Kicking Breast Cancer's Ass & Winning the Race of Life with Fitz Koehler!

And I looking back, I wouldn't change a damn thing.

SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Grit, Great, and Inspirate.

I'm your host, Kevin Lowe, and I'm excited to welcome you inside.

What's going on, my friend?

How are you today?

Oh my goodness, I am so excited to have you join me today.

Now, I understand that you're not the only person listening to today's podcast episode, but that doesn't really matter because today I'm talking directly to you.

To you, my friend.

And uh, well, first and foremost, I want to thank you for being here with me because baby today I'm about to bring the heat.

Well, not so much me, but more so the guest inside of today's episode who I have joining me in the studio today.

That being Fitz Kohler.

Fitz is uh pretty much the pure example of why women are just so badass.

Because Fitz is not only a fitness expert, she's not only a keynote speaker, not only an author, not only a race announcer, but she's also a woman who survived breast cancer.

And while undergoing chemotherapy treatment, she continued to work.

She continued to live her life because she made up her mind before she ever started treatment that it was not going to steal her life.

It was not going to take away everything that she had fought for, that she had built, that she had worked for all her life.

It wasn't gonna happen.

And so, well, Fitz would do it.

She would conquer cancer.

Fitz would keep living her life.

And so, you know what?

Fitz Kohler won the race.

During our conversation, Fitz talks about what it was like finding out that she had breast cancer.

She talks about what it was like making the decision to not let her life be stopped.

And she talks about what it's like to literally be traveling all over the country while undergoing chemotherapy.

Because here she was sick as a dog, sleeping on the floor of a bathroom in her hotel room, yet still getting up in the morning, getting dressed all fancy, and being out there on the starting line for the race that she was announcing.

But here's what's amazing is that Fitz shares that when she was there at the starting line of one of these races that she was there to announce, she no longer felt pain.

She no longer felt sick because her job was healing her.

And well, that's what just makes everything about her story so incredible.

So I encourage you to be sure that you turn up the volume, you lean in a little bit closer, and you really listen to today's episode, today's conversation with Fitz Kohler.

Because I guarantee you there's something that you're gonna hear today that's gonna leave an impact on your life.

Whether or not cancer has any part of your story, it doesn't matter.

Because what Fitz is sharing is something that can impact us all.

And that's what's just so awesome about it.

Now, before we get to that interview with FitzColor, I do have an invitation for you.

That invitation is for you to join me in my Ultimate Spring Challenge.

Right now, registration is open, it's completely free and a whole whole lot of fun.

All you have to do is head on over to let's hangout.live.

That's let'shangout.live and get signed up today.

It's a private pop-up Facebook group in which you have a daily challenge all kicking off on March 20th to coincide with the first day of screen.

It's here to help you get a head start on life, to get a jump start on the day, and hey, you're gonna have a whole lot of fun along the way.

And so head on over to let's hangout.live, or of course, just check out today's episode show notes where a link will be provided.

With that said, it's time that we jump start your day right now by introducing you to Fitz Kohler.

What's going on and welcome back to Grit Grace and Inspiration?

I am in the studio today with Fitz Kohler.

Fitz, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01: Uh, thank you so much for having me, Kevin.

SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, I'm excited to dive into your story.

And I thought we would kind of kick it off by by kind of starting at a pivotal point in your life.

And that is, I know in 2019 you were diagnosed with breast cancer.

And I would love to kind of use that as our starting point, and then we'll kind of work, you know, kind of backwards and forward, kind of unpacking your story for my listeners.

But would you mind kind of taking me back to that time in your life when you were diagnosed with cancer just by providing me kind of with a snapshot of what life looked like around that time?

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I was killing it.

Life was incredible, great family.

My career was bigger than ever.

I'm a professional race announcer and probably one of the busiest in the United States.

And, you know, spent my weekends traveling to make happy noise for tens of thousands of athletes at major running events like the Los Angeles Marathon, Big Sur Marathon, Buffalo Marathon, Detroit Free Press, you name it.

So living the high life as a professional, doing tons of corporate speaking keynotes, which was fabulous.

And also an athlete taking part in races, running half marathons and obstacle course races and paddleboarding and doing all sorts of wonderful things when I found my tumor.

SPEAKER_00: Wow.

Wow, wow, wow.

Talk about the kind of like a road bump in life.

Yeah, that's intense.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, to say the least.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

So before I ask you more about you finding this, this news, this, this scary part of your life, how did you get involved in fitness to such a high level as this?

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

So I started teaching fitness at 15.

I was a regular teacher in the gym, just teaching classes.

I kept doing that.

I love that.

It was something that I was actually good at and I really enjoyed.

And I continued on throughout high school, moved to the University of Florida, taught for the UF Fitness Centers.

And then I did some interesting things.

On a summer break, I worked on a cruise ship over in Europe and I got to travel through Russia and Scandinavia and England and France and some very cool places teaching.

And I thought I thought, wow, you can do something more with fitness than sit in a local gym and teach classes or do personal training.

And then when I returned home back to Gainesville for maybe my junior year of college, there was a TV producer casting for a fitness television show, Cardio Jam.

So I auditioned and thankfully he chose me.

And that really led me to what I do now because a couple of things happened there.

