Tibet Miscellaneous

A little administrative note for the good of the order:

I will not be posting very much, if at all, while I'm actually in Tibet. I don't intend on being a Western ignoramus by making our Sherpas carry my laptop and satellite feed to 21,000 ft so my ten readers can get postings about how incredibily tired I am "real-time." Plus, if they have to carry this, there will not be any room for the espresso maker, wine-bar and hair-drier. There is no way I am going on this trip without any of that stuff.

Really, though, there is something deeper intended with this decision--I'll be searching for an overall narrative while I'm there, so even if I did have adequate technology to provide real-time posts, it would be difficult to do so without being able to put everything into proper context. I've been hitting a bit of a personal wall where I'm trying to figure out a few things. I'm not struggling with the overall meaning to my existence or anything, but I do feel a constant unknown restlessness. Sort of like the low-cycle hum on an amp due to bad cable that lost its ground. It isn't anything ear piercing that needs immediate attention, but prolonged exposure to it is annoying and requires you to address and fix this problem, or you are just a lazy and ignorant turd.

You might get a post or two from an internet cafe in Kathmandu just to let you know that I wasn't taken hostage by a Yeti, but the good stuff will come later.

Mmmm, Beer

More later. Today is beer day.

Beer day is happy day.

Training for Everest: Copiously Consuming Alcoholic Beverage in Route to the Roof the World, by Ten Fingers 6 Strings

Training for the Himalayas - Part I

One of the most frequent questions I have been getting about my trip, other than, "What are you, freaking INSANE?" is "What are you doing to train?" While I cannot comment on my sanity, which may or may not be of consequence to anyone, I can offer some of help with training...and narcassism.

Most of the training I'm going to discuss is not specific to Himalayan expeditions; it is more of an overall theory of aligning the human body towards a more complete utlization focused on power, agility, coordination and endurance. Part I will focus on this concept, as well as laying out my weekly training schedule.

My workout is a combination of running, weights and various exercises that rely on counter-balancing (with and without weights). In general, there are very few "straight-up" exercises or power-lifting that I do that does not include some kind of counter-balance. These exercises are primarily aimed at tightening your core "abs, back and pelvis" to coordinate it with specific movements used in various activities.

Here is a typical training week:

Monday
Running - Sprints/Line-Drills (x7)
Core Strengthening

Tuesday
Running - Sprints/Line-Drills (x3)
Upperbody focused weights and core counterbalancing
Core Strengthening

Wednesday
Running - Sprints/Line-Drills (x7)
Lowerbody focused weights and core counterbalancing
Core Stengthening

Thursday
Running - Sprints/Line-Drills (x3)
Upperbody focused weights and core counterbalancing
Core Strengthening

Friday
Running - Sprints/Line-Drills (x7)
Core Strengthening

Sometimes I flop the schedule depending on how much work I think I need to do in a particular area. It really key to be in tune with your body; shunning a dogmatic and unbending about any particular approach. It keeps you from getting injured and also, as you begin to really hear what your body is telling you, you will learn to know exactly when to shift your focus on problem areas.

Developing Power vs. Pure Strength

Straight-up lifting weights to maximum burn is practically useless. You will get heath benefits from it, of course, and you'll look awesome at the beach, however, without focused coordination with other parts of your body, you'll build a lot of muscle that isn't able to turn into power. Also, injury risk is much greater.

For example, the line-drill, wind-sprints that I do on the basketball court go as follows: start from the baseline, sprint to the free-throw line, back to the baseline, to the three-point line, back to the baseline, then to half court, back to the baseline, then I do the same interval on the other side of the court. After years of doing these, I plateaued. Especially as I got older and wasn't doing as many sports that involved that type of sprinting on a regular basis, my performance actually started to decrease.

Then, I started doing one-legged squats on a foam cushion--no weights--just pushing and supporting my own body weight. The foam cushion causes you to balance with your ankles, as well as focusing your core muscles in your lower abs and back in order to keep your balance while you do it. I started off only being able to do two without falling. Now I can do 2 sets of 10 holding 15-lbs dumbells in each hand. As I got better with these squats, I was able to explode running line-drills. My legs were getting stronger, but more importantly, they were coordinated in one motion with my core and even my shoulders and arms. If I had been doing straight squats with the bar, I would technically have been able to power lift more weight, but I wouldn't have gotten any faster running line-drills.

Rock climbing taught me a LOT about this concept. If you watch a really good climber, they make climbing almost look like ballet (minus the pink tights). It is very graceful and deliberate. Most beginning and intermediate climbers who plateau, tend to focus mostly on arm and finger strength to pull through tough spots. However, an advanced climber positions their feet, uses hand-holds mostly for leverage and actually lifts with their abs, lower back and pelvis. Now, this is easier said than done, as it takes a lot of practice to get your muscle memory working so that your body coordinates together to perfect a particular movements. But again, this is a perfect demonstration of developing power versus pure strength.

