Healing at Gunpoint

I first found yoga the way most men find humility — on the losing end of catastrophic failure. It was many years ago, during a doomed quest for redemption amidst industrial-scale alcohol consumption. I had one marathon under my belt — a grim death march through the cobbled streets of Stockholm — and it had been so painful, so humiliating, that I wanted—no, needed—another shot. I wanted revenge on the merciless gods of racing who had chewed me up and spit me out somewhere near the back of the pack, swearing and bleeding and gasping for air.

And I was already cocky enough to believe I could beat the system.

I signed up for a marathon training program at my Chicago gym: speed work, long runs, tempo runs, personal training, and, God help us, yoga, were all included. I was there to conquer, to improve, to scrape every last inch of performance from a liver pickled like a science fair specimen.

Had I not been drinking like a man gunning for sainthood in the Church of Self-Destruction, who knows how far I could have taken it? As it was, I clawed my way to a 3:15 marathon PR in Chicago, staggering across the finish line with blood gushing out of my nose and a lunatic grin plastered across my face like a Halloween mask as, finisher’s medal swinging back and forth across my chest, I stalked to the beer truck for a well-earned debauch.

Eight marathons later, with a body held together by the duct tape of stubbornness and delusion, running had become my last true religion. Footsteps slapping pavement, breath burning in the lungs — a pure, primal heartbeat against the rot and chaos of the modern world.

But entropy doesn’t care about your rituals. Entropy always wins.

About a year ago, the symptoms started creeping in like termites in the rafters: tightness in the lower back after long runs. Nothing serious, I told myself, waving off the warning signs like a man ignoring a ticking suitcase in an airport terminal. I hadn’t stretched properly in a decade — stretching always felt performative, a ludicrous pantomime that invariably stood between me and the shotgun blast of endorphins that came from lacing up and charging into the sun.

Stretching was for bureaucrats. For house cats For suckers.

I treated it like a crime against momentum. The playlist was stacked. The ocean breeze was waiting. The sweat wanted out. Why waste time on toe-touches and foot grabs when there were miles to burn and demons to outrun?

The biological tax collector came anyway — and he brought a sledgehammer.

My hip flexors — tight as glass rods. My lower back — a field of landmines. Occasionally I’d go through the motions, my dogs watched my pathetic attempts at stretching with expressions that hovered somewhere between concern and contempt. And if running was the encroaching decay, hockey was the final gunshot.

Seven or eight years ago, like a fool with a death wish, I returned to pickup hockey, reliving the violent ballet of my youth. I loved it like a crazy ex. It lit me up and burned me out, week after week.

The night it all collapsed, I had to be carried out of the locker room like a shot horse. Two hours of six-on-six warfare, one substitute per team, no mercy. My legs declared open rebellion. My teammates literally carried me to my car and deposited me in the driver seat with equal parts concern and bemusement. I pulled into my driveway at two in the morning, dragging my wreckage through into the garage like some opium-smashed specter in a Victorian novel.

Beautiful. Suicidal. Enough. I hung up the skates at the end of 2023.

By then, my body was in full revolt. In a flash of desperation, I fled back to yoga. I walked into my local studio and bought the unlimited membership like a man buying an alibi but only showed up twice a week, sometimes not at all. I was still clinging to the old religion, chasing the sweet instantaneous hit of a run, even as my back howled like a kicked mule every time I stood up.

Finally, something snapped. The hostage negotiation ended.
I surrendered.

More yoga. Less running.

It worked — and I hated it. Every class made my back a little better. Every skipped run made the pain a little quieter. It was a sickening transaction: trading instant joy for grim, plodding maintenance.

Now I run three times a week. I hit three yoga classes. I am a man divided — still gritting my teeth, still bargaining with my body in the dark hours of the morning.

Healing isn’t a Hollywood miracle.
It’s a back-alley shakedown.
It’s the slow gnawing death of ego.

Tonight, after yoga, I slid into my car with only a soft creak from my battered frame. A week ago, I needed a sacrificial lamb just to survive the drive home. Now, I sit pain-free on my couch, counting my blessings like a war veteran counts limbs.

Tomorrow, when I stand up, the grunt will still be there — the medieval grimace of a body stitched together by compromise and regret. But I’ll stand. I’ll move. I’ll heal, a little.

Healing isn’t free.
It costs everything.
It costs exactly as much as you were trying to outrun.

And some days, by some black miracle, I pay the price.