Thoughts from Shavasana

“Ahh-ohmmm. Ooo-ohmmm.” The room billowed in and out, like one big heart, vibrating to the varying tones of the yoga students’ ohms.  We were led by a female instructor, a petite woman with clear, olive skin, sporting bright pink striped tights. Her eyes were closed as her voice produced multiple notes at once--or so it seemed. She played some sort of instrument I had never set eyes on before, a mix between an accordion and a piano perhaps. The fingers of one hand pressed keys that were obstructed by the instrument’s wooden box, which she pumped with her other hand. Bringing air in and out, back and forth, she added to the billowing energy that controlled the sacred space.

“Day-ya-na oo-da-nah,” her sweet voice rang, leading the class through rounds of Sanskrit verses.

“Day-ya-na oo-da-nah,” we responded, in a lower tone.

This call-and-response continued for several minutes until the song was finished. Then, one moment of silence until, perfectly on cue, the 8pm bells began to ring from a nearby church.

From one culture to the next, I thought. The nightly sound of the bells, always the most dynamic at 8:00, reminded me that I was in a yoga class in Switzerland. That is yoga’s beauty and power, I thought. It can transcend cultures. It is absent of culture. 

The instructor began to give instructions to the class. I would have been completely lost if it weren’t for her occasional translations into English as well as the many bodies surrounding me performing the same series of poses. I was lost at times, twisted up like a pretzel, leading with my left instead of my right, facing the wrong side of the room.

Funny, because when we were singing in Sanskrit—more foreign to me than Swiss German—I was right there singing along. I wasn’t belting, but I could imitate the sounds and follow along with the tune.

When we reached the end of the class, an hour and a half later (after sweating next to other bodies who were also sweating, and using my legs much more than they appreciated on this “rest day”), we finally lay down in Shavasana. The pink-legged instructor walked around the room, switching off lights so that all was darkness aside from the flickering glow from a few candles below a picture of the Hindu god Krishna.

When meditating—or lying in Shavasna, which is essentially a prone meditation, I try to imagine looking down past my nose and focus on a single color. Black is usually the least distracting. If I am successful, I feel like I am seeing very far into this black space. I can also transform the environment in which I am lying to any environment of my imagination—sounds of water become an ocean wave, or the instructor transforms into Kindness personified.

But as I lay there, none of this happened. I thought of my friend and wonderful dance and yoga instructor, Marie, and how she calls these distracting thoughts that inhibit reaching full meditation the “monkey mind.” “Don’t judge your thoughts, just let them be and let them slip away,” she would tell her classes through her French accent.

But they wouldn’t stop and they wouldn’t slip away. Instead of looking deep into that black space, my vision stopped at my nose. It was a shallow gaze, obstructed by the color white and by the many images that came to me.

How powerful we are, I thought. We lie in the most passive of the poses, Shavasana, yet no one can harm us. How could anyone walk into a room of people, lying peacefully, each one trying to achieve a state of relaxation so deep that one is disconnected from the world? If only our wars were fought like this. Instead of killing one another we would lie on the ground, detach ourselves from the present woes, fights, injustices, differences, prejudices and surrender, all of us becoming one with the forces of a greater universe.

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Throughout my entire time in Switzerland this summer I haven’t been able to see "past my nose." I can't help but wonder if being in a place of constant comfort makes searching for depth more difficult. No one and nothing is pushing me really. Few things bother me. People seem happy and healthy, and from my current vantage point, the world appears a pretty lovely place. 

In the past, I have used meditation as an escape from hardship. During times of stress, deep sadness, escalating anxiety. When I least want to meditate is when I know I need it the most. And when meditating seems like a pretty nice thing to do with fifteen minutes of the day, is when it is least effective. 

Isn't that ironic then, that the more peaceful I am, the more difficult I find it to enter complete meditation--the epitome of finding inner peace?

So, as I exit this class (that normally costs CH30 or about $35--fortunately I was able to get a discount), I wonder if maybe we aren’t meant to pay for expensive yoga classes. Maybe yoga is supposed to be more of a way to approach life-- and that it is most helpful when one's mindset during the practice is in greatest contrast to one's day-to-day mindset. 

