Alexandersmap

    Category: Fitness

    • To Live is to Function

      “In this symposium my part is only to sit in silence. To express one’s feelings as the end draws near is too intimate a task. But one thought that comes to me as a listener-in. The riders in the race do not stop short when they reach the goal. There is a little finishing canter before coming to a standstill. There is time to hear the kind voice of friends and to say to oneself that the work is done.

      But just as one says that, the answer comes: The race is over, but the work never is done while the power to work remains. The canter that brings you to a standstill need not be only coming to rest. It cannot be while you still live, but to live is to function. That is all there is. And so I end with a line from a Latin poet, who uttered the message more than fifteen-hundred years ago, Death, death, plucks my ear, and says, ‘Live. I am coming.’”
      – Oliver Wendell Holmes (from a radio broadcast when he turned 90)

      This image Holmes painted of cantering after the race is over, living but not quite in the race anymore, lingers. I’ve seen a few people who’s cantering ended sooner than we all wanted, but bless them, they were cantering to the end. Their work was done, and they functioned as best they could until they left us. And whispered a reminder that soon our own race will end, so best run it well.

      The canter that brings you to a standstill need not be only coming to rest.

      My own race took me around a snowy loop in the woods again yesterday, snowshoeing in deep snow, following cross-country ski tracks in a quiet patch of woods that doesn’t see a lot of action from the conservation land walking crowd. Just me and a trusty map, making my way alone in the woods, working up a sweat with a brisk pace as I broke trail next to the ski tracks. This, the morning after, I stepped out of bed gingerly to test the legs and found myself doing okay. Looking back on February so far, I’ve gotten out to snowshoe or hike most days. For I’m still very much in the race, after all, and far be it from me to start cantering now.

      To live is to function – to be out there in the world doing. A challenge to us all from Holmes, all those years ago. To be engaged with those around you, to be charging around the track of life all frothy and full of joyous exuberance at full gallop. Holmes was a Civil War veteran, wounded in battle, a Harvard-educated lawyer who rose up to the Supreme Court and the oldest serving member of that court. A living link between Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He lived in Mattapoisett and Beverly, Massachusetts and by all accounts lived a rich, full life during his own time in the race.

      Death, death, plucks my ear, and says, ‘Live. I am coming.’

      How do you read these words spoken by Oliver Wendell Holmes nearly a hundred years ago? As a reminder to get out and live while you’re still in the race? Or as a dark reminder that death is coming for us all? To me the only choice is the former. To have Holmes quote the stoics near the end of his own life, well into his cantering years, is a wake-up call for the generations lining up for the races after his own. Fast forward to today and now it’s our race. So how shall we run it?

    • The Business of Choosing

      I’m not a surfer, but I imagine them bobbing about in the swells, deciding which wave feels like the best for an epic ride to the beach. On some mornings writing feels a bit like that, with a series of false starts and bits of poetry and verse toyed with then put aside for another day. Each is wonderful and you eagerly want to share them, but they just don’t feel right for this proverbial ride to the beach.

      Writing is a way to sort it all out, of course. Deciding which swell of bubbling thought energy to surf. Once committed, you either ride it to glory or watching it sputter out into nothing much to speak of. But there’s glory in being in the swell too.

      “Your job is to collect good ideas. The more good ideas you collect, the more you can choose from to be influenced by.” – Austin Kleon

      This business of choosing applies to everything we do. Picking the right mate, the right career, the right friends and business associates, the right place to live, the right strategy, the right fitness and nutrition plan for your lifestyle, or the comparatively simple right ideas to explore in a blog. Sometimes the well runs dry, and sometimes the ideas stack up so high you can’t see the forest for the trees. When you’ve reached the bottom of the barrel or conversely when you can’t see the horizon anymore because you’re buried in ideas, a quick change of perspective does wonders for the mind.

      I’ve managed to get out on the snowshoes three times this work week for a quick lap around one of the trails. Twice at lunch and once at the end of the day with the sun setting and a headlamp at the ready should I need it. The cold air and crunchy snow quickly do a number on whatever was scrambling my brain. A rising heart rate always seems to clear a mind that’s turning on itself. In each case I returned home renewed and ready for the next wrestling match with work or words.

      Choosing is the tricky part, but I agree with Kleon, the more good ideas you collect, the more you can choose from. Get out and experience life. Read more material that stretches you in new directions. Get your heart rate up to push it all to the side so you can see where you need to go. And then do it. Even if the wave sputters out on you, you’ll still gain something from the ride.

