Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / 182. Will Valderrama, Runner

Transcript

182. Will Valderrama, Runner · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

0:00
Speaker 1: Being in a wheelchair, being in a walker on a cane,
0:04
Speaker 1: barely walking, hitting my head so hard on like trees
0:08
Speaker 1: and like falling and you know, needing assistance. You know,
0:13
Speaker 1: Crossing that finish line is just everything. I can't even
0:17
Speaker 1: describe how incredible that feeling is, you know, to know
0:20
Speaker 1: that I did it and I overcame this, and I
0:25
Speaker 1: am better than this, and I am more than this
0:28
Speaker 1: illness that I have, because I don't want it to
0:30
Speaker 1: define me. Yes, I have it, but I don't want
0:33
Speaker 1: to be seen as a person that has MSS. I
0:35
Speaker 1: want to just be seen as like someone that you
0:37
Speaker 1: say hello to and we can have a conversation with
0:40
Speaker 1: and you don't have to ask me about my MASS
0:42
Speaker 1: and if you want to, yeah, I'll talk about it
0:43
Speaker 1: because I'm because I'm okay with it, you know, and
0:45
Speaker 1: I've accepted that. But I just want to be seen
0:47
Speaker 1: as a regular person. I want to be I want
0:50
Speaker 1: to challenge for things as a regular person. I want
0:52
Speaker 1: to compete for things as a normal person. And that's
0:55
Speaker 1: all I wanted, And that crossing that finish line for
0:57
Speaker 1: me was exactly that.
1:13
Speaker 2: Hey, everyone, emilyah Badi here, coming to you live from
1:16
Speaker 2: the ag Studio. You are listening to Hurdle, a whileness
1:20
Speaker 2: focused podcast. Reconnect with everyone from your favorite athletes to
1:24
Speaker 2: top experts in industry CEOs about their highest ties, toughest moments,
1:28
Speaker 2: and everything in between. We all go through hurdles in life,
1:32
Speaker 2: and my goal through these discussions is to empower you
1:35
Speaker 2: to better navigate yours and move with intentions so that
1:39
Speaker 2: you can stride towards your own big potential and of
1:42
Speaker 2: course have some fun along the way. For today's episode,
1:46
Speaker 2: I could not be more excited to bring you Will Valderama.
1:52
Speaker 2: He's a runner based in Brooklyn, New York, and I
1:56
Speaker 2: was so taken by his story that I knew I
2:00
Speaker 2: needed to talk to him for the show now. In
2:03
Speaker 2: May of this year, Will called Willie by his friends,
2:07
Speaker 2: was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Three days after that diagnosis,
2:13
Speaker 2: which landed him in a wheelchair at times using a
2:17
Speaker 2: walker and a cane, he decided to sign up for
2:21
Speaker 2: a marathon. Today in our conversation, we talk you through
2:25
Speaker 2: all of it. The symptoms that he was experiencing which
2:29
Speaker 2: landed him in a hospital after talking to a neurologist,
2:33
Speaker 2: the shock he experienced when getting his diagnosis, the family
2:37
Speaker 2: history that he has and how MS had impacted his
2:41
Speaker 2: life up until this point when he found out that
2:44
Speaker 2: he too had it. His journey from May through this
2:48
Speaker 2: October when he ran his first marathon and did so
2:51
Speaker 2: in four hours and twenty two minutes. This story is inspiring.
2:57
Speaker 2: Will is inspiring, and his outlook is one that we
3:00
Speaker 2: can all learn from period. As he says in today's episode,
3:05
Speaker 2: his circumstances have taught him to be more empathetic. And
3:10
Speaker 2: I know that this episode has reminded me of the
3:13
Speaker 2: value of kindness and just understanding and reminding myself every
3:18
Speaker 2: once in a while that you never know what the
3:20
Speaker 2: person next to you on the street is going through
3:22
Speaker 2: at any given time. And so I'm so grateful that
3:26
Speaker 2: Will was willing to give me his time, that he
3:29
Speaker 2: is here to tell us his story, and that he
3:32
Speaker 2: will have the opportunity to continue to inspire so many
3:36
Speaker 2: through sharing that story and the work that I know
3:40
Speaker 2: he wants to do in the future. Make sure you're
3:43
Speaker 2: following along with Hurdle over on social media. It's at
3:46
Speaker 2: Hurdle Podcasts. I'm over at Emily a Body. A huge
3:49
Speaker 2: good luck to everyone else that is gearing up to
3:52
Speaker 2: run the New York City Marathon this week. I can't
3:54
Speaker 2: believe it's finally here. My nerves are in full force.
3:57
Speaker 2: I am in high recovery mode. I'm gonna be uh
4:01
Speaker 2: living in my normal tech boots until uh until next Sunday.
4:06
Speaker 2: But if you're going to be out there, make sure
4:08
Speaker 2: to shoot me a DM and let me know where
4:09
Speaker 2: you're going to be so I can look out for
4:11
Speaker 2: you when I am on the course. And with that,
4:16
Speaker 2: let's get to hurdling. Today. I am sitting down with
4:27
Speaker 2: Will Valderama. How you doing well.
4:29
Speaker 1: I'm doing great. Thank you.
4:31
Speaker 2: I'm so excited to be here with you.
4:32
Speaker 1: I'm excited to be here with you.
4:34
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you. We have okay, we have a lot,
4:35
Speaker 2: we have a lot to cover here. But I feel
4:38
Speaker 2: like I need to provide some context for how you
4:42
Speaker 2: and I ended up in the hurdle studio, which the
4:45
Speaker 2: hurdler's listening right now. They know how excited I get
4:47
Speaker 2: when I get to actually bring someone I r L
4:50
Speaker 2: into the space. Becuys after the last year, doesn't happen? Often?
4:53
Speaker 2: Doesn't happen often? I was taken by Will on social
4:58
Speaker 2: media and he happens to be local we'll get into
5:02
Speaker 2: the whys and the particulars very shortly, but happens to
5:05
Speaker 2: be local. And I was like, when can you get
5:07
Speaker 2: into the studio and he said, how about next week?
5:10
Speaker 1: Yeah? I worked out well.
5:11
Speaker 2: I will say that having a mutual friend usually like
5:15
Speaker 2: makes that whole process a little less sketchy and or
5:18
Speaker 2: like intimidating.
5:19
Speaker 1: Oh for sure.
5:20
Speaker 2: Shout out shout out to Tim West from Bandit, who,
5:23
Speaker 2: by the time this episode goes live, the Hurdle community
5:25
Speaker 2: will actually be familiar with because Tim and I are
5:29
Speaker 2: going to be sitting down tomorrow night at the Hub
5:32
Speaker 2: seventeen inside of Blue Lemon for a little chat. Ski.
5:35
Speaker 1: That's incredible. Tim's amazing guy, super super amazing guy. And
5:40
Speaker 1: I actually have a funny story about how I met Tim. Oh.
5:44
Speaker 1: I was wearing a banded hat and I just went
5:48
Speaker 1: to this random board to meet a friend or just
5:51
Speaker 1: he was working there, and he was sitting there and
5:54
Speaker 1: then he came over, said hello, invited me to just
5:58
Speaker 1: to have lunch, and then we hung out pretty much
6:01
Speaker 1: the whole day and then we've been We've been friends
6:03
Speaker 1: ever since.
6:04
Speaker 2: I love that. I love that so so started some context,
6:07
Speaker 2: here are our mutual friend Tim owns a company called
6:10
Speaker 2: Bandit Running. They're they're gonna be doing some big things
6:13
Speaker 2: coming up, So keep your eyes peeled for for what
6:16
Speaker 2: Bandit has coming down the pipe. But Willie, so happy
6:20
Speaker 2: to have you here today. Why don't you give us
6:21
Speaker 2: a little context as to what you recently completed.
6:27
Speaker 1: Okay, so I recently ran my first marathon. A little
6:34
Speaker 1: bit further back into the story is that I was
6:37
Speaker 1: diagnosed with multiple.
6:39
Speaker 2: Sclerosis and many okay, lost.
6:44
Speaker 1: Vision, lost, my mobility, ability to walk, can dexterity, so
6:52
Speaker 1: some selight memory loss as well. And and I ran
6:57
Speaker 1: a marathon five months after.
6:59
Speaker 2: And I feel like a lot of people can share
7:06
Speaker 2: that sentiment if they ever go for running a marathon.
7:11
Speaker 2: I remember after my first New York I said exactly
7:14
Speaker 2: that sentence, like best day of my life. But for you,
7:17
Speaker 2: I mean, what a different weight that has after what
7:23
Speaker 2: you went through. So before we talked through that diagnosis
7:27
Speaker 2: from May, why don't you give the hurdlers a little
7:31
Speaker 2: bit of context into what kind of life you were
7:33
Speaker 2: living before this. Where did you grow up?
7:36
Speaker 1: So? I was born in Columbia, moved to the States
7:39
Speaker 1: when I was six to New Jersey, grew up in
7:41
Speaker 1: New Jersey, soccer player all my life. I'm a soccer coach.
7:45
Speaker 1: I'm a Utah coach. And then I moved to New
7:48
Speaker 1: York in twenty seventeen, and then I started running recently.
7:55
Speaker 1: I started running like I'm a pandemic runner. That's what
7:57
Speaker 1: I called myself.
7:58
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people are, Yeah.
8:00
Speaker 1: I'm a pandemic runner. And I did it to lose weight.
8:03
Speaker 1: I was pretty heavy. I was like it, you know,
8:07
Speaker 1: I felt not the best about myself, and I used
8:11
Speaker 1: I used the time, you know, through obviously a very
8:13
Speaker 1: tough period to just take care of myself and change myself.
8:17
Speaker 1: So then I started running, and then it just started
8:22
Speaker 1: going really really well. I started hitting like small milestones
8:24
Speaker 1: and small winds, and I fell in love with running.
8:27
Speaker 1: And then after that I was pretty hooked and I
8:30
Speaker 1: just kept on going. Yeah and yeah, and that's that's
8:32
Speaker 1: kind of what led me to design to run a
8:34
Speaker 1: marathon and doing all those things.
