tgribbs

10 days in Shanghai

2011-08-26T22:17:00.001+08:00

A lot of people in India asked me how it felt to leave. Was I sad? Excited? My answer was that I was entirely at ease and felt that the departure was at a perfect time and I was looking forward to my few days in Shanghai before I flew back to the states.

When I was getting ready to leave china, I was asked the same question. And I again had the same answer, as the 10 days that I spent were action packed and absolutely perfect to part ways with China.

I had the opportunity to see almost every single one of my close friends in china, including Ian coming up from Hangzhou and chris coming up from Shenzhen. I was able to start teaching yoga, giving 4 private classes and 3 public classes in those short 10 days. I learned that I love the yoga teaching and am very optimistic about pursuing it in the states. I completed a sufficient amount of swimming and running training in prep for ironman Louisville. I partied and was reminded of what makes shanghai so great. I met new friends via yoga and received great advice from other teachers in shanghai. I successfully passed my apartment over to my roommate an her new roommate. I planned out my logistics for my first week back in the states. I made some last minute clothing and art purchases to capitalize on the little remaining Chinese value. All my loose ends were tied.

It couldn't have been a better ten days. It certainly was quite the juxtaposition of ashram and himalaya life, and I discovered that I can efficiently mashup the two. Of course I overindulged as far as my diet and partying habits were concerned, but that was to be expected given the socializing blitzkrieg that I undertook.

I'm most excited to find that my business soft skills that I enhanced throughout my MBA - networking and professional communication - will complement my yoga teaching very nicely. I firmly believe that i will have the capability of building a yoga practice anywhere in the world that I choose to live. It's an ultimate travelling entrepreneurial opportunity. I can't way to just take it day by day and see where life takes me.

Landing in LA in 5 hours! MIami in 14! Let's go!

Himalayan Days 18-20

2011-08-15T10:45:00.000+08:00

We are preparing for our final tent dinner. These last 3 nights have been spent within a giant canyon/river/floodplane that is in complete contrast of the rest of the topography we've experienced. It's had an added bonus of being potentially dangerous as torrential downpours have been all around us and we are in risks of flash floods. That's been the light-hearted humor of the past 48 hours...I am pretty sure we'll make it through the night and be safe back in Leh tomorrow.

The other exciting aspect of these last 3 days has been the inexplicable disappearance of Tempa, the leader of the staff. The morning we left camp beneath the 2 massive peaks, he took off in a different direction than the rest of us and the staff. When we finally reached camp in the new valley on the other side of the Korzoks, Tempa was nowhere to be found. We sent out search parties to no avail and we had no clue where he was. He knows the area well so it was a bit disconcerting and we feared he might be injured. We also lit a giant fire out of yak turds that Harish collected to try and signal him. The night was very cold, below freezing, and again in the morning we sent out a search party on horseback. Finally, Luke received word via satellite phone that Tempa had somehow trekked himself to Korzog, a small village on the shore of Tso Moriri, a good 20 kilometers in the complete opposite direction of where we were all obviously headed. It's been 36 hours since that revelation and it's still a huge mystery as to how and why that happened. Guess we'll eventually find out what the heck he was thinking. The rest of the staff is flummoxed as well, but they've picked up the slack and continued on without their "boss" with no signs of slowdown.

The climb over the pass to get out of the Korzok valley was deadly. It was a 5900 meter "pass" which was effectively as challenging as some of the peaks we submitted. I was amazed the horses were able to get over the pass. Luke had led the staff and horses over the pass about 30 minutes ahead of me, and I was about 30 minutes ahead of everyone else, so while Luke waited at the pass, I took the opportunity to scale to the top of another 6090meter peak right next to the pass. It was a good ascent and felt neat to be up there on my own. I made it up and down in about 50 minutes, just in time to have lunch with everyone else.

The trudge down 1200 meters into camp that night was pretty fun as Luke and I did a ton of scree-surfing. It's scary but a relatively safe way to run down a steep mountain if you've got strong legs, good balance, vision, and coordination.

Since then, we've been easily progressing through the canyon, dodging raindrops, and enjoying the last couple of days together (sans Tempa). I've gotten through 722 pages if Shantaram in these last 3 days...it's definitely the perfect book to finish this India adventure on. Sort of sad I didn't read it before I went to Bombay, as the story is largely set there.

Tomorrow will be our final morning in the mountains and then we will catch a 4-5 hour ride back to Leh. I'm really looking forward to cleaning myself up. I haven't seen a mirror in 3 weeks, and the glacial stream showers are refreshing but only go so far when it comes to hygiene.

I plan on giving a lot of my trekking gear to the staff because it doesn't make sense for me to lug it back to China and then to USA. Plus they are sure to make better use of it than I am.

It will be very interesting to check the "news" tomorrow and catch up on everything I've missed out on in the past 21 days. It's honestly been amazingly refreshing to completely unplug for so long. Obviously the scenery and daily activity helps to relieve any feeling of disconnectedness. It's allowed me to really analyze myself, my plans, and my goals far more than I ever have before.

I couldn't be happier with the total package experience of this trip to India. The random chronological order of my adventures, my teachings, my readings, and my thought processes could not have worked out any better. Everything I learned seemed to flow perfectly into the next thing. At points where I felt bored or complacent or even confident, something came along to challenge that and open my eyes further.

Ive got 5 full days left in India and 10 in China. Crazy to think that I'll be "permanently" back in the USA in just 2 weeks.

Himalayan Days 16-17

2011-08-15T09:37:00.001+08:00

Well, I spoke too soon about the crew messing up. As one may have predicted, the location of camp turned out to be a blessing in disguise. After dinner at our arrival, Luke, Ana and I decided we'd try to wake up at 4AM that night and scale the massive peak above us that looked super steep and near impossible for my amateur mountaineering experience.

At midnight, I woke up to take a pee and the sky was clear and beautiful. Our original plan (had we been staying at the "right" place) was to start our trek to a different peak at midnight. When 4AM hit, it was snowing heavily. Had we been off on our originally planned summit attempt, we would have been screwed by the snow. As it was, we just returned to sleep for another couple hours, and eventually the snow cleared and we headed out towards our "backup" peak at 7:06AM.

5 hours later after a challenging and beautiful climbing experience, we reached the summit of the daunting peak. It was a great feeling and even more amazing view. We found a pile of rocks at the top protecting a Gatorade bottle, inside of which held names of previous summiteers. The most recent date was 2008. It was a neat time capsule of sorts.

After spending a good half hour in comfort at the summit (6277 meters), we headed back down to our gear and pushed onwards along a ridge to another (lower) peak and finally I went on my own to a 3rd peak to scope out a possible route for a trek the next day.

So what began as a total screw up day ended up in 3 additional 6000meter "peaks" for me while our original plan would have gotten snowed out and put us in a hairy situation in the middle of the darkness while we tried to traverse a glacier!

Funny how things work out.

That evening, the three of us tried to convince the rest of the team that an even more beautiful and challenging peak was possible the next day (the one I had checked out on my own). Everyone agreed to give it a shot.

