Tour de Life

In 2005 I got pertussis, also known as whooping cough. It knocked me out of pretty much all physical activity after spending every day barfing multiple times a day, messing up the cartilage in my rib cage and eventually breaking a rib. During the worst of it, it took me 10 minutes to walk one city block. As the sickness finally went away, I was, um, coerced – yes, coerced is probably the best word – into running with some of my co-workers. I made it oh, about ½ mile before I wanted to die, but I did eventually finish out the first mile. I then walked until the real runners met back up with me on their way back to complete their 5 miles.

Despite that first experience in 2005, I worked hard and established a fairly regular running schedule. In late 2006, again after some, um, persuasion by others, I decided to train for a marathon. Through the next few months of training I battled through another cough/cartilage episode, flare-ups of several newly discovered bulging discs in my neck, and nodular scabies that resulted in 2 trips to the hospital. Despite all those interesting distractions, I finally made it to the last big week of training before a 3 week taper. On June 2, 2007, I ran 22 miles and felt fantastic! But as it turned out, all was not well. Just as I was finishing the last few seconds of that amazing run I suddenly stopped because I thought I’d just been stung by a bee on my inner ankle. Several hours later I couldn’t walk at all, both ankles having seized up. I learned later that the problem stemmed from tendonitis of the posterior tibialis tendons, the inner ankle tendons, on both ankles.

On June 5, 3 days after that amazing run, I was lying on the physical therapist’s table having medicine slowly injected into my completely crippled tendons and ankles, quietly crying to myself. How could this have happened? Why me? After all that careful and thoughtful training I did, how did I break? I was 3 weeks from my race and still held a small bit of belief that I could get well enough to run, but it was while lying there on the table that the reality and the gravity of the situation hit me. I remember my therapist yelling at me to “keep positive!” For a generally positive person, such as myself, I decided that the therapist was right and that I could “positive” my way back into the race. So for the next couple of weeks I spent every ounce of energy I had willing myself to heal.

About one week before the race, I finally had to concede that it just wasn’t going to happen and called to cancel my place in the race. I felt so empty that day, and whatever amount of positiveness I’d managed to muster disappeared instantly. With the race gone, I tried to focus on healing during the next few months. I experienced heartbreaks again and again as I continued to try to get well enough to run more than 30 seconds on the treadmill, but after failing time and time again, I had nothing left to draw from anymore; I had no inspiration to keep trying. What was it all for anyway? Why did I spend all those months of training, pushing my body to limits it had never before realized, ripping my feet apart, and obsequiously submitting to this positive thinking thing, which ended up only being half-hearted anyway? And the biggest mystery to me of all: why did my therapist, who is actually an anti-runner and absolute realist, encourage me to keep positive when he probably already knew that day that I’d never run that race? Was he really that cruel? I’ve been heartbroken in my life, but this was far worse than anything I’d ever felt before. I wasn’t just heartbroken, but also physically broken. I also knew that not one single person in the whole world could possibly feel or understand what it was like to be me at this time, which only made me feel worse.

And then Andy Roddick unexpectedly lost a heartbreaking 5-setter to Richard Gasquet in the quarterfinal at Wimbledon 2007, and my whole perspective changed. Here are Andy’s comments after his loss: “I’ll probably wake up tomorrow with a better sense of perspective. I’m sitting here feeling pretty crappy right now. But I promise you I’m aware in the grand scheme of things I’m still pretty blessed and very lucky and very fortunate. That being said, you know, when you put your blood, sweat and tears, everything you have into something, and you can almost taste it, you envision something and it doesn’t work out, it’s not easy. But that’s what makes you addicted to the competition, you know, is the feeling when you do win. That’s what gets you back on the horse.” Wow, I thought. Somebody really does understand, and a world-class athlete at that!!! Rather than just putting on a happy face and saying “better luck next time” he got right down to it about how much it hurt. But he also remembered to express his gratitude for what he had in his life and how his past positive experiences would help him be strong enough to get “back on the horse” and try harder the next time.

Over the last couple of years since my initial injury, I’ve had further ups and downs, including breaking an ankle that was already compromised by a re-flared-up tendon. But I remembered what Andy said. I remembered to focus on the things I was grateful for– the fact that I could actually walk at all, much less run, the fact that I had accomplished so much even though I never got to run the race, the fact that there WERE people out there who understood what I felt. But even more importantly, I finally understood what my realistic, anti-runner therapist meant when he said “keep positive!” It wasn’t an admonition to will myself to run the race or to wish everything was easy again, but to be strong enough to accept the reality of my situation, no matter how challenging or negative, and work with it to make me stronger.

Since this realization, I’ve paid particular attention to other athletes and how they’ve dealt with challenges. A few examples from this past Summer– The 20th (and penultimate) stage of this year’s Tour de France had the riders climbing up Mont Ventoux (see above picture), the highest point in the Provence area. This would include a 1,912 meter climb with 7-12% grades to the summit of the mountain. As stated on one website, “never in the history of the event has a mountain been on the programme the day before the finish in Paris. . . . Whatever the lead of the rider wearing the Yellow Jersey, he will have to face the Tour’s toughest climb with fear and humility.” I was so amazed and inspired by the riders as they conquered fatigue and difficult race conditions, including the most crowds ever at a single TDF Stage, to conquer this mountain. At the conclusion of that stage, I felt like ANYTHING was possible no matter what obstacles and setbacks came my way. One week later, on August 1, I watched Michael Phelps win the 200m butterfly in Rome in record-breaking fashion, just one year after doing the same in Beijing. Michael’s post-Olympic activities have been well-publicized. He certainly went from some very high highs to very low lows, including taking a 6 month break from racing to deal with his personal problems. Phelps’ Beijing record had been broken during one of the qualifiers in Rome, so what did Michael do? He jumped in the pool and broke the record right back. And finally, on September 14, an unlikely Argentine tennis player named Juan Carlos del Potro, down 2 sets and facing match point against the No. 1 ranked player in the world Roger Federer, fought back and WON the U.S. Open championship in New York!! I think I cried.

And so, while this post is focused on sports stories, you see and read stories like these in all walks of life. We all face many challenges and setbacks in our lives, and we can justifiably be angry and depressed over it to the point where we just want to give up. Or, as these athletes and so many others have demonstrated, we can choose to“keep positive,” to be grateful for what we do have, to acknowledge the challenges and the harsh reality of our given situation, and then make it work for us to make us stronger and, ultimately, find joy in this our Tour de Life.