    • At That Moment

      “I felt at that moment that it was my chance to do one thing supremely well.” – Roger Bannister

      The extraordinary – mastery – starts with that feeling. That spark of excitement at the possibility that just maybe I can do this. And as they say, all it takes is a spark. True, but once the fire is lit, all it takes is fuel to make it roar. For it is just the beginning. There are more moments to come.

      The time before that moment aren’t full of sparks, they’re full of stumbles and awkwardness and frustration. The paying of dues. The long slog. The apprenticeships that turn novices into prospects and prospects into rising stars. All a precursor to that moment when you finally know that this, this is it. And once you realize it, you do whatever you must do to, well, realize it.

      “You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.” – Michael Jordan

      All of us experience that other it. Those moments when you realize that this is definitely not it. Sometimes that it is our it masked by the long slog to get to it. But usually we know the truth of something before too long down the path. And the truth is that most its aren’t our it. So we try another it. And another. Many never find it at all. Plenty experience maybe this is it. And really, it might just be it, but the climb is long and the friends are calling to go out for a few drinks to celebrate the end whatever isn’t their it, and before pretty soon that maybe isn’t your it either.

      The relatively few who do find and fully realize their it may experience the extraordinary. For it, by definition, lies beyond the ordinary. Finding your it requires singular focus on achieving it. Which brings us back to that moment. And what you feel. And what you do with your chance.

    • On New Paths

      What good is livin’ a life you’ve been given
      If all you do is stand in one place – Lord Huron, Ends of the Earth

      If snow transforms the landscape, then a walk in that snowy terrain transforms the winter walker. Add a new path and suddenly you’re seeing the world entirely differently than you had before. Add snowshoes and you’re suddenly set free to break off trail to see new places, explore animal tracks that run off into the woods, and to see what’s on top of a rise you might have walked by at another time of year.

      There’s a popular pursuit in hiking called red-lining, in which hikers hike every bit of every trail on a map or guide. A popular red-lining pursuit in New England is hiking the AMC White Mountain Guide. The whole point of red-lining is to explore new paths – to get off the crowded hiking trails and try something new. To do it, and to belong to a small group of hardcore hikers who have also done it. And add a measure of accomplishment and camaraderie in the world of hiking. I don’t see myself hiking every trail in the AMC White Mountain Guide, but I’m fully onboard with hiking new trails and seeing the previously (for me) unseen.

      On Valentine’s Day I explored trails previously unseen in a forest I’ve spent a lot of time in. Snowshoeing with friends, we walked a trail largely by ourselves to new places. When you’re on a new trail like that, every step is a discovery, every bend in the trail is a curiosity, and every trail junction is confirmation and validation of what the map was trying to tell you all along. There’s magic in taking that image on a map for a walk and making it real.

      The day after a long walk on new trails you start thinking about the trails at those junctions that you didn’t take. You wonder at what you might have missed down that way and begin to realize the allure of red-lining. For how do you want to spend your time in this world? Sticking with the familiar or exploring new places and challenging yourself in new ways? There are other paths that warrant exploration. I’ve seen them out there, if only on a map.

    • Hiking Cannon Mountain

      A flurry of texts over the work week from two directions with questions about hiking led to a decision to join forces for a hike of Cannon Mountain. On the one hand were the Perry’s, increasingly famous in the White Mountains for years of summiting mountains and red-lining trails. I don’t recall a hike in the last couple of years where they didn’t know at least one person on the trails. And a text from my niece Kellyn offered a nice treat, with her deciding to hike with us as well.

      Cannon Mountain is an old granite mound that’s famous for a sheer rock face that once held the Old Man of the Mountain until it collapsed in 2003, and for the tram built to promote tourism and skiing on the mountain in 1938, making it the first passenger tramway in the United States. The Old Man of the Mountain gave this granite mound its first name, Profile Mountain, but eventually its resemblance to a cannon from some vantage points let to what we’re familiar with now.

      So the stage was set for four hikers to set out on a cold February 13th morning for a hike from Lafayette Campground. We chose the Lonesome Lake Trail, with three of us starting in micro spikes on the snow-packed trail. Our fourth hiker stuck with snowshoes the entire time. The conditions on the popular trail made either option fine. As with other hikes, you quickly know when it’s time to put on the snowshoes. For us that was when we took the largely unbroken Dodge Cutoff Trail over to Hi-Cannon for the hike up to the summit.

