Runner Insight

Let’s Get Real!

What’s more important than your health?  Oh I know there’s probably not one of you out there who would disagree with the concept that your health is your most important asset, but how many of us truly live by those words? 

Think about it like this:  Remember the last time you were really sick? I mean really feeling-crappy-death-melted-on-toast kind of sick.  Maybe you had the flu, or a 4 day long debilitating migraine.  Perhaps it was a bout of sciatica with lower right back pain (oops, …that one was me.) Or … you fill in the blank.  We have all been there. 

Now, answer me this. At that particular point in time – in between the moaning and wailing and feeling sorry for yourself, and wishing that the agony would end – were you thinking about your bank account? I know when I’m not feeling well, even just a little under the weather, all I can think about is wishing I felt better. That’s it: just aching to feel better.

All the money in the world does you no good if you don’t have your health.  So why do we ignore our health and put it off for another day? 

I know, I know. I understand all the human psychology stuff that indicates that we’re more motivated to avoid and alleviate immediate pain, and not much inspired to do things that involve work in the short-term, but result in long-term benefits.

Mostly, as a human race, we are motivated by what we see that is immediately in front of us…the bills that need to be paid, that pressing seminar we just can’t miss, the phone call we need to return, and the seventeen other things on our desk that need our immediate attention Right Now. 

I’ve heard it said that when you find a big enough why, you will make the changes necessary to propel yourself into your better healthier life-style. Think about how you feel right now.  If you feel pretty good, then why not be proactive and take the steps to insure you will continue to feel good tomorrow and next month and next year?

If you are suffering and have no energy, why not just start to take the baby steps to move you towards a better place in your healthier life?  Doing nothing at all guarantees that someday you will be asking the question, “Why didn’t I take care of myself when I had the chance?”  It truly doesn’t have to be that way.

Remember to take a moment to evaluate what is important.  We have a tendency, all of us – and I’m just as guilty of it as the next person – to focus on the financial aspect of things as if it’s the most important thing I need to be worrying about.

A friend of mine recently was so caught up in the spinning of her wheels trying to move forward in her business that she was neglecting her health. While she wasn’t literally sick or unhealthy, she wasn’t doing anything to maintain her health. She was just sitting at her desk all day every day trying to make things happen.

She was struck one day with the thought that it didn’t matter how successful she ended up being in her business if she wasn’t taking care of herself physically. She’s now made the commitment to doing some kind of physical activity for at least 30 minutes a day, whether it’s going for a walk or yoga or putting on the Latin Dance Workout DVD or whatever. And she feels that she can have the same amount of financial success, or even better, by investing at least 30 minutes a day in her physical well-being. The business and financial success will come, but your health deserves your attention and focus.

Even if you’re feeling okay, you could be doing even better. If you are sick, you can’t do all the things you deem important right now.  And you can have fun while getting healthy.  Find an activity that resonates with you and go for it.  Remember it’s all about baby steps. No one is saying you have to go out and run a marathon this year, or even run at all.  Just start moving!  Do things a little at a time.  Be gentle with yourself and start out slow. And celebrate all the baby steps! Hey if it’s more then you were doing just a day ago, it’s all forward progress. 

How ’bout it?

-Vision Runner

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Motivation And A Big Enough Why

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To stay motivated for any goal, you absolutely must have a big enough “Why”: the reason that makes you keep going when you don’t want to and it’s easier to quit. That big enough “Why” is the key. However, sometimes finding your big enough “Why” is the stumbling block when setting a goal.

I personally have found myself using lots of different “Whys” to keep myself motivated and moving forward. Some of them are just short-term “Whys”, that help for a day or a week or two or three, and some of them are long-term “Whys”. For any goal, the size of the “Why” has to be equal to or greater than the size and importance of the goal.

I’ve been a runner for just over 17 years now, but when I was first starting out, I needed the motivation of my friend Dana to keep me going.  I would have given up and would not be a runner today if not for Dana running alongside me with her enthusiastic energy and love of running.  My “Why” was just keeping up with Dana, and that was a big enough “Why” at the time. Eventually her passion for the sport took root in me, and I have since found my own pace, and haven’t stopped running yet.

