№16 — Cross-Country Skiing and end-of-year review
My Christmas holidays mainly consist of eating, sleeping and discussing what to eat next. Naturally, this is suboptimal for my body weight, to say the least. Therefore, I decided to try something very active and opted for cross-country skiing. Being all by myself in the countryside was a considerable added benefit.
I went cross-country skiing classic-style once when my mum’s equipment still fit me (so a long time ago). This time I opted for skating and borrowed the equipment from a local ski rental, Skiverleih Waltl. I did not have anyone with me that had experience, so everything was trial and error. And I erred a lot. Enthusiastically, I put on the first ski on the track, went over to the second one and promptly lost my balance, falling on my behind. Up again and this time I managed to put on both skis.
Off I go! Or so I thought. It definitely looked easier on TV. I must have looked like Bambi trying to walk. But after really concentrating on what I am doing, I managed surprisingly well. In the end, I skied for over 13 kilometers, even up- and downhill, and I only fell three times! It was a lot of fun and I am seriously considering to buy a whole kit to keep doing this. Unfortunately, I ate for three that night, so all the burned calories came back to me.
I am now doing this for the sixteenth week and in retrospect, it was a great idea to start this. While it is a long way to go until I reach Michael Batko’s 120 weeks (and still going strong), I am looking forward to the challenge in 2018.
My new job at EY has not been extremely stressful so far and thus it was not too much hassle to combine work and this activity. However, I expect the stress level to rise a bit in the next weeks, so I will see how difficult it will be to keep this project running.
Some of the activities so far have been pre-planned way in advance and I would have done them either way. Nevertheless, I did some things I probably would not have done otherwise such as last week’s Christmas market experience or Kangoo Jumps. I am still very happy about recommendations for new experiences, especially as it will become more difficult each week to come up with new things. I already have some things planned for 2018, most importantly skiing with Silia in the Rockies and climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro with the guys. Let’s see what I can come up with the other 50 weeks of the year!
