I’ve been thinking about Chicago Marathon non-stop since yesterday. The human body is capable of so much more than people think. My story is unique. Long post, save for later. When I was 7 years old I was arrested outside of the elementary school I attended. I remember running away from a police officer who tackled me in the middle of an open field, put me in cuffs, then throwing me into the back of his car. The next 8 years I was a total delinquent. I was in and out of residential juvenile hospitals 14 different times. In trouble with the law at least a dozen times. I got suspended 13 times in 5th grade for getting in fights, then expelled from 6th grade, then dropped out school in 7th grade, then skipped 8th grade. Then I went to a private school in 9th grade. It was a school for delinquents, specially created as a sort of halfway house to get kids who fell out of the system back into the system. In 10th grade I found a program that would let me skip the rest of high school to get college credits. Instead of going to a traditional high school, I got ~60 credits in college, and then dropped out of the program. When I turned 17 I gathered up all my college credits and applied to the University of South Carolina as a transfer student. They never asked about high school and so I never told them about it. I got accepted and studied pre law. Got a big boy job at some swanky law firm at the top floor of the tallest building in Columbia and worked for a bunch of boring attorneys. I would wear a suit to class, and then run ~1 mile in a suit and tie to work after class, then back to school, and so on and so forth. After a year of that I got a salaried job at another law firm that would require dropping out of college to accept. So I dropped out of college and went to work at a law firm. I made $30k. Was pretty cool at 18. I spent it all on rent and a car like an idiot. After a year at that new firm and 2 years in legal I decided I 100% did not want to be a lawyer or work in legal at all because I hated it. So I transferred to Clemson to be an engineer. I hadn’t taken a single math class in 4 years. None. I would have to take Calculus at Clemson, so I drank through a fire hose and took Algebra 1, 2, and Trigonometry in 3 months before starting at Clemson. Meanwhile I decided do to a 100 mile bike race (Tour de Cure). So I did it untrained. Farthest I had been was 25 miles. Took me 8.5 hours in Little Mountain, SC. Wind against me half the time. Uphill half the time. That was in 2013. I think that’s when I realized what I was capable of if I just forced myself to do something The idea of doing a marathon or an Iron Man was always exciting to me from that point on. But I was never consistent about training and could never get past how I felt when I went running. Even a 2-3 mile run always felt like torture. 2.5 years at Clemson and I finally graduated college. I shouldn’t have ever even been able to make it to college but I got a degree that cost way too much money and defied a bunch of odds to get there. 3 weeks before I graduated I got a phone call: “Hey Daniel. Are you sitting down?” “Now I am.” “Austin killed himself.” Austin was my roommate. The final 3 weeks at Clemson were the worst 3 weeks of my entire life. Right when I graduated I moved. I needed to get away. Moved to Charleston for 9 months then Spain for a year. After Spain I moved to Chicago for 5 years then back to Charleston where I am now. 2.5 years ago I got a call from my Mom: “Your dad had a heart attack.” I had a 2 year old and a newborn at the time. And that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. My life is filled with struggle and adversity. But I refuse to let that hold me down. I’m 33 years old. I have about 5 years of my childhood completely suppressed. But I’m just getting started. My kids are going to grow up seeing their dad do the impossible, and then they’re going to go further than I can even imagine.