The next morning, we took off at 5:25AM towards the lake I had been to a few days prior. When we arrived at the lake, Luke took matters into his own hands and instead of taking the "boring" route along rocks p the left ridge, he said we are going directly up the glacier and then up the snow as far as we can get. This initially caught everyone off guard and we thought he was nuts, but an hour later, we were all roped together traversing a beautiful glacier and loving its awesomeness. After scaling to about 5850 meters in altitude, we had lunch at a grouping of exposed rocks about 5 hours into the day. Feeling optimistic about our summitting chances, 5 of us continued directly up the snow wall towards the peak. It ranged between a 40-50 degree slant all the way up for the next 400 meters. As we continued up, we were all struggling and tired, and eventually we got through the snow to a vein of very loose dangerous rocks that we started climbing up. Some pretty ominous storm clouds were approaching, and we really tried to push it. Luke went ahead and made it to just below the summit before animatedly encouraging the rest of us to hurry the hell up before the weather hit. I was the 2nd one up, and Ana, Piotr, and Lars soon thereafter. We took a few pictures at the summit, but Luke told us we had to get down ASAP. Unlike the previous day, there wasn't much of a chance to enjoy the well-earned achievement. This kind of sucked because it was the toughest peak we had climbed and it would have been nice to get rewarded a little more. Oh well.

Anyways, coming down was just as challenging as getting up. It was super steep and slippery and rocks were flying down when people slipped. Plus the storm was coming. After about 10 minutes of frantic descending, we caught a brief stroke of luck when the storm dissipated. This was bittersweet of course because it meant we could have stayed at the summit longer. Oh well. We eventually fought our way down and ended up back in camp 11 hours after we started our day.

The 2 consecutive days of successful 10 and 11 hour challenging hikes were very ironman-esque in their mental difficulty. When I get to Louisville in 3 weeks, I will not be 100% physically ready for the race, but I do expect to be mentally prepared. This will be an interesting experience, a near opposite to my approach in Florida.

I managed to finish "Meditation and Mantras" while in camp below these massively beautiful Korzok peaks, and finally moved onto my final book, Shantaram. We've got 3 nights left so we'll see how far I can get.

Himalaya Day 15

2011-08-14T13:29:00.001+08:00

Beware the ides of trekking.

Wow what a royal screwup today on behalf of the crew. At the end of the day, we netted about 5km horizontal distance and 150 meters vertical. Gross distance was about 20km horizontal and 1.3km vertical.

Basically despite Luke giving explicit directions to half the team, they went in the complete wrong direction with no explicable reason. Our entire goal of the day was to raise up about 500meters to get to a high camp in order to scale a massive peak tomorrow. I had personally done recon to find the best place for this. Luke knew my findings and vividly explained it but apparently no one listened and now we've spent about 10 hours of hiking to accomplish nothing and there's no chance of ascending a peak tomorrow.

On the bright side, we have our tents and gear, which was far from a given at 3:00PM when we had no clue where our staff was and we were debating our next move. Luckily 2 small figures appeared on a peak in the distance and we saw through Lars' camera zoom lens that they were part of the staff who had come looking for us.

Also, in my personal quest to become a better person and live in the present instead of dwelling on the past or holding expectations of the future, this was a trying day but I think I handled it as well as possible. I realize that people make mistakes and you just have to deal with them no matter how large of an inconvenience it may seem at the time. The staff has been very nice and helpful since we just arrived beat as hell (and had to wade through a raging stream at the final point) and they realized they screwed up, so there's really not much more I can ask for. It's all about non-enjoyership!

Himalayan Days 11-14

2011-08-12T22:12:00.000+08:00

We are officially 2 weeks deep into the trek. Just waking up now on Day 15. Lars showed me his pics from a 28 day Nepal trek from a few years back, and that's just nuts. Luke is also trying to organize a 45 day trek up near Nanda Devi, which just seems crazy. We've done so much in just 14 days and beat the hell out of our bodies. 45 days would be intense. I'll miss the mountains but I'll definitely be ready to be in a hotel bed in one week.

I experienced my only true "rest day" in Gyama Barma the day after the glacier extravaganza. We think we may have been the first people to ever traverse that region, known as the Rupshu ice field. We're definitely going to google it when we get home. The rest was nice and I finished the book, "The Monk who sold his Ferrari." I thought it was a quick easy entry level book into spirituality. It was very basic, cut many corners, and didn't challenge me like the other books I've already read. I'm happy to be done with it.

I read all the way through the Bhagavad Gita the next 2 days. It was nice to be able to read through it as a story instead of jumping all around the chapters to focus on specific verses like we did at the ashram. I had been very confused and relatively uninterested in our Gita classes, but the limited amount of info that I retained then helped me very much as I read through the story here. I thought it was an interesting way to get the main teachings of Hindi across and It has inspired me to look through other religious texts like the Bible and Koran when I get home. I think it's useful to understand this stuff to be better prepared for interactions with religious people.

I've also started reading Swami Vishnu's "Meditation and Mantras" book in the natural way instead of jumping around like we did in the ashram. Had I never taken the time to sit down and go through it on my own, then most of my study at the ashram would have been forgotten. It's very helpful for truly understanding the theories behind every type of meditation. I'm about 40% thru it and Shantaram is all I have left afterwards, so I'm going to have to get on that beast soon.

Moving back to the physical trekking, we succeeded in mounting 2 more 6000meter peaks 2 days ago. Yalung Nong and it's twin mountain. Once we got to the summit of the twin (6090m), we had an excellent view of Lake Tso Moriri and the surrounding mountains. It was windy as hell though and I was freezing despite wearing 6 layers. It was the first time the whole team made it to a summit together so that was nice.

The day before the summit and the day after, there had been talk about going back up and attempting the 6350meter peak, Spangnak Ri, that we failed to summit during the glacier traverse. Despite being ready to go at 3AM, it never happened. Luke was beat and figure he'd save his energy for new peaks that Project Himalaya hadn't explored before (Jaime has done Spangnak Ri before).

Instead of going for that summit, I went off on my own to explore the Korzok mountain range and do recon on possible high camps. Each day was a 4 hour solo trek, which really put marathons and ironman training days in perspective. I hiked to a gorgeous glacier lake beneath a huge triangular snow face of a mountain, and also hiked up a valley that runs into a glacier stream about 250meters higher than that lake. That 2nd hike also has great views of Tso Moriri and I took some sweet pics. I've recommended the 2nd option for our high camp, and we're all packing up and heading there in 2 hours in preparation for a 12 hour summit up an intimidating 6260 meter peak tonight. Let's hope my camp recommendation is good!

I had a Godfather beer and some local rum the other night, which I think contributed to some explosive diarrhea yesterday, but luckily I think I've moved that all through. You really don't appreciate the intricate differences between explosive diarrhea and regular smooth diarrhea until you are able to compare and contrast in a beautiful outdoor nature setting. Needless to say, smooth is far superior.

I taught a short basic sivananda yoga class to Ana yesterday. She joined me after I had already started my own practice, so I was teaching as I was performing, which obviously is not proper, but it was still nice to get the rust out. She's already good at yoga so it was workable. She can do headstand no prob and also is like a pro at the peacock, which I think only 1 girl at the yoga course could do by the 28th day.

