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Archive for the ‘motivation’ Category

I am not Tim Pawlenty

Posted in boston marathon, motivation, training, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 18, 2012| 7 Comments »

If you don’t follow politics at all, you may not know who Tim Pawlenty is.  He is a former governor of the state of Minnesota who decided to run for President.  He was part of the large field of Republican candidates who were vying for their party’s nomination.  Last summer, after finishing a distant 3rd in the meaningless Iowa Straw Poll, Pawlenty unexpectedly dropped out.  Who did come in behind?  Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul.  He finished ahead of everybody else, yet, because he didn’t finish as strongly as he would have liked in a straw poll, he quit.

***

New Word Definition:

Pawlenty – verb, pawlentied

1.  to prematurely  stop, cease, or discontinue: She pawlentied what she was doing at the first sign of trouble.
2. to give up or resign; let go; relinquish: He pawlentied his claim to the throne. She pawlentied her job.
***

Earlier this week I started marathon training for the upcoming Sugarloaf Marathon.  18 weeks from this past Sunday I hope to cross the finish line in Kingfield, ME in under 3:15:00.  I need to run a sub-3:15 in order to qualify for Boston once again.  That’s over 4 minutes faster than I have ever run a marathon.   For my very first run, my program (the Pfitz 18/55 plan) called for a Lactate Threshold Run – 8 miles, with 4 of those miles coming in at or around half-marathon pace.

Half-Marathon pace for me should (read: used to) be around 7:05 per mile.  Try as I might, on that first run I couldn’t maintain a pace faster than 7:30 per mile for the required 4 miles.  Mentally is was a blow.  7:30 per mile is 4 seconds slower per mile than the pace I would need to run 26.2 miles in order to achieve my goal.

And I could barely maintain that pace for 4 miles?

My first thought was I need to re-evaluate; maybe I’ve passed my peak in running; maybe it’s time simply to log the miles, run the races, but ignore the times; maybe I should quit my quest to return to Boston.

But then I thought of Tim Pawlenty.  He has GOT to be kicking himself right now.  After the carousel of conservative Republicans who have taken turns being the “Anybody But Romney” candidate, Pawlenty has to be wondering “what if?”.

Pulling out prematurely is never a good thing…

***

And so, despite the disappointing finish in that first training run, I am pressing on, because, dammit, I am no Tim Pawlenty!

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Reason

Posted in health, motivation, tagged , , , , , , on December 21, 2011| 2 Comments »

This video is old, but I saw it just the other day for the first time.  It made me think of my ongoing struggle to get back into the swing of things.

This video is relatively new.  It was posted by a doctor who is advocating exercise in a very simple, easy to understand way.  The statistics quoted should be enough to get you up and moving.

[tweetmeme source=”luau” only_single=false http://www.URL.com]

I hope that you will take the time to watch both videos.

As we get into the thick of the Holidays and the spirit of giving, I can’t help but wonder how many of you aren’t thinking of/giving to yourselves, forgetting that, as much as you want to be able to take care of those around you, if you don’t take care of yourself, you won’t be good to anyone.

As daunting as it may sound, taking care of yourself doesn’t mean you have to train for a marathon, like Roger, the gentleman in the first video.  As the second video points out, just 20+ minutes a day of walking can reduce your chances of getting high blood pressure by nearly 30%.

30%!!!

What I like about the first video is not that the guy ran a marathon (though that is awesome!) – no.  The thing I was most moved by was that he latched onto a reason to get himself moving.  Sometimes, doing it for ourselves is not enough motivation.  We seem to disregard the concept of self-care, or at best put it low on the priority list.  Sometimes what it takes is a cause, a reason.  Roger found that cause in his niece and because of that, he was able to find the courage, the strength, the reason to keep going; and he is now a transformed man.

If you are struggling, and self-motivation isn’t enough, do it for a cause, a reason – your daughter, your son, your mother, your dad, your sibling, your spouse, a friend or do as my friend David does in this —>post<—  about charity.

