Off Season Training Recommendations: Enrichment, Renewal, & Joining A Cause Close to Your Heart

Winter challenges our wellness goals. Here are some strategies. First of all, surrender a bit to the hibernation inclination. Get refreshed. Take time to learn. Maybe enroll in a class. Read. Write. 2nd: Plan something: a project, new goals, an athletic event, or travel. Set some benchmarks toward achieving your goals. 3rd: Experiment with new recipes & better nutrition. What’s best for you: Low Carb, High Carb, Paleo, Vegan? 4th: Choose a cause that matters to you and get involved. Find the tribe(s) where other like-minded individuals are working on the same mission. Sign on and be a part of something greater than yourself.

Here's the Sporting Our Spirit mission.  Active Grief Relief has been a focus of mine for some time. What is it? Active Grief Relief is a program to help individuals set back by grief (all different kinds of grief) get back to really living life. Grief is about loss: the death of a loved one, a divorce, a job, friends, a lifestyle, health. Grief brings about some crushing setbacks to the way you used to live your life, to your natural momentum. Manageability of the grief process can be supported with sound fitness. That’s a fact!

The SOS program proposes fitness, good company, and nature as prescriptions against becoming “stuck” in sadness and sorrow. It works. We can & do help. We are different. We talk less and move more. Anything from walking around the block to an ironman is possible. For us, at Sporting Our Spirit- the key target group, the number one focus, is all those who have suffered the loss of a loved one due to suicide, and maybe even attempted suicide themselves. Survivor & grief support is not "trendy".  People don’t want to talk about it. Never mind talk, some can’t even think about it. Yet suicide and loss reside in and plague so many families. This is the day & age of endurance events.  Events for the cause of, grief relief and suicide prevention & survivor support are incredible rare. Do you know of any?

In the past, I have been discouraged (maybe just my ego) by the smallness of my tribe and the quietness of our voices. Let’s (together) remember, there IS such a thing as "the power of one". Well, for Sporting Our Spirit, make that the power of two. Josh Shadle, my Boulder, CO son, is certainly invested in SOS. Our goal is to bring hope through the same vehicle that gave us hope: move, get physical. Small steps progress to bigger challenges. And everyone at sometime is affected by grief. Want to help?

In review, this winter, consider: resting more, learning something new, trying new foods and recipes, planning future travel and challenging events and goals, finding & joining a tribe that is doing good for a cause you are passionate about.