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The human psych has been engineered to question our surroundings, and answer such questioning, through daring exploration that often becomes satisfied by a discovery that profits the discoverer. Such, occurs through numerous spheres of intra, and inter personal experience, and unbeknown to that person, to mankind, for generations.
The continual pursuit to push the human body to unknown depths of physical endurance, being underpinned by a physical, cerebral and often deeply hidden spiritual discipline, has thrust extreme challenges, once exclusive to the thoroughly experienced and for those forced to do such, to become hijacked by the other loathsome human quest, which is characterized by the want, not need, to stand out as being unique.
The explosion of numerous people participating in walks, fun runs, marathons, moors challenges, outdoor climbing, mountain expeditions and other, often absurd, methods to fundraise for a particular charity, although admirable, perhaps demonstrates the patronizing attitude that we as a culture have developed towards the great outdoors.
For me, being an amateur mountaineer, marathon runner and outdoor enthusiast, the exploitation of the outdoors, by my generation, to harvest money and astonish friends about tales of adventure and hugely exaggerated heroism, is disrespectful to the men and women who have, through often long and painful experience, become tuned to the unpredictable, predictable, nature of the outdoors. Further, such disrespects our Creator, who created such expanses of beauty for our spiritual enjoyment, not, for the massaging of egos, and the flagrant boasting, that often consumes those chasing glorification in the great outdoors. Such is, sad.
For the second time, during my long twenty five year old existence, my legs decided to carry my body around London, during that often glorified and dangerous event that is the Flora London Marathon.
My preparation, as compared to that of the previous year, was poor and not as thoughtful as it should, and could, have been. Therefore on marathon day, after a three hour conversation the night before, which granted my body and mind only two hours sleep, there was no way that one could expect to trump around the course, triumphant. So I made the wise decision to try my best and not push my body beyond what it could expect to accomplish, and certainly not push myself hard to join the names of those that lose a medal but get a dirt nap, instead.
During last years escapade around town, upon crossing the finishing line, my exclamation was one encompassing jubilation and triumph. Upon crossing the finish this time around, my roar, and what became verbalized during that roar, cannot be put down on paper–it was incredibly unchristian.
The sadness that overwhelmed me upon hearing that a young man aged only twenty two had passed away as a consequence of his efforts to finish the race, and probably due to some over zealous hydration therapy upon his admission to the emergency department, hit me hard. The reason is simple, and often humbling, for amateur athletes to understand. Such calamity can be avoided if the participant simply listens to the groans emanating from the body God has loaned to them. Such can be avoided if the person has tremendous respect for the inventor, and the invention that we see beauty in each day, by simply stopping, looking and listening to their worn body crying out for a break.
So, to summarise my marathon run, it was the second time that my legs have dragged my big head around town and unlike the joys of last year, where upon crossing the line one exclaimed that it was so easy and anybody can do it, this year the words that flew out of my mouth cannot, and must not, be written down.
It hurt a lot for these reasons. Poor preparation, compounded by the belief those twenty six miles are easier then often imagined, as one often speeds through that distance around mountains ranges, was foolish, especially as one complacently forget that such a distance through a mountain range takes a day, and not, four hours. And poor preparation, either during training, or on the day, can end someone’s existence.
You may question my often misconstrued hard thought. You may wander how someone can be so hard and show mixed compassion and sound reason. That reason, as those of you who push further and further into the realms of extreme endurance shall sadly discover, is that a huge number of mishaps, and catastrophes that besiege outdoor enthusiasts, is simply down to the explorative unquenchable human spirit to disregard clear warnings from the weather, from fancy gadgets, from intuition and more dangerously, and foolishly, from those humans more thoroughly experienced.
I am amazed, and shocked, by the scores of inexperienced people who thunder up and down mountains during the three peaks challenge. The environmental damage that such teams bring to those mountains, by showing no respect, either through ignorance of basic country codes, or presumption, by the litter that is often discarded by such, is symptomatic of the growing usage of such places of natural beauty as a mere weapon to bolster image, and rank, amongst the ever growing tribe of up and coming university educated socialites.
The mountains for me, more so than marathons, have captured my thoughts, and consequently fashioned my dreams, which only places that have been sculpted by the hand of The Almighty can produce, for years. The knowledge of mountain leadership that one has acquired has been harvested by a sound reverence for the mountains through both triumph and despair from the mountains of Wales, Scotland and the Nepalese Himalayas. It has surprised and even puzzled many friends that I have not participated in the three peaks challenge.
My constant reply has been that the three peaks challenge is the realm of the casual armchair mountaineer, who after completing such a challenge has no intention to return and absorb the grandeur of the scenery, the weather, the animals, the vegetation and the people. Nor has he any noble intention to completely understand the magnitude of the mountains by becoming a more thoughtful mountaineer. Such a journey can only be realized if one becomes a pilgrim who sojourns through many mountain ranges, during as many conceivable adverse weather conditions, as humanly possible.
