Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #127: Monday Rainday, Business Cards, Relax or Else, etc.

1. Monday Runday was Monday Rainday this week. I will take a little rain over 85 and humid, though every day of the week. It was fitting, though, that after just over 3 miles of circling an old school track in varying intensities of rain, the water stopped. My legs were tired, so I had no plans to run to reach my desired 3 miles. I just had to walk faster and endure the rain. One thing I have been very happy with is the durability of my headphones. I have had the same pair of big red over-ear headphones for going on 8 years. I know that someday they will break and I will need a new pair, but that wasn’t the case on this day. The rain didn’t short them out, although I didn’t risk it, and when the rain got steadier, I took my headphones off and hid them in my shirt. Years ago, at my peak as a runner, I used to enjoy running in all sorts of inclement weather. I’d run in rain, wind, snow, whatever. I guess since I ran all of those races and ran in all of the different types of weather, I have lost the desire to do so again.


2. One day this week, I was training an 87-year-old client. She was brought by her daughter-in-law and also had her 7-year-old granddaughter in tow. I have known them over the years at my work, as the daughter-in-law is a patient at my work. The 7-year-old I have known since she was a toddler, and I give her free rein to come into the gym if I am training someone and she is there. On this day, she was just hanging out while I trained her grandmother. This was after she and I failed to find a rogue cricket that had been calling the gym home. Anyway, I was training her grandmother, and so she grabbed a dry-erase marker and started scribbling on our green dry-erase board. When she left, I saw what she wrote, and it was so sweet and cute that I decided to leave it up there. I won’t erase it, but there’s no guarantee it won’t be erased. The fun coincidence was that her other grandmother was a client of mine in the afternoon. She practically melted when I told her who wrote that sweet message. I won’t leave you in suspense. I did take a photo of it to share.




3. No matter how many speaking events I do for my books, I will always feel blessed and humbled. I am always happy that people, the vast majority total strangers, take time out of their day to come out and hear me speak. That’s why I do my best to make each and every event the best I can possibly do. This week I had an event at the Eldredge Library in Chatham. Despite it being a sunny, 80-degree day in early summer, there were close to 30 people who chose to come inside, sit, and hear me speak about my latest book. In Their Footsteps: The Interesting People, Places, and Events of Cape Cod History features 40 stories from the Cape, all in chronological order. It was a fun event, and I have a few more this summer. Come and see me on July 15th at 5pm at the Snow Library in Orleans, or on July 23rd at 6pm at the Dennis Public Library. They will both be great shows, I promise!

Coming up next!

4. This week marked the 250th episode of the In My Footsteps Podcast, which I have hosted since November 2020. It’s amazing to think that the idea I had once, my brain had cleared after giving up alcohol, would have such staying power. It began as a way to distract myself from the alcohol demons I was fighting off. It was just me talking about all of the subjects I enjoyed. Slowly, it morphed into my favorite thing I do. I actually love the research, planning, recording, and yikes, even the editing of these podcasts. A podcast is easily the best way to keep in contact with your audience. You can speak about anything you want, and I bet you’d find people interested. A lot of it comes down to time. Doing all of the work surrounding the podcast can be time-consuming. If you’ve ever thought of starting your own podcast, all you need is some sort of computer, recording software, a decent microphone, a topic, and the desire to create it. My show is now strictly GenX nostalgia, but that covers a ton of ground. It ends up being nearly anything that has occurred between 1960 and 2005. You can see why I believe that I can easily do another 250 episodes. If you’ve never listened, now is your chance to start. They are fun and breezy at around an hour each. Thank you to those who have listened, and here’s to the next 250 episodes!



5. What do you do with outdated business cards? In 2009, I created my first business card. It featured Chatham Lighthouse and simply described me as an author. This was despite not having any published books or even a blog. For some reason, probably because it was a better deal, I had something like 500 cards printed. They lasted me until 2017. By that time, I had 4 published books, so a change was needed. I bring cards to my speaking events because they are a way that people can possibly keep connected, even if they don’t buy a book. The most recent cards I had made were when I had 6 published books. I now have 10. I am currently in the process of designing new cards that I should have for my next event. The outdated cards are something else. Around the time I redesigned my author cards in 2017, I also created personal trainer cards. I thought I might be able to drum up business for in-home training if I had my own business cards to hand out. I might have had 100 made, and in the 9 years since, have probably handed out less than 20. That means I have a boatload of cards with a photo of me from 2014 promoting something I have no desire to do again currently, that being in-home training. Oh, but wait, there’s more. I also created cards for my podcast. Again, about 100 made. The problem is, since I printed those, I changed not only my podcast logo, but what the show is about in general. So those are even more useless than the training cards. Yay. I have something like 150 useless business cards. I might keep one of each and then send the rest through the shredder at work.


