Happy Cocktail

I was recently sharing with a friend my recipe for dealing with the depression that diabetes and life in general brings. The big 5 ingredients in my Happy Cocktail are exercise, music, sunshine, people (good people you actually like), and future plans. You force those upon yourself and it will drag you out of the blues into Happyville. As we round the corner out of winter and into spring (although it is not much of a winter here in San Diego and I know spring seems a long way off for many in the US and worldwide) I am working hard to throw off my yearly winter blues. I've been surrounding myself with happy music, through a new free Sirius Satellite subscription continuously tuned to Radio Margaritaville. I have been reading outside int he sunshine during my lunch break. And I have been going out of my way to build the relationships around me. But I needed to find a place for the last two ingredients in my Happy Cocktail; exercise and future plans. And for me that usually means it's time to find a new adventure to train for. So it was time to dig out my Someday-I-Will list. It's too soon to conquer the WESTPAC, a 8-19 day sailing race from Long Beach, CA to Honolulu, HI. I can't be away form my kiddos for that long, yet. A multi-day Stand Up Paddle exploration of the Virgin Islands may be a bit beyond my experience level at this point (I've only Sup'ed a handful of times). Which only leaves the Swim Around Key West.

The 37th Annual Swim Around Key West is a 12.5 mile swim around the island of Key West in Florida on June 28, 2014. twelve and a half miles is too much for me to take on this June, but they do have a three person relay division. I can definitely do a 4.2 mile swim with six months of training. I've done solo adventures before, I want to do something with a team this time. Three swimmers, a boat captain, maybe even a photographer/media captain to share our journey along the way. This race will give me a Future Plan and a purpose to Exercise. For the next six months I can look forward to a trip to the tropics and a five day vacation with some amazing people. And it provides me with the accountability to get to the pool and the weight room and on the road for a quick run to the beach. Now the question is, will this adventure be those same ingredients for you? I am looking for people to join the team. Maybe even put two teams together. If this could be the two ingredients you need in your Happy Cocktail, you can find out more here. You can also fill out the INTEREST FORM to let me know you're interested.

Dream Big

Exploring Iceland. Surfing in Nicaragua. Hiking in Machu Piccu. Visiting the Great Wall of China. The Cherry Blossom Festival in Maryland.

Last weekend I took a poll at the Taking Care of Your Diabetes Conference in San Diego and asked people where their next adventure was. Some people knew immediately. They were planning something big. Others took a minute to think about it. There was someplace they had always wanted to go. For some though, their lives were a struggle and they barely had time to take care of the necessities let alone dream big.

But when I pressed these people to come up with something, you could see them start to smile. It was as if I needed to give them permission to day dream. And I think that for these people, the ones for whom diabetes management has hit the difficult spot, those who are hurting, that dreaming is even more important.

It is those dreams that get us through the rough patches in life, that keep us moving forward knowing that one day, off in the future, things might be better and there might be a way to make those dreams happen.

I know that it is in my darkest times that I relied most heavily on my dreams to give me a moment of escape. So if you don't have a big adventure dreamed up already, start today.

Where is the one place you want to see? The one adventure you want to take? The mountain to climb, or sea to sail, or island to swim around? Find it and escape for a moment in the thought of doing something big and fun some day soon.

So where is your next big adventure? Leave it in the comments below. Who knows, maybe your adventure will be the catalyst for someone else's new dream.

Swimming the Keys

There are those runs every so often, when you feel like you can run forever without even a hint of fatigue. Where your mind drifts off into that happy place and your body just relaxes. I’ve gone to that place a few times while running but never when swimming.

It's kind of hard to get into a groove when every eighteen strokes a huge wall looms and forces you to break stride to turn yourself upside down in some elementary school style pool trick just to put in another eighteen strokes and hit the other wall.

I've been in the pool for fifteen years, taking it twenty-five yards at a time, and never found that happy place. That is until last week when I took my Christmas gift to the deck. I had my eye on it for over a year when my parents found out and gave me a waterproof case for my iPod, an H2O Audio case for my third generation Nano and the Laird Hamilton earphones to match.

I figured if I was going to meet my goal at Wildflower this year, I needed to put in some major yardage at the YMCA pool. So I situated my Nano inside the case, locked it down, slipped the neoprene belt around my waist and fiddled with the earphones for a bit. The first few laps were less than enjoyable trying to get the volume adjusted, the earbuds set just right and the pressure fixed in my ears from the watertight fit. But once I got set up, I was immediately in another world.

The experience of counting my strokes in my head, "1,2,3- 2,2,3- 3,2,3- 4,2,3- flip" was instantly replaced by the feel of the tepid water gliding across my skin. With a little Jimmy playing in my ears, I could see the sun streaming in from the open roof as if it were shining down from a tropical sky.

The water suddenly was the clearest ocean water I had ever seen. I was swimming around some tidal island in the Keys just a few feet from shore. No more stroke counting and flips, just a constant revolution around the island.

When I pop my head out of the water for a moment to breathe, I catch a glimpse of a Key deer nibbling some grass just below a patch of palm trees moving ever so slightly with the Prevailing Westerlies.

My 22’ Catalina sailboat anchored offshore is still visible to my left where I left her to have the coolness of the sea wake me up and to get in some exercise before lounging the rest of the day away in my topside hammock, writing and enjoying being in one of the coolest places that God has made.

If only I could make this feeling last...

I'd love to hear a story of how you slipped into the zone while running, or hiking or doing some other amazing activity. Leave me a comment below.