2011 New Years Resolutions

Sorry that I am a bit late with this, post New Years has been a bit busy with two work-related trips consuming my time. The first was a trip to Las Vegas to attend the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). My intent in manoevering myself into attending this event was to use it as a vehicle to do some climbing at Red Rocks, and this was the plan until I found out a few weeks ago that I needed to be in Milan the week after for another work project. This forced me to cut short my climbing time to just one day, which was unfortunate, but I did still get one day in of sunshine and sandstone. Another bonus was that Roanne ended up attending the show for Microsoft, so we were able to spend some time together there. So, as I write this I am on a plane headed for Milan where I will spend the next week before heading for the alps to do some skiing (watch for a trip report). Anyways, enough excuses and back to my resolutions for the new year. As I did last year I will categorize them into "Sport" and "Life" resolutions, with the latter coming first since they are more important.

Sport Resolutions

1. Send a 5.13 sport climb. This is a repeat of one of last year's resolutions, but since I didn't do it an would really like to, I am putting it on here again. I pinned the blame for last year's failure on not being able to train throughout the winter due to some elbow problems, one unfortunate thing is that I am currently again having some elbow problems that might prevent me from climbing as much as I want. This time they have been brought on by nordic skiing instead of climbing, but a faulty elbow is a faulty elbow so I am hoping it gets better soon so that I can start hitting the climbing gym with more regularity.

2. Climb the north ridge of Mount Stuart. This is a long alpine route that I would really like to do, Fras and I had planned on doing it together last year but for various reasons it never worked out. This year I am really going to work hard at making it happen since it sounds like an amazing experience and it would be a good challenge to try and do it in a day.

3. Ski the Garibaldi-Neve traverse. I love long ski traverses, last year one of the few resolutions that I actually ticked off was the Spearhead Traverse and it was amazing so I thought I would put another of the classic ski tours on here. This one is similar in length to the Spearhead, so we would also try to do it in a day.

4. Upgrade my road racing license to Category 3. This is another holdover from last year, and is similar to the 5.13 goal in that it is something I feel confident that I can accomplish if I can just stay focused enough, not get injured, and dedicate the necessary time to training. That being said, both this and the 5.13 goal would demand a significant amount of time so they may end up being mutually exclusive.

5. Try track racing. This one will be pretty easy, but I meant to do it last year and never did so I thought I would put it on the list for added motivation. Track racing (bicycles of course, who would waste their time running around a track?) looks really fun so I would like to take the track racing course out at Marymoor and then do some of the weeknight races. I am pretty sure I will be awful at it since of the millions of muscle fibers in my legs I think only 3 of them are of the fast twitch variety, but it will be a fun experience nonetheless.

6. Try a classic ski race. Just before Christmas we went and did a nordic ski camp in the Methow Valley, and at that camp we received our first formal instruction in classic skiing. I obtained some classic skis in advance of the camp, so now I feel that I need to justify the purchase and instruction by toeing the starting line in a classic ski race (which is why I wanted to learn, I can't accept that there would be nordic ski races that I couldn't do since I only skate, so I felt that I needed to add classic skiing to my resume).

Life Resolutions

1. Weigh under 160 when it matters. Last year I weighed under 160 lbs for one fleeting day in February, this year I would like to clock in at my racing weight when it actually matters, like during the summer when I am trying to send a project out at Si or in the spring when I am trying to do well in a hilly road race (though I'm not sure those exist around Seattle). I am currently at my steady state of 166-168 lbs so it will take a bit of work, but should be possible.

2. Be more exciting. In Las Vegas this past weekend Roanne commented that I can be a frightful bore at times. This was spurred on by her asking me if I wanted to join her co-workers in attending a show and then hitting the bars afterwards, to which I replied that I would rather go to bed early and wake up early to go climbing at Red Rocks. Apparently life isn't all about climbing, cycling, and skiing (I know, its news to me too), so Roanne would like me to get more interested in social activities. I have dutifully added this goal to my resolutions.

3. Get rid of extra stuff. I hate having extra stuff, but I am also quite lazy in putting in the effort to get rid of it properly by selling it on Craigslist or dropping it off at the Goodwill (the last option sounds easy, but it is amazing how long it can take me to dedicate the time to driving the few blocks to make a dropoff). This year I would like to get our basement organized and jettison any stuff that we don't use.

4. Make a better garden. Last year I got a garden established and it did reasonably well, but it was a pretty low effort operation due to my hesitance to dedicate much time to it. I do really enjoy the fruits of these labours, so this year I want to spend more time upfront (maybe even a weekend day!) to putting the proper infrastructre in place and making it bigger.

5. Never eat dessert alone. This is not intended to spur me to go and find out others to have dessert with, rather, it is intended to act as a check on my ravenous hunger for delicious dessert. When I am by myself I can easily justify eating an entire container of ice cream, whereas when I am with others, social cues serve as a check on my impulse to eat all the cake that is in sight. So, since I have demonstrated numerous times that I have no self control in this arena, I am going to rely on others to fill in for me and institute this rule that I can only consume dessert when I am under close supervision.

6. Learn to speak french better. When Roanne and I were in Madagascar last year it was really fun to exercise our french, and it made me wish that I spoke it better. The last formal instruction I had in french was during graduate school at the University of Washington when I took some french classes that I really enjoyed. In the coming year I would like to develop my french language abilities further (or repair them as it may be that I have forgotten a lot from when I last had instructoin) by either taking the rest of the french courses at the UW (my last one was French 202) or by joining the Alliance Francaise or a similar group. Due to my demonstrated lack of interest in socializing in my native language, I would say that the first option is the more likely candidate.

Well, that's all folks! If you see me violating any of these resolutions please give me a polite reminder.