Training for Transrockies 2015

My week is filled with physical activities between soccer, yoga, trail running and surfing. But this year I took a new challenge; participate in the PepsiCo Transrockies Run3, a 3 day trail run in Colorado, 58 miles, 8,600 feet elevation gain. I decided to take this challenge upon myself to promote my non profit, Supportersize which organizes physical activities for people with Caner.



To prepare for this event I retained a coach, Jacob Puzey of McMillan Running which hopefully can help me prepare for this unusual event. I am very excited, about the training and about the event itself, and hopefully the attention I can get for Supportersize, it is so important to get people who live with Cancer active.

What makes a trail runner?

I started running trails several years ago, after I stopped competing in Triathlons and before I was diagnosed with Cancer. Trail running is a great way to stay in shape, get a whole body work out and get in touch with nature. I am now training for The PepsiCo TransRockies 3 Day Run, a multi-day point-to-point trail running race which allows athletes to access and traverse wild and fantastic scenery.

I decided to do this to build awareness to the non profit I founded which helps people with Cancer get active and stay in shape. This article is a great review of what is so great about trail running.

Photo credit: spyjournal / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND

A Field in Motion: Fighting Cancer with Exercise

I was diagnosed with Cancer 15 months ago. Exercise and the outdoors have been critical components in my battle with cancer and treatment recovery. I am a lifelong athlete and sports enthusiast, "getting back in the saddle" was natural/easy for me and I’m reaping the benefits.
Why not help others get out there, get moving? This is how I came with the idea for Supportersize, organizing outdoor physical activities for people impacted by Cancer and their families. We always make a point that "we do not claim to cure Cancer". Having said that, I was excited to learn about the work by exercise scientist Lee Jones who studies the effects of physical activity with scientific rigor. He’s currently the Director of the multidisciplinary Cardio-Oncology Research Program (CORP) at Memorial Sloan Kettering, the great hospital where I am being treated.

He says: "While we've recognized the critical importance of exercise therapy for other diseases since ancient times, the value of exercise in people with cancer was left largely untouched until recently. The prevailing view was that cancer is associated with poor outcomes and patients who either are undergoing or have finished intensive cancer treatments would not be able to tolerate participating in structured exercise programs. Because of this, many patients are still being advised to rest and avoid strenuous activities."

However, things are now changing radically. Read More Here!

How “before and after” fitness pictures are faked...

Don’t get fooled by those “before and after pictures,” especially now, after New Year’s resolution time. Watch this video FIRST

It shows you how the huge difference you see in those pictures can be achieved in less than five hours.

Planning your 2015 race schedule?

Scott Dunlap curated a great list of races for 2015, where does he get the time to train and participate? I am focused on the 2015 Transrockies and will participate in smaller races along the way,

if I am in shape. check out his great list HERE

People will never forget .....

Think of the last autobiography you read or documentary you watched about someone whom you admire. Looking back, did their list of achievements matter more, or was it the impact they made on others along the way? Read More

People are Awesome!

It is sometimes unbelievable what people can do once they put their mind into it... you got to check this out HERE!

The Science Behind Sports and Hapiness

The following infographic explains why I started Supportersize, the not for profit that organizes Free Outdoor athletic activities for people living with Cancer. Research shows that playing sport makes both men and women happier. A 2001 study found that sports with social interactions makes up happier, read more here.

How to Live a Life Without Regrets

90% of people say they have a major regret about something about their lives, and regret is the second most frequently mentioned emotion after love. This infographic discusses the sorts of regrets that haunt us as we try to sleep, and it offers some advice on how to avoid those regrets.Read more about this research here.

The disease-fighting, DNA-altering power of meditation

I started meditating daily after I was diagnosed with Cancer last year. This is a  great article. If you've been putting off practicing meditation because it seemed more belief than science, here’s the evidence that could put it on the top of your resolution list for 2015.

This isn't the first time that Buddhist-style mindfulness meditation has been linked to the molecular goings-on of our biological makeup. A December 2013 study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison demonstrated that the DNA of subjects who meditated “showed a range of genetic and molecular differences, including altered levels of gene-regulating machinery and reduced levels of pro-inflammatory genes, which in turn correlated with faster physical recovery from a stressful situation.” The Full Story

Worrying About Stuff Is a Sign of Intelligence

I must be VERY intelligent! if this is true... The tendency to worry about stuff could be a sign of a certain kind of intelligence, according to a paper in an upcoming edition of the journal Personality and Individual Differences (hat tip to Christian Jarrett at the British Psychology Society's Research Digest for spotting it first).

