Tuesday, D2,W10

Training:

Evening:
9 mile run (6 miles at a moderate pace, 3 miles at easy pace)

4 rounds AFAP:
30 x pushups
30 x situps

Long active stretch

Night:

40 min walk (2.5 miles)

Notes:
Daily Reading: Esther 1-5

Below is a pretty cool vid:
North Face, Ultra-Trail running http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFWDUsvLCoE&feature=youtu.be

The Land God Forgot by Robert W. Service

The Land God Forgot

The lonely sunsets flare forlorn

  Down valleys dreadly desolate;

The lordly mountains soar in scorn

  As still as death, as stern as fate.

     The lonely sunsets flame and die;

       The giant valleys gulp the night;

     The monster mountains scrape the sky,

       Where eager stars are diamond-bright.

So gaunt against the gibbous moon,

  Piercing the silence velvet-piled,

A lone wolf howls his ancient rune --

  The fell arch-spirit of the Wild.

     O outcast land! O leper land!

       Let the lone wolf-cry all express

     The hate insensate of thy hand,

       Thy heart's abysmal loneliness.




Robert W. Service

Thursday 6.23.11

Training:

Run: 4.2 miles at moderate pace

Step-Ups: 300 w/40 lb sandbag

Shoulder Complex: 2 rounds

Pushups: 3 x 50 (20 regular, 10 diamond, 10 wide, 10 pike)

Run: 4.2 miles at easy pace

Great Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbKp2HeUpkY

Wednesday 3.9.11 - Will and Suffering - Mark Twight

WILL AND SUFFERING - Mark Twight

 "When a person trains once, nothing happens. When a person forces himself to do a thing a hundred or a thousand times, then he certainly has developed in more ways than physical. Is it raining? That doesn't matter. Am I tired? That doesn't matter, either. Then willpower will be no problem."
Emil Zatopek

The difference between a good alpinist and a great one is will. The great climber exercises the discipline required to know himself. He trains to be stronger than he thinks necessary. On a route he eats to sustain energy levels even if it makes him gag, and he drinks regularly to stay hydrated. He stops in the middle of a pitch to pull his hood up if the spindrift gets bad instead of waiting to reach the belay, and he stays dry because of it. He maintains the discipline needed to melt enough ice each night to fill the bottles, and sweeps snow out of the tent instead of letting it melt. He doesn't care if his partner's pack weighs less. He wakes up and starts the stove when the alarm goes off. The great climber recognizes when he's having a bad day and admits it to his partner, then he relinquishes leads where he might slow the team and follows as fast as he can. He does all the cooking that night. A strong-willed climber will fast for a day or two without complaint to wait out bad weather.

Where does this strong will and hardness come from? It derives from recognizing desires and goals and then enduring whatever it takes to fulfill them. A strong will grows from suffering successfully and being rewarded for it. Does a strong will come from years of multi-hour training runs or do those runs result from a dominating will? There is no right answer because will and action feed one another.

Suffering provides the opportunity to exercise will and to develop grit. Replace recreational climbing with specific training to develop confidence. Climb on local crags in weather conditions far worse than any you would intentionally confront in the high mountains. Austrian climber Herman Buhl carried snowballs in his hands to develop his tolerance (psychological) and increase capillarization (physical). He climbed on his local crags all winter long, even in storm conditions, and rode his bike for hundreds of kilometers on the way to the mountains for training. It paid off, of course, when he climbed alone to the summit of Nanga Parbat.
The mind and body adapt to both comfort and deprivation. The difficult experiences of mountaineering may appear irrational and risky from the comfort of the armchair, but learning to deal with them is essential. Relish the challenge of overcoming difficulties that would crush ordinary men.

Michael Gilbert and Scott Backes got soaked to the bone climbing The Waterfall Pitch on the north face of the Eiger. When they stopped for the night at the Brittle Ledges, they discovered their sleeping bags had been drenched as well, Michael asked, "What are we going to do now?" Scott replied, "We're going to suffer." And they did. But it was a little thing compared to the suffering experienced intentionally and otherwise during the evolution of alpinism.

