Theory of guts

Mount Everest in all her majesty (photo Dave Schell, a friend who recently trekked to Everest basecamp)

My blog entry today is inspired by Kayak Newfoundland and Labrdaor member T. A. Loeffler. T. A. is an outdoor educator at Memorial University of Newfoundland. I don't know T. A. personally but I've just finished reading her book "More than a Mountain, One Woman's Everest". Its a story of her climbing exploits and training for an Everest summit attempt.

T.A. didn't reach her goal on this attempt as she was felled by giardia that caused constant vomiting and sapped her of the strength necessary to reach the summit.

But that's probably not the story anyway, at least, that's not the story I took away. I don't think I'll ever complain about an inconvenience or hangnail again. I was totally blown away by the intense training program she followed and the tenacity with which she persued her goal. She vomitted for days, went down to lower altitude to recover, back to base camp and continued to vomit. All the while trying to hide that from her male climbing team members for fear they would percieve her as weak. Far from it.

Everyone has an "Everest" whether its a mountain or not. Whether its learning to roll your kayak, run a race at any distance or sometimes just dealing with a life's complications, the goals or problems must be faced and overcome. It depends how much we want it and how much intestinal fortitude we have at our disposal.

T.A.'s book is a good primer and very inspirational. She has a website www.taloeffler.com for anyone interested in her story.

Tony :-)