A long time ago someone told me to make it a point to set goals in my life. That is what I have tried to do. The way I see things, it didn’t matter if I succeeded or not every time. But I have always worked hard at things in an effort to achieve them. I also made sure my goal list included both reasonable and really hard challenges to push myself. I knew that trying to get my running mileage up to 75-100 miles per week was going to be one of those “really tough challenges,” given my age and prior knee issues. I also knew that I would have to continue to look over my shoulder, given my cancer diagnosis, even with what appeared to be a successful outcome.
I came up with a race plan, which had me slowly increase my mileage by around 5 miles per week. While researching different ways to increase my speed and mileage, I came across an old Arabic proverb that got me thinking. He says: “Write the vision, and explain it on tables. So that everyone who reads it may run.” I think this proverb really sums up the meaning of goal setting and goal achievement. If you can’t visualize doing something, then how can you even try to achieve it? It is now clear to me that the importance of the mental aspect of goal setting cannot be overstated. I know that various professional sports teams have tried to address these issues, and that certain baseball managers use different types of techniques to get players to relax during times of stress.
I have used running as my distraction from thinking about cancer and for the most part it has worked well. But it doesn’t matter what you use in my opinion. I think you just need to figure out what it is that motivates you, excites you, or makes you happy and do it, whether it’s running, biking, lifting weights, swimming, walking, hiking, reading, writing, etc. Set some goals on your journey and work to achieve them. But always remember to have fun because it’s very hard to sustain any effort if you start to hate things or take over too much.
A common mistake beginning runners make is that they start out feeling really great and then increase their mileage at too high a rate and injure themselves. So they usually associate this failure with the activity itself, a great excuse not to run. I have first hand experience with this problem as I have made this mistake more than once. I have come to realize that being patiently persistent is a key ingredient to succeeding in your career goals. I think this can be applied to almost all lenses as well.
As the one year anniversary of my cancer surgery approached, I felt lucky, happy, and motivated. It’s ironic now that I think about it. Just 14 months ago, my life was turned upside down with my cancer diagnosis. And now I’m talking about feeling all these positive things. Maybe humans need to be taken down from time to time to really appreciate what they have. I always thought that I didn’t take things for granted, but after this experience, I have to say that I had room for improvement. I am making time to do things that I enjoy more than ever. Perhaps if I had never had cancer, I would not have explored so many new challenges and my life would not be as fulfilling. Now I try not to worry about the little disappointments and frustrations of everyday life because in the end these minor issues don’t deserve that kind of attention. Sometimes that can be difficult, but I’ve definitely gotten better at doing it.
In July 2008, I had an appointment with my doctor. My PSA blood test results were <0.1 ng/mL using the Siemens (Bayer) chemiluminescent method. My doctor said that the physical exam and PSA results were very good. It had been a little over 13 months since my surgery and I had increased my weekly running mileage to about 58 miles. Unfortunately my body started to resist this mileage and in particular my left knee was starting to hurt regularly. I decided at that point to relax a bit and cut my mileage down to around 30 miles a week, I was telling myself, quality over quantity, but I was disappointed. I really wanted to get to 75-100 miles a week. But he wasn't ready to give up on this quest entirely.