Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes

Here I sit bundled up in my standard Upstate New York issued Uggs and Northface, seat heater on, avoiding the 44 degree weather outside, as I wait out my son’s football practice. It’s already dark out and it’s not even 6:30. The full on realization of what the next few months will bring in terms of snow, blow and the inevitable relentless aggravation of my Raynaud’s Syndrome, causing my hands to be numb until spring. As the depressing weight of that thought sinks in, my random playlist once again proves to be the great equalizer.  It was the sudden sound of calypso that brought me out of the anticipation of the winter funk. Jimmy Buffett’s,”Changes in Lattitudes, Changes in Attitudes.”  This song takes me back to summers in college spent around a keg with good friends and much more carefree times.

I took off for a weekend last month just to try to and recall the whole year, 

All of the faces and all the places 

Wondering where they all disappeared 

This year. What a whirlwind. Three Spartan Races, a Sprint, a Super and a Beast, completing my trifecta for the second year on a row. Cape Cod Ragnar and Adirondack Ragnar for hundreds of team running miles. Several 5 and 10k’s with various motivational clients of mine, where I got to see people do things they never thought they could, which was truly an honor. Then there was that other thing. The big thing.  The half marathon. The thing that kept me up nights long before I did it. People kept saying,”yeah but you did a 20 mile Spartan Beast on the side of a mountain in West Virginia, so this is no big deal.” Oh but it was. At a half I didn’t have my 6 ft 6 business and race partner to pull me along if I ran out of gas, like when he helps me over the 8 foot wall at mile 12. My original race partner and biggest cheerleader, my son, was not at this race.  This was on me. I was the only one in charge of finishing.  I was in charge of if I ran or walked and nobody else. My first huge battle of me versus me.  It honestly felt a bit like operating without a net.

Changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes, nothing remains quite the same   

I arrived at the start line long before my other teammates, who I came to know as simply my 13.1 sharky half sisters, as my ride was dropping another of our group off at the full marathon start line.  Little by little my sisters would arrive in our fancy matching shirts and we would set out to change our own latitudes.  When the gun went off, I would see our team truly bound us in name only and it was time for me to set out to race.  There would be two members of our team who took off into the sea of humanity ahead of me, and three were behind.  I found myself on the long downhill course, despite the crowd of other runners, suddenly very much alone.   I watched my watch and decided I was ok at a 10:50 pace, not overly anxious, and I seemed to breathe ok.  At one point I would emerge from the bike trail and ultimately come across a set of railroad tracks and see a bearded man holding a cardboard sign reading,"GO SHARKS".  Huh.  Sharks.  Like my team.  The Sharks.  That's cool.  I would later come to find out he was a family member of a teammate and was actually rooting for us, not some other sharks like I assumed.  There was the cool overcast day, with a fine mist so I was not overly hot, and I seemed to be slowly passing mile marker after mile marker.  So far so good. 

With all of my running and all of my cunning 

if I couldn't laugh I would just go insane

Around mile 8, though, I think I started to falter a bit.  My legs were sore, but I had yet to walk.  I found my brain entertaining the notion of stopping.  Eight miles was good, right?  Besides, I had just seen another runner jump into an SUV at an intersection.  I began to wonder if I could summon an Uber.  It wouldn't be so bad really, perhaps they could drop me at the park entrance and I could appear to finish like a normal person.  In those moments when the doubt crept in, I suddenly felt the presence of someone next to me.  I looked to my right and found a red matching tank top to mine.  It was Jill.  My trusted training partner who more often than not, can be found on the treadmill next to mine.  She's known to rap as she runs, and cheer me on for every little gain.  She ran one of my very first 5k's with me as my leftover anxiety from a childhood of gym class bullying dared to get the best of me.  She listened to my ridiculous rantings in the third mile that day and got me through that by reminding me in that moment it was not my body saying to slow down, it was my brain. I was so excited to see her  and to tell her I was eight miles in.  I had not walked.  I had maintained a 10:50 pace and I felt confident and good.  The right person in the right moment.  She would jog along and document this exchange on film, a far cry from our first race, as we did the eight mile selfie, and then would take off ahead of me. 

