Chapter 1 Our Story
From Eric:
In late 2009, we made a decision that has left a profound impact on our lives and marriage. It was a cold winter morning, and we were hesitant to get out of bed because the warm sheets were more appealing than the cold outside. I asked my wife, “Baby, are we going to exercise today?” She gave a deep sigh and said, “It is too cold; let us stay in.” She was 100 percent correct because it was too early and the weather was not on our side. We had been through this exchange many times, especially this year as we had begun another effort to work out together, and 99 percent of the time we ended up not going out to exercise. But there was something different about this particular morning. We felt that asking the wrong question always resulted in the wrong answer. Instead of asking if we were going to exercise this morning, we should be asking, How warm should we dress to go out and exercise?
That particular morning, we decided that we should never ask each other if we were going to exercise or not. We agreed that each morning when we get up, we should get out and exercise come rain or come shine, and that is what we have done five times a week for almost a decade now. We had tried to exercise together over a ten-year period and failed previously!
But the road to this moment of decision was a long and difficult one. For more than ten years, when we tried to exercise, we failed miserably. We failed because we had no game plan. In addition, we were not able to develop consistency and persistency. Therefore, we could not make it a habit. The other reason is that we did not give careful thought to what we were about to do and had no set goals. Without a game plan and no sense of direction, our why had eluded us, and after many false starts, we had given up.
Apart from the fact that we had no strong why we were living in a different country and had no support because our close family members were more than eight thousand miles away in Cameroon. We are mentioning this because we were a young couple going to school and raising a young family. My wife was in an undergraduate program, and I was in graduate school doing a doctorate in geosciences. This implies that time was a scarce commodity. In addition to the demands of school, we had three young children who were totally dependent on us. They were all underage, and it was not possible to leave them unattended and go out for exercise. To make matters worse, we did not grow up exercising regularly and exercise was not top on our list of priorities. In short, there were no role models for us to follow and we were clueless on what to do. The list of excuses can go on and on, but the sad reality is that we were not exercising.
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From Elizabeth:
We eventually graduated and went into the corporate world, and our young family kept expanding. My husband was gone most of the time because he was working for an oil and gas company as field engineer. His job required him to be gone at times for a full month, then he would come home for a couple of days and head out again. With such an unpredictable work schedule, it was almost impossible to have any regular workouts as husband and wife. My husband used to come back from his time in the field and tell me that he went out to exercise when he was out there, but at home, we struggled to go out together.
During all this time, we had a strong desire to go out and exercise, but it seemed something was holding us back. The few times that we went out together, we could not agree on what to do and ended up angry with each other most times. This made us feel that it was better not to bother exercising together because it was not worth it. Well, we were running out of time to get our act together because less than a year after my husband graduated and started working, I had a health crisis that almost took away my life.
One night in the spring of 2009, I faintly heard the voice of my husband and felt his hand gently shaking me to get up. After a while, I woke up and immediately realized that something was wrong with me. I felt as if a thousand dynamites had exploded in my head because I was feeling excruciating pain in my head and my body was extremely hot. My husband told me that he woke up because I was shaking violently and the whole bed was shaking as a result.
Over the years since we had been married, my husband was usually hesitant to go to the hospital when any of the children was sick or even when I was, but this time, he felt strongly that we should go to the emergency room immediately. I looked at the clock and it was a little after 2 a.m. I told him that it was too early, and we should wait and go in the morning. Part of the reason was the concern of where to keep our three young children and the five-day-old baby girl we had just had. I had these concerns because we had just moved to Denver and there was nobody to come watch our children at the weird hour of the night.
Thank God my husband insisted that we go to the hospital immediately. He did not allow me to get out of my pajamas because he felt that I was in very bad shape. He grabbed our baby girl, and we got into the car and drove to the hospital, leaving behind the three other children. When we arrived at the hospital, the nurses in the emergency room took my vital signs and asked my husband why he had not brought me in faster because my blood pressure was going through the roof.
I had successfully given birth in the same hospital five days prior to this present malaise and had been discharged to go home because I had been cleared and declared to be in perfect health. In fact, throughout the pregnancy, I was closely monitored because I was scheduled to have a vaginal birth even though my prior delivery was through caesarian section. I had a clean bill of health throughout the entire pregnancy, and the delivery was smooth and quick.
Five days after having the baby, I came down with postpartum preeclampsia, and it was threatening to take away my life. I say so because I was placed in the intensive care unit for two weeks and was not responding to treatment. The doctors gave me different medications to bring down my blood pressure to no avail. After fighting for my life for two weeks, I was stabilized and placed on blood pressure medication. When I left the hospital and went home, I continued taking the medication but started having side effects.
