Life’s a race

A couple of weeks ago I spent a weekend doing something I love, hiking. I hiked the Seven Rila Lakes and I couldn’t recommend it more, if you love a hike. It was an amazing weekend, the scenery is beautiful, the hike is challenging enough, especially if you skip the lift up and continue hiking past the lakes.

But today’s blog is not to tell you about all the adventures of that weekend, which would be good material for a blog as that’s how I roll, I’m something of a mountain goat. But I digress, the topic of today’s blog is a realisation I had while hiking the beautiful Rila Mountain in Bulgaria.

The Tortoise and the Hare

I expect you’re familiar with the tale of the Tortoise and the Hare, a classic for good reason. Written by Aesop in ancient Greece it has undoubtedly evolved with time and there are different interpretations of the tale but the gist of it remains.

I’ve known the tale since childhood and assume most people have as well, although younger readers might not be as familiar. There are also the different interpretations of the tale to contend with, so I will let you know my interpretation of the tale in the most abbreviated form possible. There’s a race between a hare and a tortoise. We all know the hare runs quite fast and the tortoise moves really slowly. Yet, the tortoise wins the race. This outcome results from a number of reasons, but I would highlight the hare’s overconfidence and her need to stop and rest after running quite fast for a short distance. There are more reasons and I will cover some of them in my analogy shortly but this is my abbreviated interpretation of this tale.

The hiking tortoise

You might infer from my interpretation that the turtle didn’t win the race; rather, the hare lost it. That’s because the interpretation of the tale I just offered you, was my interpretation since I was a child and that’s the main reason why I never really believed in that tale. In my mind, there was no chance for that to actually happen. The hare could only lose the race, but the tortoise could never win.

Well, hiking the Rila Mountain led me to the realisation that, actually, the tortoise can indeed win the race. Not just that, but if the race is long enough, it will invariably win the race. And which race is longer than life itself?

I hike like a tortoise. Slowly, slowly but relentlessly. You see, I hike so slowly that I don’t have to stop. I’m not saying that that’s the only requirement to win the race, but it’s the main one.

The basics

Like with everything, when you want to do something well, you need to make sure that you tick a couple of boxes. Learn the basics and practise them. For hiking; and understand that I’m not a professional hiker if such things exist, or an expert on that activity; I find that since the main skill you need to master is to continuously put one foot in front of the other, I have my work cut out for me. So what are the basics that I learned and practise every time I have the chance to? It’s beautiful how simple it is and it’s only things you already do every day.

Breathing: What’s there to learn, right? And how much more practice do I need if I’m breathing since I was born? There are many ways to breathe and when hiking I always try to breathe in through the nose and breathe out through the mouth. There will come a time when this is not as easy as it sounds but with practice that point will come later and later in the hike. Your breath out should always be longer than the breath in. So you breathe in for two seconds for instance and breathe out for three. You should allow half a second to one second between breathing out and breathing in again. If you can’t wait that half a second and need to breathe in straight away after you breathe out, you’re breathing out for too long. Master your breathing and you’re halfway there.

Walking: I know what you’re thinking or I think I know but it doesn’t matter. If you have read anything I wrote before about walking, please disregard it completely, since we’re talking about hiking here, so any swag or looking straight will only thwart your chances of getting up there. Watch where you going, watch every step you take. You want to briefly look up to make sure you’re on the right path, but your focus is on where you’re stepping. This can strain your neck after a while so practise will strengthen your neck and allow you to go on longer. There are also some exercises you can do; although not during the hike; but we won’t go into that now. As you would expect, the more you practise the longer you can hike. Walking is just putting one foot in front of the other but after a while your feet and legs will start to make it feel less easy to do just that.

Balance: When hiking it’s extremely important to have good balance especially when the terrain is more challenging which is the case with most mountains and the most worthwhile hikes. Yes, trekking poles help and you should wear a good pair of walking boots, but nothing beats practice. Again, there are some training and exercises you can do to help you enhance your balance but nothing beats hiking and gradually increasing the difficulty of the hikes which would mean more challenging trails.

I believe these are the basics you need to master in order to hike the most trails. When it comes to really high altitudes and cold temperatures additional conditioning training and skills are required but I do not have the knowledge and experience to write about it.

The analogy

Life’s hard

So how did I come to my realisation that in fact it’s the tortoise that wins the race and not the hare that loses it? It all started when I arrived at Rila Mountain prepared to take the lift up to what I thought was the start of the Seven Rila Lakes hike. Taking the lift is no small feat for me due to my uncontrollable fear of heights. I was prepared to feel very uncomfortable, scared, dizzy, suicidal and everything else that happens when I’m at a high place and look down. The suicidal is not literally suicidal, it’s just those thoughts and feelings of jumping without any thoughts of killing myself, that’s why it’s so uncomfortable. It’s fine, I know there are millions of people that get this, it’s absolutely normal, I’ve learned in CBT.

