Enjoy an excerpt from the debut novel by Pacific Northwest author Josh Jackson,
Run, Interrupted
Coming soon as an eBook!
Be the first to read Chapter 1 of an ever-tightening tale following a fiftysomething’s later-in-life journey of athletics, awakenings, and psychosis. Tom, a once exercise-averse local insurance agent, finds his doctor-ordered fitness goals constantly thwarted by an ugly community and its terrible townspeople. But the small Oregon city of Mewett doesn’t back down. And Tom won’t either. Can he ever find a place to run in peace, and a decent town to live in, or does someone literally have to die?
And don’t miss Josh Jackson’s other eBooks:
There’s Always Ants (nonfiction)
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1
“You’ve got to make some changes, Tom.”
The doctor looked at him with raised eyebrows. His usual “I’m just being honest here” look. Tom saw it before. Every time he came in, actually. Why do I keep doing this to myself? He always says I’m too fat and too out of shape and my diet sucks. He hates me.
Tom glanced around the room, avoiding eye contact. The plain white walls, sterile equipment over on the little counter with the sink, and the health-messaging poster, insipidly lit by fluorescent tubes, all ignored him. He looked back to his doctor.
“Such as?” Tom knew he’d regret asking.
“Exercise would be my first vote,” Dr. Zellis continued.
Tom rolled his eyes. “Yeah yeah. I know. You always say that.”
“Because it’s the best advice I can give you.”
“You know I’ve never been—”
“— ‘an exercise kind of guy,’” Zellis finished for him. “And you always say that.” He offered a slight smile.
Tom sighed.
“You know I’m not trying to be mean. But it’s about time I tried to scare you. Listen, it’s like this. You’re fifty-seven. If you keep up like this, you may not see sixty-seven.” The doctor’s tone serious, his face a stern mask. He went on.
“But there is good news. You have no obvious joint issues, no arthritis, which is fantastic for someone your age. Take advantage of that. Start walking, buy a bike, hell, join the running club.”
Tom scoffed. The two men looked each other in the eye. Zellis didn’t flinch.
Tom did.
“Okay fine. What should I do first, the Tour de France or the Boston Marathon?”
Zellis didn’t laugh.
“As long as you do something. Just no more of this nothing.”
“Great, ‘don’t do nothing’ sounds so very nice and specific.”
The General Practitioner frowned. “I’m not joking with you anymore about this. I’m sitting here year after year watching you slowly kill yourself with junk food and inactivity. Please, spare me the cop-outs and excuses. Get on your feet, and stay on them.”
“Sure, I’ll jog in my sleep, why not?”
“Tom.” The doctor stared at him, looking just a bit angry. Tom sighed again.
“Fine, whatever. Where do I start?”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, yeah. No jokes.”
“Start small. Just walk around the block twice a day. Do it for a week or two. Then go for two blocks. Then three. Just keep increasing gradually over the next six to eight weeks. Don’t push too hard, just get the walk done, no speed records.”
“Oh, I thought you were going to tell me to run five miles a day or something,”
“No, not yet. Let’s see how walking works out and then we’ll dial up the intensity.”
That sounded horrible. Not yet?? Intensity?? Oh man. This guy really does hate me.
Zellis knew the look on Tom’s face.
“Walking is easy. It’s the least you can do. But I want to see you do more than just the minimum. We can get you into a good level of fitness, it just takes time.”
But I don’t care about fitness. I hate exercise. I like the couch and the TV and snacks.
“Okay, you’re the doctor,” Tom said, chuckling. “If you think putting me on a hamster wheel is the best thing, I guess we can give it a try.”
“I hear you. Look, don’t think of it as running laps like back in high school. Take a different route each day, see something new. Or drive to the bike paths and walk a little further each day. That’s the beauty of walking for health—you can do it basically anywhere.”
“What if it’s raining or snowing or too cold?”
“No cop-outs, no excuses. I’d say buy a treadmill but I doubt you’ll agree.”
“No way. So expensive, you know?”
“Yeah, yeah. You got me there. Except used models are under a hundred bucks and some people just give them away to get rid of them.”
“You thought of everything, didn’t you?”
The doctor nodded. Then clearly struggled to suppress a haughty grin. “And before you were ever my patient.”
“So I have to, what, run in circles around the living room on rainy days?” Tom laughed. How ridiculous!
“Actually Nelson Mandela ran in place for 45 minutes four days a week while he was in prison.”
“Oh.” Jerk really has thought of everything!
“Oh is right. Because after that he did a hundred fingertip push-ups, two hundred sit-ups, fifty deep knee bends, and then some calisthenics. Even in solitary confinement.”
“Jesus.”
“But like him, you’re allowed to take days off, so don’t worry. This isn’t athletic training, it’s just restoring a proper level of functional fitness.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
“I know you will,” Zellis chuckled, glancing at the analog clock on the wall. “And that’s all the time I have today. Let’s see you again in about eight weeks, stop at the front desk and they’ll set you up.”
They shook hands and Tom left, not happy at all with the prescription of “exercise.” Why can’t I just have one of those fat shots? You’re not fat, that’s why. Just husky. And weak.
The doctor was right, he’d basically let himself go since college. In his twenties, it’d been easy. In his thirties, not so easy. In his forties, things began to sag and swell.
And now over the hill, his poor conditioning couldn’t be ignored. At some point in the last few years, stairs started to seem steeper, Tom becoming fatigued long before reaching the top of a standard flight. And leaning on the handrail.
Facing facts. That’s what this is. Tom hated these facts, though. And already thought of ways to cheat.
But the scale didn’t lie. And those stairs certainly made for a kind of fitness polygraph. You can’t cheat the stair test.
Tom could only seize on the advice to start small. “I’ll hold you to that,” Tom told Zellis. And he would. Or at least try.
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