Calf Injury

It felt like someone had shot something into my calf.

I looked around and yelped a “What?”

The others on the basketball court looked at me confused. There was no one there, and nothing had hit me.

The pain was so intense that I was close to passing out a few minutes later, sweating to take small and painfully slow steps.

Turns out that I tore my calf muscle. First time on crutches in my life.

My good friend and sports medicine guru Dr. Chris McGrew, given that I was not jumping or moving when it happened, diagnosed it as “spontaneous combustion.”

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But this piece is not about the injury.

No, that kind of piece belongs in a medical school lecture but not here.

What I have felt most intensely over the last hours since the “spontaneous combustion” is the overwhelming support.

Starting with the guys on the court who went out of their way to take care of me. Thanks to the “Noontime Legends” as we call our group.

As I limped badly to the exit of the gym, a wonderful UNMer went to look for crutches. (I made sure to promote our upcoming Running Medicine season in return. Hey, he was wearing a track and field jacket.)

Within minutes of the injury, Dr. McGrew was on the phone with me, thinking through the next steps.

My family dropped everything and made their way to campus.

And as I limped to across campus Tracy and Tim, two of our long-time members of the Running Medicine community, offered to give me a ride. (I think the exact quote was “I saw you 20 minutes ago and you were about 15 feet from where you are now. Not your normal speed, Anthony.”)

My own clinic, the 1209 Clinic at UNM went out of their way to make room for me to be seen. One of my former students now serving as my provider.

I even noticed the way that passer-bys on UNM’s campus looked on with concern and empathy. They didn’t know what to say or do, but expressed their concern.

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I invest in my life in others.

I feel good about this investment. (A piece on that subject from January)

Today, the investment “matured” and showered me with amazing returns.

I also noticed today that it is hard for me to accept the role of “receiver” and “patient”. I need to work on this. 

So, as I limp to bed, here is an update:

My calf hurts.

My heart is filled.

I am grateful.

I wish each of you an amazing Thursday.

Act Accordingly

Act accordingly.

In the last week, I have been chased and haunted by these words.

In my last piece, the last line – “act accordingly” did not sit well with me.

Addressing and naming privilege is the easy part. But how do we “act accordingly”?

So, here I will tackle that two-word imperative. I am grateful for the people who have shared their thoughts. I am grateful for a few conversations this has created amongst myself and other overly privileged folks on the subject.

Thoughts for those of us who carry excessive un-earned privilege on how we can begin to “act accordingly”:

Internal work

* Humility has to replace guilt; humility will move us to action/healing whereas guilt usually makes us feel bad without prompting action/healing.

* Naming privilege and developing an awareness of such privilege as you walk through each day. (A piece from early on in the blogwhere I used the wind as a metaphor for privilege)

* Thinking back to your first experiences when you were taught that race matters, to the first time you were exposed to anti-LGBTQ or anti-immigrant rhetoric. How were you taught to “other” people that didn’t look and sound like you? And how do you “other” people in your current existence. What would it look like to see those “othered” people as your brothers and sisters, aunties and uncles, sons and daughters?

* Then a deeper question rises within our internal work – do these set of biases fit with who we feel we are at our core being? Do these biases fit with what we believe about the worthiness of those around us. How do these biases affect how we see and treat others? If we believe that all human beings are equal, how do we deal with a set of biases that divide humans up on a privilege hierarchy?

 

Interpersonal work

* Once we have begun to do internal work, we are ready to find ways to be courageous in how we relate to others.

* We can try being more intentional in speaking about privilege, for example. In a doctor-patient conversation where I am worried that my un-earned privilege is inhibiting my patient from sharing, I can be courageous. “I recognize that right now you may not feel safe in sharing, and I wonder how my un-earned privilege is contributing to that.” In such a statement, the room is transformed. The 800-pound gorilla has been named. And, most important for this person’s care, they may feel comfortable sharing.

