So, here it goes, new year, new challenges, right?
But first, a reflection exercise
Somewhere at the end of 2019, when I turned 30 I started doing a short reflection on my 20s. I’ve realized that since starting the university in my early 20s and until turning 30, I was almost 95% of the time in high gear, always busy with either studying or volunteering work, freelancing work, and in the last 4 years with starting and growing Salt & Pepper.
Doing this reflection exercise and looking back, one of the things I totally ignored, and took for granted, during that busy 10 years period was my health. Except for one dental emergency and a few fractured ankles, I didn’t have any major health issues, especially taking into consideration I didn’t pay much attention to having a healthy lifestyle or even at least doing annual medical checkups.
For that entire period, I took my good health for granted, something which I realized couldn’t go on forever. That’s how health became one of my top priorities as I turned 30s — “Start taking care of my health NOW, NOT LATER”. I started looking at ways that could help me have a healthier lifestyle. Over the past 3 years, I managed to stop drinking regularly Coca-Cola (and any other sparkling drinks), remove the use of extra sugar from my diet (from coffee, tea, etc), pay more attention to the food I eat every day and also managed for 3 months to do intermediate fasting which helped me lose some weight.
The only thing I didn’t manage to constantly do or include in my routine was doing regular physical activity of any sort. I tried jogging, tried the occasional hiking, and even tried a couple of times going to the gym. Although I felt the benefits I was gaining from this, the extra energy I had while doing sports, I didn’t manage to sustain this habit for a period longer than 3 months.
2023 & my way of adopting an active lifestyle
While thinking about 2023, the health priority came once again into focus, and finding a way to start moving my ass on a regular basis. Starting from a chat with Alex Ilovan, which mentioned that one of his goals is to climb Mountain Kilimanjaro when he turns 30, I started thinking of a similar objective that could keep me engaged for a longer period of time, just enough to adopt regular physical activity as part of my routine.
Now, Mount Kilimanjaro is not the most difficult peak to climb, but you still need some training to get into good enough shape (especially if you are like me and 4 flights of stairs humble you really quickly) and also climb a few other mountains to get used to hiking.
Aaand, that’s how the idea for the “4 Peaks Challenge” came to be — To climb 4 major mountain peaks in 1 year.
Kilimanjaro — the tallest mountain in Africa (5,895 m) and one of the 7 summits, is the main goal and in preparation for it to ascend 3 other mountain peaks. For now, I’ve settled on 2 out of 3: Moldoveanu (2,544 m) the highest peak in Romania, and the highest peak in Greece, Mount Olympus (2,917 m). Still looking for the 3rd one and I’m open to suggestions.
Now that we covered the reason for coming up with this challenge, let’s cover the reason behind writing about this.
First of all is a social contract I’m making here and now, to complete this challenge in 2023. Second of all, I decided to document the process behind training and completing this challenge, for anyone who would be interested in either joining me or doing something similar in the future.
Currently, I’m still pretty early in the process and I don’t know all the details of how I’m going to make this happen. Here is what I know for now and the next steps I’m going to take:
- I need to plan the period for the Kilimanjaro climb, probably in October (the best option) or December (this is a long shot). If you want to get a quick understanding of all the details behind climbing Kilimanjaro, this is one of the best videos I found
- Based on the above, decide on the 3rd peak and plan the dates for climbing them
- Decide on a training program and start in February
Interested in joining or just curious?
If you’re interested in joining this challenge or just curious about the process (or if I will manage to complete it), I will be posting about the next steps here on Medium, on my Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook accounts. Also, any recommendations for the 3rd mountain peak are welcomed.
Thanks, and let’s make 2023 the best one yet!