 Later, she would go on to have her own epic finish.  They announced her name as she crossed the line, as they did she let out an excited,"woot!" As she did, she would lose her sunglasses, the ones bearing my logo, and all six feet of her would trip into a baracade. stumble a bit and ultimately bend over to pick up her glasses so that the finish line pic is directly of her ass. A story that is still being routinely retold, with a lot of social media reshares.  

Oh, yesterdays are over my shoulder

So I can't look back for too long

There's just too much to see waiting in front of me

And I know that I just can't go wrong

In the end, I would emerge in the park in Albany still plugging along to the finish, leaving a lot of my insecurities of trusting myself to take on big things independently behind me on the 13.1 miles my body had just covered.  I would rejoin the three that finished ahead of me and cheer on the two that finished behind us and in usual team fashion, our token celebrator Lydia would bust out the prosecco.  We would laugh about the soreness we felt or the butt print of sweat we left on the seats we sat in right after the race.  

If we couldn't laugh we just would go insane,

If we weren't all crazy we would go insane

Since the race, our race team would go on to plan for more crazy stuff like two races back to back next weekend, or the Dopey Challenge, a 5k, a 10k, a half and a full marathon in four days in January.  Somehow we find through the crazy of the physical challenge, a laughter that is unmatched and an unsurpassed sanity.  So, thank you to my half sisters who showed up to help me take on me.  Times may be a bit less carefree than my early Buffett listening days, but many of the faces that appeared around the keg in those days have not disappeared and are still fixtures in my life.  For that I am truly grateful.  Learning that changing latitudes figuratively and physically truly does bring with it a new attitude and that is the best is yet to come.

It's All About the Climb

A day off.  This is such a rarity for me, especially the last few months when my life has been jam packed with my regular emergency room gig, plus racing, plus corporate events for my other two businesses.  Don't get me wrong, quickly growing businesses are a good problem to have, but it does come at a price.  For me it was the mocking of the ever growing pile of clutter that littered my entryway.  I had piles of Adirondack Ragnar stuff from late Sept, kids' cheer and football gear, a wide variety of jackets for four kids who need to be prepared for weather that has ranged from frost producing to 80 degrees in the last month.  Yes, I had looked forward to today.  I had even put it on my mental calendar.  I was attacking this mocking pile and finding the tile that existed beneath it.

So there it was, portable speaker on, my usual random play list going and a full scale attack on the pile.  I got it all done, with one thing left to do.  Unpack my race bag that had my medals that had yet to be ceremoniously placed on the rack.  As I walked to my makeshift office that exists just under the bay window in my front living room, ironically, Miley Cyrus' "The Climb" would come on just as I passed the amethyst colored urn on my mantle that is the temporary home of my mother.

"I can almost see it, that dream I'm dreaming"

I was suddenly reminded of the last time I saw her.  She was sitting across the table from from me on the lanai of a rental house in Florida 18 months ago.  We had had a dinner of Philly Cheesesteaks, an ironic find of hers living in Florida, but was something we had eaten when we briefly lived in Philly as kids.  I was explaining to her that I had 10 friends and we had made a motivational group to keep going.  We were planning this virtual 5k we would all do on the same day.  Everyone knew me from someplace else so we were 1DOS.  On and on I would go about my makeshift group of friends just trying to learn to be healthy. Given her and my track record of failing diets for decades, this was a concept she could get behind.  My mom was never an athlete, so the concept of a 5k was a little foreign to her, but she supported my recent 85 pound weight loss and recovery from a hip fracture and wanted to see the medals we had picked out for finishers. 

"There's a voice inside my head saying you'll never reach it Every step I'm taking, every move I make feels lost with no direction, my faith is shaking, but I gotta keep trying, gotta keep my head held high"

As I looked at her urn, I though about her sudden death and the circumstances surrounding it and suddenly clearly saw how shaken I was through the months that followed.  Over time, the footing would start to feel a bit more solid, and it got easier to look past the grief into the challenges unfolding in front of me.