I have never bought into the concept that we are destined to remain the shape we have lived with or are currently in – I was a lollipop until after college (big head, toothpick body).  You can change your body, mind and soul.  They go hand in hand in hand.

Find a reason.  Find a cause.

After they thank you for your efforts, you’ll inevitable thank yourself.

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Move It

Posted in motivation, training, tagged , , on December 5, 2011| 3 Comments »

"You've got to Move It, Move It!"

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As much as I appreciated the extra hour of sleep the Sunday of the New York City Marathon, I have to admit, I really dislike giving up daylight savings time.  It just makes it feel like winter is that much closer.

I begin to hit the wall that much sooner.  I reach for a glass of red wine or a beer that much sooner (What? it’s only 4PM?  Really? But it feeeeeels like it’s 5PM!).  It doesn’t help that the temperature has dropped below 40°F at night.

This is a difficult time of year for runners, well, for this runner anyway.  It gets harder to motivate the body to get outside and run.  It doesn’t help that I have essentially taken the last several months off from consistent, higher mileage.

What’s this runner to do?

The last couple of winters I’ve had the advantage of having a treadmill in my basement, ideally located in front of a TV with a DVR attached and all of my favorite show religiously recorded.  Having my favorite shows on made “dreadmill running” much less dreadful.  Unfortunately, I killed my treadmill a month or so ago.  3 years of intense, regular running finally broke it in two, literally.  My mileage has suffered for it.  The treadmill was always my last line of defense against laziness.

There’s always the gym I suppose, but it has always felt a little silly to me to drive to the gym just to use their treadmill – and talk about dreadmill – running on a gym treadmill is about as exciting and fun as watching grass grow or paint dry.

No, running at the gym cannot be my answer, at least not entirely.

The simple truth is, I will have to do what I have always preached: push the boundaries of what feels normal, move into that space that is uncomfortable and make it my own – make it comfortable; make it a habit.  I constantly tell my non-running, non-active friends that if they want to get active they need to force it upon themselves to a degree.  One cannot wish oneself into shape.  One cannot wake up one morning and decide, “I am a runner”.

It’s not that easy.

If it were then this country wouldn’t be facing the obesity problem it faces today…

***

Last week, I managed to slowly get back into pre-dawn running.  It’s going to get harder before it gets easier.  My body and mind are going to fight me. 

But it’s still dark!!!  It’s so cold!!!

I tell my friends “2 to 6 weeks.”  That’s the time necessary for the habit of running to imprint itself onto your muscles, your routine.  If you can stick it out, the internal drive, the fire from within will finally kick in and instead of pushing yourself out the door to run, you will be drawn out by the “need“.

With Sugarloaf 6 months away, I have about 6 to 8 weeks to get the fire piping hot again so that my training will be about training and not about motivation.  Maybe part of my problem this summer and fall was that I didn’t have a time goal race, an “A”-Race lined up.  I was “qualified to register” for Boston, my goal for the Vermont 50 was to “just finish” and New York was all about fun.  Well, the 50 is done, fun was had in New York, and, unfortunately, I missed getting into Boston by a mere 33 seconds.

I don’t like the fact that I will not be running Boston this year.  I get it, I understand it, I accept it.  But I don’t like it.  I don’t plan on missing 2013.  And there may lie my motivation to move, to get back into the habit.

Whatever your motivation may be this winter (lose/hold off the holiday pounds, achieve a time in a Spring race, get into better shape), just keep moving.  Fight the urge to potato long enough and I promise you it will go away. You’ll be happier for it.

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Stop! Reframe. Carry On.

Posted in health, motivation, other, tagged , , , , , , on September 2, 2011| 6 Comments »

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Hey! What are you doing?!?

Silly, what are you doing?

***

Can you read the difference?

My older daughter, Katie, has been struggling for some time now with many of the quirks that come with Brooke’s autism.

Brooke likes to script things, and though we work very hard to move her away from them, we know that they are a comfort for her when she is either anxious or going through an unstructured period (i.e. school breaks).

