For those who have read my blog posts, I've written about my journey to where I am today.  In recent years I have been fortunate to have participated in some incredible events.  Back in 2014, I friended Washington DC Massage Therapist Terrel Hale and saw he traveled to Oregon to work the 2014 Pre Classic, a top track and field competition in the world, held in Oregon.  It's one of the only US based international track and field meets.  Terrel agreed to do some Q&A with me about his experience.  From this interview, a series of events occurred.  Fast forward to May 2017, and here I am, on my way to the 2017 Pre Classic.

The medical team comprised of massage therapists, chiropractors, athletic trainers, physical therapists, and even an acupuncturist.  Athletes could come in to our room during treatment times and get whatever they needed (or wanted!).  Here was the river view from the treatment room

Don Butzner, who I interviewed for this blog before, was the Captain of the event for me.  He has been organizing events in Eugene for quite a few years and has worked with some of the worlds best athletes in track and field.

I arrived on Wednesday afternoon into Eugene Airport, a short drive away from where all the action would take place.  After unpacking at the hotel, I headed over to the hotel I'd be working at the next few days.  Athletes from various countries began to come in over the next few days.  As a fan of the sport, this was incredible to see, and work with, the biggest names in the sport.  The Pre Classic line ups were nearly rematches from the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.  (So yes, I did work with a few Olympians this weekend!)

Friday night there were a few distance events for the female athletes.  I headed over to the track to work with athletes I had seen earlier in the week.  As the sun went down, the evening was absolutely amazing.  Here was the view of the warm up areas just past where the medical tent was set up.

As the athletes finished their races and events that night, some began to head over to the tent for post race treatments.  Around 10pm that night, I was one of the last to leave the stadium with a few athletes who did a workout and long cool down afterwards.

The next morning, I was at the track at 10am.  Soon after the shuttles from the athlete hotels began arriving and athletes began to warm up.  It was another beautiful day.

The medical tent on the main race day was filled with nearly a dozen treatment tables.  Athletes began coming in for pre-race treatment, stretches and other things they needed to perform their best.  Soon after the events started, athletes began coming in for post-race massage.

The last race ended around 3pm, and around nearly 430 pm, most everyone said their good byes and off we went. It was a great experience overall and I do look forward to hopefully coming back again in the future.

How many times have you or someone you know asked for a referral for something?

We all need help or advice at some point in our life, and to ensure we make a good decision, we often ask for recommendations on "good" people for whatever we need help with.

You know, something like, "Who knows a good massage therapist( or PT/chiro/mechanic/plumber etc)?"

Nearly everyday my Facebook feed includes one of these type of posts, and what follows in the comments is often a list of dozens people.  But how many of those people are actually contacted?  What is it about human nature where we want to ask for advice and recommendations and then often go make our own decisions anyway?

To a fault, I do zero advertising and marketing of my therapy services.  It's 100% word of mouth from people who have seen me at one point, or people I know. A good friend of mine and competitive bodybuilder David Reid has been a tremendous referral source for me, for which I am very grateful.  I've known and worked with Dave for nearly 10 years now.  He's been in the fitness game for a long time and has had his share of injuries and therapy sessions.  Whenever someone Dave knows is hurt, he is quick to send them my information.

A good portion of his referrals have called me immediately, others wait weeks to months later, and some never call.  The delay in calling me is not a result of Dave's recommendation, it's a result of those people not having the immediate motivation to take action.  I bring this up because when someone is in enough pain, they will call.  When someone is frustrated with the results, they will look for other options.  If they haven't experienced those emotions, they likely won't go for the contact.

Here's a story that occurred recently.

An active woman came to see me after going through months of physical therapy for hip pain.  MONTHS!!! and she saw minimal progress.  She decided to call me and in one 90-minute session with me, she was fully functional with no pain.  So why did she call me after all?  Because she was frustrated with her results and wanted other options.

There is another key point in that paragraph.  Her problem was gone after one session.  I consider myself a really good therapist. I still have areas to improve on, and that will come with time.  With the people I see, I can confidently say if I cannot show immediate relief, if not full recovery in 1-2 sessions, there is a major problem that needs to be addressed.  I've said I can fix just about everything except broken bones.  Not to be egotistical, but my results indicate this to be true.

In the past year, I worked with a retired Olympic level track and field athlete.  All those years of training has now led to discomfort.  In this case, it was chronic groin pain.  The next day the person came back and said, "Whatever you did, let's do it again, because I haven't felt like this in a long time."

I have many stories like this and the common comments I get from them is, "Why didn't I come see you sooner?"

Your friend: "I have this back issue, do you know someone who might help?"

You: "Yes, you should call Roger. He's great.  He's worked with all kinds of great athletes, Olympians, professionals. You should call him."

Friend: "ok, why is he great?  I mean, I know my PT also works with athletes too."

You: "Because he can fix things in one session."

In this scenario and recommendation, who wouldn't want to get fixed in one session? Someone who doesn't call isn't in enough pain (pun intended) to seek help.  They are going through the stages of decision making but aren't quite there yet.  One last thing I have learned is that who you have worked with isn't as big of a factor in someone's decision to seek treatment as one might think.  It still comes down to how emotional they are about their current situation.

