The other day a woman in my office pulled me aside and said she’d noticed I’ve been running at lunch and it looked like I’d lost some weight, and was wondering if I was doing anything else special. I said not particularly, just trying to eat healthy and stay active. She asked “do you have a goal you’re working toward?” and I started rambling off trips I want to do, mountains I want to climb, and trails I want to ride.
Almost immediately her eyes glazed over and I realized she meant how many pounds I want to lose or sizes I want to drop. Which isn’t surprising: it’s that time of year, fueled by New Year’s resolutions, that you can’t throw a rock on the internet without hitting “10 Easy Ways to Lose Weight” or “Life Hacks to Eat Better”.
Just about all my fitness goals can be summed up by one experience.
A couple years ago, as I was starting to get into road biking, my friend Carol asked me if I wanted to do a Century (100 mile bike race) with her.
It was in 3 days.
Let me just pause here for a quick shout out to Carol, one of the most badass ladies I’ve ever known. Recently, after fighting her way out of an abusive marriage and terrible divorce she was attacked on her front steps and stabbed in the eye. She proceeded to fight the guy off with the bike she’d been carrying up the stairs, probably saving her life.
Carol is basically superwoman.
Anyway, I told her the longest rides I’d been doing were 30-40 miles. She shrugged and said look, there’s no question you can do it, it’s just a matter of how slow you’ll go and how much you’ll hurt the next day. Three days later we completed the ride, in a pretty respectable time, with music blasting out of portable speakers the whole way, cheering everyone who we passed or passed us.
So my goals are pretty simple: when someone says ‘hey lets go do this awesome thing’, I want to be in decent enough shape to be able to say ‘hell yeah!’ Maybe (probably) I’ll be the slowest one there. Maybe I’ll sound like a groaning 90 year old every time I sit down the next day. But I’ll go, and go again, until maybe it won’t feel so hard.
Then someone else will say ‘hey lets go do this harder/longer awesome thing’. But that’s just what happens when your friends are rad. One of the coolest things about Outsiety for me is being able to be the person to say ‘let’s go do this’ to other women.
They say you should make goals measurable and obtainable so I’m trying to do that too. In part because I’m a sucker for office supplies, I got a new planner this year where you set a goal every month that you commit to for 30 days.
This month: drink 64 oz of water every day.
But when you live in a place like this, surrounded by inspiring mountains and people, there’s a lot of opportunities to push yourself and feel yourself grow stronger that have nothing to do with 10 easy steps or the New Year’s resolutions you wrote down and then promptly forgot.
Post by Margosia Jadkowski, Outsiety BadAssador
Almost immediately her eyes glazed over and I realized she meant how many pounds I want to lose or sizes I want to drop. Which isn’t surprising: it’s that time of year, fueled by New Year’s resolutions, that you can’t throw a rock on the internet without hitting “10 Easy Ways to Lose Weight” or “Life Hacks to Eat Better”.
Just about all my fitness goals can be summed up by one experience.
A couple years ago, as I was starting to get into road biking, my friend Carol asked me if I wanted to do a Century (100 mile bike race) with her.
It was in 3 days.
Let me just pause here for a quick shout out to Carol, one of the most badass ladies I’ve ever known. Recently, after fighting her way out of an abusive marriage and terrible divorce she was attacked on her front steps and stabbed in the eye. She proceeded to fight the guy off with the bike she’d been carrying up the stairs, probably saving her life.
Carol is basically superwoman.
Anyway, I told her the longest rides I’d been doing were 30-40 miles. She shrugged and said look, there’s no question you can do it, it’s just a matter of how slow you’ll go and how much you’ll hurt the next day. Three days later we completed the ride, in a pretty respectable time, with music blasting out of portable speakers the whole way, cheering everyone who we passed or passed us.
So my goals are pretty simple: when someone says ‘hey lets go do this awesome thing’, I want to be in decent enough shape to be able to say ‘hell yeah!’ Maybe (probably) I’ll be the slowest one there. Maybe I’ll sound like a groaning 90 year old every time I sit down the next day. But I’ll go, and go again, until maybe it won’t feel so hard.
Then someone else will say ‘hey lets go do this harder/longer awesome thing’. But that’s just what happens when your friends are rad. One of the coolest things about Outsiety for me is being able to be the person to say ‘let’s go do this’ to other women.
They say you should make goals measurable and obtainable so I’m trying to do that too. In part because I’m a sucker for office supplies, I got a new planner this year where you set a goal every month that you commit to for 30 days.
This month: drink 64 oz of water every day.
But when you live in a place like this, surrounded by inspiring mountains and people, there’s a lot of opportunities to push yourself and feel yourself grow stronger that have nothing to do with 10 easy steps or the New Year’s resolutions you wrote down and then promptly forgot.
Post by Margosia Jadkowski, Outsiety BadAssador
