subjects2change

Exercise is Where you find it…

A couple of weeks ago when the governor of Florida closed all the gyms in the state of Florida I thought my very rational wife was going to lose her mind. She went through all of the steps of grieving before accepting that it was going to happen by lunch the next day. The thing that sealed the deal was that her gym was going to offer classes over zoom.

So a few days later we were in the garage building a plyo box from a left over sheet of ply wood and she was headed to to gym to borrow a few pieces of equipment so that we could open up a modified Crossfit gym in garage.

The process we used to get to that final outcome is called an O.O.D.A loop. https://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/OODA-loop or observe, orient, decide and act. The goal is to work through each phase and act with the information that you have at the moment, you will more then likely have to repeat the loop a few times before you reach the best out come.

So what did we learn as a byproduct of the gyms closing? Exercise is where ever you can find it. My wife loves her cross fit gym for the exercise and the community of friends and coaches shes built along the way. I, on the other hand love running and my daily routine of push ups, pull ups and squats. I enjoy the work out but I really enjoy the quiet time by myself to contemplate life’s mysteries. Most of the ideas for this blog come when my heart rate is well above 100.

OODA LOOP TIME..

Observe – take a few minutes and think about the things that you like to do and hate to do when it comes to exercise. Do you hate running with a passion, great that’s a start. Don’t do that one. Love gardening, swimming or golfing, awesome lets start there.

Orient – Now that we’ve observed the things that we like we need to orient them in how we can turn them into functional exercise. Lets use golf as our example in this one. Golf can be a great workout if you avoid the cart, hot dogs and cold beers. Think about it if you walk and carry your bag your going for at least a 3 mile hike with 20 lbs on your back. That sounds a lot like exercise to me while simultaneously having fun.

Decide – Now that we’ve observed and oriented our selves its pretty easy to decide that something we like could be turned into exercise. We still have a few decisions to make before we move onto taking action. Sticking with the golf theme here’s a few things to consider. Will the course let me walk, how often can I play golf and can I even walk 18 holes right now.

one of my good friends Peter https://www.instagram.com/szunyoghpeter/ (give him a follow for some drool worthy food ideas) shared with me something he read that was so simple and profound a couple of days ago that I had to share it with you. It was ” you can’t go from 0-100 fast but you can go from 0-10. Then once you are at 10 then go to 20 and so on, And enjoy the journey. Moral of the story set a reasonable goal and when that becomes easy create a new more challenging goal.

Act – The first three steps are mental exercises but the fourth step action is where the rubber meets the road. lets get out a pen and some paper and put down in writing how many times a week your are going to exercise. Once again set a realistic goal and hold yourself accountable to it.

If your looking for some motivation on when to start maybe the last post about a tree will help you decide that right now is a pretty darn good time.

https://subjects2change.food.blog/2020/04/05/when-how-about-right-now/

Here are some ideas on where you might find some exercise..

Walking the neighborhood, looking for a little more of a challenge add a ruck from http://www.goruck.com or borrow your kids back pack (they aren’t using it anyways) and throw whats ever heavy in there and head out.

pull ups, push ups, crunches, burpees – all of the work with no added equipment. https://greatist.com/fitness/50-bodyweight-exercises-you-can-do-anywhere

yoga https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m756Gz8de4M

Resistance band – looking to make things a little more difficult. Here’s a complete gym for less then $20.00 https://www.amazon.com/resistance-bands/s?k=resistance+bands

BEFORE STARTING ANY EXERCISE PROGRAM PLEASE CONSULT WITH YOUR PHYSICIAN!!!!!

When? how about right now.

There’s an ancient Chinese proverb that says the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago and the second best time to plant a tree is right now.

How can today be the second best time? wouldn’t 19 years 364 days ago been a much better time then today to plant that tree. If you would have done it then you would already be sitting under that tree with a cold drink, reading a book and basking in the glorious shade it’s providing.

But alas we don’t have time machines and living in the past is for the dummies. We cant change what we have done or more importantly haven’t done in our pasts, and well that’s pretty darn important if you ask me. One of the two things I learned in college and actually use on the regular are, those who fail history are doomed to repeat it. In layman’s terms, learn from your mistakes dumb-dumb and don’t repeat them.

So with that being said NOW, RIGHT NOW is the second best time to go out and do something that’s going to pay off in the future. And quite possibly right now, in the middle of this epic dumpster fire of a global pandemic that we are all struggling through may be the best time in our life time to get out the shovel and start digging.

