Time to get personal
I’m heading to New York this evening on a red-eye flight.
The point of the trip is to gain a bit of perspective on The Dan Plan while stepping back for a few days. From day one, my coach told me that there would be times that he wanted me to completely step away from golf to allow myself to “recharge,” to let everything that I’ve learned to date sink into my subconscious as well as to keep from burning out. Since starting the project in April 2010, I have not taken more than two days in a row off except for visiting family last Christmas, so a small time away is well overdue.
Christopher and I have built into The Plan about ten days a year that are “down” times and this is one of those weeks. Recovery and perspective are just as important as hard work and you need a good balance of everything to really push the learning process.
It seems too often that times leading up to a vacation can be the most stressful times of the year and then when you actually begin said vacation your guard is down and your immune system finally allows you to get sick. This is the unfortunate case with me today. For the first 13 months of The Plan I managed to scrape by without so much as a cold, but about ten days ago I came down with a 24 hr bug. Got over that and then two days ago (at the worst time possible) I caught a pretty bad cold. This cold has led to a comically complete loss of voice as well as an ear infection, sore throat, headache, pink eye, sinus infection, etc. Just generally poor health right before hopping on a red-eye flight to NYC, what timing!
It basically all started two days ago when Gavin Edwards flew up for an interview with Men’s Journal. The interview went well (as far as I could tell at least), but by the afternoon my voice was starting to go and by the time we were supposed to go out to dinner I couldn’t talk at all and had to cancel. Monday came around and I rested all day hoping to get better before a potentially important meeting with Nike on Tuesday. But, on Tuesday morning I was still completely at a loss for anything more than a whisper, so had to cancel that meeting and one with an AP writer for it’s better to reschedule a meeting than to infect those around you. As much as I wanted to meet with the writer and the Nike folks, I think that the comicalness of a “whisper meeting” would eventually fade and they might think I was a bit on the strange side..
Now, I sit here writing away 6 hours before my flight is scheduled to take off, not being able to talk and am completely deaf in one ear. I can’t help but smile a bit and chuckle (chuckling in a whisper is kind of funny in it’s own way) at the state of myself. My body knew completely that I was taking some time off and I think wanted to get all of the potential sicknesses out of the way for the next 13 months until there is another down time. No matter how much you plan, there are always unknown variables in life and it’s best to take them with a grain of salt, or as a salty mouth wash as my doctor has instructed me 
The good news: since starting the medicine I am not going to be contagious by this evening, so no matter how I sound on this flight, I promise whoever is sitting next to me that you are safe!
Without further ado, I am off for a bit of personal time. It pains me to step away from training, but I can already tell that my energy will have skyrocketed and my determination found anew next Tuesday when I return!