8:36
Speaker 2: So you got into running before your diagnosis.
8:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, which is pretty crazy because I think running
8:45
Speaker 1: really helped me with my recovery. And I actually when
8:48
Speaker 1: I first started getting symptoms and I might be getting
8:51
Speaker 1: a little bit head here. But that was a Monday,
8:54
Speaker 1: May third, and I ran ten miles that Monday with symptoms,
8:59
Speaker 1: and then Tuesday run ran another eight with symptoms. But
9:01
Speaker 1: it were light symptoms. It was just like vertigo. And
9:05
Speaker 1: I just thought, well, I'm just gonna shake this off.
9:07
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna run this off. It just it might
9:09
Speaker 1: be just a light headache. I had just gotten like
9:12
Speaker 1: a new glasses prescription, so I thought maybe that would
9:15
Speaker 1: have been something that could have contributed to that, and
9:19
Speaker 1: I was wrong.
9:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, wow, wow, okay, And I think I mean, first
9:23
Speaker 2: of all, also you saying you starting to run to
9:26
Speaker 2: lose weight, A lot of people can definitely relate with that,
9:29
Speaker 2: especially I think over the pandemic, all of us not
9:32
Speaker 2: typically moving as much as we had been at one
9:35
Speaker 2: point or another, especially with like the lack of a
9:37
Speaker 2: commute or the lack of going to social activities. So
9:40
Speaker 2: I myself like definitely leaned into running during the pandemic
9:43
Speaker 2: to just feel a little bit better in my body.
9:45
Speaker 2: And to highlight you saying like I felt a little
9:48
Speaker 2: bit dizzy. I felt like it was vertigo. I mean
9:51
Speaker 2: high prime example of like the thing that we all
9:54
Speaker 2: go to like WebMD four right, Yeah, the Google. It's
9:57
Speaker 2: like I feel a little bit dizzy, and it's like
9:59
Speaker 2: it could be cancer or it could be I mean,
10:03
Speaker 2: unfortunately like what you ultimately learned it to be. So
10:07
Speaker 2: after day two of running me miles than what happens?
10:12
Speaker 1: Oh man, So I it got worse obviously. I remember Wednesday,
10:17
Speaker 1: I was walking my dog around Karen Park and I
10:19
Speaker 1: absolutely whacked my head like on a tree branch because
10:23
Speaker 1: I couldn't see it. I was really starting to lose
10:25
Speaker 1: vision at that point. I was I lost peripheral vision
10:28
Speaker 1: on the left first, and then it started, it slowly
10:31
Speaker 1: started just boxing in, you know. And then at that
10:35
Speaker 1: point I knew there was something like wrong, and I
10:38
Speaker 1: knew that that I was starting to get sick. I
10:42
Speaker 1: didn't know exactly what was happening. At that point. My
10:44
Speaker 1: whoop strap actually was telling me that I was getting
10:48
Speaker 1: I was getting eight nine hours of sleep, you know.
10:51
Speaker 1: And I was still in the red, you know, I
10:54
Speaker 1: was still in like the yellow, and I just didn't
10:58
Speaker 1: understand why. Right, I was eating, well, hydrating, doing all
11:04
Speaker 1: the things, and it was still in the yellow, and
11:06
Speaker 1: it was still like like slightly in the red, but
11:10
Speaker 1: like teetering towards yellow. And then I started asking questions.
11:15
Speaker 1: I remember, I remember Clear's Day. I posted a story
11:19
Speaker 1: about about positional vertigo, asking if anyone knew anything about
11:23
Speaker 1: positional vertigo, this and that, and then someone someone suggested
11:28
Speaker 1: I go see a chiropractor. So I did. That was Thursday.
11:32
Speaker 1: That was Thursday, May sixth and then uh, they adjusted
11:36
Speaker 1: my back. I felt great. Immediately after, I was like, Wow,
11:39
Speaker 1: this is perfect. I feel good and I'm healed. That's it,
11:43
Speaker 1: this is done. And then that Friday, I woke up
11:46
Speaker 1: and I had no vision on my left I was
11:48
Speaker 1: really struggling to walk. I needed like the walls to
11:51
Speaker 1: keep me going. And then and then I decided to
11:56
Speaker 1: make a phone call to a family friend who's a
11:58
Speaker 1: who's a neurologist and explain to him what was happening.
12:01
Speaker 1: And he gave me the three options of what I
12:06
Speaker 1: might possibly have, one being MSS, second one being like
12:09
Speaker 1: a like a slight stroke or like a laceration in
12:13
Speaker 1: the brain. So then obviously those none of those are good,
12:17
Speaker 1: you know, and I decided to go to the hospital.
12:21
Speaker 1: I called around and just figured out or he suggested
12:23
Speaker 1: I go to wild Cornell in the Upper East Upper
12:26
Speaker 1: East Side, and yeah, I got to six.
12:30
Speaker 2: You living, you living alone at this point, so.
12:32
Speaker 1: I lived with my girlfriend and her dog. But my
12:35
Speaker 1: girlfriend was in Pittsburgh. That's where she's from. So she
12:38
Speaker 1: was in Pittsburgh at that time, and and she obviously
12:42
Speaker 1: couldn't help, you know, and you know, she was there
12:44
Speaker 1: for like a family event, so it was just really
12:47
Speaker 1: hard for her to come back for something so silly
12:49
Speaker 1: like positional verdigo, right right, right. And so then Friday,
12:55
Speaker 1: I decided to go to the hospital. She decides to
12:56
Speaker 1: come back from Pittsburgh, and I get to there. They
13:00
Speaker 1: take me in right away, and they started doing some tests,
13:05
Speaker 1: like some like walking tests and you know, and and
13:07
Speaker 1: then they just they think that I pretty much just
13:10
Speaker 1: have really bad migraines, and and I was pretty much
13:15
Speaker 1: like that's it. And positional vertigo, which again I had
13:19
Speaker 1: web mded, you know. And then after they started realizing
13:24
Speaker 1: that you know, this might not be the case, went
13:27
Speaker 1: for in for a cat scan an MRI, and then
13:32
Speaker 1: and then and then that's when they told me that
13:34
Speaker 1: like I was showing early signs of MS and they
13:37
Speaker 1: were gonna admit me.
13:38
Speaker 2: So for someone who doesn't know much about MS. Talk
13:44
Speaker 2: to me a little bit about firstly what it is
13:48
Speaker 2: and what's it mean to have like early on set,
13:50
Speaker 2: Like are you in a better position because you found
13:53
Speaker 2: it early or how does that work?
13:55
Speaker 1: So? Multiple sclerosis is an auto immune disease where essentially
14:02
Speaker 1: there's a protective wall around like your your nerves, right,
14:05
Speaker 1: It's called the Milin wall, and that deteriorates, so it
14:08
Speaker 1: starts breaking down and then that that open nerve you know,
14:13
Speaker 1: when it when it comes in contact with a bunch
14:16
Speaker 1: of different things, like it it doesn't connect well with
14:18
Speaker 1: the brain or muscles, and and that's so that's essentially
14:21
Speaker 1: what MSS is. Early signs are really hard to detect
14:25
Speaker 1: because there's no real clear indication of how long you've
14:32
Speaker 1: actually had a mess for it, you know, Like this
14:34
Speaker 1: was my first clinical episode, right, but looking back, I've
14:40
Speaker 1: I I might have had different symptoms that I would
14:44
Speaker 1: have classified as like normal or me just being tired, yeah,
14:48
Speaker 1: or me you know, just like acting strange for a
14:51
Speaker 1: couple of days, you know, and you know it's it's I.
14:57
Speaker 1: You just I have no way of telling, you know. Yeah,
15:01
Speaker 1: And I possibly could have had a mess since like
15:04
Speaker 1: I remember like the first somewhat related symptom was when
15:07
Speaker 1: I was like sixteen. You know, I'm thirty now and
15:09
Speaker 1: I was twenty nine when I got diagnosed.
15:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, what happened when you were sixteen?
15:14
Speaker 1: I couldn't swallow certain foods, which is like a very
15:19
Speaker 1: big a mess andthumb really and it was for like
15:22
Speaker 1: it was for closer a year, you know, so what
15:25
Speaker 1: kind of it's chewy foods, so like lots of meats.
15:28
Speaker 1: I remember like almost choking on a calamari, like like
15:32
Speaker 1: nearly died. So it was like foods like that, like broccoli,
15:35
Speaker 1: like asparagus since it's like really stringy. So that was
15:38
Speaker 1: I remember that being like the first one where I
15:40
Speaker 1: was just I started asking like what was going on?
15:44
Speaker 1: And you know, I never went to a doctor, right,
15:48
Speaker 1: but you know, I just I was young. I you know,
15:51
Speaker 1: I was playing soccer. I just thought, well, this is
15:53
Speaker 1: just something whatever, you know. So so yeah, you know,
15:57
Speaker 1: so that's pretty much what happened. And like even with
15:59
Speaker 1: like running, like my recovery time when running was like
16:01
Speaker 1: when I first started running was really long, like sometimes
16:05
Speaker 1: like when I first started hitting like ten like twelve miles,
16:09
Speaker 1: my recovery was like three four days sometimes, you know,
16:12
Speaker 1: and that's a long time.
16:15
Speaker 2: You know even that what you were saying about the
16:17
Speaker 2: whoop data like that is super interesting to me. And
16:20
Speaker 2: you reference like being in the red being the yellow.
16:23
Speaker 2: Basically the goal every day for someone who may not
16:26
Speaker 2: wear a whoop is that you're hoping to like be
16:28
Speaker 2: in the green, which is that means that like you're
16:30
Speaker 2: recovering well, your body is in a prime state to
16:34
Speaker 2: go after the next day of activities and take on
16:37
Speaker 2: new strains. So if you're continually waking up in the
16:40
Speaker 2: red or the yellow, and you're doing all the things
16:42
Speaker 2: that you can do to be mindful of your overall recovery.
