The Purpose Is The Revolution

The deload week ended yesterday and we went rock climbing. I usually schedule my deload weeks for periods when I am up in Sydney but, after my last trip north, I realised that sleeping only 4 or 5 hours a night, spending hours sitting with my Mum or in traffic, not eating well, and being inundated with city noise, smells and people is actually more stressful on the body than all the training and trips I do at home. I didn’t do nothing, I still trained four days (very easy lifting and climbing just to keep the body moving), I went bouldering and I did an upwind/downwind kayak run, but, it was a true deload week and I felt better for it.

Sometimes, the best thing you can do for yourself is to not do something. This is not how our society works. The experts always tell us about the latest new thing we have to do in order to be healthy, or moral or compassionate or whatever the modish catch phrase is. These goal posts move continually and, if you observe this phenomena, you might realise that the purpose is the revolution and the endless failure of most of us to reach the end point is a feature not a bug.

There are dozens and dozens of examples of this. The latest one I saw was vegetable consumption. Dietitians are now claiming that in order to have a “healthy diet” at least 10 different vegetables must be eaten each day or even each meal. I eat a lot of vegetables, I eat vegetables at every meal (including breakfast), and my lunch time salad is big enough to fill a good sized mixing bowl. I love vegetables, but I’m not healthy because I eat vegetables. I’m healthy because I don’t eat sugar, grains or industrial seed oils. I don’t eat processed foods, and I eat a lot of animal protein. The vegetables are nice but not necessary. What is most important are the things I don’t eat.

Eating 10 different vegetables at each meal has to be peak luxury belief. I counted the number of different vegetables I had in my fridge immediately after my weekly shop. If I double counted (red onions and brown onions were counted as two different types of vegetables) I had 12 different vegetables in my fridge. But here’s the thing: I live in an area with good access to fresh vegetables, I can afford to buy fresh vegetables, I have a massive fridge in which I can store fresh vegetables, I have continuous electricity and running water. I am privileged. And, yet, privileged as I am, the thought of making not just one meal but three meals a day which include 10 different vegetables was overwhelming. This is a goal post that, even with everything stacked in my favour I will never meet. And that’s the point. The average person will never meet the goal posts because as soon as the average person gets close, the elites move the goal posts.

In the wake of the astounding outcome of the recent US presidential election, this is something our political and cultural elite would do well to grapple with. The continual shifting of goal posts on every facet of life which ensure that the average person fails is not sustainable policy. At a certain point, the average him/her or they who just wants to get on with life, is going to issue a very big F**k You (my apologies to those offended by this language) and act accordingly.

Rock Climbing With Round Numbers

 At nine pitches, Doug was ready to quit for the day, while I had fallen apart on pitch eight but recovered a little by pitch nine. Ten pitches however, is such a nice round number, like your typical 50 kilometre day. In pursuit of ten, Doug belayed me while I led the last pitch but, in typical restrained Doug style, he passed on the climb so I cleaned the route on abseil.

I only had three real climbing days in October, and one of those was with my nephew at ClimbFit in Kirrawee. ClimbFit is super fun, and climbing with Mitch who hurls himself up the routes with great enthusiasm but less skill is also super fun, but it’s not climbing outside, and every time I go - which is every time I am in Sydney - I think how much it is not like climbing outside, but still super fun.

So, I got to thinking on the walk out, when was the last time I climbed 10 pitches in a day and how many pitches was an average climbing day when we lived in Nelson and climbed a lot more frequently? What is the point of all these comparisons you might wonder when “comparison is the thief of joy?” Well, comparison when done solely against your previous performance/ability is a measure of how well you are holding back the tide of ageing. Plateau, as the saying goes, is the new PB (personal best) if you are on the dark side of 60. While I did not get out climbing much in October, I did climb a lot more on my home wall and, all the time my forearms and glutes were getting painfully pumped, I was hoping that the training would hold off the inevitable decline in rock climbing performance.