6. Family get-togethers used to be a regular occurrence when I was younger. Now they have become fewer and further apart. Despite having a pretty busy schedule for the most part, I try my best to make time if a family get-together is on the horizon. This week I was able to do so. I went to have dinner with my cousin Patrick, who was still on Cape Cod from Las Vegas. We were at our cousins Richard and Dale’s house. They are our 2nd cousins. It was a wonderful and worthwhile experience. The weather was perfect, so we all ate outside. I sometimes forget that Dale used to run a restaurant on Cape Cod decades ago and is an accomplished cook. She just casually whipped up a Bearnaise sauce, Greek salad with dressing, and fresh whipped cream like it was no big deal. I was tired from a busy day, but didn’t want the dinner to end. At this point in my life, I do realize that you never know when another family moment like that might happen. Even when the sun was starting to go down after 8pm, I stood out in the driveway with Patrick and just talked about anything we could. It was a battle between fatigue and genuinely wanting to stay and chat as long as my body would hold up. I am grateful for these moments today, when, as a kid, they were so common that I felt almost as if I could miss a handful and not miss a thing. Patrick says he might come back to Cape Cod next year, but you never know what happens, so I am glad we got a lot of chances to spend time together during this visit. If you are lucky, you end up with many family members that you would rearrange your day just to spend some time with. I am that type of lucky.




7. Every time I go into a certain local supermarket, if a specific employee is working there, they always say hi to me. Not ‘hi’ like they’re just going through the motions, but saying it like they know me. I see this guy who has to be maybe a few years older than me, going about his job, but nine times out of ten, if I pass by him, he stops and specifically says hello to me. He even occasionally asks how things are going. I am sure he is probably just friendly, and he does the same thing with other customers, but I don’t have any other employee at any other supermarket do that. Part of me wants to stop and ask if we know each other, but I doubt it. He never says my name or asks anything more specific that might make me think we have a history. Believe me, it’s not a bad thing. I’d much rather have someone go out of their way to say hi to me than the alternative. I could only imagine having someone shoot me a dirty look every time I was in their store.


8. When I was at my peak as a runner, probably 2015-2016, I used to run sometimes as much as 40 to 50 miles per week. I definitely had my share of aches, pains, and injuries, yet somehow I kept going year after year. Once I injured my right hip while training for a Top 10 finish in a 5K in 2018, things changed. The injuries tipped the scales, and slowly but surely, my running career faded. I kept trying, but it was an exercise in futility. A few years ago, I made a concerted effort to return to running races. I at least wanted to do one, even if my time was nowhere near what I used to be able to do. I competed in three races between 2024 and 2025. The last race I did, my time was something like 6 minutes better than I expected. My confidence was sky high. Only a few weeks later, I severely sprained my ankle and everything shut down. I haven’t run a race since and haven’t run much at all. In the last month or so, I started wondering if there was anything that I had done when I was at my peak as a runner that I might be able to add back into my life that might help me start running more. Two things came to mind. One was making BCAAs (branched-chain amino acids) part of my daily life. They help muscles recover from strenuous exercise. The other was adding more glucosamine to my supplement regimen. It helps with the lubrication of joints and overall joint health. When I was running 40+ miles a week, I took more than the recommended dose of glucosamine regularly, and my knees and hips always responded well. I figured it was worth a shot to try that again. It takes two weeks or so to get the full effect of any vitamin or supplement into your body, so I didn’t attempt anything before then. I have noticed in the time since I started taking 1.5x the recommended amount of glucosamine that my joints, specifically my knees, feel better than they have in quite a while. This came to a head this weekend when I went for a long walk. It was like my legs were craving running, so I gave in. It wasn’t like it used to be. There were no stretches of sub-7-minute miles. But I did end up running much more than I have in months. There were even points where I thought I should stop and walk, but my body was on autopilot like the old days. I just kept running and focusing on my stride. Only time will tell if this is a significant development in my running life or if it’s my brain tricking my body until something else breaks. Either way, it felt good to be running on a beautiful summer morning on Cape Cod again.


9. It’s amazing how a little dose of the old runner’s high can make a route I’ve gone down hundreds of times feel fresh and new. A favorite running route leads along a river to the beach. It’s through a historic village and is in total just over three miles from my front door to the ocean’s edge. When I was a competitive runner, I’d enjoy the route but be more focused on my pace. Now I can stop and take it all in at times. Little coves, flowers, loads of walkers and riders, historic homes, and ample beachfront views. I figured, why not create a little video of this route? You never know who might get inspired to check it out themselves. You can drive it if you want, but walking or cycling is better.




