Unconditionality

There's a lingering melancholy on the last few days of a training camp.

Conversation around dinner markedly slows down, all tired from the cumulative fatigue of the past week and a half. The remaining rides to be ticked off the training plan, adding up to another couple hundred of training kilometres, seem like an insurmountable obstacle, so clearly all are already longing for home. And even if by no means as cold as back in the continent, the days, not as warm as when we first landed, contribute to more introspective moments under the blankets or with a hot beverage by the couch. The hours drag by.

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They hugged and said goodbye, he walked to the next tube station, she continued on to her hotel - both had flights to catch the next day. He could barely sleep that night. Watching the sunrise the next morning, it dawned upon him that which, carried away as they strolled around Leicester Square enjoying a gelato, he had perhaps not even noticed: he really had no choice.

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Flying home, one can look back and realise, hard and long and tiring as they were, all it took to accomplish whatever goals were set was a certain drive, perhaps motivated by the reassurance that such journeys are, in the end, always worth undertaking. In this case, leading one to get out of bed in the morning, fuel up, and, throwing a leg over the saddle, ride off onto the distance. "To meet one's destiny", however filled with drama, doesn't quite convey all there is to is: accepting, and resolutely carrying through with that which must be ultimately done: life is much simpler once certain alternatives are removed, whether forcefully or voluntarily, from its intricate equations.

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2017 starts now. There's a lot of excitement from plans and unknowns, but also - the other side of this concept, physically cast as irreversibility: thermodynamics always has the upper hand - a feeling that time, slowly but surely, is steadily ticking away.

Here's to making the best of it, no matter what: unconditionally.

Training Theory for Lobsters and Dummies

"People get stronger if they voluntarily expose themselves to things they're afraid of".

In a different context, the above quote - from Jordan Peterson, who, love him or hate him, made an exceptionally moving defence of free speech at a recent UofT forum - represents the underlying principle behind the impulse-response model upon which virtually all modern endurance training theory is based on. In a controlled fashion, you break yourself down and let the body repair itself - coming out just a little bit stronger at the end of the it. Rinse, repeat, and you have my training plan: voluntarily exposing myself to those dreaded sessions, a nearly visceral fear getting hold of me ahead of every Tuesday morning date with the trainer. Yet, frankly, the day I stop fearing those, I might as well as hang up the wheels, such is the passion I've come to develop with this process.

Being a proponent of high-intensity interval training, I tend to go balls-to-the-wall as often as I can. The body's hormonal response is much stronger, and besides, the whole fun is in going fast anyway. My recent bout of fever, however, served to highlight that this approach works only as long as you can handle it - obviously, and yet so often prone to be overseen. Dig a hole too deep, and instead of bouncing back incrementally stronger the next day, you end up in bed (or in the operating room, which - knock on wood - was not the case this time). One needs thus a controlled approach to madness - perhaps I can lay claim to "reasonably unreasonable"?

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Peterson's argument can nevertheless be taken into a much more broader sense. We grow, professionally, emotively, or in virtually any other dimension, through similar dynamics.

Making use of the recent lobster analogy, I was left wondering whether it was not the case that new shells are rebuilt ever stronger the more often one breaks older ones down? Or, maybe framing it differently, perhaps the more one grows used to being subject to the discomfort of this exogenous growth process, the more malleable the shell becomes? Or even - perhaps such constant stream of impulses could ultimately make the shell itself unnecessary?

I would venture that also my caveat pledging for moderation holds in such cases - just as well as the conclusion I reached while convalescing: In dubia pro audax. When in doubt, go all in. Expose yourself. For if, by failing, one still learns something new, then it's not a failure at all. The shell will take care of itself.

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The northern slopes of the island were covered with clouds, temperatures falling slightly. I dread Puig Major, not the climb, but the descent, and on a cold afternoon no less. Already the ascent was frigid enough, with few cars and fewer cyclists seen on that last day of the year. Reaching the top, I zipped my windbreaker, looked at the village almost a thousand meters below, and even if shivering, as if to make a point to the fading year, went for that which I'm afraid of.

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Happy 306th prime.