The Search & Rescue Mission for my once and future (maybe) health. Snap, crackle, vodka–
For those of you who have not yet figured out how to block my phone number, you know I am the world’s best choice maker.
Just ask me.
For those of you who don’t know me, I have made some odd choices in how to live my life. Some good. Others were shockingly, mortifyingly horrendous. Some baked so deep into my DNA they weren’t really choices at all.
I’m human. We all are. And underneath this tale, that’s what this is about. Not about how many push-ups I can or can’t do. It’s about being better at being human and what has helped me in the last 10 days.
In the course of being an adult human, I’ve experienced the things Life throws at one, arguably in larger doses than some. These include relationships (I lost a whole kid to parental alienation from my ex-wife), business, existential angst, health issues, death (not mine), reinventing myself, reinventing myself again, and trying to be a not-awful father and husband. I traded in the semi-nightly run for another necessary trip to the grocery store or pharmacy or special pharmacy for the special medicine, or kid drop-off or one more estimate so we didn’t lose everything.
I traded it for survival and survival exacted its pound of flesh: stress.
Snap, crackle, vodka.
Over the years, my shoulders sank. My grip weakened. I ate ice cream by the bucket load at night. My glass is full until it is empty and I am asleep. My stomach grew and joints hurt.
I became afraid of the cold.
And I just generally became afraid. “Hello darkness my old friend…”
I used to be pretty good at this thing called Spartan Race where I ran with the Elite Men. “Elite” in this case means the group of potential medalists, and I was a hanger-on in this pack. I was faster other racers who were young enough to be my children. It was cool. I try not to trumpet I’m proud of much but I was proud of that, of the time I cut my head on the barbed wire and the blood ran down my face at the finish line.
Yet it was a lot of work and running past happy hours alone, push-ups in my dark driveway, working out with a concrete block while staring at my fence… it all slipped away. It was the thing that could go and it went. Back to the grocery store.
Then, 12 days ago, I stumbled into a journey, running in the dark.
Running in the dark is somewhat a metaphor for “undiscovered” here, but running in the dark is also 100 percent dangerous. It was dark during 8 of the 10 runs. If you do it, light yourself up like a jeezeless Christmas tree. I use LiteBands and one of those safety patrol hi-vis yellow shoulder things.
Day 1
I’m not sure exactly how this decision got made, but I know the ingredients. Like much in my life, it sorta happened to me rather than me acting or changing anything. A mash-up, if you will. Half accident.
There is a beautiful running route through the middle of my town. It’s 3 to 4 miles. There’s a horse farm, trail network, stream crossings, CVS. Nobody knows it’s there. It’s my “easy” run and I’ve done it hundreds of times.
But this time, as the very recent few runs (that have become jogging, let’s get serious) show, the first mile was mind-bendingly painful.
I’ve been tired before, but this was a whole new layer of Hell on a cracker.
Good god. I mean I was gasping for breath. I didn’t have enough wind to lumberjack my snots out. They dribbled down my face. I’d be embarrassed if I wasn’t afraid I was near damn death.
And in that ½-mile of moment, I knew my life choices were taking running away from me. Taking my health and everything attached to it, which is everything.
I knew, maybe not this run, but one in the near future, would hurt so much and be so slow I’d never go back out. So I yelled at myself, dressed myself down. I deserved it:
“NO. NO. You will not lose running. You’ve lost almost everything else a couple times over and you’ve solved almost everything else at least as many times. No. Not this. If you’re going to behave the way you behave, then you have to murder yourself out here, too. No.”
Coincidentally, I was listening to the Jordan and Mikhaila Peterson interview with certified mad man Wim Hof and he had mentioned something about taking a short, cold shower for 10 straight days, stating something about it being a workout for your skin. Then he made them hold their breath and some other hocus-pocus-who-ha that I immediately ignored because he has a funny accent and speaks by yelling all his words. It’s gold.