10. In recent weeks, I have started to try to make Sundays into a day when I don’t do anything major. I make it a day where I sit around and relax. No exercise, no content work, just mindlessly recharging my battery. It’s not that I’ve lost the desire to work hard on my content or enjoy some sort of exercise, but I have found that if I never relax, I feel like I am in a constant state of fatigue to start my new work week. My brain automatically goes to projects I should be working on. I admit I will do some minor work, like posting links to projects on social media. However, more involved things have to be put on the back burner at least for a day. There have been long stretches over the last 5 or so years where I have felt in a state of perpetual burnout. My energy levels crater, and I get agitated at that. A month or so ago, I decided to force myself to sit and relax all Sunday. I did this by binging several episodes of the Netflix series Dark. I felt for so long that if I wasn’t constantly working on something, I’d fall behind whatever imaginary metric there was to show my progress in creative fields. Now I have come to realize that if I don’t take at least a day to fully relax and recharge, it could lead to longer stretches where I just can’t keep that pace up physically or mentally. Not just for me but for anyone, make sure you take some time, some real time, to relax and recharge. It will do you a world of good.

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #63: Clearance Items, Seltzer Excitement, Pizza Woes, etc.

1. I am a sucker for clearance items. I am especially a sucker for grocery store clearance items. Not things that are set to expire immediately. I’m talking about products being phased out because they’re not selling. If I see the red sticker that says ‘clearance’ you’ve got my attention. I now find myself buying things I likely don’t need mainly because they’re 50% off. I’m not saying I needed 2 different types of BBQ sauce, but the red sticker was too much for me to pass up. The funny thing is that sometimes I find something I like on clearance, and of course, it’s then sold out forever, and I have to go try to find it somewhere else, for full price, booo.

2. April Fool’s Day was this week. I have had many years where I post something outlandish as a joke. This year I decided against it mainly because I felt that if I posted something about moving somewhere or getting a new job, I’d have people immediately jumping to conclusions. Then I’d end up losing my job or having to move from where I live because people thought my April Fool’s joke was real. Maybe I’m just old and not funny anymore. There’s a joke, the not-funny part. I definitely am old-ish now.

3. As a trainer, I take great pride in constructing workouts to challenge and help any client I have. I consider myself flexible as well. If someone comes in with low back pain, I am going to scrap any exercises that might inflame that issue. So I do get bristly when I have a new client basically acting like a coach trying to make me run their plays. I had a lady come in and start listing what she wanted to do. It was a lot of ‘shouldn’t I do this instead?’ or ‘I want to do this.’ It’s like, if you’re so knowledgeable why did you come to me? It’s rare to have a client who is rude, bossy, and dismissive of my efforts. I was literally counting down the seconds until her session was over. Then to top it off, she stayed in the gym late, trying to milk extra time. Sorry lady, I had another client waiting who I actually enjoyed working with.

4. Sad news about the death of Val Kilmer at 65 from pneumonia. He had a lot of great roles, from Top Gun to Tombstone to Batman Forever and more. To me though the lasting memory of Val Kilmer is his 1984 underrated comedy movie Top Secret. I think it's because its cheesy spoof humor appealed to me when I first saw it at age 11. If you haven’t seen it, you should. I’ll be watching it again this week for some good old-fashioned nostalgia. Rest in peace, Val Kilmer.

My favorite Val Kilmer movie.

5. Happier news is the incredible recovery of my Uncle Bob. He suffered a pair of severe strokes late last summer. For a time, it looked like he would not survive. It has been a slow, difficult journey spent in a rehab center near Boston. There have been times where the news was slow coming and I had no idea where he was at. Then suddenly this week, he is back online commenting on a post I shared about my Nana, his mom. He says he hopes to be home soon and it will be so good to get to see him. It’s honestly close to a miracle he pulled through when I think of how my last interaction was with him in the ICU. Such great news.

6. That post about my Nana that I mentioned above? Well I had a new client sign up to start training with me this week. It turns out that she used to work with my Nana at the electric company in the 1980s. My Nana has been gone for 15 years. Hearing about her from a stranger’s perspective is very rare. It was so thrilling and a bit emotional to hear this woman gush about my Nana. It was like she was still alive which really made my day.

7. I freely admit I get way too excited for the new seasonal seltzers from Polar. It’s summer and winter flavors. They usually keep a few the same but try new ones. I am currently drinking Poolside Grape Pops and love it. This won’t be a weekly review thing where I try a new flavor but honestly, I wouldn’t mind it. If 20-year-old me knew that one day I’d be waking up before 7am on days off, loving dollar stores, and geeking out over seltzer flavors he’d probably have just moved to the mountains and waited for the bears to finish him.

Yes, I love the Polar seasonal seltzers.

8. Some people lead very sad lives. It says a lot about a person when I post a photo or video of a sunset and they feel the need to complain that it’s going to rain, or is too cold, or the sunset will soon be ruined by bugs, or tourists. I mean good lord, these people are literal black clouds. Your bitterness doesn’t need to be in my comments. Just go back to looking at your high school yearbook and wondering where it all went wrong.

