New Year, New Goals

Summary

In this episode of the Ginger and Chocolate podcast, hosts Mike and Lindsay reflect on their holiday experiences, share their New Year intentions, and discuss the importance of finding stillness and serenity in life. They explore their fitness goals for the year, including running and strength training, and emphasize the value of mindfulness and personal growth. In this conversation, Mike and Lindsay delve into profound themes surrounding the universe, personal health, fitness, and mindset. They explore the vastness of the universe and its implications on human existence, discuss their health and nutrition goals, and emphasize the importance of strength training as they age. The conversation culminates in a reflection on the mindset needed for personal growth and motivation in 2025, highlighting the significance of a beginner's mindset and self-compassion in fitness journeys.

Takeaways

• Mike discusses his New Year's trip to Maui and the peacefulness of the ocean.
• Lindsay mentions her commitment to running and working with a strength coach.
• The hosts discuss the positive peer pressure of working out with a coach.
• Lindsay shares her experience of discovering strength imbalances in her legs.
• Mike emphasizes the importance of finding stillness in life.
• Lindsay talks about her commitment to service through AA meetings.
• Both hosts reflect on the insignificance of daily stresses in the grand scheme of life. The universe's vastness can shift our perspective on life.
• Health goals should focus on balance, not rigidity.
• Strength training is essential for overall fitness, especially as we age.
• A beginner's mindset can foster growth and reduce intimidation in fitness.
• Self-care is crucial for maintaining physical and mental health.
• Nutrition should prioritize proteins and vegetables for better health.
• It's important to let go of guilt associated with past fitness habits.
• Consistent physical activity is a gift we can give ourselves.
• Mindset plays a significant role in achieving fitness goals.
• Embracing change and setting intentions can lead to personal growth.

Thanks for listening to the Ginger and Chocolate Podcast. Check out our website at gingerandchocolate.com to get in touch with us. Follow us on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram @ginger_and_chocolate_podcast; and please subscribe to the show and select automatic downloads on your podcast app.

Transcript

Mike (00:01)
What's up everybody? Welcome back to the Ginger and Chocolate podcast. My name is Mike and I'm here with my co-host, Lindsay. Lindsay, how are you?

Lindsay Hiken (00:08)
I am doing pretty well. I'm a little tired as usual this morning. yeah, things are going pretty well right now.

Mike (00:13)
Yeah.

Yeah, for listeners who are not familiar with their show or when we record, we record early in the morning. And so we both usually have our coffee going, but sometimes it takes a little bit to wake up.

Lindsay Hiken (00:31)
Are you drinking espresso? Because that's a tiny ass cup.

Mike (00:33)
I am.

It's little tiny coffee cup. Yeah, it's an espresso. Nice. Yeah, I go for the drip brew or I go for espresso. Pretty much anything that has caffeine I'm okay with.

Lindsay Hiken (00:40)
I got a tumbler full of coffee.

hear you on that. So let's see, we have not had a new episode for a couple of weeks, so we have to go backwards in time a little bit. How was your holiday? How was your Christmas holiday?

Mike (01:00)
Yeah.

It was nice. I realized how much man I put a lot of effort into it, but my wife puts so much effort into it for the kids. And especially for the kids. And it's a lot. We have people over Christmas Eve for dinner and then, you know, do all the Santa Claus stuff.

get the presents ready for the kids and I tell you what, I'm tired. And then I go back to work the next day and it was, it was good though. It was really good. I love watching kids open presents. I love it. Yeah. How about you? Yeah, it's, good.

Lindsay Hiken (01:49)
Yeah, it's so fun watching kids over.

It's so fun because I get so stoked. Love it. I even remember that feeling when I was a kid, just that feeling of waking up and Santa was there had come and just being so freaking stoked. Love that.

Mike (02:01)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (02:10)
Yeah, my holiday was great. I had off the week between Christmas and New Year's. And for that week, my son Hilton was out here with me. He lives on the East Coast. So this was really fun for us. He just came out and he flew out on Christmas and he flew home on New Year's Day. So he got to spend time with myself and his sister and.

Mike (02:15)
Nice.