Once Dana moved away I was left to run by myself. Not necessarily a bad thing though, as running alone allows me to re-connect with my self and center my thoughts. And even though I have a deep passion when it comes to my running, there are times when I do need some strong motivation to get my butt out of bed and pull my running shoes on. So here are some tips and techniques I’ve used over the years to make a big enough “Why” for myself. I have relied on these tricks to stay motivated and keep my running fresh and fun.

I used to be able to keep myself motivated by running a new trail or area of town.  Seeking out new running paths and exploring streets and trails kept my running new and exciting.  I found some beautiful and magical spots by simply running in a new place.

But since my diagnosis with Retinitis Pigmentosa in 1997, my eyesight has been slowly declining over the years.  This makes it almost impossible for me to run new trails anymore.  In fact for safety reasons I pretty much only run on controlled paths that I can navigate with my white cane and limited vision.  And it definitely gets boring sometimes running the same path every single time I put on my running shoes. 

So now I am using these other tricks to keep me motivated.

One sure-fire way to get me out of bed to go running is new running clothes.  A new pair of running shorts or shirt can keep me going for weeks, but soon the novelty wears off.  I could buy more running clothes, but I’m running out of room in my closet and drawers!  I have more running clothes than one human should be allowed!  But hey, that certainly won’t stop me from picking up just one more running shirt…or two, or three…  :) Did I mention how much I love running clothes? It’s my not-so-secret addiction.

Another motivational tool I use is new songs on my mp3 player.  When I load up my mp3 player with a new playlist, my “Why” is that I honestly can’t wait to get out and run so I can listen to all the new high energy songs.  This can last quite a while as well, as I only allow myself to listen to my running music while running. In a similar vein, if I have a good book to listen to, that can keep me hitting the pavement for up to a couple of weeks. But the problem is that all of these strategies last only a few weeks at best. And it’s easy enough to load new running music or books onto the mp3 player, but it’s not really a big enough “Why” for the really long-term.

So for me, one of the best motivational techniques I have ever used is training for an event or a particular goal. At one point a few years back, I was going through some new and wonderful changes in my life and my running days were pretty much non-existent.  But after about 6 months I was really feeling the void in my life that only running could fill, so I made the decision to train for BloomsDay: a very big race held each spring in Spokane, Washington.  There would be over 40,000 runners and walkers participating in this race.  By having a goal race to train for, I was giving myself the “Why” I needed to stay totally motivated to get out and run.  I even trained on hills even though I hate running hills, as I knew there was the dreaded “DoomsDay Hill” at the end of this 7 plus mile run. So having a looming event on the schedule is a great “Why.”

After BloomsDay, I kept training for small races here and there, but it was not until I decided to run in my first full marathon, that I learned the true meaning of dedicated and perpetual motivation.  I knew that I would have to be unwavering in my marathon training program for 6 long and arduous months if I was going to pull off the training schedule and ultimate running of a full marathon and live to tell about it. Of course, “living through it” that was my big enough “Why” for that one.

So for 6 months I told as many people as I could that I was going to run a marathon.  Their supportive reaction and amazement that a blind runner was going to run a marathon fueled me on.

My friends and family were another great source of motivation, as they each helped me however they could. My friend Vickie rode her bike with me on my long marathon training runs and our conversation and laughter was so much fun. Some runners use running clubs to keep them motivated, but with my work schedule I was not able to take advantage of them. But my partner and I attended workshops put on by the marathon organizers.

After all the miles of my marathon training program and ultimately running the marathon, I was tired from training so long and hard. It took some recovery time, but soon I was out there running again and doing a fairly good job of staying dedicated to it.

At the beginning of this year 2009, I got flattened with lower right back pain. At one point I sneezed, and I was down right now, rolling on the floor like a beach ball. The diagnosis came back that I had sciatica down my right back and leg.  It was impossible for me to run for over 2 months!  Once I was given the okay by my chiropractor to run again, it was slow going, as the sciatica was still hampering me somewhat.  But soon I was plugging along and eventually my lower right back pain was all healed up, and I was moving normally. 