So what does the database show: In July, I did 11 pitches in a day – my notes say I fell off a couple of routes (sad face) – while in May I climbed 15 pitches – but they were mostly short pitches of under 15 metres so they are worth less than a rope stretcher of 30 full metres up the Slocan Valley north of Nelson, BC. But, putting aside pitch length and difficulty and whether or not the routes were sport or traditional, these numbers aren’t bad. In fact, they are pretty good compared to my old Canadian days, bearing in mind we climbed a lot more trad and multi-pitch routes back in North America, both of which consume more time.

So I guess comparison is not all bad but I that might be because on this one metric, things don’t look too grim.

October Earwigs

Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it’s almost impossible to eradicate.

On Sunday, Doug and I paddled north in the kayaks to Richmond Beach where we turned about. After tea and a short leg stretch at North Head Beach, we blasted home with a light northeasterly tail wind – the first of the summer season – barely enough to catch runners, which did not stop us trying and I was happy to see that our return pace was brisk: we covered the 6 to 7 kilometre return journey in about 40 minutes. When we landed on the beach, 21 kilometres down and home in time for lunch, Doug commented that the lactate level sprint did not feel as uncomfortable as usual. He was right, it didn’t, although I could feel my legs the next day.

PC: DB

The day before, Saturday, we had ridden the Mogo trails with a friend and her friends, a nice group of six (in total – and only one e-bike!). I had plotted a route which avoided the closed trails (there was weekend race running) but took us on a tour around the trail network, up and down, as is the nature of the Mogo trail network. It was a great little loop and I admit to some satisfaction in Doug and I being the last men standing.

October I trained a lot more intensity: I went back to my Mountain Athlete (now Mountain Tactical) roots, doing long circuit sessions with slightly lower weights but more explosive exercises. Along with that, I’ve been doing more mountain biking and much less strictly zone 2 level endurance. That’s alright for me as my aerobic threshold is pretty tight against my lactate threshold. If you’re aerobic endurance and lactate threshold are widely separated, better performance and less fatigue comes from a gradual increase in aerobic (zone 2) training with only a smattering of lactate threshold work – the classic polarised training method. Despite many days of DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness – although I’m not sure mine was delayed), October was a fun training month. Intensity is both earned and fun.

I read some good books in October. I read so many books I forget what they all are. Certainly, I loved Barry Blanchards memoir: The Calling: A Life Rocked By Mountains, although the book ended too soon and too abruptly because I know Blanchard went on to complete many more audacious climbs after the book ended. An enjoyable part of the book was reading about old friends in Canada who featured in the book and also appreciating Blanchard’s deep and abiding attachment to the mountains that he grew up among and never left. Often overshadowed by the bigger mountain ranges of the world, Blanchard recognised early that world class adventure could be had close at hand in the Canadian Rockies if only a climber could dream big enough.

Bad News: How Woke Media is Undermining Democracy by Batya Unger-Sargon is a timely book as the vocal woke media continues to progress the victim-oppressor narrative. Before you close this blog in disgust, recognise that Unger-Sargon is on the true left of the political spectrum and very much concerned with “talking truth to power” – that old adage that used to be the mantra of journalists before journalists became propaganda arms of the government.

Liberal/progressive white women are, apparently, afflicted with more mental dysphoria than other groups. Could it be that a world view circumscribed by victims and oppressors is by nature pretty grim? Victims, by definition, are powerless, and, when there are so many different and over-lapping characteristics which classify the victim class, almost everyone becomes a victim. No sensible person can argue that oppressors and victims exist. But that does not make intersectionality theory logical, sensible or even useful, because once you embrace the idea, the oppressed class simply shifts. Ideas, are like ticks, almost impossible to remove.

Drinking Poison in the Jungle

 It’s a fine line between salvation and drinking poison in the jungle. Gym Jones.

I often wonder when it started: the “othering” of the other side. The Covid saga bears a lot of responsibility, I think, because it is never a good idea to treat your fellow humans as vectors of disease. Some people are truly evil, but few indeed, and most folk want only a few things from life: a home, friends, family, a decent standard of living, the ability to pass through both life and death with dignity, the option to choose religion or atheism, food and water. Humans don’t particularly need safety, in fact, there’s evidence we thrive under difficulty; we certainly do not need fake protections from other people’s beliefs and the humble and hubris free among us understand that we can never truly know the circumstances of other people’s lives.