Just imagine this scenario that one struggled to put on paper. The burst of energy exuding from your thoroughly sculpted musculature pushes you onwards, and upwards, through the complex cacophony of thrashing, and thunderstruck, blustery weather that has so characterized the storm that has been engulfing your body for an unknown quantity of time. Such, truly surprises you causing your previously defeated mind to extract from its base, then propel it to the surface of conscious thought, your innate desire to push through, and to triumph undefeated in the face of insurmountable odds.
Surrounding you on three sides there only exist the unseen elements, such as wind, and the seen elements, such as blinding snow for company. The scene that your eyes behold does not encourage you to think good thoughts and to dream that you can extract yourself from your precarious predicament and climb to safety.
So you struggle to focus upon the strong conglomeration of rock, snow and ice that forms the mountainside you are desperately trying to scrabble on. You kick hard, kicking your crampons, into the mountainside to maintain your grip upon the mountain, and you embed your knees, and on occasion your elbows, as you continue to dig into the mountain using huge thrashing arm swings to enable you to climb higher and higher to safety, using the axe, whose correct use, can haul you out.
The tragic opera, that through pomp and circumstance has decided for you to become the operatic tenor, thrashes out, through its primary instrument, air, which has become a tumultuous gale, continues to smash your body upon the rocks one moment, then outwards towards the gaping emptiness of the Lhotse face, and the vertical nothingness that exists if one should be blown out towards such. It loudly declares that you cannot escape your death.
Your thoughts begin to crumble from being strong, as proven under numerous extreme circumstances you have subjected them to before, to being disordered and unrecognizable. Such disorganization teams up with the bad weather to confuse you further. Such transforms your reputed climbing prowess to that often attributed to the weekender geriatric mountaineer, so mush so, that your muscles respond haphazardly to whatever coherent thoughts you combine to form a measured command. Compounding the problem, by fueling, and then exacerbating the randomness of thought that rampages through your head, is the oxygen deprivation that only grants some people right of passage through that section of cool real estate known to climbers as the Death Zone.
Slowly, your ice axe, after pounding the mountainside, glances across the openness that you have managed to climb out upon. Slowly, after some effort to stand, your crampons crunch deep in the ice laden edges of the plateau, that only moments ago you, before stumbling over the edge, were desperately trying to navigate through. Slowly, your eyes acclimatize to your surroundings and you try to get a fix on your position, using whatever landmarks you can sort out, then identify, amidst the swirling clouds of snow that is spattering your face during a ferociously frozen, and black, night.
You cautiously wander towards what you make out to be the bodies of your climbing party, who, after becoming separated from each other during the confusion upon descending the mountain, and subsequently depleting their oxygen, and their life force, out of the canisters they were carrying, have become hypoxic and dangerously disoriented, and to your shocked eye lay scattered across an exposed section of the plateau.
Upon examination, to your utter sadness, you discover that every member of your climbing party has lapsed into unconsciousness, and because the Death Zone declares through its unique geographical position that every man must truly help himself, you know they are as good as dead.
Such a scenario, to some of you, may appear exaggerated, even dramatized. If you are such, do many mountaineers a great help, by staying out of mountain ranges. Such, happens. Such, continues to happen, and often those that get caught out are those that do not respect the mountains, being bent instead on fame and success, not necessarily a pure desire to appreciate the mountain, and mountaineering more.
I would encourage everyone to engage in the pursuits that once belonged to a preserve group of people. My recommendation is for people to become tuned out of the sinful pursuit of making a great name for oneself, or the wobbly ambition to become the topic of conversation amongst members of the opposite sex, family, friends and numerous others, but that you become focused, and through such focusing start to understand the greater philosophical reasoning that the greatest climbers, mountaineers, runners and swimmers have yielded to, which has enabled them to push back the boundaries even further.
Such thought, is often not directly attributable to the core principles of Christianity, but such forces the person to acknowledge that the universe does not revolve around them, and that something does, and must, exist to make sense out of our wonderment at such tremendous feats of human endurance. They may not know the source, but you and I do. For me that is the most valuable lesson that the outdoors teaches me. God exists. Case closed.
End Thought: I would encourage everyone to do a marathon at least once. It, for some, can be truly life changing, and propel people to change themselves. Such is great, but you do not need to run marathons and climb mountains to transform yourself. That often under used, abused and misquoted book, The Bible, can do that for you. Go ahead, read it.
About Me (in case you did not know): During the summer my legs plan to conduct fast dashes through and over some truly secluded parts of the country. If you wish to join me please contact me through the editor. You must be healthy and able to carry loads for twelve hours a day. You must have good mountain craft knowledge too. To gain an insight into some truly awe inspiring mountain experiences please read: Death Zone by Matt Dickenson and The Climb by Anatoli Boukreev and G. Weston DeWalt.
