The R2R is the hardest hike I have experienced. It is demanding, humbling, and inspiring. It is a serious commitment to training, research, planning, and responsibility and… it’s worth it. The Grand Canyon is special, mighty, fragile and fierce. It touches you deep down inside. I’m hooked. I look forward to repeating my last hiking route and plan to train for 5 months prior in conjunction with my marathon training.
South Rim to the North Rim hike and back, covering ~48 miles.
Day 1: Arrive Grand Canyon Thunderbird Lodge South Rim: Travel from Phoenix airport to South Rim is 238 miles, 3:40 drive.
Day 4: 5:00AM North Kaibab trail head to Bright Angeltrail head: 24 mile hike, 6406 elevation gain. Longer distance but less steep for the final leg – and that helps.
A new year brings new opportunities. I’m happy to move beyond 2021 and map out my next 12 months of health, wellness, work and fun. Looking back at 2021, I learned a lot and experienced plenty of high and lows, peaks and valleys.
A few of my peaks. Hiking the Grand Canyon from the South Rim to North Rim and then back with family, covering 46 miles and 13.6K vertical feet in record heat (114 F). An incredible feat, and experience. Another was running my first marathon. It was the 50th anniversary of the NYC Marathon and the return of the race after Covid-19 shut it down in 2020. I never thought I could run 26.2 miles but wanted to so I joined Team Determination, an American Cancer Society team, and followed a wise training plan and hit my goals; 1) Show up on race day healthy; and 2) finish the race healthy. Bam! I’m hooked.
Heading down South Kaibab to North Kaibab covering 23.50 miles on Day 1
Now for my valleys. They were tough and they came all at once. I broke my shoulder skiing in March when a snowboarder flattened me on Scotty’s Runs at Mammoth Mountain. Then in the weeks that followed I received a crazy blow in my work life that knocked me off my game for months. That was my breaking point. I was a mess with my confidence and mental health at an all time low. Not easy to share but my truth.
A friend recently asked how I managed to pull myself out of this dark place. It took time and I drew upon my support system. My friends and family were there for me, listening and supporting me patiently. Therapy helped me sort out my feelings, what was reality, what was not, and tools to find my way back to myself. Then there was exercise. The Grand Canyon and the Marathon were big in my mind, body and soul recovery. The effort of setting such clear fitness goals helped me focus on a positive experience daily and reign in runaway thoughts. The training revealed how much I enjoy, and benefit from, endurance fitness.
I discovered that endurance training is my thing going forward. This type of training is realistic and rewarding. I’m an endorphin junky so it is a nice surprise to realize how helpful consistent walking, hiking, or jogging is to my overall health.
This is the inspiration for kicking off my 2022 Zone 2, 30-day FitLife Challenge, #Z2FLC. I’m inviting you to exercise 5 days a week for a realistic amount of time – for you. That can be 20, 30, 45 minutes a day, consistently. Zone 2 is moving at pace that is conversational and over time has significant benefits to your overall endurance and wellbeing.
It builds aerobic base and endurance which enhances ability to sustain sub threshold pace for longer periods.
It is the foundation to build threshold fitness.
Allows you to recover more quickly between higher intensity efforts
By sticking to lower heart rates, over time you will increase your pace at the same heart rate output. This is due to increased aerobic efficiency, and it sets off many positive training adaptations
So join me and focus on consistency over intensity. Start with a 20 min walk or bike ride each day. Once this becomes part of our routine we can increase the time or the effort. Let’s build something simple that we can do daily, and enjoy. Let’s build a personal system.
My first marathon, The TCS New York City Marathon November 7, 2022
“The purpose of setting goals is to win the game. The purpose of building systems is to continue playing the game. True long-term thinking is goal-less thinking. It’s not about any single accomplishment. It is about the cycle of endless refinement and continuous improvement. Ultimately, it is your commitment to the process that will determine your progress.” ― James Clear, Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones
A new year brings with it the chance to reflect on what do I want to add, change, create for myself in the months to come. I run Fitlife Challenges throughout the year but I see far more interest from my friends, family and members to invest their energy in their health come January.
It makes sense because we have this fresh new start after the holidays to look at January as a blank slate to map out what we want to accomplish. My wish for Fitlifers is to reflect on the next 12 months and taking the advice of Kelly McGonigal, Stanford pHD, in her newest book, The Joy of Movement, project out one year from now and decide what is one change you would most like to see happen so your future-self is grateful you made this change?
Is it adding a type of joy to your life (playful, creativity, adventure, etc) or potentially reduce a suffering (health related medications, the blues)? This vision helps support your resolve to change your approach to behavior. So when you start to list your goals, try to see how they align with your future-you values. This helps shift the focus from a shame-based, personal judgement that comes from diet deprivation or exercise torture perspective to the joy or freedom these new habits can empower.
Personally when looking at future-me I want to be sharp, strong and healthy so I can live a very active life involving travel and adventures with my girls, husband and friends with no limitations. Emotional health is also key. I find daily exercise keeps me grounded and emotionally more stable so I can show up better as a mom, and stronger at work. Therefore I want to keep that working for me (and I’m pretty sure everyone in my life wants me to keep that up as well!)
So take some time to reflect on your “why” and tie it to your goals. I think you may find it easier to wake up one hour earlier every day to move or to take pause when you find yourself eating something that makes you feel icky afterwards. I hope it helps.
Let’s do this! Welcome to your newest 30 Fitlife Challenge #30flc.
If you don’t know where you are going, you may not get there.
This tracker helps you establish a fitlife roadmap on what is important to you and provides you the simple tools to track your daily progress for 8 weeks.
It typically takes at least 6 weeks to really form a new habit (good or bad) so this will help you track your daily efforts based upon your personal fitlife goals.
living the fitlife 