The Problem with trees.…

Is that you put one in the ground and you go out and water it every day for a couple of weeks and almost nothing happens. It hasn’t gotten much taller, there’s no fruit and the only thing getting some shade are the ants crawling around under neath it.

Things of great significance don’t change drastically over night they change little by little everyday, in fact most days its so insignificant that it doesn’t look like anything is happening at all. I don’t know about you but that’s pretty frustrating. I bought an orange tree because I was thirsty for juice now, not 5 years from now. It’s pretty easy to lose the drive to fertilize and nurture the tree when the grocery store down the street has a gallon of OJ cold and ready to go for just a couple of dollars.

I’m sure you’re thinking by now. Why are we still talking about trees? I don’t own a shovel or have the land to plant one in and for that matter who wants to get dirty.

Good because I have nothing else clever to say about them, so here’s the moral of the story…

Planting a tiny oak sapling and looking for shade is a lot like managing our health and well being, you are barging with the future. The decisions that we make today, tomorrow and so on will impact what happens to us in the future for better or worse. We can make wise choices and thrive and grow to our fullest potential or we can ignore the call and stunt our growth in the shadows of what could have been.

Call to action.

A lot of us are finding ourselves with extra time on our hands right now. Honestly I wish this wasn’t the case. This life right now is a nasty roller coaster and I’m ready to get off, but were stuck and might as well try and make the best of it.

Whats your big oak tree that you wish you would have planted 20 years ago? Is it better health, a shorter honey-do list,that book you’ve always wanted to write or maybe it’s just a simple ole shade tree.

Once you’ve decided what that tree looks like, stop imagining what it looks like and go grab the shovel and start planting. Set up some short term and mid range goals to measure your growth, this way you can see where you’ve been and where you are going.

Trust the process and one day you will find yourself under that tree drinking a glass of fresh squeezed O.J appreciating the work that you put in and being grateful that you started the project so long ago.

W.W.G.D.W.L aka What would grandma do with leftovers??

It’s never a great time to waste food but our current world situation makes it even more important to maximize the food we purchase or grow. The USDA estimates there is a 31% food loss at the retail level which equals out to 133 billion pounds or $161 billion dollars that we pitch right into trash every year. I had to bust out the big calculator to figure out the math on this one so here it goes, that equals out to just over $250.00 for every single person in America.

https://www.usda.gov/foodwaste/faqs

I’m not sure about you but the thought of throwing out a thousand dollars for my family of four makes me sick to my stomach. And on top of that the man hours, and natural resources that went into that head of cabbage is far to valuable to end up in a landfill.

While were on the topic of spending cabbage and saving it at the same time I’d like to offer up my westernized version of kimchi. I use regular ole green cabbage instead of Napa cabbage as its way less expensive and opt out of the room temperature fermentation phase.

My version of kimchi

Quarter of a large green cabbage cored and sliced thin
1 TBS of sea salt
3-4 cloves of grated garlic
1 tbs fresh grated ginger
1/4 TBS Fish Sauce – Not mandatory but it makes a huge difference.
1 TBS granulated sugar
1-2 Dry chili De Arbol
1 1/2 to 2 TBS Sambal
3-4 scallions finely sliced
1 TBS Sesame Seeds.
1 TBS Granulated Garlic

In a large mixing bowl add the cabbage and the sea salt. With your clean hands massage the cabbage for a few minutes and let it sit for 5-10 minutes, the goal here is to break down the cabbage a little bit.

In no particular order you can add all of the remaining ingredients and give it a couple of good stirs to incorporate all the ingredients.

I would practice caution when adding the fish sauce to this recipe as a little bit goes a really long way. A lot of supermarket chains now sell fish sauce but if you can’t find it there check out your towns local Asian market for this but be prepared to walk out with a lot of stuff you never thought existed. Also don’t get out of control with the heat level from the chili’s either, as this ages it will pick up a lot more heat.

Transfer the kimchi mix to a container that has an air tight lid and be sure to pack the container very tightly with the cabbage mix. Think 15lbs of stuff in a 10lb bag for this step. Pour over the remaining liquid and seal it up. Let it sit in the fridge for at least 1-2 days before eating.

I love to eat this just as it is or mix it into recipes like salmon cakes or fried rice for a huge flavor boost that wont add a ton of calories.

So lets all do our part this year and save the produce from the darkest recesses of our fridges and turn leftovers into the shining star of a dish. Our taste-buds, wallets and grandma’s will be so impressed with us.

who can change the world.