Lindsay Hiken (02:37)
We did fun things like we went up to the city and went to Harborview, which is like a kind of a famous dim sum place. Highly recommend if you're in the Bay Area. It's it's one of those places huge, but most of the patrons are also Chinese. So you know that the food is like great and authentic. It's legit. Yeah. Mm Really, really good. Down the Embarcadero. Anyway, so neither of my kids had had dim sum, so I took them. They were.

Mike (02:43)
cool.

it's legit then. Yeah, exactly.

Lindsay Hiken (03:05)
We all ate too much, obviously. And then for New Year's Eve, went to a sober party with a bunch of my girlfriends. I co-hosted it with a friend of mine who we used her house and Hilton came. So it was him and a bunch of sober. Well, husbands and partners, Josh also came, but mostly.

Mike (03:32)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (03:34)
middle-aged sober women in Hilton and he had a great time because he said God your friends are so nice and everyone talks so much shit it's so fun that's right that's right now I know you went on a little vacay right pretty quickly after Christmas

Mike (03:37)
Nice.

I love that.

Yeah, New Year's Eve, we went to Maui for a week and it was awesome. Yeah. And, uh, first and foremost, I did not get sunburned. So miracle of the century for me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it, there's something about going there. Um, it, the pictures don't do it justice. Cause when you get off the plane,

Lindsay Hiken (04:08)
That's amazing. No, skin cancer from that trip. All right.

Mike (04:24)
When you're outside, just, everything smells floral. And that is so nice, peaceful, kind of just settling that pervades the whole trip.

Lindsay Hiken (04:37)
Nice. You know, I've never been.

Mike (04:41)
Lindsay, oof.

It's only one state over.

Lindsay Hiken (04:49)
I just have never been and it's not that I don't want to go. It's just that I never went before I was with Josh and Josh prefers Mexico over Hawaii for his surfing. And so he's always trying to go down there, which, you know, I can't complain. It's beautiful where we go. But. I need to go, I need to get him to and if he's not going to go with me, I might just need to ditch him and go.

Mike (04:53)
Uh-uh.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah, it's worth it. You can't go wrong out there.

Lindsay Hiken (05:20)
Yeah, I don't like the six hour flight over the ocean either. I'm not like a huge fan.

Mike (05:24)
Is it unsettling just to be over water for that long or just the length of the flight?

Lindsay Hiken (05:30)
the length of the flight, unsettling for me to be on a plane, end of sentence, but I go, I get on them because I'm not gonna not go somewhere, but I'm not stoked on it. So whenever I'm like, we should go to Hawaii, and Josh is like, yeah, we should, but let's go to Mexico like in two months or something, I'm like, yeah, let's do that, because we go, it's like two and a half hour flight. But my daughter goes to Hawaii lot and she assures me that.

Mike (05:33)
Okay. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, much shorter, yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (05:57)
My doctor would give me a, her doctor gives her two pills, one for the flight there and one for the flight back. That's like a chill out pill. Go to sleep. Something she said, she just falls asleep and then she wakes up and she's there and she's like, okay. Yeah. I saw some pictures. It looked really lovely. Your whole, it looked like your whole family was there. Nice.

Mike (06:02)
yeah.

You're like an Ativan or something like that.

Perfect. Yeah.

Yeah, Kids,

wife, mother-in-law, and everybody had a great time. Snorkeling, bogeyboarding, reading, playing in the water, playing football. Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (06:38)
Sounds amazing. Sounds amazing. Okay, well, speaking of New Year's, I think our last episode we talked about, we mentioned that we were going to talk about our, we don't call them resolutions, not even really intentions, but the things that we want for ourselves this year. And, you know, a couple of things we might do in that same vein.

Mike (06:59)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah,

yeah, I got a couple. So in when I was in Maui, I brought my running shoes and use them mostly for walking when I'm walks. But I one day I was like, I'll just run for a couple of miles and I was feeling good. So I pulled off a five mile run and I was like, I like this. This I forgot how awesome it feels to run.

Lindsay Hiken (07:09)
What do you got?

yay.

Mike (07:32)
Yeah,

so that's that kickstarted, you know, a nice, I don't know, resolution intention, whatever we were calling it this year, but getting back into not just running, but I hired a strength coach too. So I'll be meeting with him tomorrow and I'll be working on both getting strong and

You know lifting a lot of weights and running two things that really want to do this year Yeah, how about for you?

Lindsay Hiken (08:04)
Nice, nice.