* We can find ways to open the door to the room for those not invited. We can find ways to amplify others’ voices in the room while we silence our own.

 

System-level work for equity

* In your workplace, in your sphere, what are systems-level policies and structures that allow un-earned privilege to determine who gets hired, who is promoted, and who is served by your organization? How have these systems benefited you directly? What changes would it take to make them equitable? Find your voice to change them.

* Speak up for equity. This will often mean speaking out against current policies and ways of doing business. This will mean speaking out against systems that have led to inequities. In this work, ask those lacking un-earned privilege for their input and talk openly about whether or not it is safe for them to be a part of the action/activism. (The old model put all of this on people of color and other marginalized groups, often under the guise of a “diversity committee”, asking them to suggest needed changes. This old model ignores the reality that this group that lacks un-earned privilege may not feel comfortable saying what needs to be said, while also allowing those with un-earned privilege to stay silent/safe/comfortable.)

 

Now, I can say the two words that have chased me.

Act accordingly.

It is going to be hard, and there won’t always be a clear best/right answer.

Act accordingly.

It will make you uncomfortable and put you in situations where you don’t feel safe or supported.

Act accordingly.

Feel the pain of brothers and sisters not given opportunities that you are afforded, simply because they don’t carry un-earned privilege.

Act accordingly.

Privilege

My privilege often opens the door to allow me into the room.

My privilege allows me to dress funny, casual, or the way I want – I don’t have to worry about impressing anyone or about stereotypes placed upon me.

 

Once in the room,

My privilege allows me to speak

My privilege stifles others’ voices

 

White privilege

Male privilege

Doctor privilege

Faculty privilege

Economic/wealth privilege

English-language privilege

High quality education privilege

Parents paying for that education privilege

Heterosexual privilege

Married privilege

Husband privilege

Assumed to be Christian privilege (see White Privilege above)

U.S. Citizen privilege

Living in the U.S. privilege

Able-bodied privilege

Being able to hear and see well privilege

Not having mental illness privilege

BMI < 30 privilege

Height privilege (taller folks are affored power/authority)

Middle-age privilege (not too old or too young to be discounted)

 

And those are only the ones that I can name. Surely, there are others.

 

How do I name and claim this privilege in the room?

How can I better amplify, not silence, others’ voices?

Should I even be in the room at all?

Maybe my best contribution would be to hold the door open, including for people who might not have been on the “invite list”.

I give thanks to the community that continues to teach me how I can be a better custodian of privilege. A group of people who guides me as to whether I should be in the room or not, a group that gives me “privilege pointers” about how to be once in the room.

I give thanks for you – Shannon, Tonya, Anita, Freeman, Val, JP, Karen, Enrique, Jennifer, Danielle, Loni, Marlene, Kee, Christy, Doreen, Moneka, Tanya, Lawrence, Mallery, Angel, Miriam, Sanda, Surya, Vivette, Miriam, Nadia, Hakim, Michael, Chilan, Dustin, Kara, the NHI community and so many more – for the ways that you guide me in this realm with patience and love.

 

Take a few moments today to name your privilege.

Sit with that privilege.

What questions naturally arise for you?

Sit with those questions.

Repeat daily.

Act accordingly.

 

 

Time on Feet

Mission: Connect an obscure distance running concept to our wellness journey

Tighten your seatbelts, ladies and gentleman.

The term is one I learned as I started to get into ultra-running, which is running distances longer than a marathon.

Time on feet.

“Say what?” I asked when first introduced to the concept.

Time on feet is a divergence from the way running performance is usually measured, where the time on the clock and the distance covered are the two things that matter.

You might run mountain run where you only cover ½ of the expected distance over a 4-hour run. Maybe the terrain is so tough and the run is so long that you spend most of the time walking. (Runners hate to admit when this happens.) The run simply gets logged as “Beautiful terrain. Time on Feet = 4 hours”.