By mile 3 my wind was coming back and I could launch snot rockets. Running was still so miserably hard I could—for the first time in, I dunno how long—focus on running. Not what I was running from. I had to….to get home.
So I took a cold shower when I got back from the horse farm and almost died.
It was one of the hardest things I ever did. I couldn’t control my breathing. I got dizzy and screamed bloody murder. Then got out.
10-days, huh?
Day 2
Morning cold shower. Oh.My.God. Gasping for breath. Hyperventilating. Dizzy. Genuine pain. Like I was being hit with a bat. But a little easier than the night before.
In a can’t-possibly-make-this-up moment: My skin, which is blotchy and red and burns a lot, feels better than after any lotion I have ever used. Hof likens the skin to a muscle and it is one we do not exercise. Cold exercises it. Or, in my case: Exorcises it.
Evening 3.5-mile loop. My easiest run route. I tried to run this during the summer and it took me, like, 40 minutes. I wasn’t just drenched in sweat, my skin was saturated. Then I do pull-ups under the Rte 309 overpass. They used to be hard-ish, but tonight I felt like my shoulders were going to come out of their sockets, like my muscle fibers for things I used to pump out with relative ease, were going to snap. I think I could feel my bones.
I did 10 in this spot and 10 where the highway crosses again on the way home and 10 at home. All anemic and a fraction of what I could do years ago.
Cold shower. Endurable. Gasping. Huffing air. Trying to stay conscious.
Day 3
Morning cold shower. Skin feels like skin and not burn unit tissue. No need for coffee. Drank some anyway.
Built a deck all day.
Evening, for the first time in half a decade I felt I could make the what was once a ham-and-egger run for me, our town’s Frost Bite 5-Miler loop, a nice blend of town, suburbia, trails, and long hills that you’re never not on. I used to push Jack in his stroller on this route with relative ease.
It took 46 minutes tonight. And not even possible 72 hours prior. Not.Even.Possible.
Used the downstairs shower which doesn’t stay cold for long, so I’ll give myself credit for a cold shower but it was luke cold.
Day 4
Morning cold shower.
Lots of driving and estimates and a video shoot today, stuff that makes me tired from thinking. Too much coffee and I was falling off the caffeine edge, deeply crashing and fatigued. Did not want to leave the house after I got home.
Evening, I left the house for a run.
It was a 3.5-mile course under Route 309. First round of pull-ups were shear pain in my abdomen. Just eye-shuttering and crippling. I mustered 6 terrible pulls. Second-round, switched the grip, 8. Awful. Push-ups on a park bench. So tired jogging up to it. I just wanted to sleep. Death would have been fine too. I was expecting to maybe do 10 and 32 came flying out of me.
Weather was cold. I was not. There was more me in me than there was before, I think.
4-days ago I was afraid of the cold, now I’m warm in it.
Cold shower. Water is colder because winter is here. Moments of controlled breathing. Almost passed out.
Day 5
Morning cold shower.
Evening, I went to the YMCA since we pay for a membership and we haven’t gone since the pandemic started. But no iron with the bros. Hit the pool instead. I did 10 or 11 laps (up and back is one lap; one side to the other is a length).
I’m not sure I have ever had to work this hard to breathe. If I didn’t stop at each end for a few seconds I would have drowned in 3 feet of water. I could genuinely feel my cardiovascular system burning. I have never felt that before. PT on the pool deck.
Cold shower.
Day 6
Morning cold shower.
Built a deck and ran errands all day.
Evening, planned the 309 run, the one it is always in the back of my mind it took me 40 embarrassing minutes to plod through this summer.
As I left the driveway, I was impatient and I just took off down the street behind my house. Huh? What’s this? 100-yards in, my wind left me and it all hurt. Mistake. It just hurt everywhere. Not tired, hurting. Painful hurting. This is all new to me. But 200 more yards in, I hadn’t, somehow, slowed down. And the pain was subsiding. (There are techniques to change your stride around to manage terrain, fatigue, injuries…maybe that’s what I did…I don’t know).
