Tag: Physical

The Road Less Traveled

Pinpoint a moment in your past where you had to make a big decision. Write about that other alternate life that could have unfolded.

I have been having trouble figuring out what to write about. I found a site that lists out a bunch of topics for posts. As soon as I saw this one I knew it was the one I needed to write about. I may not follow it exactly but it will give me a good start.

Pinpoint a moment in your past where you had to make a big decision. Write about that other alternate life that could have unfolded.

One of the hardest decisions I ever made in my life was when I decided to leave the Navel Academy Prep School. I loved the military side of things but I wasn’t mature enough at that point in my life to make the grades that I needed. The worst part about it was that about half of the school was failing. I was doing fairly well in most of my classes except for one. The teacher was failing everybody. I learned later that at the end of the trimester the teacher ended up curving the entire course almost 40 points. When I found that out it really pissed me off. One of the things I had wanted to do since I was a little kid was fly planes and I let something like that teacher get in the way of that dream.

I have had 2 extremely difficult phone calls to my parents in my life. The first one was calling them sitting in my Explorer Sport, at the pier on the Newport, Rhode Island Navel Base staring at the bridge home (header picture, sorry it’s so grainy). The second one was trying to tell my mom that Isabel was having to be life-flighted to Denver because they were not sure if she would make it if she stayed in Gunnison.

Riding For Isabel

The Courage Classic is a bike tour to help raise money for the Children's Hospital Colorado starting July 16th and lasting till the 21st.

The Courage Classic is a bike tour to help raise money for the Children’s Hospital Colorado starting July 16th and lasting till the 21st.

When we were at Isabel’s Cath last week, we had one of the nurses talk to use about the Heart Institute’s team, Cardiac Climbers. They have been riding in the Courage Classic for 11 years and have raised almost $700,000. All the money the team raises goes directly back to the Heart Institute for new equipment, education, research and family assistance. The team consists of cardiac parents, members of the community along with many of the Heart Institute employees including doctors, nurses, anesthesiologists, echo technicians, surgeons and support staff. Each rider dedicates their ride to a cardiac patient.

This year one of the Cardiac Climbers will be riding for Isabel. We need to get them a little more information and then I will post how to support the team and Isabel’s rider. I was amazed at all of the resources that we had available to us while we were in the hospital and I am sure some of those were because of the Cardiac Climbers. Go check out the links above to learn more about the team and the Courage Classic.

Go like the Cardiac Climbers on Facebook to show your support and help spread the word about the Courage Classic.

Getting Back into Shape

During the summers Jen and I play town league softball. It is a lot of fun but it takes me about half the season to get back into any kind of shape. It is tough when you get a hit that should have been a double but you are breathing too hard once you round first to even think about going for second. When I played college football I was in the best shape of my life. It was easy then. Not showing up for a workout wasn’t an option. I am not in horrible shape right now and Jen does an great job of making sure there isn’t a bunch of junk food in the house and always making well balanced dinners. The main problem I have is that it is way to easy to listen to the 10 different excuses for not exercising and just sit down, drink my coffee and head to work in the morning.

I enjoy exercising and miss doing it. I remember how much more energy it would give me for the day and how much I enjoyed using the time to think about different things going on in my life. Now every time I try to start a new workout I feel like I end up setting the bar too high. I tend to overdo it the first day and then never get back out after that.

This time is going to be different. I have announced to everybody on here that I am going to do it and that should keep me pretty motivated. Also, I am going to start off very simple and easy so I don’t hurt myself. This way I will not be killing myself and I should be able to keep increasing my workout each week. I think tomorrow I will do a short walk/run and will plan on doing the same thing Wednesday and Friday too. I will let you know how it goes tomorrow.