So although I can provide help to many people, it's still up the person to make the decision what is important to them.

In the past few weeks, I have had so many conversations with friends about sleep and what has worked for me, I felt it was likely a sign I should provide a resource based on my experiences.

My story starts over 7 years ago when  I made choices that would create problems for me until recently when I made changes to my sleep routines.

Seven years ago I decide to undertake a college program that would require me to take 40 credits of courses in 10 months.  And during the start of this 10 months, my first child was also born.  My "brilliant" idea was to drink a bunch of caffeine and study late at night and be on night duty if my daughter woke up.  Not being a big coffee fan I started with a can of Red Bull.  Then soon one can wasn't enough.  I needed a bigger can, the 16 ounce can.  Soon that wasn't enough, I needed a few cans each day.  I recall at one point I was drinking four 16-ounce Red Bulls a day, just to stay awake!  Clearly I had developed a tolerance to it and I was caught in a vicious cycle of needing energy, drinking it, crashing, and then needing it again.

Soon this habit was getting expensive.  I changed up drinks.  Some worked well, other didn't.  For a while I did orange Mt Dew.  This was good.  It was cheap and effective....and full of sugar that resulted in me gaining quite a few pounds.  And I still was stuck in the cycle of energy and crashing.

I tried to stop this a few times over the last 7 years.  I knew if I could have a few days to get naps in, I could help buffer the need for energy mid day and late afternoon.  The longest I recall going was two weeks.  I'd get stuck in the cycle again.

The last few years I was going to Kickstart's by Mt Dew.  Whether it was from this drink specifically, or just seven years of abuse, I felt many changes to how I felt overall.  I experience more aches, my mental alertness was poor, my memory and focus was pretty bad. I had to make a change.

After my trip to New York in November, I came home decided this was it, no more.  I was going cold turkey, and in a time when naps were nearly impossible to get except on weekends.

From my previous times trying to stop, I would get serious headaches, likely from caffeine withdrawal. Usually after a few days, I'd go back to drinking.  This time I decide to have small chocolates nearby to snack on.  There is a small amount of caffeine in chocolate, so this helped my headaches considerably.  The first interesting insight in this attempt was my psychological need for drinks.  I wasn't tired but craved the taste.  I had wondered how much of my problem was energy and how much was cravings.  I was beginning to see it was a little of both now.

After a week of managing head aches, I now was dealing with getting through the day and dealing with those cravings.  I knew when I began to undertake this attempt I had to be strict on sleep.  If I slept well, I wouldn't be tired and wouldn't need energy, right?

Enter Nick Littlehales.  I found him as a guest on one of my favorite health podcasts, The Ben Greenfield Podcast.  Nick had worked with elite athletes for years and his advice on sleep was so simple and logical, yet it wasn't the standard "Get 8 hours of sleep."

For years I have wondered why that was recommended because I would get 8 hours and feel terrible.  I would get 6 and feel great.  I would get 10 and still feel bad.  None of this made sense.  I played around with naps too.  I would take a nap and wake up feeling worse than I did before I fell asleep.  What was I doing wrong?

I decided to give Nick's advice a try.  The first thing I did was use his sleep cycle method to time my sleep.  I currently wake up at 5am.  Humans typically sleep in 90 minute cycles, so counting back 5 cycles (Nick's basic recommendation) from that, I would get a bed time of 9:30pm.   To help with this, I created a post it with times on it next to my bedside.  Now for days I couldn't get to bed at 9:30, I stayed up until the next sleep cycle time.  Nick's recommendation to his pro soccer players who go out at night is to stay up until your next cycle time, and wake up at your regular time, then try to get a nap the next day.  I have used this strategy and can vouch for it's effectiveness.

Now on the topic of naps...Most weeks the only naps I get are on weekends.  Nick's advice is a 20 minute downtime rest or a 90 minute nap.  Anything in between isn't good. I have stuck to this, taking 20 minute rests during the week and 90 minutes on the weekends when I can.

The next bit of advice I used was Nick's pre-bed routine.  Nick recommended about 90 minutes before bed, create a routine that limits the use of LED lights( i.e. screens from mobile devices, computers, TVs' etc), and do things that calm you down.  I found I could get away with about 45-60 minutes.  I would read, play guitar, and journal most nights during this pre bed routine.

A few weeks later I added in blue light blocking glasses along with tart cherry juice. Listening to Ben Greenfield, he has talked a lot about wearing these glasses at night to help block the light that stops the bodies production of melatonin.  The glasses help the body create it when you need it most, at night.  I would wear these at the start of my pre-bed routine.  I would also drink tart cherry juice and take 2 ZMA capsules as well.  In the past, I have experienced sound sleep while taking ZMA (zinc, magnesium and B6 supplement), and that still happens now.

The tart cherry juice has natural melatonin in it.  Cherries are a high source of melatonin.  Most nights I drink about 4 ounces with my ZMA.  When I need a little extra help getting to sleep because of excitement or a crazy day, I'll drink up to 8 ounces.

