I always knew someday my consecutive exercise streak would end. I did not know how it was going to be, or the circumstances that would be involved. The one thing I knew for sure it that it would be because of something I would have no control over. It was not just going to be an “excuse” to say I could not do it that day. That day happened last Sunday. I will expand on this more in the next several weeks, but will briefly summarize by saying my life changed that morning. I developed a clot going to my right kidney, and I was losing my kidney. I also had a clot in my right leg, and found out later that it was brought on by my heart, and had what is a called PFO: Patent Foramen Ovale. 3 angiograms later, with 3 subsequent procedures, 5 days in the hospital, I was able to come home. My exercise streak however, stopped. Day # 4196. This is how far I went. This has been driving me for the last 12 years. Lead by example. Don’t just tell people, my patients, that they need to stay active. Show them! As the saying goes: Records were meant to be broken!
Sometimes, you do just need to go with the flow! Life is always changing. My world changed over night. But, I am here. For the next 6 months I will be on multiple blood thinners, and will be taking it easy. I can’t do any aerobic activity for the next month, and then will be very slow progressing. But, I still can!
Things will changes. Things are going to be different. But I will be able to run again later. It will then be time to start a new consecutive streak. I look back now and wonder how I went this long. Things come up, life throws curveballs. Most of the time it is just an excuse. An excuse your mind can take control of. You just need to take charge. Many different events, races, causes have been accomplished over this time period. Many of them with my Watertown Area Run Club (WARC) members. Working together to raise money for charity, FARA, and going somewhere different for a race just to have fun!
Last Fall, Jill, Amanda, Paula, Sarah, Tom, and I went to Denver to do the Rock and Roll Half Marathon. These 3 came up with a shirt they had printed: South Dakota Girls…and Dan! We had so much fun with this, and had so many comments on this!
That same WARC spirit carried on this last week as well. Here they had a large group together on Wednesday, and ran for me, which would have been day # 4200! Holding a sign, and peanut M and M’s (my favorite candy!)…it still brings tears to my eyes when I look at what they did for me! But this is what WARC is about. We go the extra mile for one of our own. This is why this group of people/friends are so important. It is not about running. It is about being there for each other, and we just happen to run at the same time! I can’t thank WARC enough for this! I was at a pretty low point that day, and just had the 3rd procedure done, and this just lifted me right up! Thank you!
I guess it is gonna come down to how tough am I? I have gone through adversities before. One thing for sure, I am not gonna let this be a excuse to not restart another consecutive streak. It did definitely put life in perspective. We are all human, and don’t know what tomorrow is gonna bring. Live today! I have been watching (too much) TV lately being down this week. A movie came up that is one of my favorites. Shawshank Redemption. It has a great line in it that opened my eyes once again: “Get busy living, or get busy dying!” Choose…
Sarah and I have done a lot of talking. The consecutive streak was not the goal. The exercise was not the goal. Being together is the goal. I am going to listen to her and recover from all of this because I want to be able to do more things/events with her later. My daughter is getting married in August…the first wedding for one of my kids. I do not want to miss that for anything. I will be back. I will start a new streak. In the process, maybe this will not only help motivate others, but also help motive me! Keep moving everybody!
How do most people spend their birthday? Well, running with your friends, of course! Today is St. Patrick’s Day, and also my wife Sarah’s birthday! I want to wish her a very special birthday. We started off once again on Sunday morning running with our run club members, and then went to Tim and Jill Makepeace’s house to celebrate with breakfast! A great morning.
She got flowers sent to her at work on Friday. A great way to start the weekend!
A few weeks before this we got to have our vacation in Jamaica. A great place to relax, celebrate, and get away from the snow. It was in the mid 80’s everyday! We got to walk the beach every day as well. No matter what, vacation, work, whatever, we remain active! We always have, and hopefully we always will.
One afternoon when we came back to our room, they had this done on our bed! Perfect surprise! It was a great get away to spend some time together!
We are working on year 29 together. I wish you a very Happy Birthday, and love you very much!