16:46
Speaker 2: You mentioned sleep, perhaps not consuming much alcohol, or consuming
16:50
Speaker 2: alcohol like early in their day, not close to bed.
16:53
Speaker 2: Things like wearing blue light glasses can impact this. There
16:55
Speaker 2: are so many factors that can impact your overall recovery,
16:58
Speaker 2: including obviously how much strain you take on during the day.
17:00
Speaker 2: So that is just such an interesting thing that we'll
17:03
Speaker 2: have to we'll just turn well in the team onto
17:05
Speaker 2: what happened in your in your case, but so I
17:09
Speaker 2: can't even I'm like sitting here shaking my head thinking
17:12
Speaker 2: about how you must have felt when they told you
17:16
Speaker 2: that you had MSS.
17:20
Speaker 1: I didn't process it at first, and at that point,
17:25
Speaker 1: I think my body went into just I think my
17:28
Speaker 1: body was that was in survival mode because I was
17:30
Speaker 1: still able to stand and I was still able to move,
17:34
Speaker 1: and I had to touch things and you know, and
17:37
Speaker 1: I had to touch things and like move to help
17:39
Speaker 1: me move around. But I was getting around. And then
17:41
Speaker 1: as soon as they told me, I remember calling my
17:44
Speaker 1: girlfriend and she's she came home right away. And then
17:48
Speaker 1: I remember calling my mother, called my mom, and you know,
17:51
Speaker 1: she was she was pretty upset. It's hereditary. Oh MS
17:56
Speaker 1: is hereditary. And I have an uncle who does have MS.
17:59
Speaker 1: And the first thing I thought about, he's his, his his,
18:02
Speaker 1: his type of MSSES is it's pretty it's pretty developed.
18:07
Speaker 1: So where like I have something called relapse from remitting MS,
18:10
Speaker 1: where it's you know, you you you go into remission,
18:15
Speaker 1: and then the goal is always not to relapse, right
18:18
Speaker 1: because the next time you relapse, it's gonna get worse. Interesting,
18:21
Speaker 1: and then it's just it's gonna get worse, and then
18:23
Speaker 1: at some point it's gonna become a primary progressive where
18:26
Speaker 1: that's where you see people in wheelchair you know, MS
18:29
Speaker 1: patients and like uh that are struggling to be a
18:32
Speaker 1: little more mobile, you know, and and their their symptoms
18:36
Speaker 1: are just consistently throughout the day. And that was the
18:38
Speaker 1: first thing that I thought about, was like, I see
18:41
Speaker 1: how much it struggles, how much he struggles, how much
18:43
Speaker 1: his family struggles to help him, you know, and how
18:47
Speaker 1: large of a task it is. And I didn't want that,
18:50
Speaker 1: you know. And but that was that was the first
18:52
Speaker 1: thing that I really thought about. And but I thought
18:55
Speaker 1: about my uncle a lot, and I didn't process it
18:57
Speaker 1: as like I I have U. I process it as like, man,
19:02
Speaker 1: this is really hard for you, and like I don't
19:05
Speaker 1: want to go through that, yeah, you know.
19:07
Speaker 2: Yeah.
19:08
Speaker 1: And then after and then when I got admitted, I
19:12
Speaker 1: that's when I I couldn't even walk and I had
19:17
Speaker 1: a little bit of ability on my right leg, but
19:19
Speaker 1: my left leg was completely gone. Yeah.
19:22
Speaker 2: So and when they when they admit you, I mean,
19:26
Speaker 2: I'm sure the questions that are going through your head
19:30
Speaker 2: are just rampant, Like you want if you want all
19:33
Speaker 2: the answers, you want as many of the answers as possible, right, Like,
19:35
Speaker 2: how is this going to impact me? What is it
19:37
Speaker 2: going to do to the rest of my the rest
19:39
Speaker 2: of my days. Nevertheless, like next week, next month, Am
19:42
Speaker 2: I gonna have to like completely change where I live?
19:45
Speaker 2: Am I gonna have to move? Like all of these questions?
19:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, Unfortunately I didn't actually get to ask
19:52
Speaker 1: those questions until like the second or third day. There
19:55
Speaker 1: was a big gap of just a great area you know,
19:59
Speaker 1: of of me not knowing what was happening. It was
20:03
Speaker 1: just admitted and right away into like a spinal tap,
20:08
Speaker 1: which was the worst because they kept missing. They were
20:11
Speaker 1: just so spinal tap is they're trying to extract fluids
20:14
Speaker 1: from your spine, and my lower back muscle al was
20:18
Speaker 1: like a bit too thick, so like they couldn't get
20:21
Speaker 1: past the spinal area the muscle all the spinal area
20:23
Speaker 1: two extract, so they just poked me like ten times.
20:26
Speaker 1: It hurts so much. So so it was like that.
20:30
Speaker 1: And then plus put you on steroids to try to
20:32
Speaker 1: slow down the lesions in your brain. And then and
20:36
Speaker 1: then so I had lesions in my brain. They figure
20:38
Speaker 1: that out, and I also had lesions into my upper
20:39
Speaker 1: cervical spine. So it was everywhere, like you know, and
20:44
Speaker 1: and that's the reason why I was why my episode
20:48
Speaker 1: was so severe, you know, because it was. Yeah. So
20:52
Speaker 1: then after like two days, I just didn't know what
20:54
Speaker 1: was pretty much happening. I finally saw a neurologist, and
20:58
Speaker 1: I remember asking him like three times, like are you
20:59
Speaker 1: sure it's MSS like you know, like and he's like, yes,
21:03
Speaker 1: it's it's a mess. You know.
21:05
Speaker 2: There's a known silver lining as the story progresses that
21:09
Speaker 2: you are in a much better place now than you
21:12
Speaker 2: were at this point. Yeah, but at that point, when
21:17
Speaker 2: did you even feel or have any assurance that you
21:22
Speaker 2: may be able to go back to what could have
21:26
Speaker 2: been considered previously your quote unquote normal life.
21:30
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be honest with you. It wasn't even anything
21:32
Speaker 1: with the doctors. It was it was just I knew
21:35
Speaker 1: that I was going to get back, Like there was
21:37
Speaker 1: no way that I wasn't going to get back to
21:40
Speaker 1: like being that person, and and the doctors coming to
21:44
Speaker 1: talk to me, that was just confirmed it, you know.
21:46
Speaker 1: And but it took a while, like I like I
21:51
Speaker 1: got admit into like a like an impatient rehab program,
21:56
Speaker 1: and that's really when I was able to ask those questions,
21:59
Speaker 1: you know. But but it was more about like the timeline,
22:02
Speaker 1: not so much of like you know, is this am
22:05
Speaker 1: I going to be able to get back? You know?
22:06
Speaker 1: It was when yeah, you know, like when can I
22:09
Speaker 1: start running? Like when can I start moving when I kicked?
22:12
Speaker 1: When can I go back to coaching? And And I
22:17
Speaker 1: didn't get my final answer until I met my specialist,
22:22
Speaker 1: and that was three days before I was discharged, and
22:26
Speaker 1: she gave me a timeframe of running of early July,
22:31
Speaker 1: early to mid July.
22:33
Speaker 2: So you were to the extent that you had described.
22:37
Speaker 2: When you go into that inpatient facility, which is where
22:41
Speaker 2: it's in.
22:41
Speaker 1: It's it's in WL Cranella in the upper east Side.
22:44
Speaker 1: They have they have like a like like like an
22:47
Speaker 1: impatient rehab center in you know where they they admit
22:51
Speaker 1: you in and you stay there for X amount of
22:54
Speaker 1: weeks days, you know, and it's it's intensive. It's from
22:57
Speaker 1: like nine to five, like occupational physical, cognitive therapy. There
23:02
Speaker 1: was everything. Doctors come and see you like all the time,
23:05
Speaker 1: tons of test Yeah, and it was intense and honestly
23:08
Speaker 1: it was pretty hard.
23:10
Speaker 2: Well I would imagine that at any point it would
23:13
Speaker 2: be very intense and very hard, but I would also
23:17
Speaker 2: guess that it had to be a little bit more
23:21
Speaker 2: difficult because of the climate of what was going on
23:24
Speaker 2: in the world at the time.
23:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was tough. Yeah, that was really really tough.
23:31
Speaker 1: That was tough because there was a lot of people
23:34
Speaker 1: that wanted to see me, and I wanted to see
23:36
Speaker 1: a lot of people, and when you lose contact for
23:39
Speaker 1: x amount of days, it becomes really hard, and you know,
23:43
Speaker 1: and I know it was also it was it was limiting,
23:47
Speaker 1: like people couldn't people could only come and see me
23:49
Speaker 1: from like nine to like eight, But it wasn't really
23:53
Speaker 1: nine to eight because I was in therapy for like
23:56
Speaker 1: four hours in the morning and then you know, and
23:58
Speaker 1: like four hours in the afternoon, and then like after
24:00
Speaker 1: that I had pretty much homework and like you know, yeah,
24:03
Speaker 1: and so that was that was difficult. And then also
24:06
Speaker 1: the weather was turning. It was it was like really
24:09
Speaker 1: cold when I when I went into the hospital, and
24:10
Speaker 1: then it was just like mid seventies, and you know,
24:13
Speaker 1: it was really really nice.
24:14
Speaker 2: Do you, upon arriving there start to meet anyone that
24:18
Speaker 2: like makes an impact on you, Yes, yes, Oh I
24:22
Speaker 2: love the enthusiasm.
24:23
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, yes, and impatient. There was this this
24:28
Speaker 1: older guy, his name was his name is Steve. I'll
24:29
Speaker 1: never forget him. He was so nice.
24:31
Speaker 2: What's Steve's deal.
24:35
Speaker 1: Steve's deal is that he he had a bad accident
24:39
Speaker 1: and I don't know, I don't remember exactly what he
24:43
Speaker 1: was diagnosed with, but he was he was he was
24:46
Speaker 1: the place is called Baker eighteen or and that's what
24:49
Speaker 1: they just called the patient. But he was there really
24:51
Speaker 1: close to a month, and he was just like going
24:56
Speaker 1: through the wringer and he was so positive about everything.
