It’s been 10 days since my last post, and that’s because we had virtually no cell coverage and unreliable wi-fi in Alaska. Rather than push through and focus on the struggle, I decided to disconnect from electronics. I read a couple of books and listened to a lot of music played live on the ship. Ask me how many times I heard a vocalist sing YMCA as if it was a love ballad because she was in her early twenties, not originally from the United States, and had no reference for the lyrics. The answer: Too many times. Sometimes twice in a night.
Because I knew my vacation (and later, I suspect, my life) would interrupt my training, I started the 29-week program early, so even though I was on Week Four when I left for Alaska, I’m going back to Week Two, which is where Team RunDisney is in the schedule. I did run while I was away, and I walked about 35,000 steps every day, but I wasn’t keeping track on my official sheet. I also did a lot of weight lifting while I was away, and I’ve done some since I returned home. Tonight, I’ll lift more and tomorrow I’ll run four miles.
I’m also going to add boxing to my weekly routine. I’ve always loved to box, and many years ago, the first boxing class I took was with Michael Olidje. It’s obvious, but boxing is a great upper body workout so it is a good balance to running. A studio just opened in Princeton.
Tiger Woods—Possibly My New Inspiration
Okay, so even though I have always been really into athletic performance and fitness, I have never been into sports. First of all, I’m not competitive. Secondly, I don’t like to watch. I like to do. The idea of sitting and watching an entire game of anything is awful to me. That’s one reason I knew almost nothing about Tiger Woods. Like, before Tuesday, I only knew that he was a golfer (I honestly didn’t even know how good he was, just that he was “good”) and that he had had some kind of car accident involving a supposed fight with his wife.
We had a six-hour plane ride home from Vancouver, so I turned on the Tiger Woods documentary (two parts, slightly over 90 minutes each; perfect. It literally ended as we landed).
My son and I have survived a lot, and since it’s not my place to tell his story, I also can’t tell a lot of my story, but I can say that we are both lucky to be alive, healthy, and stable. We don’t have a lot of money (this is all relative, of course), and our house is small, and I’m very much alone, but I greet each day with gratitude for all we have.
The thing that struck me most about the Tiger Woods story was not that he made such an extraordinary comeback, but that he did it in front of millions of people, many of whom wanted to see him fail. That really takes courage. One good thing about my life is that almost no one pays any attention to me, so I don’t have to worry about falling down in front of people.
I cried through most of the documentary. I mentioned how inspirational I found Tiger’s comeback to my father, but his opinion is that Tiger only has golf and nothing else. That’s one interpretation, but I see him very differently. I see a man who was given many things by his parents, but who was also destroyed by them, and now, as an adult, he has become his own person. He took responsibility for the pain he caused, he went to rehab, and he got back into physical shape.
yogadonna 
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