"There's always gonna be another mountain, I'm always gonna wanna make it move, always gonna be an uphill battle, sometimes I'm gonna have to lose"

As I hang up my Adirondack Ragnar Swag, the medals I earned taking two twelve man teams to a relay from Saratoga, NY to Lake Placid, I paused for a moment to look at the Tongue Depressor medal. Tongue Mountain.  Freaking Tongue Mountain, six miles total, four miles up with 754 feet of elevation gain, and two miles straight down.  The hardest leg out of 36.  This was not to be my leg originally. The original team captain had an injury and I stepped in as captain.  I ended up taking the leg too.  In the weeks beforehand, I secretly was petrified.  I had never done this type of running straight uphill for miles, it was in the dark, and I was running with another person who is so much faster than me.  I told her I would slow her down.  I told her I would do my best to finish, but was not altogether sure I believed I could.  She assured me that speed was not an issue, we would do it together.

"A'int about how fast I get there, a'int about what's waiting on the other side, it's the climb"

My partner and I took off on the dark forest lined road, headlamps lighting our way, not even able to see the true hill that lay in front of us.  As predicted, she was faster, but kept tabs on me, not letting me give up on such a hard run, that truthfully was so steep in areas, I had to switch from a shortened incline stride of running to a longer stride of a walk to feel like I was covering any ground at all.  The setting was dark, and the trees I was sure were good camouflage for the legendary bears that lived in these mountains.  Oh yes.  Surely I could not outrun one of those on this hill.  Later, I would find out there was a reported clown on the course, now that would have truly been terrifying at that juncture. Somehow or another though, we would finally hit the fourth mile and begin the descent.  

"The struggles I'm facing, the chances I'm taking, sometimes might knock me down but, No, I'm not breaking.  I may not know it, but these are the moments that I'm going to remember most yeah, just got to keep going"

I had no idea what to expect on the other side, I had never even thought about it really, as I was so concerned with making it to the top.  As it turned out the decline down for two miles was every bit as steep, a whole new experience.  Truth be told, I had always been a bit afraid of that sort of decline so I was not altogether sure how it would go, but as it turns out me, gravity, and a certain element of unabashed fear did quite well together.  My partner proudly announced we did the first mile in 9:38.  Wait.  What?  I had never run a mile that fast on the road.  She gave me a look and said,"so, that's your fastest road mile?"  I said,"yes".  She smiled big and said,"No it isn't.  This one is.  Let's GO!" 

We kept going down, down, down... I could feel the anxiety creep in that I needed to stop.  This might be too fast.  I called to my running partner who had gotten in front of me on the narrow road, sensing the fear in me she said this,"Amy.  Pick your head up, focus on my back and go...."  

It was just starting to rain as we crossed the Tongue Mountain finish and got our medals after an incredulous 9:18 mile.  I would love to say all of the moisture on my face was sweat and rain, but that would be a lie.  Happy tears of conquering a mountain and the utter humbled feeling of the overwhelming support from my co-captain who is also a friend I have grown to love so much.  

Many other things met me on the other side of this climb.  There were new friendships with my two teams of 12.  There were so many individual firsts I had the utter joy to watch and celebrate.  There was the after party in a large rental house in Lake Placid where I am sure the laughter could be heard all around town.  More importantly there was commitment.  Commitment that now after conquering all of this, there surely are bigger mountains to take on and other things the 24 of us can do that we never imagined before.  

"Keep on moving, keep climbing, keep the faith baby, it's all about the climb"

Looking back at the paralyzing months after my mom's death, I'm quite certain that in her absence all she wanted for me all along was to keep my head up, focus on my tribe that is here in front of me for guidance, keep the faith and just keep pushing.  I think I will do just that  because I firmly believe the best is yet to come.

A Baby Shark Learns to Swim - Guest Blog

Running a motivational health and fitness company, I have the unique gift of watching people realize they are capable of so much more than they have ever dreamed.  Today, I had the great pleasure of sharing the one year anniversary of her fitness journey with Adriana Brown.  Down 103 pounds and just getting started, I am proud to have her as a Team 1DOS Shark and this week's guest blogger.  Here are her reflections of a year in wellness.  