I hope to have many more years to celebrate birthdays, and other special occasions with you. Just like our wedding day theme: “Two hearts that beat as one!”. Nothing has changed, except it means even more today than it did then! Spend time with the people you care about. Stay active, and keep moving everybody!
Out in the snow and cold with the Watertown Area Run Club
I had mentioned in an earlier post about motivating mantras…sayings that can help keep us focused, and concentrate on what we are doing, and our goals. I was just watching the movie “Unbroken” the other day. A prisoner of war, American, Louis Zamperini, a former Olympic runner, was a prisoner of war in Japan. What helped get him through was a saying his brother had taught him while he was training for the Olympics: “If I can take it, I can make it!” I find myself saying that a lot now lately too. With the weather, the injury with my foot, being busy at work. I find myself wondering how I can keep taking this! I have to keep trying to focus on the future, while at the same time taking advantage of the now, and appreciate what I can do….which has me doing a lot of bike riding.
Park and Rec keeps helping to plow sections of trail, but they are getting deep!
This was Sarah’s view running on Saturday
It gets frustrating having to deal with the snow, and the cold, wind, etc. Will Spring ever get here! We have to keep reminding ourselves of positive things, and keep repeating them to ourselves over and over!
Focus on this, and repeat!
We can make those motivating mantras as long, or as short as we want. Make them individual to ourselves, and make it have some meaning.
Short and sweet…Just Be…
Running in a group with our run club helps keep each of us going, and motivated!
Keep focusing on what is ahead of us. That goes for everything in life. Life goes by fast as it is, and when things start getting tough, we wish time would go by faster so we can get through it easier, but life is not easy. Just like trying to work on our health, and keep active. Nothing about it is easy. “If I can take it, I can make it!” FOCUS! CONCENTRATE! And, above all, be positive, not only to yourself, but to others. Others around you, family, friends, they may be struggling more than you. Be a positive influence. Be someone that somebody else can look up to, and gain knowledge, motivation, and just plain happiness! Then in this whole process, you are helping yourself as well, and working on your health/fitness as well. So then we can all say:
We can keep repeating this to ourselves all of the time!
What is your mantra? What would motivate you? What is it that will trigger that desire in you to push you beyond what you think you could do? I am going to continue this topic next week as well. It should be important to all of us, as well as motivating. Keep moving everybody!
Sarah and I just got back from a week get away in Jamaica, and boy was it perfect timing. Everybody is so sick of the snow and cold, that just having some warmth, sun, beach, and ocean was better than any prescription treatment I could think of. Time to relax on the beach, listen to the ocean, read some books (for fun!), take a nap, go eat, and then repeat! No time schedule. No pressure. Do whatever, whenever. Perfect break. And…no snow, or cold! Sarah and I each year go somewhere warm in the Winter just to have a break. By the time we come back, we hope that Winter will be ending soon. It does not look like Winter will end soon this year, but still made for a great break.
The ocean views were great, especially sunrise and sunset. It is very relaxing to just sit and listen to the ocean waves, and not wind with snow swirling! Sarah and I went for at least a couple mile walk everyday along the beach, including the last day when we had to leave mid morning to go home on Friday.
They had a fitness center on the resort we were at, and we hit that everyday too. I did not run, but was biking and using the elliptical, and Sarah would get her run in. I am going to ease back into this again!
I did see a great name for a boat while we were there!
Some things just say it all. I am going to ease back into running again this week. I had a set back the last 2 weeks, and physical therapy has definitely been helping. I will resume that again this week. The rest of the exercise is just not the same when I can’t run. I have been having a really hard time trying to stay motivated. The weather is only making this worse. Everybody else is crabby because of the weather, but I think I am more crabby because I have not been running, and then the snow and cold just compounds it even more. My foot was doing pretty good with the walking, so time to start testing it again this week. Back to the pool again too! I sure hope by Spring when the weather does get better that I will be back outside on the road again running. I feel like I have been missing out on a lot this past 3 months or more. My daughter wrote in her blog this week that you really don’t know how much you miss something until you can’t do it. Right on! I have been struggling not being able to run more. At least I can do something to keep exercising, otherwise I would really be miserable! Sarah and I got in on the classes by the “fitness instructor” at the Sandals resort, Romario. He was a riot. He took this picture of Sarah and I doing our class on couples stretching along the beach. Who says exercising can’t be fun!
