It’s My Life

It snowed on the May long weekend in Alberta.

I know. Shocking. Alert the media.

Anyone who has spent more than one May in this province knows the drill. You make plans, you plant flowers, you pull out the patio furniture… and then you wake up Saturday morning to find the world has gone white again. Alberta does this. It’s practically a rite of passage. The May long weekend snowfall is so reliable it’s almost a tradition.

This year I am in Canmore when it hit. I really look forward to my long run mountain days. I had a 3.5-hour long run on the schedule and I was not expecting snow. Mountains, snow, 25-ish kilometres of trail. I love that what I used to sometimes consider a chore is now something I look forward to all week. Saturday I didn’t think twice about it. I layered up, walked out the door, and ran through the snow in the Rockies for most of the morning.

That’s the update. That’s the whole update, really.

I started Operation Bon Jovi Body last September. If you’re new here, the name is not accidental. About a decade ago I saw a photo shoot of Jon. Lean, ripped, half naked posing for a Versace ad. He was late 40’s at the time and I decided to make that look a goal before I turned 50. Unfortunately that didn’t happen. I flipped into endurance sport and dropped the focus on strength training.

At the end of last year’s race season I decided that I would focus on strength training in the offseason. The project had a goal: get stronger, get lean, and build to that photoshoot ready body.

Eight months in, something has shifted that I didn’t fully anticipate.

The project has become my life.

🎵🎵 It’s my life. It’s now or never
I ain’t gonna live forever
I just want to live while I’m alive (It’s my life)
My heart is like an open highway
Like Frankie said I did it my way
I just wanna live while I’m alive It’s my life 🎵🎵

Not in a dramatic, consumed-by-it way. In the quietest possible way. The way that a habit, if you do it long enough, eventually stops being a habit and starts being just... the shape of your days.

I don’t think about whether I’m going to run on Monday. I think about where I’m going to run on Monday. I don’t negotiate with myself about the strength sessions anymore. I just go.

Jon Bon Jovi wrote “It’s My Life” as a declaration, a “this is who I am, I’m not living for anyone else’s expectations, I’m not waiting for permission.” Because the version of that declaration I’m living at 50-something isn’t rebellious. It’s just settled. It’s mine. The running, the training, the early mornings, the nutrition tracking, the mountains, this is the shape of my life. It’s not really a project I’m doing anymore.

It’s. My. Life.

I’m down 15=20 pounds since September. I’ll mention it because it’s real and it matters, but I want to be honest: it’s not the headline anymore. It was the headline in October. Now it’s just a data point. The headline is how I feel climbing Ha Ling with a loaded pack, or holding a conversation at the top of a 90-minute hill session, or realizing mid-long-run that I’m not counting down the kilometres anymore.

The headline is the May long weekend snow, and not thinking twice.

Here’s what I’ve noticed about the transition from project to lifestyle: it doesn’t feel like a finish line. It feels more like a tide going out. You don’t see it happening moment to moment. And then one day you realize the negotiation is gone. The internal argument, “do I really have to? can I skip this one? is it too cold/late/wet/snowy?”, just stopped showing up.

I don’t know exactly when it happened. The resistance dissolved. The workouts didn’t get easier. I got stronger, committed, different.

FatDog 120 is twelve weeks away. 120 miles through the mountains of Manning Park, BC. About 29,000 feet of vertical gain. I’m in the middle of a heavy training block right now, big vert weeks, long runs pushing four hours, strength sessions twice a week. It is not easy. Last week I ran 64 kilometres with over 2,100 metres of climbing. My legs were cooked by Friday.

And I woke up Saturday morning to blowing snow and all I could think about is how good the hot tub was going to feel that evening. Never a hesitation to get it done.

That’s the Bon Jovi Body update. It’s not about the number on the scale. Not even about the race in August, though that’s coming. The update is this: this is no longer a project.

IT’S MY LIFE!

Operation Bon Jovi Body is Mike Cameron’s running and fitness journal. He is training for FatDog 120 (Manning Park, BC — August 7-9, 2026).