      Lonesome Lake is a beautiful lake sitting in the bowl of Cannon and the neighboring mountains of the Kinsman Range. It’s a destination of its own, and plenty of people hike up to see it, walk on the frozen lake for the beautiful views it offers, and then hike back down. But you don’t summit mountains when you turn around halfway. We powered on, snowshoeing through a wonder of marshmallow trees up the steep trail. There’s one ice-caked ladder on Hi-Cannon that I’ll always remember for the limited footing options presented to us, but we all got past it with a little help and a dose of courage.

      The thing about summits is they tend to be much colder when you’re exposed to the wind and you stop moving. Sweaty gloves quickly freeze up, making a change a requirement to keep your fingers working. We considered the observation tower for a few minutes and opted to just hike down to the ski resort’s Mountain Station, where I’m told you can buy a beer at 4080 feet. I opted for hot chili and hot chocolate, with extra hot, thank you. It’s a rare day when you can summit a mountain and have hot chili waiting for you. We quickly warmed up and reached a point where if we didn’t get going we might choose to close out the place. Onward.

      Crossing a ski trail is akin to crossing a highway. You judge the oncoming traffic, decide whether your speed can overcome the approaching traffic’s speed and go. We quickly crossed over to the trail back to the summit observation deck, crowned the summit and began our descent using the Kinsman Ridge Snow Chute, er, Trail. On the map, 4/10’s of a mile of hiking, but a lot of squiggly elevation lines stacked up in a small space. We butt-slid down large sections, my snowshoes were more telemarking skis on other sections, and we all collected snowy memories that will make great tall tales someday.

      On one of the butt-sliding sections I lost a water bottle. It wasn’t until we’d snowshoed across Lonesome Lake and I changed to micro spikes that I realized it. My disappointment at losing it turned to delight when we got to the trailhead and someone who’d found it and beaten us down the trail while we lingered at the lake had left it sitting on a post waiting for me. Good hiking karma right there. It was hard to come away with anything but positive vibes after hiking Cannon Mountain on a pristine winter day. A solar halo signaled goodwill to all. A very good day indeed.

      Cannon Mountain from Lonesome Lake
      Solar halo through the frosty trees
      Lonesome Lake with Franconia Ridge beyond

    • Joyful Walks

      Now shall I walk
      Or shall I ride?
      “Ride”, Pleasure said;
      “Walk”, Joy replied.

      Now what shall I —
      Stay home or roam?
      “Roam”, Pleasure said;
      And Joy — “stay home.”

      Now shall I dance,
      Or sit for dreams?
      “Sit,” answers Joy;
      “Dance,” Pleasure screams.

      Which of ye two
      Will kindest be?
      Pleasure laughed sweet,
      But Joy kissed me.
      – William Henry Davies, The Best Friend

      Joy and pleasure sound similar, but joy is something you can build off of, while pleasure seems more, well, short term. In the forever competition between Pleasure and Joy it’s interesting to note that walking is solidly in the corner of Joy. I’m at my best walking, and fill with joy in those moments on a trail or in the quiet places in the world. I know I’m not alone in this respect.

      What makes walking so positive for the mind and soul? Something in the rhythm of walking long distances clears the fog. Reboots the brain. I don’t have a lot of eureka moments walking, but I’m always better for having done it.

      Today was filled with miles of joyful walking. A poem like the Davies poem above hits you differently when you’re blissfully tired and sore from miles on the trail. Don’t get me wrong, pleasure is nice too, but today belonged to joy. And it started with a long walk.

    • What Do We Perpetuate?

      “It is no harder to build something great than to build something good. It might be statistically more rare to reach greatness, but it does not require more suffering than perpetuating mediocrity.” – Jim Collins, Good to Great

      Good to Great came out twenty years ago this year. It’s interesting to see how the companies Collins writes about transformed over twenty years, but lately I’m thinking more about how I’ve transformed over those twenty years since reading it. Reading through it with fresh eyes, I linger on the personal challenges now, less the diagnostics of what makes a company or its leader “great”. The real question in this book is, do we perpetuate greatness in our own lives, or do we perpetuate mediocrity?

      In answering that question, the next question might naturally be, how do we perpetuate greatness in our own lives? What is our standard for ourselves? And how do we take meaningful steps towards greatness and shake the mediocrity out of our routines and mindset? The answer, of course, lies in action.

      “Yes, turning good into great takes energy, but the building of momentum adds more energy back into the pool than it takes out.”