25:00
Speaker 1: And he was my roommate. I was only there with
25:01
Speaker 1: him one night, but he made such an impact. We
25:03
Speaker 1: watched the Yankees game. I don't even like baseball, sorry,
25:06
Speaker 1: but you know, like we watched like a Knicks game,
25:11
Speaker 1: and we watched a bunch of different things, and he
25:14
Speaker 1: would just talk to me about like you're gonna be fine,
25:16
Speaker 1: you're young, this and that, like you should be you
25:18
Speaker 1: should be happy that you're not my age because you'd
25:21
Speaker 1: be here for two months and and he was just amazing,
25:24
Speaker 1: an amazing, amazing guy. And then actually when I when
25:27
Speaker 1: I after I got out of the hospital, I saw
25:29
Speaker 1: him like two months later, and I said hello to him,
25:33
Speaker 1: and you know, and we talked her a bit, but
25:35
Speaker 1: he was. He was one of those people that made
25:37
Speaker 1: an impact. And then also the therapist. I mean they
25:41
Speaker 1: were incredible. Like, you know, I'm really fortunate and grateful
25:46
Speaker 1: that i had such a tremendous team around me in
25:50
Speaker 1: that week and a half that I was there, because
25:53
Speaker 1: they got me from walking three feet to walking hallways.
25:59
Speaker 2: And then they send you back home or what happens
26:01
Speaker 2: with that. I'm sure you needed a lot of like
26:04
Speaker 2: you needed to kind of shift things up a little bit, right.
26:06
Speaker 1: So the reason why I had to stay there was
26:09
Speaker 1: because I couldn't go upstairs and I live in a
26:12
Speaker 1: three floor walk up and they needed a plan and
26:16
Speaker 1: I needed a plan, right, So they got me to
26:20
Speaker 1: a baseline where pretty much I could just go upstairs
26:24
Speaker 1: and that was it.
26:24
Speaker 2: And at this point, your vision is better.
26:28
Speaker 1: Not fully, yeah, not fully, everything's really blurry. Light sensitivity
26:32
Speaker 1: was a massive deal for me. Yeah, huge, huge problem
26:35
Speaker 1: for me. Yeah, that was rough. That was tough. Light
26:38
Speaker 1: sensitivity was really really hard. Anything would hurt my head.
26:42
Speaker 1: One of the largest things that was really really challenging
26:46
Speaker 1: was the sirens. You know New York sirens everywhere and
26:51
Speaker 1: as soon as you hear them, like in a maybe
26:54
Speaker 1: like a three block radius. I just like would lose
26:56
Speaker 1: vision immediately and headaches right away, and yeah, what.
27:00
Speaker 2: Can you do to manage that?
27:03
Speaker 1: Nothing? Yeah, nothing, literally nothing. You just have to take it.
27:07
Speaker 1: And that was for almost like a month, you know,
27:12
Speaker 1: and you're just there and you just you know, fingers
27:15
Speaker 1: to the ears and just trying to just close in
27:17
Speaker 1: your eyes and just trying to just let it go
27:19
Speaker 1: and pass. And it's a fire truck and after that
27:22
Speaker 1: it's an ambulance and then there's.
27:23
Speaker 2: You know, and did you think about just leaving New York?
27:26
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, big time, big time. I thought about
27:31
Speaker 1: leaving New York. And I couldn't you know, I couldn't walk.
27:35
Speaker 1: I pretty much had a full time job of being
27:37
Speaker 1: seen doctors after I got out for the Perth until
27:40
Speaker 1: like August. Yeah, specialist, doctor's, therapist, everything was here. I
27:45
Speaker 1: couldn't just leave, but solely based on the fact that ambulance, firetruck,
27:50
Speaker 1: all these like sirens were killing me. I wanted to
27:55
Speaker 1: leave so badly.
27:57
Speaker 2: And I mean, beyond that struggle, I would also imagine
28:00
Speaker 2: that obviously all this takes such an emotional toll on you.
28:04
Speaker 2: So during I would say, let's say pre August, because
28:07
Speaker 2: it seems as though we're going to get to a point,
28:09
Speaker 2: come like end of August, where you're starting to like
28:11
Speaker 2: feel a little bit more back at home in your body.
28:14
Speaker 2: So leading up to that point, how do you even
28:18
Speaker 2: stay grounded or like deal with the day to day
28:21
Speaker 2: frustrations of something that's just so uncontrollable.
28:24
Speaker 1: I started setting myself just like little goals, you know,
28:28
Speaker 1: like small goals like I'm trying to think of, like
28:31
Speaker 1: the first one that I set myself taking the subway,
28:35
Speaker 1: not ubering, and I couldn't drive, you know, so it
28:38
Speaker 1: was ubers you know, it lifts. And then my first
28:41
Speaker 1: goal was I want to take the train, and I
28:45
Speaker 1: did it and I was super happy about it. And
28:47
Speaker 1: then after was getting off the cane, and then I
28:50
Speaker 1: was able to get off the cane, and then after
28:53
Speaker 1: that was regaining vision with fast movements. And that one
28:57
Speaker 1: took a really really long time, more than I had expected,
29:01
Speaker 1: But it was one of the goals that I set
29:03
Speaker 1: for myself. It just it took longer to get there.
29:05
Speaker 2: But a goal like that, like how much of that
29:07
Speaker 2: is actually within your control?
29:09
Speaker 1: It is because there's there's therapy for that. So we
29:11
Speaker 1: did something called vo R VR vo R, which it's
29:15
Speaker 1: like vestibular something response whatever, and it's essentially just a
29:20
Speaker 1: big letter B, right, Yeah, it's just capital B. And
29:23
Speaker 1: you're just moving your head left and right on a
29:25
Speaker 1: metronome and you're just going left and right, left and right,
29:28
Speaker 1: left and right. And then after you go with the
29:30
Speaker 1: with the the be you go up and down. Yeah,
29:32
Speaker 1: and that helps with your vestibular system. And you're just
29:37
Speaker 1: doing that for like ever, for like two minutes, like
29:40
Speaker 1: like four sets of two minutes.
29:42
Speaker 2: And I'm just sitting here like shaking my head a
29:45
Speaker 2: little bit, thinking about the grit that it takes to
29:47
Speaker 2: commit to that, knowing that, for example, like I'm dealing
29:50
Speaker 2: with I would say, last phases of a strange so
29:54
Speaker 2: as muscle, which required physical therapy and like physical therapy
29:59
Speaker 2: homework that I drited doing, whereas I'm talking to someone
30:03
Speaker 2: that needed to do this for like hours a day.
30:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it was. It was a lot. And then yeah,
30:10
Speaker 1: so that was like one of the workouts that I did.
30:11
Speaker 1: There was something called the Brock string, which is like
30:13
Speaker 1: it's just a string with like different beads and then
30:17
Speaker 1: you're just going and just moving and you're just going
30:19
Speaker 1: from be to bead and then moving your head left
30:21
Speaker 1: and right. And there's different exercises with this one string.
30:25
Speaker 1: And it's so elementary, right because it's just a string
30:28
Speaker 1: that's tied to your doorknob. But you're there and you're
30:33
Speaker 1: trying to focus because I couldn't focus. I had I
30:35
Speaker 1: had a big issue with convergence, so like getting both
30:38
Speaker 1: eyes to like work together to meet in the middle.
30:42
Speaker 1: And so I'm just doing that and I'm doing this
30:44
Speaker 1: this VR this with this letter B and just moving
30:47
Speaker 1: my head left and right, you know, going down the
30:49
Speaker 1: streets of like Brooklyn, just like left and right, and
30:52
Speaker 1: everyone's looking at me, like what's going on with this guy?
30:54
Speaker 2: You know?
30:54
Speaker 1: And so those were two of the big workouts that
30:57
Speaker 1: I did and and again super elementary, but it makes
31:02
Speaker 1: a difference. Yeah, And if you're not doing it, your
31:05
Speaker 1: recovery just you know, it grows by like exponentially.
31:09
Speaker 2: And I mean talk about the application of this like
31:12
Speaker 2: relevant to whatever other goal or task that you have
31:16
Speaker 2: at hand. When we're talking about like setting small attainable
31:18
Speaker 2: goals so that you can get to where you want
31:20
Speaker 2: to be, even if these small goals like aren't as
31:24
Speaker 2: far along or as progressed as you were hoping.
31:27
Speaker 1: With these little goals there. I knew that they were
31:29
Speaker 1: just going to build up to something greater, right, And
31:32
Speaker 1: I also knew that I didn't have a choice, you know,
31:35
Speaker 1: I knew that this was my only route.
31:38
Speaker 2: Yeah. But that acceptance, that acceptance is like what so
31:40
Speaker 2: many people struggle with, right, Yeah, I mean that's what
31:43
Speaker 2: separates like a fixed mindset from a growth mindset. You
31:45
Speaker 2: can either like commit to wanting to be better that
31:48
Speaker 2: includes accepting the shit that you can't change, or you
31:52
Speaker 2: can just be sitting at home being mad about the
31:54
Speaker 2: things that you can't change.
31:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right, And you know, and I know tons
31:58
Speaker 1: of not tons, but I know some of them mess patients,
32:00
Speaker 1: and you know that that struggle with that, you know,
32:04
Speaker 1: they see it as something that they can't deal with
32:07
Speaker 1: or they struggle to deal with. But even though it sucks,
32:11
Speaker 1: and it it changes your day, like by an hour,
32:16
Speaker 1: you know, each hour, like I today, we can be
32:19
Speaker 1: talking or like right now we could be talking, and
32:20
Speaker 1: then once I leave here, I might lose like handexterity
32:25
Speaker 1: or might have like foot drop. But you got to
32:27
Speaker 1: be okay with that, and you got to be okay
32:28
Speaker 1: that this stuff is, it's going to happen, but there's
32:32
Speaker 1: stuff that you can do to prevent that. There's stuff
32:34
Speaker 1: that you can do to maybe not have it happen
32:36
Speaker 1: as frequently, you know. And that was my mindset, is
32:39
Speaker 1: I don't want this. This hurts, this is terrible, and
32:41
Speaker 1: if I can avoid it, I'm going to do it.