So I made little landmarks in the distance. I’ll keep going to the next street sign or light post or whatever. Seemingly possible chunks. By a mile in, I thought I might be able to make it the whole way running like this.
And I focused my mind on running. Not what I was running from. Not the rollicking, rampage of unsolved mysteries I needed to solve. Running.
Sure all the usual static—replaying the day, arguments I could totally win with that zinger, how I’m going to make that box tomorrow—entered, but I shifted into the task at hand. I had to. There was no other way. I had to get home.
It hurt. And I deserved it to. I deserve this. There is no other way for me.
I slowed down a few times, my vision fading, the lights kinda going dim, but I was able to recover and it spun back up. 3-miles. 25-minutes. Not too shabby for an old loser.
For PT (physical training; calisthenics) I use awkward, heavy things in my back yard. In this case I was finishing up with a set of cinder block curls and in clear distress (I was grunting like an animal) as my neighbor came up to make small talk. The guy literally asked me a #$%^&*( question like he met me in line at the lumber yard. “SHUT UP!”
Cold shower.
Day 7
Morning cold shower. Hurts but not agonizing. Skin feels marvelous.
Worked all day, even thought this was a Saturday, building boxes and deck staining. Running around. Sooooooo didn’t want to go.
Evening, I went for a run.
Ow. Just everything hurt. Like I was aware of every joint and muscle and what it was doing and that it didn’t want to do this. Like an unlubricated machine. But it was a different kind of pain tonight. More fatigue from going hard than existential agony. It was not fear. It was mechanical. And that is good.
I could breathe.
By the last mile I was performing a skit out loud—out loud…I couldn’t even snarf a booger out less than a week ago—running through one of our lovely parks. So I was pretending and doing funny voices, talking about the rare earth in tool and car batteries and how plastic decking is made from oil on Joe Rogan’s podcast. And he was saying “you should have a podcast” and he laughed.
Now, Matthew McConaughey wants to option my book—and I now have 5 readers instead of 4. I could run tonight’s course LSD (Long, Slow, Distance…probably 4, maybe 5. Long for me for now) and engage in other functions.
Rogan hasn’t called yet.
Cold shower.
Day 8
Morning. There was apparent bionic drinking the previous night. I woke up at 4:30am and forced myself to stay awake. No, bro. You’re going to do this, you’re going to suffer. What a jerk I am.
Cold shower.
Evening, I took Jack on his bike while I ran. Legs are smashed up and a chronic shin-splint-type injury (so old it has birthdays and anniversaries) was close to popping. I learned a lot about Jack on this ride/run. We argued. I tried to be a good dad and that hurt too and I failed more than I succeeded. But I didn’t give up.
Neither did he.
Even when his device isn’t in his hand, it’s in his head and it’s infuriating. His games know him better than I do. We threw the ball after for PT and he smiled his smile. He’s in there. It’s my job to get him out. We connected without a satellite.
Cold shower.
Day 9
Morning cold shower.
The day was a tangle of things I don’t often do. People I needed to perform were not performing, mind-draining to-do lists that got longer, not shorter. An entire day of “tug on a strand of the spider web and the whole thing moves.”
Alas, a dump run with my new dump truck cleaned all that static right out of there. It was 30-degrees colder today than at this time yesterday and I almost forgot it was Day 9. By “forgot” I mean I wanted to watch TV under my blankie.
Evening, I went anyway.
309 route with more pull-ups and push-ups than last time. Leg is on fire. It all hurt.
35-degrees. Not cold.
Cold shower.
Day 10
Morning cold shower.
Evening, I think the route was up and around Jack’s school through the trails. Uneventful. I can breathe. I feel a lightness on my feet that I can now confirm had left me. It was weird. Like a whispy cloud passing on a sunny day dims the sun a little, barely perceptible. You don’t know it’s gone, really, then it comes back and you feel it once again. Brightness. A light step on the hard ground. In the dark. Alone.
Cold shower.
Day 11
Cold shower…
