“Go back to sleep, Peter,” my wife mutters through tired lips and cozy pillowed dreams.
“I gotta get moving,” I say as I put on my running shoes and go to the kitchen for some peanut butter and raw eggs.
It’s week six of my new routine. A routine I insisted on starting after I married my beautiful wife. I don’t know what it is, but marriage can soften a man. But even before I met her, I had been developing fat and lethargy in my once immaculate body.
“Peter, you’re perfect. I love you just the way you are. Come back to bed. Hug me, baby,” My wife implores as temptation infiltrates my brain. But I can’t. I have gotten soft and it’s time to get hard.
These last few months have been hard for my beautiful young wife, but health comes first, and not every fitness methodology works.
A few weeks ago I spent the week in the hospital after airfrying a T-bone steak and drinking a pint of bone broth before my run. I had seen the scientific efficacy of it in Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson's shorts on YouTube. If it could work for them and keep them hard and mentally stable, then why not me?
Unfortunately, I have a sensitive stomach and the heavy burnt fats and oily protein were too much for my weak gut to take. So I changed tact.
I decided to try the military diet of brown bread, peanut butter, and tuna. Who knew they were meant to be served separately? I coupled this diet with the greatest audiobook of all time, ‘Can’t Hurt Me’ by David Goggins.
And that’s where I find myself now as I try not to regurgitate my raw eggs and peanut butter on mile eleven of my 5 am run.
Goggins is intense, but I need this fine man’s guidance. ‘I must get hard,’ I say to myself as my lungs start to burn. I have come a long way since that first week of listening when, after the first chapter of listening to Goggins, I had a panic attack. Intensity is healthy.
As I run, my mind turns to my wife, who is safe at home, asleep and alone. It has been a rough few weeks for her, but it will be worth it, I’m sure. I know all she wants from me are hugs and love making but how can I if I’m not hard?
I must get hard.
Yes, she insisted upon the notion that she loves me anyway. She spends hours lecturing me before bed that it’s because I smoke and drink too much Guinness every night that I can’t get hard. She suggests that I cut down, go on walks, and incorporate foreplay into our routine.
Stupid woman.
There’s only one way to get hard. And that’s listening to David Goggins's sweet voice in the public toilets of the park.
On mile twelve of hearing another, “Stay hard! I ran a marathon with no legs!” I begin to feel a bulge form. I feel a feel that I haven’t felt in years. Blood returns to areas of my body that have been dormant since my days in Amsterdam.
It’s time to run home and wake up my wife. It’s finally time to consummate this marriage.
I burst through the doors, enter our chamber, and press play on my laptop that’s facing the bed.
“Peter, no. Not again. Not like this,” My beautiful buttercup whispers as Goggin’s audiobook blares from my sweaty airpods, ‘Stay hard, motherfucker!’ is my mantra as Joe Rogan plays on the laptop.
“Peter, at least look at me.”
But I can’t.
I must stay hard.
Stay tuned for, “I Became A Stoic And My Wife Took The Kids”
I Joined The 5 AM Club And My Wife Left Me