I’m Jake Hounds, and this is One Thousand Words or Less
Episode 5: Sleeping In
Sunday morning I ran six miles just after sunrise for the first time in weeks. I am running in the New York City Marathon this November. But before that, I am preparing to grade for my black belt in Karate.
While I enjoy both pursuits, my aging body can only do one intensively at a time. So I scaled back my running for a few months to focus on karate. As such, I’ve been doing something on weekends that I haven’t done in years: sleeping in.
Many people anticipate the weekend as an opportunity to switch off the alarm and sleep until they naturally awaken. I used to be those people, and I would enjoy languishing in bed, snuggling the kids, or reading, until biology, one way or another, compelled me out of bed. Then I became an endurance runner, and early mornings became my oyster.
It didn’t happen overnight, and it is one of the most unexpected things to ever happen to me. You see, I always hated running. I’ve hated it since Junior High when I was forced to run in gym class. We had to run down into the ravine nearby, along a fitness trail, which had exercise stations at various intervals, like pull-ups (which I also hated).
I’ve always kept fit, I like tennis, golf, swimming, and yoga. I’ve surfed, and I enjoy playing most sports. I also walk a lot. My main form of exercise was cycling, and riding my mountain bike was always a way for me to feel twelve years old on any given day.
Each summer we take refuge at a cottage in the quiet of the woods. When we first started going, I was intent on bringing my bike. But the cottage sits on a small lake, with a short road, and beyond that busier highways, so there is nowhere really to ride. It was there that I had the unlikely notion of running instead. No bike to transport, no flat tires, or chain cleaning, just lace them up and run out the door.
About nine months later I discovered a couple of books that caused that inspiration to grow. I read “Finding Ultra,” by Rich Roll, who you likely know from his amazing podcast. Rich discovered a whole untapped reservoir of awesome as a response to his sedentary lifestyle, and his story charged me up. I had heard of triathlons before, but from him, I learned about Ultra marathons, which are races that go beyond 26.2 miles and sometimes involve forest terrain, and even running overnight. Wouldn’t that be cool, I thought.
Then I heard his interviews with former Navy SEAL David Goggins, who has become known for his incredible book, Can’t Hurt Me, and for his many remarkable feats. He tells of how he qualified for the SEALS by losing over one hundred pounds in three months, and of his first run, where he conked out after a few yards.
It got me thinking: Could I run one mile? I consider myself fit, but I have not run in years. Could I do it? I toyed with the notion for a couple of weeks, imagining getting out of bed, throwing on my shoes, and just running. I even mapped an out-and-back mile course in my neighborhood. Finally one morning, much to the surprise of my wife, I laced up my shoes and went for a run. It was awful.
Like many beginners, I had no notion of pace so I just ran as fast as I could, no stretch, no warm-up, just out the door and sprint. Of course, it was awful. But I did it, I could run one mile, and if I could run one, maybe I could train to run more.
My excitement compelled me to sign up for a 5k race. “I’m not going to become one of those marathon guys,” I reassured my wife. But privately I fantasized about all-night endurance races over deserts or up and down tropical mountains, as my running heroes had accomplished, all this during the run/walk phase of my training.
Two months later, I ran a respectable 5k. Then I trained and ran a 10k, then a half-marathon, then a marathon. I completed the Goggins 4x4x48 challenge (which is 4 miles every 4 hours for 48 hours), culminating with a 50k ultra marathon, only two years from that first-mile run. Now the New York Marathon is in my sights, and the JFK 50 miler is my holy grail after that.
Running has taken me places I never thought I’d go. But by far the best place it has taken me consistently is out of bed first thing in the morning, where I regularly watch the sunrise, see wildlife like foxes and hawks, and quietly experience the serene beauty of dawn.
Sunday morning I snapped awake from a dream. In the dream, it was the blue hour before sunrise. It was snowing out the window, but I went out for a run anyway, in a strange place where I didn’t know exactly where I was, but resolved that I would find my way.
Upon waking, I couldn’t ignore this portent, and, despite my scaled-back training, I felt compelled to get up, and do that sunrise run. It was a mild spring morning, and it was fantastic; I felt amazing.
All those experiences and goals aside, after my dream, and my subsequent run, I started to believe that my desire to become a distance runner had more to do with giving me a reason to experience those sunrise hours in quiet contemplation than anything else.
My family jokes that I talk too much about running. I do. There’s a meme that shows an empty swear jar and a full talking about running when nobody cares jar. That’s me.
But if you had experienced the sublime beauty of so many mornings as I have, you would want to share it too.
Good. Morning.
This has been 1000 words or less, I’m Jake Hounds.
Thanks for listening.
One Thousand Words or Less is one hundred percent created by flawed natural human intelligence.
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