At right, author Josh Wackler with wife, Audra
Josh Wackler, a Middle Tennessee runner and pharmaceutical sales representative, recently debuted his first book, In My Shoes: An Unlikely Runner’s Guide to Running and Life.
“I decided to write this book for inspiration; not for me, but for my readers,” said Wackler. “I want people to be inspired. If that means lacing up their running shoes and pushing through that final mile, that’s great, but that’s not what this book is about. It’s about how running helps me be a better person, and I want to help others, whether that involves running or not.”
The book began as a blog to log his training and as reference for his own future runs, but Wackler soon began writing about more than running. He wanted to explore how running changed his daily life. He eventually started to compile the blog into themes, and after 10 years, a book was born.
Wackler, originally from Oregon but who has lived in Nashville for six years now, has qualified for the Boston Marathon three times and run it twice. He calls himself an “unlikely runner;” Wackler is 6 feet, 7 inches tall, and weighs 245 pounds, an uncommon size for a long-distance runner.
He says he hopes his book will inspire not just competitive runners, but everyone.
“Reading Wackler is like running a marathon. You don’t know what the next mile will bring, but the process is the meaning and the reward,” said Amby Burfoot, former editor of Runner’s World Magazine, Boston Marathon champion and author.
Wackler can often be found running the greenways and the trails at Shelby Bottoms in Nashville.
Find In My Shoes: An Unlikely Runner’s Guide to Running and Life, on Amazon.
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An excerpt of In My Shoes: An Unlikely Runner’s Guide to Running and Life
Stop Complaining
Self-awareness. I put this in the same category as being a good listener and being a good karaoke singer. A lot of people think they are good at it, but very few people actually are.
We see it every day. People driving 10 miles per hour below the speed limit in the left lane on the interstate without one shred of awareness of the dozens of people passing them in a rage on the right. And we all have that friend who smacks their lips, gums and tongue together in some orchestrated and annoying rhythm while they’re eating, completely unaware of any of the noises they’re making.
Self-awareness is something nearly all of us need help with. We need that friend who doesn’t mind pointing out that massive piece of spinach in your teeth. Or that friend who points out when, after 15 minutes of obvious and heavy flirting with that girl you just met, that your fly just happens to be open. My friends are the type, of course, who let whatever blunder I’m making go on for awhile before pointing it out so as to maximize their level of entertainment and my level of embarrassment.
Self-awareness is one of the main reasons jobs and companies hold reviews and feedback sessions. Employees are often doing something incorrectly and don’t even realize it until someone points it out.
But sometimes those nudges of self-awareness come from other sources. Sometimes they can even come from running. In my case, the biggest lesson in self-awareness I have ever received hit me (metaphorically) right in the heart during the 2017 St. Jude’s Memphis Marathon. The Memphis Marathon is a wonderful event that I highly recommend. It’s well organized and has good crowd support. And it has a great course with a feature that, to my knowledge, no other course has. Part way through the race, it leads you through a corner of the grounds of the famous children’s hospital. You take a slight turn, look up, and there it is. Some of the St Jude’s kids who are not allowed outside are pasted to the windows, smiling and waving to the runners and cheering us all on. As if that’s not enough of a tearjerker, you also get to see and maybe interact with a few lucky kids who are allowed to be outside and right on the course.
Running the race in 2017, I spotted one of those kids. Sitting in a wheelchair and with not a speck of hair on his head, he was watching the runners, an awestruck expression on his face. Without even thinking, I side-stepped off of the street right next to him. I stopped, extended my hand and said, “Put ’er there, partner!”
He reared back in his chair and gave me the most awesome, high-spirited high five I have ever received. When he looked up at me, his face was lit up like a Christmas tree and the smile on his face made me feel like he felt he’d just met Michael Jordan. I got back on the course and continued running. I had to run the rest of the race wiping the tears from my eyes instead of the sweat from my brow.
I have written in this book that running gives you a lot of time to think. That’s one of the many reasons I love it. Time for reflection. Time for deep thought. Heck, sometimes no thought at all. Just an unplug for a few miles.
During the rest of that race in Memphis, I thought a lot about that kid. I thought a lot about myself, too, and how I approach every day. I’d seen how he’d been so positive and cheerful despite how much he had to complain about.
Which brings me back to self-awareness.
Do I complain too much? I don’t think I do, but who knows? Being self-aware can be very difficult, so maybe I do complain and don’t even realize I’m doing it. That’s why I started thinking about some of the things I complain about most often and I soon became angry and frustrated with myself. Because I had this epiphany: I understood that no matter how hard or how long I wracked my brain, there was (and still is) nothing that has ever happened in my entire life which can come even close to what that kid has to face every single day of his life. And yet my approach to a lot of days is to bitch and moan about petty, minor, inconsequential things.
The kid’s approach? He was happy just to be alive. Grinning ear to ear after a simple high five from a total stranger. Ecstatic that he was able to witness one more sunrise. Because who knows if there will be breath in his lungs for tomorrow’s? He has to live with the reality of cancer smacking him in the face. Every single day.
So he’s happy in the moment. He’s not trying to capture it on his phone so he can Snapchat or tweet it to his friends. Not taking selfies to post to Instagram. Not stuck inside a hospital room, wasting away and playing video games. Instead, he is outside, enjoying the cold and sunshine on his face, breathing the fresh air into his lungs. Clapping and cheering for complete strangers.
A kid like that understands the harsh reality that life is fragile. He realizes that every day. And I struggle every day to remember, too, that life is fragile. To stop complaining and stop taking things for granted. That kid doesn’t take anything for granted. And do you know why? He probably doesn’t have enough time to be able to. So much about him on that cold December day is forever etched in my brain. His smile . . . oh, his heart-warming smile. The glow in his face. The spirited high five he was, oh, so excited to give me. But what do I remember most of all? Just his obvious gusto for life.
I’ll never forget him because I strive to be more like him every day. That is at the top of my priority list. Not the next promotion. Not anything I saw online and want to buy. Nothing materialistic. The top of my priority list is to live life with the same love and gusto for it as that kid obviously had. I have periodically failed to do so, and I’m sure I will continue to periodically forget my resolution and fail to be more like that kid in the future. But my memory of him will forever remind me to strive to imitate his gusto.
He probably thought he was just giving me a high five. But he gave me so much more.
Who knew running a silly little 13.1 mile race could teach a person so much?
Life lesson learned: Complain less. Be thankful more. Compliment and praise more. Tell your loved ones you love them. Buy your wife flowers. Smile at strangers. Pick up the tab in a restaurant for a police officer or veteran. Take that trip you have always wanted. Hold on to friendships and let go of grudges. And so many more things I don’t have room to list here.
In other words, live life with the same love and gusto as my young friend at St. Jude’s. Those kids may not have much time to live, so we owe it to them to learn our own life lessons.