32:43
Speaker 1: And you know, but but yeah, it's truly hard for
32:46
Speaker 1: a lot of people to do that.
32:48
Speaker 2: Is there like a moment where you feel as though
32:51
Speaker 2: a lot of these exercises that you're doing or the
32:55
Speaker 2: I would say, maybe some of the sacrifices you're making
32:57
Speaker 2: are really starting to pay off.
32:59
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I June seventh, So I my birthday was
33:05
Speaker 1: June eighth. June seventh, I set another little goal to
33:09
Speaker 1: just run, to just run a lap around the track
33:14
Speaker 1: at mccaron Park. And it was way too early for me.
33:17
Speaker 1: I knew it was way too early for me, but
33:20
Speaker 1: I was like, whatever, I'm going to do this. You know,
33:22
Speaker 1: I just need I needed it, you know. So I
33:24
Speaker 1: did it. I did it, and then I ran the
33:28
Speaker 1: first one, walked and then I got to three quarters
33:32
Speaker 1: of a mile and I felt great and then at
33:36
Speaker 1: this point, I was like, Wow, I'm actually running. I
33:38
Speaker 1: might not be running in a straight line, but I'm running.
33:41
Speaker 1: You know, I might be a little it might be
33:43
Speaker 1: a little blurry, I don't really see anyone on the
33:46
Speaker 1: left or right side of me, but guess what, I'm running.
33:48
Speaker 1: And that's when I knew a whole Like that's when
33:51
Speaker 1: I figured out that therapy was really really working and
33:54
Speaker 1: I was getting closer to taking my next steps of
33:59
Speaker 1: my Marith fun Yeah.
34:01
Speaker 2: I mean I'm sitting here thinking about if I had
34:04
Speaker 2: happened to be at the track at that day and
34:08
Speaker 2: just I mean forget like what it looked like to
34:10
Speaker 2: like to actually for someone on the outside not knowing you,
34:13
Speaker 2: seeing you run. But really what I'm thinking about is
34:18
Speaker 2: the idea that like you never know what anyone is
34:20
Speaker 2: dealing with, like it walks by you on the street,
34:23
Speaker 2: for one person to like have like learned that about
34:27
Speaker 2: like that thing that you were doing at that time
34:28
Speaker 2: on that track, and how meaningful that was to you,
34:30
Speaker 2: Like Wow, what what an accomplishment?
34:33
Speaker 1: But what like a moment. It was a moment, And
34:36
Speaker 1: you know, I think that day I became more empathetic.
34:40
Speaker 1: I started to really understand what people might go through
34:45
Speaker 1: that I just don't see. Yeah, and I had and
34:49
Speaker 1: I had a really nice I remember finishing and I
34:53
Speaker 1: just laid on the ground for a little bit and
34:54
Speaker 1: just close my eyes and just try to like get
34:58
Speaker 1: my vision back. And while doing that, I remember are
35:00
Speaker 1: just thinking like, holy shit, I just did this. And
35:03
Speaker 1: there's people that are struggling with what you wars, and
35:06
Speaker 1: even though I'm going through this, I'm one of the
35:07
Speaker 1: lucky ones. And I think that's why I really want
35:10
Speaker 1: to talk to you about this too, because I think
35:12
Speaker 1: it's really really important to just put more awareness out there.
35:15
Speaker 1: And I think we're starting to see them more with
35:17
Speaker 1: m mess as maybe the last three years, but there's
35:22
Speaker 1: not enough out there, especially for athletes.
35:29
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38:42
Speaker 2: that comes up now is when does the you know,
38:46
Speaker 2: three quarters of a mile turn into like more plurals.
38:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, it actually came really quick after that. Yeah, I
38:55
Speaker 1: did safely. I was okay by by by my therapist,
38:58
Speaker 1: my physical therapist, and we set another small goals of
39:01
Speaker 1: just like you know, ten percent increases and then after
39:04
Speaker 1: that and it went up to like twenty and then
39:07
Speaker 1: so I moved to like one mile full run felt great,
39:12
Speaker 1: but I was running like thirteen minute miles. And the
39:17
Speaker 1: whole thing with the way that I have to run
39:19
Speaker 1: now is that I have to keep my heart rate
39:21
Speaker 1: at a certain level. So all of my training had
39:24
Speaker 1: been zone one zone two throughout, and which is great,
39:28
Speaker 1: you know, like you know, bunners know that zone one
39:31
Speaker 1: zone two is like easy run or your bread and butter,
39:34
Speaker 1: and you know, and you should be doing that. But
39:37
Speaker 1: when you don't, when you can't run and you haven't
39:39
Speaker 1: ran in such a long time. Zone one is a
39:42
Speaker 1: fourteen minute mile, like zone two is a thirteen minute mile,
39:46
Speaker 1: and my heart rate is still just like spiking into
39:48
Speaker 1: like one sixty five one seventies yeah, so so yeah.
39:52
Speaker 1: So from from mile one it quickly went into mile
39:55
Speaker 1: four and then mile four to like mile six and
39:59
Speaker 1: then and at that point I was feeling much better.
40:02
Speaker 1: And that was I want to say, that was like
40:04
Speaker 1: close to August at that point.
40:06
Speaker 2: Wow, wow, And just I love the approach that like
40:12
Speaker 2: it doesn't look like how it used to, but it
40:14
Speaker 2: still makes me feel great. That's like something else that
40:17
Speaker 2: I think is a hurdle that many of us struggle with,
40:20
Speaker 2: especially when it comes to either having to get back
40:23
Speaker 2: into a fitness routine, or maybe it's with how you're eating,
40:27
Speaker 2: or you know, there's just so many, so many different
40:29
Speaker 2: circumstances where this is applicable. But to not judge like
40:32
Speaker 2: that beginning too harshly, right, because it's so easy just
40:35
Speaker 2: to be frustrated. But if you're again you know this theme,
40:38
Speaker 2: if you're spending your time being frustrated about like where
40:41
Speaker 2: you're at, then you can't focus on really where you
40:43
Speaker 2: want to go.
40:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's very true. And I definitely thought about
40:48
Speaker 1: just not running, you know, because it was taking me
40:51
Speaker 1: so long to run two miles and and you know,
40:54
Speaker 1: it's frustrating, you know, especially especially knowing where you were before. Yeah,
40:58
Speaker 1: So but I kept going and I knew this is
41:00
Speaker 1: what I wanted. And then after I started really enjoying it,
41:03
Speaker 1: and I started really seeing it as my time to
41:06
Speaker 1: just what's the word I'm looking for?
41:07
Speaker 2: Do you compress?
41:08
Speaker 1: Do you compress? But also accept, right, and it was
41:13
Speaker 1: it was it was my time to really reflect on
41:15
Speaker 1: what I was going through and how how this was
41:20
Speaker 1: changing my landscape as a person, as a partner, as
41:25
Speaker 1: a soccer coach, as you know, as as a lot
41:28
Speaker 1: of things. And I really started enjoying it, and I
41:31
Speaker 1: would think about like the craziest things on my run,
41:34
Speaker 1: like these really long short runs, you know, Like I
41:36
Speaker 1: would think about, you know, everything from like what I
41:40
Speaker 1: was going to eat for dinner that day because I
41:43
Speaker 1: had to transition my diet, and to like literally thinking
41:47
Speaker 1: why is this happening to me? Like why am I?
41:49
Speaker 1: Why am I in this place? You know? So and
41:53
Speaker 1: those two sides of the spectrum are so nice and
41:55
Speaker 1: just they're so important when you're when you're going through
41:59
Speaker 1: something like that, because it really helps you accept who
42:02
Speaker 1: you are as a person. It really helps you accept
42:06
Speaker 1: your challenges, and it helps you get ahead.
42:10
Speaker 2: Yeah you know, yeah for you. I mean you said
42:12
Speaker 2: you had to adapt your diet. What had to shift everything? Yeah?
42:15
Speaker 1: Everything, low sugar, low sodium. I'm pretty much plant based
42:19
Speaker 1: with with some with some like high fat fish. People
42:24
Speaker 1: ms are usually vitamin D deficient, so we got to
42:28
Speaker 1: keep that up. And so I do have fish, but
42:31
Speaker 1: mostly plant based and no meat. And to be honest
42:35
Speaker 1: with you, I just I feel sick when eating like
42:39
Speaker 1: high fat meats now, you know. So that's where I transitioned.
42:44
Speaker 1: I also don't really drink as much anymore. So I
42:47
Speaker 1: pretty much cut alcohol from my life now. Yeah, I
42:50
Speaker 1: drink occasionally, you know. I still have some fun, but
42:52
Speaker 1: it's it's just not worth it totally. It's not worth
42:55
Speaker 1: it for me anymore. My recovery, like from a hangover
42:58
Speaker 1: is four days. And who has four days?
43:01
Speaker 2: No, no one, Life's too short.
43:02
Speaker 1: Let's way too short.
43:03
Speaker 2: That's way too short for you. Also on the run,
43:07
Speaker 2: were there any perhaps like safety precautions or things that
43:11
Speaker 2: you had to shift in the way that you would
43:13
Speaker 2: go out versus what you did before you were diagnosed.
43:16
Speaker 1: I had to switch up my routes. I had to
43:18
Speaker 1: switch up my routes and make sure that they were safe.
43:21
Speaker 1: I set up my routes where I had water, like
43:23
Speaker 1: water fountains if I didn't have water. I started running
43:26
Speaker 1: super early in the morning because it was in the
43:29
Speaker 1: because I started running or running back again June July
43:32
Speaker 1: August right so right, so I couldn't I couldn't run
43:36
Speaker 1: in the middle of the day. So I started running
43:40
Speaker 1: like four thirty in the morning, five thirty morning.
43:43
Speaker 2: When do you sign up for a marathon?
