One More Mile Chapter 1

Growing up I was under the impression that life was good. The first five years of my life I lived next to the Pompton River, which inevitably used to flood every year. Things overall seemed pretty good. I can remember bits and pieces of that time period, all of which were happy memories. Like fishing with my sister, walking to grandma’s house, and riding on the back of my mom’s bike, until I learned to ride on my own which involved my dad tricking me into pedaling as fast as I could as he held my seat, until he let go when I didn’t know it. Life was good. I also recall spending time in my father’s workshop, safety town, and learning how to use tools.

When I was about to turn 6, we moved up to Hamburg, NJ. My first sport that I signed up for was karate, where my sister and I commuted (our mom drove us) all the way back to the Wayne area to take the class with some friends from the old neighborhood, which we referred to as The Grove. It was a short-lived adventure, as I only achieved my yellow belt. The Karate Kid was an extremely popular movie back in 1987, so we all wanted to be like Daniel Son.

I was always athletic. I think soccer and t-ball were the next sports I tried out. T-ball was childish to me, being I was a big boy at 7 years old, so I switched to baseball rather quickly. I have always strived to do my best and be good at sports. Overall, I was average in most sports. You know, not picked first or picked last in gym class, but rather somewhere around the middle of the pack.

Some sports I was rather good at, but that was a rarity. From first grade to eight grade I played soccer and baseball. In middle school, I picked up playing indoor volleyball and basketball as well. I didn’t compete long in basketball outside of my church, and stuck with volleyball because I was quite good at playing the net, until I broke my leg doing something stupid outside of work.

In school and sports I always aimed to be a leader. In middle school I was an officer in the environmental club, pitcher on the baseball team, forward in soccer, you get the idea. Always aiming high. I didn’t excel overtime however because I was short, small, and everyone else was older and going through puberty before me, so I started to fall short in athletics as well. I was demoted to defense in soccer, quit baseball after they made me an outfielder, and sort of fell out of some sports after a few injuries and disappointments until high school. Not to mention, I was bullied because I was small, had long hair (80s rock band style as I was a big fan of Metallica and Guns ‘N Roses), and was kind of a nerd (minus the glasses). In fact I was so worried about being made fun of for being smart, I would change my answers on quizzes and tests to make them incorrect so I wouldn’t get 100% on anything. A habit that would follow me through high school. Despite that sense of insecurity, I still managed to graduate high school 16th in my class. Not the best, but nowhere near the bottom nor living up to my true potential.

In sports getting picked on started to get to me, throwing me off my game with the jeering. In basketball people would shout out “hair ball” instead of “air ball” to make fun of me. I tried not to let it get to me, and it didn’t for a long time, but eventually getting made fun of by people who you thought were your friends takes its toll. In baseball, as a pitcher, as I was up on the mound I could hear kids from the other team and parents poking fun at me for my long hair calling me names like “queer” or state “look they have a girl pitching.” One day, when I was pitching somewhere in the 5th or 6th inning and I had enough of the jeering. I walked off the field, and to my surprise my team followed and the coach called the game. I didn’t see it as a big deal, but I made waves. It wasn’t until years later that I would realize what an impact that day had on people. I cut my hair short not long after that game.

I was not the best player on any of the fields or the courts, but I was competitive and could definitely make an impact. The truth is, looking back at it all, I was made a pitcher in baseball, played the net in volleyball, and tied for first place in a free throw contest in basketball, so I was not particularly bad at sports either, average as mentioned earlier. My career in all four sports, baseball, soccer, volleyball, and basketball would end after middle school was over. I needed a fresh start in high school.

