"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal." --Henry Ford

Setting goals helps people create vision or insight into their missions. Goals can exist in either short-term or long-term forms, or both simultaneously. "I want 2 pull-ups by the end of January" or "I want to take 20 seconds off my 'Fran' time over the next year. I will do the workout every month to check my progress."

Learning how to set goals and track progress as you achieve them are fundamental life skills.

Keeping records (tracking your success against your mission) allows you to look back and measure your success/failure toward reaching your stated goal. It also helps you set challenging but realistic future goals that build on the ones you've achieved.

One approach to goal setting is the S.M.A.R.T method. While the S.M.A.R.T acronym has many forms and mutations, the one I have seen used mainly is as follows: specific, measurable, achievable, results-based, time-specific.

Specific
State exactly what you want to achieve, in precise terms. Keep it simple and not too broad.

Measurable
What means are you going to use to track your success? How can you measure progress and completion?

Achievable
Ensure that what you are setting out to do can be achieved. Dream big! But break the complex problem into smaller manageable pieces, and work through those one step at a time.

Results-based
Have a vision of the actual end results of achieving the goal.

Time-specific
Set a date or time that you will achieve your goal by. If your goal is distant, create milestones when you will assess on your progress (and change your course if needed to keep on track to reaching the goal).

Setting goals and keeping records helps you avoid stagnation in training, provides immediate feedback on performance, and, best of all, allows us to check up on periodically on our individual success-related goals--all part of getting fitter.


"Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another." --John Dewey

Notwithstanding the fact that the last day of winter, this past Sunday, was actually a beautiful sunny day in Seattle, eleven of us headed up into the dim, stuffy, narrow stairway of Washington State’s tallest skyscraper. Not just because it was there, but to raise money for a good cause—the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (for which the team has raised over $1800 as of this writing [online donations accepted through April 7]).

Everyone on the team was a first-timer at this annual event, so we didn’t really know what to expect. We had heard that the fastest folks make it up the 69 flights of stairs in under 8 minutes and that mere mortals generally take more like 20 to 30 minutes. A firefighter friend, who does the climb every year in 70+ pounds of full firefighter gear, gave three pieces of advice: 1) don’t go out too fast, and 2) take advantage of the hand rails, and 3) try to take more than one step at a time.

Everyone did great and made it to the top relatively unscathed (though the Big Climb Cough was heard frequently for the following few hours). We didn’t do any specific training in preparation, just our usual CrossFitting. Most of us found that the climbing produced little to no leg burn; getting enough oxygen into the system in that environment was somewhat more challenging. All in all, it was certainly no more intense or difficult than “Helen” or any of our other named workout, just more one-dimensional—i.e., less functional and less varied.

As a team, we placed 11th (out of 85), based on the combined times of each team's top three finishers.

Team CFES 2006 individual results
(out of 1383 total racers / 542 women):

Darren Darsey.................10:32, 62nd
Michael Street................10:56, 103rd
Ian Jackson.....................11:15, 136th
Bill Browning...................12:09, 240th
Jenika Gordon.................12:11, 246th / 28th
Irena Netik......................12:13, 250th / 30th
Kim Mabee......................12:33, 311th / 37th
Carrie Klumpar.................14:09, 602nd / 129th
James Duggins..................14:57, 727th
Vinay Venkatachalapathy...16:14, 882nd
Odiscious Dozier...............24:35, 1299th

Strong work! We’re already looking forward to next year and and doing it again with the benefits of experience and another year of CrossFit training under our belts.

A big sweaty thank you to all the climbers who stepped up to the challenge; to James Duggins for being chief organizer and Team Captain Extraordinaire; to our friends Carmen, Heather, Nate, Adrienne, and little Luka who came out to provide moral and photographic support; and to everyone out there who donated money to support the team and the cause. We truly appreciate your efforts. It is all of you who make this such a great community, one that transcends the conventional understanding of "fitness."

Coach Burgener shared partner jumping with us as a tool he uses with some of his physical education classes. No-equipment-needed, anytime-anywhere plyometric training.

The static partner (the one sitting) sets up with legs together, straight out in front, and arms straight out to the sides, at shoulder height. The jumping partner starts with feet together, facing the same direction as the static partner (position 1). Jumping forward over the raised arm to position 2, the jumper turns his toes toward the sitter's legs, jumps over them to position 3, and then turns his toes toward the raised arm and finishes one round by jumping the arm and landing in position 4. For the second round, the jumper turns to face the same direction as the static partner and repeats the sequence in the opposite direction.

Take big jumps, pull the knees up--get tall!--and then land and rebound into the next jump.

Come climb with us!

CrossFit Eastside has a team of folks who will be rockin' the stairwells of the Columbia Center tower in downtown Seattle on March 19, 2006, as part of the annual Big Climb to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.



Specs:

• 69: flights
• 19: steps per flight
• 1,311: total steps
• 788: feet of vertical elevation
• 1,000: dollars we aim to raise to fight blood cancers
• 11: minimum pairs of fried CrossFitter thighs once the deed is done

To join us (c'mon, it'll be fun!), register by March 13.

Or, if cleaning behind the refrigerator with a Q-Tip sounds like a more appealing way to spend your Sunday, but you still want to support us and leukemia/lymphoma research, you can pledge online for the team or any of the individuals (use the "Select Member Page" drop-down menu at the top of the page).

Beats pumping away on a StairMaster while watching CNN!