Won't Back Down

There is a funny thing about leading a life predominantly of insecurity.  It seems to be ever present no matter what accomplishments may happen.  This week I was post Spartan Beast.  It was by far the hardest thing I have ever physically done.  I found myself checking in with my racing team several times this week while all of us said at one point or another,"did that just happen?  Did we really finish the Beast?'  There is that air of disbelief in all of us which I suppose will continue for some time.

More importantly than that though, was an emotion I was experiencing that was tough to really describe.  I was restless and a little worried for no good reason. Suddenly, I realized Beast training had been in the forefront of my mind for 8 months since the fateful New Years adult beverage laden discussion that led to my commitment to it.  Everything I did was motivated by the fear of a race I had never even considered until a year ago.  Yes, we did it.  Yes, we were going to do it again, but for now that is over.  I finally realized it was a bad case of two things.  First, what do I do now? and Second, what if I fall apart now?  What if I can't keep going?  I found I was constantly questioning myself all week terrified I would go backwards and end up where I started.  Eighty-five pounds heavier and miserable.

I decided I would focus on the next race.  I am running the Spartan Stadium Sprint with a team of newbie racers.  I am excited to cross the finish line with them and watch them experience what I did a year ago, the realization that I held the power to be healthy all along, I just had been giving it away to the negative voices around me.

As I wrestled along with this notion yesterday, the six week wellness challenge I hosted through my motivational health and fitness company came to an end.  As post after post came up on our page, I began to see all the things that my clients had achieved.  There was weight loss, inches lost, confidence built, depression defeated, goals crushed.....it was amazing.  That is until the celebration died down.  The tone changed.  There was sadness that it was over.  There was fear that being outside of the challenge they would suddenly fall off the wagon and go backwards....wait this was familiar.  This was me.

As I pondered what to do about this as their fearless leader, who was admittedly struggling as well, once again, the music spoke to me as it often does.  Being a child of the 80's, I tend to listen to this era with some regularity.  Lost in thought driving home from the store, there it was.  Tom Petty,"I Won't Back Down".  It came to me that is what our first instinct was to do.  Back down.  Enjoy a break from all the work.  We have earned it.  Maybe it's time to eat a celebratory piece of cake, or give the legs a break from running, or check out of the team chats and enjoy the quiet.  Yep, a break sounds nice....or does it?

Stopping all of those things may give a temporary rest, which is not an altogether bad thing, but also, can like a stone rolling down hill, once it gathers steam we find ourselves right back at the bottom. The celebratory day lends itself to the celebratory week as we see nothing huge and scary on the horizon.  Maybe the better thing to do is to celebrate for a moment or two and then do as Tom says,"stand my ground, and won't be turned around".

This notion propelled me to encourage my people that today was day 1.  Day one for all of us to put the old challenge away and push ahead with something new.  For some it will be training for our virtual 5K, others will work through Spartan training and still others will work on simply getting enough sleep and meeting their own needs when usually they give so much of themselves there is nothing left.  Regardless, meeting our biggest goals I am learning, as tempting as it may be is not a final resting place, rather a stepping stone to the next big thing.

As for me, with the skin on my toes healed, my hamstrings no longer screaming, and the bruises are now faded, it was time to say, what now?  Continue my Spartan Racing but do it better.  Train harder.  Train smarter.  Run faster.  I will do the Beast again, which bears an uncanny resemblance to my current musical selection, kinda like "standing up at the gates of hell." However,  I won't be turned around, nor will my team.  I will conquer the damn rope I have a love hate relationship with and most importantly, see who I can bring along for the trifecta ride, because now we know there is power in realizing there "ain't no easy way out."