Everyone thinks that media, particularly legacy media (in Australia that means Fairfax, the ABC, the Murdoch dynasty) exist to share the news, but in reality, today’s media is driven pretty much entirely by clicks, and clicks are driven by division and outrage, which is why virtually every news story you see (even on the oft-assumed to be non-partisan ABC) features headlines which are both absurd and outrageous. Middle of the road and balanced centrist views do not deliver engagement.

The best book I’ve read about this is written by comic artist Scott Adams (the creator of Dilbert) and has the uninspiring title: Loser Think: How Untrained Brains Are Ruining America. I walked past this book at my local library a dozen times before I borrowed it, read it, absorbed it and changed my relationship with media overnight.

It is discouraging to see the educated elite of our country perpetuating division and hate under the guise of empathy, and I simply do not understand how these folks can feel comfortable in their own skins with public comments such as this (not one of the worst):

“Trump and all his supporters are truly horrific – the most deplorable group of people on earth.”

It’s a bold statement, a hateful statement, and, at the end of the day, the kind of statement – and attitude – that will deliver the election to Trump because there is not a human on earth who responds positively to being denigrated and abused.

Weakness Leaving The Body

It was vertigo. A heady, insuperable longing to fall. We might also call vertigo the intoxication of the weak. Aware of his weakness, a man decides to give in rather than stand up to it. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Milan Kundera.

Is vertigo the fear of falling or the desire to fall? I’m speeding along the new Mogo trails on my mountain bike feeling that almost overwhelming desire to go faster and faster until I crash. That’s mountain biking, the play between how fast you can go and how fast you should go. I heard about another casualty of the new trails yesterday – broken ribs and a broken collar bone – another old person like me tugged along by the pull of gravity mixed with desire.

My big goal is to ride 1000 metres of vertical in a day. That’s not really a big goal as I’ve hit the mid 700’s without really trying; but I’m leaving my 1000 metre goal for summer when it is too hot to rock climb and too busy to travel.

Mountain biking is a good sport for old people. It’s like that sticker on cars “objects in mirror are closer than they appear.” Obstacles and challenges come up quickly when you are mountain biking which means you have to react just as quickly and, as we age, our reaction times get longer and longer; some because of a reduction in fast twitch fibres, some because we stop doing things which require fast reactions.

There’s also the riding uphill which is a good leg and lung workout (no E bikes), and unlike running or walking (where you can slow down but still move uphill), to keep the bicycle moving you must go at pace uphill. An afternoon on the trails can become an interval workout. That’s the other thing we lose as we age, the ability to push your lactate threshold out. Without specific training, older folks get good at endurance and poor at power and strength, which is why so many older folks become MAMILS (or the female equivalent), though women seem to just drop out altogether.

Mountain biking is the closest I’ve found to backcountry skiing in Australia. “Earning your turns” we used to call backcountry skiing back in the old days when people still earned their turns. Most of a big day out in the backcountry was spent skiing uphill breaking trail through fresh powder. It might take an hour to gain 300 metres which was descended in the blissful joy of powder turns in about three minutes. Mountain biking is like that, most of the time I’m riding uphill but, there are descents where the bike and I float down buoyed by gravity. Weakness leaves the body the moment you decide to enjoy the uphill as much as the downhill.

Six Things

Here is a list of six things that I learnt recently while working towards my sea guide qualification:

1. The trip should be about the group having a good time not necessarily about your personal goals If you screen participants before the trip the likelihood of your personal goals coinciding with group goals increases. In fact, you can plan for that.
2. Maintaining situational awareness is imperative, particularly when hazards are flipped over.
3. Keep instructions concise, clear and to the point.
4. Avoid excessive instructions and/or long monologues because when you really need the group to pay attention they won’t be listening.
5. Build in appropriate safety margins by considering the worst thing that could happen. For example if someone capsizes right beside a bommie, reef, headland etc., do you have sufficient distance to perform a rescue or will you have to first tow them out of danger?
6. Consider drift when rafting the group up. This applies to quick raft ups for “just in time” briefings and longer raft-ups where you want the group to say in one location. Transits help with this.

