Saving Change to Create Change

It's December 20th and today is the day the PVHS Foundation launches the Save Change to Create Change campaign to raise money for building the Poudre Valley Cancer Center.

December 20th is also a special day for me. It's my dad's birthday. I want to thank him for being a great example of generosity, positive energy, focus, and drive. He is the most highly self-motivated person I've ever known and I'm sure I get my ability to run ultras from him.

It's the day before solstice, and there's only one day to go until the days start getting longer. For now, it's dark outside most of the time, and it's a good time for contemplation and review of the past year, and for thinking about hopes and dreams for the coming year.

As I'm preparing to run around the track at the end of each year, I'm reflecting on a list of meditations for my Across the Years race. What have I learned this year? How can I be better next year?

Looking back, I learned a lot this year. I suffered some pain, but I also grew from the experiences. Things came into sharper focus as a result. I learned that I should have trusted my gut a lot more than I did, and spoken louder than I did. I left myself vulnerable, but I'm glad I did in a way because in that vulnerability I learned the lessons I needed to learn.

And as a result of the actions I took from those lessons, I am in a much better place now in so many aspects of my life. I know I can be better next year, and make more of a positive impact.

Make your new years resolution count in 2011 by making a positive impact.



What better gift could you give? If you have influenced someone else in a positive way, then you have made a positive impact. A thousand small acts, like pennies, all add up to something big.

Guided by some basic values, we can influence others in good ways. The principles of integrity, equality, community, simplicity, and peace are the ones I like to start with. They are building blocks, as well as things in which to strive for improvement. Here is what this means to me:

To the greatest degree that you can, practice

integrity: be true to who you are and genuine in all your interactions with others

equality: no one person is better than another, we are all of equal value as human beings, and each of us brings a unique presence and gift to this world, the actions we each take will make our mark on the world and other people's lives

community: remember that everyone is a part of a community, or several, which are all connected

simplicity: less is more, take only what you need and share with others who have less

peace: be aware of your presence in the world and how it impacts others, be kind, be quiet, and listen first, think before speaking, but speak out loud when it makes a difference

At Across the Years, as we circle the track around Nardini Manor, we will all be united in the event and sharing a common goal, to cover as many miles as possible in the time we have chosen to run, 24, 48, or 72 hours. I can't think of a sporting event that better exemplifies these principles.

My goal at Across the Years
is to run at least 150 miles. If enough people donated a penny per mile, it could add up quickly. My running partner said she'd give a quarter a mile. I've been dumping my loose change into an old coffee can and I'll donate that.

I challenge everyone reading this to make a New Years resolution of generosity, making a big impact through something small, by contributing some loose change to the PVH Foundation Cancer Building Fund, to build something that will bring wellness to this community. Small steps, small things that add up and make a big difference.

My favorite suggestion for donations: Consider donating an extra dollar per each mile I go over my goal.

The following part of this blogpost is a modified version of an earlier post I wrote on September 25, 2010:

Some simple guidelines for the coming year: Be Kind, Be Well, Be Generous.

Kindness

"Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up"- Jesse Jackson

Remember the power of a small thoughtful act, like a thank you, a word of appreciation, even something as small as a smile, eye contact, or acknowledging someone else's presence. Small things make a big impact.

Make an effort every day to acknowledge people, thank them for the things they do, make eye contact and smile when it's genuine and appropriate.

Wellness

"I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something...I will not refuse to do the something I can do"- Helen Keller

When I talk about wellness, everyone thinks I mean running. Any exercise is a huge part of my own wellness. It's important to move your body, to keep the blood circulating, to bring oxygen and fresh nutrients to your muscles and organs. For me, moving forward boosts my creativity. I put in as many miles walking as I do running.

If I'm struggling with a problem, and I go for a run, even if I don't actively or consciously think about the problem while I'm running, I usually end up solving it after the run, or at least I have a better approach. The same thing happens if I go for a walk.