Katie will very often play along with the scripts…that is, she will play along until she won’t play along. And when she is done, she is DONE!

And that’s when it happens.

Brooke tries to start a script with Katie, Katie snaps and all Hell breaks loose.

I’ve been trying to arm Katie with a few deflective tools that can help her – one of which is simply changing the tone in her voice while still getting the message across that she doesn’t want to play anymore.

Same message, just slightly reframed.

***

A friend of mine on twitter recently asked if she could “just run away?”

I answered that it depended on whether she was fast enough to outrun whatever it was she wanted to run away from.

***

Some people do run to “get away” from their problems.

I can understand that. I am sure I have been guilty of doing it on several occasions. But I like to think that running as therapy actually takes a different approach.

Much like I am trying to teach Katie that stopping and then reframing can make a huge difference, I believe running can do the same thing.

If there is something troubling you or you have a problem that you just can’t seem to wrap your brain around, there is a good chance that a nice long run can help you find the solution.  Notice that I didn’t say that running is the solution or that running will give you the solution.  Rather, I think that running gives you the uninterrupted time for your brain to roll over a problem in a less stressful environment.

Sure you’re breathing hard.

Sure you’re sweating a ton.

Sure you’re possibly focused solely on how much your quads and calves hurt.

But while all of that is happening, you’re brain is working, and possibly, quite possibly, you come home with a slightly different view of your problem.  It might not even be a different perspective, just simply a change in tone or vocabulary.

Same problem, same solution – simply reframed.

***

Try it.  90 – 120 minutes of heavy sweating – running, biking, swimming…or however you get your sweat on.

And in the end, even if you don’t find the find your way to the solution of your problem, at least you will have got in a great workout!

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Won’t Get Fooled Again

Posted in motivation, racing, training, tagged , , , , , , on August 26, 2011| 8 Comments »

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October 2009 – Manchester, NH. I am running my first marathon. I have aspirations of qualifying for Boston in my first marathon. How cool would that be? Of course, I’ve only been running for a little over 11 months now. My training has been haphazard, AND I’ve had to lay off the miles in the 6 weeks before the marathon due to a possible stress fracture/probably tendinitis in my right foot. But come on! I’m excited! I’m pumped! I’ve found the 3:30 pacer and I am going to follow him for 15 – 20 miles and then drop the hammer and bring home a sub-3:20:59 and a BQ. Did I mention this is my first marathon?

I flew through the first mile in under 6:30; flew through the first half in just under 1:35 (on pace for 3:10 – Woohoo!); and then I crashed and burned, hitting a wall at 16 and halting to a dead stop at mile 20 with frozen quads. I hobbled the final 10K to still finish in 3:54, but it was not the way anyone would want their first marathon to go.

***

I’ve learned a thing or two in the almost two years since – I even managed to finally qualify for Boston a year later at Smuttynose (my 4th marathon) with a 3:19.

One of the biggest lessons that has stuck with me however, is that if one is running their first marathon and one is not a World Class Athlete like Ryan Hall or Kara Goucher, then one’s goal in a first marathon should be to Just Finish. Sure, it’s good to have time goals. Sure, if you were an All-American in the 10,000 meters in college, maybe a BQ the first time out is not out of the question.

But if you are like me, just a regular guy who happened to fall in love with running because it made you feel good, then embrace that feeling in your first marathon and go out and have fun.

Just finish.

Enjoy the spectacle of the marathon and just finish.

***

Yesterday morning I signed up for the Vermont 50. I’m not sure what I was thinking, but honestly, it’s become something that I just want to be able to say I did – I want to be able to say that not only am I a marathoner, but I am an ultra-marathoner as well.

Can I do it? Can I cover 50 miles before they shut down the course?

That’s kind of the point, isn’t it?

I don’t have aspirations for anything longer (Western States 100? No Frakking Thank You!). Seriously, anything that takes over 12 hours to cover is just insane in my book.

Have I trained for this? Nope.

Have I run trails before? Once – last weekend, and that was only a few miles.