It is possible that more verbally intelligent individuals are able to consider past and future events in greater detail, leading to more intense rumination and worry. Individuals with higher non-verbal intelligence may be stronger at processing the non-verbal signals from individuals they interact with in the moment, leading to a decreased need to re-process past social encounters. You can read more HERE

Study Confirms That Men Are Dumb....

Since I decided to participate in #Transrockies as a way to raise awareness to the benefits of exercise for people living with Cancer, the findings in this research were right on the money... 

Every year, the British Medical Journal releases a Christmas edition with some offbeat and silly research. This year, there's a rather morbidly humorous study about which gender is more likely to die as a result of doing something really, really dumb. Spoiler alert: It's men. A team led by Ben Alexander Daniel, a student at the King Edward VI School in the U.K., simply looked at all of the Darwin Award winners between 1995 and 2014 — this is an award given to confirmed instances of people meeting untimely ends as a result of, to phrase it diplomatically, poor decision-making — and calculated the gender breakdown. Read More Here......

10 Secrets to Make You a Faster, Stronger, and Happier Runner

I am training for the Transrockies 2015, a multi day trail run that covers 59m and 9,000 elevation gain. I'm doing this to built awareness to Supportersize which organizes free outdoor events for people living with cancer. I am constantly looking for ideas and advise on how to prepare and train. Outdoor magazine had a  Great Story that just about talks about everything.

What do you think are the odds that you will die during the next year?

This is not a morbid blog post, actually it's a great time to appreciate what you have and live in the moment. Guy Kawasaki posted a very interesting post discussing the fact that the probability of dying during a given year doubles every 8 years. For a 25-year-old American, the probability of dying during the next year is a fairly minuscule 0.03% — about 1 in 3,000. When he's 33 it will be about 1 in 1,500, when he's 42 it will be about 1 in 750, and so on. By the time He reaches age 100 the probability of living to 101 will only be about 50%. This is seriously fast growth — my mortality rate is increasing exponentially with age. The full story is in Gravity and Levity

Great Gifts for Trail Runners - 2014 Holiday Gift Guide

There is always something interesting in these lists of gift guides. You think running is a sport that requires nothing more than running shoes, but Scott Dunlap curated a great list.

Training begins... and so are injuries.

Transrockies is about distance, altitude, multi day running. I ran long distance in the past but never under these conditions, so I decided I need some guidance from someone who has done it. Was introduced to  Jason Wolfe and after reading his blog and images and talking with him I figured, he's my guy....

Started to add running to my daily activities and quickly hurt my calf muscle, an old injury. Got to dial it back and heal properly before we restart. Meanwhile continue with Yoga and Strength. Like Mario Andretti once said

If you have everything under control, you're not moving fast enough.

Not yet formally training for Transrockies, but pushing myself

This morning i rented great pair of cyclocross bike at Big Shark and went on a 35 mile bike ride with my brother in law, Sasha and his buddies in St Louis.

I'm lucky to have Sasha as my "cancer quarterback" at my side from the day I was diagnosed advising and helping navigate between doctors, hospitals and treatments. It helps that he happens to be lung cancer researcher at Washington University in St Louis, working on a cure for lung cancer....

It took only four rounds of chemo therapy to wipe out 35 years of keeping fit and exercising, I'm still working hard on getting back in shape. Training for the Transrockies event is going to be tough, but I still have plenty of time to get stronger.

One year ago this week I was diagnosed with cancer and undergone brain surgery

It has been a year since I was diagnosed with cancer. It has been one hell of a year; brain surgery, chemo therapy, routine scans, the emotional and mental load on my family and I, getting back into shape and learning to live with cancer, because once it enters your life it is part of yours and your family daily life.

I continued to exercise while I was undergoing chemo therapy, and it was a crazy challenge. It was quite a wake up call for a life long athlete and triathlete - as I consider myself, to walk half a mile and needing to return home because I was exhausted. It is amazing how in a matter of weeks chemo therapy took away 35 years of exercise and fitness.

This week, a year ago I was recovering from my brain surgery and decided to go on a long bike ride with my buddies Bike ride post surgery. The physical activity and the company gave me a great boost of energy and optimism and this is when I started to think about motivating other people who live with cancer. Several weeks later I founded Supportersize.

Our goal is to get as many people who live with cancer to participate in our free outdoor events, and I decided to take part in a very exciting event that will hopefully help me build awareness to our cause. I registered to PepsiCo TransRockies™ RUN3 August 11 – 13, 2015 – Buena Vista to Camp Hale, Colorado. 58 miles, 8,600 feet elevation gain. Transrockies-run