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I thought I was going home to Chicago for baseball, family time, and the Chicago Marathon buzz. What I came back with was bigger: I got selected to run the South Africa Marathon in Cape Town, and it lit a fire I didn’t expect. This isn’t just a race update, it’s the start of a new long-form story I’m calling “From The South Side Of Chicago To South Africa,” where marathon training becomes a way to finally understand my own roots.

I’m sharing the conversations that shook me, starting with my cousin Gina and the grief our family has carried after losing her parents. We talk about my dad and my Uncle Henry growing up in Mississippi during the Jim Crow era, and what it does to a man when he’s taught to hide every emotion. Those stories made me look in the mirror and ask hard questions about how I show up as a husband, a father, and a son, and what I might be carrying that I never named.

I also get into my cousin Erica, childhood memories, and the health wake-up calls that come with losing people you love. Then I rewind to the South Side neighborhood bonds, the violence that still echoes, and a lunch with my dad that revealed family history I honestly didn’t know. Along the way, I talk identity, what it meant to be “mixed” where I grew up, and why the mental side of running might be the most important part of this whole journey.

If you’re into marathon motivation, family history, personal growth, and real conversations, come ride with me. Subscribe, share this with a friend, leave a review, and tell me this: what question would you ask your own family if you had the chance?