9. 2 things. 1. the Domino’s Pizza parmesan-stuffed crust is awesome. 2. I can’t eat things like that ever again. Oh, don’t get me wrong, it tasted great, but man, my stomach was angry almost immediately. I wanted a cheat meal and didn’t realize that my body has gotten used to eating relatively healthy. I guess that’s a good thing. Next time I want a cheat meal, maybe I’ll get a box of cereal.

It was both good and bad...

10. Honestly, I can say that I get as much of a good feeling from popping an edible, sitting in my chair, and watching YouTube videos as I used to going out to a bar and drinking. It’s not as loud. I don’t have to worry about driving. I don’t have a hangover. I don’t have to worry about waking up next to a wildebeest. It’s likely just me getting old and boring but still, I don’t miss alcohol or the surrounding shenanigans one bit. 

Initial Impressions 2.0 Blog #53: Liquid Crack, Secret Statues, Stupid Tattoos, etc.

1. I was saddened to learn that an old favorite energy drink was discontinued a year or so ago. RedLine drinks by VPX were super hardcore. Their little energy shots were the only energy supplement ever that affected me in such a way that I swore to never take them again. I had an old friend who would refer to RedLine as ‘liquid crack.’ I have been a Guinea pig for energy supplements for years. Now RedLine will join a list of products I enjoyed that have been discontinued because they are unsafe. I mean I guess that’s a good reason. I’ll miss you RedLine. Say hi in drink heaven to Ephedra Tea, Speed Stack, the original formula of Jack3d, and others.

RIP Redline

2. I am still in the learning phase of the camera on my new phone. This week I took a drive up to the Cape Cod Canal for some photos. I had a cool idea to attach my phone to my selfie stick which also has a tripod base. The idea was to get it all set so I could record myself driving out to this spot called Mashnee Island. It’s a beautiful scenic island with some homes on it. Anyway, I spent at least 10 minutes in a parking lot trying to get the setup to work to no avail. I gave up and didn’t even make the drive out to Mashnee. I went to the nearby Market Basket instead.

3. Icy mornings are no fun. They do make you appreciate spring and summer though. We had a storm this week where it was rain at first on Cape Cod and then transitioned to snow overnight. This meant that when it was time for me to leave for work I had to chisel caked ice off of my car windows and doors. After about 5 minutes of chiseling, I got tired and frustrated and decided it was time to leave regardless. Eventually, my windshield was cleared of ice by my heater and wipers. However, the first few minutes of my drive consisted of my head being cocked to one side so I could see out of a clear spot. Cold hands, neck pain, whatever.

4. I am not sure what is worse, or more disgusting. A person who chooses to not wipe their equipment off at the gym? Or a person who uses one paper towel to ‘clean’ every piece of equipment they use? I ask because there is a really gross guy at the gym who gets one paper towel and then reuses it dozens of times. No, he doesn’t spray cleaner on it repeatedly, nah, just one spray. I am sure it’s still sanitary. Then again this guy looks like 10 lbs of crap in a 5 lb set of beige overalls so I don’t know what I was expecting.

5. As a content creator I have to do a lot of promoting of my work. Nobody else will do it for me. One of the most annoying yet hilarious parts of my promotion comes from a few podcasting groups on Facebook. I share photos and links to my shows on a few such groups. I can count on the same thing happening nearly every time. I put up a post and within seconds there are comments or messages from these jackass people begging for me to pay them to promote my podcast. I now have to turn off notifications for comments on my posts. When these morons message me I immediately ban them on my Facebook podcast page. I am not sure how much the promoting on these podcast pages helps but I have to do all I can to put my name out there. Even if that means disabling notifications and banning people every time.

6. I saw a guy in the grocery store from afar. I thought he had a neat intricate beard on his face. When I got closer? Nope. It was a tattoo. This guy had cursive words inked onto his jaw. I think it might be hard for me to find a stupider idea for a tattoo besides someone who chooses to tattoo their entire head. Yes, I have seen that too with some psychopath at the gym. I’m definitely not anti-tattoo. I am anti stupid tattoos though.

7. It’s always fun when you throw your laundry in and about 5 minutes later realize that you forgot something in the pocket of a coat. Yeah, fun. It was the USB cord for my new phone. The best (worst) part was the washing machine being locked since I stopped it mid-cycle. I had to spend a few minutes figuring out how to unlock it. Then it was another few minutes rifling through sopping wet clothes to find the cord. Good times.

8. It took less than a week for my small dry-erase board to be rendered useless. It weighs nothing and came with 4 big squares of double-sided tape. In theory, it should easily stick to a wall or door. Sadly this was not the case. I had the board stuck snugly on a closet door. The first night I was awakened by the sound of the board falling off and hitting the floor. I thought maybe I hadn’t attached the board securely enough. I pushed on that tape until I was close to cracking the dry-erase board. A few days later I was sitting at the table when I saw it once again fall off the door. For now, I have given up on having this dry-erase board hanging anywhere. It is sitting face up on a table now as useless as can be. Money well spent.