Is number one, I realized that teaching to the camera came as naturally to me as teaching to a live audience, which is not always a transferable skill.

But more importantly, once the show started airing, strangers started coming up and saying, Are you fit?

Yes.

Oh my God, I love you.

And I do your show all the time and I've lost 17 pounds.

Or I've been working out with you and now my back doesn't hurt.

And those moments with those strangers just blew me away because it's one thing if I can, if I'm helping these 60 people in a classroom I'm physically in a room with.

But to know that I have access to so many more people, people maybe that aren't in my community or in my same social circle, I can just help all sorts of random people.

I love that.

Yeah, not too long after I started writing articles.

I was a competitive kickboxer for 10 years and people were writing a ton of articles on me.

And I finally asked if I could write the article so I could get it right.

Basically, the other writer for screwing things up.

So I reached out to an editor and I said, I said, Hey, can can I write an article for you?

And he said, uh, yeah, absolutely.

And so my very first article that I wrote was How to Kick People in the Head, which was my favorite thing to do as a kickboxer.

And so the article focused on building enough strength to lift your legs, increasing your flexibility so you could get those legs up high.

And last but not least, strategies.

So not only are you putting your foot on their noggin, but how do you trick them into moving their head into your foot to literally make a head-on collision?

So I write this article, it gets published, national magazine.

And a few weeks after it gets published, I have a guy from Kentucky writes me a handwritten letter, sends it to me, U S P S, and the letter says, Fitz, I just want to let you know that I've been doing martial arts and combat sports for years.

And thanks to your article, I finally kicked someone in the head.

And with that, mind blown, I was like, wow, it's almost like I kicked that guy in the head.

And so it was undeniable that mass media was going to be my passion.

I do love working individually with people and consulting, but it's just highly unsatisfying because I want to help the masses.

I don't want to limit myself to 20 people at a time.

I want every ounce of work I do to be a broad stroke that reaches an enormous amount of people.

That's just, that's what satisfies me.

And that's where I've taken this thing.

And it's it's gone incredibly well.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I love it.

And I mean, I can't help but sit there and think to myself, wow, does this not match your enthusiastic personality of it's not enough to kick somebody in the butt.

Let's kick him in the head, you know?

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and I just love what I do so much.

So, you know, maybe there's some things in life that I'm less vibrant about, but I truly believe in this stuff that I'm preaching, that benefits of exercise and nutrition and quality sleep and removing the cranky people.

I mean, I just I know that if everybody can glom on to these very simple tenets of taking care of yourself, their life will be so much better.

And so my enthusiasm is unwavering because I mean it.

I mean it.

I'm I'm so grateful that I do what I love, and I hope everybody else is doing what they love as much.

SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, absolutely.

So now you talked about as a teenager, you you were getting involved in fitness and stuff.

So, was that something?

Did you grow up with that with your parents?

Did you grow up playing sports, like just kind of getting an idea of how you became so passionate about fitness?

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's interesting.

So we all played sports.

My siblings and I, we were always on a field or a court or whatever.

My sports that I participated in, let's see, I did, I did flag football, cheerleading, I did t-ball, I was a speed skater for a while.

Um, we all played soccer.

My siblings were excellent athletes.

They were the stars on their team.

Their teams won state titles, they got college scholarships.

I was very mediocre.

I was a little overweight, and I just I got cut from a lot of things.

So, you know, I played on recreational leagues until you get to high school, and in high school, you got to try out.

And if you're not good enough, they cut you.

And so I got cut from soccer and I got cut from softball and I got cut from volleyball, and I didn't really have any experience in volleyball.

But I just wanted to be on a team.

I just wanted to wear a uniform, and sports were so important to me.

So it was, it was definitely defeating to continuously be cut, but I still kept trying.

Like every year I would try out for the same sports.

But once I started teaching fitness, the reason I started teaching fitness is I uh blew my knee out playing soccer.

I had an MCL repair, I was in crutches, did the whole thing, physical therapy.

When I was done with PT, that physical therapist said, You need to join a gym and keep strength training or you're gonna re-injure your knee.

So my mom lied.

She said I was 16, so I could join Spa Lady Fitness Center in South Florida.

And I started going and I really enjoyed it.

You know, I loved using the weights, I loved using the machines.

I took classes.

I thought that was really fun.

I mean, I was still 15 and 14, so I thought, boy, these instructors are cool.

And uh, I was working at Cinnabon.

That Cinnabon is actually my last job before I started teaching fitness.

And that Cinnabon manager, Rani, she got real mean and I decided, okay, I gotta quit.

So I applied at the gym and the manager interviewed me on a Tuesday and he said, Well, what's your experience?

And I said, Well, I went to physical therapy and I learned a lot about how the body works and I really like it.

I've been exercising here.

I just like to learn and I'm up for anything.

He said, Well, have you ever taught a class before?

And I said, No, but I love to.

He said, Can you teach Friday night?

This is three days later.

And I just said, Okay.

So thankfully I'm a gamer and I'm not a I'm not afraid of, you know, standing up in front of crowds.

So I figured it out and I taught that class on Friday night and it went pretty well.

It was called Low Impact Dance Aerobics or whatever.

And uh it went pretty well.

And, you know, that's that's the beginning of this very long story.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, I love it.

