This 1998 snapshot is one of the few I have of me exercising, but it was several years after I started running regularly and I’m still at it today. Two things have kept me going for two decades now.
It shouldn’t be a surprise in this sedentary, overweight country that the most commonly made New Year’s resolution is to lose weight. On that same list, “exercise more,” “eat healthier” and “improve health” are numbers five, six and seven.
That’s a lot of good intentions. But while I don’t have any statistics at hand, we also know that lots of gym memberships are bought this time of year and go to waste by February.
I don’t claim to qualify as anyone’s role model. But I do think I have two nuggets to contribute to this predictable pattern of early January optimism and late February “oh what the hell” resignation. First, there’s one more incentive for keeping your resolution that you may not have thought of. And second, I long ago stumbled across one trick that has kept me mostly on track with my fitness plan for two decades, now.
Most people visiting this blog ride motorcycles, so there’s your additional incentive. Keeping fit will make you a better, safer and, if you want to be, a faster rider. Don’t dismiss or underestimate that. There’s a reason professional motocross racers are among the fittest athletes on the planet. There’s a reason professional roadracers are mostly fanatics about their cardiovascular condition, with many of them nearly able to start a second career as professional bicycle racers. It’s not just about their bodies being strong enough to absorb the pounding of landing a triple on a Supercross course or surviving what amounts to 40 minutes of deep knee bends in full leathers in the 90/90 heat and humidity of Malaysia. And this is where it applies to you, even if the most strenuous ride you take all year is a couple hundred miles of interstate riding to get to the Ride 4 Kids gathering.
Racers are fanatical about fitness. They have to be.
Racers know that being physically fit also improves your mental focus. You can’t afford to lose any edge to fatigue when your brain has to process every quiver of the 200-plus-horsepower beast beneath you, as your tires slide at the edge of adhesion while 20 other adrenaline-fueled, hyper-competitive riders try to fulfill their current top ambition in life, which is to pass you. The same goes for us mortals. On a long, hot day of riding, your mental focus slips as you tire physically. You don’t spot potential problems as quickly or react as fast when you do. The difference for us is not a few points in the world championship standings, but potentially life or death.
I can tell you exactly the moment when this concept went from being an abstract notion I “knew” to a concrete lesson I could see, feel and understand on a deeper level. In early 2002, I went to the press introduction for the new BMW R1150GS Adventure, when BMW took its adventure-touring R1150GS and turned up the off-road ability and the manly man quotient to 11. With a weight of around 600 pounds, a 7.9-gallon fuel tank placing a lot of that weight up high, and a lofty 35.4-inch seat height, the first challenge I faced was just getting the BMW off the side stand. Seriously. I swung a leg over the seat, gave the bike my normal nudge with my butt, which would have righted any other motorcycle, and the damn thing didn’t budge.
BMW planned a full day’s ride, through some California desert, including a few unpaved sections, then up into the hills and finally down through the Angeles Crest before hitting the freeways of Los Angeles in the early evening for miles of close-quarters lane-sharing to fight our way through near gridlock and get back to our hotel. A heavy bike, unfamiliar roads, warm temperatures, cutthroat traffic and the constant threat of tipping over that monstrous beast or clipping a car with the boxy saddlebags made for a very tiring day. In the hotel lobby, some members of our group tossed themselves on the first available soft chair, looking decidedly pallid and spent. Yet I felt pretty good. Part of that was due to the sheer exhilaration of having survived the ride, but there was a more important factor.
At the time of the press ride, I was in the latter stages of my training program for the one and only marathon I’ve ever done. It was one of those things I wanted to do once in life. So as I wrestled that hideously overwrought BMW, I was in the best shape of my life. And I could feel how that made all the difference. No longer was the link between fitness and my ability to ride just an abstract thought.
So that’s your incentive to keep your New Year’s resolution: stay fit, ride better, stay alive.
Now, about that trick that has helped me keep up a modest exercise program for 20 years. It’s nothing I invented. Lots of others give the same advice. I kind of stumbled into it by accident. But it works.
Whatever kind of exercise you do, write it down. For me, it’s a short session of light weightlifting and then a run. I don’t run as far as I used to, and I never was fast. But I’m persistent, largely because I hold myself accountable.
Back in 1997, I got a free sample of a day planner and I decided I’d start writing down the distance I ran each time I went out. Each page became a grid that I filled up over the course of a year. Now, as I start 2014, I’m making a new grid for yet another year of mileage.
The advantage of writing it down is that there’s no fooling myself. I can’t say, “I feel like I’ve run enough this month. I’ll take a few days off.” I can look at my log and see that I haven’t been keeping up the pace. It’s all there in black and white. Of course today there are plenty of online tools or smartphone apps or computer programs you could use, instead of my old-tech booklet, but at this point I cherish that freebie of so many years ago. The last time we moved, I couldn’t find it for a few days, and I was truly distraught thinking I’d lost it. It not only lists every run I’ve taken since January 1, 1998, but it also has my times for all the races I’ve been in, from 5K trots to my one marathon and half marathon.
That day on the BMW is, in a way, proof the log works to motivate me. In the summer of 2001, having moved long distance and started a new job, I was busy with work and actually went a whole month without running. I find it hard to believe now, but the log doesn’t lie. That period of slacking was part of what led me to set the personal goal of finishing a marathon, and the following April I did it.
Maybe my method doesn’t work for you. Find one that does. A fitter rider is a safer, better rider, one who’ll be able to keep doing this thing we love for longer. And if you’re like me, you want to keep riding motorcycles for as long as possible.