Well, I have running on my list as well. And I am now working with the strength coach. Now. I know. That's pretty amazing when you were saying that I was like, huh?

Mike (08:10)
Nice.

All right, wow, we did that in penalty of each other.

Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (08:29)
Okay, so mine is not, it's not as much weightlifting yet. We've met a couple times. It's a lot of, so this coach, this personal trainer is also a triathlete. Quite fast, she just came in 16th overall at Ironman, California. So she's, yeah, smoking, smoking fast and.

Mike (08:34)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Oof.

Lindsay Hiken (08:55)
She's, but she's a personal trainer. so I've shared with her, you know, that running was one of the things I wanted to get back into. So she's been doing a lot of work with me on exercises, a lot of bands or things like that, sliders, lot of split squats and those kinds of things to work and also working on my hip flexors.

Mike (09:09)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (09:19)
to get me ready to try to not to try but to get me ready to start running again.

Mike (09:24)
Yeah, yeah,

perfect.

Lindsay Hiken (09:27)
What I find interesting is that when I do it on my own without her there, I like try to do the number of reps, but I'm like, I can't do anymore. And then when I'm with her, she's like, no, you've got 10 more. And I'm like, and I managed to pull it out. But, you know, what I'm doing, I'm like, I've literally reached my max limit. And then when I'm with her, I'm like, I've reached my max. And she's like, no, you haven't.

Mike (09:42)
Yeah. Yeah.

There's something

about that positive peer pressure of a coach or a team you're working out with, which is why the cult of CrossFit appealed to me so much. I'm working out with that group because you're right. first of all, for me, it was like, it was like, well, you maybe it was vanity or just not wanting to bitch out and from other people, but, and then just that positive energy was like, yeah, I can do a little more. Okay. Okay.

Lindsay Hiken (09:58)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mike (10:25)
and then pumping each other up as it's fun. But by myself, I'm like, good enough.

Lindsay Hiken (10:31)
It's

totally, totally like I got something in. That's good. It's amazing to see the difference. But and I will say I've been writing as well. And just for the tiny bit of time I've been working with her name is Courtney. My legs are so much stronger on the bike. Like. Almost immediately after working with the starting to work with her. So that feels good because I.

Mike (10:35)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (11:00)
I just, I was feeling a lot of weakness, you know, on when I was riding and I just got on there was like, my legs on the bike. I'm like, all right.

Mike (11:05)
Yeah.

It feels good. Yeah. I think there's a lot of compensatory things we can do as triathletes, you know, pushing on other muscles if we have a weakness in one. So think the strength training is, is a must. I mean,

Lindsay Hiken (11:26)
Also,

something interesting happened when she was kind of assessing me, which is my broken ankle was my left ankle. And obviously had lots of issues with that ankle waiting for surgery, blah, blah, And so I'm here thinking my left leg is going to be the one that's weaker because I've had to compensate with my right leg. last year, when I started running again, got

Mike (11:36)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (11:56)
Achilles tendonitis in my right leg, right Achilles and I was like, okay, it's just from overcompensating blah, blah. Well, it turns out because I'd had so much PT with my ankle that my right leg is significantly weaker than my left leg. Yeah, like a lot weaker. It's really weird.

Mike (12:02)
Yeah.

Wow.

See the the

social worker in me wants to flip the script and say no actually your left leg is just a lot stronger so Yeah But I see your point that's that's pretty interesting that's really cool

Lindsay Hiken (12:24)
That's also a good way of looking at it.

Yeah, my left leg is a lot stronger. my right leg will be, I'll barely be able to pull out the number of reps that she's asking me to do. Like shaking, like really not able to do it. And my left leg, can do it. Yeah, so she's going to rebalance me, which I think will help.

Mike (12:47)
Mm-hmm. That's awesome.

Yeah, yeah, that'll help a lot and prevent injury in the future because you'll be compensating the other way.

Lindsay Hiken (13:00)
Yeah, yeah, it'll help. Definitely. I'm excited. Yeah, so I haven't started running yet. I'm planned today to do a run walk just because it's been a long time. So excited. We should go do one together. Something. Trail run. All right. Cool. Cool.

Mike (13:10)
Mm-hmm.