October 1, 2017. I put off this date for so long. Scheduled, cancelled, rescheduled. Rescheduled again. Why was I so scared? Oh I know, all of the training I had done my entire life from being a very active athlete nearly stopped once I went to college. Did not pay attention to what I ate and had no desire to work out anymore the way I used to or at all. So why be nervous about this class? It was just going to be one class anyway. Oh right, it’s a class of 22 other people who didn’t know me who would see me. They know it is your first time there. My mind spins with thoughts of people judging me. Here I am just walking at a 3.1mph speed on the treadmills and using the lightest weights. And I have my first class with one of the toughest coaches. What the hell am I thinking? After that first class was over, you know what? Why not just sign up and see. You can always cancel the membership if it didn’t work out. Signed up for more classes – only went to ones that my first coach I had was doing and my mom was in. Jeez, no way am I comfortable to go and workout without my mom at 23 years old. After all, she was the one who encouraged me to go with her and has been my biggest supporter my entire life and especially this last year when I have needed it. Mom can’t go to class, oh let me cancel this then. I can’t go alone. It took almost a month and a half before I could be comfortable enough to branch out to other coaches and start to workout alone. December came and I thought I was ready to increase my membership. Maybe I could get used to going almost every day. I was still walking, yet knew I could be running. That very first coach I had, he stood next to my treadmill one day and hit the speed increase to get me to a light jog. Told me to “leave it there. Do not touch that speed. I want to see what you can do.” What the hell was he doing? I can’t run and definitely not when other people can see me. But, maybe this was the first time since I started at Orange Theory that someone was trying to prove to me that I can do things that my mind says I can’t.

December brought a lot of new faces and the start of some new friendships. Of course here I am, meeting people that my mom knew. Staying quiet as I am very shy. No one I felt would understand me. Boy was I wrong on that one. Now that I can put names with faces, things became easier. I had people in my corner other than my mom, people who were encouraging me when we worked out together. Perfect! Just in time for the Transformation Challenge at the gym! Eight long weeks of who could lose the most percentage, not just pounds. The competitive person in me kicked in. I thought I was doing everything right. I wasn’t that hungry anymore. I felt like I was giving my body enough fuel to workout and be able to last the entire day. Friends challenging me to increase my speeds or pick up heavier weights because they knew I was ready but my mind was telling me, “no freaking way can you do that. That speed is too fast. Those weights are too heavy.” Yet, I still did it. Halfway through the challenge, I hit a mental wall. I got frustrated in class easily, I start dealing with severe leg cramping, I wasn’t working out to my potential. That first coach I had notices and pulls me aside after class one night and gives me a pep talk just to help get me through the rest of this challenge. That eight week challenge? Yeah, I lost 25lbs in that time, almost 50lbs since I had started in October. Great! I must be doing something right. I can keep this up, no problem! WRONG! Not properly feeding your body or staying hydrated will only cause you harm. Don’t I know this? I’m an athlete. Months and months of what I just thought was leg cramping from just working out every single day at the level I was turned out to be dehydration. I tried everything to get rid of the cramping – Pedialyte, FitAid, Amino Acids. It got better, but still had the leg cramping. I was given a suggestion from someone to drink half my weight in water and then work your way up to a gallon of water a day, maybe that would help. I’m sure my response was something like, “you’re crazy. There is no way I can drink half my weight! That is a lot of water!” But I did it, and she was right. The severe cramping in my legs were gone after a while. But there was still the eating troubles. The strict calorie restriction. It was okay to workout the way I do and only eat around 1000 calories a day right? I burn anywhere from 500-600 calories in a workout plus the 36 hour after burn and I’m losing the weight I wanted. I am at a point where I could tell myself if one class was good, two were better! I didn’t need the extra calories anyway. While all of this was a process, I was still causing more harm to myself by not doing things properly. I ignored every symptom I was having and only paid attention to what the number on the scale was saying.

That “S” word. Something I hate. I was coming up on my 24^th birthday, I had the day off of work and could workout with some of my favorite people that morning. Very few knew that I would step on the scale for the first time in almost three months. I was able to put it away and forget about it but had June 1^st circled on my calendar to see how far I had come in eight months. I knew what my goal was to be under at that point, but didn’t tell anyone. The biggest smile came across my face when I walked out from stepping on that scale knowing I was below the goal I set. And those people waiting to see me? Yeah, they knew. They just wouldn’t know how much until after class. I challenged myself to squat the weight I had lost with dumbbells. Yep, lets stack two dumbbells because that number was 75 pounds in eight months. As if that was not enough anxiety with waiting three months to step on a scale, try going for a run after that class with someone just so they can prove to you that you can absolutely do things you say you can’t.