43:46
Speaker 1: I signed up for my marathon the third day I
43:49
Speaker 1: was in the hospital. Stop it, oh, I swear. I
43:52
Speaker 1: signed up for the New Jersey Marathon, which got canceled
43:56
Speaker 1: and then and then they moved it to or we
43:59
Speaker 1: were able to just move our entry to the Atlantic
44:02
Speaker 1: City Marathon. And that's when I that's when I signed up.
44:06
Speaker 2: Talk to me about that thought process.
44:08
Speaker 1: I wanted to do it. That was the goal before
44:11
Speaker 1: I got diagnosed, and nothing was going to change that.
44:15
Speaker 1: Nothing was going to change that for me. I knew
44:17
Speaker 1: that I wanted to run it. I knew I also
44:19
Speaker 1: knew that if I didn't run it, I was going
44:21
Speaker 1: to really suffer from that emotionally right. And I knew
44:26
Speaker 1: my head, my mental health could possibly be at risk
44:30
Speaker 1: if I didn't even try it, you know, or have
44:34
Speaker 1: like a goal. It was the second night transit moving
44:36
Speaker 1: into the third you know day, I I couldn't sleep.
44:41
Speaker 1: I couldn't sleep at all. Those beds are super uncomfortable,
44:44
Speaker 1: and I was awake. And I just signed up for
44:48
Speaker 1: this marathon. I just needed to sign up for something
44:51
Speaker 1: that was going to push me out of this and
44:53
Speaker 1: that was going to help me look forward to something
44:55
Speaker 1: because it had been a really crappy year. And I
44:58
Speaker 1: just I thought about the feeling of me crossing that
45:01
Speaker 1: finish line and I visualized it, and I and and
45:06
Speaker 1: I just thought, man, this is going to be the
45:07
Speaker 1: greatest feeling ever to be able to accomplish something like
45:11
Speaker 1: this after what I just went through. And I know
45:16
Speaker 1: that if I finished this marathon, I'm going to be
45:18
Speaker 1: able to get through anything.
45:19
Speaker 2: Can I ask you a personal question, do it did
45:23
Speaker 2: you beyond like the therapist that you worked with for
45:26
Speaker 2: all of your recovery, start seeking any therapy for mental health?
45:29
Speaker 1: Yeah? For sure, Yeah, yeah, I needed to talk. Therapy
45:32
Speaker 1: was super important for me. I had I didn't. First
45:37
Speaker 1: of all, I'm not a good communicator, write something I
45:40
Speaker 1: really struggedly struggle with. And I didn't know how to communicate.
45:46
Speaker 1: I didn't know how to communicate with myself about you know,
45:49
Speaker 1: getting through this, you know, which was really really hard.
45:51
Speaker 1: And I'll just get real with you, Like I didn't
45:53
Speaker 1: have insurance with I didn't have insurance either, so I
45:55
Speaker 1: had so when I got out of the hospital, I
45:57
Speaker 1: had like a two hundred thousand dollars debt, you know,
46:00
Speaker 1: and that alone is like, that's enough stress to put
46:04
Speaker 1: you into another episode. Yeah, you know. I was really
46:08
Speaker 1: fortunate and we were able to set up a GoFundMe
46:11
Speaker 1: and we reached the goal one hundred thousand, which is great.
46:13
Speaker 1: We settled with the hospital and then we were able
46:15
Speaker 1: to pay that awfully, so that's gone, wow, which is great.
46:19
Speaker 2: And then yeah, but like the ongoing treatment still.
46:23
Speaker 1: The ongoing treatment still so, but now have insurance, which
46:26
Speaker 1: is great, and you know, but for for the first
46:30
Speaker 1: couple of months, I had to just deal with that, yeah,
46:33
Speaker 1: you know, and I didn't know and I didn't know
46:34
Speaker 1: how to deal with it. I didn't know who to
46:36
Speaker 1: talk to about it. You know. I also was struggling
46:39
Speaker 1: cognitively obviously, you know, so I like I would call
46:42
Speaker 1: I would call insurance companies, and they were just talk
46:46
Speaker 1: to me about all these things that I just didn't understand,
46:48
Speaker 1: and I couldn't comprehend it. I just couldn't grasp all
46:51
Speaker 1: the things that were being said to me, and you know,
46:54
Speaker 1: and that was really just difficult, you know. So and
46:58
Speaker 1: that was just one of those.
46:59
Speaker 2: Things, you know, talk to me about the longest run
47:02
Speaker 2: before the long.
47:04
Speaker 1: Run, long run being my marathon. My longest run was outstanding.
47:09
Speaker 1: I hit eighteen. I bought some Nike Alpha Flies.
47:12
Speaker 2: Oh you're flying, I'm flying, I'm cruising, and hashtag sponsor me.
47:19
Speaker 1: That's it please Nike. Yeah, it felt great. So I
47:24
Speaker 1: bought these. I ran with them up for a little
47:27
Speaker 1: bit right and then right away as soon as I
47:31
Speaker 1: started that run, my heart rate drasticully dropped, and it
47:34
Speaker 1: was incredible. It was because this is exactly where I
47:37
Speaker 1: need it right right, and I'm around like mile ten
47:41
Speaker 1: making my splits in like low tens, which was good
47:45
Speaker 1: for me at that point, and then and then hitting
47:48
Speaker 1: some nines but my heart rates still like at like
47:53
Speaker 1: you know, which is phenomenal. That's where I want to be.
47:57
Speaker 1: And I finished my eighteen I I could have gone
48:00
Speaker 1: for like another like four miles, and I felt so good.
48:03
Speaker 1: And at that point, I was like, I knew that
48:04
Speaker 1: I was ready for this marathon. I knew that I'm
48:07
Speaker 1: going to absolutely crush this thing. And I was so
48:10
Speaker 1: confident in myself yea about doing this that I like
48:14
Speaker 1: it helped me with the nerves. My nerves are completely gone.
48:17
Speaker 1: I was starting to taper down. I had an amazing
48:20
Speaker 1: program with my run coach, Jimmy Williams, and then I
48:24
Speaker 1: also seeked out string training through Brooklyn Athletic Club in Greenpoint,
48:29
Speaker 1: And so I was ready. I was prepared for this marathon.
48:32
Speaker 1: I had done everything possible, yeah, to absolutely smash this marathon,
48:37
Speaker 1: and that last run solidified it.
48:41
Speaker 2: Question, low sugar, what are your electrolytes? Oh, there's nutrition
48:48
Speaker 2: like a rough spot for marathon training for you.
48:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can imagine Morton's DCAF. You know, jels,
48:56
Speaker 1: those are my bread and butter for long runs.
48:58
Speaker 2: Have the right albument. No, I'm going to give you
49:01
Speaker 2: some before you leave here. Yeah, it's salt, no sugar,
49:04
Speaker 2: no gluten.
49:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll give you something that'd be amazing.
49:08
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, it's one of my favorites because I
49:10
Speaker 2: was I was leaning into some sugary options before and
49:13
Speaker 2: I felt like a little drained from it, and once
49:15
Speaker 2: I started drinking Element. I mean, obviously it's a beverage.
49:18
Speaker 2: So if you're I drink it before and after mostly,
49:21
Speaker 2: or I'll drink it on the bike when I go riding.
49:23
Speaker 2: I don't like carry my own bottle when I'm doing
49:25
Speaker 2: a long run. I'll I'll do some more in gels
49:28
Speaker 2: as well in that case. But yeah, I'll give you
49:30
Speaker 2: something awesome. Yeah, I got you.
49:32
Speaker 1: Yeah it was it was really hard. I mean with
49:34
Speaker 1: eluxtual lights. That wasn't even part of my my my
49:39
Speaker 1: marathon training.
49:39
Speaker 2: Right, this is your first marathon. Had you run at
49:41
Speaker 2: half or anything before this?
49:43
Speaker 1: Yeah? By myself, you know, I like before I got
49:46
Speaker 1: diagnosed over in two halves.
49:47
Speaker 2: Okay, So talk to me about the mental roadmap for
49:52
Speaker 2: like you running the marathon, like, because I can't even
49:55
Speaker 2: imagine the array of emotions that like the closer you
49:59
Speaker 2: get even I mean hell, like starting first of all,
50:03
Speaker 2: through like the whole, the whole bang.
50:05
Speaker 1: Where do you want to start?
50:06
Speaker 2: Like wherever you want to start?
50:11
Speaker 1: Okay? So July I started getting therapy through Finish Line
50:18
Speaker 1: pt and then they set me up with Jimmy Williams,
50:21
Speaker 1: who also became my run coach. And then and then
50:25
Speaker 1: I was I was looking for I was like for
50:27
Speaker 1: strength training, which was weird because no one wanted to
50:30
Speaker 1: work with me as like an MSS patient. Everyone was
50:32
Speaker 1: really everyone shied away from it. But but Brooklyn Athletic
50:35
Speaker 1: did it, and they set me up with Andrea Tilleman,
50:38
Speaker 1: who who worked with people that mess. So it was
50:43
Speaker 1: like a perfect fit. And that was that I got
50:45
Speaker 1: super excited because I my hamstrings felt great, I was
50:49
Speaker 1: getting stronger, I was I was starting to have like
50:53
Speaker 1: less and less symptoms, and as I built my aerobic base,
50:56
Speaker 1: I just felt so good, so so good. And then
51:01
Speaker 1: come September. I come September, I start realizing like a
51:06
Speaker 1: really like a big shift in my training where I'm
51:07
Speaker 1: just like cruising on my runs, hitting fourteen fifteen mile
51:11
Speaker 1: runs and just feeling great. Recovery was also good the
51:15
Speaker 1: next day and I just wasn't getting sore at all.
