 months ahead of my second race in my comeback after 7 years, only to get sick the day before, is the ultimate middle finger to me. TheraFlu was not the pre-race drink I had planned on using but after all of the work I’d put in I’d have to be much more sick to not run it. Plus it was a no-lose situation. Either I’m inspirational for how well I did, or I blame being sick on my poor showing.

Dragged myself across that line

5. Weeks like this, where I am sick and with a less-than-stellar voice, are exactly why I try to be at least 1, if not 2, episodes ahead in my podcast. Sort of a Get Out Of Jail Free card. I mean I guess me sounding a big froggish would make for an interesting podcast show but it would probably get distracting after a few minutes.

6. The 2^nd race of my running comeback ended up being my ‘Flu Game.’ I dragged myself out of bed, drove 45 minutes, and ran the best I could. I mean ‘flu game’ like when Michael Jordan played Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals against Utah. I guess it would have been more like MJ if I’d have finished in the Top 10, but I still pulled it off.

7. In the Cotuit Firecracker 5K I was doing really well. For 2 ½ miles I was a good 30-40 seconds per mile ahead of my pace from my 1^st race of my comeback in May. Then the sickness hit me like a wall. I ended up with nearly the exact same time as that 1^st race. A 5K is 3.1 miles so that means in a little over ½ mile I lost that 30-40 seconds per mile. I basically crawled across the finish line, but I made it.

8. A favorite pastime of mine after a race is to walk off and find an empty area to sit and decompress and reflect on what I had just done. Luckily this race was at the baseball field where the Cotuit Kettleers play in the Cape Cod Baseball League. I walked all the way out to center field and sat against the fence. Then I put my music on and listened for a few minutes. I honestly couldn’t, and still can’t, believe I actually dragged myself out and ran that race.

Sitting in the outfield, music playing.

9. A side effect of my race. It began at 6:15pm. That meant by the time I got home around 8:45pm I was still filled with adrenaline from the run, but also really sick. So despite collapsing into bed at 10 I got nearly no sleep because my body was wide awake. I had to lie there dealing with a horrible sore throat that kept me awake. Plus that stupid TheraFlu did nothing about it. I had to drag myself out the next morning to get real cold medicine, yay.

10. Essentially 4 full days sick, the entirety of the long 4^th of July weekend. At least I didn’t lose any paying work days. I will say that after not being sick for probably an entire year I think I made up for lost time with this. My sore throat was so bad that I went through an entire bag of Halls in a single day just to be able to function.

My post-race celebration

11. So I finally felt okay enough to take my car down to the beach to get some fresh air. The first thing I hear after I park is some teenager saying they honestly thought there were 20 hours in a day. I guess I’d rather hear that level of stupidity but feel better than be sick and have someone sounding smart near me. 

The Seven Year Journey: A Short Story About A Long Road

On May 4, 2024, I competed in a road race for the first time in nearly 7 years. Looking at it from a distance it was not a major accomplishment. Hell, I’d run dozens of races before. However, when you get up close and know the full details of the journey to get here it becomes the biggest race I’ve ever run. To understand why we have to go back nearly seven years.

On August 12, 2017, I competed in the Brewster Brew Run in the town of Brewster on Cape Cod in Massachusetts for those unfamiliar with my home area. It was, and still is, a 5.2-mile run sponsored by a local bar called The Woodshed. Ironically I had no plan to run that race, I was talked into it by a friend on eleven days' notice. The run itself was fine. The stats were: 39:47 overall, 7:39 pace per mile, good for 180th out of 1,294 people.

At the starting line of my last race in 2017

If I had known that was going to be the end of my running career for a long time I likely would have slowed a bit to appreciate it. Instead, I was glad it was over and was more interested in filming myself chugging the complementary beer you got for running.

After this race ended the coming months saw my life take several unexpected twists and turns that knocked running far from my mind and far from my body’s ability.

In December 2017 I got word that one of my oldest friends Matt Medeiros had died suddenly. He was someone I had known since I was about seven years old. It was a gut punch. Not only did he leave behind his family I had also known since I was a kid, but even more tragically he left behind a wife and a young daughter. 

The topper for me, when it came to getting the news about Matt, was the fact that I had seen him only a few days prior. We usually would bump into each other in the grocery store like middle-aged men. We’d chat about life and the old days. However, on this day I was tired from work and didn’t feel like talking. So I saw Matt but he didn’t see me. I watched him turn the corner pushing his cart and I made my quick exit. I had no idea that the image of him turning that corner would be the last time I saw him and that the image is burned into my memory.

