Live with a SEAL, and salute the first president
My oldest son runs ultra-marathons from time to time, whereas for me, an ultra-marathon is staying awake from 3 a.m. to 10 p.m. with just one nap. At any rate, this Christmas he gifted me with a copy of Jesse Itzler’s “Living with a SEAL: 31 Days Training with the Toughest Man on the Planet” (Center Street, 2016, 288 pages).
In 2010, Itzler, a wealthy man who has also run ultra-marathons, hired a retired Navy SEAL, whom he refers to in the book as SEAL, to live with him for a month and run him through a rigorous regimen of training (my use of “rigorous” is an understatement as deep as the Grand Canyon). So, in December SEAL moves into the Central Park West apartment in Manhattan where Itzler, his wife Sara, who founded the shapewear company Spanx, and their young son, Lazer, then lived.
From that point on, Itzler’s life is turned upside down. He’s out running with SEAL through Central Park at five in the morning and at midnight in 20 degree temperatures. Under SEAL’s boot camp guidance, he’s doing timed pullups and burpees at rates most of us can’t imagine, with SEAL even yanking him away on breaks from business meetings to do pushups in his office. Commenting once on ultra-marathoners, Sara said, “It’s like they put ninety people from the insane asylum onto a Greyhound bus, drove them out to the desert, blew a whistle, and said run for two days.”
In Itzler’s case, it’s as if SEAL blows a whistle, and they run for the entire month.
It turns out SEAL is David Goggins, known far and wide across social media as “the toughest athlete on the planet.” As many people know who follow him, Goggins weighed nearly 300 pounds back in 2000 when he decided he wanted to join the Navy and become a SEAL. To qualify, he lost over 100 pounds in just three months and was allowed to join the Navy and the SEALS.
“Living with a Seal” offers readers that same sort of stick-to-it inspiration. It teaches some great life lessons about persistence, the importance of training, pushing yourself to the max, and fighting past fear and doubt. “It doesn’t have to be fun,” Goggins says, “it has to be effective.” No one would describe Itzler’s daily ordeal as fun, but SEAL’s program was definitely effective.
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On the other hand, would I want to live my life like Goggins? No way. And not just because of the pain and the training. His idea of joy, if he has one, is radically different from mine.
Here’s just one example. A couple of months after the training ended and SEAL had moved out, Itzler contacted him and invited him to come along with the family to the Bahamas. SEAL showed up with no luggage but he did bring his bike and a stationary set-up station. For the three days they spent at the beach, he never left his room, pedaling away and looking out the window at “the most beautiful setting in the world.”
Good for him, I suppose. But if someone asks me to spend some time at a swanky hotel on the beach in the Bahamas, you’ll find me down on the sand taking in the sights and enjoying the sun.
One more note: SEAL’s constant obscenities — he favored MF and the archaic word for a female dog — soon made him sound stupid and even boring.
Otherwise, if you’re not put off by foul language and you’re looking for humor and an interesting story, give “Living with a Seal” a shot.
•••
Most people call February 17 Presidents’ Day, that holiday when government buildings, schools, and some businesses close up shop and retailers offer some of the year’s biggest sales. Yet the federal government still officially designates President’s Day as “Washington’s Birthday.”
Here’s why. Until 1968, the nation recognized February 22, Washington’s birthday, as a legal holiday. That year, however, the Congress passed the Monday Holiday Laws, which created our current system of three-day weekends on national holidays and which also designated the third Monday in February as Washington’s “birthday.” This change not only guaranteed that the holiday would never occur on February 22, it also meant that the date would always fall between Washington’s birthday and Lincoln’s, which is February 12.
Advertising and popular usage titled the holiday “Presidents’ Day,” which initially referred to Washington and Lincoln, but was then extended to honor and celebrate all presidents. So, while the federal government still officially recognizes “Washington’s Birthday,” most of the country has abandoned that honorific for the fuzzier notion that all of our presidents deserve their share of the spotlight.
Whichever tag we fix to this celebration, now is the perfect time to learn more about our first president and how he helped shape our nation. Visit the public library or your local bookshop, or search online, and you’ll find plenty of biographies for both adults and children.
One online resource you don’t want to miss is Mount Vernon (mountvernon.org), where you’ll find virtual tours of Washington’s home, lots of documents as well as historical tidbits, educational resources for young and old alike, and much more.
Happy Washington’s Birthday, all, and good reading!
(Jeff Minick reviews books and has written four of his own: two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust On Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning As I Go” and “Movies Make the Man.” This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..)