I'm really looking forward to our attempts at the Korzok range these next few days before an easy 3 day trek back to the Manali-Leh highway, where we'll get picked up on August 8th and brought back to Leh. We've met a few other trekking groups the past couple days, and none of them are attempting any peaks. I mean, it's beautiful and everything but I would get bored of just walking through valleys for 3 weeks. I definitely need the added challenge of vertical movement. So far we've made it to 6 6000m summits, and might pick up a few more before all is said and done. Considering our original itinerary had us only doing 2, I'd say it's been a major success (and incredible Ironman Louisville "alternate" training)

Himalayan Days 8-10

2011-08-11T23:00:00.000+08:00

I am beat. We just got to a new camp in Gyama Barma after spending the last 3 nights in Spanglung. Each of the nights in Spanglung, I woke up at 2:30 to do Alpine starts on attempting 6000 meter peaks. I was 2.5/3 as far as success is concerned.

The first day, Luke and I trudged through the night and through morning fog to reach a peak that was 6173 meters. It was a very efficient hike and I was really excited about my first summit. Unfortunately it was quite cloudy so we weren't able to achieve a splendid view. We were back to camp by 10AM and I spent most of the day reading.

The second day, the whole group except Lars headed up to 2 peaks that were 6090 meters and 6160 meters. The weather was perfect and the views were spectacular. I really felt strong this day, pushing to the summits with intensity. We took many amazing pictures and I did some really stupid yoga poses near cliffs but luckily survived. We ended up back at camp at around 1:30 where I ate lunch and passed out.

The third day, Luke, Ana, Lars and I attempted to traverse a huge glacier and summit a 6350 meter peak which is the highest one around the area we are trekking. This was my first time on ice and it was incredibly challenging. The day got off to a bad start for me when I slipped and fell into the river while crossing some icy rocks. I was pissed for a while, and unsuccessfully tried to think positively and get over it. When we finally reached the glacial starting point, I was good again. We all strapped into our ice gear an roped ourselves together in case of falling into ice crevasses (luckily this was averted) We had lunch on the glacier at 6020 meters, but had already been moving for 5 hours and the ascent to the summit was very vertical and we were all so spent that we chose to skip it. However this was still only the beginning of the adventure. We had to descend down the other side of the glacier and this involved serious ice climbing and repelling. Luke was a masterful guide and set up all the rope lines and everything. Unfortunately I totally messed up on the climbing as I incorrectly fastened my crampons and one fell off my shoe halfway through my climb. In my panic, I scraped up all my knuckles on my right hand and they were bleeding pretty bad. I ended up getting up to the top on my second attempt but even then it was an insane struggle while the other 3 climbed up with ease. They said my shoes were the problem, but I think they were just being nice and that I sucked. I need to work on that. I could see it being super fun. Repelling was easy. Luke created an ice bollard to descend himself in order to maintain all his gear. Eventually we were off the glacier and sludged 3 hours to get to our new camp. The final 2 hour walk ended up being quite beautiful through an incredible open valley. I'm in camp now but the bottom line is I was thoroughly defeated by the glacier today. Really looking forward to an actual rest day tomorrow.

Really these last 3 days have consisted of just trekking, eating, reading, and sleeping. And pooping of course is still amazing. The food continues to be stellar and Tempa and Phuntsok keep whipping up new creations. Somehow we had cake last night.

I finished Ghandi's autobiography and "The Power of Now", both of which follow a lot of Vedantic spiritual principles and also touch on other religions as well. I found both to be good books which taught valuable lessons. I'm halfway through "The Monk who sold his Ferrari" now and I think it's way too sugarcoated. Gonna skim through the rest of it then start Shanturam.

This trekking adventure through the amazing scenery has really allowed me to expand on what I learned during my yoga teacher training course and I'm really excited about the discipline and ability to analyze the inner workings of my mind. Almost every day after the difficult treks at altitude, I had a headache. This is totally expected, but instead of taking Tylenol or ibuprofen, I attacked the pain through breathing and relaxation exercises and I've always been successful to eliminate it purely mentally within an hour. I'm growing very confident in my ability to maintain my personal practice and I'm really looking forward to sharing it with others.

It's been 10 full days with no contact with the outside world, and I can say that I'm quite happy and don't miss it at all. It's quite refreshing to have an escape like this to avoid all the problems that exist in our world. Obviously I'm also missing good things, but again that's a sacrifice that I'm fully able to wrap my head around. I couldn't live like this forever, but I certainly wouldn't mind 3-4 week escapes like this at least once a year. (I'm also quite enjoying the bowel movements in nature...I've got a pretty good technique worked out!) Washing my clothes in rivers and drying it on clotheslines still sucks.

Himalayan Days 4-7

2011-08-10T16:24:00.002+08:00

Coming to you live from camp at Spanglung at 5250 meters. We arrived during a torrential hailstorm filled with lightning and all sorts of goodies. I had split with the group just after brunch, and I chose a path that allowed me to somehow catch up with the staff and horses about 30 minutes ahead of the rest of the group. After walking another 30 minutes uphill with Tempa, the clouds started to dump. We luckily had just about made it to our campsite and everyone started getting all the gear off the horses asap. Since this usually is a 45 minute process in sunny skies, there was no way it was going to be a smooth in these conditions. I was of minimal help, and after throwing tarp over all our bags, Tempa yelled at me to get under the tarp myself. By this point the hail was intense and lightning was on top of us so I gladly obliged and chilled under the tarp for the next 15 minutes while the staff went to work setting up camp as best they could.

Eventually the storm let up, and they came to take me out from under the tarp. It was hilarious. Slowly they started building tents and warming water as the rest of the team arrived. All were much wetter than myself. It was certainly uncomfortable for an hour but now everyone is dried off, warmed up, and relaxing as we sit inside a cloud.

This is definitely the most excitement we've had yet on the trek. The last couple of days were absolutely amazing as we trekked through the vast valley of Tso Kar, with endless desert landscapes surrounded by snowcapped peaks and a gorgeous lake. I actually went for a swim as we walked past the lake. It is quite salty, and was fun to float in, though nowhere near as bouyant as I was in the dead sea. I wonder if it is the highest (4500meter) saltwater lake, as that would be a nice feather in my cap to have swam in both the highest and lowest saltwater lakes.

The night before we reached the lake valley, we stayed in another spectacular valley where a nomad tent nearby was selling rum, so I bought a bottle to share with the staff and Tempa whipped up a mixer of water, ginger, cinnamon, and lemon, and it was fantastic. Our staff is truly awesome. They are fun, smart, strong, hard-working, and passionate about mountain exploration. They all do their best to communicate in English while I learn a little bit of ladakhi, nepali, and tjbetan from them. Harish, the main horseman, is my favorite. Dude just got a haircut and with his ballcap and sunglasses looks total gangster just like Eazy E. Vivek rocks a Chicago white sox sweater. I want them to trade to complete the look.

I've been extremely disciplined with my yoga practice, waking up every morning around 5:25, and getting in at least an hour of practice before breakfast. I think the breathing exercises have been incredibly useful for adjusting to the altitude, and the surya namaskar and headstands as well have made me feel great throughout the days. I have some great scorpion pics that I look forward to sharing.