9. I went with my buddy Steve on a fun afternoon photo trip to a few Outer Cape towns. I had a secret spot to show him, plus there was another spot I wanted to check out. These were both close to the beach in Wellfleet. The first spot, an interesting statue on the side of a summer house’s yard, was a success. We nabbed a few photos and got off the property. The second spot was a fail. I wanted to see the famed Oysterman House where Henry David Thoreau stayed on one of his trips along Cape Cod’s outer beach. It is on a secluded dirt road in the middle of nowhere. I was all for walking down the driveway, grabbing a photo, and running away. Unfortunately and ironically the only other house within sight was located next door. I only got about 10 steps down the driveway before I heard a car door shut and saw a person. I ducked back out to the road and we left that spot behind.

10. A bonus of the long walk back to the beach parking lot from the failed attempt at the Oysterman House was finding a fun toy left behind. We assumed it was a dog toy but it was a funny-looking stuffed duck. I was tempted to take it with me and do some sort of skits with it like when I owned a camcorder in high school. Steve wasn’t keen on a dirty dog toy hanging out in his truck so I had to settle for a quick photo.

Proof of the duck's existence.

11. A neat full-circle moment came when we went to shoot the sunset on top of Bearberry Hill in Truro. The last time I visited that spot was the last day I had a drink. The next day I gave up alcohol and have never looked back. That was nearly 4 ½ years ago. It was nice to be standing there in the same place but in a far different place all at once.

12. We ended the photo trip at the iconic Days Cottages in Truro. It’s basically impossible to take a bad photo there. The only problem was the weather got colder and very windy along the water. I was running around getting as many photos and videos as I could. I had to get a photo of colorful clothespins on a line. Unfortunately, the wind wouldn’t let it happen unless I held the line. This led to some frosty fingers but that’s a part of the dedication to the craft.

Cold hands don't care.

What I've Learned In My 40s(so far): 2. Learning To Let Go of Toxic People, Even Those Close To You

 

I turned 40 on November 2, 2017. There is an old saying that ‘life begins at 40.’ I used to think that was just something middle-aged people said to make them feel younger. Maybe that is a part of it. I do believe that the wisdom behind that saying is that you spend those first 39 years accumulating all kinds of knowledge that you then can start to put into practice when you hit the Big 4-0.

For me, as I stare down 47, I can honestly say that my 40s so far have been the most difficult and also rewarding decade of my life. I never thought I’d find a time where I’d feel more unsure, insecure, lost, and yet filled with optimism. My teens used to be the benchmark until my 40s.

I’ve learned a lot in my life. Some of it has been useful as I’ve aged. A lot has been pointless. No amount of studying prepares you for coming to grips with your own aging, your own mortality, or your own demons. No amount of preparation can soften the blow of loss and grief. My 40s have been a trial by fire. They have seen me dropped in hostile environments mentally with no survival gear and having to learn on the fly.

So what have I learned in my 40s so far? A lot.

2. I’ve learned that it is sometimes necessary to let go of toxic people in one's life, even if those people are immediate family.

I tend to push my feelings to the side for the sake of others. I am an empath through and through which is a good trait to have. Being able to feel what someone else is going through can help you understand and be supportive of them. It can also cause people to look past you and take you for granted.

Too many times in my life I have heard some form of the phrase ‘you have to deal with so-and-so because they’re family.’ That’s a lie. If someone’s presence in your life is actively hurting you then you don’t ‘have’ to allow them in your life.

I gave my father 40 years to show me something. Anything. He was given a long leash, and a thousand ‘second chances’ because he was my father. My parents divorced when I was 4. My father had been out of the house since probably a year before then. When I would see him as a kid he was more of a guy trying to be a cool older friend rather than a male role model to help shape who I would become. Notice I said when I would see him.

I had wanted to have a father like so many of my other friends had. Someone who taught them things. Someone who supported their goals. Someone who was actually in their lives. My father didn’t want any of those things. He wanted as little responsibility as possible.

This manifested itself in devastating ways. It was there when he would no-show picking me up for a visit when he said he would when I was a small child. It was there when he quit multiple jobs rather than pay below the minimum for child support. You know the money that would go to supporting your child? This meant for all intents and purposes he didn’t care if I had food, medical care, clothing, you name it.

I mentioned in the previous section that he would stop at the liquor store on drives home from work. He helped get me that job as a dishwasher/food prep. This meant that he also knew I was making money. This allowed him to ask for money constantly. Not to help with living expenses. No, he’d ask his 15-year-old son for money to buy alcohol and cigarettes. At one point he cleaned out my entire savings, well over $1,200, with the promise of payback in full. He might have paid back 75% and then never brought it up again.

The older I got the more I began to see with my own eyes who my father was. The more I was able to make the choice for myself the more I chose not to associate with him. I wanted a father but what I had was a lazy, selfish drunk who prioritized buying beer over his kids having their basic needs met.

