Networking Our Promises

A note from Dort Munder:

I was walking into Wellworks today to use the treadmill because it is now rainy and my lovely outdoor walks have to be curtailed for a few days, when I ran into W____, a woman my age who still does karate twice a week. 

She wondered why I hadn’t been in yoga for the last two weeks. 

“I’m training to do a 10K race,” I boasted, and her eyes lit up.

“Really, when?”

I thought a moment, and said, “I’m actually training to run around the block without collapsing, in hopes that I’ll do a 5K this spring, and maybe a 10k in the Fall.”

The good news. She thought that was great too. Dort

Good news indeed. It's great to see a continuing optimism and focus on the ultimate goal of this project. I suppose that it is true, as the t-shirt once claimed, "Obstacles are what we see when we take our eyes off the goal.

I've heard that it is helpful to share your resolutions with friends and family -- I've heard that gaining their support can often sustain a resolution when one's own commitment falters. So, thank you W_____ for your support and encouragement.

Meanwhile, Dort wraps up the end of the hardest two weeks this weekend. He has not, to my knowledge, missed a workout. He has created a space in his life for a sustained consistent effort. I see two things on the very near horizon:

First: I believe, the workouts will begin to get more intense. As a runner myself, I would suggest burst of fifteen-thirty seconds of running -- maybe five or six per workout, for the next couple of weeks. Again, for every body out there performing similar resolutions, I would hazard: don't add on too much too fast. You'd be begging for injury, or risking a debilitating encounter with exhaustion -- either situation can be frustrating and create doubt for your resolution. Most running advice I've ever read or heard or made up says, "Don't increase your workouts (in duration or intensity) by more than 10% per week."

Second: now that the daily routine has been created, it seems like a good time to get to the yoga studio once or twice a week in place of the daily run -- cross training, by all accounts I've ever known, improves one's running (for reasons both physical and psychological). I also believe, for a resolution such as this, it would not be slipping to replace one good workout with another. Slipping on such a resolution would look more like replacing a run with an all-you-can-eat chicken wing special and one of those 100 oz. beers some places offer.

Dort's Running Tally:

As of 011 January 2012

Days Running:12

Minutes Run: 400+

Cross Training: 1 day

Running Tip of the Day: always cross reference my advice with advice from more reputable sources.

Public v. Private

The New Year is almost here . . . so I strongly encourage everybody to get in all the swearing and overeating you can in the next for days, because we're all gonna do better in January.

I've had several suggestion-type resolutions come to the old email, and I'm whittling towards a resolution and someone to work with.

One of the things that I'm most interested in finding out through this experimenting with other people's promises: resolutions, as with so many things in life, are a deeply personal mode of operation. Where some folks want to quit smoking cold turkey, others want to ween. Where some have a scientific weening, others ween by feel. From a different angle: where some folks want "to be in better shape," others want to run a nine-minute mile or benchpress their own body weight.

Of course, there have been group resolutions (I'm generalizing now, and I know it) for as long as there have been personal resolutions, and these have had their own pros and cons. Personally, I'm excited to see how this all pans out: the very private process of resolution butting up against the largely public product of the blog.

Top Ten Resolutions List

I found this list of the top ten resolutions at about.com -- it focuses on Pittsburgh for web reasons beyond my understanding, but I think it looks pretty standard.

Here, then, is the list:

1. Spend More Time with Family & Friends
2. Fit in Fitness
3. Tame the Bulge
4. Quit Smoking
5. Enjoy Life More
6. Quit Drinking
7. Get out of Debt
8. Learn Something New
9. Help Others
10. Get Organized

So Check out the site if you get a minute -- all pretty standard fare, like I say, but about.com goes into a little more detail. But don't feel limited to these traditional resolutions. Maybe you want to:

1. Spend Less Time with Family & Friends: Yeah, they're cute but do you have to play pool on Thursday, Bowl on Tuesday, and mudwrestle on Sunday -- maybe your problem is that you spend too much time with your peeps. Awesome though they are, maybe you want to put some distance between you and them, such that you can finish that puzzle you've been building.

2. Give the Workers at the Gym Some Rest: a nap never hurt anybody, and your body, ultimately, just ain't that important. I don't care what advertisers say, there's more to health than this mass of flesh and cotton.

3. Eat Better Food: okay, I want to make this specifically about not-eating-healthier, but the fact is, when I say better foods, I mean better cuts of meat, the freshest vegetables, new recipes. I'm not terribly interested in your bulge . . . I just think there are better things in life than Ramen Noodles.

4. Quit Gossiping, Bad Mouthing, Flipping People off: yes, smoking can be bad for you, we all know this, but there are many social ills. Smoking might shorten one's life, but there are many things that we do that make life less . . . healthy.

5. Make Someone Else's Life More Enjoyable: this doesn't have to mean "make an anonymous $10,000 donation to someone whose blog your really like," but we could all spend an extra fifteen minutes a day doing something legitamately nice for someone else -- bet  it would increase the quality of life for everyone around us.

6. Yoga.

7. Okay, I've Got to Admit, I, Too, Would Like to Get out of Debt: until I get out of debt, I effectively pay an extra 20% for everything I buy, rent, or lend.

You know what, these last three look really compelling to me, though awfully vague.

I'm still looking for suggestions here. I know someone out there wants to resolve soon . . . it's anonymous, it's free, I'll do the bulk of the typing . . .

Congratulations Are on the Way

Okay, so I think this will be a good project for a number of reasons. First off, misery loves company, pleasure loves company, hell, company loves company some times, and a number of resolutions will bring a combination of those things.

Beyond that, having someone else to encourage and celebrate even the most mundane event makes that event seem worthwhile.

There are other reasons, but I want to be clear about this: I like positive feedback. This will be a place where at least a few people will congratulate us on a regular basis for sticking to our promises. It'll be fun. It'll be rewarding. People will like us. Email me.

For the blog, you can be anonymous if you want -- I'm excellent at keeping secrets -- or I'll call you The Jackal, and, no, not just because I'm reading The Day of the Jackal right now.