Challenges

Some challenges are good. Today I climbed the 17 flights in my office building in 6 minutes. That was my goal and I made it. The fitness goals I meet in the coming year will far exceed that small accomplishment.

Some challenges are bad. I met a man at a singles event recently. We had plans for tomorrow night- you know, New Year's Eve. I sent him an email an hour ago explaining that I did not feel comfortable seeing him again. He was a nice man, but there were some very good reasons why the decision I made was the right one. I wish him well. I wish myself well too. Sometimes you do what you have to do.

Some challenges are easy. I'll keep busy tomorrow night. I'll spend some time at a neighbor's party, and may end up at downtown Tacoma's First Night for a while.

I hope everyone has a safe and wonderful New Year.

Fight or Flight

I once spent $350 on a gym visit. I paid for a year and went once. There are reasons why I hate LA Fitness, Bally's and the like. Here's a few of them: Men in little Richard Simmons-style shorts thundering on the treadmill next to me. Women vigorously soaping their private parts in the curtainless showers. Little lagoons of other people's sweat on the Nautilus machines....eww, eww, eww. Now that I look at these reasons, I not only feel guilt free about my lack of gym membership, I feel vindicated.

This is not to say that I'm lying on the couch watching Wheel of Fortune and plowing my way through bags of Jalapeno Cheetos. I just prefer more holistic forms of exercise. As mentioned, I walk the mile and a half to and from work most days. During my lunch hour I either walk the mini mountain that is downtown Tacoma's streets (from downtown to the appropriately named Hilltop), and / or I climb stairs.

There is something zen-like about climbing stairs. Real stairs, not hamster-cage machine stairs. My new trick is to pretend my building does not have an elevator.I did the 11 flights (12 actually, from the basement) twice today. Eleven or twelve flights at a time is my current comfort level. I have a moment of "Ugh, this sucks" after bounding up the first 6 or 7, but I push through it. Next week I am going to walk the 17 flights in my office building in less than 10 minutes. I'm pretty sure I can do it in about 6.

You. Yeah you, the one who's saying "Big deal. I run up and down my building's 47 flights of stairs two or three times before leaving for my 90 minute workout in which I run 13 miles in 11 minutes on the treadmill set at a 14% grade..." I'm not listening to you. Nor am I competing with you. I am competing with myself. And in a few more months, I am going to be looking fierce.

Here's what my ability to make decisions looks like

Snow Day

I was scheduled to work from 10:30 - 7:30 yesterday. At 9:45 am I assessed the weather: Cold and blowing snow but not icy. Perfect walking weather! Off I went. A mile and a half later I arrived at my office with my hat, coat and gloves covered in snow. Not a frequent Seattle-area occurence, so it was fun. At 4:30 pm it was announced that the campus was closing for the evening. I contemplated taking the bus home but it wasn't dark or even snowing, so I had a nice walk home. It's starting to occur to me that this is the most boring blog post I've ever written. I'll wrap it up: Today is a snow day from work. All day! Here's a view from one of my living room windows:

Night Light

One of my favorite musicians, drummer Mickey Hart, said that when he is 90 years old he'll still be drumming on different surfaces just to hear what they sound like. I think when I'm 90 I'll still be taking lots of photos, just to see what they look like.