Conquering the Beast

I seem to be fighting for a comfortable spot at this moment.  No matter what I do, there is soreness somewhere.  I survey the battle scars left on my extremities from a hard fought race on Saturday.  These are the remnants of The Spartan Beast in West Virginia that I completed on Saturday.  To be quite honest, the notion of this race was taken from a late night New Year's conversation between what would now be known as my racing team.  At that point, we were just three friends living in different states who had learned how to support one another to stay on track and reach our goals.  By New Years, the three of us had essentially met our weight loss goals and committed to a Spartan Race in June.  As we chatted that fateful New Years, me with a glass of wine and the other two with comparable adult beverages, our notion of what we could achieve grew and grew until we committed to a Trifecta this year.  To date, we had all done a 3-5 mile Sprint, an 8 mile Super and now it was time for The Beast.  We understood it was "13+" miles.  I think it was the "+" that got me in the days leading up to the race.  What seemed like such a great idea one glass of wine in on the last day of 2016 was suddenly a bit harrowing.  In fact, the phrase,"what the hell was I thinking?" came to mind more than once.

We were so relieved when we hit the start line and the starter announced the course was in fact, 13 miles.  Ok.  We're good.  Thirteen miles was by far the longest race I had ever done, but the low end by Beast standards.  Off we went.  The first thing we would find was a steep steep incline for almost a mile.  We trudged up a step at a time finally reaching the top where we would have amazing panoramic mountain views.  This was short lived however, as there was no resting on the laurels of conquering that hill...there were many hills, in fact it was all hills.  Up and down the extremely steep mountain for miles and miles until a teammate finally said,"can we just have an obstacle?" The trails were narrow.  Faster racers were weaving in and out of us slow and steady folk.  Hearing the sound of rapid footprints behind me proved to be stressful as I feared I would either slow them down, or they would knock me off the mountain.  In fact, we did see someone who appeared to have fallen and broken the ankle.  There were the screaming toes from miles of steep declines, and burning hamstrings from steep inclines.  All of this proved to be as mentally challenging as physically, as there just seemed to be no end in sight.

What took me by surprise was actually reaching an obstacle.  Suddenly, the ten foot vertical cargo net that held every ounce of my irrational fear in previous races felt like something totally different.  It felt familiar compared to the giant mountain.  This time I didn't yell,"I don't got this!" I simply climbed and got over it.  In my mind, I might be afraid of this but I could do it.  Conquering the rest of the mountain was way more scary.  My team asked,"what is happening right now?"  I honestly think they wait all race to laugh at my irrational outbursts as it provides months of entertainment for them as I struggle to live that down. I suppose those obstacles had become a familiar fear, where as the mountain, that truly lived up to its name, a beast, was all new territory.

I carefully watched my Apple Watch to see how far I had come.  When I safely passed the 7 mile mark I felt refreshed.  I was over half way there and was doing just fine.  However, somehow the Spartan mile markers were way behind my watch.  I had 8, how did they have 6?  We stopped at the spear throw where I was convinced we were way more than half way.....until I ran into Bill from BROCR Media who told me to hold on, the back of the course was tough.  Wait....the back?  Aren't we on the back?  What I would discover was no, not yet.  Eight miles in and had not reached the back half.   Back into the mountain we would go.  Up and down.  People around us who had studied the course map the day before would say,"well we still have the log carry" or "we have not hit the multirig" it was as if they took great pride in pointing out the things we still had not done indicating the end was truly not in sight despite my watch reading 10 miles.  At that point, I had to resist the urge to cause them bodily harm.  At least it would take my mind off the open flesh of my second toes.

The back half of the course would be more challenging even mentally.  Every water station,"you're doing great, only two more Spartan miles to go".  What we would learn is the disclaimer of "Spartan" meant they were not going to tell us how much further.  I began to wonder if it ever ended.  I let my mind wander as I trudged along to all the times over the years that I felt stuck.  I felt stuck in an obese body, while people around me told me over and over "you can't".  It was like being lost on the mountain, some part of me believe there may be an end in site, but the reality was I was damned to know when or what it was.  I pondered this through all of mile 12 until I found myself saying out loud to no one in particular,"tell me I can't one more f@#$ing time." Yes, full on cleansing profanity on the course, I have found to be a thing.  I began to tear up as I thought about how much of an audience I had given the negative voices and how locked in I had been to their notions for decades.  Suddenly, this was my time.  My mountain.  My win.

