WEIGHT-LOSS WINNERS
Exercise pulled him out of depression
Sam Smullen had been feeling down for years, the result of clocking long, sedentary hours as a structural engineer and capping off his workdays drinking at a Gowanus bar several nights a week.
It was there, on a cold evening in November 2015, that the 56-year-old Park Slope resident encountered a group of sweaty, endorphin-high runners from the group Hash NYC.
“I asked them if they were a running club, and they said, ‘No, we’re a drinking club with a running problem!’ ” Smullen says. “I figured I could do it too because I loved beer.”
They encouraged him to join them for a run the following week.
“I didn’t have to tell them who I was, I didn’t have to commit to anything. I could just show up and run,” says Smullen, a former Marine.
Mile by mile, Smullen’s times improved, and the cloud above his head slowly lifted, too.
“I liked the feeling of setting the bar a little higher each time I accomplished something,” he says.
He completed a 5K in December 2015, fol-lowed by a marathon in April 2016. It’s beenn a blur of races since then. In 2017 alone, he’s run seven marathons, and the New York City Triathlon. He runs at least 2 miles every day.
“Before the triathlon, the closest thing I got to swimming was drinking beer by the side of thee pool. I never even owned a bike,” Smullen says. “Once I decided to do it, I just jumped in.”
Along the way, the 5-foot-9 Smullen went from 210 pounds to 140 pounds, while barely changing his diet.
Smullen has since joined other groups such as the New York Road Runners and the Prospect Park Track Club, whose members have helped coach him through his success. Next, he hopes to complete an Ironman triathlon challenge in 2019.
“Each day, I have something to look forward to,” he says. “Running took me out of myself.