There is something about the forward, rhythmic motion of moving through the air, arms and legs pumping, that turns the wheels in my head and gets it all going. I find it hard to think when I'm sitting still. I challenge everyone to find ways to add self-propelled forward motion. For example, walking to the little grocery store in my neighborhood instead of driving to the big supermarket. It takes less time to make the round-trip on foot, I timed it.

There are so many ways to make changes in our lives, but to make change last, you have to start small. Take small steps, and achieve success with those, before taking bigger steps. It's a process, but even if you make one small change in the direction of wellness next year, it's a success.

Success builds on success and you will learn that it is possible to make lasting, positive changes. Then it becomes easier to take the next step.

Generosity

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step"- Lao-Tzu

Don't underestimate the importance of a penny. It's a small thing by itself, not much value, but like any small thing in numbers, they add up to something big. When I do speaking engagements, often I tell the audience that success builds on success. One small thing each day. A series of small steps add up to something big. Sixteen hundred steps in a mile. One hundred sixty thousand of them in a 100 mile run.

A penny by itself is only a cent. One hundred fifty pennies is a dollar fifty. If a thousand people give a dollar fifty, that makes $1500. Loose change can do a lot.


Save change to create change, and start moving forward now!

Small Things

Zero times anything is nothing. One times anything is something.

It's not quite October and the leaves are still mostly green, but I'm already thinking about next year. I'm excited about my race over New Years and the prospect of running Badwater again next year.

I'm thinking about next year, and how I want it to be different, what I can do to make it different. I'm already formulating my New Year's resolutions.

The first half of this year was tough and painful for me. It wasn't until this summer when things turned around. I've been healing from a big disappointment, and I'm moving through it, but I need to find a way to take lessons from it and continue to turn it around to my advantage.

I want to take the things that made my life particularly difficult this past year, or themes that kept repeating themselves, and the lessons I learned from those, and make sure that I am living up to what I believe in.

Those are simple: Be Kind, Be Well, Be Generous.

Kindness

"Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up"- Jesse Jackson

Remember the power of a small thoughtful act, like a thank you, a word of appreciation, even something as small as a smile, eye contact, or acknowledging someone else's presence. Small things make a big impact.

At times I've been too trusting, too forgiving, too patient. I've been willing to give a few people far too many chances to prove to me that they were just having a bad day, or they didn't really mean it. Despite how much it hurt, I still believe that most people are well-intentioned and really don't get up in the morning thinking about who they can hurt today and how to do it.

I have had to let go of my pain, and at the same time understand that there are some people who just simply don't know how to be nice, don't have empathy, and cannot possibly, not in any small way, get inside someone else's head and life and begin to imagine how their actions might affect that person, nor do they care.

I make an effort every day to acknowledge people, thank them for the things they do, make eye contact and smile when it's appropriate, which happens to be most of the time. Even though it is routine for me to do this, I know how important it can be on the receiving end, and I challenge myself to be aware of that. I also need to speak up about unkindnesses, and know when not to keep my mouth shut.

Wellness

"I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something...I will not refuse to do the something I can do"- Helen Keller

When I talk about wellness, everyone thinks I mean running. Any exercise is a huge part of my own wellness. It's important to move your body, to keep the blood circulating, to bring oxygen and fresh nutrients to your muscles and organs. For me, moving forward boosts my creativity. I put in as many miles walking as I do running.

If I'm struggling with a problem, and I go for a run, even if I don't actively or consciously think about the problem while I'm running, I usually end up solving it after the run, or at least I have a better approach. The same thing happens if I go for a walk.

There is something about the forward, rhythmic motion of moving through the air, arms and legs pumping, that turns the wheels in my head and gets it all going. I find it hard to think when I'm sitting still. I challenge everyone to find ways to add forward motion. For example, walking to the little grocery store in my neighborhood instead of driving to the big supermarket. It takes less time to make the round-trip on foot, I timed it.