51:17
Speaker 1: One of my big symptoms is tight chestnis so like
51:20
Speaker 1: what we call like the MS hug where it feels
51:21
Speaker 1: like someone's just like like literally just crushing your insights
51:26
Speaker 1: from you know, like from the sides. And I wasn't
51:29
Speaker 1: getting any of that. And then and then yeah, therapy
51:34
Speaker 1: was going great. I was able to go from two
51:35
Speaker 1: from from twice week to once a week, still doing
51:39
Speaker 1: twice twice two time string sessions, and and so that
51:44
Speaker 1: was that was my first go when I really set
51:47
Speaker 1: to myself, Okay, like I'm going to do this, like
51:51
Speaker 1: I'm going to run this marathon like actually, and then
51:54
Speaker 1: September hit great month of training. The initial goal was
51:58
Speaker 1: just to finish it. I just want to finish this marathon, right.
52:01
Speaker 1: I don't even know what the cutoff was. I think
52:02
Speaker 1: it was like six hours or something like that. And
52:04
Speaker 1: then after we hit it like five thirty. And then
52:07
Speaker 1: the last week of the marathon, you know, we're coming
52:10
Speaker 1: up with Jimmy and I are sitting down and we're
52:12
Speaker 1: talking about kind of like the strategy for the marathon,
52:14
Speaker 1: and you know, how we're going to like approach you know,
52:17
Speaker 1: first ten you know, and then after like the last
52:20
Speaker 1: like ten k right, and he's looking at my times.
52:24
Speaker 1: He's looking at like my data, and he's like, dude,
52:26
Speaker 1: I think you can run four thirty if you know
52:29
Speaker 1: sub Ford thirty. I was like, holy crap, dude, I
52:31
Speaker 1: think they're right. I think I can do this right
52:34
Speaker 1: as long as I keep my as long as I
52:35
Speaker 1: keep my heart rate low till like mile eighteen nineteen,
52:40
Speaker 1: I'll just power through the last ones, you know. And
52:42
Speaker 1: he's like, yeah, I think that's a good plan. It's like, okay. Cool.
52:47
Speaker 1: The day before the day before the marathon, my partner's
52:50
Speaker 1: dad lives in it lives in Atlantic City, and he
52:53
Speaker 1: lives on the route, so it was it was perfect
52:56
Speaker 1: and it was about half a mile away from the
52:58
Speaker 1: starting point. So we drove down Saturday, had a great
53:03
Speaker 1: meal tim Western bandit. I talked to him a lot
53:06
Speaker 1: about it and he and he recommended that I do
53:10
Speaker 1: the bandit. Uh. The bandage tradition was like two glasses
53:14
Speaker 1: of wine before before the marathon. I said, okay, I'll
53:17
Speaker 1: do it, man, like this is fine. So had so
53:21
Speaker 1: much pasta the whole week I was just carving up,
53:25
Speaker 1: you know, eating super super healthy. And then and then yeah,
53:29
Speaker 1: the day of the day before, we just my my
53:32
Speaker 1: family was there. I had friends there, my sister, her husband,
53:36
Speaker 1: and my niece who were really important to me. They
53:38
Speaker 1: came down and they were ready to support. And then
53:43
Speaker 1: I went to sleep around nine o'clock. Well, I wake
53:46
Speaker 1: up early, so I woke up around like five, like
53:48
Speaker 1: four am actually, and then I started doing some meditation
53:53
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, I started doing some meditation and I
53:56
Speaker 1: did some breathing exercises to just open up the chest
54:00
Speaker 1: and just opened up my lungs and just to like
54:03
Speaker 1: calm down my bring down my heart rate because I
54:07
Speaker 1: hadn't even I hadn't even started changing. And it was
54:10
Speaker 1: like at one sixty five, I was so nervous about it, and.
54:14
Speaker 2: How are you tracking that? So are you wearing anything
54:16
Speaker 2: besides the woop? Got a garment?
54:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got a garment, and so I just kept
54:21
Speaker 1: tracking it and just like seeing where my heart was
54:23
Speaker 1: and I knew. I knew right away like this isn't good,
54:25
Speaker 1: Like I need to just calm this down. Yeah, and
54:30
Speaker 1: it felt good, Like I remember crying. I just started
54:34
Speaker 1: tearing up. And that's when the emotions like really started
54:36
Speaker 1: hitting me. Like when I did this meditation for like
54:40
Speaker 1: for like endurance and sports, and they were talking about
54:44
Speaker 1: they talked about like Kobe Bryan and like his approach
54:46
Speaker 1: and stuff like that through the meditation and and his
54:50
Speaker 1: like work ethic. And I'm not comparing myself to Kobe
54:52
Speaker 1: Brian by no means, you know, but it just touched
54:55
Speaker 1: me for some reason, you know, and I really felt
54:58
Speaker 1: like I was doing something more than just for myself,
55:02
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, And I started crying. And and then I
55:07
Speaker 1: think that was like the weight of the last five
55:10
Speaker 1: months just out and I needed that so badly, so
55:15
Speaker 1: so badly before this marathon to help me bring my
55:18
Speaker 1: heart rate down because there was a lot of weight,
55:20
Speaker 1: a lot a lot of weight totally and I just
55:23
Speaker 1: needed to just release it.
55:24
Speaker 2: What Apple reason for our meditation, Aura, Okay? Yeah?
55:27
Speaker 1: And then yeah, I just felt great. I felt super
55:30
Speaker 1: good about it after and then had some good breakfasts,
55:34
Speaker 1: went hung out for a little bit, you know, showered,
55:37
Speaker 1: changed up, and then I was I was ready to go.
55:41
Speaker 1: And then and then when I got to suddenly I
55:44
Speaker 1: wasn't nervous or anything like I was. I felt great.
55:47
Speaker 1: It was a cool day, a little breezy, It was nice. Yeah,
55:52
Speaker 1: And then I met with a friend who was who
55:54
Speaker 1: was also running in and we agreed that to do
55:56
Speaker 1: the first mile together, and so that helped because he
56:01
Speaker 1: calmed winners and we're just chatting and you know, and
56:04
Speaker 1: then and then it started. It started, and then my stomach,
56:09
Speaker 1: like my heart dropped, My stomach dropped, and then that's
56:14
Speaker 1: I was like, shit, all right, let's do this, like
56:15
Speaker 1: this is this is it. We're We're in it. We're
56:18
Speaker 1: in it. And then my first mile it was like
56:21
Speaker 1: nine thirty. I was like and I and I knew
56:23
Speaker 1: that that might have been a little too fast for me, right,
56:27
Speaker 1: but my heart rate was also at one sixty five
56:30
Speaker 1: at that point and I hadn't even finished my first
56:34
Speaker 1: half mile. There was two things that I was going
56:36
Speaker 1: to do. It was I was either going to slow down, right,
56:38
Speaker 1: or I was just gonna keep going at this pace
56:39
Speaker 1: and just see how, you know, how it continued. So
56:43
Speaker 1: I decided I could just keep going at that pace,
56:45
Speaker 1: and I just I was cruising. I felt great, no symptoms,
56:49
Speaker 1: and I was able to hold like one sixty five
56:51
Speaker 1: till like one seventy three, which is that sweet spot
56:54
Speaker 1: for me, until around like mile like sixteen, you know. Uh,
57:00
Speaker 1: and then like at like mile mile fifteen and a half,
57:04
Speaker 1: like sixteen, I started losing like feeling my feet, which yeah,
57:08
Speaker 1: which was scary, but I also I was also dealing
57:11
Speaker 1: with like a pinky to issue, where like I stubbed
57:13
Speaker 1: it four weeks and it was terrible, Like, of course
57:16
Speaker 1: this is going to happen to me, And so it
57:21
Speaker 1: wasn't the worst thing because I knew that I was
57:23
Speaker 1: going to get symptomatic and I was ready for this,
57:25
Speaker 1: right but this pinky toe was bothering me so much
57:30
Speaker 1: so this whole run, and then I couldn't feel it,
57:33
Speaker 1: so it was okay, it was all right, you knowver
57:36
Speaker 1: lining silver lining exactly. And then I had set up
57:41
Speaker 1: where my best friend Josh, he's also a runner, he
57:45
Speaker 1: was going to he was going to set up in
57:47
Speaker 1: mile seventeen and be my aid because that's that's where
57:51
Speaker 1: I planned to start getting symptomatic, like heavily, right right,
57:56
Speaker 1: So meet him up at mile seventeen. Around like mile nineteen,
57:59
Speaker 1: I started losing vision like on the left hand side,
58:01
Speaker 1: and thank god he was there because he I would
58:04
Speaker 1: just bump into him. He would just like walk like
58:06
Speaker 1: I mean, he would just talk to me and he
58:08
Speaker 1: would just kind of guide me through that and and yeah,
58:12
Speaker 1: and then like I felt great my feet, like I
58:15
Speaker 1: couldn't feel my feet, I couldn't really see. But other
58:17
Speaker 1: than that, I felt pretty good. You know, honestly, I
58:20
Speaker 1: felt really really good. And at that point I was
58:22
Speaker 1: actually dragging like a sub for marathon, which was crazy.
58:26
Speaker 1: And then I just I couldn't hold it. My quads
58:29
Speaker 1: got super tight. Yeah, I had to stretch a little bit,
58:32
Speaker 1: but I finished. I finished at four twenty two, and
58:36
Speaker 1: which was an hour before my initial goal.
58:40
Speaker 2: The video I saw of you which caused me to
58:44
Speaker 2: reach out to you, is you like crossing that finish
58:49
Speaker 2: and like the hardest veer to the right ever? Yeah,
58:54
Speaker 2: just like toward all of your people.
58:56
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, there's a funny story with that. Yeah,
58:58
Speaker 1: it's a really really funny thing.
58:59
Speaker 2: And god they wrong the right.
59:00
Speaker 1: They got there on the right. But okay, like the
59:04
Speaker 1: last point too, I booked it like I I was
59:08
Speaker 1: running like a like a six minute mile the last
59:11
Speaker 1: point too, because I was so excited, you know, the
59:13
Speaker 1: adrenaline just spiked. But I couldn't see. So I get
59:17
Speaker 1: past the finish line and then I I like I
59:21
Speaker 1: hear the voices right, like my my friend and family, right,
59:24
Speaker 1: So I that's I started going to the right. My
59:27
Speaker 1: girlfriend's blonde, right, and one of her friends is also blonde,
59:31
Speaker 1: is also blonde. But my girlfriends she she's not there.