Yes, I'm up for it. I'm up for it. Yeah,

it's, there's the feeling after you run or swim and cycle, but especially for me running and swimming and, but the feeling during is, is something else too, that, at least at the pace I run, I'm not, I'm not a speedy guy. So,

I think my pace was averaging around...

with Hills 1045 so you know on the slower end of things but fast enough to you know just get in the rhythm and find my breathing and Love it. Yeah

Lindsay Hiken (14:00)
Yeah. Love

it. Love it. That's awesome. The breath is such a... That breathing rhythm is like nothing else, I don't think, on earth.

Mike (14:14)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, you can really lock in. If you can

lock in your breathing, you can really get in the zone.

Lindsay Hiken (14:23)
Yeah, absolutely. There was something I was gonna ask you and it flew out of my brain. So when it comes back, will ask you then. I did wanna mention that you are the run leg of the relay, you Peggy and I, listeners, if you don't know who Peggy is, she's just a listener of the show. She's been on the show a couple of times and yes, 100%.

Mike (14:36)
Yes. Yeah.

certified badass.

Lindsay Hiken (14:48)
And Peggy, Mike and I will be racing as a relay team in the Santa Cruz 70.3 in September. I'm the bike leg. Peggy's an amazing swimmer, so she's going to get that done. And then Mike is our runner. So I'm glad you're starting to run again this year.

Mike (14:58)
September.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Get back into

it. Yeah, no kidding

Lindsay Hiken (15:17)
So anything like spiritual or maybe more in the mental realm that you want to do for yourself this year?

Mike (15:29)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, find more stillness. I find that it was easier to find stillness being by the ocean and just listening to the waves.

I think anyone who's around the surf just sitting for a little while can tap into that a lot more than maybe in everyday life. So I realized how much I missed that kind of stillness. And so finding more moments like that, I can find that out on the marsh when I'm But there's a deeper stillness because

Lindsay Hiken (15:49)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mike (16:17)
the hunting there's a stillness within anticipation but otherwise there's stillness just for the sake of stillness.

Lindsay Hiken (16:21)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Right, right. Yes, different, definitely. You know, I live less than a mile from the ocean. And when it's stormy, I can hear it in my house, but I don't go down there enough. It's kind of crazy how when you live right by it, you forget almost that it's there. Sometimes I'll see a sunset happening. I'm like, and I race down there to look at it. But I agree when I go down there, it's like.

Mike (16:45)
Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (16:56)
the breath when you're running that rhythm. There's that same rhythm with the ocean. And yeah, you're right. Yeah, I think because one of my my goals for this year, just something that I wanted for myself is serenity and peace. And I know that there's a couple of things I do that give me more serenity. The first one is

Mike (16:58)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (17:26)
Go to AA meetings. That's my first thing. So, you know, if I wanna bring love, serenity, peace into my life, the more meetings I go to, the more of that I feel. And so one of the things I did is I took a commitment to do...

Mike (17:28)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (17:47)
to be of service at a meeting between, now till end of June. So every Friday morning, I am the secretary of the 7 a.m. in-person meeting, which is really close to my house, actually. It's not really that much of a hardship to get down there by 7. So I run that meeting now on Friday mornings. And...

Mike (18:06)
That's good.

Lindsay Hiken (18:12)
It's a big book study. So if you don't know what the big book is, it's just a book that was written for people doing the 12 steps, written like the 1930s or something. So some of the language is interesting. But it's got the steps in it. It's got stories in it. It's got all that. So we're reading we read some couple of like a chapter or so out loud.

Mike (18:25)
Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (18:40)
we trade off during the meeting and then we all share. So it's great. so doing that. And then the other thing for me is just some form of meditation, which could just be taking 10 breaths, or it could be doing that box breathing could be going down by the ocean and just sitting still while I listen to it. Any form of that is the other thing I think that

Mike (18:55)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (19:07)
I don't think but I know brings me that serenity and peace that I'm looking for.

Mike (19:14)
It's profound because I think I realized as we were talking one of the reasons the ocean can do that for me and it doesn't have to be the ocean but you see here the waves and the surf coming in and out. So much of my life is trying to make things happen and a lot of effort and pushing and pushing and pushing.

Lindsay Hiken (19:34)
you

Mike (19:37)
And when you sit there, you notice just that force of nature happening without any effort on my part. And so there's nothing I have to do. I can see that things are happening around me without me having to struggle to make them happen. And I think that's part of the piece.

