Redefining Rest

It is interesting to look back, especially as the new year approaches.  
The past three days, the weather up here in Bend, Oregon has been nasty.  And after a solid week of training it seemed like a good time for a rest day.  But instead, for some reason each day we resisted the temptation, and ventured into the outdoors to train.  We almost made it through Wednesday, but ended up at the gym for an 90 minute lifting session as a "warm-up" for an evening yoga class.  Thursday was bitter cold, with unseasonal downpours, and high winds.  Certainly we would have been justified in hunkering down next to the fire with a good book, but someone got the idea that the conditions were just about as close to what we'd experience in the upcoming Patagonian Expedition Race, and the idea stuck.  A cold, wet (but somehow still fun) 3 hour training ride on our Ellsworth mountain bikes ensued - complete with fartlek pushup sprints at the end.


Friday, however we were all determined NOT to train.  Our bodies had certainly been sending "rest" messages for days, and finally we listened.  But by mid afternoon we were going pretty stir crazy, with random guttural screams and spontaneous wrestling matches erupting around the house.  The rest day seemed to stretch on forever.  


Is I tried in vain to go to sleep, I wondered if why I(we) were like this.  If it had always been this way.  I certainly feel lazy much of the time, and enjoy sitting around with my morning coffee till it is late in the day. But something seems to always push me out of that place of physical contentment before too long.


An hour later, still unable to sleep, I was sorting through old computer files, and stories I'd written.  I came across a movie I'd made over two years ago...and it seemed all to familiar...
(the text below the movie is what I wrote that day....)





The day after we finished our monster AcroYoga teaching weekend, we were in desperate need of a rest. And we tried, but YogaSlacker Dan had flown all the way from Minnesota to Arizona for the Acro workshop, and we couldn't let him go back to the cold north bitterness without showing him exactly what sort of things he'd be missing....so we kept the climbing to 5.10 and 5.11, and since Chelsey was teaching yoga classes all day - there were just three of us so we all got a bit of rest while the others climbed. The routes were all long (35m) and really really disgustingly sustained. As someone in the video says - "we are gonna need another rest day after this rest day..."




May you all have at least some relaxing moments on this last day of the year....


Jason

Team YS- Looking forward to Patagonia Race and back on the Abu Dhabi Race

Chelsey here-
With the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge 3 weeks  behind us and the Wenger Patagonia Expedition a month ahead of us, we don't know if the hardest is ahead of us.... or behind. We are extremely blessed to have the opportunity to travel and explore both places, and in all actuality- the two races couldn't be more different from each other. However, in every race we do, we always learn a lesson (or five or six) that can be easily translated to future races (and very often life in general!). In Abu Dhabi, we learned how much the mind comes into play. As a slackline and acroyoga teacher, I am constantly trying to wipe fear out my students psyche. I find myself telling them that the reason they are falling off the slack line or can't “get that pose” is because of the way they approach it- with fear and doubt in themselves, or an ego that needs the validation (I know this all to well from my personal experiences). Once fear and lack of confidence gets into my psyche, it is hard to push past it. In many ways this is what happened to our team during this race. We lost confidence in ourselves.

Luckily we didn't experience this feeling all at once, but I saw it happen to myself and some of the guys at different times throughout the race.

As Jason mentioned in an earlier post, depression and doubt hit Daniel and I at the same time. At the end of the first day of racing, we found ourselves in 30^th place. After having such an awesome season back in the states, we came to Abu Dhabi feeling pretty prepared and I was personally extremely ready to unleash some fury! All this deflated that first night. I wasn't hungry despite the long day, I was too full of fear and doubt to gorge myself on all the good food. Daniel didn't have this problem (he will probably eat even when he is dead), but I could sense his disappointment during his very quiet dinner.

The next day we had a mountain run into a long bike up to the top of the famous mountain - Jebel Heifet. Once there, an even longer mountain run/climb section would take us the 3000 ft back down to the valley and then all the way back up to the top. Despite this sort of technical terrain being one of our major strengths, I was not excited. Andy was excited enough for both of us, hooking me on a bungee tow system and setting a blistering pace across the jagged terrain. When we got to the bikes- our beast of a biker Daniel was not feeling it. Usually we can all count on him to be the pace setter/motivator and even help tow the slowest of us up the hill. “It's all in your head Daniel, you got this, ” I said. “Yeah, well, in my head you are a bad ass too.” Ouch.

We got up the hill, at what seemed like a snails pace - but by the time we got into the mountains, it seemed like our spirits and legs were back. We struggled in frustration to pass many of slower teams during the tricky sections, and when our chance finally came our team motivated as one. Calling on our years of experience in the mountains we made a bold route choice and bounded and climbed down a steep section, passing 7 full teams in under a two minutes. We ended that day with a much better time and attitude.