And I mean, again, the contrast between making people happy with with dough and icing to making people happy through fitness.

SPEAKER_01: So it's just appalling.

Although my real first job was I was the birthday clown at the skating rink where I got people up to do the hokey pokey.

And I still kind of feel like the birthday clown.

That's kind of what I still do.

SPEAKER_00: I absolutely love it.

Totally love it.

So now you you end up going then to University of Florida.

So did you major in something along the lines of like fitness, nutrition, stuff like that?

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, my uh my undergraduate degree was political science.

I love my country.

I'm a raging patriot.

I love the constitution.

I'd like to serve in public office at some point.

But I got my master's in exercise and sports sciences, and that's really one of my greatest feathers in my cap.

Most people within the fitness industry don't have a significant education.

They get a random certification, maybe a weekend course.

And that's probably enough to allow them to teach classes safely.

But, you know, when you make your career out of managing people's hearts and lungs and spinal columns, you want to do it right.

And so that master's degree is real important to me.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

So kind of progressing through career and stuff, how did you get into broadcasting, you know, marathon races and all of that?

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I started off in television with Cardio Jam.

And quickly I reached out to local news station.

I said, Hey, I'd like to do some fitness segments.

Do you have any interest?

Yeah, we do.

So I started there and, you know, just continued pitching myself to this place and that place and getting more and more experience.

I've been a guest on a ton of talk shows and news programs and so forth.

I got into race announcing in 2014.

So I'd already been participating in races, and I'm also a sport performance expert.

And so I help athletes prepare their body for their sport.

I'm not the coach of the sport.

I couldn't really give you great advice on playing lacrosse, but boy, can I prepare a lacrosse team to have monster physical capabilities for their sport.

So I was teaching clinics for Disney.

I was their virtually their fitness expert for their Run Disney series of races.

And every race weekend they would bring me in.

And basically I would teach clinics at their expo, and runners who wanted to take them would show up.

And their race announcer, this guy, Rudy Novotny, who is an incredible talent.

He's got this big booming voice.

He's a runner himself.

He's charismatic.

He cares about the athletes, and he just has a knack for making things really fun.

And I always enjoyed being a runner when he was announcing a race.

But uh at these clinics, he was in charge of introducing me to the audience.

And then he would kind of be stuck listening.

And so he had heard me speak many times.

And he used to say, wow, that was really fun.

I mean, you're so engaging.

You're we have a lot of people who talk, but we don't have any real speakers.

You're our only real speaker.

And I kept saying, Well, thank you, thank you.

And he would just kind of dote on that.

Like we got people who get on the stage, uh, but they're not professional speakers, right?

So he would just kept saying that.

And finally I said, Rudy, I don't know what to do with this information anymore.

I appreciate the compliment.

And he said, You know what?

I know what to do with this.

I need a co-announcer for the Orange County Marathon in California, OC Marathon, in May in a few months.

Are you interested in announcing it with me?

I think it would be perfect for you.

And I said, Well, being a gamer that I am, I said, uh, I've never done it before, but I'd love to give it a go.

And so he showed me the ropes and that race director thankfully hired me.

And he was right.

I mean, the fact that he connected me with about 30,000 people that weekend.

And, you know, my job is to engage them, get them informed, and then entertain them, make sure they have a great time, feel like it's they're part of a big community at our start lines, and then make sure when people come through the finish line, they each, every single runner, including the dead last finisher, feels like a champion, was totally up my alley.

And uh, so within about an hour of yelling go for the first time on Marathon morning, the race director came over and said, Can you please come back next year?

And I said, absolutely.

And so from there on, my race announcing just grew and grew and it spun out of control in the most wonderful way.

And uh, you know, I'm kind of the new guard.

There's historically race announcing is kind of some older guy sitting behind a table reading a script and kind of monotone and you know, bib one, two, three, four, good job.

Bib three, four, five, six, good job.

And, you know, a good for them if that makes them happy and it makes your events happy.

But I am highly engaged, I'm highly passionate about these people.

You know, as a fitness expert, I'm constantly twisting people's arms and constantly trying to convince people to exercise and eat right and so forth.

But on race day, a race organization says, you know what, if it's color, we're gonna give you 27,000 people and they all want to come run.

And I think, wow, I don't need to convince any of them.

They are on board.

So my job is to make sure they have a hell of a great time and that they feel so special and rewarded that they want to come back again.

And so I am hands-on, I am boisterous and enthusiastic, and I want people to laugh and I want them to feel camaraderie.

And when they come through the finish line, hell yeah, I get down on the pavement and I hug so many of them, not the fast people because I don't want to get in their way.

But that's just more medium to slow-paced people come.

You know, they want those warm, fuzzy hugs.

And, you know, I burst with joy, and thankfully, they burst with joy right back at me.

It's just such a magical experience.

I love doing what I do.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I listen to this and I think to myself, it's so much more than being a race announcer.

It's literally being a cheerleader for each person out there doing, doing the hard thing, you know?

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01: And that's right.

And because I'm a runner, I respect it.

You know, I've hit the wall, I've chafed, I've had blisters, I've had, I've had horrible things go on in the middle of a half marathon.

And I just, I love them.

I I think that's one of the most important things of doing this job is you got to have a stage presence.

