A pre-New Year’s rededication

…with all due respect to Long Limbs Lenore (of Forrest Gump fame), I don’t believe in New Year’s Eve, as far as it being a chance at renewal.  We have that chance each and every day, and all we have to do is step across the line and get moving.

Why do we make New Year’s resolutions?  They’re really kind of silly, when you get down to it.

“Don’t you just love New Year’s?  Everybody gets a second chance!”

We look back on a year coming to its close, focus on those things we didn’t do, or didn’t do well enough, and resolve to fix them.  We focus on the negative, with the intent of fixing it, and because a new year is dawning, we rally around the symbol of renewal to start over.  We focus on things we’ve neglected, and out of guilt, shame, or whatever reason we choose, WE RESOLVE to do whatever it is that we should have been doing all along.

Well, with all due respect to Long Limbs Lenore (of Forrest Gump fame), I don’t believe in New Year’s Eve, as far as it being a chance at renewal.  We have that chance each and every day, and all we have to do is step across the line and get moving.

So, with the holiday approaching, I’m not going to take weeks at a time away from the gym or the trails.  I’m not going to gorge myself nonstop from the end of November thru to the start of January, and then start a crash-course to reshape my newly-round and out-of-shape self.

OK – that’s a lie.  I’m going to gorge myself – there is no question about that.  But I’m NOT going to be a slug for a month and a half.  And THAT, my friends, is the point.

Very few of us will completely avoid the tryptophan-induced coma that will leave us dozing during the second quarter of the Redskins-Cowboys game.  But that’s OK – a couple of days over a month won’t kill us.  It’s all the other days in between that will.

So don’t be a stranger at the gym in December, and remember – it’s much harder to rebuild what’s been broken than it is to simply maintain and improve what you have.

Of course I’ll make a symbolic New Year’s resolution, but in terms of fitness, symbols don’t cut it – actions do, and I’m vowing not to let holiday laziness make my job that much harder when the snow melts.

Resolution?  Psh.  Call it a pre-New Year’s rededication!