Category Archives: stretch goals

a good life, anxiety, appreciate the good life, defining success, failure, foot drop, half marathon, Journey, limits, midlife crisis, MS, MS fatigue, MS treatment, Multiple Sclerosis, running, stretch goals

Forty & Ten: Midlife Crisis Averted

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Earning this felt like an accomplishment.
Earning this felt like an accomplishment.

Nobody likes to fail. Our human minds are set up to remember our failures, so why would we do something at which we are unlikely to succeed?

The better question is how are we to really know we have done all that we can if we never push ourselves to the point of failure? The problem with failure is the ease with which we see it as an end rather than a measuring stick used for future endeavors to expand our abilities. It is OK to fail so long as we have done all we could at the time.

I still love Samuel Beckett’s “Ever Tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail Again. Fail Better.”

It is with this mindset that I set out on my attempt to run my second half marathon on a beautiful June Saturday morning at Yellowstone. I have to admit, I had many doubts about my ability to complete the race. I had not run that far in two and a half years. I had a stomach virus hit me very hard on Thursday night leaving me dealing with having shit the bed four times until finally, there was just nothing left. I had not had an MS treatment for 2 months as I continued through the washout period needed to switch meds. Finally there were the two reasons my wife gifted me with the trip in the first place: I turned forty and have had MS for ten years.

As I sat there Friday morning thinking about this list of reasons to fail, I realized these are excuses, and we all have excuses. The question is whether those should stop me from trying. I showered for the fourth time that night, drank some more water and went to bed wondering if my stomach would keep me from an item on my bucket list, seeing Old Faithful. Thankfully, my body did what it normally does to viruses; hit it with a tactical nuke. After a dreadful evening, I went downstairs and bought a Gatorade to be followed by 2 more in short order. Then I went with T, my brother in law, to continue sight seeing in Yellowstone for a third day where we got to see Old Faithful along with many of the other cool geysers, springs and pools.

Castle Geyser just keeps going and going for 25 min. We saw it before and after Old Faithful. I thought about it while running.
Castle Geyser just keeps going and going for 25 min. We saw it before and after Old Faithful. I thought about it while running.

On day four of our trip, I got up and ran the half marathon. I worried about whether I would be able to finish the 13-mile run at altitudes of 6,000 feet to 6,850 feet, especially when I fell twice in mile 10 because foot drop and a long run over very uneven terrain can do that to me. Still, I finished in 906th place. When I shared the results with my kids, they started to commiserate as if it was sad so many people were faster than I. I told them over 2,700 people finished the race, and I was in the top third of all finishers. I am anything but disappointed with the finish. I meant it when I started, and I mean it now. The challenge was for me to finish, not to finish faster than anyone else. Two hours and twenty-four minutes after I crossed the start line, I succeeded. It was a beautiful trip, and a great reminder that 40 & 10 are just numbers. They are just another measurement of time, and not the most meaningful ones at that.

Thank you T and J for a wonderful trip complete with great memories. I needed the break from reality, and my self esteem needed the half marathon attempt.

Thank you T for showing me around. I would never have seen as much without you.
Thank you T for showing me around. I would never have seen as much without you.

I got a lot of great photos on the trip, and I will create a page with just those in the next few days.

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bucket list, Midieval Times, stretch goals, taekwondo

Crazy or Inspired, Life on the Border

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I know no proper word for the insanity of my house.  We range from extremely caring to insane, and it’s tiring. 
O had a belt test for his Taekwondo this past week.  He had parents in fits of laughter watching him try to wait his turn.  Evidently he was sucking his toes while standing on one leg.  Have I mentioned his crazy balance?  I wish I had been there to see it, but I’ve heard enough people recount his craziness to believe them.  The boy simply can’t sit still, and often the levels of insanity are funny…but sometimes they are just scary.  Last night, he opened his window all the way and was sitting in the window.  The screen was bowing out, but he had no idea he was in danger of falling out of the second story window.  I regret my favorite word derived from Latin is “defenestration” because I like the sound and every parent to whom I’ve talked, ponders something similar at some point.    
These moments are why I have been staying up late with him rather than sending him to bed when he isn’t “ready for bed.”  I want some relax time before I head to bed after having played the part of daddy since 6am, but at 10:30 pm I find I have little left save to take meds and put dogs to sleep before I crash.  We have to bring this up today with his doc who said, “Some kids just don’t need as much sleep.  Just let him wander.”  We can’t.
We celebrated O’s birthday late this year to be able to go to Midieval Times for dinner with the kids.  He has wanted to go for more than a year, and he picked going here over having more friends to a cheaper venue…Have I ever mentioned how lucky we are to be able to go to a place like this?  The food was surprisingly good, and the show had O and A sucked in completely.  I had to laugh when A wanted to go care for the knight who had been “slain.”  She asked if maybe we should go help him.  O on the other hand just wanted the knight who beat our knight to die!  My kids frequently are the Ying and the Yang.
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As for me, have you ever felt like you are juggling a lot of things to the point where one more thing will cause a huge mess?  That’s my feeling lately.  I never learned to juggle, not even soccer balls when I played for 20 years.  I go back to the complex theory of last week.  At some point, the nervous system has no slack to absorb another interruption, and depending on where it happens, multiple parts of the system can go down.  That’s what everything feels like this week, like a system humming along with no slack, no contingency plans.
The worst part is the pride I feel in not dropping any thing yet when I should be looking for somebody else to target in a toss or picking what I will/can let drop. 
I say this having just signed up to run a half marathon on Dec. 1st.  The goal which seemed so far away when I put it on my bucket list almost 7 years ago is worth far more than the dollars and time spent to achieve it.
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