So then, there still remains a bigger question. Am I living a life of "happiness as fluff" right now, a term that a friend of mine wrote in an email to me. This travel experience differs so greatly from my time spent in Morocco and Finland, which each involved their own form of hardships. This travel experience is so much more enjoyable. But then again, I didn't go to Morocco to enjoy myself. I went to Morocco to be pushed around, jolted, have my world turned upside-down and right side-up again. And, as evidenced by the fact that I attempted to buy a plane ticket home at least three times, I sure as hell achieved that. I would not be the Rosalie I am now if it weren't for those eleven weeks of toughness and roughness in Al Magrib. 

But surely life doesn't have to be one or the other--"happiness as fluff", or complete suffering--does it? There must be a balancing point somewhere in between. Where people and things are there to give you a little shove, life is a challenge so you aren't able to slip too easily into a predictable routine, but at night you can go to sleep and feel relaxed and look forward to the following day of challenges--as opposed to viewing them with dread or anxiety. 

And, if you are one who likes to practice yoga, when you finish going through all the sweaty, grueling poses and let yourself take a final rest in Shavasana, you are able to see past your nose into a deep infinite space obstructed by no one and nothing. You have done your work in this world, you have tried to make it a better place, and now your gift is the ability to temporarily escape it.  

A Day on the Aletsch

Hiking across a glacier is not something I would normally do. I don't like heights, steep drop-offs, and not knowing what is under my feet. I don't even like to ice skate on ponds and lakes for that reason (besides that I am terrible at it and falling on ice hurts).

But when I received a text from Matin Nellen, an employee and mountain guide at ProNatura, a nature conservancy founded by the famed Art Furrer, I couldn't resist. "Come for a walk on glacier tomorrow morning," he wrote. "Bring warm clothes, 1L water, and pack a lunch."

Art Furrer is "world famous in Switzerland." He's known for performing
crazy ski tricks in a cowboy hat--and for founding Pro Natura

The following morning, after waking up at 5:45am and taking part in Bern's parade of bike commuters to which I had been oblivious, thanks to my naturally later wake-up time, I stood above Riederalp. By 9 in the morning, there I was, watching the mist clear above the mountains, opening up a sky that transitioned from a mild glow to clear blue.

"You must be Rosalie," said a sturdy man wearing an official red Bergfürer (mountain guide) jacket. I immediately knew I could trust him--the way he rolled the "r" to the extreme when he pronounced my name, the intense gaze that stood out from a tan face, weathered from decades under the mountain sun. Two German men also joined for the day, and when the three of us got off the gondola that takes you above the town of Riederalp, I burst out laughing.

Looking down at the massive white expanse below us--I was in total disbelief. There it was--the Aletsch. The biggest glacier in Europe. I had seen pictures of it online and in textbooks, and thanks to my Earth Science professors could point out some of its features, but I never thought I would have the opportunity to walk across a glacier--and especially not this one.

For at least a half hour, the four of us wound our way down a steep face in order to reach the rock rubble that lines the ice mass. 150 years ago, the glacier, we would soon learn, extended to the top of the cliff--no downhill walking was necessary.

As we approached the ice margin, a background rumble began to increase in intensity until it turned into a deep roar. That was the sound of melting ice rushing beneath the glacier in the form of a river. At this point I noticed my emotions transition. Not only was this experience "cool," "awesome," an "opportunity of a lifetime," and a grand "hello" to Europe's largest glacier, but it was also goodbye. With 25cm/day of melting, if I was ever to come back here, the landscape would look entirely different--unrecognizable even.

Martin showing the differences in glacial extent over the years

When the loose rocks that we carefully traversed transitioned to ice, Martin reached over his shoulder for his ice pick and hacked into the sidewall so that we could more easily climb up it.

Oh my God we were on top of the glacier. What was I doing? What were we doing? There were crevasses everywhere, water rushing in little meandering streams, and that river!--where was it exactly? It was under us somewhere, but the roar had now transitioned back to a distant rumble.

"Just trust this man," I tried to remind myself. Martin had just demonstrated to us how to put on and walk in crampons, and was jollily walking up the glacier whistling Beatles songs as the rest of us struggled to properly attach the spikes to our feet.

