2012 goal: Talk less, do more

This is the time of year for goal-setting and resolutions. I’ve had plenty of both in past years — lose weight, eat better, finish the 48. I’ve blabbed about those goals pretty loud sometimes.

This year, I’m keeping my mouth shut.

Most self-help advice tells you to share your goals with everyone. The idea is to make yourself accountable to others.

Man, I’m sick of being accountable to others.

I have to be accountable to my family and in my job. There are deadlines to meet, bills to pay, chores to be done. Every day begins with a long list of to-dos. I accept that, but it doesn’t mean I want the same pressure in my outdoor life. I want to be accountable to myself, and myself alone. I want to be able to change my goals without explanation. I want to keep it simple.

And there’s new evidence that telling others about your goals makes you less likely to reach them. Just telling other people about your goals, it seems, gives you almost as much of an ego boost as actually achieving them.

So I’ll still be running, hiking and writing, but I won’t be boring you much with my long-term goals.

Life’s too short and this stuff, above all else, should be fun. Here’s to an outstanding 2012.

The coolest Christmas gift

Tim over at Trail Sherpa has started #1000Words, a new game/series, and it sounds like fun. Here’s how he tells it:

The #1000Words series highlights the images we’ve captured on the trail that tell a story that resonates with us.  As the saying goes “A picture’s worth a thousand words” and we believe it.  Share your images in the comments or on Twitter using the hashtag #1000Words.

You can find his entry here.

Here’s mine:

Last year, the boy and I climbed Mt. Washington on one of the sunniest days of the season. Separately, we each counted scaling New England’s highest peak as a summer goal. That we were able to do it together, as a team, was a blessing.

I was happy enough to be able to reach the top in strong fashion, after not being able to hike a mile a few years earlier. A far greater joy, however, was seeing my son touch the summit sign. The boy was in elementary school when we started hiking together, and our relationship was strengthened by our time together in the woods. Later this year he’ll head for college and our lives will change. I knew that Mt. Washington hike was special when it was happening, and I’m not exaggerating when I say it was one of the best days of my life.

The picture itself isn’t anything great. Thousands of people climb Mt. Washington and thousands more arrive by car or train, and they all pose for the same shot.

For the boy and me, however, it triggers a memory of a great day. And it turned into my favorite Christmas gift when my son had it mounted in glass and turned into a paperweight. It has a special spot in my office; whenever I’m feeling stressed, angry or simply off, I can take a look at the photo and trigger a memory. Suddenly, I’m in a happier place.

First run of 2012

Jan. 1: First run of 2012, 12.5 miles on the trails through Willowdale State Forest.

  New Year’s Day–
everything is in blossom!
I feel about average.

– Kobayashi Issa

‘Feel the rapture of being alive’

How can you watch this video and not immediately head out for a run in the woods?

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. That’s what it’s all finally about.” — Joseph Campbell

Thanks to Trail Sherpa for tipping me off to the video and my friends at Following Atticus for reminding me about the Campbell quote. The video comes from Coachingendurance.com.

I will survive the zombie apocalypse

I hike and run for a lot of reasons — weight loss, stress reduction, time in nature. My greatest motivation by far, however, is fear of zombies. Fat people are particularly susceptible to zombie attacks.

Running and the undead were on my mind Saturday, when the boy and I spent the evening catching up on our favorite TV show about the coming zombie apocalypse, The Walking Dead.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, the AMC series follows a rag-tag group of survivors trying to stay un-undead as they travel through muggy, zombie-ravaged Georgia in search of a safe haven. People die horribly — they’re either eaten alive, or they become zombies themselves. Killing a zombie is a particularly gooey process.

Survival on The Walking Dead is a vicious business. In the last episode we watched, one of the show’s protagonists, Shane, was one of two guys surrounded by hungry zombies in an abandoned high school. Shane is a hunky sheriff’s deputy who seems to find plenty of time for pec and ab work (and, apparently, chest-shaving) between dodging and killing zombies. The guy he was trapped with, Otis, is a sweaty, obese redneck who can barely manage a flight of stairs without risking a cardiac event. (I found myself critiquing Otis’ running form during a particularly long chase down the high school hallway. He overpronates terribly.)

You can guess how it turns out. The pair was being chased by zombies, and fat ol’ Otis, carrying much-needed medical equipment, was slowing things down. He was doomed to be eaten. Instead of heroically pulling Otis to safety, Shane shot him in the leg and took the equipment. Shane got away and Otis was redneck tartare.

The moral of the story? If you’re fat and the zombies come, you’re dead. If the zombies don’t kill you, your friends will. So you better be able to run. That’s what pushes me to climb a more challenging mountain, pick up the pace during a sluggish run, or put in an extra two miles at the end of a long loop. 5k PRs come and go; once you’re undead, you’re undead forever.

I’m confident years of hiking and my recent conversion to trail and mountain running will allow me to stay ahead of the undead, even if I have a belly like Otis. Unless the boy shoots me and leaves me for dead.

Who do you think is going to survive this chase? Otis should have done a few more hill repeats. Photo by Gene Page/AMC