Power of Positive

A few months ago, during a business trip to Florida, I sat next to a very inspirational gentleman.  He was headed to the Keys to meet his wife and I was headed back home to my husband.  As the tiny little propeller plane was taking off, we had already started talking about training for sports – one of my favorite topics.

It turned out that the gentleman was a long distance runner with multiple marathons and half marathons under his belt.  For those of you who know me, I am not a big fan of running due to its negative impacts on joints.  However, I always appreciate and admire those who are persistent in reaching to their goals – even if the goal requires running.  As we chatted further, I realized that running was a passion that he shared with his wife too.  He then mentioned his wife’s illness – cancer.  The cancer was diagnosed about 5 years ago and they were told that due to the rarity and the stage, the doctors wouldn’t be able to provide any treatment for a couple years.  However, they would follow the progress of the tumor very closely.  2 years into her cancer, the doctors started the Chemo treatment.  After 2.5 years of continued Chemotherapy, she finally got the good news about being clean.  During her treatment, the couple decided to sign up for the Chicago Marathon.  They knew that with her weaker condition, the race could be even more challenging but they wanted to work against a goal while never thinking the worst possible outcome of the treatment.  They started to train while she was still in the treatment so that she would keep as strong as possible while the drugs were eating away all her energy.   Once the Chemo was over, her training for the run was more effective since she started to regain some of that energy.  However, one thing that she didn’t anticipate was that she got a stress fracture on her foot 6 weeks to the race.  Having to beat CANCER, they decided that a stress fracture would not be their game stopper for the race.  They kept up their positive attitude and focused more on strength training to keep her off her foot – that would have been my prescription from the very beginning. They ended up crossing the finish line together; hand in hand, proud of beating cancer…

There are times that we loose that positive look.  We focus on the worst outcomes and we worry before things even happen.  And eventually we even give up.  This couple is the perfect example of never ending positivity and its power of “push to the finish line”.  I am sure that there are many more stories like this.  My ask for this week is to find the positive in something that you are close to loose hope for – whatever it is, just believe in yourself because YOU can do it.  This upcoming Tuesday will be my 40th week in pregnancy, which is the due date of my boy.  For those of you who have been in my classes through last week, why not give those 40 pushups a try – with my slow count and a PERFECT form.  Don’t forget, being on your knees or laying for a superman when you get tired is NOT cheating.  Let me know how you do!