We would ultimately emerge, the last quarter mile, five more obstacles, some successful and some not, to meet in the finish line chute with a final team circle of fist bumps with my teammate saying,"Five sharks in.  Five sharks out.  Let's finish this."  We jumped the fire and cried as a team.  Two hundred and forty pounds lost between four of us, complete physical exhaustion, and many demons left to their final resting place on a steep mountain in West Virginia.  We learned what obstacles once frightened us felt more like home and that the uphill climb was terrifying but when you have no choice but to push through it, true greatness lived at the finish. More interesting is that what "Spartan miles" meant by Apple Watch standards was a total of 20 miles, not 13.  The ride home was met with a lot of chatter about this obstacle, that funny looking racer, the horrific log carry, covering more mileage any of us thought possible and more importantly....when can we do it again?

Don't Be a Drag, Be a Queen

Tonight, as I finished my sixth ten hour ER shift in seven days, which was immediately on the heels of my trip to Chicago to deliver my mother's eulogy,  I found myself going from work directly to the gym to make my 6:15pm workout with my mind racing of all the things that need to be done in my world, as I was way behind.  I thought about the mountain of laundry, the bills that needed to be paid, the YouTube prep I needed to do for my cooking channel, the kids' stuff that needed to be taken care of before school starts in a few weeks, the babysitter schedule, planning to be out of town for the Spartan Beast next week, holy crap the Beast, I am running the Beast...it seemed the list was endless and my mind going 100 miles an hour.  I found myself prioritizing what I could get by with until I actually had a day off two days from now.  What was enough?  What could I get by with and yet still have the chance to catch my breath tonight?  Maybe I just didn't need to catch my breath.  I had too much to do.

As I sifted through the ever growing list in my head putting it together like a crazy game of tetris, I was also thinking about the messages from clients that needed an answer.  These were clients that needed motivation, making apologies for "just did a mile on the treadmill" or "my eating was not perfect." or "yesterday was my birthday, and I had cake."  Apology after apology for not doing what they felt like was enough.  Constantly comparing themselves to someone else who may run a bit further, or eat a bit better, or maybe skipped the cake on their birthday, when suddenly I felt the same.

The reality is, I am not a Pinterest Mom.  If the cupcakes are going to school, the odds are pretty good they came from the grocery store, and we are just damn lucky I remembered they needed to go on that day and went with the right kid.  When it comes to creative crafting, I am probably more likely to spend my time perfecting cooking the perfect steak on the Big Green Egg, rather than making an art piece out of burlap.  The fact is, I have a healthy appreciation for the "Pinterest Fails" as I realize it is not just me that suffers from this variety of inadequacy.  The fact that my current "To Do" list was much longer than my available time and energy only feeds this feeling of somehow just not measuring up.

Nonetheless, I found myself in an particularly challenging Orangetheory Endurance workout with plenty of time during half mile running repeats and 1000m rows to figure out how to separate out my own feelings of inadequacy and rise to motivate my members feeling the same.  Then it happens as it often does for me, the music spoke to me and answered my question.  Orangetheory is dimly lit in orange lights.  The music is loud and generally fast and motivating.  Tonight's offering contained Lady Gaga's "Born This Way."

It reminded me of how many times we stifle our own progress because we spend so much time comparing ourselves to others and apologizing for our own accomplishments because somehow they don't seem like it's enough, or maybe if who we are does not fit a particular mold set forth by ourselves or others we are somehow less.  It is in this constant state of feeling less where we get lost. We have no hope and we simply give up. In my 45 year battle with obesity this has happened to me over and over.

It begs the question, what if, instead, we spent our time celebrating as Lady Gaga says, being born this way.  Being born with strengths that belong to only us.  By embracing our own strengths we no longer have to apologize for who we are.  As for me, I decided my greatest strength today is the ability to take very limited time and prioritize the vital pieces of today's puzzle and put them all together in masterful fashion.  Now, if only I could make some burlap piece of art out of that puzzle....but I digress.

As I rowed away, the lyrics rolled on reminding even me,"Don't hide yourself in regret, Just love yourself and you're set, I'm on the right track baby, I was born this way." I finished my row, and the runs and left drenched, leaving my own regret somewhere in a pool of my own sweat on the back of treadmill number 8.