Now going on nearly four months of this, I have stayed away from energy drinks, and only a few times have had caffeinated beverages.  I don't need much caffeine now to have a major effect!

As I started this, I wondered how long it would take me to feel "normal."  It's been so long I no longer knew what well rested felt like.  Certainly have 3 kids in the 7 years didn't help me get sleep (and my wife has gotten less than me, considerably less, so I can't complain too much).  It took me about 3 weeks before I felt rested. I figured all the energy crashes and peaks likely were impacting my adrenal functions, so the body was going to need to take time.  But I now say I know what normal feels like again.

2016 has been one incredible year for me as a therapist.  In the summer of 2015, I had the goal of trying to get picked to work at the USATF Olympic Trials in July.  But before that happened, through a series events on pretty short notice, found a spot to help at the 2016 USATF Marathon Olympic Trials.  I wrote about that trip here.  This trip was amazing, and found an incredible passion for helping marathoners.

July came for the Track and Field Olympic Trials and I spent two weeks in Oregon where I had an amazing time working hard all day, every day I was there.  After that trip, I had to re-focus on what was to come next.  As I wrote in both blogs, those trips didn't come cheap.  I don't have an endless travel budget, and since I'm consistently geographically disadvantaged from so many major running events, I needed to come up with a new plan.

I have been doing therapy since 2007.  Having learned from Waldemar and Charlie Francis, I still had some doubt as to my skill level.  I further learned insightful techniques from Dr. Mike Prebeg and Alejandro Elorriaga at the McMaster Contemporary Medical Acupuncture course using a Neurofunctional approach.  The soft tissue techniques I picked up focusing on nerves has been a game changer.  A good friend of mine, Tyrone Edge, competed as a Masters level sprinter for a few years, and had visited Waldemar on several occasions.  If you know Tyrone, he doesn't BS.  Yet he gave me one of the greatest compliments after I treated him for a few races a while back.

Still, I had doubts in my level.  Finally, after working the 2016 Trials, I gained a new confidence in my skills as a therapist.  With goals of hopefully being chosen to work for a USATF National team in the future, I needed athlete recommendations for the application.  Reading what the athletes wrote helped my confidence but also brought tears of joy to my eyes to read their genuine words about their experiences working with me.

I feel one of the things that makes me unique as a therapist is my ability to fix things quickly with the least amount of stress to the athletes body, and also my ability to prepare the muscles for competition, something I learned from my Canadian teachers.  A runner who puts value in therapy, will appreciate these skills.  The last thing you want before a race is to get pummeled by elbows leaving your legs feeling bad.

A few months ago, the elite women's field was announced for the NYC Marathon.  As a fan of running, this was going to be exciting, with the debuts of Molly Huddle and Kim Conley, in addition to the Kenyans and the second marathon of Neely Spence Gracey, this was going to be exciting!  Out of the blue, a few weeks before the New York City Marathon, I was asked to be a personal therapist for one of the featured female runners, a runner I have worked with for a while but since moved to another state.  This runner values my skills and I couldn't be more excited to connect with her once again.  As luck would have it, my schedule was open and I was heading to NYC!

Elite runners have dozens of items to get done prior to a race.  Everything from credentialing, media interviews, drug testing, uniform checks, rules meetings, eating, and sponsor meetings to name just a few things.  Working this event as a personal therapist was different from my Trials work.  Our sessions had to be scheduled in between these events.  There was some down time for once!  I arrived Friday and soon after arrival began to work.  With the race on Sunday, any issues needed to be addressed today.

Saturday morning there was a 5K race in Central Park, where several big names ran the challenging course.  During this time, the runner I was with went for her run in another part of the park.  Most times I work with athletes I'm stuck in the treatment tent or I see runners inside on my table.  This was a unique opportunity to observe her running and doing strides.  Taking mental notes for the therapy session later that day.  After the Saturday session, things looked to be feeling good.  We went through a timeline for Sunday's race.  Her bus was to leave a few blocks from the hotel at 6 am.  Figuring out the sleep schedule for Sunday morning, we determined I had to be ready at 5:15 am for any last minute tune up work before she left.  At 6am, the runners headed to the busses.  Her husband, coach, agent, friend and myself all walked her to the bus, gave her some "Go Get 'Em's" and then had to wait several hours until the start of the race.  The women's race would end between 12:30 and 1pm.

I was able to get a Grandstand pass at the finish line and headed there early to get a good spot.  (The finish line is just behind me in the photo).  Watching the telecast at the finish line, it was exciting watching the splits every few kilometers, wondering what was going on in the race on the roads.  Eventually the runner came to the finish giving everything she had left.  Watching all the runners finish, it was clear this course is pretty brutal at the end.

After a post race drug test and a quick meal, we had time for a quick post race treatment to help facilitate recovery before I had to head to the airport to catch my flight.  It was an amazing experience, and I hope there are more like this in the future.

Unless something last minute comes up in the next month, this will be the finishing trip for 2016.  I am excited for 2017 and can't wait to see what new adventures await!