      There’s the tricky part: turning good into great. Doing the work. Aligning yourself with the key “why” of what you do, the why that inspires you to slog through the tedious, to shake loose the mediocre and reach for something more. It’s easy to read a book on moving a company or ourselves from good to great. What comes after is hard. How many thousands of people read Collin’s book over the last twenty years? How many reached greatness? After twenty years it warrants self-examination and maybe reassessment.

      Everyone has their own definition of success, or greatness for that matter. For some it means a great relationship or family life or washboard abs. For others it’s a C-level title and a house in an exclusive neighborhood. We all have our why. And it defines what we do to reach for greatness. What is your goal? Family, grades, professional or athletic career, relationship… what are you really reaching for, what’s your why?

      We must push our personal flywheels for seemingly forever to build some measure of momentum. And when you stop pushing you lose it. It’s a tricky thing, that momentum: It works for you when you keep going, and even for a short time after you stop. But when you get too comfortable and stop pushing for too long the momentum is gone. Without it, what have you got? If you wallow too long, you have mediocrity. Personally, I haven’t had washboard abs in years. But they’re hiding in there waiting for me to push harder.

      Collins has a phrase that lingers for these twenty years: “Good is the enemy of great.” The battle between good enough and reaching a profound place of mastery and excellence comes down to that question: what do we perpetuate in our own lives? How hard are we pushing for more? For our most compelling whys (the right flywheel for us), pushing harder seems the only answer.

    • A Measure of Health

      “Nature says thou shalt keep the air, skate, swim, walk, ride, run. When you have worn out your shoes, the strength of the sole leather has passed into the fibre of your body. I measure your health by the number of shoes and hats and clothes you have worn out. He is the richest man who pays the largest debt to his shoemaker.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

      Those Concord folks were walkers, weren’t they? Ralph and Henry wandered about, wearing out shoes and building big thoughts. There are a couple of versions of that Emerson quote above, but some online research makes me believe these were his words. I like the alternate quotes just fine, but when I start quoting people I’d like to have it right. I love the idea of transferring the strength of the shoes into the fiber of your body. It applies just as well with shoes as it does time and sweat equity invested in other worthwhile things.

      I’m wearing out shoes more quickly lately. My feet took a beating last year, ankles and knees too, but they merely paid it forward to my heart and soul. Over time the body adjusts and stops complaining about taking another step and just goes. It’s a bit like writing and washing dishes and making the calls, you just teach yourself that there’s joyful bits in every moment of doing.

      I’m a collector of joyful bits. On my deathbed I won’t regret not finishing Breaking Bad, but I’ll surely regret not seeing the Northern Lights or the Southern Cross should I not see each. The last year is a reminder to not take mobility for granted. Wearing out more shoes seems a great goal for our next normal. The correlation seems apparent. Wearing out your gear is an easy measure of your physical and mental health. So lace up; we have places to go.

    • Making Tracks

      I promised myself a snowshoe walk in the woods for lunch, and dammit if I wasn’t going to honor that promise. There was more snow drifting down, quietly adding to the base layer in fluffy contentment. Day-old snow welcoming the new to the accumulation. We’re in the weather pattern now, folks. Snow-upon-snow: February in New Hampshire.

      I’d walked these woods on Sunday, but felt a return was in order. Conservation land, with trails popular with dog walkers and tree whisperers. At lunchtime on a random Tuesday in winter you don’t expect a crowd but you expect somebody. In this case one car running, its driver staring down at a phone screen, oblivious to me strapping on snowshoes and beginning my walk.

      The trail is compacted again, a day after six inches of snow and with more in the air, speaking to the popularity of the trail. I help compact it for twenty steps and then move off trail into deeper snow. This is what I came for after all: the highly addictive, calorie-burning bliss of clumping about in deep snow. I followed an old stone wall that spends its lifetime keeping the woods and fields apart, and wonder at the farmers who built it a few hundred years ago, and the generations that mended it until the woods finally wrested back control of the land. Now it’s my turn on the land, and I quietly honor those who came before me; their hard life on display.

      I rejoin the trail and the pace picks up, crossing a bridge over a stream I see a stand of old pines and step off trail to walk amongst them. Just me and the snowshoes, walking an endless blanket of white that covers the features of the land. Fallen trees, dormant vines and brambles, rocks and frozen wetland all lay together under Mother’s white blanket. And one soul clumping about above like a kid at recess. For that is how I feel, being out like this on a snowy workday.