59:35
Speaker 1: She's at the she's at the front. She's like in
59:37
Speaker 1: front because she wants to get that shot in that video.
59:40
Speaker 1: But I didn't see her. So I went directly to
59:42
Speaker 1: our friend Brittany, and I was ready just to like
59:45
Speaker 1: give her a hug and a kiss. And then as
59:48
Speaker 1: I'm like in our distance, I'm like, oh crap, this
59:52
Speaker 1: isn't Ali.
59:56
Speaker 2: It wasn't the plan.
59:57
Speaker 1: I know, this wasn't the plan. And then I could
59:59
Speaker 1: again I couldn't see anything, and I just I'll send
1:00:01
Speaker 1: you a video where I'm just like I'm right there,
1:00:03
Speaker 1: like where's Ali, where's Aali? Where's Ali? And then I
1:00:06
Speaker 1: find Ali? And then and then yeah, and that was
1:00:09
Speaker 1: that was that?
1:00:10
Speaker 2: And how do you feel.
1:00:11
Speaker 1: During the during the finish line? Yea, oh my gosh,
1:00:16
Speaker 1: I felt I felt like top of the world, Like yeah,
1:00:22
Speaker 1: there's nothing like it. There's nothing like it. There's there's
1:00:25
Speaker 1: no better feeling than finishing that cross line and just
1:00:30
Speaker 1: like achieving your goal, like MS acidem society. Like just
1:00:38
Speaker 1: finishing a marathon is a huge task and it's a
1:00:43
Speaker 1: huge challenge. But being in a wheelchair, being in a
1:00:47
Speaker 1: walker on a cane, barely walking, hitting my head so
1:00:52
Speaker 1: hard on like trees and like falling and you know,
1:00:56
Speaker 1: needing assistance, you know, crossing that finish line is just everything.
1:01:01
Speaker 1: I can't even describe how incredible that feeling is, you know,
1:01:05
Speaker 1: to know that I did it and I overcame this
1:01:09
Speaker 1: and I am better than this and I am more
1:01:12
Speaker 1: than this illness that I have, because I don't want
1:01:15
Speaker 1: it to define me. Yes, I have it, but I
1:01:18
Speaker 1: don't want to be seen as a person that has MS.
1:01:20
Speaker 1: I want to just be seen as like someone that
1:01:22
Speaker 1: you say hello to and we can have a conversation
1:01:25
Speaker 1: with and you don't have to ask me about my
1:01:26
Speaker 1: mass and if you want to, yeah, I'll talk about
1:01:28
Speaker 1: it because I'm because I'm okay with it, you know,
1:01:30
Speaker 1: and I've accepted that. But I just want to be
1:01:33
Speaker 1: seen as a regular person. I want to be I
1:01:35
Speaker 1: want to challenge for things as a regular person. I
1:01:38
Speaker 1: want to compete for things as a normal person. And
1:01:41
Speaker 1: that's all I wanted, and that crossing the finish line
1:01:43
Speaker 1: for me was exactly that.
1:01:45
Speaker 2: Looking at this journey, what would you say one of
1:01:49
Speaker 2: the biggest lessons, aside from what we talked about about
1:01:51
Speaker 2: breaking things up into little doobles, yeah, has been for
1:01:54
Speaker 2: you that.
1:01:55
Speaker 1: I'm capable of just doing the impossible, that there's no
1:01:58
Speaker 1: feats like large to like break me down. You know. Yeah,
1:02:03
Speaker 1: Like I'm like, I'm super confident now after this marathon,
1:02:06
Speaker 1: Like I believe in myself more than anything now, you know,
1:02:10
Speaker 1: Like I'm my next one is an ultra marathon, Like
1:02:13
Speaker 1: I don't know which one it is, but I'm going
1:02:15
Speaker 1: to do it.
1:02:15
Speaker 2: You know, do it it.
1:02:16
Speaker 1: I'm going to do it and and you know, And
1:02:19
Speaker 1: that's that's the type of confidence that I think a
1:02:21
Speaker 1: lot of people should have. You got to believe in
1:02:23
Speaker 1: yourself and you know, everyone's everyone's roadmap is obviously a
1:02:27
Speaker 1: lot different, but you can overcome anything. And I believe that.
1:02:31
Speaker 1: I truly believe that.
1:02:32
Speaker 2: For someone not struggling right now, whether it is with
1:02:35
Speaker 2: MS or just another hurdle that they're navigating on their
1:02:38
Speaker 2: own time, what kind of advice would you offer them
1:02:42
Speaker 2: to be able to move forward?
1:02:45
Speaker 1: It's okay, dude, just it's Okay, tackle it, you know,
1:02:50
Speaker 1: take it day by day, see how it goes, you know,
1:02:52
Speaker 1: just stay consistent and just see, you know, see how
1:02:55
Speaker 1: that goes for you. If you're able, if you're able
1:02:58
Speaker 1: to just tackle it like day by day, you're gonna
1:03:00
Speaker 1: get ahead. And that that's that's it'll change you.
1:03:03
Speaker 2: What else excites you right now?
1:03:05
Speaker 1: What excites me? When I was getting back on the road,
1:03:07
Speaker 1: I want to. I haven't ran, so I'm excited to
1:03:10
Speaker 1: just run again. That excites me. I'm excited to to
1:03:15
Speaker 1: finish school, which I again we I've been doing like
1:03:18
Speaker 1: this career shift into like ux design, and I'm excited
1:03:21
Speaker 1: for that. And and then I'm also just really excited
1:03:27
Speaker 1: to just not be symptomatic and not have another episode
1:03:30
Speaker 1: because I treat my body like it should be treated,
1:03:33
Speaker 1: you know, And and I appreciate life so much now,
1:03:38
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, that's another thing I think everyone should should,
1:03:41
Speaker 1: like really do, is appreciate the little stuff, you know,
1:03:45
Speaker 1: Appreciate walking, Appreciate seeing, you know, appreciate you know, just
1:03:53
Speaker 1: like being able to say hello and good morning to someone,
1:03:56
Speaker 1: you know, because it's really simple, like it's really easy.
1:04:00
Speaker 1: Just you can just get that taken away from you.
1:04:03
Speaker 2: I do think to a certain extent many of us
1:04:10
Speaker 2: had to find some of that small appreciation for the
1:04:13
Speaker 2: little things that were stripped because of the pandemic. Yeah,
1:04:18
Speaker 2: obviously a very different scenario, but I find it to
1:04:22
Speaker 2: be really beautiful that there does seem to be a
1:04:25
Speaker 2: little bit more of what you're getting at here, and hopefully,
1:04:29
Speaker 2: you know, that's something that we don't lose sight of
1:04:32
Speaker 2: as things knock on wood, right, you know, kind of
1:04:35
Speaker 2: get back to a little bit more like they used
1:04:37
Speaker 2: to be.
1:04:38
Speaker 1: I definitely see that ass like especially like in my
1:04:43
Speaker 1: little community of like that Williamsburg area. You know, Yeah,
1:04:47
Speaker 1: it's I definitely see it. I've met a lot of
1:04:49
Speaker 1: people through the pandemic, which is like crazy, you know,
1:04:51
Speaker 1: and some really amazing people you know, through it. But yeah,
1:04:57
Speaker 1: just say a oat of someone.
1:04:59
Speaker 2: Yeah it helps, it does, it really helps. All right? Well,
1:05:03
Speaker 2: right now, right now, you have an opportunity to offer
1:05:08
Speaker 2: the you a piece of advice. On Friday, May seventh, Yeah,
1:05:14
Speaker 2: looking back on that day right now, oh wow, what
1:05:19
Speaker 2: do you tell yourself?
1:05:22
Speaker 1: It's hard, but it's not but it's manageable, you know,
1:05:27
Speaker 1: and you're going to go through You're going to go
1:05:29
Speaker 1: through it all hell, but you're gonna be okay. Man,
1:05:34
Speaker 1: You're gonna be okay, and you're going to be healthier
1:05:38
Speaker 1: than what you were, you know. And I think if
1:05:40
Speaker 1: I would have known that that May seventh, I would
1:05:43
Speaker 1: have been okay with everything. You know, I just didn't
1:05:47
Speaker 1: know what was happening. But I'm healthier now. I've i
1:05:50
Speaker 1: dropped from one eighty to like one fifty five. I've
1:05:53
Speaker 1: put on a good amount of muscle. I'm stronger. I
1:05:55
Speaker 1: just ran a marathon. And had I known, had I
1:05:57
Speaker 1: known him back then, that my life was about to
1:06:00
Speaker 1: change drastically for only a couple of months, but then
1:06:03
Speaker 1: after change in a really good way, I would have
1:06:07
Speaker 1: been okay with it.
1:06:08
Speaker 2: What the most unbelievable and beautiful perspective. I'm so happy
1:06:15
Speaker 2: that we did.
1:06:16
Speaker 1: This, Tim, I'm super happy, I know.
1:06:19
Speaker 2: I mean as opposed to some of the other people
1:06:21
Speaker 2: that come on the show. You may not have the
1:06:23
Speaker 2: biggest social media following, but are you open to having
1:06:26
Speaker 2: a few more followers? Okay, So tell the hurdlers how
1:06:31
Speaker 2: they can keep up with you? How do they follow
1:06:32
Speaker 2: along with you? Give us the details?
1:06:34
Speaker 1: All right, So the best way for you guys, to
1:06:36
Speaker 1: just keep up with me is through Instagram. What's that
1:06:41
Speaker 1: called the profile? My handle, my handle? Sorry, sorry, no,
1:06:44
Speaker 1: you're good. My handle is Willie Valdrama and yeah, that's
1:06:50
Speaker 1: the best way to just get in contact with me
1:06:52
Speaker 1: and just follow me. Yeah.
1:06:54
Speaker 2: We love it, We love it. I'm over at Emily
1:06:56
Speaker 2: Body and at Hurdle Podcast. Another Hurdle conquered. Catch you
1:07:01
Speaker 2: guys next time.