After my Nana died in 2009 I stuck my neck out and got him a job at the same restaurant as me. This was me doing right by my Nana. He repaid me by no-call, no-showing 5 straight days about a month or so after starting the job. Can you imagine the embarrassment of knowing that your father cared so little that he just bailed on a job his son got him? My coworkers promised that didn’t make them see me any differently, but come on, it was humiliating.

From 2010 until I turned 40 in 2017 I saw my father very rarely. As I started having events for my books that I released, or road races, he was never there. I had loads of family at these events, not my father. There was always an excuse. He should have just been honest and said ‘you’re not important enough to me for me to try.’

My final straw came not too long before I turned 40. My father had a medical event that landed him in the ER. Despite being relatively estranged I was there with him like a good son. I was there as the doctors checked him out.

The doctor told my father he would make a full recovery but he needed to cut down and eventually cut out alcohol and cigarettes. By this point, I had switched careers and was a personal trainer. I promised the doctor and my father that I could help him with exercise and some nutrition advice. This was the last-second miracle I had wanted. I would finally have the father I had wanted. Better late than never.

He tapered down booze and cigarettes but only temporarily. Within a few weeks of getting out of the hospital, he was chugging beer and smoking like a chimney as if the medical issue had never happened.

That was it. I told him flat out that since he obviously didn’t care then I didn’t care either. I gave him until I turned 40 but I was done trying to force myself to have a father who only cared about himself. Only one person in the family, an aunt, tried to push the ‘but he’s family’ line on me. Everyone else understood why I was cutting my father out.

Flash forward to the present time and my father resides in a nursing and rehabilitation facility. His brazen ignoring of doctor’s recommendations in 2017 caught up with him. He had both of his legs amputated at the knees due to his incessant smoking and drinking. It would have been gut-wrenching if he had been even a subpar father.

In my eyes, he is living his karma. When I needed a father growing up he couldn’t have cared less. He only saw me when I visited my Nana’s house and that’s because he was living there. In fact, when I was still very young he had told my mother he was willing to waive all parental rights to me and my sister so that he wouldn’t have to pay child support.

It was only when my mother said that my Nana would lose all visitation rights as well that my father relented. Finding out that info as an adult should have been traumatizing. To me, it was par for the course. Why would I give one inch of space inside my mind to a man who prioritized beer and cigarettes over his children? And also why would I give one second of my time to visit such a reprehensible human? As far as I am concerned my father does not exist and as far as I am concerned it can stay that way for the rest of his miserable life.

Do not feel as though you have to keep a toxic, painful relationship going because someone is family. Sometimes the pain of having them in your life is greater than the pain of removing them from it.

Next: Part 3 - Learning there is no textbook for dealing with grief and loss

Previous: Part 1 - Being A Slave to a Demon, and Also Slaying That Demon

What I’ve Learned In My 40’s(so far): 1. Being A Slave to a Demon, and Also Slaying That Demon

 

I turned 40 on November 2, 2017. There is an old saying that ‘life begins at 40.’ I used to think that was just something middle-aged people said to make them feel younger. Maybe that is a part of it. I do believe that the wisdom behind that saying is that you spend those first 39 years accumulating all kinds of knowledge that you then can start to put into practice when you hit the Big 4-0.

For me, as I stare down 47, I can honestly say that my 40s so far have been the most difficult and also rewarding decade of my life. I never thought I’d find a time where I’d feel more unsure, insecure, lost, and yet filled with optimism. My teens used to be the benchmark until my 40s.

I’ve learned a lot in my life. Some of it has been useful as I’ve aged. A lot has been pointless. No amount of studying prepares you for coming to grips with your own aging, your own mortality, or your own demons. No amount of preparation can soften the blow of loss and grief. My 40s have been a trial by fire. They have seen me dropped in hostile environments mentally with no survival gear and having to learn on the fly.

So what have I learned in my 40s so far? A lot.

1. I’ve learned what it’s like to be a slave to a demon, and also what it’s like to slay that demon.

Alcoholism has been a part of my life since I started making memories. Until I hit 40 however it was always a cautionary tale dealing with others. My father was an alcoholic from as far back as I remember. I can’t remember a time when he didn’t have an open can of beer and a cigarette sitting in an ashtray. The smell of smoke and the sound of him belching loudly was as much a part of my Sundays at my Nana’s as Wiffle ball games and hot dogs and beans.

As I grew older and my connection to my father faded further away I made a decision to not become an alcoholic to spite him. My greatest fear in my adult life was hearing someone tell me I was just like my father. I couldn’t help if I looked like him or sounded like him but I could make sure I didn’t wind up a drunk like him. It wasn’t that easy.

I enjoyed having a few drinks once in a while in my 20s and 30s. Every so often I’d overdo it and wind up with a hangover but those events were the exception, not the rule. I feared the alcoholism gene being switched on when I was in my 20s. I can still remember being 21 and sitting in the living room at our house on Broadway in West Yarmouth. I had a 6-pack of some sort of winter-flavored beer and was knocking them back when my mother gave me a stern warning.