Soon enough, I was no longer listening for the distant rumble and envisioning a crevasse splitting apart as I stood on it, resulting in my having to perform a split before deciding which ice block to choose. Or worse--falling to my death in a deep crevasse unless some rope could miraculously pull me out.

No, I sure was no Martin Nellen, but I did begin to relax. I started pointing out and inquiring about geological features that I recognized, and I began to enjoy the Hoch Deutsch my fellow companions spoke--a nice break from all the incomprehensible Swiss German.

Every once in a while, we would stop, analyze a glacial feature, or perform an experiment for the ProNatura foundation. We learned that 3 glaciers above--the Ober Aletsch, the Jungfrau, and the Viktoriaplatz--met up at the Aletsch to form 2 mid-morraines--which are essentially snakes of rocks that the glacier "spits out" when it retreats (since moving glaciers carry rocks with them so when they retreat the rocks are left behind).

Collecting bug samples

Checking the temperature

One of the mid-morraines

A "mushroom rock." Martin says that within 10 days the snow
beneath it will have melted and the rock will topple over. 

At one of our stops, Martin took a water bottle and placed it under some dripping glacier water. "Very special," he said as he handed some to me in a clear plastic ProNatura vessel, so that I could see the sulfury blue hue. Suspicious of its cloudiness, I took the tiniest sip possible and exclaimed, "That's not glacier water! That tastes like licorice."
"Like what?"
"Licorice. Réglise. Anise. Sorry I don't know the word in German."
"Ne, das sind Kräuter."
"What kind of herbs?"
"Absinthe. They grow it in the Jura over there. You shouldn't have too much--it makes your mind go crazy. And I hope you're not pregnant."

Ok. Wow. "No I'm not pregnant. Glad you asked me first."

At this point, the two Germans had already downed a cup full each, so Martin, determined to finish the water bottle's worth, drank twice as much in order to make up for my abstinence. "This not my normal life. I usually climb higher--then I don't drink Absinthe. But this is only easy walk."

"Now we go over there." Martin pointed to a section of deep crevasses. We would climb over them and then down into one and follow it for a while.

Great, so you put alcohol in us when we need our senses the most. I couldn't help but think of all the differences that existed between this tour and the equivalent if it were to take place in the U.S. We never filled out a waiver signing our lives away to any liabilities...and we got served Absinthe.

Martin pourring "glacial water"

The next section really was worse for me. My initial horror images came back and just before jumping over one crevasse that I should not have looked down, I whined, "I don't like this." Martin stopped, came back, and reached out a hand for me to assist with the jump. A few seconds later he looked back to see if I had recovered. I smiled, then he did too. This routine repeated until we were fished with the crevasses.

"This is a man you can trust," I had told myself. Absinthe and all.

After climbing partway back up the steep face where the glacier once reached, we parted ways. "So nice to meet your Rosalie," he said, giving the "r" a great roll again. We shared 3 bises, my sunburned cheeks meeting his tanned, leathery ones.

"Und vielen Dank! Tschüs, ciao, hoffentlich bis Später." I made sure to give the proper multiple-word goodbye.

For another hour, I followed the lower extent of the glacier's ablation zone until I parted ways with it too, a final goodbye to my reason for this journey. As the distant rumble of the underground river faded into the distance, so did the massive ice that covered it. Europe's largest glacier began to look like yet another ice chunk nestled between rocky alpine slopes, its deep crevasses merely wrinkles weathered from millennia beneath the sun. When its peaks and valleys had caused my heart rate to spike, and its sharp ice granules produced blood on my hands, this white giant of a glacier appeared invincible. But as I stood above it, drenched in beads of sweat and sipping the remains of my water, I wasn't so sure. I couldn't believe that I was the only one looking to escape the sun's relentless rays in hope of finding shade, and better yet, a cold front to stop this wave of heat that seemed to be without end.
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Once I returned to Bern and exited the train station, I took part in the evening rush hour. The stereotypically slow Bernese waltzed their way up the station steps and back onto the streets towards their homes, while the fast-paced Zurich dwellers pushed their way frantically onto the train departing for the bustling banking city. "So that's what it's like to get up at Bern time and spend a day at the office," I facetiously thought to myself as I passed professionally-suited workers porting leather briefcases.

