You guys,
It was late December 2023 when Sam burst into the bedroom and declared he was going to run a marathon.
He’d never run a marathon—he’d never even run an organized race—but he liked running so I said okay and returned to my bedtime reading. Then he added, “And I’m going to try to do it in under three hours.”
I put my book down. Sam wanted to run a marathon in under three hours. That meant he would need to maintain a 6:52 mile pace for 26.2 miles. I could not even run one mile in that time. But Sam was in New-Years-Resolution-mode, when anything feels possible. And this year he was turning forty. He wanted to challenge himself. He felt better than he’s ever felt, he said.
In April he started working with a virtual running coach, Allen, who’s smile and positivity could fill a stadium, and who seemed to believe, undoubtedly, that Sam could run this marathon in under three hours. The training was intense. He ran five days a week, mostly hard and fast, with one cycling day and one recovery day. There was some trouble for a couple months with tendonitis in his knee. A physical therapist told him he needed to rest but Allen told him he didn’t. Sam kept up his training, through weeks of foam rolling and theraguning and icing, and the tendonitis went away. As the weeks and months went by, Sam ran faster and faster and sustained a 6:52 pace for longer and longer.
Five weeks before the race Sam got sick with a bad cold. “At least it’s happening now,” he said. “At least I won’t be sick for the race.” The cold persisted. His symptoms changed but never abated. One night he had a coughing fit until he threw up, and proceeded to throw up for the rest of the night.
Two weeks before the race Sam went for a long run and upon returning home had, yet again, a coughing fit. He grabbed his side and hunched over. Bruised ribs, at best. Hopefully not a fracture.
The next morning, before the kids woke up, Sam left the house for a run. Two minutes later I heard the garage door open. I sat in the library, on my laptop, and he slowly walked in. “I can’t run,” he said. In all his training, this was the first day he missed. It was Sunday, and at this point I had finally caught what he had and couldn’t stop coughing. Then the kids woke up. We plowed through the day, with breakfast at the bagel shop followed by a trip to the playground. We had taken TV privileges away and now, as George grew more and more defiant, perhaps because his parents were useless and would not give him the attention he needed, we started taking toys away, and not in the way we usually do, where we hide them in our room for a day, but throwing some of them directly into the trash can, or piling them into bags and announcing, “These are going to kids less fortunate.” Sam also told George he was spoiled, which might have been the first time George had heard the word. George and Layla responded to all this by adding more of their toys to the piles, and telling us, “These are for the less fortunate.”
By dinnertime I was dejected. Sam shuffled past me, his shoulders slumped, and I knew he was much worse off than me. I needed to step up, and suck it up, and be there for him.
“Look,” I said, which is how I always start something really important and impactful and in this case, inspiring, “Today is rough. For you. Physically.”
Sam stood at the stovetop, searing salmon in a cast iron skillet for our dinner, and he held the spatula in his hand and looked at me. The salmon sizzled. “Yea?” he said.
“And you just,” I started, willing the words to come out. “You just need to be okay with it. Tomorrow is a new day.”
Just then, George yelled for more food, and I grabbed some cut pieces of pear off the cutting board and walked over to the kitchen table.
“Was that your pep talk?” asked Sam, and for the first time that day he smiled, and for the first time that day I laughed.
“Yes!” I said. “That was my pep talk.”
“You can barely even speak,” he said. “You’re all hopped up on Mucinex.”
“Well I had the best intentions,” I said. “You knew what I was trying to do.”
The next day Sam missed another day of training. The day after that, he took extra strength Tylenol, rubbed Tiger balm on his ribs, and went for a run in thirty-six degree rainy weather.
“How did it go?” I asked when he walked in, soaked with rain and sweat.
“Better than I thought,” he said.
“That was some weather to run in.”
“That’s what I needed,” he said, nodding his head and pacing the bedroom floor. “This is what it’s all about!”
Sam was back. His positivity could fill a stadium.
A week before the marathon Sam and Allen discussed a plan for Sam to run with the 3:05 pacing group until he could decide whether to pull away from the pack or stay with them, depending on how he was feeling. Allen added, “At least you know you won’t be sick for the race.”
Then on the Monday before marathon weekend, Sam came down with chills, body aches, and fever. He was sleeping twelve hours a night but his health didn’t improve. The doctor advised him to withdraw from the race.
The day after Sam was supposed to run the marathon (which ended up being a cold, sunny day—perfect race weather, he said) he was still having coughing fits and now a headache to go with it. Someone came to the house to clean our air ducts for the first time since we moved in five years ago. He went up to the attic and discovered black mold inside the air handler. “This needs to be addressed immediately.” he said, quickly exiting the attic to put a mask on. “You have kids. This will come through your vents.”
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Until next week,
Charlie
My calendar is open for 1-on-1 Zoom calls to discuss whatever you’d like…writing, parenting, publishing, hard conversations? Let’s talk about it! If my slim window of availability doesn’t work for your schedule, just reply and we can work something out.
And then what happened, Charlie???
*tries to play next episode
Noted. Pep talks are not effective against black mold.