Time on feet is a reminder for the ultra athlete that simply persevering, simply pushing on, simply not giving up has replaced the things your smartwatch tracks and the numbers usually uploaded to Strava.

Time on feet is an exercise in letting go of the idea that “how far” and “how fast” define success.

Time on feet recognizes one’s effort as a new measure of success.

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Time on feet applied to your wellness:

Today, try practicing a simple re-focusing of what you feel is needed for success.

Work/school: Give yourself grace as you consider time on feet translated to your “to-do” list.

“Accomplish X, Y, and Z” becomes “Give my all toward X, Y and Z getting done.”

Wellness: Apply the time on feet principle to your wellness goals for today and this week.

“Eat X number of calories, walk for Y minutes, and get Z amount of sleep” becomes “Eat, walk and sleep for health today”.

Play with this today.

            Play today.

                        Play.

Time on feet allows us to relax a bit, smile, and become a child again. Things that were chores, tasks, “to-do’s” now become play. A sacred dance where gentleness and forgiveness toward self are two of the primary goals.

May time on feet enhance your efforts and self-care today.

You don't even need to spend hours out on the trails.

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Epilogue

Why do ultra-runners use time on feet in the first place? They do so because it is actually more consistent with success than relying on traditional parameters such as distance traveled and minute/mile pace. A workout defined by “Time on feet = 4 hours” in preparation for a race that is expected to be 8-hours in duration is more important than exact mileage. It is a measure of mental and physical aspects that being on one’s feet for 4 hours does to strengthen. Time on feet is not done in defeat, but rather as a way to ensure victory where the new set of rules are about enduring and not giving up as opposed to being about speed.

So, as you apply time on feet to your day, you are honoring this same aspect of your journey. Taking the arbitrary parameters our jobs and neighbors (and even our doctors) give for success, remixing them to be more consistent with your values and the things that ultimately matter. That, my friends, is the real path to success.

The Secret to Happiness: Connection to Others

Following the last piece where we asked the question, “How is my tech health and how is technology use affecting my wellness?”, let’s look at a related question this week.

What can we invest in this year to become a happier person??

Spoiler alert – it isn’t found at the Apple store or on your favorite streaming service. And it’s not traded on the stock market.

NPR did a piece on this very question, using the Harvard Study of Adult Development that has tracked individuals over the last 85 years. The study’s director, Robert Waldinger has looked at the data and has a simple answer as to what we should invest in for happiness.

“They should invest in their relationships with other people. We found that the strongest predictors of who not just stayed happy but who was healthy as they went through life - the strongest predictors were the warmth and the quality of their relationships with other people.”

He goes on to talk about our relationships as protection against stress and all of the ways it manifests in our bodies, affecting mental, spiritual and physical health. This against the backdrop of society where loneliness is an epidemic, with 1 of every 2 Americans reporting that they do not have a single person in their life they feel they can confide in. It reflects that we, on a societal level, are not investing in relationships with those around us. (U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has made the loneliness epidemic a point of emphasis over the last years.)

And here is where considering our relationship to technology is important – in a given moment, we often have the option to talk to our screen or talk to a live human next to us. If we want to find ourselves happy throughout this year and our lifetime, investing our energy in the live human is the right answer.

In fact, as everyone hits the gym for the January fitness rush, we can work on something coined by Waldinger as “social fitness” as well. He defines this as “tending to our relationships just like we take care of our physical health, just like we take care of physical fitness.”

Let’s get fit y’all. Socially fit, that is.

A few questions to ask yourself:

1)    How would I describe my social fitness at this moment?

2)    What are the relationships I am doing really well at, investing time and energy toward them?

3)    What are the relationships that are in need of more investment.

4)    Finally, based on the above, think of a few action steps for this week. Maybe a high school friend who you will write a letter to, a former work colleague who you will call, a family member who you schedule a coffee date with, etc.

p.s Click here to listen to the NPR piece on happiness

A Tech Assessment for the New Year

My patient, a retired teacher, looked embarrassed as he said it.

