Early in the morning, all you can think about is beating the sun.
You want to get as much of the race done as possible before the sun starts beating on you.
Before long, it’s just there. Hot on your neck. Baking the mud onto your calves. Glinting off the aluminum rigs. Adding another layer of misery to an already brutal course.
That day, the sun was just another obstacle. Its heat was another thing to endure. I remember squinting up at it halfway up a hill and thinking, Just get to the shaded woods. Just get to some cool water.
Then, toward the end of the race, as I was counting steps to get past the finish line, the world went sideways. The sun didn’t fade.
It disappeared.
I remember sitting against the fence near the fire jump, telling my wife I needed help getting up and asking my friend Pete to give me a hand.
I had just crossed the finish line, but my real race was only beginning.
Seeing Another Sunrise
The ER doctor later called it a “widowmaker.” As bad as it gets. I was incredibly lucky.
Medics were only about 30 yards away. Someone was giving me CPR before most people even understood what was happening. Their quick actions saved my life.
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I was lucky the sun was out because the helicopter could fly. I was lucky the sun was out because people were still there. And one of those people became the reason I got to see another sunrise. For days afterward, the sun came through my hospital window every morning, bright and cheerful.
The sun didn’t care about my heart attack.
It just kept rising.
My cardiologist gave me rules. Pills. A lecture about my “new normal.” I’ve hated that phrase since COVID. I hated it even more now. But in the days that followed, I started to realize something. The sun always rose.
And I was still here, rising with it.
The Sun Is a Witness
Before Palmerton, the sun was something I raced against. Now, I know the sun isn’t an obstacle.
It’s a witness.
It saw me fall. It watched the helicopter take off. It was there the first day I walked a mile without stopping. It was there when I did my first burpee. A slow, ugly, one-leg-at-a-time burpee.
And I cried when I stood back up.
The sun doesn’t care about our finish times. It doesn’t care that right now I can only do a small percentage of what I used to be able to do.
For now. It just shows up. Every day. So I show up, too.
Every Day That the Sun Rises, I Too, Rise
Sometimes I sit on my deck and let the sun hit my face. I close my eyes, feel its warmth and think:
You and me. We’re both still burning.
That day at Palmerton, I raced against the sun. Now, I race with it. Every day the sun rises, I rise. Every sunrise is a victory. Palmerton was not my finish line: It was my sunrise.
I’m looking forward to the Year of the Sun and having it shine on my comeback.
I will rise just as the sun does.
