Alexandersmap

    Category: Fitness

    • Old Souls and Young Hearts

      When we come across young people who exhibit a level of maturity beyond their years, we often describe them as having old souls. Many of us believe that the job of parents is to raise children to be old souls from as young an age as possible. Teaching life skills that will carry them a long way in life is the obvious primary mission, but also critical is to avoid leaving as much of our own personal baggage on their shoulders as possible. The best parents are both instructive and inclusive with children. When they feel a part of the conversation, they feel enabled and drawn into the world. When they’re constantly berated and corrected by parents, they feel inadequate and diminished. Thus old souls are formed by inclusive parenting.

      Young hearts think in possibility, take leaps of faith, seek adventure and break rules. Certainly many young people have a young heart, but many don’t. Just so, there are many old people with young hearts too. It’s an exclusive club, revealed with a secret handshake and a twinkle in the eye—you know the young at heart when you encounter them in the wild. And if you’re inclined to do things that others feel aren’t appropriate for your age and status, well, you might have a young heart too.

      To get anything done in this world, we must have a healthy combination of old soul and young heart: Maturity and insight mixed with the Moxie to just do it already. Old souls with young hearts make the world go round. Inventors and pioneers, musicians and poets, fighter pilots and social leaders who dare shake up the status quo, all have the right stuff. Bold, but not reckless, they seek expression in their chosen craft.

      We forget, sometimes, that older people with young hearts get a lot of things done too. We can accomplish so much more as we get some momentum behind us if we choose to pursue our own passions. Age is simply a number—it’s fitness, health and vibrancy that fuel the fire, whether you’re 23 or 103 or somewhere in between. If we’re lucky and blessed with enough runway, forward propulsion and lift, we just might soar. Life is best lived with an old soul and a young heart.

    • Finding Balance, One Step at a Time

      “Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” – Albert Einstein

      Walking into a hotel room, exhausted after a long day on my feet and driving three hours for the privilege of sleeping in a town previously unknown to me, I looked at my Apple Watch to find out what the score was. I’m a streaky player in this game of life, and currently I’m hitting 10,000 steps per day and closing all my “circles” every day for 22 days. My watch informed me that I still had work to do, still (despite how tired you feel buckaroo). Reluctantly I slipped on running shoes and walk down the stairs for a reckoning with the pavement.

      Streaks keep us honest, forcing our hand when we’re on the fence and could easily slip towards the comforts of life. My inclination last night was to grab a drink at the bar before it closed and read a book I’ve been putting off. But comfort zones are for people that don’t want to go anywhere in life. That’s not us, friend.

      We must keep moving, and push ourselves to move a bit more than we’d like now and then. This bicycle ride won’t last forever, will it? And there’s just so much left to see.

    • Beating Dragons

      ‘Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.“ — Neil Gaiman, Coraline

      We talk about evil in the world, the worst of humanity, beasts of unimaginable strength and viciousness… but most dragons aren’t out there in the world, not really. Most dragons reside within us. The beast isn’t rising up to sink our ship; it’s holding us back from setting sail. The true dragons are bad habits and that voice inside our head that tells us to snooze a bit more, for you’re too inexperienced or established or young or old to dare change things now.

      Slay these dragons.

      We often think about the gaps between our desired state and our current state as a chasm, when mostly it’s simply a gap. The business of closing gaps is as simple as establishing routines, doing the work one day to the next and moving past what we previously thought possible to discover and close another. We know this intuitively, yet we still listen to dragons. Until their fearsome voices fade into the distance as we build new gaps between who we are now and what we once were.

      Life will throw its dragons up at us, but we might prevail anyway. Simply take the next step. Like a toddler learning to walk it’s invigorating and delightful to see where our steps might carry us, one after the other. Make soup of those dragons. It turns out they taste a lot like chicken.

    • Two Centuries, One Mile

      “I’ve got a mule and her name is Sal
      Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal
      She’s a good old worker and a good old pal
      Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal” — Erie Canal

      For the last three days I’ve stacked up miles walking along the Erie Canal (Nearly 15 miles, reminding me of the old Erie Canal song). Roughly a mile of that walk traverses the Great Embankment, completed 200 years ago this year. Back in 1822 building an earthen embankment a mile long and 70 feet high was kind of a big deal, and so was the completion of the big ditch known as the Erie Canal. It made the young United States less dependent on the St. Lawrence Seaway and the whims of Canada and the Great Britain to give them access. The success of the canal made fortunes in places from Buffalo to New York City.