You got to be able to handle yourself and a microphone.

I think it's very important to be one of us, to be a runner.

You don't have to be a fast runner, but there's some people that maybe a race will uh bring in a DJ or a TV news guy, and they don't know us.

They're not part of us.

And so they don't have the same respect for the people on the course.

And then last but not least, I mean, the fact that I get to be the first one to welcome them and congratulate them before their mom, before their spouse, before their kids, man, I take that as privilege, oh, privilege number one.

So I'm obsessed.

I I'm so grateful for this career, this aspect of my career, Kevin.

It's so cool.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love it.

So curious, from your perspective, a selfish perspective, we'll say that focusing on you, not on the runners.

What do you get the highest high from?

The start of the race or the end?

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely the start line.

Uh, and the reason being that's the only time in the entire race weekend where we are all together.

So if I've got 10,000 or 30,000 people on a course before I yell go for the first time, that's when they're all there.

And that's where the chaotic, rowdy fun happens.

Because you know what?

When people are alone, maybe if you're going through the finish line alone, you might feel too shy to say, woohoo, and put your hands up.

But when people are hidden amongst thousands of other people, they will be rowdy and they will dance and they will laugh.

And, you know, for me to be the ringleader of this massive group of people and this massive amount of fun, oh, it just fills me up.

It's it's crack cocaine to me.

It's so good.

It's so good.

I love my start lines.

And then once I yell go for the last time and they all leave, then I'm sad.

I feel like, oh man.

I wish they wouldn't have left me, but they got they've got work to do.

SPEAKER_00: So absolutely, absolutely.

So now kind of coming back to to where we started.

Were you in the height of this career when you were diagnosed with cancer?

I sure was.

Yeah.

Bigger than ever.

Wow, wow, wow.

So so walk me through kind of, you know, like I said, we we started off with this, but kind of picking up from there.

What was that process like?

I mean, did you find a lump yourself?

Was it a routine mammogram that that discovered it?

How, how did this come come to be?

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

So in December, I think it was December 27th of 2018, I had a mammogram and it was clean.

I walked out of there and the doctor said, you know, perfect, come back next year.

Less than seven weeks later, I was at a race weekend where I was running.

I got out of the shower and I just rubbed my under boob and I found a lump.

It was just right there on the outside of my boob, and I thought, oh God, I've got cancer.

I just knew it.

I knew it right away.

And so I was in the bathroom naked with my phone, and I called the doctor right away and I said, I need to come in.

I found a lump.

They squeezed me in from Monday, on Thursday.

I went in to see the radiologist.

And she uh did a mammogram and then they did an ultrasound, and I could see the tumor on the skin.

But you're like, maybe it's something else, right?

And she said, you know what?

This mass looks concerning to me, but it's you have three hard swollen lymph nodes I'm really concerned about.

So within those seven weeks, my body grew a sizzy cancerous tumor, and it had already spread to the lymphatic system, which was terrifying.

So I definitely thought I was dying.

I was sure of it.

I thought, you know what?

Things are going too well.

I'm the perfect, you know, and I really take the word perfect with a grain of salt, but I what I felt was I'm the perfect uh example of health and happiness.

I have the perfect family, I have the perfect career.

I am definitely going to make the perfect tale of tragedy.

I'm gonna make that Hallmark movie about this poor fitness pro who died of cancer in her prime.

So it was it was gut-wrenching, it was really scary.

SPEAKER_00: Wow.

If you don't mind me asking, how old were you when you were diagnosed?

SPEAKER_01: I think I was 42 or 43.

SPEAKER_00: Wow.

Now, did you have family history of breast cancer?

SPEAKER_01: Nope.

SPEAKER_00: Wow.

Wow, wow, wow.

SPEAKER_01: And yeah, and most women don't.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, really.

Okay.

Wow, that's just insane.

Now, and I think like the other thing that's just insane, and and you hear these stories so much about cancer is how it's like, like you said, you just had a mammogram so recent, and then all of a sudden it's like it just exploded.

SPEAKER_01: It did.

It was like wildfire.

It was coming to get me.

And had I waited for the next mammogram, I'd be dead.

Um, so the message from my experience is not only get those annual exams, every one of them, get your skin and your eyes and your ears and your prostate and your whatever, get it all.

But then also be responsible.

Check your body out, look at your skin, squeeze your stuff.

It's your hands, it's your stuff.

I've been traveled across the country on many microphones, telling millions of people your hands, your stuff.

Put your hands in your pants, have a feel.

Always squeeze your breasts.

You've got maybe do it once a week, just every Wednesday morning after you wake up, you have an alarm set to squeeze your stuff.

And you do.

And if you find something weird, you report it to your doctors.

Uh, but yeah, it was very scary.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

Wow, wow, wow.

And and I mean, and just an important message that you just shared is is the fact that we have to be there for ourselves.

You know, we have to be our own advocate.

And um, I think that's so vitally important.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, it's funny I tell people, but you know, doctors don't creep into your house at night like Santa Claus and crawl under your covers and with a flashlight and start looking at your body.

You have to bring your body in.

You know, if your check engine light went on in your car, man, you'd get that checked quickly.

You don't want to break down and you don't want your engine to explode.

But sometimes people let this weird stuff go on their body.

