Outdoors/Adventure

Staying active outside during the coldest months can require a little extra ambition. Here are some motivators to consider.

This time of year often presents me with a Catch-22: If I don’t go outside, I’m antsy, lethargic and irritable. If I do go outside, I’m uncomfortable, cold and snotty.

Yes, there is wonder to be had out there. If I were transported from a place not-Alaska straight here, after throwing 10 layers on I would be absolutely dazzled by the extreme and beautiful experience of simply being outside. We are in one of the farthest, freezing corners of earth, after all, and journeying here in the deepest part of winter would be thrilling in its own way.

But somehow, journeying outside my door on what feels like Day 30 of 25 degrees below zero temps with the occasional boost of howling, destructive wind thrown in there? Forgive me, my awe seems to have gone missing.

I have to drum up significant motivation to push myself out the door. Every day. The well is not that deep, but I have enough to get me through January, at least.

Here are some of the touch points I think about:

Moving to Anchorage in winter

I officially moved to Alaska from New York City on Christmas Day, 2008. Flights were cheap and although I do celebrate, I’m Jewish so it’s not a need-to-have. My last days in New York were wind-tunnel days, where the humid, 35-degree Atlantic breeze whipped through my neighborhood in Brooklyn and straight onto my face. I will always hold that the NYC winds howling through concrete corridors are colder and crueler than anything in wide-open Alaska, although at this point it’s been long enough that I can’t remember exactly what it feels like. When I landed in Anchorage, snow was softly falling. The temps dropped to 20 below and stayed there for weeks.

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I didn’t own a car, so I walked. I walked, and walked, and walked. The sunsets were blazing and incredible in Russian Jack Springs Park. The hoar frost made the trees sparkle as though Earthquake Park were contained in a snow globe. The night felt complete, quiet and comforting as I crunched through the Turnagain Arm neighborhood, brightened by orange streetlight, where I rented a room.

I was dazzled, even as I was cold. Now, I try to remember that sense of novelty and deep, awestruck appreciation for the far north deep winter.

Myself, later on

This is ghost-of-Christmas-future-esque, but an excellent motivator is the cautionary tale of myself in the future if I don’t motivate now.

My key to sleeping well? Exercise in the outdoors. My secret for (relative) emotional resiliency? Exercise in the outdoors. Physical health and fitness? Appetite regulation? Contentedness? Benefit of the doubt, focus, presence?

An 8-year-old I used to know remarked about her mom, “When mommy doesn’t run, she gets stupid.” That about sums it up.

Getting moving outside is what you might call a positive addiction, which I will own. After years of building the habit, I rarely skip days of doing at least something outside. If I go more than one day I can viscerally feel the impact. I start to feel like a withering house plant. I don’t actually think one day trapped inside has that impact on my physical being, so it’s almost entirely in my head. Still, I’ll take this addiction over others. There are things other than fresh air that it would be worse to develop a dependency on.

So, when making the choice in the moment of whether or not to push myself out the door, it helps to think of myself in the future if I don’t go, and contrast that with the relatively minimal effort it will take me to simply do the thing.

I pull on layer after layer, followed by a headlamp, followed by multiple balaclavas, and make that final push into movement out the door. It’s uncomfortable, but not as bad as bagging it.

Lightbulb moments

Some afternoons skiing, I feel stiff. Some walks are excruciatingly dull. Sometimes I have a difficult time regulating my breathing while hiking, and when I’m wearing 10 layers running, of course it’s more effort in every step.

But then there are those other times, when I notice that the light is now hitting a certain way that it hasn’t for a while, or there’s a certain color contrast in the snow. Sometimes the warmth in my body is palpable and actually comfortable, miraculously offsetting the subzero temperatures around me, and I feel a rush of instinctive gratitude for safety. Maybe I just get the visceral feeling while out there that it’s all going to be OK, and I let that settle into my chest for a bit as I move. It’s profoundly soothing, and I enjoy the moment while I have it.

I remind myself that getting outside tees me up to these experiences. It’s no guarantee, because for every moment like this, there are 10 others that loop me back to the beginning of this anecdote — the discomfort, monotony and frustrating effort. But the payoff is always — always — worth the gamble, even when it’s fleeting.

Most of all, the practice of getting outside and breathing fresh air is sustaining both in the moment but also when I’m back inside and warm again. I have the touchpoint of doing something difficult. That carries me into other areas of my life that call on me to do other kinds of difficult things. I remember getting myself to go on the 20 degrees below walk; of the quick run in the subzero dark or the river ski with the wind on my face. I know if I can do that, I can do this other thing, too. I’m ready for it because I got my fix of fresh air.

Alli Harvey

Alli Harvey lives in Palmer and plays in Southcentral Alaska.

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