      I think about the time. How long have I been out here? 45 minutes? An hour? Hard to say, really, and I don’t want to look at the watch or phone to find out. But I know it’s time to head back towards the car. Clumping along, I join a familiar path, newly blazed but strangely not compacted as much as other trails. I help with that task while walking under hemlock trees – old friends who I speak with now and then across the years. They’d like me to linger awhile, I smile and hint I’ll be back another day. And cross a stone wall and step out on another field of white.

      The car isn’t all that far away now. I could be in it and back in my home office in minutes. But the snowshoes want to fly some more, and so do I. Not just yet, world. I step off the path and walk back into the deep snow, a wandering soul in a quiet, timeless field. I spot a tall stone wall on a rise across an unbroken plane, set my course, and fly.

      A quick look back and then back on my way

    • Walking to Interesting

      If you watch a commercial on television, or a reporter out on a city street, or even the cast intro on Saturday Night Live in February 2021, everyone is wearing masks. A year ago you’d have wondered at it, even as the pandemic rapidly descended on the world. Today it’s commonplace, and I’m more often surprised at the outliers walking into a store without one. I stood in a line for snowblower parts and a mechanic walked briskly through the store unmasked. In a crowded grocery store I saw an elderly woman(!) without a mask on. In both cases I had the same reaction I might have had two years ago to someone wearing a mask. Isn’t it funny how the world has changed our perceptions in such a brief turn of the calendar?

      I chafe at restrictions, favoring wandering, crossing borders, friendly conversations with strangers and simply getting out there. But we all sense a light at the end of the tunnel, and we’ll reach a tipping point with vaccinations as we did with mask wearing. With more and more people I know joining the ranks of the vaccinated, a sense of optimism grows. Travel will soon be a reality again, even if a bit different from the travel of a few years ago. There’s plenty of travel available today, without worrying about the complexity of borders, just outside.

      “My vicinity affords many good walks; and though for so many years I have walked almost every day, and sometimes for several days together, I have not yet exhausted them. An absolutely new prospect is a great happiness, and I can still get this any afternoon. Two or three hours’ walking will carry me to as strange a country as I expect ever to see. A single farmhouse which I had not seen before is sometimes as good as the dominions of the King of Dahomey. There is in fact a sort of harmony discoverable between the capabilities of the landscape within a circle of ten miles’ radius, or the limits of an afternoon walk, and the threescore years and ten of human life. It will never become quite familiar to you.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walking

      Many times during the past year I’ve thought of Thoreau walking the landscape I know today. There’s plenty that’s changed since his time, but there’s also plenty that remains just as it was then. Much of it remains undisturbed, as if in a time warp, awaiting a visitor. I doubt he ever got up to the corner of New Hampshire where I walk, but I’ve walked in his woods near Walden and note the similarities.

      “Walk until your day becomes interesting — even if this means wandering out of town and strolling the countryside. Eventually you’ll see a scene or meet a person that makes your walk worthwhile.” – Rolf Potts, Vagabonding

      With a hint of the coming snow in the air, I took my snowshoes out to find new prospects. I quickly moved off the packed trail into virgin snow, crunching along on the snowdrifts through woods and fields. Cold hands soon warmed as I worked up a good pace past old stone walls and silent trees. Snowshoeing offers a slow burn, steady state workout similar to cross-country skiing. There’s a small thrill in hovering over the frozen land while blazing a new trail on snowshoes, and I felt a bit like I was flying as I crunched along.

      Reconnecting with the blazed trail at a frozen stream crossing, I noted the collection of prints of those who had come before me. Snowshoes and fat tire mountain bikes, micro spikes and dog prints spiraling in circles from the trail in patterns of joyful exuberance and the freedom of the winter woods. It occurred to me that my own tracks were more similar to the dog prints than those of the trail walkers. Wandering spirits are rarely contains for very long on defined paths.

      A simple walk in the woods, off trail, can change a person. In winter what was familiar ground becomes a voyage of discovery. Perception is how we frame the world around us, and I find it best to turn my perceptions upside down now and then. Every walk suggests something profoundly new, and winter transforms both the landscape and the visitor alike. Pausing a moment, I listened to the sound of silence. My snowshoes and I had walked our way to interesting, embracing the cold indifference of the woods to pandemics and masks and turns of the calendar.

      Walking along on familiar trails transformed into strange country, I stopped worrying about the neglected collection of stamps in my passport. Feeling a million miles from anywhere I’d every been before, I came across a border marker deep in the woods indicating I’d crossed over from the town forest of my neighboring town into the undeveloped forest of my own town. I smiled and noted that not all borders are closed. And the unfamiliar isn’t very far at all from home.

      Into the snowy woods
      Snow blanket on an old stone fence