A Bit About Me

I live in Papillion, Nebraska — a suburb of Omaha — with my wife of twelve years and two young kids (ages four and seven). I work as a software engineer and am lucky to still be working remote with a flexible schedule — great for being able to squeeze in runs and work outs, which can be a real struggle with young kids and their activities.

Challenges with Weight

Weight has been an issue for me since I can remember — though that isn’t necessarily saying much, as I have a terrible memory. As far as I can recall, I was overweight or obese since at least third grade.

The only exception to my weight struggles was a period of a couple years while in college, discussed more below, when I found myself with more time to exercise and a dorm cafeteria that supplied healthy food options with zero effort required from me. This allowed me to get down to a healthy weight — around 175 pounds. But after those couple years, my weight started creeping back up to where it is today — around 250 pounds as of this post.

My Early “Athletic” Journey

From childhood until college, athletics were basically of zero interest to me. I participated in some sports before middle school, but participated is probably the key word — I was not serious about it. Academics, computers, video games, and excessive amounts of Mountain Dew were much more interesting to me and consumed all of my time.

Starting my freshman year of college, I became super interested in cycling (riding between thirty and a hundred miles a week). I also had a pretty low credit hour load, which provided the time to fit the cycling in. I did not participate in any races or even something more casual like a century — I just rode recreationally. I even bought an Xtracycle during this time and started riding to get groceries and run other errands. I was obsessed! However, this love was replaced with another — after junior year, and within a couple years of starting to date my now wife, I had basically stopped cycling, replacing that time with time spent with her (I do not blame her for this, it was a good trade).

There was a period of a year or two in my late twenties when I became super interested in triathlons. The cycling I was comfortable with, given my past experience, but I was not a confident swimmer and running was out of the question. However, wanting to complete a triathlon was a strong motivator. I took swim lessons to learn the front crawl and started swimming laps five days a week. (Aside: To this day, I wish I could find a way to fit more swimming into my busy schedule — it’s even more meditative than running.) Running, however, was the real struggle. I tried to get over the hump, working on Couch to 5k multiple times, but I don’t think I ever finished the program before the actual triathlon. I did still manage to finish a sprint triathlon in Boulder, Colorado — and that one was enough for me.

Even with the above experiences, until my running journey discussed below, I never considered myself an athlete — quite the opposite. Even at the peak of my cycling in college and when I finished my sprint triathlon, I did not feel at all athletic — it was just something fun to do. I also never considered athletics a “de-stressing” process — it was hard, it was rarely fun, and it generally did not make me feel good about myself.

My Running Journey

I suspect my journey to running mirrors that of many other recent runners. During the pandemic, my mother in law graciously lived with us and helped watch our children at home. I was also lucky enough to have remote jobs throughout this period, so I was always home as well. Over time, the stress of living with a mother in law (a challenge, regardless of the mother in law), being around the children all the time, and basically never leaving the house took a bit of a toll mentally. To escape all of this, I took up running for a simple reason — to get out of the house.

In the Beginning…

Like many runners, I started with the good old Couch to 5k program. Being overweight and not having seriously exercised in recent memory, it was appropriately brutal. Gasping for breath after the 30 second run intervals, shin splints, sore muscles — nothing about it was fun. Getting out of the house, however, was luckily a huge motivator and I kept with it. I repeated a couple weeks, but ultimately made it to the finish of the program.

By the end of Couch to 5k, I could run consistently for about thirty minutes (at a “slow” pace around 13 minutes per mile, of course, but everyone’s pace is their own). This “run for thirty minutes straight” threshold, to me, feels like the breakthrough moment when running goes from suffering with seemingly no payoff, to enjoyable with significant payoff. Something, for me, mentally switched at this point and, while I would not saying running became “fun”, subconsciously I would miss running on days off. Going for run turned into a mechanism to destress, which was enough to keep me moving.

Transitioning to a Coach

Around this time is when I decided to find a running coach. I felt that I was taking running more seriously and investing in a coach helped me to commit to sticking with it. I also was not especially confident in my ability to set my own training plan in a way that would avoid injury, while maintaining progress. I did some searching on the web and reached out to a couple of coaches to interview. I picked the one that felt like the best fit for me and I have been with her since (at least four years now).

