Disney Employee Engagement Speaker
Five daily blogs about life's 5 big choices on five different sites.
Three simple exercise tips we can all do to make exercise a more important part of our lives:
Simple. But simple doesn’t mean easy. Most likely, whatever you want to accomplish with your health and exercise goals, is well, impossible. Which is perfect. Carpe diem.
Not as in running, jogging, sprinting. On the run as in a hurry.
Spent four days in Anchorage, Alaska and did not exercise. Not by choice.
Got back late last night early this morning. There is no exercising this morning either. Five straight days without exercise. I feel the pain of everyone who struggles to make physical wellness a priority.
There is no easy way.
Well, actually, there is an easy way – simply don’t worry about it until the phone rings, “Excuse me, it’s for you. It’s your wake up call”.
Last night I could barely walk. Foot pain. Left heel. Why? Not sure.
Some of you know I represented the United States at the 2009 Masters Track & Field World Championships in Lahti, Finland. The first week of August seems like so long ago, when in fact, it wasn’t. Since then, I’ve completely tapered off on training. Completely.
So why the pain?
What is amazing to me, and something I tried to hide in the Lane 8 blog posts before traveling to Finland, is that I was actually able to compete at all.
“Then why put yourself through all this”?, is a common question. Roger Bannister, the first human to break the four-minute mile barrier, said it best:
“I sometimes think that running has given me a glimpse of the greatest freedom a man can ever know, because it results in the simultaneous liberation of both the mind and body….. The runner does not know how or why he runs. He only knows that he must run….. We run, not because it is doing us good, but because we enjoy it and cannot help ourselves”. — Roger Bannister 1956
Skipping a day of exercise is an easy thing to do. In fact, it’s actually one of the easiest things to do. How do I know? Because I did it yesterday.
It was easy.
Just don’t go to the gym. How hard is that? It’s not.
However, the intent was to pick up our son at school and head to Gold’s Gym like we commonly do. The reason I really wanted to go is because I hadn’t been in four days.
Too much time in between workouts does several things:
Skipping a day of exercise is an easy thing to do. When it comes to taking care of yourself, are you an example or a warning?
Confused? Yes.
In pain? Yes.
Why?
That’s what is confusing. Why is the left foot pain returning?
It’s always something isn’t it? There’s always something that is in front of us that tempts us to want to stop doing what we know we can’t stop doing.
Always has been. Always will be. Getting so impatient with this that a cortisone shot is looking very tempting – cortisone is something I swore I wouldn’t do.
Yet my podiatrist and I agreed, in March, that we should try one shot.
Now I’m seriously thinking about a second. Remember, I swore I’d never do a single shot. Now I’m thinking about a second. Good luck with your temptations today.