We are at least now into March. Even though we are hitting one of our coldest days this Winter with the wind chill again. This has to end soon, right? Stay positive, not only for yourself, but for others around you. After all, the saying goes: “What does not kill you makes you stronger!”. The only problem with this weather is it can kill you! Be careful. Stay active, just make adjustments and do it inside on some of the really bad weather days. Keep moving everybody!
Well I don’t know if right now anybody else is struggling with trying to stay motivated to keep exercising, but I sure am. My foot problems flared up again this week, making it tough for me to be able to run since Tuesday. I am still doing other exercise, but not running. I started physical therapy Friday, so helpfully this will help too. Then with all the snow, the continued cold, and the clinic has just been crazy this past 3 weeks with influenza, and call, it has been hard to concentrate on staying active. Somedays you wonder why you even make the effort. I keep my consecutive exercise streak in mind, and this helps push me to keep going too. I try to help keep everybody else motivated to keep moving, and I have to keep trying to motivate myself too! One thing for sure that helps me to keep going is that eventually it has to get nice out, right? I mean, really? It is going to get nice out again…someday. I keep those thoughts of the nice weather, and being out on the trail, and just taking in some nice weather, sunshine, and not having any injuries!
Sarah and I keep each going, and always have. So when one is hurt, or limited, it affects the other person too. It is just not the same when we can’t work out together. It gets hard to get fired up to go workout…by yourself! Nobody to discuss things with. Nobody to hash over the day with. Somedays it feels like you have nobody to push you, and then you start feeling sorry for yourself. Keep those good days in mind.
With this stretch of weather, sometimes it feels like things are impossible. Just rework that word, and turn it into “I M Possible”! I can do this. Put my head down, and keep going. This tough stretch is not going to last forever. The reason I keep going at this is because of the benefit of all those good days when they come. If you throw the towel in every time it starts getting tough, you will never get anything done.
Sarah and I have done a lot of races and events together. We have a lot more planned. FOCUS! FOCUS! FOCUS!
This hits it right on! Commitment! Not only to exercise, but to relationships, time…life in general. There are going to be some tough times…like with running, bad weather, hills, ice, snow, heat, injuries…you name it. Everything with this, just like with life, is not always easy. There are challenges in everything. But, how you react to those challenges is what makes you, or breaks you.
We are in the drivers seat. For me, I could easily have pitched this exercise streak and said, “you know, this is probably a good time for this to end”. As tough as it has been to keep going, it is still the same when I get done exercising. I am glad I did it. I feel better, and have burned off some frustrations. The same problems are still there, but I can start to figure out how I am going to deal with them now. That is the secret.
I will be out there with Sarah again. I will be doing more races and events again. Be patient! Take a deep breath! RELAX! Give it some time (even though I don’t want to!). There are days when yes, we have to motivate ourselves. But, at the same time, we need to keep motivating others. We are not in their shoes. We know what our own individual struggles are, but we have no idea what somebody else may be going through. We may think we have it tough at times, only to realize somebody else has it much tougher. So while you keep motivating yourself, remember somebody else may be watching you, and you can set an example for them. Push yourself, and it may help push others. That in and of itself can also help motivate you to keep going too!
Keep moving! Keep trying! Somedays it feels like you are in a marathon, and the finish line is nowhere in sight. Life is a marathon. Ups, downs, struggles, joys, relief, pain, joy…many emotions to go through. But the bottom line is you have to keep repeating to yourself 3 little words:
Yes you can! REPEAT! There are many motivational mantras that can be created to help keep us motivated. Some of them are more generic and can apply to all of us, and some of them may just apply to us alone. The more direct it is to us as an individual, the more powerful it can be for us. That will be the next blog topic–creating a motivation mantra that has significance to each of us. Then focus on it and never lose sight of it. It will help get you through all of those struggles in life, and help keep you moving as well. YES YOU CAN! Keep moving everybody! YES YOU CAN!
