Breaking7
Rage quitting is the essence of boyhood adolescence
Rage quitting is this repugnant thing in gaming where you crash out on whoever you are playing in an act of total self-sabotage. In the ‘80s, rage quitting manifested through abruptly switching off the power on the console or tossing a controller at a sibling’s head. Rage quitting set a behavioral standard wherein it was always better to escape challenge than to face it. I sometimes (often) crashed out on tennis courts, baseball fields, diving boards… all my ugliness on full (embarrassing) view.
Rage quitting is the essence of boyhood adolescence.
A scene: the Presidential Fitness Test, suburban Connecticut, early 1990s. My friend Devin and I stick it to the man! (Bill Clinton; school administrators; rules; expectations).
Our middle school campus sat at the top of the hill, a range of buildings and fields designed to mold students into status-quo, next generation white collar workers. We dressed in an ancient decorum: blazer,shirts, and tie or, inexplicably, blazer and turtleneck. The gym hosted our sit-ups, push-ups, and seated reaches. These actions were cool. I charted above average in sitting and pushing up, very below in reaching.
A creepy, buckling, crumbling, and seldom used access road served as the venue for the mile run. Patience for the exercise, for exercise in general, gone. Plus, sartorial concerns. F*ck running a mile in our PE kit. Knee length canvas shorts chafed on sight. The double thick reversible t-shirt maintained prepubescent odor after even the hottest washes. We were the children of a transitioning world—forced into the blues and grays of our forefathers. We were kids chasing new, high-tech garms. We were make-believe men with radical intention.
We knew before we lined up to run that we were going to clown. Two knuckleheads pretending we’d never watched MTV but still snickering like loafing Gen X metal heads. We’d defy the President, and our athletic directors — super nice dudes (one tough and square jawed, the other balding with a sick mustache) who dressed in royal blue windbreakers regardless of season.
The Presidential Fitness Test standard for the mile, for kids our age, was around 7 minutes. We strolled to a finishing time that extended into our next class period. We were forced to do it again, and properly, another day. Crashing out, as it often does, made fools of us. Defiance resulted in a tail-between-legs acknowledgement to accept challenge.
Rage quitting is the antithesis of adulthood.
Another scene: an evening 5k series, suburban Philadelphia, 2023. I take steps to hit a PR.
Eight years before this 5k, I survived cardiac arrest. This is not a noticeable survival. Instead it is a learned survival that begins when waking up from an induced coma and piecing life back together. In New York City, where the cardiac arrest was suffered, survival rate (I later learned) is very low. The reward for my survival was an ICD and a rage against my body. A body that could, and might, take life from me through phantom arrhythmia at any moment.
I was 35 when I had cardiac arrest. An avid swimmer. An increasingly reactivated human after a dismal 20s. In the type of shape that didn’t warrant fear of immediate death. The shape of this new fear made me angry. I was afraid. I had questions. Could I swim? Could I run? Could I have faith in my body to carry my dreams?
Step by step I resolved to conquer the fear. And when the pools closed and social distancing challenged our athletic lives, I hit the pavement. I ran with a mantra in mind. “Back then they didn’t want me…” I ran with determination. Defiance now meant raging against bodily trauma.
Living with an implanted device is uncomfortable. There are days where the small box feels as if it may worm its way out of the slit of muscle it lives within. Its presence reminds you that you are monitored. It causes physical pain. Escape from mental anguish remains near impossible. Especially in heat and humidity.
Joining an evening 5k race series was part of raging against the machine. Moreover, I’d acknowledged that I was a runner. Ready to put myself to a test of will against self and others. I was proud to be a member of a community that welcomed extraordinarily fast high school runners in 3-inch shorts and singlets, along with novices in modest dress. All of us embraced that coming out on these nights (always over 90 degrees, windless, and humid) meant commitment to challenge.
Yes, overall 5k time matters. And yes, targeting a time sets a goal. But for me, in my journey as a runner, I’d settled on mile split aims. Mile splits confirmed consistency. Confirmed a translatable data point. Easy to say in passing: ‘I run a 9:23.’
The first race, I failed to warm up. I did, however, manage to notice that the better racers ran a 5k before the 5k. That night, I broke 8 minutes. The next race, I dropped 30 seconds. The final night, inspired by the high schoolers, I ran a 5k before the 5k.
Each prior evening I’d been narrowly beaten by the same runner. He emerged as a make-believe rival. We never spoke; in fact, I never even saw him before the starting gun. Or even during much of the two-lap course. Our pacing differed. The commonality was the finish line and a (barely) similar mix of speed and endurance. Perhaps he saw me as a make-believe rival. Perhaps not. Yet, when we clocked each other in the final straight we both hit the gas. Neck and neck. His foot crossed the line before mine. He’d beaten me, again. There was no self-sabotage, no rage, no quit in that loss. Instead, a runner’s high. A body that had once deflated me was now rewarding. I was a remade man with purposeful intention.
My competitor and I spoke for the first time all summer. I said, “You’re the one I’ve been measuring myself against.” He replied that we were all here to find something new within ourselves. I checked the splits, 7:02.
Before I turn 45, later this year, I’ll find it in me to break 7.
❤️