Every Mile Matters (Part 1)

Welcome to Readers, the podcast for the lifelong learner. Join us on our weekly dose of wisdom where we talk about the real life lessons and applications of books. Enjoy. Welcome back to Readers, everyone. Today's episode is special. We're joined by Dr. Jeffrey L. Reynolds, an Ironman athlete, public health leader, and now two-time cancer survivor who is now the author of Every Mile Matters. Welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today?

Doing great. Thanks so much for having me on. It's a pleasure to be with you.

Absolutely. You know, before we kind of start, just a quick intro about the book. Every Mile Matters. It's not just a book about finishing races, right? It's about what happens when life throws you something you never signed up for. The lessons you learned from pounding out miles under the Florida sun became the same lessons that helped you face surgery, chemo, and fear with grace. Right? So Part 1, which we're going to be discussing today, takes us from this Ironman finish line to the oncologist's office, from strength and certainty to vulnerability and surrender, and shows the exact skills that we build in pursuit of our goals can actually later be the ones that save us. So, you know, Jeffrey, before we begin, I'd love to ask you a little bit about your journey, about the process of writing this book. Obviously, you You've been through a lot. You've done a lot. You know, can you talk a little bit about what you've kind of been through and what motivated you to write this book in the first place?

Sure. You know, I've, I've worked in Health and Human Services for 30-some-odd years and always felt like, you know, maybe I had a book inside me but wasn't sure exactly what it would be about. But I've written literally thousands of op-eds for newspapers and that kind of thing. I blog pretty frequently. And so I always thought that maybe someday. I didn't think that it would be about this. I quite frankly thought it would be about, you know, my journey in helping others and some of the things I saw along the way. I've worked in domestic violence, I've worked in sex crimes, HIV and AIDS, addiction, mental health, and, and done all that work. And I, you know, have encountered so many folks along the way and felt like, you know, at some point, you know, there'll be a book about them and about you know, how they overcame the odds to be successful and that kind of thing. And so it wound up being more about me and, you know, by way of background, kind of folks that are also walking similar journeys out there now. So I resolved to write the book after my second cancer diagnosis. I wrote part of it during chemo because my chemo sessions involved sitting in a chair for 6 hours. And so that gave me some time to think to process, to write. And then I finished it. I guess it took about a year, but I finished it while on safari in South Africa. I was on safari in South Africa because after 2 cancer diagnoses, you think long and hard about all the things you wanted to do. And, you know, for your audience out there, all the things you wanted to do, go do them because you're never sure what tomorrow is going to bring. So it was It was, it was an interesting process. You know, I'll say, and, you know, we'll talk more about this, you know, as we get into the book and during this session and some of the others we have planned. Some chapters came very easily. Other chapters were very, very challenging. And the chapters where I had to do more introspection as opposed to just telling a clinical tale took me longer. And so there's a chapter in the book that we'll talk about later about spirituality, and it probably took me 6 weeks to write that chapter. It's only like 15 pages. It took me 6 weeks because there were still, even at my age, unanswered questions that I had about what comes next. You know, what does my belief system look like in terms of God and a higher power? You know, what does my prayer practice look like and that kind of thing? And so before I could write about it and tell others about it, I had to resolve some of those questions myself. So very much a cathartic process. I'll tell you, now having it out into the world, I get lots of emails and texts from folks who track me down and say, I was recently diagnosed. Can you give me some advice or can you give me some kind of hope? And how did you manage this and that? So there are 2 million people a year in America that will hear the words, you have cancer, for the first time. This year, every year. And so that's a lot of folks struggling under the weight of what remains a pretty significant diagnosis. So in writing it, I felt like, look, if I've got some insights that I can share with folks and maybe lighten the load a little bit and ease some of the pain and offer some tips, then, then that would be a good contribution to make to the world.

