All posts tagged: adventure

Flip the Paradigm

I was 14 hours into a 50 mile run, after running the over 100 miles the previous four days in the middle of the desert.  I had hit the wall six times already, and was about to go for a deep and dark seventh. Literally. It was 2am in the middle of the Sahara desert and my eyes were playing tricks on me.  At the end of my rope, stumbling through the sand I hit a crisis point. I projected four hours away from finishing the race and I didn’t know if I could go any further.  As I agonized over my situation, like grinding over the top of a giant hill, a new horizon brought a new perspective my way in the form of a question.  What’s the learning opportunity here? When I got real curious over why I was in so much agony, the paradigm shifted and I raised my gaze towards overcoming the obstacle instead of lamenting on it.   It’s something that has stuck with me to build awareness and to problem …

Chile — Racing The Sun

We started the day at 8am after a brutal cold night camping out on the salt flats. This desert has huge extremes and we are getting both of them. The long march started out with 16km of salt flats. Mix of crusty trail and nasty craggy hard and sharp salt. Many places all you can do is hike, carefully and try not to blow any ankle. It knocks the wind right out of you. The next two stages were mix of hard and soft packed sand and I handled ok. Just pushed one stage at a time. It’s amazing how your mindset changes in this day. I judged wanted to get through the first 42km so I could push hard in the last three. After the end of stage 3 – 32km, we got a surprise, they gave each of us the choice of Coke or Pepsi. Coke it was! Oh man, what a boost! Gave us a good jolt and helped me run a difficult stage four. A mix of sand, salt flats, a …