“One person can make a difference, and everyone should try.”

John F. Kennedy

So not to brag but I am an O.G Facebook user (15+years) not sure how proud of that I am but I figured I would put it out there. Today I got one of those memory posts that came across my feed from 9 years ago today and it was the above quote from JFK. I’ve always loved that quote, I just wish that I could remember why I posted it almost a decade ago.

Fast forward to today and that quote means more to me now then ever. We are in truly uncertain times right now and the stress of this global situation is weighing heavily on everyone, me included. I get busy with work, the kids, making dinner and then you see a news report about all the bars closing in your state for a month and then it hits you right in the gut again, this is going to be a long and bumpy ride.

The only thing that gives me solace in those low moments is that although limited we can have an impact on how this chapter of our life’s plays out over the rest of 2020. The actions that we take in this early phase of covid-19 could significantly speed up or slow down the spread of the virus. This is where you and I can make a difference and we rally need to put a little effort into this.

I have always believed two things when it comes to government. The divine sovereignty of the individual is the fundamental building block to western democracy. The second is to never follow blindly anything the government is trying to sell you, having a healthy level of skepticism helps keep things in check.

Now is not the right time to stand on those principals. If the federal government, CDC and your state at local government is asking for you to stay home and self isolate it’s not just to keep you out of a bar so you can keep your St Patrick’s day drinking to a minimum. They are doing it to slow down the exponential growth pattern that viruses like this one tend to follow. Just for a reference point here’s an exponential growth pattern.

2,4,8,16,32,64,128,256,512 and 1,024. Everything is pretty manageable in those first 5 iterations but it starts to get out of control really quickly in that last 5 of the sequence. Research on the virus has suggested that it doubles every 3 days, so that sequence above is 2 peoples impact played out over a period of a month.

I don’t know about you but I don’t want to be the person responsible for making 1,000 people sick in a month. If that means I can’t go to the beach or a restaurant for the foreseeable future I’m good with it. I want this thing to be over just as much as anyone right now so we can get back to “normal” its up to us how long it takes.

If we all fall in line and do as we have been asked maybe this thing blows over in a couple of weeks and everyone can tell me they were right and I was an idiot for being so worried. In fact I hope your right and I can take the insult, I’ve been called a lot worse then that in my life. But maybe we keep this rebellious streak working and the math starts to add up and were stuck in our houses until August then what?

Here is our chance to live the message. One person can make a difference and if we all try the results could be huge.

Curry red lentil Soup…

Maybe for once we can get right down to business on one of these recipes.

1 large onion diced
1 TBS olive oil
1 can of fire roasted diced tomatoes
1 “thumb” sized piece of ginger grated
3-4 cloves of garlic grated.
1 1/2 quarts of vegetable stock.
10z red lentils
1/2 brick of frozen chopped spinach
1 tbs ginger powder
1 1/2 tbs granulated garlic
1 can coconut milk

In a large soup pot or dutch oven heat the olive oil over medium heat and add your diced onion. cook for 4-5 minutes stirring often, we are looking for the onions to turn translucent. Add the whole can of diced tomatoes, be sure to use the juice as well, cook for an additional 2-3 minutes. Finely mince or use a micro plane to grate the ginger and garlic into the onion and tomato mixture, cook for another 2-3 minutes. Add the Vegetable stock and the lentils and cook for 40-45 minutes on a medium simmer or until the lentils are tender and starting to fall apart. You may need to add a little extra stock in the cooking process to keep the soup from getting to thick. You will need to stir the soup every couple of minutes to keep the lentils from sticking. In the last 10 minutes of the cooking process add the frozen spinach and allow it to come up to temperature. Add the granulated garlic and ginger at this stage along with the can of coconut milk. Once you add the coconut milk lower the burner to low and you can serve right away or let it sit at that temperature for 20-20 minutes.

Before service taste the soup and adjust seasoning to preference. I often serve ours with a drizzle of sriracha, a squeeze of fresh lime juice or some minced fresh cilantro.

How did I get Here?

Four years ago I knew I needed to make some changes in my life. I wasn’t eating very well, drinking a few to many double IPA’S and not getting enough exercise. After my son was born I took a big swing and promised myself that I would make some full sail changes in my life. Well that promise lasted a week or two and I was right back where I started.