Am I going to get to train for the terrain like I always preach? Hardly. With the end of the summer rapidly approaching, the start of school and some family obligations thrown in for good measure, I will not have an opportunity to head up to the mountains for some training.

What the Hell am I thinking?

At this point, I am thinking this:

Just Finish.

Run, jog, walk, waddle, crawl – whatever it takes.

And here’s the thing – I will not be going out fast. In fact, I guarantee that the first several miles will be uncomfortably slow.

But that’s okay, because the idea for me is to Just Finish and not worry about the racing part of it.

If I finish and I feel “too” good? Who knows, maybe next year I’ll come back and try to “race” it, but in the meantime, I will not make the same mistake in my first ultra-marathon that I made in my first marathon.

When I signed up for the Vermont 50, two words crossed my mind: “Uh Oh!”

I have four new words that I will be focusing on over the next 30 days:

Just Finish. Have Fun.

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Out of the Blue

Posted in health, motivation, Uncategorized, Vibram Five Fingers, tagged , , , , , , , , on August 22, 2011| 6 Comments »

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Last week I awoke one day to a message on Facebook from my friend Sue.  She had sent me a link to this —>

, saying she thought of me when she first saw it.  Little did I know that Jess had posted that same video on her blog just the day before.  I urge you to watch it, but I warn you, have some tissues ready.  After initially seeing it, and wiping away many tears, I sent a “thank you” to Sue.

The next day I got a note from my friend Logan.  He was speaking on a podcast called Geeks in Running Shoes previewing a presentation he was going to give to a group from Google on the nexus of running and social media.  During the podcast he spoke of reading this blog and how it completely changed the way he sees autism – or more to point, that he now SEES autism and is less inclined to judge a family and their “misbehaving” child.

Later I received a response from Sue.  She told me that she and her family had done the Autism Walk in her hometown due in large part to the regular posts both Jess and I put up on our respective blogs.

Each of those things, the video by Lou, the presentation by Logan and Sue’s initial thought of me and response would have individually made me feel pretty inspired, but it was the rapid fire impact of those three that hit me like a Mack Truck of Good Feelings.

Suddenly my brain was in high gear, jumping from one project to another that has fallen by the wayside over the last year or two – the books I want to write (one about running, the other completely unrelated), the motivational tools I want to produce – I became even more motivated in fund raising for Autism Speaks and the spreading of the message of awareness.

But the biggest impact was on my desire to run.  It is no secret that I have been struggling to find my mojo since May.  My runs have been uninspired at best.  This past weekend I ran on both Saturday and Sunday for the first time in a long while.  I went back to basics on Saturday, pulling out my old Vibram Treks and did a nice little 5-miler into town and back.  My calves were almost immediately in pain when I got home, but I LOVED it!  On Sunday, I put on the more traditional shoes and went out  just to “run for fun”.  Shortly into my run I came across an entrance to a trail, shrugged my shoulders and went for my first trail run.

What fun!  The only downside, if there was one, was that I ended up getting lost, ending up at the same bridge over a sea of 4 foot tall grass three times before I finally figured out how to get out of the woods.  My only real worry was the 93° heat, otherwise, in the wise words of my friend Lisa (@runlikeacoyote – you should follow her if you are on twitter), it really wasn’t getting lost, it was just exploring.

Bottom line is this – I am pumped, full of energy and raring to go (though I did come to the conclusion that I am in no way ready to take the plunge on a 50-mile run through the mountains of Vermont – especially if it’s 93frickin’°!!!). Still, I feel good – terribly sore, but good!  My calves really hate me right now, but it’s good.

I’m looking forward to putting words to paper (already 1200 words in), I’m re-thinking my “why we run” project, I am setting up an appointment with a graphics designer, I’m looking forward to this October’s Autism Walk with Autism Speaks, and I have renewed motivation for spreading awareness.

AND running is fun again.

How incredible is it that one can spend months trying to find their mojo only to have it reappear thanks to three apparently unconnected, yet intricately related people.

