On a recent morning jog in New York City, Martinus Evans was greeted like a conquering champion. Every two or three minutes, a passing jogger would smile and nod, congratulating him as they sped by. But the runners didn’t applaud him for winning any race. You could even say they were celebrating him for his record of finishing last.
Evans is the founder of the Slow AF Run Club, a virtual community for back-of-the-pack runners, with more than 10,000 members worldwide. At 300 pounds, he is a beloved figure among runners who have felt left out of the sport. He has graced the cover of Runner’s World, posed nude for Men’s Health, and appeared in an Adidas ad. His Instagram account, @300poundsandrunning, has around 62,000 followers. And this month he releases his first book, “Slow AF Run Club: The Ultimate Guide for Everyone Who Wants to Run.”
The idea for the club was born during the 2018 New York City Marathon, just past the punishing Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan. Evans was keeping up with him when he noticed a man gesturing from the sidewalk.
“You’re slow, buddy,” the man yelled, adding a swear word to indicate how slow. Evans tried to ignore him and returned his attention to the course, which finished just over eight hours, or six hours behind the winner. But when the viewer repeated the taunt of him, Evans got angrier—and then inspired.
The next time Evans, now 36, ran, he wore a T-shirt with the man’s phrase, SLOW AF, and a cartoon of a smiling turtle. Followers on Instagram requested their own shirts. By early 2019, a running club had been born.
Evans, who lives in Brooklyn and is now a certified track and field trainer, is helping lead a global movement to make the sport welcoming to anyone who wants to run, regardless of size, pace or skin color. “I want everyone to know that they can run with the body they have now,” he said.
As a child in Detroit, Michigan, he was teased for his size. When he tried out for a youth football team, the coach made him wear a garbage bag on the field to “sweat off the grease,” he said. He didn’t lose weight; he just felt embarrassed. But after making his high school football team, he began to develop confidence in his physical abilities. He attended Lane College in Tennessee on a football scholarship before transferring to Central Michigan University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in exercise science.
In 2012, Evans and his then-girlfriend (now wife) moved to Connecticut, where she attended graduate school. He took a job selling suits while he decided his next move.
After months on the warehouse floor wearing stiff dress shoes, he began to experience pain in his hip. The pain took him to an orthopedic surgeon, who, he writes in his book, looked at him and said, “You’re fat. You have two options: lose weight or die.”
Evans recalled holding back tears as she defiantly told the doctor, “I’m going to run a marathon.” He said the doctor laughed and told him that doing so would kill him too.
He left the office angry and still in pain (another doctor later diagnosed him with hip bursitis) and drove straight to a store to buy a pair of sneakers, determined to prove the doctor wrong. For added motivation, Evans started a blog he called 300 Pounds and Running, where he began recording both his running progress and weight loss. After a few months, he was surprised to find strangers reading and encouraging him.
He discovered that he liked to run, despite the occasional insults from passers-by. More than once, Evans said police have also stopped and questioned him while he was running. When he felt defeated, he would look at a tattoo on his right wrist that reads “zero fight, zero progress.”
Eventually he ran a 5K, then a half marathon. Finally, in the fall of 2013, Evans flew home to run the Detroit Free Press Marathon and fulfill his vow at the doctor’s office. When he crossed the finish line, he cried.
Since then, he has earned a master’s degree in public health research and another in design and digital media. She said running gives her a sense of confidence and purpose.
He decided to stop counting calories and just run for fun.
More than a decade after he started running, with eight marathons to his credit, Evans still weighs 300 pounds. The longer he shows up and runs slow, he said, the easier it will be for other runners to do the same.
By: DANIELLE FRIEDMAN
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6752557, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-06-08 22:10:06
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