Dream Big Wall
Truth be told, there’s nothing more that I like blogging about than my climbing journey. Yet, as I find myself reflecting on the past year, I realize this is only my third climbing post in 2025. Since June, most of my energy – and the lessons I’ve learned in fitness – revolved around training for the NY Marathon. That’s not to say climbing took a back seat on my journey – only that it did in this year’s content. In fact, as I look back on my climbing year, I realized that I never even shared my highlight of the year – climbing in Moab.
A year ago, I wrote my year-end update on climbing along with my aspirations for 2025. It took looking back on that post to remind me that I was only just a beginner in 2024. In fact, when I launched Legally Fit in May of last year, I had only just recently climbed outdoors at The Gunks for my first time (with only one other experience before that on an Alaskan cruise in 2023). I had contemplated making a mountain part of the logo for Legally Fit before launching it last May, but ultimately, I thought it might be too presumptuous to include something that was so new in my life. I knew I loved the brief taste of it that I had, but was it possible that I would really turn my hobbies upside down to make this new adventure as big a part of my life as I dreamed it would become?
If each year of my climbing journey is its own title, 2023 would be Trying Something New, and 2024 would be The Journey Begins. For 2025, as I’ll explain below, the title is Dream Big Wall.
I do me! (an update on marathon training)
In the end, these two weeks can be summed up in three words . . . I do me! I’ve reached a point where I’ve learned how to get more out of a marathon training program by making it my marathon training program. At times, that means taking the days I need to stay fresh. Other times it means learning how to push through it when I’m not. It means working in areas of life that define who I am while understanding that this goal of 26.2 is just one of those areas. For each one of us, the calculus is different. Only you know what it is for you. And only I can know what it is for me.
The most important lesson I’ve learned on this journey
“It is being here now that is important. There’s no past and there’s no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now.” - George Harrison
Sharing lessons from my journey over the course of Legally Fit has allowed me to reflect in ways I might not otherwise have done. I’ve reached a deeper level of soul searching. That’s not to say that it takes writing a blog to discover what’s within one’s own self, but for me, it’s been the vehicle. Still, there are times when I find that I never even asked myself the obvious. That happened recently when I was asked a question that I had never been asked before – and somewhat surprisingly not asked myself. . . “What’s the most important thing you’ve learned on this journey?” For a minute, I froze. I was so accustomed to far more specific questions such as “What’s your workout routine?” or “What’s your diet?” So, I was dumbfounded at this simple question. After a brief pause, I knew the answer, but before I share it, I’ll go deeper into where it comes from.
Climbing season! A social media diary . . .
My past weekend was quite full balancing work (Sunday) and fun (Saturday), both of which took priority over the blog. Still, it won’t take long to share all that I need to this week. My outdoor climbing season began on Saturday, and I am as inspired as ever! I can tell this story here through the social media diary I’ve put together . . .
Fifty for 50!
Today is my 50th birthday, and I’m celebrating it with friends on a golf trip at Cabot Cape Breton in Nova Scotia. In lieu of writing this week, I’ve come up with a list of my 50 fitness favorites at 50.