Outside of school I was athletic in many other aspects, trying new sports all of the time. I skateboarded all of the time with my friends, learning new stunts and tricks. I also won archery contests in boy scouts, earned a sharpshooter merit badge with my rifle (which consisted of shooting five 1 inch black dots from 20 yards. I am proud to say that I did it using iron sites at dusk), played roller hockey after I learned to rollerblade, and did stunt rollerblading. My friends and I would also run around all over the neighborhood playing man-hunt, swimming in each other’s pools, and riding bicycles. At any given moment we would be anywhere in our one square mile town or even further away in the woods hiking and running up the mountains. We went by the name “The Wild and Crazy Orchard Street Kids.” A fitting name for our group, since we all were a little wild and definitely crazy. Heck we are all still a little crazy. A few years ago I ran into an old member of our crew at a wedding and he mentioned how he missed our childhood and how it was like a real life “Goonies” because we were always on some crazy adventure.

After eight years of going to school with the same group of kids, I chose to follow in my sister and foster brother’s footsteps and go to the county technical high school. It was a bittersweet graduation from grade school. Not everyone I went to school with were bullies, and some of them were actually really good friends, but I chose to leave them and my middle school crush, and head into unknown waters. It was sad and scary to be entering a new school and saying goodbye to my 8 year long classmates.

High school brought about a ton of changes for me. One of the biggest changes was in my personal life. I quit my newspaper route, quit boy scouts, and, as mentioned before, I quit all of my childhood sports. New school, new Theodore. I went by the name Teddy at the time, a nickname I picked up in grade school, but never Ted as that was my father. Also if you called me Theo, I got mad because my grandmother’s bitchy cat was named Theo. My sister was the only one who called me Theo and got away with it. Still does sometimes, which I am not sure if it is because she doesn’t realize I hate it, or because she is just being a bitch. I always assumed the former.

I started playing football in high school and lied to my dad about it saying I was going to soccer practice for the summer practice sessions. He was a bit over-protective, thinking I was going to get injured. Having already established friends on the football team, including my foster brother, and a coach who was a childhood friend’s father, I felt comfortable there. Besides, I always wanted to play, but was never allowed. A couple of the friends I had were juniors and seniors in the school, so I was set up to have friends in high places. Also having upperclassmen on the football team as friends in high school meant that bullying was not an option. I gained the respect of my peers quite quickly. Also, there was no hazing or initiations for me on the football team, unlike some of my peers because of my connections. I was protected, and certainly in a new world. It was a solid move for me to join the football team.

I did try out for basketball, but quit after about a week. I did not enjoy the way my coach treated us, besides it was nice to take the winter off to try other things in high school. The other winter sports offered were weird and uncomfortable to me. People shaved their bodies for the swim team, which I was proud to finally have hair growing on my body, so I avoided that idea. Also, the thought of wearing a speedo in front of the girls made me uncomfortable. I was very shy, and had enough trouble talking to girls that I liked. Wrestling wasn’t appealing either because of the idea of rolling around on mats with sweaty guys in tights. Also, they were always on strict diets and running around trying to lose weight to make their weight class every week. In middle school I did a whole paper and presentation on eating disorders in computer class. I did not want, nor need anyone trying to put me in the position to establish one. Eating disorders were scary to me. Looking back at my decision, I probably should have joined the swim team. I loved swimming all summer long, but never thought of doing it competitively. It also never occurred to me that one day I would do a triathlon nor become a distance runner, but swimming would have definitely helped me be better at both sports.

Deciding on which spring sport to join was a major decision for me. I considered myself a good baseball player, and I loved playing the sport, but I had a lot of friends encouraging me to join the track & field team instead. So far, joining a new sport had worked out well for me, so I joined the track & field team. Not to mention, the baseball players were kind of not my type of people and their coach was the same guy as the basketball team. The kids on the team were known to chew tobacco and being meatheads. Many of them were the type of kids that I avoided because they were the “mean” kids (like the middle school kids that made fun of me). The decision to join track & field based on shallow ideologies and misconceptions about people ended up being a major move, even though I didn’t know it at the time. It would lead me to years of success in the future.