      Nowadays, it’s more of a tourist attraction than an active commercial highway, but you still see a barge or powerboat making its way from there to here. Seeing them is interesting, and reinforces the belief that the Erie Canal isn’t just a big ditch, but a once powerful statement that we’ll make our own way, thank you. When I walk on the path next to the canal I hear the whispers of history and my very brief moment with place. Think of what that mile of canal has seen in two centuries. And this week it hosted me once again.

      On my recent walk the path was filled with bicycles, walkers and runners. I make eye contact with most, give a brief nod of hello and march onward. I’m but a momentary close encounter in their lives, as they are in mine. Someday we’ll all be history ourselves, just a flash of movement in the long life of the long ditch. I wonder if they’ll write about us?

    • A Walk to the Edge of Ambient Light

      Autumn, delightful as it is in so many ways, is the source of one bit of frustration: the quickly receding number of daylight hours. Traveling west, the morning becomes more and more difficult to work with if you’re trying to be active outdoors. Sure, you can strap on all manner of lighting to make you more visible and to offer a tunnel of light to walk through. But you lose something in all that battery-powered brightness–a feeling of connectedness with the land around you. And isn’t that the point of going outside to walk in the first place?

      Just yesterday I was walking on a warm and humid day on Cape Cod. This morning, I found myself next to an old favorite, the Erie Canal at Bushnell’s Basin. The canal trail here is mostly stone dust, with a few paved places along the way. Familiarity is helpful when you’re walking in the dark, and so is choosing to walk in the early morning. Morning offers hope for improving conditions, something an evening walk would be short of. In a safe area like Pittsford there aren’t a lot of concerns about getting mugged, but in a sketchier area most of the thugs eventually go to sleep, leaving the morning generally safer for wannabee fitness models.

      Still, there’s something about seeing that offers comfort. Even on a walk I’ve done a dozen times or so, when you run out of ambient light you’ve got to make choices in life. Press ahead into the dark or return to the ambient light? What are the risks? Walking into a branch? A skunk? The Erie Canal? Getting run over by a random cyclist not using a headlamp? None of those sound particularly appealing to start a work day. So I turned back to the light.

      Here’s the trick, you don’t walk all the way back to the brightest parts of your walk. You walk just far enough that your eyes can still see in the dim early morning light, then turn around and see how far you can go the next time. Does walking back and forth on a 1000 meter section of cinder path sound fun? You know what? It actually was. Just me and the ducks and some vehicle traffic on the other side of the canal. Back and forth, a bit further each time, until the scales tipped at 6 AM and suddenly you could see everything clear as… well, almost clear as day.

      It might seem ridiculous, this walking in the dark business, but I managed four miles before coffee, and sort of saw the Erie Canal from a different perspective than I’m used to. There’s a lot to be said for checking a few boxes before breakfast–exercise, reading, and writing this blog. The only thing that might have made it better would have been an epic sunrise. Perhaps tomorrow, when I plan to be out there again.

    • Riding the Shining Sea Bikeway

      Rail trails offer a great opportunity to walk, skate or ride without dealing with the resentful glare of automobile drivers who believe they own the road while controlling your life in their distracted hands. The Shining Sea Bikeway ups the ante with beautiful views and a diverse landscape. The trick on this trail is to avoid being too distracted yourself as the views stack up one upon the other.

      The trail lives up to its name, with views of Buzzard Bay across both of the Sippewissett Marshes (Little and Great—but aren’t they both great?) and of Vineyard Sound and Martha’s Vineyard as it hugs the beach. Shining Sea runs from North Falmouth to Woods Hole, offering plenty of options to linger for time on the beach, stroll through woodland trails, or a visit to the many shops and restaurants of Main Street in Falmouth and Woods Hole.

      As a sucker for salt water, it was easy to fall in love with the beachside section of the trail. Here you’re treated to those expansive views, the latest trends in beach fashion, and a monument to the trail’s namesake, Katharine Lee Bates, author of “America the Beautiful”, which ends with the famous line, “from sea to shining sea”. Very few Americans can recite every verse of America, the Beautiful, but everyone knows that last line.

      The magic on this trail is in riding through a tunnel of woodland canopy, salt march grass, past that beach sand and finally to the trail’s terminus at the Woods Hole Ferry. For a cyclist with dreams of never getting in a car for a vacation on the Cape and islands, the Shining Sea Rail Trail makes a strong statement of what’s possible. For this cyclist, it was an opportunity to give the feet a break while getting some exercise with a view.