I sat in the main office at the gym where I was working and shut the door so I could sob at the front desk. It was a hard pain to deal with knowing that I had chosen not to have that last moment with Matt. This is where I began to self-medicate with alcohol. It became a running theme over the next few years.

Over the ensuing months, nagging injuries in my legs slowed my running. At the time I had what I believed to be a left ankle/foot injury caused by intense speed training. I had a desire to finish Top-10 in a 5K(3.1 miles). My best at that time was 19:30, or 6:17 per mile. To finish Top-10 you usually needed to be under 18 minutes in your time. That’s about 5:48 per mile. 

I’ll try to sum up the intricate running minutia for those who are starting to fall asleep reading. The gist was that I needed to increase my speed by about 30 seconds per mile. That’s not too hard if you’re running slower. When you’re already fast getting faster leaves little room for error. Only a few wrong steps in your running gait can equal some pretty rough injuries. This is what happened to me. I went too fast, well, too fast.

The left foot issues slowly eroded my speed and endurance. Sure I still could run races, but slower. Sure I could still run as exercise, but it became more necessary for me to slow down, or stop to let my foot calm down.

That Brew Run race had basically pulled me out of retirement in 2017. My foot issues sadly were too much to keep risking. I was working as a personal trainer and if I couldn’t walk it would spell doom for that job. So with running becoming less of my release and stress reliever, I started turning more to drinking.

Late in 2018, my Grampa began to deteriorate into Alzheimer’s. I had either been naive, or just blind to his condition for months. My mother had been telling me of things that he’d been doing and saying but I didn’t see it so it had to be exaggerations, right? 

With my Grampa in 2010

He was my hero and role model so I think I didn’t want to believe that he was declining so rapidly. After a series of mishaps that made it more and more difficult for him to continue living at home with my Nina, Grampa was taken to a nursing/rehab facility. It was while he was there that the shocking truth became apparent to me.

By this point in time I was working at a retirement home and had become more aware of the signs of Alzheimer’s. Once I saw Grampa get stuck in a sort of loop where he did the same few things repeatedly nonstop I knew that everything my mother had said was true. 

Because he was my hero I felt I owed it to him to be there as much as possible as his days counted down. Unfortunately, it was a trauma that I still haven’t gotten over. Watching Alzheimer’s cut my Grampa down was agonizing. With running not as big of a part of my life I kept on drinking to dull the pain.

When Grampa passed from Alzheimer’s in May 2019 I dove off the deep end with drinking. I made the excuse that I needed to cope with this loss by any means necessary. Whatever collateral damage happened I would deal with it later. Later meant much later. For many months I drank daily. It went from mourning Grampa to a vice I couldn’t break free from.

Then Covid happened. In March 2020 the world shut down. On one hand, I was lucky because working in a retirement home categorized me as an ‘essential worker.’ On the other hand, I was in a toxic work environment and when I wasn’t there the world was on lockdown. This once-in-a-century pandemic was another form of trauma. Much like with the deaths of Matt and my Grampa, I decided to deal with Covid however was needed to survive.

This meant more drinking. This also meant eating whatever I wanted. I needed some sort of good feelings in such a tough time. My life was dominated by McDonald’s, Domino’s, Wendy’s, and other fast food places.

Despite not running as much I was still doing some, and also hitting the gym 5-6 days a week regardless. When the world shut down that all went away. I became far more sedentary. I gained roughly 25 pounds in just a little over four months. It went from ‘oh well I can’t run much but I’m still in great shape otherwise,’ to being out of shape, eating fast food, and drinking to numb trauma that wouldn’t heal.

The weight would fluctuate. I’d lose a little but then gain it back plus a little more. So my lows became less low and my highs got higher. I would have moments of clarity but not long enough to make changes.

Finally, in September 2020 I used all of my strength and willpower to quit alcohol. It was not easy. Stop me if you’ve heard this one, but when quitting alcohol I said I’d deal with it by any means necessary. This meant filling the alcohol void with more food. This sadly became a vice without me even noticing. Despite the world starting to open back up I was in far worse shape physically and mentally so picking up the pieces would have to wait.

Unfortunately, when my Grampa died I knew that it was only a matter of time until my Nina followed him. They were married over 70 years so I knew when one went the other would not be far behind. 

I had been working in the retirement home where my Nina had been sent. This meant I could see her and support her every day I worked. I wanted badly to do more as a personal trainer though. I moved on to another retirement home that offered fewer hours so I could start adding in-home training clients to my schedule. Then Covid happened.

Not only was I stuck in a different retirement home, but my training clients were a no-go. This also meant that my Nina was now locked down without the ability to see her family. If I had only waited a little longer to leave that first retirement home I would have at least been on the inside with her. 