Lastly, cross-training or other rigorous exercise is a great substitute. Sometimes you can train in the gym and also do the activity you want to do, but there are only so many hours in the day. Again, don't be dogmatic and rigid in your "schedule" that you forget why you are doing it. For instance, I rarely pass up a night to booze and attempt picking up chicks because I have to "get up early and develop coordinated power." I use the time wisely and coordinate my power in a bar setting.

But that is neither here nor there.

This wraps up Part I. My next post will talk about Exhaustion and the Mental Game. Lastly, I'll talk about Diet. If anyone is interested, I can post specific exercises that support this discussion. However, I am sure that 1 out of the 5 total people that read this blog have actually made it to this point with out clicking the "Back" arrow on their browser.

Itinerary & Acclimitization

Firstly, thanks to the Colossus for putting up a post on his blog about my trip. The Colossus has been a great blog friend of mine, so hopefully I'll give him enough interesting material to pass along to the readers of his site. If not, I'm sure he'll photoshop John McCain and me salsa dancing together.

Anyway, here is the 29,000 ft view of our trip.

Rough Itinerary:

May 9: Arrival to Kathmandu, Nepal (await Chinese Visa processing)

May 12: Fly to Lhasa-3600m (11,800 feet)

May 13: Sightseeing around Lhasa/acclimatizing

May 14: Sightseeing around Lhasa/acclimatizing

May 15: Rest day in Lhasa

May 16: Drive to Gyantse-3,955m (12,959 ft)

May 17: Sightseeing & drive to Shigatse-3,910m (12,828 ft)

May 18: Sightseeing & drive Shigatse - New Tingri: 4,406m (14,455 ft)

May 19: Drive Shegar - Rongbuk 5,200m (17,060 ft)

May 20: Rest day Rongbuk Monastery

May 21: Rest day Rongbuk Monastery

May 22: Hike to Everest Base Camp to Camp 1st 5,466m (17,933 ft)

May 23: Hike to interim camp 5,762m (18,904 ft)

May 24: Rest day interim camp

May 25: Hike to Camp II 5,970m (19,586 ft)

May 26: Hike to Camp III ("Advanced Base Camp") - 6,340m (20,800 ft)

May 27: Return to Rongbuk Monastery

May 28: Drive to Nyalam

May 29: Drive Nyalam -Zhungmu- Kathmandu

We plan to depart Kathmandu for U.S. on Friday, 1 June.

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The highest point that we'll reach is very interesting when put into perspective. We'll be just shy of 21,000 ft and will be higher than the highest point in North America (Mt Denali/McKinley 20,320 ft) and about 2,000 ft below the highest point in South America (Mt Aconcagua 22,841 ft). At Camp III, we'll still be looking up at a beast whose summit will be looming 8,000 ft, (gulp) or over a mile and half, higher than where we'll be standing! Even without being there, it is easy to comprehend why it took man so long to finally reach the summit.

Also, note the acclimitization method. Once you get over 17,000 ft, proper acclimitization allows for an average of 1,000 ft of gain per day. For example, if you go from 15,000 to 18,000 ft gaining 3,000 ft, you should rest for 2 days at or below 18,000 ft. Over 3 days, you average 1,000 ft gain. Clearly, everyone responds to altitude differently, but this "rule" provides a good framework to plan you trip around versus being an absolute measure.

For me personally, the initial days at altitude should not be problematic. I have done several trips to the Sierras where I went sea level to 14,000 ft in less than 24-hours without any adverse side-effects other than a shorter breath. I've had some climbers on trips who were phenomenal athletes who were puking their guts out just short of 10,000 feet--chalk that up for good fortune in the gene pool.

Question for readers before I wrap this up: What is the composition of the "plume" that you see coming off the summit of Everest? Just as before, do not Google the answer.

Here is a picture of Everest and her Plume:

On My Way Into Thin Air

I'll be posting updates on the preparations of my trip to Tibet here. The new site won't be up for a while, so Tenfingers6strings.com will have to provide some further relevance for a short time. Shockingly, I've actually had a number of emails and phone calls from people looking for some content on this, and since I am a humble servant to the public, I simply have to deliver.

Once the new site is up, I'm going to cross-post all my adventure posts over there and delete them from this site. I'll actually be posting under my real name at the new site.

In short, training has been going really well, so well in fact that last week I decided to make my efforts a little more challenging: I contracted 100-degree fever for 4 days. Being sick is just so incredibly motivating and inspiring.

This "challenge" wasn't very productive, however, so I took some Zpac and nuked that crap out of my system. Now that I'm a normal human again, I've been doubling my efforts to get where I need to be.

I'll be posting my training regimen shortly so that a) you can marvel at what a badass I am, b) laugh at how sad I am that I'm writing about doing a couple of push-ups after a brisk jog, or c) you can become a badass/pathetic narcissist on your own clock.