Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness by Scott Jurek, Steve Friedman Read Free Book Online Page B

keep going when everyone else stopped. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I wanted it.
     
    When graduation rolled around, with some money I’d saved from the Dry Dock Bar I bought my grandpa Ed’s beige Toyota Corolla so I could drive the 2 miles to work rather than run or ski. I was president of the National Honor Society, and I had read Solzhenitsyn and Thoreau. I was thinking about life beyond Proctor and Duluth and Minnesota—life way beyond our house on the dead-end road—but I couldn’t quite see it. I definitely didn’t know how I’d get there. I wanted to ski cross-country in college and to study physical therapy. I had become pretty good at helping my mom and had become friends with her physical therapist. Steve Carlin was a real down-to-earth guy, not like the doctor who wanted to put me on blood pressure medicine. Steve would help get my mom up, and when she didn’t want to, he would help me motivate her. She had a big wound on her hip from the surgery after her fall, but that didn’t scare me. Steve said that was another reason I’d be good at physical therapy—I wasn’t squeamish.
    In my valedictory speech I said, “I would like to leave you with four messages to help you and others benefit from life.” (I still have the speech.)
    “First of all, I ask you to be different.
    “Second, find a way to help others rather than thinking solely of yourself.
    “Third, everyone is capable of achieving. Never let anyone discourage you when trying to pursue a goal or a dream.
    “And finally, do things while you’re young. Be sure to pursue your dreams and goals even if they seem impossible.”
    It all sounded good, but the truth was, I wasn’t sure what my own goals and dreams were beyond skiing and a job as a physical therapist. I knew I wanted to go to college, but my dad had made it clear I would have to pay my own way. I dreamed of going to Dartmouth, but the Ivy League was financially out of the question. I ended up choosing the College of St. Scholastica, my mom’s alma mater. It was a small private liberal arts school and had a highly regarded physical therapy program. Best (and worst) of all, it would allow me to stay at home, to continue helping around the house. Mom’s spasticity was getting worse, and Steve had stopped coming as much. There just wasn’t a lot he could do anymore. When I started taking classes, it was a relief to be out of the house. (That might sound like an awful thing to say, but it was the truth.)
    Only one in five kids from Proctor attended college, so most of my friends stayed around and took jobs. I took a job, too, at the NordicTrack shop at the Miller Hill Mall in Duluth. I would put on a polo shirt and demonstrate and sell NordicTrack machines. I was polite, and I knew about the movements of cross-country ski machines. Nick the Greek, who worked a few evening shifts, wanted to fix me up with his daughter. I took medieval history and chemistry and freshman composition. I ate at McDonald’s at the mall at least four times a week. I’d get two McChicken sandwiches, extra-large fries, and a Coke. As a kid, I had rarely had fast food. Between my mom’s dedication to cooking and my dad’s dedication to saving, it was a luxury we couldn’t afford. So being able to buy a burger or chicken sandwich whenever I wanted felt like freedom. And it tasted good. While salads and veggie stir-fries might have been okay for some people, I was an athlete, and everyone said serious jocks needed serious protein. That meant meat.
     
    I ran cross-country in the fall but only lasted about half the season, three meets. It was a total junk show. The baseball coach was coaching the team. We wore uniforms that the girls’ team had thrown out a decade or two earlier. To stay in shape for the coming ski season, I ran on my own or, more and more often, with Dusty.
    We would drive to ski races in my car, and while I would be getting gas, he would be shuffling out of the convenience store