There are so many ways to make changes in our lives, but to make change last, you have to start small. Take small steps, and achieve success with those, before taking bigger steps. It's a process, but even if you make one small change in the direction of wellness next year, it's a success.

Success builds on success and you will learn that it is possible to make lasting, positive changes. Then it becomes easier to take the next step.

Generosity

"The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step"- Lao-Tzu

Don't underestimate the importance of a penny. It's a small thing by itself, not much value, but like any small thing, they add up to something big. When I do speaking engagements, often I tell the audience that success builds on success. One small thing each day. A series of small steps add up to something big. Sixteen hundred steps in a mile. One hundred sixty thousand of them in a 100 mile run.

A penny by itself is only a cent. One hundred fifty pennies is a dollar fifty. If a thousand people give a dollar fifty, that makes $1500. Loose change can do a lot.

My goal at Across the Years is to run 150 miles. If enough people donated a penny per mile, it could add up quickly. My running partner said she'd give a quarter a mile. I've been dumping my loose change into an old coffee can and I'll donate that.

I challenge everyone reading this to make a New Year's resolution of generosity, making a big impact through something small, by contributing some loose change to the PVHS Foundation Cancer Building Fund, to build something that will bring wellness to this community. Small steps, small things that add up and make a big difference.

160,000 Steps Closer

This past week I listened to an amazing story.

I attend a local cancer support group fairly regularly, which I joined early this year for two reasons. One, I thought I might be able to learn from listening to the experiences of cancer survivors, their caregivers, families and friends, as I was interested in making a move into oncology nursing, and also, I thought I might learn something that I could use to help my own family members who have been affected by cancer.

This past week the guest speaker was a physician, a surgeon who is a cancer survivor. Without going into great detail, I can say that his story really touched me for several reasons. One was that the audience, mostly lay people without medical training, were listening to a surgeon, and a good number of them were his patients. People tend to place physicians in a category somewhere on a higher plane than the rest of us mortals.

Everyone listened quietly as he spoke about his own cancer experience in great personal depth. He talked about the physical and emotional events surrounding it, from the events leading up to his diagnosis to where he is now, about 4 years out from treatment. To share such personal and private fears, revelations, and experiences with the audience was an act of great courage and strength. The audience saw that this talented surgeon is also very much a human being, very approachable and real, with the same fears and hopes, made of the same flesh, with the same vulnerabilites and mortality as themselves.

This surgeon also happens to be a runner and he talked about how the cancer affected his running and physical activity, with the neuropathy from chemotherapy, and the effects of the cancer itself on his ability to get through a run. He talked about the fear he had of the neuropathy not going away, because if it didn't, he might not have been able to return to surgery, which is one of his great gifts.

The kindness he shows to his patients and others who cross paths with him is an example of his humanity, and speaking publically about his experience is another gift he gave to everyone in attendance that night, and everyone who shares the story he told us was okay to share with others outside the group.

He described a renewed sense of purpose as a result of his cancer journey. He feels that he is here for a reason and he continues to do surgery with a special affinity for those who are going through cancer treatment. He is open about his own experience when he meets a new patient for the first time who is about to undergo treatment for cancer. It puts them at ease and makes them realize they are in the hands of someone who cares about the outcome.

I imagined him, taking each step, not being able to feel his feet, taking one step at a time, over and over. He went for an evaluation to see if his stride was altered while he was experiencing the neuropathy, as he was afraid he would fall on his face. They told him he was doing fine, so he continued to run. As I imagined him taking each step, I thought about the finite number of steps each of us takes in our lives. Some take more steps than others, by choice, or sometimes not by choice. Everything we do, enjoy, and endure is a step by step process, even when the steps blend together.

I can feel my feet. I have fairly good health and I don't have cancer. I don't need chemotherapy. I don't need surgery. I can take a lot of steps on my own, by choice. I want to make those steps count. I want to help someone with every one of those steps, if I can. You don't have to be personally touched by cancer in order to reach out with generosity, kindness and caring to those who have been.