She mentioned the gene. She also mentioned that she had gone through dealing with an alcoholic with my father at roughly the same age I was then. My mother said she would not go through that with me. That triggered the fear. The fear of becoming my father’s son was more powerful than the beer, at least at that point.

I kept it in check until I hit 40. It was the death of one of my oldest friends Matt a few weeks before Christmas in 2017 that gave the alcohol the opening it needed. In looking for a way to dull the pain of the grief I turned to a friend I swore I’d never turn to. The only difference between 21-year-old me sitting at Broadway with a 6-pack, and 40-year-old with a pile of vodka nips, was that there was nobody to hold me accountable.

The booze helped me cope with Matt’s death, or at least that was my reasoning. I still wasn’t an alcoholic, I was just a sad person who had lost a friend. These are the lies you tell yourself when you know you’re going down a bad path. There’s always an excuse.

My routine barely wavered for nearly 3 years. I was in a liquor store every day, except if I grabbed enough to last me 2 days. I had preferences on what I bought to drink and didn’t stray from them. In fact, if I switched up my order the folks at the liquor stores would remark about it. That’s how familiar they were with me, they knew my daily haul. Being confronted with this I would frequent a different liquor store for a while rather than taking it as a sign that alcohol was too big of a part of my life.

I used to shake my head in disapproval when my father would stop at a liquor store on the ride home from work every single time he drove me home. Now here I was in my 40s, the same age he was then, doing the exact same thing. I was more like him than I ever thought. A lot of sons want to follow in their father’s footsteps. It’s just too bad that my father’s footsteps always led to a liquor store or the unemployment line.

Sure I could blame the deaths of friends and family. I could blame the financial hardship brought on by taking a chance at a career change. I could blame hitting 40. The truth is that I didn’t want to stop drinking. It was a warm blanket of detachment. If I was drinking every night I didn’t have to actually do the work of dealing with all of the issues I just mentioned. The fact that ended up quitting drinking and have been sober for over 4 years shows that I could have done it if I had truly wanted to.

Maybe I say that with 20/20 hindsight. I don’t know. I think there were times during my time as a functioning alcoholic when I was angry and embarrassed that I seemingly had no self-control or self-respect. These times were typically not long after I’d finished my nightly allotment of booze, or first thing the next morning. By early afternoon though all was forgiven and I was back in line at the packie. Thankfully those days are now long gone but for a while, it felt like the demon was my master.

Next: Part 2 - Learning To Let Go of Toxic People, Even Those Close To You

4 Years Alcohol-Free: How I Got Here & Why I Stay Here

     September 12, 2024, is a milestone as I pass four years alcohol-free.

     Many of you know my story of how and why I did it. I will give a bit of an overview for those who might not know.

     How? It was simple and yet arduous. I had to quit cold turkey. September 12, 2020, the first night without alcohol after drinking nearly every night for close to three years was incredibly difficult. I essentially had to tie myself to my couch and bribe myself by saying I could do pretty much anything else except for drinking alcohol.

     Alcohol had been my nearest and dearest confidant for so long that giving it up was a big change. It took weeks to feel like the change might last. After that, it was a matter of being diligent but also easy on myself. That meant doing pretty much whatever I had to do to keep me from drinking. This included eating loads of bad foods to replace the hole left by alcohol.

     Naturally, this led to a weight gain issue but I figured it was better than the alcohol issue. I did my best to not totally lose who I was as I tried to remember who I was before alcohol. I parlayed my lucid evenings I now had into an idea for a podcast which ended up being the thing I focused on to keep booze in the rearview mirror.

     Why did I quit drinking? The short answer is I had finally run out of excuses not to. My last drink I had was on September 11^th and I said I ‘had’ to drink to mourn those we lost on 9/11. Noble? Maybe. Not the way I meant it. Like I said it was my last excuse to continue down a road that had led me so far from who I wanted to be.

Sunset on September 11, 2020

     Alcoholism runs in my family so I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t know falling into that pool was possible. I just thought I was stronger than that. I wasn’t. There were extenuating circumstances that started me down that road.

     Losing one of my oldest friends, Matt, suddenly close to Christmas in 2017 was tough, especially because I’d had the chance to speak to him a few days before but passed on it because I was tired from work. The guilt I felt was tough to take sober so I started drinking to numb it.

     In the past, I had been able to drink once a week or something like that, you know, have a few drinks but not have it become my defining characteristic. My friend’s death shattered the illusion that I had control.

     I battled being basically a day from being flat broke. Not getting the hours I needed in a new career I had begun as a personal trainer made me question my choices. I had no cash, had maxed out my credit cards, and was so broke that I couldn’t even afford a bottled water and protein bar at a supermarket. I had my card declined and had to return the bar.