Yeah, no, I love it. I love it. And with that, let's dive right into part 1, chapter 1. You know, you, you open this book with, you know, a very cinematic moment, right? You're sitting at a red light, phone in hand. Just a few months earlier, you've crossed the finish line for Ironman in Florida, which was, you know, which is one of the most difficult things for people to do. And then you open your phone and you see the words clinically significant prostate cancer likely, right? This diagnosis that would rock anyone's world. And I think this is kind of an interesting juxtaposition here because just a few months earlier, right, you look at your body as this like almost a proof of power, right? Like you've trained, you've worked all this time, you've completed one of the hardest challenges of endurance almost anyone is ever able to do, right? And then just a few months later, you see this sign that, you know, it's weakening in some ways. I'd love to hear a little bit more about that moment in and of itself. What were your first thoughts? What are the first things racing through your head? And then also, you know, going a little bit further throughout this chapter, you write about— you say two things that I thought really, really stuck with me. I really like how almost bluntly you just— and openly you just say this. You say, "Powering through hard things prepares you for hard things." And you say, "You get comfortable being uncomfortable." Right. You know, I feel like you— obviously it seems as though, you know, through the process of writing this book, through what you've just written, right, it seems like you've, no pun intended, taken this in stride, right? And I feel like through these kinds of sentences or these, these little snippets that I've pointed out here, you show how your mindset, whether that's as an athlete, as a runner, has prepared you for enduring through some of these difficult moments. But can you talk a little bit more about a unique challenge like this that you weren't ever even prepared for?

Sure, sure. So, you know, the, the opening cinematic moment, you know, for folks that haven't read the book, you know, it's a Friday morning, it's, uh, April 1st, 2022, and I'm heading down, um, a parkway to go to a dental appointment. I get to the light and I get an alert on my phone and I hop into my healthcare portal for NYU Langone, the place where I get care. There's literally pages and pages of medical jargon. I don't really understand that well, but I scroll down to the punchline. I'm like, all right, let's cut to the chase. What's the deal? As you noted, it said clinically significant prostate cancer likely. My cancer journey didn't start that day. It started with routine physical exam. Where some of my blood counts were a little bit elevated and not elevated that high, but elevated in a way that was about twice what they were the last time I went for a checkup. So I had no symptoms whatsoever, no reason to believe anything was wrong. And then I go and I get these blood test results, and then that sets off a chain of confirmatory tests. And that's where, you know, I learned the result. You know, I don't think I included it in the book, but, you know, 10 minutes later I'm in my dentist chair and she says to me, yeah, any changes in your medical history? And I'm like, do you have a couple hours? Let me just say no for now and get through this. And so, yeah, it was, it was an interesting experience. You know, just as it just is, my cancer journey didn't start that day. My athletic journey didn't start with Ironman Florida. It never does. And so, you know, for me, it had started a few years before that. I was at a professional conference doing what people do at 2 AM at professional conferences. And somebody gets the bright idea and says, hey, we should run a 5K in the morning. I'm like, all right, what could go wrong with that? You know, I show up in shoes and clothes that are not exactly appropriate for running a 5K, and the gun goes off and I take off very quickly, and a minute later I'm out of breath and walking and that kind of stuff. And so I'm like, oh no, you know. And so, you know, I did what anybody with, uh, with my mindset would do. I went back to my hotel room and frantically started registering for 5Ks back at home. Um, I actually went back to that conference a couple years later and won the 5K, won first place. Um, but you know, the personality is such in that 5K becomes 10K becomes a half marathon becomes a, uh, a full marathon. I did 15 full marathons, and then, you know, it wasn't good enough to be mediocre at one sport, I needed to be mediocre at 3 sports. And so I took up swimming, biking, and running. And as I often joke, you know, probably part of a midlife crisis, um, it was either, you know, dye my hair, buy skinny jeans, and cruise the local community college, or, um, or take up triathlon. And so I took up triathlon. And there too, with triathlons, you start with a sprint, which is basically shorter. You move to Olympic, and then a half, and then the full. And the full In November 2021, Ironman Florida was really the pinnacle of success. And as you noted, it was like, wow, I trained, I did this. By the time you do it, you've put in several thousand miles on the bike, you've run several thousand miles, you've swam God knows how long. And so it's not only the race, it's all the preparation that goes into it. And as much as you try to check yourself, you do have this feeling of invincibility. And so my first thought when I got the news was, wait, how in God's name could I have cancer? And, and then honestly it struck me. So there's two things. One, you know, health and fitness are not the same thing. You could be very fit and still have a significant health condition, um, and vice versa. Um, but the other thing that struck me is as I sat thinking about it, I'm like, so when I did Ironman Florida, I had cancer. I did Ironman Florida with cancer. And so I could certainly do cancer by itself. You know, I, I do these things. One of the things I like about triathlon is that there are these uncomfortable moments that happen to you where everything in your mind, everything in your body is telling you to stop. Like, there's no reason to do this. This is voluntary. Nobody's chasing you. You don't have to do this thing. And you power through and you recognize, and it's almost like you acknowledge the pain, you acknowledge the discomfort, and then you put it out of your mind and you just keep going. And so that became my model for, for getting through this. You just keep going one step at a time. And so for me, doing Ironman Florida was a test, but it then became a testament to what was possible. I was able to draw from that and say, yeah, I do hard things, I've done hard things. If I can do this, then I can do whatever comes my way. And so, you know, one of the great lessons out of that, and I think it works this way, for kids in sports too. I'm a big proponent of kids, if they're able to, getting involved in sports in some way. And that doesn't mean you've got to be a D1, you know, league football player. It could mean something as simple as running every day, you know, something that, that clears your mind, that gets you active, that gets you thinking, but also something that builds on your success. And so, um, for me You know, I had no idea as I trained for triathlon. It was a recreational activity, something I did on the weekend. I wasn't winning any races. I wasn't coming in last either. I came in somewhere in the middle. It was something that I did to, to keep myself fit, to keep myself emotionally healthy and that kind of thing. And as you noted, I didn't know that there was a bigger race planned for me.

