Robin Arzon - Shut Up and Run: How to Get Up, Lace Up, and Sweat with Swagger

2016 Ja Tecson.

DEDICATED TO MY MOM.

TO THE REBEL.

TO THE SQUARE PEG IN THE

ROUND HOLE.

THIS BOOK IS ALSO FOR YOU,

DEAR READER,

AND TO EVERYONE

WEARING AN INVISIBLE CROWN.

COME, COME, WHOEVER YOU ARE. WANDERER, WORSHIPPER, LOVER OF LEAVINGIT DOESNT MATTER. OURS IS NOT A CARAVAN OF DESPAIR. COME, EVEN IF YOU HAVE BROKEN YOUR VOW A HUNDRED TIMES, COME, COME AGAIN, COME.

RUMI

2016 Ja Tecson.

CONTENTS

ANYTHING THAT GETS YOUR BLOOD RACING IS PROBABLY WORTH DOING.

HUNTER S. THOMPSON

SHUT UP AND RUN.

THIS WAS THE MANTRA I USED to endure the hours until I could leave my desk as an eighty-hour-a-week New York City litigator and lace up my running shoes. I ran my first mile at age twenty-three in between studying contract law and criminal procedure. Fast-forward seven years, to when Id find myself running five marathons in five days across the mountains and deserts of Utah, thinking, How the hell did I get here?

Running shoes were instruments in my liberation. I became absorbed in the drumbeat, the cadence, of my footsteps. Twilight runs beckoned me to get lost in the motion, only to discover myself. Eventually, these miles gave birth to my Tumblr blog, SHUT UP & RUN, in 2010, and soon I found myself running right out of a law career to sweat with swagger and move with abandonment. I decided to do one thing with my lifeepic shitand I want you to come along for the ride.

As a running coach, ultramarathoner, and journalist, I became part of a world of urban athletes who dont just runthey live to move on their own terms. We push the pulse of cities with our feet. We dont jog, or count calories, or give a shit about high school 400-meter track records. We are a living mash-up of culture, sport, fashion, and storytelling. Shut Up and Run is about running as a lifestyle. Its where fashion meets sport. Its how we tell stories through movement and feel good while doing it.

Part fitness collective and training platform, Shut Up and Run provides tips, tricks, and visual motivation on how to cultivate moments of sweat, laughter, miles, swagger, friendship, and authenticity. Shut Up and Run is a resource unshackled by self-doubt and from which ordinary people can learn to do extraordinary things; it provides a platform for running, jumping, twerking, and working in the way only endorphins can.

This book is a compendium of inspiration that makes you want to move and is rooted in information that shows you how. Whats my mission? To redefine what it means to be an athlete and create unapologetic greatness in every athlete along the way. This book is a platform to do the things that make us go Damn! when were one hundred. Its a daring adventure of athletics and style.

Lets unlock passion through movement, mindfulness, and by doing epic shit. My lessons from a life lived in sweat are laden with nothing but possibility for you to do it, too. What do I want people to know about running? Its actually not that complicated.

Welcome to Shut Up and Run, where youll discover how to test the limits of your potential. All you need is a heavy dose of swagger and a pair of running shoes. The revolution will be delicious. Can you taste it?

2016 Ja Tecson.

W HAT IF you found yourself in a situation where you had to be braver than you ever imagined you could be? At the age of twenty-one, I discovered just how brave I could be when an evening that started with me catching up with old friends ended with a gun to my head.

Approaching my senior year at New York University, I was just off work from my summer job as a legal assistant at the law firm Querrey & Harrow and planned to meet up with my college roommate Mel and her boyfriend Ryoji. We stumbled upon a small wine bar in the East Village called Bar Veloce. None of us had heard of it beforethis was presmartphone era, when Yelp reviews allow you to experience a place before youve actually been therebut it looked like a good spot to grab a drink.

We found open seats at the bar and ordered drinks. As we were sipping our wine, a man walked in, a well-dressed guy who muttered, Ive been shot.

I turned to Mel and said, Is this a joke?

In 2002, reality television was gaining traction and I recall thinking this was a terrible, tacky TV stunt.

Next entered a man who I would later learn was named Steven Johnson. He shot the man in the doorway, who then fell to the floor.

In that moment, time slowed. Im certain the writers of The Matrix must have experienced this type of trauma. Remember the scenes where Neo is slowly falling backward, almost touching the ground in an epic backbend, and then stands upright? Yeah, it was that kind of slow.

Johnson immediately came at me. As he yanked me back by my hair, all I could think was, Hes so strong for being so skinny. The feeling of hair being ripped out of my head was a new sensation, but in a situation like that you dont feel pain as you tumble over chairs and get jostled in the mayhem sparked by a man with a gun. At least I didnt.

Motherfuckers are leaving in body bags! Johnson yelled.

And I believed him.

You know the movie Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow? Ive always been mesmerized by the thought that one turn, one choice, can change your life. That night, there were two choices, two directions to take. You could either go straight, which led to the kitchen and a dead end, or left, which led to freedom on Tenth Street via the bathroom window. Ryoji and Mel ran to the back of the bar and turned left. Dragged by my hair, I was led to the kitchen.

There were twenty hostages and one angry guy with three pistols and a samurai sword. He threw me on the ground.

The swinging doors to the kitchen were two hundred feet from the front entrance. The narrow aisle gave us a line of sight to the busy Manhattan evening happening outside. I could see police cars had arrived, but freedom seemed far. Standing in the swinging doors, Johnson shot toward the street. An old Asian man looked in the bar to inquire about the commotion. Johnson shot him, too.

Tie people up, Johnson demanded, throwing plastic zip ties at me.

I remember the focus in this moment being similar to the way Michael Jordan describes making a basket in a basketball gametime slows and the hoop becomes as large as the moon. I did what I was told, the mental wheels in my head turning frantically, but staying surprisingly on track.

Maybe if I make this loose enough people can get out, I thought to myself as I tied up some of the hostages.

Suddenly, I felt liquid being poured on my head. It burned the cut on my scalp where my hair had been ripped out. I recognized the smell and saw a long red barbecue lighter appear in Johnsons hand. He flicked sparks in peoples faces as he poured more kerosene over us.