Anyone who knows me, knows I’ve done my fair share of traveling in the past several months.
One thing I’ve always been told is to travel while you can. Money will return, but time never will.
While I’ve been in and out of the country over the past several months, I happened to witness an event on my past trip that reinforced my belief in traveling and experiencing the world.
On a cruise that included stops in Aruba, Curaçao and Grand Turk, a terrible tragedy occurred on the final day at sea on the return to Florida.
A man collapsed and passed away from a massive heart attack on the last day of the trip.
It really made me think about all the places I’ve gone and all the things I’ve done.
Being able to see the world and experience different cultures through activities, food and travel, kind of came full circle.
Years ago, my grandpa, had been diagnosed with heart disease and for the bulk of my life while he was alive, I remember him just sitting and rocking in his chair.
There wasn’t a ton of activities he did. He just sat and rocked in his chair.
Now I’m not knocking him doing that, but he got to a point where he couldn’t go experience things.
For 30-plus years, he worked in the DuPont factory in West Virginia and smoked.
All that eventually caught up to him.
So keeping that in mind, I’ve tried to apply that to my life in as many ways as possible.
I want to see things.
I want to experience places.
I want to try foods.
I want to see it all.
But it kind of has an impact on sports as well.
I remember during my running career that I wanted people who ran with me to hurt. I wanted to leave it all on the course or track. I had a mindset during my cross country years, if you ran with me up hills on courses, I was going to make you hurt for it. And honestly, I got pretty good at that running gig.
Life eventually caught up to me. During my college years, I had an injury to my foot that required reconstructive surgery.
While I can physically still run, it’s quite painful. So the injury effectively ended my career.
That time has passed.
I can never really put foot to pavement in a way I used to—my body just can’t take it.
It’s special being able to see high school players of all sports figure this out early in their career and see them leave it all on the court or field in the same way.
Time will never return to us.
We have to make the most of the time we’re given.
Keeping the gentleman who passed away on Saturday, my grandfather and my former running career all in mind, that’s what I’ll do.
I’ll keep traveling the world.
I’ll keep seeing new places. I’ll keep trying new foods.
But for now, it’s time for a little break from that and settling into the mad sprint known as spring sports.
Chris Siers is sports editor of the Tribune. Email him at sports@t-g.com.