No, I mean, I love it. I think through the chapter, through this through this part here, you, you talk a lot about your journey through kind of overcoming not just obviously the physical part of what cancer is, right, but also the mental blocks that kind of held you back. And I think you bring up two really interesting points here about both vulnerability or courage, and then also just daily small growth, right? Um, so at one point you say, true masculinity isn't diminished by illness, it's defined by courage and connection. And I kind of want to, I would love to hear a little bit more about your process through discovering that almost this sense of vulnerability was a source of strength for you as opposed to, you know, a weakness or surrender. And then you also say, you talk a little bit about your daily routine, your habits, right? You said, my daily runs slowed to daily walks, but I knew I was still moving forward. And I would love to hear a little bit about what got you really to that kind of point, because obviously when you start up here, you know, as a runner, you just completed the Ironman, all these things, you know, it's hard to go back to daily walks, right? I know whenever I was on the basketball court and had, I don't know, an ankle injury, and I had to go back to just standing shooting free throws for hours, like, that never feels good, you know? And, and I think through that process, obviously you're dealing with something a lot bigger than a sprained ankle, right? So I'd love to hear a little bit more about your own thought process and the emotional journey you went through to reach these conclusions of whether or not I'm running or walking, as long as I'm moving forward. And also that journey about with vulnerability.

