The Humbling Effort of Trying to Stay in Shape for Everything

Maggie Slepian

Living in a region with four distinct seasons means my outdoor recreation revolves around whatever the weather is doing. Summer can mean gravel biking, mountain biking, climbing, and trail running. Winter means skiing, skate skiing, indoor climbing training, and getting back into a yoga routine. But even with the seasonal dividers, that range of activities makes it impossible for me to stay fit and dedicated to everything at the same time. 

As someone who wants to be good at everything all the time, this is a tough pill to swallow. 

I have a decent baseline fitness, but it doesn’t translate to across-the-board athleticism. Even biking doesn’t have as much of a direct crossover as I thought. I spent most of my summer gravel biking, so I was confident accepting a mountain bike invitation on a moderate cross-country trail system. I wiped two years of dust off my full-suspension, inflated the totally flat tires, and then had a full-blown asthma attack on the first climb. I was sucking wind on moderate uphills, and wobbly around downhill switchbacks. I couldn’t hop obstacles and I came to a screeching halt at a water crossing, convinced I was going to go flying over my handlebars.

What the hell, I thought, pushing my bike up a sort-of steep, sort-of rocky hill. I should have been able to clean this. 

I had put hundreds and hundreds of miles on my gravel bike over the past four months, leaving my house for 20 or 25 miles of rolling hills, rutted gravel, and wind-sucking climbs. But somehow climbing five miles of mountain bike trail to our destination was decimating me. 

“I swear I’m in shape,” I wheezed, clutching my inhaler with clammy hands and letting my bike drop to the ground. 

I thought about how fluid I had felt on berms, my confidence over rocky descents, the climbs I could easily clean. The idea of riding the Bangtail Divide or spending the day at a downhill course seemed like a faraway dream. Instead of feeling proud of my gravel biking miles and accepting that I wasn’t in mountain biking shape, I admonished myself for letting that fitness lapse.

Several years ago I tried to keep it all going. I kept a calendar with different activities in color-coded markers planned out for each week. I wanted to stay in shape for archery, running, biking, and climbing. On Monday and Wednesday I would shoot my bow at the archery range to stay tuned for the upcoming hunting season. On Tuesday and Thursday I would trail run or hike. On Friday I’d mountain bike, and I’d go out climbing on the weekends. I was also working full time and attempting to have a social life. 

While I did fine fitness-wise, I was stretched thin, and grew to resent the color-coded calendar notes. The green marker that meant I couldn’t go home after work, I had to go to the archery range. The orange that meant I had to go on a run during my lunch break. Weekends I wanted to relax, but it was my time to climb, and if I missed a weekend of climbing, it threw off the whole training plan.

I kept it going through the winter, and the switch to snowsports and indoor activities helped break it up. On Monday and Wednesday I’d downhill ski, on Tuesday and Thursday I’d skate ski. I alternated evening indoor climbing sessions with evening yoga classes at least four days a week. 

Then I burned out! Shocking! 

I wasn’t enjoying anything I was doing, and I still never felt like I was good enough at anything. (We don’t have time to unpack that last part). I settled into a more reasonable workout and activity routine, focusing each season on what interested me the most. Some seasons it was climbing, others I spent deep in the backcountry on long backpacking trips.

Overall it’s healthier, but I still feel a stab of inferiority when I’ve let something lapse for a season. Spending this summer gravel biking and running means I’m entirely out of climbing shape. It nags at me, and I make myself feel better by swearing I’ll start training again this winter, get back into the routine. But what then? What else will fall by the wayside? Will I feel bad about my cardio? Will I sacrifice (maybe) getting better at skiing? 

The inferiority spiral is hard to shake, especially living in a high-achieving mountain town where everyone seems to off-the-couch incredible athletic feats. I am not naturally athletic, which means I have to actively work to stay fit. This time and energy commitment makes it impossible (and not fun) to excel at All The Things. 

There’s no easy mental solution for me, but I’m sure I’m not the only mountain-town resident feeling this, trying to decide where to put my efforts each season. Unless of course you’re one of the people who can off-the-couch those incredible athletic feats. In that case, congrats. I’ll (maybe) see you at the top.