I looked for some answers to help me on the path and they came in the form of podcasts. It started with one about surfing and I heard one of the most profound and simple explanations on nutrition Surf simply pod cast. Then my buddy Brad called me one day and said you have to check out Jocko Podcast and I learned how “discipline equals freedom” and I started to make some real changes in my life. Healthy eating, regular exercise and ownership became a regular occurrence. The tools that I learned from Jocko lead me to GORUCK where I learned to embrace the suck. GORUCK lead to ultra running and the East-coast trail running community where I learned to keep moving forward and the value of supporting your fellow athletes as it will give you the strength to keep pushing towards the finish line.

The path to where I am today has been paved by the collective wisdom learned over thousands of hours of listening to people who are further down the path then I am. The things I learned through the process where gentle nudges that helped me put the ship back on track.

I’m a lot healthier and happier now then I was four years ago and I did it by making small changes and sticking to them. The success of one change felt great and that lead to another and then another. Making a big change in your life is a lot like a shipping freighter trying to make a 180 degree turn. It can be done but both need to make a slow and gradual turn to keep everything from spilling overboard.

My goal with this blog is to be the bumpers in the bowling lane of life, a gentle nudge and hopefully a pearl of wisdom here and there that will help you down the path you are looking to travel. Our journey together will also help me to be the best version of my self as well, and for that I am forever grateful. I didn’t get to where I am today alone, my wife, kids, parents, church and friends have helped mold me into the more complete version of who I am today.

I have a lot more to learn and together you and I can maybe change the world that we live in.

Here’s a few we could be working on together…

Sit down at the table at least once a week and share a meal without the TV or Radio on.

Go for a walk after dinner. You will burn off more calories thanks to the thermic effective of food.

Work on finding a community to belong to. You will make like minded friends that can encourage you to stay on the path.

Go meatless for at least 1 dinner this week and then next week you can try for the whole day.

Listen to a podcast or an audio book for at least one drive this week. Podcasts are free and you will be surprised how much you can learn.

Some of my favorites are the Jocko Podcast, The Jordan B Peterson Podcast, 3of7project pocast and the Rich Roll Podcast. Those 4 alone should keep you busy for the next decade.

Cream of Broccoli soup. Don’t tell anyone its vegan.

Remember how I said I disliked bloggers who gave you a short story about there day before giving you the recipe? Yep I do to, I promise that I’m not going to make this a habit but this ones to good to not talk about.

This is a 100% factual account of a conversation with my wife today. Me – hows it going? Wife – Good,about to leave work. Do you have the kid or should I go get him? Me – doesn’t really matter, I’m working on dinner but can leave. Wife – Okay, I am going to leave shortly and go get him. Me – sounds good. Wife. Whats for dinner? Me – Cream of Broccoli soup, but is vegan!! Wife. Urgh, that sounds horrible. Me, Okay, love you. Wife. Love you to.

Vegan Cream of Broccoli soup.

4-5 ribs of celery diced

1 onion diced

2 quarts of vegetable stock

4-5 garlic cloves

3 large or 12-15 baby yukon gold potatoes

1 head of broccoli

1 can of cannellini beans – drained and rinse

1 tbs salt free seasoning blend

2 cups of non dairy milk. we used oat milk.

Rough chop the onion and celery and toss into a large soup pot. Add a quart and a half of the vegetable stock, garlic cloves, potatoes, (if using large potatoes cube these into bite sized pieces to speed up the cooking process) and turn the stove top onto a medium high simmer.

Take the stem off of the broccoli crown and chop into bite sized pieces and add to the pot on the stove. check for the potatoes about 20-25 minutes into cooking to see if the are fork tender. You may need a longer cooking time according to the size of your potatoes. Once tender rinse the cannellini beans and add them to the pot.

Meanwhile rough chop the broccoli crown, you’re going for a variety of sizes here so you will have some texture in the final product. Transfer to the soup pot and cook for 5-7 minutes or until these are tender as well.

Blending the soup. You can either use an immersion blender or a traditional blender for the next step. Just be careful not to over fill your blender with warm liquids as you will end up with a HUGE MESS on your hands! You have been warned. You will probably need to do this in batches. I was able to do it in two batches and blended the soup for about 10 seconds each time. You are looking for a creamy texture while still having little chunks of broccoli swimming around.

Once blended add it back to the soup pot and add the two cups of non dairy milk and bring up to temp over medium low heat. 2-3 minutes. If the soup is a little thick you can add more stock or “milk” if its to thin let it cook for a few more minutes so it can reduce.

We served this with a crusty loaf of bread for dipping.