The leading into, I wound up having prostate cancer surgery. I was diagnosed, I got the text message on April Fool's Day of all days and got the surgery in July. I call it Independence Weekend when I got rid of my first round of cancer. The night before the surgery, I ended a 777-day running streak. I didn't plan that. I had no way of planning it was going to be 777 days. It was a lucky number. And so it worked out that way. But for 777 consecutive days, I ran at least a mile. And sometimes I ran 10, sometimes I ran the minimum 1. There were times when in order to complete the streak, you know, I ran in jeans after a long day at work or stopped my car by the side of the road or left airports and ran outside and then came back into the airport and got my luggage. And so I did whatever it took to keep that streak up. And then that streak was broken. And, you know, as I came to the realization, that I'm going to have surgery and there's no way I can keep the streak up, there was an element of sadness, right? It was an end to an era. I had worked hard to maintain the streak and now it was ending. Although I found some solace in that it wasn't for lack of willpower. I said to my doctor, as we scheduled the surgery, I said, "Will I be able to run afterwards?" He's like, "No." And I'm like, "What will happen if I do?" And he said, "You're going to do a lot of damage and you're going to undo everything that I did." I mean, it's gonna just kind of lengthen this entire process out. And so I, uh, I didn't run, but I walked around the— right after the surgery, like an hour after the surgery, I did, uh, lots of laps around the nurses station. I'm sure they felt like they should order me a psychiatric evaluation. Um, and then in the, in the month afterwards, I walked a ton. And, you know, every time I would come back, my wife would be would say to me, you know, how'd it go? And it was pathetic, you know. And so, you know, I'm used to running 8-minute miles, you know, 8.5-minute miles, and now I'm walking 14 miles. And so it took a lot of adjustment. I will say, there's two things that came out of that. One, I felt lucky to be able to do anything at all, you know, especially as I got further into my journey and that it wasn't that I have to go out and walk 5 miles today. It was more, I get to go out and walk 5 miles today. The second thing that I noticed is there were routes in my neighborhood that I had run by thousands of times, thousands of times. And you get to know, you know, so, you know, you see garbage in a road or whatever else, or you see something that's been discarded by the side of the highway. You know, a kid's doll or something, and you, you notice it every single time you go by. And those become like your mile markers. Oh, that's where the fork is, and, and that's where the kid's doll is, and, you know, that's where the water bottle full of pee is. And so you get to notice all these things, and, and you, you do notice them. But when you walk, you see more things. And there were times when I, I walked these routes instead of, you know, blazing through them, you know, sweating and that and you just stop and notice things a little bit differently. You see animals you didn't see before, you notice things you didn't see before, and you think to yourself, was that always there? You notice houses as you run by that you didn't notice before. And so you really take more time. Your senses are more in tune. It's more like a Zen-like kind of thing. And, you know, there's some beauty that comes out of that. But it did take me some time to adjust to that. It's like, I can't believe it's taking me, you know, 14 minutes to get through a mile. And going to take me all day now. So I really had to adjust my mindset and say, so this— I don't love this. It's not great. I'd much rather be running. But what can I take from this that will be beneficial in other areas of my life? And I think one of the great lessons is you see more when you slow down. And also, you know, progress isn't always a straight line. And so my running career took a couple of steps back. in order for me to get well and be able to move forward. But it, it was a pretty significant adjustment.

Yeah. I, I think one of my favorite parts of this book is how, how you're able to tie in a lot of that experience with running or cancer, a lot of these either setbacks or hurdles that a lot of people are fortunate enough not to face, or even running, which is something a lot of people don't do, but really humanize that entire process that you kind of went through and tie it into a way of, of living that you've decided to live your life, right? Um, and I think one thing you kind of mentioned in this upcoming section is, uh, you kind of translate triathlon language for all of us normal people, right? You talk about A races, B races, C races, and you translate that almost into the sense of life management, right? Which— knowing which battles or races deserve full effort and which kind of just keep you moving. And I want to ask a little bit about your own journey with your A races, B races, and C races. What of those, you know, what of your journey through chemo, through cancer, you know, through this whole process really kept you moving? And what were the ones that, you know, you just had to kind of truck through? And what did learning to really, that, like you mentioned, this process of slowing down, right? How did that kind of affect your own cadence in life?