First I had to queue to get the ticket. That queue wasn’t too big, maybe 20 people in front of me although it didn’t really seemed to be moving. The problem was the several hundred people waiting to get in on the chairlift, which took 2 people per chair. I do love a crowd and queueing 🙃… I saw a group of people walking up to what looked like a way up to wherever the lift was going. I wasn’t sure if they were actually going to hike up or if there was something else there a few metres up. After 10 minutes or so I saw a lad on his own following the same path. I was still waiting to buy the ticket! It was an easy decision to make my way up on foot. And I’m glad I did.

That’s how my hike began, somewhat differently from what I had planned. From this moment on, most of what I did was walk, and that’s where my analogy happens. Just like life this hike was long and arduous. It started with a very steep climb of a couple hundred metres and from then on it was climbing until I reached the top of the lift and the start of the Seven Rila Lakes hike. I didn’t clock the walk, but I know it took me just over an hour, which was faster than everyone I encountered on that stretch. But the thing is, I was going really slow. How could I pass them if I was indeed going very slow? You probably guessed it; they’re stopped. Every single person I passed, was stopped. I passed many people in this first ascent and most of them were young enough lads and lasses. Most of them were in their twenties, some in their thirties but I don’t believe I saw anyone in their forties. I saw a girl smoking… It wasn’t until much later in the day that dawned on me what was happening. I stopped once in this first stretch, to drink and alleviate my bladder. Please note that taking breaks whilst hiking is important and no one should think of hikes as races. That said, we should all listen to our bodies and hike according to our ability and physical condition. The more you practise, the longer you can go without a break, especially if you master the basics and hike really slowly.

Everything’s backwards

So I got to the top, which was actually the start of the hike. After that very difficult hike, I was now part of a huge group of people that were also starting the hike after enjoying a pleasant lift up there. Can you see the analogy with life? I took another sip from my water bottle and began climbing the man-made steps designed to encourage walkers. I was feeling strong and motivated knowing that I was there after hiking that first ascent instead of taking the lift like probably everybody else there and I was walking fast and taking over the crowd. It wasn’t long before I had to take my first real break, lasting about 5 to 7 minutes. And I saw everyone I had overtaken passing me by. I immediately bashed myself for acting the way I acted just a few minutes before. This is not a race I told myself. Enjoy the hike and don’t rush it. After roughly 5 minutes I was ready to start moving again and tempted to pick up pace despite what I had just told myself. I didn’t though and forced myself to walk slowly taking in the views. It didn’t take long until I started overtaking everyone again and then some. Again, most of the people I overtook were stopped; enjoying the view, eating, drinking, chatting.

The race

No one was in a race but everyone wanted to get to the top and stopped not because they wanted but because they needed to. I’m sure there are some exceptions to the rule. As mountains go, after an hour of climbing and reaching a top, you learn that yes you reached a top but not THE top and so the hiking continues. It was when I was getting close to the top that I got my Eureka moment. That last ascent is tough if you don’t take a break. There I was, one foot in front of the other, slowly but relentlessly, when I reached a couple with two young kids, one a young teenager and the other probably under 10. Everyone in that family was super competitive I could tell straight away because as soon as I reached them they immediately picked up the pace and didn’t let me pass. That wasn’t difficult because I was going very slowly but at the same time we were now at a really steep point in the mountain a few metres before reaching the top. The kids were a bit ahead but it were the parents that picked up pace and weren’t prepared to see me passing them coming from who knows where. It didn’t take long for the woman to stop to take a picture and the husband to stop to wait for her and there I went, very slowly up the mountain. The kids though, they were having none of it, especially the older one. The smaller one I don’t even think he was racing me and stopped shortly after to wait for the parents, but the older one was definitely racing. As soon as I got close he dashed at such a speed that I thought I wouldn’t see him again. I was wrong and after a few metres there he was, stopped, regaining his breath. Before I got too close to him he dashed again and again with the same speed as before but the story repeated and after a few metres there he was again taking a break. He managed to do this a few times but each time he would stop closer than the last time, until he gave up and decided to wait for his folks who shouldn’t be more than 20 metres away. It was this kid that made me think of Aesop’s tale and how I was wrong to dismiss the ability of the tortoise to win the race.

You may say that life is not a race but we’re all competitive, it’s just that some have given up. They bury their competitiveness for fear of failure, they pretend they’re not interested in winning, in getting further. But if life is a race and we’re racing against everyone else, are the hares winning the race, or are the tortoises? Is success overnight stories or decades in the making? And if success takes a long time and is difficult to achieve, will you be able to do it in a sprint or will you need to take your time?

Conclusion

To win at life you don’t need to be amazing or outstanding or super-human. Learn the basics, put your head down and focus on your path ahead, practise and go slowly but relentlessly. Stop if you have to, but not longer than you need. While they chat, and drink and smoke, you continue on your walk to win the race.

Oh, I took the lift on my way down.