Iron Cowboy

I just watched Iron Cowboy...

Not that you need my life story, but to impress on you the importance of what this story just did for me, I must start with mine!

On June 12, 2013, three days before my first half ironman distance race I received a dreaded phone call from my doctor. The staff member on the other end of the line asked me if I wanted to wait until my doctor's appointment in two weeks for the results of my testing or get my results over the phone. I asked to receive them over the phone. She spent time confirming my identity and then told me what I had suspected from my first appointment with the neurologist... She said, I'm really sorry I have to tell you this, but you do have Multiple Sclerosis.

That was the first day of my new life and I had a choice... Show up for 70.3 miles on Sunday, or wallow in this new information. You see, many years before this, in 2003 to be exact, I did my first sprint distance triathlon. I was grossly over weight, barely trained for the run, and miraculously finished the race. This cycle continued for several years, and for some reason in 2009 I decided to change my narrative by getting healthy. I took losing weight off the table, although I joined weight watchers to learn how to eat better, and focused on getting healthy. I wanted to spend the next three years working on improving each sport in triathlon. I was a strong swimmer so I didn't worry about that too much and focused my first year on cycling. I rode my bike, and rode it a little more, and then a little more. I threw in a sprint distance triathlon, but primarily rode my way through life that year. 

2010 had to be my year for running, so I did just that. I signed up for a half marathon and found this insane love of running. I do want to say that elitists of the sport scoff when I called my 13 minute miles running, but this is where my empathy kicks in. Much like the Iron Cowboy's experience with people devaluing his 505050 because he used the elliptical for one of his marathons, people cringed at my delight over finishing my first half marathon. I couldn't stop with a half, so I went on to run a full in 2011. 

You see, all of this focus on a specific sport was leading up to the ultimate goal of one day doing an Olympic distance triathlon (or whatever the current term is). In 2012 I signed up and was so excited for this race that I over trained and ended up with a stress fracture. I thought I was done, but with a little determination, and an elliptical trainer, I got myself healthy enough to be released to start running and participate in the triathlon CAREFULLY. That was my doctor's word. I was lucky that my doctor was an avid runner himself and his first love was sports medicine. He would always encourage me to keep running, and in fact told me after I was diagnosed with MS that I could become an ultra runner for all he cared, as long as I kept moving. 

So, he and I were both surprised when I walked in his office in 2013 complaining of a numb tongue, electric back, twitching eyelid (and I mean never stopped for 2 years), lack of coordination, tingling in my hands and feet, loss of words when trying to speak and memory loss, oh the memory loss. I told him I was scared to talk about all of these symptoms because I didn't want him to think I was crazy... So what was his first reaction? He chalked the eyelid up to stress until I told him it had been doing that for two years. He talked about the memory loss and word loss as stress as well. When I started talking about tingling, falling, tripping, loss of balance, etc. He decided it was time for a neurologist, who I affectionately call my brain doctor.

Ironically, when all of this doctoring started I was in the best shape of my life. I mean, I was training for a half ironman for goodness sake, so I couldn't understand why the endorphins and serotonin and all that science stuff wasn't making my memory 'sharper'. Must have just been crazy!

After a few month process I had a name for my crazy. My crazy was MS and at first I actually wished my diagnosis was 'crazy' rather than MS because my vision of the disease was wheelchairs, walkers, canes, and depends. (Let's not talk about which of those tools I have used from time to time since diagnosis.)

So you may be asking at this point, where is all of this going? Well, as I mentioned earlier, I got the dreaded phone call from my doctor's office just three days before my first half ironman. I had to do it. My sister, one of my biggest cheerleaders, was doing it, too. It was both of our first. She knew I could do it, but I wasn't sure that I could emotionally do it. I made the 9 hour drive, jumped in the frigid lake and swam. I found my medicine in that race. I swam, I rode, and then I did some sort of moving two legs across the earth to get me to the finish line. I'm not sure what I was doing, but I did it. 8 hours and 20 minutes later I emerged from the woods as the last standing athlete of the day. My brother in law and his friends, who all finished several hours before me, were there. They waited. The minute I saw these people who I knew for one day, running toward me to cheer me on, I knew I had just done something spectacular. My hard!!!

Over the next several months I learned more about MS, some of my symptoms worsened, my sister told me not to settle for the sideline, and I didn't. I kept moving, until one day I didn't...

My last big accomplishment was in 2017. That same sister who has always encouraged my athletic pursuits sent me a simple text: I signed up for the Chicago Marathon. My immediate response was: I'm in. What I didn't realize at the time is she didn't just sign up, she signed up as a charity runner for the Multiple Sclerosis Society. I found my way to the website, filled out the registration form and then told another one of my friend's about the race and I believe she was signed up about 20 minutes later. We had a team. A team of three individuals who lived in different locations, ran different paces, but were all going to support eachother and get to the finish line of this marathon. We did! Some more painfully than others (heat and I are not friends). We celebrated, and that was it...

And I mean it... That was it! That was my last significant athletic pursuit, except for the MS 150 that turned into an MS 60 due to my limited training, and weather cancellation of the second day.

Other then that this is what I have accomplished since my marathon:

• I moved from Ohio to Wisconsin for a fabulous job
• I had my gallbladder removed and found myself on the wrong side of the statistics related to complications
• I learned that the very job I moved for was going to be eliminated (but so was my old job)
• And I gained 60 pounds

That list could go on, but then it would simply sound like 'whoa is me'. I'm not going to say that because I know, and have always known, that I can take control of my life if I choose to, but deciding to face THE HARD is a real thing. Knowing what is right for you doesn't make that first step easier, so here I sit, about to lose my job, 60 pounds heavier, salivating at every runner and cyclist who pass my house wanting to become that again, but my God, the work it is going to take to get me there. I haven't been able to find it in me to take that first step. I've tried several times, but it hasn't stuck. I have to make the choice and seek out the stuck...

Many years ago, when I found my love for running, I found a book that propelled me forward. The book is Run the Edge by Tim Catalano and Adam Goucher. I'm not sure if I liked it and them because they went to my alma mater or because they were cute, but the one thing I know now is that their one major tag line could resonate with anyone... Make someday today... Think about how many times a person says someday, and if we say it for life, well that someday will never come.

And then I watched this movie...

That which I am pushing off is seemingly impossible, but that is because it is hard. Because of this story, I find myself knowing that I need to "redefine impossible", face what is hard, and "make someday today."

This is what this story has done for me. Typically I would be saying to myself, I'll get my stuff pulled together tomorrow so I can start on Sunday. Screw that!!! I'm going to pull my stuff together today so I can start today!!!

Despite MS, despite it seeming impossible, I will rise again!!!

Iron Cowboy, thank you for that!

Sarah

PS. Check out the movie on Netflix. It was a random find, was not recommended, and I have never met this dude... But if I did, I would say thank you!