And what an office that was. I just hope it's there next time--not just for my sake, but so that anyone can wake up at 5:45, throw on some hiking boots, load up a backpack, and head to "work,"--returning home having learned so much more than if one had remained in their climate-controlled office, its floor standing sturdily beneath their feet, its desk piled high with papers, some being read, some being discarded, many being placed back into a leather briefcase at the end of the day.

A Swiss New England Day

~ Training seriously but not too seriously ~ 

As I had mentioned in an earlier post, I am currently training for my first 50k ultra marathon, the VT50, which will take place at the end of September in Brownsville, Vermont. Even though I have had my fair share of running injuries in the past, my love of long mountain runs inspired me to give this challenge a shot—especially since I would have the Swiss Alps as training ground.

My biggest concern for this summer of training, aside from staying injury-free, was to continue to find the motivation for long solo workouts (I am following a training plan so although running groups exist in Bern, I am trying to keep to a specific workout routine—plus there is a yearly fee to join these clubs).  The project I’m working on is quite similar to working on a thesis, and I am still feeling a bit burned out from my senior thesis at Dartmouth, so working on two “projects” (my climate change one + training) where I am the only one patting myself on the back each day feels awesome on great days, but can also be quite discouraging.

Even though a seemingly endless playground of mountains lay just over an hour away by train, I knew it would be difficult to spend day after day training alone. Plus, I soon realized that it was not realistic to try to head to the mountains every day—too long for a mid-week commute and way too expensive. So most workouts during the week were to take place in Bern, namely along the Aare. Not a bad thing—the Aare is stunning, the path that meanders along it couldn’t be more convenient, and if you’re looking for hills you can always run from the city down to the river and back up again—as many times as your heart desires. The only downside to this route: it involves a lot of pavement and soon becomes repetitive.

But so far, so good. Running along the Aare does not yet bore me beyond belief, besides a little blip a few weeks ago my legs are feeling great (knock on wood), and I can still wake up each day feeling motivated (and excited) to go out for a session of solo training.

My secret?

To take a training plan seriously, but not too seriously.

For instance, this past week was a “recovery” week (not sure if I can really call it that because I still got 11.5hrs in, but I am feeling rested) from the past two weeks of 17hrs and 14hrs, respectively.  My training schedule looked like this:

Week of: 8/5/13

Type of week: recovery

M: 0 off/rest- needed it!

T: 1.25 2xcore routine + easy hour run along the Aare

W: 2 6x600m uphill intervals in the rain and thunder- felt great! So epic! Really proud of myself for finishing J

Th: 0.75 amazing first yoga class with Sabe!! Tough at times, but such a perfect level J

F: 1 quick easy evening run- legs felt great but stomach hated me

S: 3.25 lovely picnic MTB ride along the Aare with Dondi

Su: 3.25 run/hike up to Fründenhütten above Kandersteg- felt pretty good! Super tough climb, maybe the toughest yet (4800ft of elevation gain!)

Total: 11.5

Yep, I still keep a training plan. I know my Ford Sayre coaches are proud, since this can be difficult to hammer into their skiers, resulting in the ends of practices where excuses for absent logs range from “My mom forgot to fill it out for me” to “Oh I didn’t know that stuff we do after school is worth writing down.” Even when I decided to no longer participate on the Dartmouth ski team, I kept a training log. I think it can be a useful tool even when you’re not in the midst of a competitive season—for keeping track of your health, how much energy you have, whether intensity or volume tires you more, as well as any seasonal patterns you notice or any big life adjustments you must adapt to. For example, I perform terribly in heat and humidity, but can also sleep less during summertime. I slept a TON when I lived on the Arctic Circle of Finland during the winter. Spring term senior year, there were days when I hadn’t slept and had forgotten to eat proper meals and it became REAL difficult to get in long workouts because I was practically asleep during them. And now, this summer, I am too burned out from college to get stressed about work, so I go to sleep when I’m tired and have had the BEST and most consistent training I’ve seen in a long while.

