I run. I run a lot. Known on the compound as “that old guy who runs all the time.” Overlooking the “old” part, can’t argue with that. When we’re not locked down, I get in 50-minute runs around our quarter-mile track inside the walls, averaging 35-40 miles per week. For me, that’s up to six miles a day. Sometimes, when I’m feeling especially chipper, I can push it to seven. I’m not the fastest guy here, but for a guy in his 50s, I do okay. Can maintain an 8-9-minute pace the whole time, steady as she goes.
Lately, some of the younger guys have taken to running sprints on the track. When invited to join them, I declined. Trying to keep up with 20 and 30 year olds in sprinting? Um, no. I told them, “Let me know when you want to do a 5-miler.” Little did I know that they would take me up on this challenge!
As you would imagine, most guys in prison work out and they are pumped. Pull-ups, push-ups, burpees, curls, more burpees, all day long. So these guys with superhero physiques imagine they can do anything. Before I knew it, a plan was hatched, a 5-mile challenge race. Seven of the fittest dudes were recruited, ranging in age from 23-38; the rest of the guys laid bets. Even being the old guy, I felt pretty confident. Some of these guys would crush me if we ran just one lap, but I knew I could chug along at a 2-minutes a lap pace pretty much forever.
Race Day arrived and the betting was fierce! I walked out on the track like Tiger Woods. You could bet the field against me. My competitors each had his own strategy: go out hard to wear me out, use each other to draft, hold my slow pace and outsprint me at the end, etc. My plan was to clock my 2 minute laps until and unless I needed to go faster.
So right off the rip two guys raced ahead. One of them dropped out on lap 8 of our 20. At the 3-mile mark, the other guy still led by half a lap. The rest of us hung together, except for one runner who lagged far behind. Our 3-mile time was 23:40, just under 2-minutes per lap, in line with my plan. The guy in front eventually faded and walked off the track at lap 14, along with one of the guys who’d been pacing me. Now, just three of us were left, and that one guy half a lap back. As we turned into mile four, two were totally gassed, so that left me with just one to beat.
What he didn’t know was that I had a secret weapon, having just read an inspirational book by an ex-Navy Seal, endurance athlete and overall bad-ass David Goggins. I came to the track with a warrior’s mindset. No amount of taunts or trash talk could touch me. Yes, this was a good-natured race, just something to do, but for me it became a true test of will. I built it up in my mind, so that my opponents were not just fellow inmates. They represented all the obstacles and detractors I expect to face when I leave prison. I silently repeated Goggins’ hashtag over and over: #canthurtme. As we turned into the last mile, my opponent became the embodiment of the pain, the shame, the haters, the DA, the prison, basically everything that has happened to me since my arrest seven years ago. I wasn’t angry, but I was armored.
We hit the last lap side-by-side, the whole prison yard cheering and jeering. My opponent (who, by the way, is a nice guy and a friend), said, “Last lap, I got you OG, you can’t outsprint me at the end.” A few of my buddies who had also read the Goggins book heard my reply, the only words I spoke the whole race, taken straight from the book: “The problem for you is that I’m a Bad Ass MotherF__ker.” I dropped the hammer.
No way was I going to wait until the last turn to outsprint a guy half my age. I kicked in to a higher gear at the start of the lap and that final quarter mile went by in 1:28. Margin of victory: 20 meters. Winner: The Old Man.
Not only did I win, what I said at the end of the race had made its rounds before I caught my breath, the whole yard in hysterics, because no one had ever heard me talk like that. So, does my Michael Jordanesque fabricated battle mean that I won’t have struggles in the future? Of course not. But for this one day, at least, I got my mindset straight. As a bonus, I’m now King of the Track. Thank you David Goggins. #canthurtme.
