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