The Pursuit of own Limits

Why people want to challenge them self? There are people who train for years to reach a certain goal or so and I'm not only talking about sports. Yesterday I have been asking myself this but didn't come to a conclusion. Maybe people know them self better if they want to know how far they can go. Don't ask me why I did the stuff that I did, I can't explain it and yes I did some stupid things as well.

A month or so ago I hiked to Thun with 2 friends, a city that is 30 kilometres away from my place it took us around 6 and a half hours, it was really cool. Last week I wondered how fast I could manage that track, so on Saturday I decided to do pretty much the same track but instead of hiking I decided for a quick march/jog I just wanted to see how fast I could get there by my own and with baggage. When I woke up on Saturday I knew that I had to go that day. So I packed everything and prepared my track on google maps. Due to the weather conditions (we had 40 cm of snow that day) I decided to not follow the river but regular streets instead so I adapted it to pretty much the same length (around 27km).

When I told my friends that I wanted to do that, they looked at me like I was insane but to me it made totally sense and I knew that I could succeed if I only want it bad enough. Guys whenever you want to do something that you think it will be impossible go and watch that clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsSC2vx7zFQ (I listen do that sound pretty much every day).

So I started just straight away to run and I set me target to reach within 3 and a half hours. The start was good and it wasn't even that cold when my body started to heat. After about 20 minutes I had to continue on a path but the thing was that it was covered with snow, was it a problem? Hell no! I continued to run in knee-deep snow, which was really exhausting so I had to walk but I kept a certain speed. I went up and down and the maps that I had printed were not really precise so it was a little luck involved. When the routs became better I ran faster and when they didn't I ran slower to keep some energy. I don't know how far I came when I considered stopping but somehow I always motivated my self. I felt like in the arctic desert sometimes and I had some very impressive views.

The further I came the more my muscles hurt and I knew that I’d have a bad muscle ache. I was prepared for that so I had magnesium sticks with me. Every time I know that I’ll do something very exhausting I take magnesium with me. Once I had to walk just next to a main road but it was not prepared for pedestrians so I had to walk through deep snow for more than 1 kilometre and just after I got back on the street and started to run, I had this really bad calf cramp and so I stopped, I waited a moment and used this opportunity to drink some more and take a magnesium stick (I knew I would need them) I started back to run when I thought I was good, but I only came some meters when it started to hurt again. So I walked and a minute later I retried.. same thing. I mean it was not the first time that I had a cramp and it always went better after some moments but this time not, I took 3 sticks at same time as it would help something and drank plenty of water and whatever I did, it didn't help. To quit only 5 kilometres before the target? Impossible! So I did the following, I ran for some meter and walked some steps and ran some meters and walked again. This sounds so weird and it really looked weird, but it worked! Just moments later, the next thing came.. I was constantly following the map but all of a sudden, there was no path that was described in the map! So I followed the direction and ran through snowfields until I found another path (this was actually where this picture was shot). About a half an hour later, I reached my target, exhausted but happy because I discovered another limit of mine. When I looked on my watch I couldn't believe it, I did that whole course within 3 hours and 10 minutes and I thought I was so going to be late.

My little adventure was very nice, I really like to challenge myself this way. Right now, almost everything from my belly downwards hurts but it's a good pain because I look at it as a medal. No matter how many people tell me that I'm crazy (I know that I am) it was so worth it!

I actually wanted to keep that story short but it just overwhelmed me. What we learn from that is that sometimes all of us need to do something challenging because it could be a self-disclosure.

cheers

Make a Difference

Hello my dears

We all are human and we all like to hear good stories. We really appreciate it when people do well to society or open our eyes when doing something that couldn't do everybody. Let's take mother Mary, she's considered to be sent from heaven 'cause she helped civilians in war situations and many people in regions where they suffer from hunger. Or let's take Nelson Mandela, he stopped the apartheid (it's really an English word though coming from the German language) in south Africa. Or let's take that girl from Afghanistan (pity I forgot her name) that stood up against the Taliban in her blog because she was not let to school and the Taliban shot her in the head but she survived and continued blogging.

Good people always exist but we wait for them to show us where the problems are. We think that suffer is far away from us and so we can't do much but just have a look at your own place. Switzerland (where I live) is one of the richest countries in the world. I have travelled a lot and nowhere you can see what you see here. Even if you go to the countryside you'll never see "poor looking buildings" whereas in other countries, there you can see the main difference. If you are Swiss just observe the streets, how many cars pass that look damaged or old or unaesthetic? Do the same thing in Paris, it's like they bought their cars after a stock car race sold out. But if we look closer, then we see, that there are ten thousands of people in Switzerland that are poor, this is so contrasting to what we know here and many Swiss can’t imagine that.

Recently I read a story in newspaper. It was about a police officer in New York, he was on patrol and it was so freezing that he couldn't feel his feet though wearing 2 pair of ski socks and stuffed boots. While walking he passed a homeless who was sitting on the ground barefoot. He asked him why he doesn't wear any shoes in such a coldness. The homeless told him politely "Officer, I have never possessed shoes in my entire life". The policeman was so touched that he went out to buy him shoes and socks, 85$ worth and gave it to him. This is a very nice story and I felt happy that he did it but on the other hand.. isn't it a shame that such a story goes around the world? I mean, he did really really well but are we that ignorant that we couldn't imagine such a thing? Sure we could but we just don't do it! So the next day I wanted to make a change. I went to a store and bought like 7 simple cheese sandwiches (which cost me something like 12 bucks) and distributed them to the first 7 people that were begging on the street. I felt happy that I did them something good but at the same time I felt sorry that I didn't buy more because there were more people begging then I expected, it's so different if you don't look away.

What I'm try to say with that is, that you can do a difference, no matter where you are and no matter how much money you have. We shouldn't wait for the newspaper to publish that we did something good. We just should do it because we all are human and shouldn't only like to hear the good stories.

Cheers