     I had to borrow money from a client I was training in-home to stabilize my life. I hate being in debt to people so this was a hard pill to swallow. Over time I had to go back into cooking for a consistent paycheck. These things only strengthened my bond with alcohol.

     The first half of 2019 saw my hero, my Grampa deteriorate and ultimately pass due to Alzheimer’s. Being there every step of the decline was a trauma I’ve honestly yet to get over. I’d go from visiting him at the facility to drinking as soon as I left to wash the pain from my heart.

If I can be half of who he was I will have lived a successful life.

     My drinking only got worse coping with Grampa’s loss. Then came Covid. Mere weeks before I had left my cooking job at a retirement home where his wife, my Nina, was a resident. I wanted to take another retirement home job with fewer hours so I could refocus on personal training.

     I got to the new job with fewer hours and Covid hit. I was stuck there and couldn’t do any training. Worst of all my Nina was stuck on the inside at my old job. The family couldn’t see her except through her window. If I hadn’t been so impatient I might have stayed there and been on the inside to comfort my Nina. Again, that is a guilt I have yet to get over.

     Flash forward about six months. I had run out of excuses to drink besides admitting I was a weak, sad, addict that was not in control of his life. Up to that point I had suffered in silence. This was both in my drinking and my coping with the losses of my friend Matt and my Grampa.

     It was a tough go but day by day I’ve made it to where I am now. But why do I stay alcohol-free? Surely I could attempt to go back to being a ‘social drinker’ right? The funny thing is that the further I got from alcohol the more I realized I didn’t need it, and I never did.

     Looking back over my life I can say there is nothing I did or experienced that was made better with alcohol. I didn’t miss it. What I started noticing was that my own story of recovering from alcohol dependency was inspiring others. I finally opened up about my weakness and the fight I’d been going through and it resonated with people. My family and friends were proud of me.

     This leads to two of the biggest reasons I choose to remain alcohol-free. My sister Ashley and my Uncle Bob. Both of them battled their own demons and had broken free of alcohol. They were both so proud of me and I felt that if I took a risk of even one drink I’d be letting them down.

     If I went back to drinking I’d be just another person to fall off the wagon. Just another person to talk a big game but gave up when rough patches came. And came they did.

     I lost my Nina in 2021, lost my Aunt Brenda and old friend Pete in 2022, and lost my Uncle Eric in 2023. I faced them all without the crutch of alcohol. In the four years since I last had a drink the only time I came close to falling off the wagon was when my Uncle Eric died. He had been like a father to me and I hadn’t been there at the end when he was dying of cancer. In fact, I learned of his death the day after it happened. It is a trauma that remains an open wound. I am currently listening to a Hawaiian music station on Pandora that includes many songs Uncle Eric shared with me. This is because this music makes me remember him and helps me to go to the places I have to go to share these experiences.

     I sat in the parking lot of a liquor store I used to visit so much that they knew when I changed my ‘normal’ order. In my mind it didn’t matter if I didn’t drink, I was going to die someday so why not just do what you want, right? My memories of Uncle Eric stopped me from going inside. I thought how upset he’d be if he knew I was using his death as an excuse to start drinking again.

Trying to live the life those I've lost would want for me.

     A few weeks before writing this I was listening to a podcast by a guy named Mark Manson. I have become a huge fan of his in 2024 including reading both of his books. His podcast is a part of a deep personal development journey I’ve been on in 2024. I need to build from the ashes of the last several years mentally. I might have stopped drinking but losing so many people close to me in short order drained me.

     On this particular episode of Mark Manson’s podcast, he was doing a Q&A. A question he answered has profoundly affected me since I heard it.

     The question was from someone who had recently lost a family member and they wanted to know the best way to honor them going forward. Manson’s reply was that they should try to live a life that their lost family member would want for them.

     It floored me. I immediately thought of those I had lost. Am I living the life Grampa would want for me? Or Nina? Or Uncle Eric? I don’t think I am. I don’t think I am extremely far from what they’d want for me, but I’m far enough away in my mind that it’s got me looking at my entire life.

     The idea of being an inspiration rather than a cautionary tale is a pressure I’m willing to accept. I don’t have many responsibilities. No wife. No kids. No real attachments. It’s a blessing and a curse. I’d love the security of a family and a house. However, I also love the fact that I can pack and go on a road trip without anything to stop me.

     No matter what if any changes I make in the next year of my life one change that I won’t make is letting alcohol back into my life. It does me no good. If it does you good that’s fine, to each their own. However, if you feel it’s way too big a part of your life and you want to give it up just know that you can.

     If I could do it so can you. My journey is not unique but if it can inspire anyone looking to give up alcohol to do so then I am happy to share my journey.

     It’s been four years since I last had a drink. 1,462 days and counting. Life can still be tough sometimes but it’s about finding better ways to cope with the curve balls. 

It's a long and winding road that is life.

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.