Learn to suffer.

The Spell of the Yukon, Robert W. Service

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I wanted the gold, and I sought it, I scrabbled and mucked like a slave. Was it famine or scurvy — I fought it; I hurled my youth into a grave. I wanted the gold, and I got it — Came out with a fortune last fall, — Yet somehow life’s not what I thought it, And somehow the gold isn't all. No! There’s the land. (Have you seen it?) It’s the cussedest land that I know, From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it To the deep, deathlike valleys below. Some say God was tired when He made it; Some say it’s a fine land to shun; Maybe; but there’s some as would trade it For no land on earth — and I'm one. You come to get rich (damned good reason); You feel like an exile at first; You hate it like hell for a season, And then you are worse than the worst. It grips you like some kinds of sinning; It twists you from foe to a friend; It seems it’s been since the beginning; It seems it will be to the end. I've stood in some mighty-mouthed hollow That’s plumb-full of hush to the brim; I've watched the big, husky sun wallow In crimson and gold, and grow dim, Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming, And the stars tumbled out, neck and crop; And I've thought that I surely was dreaming, With the peace o' the world piled on top. The summer — no sweeter was ever; The sunshiny woods all athrill; The grayling aleap in the river, The bighorn asleep on the hill. The strong life that never knows harness; The wilds where the caribou call; The freshness, the freedom, the farness — O God! how I'm stuck on it all. The winter! the brightness that blinds you, The white land locked tight as a drum, The cold fear that follows and finds you, The silence that bludgeons you dumb. The snows that are older than history, The woods where the weird shadows slant; The stillness, the moonlight, the mystery, I've bade 'em good-by — but I can't. There’s a land where the mountains are nameless, And the rivers all run God knows where; There are lives that are erring and aimless, And deaths that just hang by a hair; There are hardships that nobody reckons; There are valleys unpeopled and still; There’s a land — oh, it beckons and beckons, And I want to go back — and I will. They're making my money diminish; I'm sick of the taste of champagne. Thank God! when I'm skinned to a finish I'll pike to the Yukon again. I'll fight — and you bet it’s no sham-fight; It’s hell! — but I've been there before; And it’s better than this by a damsite — So me for the Yukon once more. There’s gold, and it’s haunting and haunting; It’s luring me on as of old; Yet it isn't the gold that I'm wanting So much as just finding the gold. It’s the great, big, broad land 'way up yonder, It’s the forests where silence has lease; It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder, It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.

Psalm 1: The Way of the Rightious

Psalm 1

 ¹ Blessed is the man
         Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
         Nor stands in the path of sinners,
         Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
 ² But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
         And in His law he meditates day and night.
 ³ He shall be like a tree
         Planted by the rivers of water,
         That brings forth its fruit in its season,
         Whose leaf also shall not wither;
         And whatever he does shall prosper.
       
 ⁴ The ungodly are not so,
         But are like the chaff which the wind drives away.
 ⁵ Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment,
         Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
       
 ⁶ For the LORD knows the way of the righteous,
         But the way of the ungodly shall perish.

Tuesday 12.14.10: Go to the Woods

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. For I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonley when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers."  Henry David Thoreau

Solitude is beautiful. Wilderness is breathtaking. Yet both are also unforgiving and unpredictable. Why do I go to the woods? Why do I yearn for solitude? Why do I yearn to exit society and its norms? The essential fact of life is that we live and we die. Wilderness brings us back to our primal state. Where our goal, above all else, is to survive. The struggle for survival hightens awareness and arouses senses that have been long made dormant by society and the increased use of technology. You will never feel more alive then standing in the middle of nowhere in below zero temperatures, or paddling a canoe on a lake where the silence is so deafening that it is sound all to itself. Wilderness forces us to face our fears, and embrace the unknown. It shows us that we are not all powerful, but at the complete mercy of something far greater than ourselves, which is directly in contrast with the disallusionist messages of modern society.