Obviously, nobody could foresee the Covid lockdown happening. That being said, the amount of guilt I had, and still have, for essentially abandoning my Nina is something I haven’t been able to get over. I had stopped drinking, and I was now far too out of shape to run anywhere near what I used to. That meant I would eat whatever my heart desired to deal with the guilt, sadness, whatever I was feeling.

In March 2021 my Nina left this earth. We as family did get to see her on the inside a few times before the end. It was not the end of life any of us had envisioned. I didn’t see myself sitting in a lobby of a retirement home basically in a hazmat suit sitting next to my Nina with a pan of plexiglass between us and her also wrapped up like a mummy. I remember apologizing for leaving that retirement home and Nina jokingly saying that I should be sorry because I couldn't bring her bacon and raisin toast anymore like I had been doing. 

In the end, I had to cope with another loss by eating my feelings. I was unhappy but knew I’d be unhappier if I didn’t have the bad foods. My brain began to clear from alcohol and I realized how toxic the second retirement home job was. It was so bad that I ended up quitting in the middle of Covid with no backup plan. I just knew being in that environment was not good for my mental health.

A few months later I was lucky to find a far better job, one suited to my skills as a personal trainer. It was as a trainer at a chiropractic and wellness clinic. Here is where my running injury was finally properly diagnosed. During my first-ever chiropractic adjustment, my boss Dr. Mike was able to show me that it was not my left ankle/foot that was the issue. No, that issue was in fact caused by an injury to my right hip. This was further made clear when I was put on bilateral scales.

Bilateral scales are two scales next to each other. You step one foot onto each. In theory, if you’re in proper alignment the weights on either scale should be identical, or at least virtually so. My numbers were off a good 15 pounds. I was running crooked which only compounded my issues. When you factor in the added weight I was carrying it was no wonder why running had become more uncomfortable than even when I was marathon training.

So I worked on trying to correct the hip imbalance. It wasn’t enough to get back to any real running though. Months passed and it was time for another loss in my life. When I had left my Nina at that first retirement home she wasn’t the only family I had left. 

Brenda might not have been family in the blood sense, but she had been a part of my life since the day I was born, before then. She was at nearly every family event as long as I could remember. I referred to her as my aunt either way. 

She was also a resident at the retirement home. There had been a few cardiac issues that had forced her there at a relatively young age. I loved getting to spend all sorts of time with her during my workdays. She had many friends in the complex, but I was the only family.

Being that she didn’t have any blood family on Cape Cod it was tough when she ended up in the ER. Her health issues came to a head and she was not long for the world. The people closest to Brenda from my family were my Uncle Eric and Aunt Emma. At the time of Brenda’s decline, they couldn’t make it to the Cape from Las Vegas. They were happy that I was able to get in and see her though.

She was unresponsive but I still spoke to her. She was the fourth important person in my life in just over four years to die. I hate to say I was becoming numb to it but it felt that way. Maybe it was a bit of self-preservation. I felt awful that Brenda passed with few, if any, visitors. She deserved better than that but I could only control the fact that I had been there.

Several people from my high school class have remained good friends. Although some have moved far away, and even more have gotten married and/or had children, there is a collection of names that always makes me smile. One such person was Pete Machon. He was a gentle soul, good-looking surfer-type guy, that’s the best way I can describe him. 

Through the years after high school, I saw him less and less but through the magic of social media I could stay connected with him to a degree. I learned of Pete’s death after the fact in the late summer of 2022. Losing people your own age when you’re supposed to have a good half of your life left is a strange sadness. People get the short end of the straw all the time and fall to illness or accidents. Still, you don’t ever expect it. It was a shocking gut punch. I had our lineage of social media interaction and I found myself scrolling through and wishing each conversation had been longer.

The only silver lining of mourning the loss of Pete was that a lot of us from high school got together to celebrate his life. It’s something I wish happened more often and not surrounding death or high school reunions. Part of that is my own doing. The string of deaths in my life, coupled with my alcohol issues, and the circumstances of Covid has changed me deep inside.

I feel at times as if I have forgotten how to interact with people thanks to retreating into a shell to cope with all of the bad of the last several years. I know there have been times when friends want to do things and I find excuses not to. So they go and do things without me. The loss of Pete, another good friend taken suddenly, left me speechless and a bit empty. 

During these times I was still hitting the gym as best I could but it wasn’t the same as a few years prior. Back then I had direction, I had a purpose. I was a runner and a pretty good one, so my workouts were geared toward the next race. With running becoming less and less a part of my life I felt directionless. I felt as if I was just going through the motions. Hitting the gym because it was what I was supposed to be doing.