biking to yoga 

Thursday’s yoga and Saturday’s picnic ride were by two biggies for keeping things fun an interesting this week. My newfound friend Sabe, with whom I went running a couple weeks ago, is a yoga instructor and she is GREAT. Unlike most yoga classes where you do a bunch of sun salutations for the first half, and then spend the second half on the floor, she kept things challenging throughout the entire hour and a half, but mixed in some resting poses when we really needed it. The class was particularly interesting because she conducted it in Swiss German—and her accent must have been really strong or something because I could not understand a word for at least the first half hour—I had to look around the room at others in order to follow along. At the end, we all exchanged names as well as bises (the three kisses on the cheek) and I became known as “the one with the nordie physique” aka the stiff muscly one. I wouldn’t have been surprised if we had all gone out for dinner together afterward—it was a super friendly group.

Saturday: Who knew that one could wind through all the aspects of a New England mountain bike ride just outside of Bern? After waking up to an amazingly strong and amazingly wonderful cappuccino, Dondi and I hit the bike path in Bern and headed northwest along the Aare. It’s a joke now that I always attack the hills too hard because I am used to charging Cat 3 and 4 climbs in New England…and that a “hill” here is more likely to mean a “mountain.” But this ride, Dondi informed me, was to be more my terrain. And indeed it was—I could and did charge up each hill like I owned them as Upper Valley territory. And unlike many of the sun-exposed mountain passes that have become familiar biking routes, these roads were narrow, rolling, dirt, and shaded by deciduous trees—how unusual for Switzerland and how like New England! We passed by farms, a lake (actually just a dammed section of the Aare), a “trail” that was essentially a logging expedition with enough logs out of the way to make room for bikes, as well as a muddy section—to complete the classic New England experience. About 2/3 of the way through, we stopped for a picnic lunch beside the dammed section of the Aare, which for me included tomatoes, cheese, prosciutto, and half an Ovomaltine bar that I treated quite territorially (Dondi had his own dessert that I packed for him—I wasn’t being that mean ;-) When we returned home, I felt a little tired from the sun and a good workout (45km on a mix of roads and trails) but also refreshed—I didn’t really think of the ride as a “workout” or “training”—it was more like something fun to do with a Saturday, with lunch partway through. Plus it was a great warm-up for Sunday’s mountain run J

Sunday: My goal for this day was to get in at least 3 hours of solid mountain running (hiking when the terrain got steep) in order to bring back some volume and transition out of the recovery week. After much map consulting, I decided on Kandersteg, a small town outside Frutigen, another small town about 45min south of Bern, as a starting point. You can take a train directly, so I thought that would be the best way to hit some serious mountains with minimal train time. As soon as I started moving, I noticed it was HOT. That familiar exposed direct-sun feeling. I had only brought my little Camelback with me and my initial thought when starting up the climb was, ‘shoot I am going sweat this sunscreen off in two seconds and it was either an apple or sunscreen going in the pack so here’s the beginning of a long day of burning.’ Gosh was I dripping. It was embarrassing.

The evening before, when I consulted the map, I created an ambitious plan to run to Oeschenen See, then up to Fründenhütte, then back down to the lake, then repeat something of similar elevation on the other side of the lake. The way up Oeschenen See was an incredibly steep, highly trafficked paved road—enough to make me one irritable lady. Then once at the lake, the crowds continued, thanks to nice sandy beaches and a hotel/restaurant. I just wanted to get way the heck away from ALL these people. So up to Fründenhütte I climbed. Things got nicer in terms of the surface (goodbye pavement hello beautiful singletrack) but they also got tough. The switchbacks seemed absolutely relentless, the lake gave me vertigo to look down at, and the Fründenhütte seemed nowhere in sight. My running gate began to slow, and soon I was stumbling over rocks, becoming a little worried about my safety—the stakes were a wee high after all. After switchback after switchback of hot, fiery legs, I began to accept that the running part of the day was pretty much kaput (hah! This is a German word J it means “broken”) except for maybe on the way down on the less steep parts. I also began to give up on my idea of repeating a climb of similar difficulty on the other side of the lake once I had finished this one.