I would go on to answer those messages, forbidding my clients to utter the phrase,"I only did."  I asked them to replace them with,"I DID!" They were told to celebrate every single victory.  Every accomplishment they could not achieve even yesterday.  I asked them to pause and think about who it is they are finding as they reach each goal no matter how small.  Every time, each and every time, I get back,"I am finding me."  I do believe each of them is learning, that "me" is pretty amazing.  It reminded me of the times my mom did exactly what is described in the song, she told me when I was young we were all born superstars....how many times we forget this in the age of competition and our constant need to outdo one another.

So tonight, I did what needed to be done.  There's still dishes in the sink.  The ten or so loads of laundry, oh wait, nine, can wait, as I did enough to get through tomorrow, and probably the mailman is not coming after 9 pm, so the bills can wait too.  Instead, I take my much needed night off to celebrate sixty hours of hard work, not missing a workout and tucking my babies in tonight as my big victories.  It may not be Pinterest worthy or even all that amazing, but for today it is my personal best and that is amazing. Time to pour the wine, toast my mom and not be a drag...rather be a queen.

Julio Get the Stretch

A day off.  Those three words always seem to sound like a blissful slice of nirvana when spoken, however, in my world, I seem to have far too many plates spinning to make that any sort of reality.  Today, I was off.  My single day off was sandwiched in between working 5 ten hour days out of six, with the next day being a travel day to go home to Chicago.  Today, I had errands to run.  Groceries, shoes for the kids for my mom's memorial, cookbook revisions to review, laundry, packing, house cleaning, as always my to do list was longer than the hours in my day.  Not to mention, today I had the task of writing my mother's eulogy that I will deliver on Saturday.

So, I set off with my two Haitian sensations, now ages 6 and 7.  Let me just say, going store to store, in and out of the car for several hours with a 6 and 7 year old while being overwhelmed with stuff to do, and pressed for time, is not nearly as fun as you might think.  It was hours of,"why are your shoes off, we are just getting out of the car again."  "No you can't ride in the cart, you are 70 pounds and no you are not too tired to walk down the aisles of Target."  Let us not forget,"no you cannot have candy.  Just because we are in a store does not mean you get a prize."  or  "Put that back.  Stop touching that"  There was lunch tossed at them in the back seat, yes winning parenting skills there, as I was simply out of time to stop for any length of time and still get things done.  The whining that went on was second only to my extreme frustration with the whole afternoon.  They were kids.  They wanted to be outside.  Hell, I wanted to be outside, but this was life in this moment.

When we finally finished at the last stop, the grocery store, we had all had it.  They piled in the car and I set out for home.  Little pangs of guilt with my ever apparent frustration crept in as I thought about these two kids in the back seat.  I brought them home from Haiti 3.5 years ago.  It was the culmination of a three year extremely difficult adoption process.  There were setbacks.  Lost documents.  Fake documents.  Notebooks missing.  Official seals not right.  Obstacle after obstacle.  The crowing blow was a printer that was down at the US Embassy so their visas could not be printed for days, and I could not leave the country until they were.

In the three years leading up to them coming home, I would spend evenings looking at pictures of two children who were growing older by the day without their mommy who by all rights, was a virtual stranger to them.  I would miss Alex learning to crawl and ultimately walk.  Grace would start preschool in Haiti without the obligatory first day pics with the new shoes and shiny backpack.  I was not there to hold them when they were sick or rock them to sleep at night.  To be fair, I did not even know their personalities, not really.  I had spent a handful of days with them throughout the process.  They didn't know mine either.  Our relationship was a string of pictures other visitors to their orphanage would send me.  Strangers hugging my children when I was not allowed to.  Seeds of doubt crept in as to if they were ever coming home, and if they did would it work? The concern over bringing older orphanage children home grew by the day.  I do have three other children adopted from Russia, who are now 23, 21 and almost 12, but it was different with them.  I met them and brought them home in the same month.  In Russia, the legal stuff is all done on the front side before you are matched with and meet your child.  In that situation, you are dealing with wondering what your child will look like or if it is a boy or a girl, but that was about it.    This was different.  Three years of uncertainty worrying about a child you leave behind every time you go for a visit.  These were very large hurdles to get them here and I was now frustrated at their very presence today, when by all rights I should be grateful for the frustration.  Ah the guiltings only another adoptive parent could understand.