I didn’t focus on track & field although I enjoyed being a part of the team. My main focus was on football in high school. I was a football player. I saw track & field as a way to get in shape for football. I did not particularly love running and my coach put me in events like the 800, the mile and the two mile. He saw in me a distance runner, but I certainly did not. The prestigious running events were the sprints, in my mind. I wanted to be a sprinter, not a distance runner. I wasn’t good at running distance either. I consistently took last place in my events and felt like I would never be good at it. Not that my coach wasn’t a nice guy and a smart guy, but he did not make me want to be a distance runner either. He encouraged me enough to get by, but did not explain to me the mechanics of it. He did not explain to me how to be a better runner. He did not teach me to love the sport. Perhaps if he didn’t just give me a workout and tell me to run “x” miles, not explaining why, I would have excelled. I wanted more, not realizing distance running is where I belonged. Probably because I felt the coach and everyone else admired the sprinters on the team.

I first earned my varsity letters in track & field and football in my junior year of high school. I was proud of both accomplishments. In track & field my event was the 400 meter intermediate hurdles. I consistently placed in the top three for my team in that event. I recall in my freshman year looking at the hurdlers and thinking, I want to learn how to do that. It was dangerous, it was skillful, and I wanted a part of it. This would lead to my first injury in track & field.

First I must talk about my final season of football. In my junior year, I was an alternating starter on defense playing cornerback as well as all of the special teams (kick off, kick return, punt team, punt return team). I was so happy and excited to finally be on the field regularly. My buddy Matt and I would take turns playing cornerback. When one of us was tired, we would switch. Coaches didn’t tell us what to do, we just did it and did it well. We were on defense a lot too because honestly our team sucked. We hadn’t won a varsity football game my entire high school career up to that point, and wouldn’t until my senior year.

Finally, my dad came to a game. He really did not like sports, other than outdoor sports like hunting, fishing, and that sort of thing. My whole life I can recall him coming to maybe one baseball game (the one I walked off of the field), one soccer game, and finally my one football game. I was excited to have him there to see what I have been up to for the past three years. It was late in the season, one of our last home games. There was about half of the game left to play. During the second quarter I was on the kickoff team and the kid on the other team was racing down the field, getting to about our 30 yard line. My teammate Dave and I went to tackle him from opposite sides, at the same time. I wrapped him low around the waist, Dave wrapped him low, around the waist. His helmet crashed into my arm, twisting my left wrist. It went numb, and I spun onto the ground. The whistle blew, the play was over. I rolled over, pushing myself up with my right arm and ran off of the field. It was not my last play, although it should have been. I went out again for another kick return after they inevitably scored on that rush. Careful not to use my left arm while blocking, I realized it was throbbing and I really couldn’t use it. After the play was over, I finally went to my coach and the trainer benched me for the rest of the game. I had to watch from the sidelines. My dad was there as mentioned earlier, so after the quarter was over, he took me to the doctor’s and it was broken. I broke my radius and was put in a cast for 6 weeks. It was my last high school football game, I got injured, my dad was there, and I was a junior in high school. I guess he was right to worry I would get hurt. By this time I had only broken my leg, my finger, and had stitches three times, so I don’t know why he was worried. I was a fearless, reckless boy, so I made a lot of mistakes growing up.

My second injury happened between spring of my junior year and spring of my senior year, not sure exactly when it started to be honest. It was probably due to a combination of different activities that I took part in. First, as mentioned earlier, I started hurtling my junior year, earning my varsity letter in track & field that year. I also played roller hockey regularly and through the entire summer, on top of football practice (yes I joined my senior year), and other activities like man-hunt and the usual summer activities we did. Somewhere around mid-August I quit football and joined the cross-country team instead.