Lindsay Hiken (19:43)
Yeah.

That's a really good point. And I relate to that being a doer.

Mike (20:02)
Yeah,

yeah, exactly. If you're a go-getter or if you're struggling to make something happen or just things are hard, then you notice that you might have the perception that nothing will get done unless I'm doing it. And so to have a break from that, to notice that things can take care of themselves sometimes or other people can help or just the world will move on.

Lindsay Hiken (20:18)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (20:29)
forces are at work outside of our own efforts, then for me that's a big comfort and relief.

Lindsay Hiken (20:39)
a good I like that idea I not thought about it that way but but you're right the ocean is very powerful and you can see just by being near it you can see how powerful it is and it does remind me that life is not really like I'll get in the weeds thinking about this particular work thing or some little minutia of my life

Mike (20:51)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (21:07)
and how important it is and get kind of wrapped up in that. then if I'm if I'm down by the ocean or if I watch like a show about the universe, like a Nova or some Neil deGrasse Tyson thing, either one of those things remind me like, this thing I'm tripping on that I'm like holding on with a death grip, trying to control.

Mike (21:20)
yeah, yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (21:33)
is literally a zero consequence in the grand scheme of the universe. We're already just a speck of dust the whole world. So this one thing is completely meaningless. And not to say I won't do anything, but the control and the just laser focus on the outcome becomes a little bit less.

Mike (21:36)
Yeah.

expected is helpful that way. Agreed.

Lindsay Hiken (22:03)
Yeah.

Mike (22:03)
Agreed.

Lindsay Hiken (22:03)
Do you ever watch any of those shows about the universe or?

Mike (22:07)
Yeah,

I remember watching the production, I think it was called the Hubble and it showed just the expanse of the universe and it started at the time I was on a pretty heavy dose of cannabis edibles and so watching the universe expand was pretty mind blowing. Even watching it fully sober is profound as well.

Lindsay Hiken (22:14)
Mm.

Yeah, in a different way. Watching it fully sober.

Mike (22:36)
Yeah exactly. Yeah but those...

Lindsay Hiken (22:42)
doesn't have the same like ooh effect I would imagine that edibles have.

Mike (22:47)
It depends.

think, I think you can get into a zone pretty quickly with a chemical aids, but, if you're open, just rec recognizing how profound it is that you're right. It's a little, I think Carl Sagan said a little tiny blue speck that we live on a pale blue speck. So yeah, that, that work meeting or something else doesn't really matter as much.

Lindsay Hiken (23:11)
I watch one.

Right, right. Like it's something that we have to do. But it's not. It's not as powerful as I can make it in my own head, essentially. I watched so Josh and I sometimes will watch Nova because they'll have different things about the universe and. He doesn't like it as much as I do because. It just reminds him that he's just like, it's all meaningless. I mean, he's the glass half empty guy, so he's like.

Mike (23:18)
you

Mm-hmm.

yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (23:46)
Everything is meaningless. There's no purpose. we might as well just all die. And I'm like, well, I mean, don't know if I need to go there. But one of the things they did that was so mind blowing was just talking about showing like, OK, this is Earth and then showing the size of Earth next to other planets and then showing like the Milky Way.

Mike (24:09)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (24:13)
next to other galaxy, know, showing like how small and when you look at, you know, Earth within this solar system, within this galaxy, within this, and then they start talking about multiverses and all these things that are like, I can't really wrap my mind around. But as the visual that they were doing, the visual aid,

Mike (24:14)
god, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (24:38)
like trying to do it to scale they were earth like receded into nothing that's pretty freaking fast.

Mike (24:45)
very quickly.

Even lined up next to Jupiter, it really is very small. Yeah, so I think it's easy to get into that everything is meaningless. However, you just have to adjust the scope of the lens and you look at, yeah, there's an order of things even at a very small level.

Lindsay Hiken (24:49)
Mm-hmm.

Mm hmm. And we're here. So we might as well enjoy the ride. So.

Mike (25:17)
Exactly.