“I don’t have a smart phone. I don’t have a computer.”

I had to check the readings – somehow, despite this lack of technology in his life, his heart rate was perfectly normal. His oxygen reading was also in the normal range. Skin color looked perfectly healthy. He even wore a smile on his face.

Quickly, trying to keep him from noticing, my brain went into full speed investigation mode.

"How is this medically possible? A human being who is meeting all criteria for being alive, yet he is not connected to technology? Worse yet, he doesn’t seem to carry guilt over this lack of technology, nor does he seem concerned about what he is missing. Should I consult psychiatry? Is this worthy of a case report for the medical literature?"

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One of the gifts we get with each new year is the chance to reassess what we want to invest our time and energy into doing.

This includes technology, and more specifically the screens that humans are more and more likely to be staring at in the check-out line, as they drive, and in any moment of pause in their day. (My mom shared how in her choir practice yesterday, it was odd to her that people didn’t connect with each other during the breaks but rather pulled out their 2x4 inch screens to “connect”.)

A list of questions that I encourage all of us to sit with. You might even write them down on paper using ink.

How much of my life energy do I want consumed by and lived through screens (phone, computer, tablet, TV, etc.) in 2023?

What is the healthy amount of consumption and living that I want to do through these devices this year? (Is there someone in my life that I feel models this healthy level of consumption? What is their strategy?)

What is being squeezed out of my life by these devices?

Am I missing things on a moment-to-moment and day-to-day basis because of these devices? If so, what am I missing?

If my phone was at 0% battery but I was at 100% at this moment, would I be content?

If I had horrible food but a phone in my hand, would I consider the meal a success?

Am I more connected or disconnected to myself and those around me because of technology?

For those with children, how is my house doing at dealing with the above questions, in theory and in practice?

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Assuming we identify places and ways we want to invest differently than the course we are currently on related to our screens and devices, it is a great chance to make some changes for your year ahead. 

Put a basket in your house entrance where phones are to be placed as you walk in. 

Take a day a week that is screen free for the entire family. 

Work actively to take control of your technology (starting with the phones we call "smart") as opposed to the other way around.

You might even channel my patient’s smile and contentment with his low-tech life. Again, if you can trust me on this as a medical professional, he seemed to be doing quite fine.

Celebrate the Losses of 2022

The game came down to the last seconds.

Down by three, we scored on a layup. Now a 1-point game. And then, it was over. A narrow 1-point loss in the championship game for our middle school boys team.

One started crying, then another. It caught on like something infectious and suddenly parents were tearing up as well. As one of the coaches for the team, I wondered what we could have done differently. I questioned what coaching decisions we could have made that would have changed the outcome.

I also realized the incredible opportunity that losing gives us. In middle-school basketball. In life.

It was only with the loss that we saw how much the players really cared about each other and their team. I had never seen middle school boys hug like that!

The following day, I had another realization. The two teams were basically equal, as evidenced by the final score. However, the winning team, trophy in hand, walks away with very little introspection about how they can improve. Human nature is such that when we win, we don’t think that way.

On the other side, our team is a group of coaches and players asking what we did wrong, what we would do different, and how we can get better. There is a fire to become a better player/coach thanks to the 1-point differential where we were on the losing side.

It is a gift that comes with our losses – the desire to learn how we can improve and grow.

I share this today, as we naturally turn toward the year that was and look at what we learned. Celebrate the wins of 2022, absolutely. But take some time to look at the losses as well, as that is where the gifts of learning and growth are to be found. Take time to dissect how losses this year have made you a better person. You may discover a few losses that were so painful that you never took the time to see how you could use them for a positive purpose; if so, do that now.

A simple exercise you can try as well:

1        * List 3 important losses from 2022

          * As you look at these together, now write about what these losses have taught you and how they make you a stronger, better person.

Happy holidays to everyone!

                                                In health,

                                                (Proud) Losing Coach Anthony