You know, you got a chest pain, you have shortness of breath that's unexplained.

Get in there.

Go see, doctor, have a look, check under my hood, you know.

We have to be responsible for ourselves.

Nobody else is gonna do it.

SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.

Absolutely.

So now, going back to this, you you are finally diagnosed with having breast cancer.

What was the process like?

What were you told the procedure was gonna be as far as battling this cancer?

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so my treatment plan was 21 rounds of chemo every three weeks.

So I had 15 months of chemo, which most anyone will tell you that's a really long time to have chemo.

I had surgery, lumpectomy, and lymph node removal.

I had 33 rounds of radiation, and so I was in for it for a long time and I didn't know what was going to happen.

You know, some people say they go through chemo and they feel kind of mousy and they feel kind of tired.

I was violently ill.

I had five months of a really mean chemo, and then they switched me to a lesser chemo that was still mean, but the mean chemo beat the hell out of me.

That's the one that made me look and feel like a dying cancer patient.

I was, I was definitely bald and gray and bleary-eyed, but it was just my stomach was imagine having food poisoning every day for 180 days.

Just crazy.

It was really, really hard.

But there were a bunch of silver linings along the way as well.

SPEAKER_00: Wow, wow, well.

So now, how did this impact life?

I mean, not only your career, but just personal life in general.

SPEAKER_01: So it was interesting.

You know, we all have decisions to make.

And one of the reasons I wrote these books, and uh one of the things I'm proudest of are the decisions I made early on that really enhance my quality of life and my career.

And so it's interesting.

Right now, there's a lot of thought process where people get any sort of sickness and they hide out at home.

And, you know, it's one thing if you're contagious.

Clearly, you don't want to give anybody anything, but people tend to hide, right?

Wear a mask, cover up, don't go anywhere, isolate.

I wasn't contagious.

And I wasn't gonna let cancer take the special things in my life.

I knew it was gonna take my hair and some other things, but uh, I was hell-bent on living as much of my earned life as possible.

So before I started treatment, I made two commitments.

Number one, that if my teenage kids, Ginger and Parker, if they had any special events, a show, a sporting event, a ceremony, I was gonna be there.

I was not gonna let cancer interfere with my mothering.

And so, and I never did miss one of those things.

I also decided I was not allowing cancer to steal my career.

Obviously, as I've talked, my career is extraordinary.

And I have earned my rightful spot on those stages.

Those stages I stand on are coveted.

There's a lot of people that would kill to be on those stages, but they're mine.

I earned them and I love them, and I love my events, and I love my people, and I love the people I work for.

And there was no freaking way I was gonna let cancer take those things.

So I decided that I was gonna figure it out, and I had about 30-something events to announce around the country during my chemo, during my treatment, and I wasn't missing them, and I never did.

SPEAKER_00: Wow, you are a beast.

Let's just put it out there.

I mean, that's incredible.

SPEAKER_01: You know what?

There's nothing super human about me.

I'm just motivated.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.

I I guess so.

You you are certainly motivated.

And I love it though.

And I love what I love about that, and I love about that mindset is the fact of you know, cancer can already take so much.

I'm not gonna let it take away my life, me living life.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now, now I'm sure though, having that mindset, making that decision is one thing, but living it out is a whole other thing.

Talk to me about, I mean, it's one thing even to be at home with family.

It's another to be on the road traveling, flying, staying in hotels, getting up in the morning to do these announcing, you know, races and stuff.

What was that experience like for you?

I mean, was there anything that you can kind of look back and think, like, oh, like a lowest moment?

Or maybe there was a high moment.

SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.

And so there's a lot of those.

I call them the adventures and misadventures.

So, you know, a lot of it was hard.

You know, I I've said repeatedly, my greatest asset, my greatest curse is my stubbornness.

You know, it was my stubbornness decided, I'm not giving this stuff up.

I'm gonna make it happen.

But then I was also punished because I had to travel and fly across the country.

I remember I would show up at the airport.

It was almost every Friday morning.

And again, I would some people were like, well, you couldn't have been that sick.

I was so sick that on some days, like, if nobody brought me a drink, I wouldn't have had a drink.

I was, it was in bed or in the bathroom, and that was it.

I was so crazy sick.

But I'd get up at 4 a.m.

My husband would drive me to the airport, and he would walk me up to TSA, knowing what has been going on with me, and he would just look at me every single time and say, How are you going to do this?

And I would just stare blank and say, I just am.

I am just gonna do this.

And I would go through TSA and I would go figure it out.

Now, if you can imagine, use your use your great imagination flying five hours, eight hours, ten hours with a stomach bug, not an easy experience.

You learn that the restrooms in the Delta Sky Lounge are by far the nicest restrooms in any airport.

You know, I it was tough.

It was tough.

When I was home, I had IV fluids every single weekday to keep me up on my feet because the sickness was making me so dehydrated.

When I went into many of my race towns, uh, California and New York and other places, we figured out a way to get me IV fluids on the road.

So I would show up at my hotel, they would pump me full of fluids, and then I'd I'd go host a VIP party, and then I'd, you know, do other things and they'd pump me full of fluids to keep me upright.

So there was definitely a lot of hard stuff.

But this was the magic.