Lindsay Hiken (25:23)
we've figured out kind of physically what we are thinking about doing. We've got sort of a spiritual mental idea of what we want to do. I don't think I have, I'm trying to think if I have any other sort of, you know, health wise outside of just exercise and wanting to run again. I would like to

Mike (25:43)
Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (25:52)
focus a little bit more on protein and veggies and not saying I'm gonna be on some diet and be rigid with my food because that doesn't work for me. I've tried, I mean, I've tried every diet I've done at all. But just to sort of have.

Mike (26:04)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (26:14)
have an intention of really focusing on those two things. Because I can tend to get either not enough veggies or I'll stop eating meat and I won't get enough protein. I kind of vacillate and it just some balance would be nice. Some balance in my eating would be great. It's some.

Mike (26:29)
Okay, yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah,

I can tell with myself that's actually a similar focus of mine of eating more proteins and vegetables too, I think is on the side of that because what I can do when I'm stressed is go for a very high carbohydrate source and it's usually an ultra processed one. And so I'm filling myself up on things that aren't really bringing nutrients to my body.

Lindsay Hiken (26:57)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

100%. I killed a bag of pretzels this week already. mean, you know, zero nutritional value. It's just salt and highly processed flour, but it was tasty. And I topped it off with some licorice. So

Mike (27:08)
Yeah.

Nice.

nice work, Lindsay. Yeah, I can

relate. I can relate.

Lindsay Hiken (27:30)
you

Yeah, so I'm not saying I'm going to completely stop all that. But just to, like you said, acknowledge, like, I want to focus more on proteins. That's definitely something that I tend to not get enough of. You know, I, there's so many different kinds, too. So it's not like, oh, I have an aversion to meat right now.

Mike (27:52)
Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (28:01)
I can't get enough protein. There's a million different kinds of protein. I'm just reaching for. Yeah. P protein and I mean, just so many of the chickpeas, hummus and. But I've been lazy with my self care lately. I don't know if lazy is the word. I have not been practicing self care. Lately.

Mike (28:04)
Yeah, so many good P proteins out there, you know.

Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (28:28)
in some areas, you know, and so I would like to just do that a little bit, take care of myself a little bit.

Mike (28:36)
Mm hmm.

Yeah, this is the it's been a few years for me now that I think 21 I kind of fell off of everything. Um, I think what really what I noticed too is when the the COVID vaccine wasn't like the end all cure all for everything. I think the white knuckling I had going on just finally relented. I'm like, all right, let's just get fat and lazy. that's what I did.

Lindsay Hiken (28:46)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (29:05)
And this is the year, this is the year that that changes. And we go back to success and fun and structured workouts and feeling better that I had going for so long.

Lindsay Hiken (29:20)
Yeah, when you and I started the podcast, we were both very much, you know, racing and in a zone. Mm hmm. I think we had it dialed with our nutrition and our coaching and, you know, consistent workouts and. All of those things. And I like you, I fell off. Somewhere around twenty twenty one, I didn't quite fall off in twenty twenty, I was still.

Mike (29:33)
Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (29:50)
trying to do things and I was still doing, even though I wasn't racing consistent, know, swimming and running and stuff. But yeah, somewhere around 21, was like, fuck it. I guess.

Mike (30:03)
Yep,

exactly. Yeah. My focus now is, I'm back in pictures and I was in shape, but I was very, just skinny and didn't have a lot of muscle. So this time it'll be a little different. We're going to trim the body fat, but, add some muscle. And so, if that means I won't be as fast as I was, that's okay with me because my, my goal is I want to be able to,

Lindsay Hiken (30:17)
Hmm.

Right.

Mike (30:34)
carry somebody if they're hurt and run a long way as needed. So kind of that that more than military physique to where it's not a total bodybuilder, you know, meathead look, but not like a super skinny, you know, starving triathlete look either.

Lindsay Hiken (30:43)
Okay.

Right, right. that's good to know that your neck is not going to disappear.

Mike (31:00)
Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Lindsay Hiken (31:05)
I appreciate that. Yeah, I think for me as being a woman in her 50s, ugh, but whatever, time marches on. You know, they say that bone density is so important and muscle and that, you know, we start losing that.

Mike (31:16)
You

Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (31:32)
And I think, you for me, I found I broke my ankle so easily. And then over the holidays, I broke my toe, my middle toe. And I didn't even hit it that hard. Like bones are breaking without me doing a whole lot. So I'm kind of like, huh, I think I need to work on. The bone density a little bit, which includes the strength training.