      From the North Falmouth terminus, it’s a 21 mile (33 km) round trip. That’s very manageable on a good bicycle. The human body connects with a bicycle in five places, each essential to a great experience. Perhaps none more than the seat. My bicycle seat was apparently designed to maximize suffering, but no matter, a sore saddle wasn’t going to ruin one of the prettiest rail trails in the northeast United States. The seat is replaceable, the memories will last far longer.

      There may be no better time to experience the Shining Sea Bikeway than autumn. September is a great time to get the warmth with the crowds, and October should be spectacular for fall colors in that canopy. It’s a trail worth considering if you’re interested in experiencing Cape Cod without the hassle of driving in traffic.

    • Early Morning Walk on the Cape Cod Canal

      Quietly walking downstairs in the dark, water bottle filled, I opened the front door and slipped outside, hoping the dogs wouldn’t bark. They bark all the time… but thankfully not this time. I get in the truck and begin the drive to the Railroad Bridge (capitalized, thank you). 5:30 AM, it ought to be super quiet there, I think, just me and a couple of fishermen.

      Pulling into the parking lot, I see just how wrong I was. The entire parking lot is completely filled with pickup trucks and cars. Every contractor in Eastern Massachusetts must be along the canal, rods protruding from shore in hopes of that big catch. I felt like a single woman walking alone into a bar full of dudes, and like her, promptly turned around and got the hell out of there.

      Driving to the Bourne Bridge parking lot, I’m relieved to find it relatively empty, as if the fish don’t like the canal water a mile further. No matter, I’m not here to fish, but to walk. The aim was a bridge-to-bridge walk, but instead of the Railroad Bridge it’s the Bourne to Sagamore Bridge out and back. That net’s me roughly 6.8 miles, and that’s enough for this workout.

      Early mornings are a lovely time to walk the canal, and the best time to do it without earbuds in. It’s best to hear what’s happening around you when it’s dark out. Situational awareness is important, no matter who you are. Random cyclists and salty fishermen on old bicycles ride past at various speeds. All I can do is hold my line and keep the pace.

      Canal fishermen, and they all seem to be men at 5:30 AM, tend to fall into two categories: those who stay near the parking lots, and those who ride bicycles to their own private fishing spot. The bicycles are an odd mix of cheap mountain bikes and yard sale bikes of all shapes and sizes. Each has a basket for fishing gear and two or three PVC rod holders bolted on. I wondered quietly at the aftermarket potential for a bicycle rod holder business and decided it just wasn’t for me. These aren’t the kinds of customers who are going to go with premium pricing, and I don’t have the heart to sell commodity fishing bicycle accessories.

      Mind back to the walk, the bladder begins to call. I promise myself I’m not going to stop until I get to the port-o-potty under the Sagamore Bridge, and, feeling the urgency, push my pace a bit to get there sooner. Just as I arrive another character walking from the other direction sees me and makes a beeline for the plastic throne. I silently grumble, walk beyond the bridge to 3.4 and turn around. On the return the facilities are blessedly empty and soon my bladder is too. Relieved, the walk began again in earnest.

      Out and back walks always feel shorter on the return trip, and this walk was no exception. I was a known commodity for the fishermen on my return trip, and ambivalent good morning nods became indifferent been there, done that focus on the task at hand. The fish seemed to win the day, as I only saw two catches on the entire walk, and one of those was a heron catching its breakfast. The only winner, besides the fish, seemed to be Dunkin Donuts, judging from the endless parade of Dunks iced cups passed on the walk. Good coffee stock investment tip for those paying attention.

      Finishing a long walk brings with it the satisfaction of clicking that key word “end” on the Apple Watch. Lately I’ve been competing against a couple of women who suffer from the delusion that I’m going to let up and allow them to beat me in a seven day competition. Ha! Competitive banter aside, it’s funny how adding some people to the daily fitness routine can really enhance motivation to do the work. This one in the books, I quietly drove back to the house, waiting for the heckling to begin. And knowing I’m one step ahead, at least for this day.

      Not all fishing is done with poles
      Bourne Bridge
      Fisherman’s Bike
      Canal traffic
      Turning around to return under the Sagamore Bridge

    • Go Be It

      “The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process, is its own reward.” — Amelia Earhart

      I woke up sore all over, with muscles tight and grumpy, protesting the last week of doing what they’re supposed to do but somehow forgot about in lazy compliance with the mind. The soreness is a lag measure of work applied, simply that, and eventually the lag will be replaced by acceptance of the new reality. It was certainly far easier to get out of shape than to climb back to shape. Such is the way.