Pooping has been an adventure! I am averaging about 4 sizable movements per day. They are of a nice consistency just above the threshold of diarrhea. Sliding right out without explosions. I'm getting really good at the squatting and I've finally figured out how to do it without entirely removing my pants. It's heavenly, as it feels like everything I'm eating is either being converted into energy or passing right through me. I am eating like a King of vegetables and grains, so it's also rather healthy. I just need to cut down on crackers and tea. Still peeing in the middle of the night is annoying me. The other thing is, my farts are deathly. Must be the eggs or some seasoning Tempa is using. I really am not sure if I'll be able to continue to use this sleeping bag after the trip unless it gets fumigated.

I tore up cricket our first night at the lake. They couldn't get me out and I just kept smashing the ball over everyone's head. I eventually broke the ball in half and one half got caught, thus ending my innings. I'm definitely going to figure out a way to play legit cricket when I finish this trip.

Speaking of returning to reality. These past 3 days have given me ample opportunity to really do some soul-searching. The long gorgeous big-sky walks allowed our group to separate, and I had hours at a time where I put in my headphones, enjoyed some great mixes, and just took in the scenery, oblivious to my body. This meditative vibe was pure bliss.

I also just got through Gandhi's autobiography last night. While the book was a bit long, it was full of incredibly inspirational passages and stories that I found very meaningful.

So I'm going to save my "spiritual" thoughts for another blog, as I'd like to keep that separate from the physical recap.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a rest day, as the team needs to acclimate to sleeping at this altitude (same as Mt. Everest base camp). Wednesday morning the plan is to explore 3 6000 meter peaks just above us. However, I am feeling very strong and Luke and I might head out tonight and try to sneak in an additional 6350 meter summit if the weather is decent. If we succeed, that is higher than any point in all of North America. Will keep you posted.

Himalayan Days 1-3

2011-08-09T10:02:00.001+08:00

Himalayan Days 1 - 3

Our trip out of leh was pretty easy. Took us about 2 hours to get to our camp for night one. We pulled off the Manali-Leh highway into a parking lot if a small Indian army compound where we met our team of Ladakhis, Tibetans, Nepalis, and some other local ethnicities who were waiting there with all the horses and all the gear (tents, food, etc). Immediately we started setting up camp alongside a small creek in the valley behind the military barracks while about 50 Indian officers watched us intently. A few cane down to check out what we were up to, adn made us relocate toilet tent across the creek, which meant whenever we wanted to take a dump it would require a leap over a creek before you could do so. Useful for loosening you up!

Immediately we had lunch and I realized how spoiled we are going to be on this trek. I've never camped beyond slices of bread, fruit, and trail mix. Here we are loaded with every kind of snack and tea or coffee or hot chocolate at any hour. Filtered water 24/7. Breakfast is oatmeal followed by eggs cooked to order (yes omelets), lunch is some really good sandwiches and pasta and rice, which we either have in camp or stop for a break while trekking , and dinner starts with soup, followed by a main course of like 5 veggie dishes, and then fruit for dessert.

Now while this seems like we are all pussies, I have to say that with our itinerary, this kind of full service is necessary. We've revamped our plan to try and mount 5 6000 meter peaks in 21 days. Our elevation changes are quite dramatic versus other treks which just follow trails or do short 5 day summits of one 6000 meter peak.

Today (Day 3) was a rest day (our second night camping at 4600meters) but we all decided to climb this random mountain near camp which ended up being an incredibly demanding 5600meter summit which was far more dangerous and took way longer than we had thought. This on our "off day". So yea, the nice meals make the 21 day adventure possible otherwise we'd be completely spent after 5-6 days max. I'm totally cool with that style of trekking obviously, but it's nice to experience the 5-star version as well.

I slept horribly the first night. Many issues a play. First of all, I had eaten and drank way too much so I was constantly up to pee in the freezing cold night, plus bloated and farting like crazy because I really didn't want to use the toilet across the creek in the middle of the night. Second, I'm getting used to my mummy style sleeping bag which severely limits my leg positions, so they were getting very cramped. Third, I was sleeping on a slight slant and needed to adjust all the time. Fourth, it was a very dewy creek and misty night and somehow some water was seeping into my tent and that made things uncomfortable. Fifth, there was some damn dog barking all night.

Night 2 I eliminated most of these issues (still needed to pee and fart) and got used to my sleeping bag and had a much better sleep. Tonight is night 3 and I'm optimistic it will be good.

I've got up vey early each moving with the sunrise and put in about 45-60 minutes of yoga. I think the breathing exercises are really helping me perform in this environment. Today I skipped the yoga in lieu of a solo hike to watch the sunrise over the valley. When we did our 5500meter peak later on, I came back with a pretty rough headache, so I did about an hour of yoga (breathing for 30 minutes, relaxing for 20, then headstand for 10) and it practically eradicated my headache without any pills. I was super happy this worked.

Every day at camp we've been setting up a cricket pitch with the staff and it's super fun. I'm a very accurate bowler but can't get the ball passed anyone. Batting, I usually swing for the fences and get out by tipping it to the wicket keeper. Its kind of ridiculous because the field is set up in the middle of camp so half the time the ball is going into a river or nearly taking someones head off as they do their laundry or cook.

I've been reading a lot during our spare time and before bed. I've gotten halfway through gandhis autobiography. It's a very interesting book, and it's perfect that I've spent time in Bombay, South Africa, and studied Hinduism at the ashram because the book is far more understandable to me due to having all those experiences. I'm looking forward to finishing it and starting shanturam.

Conversation around camp has been fun. As usual, I'm talking too much. But everyone else has good things to discuss and I don't think they mind me just yet. We'll see in a couple days.

I earlier mentioned being bloated and farting all night. Let me say that the craps I've taken the following mornings have been spectacular. Our crapper tent is basically a hole in the ground that we dig, surrounded by a tall skinny square tent. I swear I have nearly filled the entire hole up each time. It's really tough to hold the squat for such an extended period of time. My legs are falling asleep, so wiping and standing up are incredibly difficult.

Showering also is quite primitive and involves freezing yourself to death in the glacial streams. But hey why not. Laundry same, but it's not bad because we've got a really bright and hot sun during the days so far. Hoping this weather holds (but honestly the heat and lack of any form of shade outside of our tents is tough as well). When a cloud comes in front of the sun, the temperature immediately drops like 20 degrees. It's nuts. Sunscreen is essential, though I've picked up some minor burning on the back of my legs. I should be quite tan by the time it's over.

Tomorrow and the next day are major moving days, and we'll be camping at 5000 meters, which should be fun. I doubt I'll be able to upload this blog anytime soon but just wanted to journal the experience while it's fresh.

Recapping a great trek

2011-08-09T04:43:00.001+08:00

I kept a blog throughout the 21 days that I was without Internet in the Ladakhi mountains. I will slowly post those updates day by day.

Locked and Loaded

2011-07-19T11:43:00.000+08:00

All packed and ready to roll. There's gonna be a lotta cricket goin down. See you in 3 weeks!

Rock and roll!

