Note: This is largely excerpted (with one special addition) from my upcoming book Ultra-Fat to Ultra-Fit, and takes place as I begin to cut my teeth in the world of distance running.

At the end of 2002, I traveled home to North Carolina to spend winter break at my father’s house.  My dad, known as Greg to all, was an old school runner, who had spent the 1970s running in jeans and Converse sneakers.  Greg was pleased with my blossoming interest in his favorite sport, challenged me to a five-kilometer race on New Year’s Day for family bragging rights.  I accepted the challenge.  The father-son showdown was an interesting match-up: I was twenty-three but a relatively novice runner, whereas my father was three decades older but a salty veteran who knew every trick in the book.  We spent the week of Christmas running together, sizing each other up, and talking trash.

Greg apparently didn’t like what he was seeing in his offspring during these training runs, particularly when I dropped him during a tune-up two days before the race.  Out of options to win legitimately, my father employed one of the dirtiest tricks I have ever witnessed.  On New Year’s Eve, he convinced me to accompany him to the local Outback Steakhouse, where he goaded me into ordering a Bloomin’ Onion and the fettuccine alfredo.  He watched me wolf these down from behind a plate of grilled salmon and steamed vegetables.  Although I had watched virtually every episode of GI Joe, the “Knowing is half the battle” lessons on pre-race nutrition hadn’t quite sunk into my then-portly brain.  As I dozed off that night in the throes of a powerful food coma, I wondered just what my father had been chuckling about on the car ride home from the restaurant.

The next morning we drove to Raleigh for the main event.  The racecourse was a little more than three miles over rolling terrain.  Without my father’s help to with strategy, I had formed my own crude plan1.  I intended to shadow my father for the first mile then make a move on one of the course’s many hills.  I would try to get a little lead, and then hope to hell he faded.  Early on, all went according to plan: Greg set the pace, and I stayed on his shoulder, ready to pounce.  Shortly before the first mile marker I made my move.  I surged ahead and opened a small gap, but Greg doggedly stuck with me.  My father is over a foot shorter and fifty pounds lighter than I, which must have made the two of us look, to the casual observer, like a graying David chasing after Goliath.  At mile two I was still holding the lead.  I was preparing a final surge to break away when a crippling pain savaged my insides.  I felt as though someone had begun to operate a jackhammer in my colon.  The previous evening’s meal had apparently finished its tour of my digestive tract and was now ready to move on.  Urgently ready. 

I had a choice: drop the pace or drop the trousers.  I made the classy decision.  Ten seconds later, my father made his final pass.  Though he denies it to this day, I could have sworn I heard another chuckle as he cruised past.  In the end, he beat me by about thirty seconds then watched with a smug expression as I waddled across the line and directly into a port-o-potty.  Why do all my stories end with me in a bathroom?  Sigh. 

Anyway, I’m in there, and I’ve put two and two together: I had been set up and I was angry about it.  A rare case of toilet rage ensued.  “I’m gonna kill you for pulling that shit!” I yelled from the port-o-let.  “No one clogs my pipes!” 

“Dude, just relax and push,” said a calming voice from the neighboring cubicle.  Too angry to respond, I flung the door open and emerged, only to find that Greg had deliberately left, leaving me to verbally abuse a timid looking 8-year-old who also appeared ready to soil himself.  “Just relax and push,” I muttered at the terrified child as I stalked off to find Greg. 

I found him by the post-race buffet, chowing down on a bagel.  “What the hell?” was all I could muster.  Greg sets the standard for deadpan.  “I sired you, boy,” he explained earnestly.  “Never forget that.  Now, who wants an orange?” he asked, extending a slice and a smirk.  “They’re good for you.  High in fiber.”  As we walked back to the car, Greg said, in a voice just loud enough to reach my ears, “Who’s your daddy?”

By far, the cruelest part of the story is the postscript.  Do you remember when you were playing around as a kid, and you’d pull off an improbable victory over your playmates?  Immediately, you’d call “all-time champion,” meaning that the competition was over and you were forever to be considered their superior.  Well… my dad somehow managed to obtain all-time champion status.  As it turned out, the New Year’s Day 5K of 2003 turned out to be the penultimate race of his running career.  Soon thereafter, a bad hip forced him into surgery, whereupon his doctor forbade him to run, killing any chance I had at vengeance.  No matter how many races I’ve done that were faster than Greg’s “magical” day, he still claims victory in our sole head-to-head match-up, and refuses to come out of retirement.  Dammit.

1To date I had only a single race under my belt.  Thus, I drew on other sources for inspiration.  In this case, I was relying on an article I had read the previous night on common tactics in roller derby.  Seriously.