On Goals and Miles and Meaning
Published on: Apr 02, 2023Filed under: River
Rowing tends to push me into a heightened state of self-reflection, and today’s row was twelve long miles.
I’m three and a half months in my half marathon journey, and by my maths, two weeks from achieving that goal. At least the first version of it.
Viewed from the outside, from the infrequency of my check ins, that progress might seem obvious, or inevitable, or even easy. But that’s distance doing that thing that distance does - flattening the details and locality in favor of trajectory and big pictures.
I’ve been adding a kilometer to my weekly distance row goal. The one day a week when I care how “far” I go, each week setting my heart on something just a big farther away.
Twelve kilometers was when things started to get challenging.
On a row longer than 12 kilometers, after the halfway point I’ll no longer be able to consistently keep my heart rate below the 70% threshold. By three quarters, I’ll start catching cramps in the arches of my feet. By the last kilometer, I just want to be done and I’ll row as fast and hard as I can.
But the turn around, that painful halfway points, keeps getting farther. And the cramps take longer to set in.
I’m two weeks out from achieving a six month goal in four months.
All I had to do was change my mind.
I’ve long made weekend to-do lists, writing out the things I want to accomplish on the weekend. For the longest time, I merely took this as proof that I’m a goal-oriented person. But that’s a bit too simplistic, approaching myself from a distance and never getting close enough to see the detail.
That to-do list, and by proxy how I allocate my time, tends to divide into two camps.
The first, both in illustration and in practice, tends to be the needful, the necessary, my responsibilities. My dogs, my farm, the myriad functions necessary to being a member of society. Leaving those uncared for tends to induce stress, keeping me out of the moment, robbing me of my present.
I got a rude awareness of this the other weekend when my mom was visiting. I’d been giving my field the first mow of the season and snapped a belt earlier that day. Mom was only over for an hour, but my mind was on a trip to the hardware store and the third of an acre of long grass outside. I knew I should have been more present, but I was mad at a field and a tractor and ultimately myself.
The second body of tasks and goals and check list items, for which the rowing clearly fits, is to become the person who does the things that I put on my todo list.
That is, today I didn’t “want to row 12 miles.” I wanted “to be the kind of person who would row 12 miles.”
It’s a weird frame, but one that I’ve found incredibly helpful both for getting things done, but also a rubric for spending my time both on and off my lists. For picking goals. After all, rowing a half-marathon is act, but being the kind of person who rows half-marathons? That’s a mindset change.
The person who rows 12 miles, he gets enough rest. He eats more veggies. And a lot more protein. He drinks less. He cares about his heartbeat, and he takes care of his health. He goes to the dentist. It’s a cascade of behavior, stemming not from a lofty goal, but an appropriation of a lifestyle.
Rowing is not my only goal, but an easily observable and measurable one.
I want to be the kind of person who reads every day. The kind of person who has interesting side projects. I want to be the kind of person who applies his learning. I want to the be the kind of person who writes.
Which brings me back to those damned to do lists, and goals. The two types of boxes each work towards different ends. The first makes sure I have a stable foundation. I’m not worried about having clean sheets or whether my dogs are happy. Those are the things I need to take care of if I’m going to accomplish the second type. The second type, those keep me on a life that’s moving in the right direction. That second type means I’m satisfied when I hit those clean sheets at night. Their related though. I can’t engage in higher self-actualizing tasks if my responsibilities are left unmet.
It takes a considerable amount of effort to balance both of those sets of goals. But over the past few months, I feel like I’ve been actually making progress, aside from the rowing. Every day isn’t perfect, but zoom out, embrace distance, and the general trajectory is up and to the right.
One final note - I've joined a rowing club. Not on an erg, but on the water. I'm excited to start that next month, even if it means early Saturday mornings.