2011-07-19T02:17:00.000+08:00

Just finished shaving my entire body. As most of you know, this indicates that I'm about to head off on a journey where cleansing oneself should be an incredibly efficient process.

That's right! 21 days in the Himalayan wilderness starts tomorrow morning!

My team consists of: Luke, the leader who has been running serious outdoor trips in colorado, alaska, india, and nepal for over a decade, Leo, an anesthesiologist from Sydney who has been my roommate in Leh, Lars, a Swedish software engineer who has been living in Sydney for over a decade, Piotr, an astrophysicist from Poland, an Ana, a very cool girl about to start her PhD in physics at CalTech. Everyone is incredibly interesting and has plenty of shit to talk about. There shouldn't be much silence during our trip.

We've all been acclimating in Leh for 3 nights now. The city is like an oasis town nestled in a desert valley between huge mountain ranges. It is incredibly touristy. Historically it is a Tibetan village, and feels nothing like the rest of India or Kashmir. There are so many white people here it's scary. 70% of the town is Buddhist, and many of the locals all look more Chinese than Indian. There are also many nepalis who work here.

The first day was sort of an orientation, the second day consisted of sightseeing in the morning and then a nice 2.5 hour trek over a ridge in the afternoon. Today we took mountain bikes up to the highest motorable pass in the world, the Khardung La, at 18380 feet, and biked 46km back down to Leh which is at 11562 feet, so needless to say it was epic. We rode trek mountain bikes an my gears were complete crap, but I still had an amazing time and definitely need to do more mountain biking in the future. I may try to bike up the pass when we return from the trek on august 9th or 10th.

We've been in leh also with the rest of the project himalaya team. Kim took her group out on a 30 day trek today. Her group was a bit larger than ours an they'll be doing a beautiful trek in a different region as ours. Jamie has been spending time with us during meals. He's climbed Everest 4 times and know everything there is to know about trekking and mountaineering so it's certainly awesome to converse with him.

Our trek will head aoutheast of leh towards the Tso Moriri region, which runs along the disputed border area between India and China. There are a few large lakes there surrounded by towering 6000+ meter peaks. We have a tentative itinerary but also have a few plan b's and plan c's depending on how things look. Luke and the team of locals will make day by day decisions to decide where exactly we'll go. The goal is to scale 2 of the 6000 meter peaks in the 21 days. We've got ice axes and crampons (which are like ice spikes that attach to our boots) to help in this endeavor. If we're really lucky we might stumble upon some snow leopards!

Along the way we will be supported by 7 locals who basically lead the donkeys ahead of the group, set up re entire camp, and cook all the food every day for us. We'll only be carrying day packs, and all of the rest of our crap will be waiting for us when we reach camp. I know this sounds totally pussy, but I have been talking to other Trekkers who told me about how awful it is to set up camp every night for just 5 days. So I'm okay with the 5 star service this time around!

3 of the group members (Luke, Lars, and Piotr) have serious Nikon cameras with tripods and the whole 9 yards, so they will have some amazing shots from the trek. I'll make de with my canon point and click, as of course I am in the top 5 best users of canon point and click cameras worldwide rankings.

We've also got all sorts of fancy amenities like iPhone speakers, a solar panel battery charger, camp chairs, a library tent, etc. The donkeys do all the heavy lifting!

Most of the days we'll be up at normal hours and hit the road by 9 after breakfast. The days that we try to summit will be 2AM starts so we can be at the peak during prime weather.

I've been getting up around 5:30 for the past 3 days and doing 1 to 1.5 hours of yoga. I'm going to try to keep it up during the trek. I was speaking with folks at the yoga course and they said that yoga and especially the associated breathing exercises are the best physical tool to assist in acclimatization. I'm going to focus on making sure I do breathing exercises every morning in lieu of taking diamox or the other weird pills I got in China to combat altitude sickness.

I'll likely be entirely out of touch with society until August 8th, so don't get worried if you don't here from me. If you don't hear from me by the 10th, then you can be worried.

Passing through Dr. Ass

2011-07-18T13:06:00.000+08:00

I got up early on the 15th to head out of Srinagar. Had one last tea and breakfast with Rayiz' wife and daughter and then jumped in a rickshaw to the taxi station. I ended up throwing them some extra cash as the family had been so nice and helpful, even doing all my laundry for me cleaner than I would ever have been able to do myself.

The bus and shared-taxi station in Srinagar is kinda nutty. It definitely feels like a ripe place for a terrorism attack if that was gonna go down. It's nice to get out of there quickly, so I dd my best to get in a shared jeep for the "8 hour" trip to kargil. The drivers are quite aggressive, trying to get you in their taxis by offering such things as "only Englishman in the car" or "only 3 people in the back. They all say that they are the best driver in the best car. Eventually I jumped in the backseat of a chevy jeep with a British girl and local guy sharing the side-facing back section with me, while 2 Swedish brothers, an Israeli, an Indian an another Kashmiri sat up in the front 2 rows with the driver.

The drive was rather tense, as it seems all the drivers are racing each other. Our driver was funny but crazy. There were a few times when all the cars were stopped because traffic was only allowed to go in one direction, so most of the passengers and drivers would be wandering about on the side of the road. As soon as the signal was given that we could go, our driver would start screaming at all of us and run back to the car so we could get the wholeshot and be the first vehicle to head forth. Of course this advantage was always short lived due to poor road conditions, construction, and traffic.

When we stopped for lunch, he was adamant that we only had 10-15 minutes to eat. It was kind of sad because the drive was so beautiful, it could have been nice to get to enjoy it more. We passed over the Zoji La, which is a dramatic road up across a 4000meter pass and continued through spectacular valleys. At one point in a village the road was blocked for an hour as some locals decided it was a good time to build a ditch across the road and insert a water pipe. Another annoying thing was that the Kashmiri guy in the back with me kept blasting the Moslem prayers through his phone.

Let me pause for a second here to discuss the logistics of Moslem prayers. I get it, pray 5 times a day, it can be beautiful thing. But holy shit when you publicly blast the prayers through loudspeakers from every mosque and through cell phones, it's the most annoying sound in the world. I'm not talking about the language or the words or the meaning of the prayers at all. I'm sure that is all a very nice thing. I'm talking about the acoustics. When you play any high pitched sounds through a megaphone, it may as well be projecting a baby whining as loud as possible for the whole city to hear. And when they start every morning at 3:30AM, it makes the noises of China sound like heaven. Point is, use headphones, buy some subwoofers, do anything to change that horrendous sound that you force upon the world around you.

Anyways,

We made it to kargil in the afternoon, and I split off with the Swedes and Israeli. We had a decent dinner at "New Las Vegas restaurant" and then I passed out. I shared a room with the Israeli guy, he took the floor and I got the bed. I was getting a bit sick from all the dust we breathed in on the ride, plus had a headache from sitting sideways for 9 hours so I needed a good night sleep, and popped a sudafed which helped a bit. I was awoken by the fucking loudspeakers and tossed and turned for a bit before the sun rose. I eventually got up and did a nice hour of sunrise yoga on the rooftop which definitely made me feel better.

