In the midst of Olympic fever and the incredible athletic achievements, I have a new-found respect for all the training involved if one is at the top of one’s level of expertise. These athletes have likely trained for years to get to this level of competition. I find it especially astounding in events that require a participant to develop one unique, particular skill, like shot put, archery, or sprinting. To spend years perfecting this one skill takes a dedication I could never attempt. Not many of us do.
However, I am currently training for an upcoming hiking adventure, and it feels absolutely necessary if I want to achieve the goal I have set for myself. Together with two friends, guides, and other hikers, I will be attempting to summit Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. On the face of it, the day to day hikes do not look to be all that challenging. I have successfully hiked long distances and high elevation gains over multiple days, and I trained for those, too. To hike to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, though, requires one to hike at a high altitude, namely, to 19,000 feet. I’ve never been that high, and I can’t exactly train for high altitude in Alabama. I have read some material about this training, and the item that sticks out is, “ the best way to train for altitude if you can’t get to high elevations is to train in other uncomfortable conditions.” In Alabama, that translates into heat and high humidity.
So to that end, my friends and I have begun training for our Kilimanjaro adventure by scheduling hikes. We have a training schedule from the trip organizers that includes strength and endurance exercises week by week. The first three weeks include a weekly hike of six miles and 1200 feet elevation gain. I’ve done that plenty of times, but the heat and humidity of summer is indeed uncomfortable. I’ve used my hiking app to find appropriate trails, and have been successful these first two weeks. Going forward, it will be challenging to find hikes that incorporate 2000+ feet of elevation gain. I guess we will just do multiple passes of steep trails.
All of this looking towards training reminds me that we cannot fully train for all that life throws at us. Hopefully, our parents taught us how to be moral persons, and prepared us for independence. College gave some of us wings to try out that independence, and graduate school trained some of us in our professions. Perhaps a faith community trains its members in spirituality. But really, we cannot fully train to be a successful human being in the world because we cannot anticipate all that might come our way. We may have the grounding and life-skills to face our futures, but not specific knowledge on how to surmount particular challenges.
Yes, we have to make plans for the future. We cannot just fly by the seat of our pants all the time. But living for the future and planning for outcomes we desire can only go so far. All it takes is one bump in the road—one unexpected diagnosis, one random car accident, one bad decision—and all the plans in the world will fail us.
Setting goals and working toward achieving them is laudable. I could not have been a successful physician without knowing what classes I needed to take and what steps were required. It took planning. One must plan for retirement if possible, not just decide one day to walk away from the security of a job.
On the other hand, when plans fall apart and we are confronted with a present that we didn’t see coming, we have to lean into our prior training (patience, endurance, fortitude, optimism, for example) in order to learn to accept it, even if it means we go through a grief process for the future we thought was ours. In a challenging situation, all we can do is ride the waves, relying on balance training, until we see the way forward.