Against the Firewalking Wall

  Right around 4:30 am every morning I get the bird whistle alert of a text message. It has become one of my favorite things in the mornings. Without fail, it is my big brother. He is checking in or to see if I have made it to the gym yet. We exchange a handful of texts that vary about our workouts, how sore we are, or what we did the day before. Some weeks it is to encourage one another to just keep going when we feel unmotivated. That was my role last week. Rob was not feeling it and I was able to check in and let him know to keep pushing. We did not make an accountability agreement; it has just become that for us. I was excited to see his text this morning that said he had totaled fifty miles of running last week. He indeed pushed himself for the week.  Our relationship was not always like this. In fact, it was rather tumultuous after our dad died. It was not from a state of hatred or anger, but because of pain. Death of a parent will do that to you, as I am sure some readi...

  I t is 6:30 on Sunday night. I grab the needle and vial of Methotrexate. The medicine is used to block an enzyme that is needed for cells to live. In many ways it shuts down the immune system, but it helps with pain relief. I inject it into my wife's arm as part of a weekly routine. We like to joke that on a weekly basis my wife does Meth. This injection is in addition to a Remicade infusion she gets every six weeks. She has what an invisible chronic sickness called  Ankylosing Spondylitis.The illness is a type of arthritis that causes inflammation in the joint and ligaments of the spine. Over time it can cause a person's bones and joints to actually fuse together. She has been dealing with this since she was a teenager. The thing is that it causes constant pain. In her own words, “it feels like someone is jamming a sword up the middle of my spine”. It is a pain that she has ENDURED for over 25 years.  Over the last year, I have spent a lot of time reading books themed ...

    Deep breath! It is the middle of the day on Thursday. I have already completed 60% of my 75 Hard list which included a 13-mile road ride during my lunch time for the outdoor workout. Yet, I am questioning why am I doing this? No one is making me. I don't have to finish it, and no one would know. At that moment I had to take inventory of everything that was bogging me down. It has been a very emotional week at work, and I had some heavy things on my heart. I have not slept well and that has left me exhausted. Why add to my list of things and the stress of doing something I don't have to do. I was caught up on one of my actions which was one of my three daily tasks, and I was just looking for an excuse to get out of it.     Every day I have had to overcome challenges just like this. I don't feel like doing the outdoor workout. I still have water to drink at 7:30 pm. It is 9 PM and I still need to get my reading done. But that is the thing, every day we al...

    Last Tuesday I started the 1st phase of 75 Hard. I completed the initial 75 Hard in December. I love this challenge kind of. The initial phase is as follows:   For 75 days I had to do these things everyday:   45 minute workout 45 minute outdoor workout Take a progress picture 10 pages of reading (non-fiction) Drink a gallon of water Follow a diet No cheat meals or alcohol   If I miss any of these steps the challenge starts at the beginning. It’s work and the hardest part is not the challenge steps. It's the mental grind. It is finding the grit to do an outside workout in the rain. Living in Washington there were a lot of those. When I finished, I was so excited. I had never completed something like this before. I have always struggled with consistency. Once I become bored with something, then I really struggle. Seventy-five days of this was hard, but man, the level of confidence I walked away with was life changing. I would say this blog was a result of...

  My Body Didn’t Get the Memo   March proved to be a tough month for me. It actually started at the end of February. I was having some bad stomach pain that was the result of something that I was eating. Over the next several weeks, I saw a couple of doctors without coming to any conclusions. What really frustrated me is the impact on my workout routines and the frustration building up enough to impact other areas of my life. This blog also suffered, hence, the reason this is the first time in over a month I have posted. I had a level of feeling frozen or paralyzed from getting anything done. Then, at the end of March I contracted the B strain of the Flu. I ended up in the emergency room due to an extremely high temperature. While in the hospital they did chest x-rays and a stomach ultrasound. The doctor was able to figure out that I have GERD, which is what caused all my stomach issues. The number one thing I have to give up is caffeine. Now my stomach has been much better, a...