Team Life 01/27/2017 - Perseverance

Today I wanted to take a moment to write about Perseverance and how it has been playing out in my day to day life. So just to give everyone a little background and history of where I come from and how I have developed as the person I am currently. I have always been an active person. Growing up I loved being in the outdoors and playing sports with my friends but I was also always a heavy kid. I joined the Navy and of course I struggled every time I had a run for time but I never gave up. I have always enjoyed working out but also fell into the common traps and excuses as to why I continued to put on weight. So Like many people I continued to work out and wonder why doesn't this weight come off. There of course is always that little voice in your head that only speaks the truth and is constantly telling you, "you know why." Yes I worked out regularly, but I also was never one to keep my diet in check. Now for me personally, I hate the term diet. So I will phrase it as I was never someone to keep my fueling in check. The reality for me was the day that I stepped on that scale and this was about 4 years ago and saw the dreaded number. In my case, that number was 390. I knew I had to change. So I increased my Physical Activity and started to eat a little better. I started incorporating Crossfit and running into my routine. I even started signing up for local 5K runs. I was having a blast. It was actually an amazing boost to my self confidence when I came in first place in my age group for the very first ever 5K i signed up to do. So I rode that confidence boost into grander goals I and several of my co-workers signed up for our first half marathon. I was focused and deliberate in my training. I printed out a training plan and I followed it to the letter. Before I knew it the miles were racking up. Most of my training runs I would do by myself but my teammates and I would gather on Saturdays and do our scheduled long runs. I was always the last to finish, but I could always count on the fact that I knew I would finish and I knew that at the end of the run my team would be there cheering me on and we would keep each other motivated. Before I knew it, two years had passed and I had completed about 10 5K's, 4 Half Marathons and even a Sprint Triathlon. I was in my mind unstoppable. I had also lost about 20 pounds. Not that significant because I was still not eating as clean as I could or watching portion sizes. So now two years ago I was all set to start training for my next half marathon and also training for my first Half Iron Man. I went out on a normal Saturday morning run in my neighborhood. I was feeling good, the weather was perfect with a slight breeze that just aided in my runners high when I was wrapping up mile 3 and planted my left foot and felt and heard a distinctive pop from my left knee. It hurt bad and buckled my knee and almost took me to the ground. I stopped and tried to assess my knee rubbing it, moving it but I knew I was injured when I tried to bear weight on it again. No Joy!!! it was not having it. Needless to say, I found out that I tor my meniscus. So here I am off to surgery feeling very optimistic and looking forward to a speedy recovery to get back out there. Surgery was done and My doctor said He did not believe in physical therapy, just let it heal for 6 weeks and only walk during that time but after that I should be able to run again. Six weeks came and I laced up and stepped out for my first run. Once again, No Joy. I could not even make a quarter mile on that knee. Talk about feeling mad and misled and discouraged. I went back to the doctor only to be told well your knee was bad to begin with and your weight does not help, take it slow. So slow turned out to be a year. I was back to running again and feeling good doing my CG workouts, my Crossfit and hitting the Gym I ws on a roll I dropped another 30 pounds and then the unimaginable happened and I came down on my right knee doing high knee skips and felt the same pop and pain. This was July of 2016. This time I opted for Physical Therapy first along with a nice heaping dose of Steroid injections. 12 weeks of Physical Therapy 3 times a week helped the mobility but I was still injured. I opted to go for injections into the knee to increase the viscous fluid in the knee to aid in lubrication. This helped for about 3 months. I also went to see a different surgeon. He proceeded to tell me I have a Complex meniscus team along with a partial tear of my ACL and MCL. He informed me that I am not a good surgical candidate due to the fact that if he were to remove the meniscus, the arthritis I have in my knee would take off like wild fire. The real kick in the gut is to hear him say I will not run again. To date I have dropped more weight and I am currently at 326 and hope to be below 300 by the end of March. Perseverance has been the key to it all. Finding alternate methods to work out and keep dropping weight and taking pressure off those knees. I hope to some day be able to prove my doctor wrong. Don't get me wrong, I will not do anything to place my long term mobility at risk but I want to feel that I can take on more and more physical challenges as time goes on. My bucket list is extensive and I do not want to be limited at all. I will persevere. I will run again!!! AS I have stated before, I would love for Blog to be interactive, so please share your Perseverance story or feel free to leave comments. Let's make this an environment of sharing and learing from like minded people. HOOYAH TEAM!!! As always, Never Give Up!!!