Even though my back injury was healed, and I wasn’t having the lower right back pain anymore, I was having trouble getting past the 3 mile mark on my runs.  Before my back injury I had been running 6 to 8 miles at a time, easily and comfortably, so it bothered me that I’d get to 3 miles and be wiped out, even though I shouldn’t have been.

So in order to challenge myself, get myself motivated to break through that 3 mile barrier and push my comfort zone, I decided to do a virtual Run Over To Ellen’s: to the Ellen TV show in Burbank, CA.  This 1,222 and a ¼ mile run from my home in Montana to the Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank will take 34 weeks running an average of 36 miles a week!  Before my lower right back pain and the sciatica issue, I was running about 18 to 24 miles a week. 

But not only am I doing this virtual Run Over To Ellen’s in the hopes of getting Ellen Degeneres tickets to see a taping of the Ellen TV show, I’m fundraising for Guide Dogs For the Blind at the same time.  My quest is to raise $30,000 for them between now and the end of the year.

So this Run Over To Ellen’s fundraising project will keep me motivated and running for 8 months!  And by doing a daily video update for the special access Donors Only page, I am determined to do the mileage.

So I think I have found my big enough “Why”…for this year anyway! 

How ‘bout it?

-Vision Runner  

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Without being excessively rigid about any of it, over the past few years we have been working at practicing everyday healthier habits.  Our latest endeavor was sparked by my chiropractor.  He was discussing the health benefits of drinking water and he recommended that every day we drink half our body weight in ounces of water. He said 1/3 of your body weight in ounces was a good place to start, but working up to ½ was better for you. I had heard this before regarding the health benefits of drinking water, but hadn’t really internalized it. But this time, since I was recovering from lower right back pain which turned out to be sciatica, I was in a place in my life where I was more willing to take on the challenge. 

While I was mentally prepared and ready to do it, my problem became finding a safe and convenient drinking container.  I had a couple of stainless steel water bottles, but they made the water taste metallic.  We had been buying a case of water every week in the disposable plastic water bottles, but if we were going to increase our consumption that much, using that many throw away plastic water bottles was a really bad idea, environmentally speaking.

So, we found a BPA free plastic water bottle with built in straw that holds 32 ounces, and bought four of them.  We then dug out our Brita water filter pitchers.  By having two Brita water filter pitchers of cold water, and 4 BPA free plastic water bottles, we always have fresh cold water on hand, making drinking it easy.

So that’s nice, but how does drinking water save us over $1,000 a year? Well, let’s calculate…

We had been consuming (conservatively speaking) two 12 packs of Diet Coke at an average of $3.50 each for a total of $7.00 per week.

We were drinking a little over a case a week of Talking Rain juicy flavored beverages at $10.00 a case. (And yes, it had the artificial sweetener in it: not very good for us.)

And we had been buying a case of bottled water a week at $6.00 a case.

That’s $23.00 a week on cold beverages! Cutting them out saved us $1,196.00 per year. When I added it up, it astonished me how much we were saving by switching to water. And that’s with just two of us in the household. How much more could you save if you have more than two people in the household making the change? Even if you can’t get your kids to completely eliminate the sugar and artificial sweetener-filled fruit flavored beverages and sodas and Red Bulls, if you could instill in them the health benefits of drinking water and get them to cut their consumption of those other calorie-laden and sweetener-filled beverages in half and replace it with water, think how much healthier they will be.  

At our house, we have always taken baby steps when making these healthy changes, and we did the same with drinking more water.  We still buy milk and orange juice of course, but other than that, we weaned ourselves off of all of our other cold beverages, simply by buying four BPA-free water bottles at $4.00 each. And it took less than a month to make the change-over. 

Doing something healthy for your family and saving over $1000 bucks a year…what’s not to love? And why don’t you take one of those dollars and donate it in that little green-bordered FirstGiving box in the right-hand sidebar? We will thank you with lots of special secret surprises and private access to our Donors Only page at www.RunOverToEllens.com…

How ‘bout it?

-Vision Runner

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