Blogging with an Olympic Spirit!

Today is another big day for me! For the last 5 weeks I have been trying to climb a somewhat steep hill near my house only to stop halfway through without good enough legs to keep going.

Yesterday watching the London Olympic Games opening ceremony I was inspired by what so many athletes endure to be there, and here am I struggling to climb a hill. I went to bed determined to beat that hill and I did it. Check out the picture below from the view at the top of the hill. I don't know the elevation but it felt like Mount Everest, and I got to the top of it!

As you can see it is not snow covered but my legs would scream every time I tried going up and today I decided not to quit. I started up a little slower than usual to save my legs for the climb, and it worked.

After learning the story about Great Britain's basketball player Loul Deng I realized that my life is a piece of cake! This kid was born in South Sudan and was driven out of his country by a Civil War. He moved to Egypt with his family and learned the trade with Manute Bol, another Sudanese player that made history in the NBA. Life is about endurance, never quiting, and I am determined to never quit.

I created this page for people with glioma that are into sports. Instead of boring friends and fellow glioma survivors that bear no interest in sports I created this page for those that like it.

A few weeks ago I completed a 10K with a friend and want to keep pushing myself for more. Below is a picture of it. Back in my triathlon days I would run a 10k in 45 minutes, and I have been running 10k in 50 minutes, my pre-glioma training pace. Yes we can run with glioma.

My way back into sports started in March, when I got tired of waiting for life to happen as I watched my bike on the trainer. I wanted to ease my way back into sports as my neuro-surgeon warned me that exercising might increase my chances of having a seizure. I rode my bike on a trainer for 30 minutes on March 25 2012, 3 months after my surgery and right after my third chemo cycle. I had no seizures, this was all I needed to do more.

On May 1st I rode on the road for the first time, and today I finally celebrate climbing the beast, the first hill that beat me (Mount Lebanon Caffeine and Cycling Club, Noblestown Rd. bonking did not count as beating me as I did finish it, albeit with emotional and nutritional support from you!).

So how can the Olympics change the world? I got into cycling through a former boss that got into it after watching cyclists during the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 1984. Fast forward 28 years and here I am climbing a hill thanks to the 1984 Olympic Games, the last games not attended by the best athletes in the world following the Soviet Union's boycott, in retaliation for the sad boycott by the United States of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games.

I hope politicians learn something from sports, the only people that were victims of these boycotts were the athletes. Several US and former USSR athletes lost their chances to win gold. At least we are better today than we were back then.

With all the violence, war, terrorism and fear-mongering in the Middle East to me the strongest image of yesterday's ceremony was Iran, Iraq and Israel following each other to present their athletes in a civilized, wonderful manner. Yes we will always compete but we don't need to kill each other to be the best, we just need to work hard, respect our differences and let the best one win as we try as hard as possible to live a healthy, plentiful life.