18 Runs, 2 Swims And My Physical Health Support Group

It’s been way too long since I’ve done an update here about my physical health journey and so I took some time to catch you up. Here goes:

Raulks (Run/Walks)

“Rualks” is my new word for run/walks that I do. I always say, “I went for a run” and people mistake it for me running a solid X miles or X minutes. But it really means I walk and then run, then walk, then run, and on and on. Intervals of walking and running as I’m still mostly doing my 5K Runner app for my running exercise routines.

Here are some summary stats for my raulks, which have been a blast and a bit addicting:

• Raulked 18 times in 46 days
• Roughly averaging a rualk around every 2.5 days, which was inspiring and confirming to me
• Most are around 30 minutes, going for around 2 miles in total
• Raulked with a variety of people, which was something I hadn’t planned on but sincerely love
• Raulked in a variety of places:
  • Around two State Capitols (Oklahoma and California)
  • Multiple states again (Minnesota, California) and even out of the country (Mexico)
• Did a true trail run for the first time, which was a BLAST, and I want to do that more
• Raulked in 47 degree weather, which is likely the most I can tolerate I think. (I’ve been spoiled by such great weather as I’ve started to run)

Here are the runs I’ve done since my last full post on Sept. 6, roughly.

• Oct. 18 – With Lindsey in Cabo
• Oct. 17 – In Cabo during CaboPress – up hills, on beach, wherever I could
• Oct. 14 – On the fantastic multi-purpose trails around Lake Arcadia
• Oct. 13 – My trails
• Oct. 11 – In 47 degree weather
• Oct. 9 – Around the Oklahoma State Capitol in morning …  explored another awesome secluded trail near our house with Lindsey
• Oct. 7 – On the awesome Oklahoma River trails
• Oct. 5 – My trails
• Oct. 1 – Completed my longest raulk (3 miles of half trail, half road) to get a baseline time a 5K.
• Sept. 30 – With Lindsey around this Minnesota lake
• Sept. 29 – Around the same Minnesota lake
• Sept. 24 – My trails
• Sept. 23 – Went to the Red Coyote Running Clinic, more on that later
• Sept. 22 – My trails
• Sept. 17 – With a great group of guys to a breakfast and back to hotel in Sacramento. Running together is FUN too.
  Sept. 16 – Around Sacramento — https://www.instagram.com/p/BZG0XrtBEYn/?taken-by=corymiller303
• Sept. 13 – My trails
• Sept. 10 — With Lindsey
• Sept. 9 – On Lake Overhoulser in OKC

Running Clinic

I attended OKC’s Red Coyote’s Running Clinic on Sept. 23 and learned SO much about how to run, how to stretch and some routines to do. It really changed the way I run in such a good way. I think it’ll help me prevent injuries.

Highly recommend taking a running clinic near you!

Better Documenting

Doing this blog post today, I had to go back and actually look at what I’ve done for the past 45+ days and I gotta say, it was inspiring. It feels like work to document everything but it’s got an incredible inspiring effect on me.

I typically try to take a private selfish during my exercises and post them to my private journal. And I also post updates on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. But it’s not the same as I get here when I do these digest posts.

And if I had to start over, I would have tracked ALL my actual runs in one app/journal from beginning. And right now that app would be: MapMyRun. I lost seeing the actual route I took on my rualks. And it’s been a quasi-journal for me, although I end up taking screenshots of the routes and posting to my journal.

But writing this post, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t posted anything here earlier. If anything it gave me a baseline of all I’ve done and revealed some interesting things about why this has actually been a WHOLE LOT OF FUN.

I need to do better documenting … and more scheduled digests like these. They are inspiring to me, if anything.

My Newest Adventure: Swimming

Since it is starting to get colder and I’m not especially excited about running in the frigid Oklahoma winter, I decided to explore swimming. It has numerous health benefits, so I pinged my brother Travis, who is a phenomenal swimmer and in another life would have trained to be a Navy SEAL.