We caught another ride that morning in a better car with a Buddhist driver who was far less stressful. The road from Kargil to Leh was a lot nicer than the road from Srinagar to Kargil, but it still had some hairy parts as we had to wait for a few bulldozers to remove landslides. We had some great meals along the way and made it to Leh a little after 2 in the afternoon. I parted ways with my car buddies and searched for the hotel where I was to meet my trekking team...

Pahalgam overnight trip & return to Srinagar

2011-07-18T00:45:00.001+08:00

It's been about a week since my last post. I only just regained Internet yesterday after 4 intense days of travel.

We last left off in Srinagar where I used an actual computer for the first time of the trip because my SIM card didn't work in this state. I later managed to somehow buy a local SIM card off the kid at the shop which kinda works for edge connections but not very fast. Either way, it was totally illegal for him to sell it to me like he did so I'm lucky to have it plus it has been useful.

The next day, Rayiz, Tessa (a girl who was also couchsurfing with rayiz) and I headed thru Pahalgam to a small town called Aru, where we set off onto a trek through the Lidder Valley. It was
Absolutely spectacular from start to finish. Lush green meadows flanked by pine forests along crystal clear rivers and small glaciers. Grazing animals everywhere, local herdsman and local hut people doing their daily routines. It was simply incredible.

The goal was to go as far as we could, then set up our sleeping bags and sleep under the stars. Rayiz was amazingly helpful throughout the day as not only did he arrange the transportation to aru but he chatted with locals to figure out where we should go on the trek. We totally had a million options to pitch camp but the valley was just so stunning we kept going further and higher. As it got later, the skies became ominous and rain started coming down when we were in the middle of nowhere along a ridge. We quickly found some herdsmen who told Riyaz there were a bunch of families huts up ahead. We figured it was our best bet to see if any of these locals would host us for the night seeing we didn't have any shelter from the rain. Eventually a group of 4 locals caught up to us and told rayiz it was cool. After they led us on an absolutely grueling final ascent to their hut, we quickly realized we were in for a hell of an experience. This hut was a combination o 2 families. The 2 adult males looked exactly like Osama bin Laden. The female mothers were a bit phased ar first when we showed up, but their combined 13 kids absolutely loved us. They were captivated by my camera and attempted their darndest to speak English.

We eventually settled in for the night in their hut, and they fed us tea, roti bread, and a rice & dal dish all cooked on a makeshift wood burning stove. The hut was crammed with like 17 people and a cow an a rooster. We eventually slept in the middle of the tent and as we were going to bed, the kids were hovering over us staring. It was pretty scary and I then mixed all my valuables into my sleeping bag with me. Nothing got stolen but there definitely was a little bit of a weird vibe despite their hospitality.

I didnt really get any sleep that night, but what was I to expect in that situation. I did wake up to a cow very nearby. After a nice tea and roti breakfast, we hiked up to a beautiful glacier lake beyond their hut and ten retreated back the way we came for the day. The kids were all very sad to see us go.

We made it back to Srinagar that evening after fighting rain much of the way.

That night I met up with Rebecca ad khuram (who I stayed with in Delhi) and they treated me to an amazing buffet dinner at this amazing hotel/historical government building up on a hill overlooking the lake. It was great to see them again and talk a bunch before I was to move on the next day.

To be continued...

Srinagar Couchsurfing

2011-07-12T18:07:00.000+08:00

I landed in Srinagar airport yesterday and it was insane. It was like a battle for the luggage carousel. Vicious. Then i was hounded by people to fill out foreign visitor card, where they needed to call the local # i gave them of a couchsurfing host to verify that I had somewhere to stay before letting me pass. Then they still tried hustling me nonstop to stay in a houseboat. It was a mess. Eventually I finally got in a cab, and about 2 minutes out of the airport, we were stuck in gridlock traffic, cars turning around in opposite direction on one way road. Armed officers running through traffic to get up ahead. 10 minutes later they had cleared whatever issue was going on, and we were on our way to my hosts spot.

Then all of a sudden 3 Kashmiri army soldiers with huge guns jump in front of my cab and stop the driver and just jump in the cab with me. 1 up front and 2 behind me. I just smiled and nodded at them. We drove about 2 minutes, and then they stopped and jumped out. I guess when you're carrying a gun, hitchiking is free.

We finally got to my couchsurfing host, who picked me up on his beautiful shikara boat, and we cruised across the Nagin Lake to his house on the banks. There were 3 other couchsurfers staying there. I've been hanging out with a Dutch girl who lives in London right now and is also crusing around Kashmir.

The rest of the day consisted of paddling around the lakes, enjoying all sorts of hospitality, amazing teas, foods, dinners, and sunset.

This morning we woke up at 4am to get back on the lake for the sunrise and some crazy floating farmers markets. A bunch of sightseeing and now I'm finally at an internet cafe using an actual computer for the first time since I've been in India.

We're trying to figure out what to do tomorrow. Probably an overnight trek somewhere. Need to figure it out soon. Also trying to figure out a local cell phone.

Kashmir

2011-07-11T12:54:00.000+08:00

I'm back in Delhi after a long train ride that was delayed because during our journey, another train in the same Indian state derailed and killed over 35 people. Yikes.

One of my friends from TTC was very kind and invited me stay with her family for the night in Gurgaon, just beyond Delhi. It was really weird not waking up in my ashram bed, and I had an incredible night's sleep. Enjoyed a great western breakfast with eggs and oatmeal!!

At delhi airport now, headed north to Kashmir. Planning on couchsurfing for a few nights in Srinagar then continuing to Ladakh via some form of transportation. It could be a shared jeep taxi, it could be a motorcycle. No idea yet. Well see what happens once I get to Srinagar. Hopefully it stays peaceful because obviously this part of the world doesn't have the greatest track record in recent years. Technically it's only about 100 miles from Abottabad, Pakistan which is pretty awesome. There are extremists in the region so I will consider keeping a low profile and not do anything entirely stupid. Still going to wake up every morning and wave the American flag for 5 minutes before anthony else.

Internet access may be limited as my current phone SIM will no longer work in the Kashmiri state due to security issues. I'm going to try and get a new one but not sure of that possibility.

Go USA womens soccer!

Success!

2011-07-09T23:32:00.000+08:00

Satchidananda

2011-07-09T13:46:00.000+08:00

Well, all done now. Test did exist afterall (no pizza! Doh!) All that's left is one more casual asana class, feasting and graduation. We've got some free time at the moment and I'm just sitting outside in the mist taking it all in.

I certainly feel incredibly educated in both philosophical and practical matters. I feel extremely healthy and I'd like to do my best to maintain it. I have greatly enhanced my understanding of what makes a good teacher, not just in yoga but in all walks of life. I have a much improved general awareness of others.

I don't necessarily feel any more "pure" or "enlightened". I haven't had any massive realizations or awakenings. I am sure that I will return to my normal life and continue to party and live freely. I hope to do so with more balance. I committed to a life of devotion and selfless action, but I will make small steps in that direction.

I'm certainly relaxed and stress-free, but then again, I've always been like this so it's not much of a change. I do have much more awareness about why I'm like this.

I've made some great lifelong friends who are all planning to help me out through the rest of my time in India, including a one month reunion dinner when I get back to Delhi on august 12 after my himalaya trip.