Eventually, a Swiss flag came into view, which was a good sign because they normally denote the presence of a hut. And that was indeed the case. What an accomplishment I felt, standing on what seemed like the top of the world, the Oeschenen See a small pond below, three large glaciers surrounding me, as well as other hikers—all of whom hiked up on their own two feet with no support from a gondola.

One of three glaciers above Fründenhütte

Sharing the summit with other fit people

So, my message from the week is this one: Know when to push yours elf and stay focused, but also know when to stop. Don’t beat yourself up all the time. Recognize all the hard work and discipline you’ve put in, and take a little break sometimes. Run and bike and frolic like you’re a kid. Try a yoga class. Take a picnic with you. And make sure to eat chocolate, at least some of the time J 

Burning legs and burning fires.

Thursday was one of the more epic days of my life. And I have had a lot of epicness lately. I don’t know what’s going to happen if I keep this up…maybe I’ll end up rock climbing or something. Nah I don’t think so; someone would have to pay me a lot to do that.

I started the day by waking up late at Dondi’s home in Gstaad, freaking out about the fact that it was already hot out, quickly eating breakfast, and then heading out the door onto the hiking path that is literally his driveway. We were planning to hike another mountain that evening in order to celebrate the 1^st of August, the national holiday in Switzerland, so in the back of my mind I considered being “cautious” on this outing so as to save some energy for the second one.

Before I knew it, I was running up a series of switchbacks in the hot, exposed sun, enjoying the pain…and of course the epicness of running up a mountain. Soon enough trail became steeper, going straight up several vertical fields, all of them still exposed to the sunshine. The sign at the bottom of the mountain said the hike should take about 4 hours to reach the top of Lauenenhorn. Dondi told me that at my pace I should expect more like 3h, maybe a little less. Turned out I felt GREAT that day, and was able to place one foot in front of the other without feeling too much burn or sluggishness. The worst part was the heat and the narrow knife’s edge at the top.  Normally I get terrible vertigo, but being alone forced me to deal with the situation singlehandedly…which entailed not looking down too much and not stopping. An hour and a half after starting, I reached the top.

not quite sure why "Lauenehore" is written when everyone says "Lauenenhorn"

view from the top

view from the top

The way down was quite the miracle as well. I felt light and springy and thanked my knees profusely for staying completely intact. It’s always funny running down something that killed to go up—going downhill burns in a very specific way, but your heart barely has to do anything. So when I reached the end of the steepness and was back on the switchbacks, I thought to myself, “Huh? How was that so difficult on the way up?” But as soon as I turned around to look back on what I had accomplished, I had no desire to repeat it all over again.

Once I reached the bottom, a sweaty mess and not smelling that great (I know I know, girls are supposed to always smell like flowers and butterflies…sometimes it’s difficult okay?) I headed to a glacial stream to cool off, ice my legs, and take a 2-second full-body plunge.

When I retuned to the house and uploaded the Strava file of the hike, I couldn’t help but notice that it is categorized as HC—or hors-catégorie—beyond category, the toughest level of climbs. Here is the Strava link if you are interested: http://app.strava.com/activities/71402976

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Hike #2: We started out around 6:30pm, carrying about 10 logs of firewood each, some water (not enough I would soon realize), the last remains of quinoa salad I had made the day before, a celebratory flourless chocolate chestnut cake I had also made the previous day, a bottle of wine, headlamps, and warm clothes.

We immediately began to ascend a steep pitch. I made a few moaning sounds and exclaimed “meine Beine!” That was to be the last of my whining though because it became evident that the whole climb was to feel exactly like this…mountain #2 was another HC.

Oh lordy, what did I get myself into.

view of HC #1 of the day from HC #2

One takeaway message I have from this trip so far is that the Alps are a bitch. I haven’t been on a single hike where there is not at least one false summit. And on this particular outing, there were like three. At one point I thought to myself, “Okay, just count to 100 and you will be there. Any number past 100 is the number of times you can get gelato before leaving.” Turns out I can have gelato between now and when I die, according to this rule. 