The solitude found in the utter silences of the woods are a companion to us. It is strange how the hours we used to watch television fly by when we are secluded in a quiet borrow, caught in the depth of our own thoughts, running conversations with ourselves, staging debates with imaginary people or arguing with ourselves over the next step in our journey. The voices inside of your head slowly become as an old friend. This is not insanity, I would argue that this is a hightened sense of awareness, this is facing one of the undeniable facets of life, that seclusion and isolation for periods of time are healthy, invigorating and absalutely necessary for finding out exactly who you are and what your purpose in this world is... How much can you possibly know about yourself if you have not been in a fight? This does not particulary mean a literal fight, but any sort of struggle where failure is a likely outcome. It could be a struggle for survival or the struggle to mend a relationship lost or the struggle to understand something far more vast than our imaginations can even fathom such as nature or God.

Therefore I go to the woods, my own wilderness. I go to solitude to escape society. To find who I truly am apart from what the magazines, books, media and others try to mold me to be. I invert back to the essential facts of life, that I was born and that I will die. That how I use the time inbetween will directly effect how I spend eternity. That I was created by something greater than myself. I search for the unknown, I search for my purpose. I search for the will of God. I invite the struggle that comes, for without it how can I find out who I truly am? How can I find out my purpose in life? How can I find if I am ready for the calling God has for my life?

Monday 12.13.10: Thoughts

Random thoughts accumulated over the years. Various authors, including Mark Twight.

• What we allow ourselves to settle for is largely dependent on our goals and the strength of our character. it is up to the individual to figure out why they are doing something, then to accept responsability for those choices and actions.
• Have the self-dicipline to control what comes out of your mouth, especially if you are ignorannt about the topic being discussed.
• Maybe you need self destruction to lead to self-creation or re-invention?
• As a society and as individuals, we don't test, because we don't want to know... Do not be a pretender or a wanna-be.
• It is easy to pretend to be someone when it is all talk, because realistically there are very few who will ever call bullshit, because everyone pretends and because there are very few willing to try something that they might fail miserably at.
• The goal of physical training is summed up in one phrase: To make onself as indestructable as possible
• Learn to suffer.
• To be transformed by effort, one must dig deep, surpass ones expectations or self-imposed limitations. One must suffer, and risk failure in the process.
• It always hurts when you go as hard as you can.
• When dealing with pain one must:
• Confront it
• Immerse yourself in it
• Become it
• Suffering is the gateway to true knowledge of ones self and is therefore, humility.
• Clarity improves as risk and consequence increase.
• You become what you do.
• Do the workout you deserve.

Monday 12.13.10: 5 Mountains

The 5 Mountains in my life in which I climb. This is something I will be constantly coming back to as it is a daily struggle. As I seek to find discipline, below each mountain is what I plan to do daily as I climb. Each is a small, obtainable goal with the expectation that once achieved, I can move on to larger, more challenging goals. 

Mental

• Wake up before 6:00 am
• Complete workout of the day. Every day. 

Physical

• Complete workout.

Spiritual

• Daily devotional
• Daily Bible reading

Senses/Awareness

• 10 min of meditation in silence, while outdoors (Psalm 37:7 - Be still in the prescence of the Lord)
• Limit the use of electronics - strive for simplicity

Emotional

• Emotions are untrustworthy. Learn to control them.

Monday 12.13.10: Courage

It requires much more courage to stand and wait and still not lose heart of  lost hope, to submit to the will of God, to give up opportunities for work and leave honors for others and to be quiet, confident and rejoicing while the busy multitude goes happily along thier ways, than to rush headlong into the busyness of life. For the greatest life is this: "After you have done everything, to stand. (Eph 6:3)