But What Weather?

After Sunday’s paddle, I got interested in the minutia of weather forecasts and all the varieties available to the sea kayaker. First, I got the standard BOM marine forecast for my area which spans Ulladulla in the north to Montague Island in the south. Here it is. After that, I collected the MetEye forecasts for the same area which are produced in three hourly increments. You can see all of these as well. There was very little happening on MetEye at 8 am so the first image is 11 am, then 2 pm then 5 pm. All paddlers should be off the water by 5 pm!

Finally, I went to Willy Weather and started pulling up forecasts scattered through the region. This is where things got both interesting and perplexing. Starting in the north of the region at Ulladulla, Willy Weather actually has a drop down list of seven different Ulladulla locations ranging from Ulladulla off-shore to Ulladulla boat ramp. This is clearly a case of precision without accuracy.

Further south, things get even weirder. I’ve pulled both the Meringo and Congo forecasts. These two beach side communities are four kilometres apart. At Congo, the southerly wind comes in at 20 knots, while at Meringo the maximum southerly wind is 11 knots. Finally, to Narooma near the southern end of the BOM marine forecast. Willy Weather offers no less than 10 different options for Narooma! I chose Narooma Beach but also looked at both Narooma Offshore and Montague Island. As might be expected winds peaked at 20 knots for both offshore locations (they were the same) while at Narooma Beach winds peaked at around 13 knots.

What to make of all this? The most obvious first. If a paddler is using Willy Weather, the exact location chosen matters and varies widely. If I used one of the off-shore forecasts, I would be planning for winds up to 20 knots, while my paddling buddy – who chose Narooma Beach is prepared for 10 knots. There is a world of difference between paddling in 10 knots and 20 knots and there are a lot of paddlers out there who will struggle mightily in 20 knots. Drive your car at 40 kilometres an hour and stick your head out the window and imagine that wind blowing at you while paddling. This could well explain my perplexity when I’m paddling with folks who report a widely different forecast to my own. When I think back to all the times I’ve rocked up with a very different forecast to my paddling partners, when questioned, these paddlers always report using Willy Weather. But which Willy? Who knows? On a short stretch of the NSW south coast there are over 100 options and varying degrees of congruence between those options.

It’s interesting as well to compare the BOM marine forecast with MetEye. I tend to think of MetEye as a finer grained forecast than the broad brush painted by the BOM forecast. Inshore winds on MetEye range from 10 to 15 knots to 15 to 20 knots. That fits well with the BOM marine forecast and a sensible paddler would go out prepared for up to 20 knots of wind. Prudent outdoor adventurers (in any sport) plan for the worst but hope for the best.

But look at MetEye at 2 pm, there’s a half dozen tiles that are green (15 to 20 knots) among a sea (no pun intended) of blue tiles (10 to 15 knots). Some folks might look at this and think that if they are at Burrewarra Point at 2 pm the wind will be, at most 15 knots, while if they are at the Tollgate Islands or even North Head, the wind will hit 20 knots. Conversely, staying near Tuross Head, only 5 knots of wind will be encountered. This is false precision and an artefact of the way MetEye forecasts are presented. When I see this kind of discrepancy, I ignore the small details and assume that, in the afternoon, the NW wind will be anywhere between 15 and 20 knots. With that assumption I am pretty much covered in terms of preparation.

Finally, the very last image is from Windy. This application seems rarely used by sea kayakers but I think it’s the best. The presentation allows much better visualisation of the weather patterns, there are four different models to choose from and you can easily compare the different models. If all the models are in agreement, you can feel more confidence in the forecast, while if they are discrepant you should assume uncertainty.

What to make of all this? Well, that’s up to you. I’ll continue using everything except Willy Weather for all the reasons explicated above.