And so, you know, many times I would spend the night on the hotel bathroom floor.

And as you know, if you've ever been sick, you know that the bathroom floor is apparently the only comforting place to be.

But I would sleep there and then at 4:30 a.m.

or so, my alarm would go off.

I drag myself up and get myself dressed, and I would drag myself over to the start line.

But when I stepped onto those stages, absolutely everything that was wrong with me disappeared.

Absolutely everything.

When I stepped onto those stages surrounded by those incredible people at these extraordinary events, I got to be full force Fitz Kohler again because the thing that I was looking forward to and the people I was looking at were so good that my exclusive focus was only on them.

And I could not focus on the things that were troubling me.

And, you know, it was pure adrenaline, pure joy.

And as long as I had an athlete out on that course, I got to be me.

I got to fly.

And it was the greatest gift ever.

Now, when my the final finisher crossed the finish line, sometimes it was a three-hour event, sometimes it was a 10-hour event.

And I could always last.

I could always figure it out and get to that final runner.

Once a final runner crossed the finish line, things would shut down on me pretty quickly.

I think I sounded like a robot, just the type thing.

And I needed to be, you know, rushed to my hotel and again more fluids and things like that.

But it was close to miraculous.

And that's the beauty of choosing a career that you're so desperately in love with that you would do even while super sick.

And, you know, again, did I suffer?

I did.

But did I also fly?

Did I soar?

Hell yeah, I did.

And I looking back, I wouldn't change a damn thing.

And knowing that if I had conceded to cancer, if I had said, okay, you got me, take my career, a couple of things would have happened.

Is uh my my brand fitsness would have been obliterated.

It would have gone away.

I would be starting from scratch post-cancer.

But more importantly, all I would have been was sick.

You know, I escaped that fate when you're facing any sort of hardship and the MO is stay home, hide out, isolate.

All you are is sick.

And that's not a life worth living.

It's just there's nothing to look forward to.

Depression kicks in, anxiety soars.

You know, there was some real benefit for me being a go-getter during the darkest days of my life.

I'm so proud about that.

I mean, it really I benefited from it.

And I'm I'm grateful that, you know, now with these new books, I'm helping other people choose life as opposed to conceding and letting cancer take everything.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love it.

I love it.

And and and when you speak about this, I think to myself, like that career, that passion, in a way, even though it brought you to your knees, literally, on the the floor of a bathroom at a hotel, it also healed you in a way of being at that starting line when no pain was there, because you had that adrenaline, the rush, the healing nature of the career that you loved.

And then as a whole, it gave you a drive to keep pushing forward.

And as you said, it got you out of that identifier of just being a cancer patient, of being somebody who's sick.

No, yeah, you're Fitz Kohler.

SPEAKER_01: That's right.

That's right.

I was very unpathetic.

I was bold and I was strong.

And, you know, so I do a very unique career, and people could probably understand why it's so exhilarating.

But, you know, if you're a veterinarian or you're a you're a tech at a at a veterinary hospital, every puppy that walks through your door probably gives you that same exhilaration.

You know, are you willing to give that up?

I hope not.

You know, if you love cleaning teeth, great.

You know, whatever you do, whether it's professionally or you have your personal passions, be it your grandchildren or book reading or tango dancing, whatever, you should keep those things in your life no matter what.

In fact, I say force them in and know that even if you're in the hospital, even if you just had a transplant, you're stuck in bed, if you love soccer and you can't play, fine, watch soccer.

Put it on YouTube, get it on the TV, read stories about soccer, whatever it is, your passions will carry you through the very bad times in your life, but you have to force them in.

You cannot let them go.

SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.

It goes back to something that I talk to people because I used it in my own life, is I always tell people that every one of us should have our own equation that equals a life worth living.

So at the lowest of lows, what is it that's going to make you get out of bed in the morning and keep moving forward because it's equaling a life worth living?

SPEAKER_01: Agreed.

And you know what?

It's interesting to me how many people who are of full health have nothing wrong with them, never do anything that fills them with joy.

Never.

So weird to me.

Like every single day should have something cool.

For me, I just walked around a beautiful park with my dogs, and we spent a good hour there chasing squirrels.

And it was it already my day has something wonderful in it.

I hope everybody just makes it a habit of choosing at least one thing per day, at least that fills their heart with joy.

And is that nerdy?

Perhaps, but is it a good idea?

Definitely.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I love it.

I love it.

So you're going through all of this, you're going through treatment for cancer, you're still living your life.

At what point do you get the crazy idea that let's start writing also?

And start writing books.

How did that come to play?

SPEAKER_01: Yeah.

So the initial idea.

So when I when I was diagnosed, I would have liked to keep all of this private.

But because I was gonna go bald and I was going from waist-length hair to no hair, I knew people were gonna ask questions.

So I revealed that, hey, I have breast cancer.

I'm gonna be fine.

Doctor says I'm curable.

You can root for me.

I will not accept pity, but I'm gonna look weird, but I'm gonna show up and move forward.

So that was my public explanation.

And then what I decided is that my brand, fitsness, is not about me.

It's about you.

It's about the people I'm guiding.

And my brand is about health and happiness.

It's not about sickness and hardship.

And so I decided to keep that stuff to myself.

When people asked, How are you doing?

