Andrew Greig on training [Feb. 11th, 2012|03:43 pm] pozorvlak

It was often uncomfortable, often painful, particularly for the first month, but other days were pure joy, a revelling in the sensation of movement, of strength and wellbeing. My regular headaches stopped. For the first time ever, I got through winter without even a cold. I felt incredibly well, began to walk and hold myself differently. When friends asked "How are you?", instead of the normal Scottish "Oh, not too bad," I'd find myself saying "Extremely well!"



How obnoxious.



On other days training was pure slog, the body protesting and the will feeble. The mind could see little point in getting up before breakfast to run on a cold, dark morning, and none at all in continuing when it began to hurt. Take a break, why not have a breather, why not run for home now?



It is at times like that that the real work is done. It's easy to keep going when you feel strong and good. Anyone can do that. But at altitude it is going to feel horrible most of the time - and that's what you're really training for. So keep on running, through the pain and the reluctance. Do you really expect to get through this Expedition - this relationship, this book, this life for that matter - without some of the old blood, sweat and tears? No chance. That's part of the point of it all. So keep on running...



The real purpose of training is not so much hardening the body as toughening the will. Enthusiasm may get you started, bodily strength may keep you going for a long time, but only the will makes you persist when those have faded. And stubborn pride. Pride and the will, with its overtones of fascism and suppression, have long been suspect qualities - the latter so much so that I'd doubted its existence. But it does exist, I could feel it gathering and bunching inside me as the months passed. There were times when it alone got me up and running, or kept me from whinging and retreating off a Scottish route. The will is the secret motor that keeps driving when the heart and the mind have had enough.

[From Summit Fever.]