As my brain sifts through all of this, it happened.  My playlist was on random.  I wasn't really listening as I was deep in thought and, after raising five children, I have mastered the ability to tune out the back seat, when I suddenly realized the kids were singing.  They were singing and dancing as best they could in seatbelts.  "Uptown Funk" had come on.  It was their favorite.  The dance party had begun.  I hear my six year old son sing,"Julio get the stretch...." which strikes me as so funny I cannot even help but laugh.

As the song continues, my frustration fades as I realize that without those three years of horrific obstacles and late night pining over pictures of children I did not totally know would be mine one day, I would not have had this moment of Alex embracing his inner Bruno Mars as he does the cabbage patch in the back seat.  For my Haitian child who grew 18 inches the first 22 months he was home, this is quite a sight.

I can remember when the Haitian adoption was proposed to me.  I was afraid of the process.  I was afraid it would take three years and it would be hard.  When that is exactly what happened.  I began to wonder how many times we shy away from huge ugly challenges that seem so hard there is no possible way we can endure it, let alone succeed.  I must admit, I have given in to this many times in my 47 years on the planet, and through their adoption, there was so much doubt and despair, I was reasonably certain at times it would never work and I should call it quits.

My final hurdle of the day was to face off with my mom's eulogy.  This is a task I have avoided now for a couple weeks.  Big ugly obstacle.  I tried to talk myself out of it several times.  It would not be the worst thing in the world if I told my family no.  The reality was, I didn't want to feel the grief.  I didn't totally know how my thoughts about my mom and her life were going to translate into a logical delivery and I wasn't totally sure I could do it.  Yet, it was my task, one I decided I would regret not doing if I didn't face the challenge.  As I sat in the very spot I am in now, the words came.  The tears flowed and I ended up satisfied with what came out.  We shall see on the delivery on Saturday, but I will know in my heart of hearts I did not run from this challenge to honor her the way she deserved.

What followed this was a much needed dance party with the craziest Haitian children I know, and yes another rousing rendition of "Uptown Funk" right there in my kitchen as I made dinner.  The giggles, the smiles and the realization that some hard challenges are worth fighting through, because the hard is what makes it great.  Now if Julio would just get the stretch...

Peak Performance Week? or Confidence Shaker....

I was raised with two brothers.  I think my mom was an overachiever in the late 60's as she had three kids in 28 months.  I am the youngest and was the resident tomboy.  I shot baskets on the driveway for hours as a kid and played kick the can with the best of the best.  I may have been overweight, but my love for running with the boys in those days was not deterred by that.  As I grew up, I found the world of softball.  My weight was to my advantage at the plate as in junior high I would come to know the pure joy of nailing a line drive deep into center field as my brothers would cheer me on by my nickname coined by them,"Big Tomahawk."  My glory days of sports.  Later on, I would play high school ball and grow into my token position, catcher.  I would learn to pick off the runner at second, and toss hand signals to the pitcher.  In my later high school years though, this would change.  I was bullied by another member of my team, someone jockeying for position on the team.  Admittedly, she had things I didn't.  I could not run fast, my weight slowed me down.  She was part of a legendary family in the world of softball in my hometown, I was not.

The love of this game for me personally ended one fateful afternoon on the practice field.  The coach fed the pitching machine as I was up to bat.  My bully was nearby mocking me on every pitch so much so that I could not hit a thing.  Perfect strikes from a pitching machine and I could make contact with absolutely nothing.  Pitch after pitch, whiff after whiff.  Little by little my confidence gone.  For the rest of the season I would fall farther and farther down the roster on the team as the bullying continued and I think in retrospect, I completely stopped trying as in my heart of hearts I felt defeated.  This would be my last season of softball after 12 years of playing a game I truly loved.  Part of me was simply left at home plate on the practice fields that day.  I was 17.