I would just say, fine.

My inner circle knew the struggles I was having, but nobody else knew.

But some of the inner struggles I was having were bonkers, just so crazy, stuff that nobody talks about.

And, you know, when you're diagnosed with cancer, you know, you're gonna go bald, or maybe you'll be sick and maybe you'll be tired.

There's maybe you'll have scars, right?

But nobody talks about the weird stuff at all.

And so I was experiencing the weird stuff.

And some of them I can reference is, you know, I started chemo and the hair started coming out, but then also my nose started running at some point.

I thought, well, this is weird.

I must be allergic.

You know, a lot of people are very allergic to chemo and all sorts of weird stuff happens.

You have rashes, you've got bumps.

I had, I looked like an ogre.

I'd I had I was bald with ogre bumps on my head and rashes all over.

It was very strange.

But I had this runny nose.

And so I flew back to California for the second time since starting chemo in two weeks.

And uh I had a runner come through the finish line, Dana Sabodka.

She had just beat breast cancer the year prior.

And the year prior, it made a royal stink like, wow, look at this breast cancer person, what a champion she is, and made a big deal.

And so I had no idea I was gonna be that person a year later.

Anyways, she crosses the finish line and she comes over and to give me a hug and she says, How are you?

And I say, I'm fine.

She goes, Really, how are you?

And so I wanted to say something, but I said, you know what?

I just got allergies.

And I had all these tissues balled up on the tape, my announcing table on my stage.

And she goes, You don't have allergies.

I go, Yeah, I do.

She goes, You don't have allergies.

You don't have any nostril hair.

And I looked at her and I said, What?

She goes, Yeah, all your nostril hair has fallen out.

That's why your nose is running.

And I thought, what the hell?

Like, why didn't anybody tell me this might be a thing?

And so I tilted my head back and I said, Dana, look.

And she looks at my nose and she goes, Yep, there's no hair there.

And I thought, son of a gun, that's weird, right?

So that was weird.

I had one episode about a month later where I was at the Big Sur Marathon in my hotel on the 5K morning.

And I get up and I take a shower, which is really easy when you have no hair on your body or head.

You draw like a plastic bowl, you just dry it off and it's quick.

But I look in the mirror and my eyes are gray.

Or my lifetime, my eyes have been gray, pale gray, pale blue, but one of those remarkable type things where everyone would say, Are your eyes gray?

So I look in the mirror and my eyes are navy blue saucers.

They're just these it was the craziest thing I looked and I thought, what the heck is going on with my eyes?

And they, all the gray was gone.

It was just like navy blue marbles.

And so I'm alone in the room thinking, well, what the heck?

What do I do?

And I thought, well, should I, should I call an ambulance?

Like, what do I call 911 and say, hey, help, my eyes have changed colors?

And then they would just send a psychiatrist.

So I thought, well, I can see.

So, all right, I'm gonna get on with it.

You know, I've got thousands of people waiting for me this morning.

I need to go.

Then I thought, well, maybe I'm just seeing things, right?

So I go to the door, my my announcing partner, Rudy, who I announced a ton of races with, he comes knocking and he says, Are you ready?

And I open the door and he goes, What the hell happened to your eyes?

And at that point, I thought, okay, I'm not crazy.

Something's going on.

So, I mean, it was just stuff like that kept happening.

And what I was thinking was, you know, people will get a kick out of this.

They'll have some laughs.

And this is this is actually kind of funny.

And so I didn't necessarily Know I was going to write a book.

I thought maybe I'd do a podcast or write an article.

And then what happened is as I got deeper and deeper into this experience, and I had realized the decisions I made were really good ones, you know, maintaining perspective, pursuing those passions, staying positive.

I had a mantra that was really helpful.

And, you know, then I then fitness kicked in.

And I thought, you know what?

This is another arena where I can help people do better and be better.

And so I decided to write a memoir.

And so that was the first thing I wrote.

And uh I started, I just started writing from the get-go while I was going through treatment.

And then, you know, after the mean chemo, a few months later, under my chemo I dubbed Godzilla, I hit rock bottom.

So I was not just bald, but I had lost about 11 pounds.

And oh, I'm already a very trim, thin woman.

I was skeletal.

I was that I looked, I looked apart.

It was it was awful.

And uh, but I had passed the main chemo and I had passed surgery, and I was ready to go back into the gym for actual weight training.

And I was so excited to get in there.

And I sat down on a machine and I had put on the weight that I had previously lifted before cancer.

So I sit down on this machine and I push and nothing happens.

So I have to lower the resistance, and I have to lower it some more and lower it some more, and eventually what I had found is that I had lost 80% of my strength.

And uh that, you know, that was obvious and I couldn't open water bottles.

I was struggling to do basic things sometimes, but seeing 80% of my strength disappear was really disconcerting.

However, as I sat there pathetically weak on this machine, I instantly designed a strategy for my comeback.

I knew how I was going to rebuild my body, rebuild my strength and stamina and flexibility and balance and get back to not only fit and healthy, but athletic.

And then I thought of my peers.

I thought of all these millions of other cancer patients and survivors who were hitting rock bottom, looking at themselves like mortified, looking in the mirror.

And then, of course, realizing that all of their capabilities were withering away.

