Help Anderson raise money

Hello. My name is Anderson, and I am a runaholic. 

I found my higher power and the strength to walk away from running twenty years ago, and I have been clean since. Even after two decades, I still think about it all the time. I think about how miserable I was when I was running. 

I was just kid. It feels like a lifetime ago. I knew better than to get mixed up with joggers, but during the 90s in Florida, running was everywhere. You could not walk down a beach or drive to Publix without seeing some poor middle aged person in the throes of their addiction. Running was everywhere, and it was cheap. It was impossible to avoid. Only through my faith was I able to start taking back my life--a life without running. 

I avoided places like Central Park where herds of runners loped around in circles--slaves to their demon. I also cut ties with several people who either did not respect my newfound religion or could not beat their own addictions and would have enabled me. Finally, I threw away all of the paraphernalia that would have made it easy to pop out for a quick 5k before my housemates awoke. People, places, and things. It's in the Slow Book for a reason. 

Of course I also started going to meetings. Four or five a week in the months after I first tossed my Etonics. If you are reading this and you feel the urge to run, GO TO A MEETING AND KEEP GOING. The program works if you work it, which is why I have to confess something to the group. 

Last weekend my wife took me to a run-dealer in Manhattan, and I bought a pair of running shoes. My wife has instructed me to run a 7-mile road race in Falmouth on August 21, 2022 just shy of when I would have received my twenty year chip. I tried to explain my religious beliefs, but she is a woman of science. She trusts and understands spreadsheets and statistics not faith. 

"The only thing about this situation that you can have faith in is the certainty that you will regret not running this race every day for the rest of your life if you do not stop talking about your made up religion," my wife said in a tone that indicated our conversation was finished.

We all know F. Scott Fitzgerald's line--first a man takes a run, then the run takes a run, then the run takes the man. We have all seen it during the years. Someone gets a few years under their belt and starts to believe that they can lace up and retrace their old routes a few times then stop again for good. I stand before you a fool because I started running again a month and a half ago. Small jaunts at first. Nothing too involved. More recently, however, my wife led me on a complicated, long path that featured different types of terrain and a stretch along the East River.

I am already more flexible than my body has been in years. I own three different running shirts. Without drastic action, I do not see a way out of this trail I have been pulled back onto. My only hope, as relayed to me by my wife, is raising $750 for the Cape and Islands Veterans Outreach Center, which provides critical support to the Cape's veterans and their families. 

If you are willing and able to contribute to my fundraising campaign, you will not only be providing support to veterans who need more support from us in general, you will be helping me get past the religious persecution I now face in my own home. 

If you, or someone you know, has a running habit, perhaps my story can serve as a cautionary tale. Saying yes to running once, for so many of us, means that you will not be able to say no to running for the rest of your life.

Anderson D.