I will continue the quest for knowledge, refreshing myself at additional yoga events in the future.

At the end of the day, I'm still the same Trevor. Definitely better off and super happy to have enjoyed this experience. The only change is that I now have an additional name, ha.

The simple vedantic definition of self = awareness (sat) + consciousness (chit) + bliss (ananda) is a fantastic guideline to live ones life. This is a fantastic blueprint for life and one that I'm very happy to have experienced and understood.

Time for finals

2011-07-09T02:13:00.000+08:00

As I enter this blogpost, it's just after 11PM and tomorrow is our final full day in the course. It is said to involves 3.5 hour open-response final exam.

I've been on the record since day 1 that I think the exam is total bullshit and they're just using it as a scare tactic to force us to learn. (fraternity conditioning)

Either way, everyone else is stressing out about it("How many points is each question worth?? What score do I need to pass?? Do we need to know the Sanskrit names for all the yamas and diyamas??"), while the teachers and staff just discuss it nonchalantly.

I personally spent about an hour reviewing some stuff but didn't stress out for a second. It's not like we're not going to "pass" if we don't know all the Sanskrit names for the 9 steps of Bhakti yoga.

Anyways, guess I'll know by 7:30 am tomorrow whether or not my intuition is correct.

Otherwise, it's been an emotional couple days, wrapping up our final classes and seeing some of the staff and students leave a day or 2 early due to various circumstances. One of my roommates left today after taking the "test" in a secluded area.

This TTC was a big deal for the teachers as it was the first time they operated a large scale TTC under their new independent sivananda organization. It was also the first time at this himalaya ashram that a TTC was undertaken. So a lot of their own blood, sweat, and tears went into this creation and you can really see how committed they are to spreading the teachings to others.

I've been able to have many one-on-one conversations with the teachers about practical issues I would face trying to teach yoga back in the states and they've all been incredibly forthright and helpful. It's certainly not a cakewalk to create your teaching arena. It's obviously yet to be seen what will come out of this experience, but I certainly believe that I would be an effective teacher if I choose to pursue this path.

Guess we'll have to wait and see. Bedtime.

In case you were curious...

2011-07-08T15:06:00.000+08:00

I've been in India for a month now and only twice have I enjoyed a "real" shower when I stayed in the hotel in Agra and with Rebecca and Leyla in Delhi. I've still yet to shower with hot, let alone warm water. Nonetheless, this sacrifice is very minimal and I quite enjoy the bucket baths by now. They're quite water efficient. The challenge is just pouring that first bucket of cold water on your head. Just like jumping in a cold pool or ocean, you get used to it immediately after 2 seconds of pain.

Anyways, I'm sure it's going to be a massive step up from whatever type of bathing I'm going to get to enjoy during my Himalaya trek. Just wanted to be sure I documented it before leaving the ashram in 48 hours.

Being appropriate

2011-07-07T01:09:00.000+08:00

For the past 4 years, I've been living in fantasy lands. Places where you can get away with saying whatever you want to whoever you want without really having to watch your mouth. Physically and mentally I've more or less been consistent for the past 4 years, but verbally is another story. I like to believe that I had a relatively decent respectable mouth back in 2007, but I've since evolved into a carefree, vulgar, usually inappropriate person in my day-to-day discussions.

There's a few reasons I can identify for this. 1 main one is the Florida Betas an their seemingly invincibility to saying and doing whatever they wanted. It was always incredibly entertaining and I definitely took many lessons from them. Gainesville itself lent itself to extreme "get to the point not beating around the bush" honesty because you could say anything you wanted to any girl and if she didn't like it there were another 50 girls to try it on in. Then throw in China which is just a total joke of reality - I have zero important attachments and zero repercussions for saying/wearing/doing whatever I want. It's fair to say that at least 90% of the expat community and 100% of the chinese community think I'm crazy. And somehow I've thrived in that environment, giving less and less of a shit every day. If something is ridiculous, people expect me to be the one to volunteer to do or say it and I happily oblige. It's liberating to not have any concern about what others think, but the way I've been going about it is definitely a slippery slope.

So here in India, I've made a conscious effort to not be such an outward douchebag. I've been treating the experience like a series of survivor, getting to know most of my fellow students on a personal, familial level. As the only white guy, with all my stories and general character, I've obviously naturally stirred a lot of interest, but instead of padding my ego, I've been toning down my act. I haven't been hitting on any of the girls at all, of which there are definitely a few whom I would have otherwise gone for. This approach is interesting in that it has built me a considerable cache of credibility as opposed to the usual expectations of zaniness.

I haven't been cussing at all, and with the exception of dealing with my injury, I've been in a very positive state of mind. I can't say that I'll stay this way when I return, but I certainly don't miss being vulgar and agitated.

I know that the next month with a group of 9 Ladakhi guides/porters and 5 Trekkers will be an entirely different dynamic than this, which is often like a summer camp. It will definitely be interesting to see how I operate in that environment.

Mother worship and Omkar

2011-07-06T02:35:00.000+08:00

Tonight we just had our 4th Puja of the course. The pujas are ceremonial events with a lot of chanting and singing and fire and dress up and offerings and beautiful yantra designs and all sorts of traditional symbolism.

The first 3 were held in an outdoor covered corridor (because we had pretty big fires going) and they all sucked. It was uncomfortable, cold, wet, bugs everywhere, and you felt disconnected unless you were in the 4-5 person front row. By the 3rd puja, I just showed up early and sat in the back so I could zone out and be comfy.

So needless to say I wasn't very excited about tonight's event. However, it turned out to be awesome. We held the puja indoors, with fantastically organized seating arrangement, beautiful candles everywhere, and it was a tribute to Devi, the Devine/supreme mother, or whatever you want to call her. The names aren't important, but the symbolism was. The main yantra is in the picture from 2 posts back. I am sure there are many star of David fans reading this so they should get a kick out of it. Lots of these in Vedanta symbols.

This time, instead of ceremoniously celebrating a confusing deity, this time we were told to focus our thoughts on our own mother, as she and Devi are the same thing in essence. This made things nice and practical. I'll spare the details on the chanting and the offerings, but suffice to say it was a beautiful ceremony and I got to think about my mom the whole time. (I wonder if she reads this blog). I feel this effectively makes up for my mothers day inactivity. The previous blog post is a picture of my "offering" area which you can see I put a lot of passion into as opposed to the folks siting next to me.

I also spent some time thinking about the other mothers who are near to me (Gigi, auntie belle, etc) and thought it was an excellent way to celebrate the meaningfulness of motherhood.

After the ceremony finished, swamiji had me come over to him to be given a spiritual name. A few other people in the class had received their names earlier in the course but I didn't want one then because I didn't think he could know me well enough by then. Tonight was a perfect opportunity to get the name, and it was funny because about 20 girls were standing there anxiously awaiting to find out what it would be. Swami started saying..."your spiritual name is..." an then because of the crowd, changed it to "his spiritual name is...Omkar". Which means "the sound of Om". Everyone oohed and Ahhed as apparently this is a highly valued name within India (with movies and songs about it as well).

Om is obviously a pretty important sound in yoga and has many high level meanings and symbolisms which you can go and wikipedia on your own. I'm happy with it.