Even in my good health, I could stand there at the start of a 100 mile race and think about how impossible the journey seems, and be intimidated by all the mountains I might have to cross in between there and the finish line. I could think about the pain I might feel somewhere in the middle, and run with my tail between my legs. Instead, I lean into the first step and feel my feet carry me forward to encounter whatever is in my path. That carries me to the next step, and the next, until the finish line.

People with cancer can't do that, they have to go through a lot of steps and feeling up and down and lots of places in between to get treated. It can seem overwhelming standing there at the starting line knowing you have so much ahead of you and so many unknowns. But there is only one way and that is forward.

All I have to do at the start is look around and see the other people who are joining me in that journey. We help each other along the way, and we make it to the finish line, exhausted, sometimes beaten, but better for it. We help each other through our bad patches and we give words of encouragement when someone thinks the only choice is to quit.

We tell each other war stories along the way, from our past ultra experiences, and share them for the purpose of encouragement. There are always reasons to keep going forward, to reach for the success of the finish line. Not everybody makes it, but giving your best effort and getting the most out of every moment is just as successful as finishing intact.

The PVH Cancer Center will happen as a result of people telling their stories and helping others understand the importance of giving, caring, helping someone up when they've hit bottom, when things seem impossible and they feel like giving up hope.

This surgeon knows, he's been there. He understands what a small act of kindness can do, how a few kind words can create enough support to pull someone up out of a hole they've fallen into, and stand upright and move forward again. It takes many steps forward to make the cancer center a reality. I'm going to take about 160,000 of them myself this weekend at the Lean Horse Hundred in South Dakota. Please join me in a few of those steps forward by donating to the PVHS Foundation Cancer Building Fund. If you're donating before September 1st, please call (970)-237-7400 to make a donation, as the website is undergoing changes at this time.

"Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up"- Jesse Jackson

Check out this new music video for the PVHS Foundation. For more information about the video, go to their blog.

The Keys: Gratitude and Generosity

The two themes that have emerged over the past week are gratitude and generosity.

While I am frantically packing and getting ready for the Keys 100 race, I have taken the time this week to keep my focus off the race so much and to concentrate on the other things I'm involved in outside of running.

Where do gratitude and generosity fit in with running across the Florida Keys? Three different events this week brought me back to these themes, all separate situations, but related in an important way.

First, this past week was Nurses Week. In the past when I worked full-time, it seemed that I never got to participate in any of the Nurses Week activities because I was working, taking care of patients. This year with my part-time schedule I got to attend a class which got me thinking.

And someone else I've met recently who is a cancer survivor said something about gratitude this week that I've contemplated in the past, but the way she framed it with words was so perfect because of her experiences and genuine feelings behind it.

Finally, last night was the Foundation's Spring Benefit event, which is always a great time. The theme was fitting, "island casual", for my upcoming trip. The featured speaker emphasized the theme of generosity.

Being involved in these group learning activities and social events helps keep my running in perspective. Before I go into detail about how these three events fit the themes, I'll talk about the running.

Keeping the race in perspective is helpful, I haven't been so focused on this one, because it isn't a "big race" for me. It is a training run, a reminder of how to run this particular distance, which isn't my favorite, but it's an important re-learning experience.

Making myself run this distance will be good because it pushes me out of my comfort zone. It's a mental training exercise more than anything.

I haven't run the 100 mile distance in 12 years, since my last Leadville Trail 100 in 1998. I like the fixed-time events like the 24 hour, 48 hour, and Badwater-type distance races so much more, they allow me time to sleep, enjoy it, and not worry about a time limit.

The one hundred mile race distance never did agree with my body, I could always finish, but I felt rushed when I needed a nap, when my body was telling me to sleep, and I had to look at my watch and keep moving to make it in under the time cutoff.