Fast forward to my adult routine athletic endeavor, Orangetheory Fitness.  This week was Peak Performace Week at Orangetheory.  Five challenges, one each day.  This is a twice a year offering at OTF designed to help you see how far you have come.  I remember my first one, 60 pounds heavier.  I had only been training there for two months.  I had so much anxiety over it.  It felt a bit like those moments up to bat.  I was terrified.  I was an adult now.  I had no bullies outside of the spirit of failure that lived between my own two ears.  I did the challenges anyway, as my trainers were fairly insistent I do it, and got my results.  I had done the one mile challenge in just under 12 minutes.  That was two years ago and was a personal best in life.  Even as a kid I had never run a mile faster than that.  I decided at that point I would take it and jump off from there.

I have since had three more peak performace weeks. January was by far my best.  I was humbled to walk away with three wins for females 40 and up, fastest 500m row (1:27), fastest 2000m row (6:40) and highest reps in the body weighted exercise challenge, 4 minutes (126).  The other challenges I would not win.  They were running challenges, furthest distance in 24 minutes and fastest mile.  It didn't matter, my running would come in time.  Besides I felt like this was such a huge achievement for me after a lifetime of obesity and just 17 months after a hip fracture and surgery.

This Peak Performace Week was completely different though.  Just like those days of softball, my confidence was completely shaken and admittedly, my spirit a bit broken.  I lost my mom suddenly three weeks ago for no good reason, I had traveled to Florida to sort through that, and immediately after, I had a vacation planned.  In two weeks, I had been checked out of my own life and out of my routine.  Orangetheory kept me sane in Florida, long bike rides kept my mind calm in the Outer Banks on vacation.  However, dedicated focused training and planning for Peak Performance Week was just not in the cards.  I entered the studio this week with lots of members offering friendly banter and  discussing me "defending my titles".  The reality was my head was not in the game just then.  I thought about just not recording anything, or not really participating in the challenges.  My brain was busy filling with excuses. I could say I "wanted to give someone else a chance to win."  Yes that would do it.  It would be a lie though.  My fear of doing poorly was really the culprit.

I began to consider how many times it was that we take our own shaken confidences and allow them to simply take ourselves out of the game.  Fear of losing, fear of looking silly or someone else's negative opinion that tell us it would be easier to just walk away.  I had to reason with myself that the very worst thing that would happen would be that maybe this time I would not hit the leader board.  Certainly that was not fatal.  Maybe my head was not in the game but it was time to as they say, fake it til I made it.

We arrived at day one.  The 500m row.  I pulled off three seconds slower than last time, enough for the win, but not a PR.  I had not beaten myself.  The same held true of the 2000m row, only that was a full 20 seconds slower, a win, but kind of a hollow victory when I had not beaten or even come close to my own time.  The 2000m row was Thursday.  By then I was frustrated I was not where I had been in January and just wanted to find my way back to me.  I even considered canceling my Friday class as I felt the crowning blow of being a slow runner might be more than I could take for the challenge of the fastest mile.  Again, feeling the confidence shaker attempting to pull me out of the game.  The belief that failure was somehow final and absolutely fatal.

I went in yesterday anyway.  I had several members of the motivational team I run waiting on me wanting to know how I did and letting them down was a lot harder than walking away because I felt so much doubt in my own ability.  As I got on the treadmill, and it was go time, I started at 6.1mph, increasing throughout the whole mile ending at 7.5 for the last tenth. I finished in 9:12, a personal best in life.  Not quite olympic speed, but for me a best nonetheless.  I stared at the readout on the tread when I was done, admittedly a bit tearful with all that had happened in the last three weeks, and conquering my worst event with a PR that meant more to me than any spot on the leader board.  In this moment, I realized that sometimes life is hard.  Events and other people will shake you to your core.  We have a choice, give up or fight it out.  I certainly have done my share of both.  Although I can never get back the last line drive I hit deep into center field, I can hold on to that 9:12 and realize that the best is truly yet to come....Sub 9 minute mile....You will not elude me forever.  Oh and as to the game of softball?  I think it is time I challenge myself to a trip to the batting cages, in my Cubs gear. Once a Chicago girl, always a Chicago girl.