Fortunately, my follow-up visit came up soon, and I asked the doctor if I had any other alternatives that I could use to manage the blood pressure. After some hesitation, the doctor told me that about 75 percent of patients on high blood pressure medication would eventually get off of the medication if they exercised regularly and ate healthily. I told the doctor that I was going to be part of the 75 percent. When we got home after the doctor’s visit, I start exercising immediately. After a few days, I noticed that my blood pressure was getting better. I decided to stop taking the medication and kept monitoring my blood pleasure because I had a blood pressure monitor at home. I noticed that my blood pressure stopped rising and was returning to normal.
Then we went in for a follow-up visit, and the doctor was impressed with my progress after my blood pressure was measured. The doctor suggested that because I was making such good progress, he was going to reduce the dosage of the medication that I was taking. That was when I told the doctor that I was no longer taking the medication and had no plans of returning to it. The doctor asked me if I knew the risk I was taking by rejecting the medication. According to the doctor, it would be a bad idea for me to have another crisis, but I had made up my mind and there was no turning back. I told the doctor not to write another prescription. That was almost ten years ago, and I have never taken another pill since then.
I was now a firm believer in the importance and healing power of exercise, so I decided to make exercise a regular part of my life and to start focusing on my weight and general health, fitness, and wellness. At this point, I was exercising alone and it was not easy because I had hit some sort of a plateau and my weight was not changing. I was also having difficulties running for more than a couple of minutes without stopping and this was frustrating me. One part of me wanted me to stay where I was because I had solved the issue of my blood pressure, but a part of me wanted me to move on to the next level.
My frustration got to the point that I shared with my husband and asked him to help me out. He accepted and went out on the running track with me. On day one, we started running together and he noticed immediately that I was doing many things wrong. For example, the way I was lifting my legs and how I was managing my breathing. I was in need but was not yet ready to be told what to do, and this led to some arguments and angry exchanges between the two of us. I was frustrated, and my husband was also frustrated. A part of me wanted to do it my own way, but I realized that I had been doing it my own way and was not having the desired results.
The only way forward was for me to swallow my pride and allow my husband to coach me. On his part, he had to slow down some and lower how fast he wanted me to go. It was totally unacceptable for him to expect me to run at his pace, and this was something that I kept bringing to his attention. He felt that he was barely running when he ran at my pace, but I had to push myself hard to keep up with his pace. We had a lot of back and forth exchanges on what to do and eventually figured out something that worked for us.
First, my husband taught me how to lift my legs instead of dragging them on the ground while running. This made a lot of sense to me, and immediately, I noticed a huge difference in how I felt, and my stamina started to grow. The next thing that he worked on was my breathing. Before he stepped in, I was running and trying to breathe through my mouth. He told me that breathing through my nostrils would enable me to take deeper breaths and I would be drawing in more oxygen that my body needed at the moment. It would help me to run longer and more comfortably.
This did not make any sense to me, and I resisted and argued that breathing through my mouth made more sense. I was basing my argument on how I felt when I tried to run with my mouth closed. Initially, I felt as if I was going to pass out, and my mind was telling me that opening my mouth and talking in large amounts of air was what I needed to do. My husband insisted that I practice breathing through my nose, even if I was feeling some discomfort initially. According to him, if I persisted, my body was going to get used to it and I would be fine. This did not make sense to me, but I had to trust him and started pushing myself to run with my mouth closed and breathing through my nostrils. Initially, it was extremely uncomfortable, but he kept telling me to push on and not to give up. I persevered and slowly acclimatized to running and breathing through my nostrils.
The most difficult hurdle for me was running without making frequent stops. This was extremely difficult because my body did not want to cooperate with me at all. I easily felt tired and would stop immediately after I ran a short distance. My husband explained to me that I had to find my rhythm and maintain it. But to find my rhythm, I had figure out what my tiredness point was.
The tiredness point is the point when your body starts telling you to stop exercising and you feel as if you have hit some sort of impenetrable wall. In fact, everything in you tells you to give up and stop exercising, and you feel as if you will cause some irreparable harm to your body if you do not stop. There is a tendency at this point to talk yourself out of running. Instead of focusing on your why and the positive benefits of exercising, all you do is focus on the negatives and the discomfort that you are feeling at that moment. For some people, their reaction is to promise themselves that next time they will push themselves hard, but next time never comes because they keep procrastinating. The tiredness point is more psychological than physical, and that is why the only way to overcome it is to be mentally tough.