The continual pursuit to push the human body to unknown depths of physical endurance, being underpinned by a physical, cerebral and often deeply hidden spiritual discipline, has thrust extreme challenges, once exclusive to the thoroughly experienced and for those forced to do such, to become hijacked by the other loathsome human quest, which is characterized by the want, not need, to stand out as being unique.
The explosion of numerous people participating in walks, fun runs, marathons, moors challenges, outdoor climbing, mountain expeditions and other, often absurd, methods to fundraise for a particular charity, although admirable, perhaps demonstrates the patronizing attitude that we as a culture have developed towards the great outdoors.
For me, being an amateur mountaineer, marathon runner and outdoor enthusiast, the exploitation of the outdoors, by my generation, to harvest money and astonish friends about tales of adventure and hugely exaggerated heroism, is disrespectful to the men and women who have, through often long and painful experience, become tuned to the unpredictable, predictable, nature of the outdoors. Further, such disrespects our Creator, who created such expanses of beauty for our spiritual enjoyment, not, for the massaging of egos, and the flagrant boasting, that often consumes those chasing glorification in the great outdoors. Such is, sad.
For the second time, during my long twenty five year old existence, my legs decided to carry my body around London, during that often glorified and dangerous event that is the Flora London Marathon.
My preparation, as compared to that of the previous year, was poor and not as thoughtful as it should, and could, have been. Therefore on marathon day, after a three hour conversation the night before, which granted my body and mind only two hours sleep, there was no way that one could expect to trump around the course, triumphant. So I made the wise decision to try my best and not push my body beyond what it could expect to accomplish, and certainly not push myself hard to join the names of those that lose a medal but get a dirt nap, instead.
During last years escapade around town, upon crossing the finishing line, my exclamation was one encompassing jubilation and triumph. Upon crossing the finish this time around, my roar, and what became verbalized during that roar, cannot be put down on paper–it was incredibly unchristian.
The sadness that overwhelmed me upon hearing that a young man aged only twenty two had passed away as a consequence of his efforts to finish the race, and probably due to some over zealous hydration therapy upon his admission to the emergency department, hit me hard. The reason is simple, and often humbling, for amateur athletes to understand. Such calamity can be avoided if the participant simply listens to the groans emanating from the body God has loaned to them. Such can be avoided if the person has tremendous respect for the inventor, and the invention that we see beauty in each day, by simply stopping, looking and listening to their worn body crying out for a break.
So, to summarise my marathon run, it was the second time that my legs have dragged my big head around town and unlike the joys of last year, where upon crossing the line one exclaimed that it was so easy and anybody can do it, this year the words that flew out of my mouth cannot, and must not, be written down.
It hurt a lot for these reasons. Poor preparation, compounded by the belief those twenty six miles are easier then often imagined, as one often speeds through that distance around mountains ranges, was foolish, especially as one complacently forget that such a distance through a mountain range takes a day, and not, four hours. And poor preparation, either during training, or on the day, can end someone’s existence.
You may question my often misconstrued hard thought. You may wander how someone can be so hard and show mixed compassion and sound reason. That reason, as those of you who push further and further into the realms of extreme endurance shall sadly discover, is that a huge number of mishaps, and catastrophes that besiege outdoor enthusiasts, is simply down to the explorative unquenchable human spirit to disregard clear warnings from the weather, from fancy gadgets, from intuition and more dangerously, and foolishly, from those humans more thoroughly experienced.
I am amazed, and shocked, by the scores of inexperienced people who thunder up and down mountains during the three peaks challenge. The environmental damage that such teams bring to those mountains, by showing no respect, either through ignorance of basic country codes, or presumption, by the litter that is often discarded by such, is symptomatic of the growing usage of such places of natural beauty as a mere weapon to bolster image, and rank, amongst the ever growing tribe of up and coming university educated socialites.
The mountains for me, more so than marathons, have captured my thoughts, and consequently fashioned my dreams, which only places that have been sculpted by the hand of The Almighty can produce, for years. The knowledge of mountain leadership that one has acquired has been harvested by a sound reverence for the mountains through both triumph and despair from the mountains of Wales, Scotland and the Nepalese Himalayas. It has surprised and even puzzled many friends that I have not participated in the three peaks challenge.
My constant reply has been that the three peaks challenge is the realm of the casual armchair mountaineer, who after completing such a challenge has no intention to return and absorb the grandeur of the scenery, the weather, the animals, the vegetation and the people. Nor has he any noble intention to completely understand the magnitude of the mountains by becoming a more thoughtful mountaineer. Such a journey can only be realized if one becomes a pilgrim who sojourns through many mountain ranges, during as many conceivable adverse weather conditions, as humanly possible.
