The Sugar Daddy Who Encouraged Me to Run My First 5K Race

I was never someone who you might refer to as “sporty.” Sure, I’m active. I have a very full social life (complete with three sugar daddies who keep my schedule very full of wine tastings, brunches, and spa days). I walk my dog. I can even be called on to go for a hike if a girlfriend of mine lures me with the promise of very good gossip.

But, organized sports or sustained cardio? Not my thing. Even a yoga class can feel too restrictive for me. 15 minutes in, and I’m counting down the minutes until the final shivasana.

This was all before my brother, Mitch, went into the hospital with a heart arrhythmia (basically an irregular heartbeat). His doctor told him that he would need to start taking better care of himself if he wanted to avoid, you know, keeling over suddenly. And apparently, heart issues are in our DNA, so my parents suggested that I get checked, too.

Luckily, no heart arrhythmia for me. But I wasn’t off the hook. My cardiologist told me that it was absolutely not okay that I wasn’t doing any kind of regular exercise…and that I was smoking. He said, “My advice is that you throw out the vape and you go get yourself a pair of running shoes. Start slow, but start…soon.”

I was pretty freaked out, so I called my sugar daddy, Liam, who was always happy to take me shoe shopping. He also happened to be a marathon runner, so he seemed like the perfect guy for this.

He was ecstatic, solidifying my suspicion that runners are part of some pain-loving cult, always looking for new members. When we went to the shoe store, he had me get a proper fitting and even run on a treadmill so that the experts could recommend the right shoe for my stride.

I felt like this was all a lot of fuss for someone like me, who would be running a mile, max. But Liam was so excited about the whole thing that I didn’t want to be too negative.

“You’re getting the wrong impression about how seriously I’m going to be taking this,” I told him quietly as the shoe attendant was busy getting more shoes from the back.

“Trust me,” Liam said. “You’re going to want a good shoe. Don’t worry, this may all seem like a lot now, but you’ll be speaking the lingo before you know it.”

“Liam,” I told him with a friendly punch on the arm, “I’m Gen Z. You’ll never catch me ‘speaking the lingo.”

“You just wait,” he told me with a wink.

My goal had been to start with an easy 3-mile run, because how hard could that be? In reality, it was very hard. Impossible, even. I felt so sluggish and heavy. All I wanted in the world was my vape pen. I couldn’t even run straight for thirty seconds.

Just as I was about to quit, like some divine intervention, I got a call from my brother Mitch. He was just getting out of a weightlifting session with his personal trainer and was calling to complain and get a pep talk from his big sister.

“You think you need a pep talk?” I told him. “I can’t even run a full minute. Tell me, do the health risks of not exercising really outweigh this torture?”

Mitch just laughed.

“Yes, sister,” he said. “You’re not leaving me to deal with Mom and Dad on my own. Get off the phone and keep running. I’m going to go drink a protein shake or whatever the gym bros on TikTok do.”

Talking to Mitch renewed my motivation to become a serious runner. Or at least a serious enough runner to avoid heart disease. But I wanted to procrastinate a little bit longer, so I called Liam.

“Liam, I can’t do this,” I said as soon as he picked up.

“Well, it’s your first run. You don’t have to push yourself. How far did you go?”

“Oh, you know,” I said. “To about the end of the block.”

Now it was Liam’s turn to laugh.

“I see. Okay, how about you turn around, run back to your house, and call it a day. Tomorrow, I’ll swing by around 8 am, and we’ll go for a little run together.”

“Nothing too crazy,” I warned him.

It was harder to get myself out of bed at 7:30 than I thought, but I knew that Liam would be right on time. In fact, he was 10 minutes early, and he had two breakfast burritos wrapped in foil. When I reached for them, gratefully, he said, “Not so fast; these are for after the run.”

I rolled my eyes, and we headed out.

Again, I figured that I wouldn’t be able to run for more than a few seconds, but Liam anticipated that. He said that we were going to run for one minute, walk for one minute, and then run again.

“Nice and easy,” he said, “We should run slow enough that we can carry on a conversation without too much effort.”

And so, we started to run at a snail’s pace. I was a little embarrassed by my abysmal speed, but having someone to talk to made the running minutes less painful, and before I knew it, we had already run a mile.

This became our routine for the next few weeks. Every Tuesday and Friday, Liam would show up without fail, burritos in hand. But every time, he would push me to add a few more minutes onto the run or increase the pace of our intervals.

Once we got comfortable running a mile and a half without stopping, Liam asked me when I was going to sign up for my first race.

“Why would I race? I’m just doing this for my health,” I told him.

“Well, it’s good to have a goal, you know. Plus, races are the best part of running. They’re fun. You get to enjoy the energy of the people around you. You feel that sense of accomplishment when you cross the finish line. They even give you a bag of goodies: snacks and little freebies.”

“You know,” I teased, “Every new thing you tell me about running makes me more convinced that it’s a cult.”

Liam laughed and pushed on.

“Really,” he said, I’ll sponsor your first race; we’ll find one in a couple of months. And we’ll put together a training plan to get you ready. I bet we can get you under 40 minutes for your first race.”

“40 minutes!” Until then, we hadn’t even broken 15 minutes of running without stopping.

Liam found a race in 6 weeks that was taking place in a little beach town about 2 hours from where we lived. When he pitched me the idea, he heavily emphasized the romantic-getaway-to-a-beachtown part of it.

“Think about it,” he said. “40 minutes of exercise and then two whole days of lying on the beach, eating delicious food, tropical cocktails.”

The image was too tempting to pass up, so I said yes.

Of course, Liam was lying about it only being 40 minutes of exercise. In actuality, it was 6 weeks of exercise, with two runs a week, two strength workouts a week, and daily stretching. Liam taught me all about the importance of varying my runs (some days longer, some days shorter, some days fast, some days relaxed) so that I didn’t put myself at risk for an overuse injury or get bored with running in general.

The strength training, he told me, was also to prevent injury.

“Running is an impact sport,” he explained. “The stronger your stabilizing muscles, the less chance you’ll get runner’s knee or problems with your Achilles.”

“Cool,” I told him sarcastically. “I always wanted a form of exercise that was constantly threatening to disintegrate my joints and tendons.”

Secretly, though, I was loving the training. I found that it was so much easier to give up the vape when I could feel the difference in breathing during my runs. And the speed intervals made me feel like I was flying (in reality, I was probably running comically slow.)

The day of the race, I was so much more nervous than I expected. Liam kept telling me to relax, start slow, and enjoy myself.

“Don’t try to outrun everybody,” he told me. “Just run the same way you run when we’re together.”

The race itself went by in the blink of an eye. I couldn’t believe how fast it went. And I finished in under 30 minutes, which was so much better than I ever imagined.

But the most special part of the whole thing was that Liam had called Mitch and told him about the race. So, my baby brother was there at the finish line, looking prouder than I’d ever seen him. I didn’t expect that something as silly as a 5k would make me cry, but I couldn’t help it as I brought Mitch into a hug.

“You’re running the next one with me,” I warned him.

“Oh no,” he joked. “So, the cult got you, too.”

Mitch stayed for breakfast after the race and then made his way back home. As it turns out, Liam had even more surprises for our little minivacation at the beach: couples’ massages, horseback riding, a private chef.

As he was explaining the itinerary, I grabbed his hand. “This is going to sound insane, but can we also get in another run on the beach? I just think it would be good for me to keep up my training for the next race.”

Liam grinned from ear to ear.

“Of course,” he said.