My husband told me that if I could go past my tiredness point, I would stand a better chance of experiencing the “runners’ high.” The runners’ high is a feeling of general well-being from the release of endorphins. You are relaxed, happy, and at ease despite the fact that you are running and hyperventilating. When you hit the runners’ high, you feel as if you can run forever and some of the pain and discomfort associated with running disappears and you enjoy the exercise. But to be rewarded like this, you have to push yourself beyond the discomfort stage and stop listening to the voice in your head telling you to stop running.
My husband insisted that I run without stopping, and I was not going to let him push me without a fight. But he was firm and gentle and would hold my hand and pull me along with him. Right now, I can still hear his voice in my head, “Baby, you are doing great. We just need to go past that point and we will slow down, and you will take a short rest. You can do it; keep moving; we are almost there. Great job—you are doing much better today than yesterday, and very soon, you are going to become a pro.”
Slowly but surely, our effort started paying off and I was able to run a couple of laps without stopping. I moved from there to a few miles and eventually running many miles without stopping. My speed increased after I mastered breathing through my nostrils, lifting my legs properly, and ensuring that I was pushing myself hard enough to overcome my tiredness barrier.
Initially, I thought my husband was just being hard and mean, but I had to bring myself back in check because it occurred to me that he truly loved me and wanted the best for me. That was why he was willing to put up with me and persevered through all my not-so-kind words when the going got tough. We were on the way to a good routine, but we had yet to stop asking each other if we would work out each day. Now I will let my husband say what was running through his mind and what motivated him and kept him going against all odds.
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From Eric:
The desire to help my wife with her exercise was driven by my love and affection for her. I was seeing how she would look and feel if she were able to overcome the challenges that she was now facing and become a better runner. I was not trying to prove a point or compare myself to her and show how much stronger and better I was. It was extremely difficult pushing back on the resistance that she was putting up. For example, from the very beginning, I would tell her to lift her legs and she would say that she was doing so, but I could still hear the legs being dragged. She did not want to breathe through her nostrils because, according to her, this was not a good idea.
To say I was frustrated is an understatement; most of the days, I wanted to give up and go back home. But I had to continuously remind myself of the big picture and why I had gotten involved in the first place. My reasoning was that if I did not help and stand by her, who would? It was not possible to pass the challenge to some trainer. This was my wife and her need was mine as well. It was a sense of duty inspired, motivated, driven, and sustained by love that kept me going.
I started exercising regularly because I wanted to help my wife. Then with time, I saw the need for me to exercise regularly as well because I had formed the habit of consistent workouts by this point. But this did not resolve all our differences. I was a fast runner, and my wife could not have kept up with my pace, and it was frustrating for me to slow down for her. Initially, we were running around a sport complex, and then we moved to running on trails, which meant that we had to be together all the time. This was not easy because I always felt that I was supposed to be moving faster instead of running at a slower pace. For the sake of running together and being able to support and encourage each other, I slowed down to the speed that was conducive for my wife, and we ran like that for many years and still do.
We have since made some adjustments so when we go to the running track and do a couple laps, I will break out on my own and run some laps at a higher speed. Then I will slow down and rejoin my wife and run at her speed. Arriving at this solution was trying and uncomfortable to both of us, but we are glad that we persevered and, over the years, came to a compromise.
As time went on, we realized that exercising regularly and eating right were wise things to do. That is when we resolved that when we got up each day, we would just go out and exercise and stop asking each other if we should go out or not. We arrived at this conclusion because we realized we were having lapses and skipping some days unnecessarily. Some days were too cold, or we got up and just did not feel like exercising, and we would talk each other out of going out to exercise. The only solution was going to the root of the problem and cutting the tap root. Since we stopped asking each other how we felt about going out to exercise, we have braved cold, heat, tiredness, and even illness to go out and exercise five times a week.
We are not crazy for doing this because we have realized that it is extremely difficult to cultivate the habit of exercising regularly because exercise is difficult and takes a lot of discipline and hard work. On the other hand, it is very easy to stop exercising because there is a part of you that is always trying to get you to stop exercising. This is the part that complains when you go to bed late, and in the morning, you want to get up and go out for exercise, but you are reminded that you went to bed late and should sleep in this morning. That part of you that complains of the weather and if you have muscle sore or any pain on any part of your body, it will blow it out of proportion with the sole intention of preventing you from exercising.
We are not perfect and are not attempting to reach perfection. We still have our struggles and have, on a few occasions, missed going out to exercise, but the number of times we have missed working out are extremely small compared to the times that we have gone out and exercised together. We have had more victories than failures and will be sharing our journey with you as the book unfolds. All we are calling you to do is to embark on this journey together as a couple and ensure that the number of times you go out to exercise together outweigh those times that you don’t. Is this a goal that you can achieve? We think you can and will do well. Next, we want you to consider that one of the most important things that you can do to change, enhance, and take your marriage to a new level is exercising together.