And I was heartbroken because, you know, thank God I'm a fitness expert.

But what about those other people who aren't, who don't know how to rebuild their body?

And that was the point where I committed to book numbers two and three.

That's where I thought, okay, I'm going to write a book to help people, guide them specifically.

So then, so the first book is my noisy cancer comeback, running at the mouth while running for my life.

But then book number two is your healthy cancer comeback, sick to strong.

And it is a full-blown blueprint for patients and survivors to A, slow the decline.

Like if you can get this book as soon as you get diagnosed, I can help you slow the decline so you don't lose everything.

But also, here's how to effectively rebuild your body post-treatment, right?

When you're coming out of it, here's how to dig your way out of that hole.

So those books published January 23, I'm so proud.

They, and there's a companion journal called the Healthy Cancer Comeback Journal.

And that's where people can log not only all of their intricate cancer details, date of diagnosis, type of diagnosis, scans, results, blah, blah, blah.

But then also a place for them to pour out their feelings and their fears and, you know, talk about their circle.

Who's brought the most meals?

Who is the greatest shoulder to cry on?

Who's bothering you?

Who's really annoying, right?

What have you nicknamed your tumor?

What have you nicknamed your port?

What celebrity do you look like bald?

So there's a lot of opportunity for cathartic writing and then fun writing.

And then the last half of the book are daily fitness logs to help you keep track of your progress and goal set for more.

SPEAKER_00: Wow, wow, wow, wow.

How powerful.

And I just what I love about this is the opportunity to take something that is a negative, but shift focus and turn it into a positive.

And by you experiencing this, you then be able to help so many other people.

SPEAKER_01: Well, just like you, Kevin, right?

We we're making lemonade.

SPEAKER_00: Exactly.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Well, I absolutely just love this.

Where is the best place for somebody to go if interested in getting one of your books?

SPEAKER_01: Ah, thanks for asking.

So fitness.com is my home base, my headquarters for everything.

It's F is in Frank, I T, Z is in Zebra, N is in Nancy, E-S-S.

So it's fitness with my Z in the middle.

But fitness.com has tons of free resources for everybody and anybody looking to become fit.

All three books, the Cancer Come Back series, are available at fitness.com.

You can buy them as a three-pack, a two-pack, or a single.

There's various, there's hardcover, paperback.

So you choose.

Every book that leaves my office designed by me and has a free gift inside.

And we package them up nice and pretty because I want all of my readers to feel appreciated and loved.

I just want it to be a good experience all around.

So the books are sold wherever books are sold, but I prefer it when people come to me.

And then also I'm at Fitzness on all social media channels.

So I'd love it if you followed.

I promise quality, motivational content in return.

However, what I prefer is that you tell me, I heard you on Kevin's podcast, and I'd love to connect.

So I would much rather have friends than followers.

SPEAKER_00: I love it.

I love it.

This is amazing.

And I will be sure that all of the links that you've just mentioned are inside of the episode show notes.

So for you who are interested, don't worry about jotting anything down.

Just go down and check out the episode description, show notes, whatever you want to call it.

And uh you'll find easy access to all of uh Fitz amazing resources.

So, Fitz, first and foremost, I want to thank you for being a guest on my podcast, but even more so, I just want to applaud you for being just such an uplifting person, a person to remind all of us that even the scariest stuff in life, like cancer, it's able to be overcome.

And you can do so with this grit and this grace, which just kind of sums up everything that this podcast is about, just by your story.

I just think it's truly amazing.

SPEAKER_01: I am so grateful that you had me on your show, Kevin.

You're an outstanding host.

You're a real, I can hear your compassion and your strength in your words.

You're you're a delight.

So it's it's my honor.

And I hope that together we can we can help people do better and be better, especially during hard times.

SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.

I agree very much.

Well, thank you.

And for you listening to the show today, I want to thank you for being here today, for joining me for another amazing guest, but even more so, I hope that today's interview will inspire you to take action on your own life.

Whether or not you're going through something like cancer, or you're just going through the trials of life.

I want this to be a reminder that you never have to give up, that your dreams are worth pursuing, and you just got to put in the reps, you got to do the hard things.

And in the end, you're gonna get to experience the benefit of it all.

Look at Fitz Kohler, an amazing woman with a beautiful example of what is possible when we don't give up.

Hey, real quick before you go, I have one last thought to leave you with.

I of course hope that you've enjoyed today's episode, but more importantly, I want to remind you that I never want you to listen to an episode of this podcast to hear something that I have to say or that my guest has to share and think, wow, I wish I could be like them.

I wish I could overcome my own challenges and do the great things that they are doing, but I just can't.

Well, friend, that's where you're wrong.

You are capable.

You are able, and you darn sure are deserving of having all that you can imagine in this life.

There's nothing special about me or any guests I have on this podcast.

We are all just normal people trying to make it in this life.

And so I encourage you to take a look at yourself in the mirror and remind yourself that you know what?

I can do it too.

Now, of course, if you would like to help along that way, reach out to me.

Whether that's as a listener of this podcast, a friend, or if you'd like to work with me as a coach.

My contact information is inside of every episode's show notes, just like this one.

So go down, check out my contact information, and reach out to me today.

With that said, I encourage you to take on the day every day with a great upgrade and then script.