January is a mass start to the year. We come from an extended season of peaks and valleys, stress and indulgence, a roller coaster of emotions and challenges from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day.

Then January slides into place at the start line for the next twelve months. It does not matter the year. It just so happens this year is 2015.

The gun goes off and we hit the course at full speed. Some share a level playing field, some are seeded at the start. It is irrelevant.

                                                                                                   

Jeb Wallace-Brodeur / Staff Photo Skiers get off to a mass start to the annual Mad River Valley Ski Mountaineering Race that begins at Mad River Glen and ends at Sugarbush Resort.

Picture the mass start of the Birkebeiner cross-country ski race, the Vermont City Marathon, or the swim portion of the Kona Hawaii Ironman Triathlon. Bodies explode from the tape in a frenzy of motion. Shortly the field begins to sift down into leaders and followers and finally narrows into what will be the momentum and steady progress for most of the event. Until the finish. Then the return to chaos will determine winners and next best, shall we say losers?

Look at a calendar. Can’t you see it? January kicks off the new year with a jolt. We have goals to achieve, work to be made up, new clients, new projects, new expectations. And we want to do them all at once. We run on adrenaline until we empty the tank. We forget our vows to sleep well, fuel properly and attain/retain balance. We are stoked, but unrealistic.

Then our personal and professional frenzy settles by choice or necessity. We reach a zone of steady state, a zone in which we can continue to function through our days productively, not destructively. We are ready to pursue our long-distance event with the strength and staying power of endurance.

If we do so efficiently, we will be equipped to peak when necessary. We will be prepared to meet the challenges that inevitably come our way. Hopefully we will have the sense to recover well after each in order to meet the next with increased competence and composure rather than the equivalent of a weakened battery.

It is often said that sports provide a safe, controlled playing field for practicing life. Perhaps this is indeed so.

In slightly less than one week, January will close for another year. Have we settled into our pace? Have we remembered to breathe? Are we ready to move to the next phase, the next month, the next demand either self-imposed or made upon us? Yes?