5. run for your life.

I started running in October 2011. And I got to the point where I craved. it.

It was important back then. I was a 45-year-old fat guy, working a stressful job and hoping against hope that my family’s medical history — heart issues, diabetes, hypertension — wouldn’t catch up with me for a while.

And it worked. I got through the three-month buildup and successfully completed my first 5K, the annual Jingle Bell run on the North Shore. And I lost weight from a peak of something north of 260 the summer before, down to 240 before the end of the year.

I kept going because I was enjoying myself. I had to work on Christmas night that year, and instead of taking a nap I ran my own 5K along the North Shore Trail — and I still count that as the best run I’ve ever had. There were great Saturday morning runs in North Park all through the winter; those were my long runs to get ready for that spring’s Pittsburgh half.

All that work peaked about six weeks prior to the event, with an 8.5-mile run through the North Side and Downtown. Long-time UC readers may recall that one as The Run With The Bloody Nipples (and the reason why I still have a tube of Lansinoh in our bathroom closet); I remember it as the run when I hurt my groin. I didn’t really have time to rest before the race, but — as I learned while running a 10K while we visited my sister in April — running through it didn’t work so well either.

So. No half. I was crushed.

And I’ve never really come back consistently. I’ve done a few Pittsburgh Marathon 5Ks since then and I half-heartedly trained for the first EQT 10-Miler, which I managed to complete without dying only by the grace of Fred, who pretty much dragged me through the entire course.

But the on-again, off-again thing has been switched back on, thanks to the diabeetus. In other words, one of those things I was kind of worried about when I started back in 2011 had suddenly become very real.

Among the best things I can do to help manage the disease is to lose more weight, and I know from experience that I do that when I run. I’m not sure that I appreciate fear as a motivator this time around, but I’m also painfully aware (literally — the neuropathy is noticable if I sit on my ass too much) what the potential alternatives, one of which is, you know, dying.

But here’s the good part: The fear is diminishing. I’m getting to the point where I enjoy it again. I still have hard mornings, the one where I’m tired or resentful of the reason why I’m getting up at 5:45 a.m.

I’m going to keep pushing, though. That’s the only way I’m going to see sunrises like this one.