• The Sub-30 Club with Ted Spiker at a 2014 Runner's World event. • Spiker teaching a journalism class • Spiker's Aaron Hernandez tweet
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Those perceptions come through in Down Size, the story fluctuating between vulnerable and gutsy. The guy picked last for basketball, who got a D in gym class, runs the New York City marathon, an Ironman and a Tough Mudder. A reader can hope that exorcises the demons of the Presidential Physical Fitness Test. He’s explored for himself the line between reasons and excuses and urges readers to do so, too. Spiker says he’s felt supported on his weight loss and fitness quests, and he likes to pay that forward. He first started hearing from atypical runners when he started the Big Guy Blog for Runner’s World. Even people without weight issues would write in and say, “You kind of represent misfits in a way.” He started a Facebook group for runners trying to break 30 minutes on a 5K race, thinking he might be the only one, but the Sub-30 Club page now has 3,000 members. The number is the goal, but it comes with encouragement. “It’s an amazing community. We all know what it’s like not to fit in,” Spiker says. “But the spirit of the people, it’s crazy how they all are supportive of each other.”
26 Spring 2015
When one member was struggling with her 5K time, Spiker decided to attend her next race, although he’d never met her in person. He managed to pick her out of the crowd, and, “She was coming up the last tenth of a mile, and I see the time, and it’s clear she’s going to get it, and I yelled her name, ‘You got it, you got it, you’re crushing it!’” She was shocked to see him and even more shocked that he had shown up specifically to see her get her sub-30 time. “The look on her face, that I came out to cheer her on ... It wasn’t a hard thing for me to do, but she said that it meant something for me to do that, and that’s important.” That’s the connection he wants to forge with his readers. One woman described Down Size as “motivation for the imperfect person.” Another reader, an acquaintance he’d fallen out of touch with, called and asked to have lunch after reading it. He was struggling with some personal issues, not weight loss, but the book resonated so much that he began to cry. He was open enough, Spiker says, to see the connections between emotions and food.
In 2014, Spiker started the year using a spread sheet to track his goals: 20,000 pushups, 75 miles swimming, 1,000 miles running, 1,500 miles biking, 25 tire-flipping workouts, 1,500 minutes of stretching, 30,000 seconds in plank position, 1 unassisted pull-up. Then along came a curveball. “This is reality,” Spiker says. “Life gets in the way.” The rejiggering of fitness goals aside, this curveball is welcome. Spiker became the chair of the Department of Journalism in the College of Journalism and Communications, an exciting opportunity at a time when the field needs leadership. He loves teaching, and students love him if his reviews on Rate My Professor are any indication: “Spiker rocks!” and “Best teacher at UF.” One student wrote, “ … some might say he is kind of hot,” a nice boost for body image. He even has a red chili pepper, although his isn’t on fire like another colleague’s. In his capstone magazine class, he sometimes uses audio files to give feedback, and in his packed Sports Media & Society class, he brings in speakers to explore the complicated role of sports in the world today. “In my magazine and book stuff I can hopefully reach a bigger audience, but I don’t get a ton of feedback,” Spiker says. “With teaching, I have a small audience in a lot of cases, and you can really help somebody one on one, and steer them in a way that affects their lives.”