      Decide what to be and go be it… simple on the face of it because it is in fact that simple. The hard part is hidden under the surface of those words: Go be it. Talk is cheap, and decisions without action are nothing but talk until we drag ourselves along for the transformation.

      It’s far easier to have a bit of wine and cheese after a long day than it is to change into workout clothes and earn the right to wear them. It’s far easier to start our work a bit later, and end it a bit earlier. And it’s far easier to doom scroll on our phones than to turn off all distraction and dance with the important but not urgent tasks that move the chains in our lives. But there’s a reason easy has a negative connotation. Deep down, we know it in the moment.

      So sure, I’m sore today, just as I’ve been sore for well over a week. It’s just the gap between where I am and where I want to be expressing itself. And what is expression but the manifestation of a feeling? Whatever discomfort we feel in the moment is part of the process of becoming, a manifestation of what we want to be. It’s that voice in our head reminding us that this time, if we stay with it, we might actually be it.

    • Irreplaceable Instants

      “Every instant of our lives is essentially irreplaceable: you must know this in order to concentrate on life.” — André Gide

      Here we go again: another week beginning. Much like last week and the week before, yet we’ve changed. We’ve layered on our moments of insight and irreplaceable instants that root us in identity and purpose, or perhaps left us anchor-less and drifting. Let’s hope for the former.

      The thing is, this week is different from those weeks gone by. It’s surely more tangible and immediate, but more, this one is in our hands. We can’t get too caught up in our previous successes and failures, we can only double down on what works for us. And maybe, try something bold and new.

      I like the idea of micro-bursts: sprints of intensity where you focus on key activities that move you towards your goals. In rowing it was a Power 10, where everyone put aside personal discomfort and focused on making the next ten strokes their very best. It started with a call from the coxswain when they felt the boat needed a boost in momentum. And it nearly always worked.

      Focus on living a bold, meaningful life can start in an instant. Often it begins with a feeling that you need a bit of a boost in productivity or purpose. With the right concentration and effort, like a boat gaining a burst of speed and swing, it nearly always works to reset rhythm and concentration.

      Now seems as good a time as any.

    • An Active Event

      “We think of inertia as the state of being inert or motionless—one of our purer displays of passivity and disengagement. It’s not. Inertia is an active event in which we are persisting in the state we’re already in rather than switching to something else… The most reliable predictor of what you’ll be doing five minutes from now is what you’re doing now… The most reliable predictor of who you’ll be five years from now is who you are now.”
      — Marshall Goldsmith, The Earned Life

      Yes, you might detect a pattern in the writing recently. I keep returning to the Tom Peters statement that excellence is the next five minutes. Habits are hard to break, routine is either a prison or a path to a brighter future. And inertia now can predict who we are in five years if we don’t take that next step to change right now.

      Does that sound unnecessarily urgent? Perhaps, but aren’t the stakes just that high? We are what we repeatedly do, and more often than not we repeat the same damned thing this five minutes as we did last. So we ought to take this next five minutes and demand something more of ourselves than the previous five. We ought to make it an active event that transcends our previous place.

      The easiest way to determine the truth in that is to look at what we did last week and compare it to what we did last year. Sure, there are highlight moments of trips and events that break up the sameness, and a pandemic mixed in to skew the data, but on the whole things are roughly the same. If our habit loop is positive this can be a very good thing, but if we keep repeating bad habits we might be living in a rut that runs straight to the grave.

      “Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity. This is one reason why meaningful change does not require radical change. Small habits can make a meaningful difference by providing evidence of a new identity. And if a change is meaningful, it is actually big. That’s the paradox of making small improvements.” ― James Clear, Atomic Habits

      It’s easy to spot inertia when we look at intentions. If we intend to write the book or run the marathon or summit the mountain but find ourselves dancing with the same excuses we had yesterday and five years ago, well, let me introduce you to our friends inertia and low agency. On the flip side, if you’ll allow me to use a few of my own examples, inertia is publishing this blog every day for the last four years, reading early every morning and most nights and maintaining a streak on Duolingo that’s approaching 1000 days. Maybe each is small in the big scheme of things, but each is a +1 on the path to becoming.

      @jackbutcher

      Moment-to-moment we make decisions that pull us forward or set us back. We default to the familiar, which both reinforces our identity now and reinforces it in our future. That past moment isn’t this moment unless we choose the same thing. Will it be a plus or a minus? Our vote ought to be for an active event, our action should be a plus.