Team Life 01/09/2017

Good Morning team and welcome to a brand new week. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. It is that time again to get FIRED UP and MOTIVATED!!! Rev up that POSITIVE ATTITUDE and charge out into the world ready to do your part to make a difference. Gather up your teams and develop your plan of attack on your goals for the week. Ensure that each and every team member know his or her part and that they are equipped and ready to execute the mission. Let's focus this week as a team on helping each other develop "Situational Awareness". In your quest to be Elite and to be effective leaders you must develop a strong sense of Situational Awareness. So what is Situational Awareness? For those who may be unfamiliar, As it was pounded into me in boot camp, Keep you head on a swivel. Always be scanning, always be assessing and always be developing that action plan based on your assessment. Too many of us get complacent in our everyday lives that we get stuck in our predictable routines. As a leader you want to be in a position to best be able to protect your team. Now for most of us, that team is our immediate family. So when you are out and about, start scanning. Be aware of your surroundings. If you go out to eat, Assess, Where are the exits? Where is the kitchen, Where is the bathroom, Where is the nearest weapon? Always be asking your self, If something goes down, What am I ready to do? Situational Awareness is a skill like any other that is developed and honed with practice. and the ease of it is, that you can do it any where and everywhere. So start making your self stronger and smarter by developing your skills. Situational Awareness not only applies in a tactical sense but in our everyday lives. Lets say I am out on a hike or trail run. I am constantly scanning my environment for hazards or changes in terrain so that I may be able to successfully adapt and successfully complete my outing injury free and be ready to train again. So Let's get out there and Make this another Fine, OUTSTANDING and Successful week. HOOYAH TEAM!!! Keep pushing forward towards your goal. Remember, "The Only Easy Day Was YESTERDAY!!!" You are Elite and you do have it in you. As Always, Never Give Up!!!

Team Life 01/06/2017

WAKE UP, WAKE UP, WAKE UP!!! Good Morning Team and Happy Friday!!! We have made it to the end of the first week of this brand new year. I hope it was a successful first week. So since this is one of my first post for this year I want to discuss Team and the Team Life Mentality and Why I promote Team Life so strongly. The bottom line is this, we all need a support system in life. No one ever achieves a level of success alone. Even the athlete in individual sports such as running takes a team to succeed. From the coach to therapists to nutritionist, they all play a part in getting that individual runner across the finish line. So everyone of us needs to develop our Teams to lead us to success. Success is determined differently by each and everyone of us, so how do we build the right teams? The best way to build your team is to surround yourself by like minded positive people. People that will challenge you and hold you accountable. My desire is not to be the smartest on my team. I want to be able to learn and grow but also be willing to share my knowledge and skills with my teammates. Remember a team is a symbiotic relationship you gain from the team as the team gains from you. You must hone your skills and allow yourself to develop into the leader you know you can be. In order to lead though, you must be able to follow. You must be able to accept criticism and you must be able to accept the responsibility of command. Good teams want to ensure that every member of that team can effectively step into that leadership role when needed. We should all be willing to step up and take charge when our skill set demands it. Remember, Good leaders lead from the front, they lead by example and never ask your team to do something you are unwilling or unable to do yourself. You are not supposed to know all but you must be open to learning from your team and they must learn from you. So let's get out there and start the year off right. Keep building those teams, keep setting those goals and keep pushing those limits. Each and everyone of you have it in you to be Elite even if you don't know it yet, I do. So let's get FIRED UP!!! Let's Get MOTIVATED and Rev Up that POSITIVE ATTITUDE and let's make this another OUTSTANDING day and let's have a wonderful weekend filled with Friends, Family, Faith and Fitness!!! HOOYAH TEAM!!! As Always, Never Give Up!!!