Despite working in fitness and helping people toward their own goals I was having trouble finding motivation and inspiration for my own. I could always hang my hat on the fact that I had conquered my alcohol dependence though. That got tested though as another massive loss came my way.

There might be few things worse than having things to say and never getting to say them. I was not prepared to get a text from my sister Kate asking me how our Uncle Eric died in January 2023. I had not even known he was sick, let alone that he had passed literally the day before. It was the gut punch to end all gut punches.

I had looked up to my Uncle Eric as a father figure. He was someone who set an example of what it was like to be a good man and a good father. I had told him on a few occasions that I wished he’d been my father, so he knew how I felt. However, to be so wrapped up in my own bubble to not know he was sick, or to not reach out just because, it was too much to bear.

With my Uncle Eric in 2016

Our last conversation centered around his excitement over an upcoming book I was writing. I didn’t finish the book in time to send a copy to him. I did end up giving his copy to my Aunt Emma and cousin Patrick. It was within that same week of his passing that I had my closest brush with a relapse of alcohol.

I sat in the parking lot of a shopping plaza, staring at a liquor store I used to frequent so much that the employees knew when I would switch up my usual order. I thought about Uncle Eric and how he meant so much to me but I never got a final chance to tell him. I debated long and hard about just caving and going in and grabbing something, anything, and just coping with the loss in the way I had done before. Ultimately I thought I’d be disrespecting my uncle by doing that. He would not like to be used as an excuse for me to fall off the wagon. So I started my car and went home. I’d deal with his loss with more bad foods.

My cathartic moment when dealing with Uncle Eric’s death came during his celebration of life. It was there that my guilt over not being in touch more when he was declining came spilling out. I sobbed and apologized to my Aunt Emma and cousin Patrick. The sadness was overwhelming but I had kept that bottled up and didn’t dull it with alcohol so I had to set it free. I am still not over the loss of my uncle to this day.

Six deaths of important people in my life in barely more than five years. They came so quickly that I barely processed one and another followed. I fell hard into bad food and slowed my own exercise programs after Uncle Eric died. I ended up in the worst shape I’d ever been in, weighing the most I ever had in my life. I had gained back all of the weight I’d lost running and then some. I was embarrassed and ashamed.

2024 was a turning point. That’s what I told myself in the days leading up to New Year’s. I felt as though 2017 was the last year of my life when I felt like myself. To restore that feeling I couldn’t keep waiting for the timing to be better, or to have a more perfect situation. I needed to take the first steps and adapt as I moved forward.

The changes began as more symbolic and mental. For instance, I hadn’t woken up early on New Year’s Day to go shoot the sunrise since 2017. My buddy Steve had to convince me a little. Once I was standing at the beach in Chatham watching a somewhat muted sunrise it was all worth it. That would hopefully set the tone for the year. 

The muted New Year's sunrise in Chatham.

While I was feeling refreshed in the early days of the new year I decided to run my first race since 2017. I found a manageable distance(5K), a nearby location(Dennis, MA), and a date far enough away that I could theoretically get into fair enough shape that I wouldn’t embarrass myself(May 4th).

I dove headlong into training. At my job, we have a revolutionary health and performance program known as Superhuman Protocol. It’s not found in many places and none within an hour of where I work. The basics are that three therapies are set up in a certain order so that each enhances the next. It is meant to, among other things, improve your overall fitness level. Here is a link to the website if you want to know more about it: Superhuman Protocol

I was looking for something to push me through the inevitable crash that would come when my memories of my running life before bumped into the reality of what my body could give at this point. One of the therapies in the Superhuman Protocol is EWOT(Exercise with Oxygen Therapy). You do some sort of moderate cardio while breathing in 93% pure oxygen through a specially designed mask. Pure oxygen essentially tricks your brain into believing it is not working as hard. The benefit is that you can go harder than you thought you could with whatever cardio you’re doing. 

There is a downside to this though. If you are prone to going all-in with your cardio, as I did all while running, the oxygen is going to have an adverse effect. Oh don’t get me wrong, the Superhuman worked incredibly well and I highly recommend it to anyone who has access. For me though it worked too well. I was getting up to speed running that I hadn’t done in 5 years. Not exactly ‘moderate’ cardio. That being done on a body that wasn’t the same as 5 years ago led to way more aches and pain than expected. Feet and ankles, knees, hips, they all would hurt later in the day after finishing the Superhuman.

I stopped doing the Superhuman because I couldn't be counted on to stick to the directions. This led to me majorly backing off on my race training, to the point that I was hardly running at all. In my mind, this return race was to be a re-entry. It would be me proving to myself that I could still run a race without the added pressure of time goals.