So to wrap up my rant from the start of this recipe. A few bites into dinner my wife says to our son ” Hey, you’re really going to like this. Dada made some pretty awesome soup tonight. Don’t tell people its vegan until they’ve had a few bites is my new mantra.

Veggies!! Its whats for dinner.

It drives me crazy when you’re looking for dinner ideas on the interwebs and you see something that looks good and then it turns into this… It all started one summer day when I was at the farmers market and I saw the most amazing free range, organic heirloom tomato, blah blah blah so on and so forth. Five page later your not sure if you are reading a novel or a recipe.

Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. To start with I’m not a chef or a dietitian but I am very passionate about cooking and putting a healthy meal on the table for my family. With that being said taste as you go and if you think it needs a little more of one thing and a little less of another feel free to get creative. This dish is well suited to adding and omitting veggies that you have on hand. For instance I had a half bag of frozen cubed butternut squash hanging out in the freezer, so in it went.

Roasted Eggplant and Veggie “Lasagna“

2 large or 4 small eggplants

3 yellow squash, 3 zucchini, 2 medium red onions.

1tbs olive oil

2 cans 16oz tomato pulp, preferably something that is already seasoned with garlic and basil (Crushed tomatoes can also work.)

1 can fire roasted tomatoes, drain off the liquid

5 cloves of garlic minced

2tbs garlic powder

2tbs italian seasoning

1 tbs fennel seeds

1/2 bag of frozen butternut squash

1 brick of frozen spinach

9z* of whole wheat pasta in your favorite shape. * dry measurement, before cooking

1/2 cup panko bread crumbs

1/2 cup almonds

optional items

1/2 cup of goat cheese

1/4 fresh shredded Parmesan cheese

step one. With a paring knife prick the skin on the eggplants a few times and place on a baking sheet in the oven at 375 degrees for 30-40 minutes depending on size. you are looking for them to have a tight skin but soft and tender on the inside. You can step up your game on this and cook them on your grill, just set them on the grate away from indirect heat. transfer to a large mixing bowl and cover with a plate or film wrap and allow to steam until cool.

step two. dice your yellow squash, zucchini and slice the onions into bite sized pieces. over a medium high heat add the olive oil and the veggies and saute the veggies for 7-10 minutes or until tender and lightly browned, keep the veggies moving pretty consistently. Add the minced garlic and cook for 1 minute. lower the heat to medium low and add the two cans of tomato pulp, 1 can of diced tomatoes, (liquid drained off) frozen spinach and the butternut squash. cook on the stove top for at least ten minutes or until the sauce begins to thicken. Once cooled take the skin off of your eggplants and transfer the “meat” to the sauce. Add the Italian seasoning, garlic powder and fennel seeds and cook for a few more minutes.

While the sauce is cooking bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook the pasta to about 75% fully cooked and drain off the liquid. I’ve used penne, cavatapi and rustichine aka mini lasagna noodles in past iterations of this dish and they have all come out great.

assembly. In a 13×9 oven proof casserole add a few spoonfuls of the veggie mixture. top that with half of your cooked pasta. If your cool with dairy this is where I would sprinkle on the goat cheese, vegan cheese is cool here as well if you wish. The next layers are as follows, Tomato veggie mixture, pasta, and then the remaining tomato veggie mixture. From here you can transfer directly to the oven and bake or for better results let it hang out for a couple of hours or overnight to let all the flavors enhance.

Before baking take the 1/2 cup of almonds and crush them, you can use a food processor for this but I prefer the hammer method. Put the almonds in a bag wrap it in a towel and go to town releasing some of the days pent up aggression. Mix the crushed almonds and panko together in a bowl.

Place in the center of a preheated 375 degree oven and bake until bubbling and heated through. cooking time will vary on the initial starting temp of your lasagna but should be anywhere from 20-40 minutes to cook through. Half way through the cooking process sprinkle over the panko and almond mixture. In the last few minutes of baking you can add the shredded Parmesan cheese and give it enough time to melt. For best plate presentation allow to sit out for about 10 minutes before cutting and serving. Ideally this would be served with some kind of spring mix or kale salad with lots of fruits, veggies, seeds and nuts for added flavor and texture.

Is this veggie lasagna as good as Nona Maria’s classic meat and cheese laden lasagna? I think they are pretty close, but one things for certain you cold eat 2-3 times the potion size and probably still come out ahead when it comes to calories consumed.

Love, the working persons verb.

Early on in the Super Bowl you may have noticed a commercial with some weird words about love in Greek, it wasn’t very flashy or funny at all but it was a very powerful message that may have gone widely unnoticed.