Andy's breakdown came in the desert. He was convinced that we were not going to make it to the last mandatory checkpoint in time. He had hit his wall and didn't see the point of going on. It was a difficult scene as Andy, a brilliant physics grad student lost the ability to do simple math and swore over and over again that given our current pace there was no possible way to reach the end before the cutoff. We had a bit of a team blow out in the shade of a tiny bush, and never came to a consensus, but we had no choice but to continue on. We kept on in silence, pushing the pace as hard as we could and made it to the finish line with 2 hours to spare.

It wasn't until hours later, that Andy even realized that he had been so far off in his simple calculations.

We ended up finishing the Abu Dhabi Adventure Challenge in 14^th place. We were the top American team. Our goal was top ten, but it's just another reason to make an appearance next year. Even though stage racing isn't our teams strong point- we have come to realize that competing in them only makes us stronger, smarter and more humble- which is always a good thing.

In the end, one of the most powerful lessons I learned (again) was how important communication is – especially with people that are the closest to me. Being able to say sorry, being open with one another and most importantly- being able to laugh at myself and the others makes a strong foundation for relationships to grow on. We have seen teams crumble over the simplest arguments, and always thought we were beyond that. Not so. We nearly imploded several times, and it was due to fear, ego, mis-communication, and taking our closest friends/teammates for granted.

Back in the hotel (fed and rested), we took the time to have an honest shakedown – talking openly with constructive feedback for each other and the team. We plan to try to make it a regular discussion, but on the off chance that we forget, no worries. In a month, we'd be in the Patagonian wilderness, and these big races tend to force a lot of honesty...

Too Much Fun 2010

Watch in HD!!!

The recent Too Much Fun Expedition produced some amazing moments...here is a teaser. The trip report and images are being posted on the YogaSlackers section of the Wend Magazine blog. Great magazine and worth tuning into once in a while! There will be a more complete TMF-2010 video eventually, don't hold your breath though! (unless you are practicing pranyama!) We tend to be behind as we are doing so much lately!

TMF 2010 Teaser

The Too Much Fun (TMF) 2010 expedition went to the Wind River Range from July 20-25th, 2010. This is a short teaser post to show a few pics and give a quick description. A more complete trip report will appear eventually, but don't hold your breath, the Yogaslackers are busy at Wanderlust, and a race, and the OR show...

6 of us hiked in about 20 miles and a lot of up for our first camp near Arrowhead Peak.

Chelsey, Daniel, and Jason packed into their "tent"

last light on Mount Helen

The next day the rain hit when we were about to start climbing. This made things interesting, especially as we had shuttled most of our warm clothes and gear to the ridge we were expecting to descend to after the climb... We hid under a rock rather than ascend to the ridge in a driving thunderstorm. The rain continued as we recollected our stuff and headed over to Titcomb Basin. It stormed a lot that night. On day 3 we climbed the S buttress of Tower 1 on Mt Helen and then up to the summit.

 panorama of Mount Helen and Titcomb Basin from our camp

On day 4 we headed over Bonney Pass and climbed Gannet Peak. We did some acroyoga on the summit to stall before the descent. Then down the N ridge and west into the Wells Creek drainage.

 

acroyoga on the summit of Gannet

panorama looking up the Wells Creek drainage towards Gannet Peak

On day 5 we descended (a little sketchy) to the Green River and packrafted down to in between the Green River Lakes. On day 6 we hiked around the other lake and rafted down the Green River for a long ways, then we got an amazing ride back to our cars. As you can imagine, the gear and miles required for this trip meant that there wasn't a lot of room left for comfort - hence the other name for this trip, a sufferfest. For instance, we had 2 tiny shelters and 2 sleeping bags (added at the last minute) for 6 people and we took hand paddles to save weight. Good times were had by all, but not all the time.

hand Paddling down the Green River with Squaretop behind us

To Much Fun 2010

Share your Adventures with SpotAdventures




link to the spot track from this trip

Paddles and Peaks....

Mount Rainier adventure - Intro and Day 1 (of 4)

It seems a brutal sufferfest has become a yearly Yogaslacker tradition
and this year we went to Washington for our dose. The plan was to
climb up one side of Mount Rainier, ski down the other, packraft out
the White River to the bicycles stashed at Buckley, and bicycle back
to the cars over 4 days. As usual, things did not go as planned. For
starters the weather was a bit iffy and there was a lot of fresh snow.
Then we discovered the west side road in the park was closed. The
chosen route up was changed to the Success Cleaver, with the
distinction of being the longest route on the mountain.

