Just prior to my 50th birthday, I had a PR at the Eagleman Half Ironman. My training was going great in preparation for the Long Course World Championships in Perth, Australia I felt like I was in the best shape of my life At the same time, work was as busy as ever, which meant I was going a mile a minute every day. We'd had some inquiries from a hospitalist company about our practice, but I ignored them. Still, there were actually a lot of stresses at work, as my business partner and I seemed to have more and more conflict on a regular basis. And, then, in the summer of 2009, was Little Blossom The previous winter, my daughters had written a couple of scripts for a television pilot and myth wife and I thought it's be "fun" to let them actually produce it. I'd had a recent business success with a company called Common Sense Medical Management, and thought we could put the money to good use In many ways, this endeavor had far reaching tentacles that would go on for the next decade. My wife and daughters did all of the work preparing for the week of filming that was planned in August I had decided to take a week's "vacation" to help out, but also "rest up" for the Boulder Half Ironman that was literally at the end our week of filming. to this day, that week was one of the most stressful and hectic weeks of my life Not a good way to taper for a race. In fact, I got zero training, minimal sleep and tons of stress. But, like everything in life, I learned a lot of lessons, and hopefully, so did my daughters. My wife, on the other hand, pretty much hated the whole experience But she did it for our kids, and she did brilliantly at that! The most notable parts of the week were the extreme pride I had in my daughters and what they'd accomplished, and the point at which I'd pushed myself to a mental breakdown the day before my race. The race itself became anticlimactic, but I was super proud of how I did considering that I persevered despite the incredible odds.
Senior Care of Colorado, the private practice I had co-founded in 2001, was growing We were getting bigger and more complex. We were negotiating for more business. My business partner and I would disagree over how much time we should spend running the business rather than working in it. My stress was building. In October of 2009, my family left for a three week vacation to Australia and New Zealand. The first part of the vacation had me splitting up to race at the Long Course World Championship in Perth, while my wife, two daughters, and 85 year old father in law vacationed on the other side of Australia for a few days. I was excited. I was in the best shape of my life and wanted to see how I might compete against the best in the world in my age group. My swim was uneventful. But, just a half of a mile into the bike ride, I got too close to the left curb and crashed, sliding along the side of the road for about 30 feet. My bike was ok, and with crowds yelling "go USA," I got back on my bike to complete the 48 mile bike ride. My flying dismount caused me to land on my left foot and the searing pain in my left hip sent me to the medical tent, where I was told that, at the very least, I had a separated shoulder. They couldn't figure out what was wrong with my hip. 3 1/2 miles later, I shuffled back to the medical tent and nearly passed out. A trip to the hospital led to a diagnosis of a fractured clavicle and an "irregularity" in my left hip. Three weeks later, a CT scan showed a fracture of my left hip socket and pelvis. Ironman St. George was still six months away, and I was determined to do my first ironman.
I took the accident as a signal that it was time for me to slow down. I actually tried to do that in regards to work, which only increased the stress that I had with my business partner. In the spring, IPC reached out and asked us what it would take to acquire our practice. My CFO and I sat down and came up with a number. As I was getting on a plane, coming back from the 2010 annual meeting of the American Geriatrics Society, we got the response. They were going to give us what we wanted! Over the next six months, I experienced what it was like to sell a business to a publicly traded company. Only a few of us could know, which made many of my actions and decisions appear to be nonsensical. In December of 2010, I sold my business and spent the next year and a half working part-time. In many ways, it was one of the best times of my life. I got to focus on my Ironman training and my family. "Unfortunately," one of my ways of focusing on my family led me to invest in an entertainment internet business, GeekNation. In the end, it wasn't a good business investment, and it turned our lives upside down, leading us to move back to California in 2012, which coincided with my retirement from clinical practice. I was going to focus on my wife and training, but instead got neck deep in a new business. There were many lessons from that business, but the most important was that I had no business in the entertainment business.
All the while, my sixth decade was my Ironman decade. Over the course of ten years, I completed 14 Ironman races, and nine half ironman races. I thus qualified for Kona through the Legacy program. My first ironman was at St George in 2010, and I've written race reports for every one of the following races:
2010 St. George 13:18:26 (40/122 AG)
2011 St. George 12:45:54 (29/105 AG)
2012 St. George 13:52:21 (24/110 AG)
2013 Lake Tahoe 14:27:28 (72/161 AG)
2014 New Zealand 12:17:00 (22/92 AG)
2014 Boulder 12:34:19 (15/92 AG)
2014 Chattanooga 11:31:59 (11/103 AG) (PR)
2015 Boulder 13:07:15 (22/77 AG)
2016 Boulder 12:19:58 (6th/53 AG)
2016 Chattanooga 12:32:59 (10th/112 AG)
2017 Boulder 12:58:57 (10/63 AG)
2017 Santa Rosa 12:26:51 (23/105 AG)
2018 Santa Rosa 14:52 (52/92 AG)
2019 Boulder 12:46 (7/30 AG)
In 2014, I achieved Gold status as one of the top people in my age group in the world. I was 34th in the world and 9th in the U.S. My first Ironman in my new 60-64 age group in Boulder in 2019 garnered me my second highest placement in an Ironman, missing the podium by two spots.
"Retirement" lasted a few years, before a chance meeting got me to take a job running the nursing home arm of California's quality improvement organization. I actually had a lot of fun for about a year and a half, working with a great group of people, until it wasn't fun. As soon as the fun ended, I left. Shortly thereafter, I was asked to become the Chief Medical Officer of the largest nursing home chain in California. I didn't think that CMOs had any authority or clout, and said so, but I took the part-time job anyway. It was fun again. Eight months into the position, in August of 2017, I received a phone call asking if I'd be interested in becoming the CEO. My life was about to change yet again. The next fourteen months were the business and hardest of my life. In a story that has started to be told in the media over the past year, I lasted 14 months before resigning. Like every decision in life, I learned a lot from this experience.
Shortly after resigning, I completed my first ultra marathon, the Snowdrop 100, with my good friend Robert Key, and upon recovering from that began my preparation for Kona. Part of that preparation was the decision to compete in the 2019 Ironman Boulder, which ironically turned out to be one of my best Ironman races ever from a placement perspective. It was also just a week before my 60th birthday, and the beginning of my 7th decade.
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