Anyone who has taken part in an endurance sport I am sure can relate to that feeling of pushing through a physical experience where you think the end is coming when it is actually a long way off, so that the activity becomes way more of a mental hardship than a physical one. In the moment, it seems like whatever you are doing, you just can’t do any longer. You think the end is near. Then it’s not. Then you think, “Okay this is it.” And it isn’t. When you do see the finish line, the final finish line, you no longer think about your cramped legs, blistered feet, sore back, pumping heart, stomach ache, dry mouth, or overheated body—all you know is that you see the finish line. This final stretch is the pinnacle of the out-of-body experience. You are absolutely in the present; your mind is only on one thing—to get yourself as quickly as possible out of your current state. When you do finish you think, “No way in hell am I ever doing that again.” And then before you know it, you are at the start line of another race or at the base of another mountain.

As I had mentioned, I did not bring enough water. I have no idea why. I own a Camelback, and even had it with me in Gstaad. I think it was the thought of the firewood weighing down my pack—I wanted to carry as little extra as possible. Which meant that I quenched my thirst with wine.

I would not recommend this, especially after having climbed nearly 7500ft in elevation that day. I was very lucky to have nothing go wrong…thirst was quenched and no headache or drunkenness resulted. Must have been some magical wine because that was a bloody miracle.

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I don’t know how the Swiss do it. They go to bed at 10, are at work by 7, eat a healthy breakfast (müesli), turn every edible flower into some sort of herbal remedy, hike up mountains on the weekends, hike up mountains for their national holiday, and then once at the top, drink beer and wine, eat cheese and sausages, and smoke several home-rolled cigarettes.

I would like to think that just like in any culture, there exist a variety of people, some who care more about their health than others, and some who are most interested in carrying out a certain image.  But I can’t help but notice several paradoxes within this one. One the one hand, the Swiss are very disciplined in their work ethic. Yet on the other hand, I would say that about 30% of people smoke regularly, and at least 50% of people smoke when they go out drinking, or on special occasions.

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No matter how disciplined you are, something falls through the cracks eventually in order for this discipline to become a sustainable lifestyle. Okay my father might be an exception, but in general this is what I perceive to be true. In my case, I usually check my email way more times than necessary, do the same with Facebook, eat chocolate, or watch Friends bloopers on YouTube after a long day of work or a tough running workout. In the case of the Swiss, I think the chocolate part remains true but smoking a cigarette on the top of a mountain is also thrown into the mix. At a baptism celebration I attended yesterday (more to come on this later), I noticed that the attendees smoked cigarette after cigarette but only drank a beer or two over the course of an entire evening. If this same party had taken place in the United States, most people my age would have stumbled out of there tipsy at the very least, their livers doing the work and not their lungs.

The unfortunate part of slipping through the cracks of discipline is that there is a certain badassness associated with doing something hardcore while simultaneously doing something that makes this hardcore activity even harder—so you then appear even more hardcore (i.e. hiking up an HC climb and smoking cigarettes at the top, writing a brilliant essay while hung-over). Those who are able to accomplish this double badassness become our heroes…but why? What ever happened to being impressed simply by pure athleticism or intellectual brilliance? Why do we always have to add another challenge in order to separate ourselves from others? And do we so easily gravitate towards smoking and drinking for these “challenges”?

As I sat on the top of our 1^st of August celebratory mountain and reflected on all this (and wrote this post in my head), I tried my hardest not to be too cynical. At least we weren’t sitting around at home, watching TV, drinking beer after beer and eating junk food—my stereotypical idea of the American equivalent of such a celebration. Or the Dutch equivalent on New Year’s: eating balls of fried dough in order to stay away and to soak up some of the alcohol. Once again, my flawless lush-green-rolling-hills-speckled-with-snow-and-cows-and-really-fit-people image of Switzerland was a bit squashed. But I wasn't that far off. After all, I was atop a 7,000ft peak, sitting around a campfire, looking out at the sunset, having hiked all day, sharing the summit with others who also had to work to be here.

And as is human nature, I also fell through the cracks. My secret for the day: I didn’t wake up until after 10am. So for all you fellow Type-Aers out there for whom sleeping is your secret to badassness, remember: a late start to the day doesn’t mean that it’s all ruined. It’s still possible to get in two big climbs, and end your day like this: 

You can see some fires in the distance from other people doing the same thing.
By the end of the night there were hundreds; each mountain top had been summited and was glowing :)