One of the things my triathlon coach always tells me is every race can't be an A race, right? Because it doesn't work that way. The other great lesson in racing, there were times when I would run C races or B races, and those are less important races, right? If you're doing a race, you know, that is, you've done it a couple times and you're looking for a personal best, that becomes your A race. But you can't book A races week to week, right? There's got to be some B races and C races in there where you're out there, you're competing, you are hitting that start line, you're going through the process, you're hitting that finish line, but you're not necessarily leaving it all out there because then you won't be able to do it the following week or 2 weeks later. And so you go into races, you know, with a plan. And I think that's, you know, as important as anything else, that It's not all left to chance. It's that this is going to be a mid-range race for me. This is what I want to, want to be able to do in the way of finishing. This is my time goal. This is how I want to feel as I'm doing it. Because there are races that you go all out and you're just wrecked at the end. And, you know, then you're wrapped up for a weekend and the rest of your training is thrown into a tailspin. And so you have to really calculate out which races are the most important, but then at the same time, understand that Things don't always go your way. Mother Nature doesn't care what your plans were. And so there were races I had, including Ironman Florida, where there's wind, there's water current, there's wildlife in the water. There are things that affect your performance that have nothing to do with you. And so you get into this, you know, and when I did Ironman Florida, there were 450 people that were pulled out of the swim that didn't make it. And so that means your race day is over. So you spent a year preparing, you hit the swim, you didn't make the time cutoff, or you needed to be rescued, and your race is done. And you sit there for the rest of the day.

Yeah.

While the rest of us are out there doing our thing. And so, you know, unexpected things so happen. So part of this is saying, I'm going into this race with this mindset, I'm going into this this, you know, in life, this project, this relationship, this work, you know, with a particular mindset, but understand that things might not go your way. It has nothing to do with your training, nothing to do with your performance. And so you always have to be ready for those curveballs. You know, on the bike in triathlons, you run the risk of a flat, right? If you have a flat, it's probably going to take you 10 minutes to change that out. You just lost 10 minutes on your time or You know, you wind up twisting an ankle coming off a curb in the run. And so there are things that happen all the time, you know, among athletes. We always say, you know, if we have a lousy race and it didn't go according to plan, just, today just wasn't my day. Um, I always found some solace in the fact that, um, again, I wasn't going to come in first, I wasn't going to come in last. We're all getting the same medal, we're all getting the same free t-shirt and free banana at the end of it. And so it's not, it's not my day job. And, you know, safety always came first. But I think understanding— so, and, and the other thing, and here's another lesson, um, you get the race that you trained for. So there are races I did usually in the off-season where, you know, my training was sporadic. There's a daily training plan. You know when you're doing the training plan right, you know when you're doing it. You know, in some ways half-hearted, or you're skipping workouts, or life gets in the way, and you show up at that start line and you know that you're only about 80% trained to where you wanted to be. You always wish there were 2 more weeks before the race. And if you only trained to 80% of where you wanted to be, then expect 80% of that race. Yeah, you can't expect to have an A+ race, um, if you trained in a, in a B- way. And so What you very often, not always, but what you put in is what you get out of it. Again, understanding that sometimes things beyond your control happen and quite frankly, that's not the end of the world either.

Yeah. No, that's a fantastic lesson. And I think with that, you know, we'll wrap up part 1 of Every Mile Matters. I think today was incredible, right? This first 6 chapters of this book You know, it almost seems like they are in, you know, using your runner language, forming the first lap of, you know, a much larger race in your own life, right? And, you know, of your own transformation, of your own growth. And I think I love how you almost break this down. And this is something obviously we'll try to capture the essence of, but if whoever's listening, you know, really, really wants to see the behind the scenes, I would highly recommend, you know, getting this book in the first place. You know, you talk about how the athlete learns patience, right? And the survivor learns momentum, and both almost learn the sense of humility. And that's, you know, one of my favorite parts of kind of going through this. So I think I learned a lot. This was fantastic. Dr. Reynolds, thank you so much for joining us today.

Thanks so much for having me on. It's a pleasure.

Absolutely. And, you know, I'm looking forward to part 2, right, which is where we're going to dive into how your own challenges affected your physical, your mental, your social, and even spiritual life, and obviously how you came out stronger as a result of it. So, you know, thank you to all of our listeners. And until next time, keep on learning, keep on changing, and keep on growing. And remember, every mile matters. We'll see you next time.