Mike (31:43)
That's right, that's right.

Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (32:02)
And, and building that muscle mass too, I think will help me be stronger in general. And so I need to do the protein and the workouts that I'm excited about 2025 being sort of like a reset.

Mike (32:07)
Yes. Yeah.

Yes, exactly. Yeah, I think people who haven't lifted are intimidated. see people lifting massive weights, doing incredible things that look very hard. And you can get a lot done with five and 10 pound dumbbells and calisthenics, just body weight, you know, like doing split squats and things off a bench. So

Lindsay Hiken (32:30)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah.

Mike (32:44)
There's a lot of strength you can achieve and work on without these humongous barbells.

Lindsay Hiken (32:53)
Right, right. So you know what my, um, what Courtney did, which I thought was, so she was walking towards me with one of those weights that goes on a barbell. So it was probably maybe two inches thick, maybe an inch and a half, two inches thick. And I was like, Oh God, what are we doing with this? Um, and she just put it flat on the ground near a box. And so she had me step on

Mike (33:03)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (33:22)
The weight was sort of like just past the ball of my foot. A little bit more towards the arch, but like half my foot on there. My other foot, the top of my foot behind me, this is for a split squat, but up on the box.

Mike (33:40)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (33:42)
And so then I had to lift my heel of my, say my right foot is on the weight. I had to lift my heel up off the ground. So now I'm just level with the weight, but it's just the front half of my foot is on that weight. I'm, I'm, I'm engaging my leg just to lift my heel off the ground and then doing split squats that way. and that was one where, my right leg was like,

Mike (33:47)
Yeah.

Okay.

Wow, okay.

Starting to shake. Going on convulsions.

Lindsay Hiken (34:17)
I had never done it that way and that's just body weight but it was a really an amazing, really an amazing exercise. So just something to try guys.

Mike (34:27)
Yeah. Yeah.

There's, there's, um, I remember working with a personal trainer. This is probably 2018 or 19 and, um, doing certain, I knew certain exercises I could excel at some certain strength exercises and then working like core and like, um, like ancillary muscles to where I'm like, I am the weakest person on the planet and having that feeling, but

gaining that stability and getting more comfort, doing those exercises was great, but you can be humbled quickly.

Lindsay Hiken (35:04)
Oh my gosh, so quickly and I think, you said, I'm not coming into this the way that I was in 2019 where I had trained and done an Ironman, so I was generally fit.

Mike (35:22)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (35:22)
You know,

I'm not coming into that this and that shape. I'm coming into this having had lots of starts and stops and broken this and, you know, recovery and just kind of. Malaise around my workouts. So it's it's even more humbling, like I showed up humbled and then I got more humble. The gym was like, you're not humbled enough. Try this. And my right leg was like, nope.

Mike (35:43)
Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (35:52)
So, no, but it's good. I feel good after I do it. So I'm excited and highly recommend if you are listening and you are, especially if you're an endurance athlete, I know I have a natural inclination to skip the strength of workout and go do the run or the swim or the ride or whatever. but I think as we age, especially as we age, but anytime really

Mike (35:53)
Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (36:22)
adding in the strength is going to actually make the performance better. And I forget that.

Mike (36:27)
Yeah, yeah.

It's so much easier when you're really young to be a beginner at something. But I think it's challenging as you get older and you're an expert or you've mastered certain things to be a beginner at something else. You know, to be an accomplished triathlete and then start like doing.

Lindsay Hiken (36:35)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (36:49)
dumbbell workouts or strength workouts for the first time is something that people might be averse to because they don't like that feeling of being a beginner.

Lindsay Hiken (36:59)
Yeah, that's a good point. It's yeah, it's intimidating. And especially going to the gym. Yeah.

Mike (37:05)
Mm hmm. Yeah. If you can just get over that, though, if you

can just get over that and be like, OK, I can be a beginner. I don't have to look the coolest. I can be a beginner. You save so much or I will say it opens up so many more opportunities.

Lindsay Hiken (37:22)
Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Agreed. One good thing about becoming an older lady is that you do become less worried about what other people think. That is true. Courtney showed me an exercise and she's like, some people don't like this one because it makes them look kind of goofy or whatever. And I was like, I don't I don't give a shit about these people in here. There's plenty of young women running around with very skimpy.