Conquering Old Fears in a Brand New Place

I don't like horror movies, never have.  My logical brain tells me some guy in a hockey mask is probably not going to show up, chainsaw in hand in upstate New York, yet, put that on and I am assured a full night of nightmares.  Fear, such a strange thing. There are so many things as adults we are afraid of.  In fact, there are full books on phobias.  In my world, outside of the ridiculousness of the horror movie, lies a terrible fear of heights.  I always have been afraid, even on a six foot ladder.  It is a paralyzing type fear that thus far has kept me from doing anything involving high open places. 

Those who know about my recent love of Spartan Racing find this fact quite odd, given that I scale 10 foot walls and 20 foot cargo nets.  Yet, I am.  I think as racers we subscribe to the theory of,"what happens on the course, stays on the course."  This means my intimate racing team of five is really good at keeping my dirty little secret.  They have not shared that what happens to me at the top of the cargo net is I turn into a shaking, screaming ball of fear.  It is so evident that complete strangers offer words of encouragement.  "You got this!"  To which I have a standard answer screamed in a panicky voice,"I DON'T GOT THIS!"  When my feet finally hit the ground it is the attitude of,"nothing to see here", and my team and I take off again, ultimately completing our mileage and jump the fire at the finish line with pizzazz as the badass racing bitch my persona would suggest. 

As every race approaches, I find myself haunted by the damn cargo net. I always hope it will get easier, and maybe I will even curse less at the top or not have a pro shot with the absolute look of fear on my face.  This week I have been in Corolla, Outer Banks, North Carolina.  Here, they have a brand new attraction which my logical brain told me was the solution to my dirty little secret.  A ropes course,  Corolla Adventure Park.  I had never done this in my life as my fears had kept my feet firmly on the ground.   As we pulled up, suddenly the ropes seemed so high, the obstacles difficult.  I was afraid.  However, I kept replaying the two acronyms for fear in my head: Face Everything and Rise, or Forget Everything and Run.  Well, in my real life I run a motivational health and fitness company based on me holding the take no prisoners attitude to my own health and finally winning a four decade long battle with obesity.  I subscribe to the shark mentality and help my people embrace this to get healthy.  In fact, I arrived to the course wearing my own logo.  Probably  using the run aspect of the second acronym would not make for great marketing.  Brett the owner, met my son an I at the door and his staff got us ready to go.  I tried my best to appear brave, in fact, I pulled it off well until I got strapped in and walked out to the obstacles.  I felt my nerves kick in as I stepped off the first platform.  However, the first level went pretty well.  I made it through the obstacles and was not feeling too bad. 

However, then I got to the second level.  The obstacles were harder.  Thin wires to cross, a teeter totter to walk across, which in the middle of Brett called out to me,"try not to look terrified, and I will take your picture."  Boards that seemed so far apart as I held on to just a rope.  Boards that swayed beneath me as the wind blew.  At times, I found my legs were shaking, the "I don't got this" screaming in my head.  At other times I felt simply stuck and had to convince myself my vacation would be over in a couple of days and parking it on the second floor of the ropes course was likely not an option.  However, my guide Becky kept encouraging me.  She gave me tips to help me to get across, and I did not need rescuing even once.  Little by little, obstacle after obstacle, fighting the fear, I was able to make it through. 

The other side of all of this is this, though was a concept my terrified brain would not embrace, I was wearing a harness.  I was strapped in and the very worst thing that would happen is I would fall all of two feet at my harness would catch me and I would just sail along the wires to safety, thus making my fear here quite irrational.  I began to think about how many times fear keeps us exactly where we are even if it is not a great place.  I fought obesity for 45 years mostly due to what I now see was the fear of what it would actually take to be the fit person I am now, along with the fear of what would happen to my relationships as I became this version of myself, and the fear that I would fail yet again as I had so many times before.  Those are just the first things that come to mind, with the battle of obesity there are dozens of other fears.  What I did not know though, is that I had a safety harness all along.  None  of these fears if they came to fruition were fatal.  I probably was not going to die increasing my exercise, and giving up the junk I used to fuel my body with would likely not kill me either.  Rather these things were simply fears that I had run from as the acronym would suggest keeping myself figuratively paralyzed. 