After stashing the bicycles in Buckley we got our park permits and
continued sorting and prepping and packing gear under an old gas
station bay which provided some protection from the rain. We had come
from all over, Andy flew in from North Dakota. I had been at Smith
Rock and drove up from Portland, OR that morning to pick him up at the
Airport. Sam drove all the way from N. Dakota in a marathon of sleep
deprivation. Jason and Chelsey drove up from California, but had just
come from Costa Rica. We were all veterans of last year's Montana trip
except for Chelsey, but she had been hanging out with Jason long
enough that she sort of knew what she was getting into - exhausted,
scared, cold, wet, and even more exhausted. But exactly how much none
of us really knew. Eventually we thought we had all the food and gear
ready (some of this was gear we were just getting for the first time -
always exciting to go on a serious expedition with new gear). The
packs weighed in somewhere around 35 pounds which is pretty light
considering they included alpine touring ski and whitewater boating
gear. Some of the weight savings were in one ultra lightweight 3
person tent and 2 sleeping bags for the 5 of us along with Alpacka
packrafts and inflatable PFD's (life jackets) for the river. We set
the alarm and slept in our vehicles listening to the rain and hoping
the forecast break in the weather materialized.
The morning was gray and dreary and it was difficult to take off our
warm clothes and head up the trail. The closed road meant we ended up
starting at the Kautz Creek trailhead at around 2400 feet of
elevation. Soon we were hiking under a foggy drizzle on snow in
sneakers for everyone but me who was in sandals and wetsuit socks. All
of our feet were cold. Eventually we lost the trail in the snow and
decided it was time to start skiing. Our feet thanked us at first. We
were using Dynafit bindings and 130 cm skis with skins to go uphill.
The skins stick to the bottom and have hairs pointing backwards that
keep the skis from sliding back and allowed us to shuffle uphill as
long as it wasn't too steep, in which case we had to switchback.
As we got higher the snowfall picked up and the visibility decreased.
Route finding got a little more interesting, but by a combination of
map and compass reading and dead reckoning we actually spotted the
buried cabin along our route. Once we approached tree line things got
a little harder. For the leader visibility was almost zero with the
slight texture of the snow fading into the surrounding whiteout as
little as 3 feet in front of their skis.
The rest of us were able to
see the tracks and the person in front for orientation. It was
incredibly taxing leading as it was hard to tell the slope let alone
where you were supposed to go. We dodged around cliffs and steep
slopes and eventually decided we were near the pyramid peak saddle.
From there we dropped down to the saddle and started up the Success
Cleaver ridge. At least the route finding was a lot easier here, just
head uphill the easiest way we could find.
We continued on uphill using the altimeter to navigate and just as we
were approaching a planned camping spot the cloud level dropped enough
to reveal the upper mountain and a little later we were treated to a
view of Mount St. Helens as well. we set up camp here as the sun set
digging into the snow and constructing a wall as a windblock. The CAMP
XLS shovels worked well for moving the snow, and the paddles worked
well for cutting it. Not the usual combination for mountaineering, but
if you are carrying it you might as well use it.

When we went to start cooking we discovered we had no matches or
lighter (we had discussed this while packing but somehow didn't
rectify the situation). Sam had a flint and we were able to start the
stove with sparks. That night we had tasty dried Indian food with
butter (one of the advantages of cold weather camping). Then we got to
test out our minimalist sleeping accomodations. As I mentioned we had
a three person tent and 2 sleeping bags for five of us. This sounds
worse than it was, but not by much. For starters the tent was a
warmlight model that had an incredible amount of space for it's
weight. It was larger than most 3 person tent's I've seen. Besides, we
wanted to be packed in tight for warmth, and we were packed in tight.
Sam, Andy, and I were under a 2 person "bag" that didn't have a
bottom. Jason and Chelsey were under a similar one person arrangement.
If 2 of us were on our sides we could barely get the edges of the bag
down to the ground. Jason and Chelsey weren't so lucky, but when they
were wedged next to us, we didn't need to get the sides between us
down to the ground. That brings me to the ground - or should I say the
snow. Immediately under the sil-nylon floor was the snow. The pads we
had were very lightweight and sort of had an hourglass of inflatable
insulation to cover your shoulders and hips if you could stay on them.
Our feet were mostly fine in ski boot liners, but it seemed that
whatever position I was in there was always some part of me touching
and being frozen by the snow. In addition my rehydration plans were
wildly successful resulting in multiple trips outside to relieve
myself. Luckily we were planning an early start, as I didn't get much
more than half an hour of sleep.