Thank you Lou for your vision, thank you Logan for opening yourself up to awareness and passing it on, and thank you Sue for your open heart, your kindness and inspiration.

Finally, for all those who have seen Lou’s video, here’s his thank you to you.

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Second Chance

Posted in boston marathon, motivation, training, tagged , , , , , on August 8, 2011| 19 Comments »

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I have taken a little over a week off from running.  During this week I’ve been able to process through what happened at the Around the Lake Marathon and begin to focus on what comes next.

On the calender, my next big race is the Vermont 50 – a tough 50-miler through the mountains of Vermont.  I had promised my friend Doug that I would run it with him should I qualify for Boston (which I did back in October of last year).  It’s been sitting on the calender ever since – looming large.  It is a big reason why I am NOT running the New York City Marathon this year for Autism Speaks.  I just couldn’t see myself running a 50-mile race at the end of September and then following it up with a Marathon in early November.

The Vermont 50 Team in fact has a growing number of runners and support crew that should make it a very fun event come September.

But 50 miles…

…that’s a lot of miles to run.

***

The most I’ve ever run at one time is the marathon distance (26.2 miles).  Even taking into account that I weave through crowds and sometimes take the longer, outside lane, I’m pretty sure I haven’t run more than 27 miles at any one time.

And my last attempt at 26.2 ended at the 20-mile mark, doubled over, hobbling for the portapotty.  As unready as I was for the Around the Lake Marathon, there was part of me that was convinced that I was going to pull off a 3:15 and lower my qualifying time for Boston 2012.  (Click HERE for the new registration process) Sitting at a 3:19 qualifying time, my chances of getting in with the new rolling registration feels slim.  I’d feel a lot more secure about being able to run Boston for the third consecutive year if I could give myself a 5 minute qualifying cushion that would allow me to register in the first week instead of the second.

After Around the Lake, I was pretty much resigned to the fact that I would probably not be running Boston this coming April.

But then Doug called me this past week.  He wanted to see how I was doing after my meltdown.  He had texted me earlier in the day asking if he could call, wanting to talk about “September 25th and September 11th”.  The Vermont 50 is on the 25th.  I assumed that maybe he was organizing some kind of memorial run for the 10-year anniversary of 9/11 – he’s that kind of awesome.

To my surprise, he was calling me to essentially let me out of my promise to him.  He knew how bummed I was after Around the Lake and called to let me know that there was a race being organized (by my team/sponsor Racemenu no less) to give runners one last chance to improve their qualifying times for Boston 2012  – a time trial type race, with 1 – 4 runners going out every 30 seconds based on projected finishing times.  Imagine being able to start a race with a group of people who were gunning for the exact same time?

I couldn’t help but think, this is my second chance!!!

The details of the race are still being ironed out.  All I know is that Racemenu chief, J. Alain Ferry is currently working on putting the race together and he feels confident enough about it that he’s had his team write about it on the team blog, facebook page and twitter feed.

September 11th is 5 weeks from yesterday, which would give me 5 weeks of training.

I haven’t been chasing 3:15 for too long (last November at New York was my first attempt), but three marathons later, with times that are getting slower (3:27 – NYC, 3:37 – Boston, DNF – Around the Lake) I wonder if Father Time is starting to nip at my heels.

New York I can chalk up to running shortly after my BQ run at Smuttynose.  Boston I can chalk up to going out too fast and bonking at 17.  I’ve essentially had a down cycle since Boston – that, along with the HEED I ingested at Around the Lake can take the blame for my flameout there.

My blog friend Lizzy suggested that maybe it was time to concentrate on shorter races, and she may be right; but I know 3:15 is just within my grasp.

It’s right there…my fingertips scraping against it.

This marathon would be in 5 weeks.

5 weeks!!!

I’m pretty sure I can rally hard for 5 weeks.

***

I’m also pretty sure that if I were to run a marathon in 3:15 on September 11th, I wouldn’t be able to run 50 miles 14 days later.  I’m not completely sure how I feel about that.  There were a lot of people I was planning on seeing/meeting from the running community on September 25th.