One day after playing roller hockey for hours, I couldn’t walk after taking my skates off. I hobbled around until my Achilles tendons would loosen back up. It really only bothered me after playing hockey, but I developed Achilles tendonitis somehow. I didn’t know what it was in the summer, and because I would think nothing of it until track & field season my senior year. By the time track & field came back around I ran an entire cross country season and it didn’t bother me. I worked a lot over the winter at Burger King (a job I would work at until after I graduated college) and it didn’t bother me at work either. During track pre-season, I noticed that my Achilles tendons felt on fire after hurtling practice one day. My parents took me to a doctor and he recommended I stop jumping, stretch regularly, and wear inserts in my shoes. So ended my hurtling career. Achilles tendonitis is an overuse injury, which left unchecked can lead to other health issues, such as bone spurs on your heels and Achilles tendon tears.

Between my junior year of high school and graduation, my life went through some major changes. Other than my sport changes, I also had major life changes happening. Sometime over the winter of my junior year, my 20 year old sister became pregnant with her first child Amadeus. My father was furious and the atmosphere of my home life became quite strained and uncomfortable. Also my junior year, I made the decision to pursue becoming a math teacher one day while sitting in math class. It was a very calculated decision. I realized that I enjoyed helping other people learn and chose math because I knew that I would easily find a job. Math teachers are a lot more scarce than English or history. So despite my middle school math teacher/guidance counselor suggesting that I take a remedial freshman year math class, I went into highschool with the intent of focusing on the subject and taking on the normal level math classes. Junior year I was in honors math class and determined it was my future. I asked my math teacher what college she went to and also she let me teach a lesson to my peers on the FOIL method. I also went back to my middle school math teacher and asked where he went to school as well. Maybe to prove to him that he was wrong about my abilities (tell me my limits, tell me I can’t do something, well I thrive on that and do it further than anyone could believe I could, I took it as a personal challenge and in my mind I had no limits), maybe because I looked up to him and thought he was a good teacher, either way I found it was necessary. I found out that both him and my favorite high school math teacher went to the same school, William Paterson University, so I chose that to be my school of choice. I was accepted during early admissions my senior year and never applied anywhere else.

Another major life event that would have a significant impact on my future was getting the job at Burger King my junior year. I mainly worked up front for my first year. I was a solid drive-thru employee and great at customer service. I was able to simultaneously take orders, count back change, and make beverages, so my customers didn’t have to ever really wait on me. I originally got the job to become more independent and not ask my parents for money all of the time to go out with my friends. Later, working would become an escape for me. The more I was at work, the less I had to deal with the stress of being at home. Due to my sister’s pregnancy the tension in the house was unbearable. I would use work, school, and sports to get away from home so I did not have to deal with the yelling and screaming that occurred on a daily basis between my mom and dad, my sister and dad, and my mom and sister. I stayed out of the family drama as much as possible. Being at home, for the first time in my life, had become the last place I wanted to be. Looking back at my life, I realize my home life was always full of tension, I was just blissfully ignoring it by keeping busy and I was never really in the house long, other than to play video games on occasion. The tension at home led me to quit the football team my senior year. We had new football coaches and they loved to yell at us kids, so I couldn’t handle it anymore. I decided after some coaxing from my track & field friends to join the cross country team instead, which turned out to be a lot more fun than football and was really quite peaceful. The coach, same as the track & field coach, never yelled at us and we had a great time running around and playing games together. He made me a co-captain of the team as well that year, but I did not find that out until the end of the season when I earned my varsity letter in a third sport in high school. I also received the coach’s award, which to me holds a higher honor than MVP.

My nephew was born on August 28th, 1998, 10 days after my 17th birthday. I was happy to finally get my driver’s license and have more freedom. I remember sitting in the hospital, though, trapped in the waiting room all night while my sister was giving birth. Her boyfriend didn't even show up at the hospital to see his son born. It was an exhausting night and I don’t even know why I was woken up and dragged there in the middle of the night. I remember sitting there bored in the waiting room, trying to sleep and watch tv at the same time. I remember not knowing for hours what was going on. I remember being alone. Although it was a happy day to have my nephew finally born, it was short-lived. My father was a piece of shit even back then, I just did not see it nor was the target of his attacks. He kicked my 21 year old sister (she had a birthday in between becoming pregnant and giving birth) out of the house with her newborn baby not long after his birth. I continued to remove myself as much as possible my entire senior year. I even stayed after school all winter to get “extra help” in math because I didn’t want to go home. Also the teacher would order pizza every Wednesday for everyone who stayed after school.