After much research and exploration of what I thought would work for me, I found a gym near our office with a swimming pool and got a tour and a 7-day free pass to explore. Here is what I’ve done so far:

• Bought some awesome Michael Phelps goggles. And start organizing my Tom Bihn gym bag. Might have another post on how I’m trying to become uber-efficient at getting in and out of the pool and back to the office later.
• Oct. 20 — My brother Travis drove down from Tulsa to OKC to do his signature “Swimming Bootcamp” with me. What this really meant is that my brother got to haze his older brother for 30 minutes in the pool. My goal was to learn some techniques and routines to do for 30 minutes. He kicked my butt, throughly, and, yes, like all rascal brothers pushed me in the pool a couple of times. He never let me stop moving either. It was a great learning experience: 1. I know what to do in the pool. and 2. Never ask Trav to coach with me again. Just kidding! Thank you so much brother!
• Oct. 24 — went for my second swim. It felt great. Although the pool was crowded, I got in a 30-minute swim, with 5 minutes on each end for warm up and cooldown and tried to never stop moving in the pool. When I got to the deep end, I treaded water as much as I could until I got my breath back. In the shallow end I walked against the water and started swimming when I could. Incredible workout. 30 minutes after I was out of the pool I was still sweating. I can’t wait to go back and will be buying a monthly membership.

Bicycling

Haven’t bicycled yet … but Lindsey and I got fitted for a bicycle this month and are seriously contemplating buying bikes in the spring.

My Private, Online Physical Health Support Group

Another huge milestone for me on my journey to physical health.

At the beginning of September, I put out a simple tweet and blog post asking if anyone else wanted to join me for an online support and accountability group focused only on physical health. After sharing my journey for the past couples of months, it was surprising how many people said, “I need to get started now too.”

And after talking for the last couple of years about how my entrepreneurial groups have impacted my life so much, I realized I desperately needed a group for support and accountability in this area.

To my excitement, 7 other people asked to join me in this group, with our first meeting on Sept. 11, 2017, with a simple 8-week commitment.

So, with some basic rules (absolute confidentiality, show up, share highs and lows), we started with Zoom meetings on Monday nights and it quickly grew to a Slack group, that has channels for Activity, Food, Tools, Updates, where we share our successes and struggles and tips that are working for us.

We’re now on our sixth week and although some (including myself) have had to miss a couple of Zoom meetings, we are doing daily and weekly checkins via Slack. (We’ll see what the interest in our group is to continue on in two weeks and I’ll report back here on that.)

It’s been incredibly helpful for me.

I know I’m not alone. There are others on the same journey, with the same or similar obstacles, but we’re here to cheer each other on.

We’ve lost weight together. We’ve start moving more together. We’ve had setbacks together. We have wins togethers. And I feel incredibly inspired to keep going on my own journey, with our little group.

But I asked our private group via Slack for a couple of quick blurbs about how their experience in the support group has helped them and this is what they said (anonymously):

“Joining this group has given me the courage to take the necessary steps to ensure I’m around for my wife, my kids and myself. It’s taken away the fear of talking about my bad habits and fostered a commitment to pursuing better ones and a community that provides encouragement, feedback, and accountability. And I’ve lost 15 pounds so far.”

“Being part of this group has helped keep me accountable, not just to my wife, but also to a group of friends. When I wanted to start something new, if I stopped without explaining why, I was called out on it. Very helpful that we’re all in this journey together.”

“Working at home, for myself with an infant at home makes it pretty hard to want to stay healthy. Luckily, this group has helped me. I still have some trouble with snacking, but I’m so much more active, I drink more water, and I pause often to think, ‘Is this something I’d be happy to tell the group I did?’”

“I don’t think without the group that I would be taking my meal planning as seriously. It also helped while at a conference recently to know that I had some like-minded people around me to hold me accountable and to cheer me on.”

“Success for me is oftentimes based on my ability to focus. Joining this fitness group gives me the nudge I need to make my fitness goals a part of my every day concerns, Knowing that I will be checking in regularly with the group keeps me motivated. I also love that I share my progress throughout the week with others. I know I always have a cheering section. I’ve lost 15lbs and have established some really good habits because of the group.”

***

OK, that’s my report for now. I’ll try to do this more often and not just on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.