Who knows, maybe plans get held up and the marathon doesn’t happen.  If that is the case, I suppose I am back on for the VT50, but right now, at this moment, I can’t turn my back on one last opportunity to better my chances of getting into Boston 2012.

This morning I got up and hit the treadmill at 5:30AM – an easy 3.5 mile run with no incline.  I haven’t run pre-dawn in a while, and honestly, after over a week off, the legs felt a little rusty.

But it sure felt good to sweat.

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Unprepared

Posted in motivation, other, racing, training, tagged , , , , on July 29, 2011| 27 Comments »

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Tonight I am running a marathon.

No, literally, I am running the Around the Lake Marathon tonight, starting at 7PM. If you are in the Wakefield, MA area this evening, please feel free to come out and cheer.

I have never in the last 21 month of marathon running felt more unprepared.

How unprepared am I? Let’s go by the numbers:

If I had stuck with my 12 (week)/70 (mile peak)  plan, these are the weekly miles I would have run:

55/59/62/66/59/70/70/64/70/57/44/28 for a grand total of 704 miles of training.

If I had stuck with my fall back 12/55 plan, these are the weekly miles I would have run:

35/39/43/48/42/48/55/49/52/43/32/22 for a total of 508 miles.

***   ***   ***

Here are the actual miles I ran:

54/51/47/42/30/7/32/32/15/30/28/4 for the mighty sum of 372 miles.

Not pretty is it.  That’s close to only half of what I originally planned on running.  In addition, you’ll notice the downward trend in mileage over the last, well, um, during the entire training cycle.  I had some motivational issues to be sure, but there were some weeks marred by either injury or life simply getting in the way (it happens).  Still, I have never felt so unprepared for a 26.2 miles race.  Even in my first marathon I had the advantage of not knowing what it was I was getting into.

But you want to know something funny? I’m ok. In fact, I feel at peace with the fact that I am way undertrained for this race. There’s no reason really.  Maybe it’s the fact that this is my 7th marathon in 21 month, maybe it’s that I feel somewhat rested (though heavier with the lack of miles), maybe it’s that I’ve set my Garmin to beep if I start going too fast (avoiding the debacle of Boston 2011), or maybe it’s just the cumulative effect of repeated endorphin highs…I don’t know.

Am I worried? A little to be sure.  But I don’t have the nervousness I’ve had before every other marathon (who am I kidding, before every other race!!!), that awesome/awful feeling in the pit of my stomach.

What will happen tonight?

I don’t know.

All I know is I’m running a marathon, I’m totally unprepared, and I’m totally fine with that.

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Ghosts and Phantoms

Posted in motivation, other, training, tagged , , , , on July 22, 2011| 3 Comments »

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Manchester Marathon 2009 – Mile 20 – frozen quads.

Boston Marathon 2010 – Mile 20 – minor bonk.

Providence Marathon 2010 – Mile 1 – buckling knee.

New York City Marathon 2010 – Miles 5, 13, 20 and 22 – nausea and cramps.

Boston Marathon 2011 – Mile 17 – Major bonk.

The Ghosts of marathons past are rising up and swirling around me.

Knee twinge.

Back Spasm.

Foot pain.

The Phantom pains are emerging for their regular “1 week before the marathon” visit.

***

These Ghosts and Phantoms haunt me.  They sit on my shoulder and ask me questions like, “do you really want to run this marathon?”, “why are you going to put yourself through this?”, “are you ready for all of that pain?”, “are you ready to fail?”

These ghosts and phantoms are always there, but their voices get louder every time I am in the closing days of marathon training.  It doesn’t help that this training cycle has been a complete wash.  Most of the time their voices can be ignored, in part because during training, there is nothing “official” at stake.  But with one week to go these ghosts, these phantoms will not be ignored.  Every time I see another runner out there training, or I walk by my training log, or I see the current temperature outside, they make their noise.

But there are other ghosts…

***

Manchester Marathon 2009 – Mile 26.2 – 1st marathon!