However, right there at Corolla Adventure Park, I didn't.  I faced my fear of heights, shakey legged and all and I would love to say I rose.  I did rise to the third level, and after scaling the Corolla sign, walking through stilts and stepping stones 50 feet in the air, I did not rise, I descended. I descended along the most amazing zipline I have ever seen finally free of the fear that kept my feet firmly on the ground before today, once again allowing me to ask myself, if I can do this, I wonder what might be next.  One thing is for sure, I need to clear myself all together of the phrase,"I don't got this" as clearly when facing fear, I just might have it, maybe not with grace or without a few shaky moments, but I just might have it. No matter what, though, it helps me to see that the best is truly yet to come.

Living in the Moment, Lessons Learned from Crabs

Since I learned to get healthy, I had to learn to make time for myself. A little reprieve in the day where I generally brew up a hot cup of coffee, ok to be fair, I am a coffee junkie.  There I said it.  I generally drink Death Wish or a masterfully crafted latte from Starbucks with more qualifiers added to my order than I care to admit.  I just tell outsiders that is between me and my barista Gabe.  Nonetheless, I generally like to take my coffee and find a quiet place to shut the noise of life out for a while. After losing my mom last week, I find I need more of that these days than usual. Fortunately, this week I am in Corolla, NC in the Outer Banks and can have said cup of coffee on the beach as the sun slowly rises. Today, I did just that. I had my headphones on playing my ever eclectic playlist as I sat on the cool sand. As I tried to make sense of life, I suddenly was reminded of an Outer Banks nuance. In the early morning hours the beach is teaming with crabs. They are of all sizes, ducking in and out of their sand holes leaving tracks all over the beach.

As I watch them scamper around, the thing that is now dawning on me about the crab is their eyes face forward but they walk sideways. I began to wonder how that worked. As referenced in an earlier blog, I am inherently clumsy despite successfully scaling ten foot walls, crawling under barbed wire and jumping fire at the Spartan races. Clearly, however, I realize that if I had to walk sideways but could only look forward I would likely end up back at the orthopedist's office with yet another injury. 

As I thought about it, though,  it dawned on me maybe I had already done this. Placing my vision clearly on a goal, but moving side to side instead of forward. Moving toward the things that kept me trapped in the prison of obesity as I desperately shuffled side to side instead of just forward. After all, I was not a crab. I had the ability to move forward. I just spent a lot of years not really knowing I did.

In that moment of realization, as often happens, the perfect song came on. "Living in the Moment" by Jason Mraz. "If this life is one act, why do we lay all these traps, we put them right in our path, when we just want to be free". This was the perfect backdrop to watching the crabs duck into their holes not to be seen as I thought about how many times I disappeared in my own hole.  That hole that consisted of a comfortable couch in my basement, wrapped in a cozy blanket, eating salty snacks and calling it "relaxation" or "unwinding" as so many of us do.  Later, I would come to learn this is neither of those things.  It is instead, the hole I allowed myself to be captive to missing out on some of the greatest things life had to offer.

Later  today I would go back to the same beach with my little people in tow. The crab tracks that covered the whole beach at sunrise were gone. The crabs were gone except for the abandoned pinchers my six year old found. The holes were covered over. There was no sign of the early morning activity.   Yet, it was the height of the day. It was a blue sky, bright sunshine and crashing waves.  This was the thing postcards were made of.  I taught my little guys how to boogie board today, something I never would have done three years ago.  The self consciousness of the bathing suit.  The absolute belief in my inability to conquer physical things.  All of it.  I likely would have sat idly by as they built their sandcastles, sipping my tea and missed it all.  Instead, I had emerged from that crab hole with the ability to move forward and not lateral riding after wave.  I hear the kids absolutely squeal as they finally get the timing right and ride the perfect wave all the way to the shore.  This was a moment I would have been sorry to miss for them and me.  As this occurs to me, I hear the song again, "I'm letting go of the thoughts that do not make me strong and I believe this way can be the same for everyone".  If after 45 years of obesity I can boogie board with my babies in a bikini surely anyone can.  It just takes "peace in my mind, peace in my soul, wherever you're going, you're already home, you're living in the moment."