While I am not certain what the working relationship with other coaches looks like, working with Laura has been simple and straightforward for me. She enters my workouts for the week in Final Surge, I record the workouts (automatically for runs and cross training, manually for strength training) in a way that syncs to Final Surge, and get feedback from her weekly. She is available for discussion via phone, but being a millennial myself, I rarely take advantage of that option. I also sometimes enter feedback in Final Surge on the workouts, which I suspect is useful. Sometimes our email correspondence is quick and to the point, other times (usually when I’m having troubles) we have more in depth conversations. Laura is responsive to my feedback and makes any adjustments as requested. We work together to figure out problems and decide when certain actions are needed (such as seeing a physical therapist).

For me, this coaching setup works great. In addition to trusting my coach to set me on a path for results (which I have seen), it can be quite motivating to know someone will be watching my results. My coach will not judge me for missing a workout, but someone other than me will know.

Setback (Do Not Run While Sick)

I had been working with my coach for a couple of years and was seeing good results — 5k times were coming down steadily, running was feeling much easier, and I had a half marathon on the schedule. Things were great! Then, one day, two things happened around the same time: I got sick with some kind of cold (thanks kids!) and I got the Moderna mRNA booster. I took a break from running while I recovered from my cold and the booster. When I was feeling mostly better, I decided to go for an easy run with a friend. Unfortunately, this run did not feel especially easy, as I felt fatigued throughout and my heart rate was higher than normal, but was able to finish.

That night, I woke up with some strange sensations. I felt lightheaded, slightly short of breath, a little bit of chest and arm pain — scary things! My wife asked if we needed to call an ambulance, but I (being a stubborn man) decided to just lay down for a bit and see how I felt. I went back to sleep without problem and woke up feeling ok the next morning. However, within a couple of hours of waking up, I started having some upper arm pain in one arm again. I took an ECG on my Apple Watch when it occurred and the watch said “results inconclusive” — strange. I called my wife and she told me I needed to go to the ER. No deal, I said! I’ll just go to the urgent care.

Once urgent care heard my symptoms, the nurse hooked me up to an EKG to take the test. Upon seeing the result, she told me to hang tight while she got the practitioner. The practitioner came in and basically said: “According to the EKG, you are currently having a heart attack. You need to go to the ER.” So to the ER I went. Once there, the EKG seemed to have normalized, by they started running additional tests. The nurses were convinced I was fine — I was too young for heart problems. I saw the look of surprise on one of the nurses faces in their work area before I actually heard from the doctor that I had elevated troponin levels — indicating damage or stress to the heart. I was being admitted to have a heart catheter test performed.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, the heart catheter test came back with no real issues. I had a slight, probably inherited anatomical issue, but no signs of blockages (or whatever else they were looking for). I essentially got a shrug from the interventionist cardiologist and sent home. However, wanting an answer, I followed up with a cardiologist recommended by my primary care physician — there, they sent me in for a cardiac MRI. I will say that the cardiac MRI was not my favorite experience — the machine basically alternating between telling me to hold my breath, then breath normally, for an hour.

Within a few days, I had my result and reason for the troponin levels — myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscles). It was impossible to determine if the myocarditis was caused by running while sick (a potential cause) or the mRNA booster (also a potential cause), but the outcome was the same — no exercising, no elevated heart rate, until it was resolved.

While I will spare you all the details of this time, it took another two cardiac MRIs over a year and a half for the myocarditis to finally resolve itself. During this time, I was expected to keep my heart rate below 120. As someone who had just found the joy in running and was setting up for big goals, this was a huge mental struggle. At the same time, I was happy to not have any long term heart problems — there were some moments in the hospital, and even during recovery, where I was worrying about my future of even being alive (and not needing a heart transplant).

It was difficult to mentally accept, but after the myocarditis resolved, my cardiologist said to return to life as normal, as if nothing had happened!

Back to It

Taking a year and a half off, during which time I had to keep my heart rate down, definitely had consequences. I put on some weight during the time, meaning between that and the fitness loss, it was worse than starting from scratch. In addition, I had the newfound fear of wondering what was going on with my heart. This time, though, I knew what it was going to feel like to get back to comfortable running. I had also been waiting so long that motivation was not an issue.

My coach and I picked right back up and set out sights on the Chicago Half Marathon. Slowly, but steadily, I built up my endurance and rediscovered the joy of running. The Chicago Half Marathon went fine — I went out too fast and struggled toward the end, but was able to finish, which was my only real goal.

Running Today

My goals right now are alternating between improving my pace (and therefore 5k time — I want to get sub 30 minute) and occassionally running half marathons. With my coach’s guidance, each 5k race I run is seeing a faster finish time — I’m confident I will be stronger than ever soon. While from a pace perspective, I am still not back to the same place I was before myocarditis, I am enjoying my running more than ever and grateful I get the opportunity to keep running.