At the end of June the Rêve 2012 Tour team of experienced-yet-amateur women cyclists will be the first female group known to ride the entire route of the male-dominated Tour de France. Portland residents Heidi Swift and Jennifer Cree fill two slots on the six-woman team, and while the full impact of their endeavor to take on an unprecedented feat of endurance in women’s cycling history has yet to be realized, there is little question that all Oregonians, both male and female, receive an extra notch in their pride belt just to be sharing air-space with the likes of Swift and Cree. So how is it that these otherwise ordinary gals got to the point where they will be riding 3,497 km in France, and how might others gain from their example? The answer lies in motivation and setting reasonable goals to achieve extraordinary success.
Finding the motivation to set an extraordinary fitness goal is a matter of taking gradual steps, but remember that failure hits hard and fast if you under- or over-estimate your abilities. Let’s say you harbor a secret desire to run a marathon but have been sedentary for a number of years and don’t know how to begin. First of all, if you haven’t done so in a while you need to see your doctor for a medical checkup to make sure everything is in proper working order. Once you are cleared, take seven days and add in 30 minutes of exercise each day based upon your current fitness ability and interests – again, under- or over-estimating your abilities is tantamount to failure, so be honest with yourself! After the seven days, just for the fun of it, compare how you look and feel at the end of the week. There’s no financial payment involved, no concrete incentive to participate in this personal experiment, but consider the positive and negative repercussions of increasing your activity level for one week while keeping other health variables such as diet, sleep, and stress levels as consistent as possible. What do you think might happen?
Your plan of action requires that you have a relatively stable week ahead of you – trying to add in exercise during the week you are also starting a new job and planning your best friend’s birthday party may lead to a sense of failure; however, if there is no such thing as a ‘stable’ week in your near future, start as soon as possible and believe in your ability to organize your time wisely. Before you start, record a few numbers for comparison after you’ve completed the experiment, such as weight, waist-to-hip ratio, and an energy level rating on a scale of one-to-ten. You may also choose to write down information such as mood, sleep quality, and your ability to handle stress to see if these areas of health have improved after a week of consistent exercise. Now, break up the 30 minutes into three, 10-minute segments to be performed throughout the day, and do this for seven days without fail.
10 minutes in the morning, before or right after breakfast:
Walk, run, cycle, or [insert other activity here], depending on your fitness goal. Vary the tempo of your workout during the ten minutes to allow you to hit different muscle types. For example, if you choose to walk, speed up for 30 seconds, then slow down and repeat. Find a challenging pattern and go with it.
10 minutes in the afternoon, before or right after lunch:
Perform a circuit of 25 jumping jacks, squats, lunges, and pushups. If you are near stairs, include some stair climbing in the circuit. Repeat any combination of your circuit until you have been moving for ten minutes.
10 minutes in the evening, before or after dinner:
Repeat walking, running, cycling, etc. for ten minutes. Take on a hill, if possible, and bring a jump rope to include 30-second intervals of jumping throughout your activity.
On the eighth day, rest and reflect. What kind of changes do you notice? How easy or difficult was that experiment, and was it worth the effort? What is the likelihood that you’ll continue your personal experiment? Answering these questions for yourself may lead you to find new ways of manipulating your experiment, such as replacing one ten-minute walking session with some strength-training, or adding an additional ten minutes of stretching on two days. The changes you experience are inevitable and you are guaranteed success if you commit to the plan.
While a Champs-Elysées finish may never be a reality for most of us, consider how the women of the Rêve 2012 Tour set a shining example of what can occur when ordinary human beings set extraordinary goals and then methodically put in the work to achieve those goals. For one week, thirty minutes of daily exercise may help you to establish a regular habit of activity, or if you are already a consistent athlete, the additional training may encourage you to set your sights on a race such as the Boston Marathon or even the Tour de France. In just seven days the impossible may just become possible … you may begin at any moment.
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