Mental Toughness,Cancer, Happiness and Jonathan Jordan

 Robin Williams: “You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.

Jonathan Jordan, Esq. was our guest on “It Has Nothing to Do with Age or Gender ”  our friend and my 100 mile ride and tie partner. I started off our television show with the three S’s , which is an acronym for the three of us. Initially, the two of them were worried but quickly relaxed when I told the viewers that I wasn’t going to reveal the meaning of three S’s, since what is said on the trail stays on the trail. For all your runners, you know what I mean.

I then read Jonathan the above quote by Robin Williams. “You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.” Jonathan was able to relate that quote his life as well as the theme of our show, which is “ mental toughness.” Jonathan talked about personal things such as the hundred mile ride tie when he got lost and the  excitement and fear he experienced in that race competition.

He also talked about when he was diagnosed with cancer of the neck and throat in 2009 and his radiation and chemo therapy treatment.  That time was  extremely difficult as a result of the trauma to his self by that form  of treatment. Being in constant pain, being unable to eat swallow whole foods, being tired, resulted in emotional difficulty. However, his will and mental toughness prevailed and thank goodness he is currently four years free of symptoms.

Jonathan was able to start eating whole foods at the end of December  and begin training for the Way too  Cool   50 K trail run the following March. He set aside in his mind that for his goal. He knew that if he could accomplish that goal, he would be on the road to recovery. Complaining that event was good for him, and good for me too. He was too young lose another good friend to cancer. Jonathan was able to give a definition of mental toughness and life experience examples pertaining to it.

On Friday, Tony, Jonathan and I did a trail run for my home and then on Friday ran a trial run at the Cronin ranch. That was all good. On Saturday, Chris Turney joined us for another trail run. We now have the four S’s. Stay tuned as you might find out the names of the four S’s.

One of the S's guess who??

I just read in the Time magazine Issue on Happiness  the following : two thirds of Americans are either obese or overweight and within the last 10 years, there’s been a significant reduction with people on diets. Do you think there’s an association between weight gain and dieting? In any event, it is clear that we have a food epidemic problem in our country, and perhaps dieting is just one component to effectively deal with this issue. I’m glad that Tony and I are not part of the statistics.

Remember to keep moving, laughing, smiling and deep breathing.