I went to the gym that day thinking I was just going to walk around the track. I had already resigned to the idea that I was never meant to be a runner. Not once in my life had I ever run a mile. I didn't go there with a plan. I just knew it was the next step.
July 21st, 2015. That was the day of my gastric bypass surgery. I'll be honest with you about how I walked into that operating room: I expected part of me to die that day. Not in a dramatic way — but they warn you. You'll never eat steak again. You'll never have soda. These foods are gone. But I was okay with all of it, because I knew that I couldn't continue living the way I was living.
There was only one direction my life was heading. And it wasn't a good one. So I did the only thing I knew I had to do.
I weighed 353 pounds.
"I had failed the cycle so many times that I stopped believing success was even possible. So you might as well eat what makes you feel good. At least that's something you can control."
The first thing I noticed after surgery was something I hadn't expected: for the first time in my life, I wasn't hungry. That might sound like a small thing. It wasn't. It was the first time I could breathe. Every diet I'd ever tried, every failed attempt to lose weight — I'd been fighting my own body the whole time. Suddenly, the battle stopped. I dropped fifty pounds quickly. My flexibility came back. My range of motion returned.
The gym was the natural next step. So one day, I just went.
I didn't have high hopes. I didn't have a plan. I stepped onto the track and started walking.
After a couple of laps, something shifted. I thought: What if I just jogged?
I didn't care how fast or slow. I just knew that if I put one foot in front of the next, I would eventually get to the end of the lap. And I just didn't want to stop.
I ran the entire first lap without stopping. Got to the end — one sixth of a mile — and thought: That wasn't bad. Let's keep going.
So I started on a second lap. Never stopped.
Then a third. Then a fourth. I started doing the math in my head. Three more laps and I'd have run a mile. I had never run a mile in my entire life. But something was different now. What had seemed impossible before suddenly felt within reach. Not certain — but within reach. And that was enough.
I just wanted to find out if I could make it.
When I crossed that finish line — six laps, one mile — I felt like a million bucks. I knew something in me had changed that day. I didn't know where that path was going to take me. I just knew I wanted to go back and do it all over again.
I went back a few days later, half-convinced the first time had been a fluke. I ran again. Then again. Then again. I added one lap each time — six laps became seven, seven became eight. And within a month and a half, I ran my first 5K. Three miles. A few weeks later, a 10K. That spring, a half marathon. A year after surgery, I ran two full marathons in back-to-back weekends.
The man who stepped onto that track had never run a mile in his life. The man who crossed those marathon finish lines had done something that man would never have believed possible.
But here's what I was thinking about, running lap after lap on that track: I was thinking about getting my life back. I was thinking about the fact that I was doing something I was never supposed to be able to do. How could someone who was 353 pounds be running around this track without stopping?
"What was seemingly impossible before now felt within reach. Not certain — but within reach. And that was enough."
The marathon phase ended the way a lot of things end — I finished what I set out to do, and then I fell out of love with it. Running had carried me through one of the hardest seasons of my life: my divorce, my grief, the emptiness that comes after major surgery when the weight is gone but the deeper questions remain. Once those races were done, the thing that had been driving me was gone too.
There's a famous idea that there are only two tragedies in the world: getting what you want, and not getting what you want. I had gotten what I wanted. And I had no idea what to do with that.
But that's a story for another essay.
This one is about a gym, and a track, and one lap that became six, that became a mile, that became two marathons, that became this website, and eventually these words you're reading right now.
I didn't know any of that was coming. I just didn't want to stop.
If there's one thing I want you to take from this — it's not the marathons. It's the first lap. The moment where you do the thing before you believe you can do it, just to see what happens.
You don't need to know where it leads. You just need to not stop.
— Simon M. Fisher