Mike (37:32)
You

So perfect.

Lindsay Hiken (37:50)
clothes on, lifting, trying to get that booty, you know, which is great if you've got that body. I remember being that age, but I'm like, none of these. First of all, no one's looking at me because this chick over here has got like no clothes on. You know what I mean? They're not looking at my ass. A pair of running shorts and a tank top for sure. So for me, it's just I think it's.

Mike (37:53)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (38:18)
getting back in that mindset of being consistent with physical activity that I've gotten away from for so long that I need to, or I shouldn't say I need to, I don't need to, I could not do it, but I would like to give myself the gift of consistent physical movement. We can wrap it up soon, but I did wanna share, somebody who does consistent workouts is my partner, Josh.

Mike (38:21)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (38:47)
And

those workouts consist of two things, pushups and riding his bike. He does his pushups every day. He hates it, but he does it. And he's always like, it's so hard. But he does them because he gets so much lower body, you know, from riding his bike. So on his Strava, you know, it recaps your gear.

Mike (38:54)
Nice.

Yeah, yeah, uh-huh.

Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (39:14)
He rode over 11,000 miles and he climbed 1.2 million vertical feet. Exactly. That's someone who's crazy. Yeah, isn't that 1.2 million feet?

Mike (39:16)
Good lord.

What the fuck is that? That's crazy.

I love it. I love it.

You know, I'm impressed by that. More than I'm impressed by that though is how much I love the fact of or the idea of him just like grumbling and doing pushups like God damn it. hate these busting them out.

Lindsay Hiken (39:48)
It's harder for him to do the push ups, you know what I mean? Because he doesn't like to do it. It's like he has to force himself to do that. He just did one point two million feet of climbing because he enjoys it and he gets out on his bike all the time. But the push ups every day. I can hate these things. Like, why are you doing? I mean, it's like because I got to get my upper body like so he doesn't look like a pterodactyl, you know, with the legs.

Mike (39:50)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (40:13)
skinny tiny arms.

Anything else we need to talk about before we go?

Mike (40:21)
I don't think so. think we got some good mojo going into this year, so let's make it happen.

Lindsay Hiken (40:27)
Yeah,

25 is good. Good vibes in 25. think positive energy, letting go of all this stuff, any any stuff that's I want to try to like, just clear it out a little bit and hold on to some of the less the useful things the negativity and in my life. That's what I'd like to do for 25.

Mike (40:32)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

You know what it is, Lindsay? I guess there is one more thing going with that is the pandemic kind of what I call maladaptive behaviors or just less than useful coping mechanisms that I exhibited, you know, to deal with the stress of a pandemic and everything else going on. I'm letting go of that kind of guilt about

you know, being, you know, less than active. And so this is not about feeling guilty and hazing myself this year. This is like, okay, that was what it was. And it was necessary for the time. But now we're taking a step towards fitness and taking a step into feeling better and just letting go of that. No attachment to it anymore.

Lindsay Hiken (41:22)
Mm.

That's excellent. love the I love the idea of not browbeating oneself into working out. Because that's you know, when I came into triathlon, I did not come in with a mindset of I better do this. I didn't run today. What's wrong with me? Blah, blah, blah. I came in like, Whoa, I did a run.

Mike (41:48)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah

Yeah, yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (42:09)
my God, I got to swim practice. was amazing. I did the hour swim. That's great. You know, even though I didn't swim hardly any yards in that hour, know, because I was new and I had a beginner's mindset. Yeah.

Mike (42:22)
Beginner's mindset. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's what I have now with running again after that one just one single run and now I I got that again. I'm like, wow, I ran. I like this.

Lindsay Hiken (42:34)
Yeah, so beginners mindset in 2025 is sort of the energy I'd like to carry.

Mike (42:42)
Love it. Yeah, let's do it.

Lindsay Hiken (42:44)
All right, we will do that. All right, listeners, I guess that is it for this week. We will be around again next week. Please like and subscribe to the show on whatever platform you listen to your podcast or if you're watching it on YouTube. It really helps us move in.

the direction of getting the show more recognized and having other people in the community learn about it. So we would appreciate that greatly and we will see you next week. Bye.

Mike (43:10)
Mm-hmm.

Alright, bye guys.