Chasing the Blue Dot

 I now have been traveling for work full time for 13 months.  I would say from a wellness perspective it has been tough to navigate to say the very least.  Now, I know what you are thinking...is this where the previously crowned Mama Shark admits she hasn't worked out in 13 months and has lived on a steady diet of fatty takeout and now has fallen off the horse completely, setting the stage for a glorious story of redemption?

Actually, no.  None of that is true.  I have stayed on the horse, maybe sitting a little side saddle, but still on the horse.  Since developing gluten allergy and having to go gluten free months ago, fatty takeout most assuredly will make me sick.  Instead, I have opted for hotels with kitchens to keep my diet on point.  No, this little elephant snack is more a story of consistency and balance.  When I went back to review my workouts over the last year, there is never a week there is less than three, and in some weeks as many as seven.  Herein lies the problem.  Those seven workout weeks were balls out, it's me being home from the road and seeing how much cardio I can cram in, some weeks riding upwards of 100 miles total, only to go back on the road for three much shorter workouts the following week due to demanding work days.  As if somehow I thought going balls out for a string of days would somehow pay it forward to the days in between the next week where I didn't have that kind of time.

I was thinking all of this through on my last flight out.  Let's just say, a flight from Albany to Atlanta, with a short layover, followed by a flight to Seattle left me with about nine hours on a plane to watch Netflix and contemplate my next move towards better health and wellness.  With my head spinning trying to figure it out, I was suddenly aware of a flight attendant carrying an oxygen tank to the gentleman behind me.  You see, he couldn't breathe.  Being a nurse practitioner for 23 years meant I was called on to attend to him.  He shared he did have some lung problems and did require oxygen from time to time, but was not travelling with oxygen today.  Thankfully, the crew had an oxygen monitor to check him, and I discovered his levels were dangerously low.   As we put the oxygen on him, his levels began to rise and he started to feel better and we were able to have conversation.  I advised him to go to the ER on landing as I was concerned with how he looked initially.  He adamantly refused.  The pilot stepped in and advised at least paramedic eval for fit for flying.  He refused that too.  He voiced he just needed oxygen for his next flight because he was traveling for work and it was crucial that he make that trip.  His mind was so focused on work he missed the gravity of the situation.  There was help right in front of him to keep him out of harms way, but he chose to bypass it all for the sake of work.

This got me thinking about my three workout weeks.  First, what I know to be true?  I need to focus on myself in some way every day for my mental health as much as my physical, but I was allowing busy work days to short change what I actually needed despite the tools being right in front of me, much like the guy on the oxygen ignoring the lifelines right in front of him.  What I also know to be true is that conversely, balls out for seven days is too much as my resultant aching psoas muscle would always rear its ugly head to remind me.  What I needed quite honestly was balance.  That being said, I set out in the last couple weeks to, what we in the Peloton community call,"the daily chase of the blue dot."  You see, you get a blue dot on the calendar on the app every day you complete an activity no matter what it is, cycling, treadmill, yoga, meditation, etc...  

I suppose my first challenge came on day 1 of the great chase.  Seventeen hours of travel across the country left me jet lagged and exhausted.  Could I really muster up the energy to do something drastic?  God no, I could barely hold my head up by the time I got to the hotel, but again, this challenge was more about daily balance than huge outlays of energy.  So, I decided to use what I learned in my previous self-care retreat, and go all in on a meditation.  The reality is meditation fills the Peloton blue dot just the same. As it turns out the message for that practice was "Ebb and flow, come and go."  The practice had me learning how to breathe to break the cycle of spinning round and round in my own thoughts and stressors so much so that I stood in my own way.  To be fair, ebb and flow became the theme of the last couple weeks.

The next three days were a bit easier and I was able to get some tread time in, but I'll be honest.  I whined.  I whined a lot.  I was jet lagged, working the late shift ten hours a day and quite honestly drinking coffee watching,"The Today Show" seemed much more enjoyable than banging it out on a hotel tread.  I did it anyway, and was always glad when it was over so I could see the damn blue dot and move on with my day.

In the days that followed though, I would have one of those NP/patient interactions that would leave a permanent impression.   I had a patient who due to a host of health concerns, was bed bound.  She looked at me and said,"They told me.  They all told me.  All the specialists told me verbally and in writing.  I will not walk again.  I refuse to believe it.  Logically they are right, but I refuse."  Suddenly, my whining over getting on the stupid rickety hotel tread because the hotel did not have a Peloton bike, seemed, well... frankly, petty.  This woman would have given anything to do what I did in those days despite it not being ideal.  Maybe my motivation should really come from her perspective.  Celebrating what I can do when there are so many others who simply can't.

In the end, in the last 15 days I got them all.   All the dots are blue, a perfect representation of the balance I was looking for.  A daily commitment to myself with an even split of ass beating cardio coupled with the quiet calm of the ebb and flow of meditation and yoga, achieving just the physical and mental wellbeing I was looking for, no longer side saddle as I had been, but firmly, squarely, on the horse.  I think if this experience has taught me anything it is that we should not allow the stressors of life to mask the lifelines available every day to feed our mental and physical health, and to celebrate our own capabilities when there are so many others out there who simply cannot.  It is in that space that we can digest that little chunk of the good health elephant and move on to the next big bite.  As for me, 15 days in, it's game on.  I have challenged myself, and a trusted friend, as we all do better with accountability, to 365 blue dots for 2024.  Let's go!!!