Boston Marathon 2010 – Mile 26.2 – 1st Boston – PR!

Providence Marathon 2010 – Mile 26.2 – PR!

Smuttynose Marathon 2010 – All of it!  – PR & BQ!!!

New York City Marathon 2010 – Mile 26.2 – finishing despite the pain.

Boston Marathon 2011 – Miles 20 – 26.2 – drinking beer and chatting with friends as I jogged to the finish.

These are also ghosts and not all ghosts need to be scary.  Just like Glinda proved that not all witches are ugly or evil, these ghosts also shout out as next Friday night get closer and closer.  These are the ghosts I will choose to listen to.  Like I said, the training cycle for this upcoming marathon has been almost non-existent.  Who knows what kind of mojo I will bring to Wakefield.  If temperatures are what they are today, I will simply change my goals for race day, but as for now, I will continue to strive for 3:15 and hope the good ghosts of marathons past will help carry me to the finish.

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Instant Change

Posted in health, motivation, tagged , , , on July 21, 2011| 6 Comments »

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Back in August last year I wrote a post on posture, essentially saying that simply changing you posture could give you an instant makeover.

As I walked around a town I was vacationing in a couple of weeks ago I couldn’t help but wonder what has happened to America?  I should probably call my dad and a few people of his generation first, but the image I have of kids growing up in the 40’s and 50’s is a classroom with the strict teacher who insists on her students having perfect penmanship and even more importantly, perfect posture.

What has happened to this proud country that we have now become a nation of slouchers?  and it’s not just the kids these days either; it’s my generation and even my dad’s generation.

No wonder obesity levels are rocketing upward in this country.  Have you ever tried motivating yourself when you’re slouched over?  It’s hard!  But straighten that back, lift that head, fill that chest up with oxygen and a wonderful thing happens: Instant Change!

Suddenly you’re filled with energy, motivation, determination.

There are numerous factors that go into our overall health.  Nutrition and the regional availability of healthful food is a topic one could write volumes of books about; exercise, REGULAR exercise is another; as is sleep; but the spark to change has to start from within.  The desire has to be internal and quite honestly, I can’t imagine that there is much desire to motivate, much spark, when we are in a slouched position.

At one point, while sitting on a wall and having an ice cream with Brooke, I watched the crowds walk by.  To my dismay, out of 30 people that walked by us at one point, not one, NOT ONE, was standing proud, head held high.  In fact, some appeared to have entered into a perma-slouch, with their heads bent forward at the shoulders and craned up at the top of the neck.  How can anyone expect to be active walking through life like that?

Now granted, some people have medical conditions that they were born with – this post is not about those people.  This post is about the young moms and dads I see at my daughters’ school when I go to pick them up, almost all of whom have lousy, I mean absolutely lousy posture.  This post is about the kids who slouch in front of a screen for hours a day.

I don’t know what the answer is, but my theory is that part of why we are seeing more and more overweight kids is that we’re not reminding them to sit up and stand up straight.  It’s hard, I know, especially if you haven’t done it in a long time for long periods of time, but I wonder – I wonder what would happen if teachers re-introduced the concept of sitting up straight in class, would we see a change in our kids?  Every time I’ve been in my daughters’ school on PTO business, I make a point of walking by my kids’ classes just to peek in, and you know what? these kids are doing their work or reading with their heads on their desks, sprawled out, their bodies like jello.  I have a hard time believing that one feels motivated when one is essentially lounging.

Posture, for most of us, is much like how we choose to eat.  Going on a diet really doesn’t do a lot for you long term.  Changing the way you eat can change your life.  Posture is the same.  Good posture needs to be a life-style change, a long-term choice.

And I am betting that if you really start to live with your head held up, your shoulders back and your back straight, you’re gonna see an instant change.  You’ll increase the volume of your lungs, which will increase the amount of oxygen you take in, which will give you more energy, which may spark some motivation, which just might get you off the couch or away from the desk for a nice, brisk walk (or even better a run!).

How’s your posture?

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