I recently saw the movie, “Ford verses Ferrari”, which tells the story of Carroll Shelby building race cars for Ford in the 1960s to compete and win against Ferrari at the 24 Hours of La Mans race. As the movie unfolds a few items kept repeating that caught my attention. The first one was “7000 RPM. That’s where you want to meet at”. It’s the place where you want to race at, so you can be pushing the limit and being able to stay there for a long time (24 hours in the case of the La Mans race); verses total red lining and maxing out in the red. The flip side of this in the movie is the pit stops -coming in to refuel, refresh, recharge and get back on the track- while making the pit stop as efficient as possible; which in this case included learning from Nascar pit crews and combining brakes parts to allow the faster replacement of parts. Both running at 7000 RPM and pit stops are realities that provide tips that can be applied to our hiking, personal, and work lives.
In hiking, are you doing any hikes that get you to “7000 RPM”; your max and target heart rate for exercise? Do you have hiking partners that are going to push you to your red line limit and keep you there? What trails will quickly take you to your limit (duh, the incline)? And on the flip side, how are you using your pit stops to refresh after your hard hikes. Do you take enough rest and adjust the number of rest days based on your hikes? While training for my Grand Canyon R2R hike (27 miles, 6000 vert drop/5000 vert climb) last September, my weekly long hikes increased by 2 miles each week, to where I was doing 26 to 28 miles on my longest hikes. With those distances, my “pit stops” increased to where I was resting 5 days during the week with only one 5 to 6-mile hike during the week. Thus, giving my body the needed recovery time.
In my personal life, am I pushing myself in areas of relationships, growth with others, learning new skills, or other areas? Am I spending more time just cruising along watching TV, or am I reading books, or getting my latest trail tip put to paper? Who are my friends that will challenge me to perform at the red line and help me take corrective actions during a pit stop?
At work, how can I maintain working at the red line? I think it’s the distractions that cause us to lose our focus and have to down shift. It’s responding to every email when it comes in, web surfing to check the weather or the commute time home, multitasking during conference calls (could you repeat that question one more time, I didn’t hear you). We take care of the distraction, but then it takes time to get back to performing at the edge of the red line. Then there is the pit stops. Do I know how to take a healthy pit stop? My first response is to want to grab that Diet Dr. Pepper or raid a co-worker’s candy jar. Instead, I should be thinking about a 10-minute power walk around the block or a big glass of water. Or even doing some stretching.
As you start looking to the next year, take some time to evaluate what does it take to operate at the 7000 RPM red line on your hikes, in your personal life, and at work. What are the distractions that cause you to lose focus and have to down shift? And what about your pit stops? How well do you use them? Do you go from the screen at your desk to the screen on your phone and call that a break? At home, do you go from the noise of an activity to the noise of the TV? Here I’ve found that my best pit stops can be just laying on the floor, closing my eyes and being still for 10 minutes. It’s one thing to have a pit stop, it’s another to have a pit stop that will truly refuel, refresh, and recharge you.
Al Andersen 