I haven't had much time for the nagging little obsessive runner thoughts, like the fact that I've done just six long runs for this race, that I've averaged only 48 miles a week since the beginning of the year, that I've never run in humidity before, that I weigh more now than I ever have in my life, even after I graduated from nursing school.

Probably due to the fact that a few weeks ago I discovered Ben and Jerry's Key Lime Pie ice cream, a new flavor. Perfect for pre-race fat loading, with an island theme.

This morning I'm headed downtown to watch the finish of the Colorado Marathon. Among so many runners I know, I will be looking for Eric, a co-worker who is running his first marathon. I'll see the runners come across the finish line, glad to be done. What evaporates from their minds at this point are the little trivial nagging ideas in the back of their minds that runners obsess about. Have I trained enough? Am I prepared? Am I rested? Have I gained/lost too much weight? Will an injury flare up?

I was commiserating with Cat, my running partner, about these little things on our run this week, but we laughed about how we think the same way and it really doesn't matter. You're ready if you think you're ready. And I am ready.

And at the end of the race runners are just glad to be done, relieved to be able to rest and socialize and get back to normal. All the little worries are gone.

And I know I will be, too. I know what I will feel. That I am so fortunate to be here, to be able to run this race, to be able to take a vacation, to be with my husband for 20 years, that we have our beautiful dogs, and to have the life that we have.

And it's an opportunity to give. I hope that people will donate to the Foundation in honor of my race, but even more important is getting a message across. The message that we are all a community, we all depend on each other, no one goes through this life alone, and we are individuals, but we are not separate from each other.

Gratitude and generosity.

The Nurses Week presentation was about horizontal hostility among nurses. As I've said before, nurses are great advocates for their patients but terrible at advocating for themselves. In any workplace, interactions with other people can be the hardest part of a job. People bring their unresolved issues from their lives to work. It's a fact, no matter what your occupation is or where you work, it can happen at any level in an organization, and it can be vertical as well as horizontal.

I think gratitude and generosity both fit in here. When you appreciate what you have, you can be kind to people. Accepting them where they are, and not making assumptions or judgements. Appreciating them for who they are, different and separate from you, but connected. We always have opportunities to learn so much from each other, and to give each other so much.

Often the rewards we receive at work are material things. But in the workplace, simple things like a kind word or even eye contact, greeting people by their name, letting them know you recognize their presence and acknowledging that they exist, that you recognize what they do, shows them they are valued. These are such simple practices but so often get lost and forgotten in interactions with others.

The person I met recently, who touched me with her words about gratitude, was speaking with a group of us the other night, and the theme of gratitude came through in a way that I think many runners would benefit from hearing. She is not a runner, but she talked about the often-expressed notion that your health is everything. Not everyone believes that, but I think many runners do.

She discovered that when her health was at the lowest point during her cancer treatment, it allowed her to see all the other things she has in her life, that it changed her perspective on how she valued things.

The body is one thing, but the presence of friends, family, a spiritual presence, and so many more things are important, even if physical health is not optimal.

Runners can forget. They assume they will be able to keep on going race after race. Their lives and health often revolve around running. All it takes is an injury or illness to send a moderately obsessed runner into a tailspin. What do I do now? It causes a sort of identity crisis.

Sometimes I hesitate to put my event list on this blog because I have seen how tenuous life and health can be. I hope to be able to do most or all of those events, but it's not certain. There are no guarantees.

Finally, last night I attended the Spring Benefit. The featured speaker was a local oncologist, a warm, vibrant, highly respected physician who is also a cancer survivor. She spoke about generosity, our connectedness to each other in the community, and how this theme has tied her life together.

We are truly connected to each other. We give something to others all the time, every day, whether or not we are aware of it, with everyone we encounter. It can be as simple as kindness, or it can be something not quite as good.

We have a choice in what we give.

Make what you give a true gift.

p.s. Congratulations Eric for finishing your first marathon! Great job!