Just imagine this scenario that one struggled to put on paper. The burst of energy exuding from your thoroughly sculpted musculature pushes you onwards, and upwards, through the complex cacophony of thrashing, and thunderstruck, blustery weather that has so characterized the storm that has been engulfing your body for an unknown quantity of time. Such, truly surprises you causing your previously defeated mind to extract from its base, then propel it to the surface of conscious thought, your innate desire to push through, and to triumph undefeated in the face of insurmountable odds.
Surrounding you on three sides there only exist the unseen elements, such as wind, and the seen elements, such as blinding snow for company. The scene that your eyes behold does not encourage you to think good thoughts and to dream that you can extract yourself from your precarious predicament and climb to safety.
So you struggle to focus upon the strong conglomeration of rock, snow and ice that forms the mountainside you are desperately trying to scrabble on. You kick hard, kicking your crampons, into the mountainside to maintain your grip upon the mountain, and you embed your knees, and on occasion your elbows, as you continue to dig into the mountain using huge thrashing arm swings to enable you to climb higher and higher to safety, using the axe, whose correct use, can haul you out.
The tragic opera, that through pomp and circumstance has decided for you to become the operatic tenor, thrashes out, through its primary instrument, air, which has become a tumultuous gale, continues to smash your body upon the rocks one moment, then outwards towards the gaping emptiness of the Lhotse face, and the vertical nothingness that exists if one should be blown out towards such. It loudly declares that you cannot escape your death.
Your thoughts begin to crumble from being strong, as proven under numerous extreme circumstances you have subjected them to before, to being disordered and unrecognizable. Such disorganization teams up with the bad weather to confuse you further. Such transforms your reputed climbing prowess to that often attributed to the weekender geriatric mountaineer, so mush so, that your muscles respond haphazardly to whatever coherent thoughts you combine to form a measured command. Compounding the problem, by fueling, and then exacerbating the randomness of thought that rampages through your head, is the oxygen deprivation that only grants some people right of passage through that section of cool real estate known to climbers as the Death Zone.
Slowly, your ice axe, after pounding the mountainside, glances across the openness that you have managed to climb out upon. Slowly, after some effort to stand, your crampons crunch deep in the ice laden edges of the plateau, that only moments ago you, before stumbling over the edge, were desperately trying to navigate through. Slowly, your eyes acclimatize to your surroundings and you try to get a fix on your position, using whatever landmarks you can sort out, then identify, amidst the swirling clouds of snow that is spattering your face during a ferociously frozen, and black, night.
You cautiously wander towards what you make out to be the bodies of your climbing party, who, after becoming separated from each other during the confusion upon descending the mountain, and subsequently depleting their oxygen, and their life force, out of the canisters they were carrying, have become hypoxic and dangerously disoriented, and to your shocked eye lay scattered across an exposed section of the plateau.
Upon examination, to your utter sadness, you discover that every member of your climbing party has lapsed into unconsciousness, and because the Death Zone declares through its unique geographical position that every man must truly help himself, you know they are as good as dead.
Such a scenario, to some of you, may appear exaggerated, even dramatized. If you are such, do many mountaineers a great help, by staying out of mountain ranges. Such, happens. Such, continues to happen, and often those that get caught out are those that do not respect the mountains, being bent instead on fame and success, not necessarily a pure desire to appreciate the mountain, and mountaineering more.
I would encourage everyone to engage in the pursuits that once belonged to a preserve group of people. My recommendation is for people to become tuned out of the sinful pursuit of making a great name for oneself, or the wobbly ambition to become the topic of conversation amongst members of the opposite sex, family, friends and numerous others, but that you become focused, and through such focusing start to understand the greater philosophical reasoning that the greatest climbers, mountaineers, runners and swimmers have yielded to, which has enabled them to push back the boundaries even further.
Such thought, is often not directly attributable to the core principles of Christianity, but such forces the person to acknowledge that the universe does not revolve around them, and that something does, and must, exist to make sense out of our wonderment at such tremendous feats of human endurance. They may not know the source, but you and I do. For me that is the most valuable lesson that the outdoors teaches me. God exists. Case closed.
End Thought: I would encourage everyone to do a marathon at least once. It, for some, can be truly life changing, and propel people to change themselves. Such is great, but you do not need to run marathons and climb mountains to transform yourself. That often under used, abused and misquoted book, The Bible, can do that for you. Go ahead, read it.
About Me (in case you did not know): During the summer my legs plan to conduct fast dashes through and over some truly secluded parts of the country. If you wish to join me please contact me through the editor. You must be healthy and able to carry loads for twelve hours a day. You must have good mountain craft knowledge too. To gain an insight into some truly awe inspiring mountain experiences please read: Death Zone by Matt Dickenson and The Climb by Anatoli Boukreev and G. Weston DeWalt.
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