That post-class run proved to be one thing I needed in order to show myself that I can trust myself outside of a group workout. I was so thankful to have that person there to talk me through it since she knew exactly what was going through my head. I had no belief in myself that even just a short jog outside without stopping was even possible, but she knew I could do it. In reality, that little run was just a test for a 5k we ran together two days later. The messages the night before of “I can’t do this. There is no way I can run an entire 5k without stopping once. I don’t want any of you running with me. I’m just going to slow all of you down.” What did I get in return? “You can. You just don’t know you can. And I’m not leaving you behind. You can absolutely do this.” That 5k, I could have cared less about the time I finished that race in. Great, I finished 18 minutes faster than my last 5k just ten months before. What was most important to me was running the entire race without stopping. Did it cross my mind? Hell yes it did. Right within the last mile of the race. I was surrounded by people that day who would not let me quit on myself like I had so many times before. Coming up to the finish line I’m told, “when we hit that tree, you are giving it everything you have left to finish.” Nope. My mind was telling me “I can’t f*&#ing do it. I can’t go any faster.” Whoops. Did I just say that out loud? No, there is no way I actually said that. This was followed up with “You f*&#ing can. Now do it.” Shit, I did say that out loud. Everyone I was running with was starting to run faster. I better do the same. Finishing that 5k and coming across the finish line with that same person who keeps telling me I am absolutely capable of things my mind is saying I can’t and getting one big hug followed by “look at that f*&#ing time!” 36:41. Did I actually just do that? Yep. I just proved myself wrong. 

Maybe I can do this.

Sticking to the running theme, Orange Theory likes to have benchmark workouts. Endurance days are my favorite, but I have severe anxiety when it is the one-mile challenge. My last challenge was 9:29. Two weeks prior to the challenge, I ran a 9:11 mile, but still had doubts that I would get below a 9 minute mile. There was no way. My paces felt much slower lately. There was absolutely no way I would be able to get sub-9 minutes. Well, have that conversation in the lobby with someone who knows how to challenge people and push them to nearly getting sick because what is the worst that can happen.. you puke! I took my usual treadmill #12 and in he comes with a marker to write on the mirror in front of me “8:45. It will suck!” As we get ready to start the challenge, I had my mom to my left. He comes into class and hops on a treadmill two over from me. My mom seemed glad to tell him she would switch treadmills with him so he would be running next to me. Probably because she knew how bad I wanted to be under 9 minutes and if there is anyone that will get you to that goal, it would be him. Through all my anxiety thinking about the time I wanted to get this mile under, I started that run and no matter how high we kept pushing the speed increases, I was still comfortable. “When we get to .85 of a mile, we are jumping the speed and going as hard as we can. If you puke, you puke.” One mile, 8:38. Again, did I just do that? Wait a second. Nearly 11 months ago I was walking at a pace of 3.1mph on the treadmill and now I’m seeing one mile in 8 minutes and 38 seconds. Right there may have been when the believing in myself and my abilities hit me. I truly have come a long way.

So where does this leave me 365 days after I made the decision to get myself healthy again? It leaves me down 103 pounds – something I never thought was possible. It leaves me with so much more happiness. It leaves me with so much more confidence that I have never had before. I am stronger, faster, fitter, and healthier. I am smiling more than I ever have. I am starting to believe that all the things I never thought were possibly for me – absolutely is possible. Even when I give some serious push back, I have still signed up for races I never anticipated doing.

What is on the horizon now that I am one year down? Well, I will be doing my first half marathon in a few days. I am signed up for my first Spartan race just one month later. Call me crazy, but I am also doing the Disney Dopey Challenge. Four days, four races – 5k, 10k, half marathon and full marathon. I have also committed to do the Spartan Super next year in Chicago.. AND it is on my birthday! There is no telling what I will do or commit to next. What I do know is I have found an amazing family that has made me see that anything is possible. And maybe, just maybe.. I got this!

 

 End Note:  Tonight I had the honor of celebrating her one year anniversary workout with Adriana.  She crushed her previous mile time by nearly a minute.  Yes, Baby Shark, your best is truly yet to come.