The English Language is pretty amazing in a lot of regards but is confusing and completely misses the mark in a lot of ways. Words like witch and which or there and their sound the same but have different meanings, how is it possible that something as important and complex as love only gets one?

The Greeks had four separate and very distinct definitions for love and if you were paying attention in the Super Bowl you may recognize some of these…

Eros – Romantic love. This is the type of love I think most of us think of when we hear the word.

Storge – Love of your family. This is feeling of bonding that you have for your Mom, Dad and siblings.

Philia – Brotherly love. Ever wonder how Philadelphia got the nickname the city of brotherly love? This is the love that grows from friendship and camaraderie.

Agape – The fourth and greatest kind of love is a selfless, unconditional and sacrificial kind of love. This has been best explained to me by one of the motto’s of our church. Willing the good upon others and acting upon it. Thanks Father Phil you are amazing!!

So now you know at least four words in ancient Greek and maybe that side of this blog will pay off in your next round of bar room trivia. What i’m really hoping that you take away from this is that its okay to spread the love around. We’ve always needed it and maybe now its needed more then ever.

We often hand out the superficial thumbs up or the heart on our social media posts but what are we really doing to spread real love to those people in our community? It’s pretty darn easy to answer the question from the cashier at the store, “fine” how are you today? without giving it any genuine effort or really caring what the answer is. I know I’m guilty of throwing out lack luster effort plenty of times in this situation. Now I’m not suggesting the check out line is the time or place to have a 15 minute conversation about the challenges of life but greeting someone with a genuine smile and a dedication to being present and maybe sneaking in a question could make a huge difference in their day and the customers to follow.

Call to action… Love is not a sit around kind of word, you have to go out and spread it around. Here’s the good news though, it isn’t very difficult and it will make someone else feel better and you will as well. Here’s a few things we can do that take less then a minute to accomplish. Talk to a stranger, pull up a neighbors trash can, hold the door open for someone or bring your shopping cart back can spread a little love around.

I’m going to work on these for the next month or so and I challenge you to spread some love in these ways as well. Once we’ve mastered these were both moving on to bigger and better things like serving at the local homeless shelter where our new found Agape can really make a difference.

The people are the best part

About a month I ran in the Hellcat 50k at Historic Lee Field in Green Cove Springs Florida. The race is put on by the military museum of north Florida and features 5 loops around the airfield, in the grand scheme of trail races its not the hardest but the significance of the venue makes it pretty awesome.

I’m not going to focus much on the actual race in this post but more on a gentlemen that I was lucky enough to spend several hours with and some of the lessons that I will take away from this run in the woods.

The first loop I mostly ran by myself I was between the lead pack and the second group of runners. To be honest I was proud of myself that I stuck to the planned pace and didn’t run with the lead group as I’m sure that would have lead to some disastrous results.

On the start of lap two this guy looks at me and says “lets go” and off we went for about 15 miles. After some small talk about the day, races we had run and wanted to run he tells me that he’s 57 years old and that this is his 120th race of marathon distance or longer. Ultra events are great for putting you back in your place, just as soon as you think your’e pretty cool someone 20 years older then you drops an accomplishment bomb like that and your’r right back to newbie territory. But wait it gets even better the last 100 marathons were after being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Exercising for 5+ hours is seriously difficult on your body and trying to stay fueled for optimal performance is difficult to say the least with a fully functioning endocrine system. This mans dedication to running and fitness was truly inspiring.

We discussed life, philosophy, jobs, raising kids and all sorts of other topics along the way until I eventually had to walk for a bit during the fourth lap due to a little bit of over heating. fortunately the next mile or so was shaded and the aid station had plenty of waters and a much needed banana and I was back to running strong for the remaining 7-8 miles leaving me with a finishing time of 6:12 putting me in the top third of finishers.

Now we can get to the moral of the story… life throws a lot of obstacles in our way, some are pretty small and easy to overcome like getting a little to hot on a run others like diabetes are massive boulders that can stop us dead in our tracks. This guy was a runner prior to what the doctors told him 100 marathons ago, he didn’t quit he just figured out how to overcome the extra challenges that were going to be placed in front of him and he made it happen.

We could and often fine the reasons to complain about any number of bad situations that get placed in front of us every single day or to paraphrase Scott Worthington, race Director of the Revenant ultra race. https://www.revenant.co.nz/

” complaining sounds like a lot like failing to find the solution to the problem that you are currently facing.”