Despite my home-life struggles, my senior year was a great year for me. I met a girl at Burger King and dated her for the first half of the year. Cross country turned out to be a lot of fun and I was pretty decent at it, running around a 21 minute 5K in my first season. I wish I knew more about the sport back then and my coach would have actually taught me about running. There is a big difference between running and being a runner. I was running and stretching, but was not a runner. Not one thing was explained to me about pace, how to improve, how to become the best runner I could be. I never, ever ran outside of practice, nor did I understand how to be better at it. I did not realize it at the time and loved my coach, and wasn’t bad my first year, but being a runner is a mindset more than just putting one foot in front of the other covering ground. That one season I had as a cross country runner would lead me to a coaching position of my own one day after I got my second teaching job.

In the winter time, I worked as much as possible since it was the off-season and I worked with my girlfriend as an added bonus. I did not continue running, as I should have, but spent time either at work or with my girlfriend at her house or out eating or at the movies, avoiding home as much as possible. My sister was back in the house and kicked out on a regular basis. I am not sure how often and was never sure if I would come home with her there or not there more than half of the time. My parents fought constantly, an event that would continue for years (and had been silently occurring prior, but my mom didn’t stand up to him until the baby was involved).

My leadership striving continued in high school. I ran for officer of our class every year, despite consistently losing to the same kid year after year. I was also involved in quite a few clubs such as student council and was vice president of what was called the varsity club, voted in by my peers which felt really good. Despite my position in the club and my success in cross country, my track season would prove to be a disappointment. Due to the Achilles injury, my varsity points had to be earned in distance running. Not running all winter long had set me back to square one again and I had to build my speed and endurance again from the ground up. I wish my coach had instructed me or at least encouraged me to run in the off season, or at least take up swimming, but he did not. In fact he did not even seem to care if I was doing anything in the winter or coming back for track & field in the spring. I wasn’t a star of his. I was not the 400 meter sprinter who won consistently. Maybe I would have excelled in distance running if he cared more about it and coached me in the off-season (by encouraging me to run on my own and practice despite it being out of season), but I did not earn my varsity letter my senior year due to me sucking again at running.

So I ended my senior year a failure at sports and the end of the season and graduation was in a way a relief, being I would never again have to deal with that disappointment. I was in great shape at the end of the school year. I was 155 pounds and still holding quite a bit of muscles from football and track & field lifting sessions, I thought nothing of my future being any different. I was so wrong. By the time I graduated college I was 225 pounds and weak. The only thing I focused on was my academics and partying.

I will explain how I gained 70 pounds in college in the next chapter, coming soon.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

What you have just read is the beginning of my book I am writing about going from fat and out of shape to a Spartan Race Athlete. I aspire to inspire as many people as I can to become a better version of themselves. Personally I found my path through athletics and in particular, Spartan Race. It is not the path for everyone, but overcoming obstacles is not just a physical challenge. A lot of my issues and millions of Americans suffer from mental challenges, such as depression and anxiety. Overcoming mental challenges is more difficult and directly related to overcoming physical obstacles. In fact, health in general starts from within.

I have been writing for a lot of years. I have several stories in the works, and lots of poems. I found Vocal Media in March 2021 and since then have been revising, editing, and creating more poems and stories. I absolutely love writing anything from poems and short stories to history. If you want to reach out to me and learn more you can find me @theodore_the_spartan on instagram or visit my website at North Jersey OCR.

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Thank You For Reading!

~Theodore