As race day drew closer I began seeing the event as more than just a return to running. It felt far more symbolic. Since my last race in August 2017 so much had happened, so much had changed in my life. This race was akin to me finding a piece of myself that had been lost for years.

Another change in my life in 2024 was getting more into personal development and self-help books and podcasts. In dealing with the deaths of friends and family, battling alcohol, the insanity of the Covid pandemic, and the overall scope of becoming middle-aged, I had felt upside down in life. These thought-provoking and introspective books and podcasts started helping me deal with all of that. 

I lowered my expectations for the race and started looking at it as the beginning of a new chapter. I also kept thinking of those I’d lost. I decided to carry them all with me during the race. I did this by creating a t-shirt with their names on it with the announcement that I was running for them. Above all else, that was my ‘big why’ for competing in this race.

Another interesting side note when the race was approaching came when I got back on the bilateral scales for the first time in a few years. To the shock of my coworker Heather, and even more so to myself, the two scales had exactly the same numbers. This meant that the work I had done on correcting my original hip injury had paid off. It was a wonderful moment.

It was wonderful however until I added the two scales weights together and realized I was at the heaviest I’d been in my life. It was a cold slap in the face to realize that the main reason I’d had so much pain and soreness in my legs from running wasn’t because of my misaligned hips, no it was from carrying too much weight.

Within moments I had downloaded the My Fitness Pal app on my phone and vowed to get back to my proper running weight. I mean after all, if my hip was not the issue anymore then what is really holding me back from a return to race form?

Race day arrived. May the Fourth be with you. It was sunny but chilly at Mayflower Beach in Dennis. I spent a little extra time sitting in my car. It was almost like I was trying to find that old mindset from my racing days even though I had no specific goals to try for. Once I was ready and had put on the white t-shirt adorned with the names of those I’d lost since my last race I was ready to wander the grounds and soak it all in.

The starting line of the race.

I had made a special playlist for this race. 10 songs that would take 40 minutes to play. Granted I would have the Map My Run app going on my phone but the music would be another indicator of how I was doing.

I positioned myself about ¾ of the way back of the group. One because it would stop me from taking off too fast with the adrenaline rush of the starting whistle. Two because I knew I’d be faster than at least a few in front of me so I’d have the joy of passing them.

A big key to running any sort of race is pacing yourself. For 5K races, I set my running app to call out my times every ¼ mile. This gives me plenty of feedback and allows me to switch my pace to suit what I am looking to do. After the first 1 ½ miles my pace was far exceeding what I’d expected. This didn’t make me change up any goals, it gave me more leeway to pull back a little. I figured I could save my legs a bit and still record a respectable time.

To prove to myself that I was really just trying to finish this race I even stopped to walk a couple of times when my feet and tibialis anterior muscles (the small muscle that runs along your shin) began burning. I hadn’t gone all out in ages so I was gassed but pressed on.

I realized that unless I broke something I was going to finish the 5K in under 30 minutes which would be a huge achievement for me knowing where I was physically. I even had enough left in the tank to sprint to the finish line and over the little pad that tracked our times through a chip in our bibs. My official time was 29:27, or 9:30 per mile. More than 10 minutes slower than my best 5K ever, but much faster than I had thought my body would allow.

I walked down to the beach and sat with my back against the fence. My shins were on fire and I knew I’d be sore the next day (surprise, I was). However, the first thing that popped into my mind was excitement. If I could run such a time after having not run competitively in almost 7 years, being 7 years older, and being 30 lbs above my ideal running weight, imagine what I could do with more training and a more controlled diet.

Maybe I’ll never be as fast as I once was. Maybe I’ll never be able to do distances like I used to. That doesn’t matter. When I look at the time between my last race to the one I just ran. When I look at all of the losses, all of the obstacles, all of the changes I went through, the fact that I have the ability physically and the wherewithal mentally to run races is a huge victory. I’ve already got the next race lined up so it’s officially a new chapter in my life.

If you stuck with this all the way through, thank you. I wrote this the day after the race when everything was still fresh. It went longer than I expected as there was so much that I needed to include to emphasize how big of a deal this moment was. Plus I am a writer so stringing together thousands of words in a stream of consciousness is not all that difficult. 

You might not be a runner. That’s not the overarching point of this story. The main takeaway is dealing with adversity, sometimes soul-crushing loss, and somehow finding your way back to the starting line. My story is not unique, so many people fight battles and win in the end. We all have our own adversity to overcome, nobody gets through life without scars. The key is to keep moving forward at your own pace. The only way you don’t cross the finish line is if you stop doing that.