I turned 32 last week, which means I am officially firmly planted ‘in my 30s.’ For the last few years, I’ve tended to do some kind of birthday post, because I usually try to use this time each year as a mid-year reflection point (the convenience of being born in June!) and this year is no exception. It’s different in some ways, since Shred Girls: Lindsay’s Joyride just came out a few weeks ago, we’re actually kind of staying in place for a couple months, and there aren’t any earth-shattering things coming immediately up—like I wrote last week, it’s kind of a slow-burn time in my life. That’s actually great for self-reflection but much harder in a lot of ways. Without big dramatic moments looming, I have to actually think about life stuff in the overall, not just careen towards one major goal post like a book release date or wedding. So, where am I at 32?
Older doesn’t mean slower
Being a woman in sport is pretty sweet at this age, to be honest. Between finally having a full decade of solid endurance under my belt and getting A LOT smarter with what good training is (not a billion hours, not being severely overtrained, not hopping from Ironman to CX season in the same week), I’m actually significantly faster and fitter than I was when I started my OG training blog (ahem deathbeforednf.blogspot.com) back in the day. This year, I actually have been training with a coach and had a great first race of the season at the Northface 50K in Bear Mountain NY. But I’m less focused on racing than I ever have been, because I’m thinking looooong term with ultra. Instead of racing myself into the ground this summer as I used to do, I’m trying to slowly build up the miles in my legs so that next year will be even stronger from a racing perspective. (I do have a couple races/big goals on the calendar in the next couple months, though!)
Takeaway: It really is never too late to start!
Travel isn’t always the answer
I mean, it is a lot of the time, and it’s something I love. But I’m also realizing there’s serious benefits to staying in one spot, and that travel for the sake of travel is often not as fun as it sounds when you’re making the plans. Costa Rica was a huge highlight of the year for me, because we planned it and prepped for it so that it would be a proper vacation. But I also did a lot of trips that were not cost-effective, exhausting, and ultimately not worth it but I’m still not great at saying no. Real talk: I care too much about my health to keep doing overnights in airports. It no longer makes sense for me, so I’m trying to plan my travel in ways that does make sense for my own health that still balances the ‘hustle’ of being around for book talks and events when possible.
Being deliberate in choices
This is across the board—I’ve been really big on saying yes to everything, and wanting to do everything… see the above point RE travel! It’s how I end up on overnight airport stays and flights, or how I end up sleeping in the van between a road race and yoga teacher training so I don’t disappoint anyone. So, similar to the travel note, this year I want to focus on making choices very carefully and deliberately instead of saying yes to everything right away, no matter how shiny and fun it seems. We actually just started doing a weekly meeting on Fridays to go through upcoming schedules and talk about any invites to events, and that’s been really helpful—I’m giving myself a bit more time before saying yes/signing up, and that time helps give me a bit more clarity and makes me think through what each thing entails. (Seriously. The weekly review. It’s a Getting Things Done thing and I love it.)
We’re getting clear on what we want
The WE versus I has been a big one this season. The longer we’ve been married (3 years now!), the more we’ve been able to operate as a team versus as individual units, but we definitely realized we still have a long way to go when it comes to defining what we both actually want to be doing, where we want to live, how we want to live, etc. It turns out—especially when kids aren’t in the picture—it’s pretty easy in 2019 to be married but still have very independent lives from each other. I think that’s an amazing, awesome thing, but it’s definitely made it harder to merge our various goals and long-term visions because it’s so easy to keep on trucking on separate but parallel (mostly) tracks. So far, we’ve been lucky that we’ve managed to stay aligned, but I want to make sure that we focus more on the ‘we’ side of things vs. ‘me.’
Finishing, not starting
This is an extension of what I talked about this time last year, when I said at 31, I wanted to focus on more, instead of new. This is my constant struggle. I love new projects, new book ideas, you name it. I get easily distracted by shiny new ideas. So, similar to MORE versus NEW, I want to finish more than I start this year. That means a few books projects that are at midpoints instead of new proposals. And it means tackling some loose ends, like a certain FKT attempt I’ve been planning for a couple years. It’s not about clearing the decks or inbox zero-ing or Kondo-ing so I only have a duffel bag of stuff, or anything that dramatic. It’s actually more of a departure from the dramatic!
So, that’s what 32 is looking like for me. And on the note of finishing things, I have another article to get to this morning!