Midnight and time for bed.

This is my mother's day gift (see next post)

2011-07-06T02:33:00.000+08:00

Are pictures working?

2011-07-06T02:06:00.001+08:00

Putting things in Perspective

2011-07-04T21:56:00.000+08:00

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!!!

2 nights ago during the talent show I busted out my star spangled banner and serenaded the group with a rousing rendition of our national anthem. Today I've worn the flag all day and even used it as my yoga mat. Again maintaining the title of most patriotic expatriate in the world.

Anyways, it's been 5 days now of no exercise for me. I haven't blogged in that time, as I was busy trying to sleep and recover. 2 nights ago (right after the talent show) I came down with a fever an couldn't sleep all night, then woke up with explosive diarrhea. That was fun! I ended up skipping most of the activities yesterday to recover from that episode and actually finally got some well needed rest.

This morning I woke up and FINALLY felt better after 5 days of no improvement and only additional discomfort. As the day has gone on, I feel very positive that I will have a full recovery by the end of the week. Still, I don't plan on doing any more of the asana classes as I don't want to risk re-injuring myself prior to the himalaya trekking.

Today's afternoon class was a "prenatal yoga" class, so it was perfect for my condition. I still skipped most of the poses but it definitely helped put me in the shoes of a pregnant woman if I am ever to teach one. I also have a lot more sympathy for chronically injured folks who aren't able to do most of the poses at all. So I guess that's a silver lining of the injury.

Also, it was interesting to analyze my injury under the scope of the vedanta philosophy we've been studying. Essentially, the idea is that all our personal attachments in life are only temporary and not "real". Therefore when we think we find happiness in these objects, it is actually a false sense of pleasure, as our true happiness is a result of concentrating our mind and bringing us close to our inner consciousness, which is inherently bliss. So technically even "my body" is a temporary object that we must detach from eventually. Therefore if we rely on the body to bring happiness, it will eventually also bring pain.

Yea I didn't explain that too well, but you get the point...

The other thing is...in my usual life, I easily go 5 days at a time without any exercise all the time. I even go 10-15 days often. And during these days I'm going out drinking, eating like shit, and being a total lazy bum. This particular setback only lasted 5 days and I was still an extremely healthy, relatively productive person. Still, I was totally devastated that I couldn't participate. It absolutely killed me to sit in the classes and watch everyone else do their poses as I was immobile. It really goes to show how addicted one can get to a healthy cleansing routine if practiced every day.

I just dropped my iPhone while it was charging and might have broken my USB charging cable...hopefully I can solve this somehow!

Otherwise, there's not much to recap over the past few days because I missed out on the weekend trip and other events to recover.

Hopefully I an juice this phone up and keep it going.

Whoops

2011-07-01T19:25:00.000+08:00

Well now it's official...

I've gone from best shape and health of my life to most dehabilitating injury of my life in just 48 hours.

After Sheela's acupuncture last night I woke up this morning with much improvement but still planned o rest today. Well at lunchtime with everyone else practicing their poses I tried to demonstrate a headstand to help someone out, and as I came up, I totally aggravated re injury. It's now far worse than it originally was. I have nonstop pain and find it tough to even breathe.

There's nothing I can do at this point except completely rest. I'd say there's a lesson to be learned here but honestly I feel that I would probably do the same thing again in the same situation.

I'm quickly realizing that my physical body is far and away the object that I value more than anything else. I've lost cell phones, cameras, wallets, etc which all pissed me off and set me back, but this is much tougher to stomach (no pun intended). I am usually entirely dependent on my ambulatory capabilities, and when I can't even reach 2 inches to grab a pen without cringing, it's pretty depressing.

Everyone is very concerned and helpful which I appreciate but honestly the best thing for me is just alone time to refocus and reframe everything. My mind is getting extremely agitated as I google what kind of injury it probably is an how long it will take to heal. None of this matters. I just need to sack up and get it off my mind and rest. My himalaya trek is scheduled to start on July 16 and hopefully 2 weeks without any serious heavy lifting will be enough to heal before then.

Going to start reading again, which I haven't had any time to do since I got here. First up: autobiography of Gandhi

Could be worse.

Wish me luck

Accupuncture

2011-07-01T00:20:00.000+08:00

So one of my favorite girls in the course happens to be an accupuncturist from Naples, Florida. She's helping me out tonight. Pretty wild! I'll let you know how I feel in the morning. Bed now.

Paining

2011-06-30T14:19:00.000+08:00

In most of the world, people have pain in their abdomen. In India, people's abdomens are paining. It's one of my favorite colloquialisms out here.

Anyways, despite the uplifting evening last night, I'm really paining. And it sucks. I of course try to push myself but it just isn't smart. I've talked with the teachers an have decided to take the rest of today and tomorrow off. Saturday is an off day anyways, so I will get 2.5 days of complete rest.

Obviously if this was my usual day to day life, that wouldn't be an issue, but out here, that's effectively missing out on 10% of the asana course, so it's quite bothersome. I'm going to have to re-channel that energy positively so I'm going to really work on my teaching skills, hopefully getting the chance to lead 2 full classes. I also might do extended headstands since that's one of the only asanas I can do that doesn't hurt. Just took a muscle relaxer pill and feeling better. Hopefully this is solved in the next 72 hours.

Ups and Downs

2011-06-30T01:12:00.001+08:00

For the first 2 weeks, I personally had a pretty smooth time. I fought a common cold and a cut on my foot but no big deal.

The same could not be said for everyone else. Many had their emotions pour out in different ways. I saw at least 7 or 8 people breaking down and crying in the middle of random meditation or asana practice. At least 5 people either openly admitted or confided with me that they were ready to go home after the first day because they didn't think they would be able to handle the intensity. Just 2 days ago on the 15th day here one woman broke down and claimed she had no business being here after thinking she gave a poor teaching performance (which was promptly refuted by her students).

Point is, this shit is emotionally and mentally challenging. Everyone here has some baggage that they've brought with them and sooner or later it comes out.

I didn't get frustrated until today.

Even though I just got the scorpion yesterday, I also tweaked a muscle in my left abdomen. I think it's my internal oblique. We are pretty sure it got hurt from me stretching too far when I bring my left leg back during sun salutations. No matter how I got it hurt, it sucks. As the day went on, the pain got worse and worse. It's fine when I'm sitting/standing/laying still, but as soon as I make a quick movement, it feels like knives being shoved into my side.

I was hoping to sleep it off as though it was a cramp but no luck.

In today's classes, I was incredibly frustrated because half the poses created a pain sensation that I couldn't bear. This inability to complete simple physical feats really pissed me off. I couldn't relax, and I pushed myself to do everything, just aggravating it.

Not good.

Add to this injury the fact that it had web raining nonstop for 48 hours and we recently had what seems like a flying spider infestation outside our front door, and today was my shit day.

So after about 30 minutes of just being generally upset, I decided to do something about it. I know that physically I can't do much, but I needed to straighten myself out mentally. I talked to swami and a couple teachers during dinner and they made me feel much better. I also got some tiger balm and I'm optimistic that my current state of healthiness and advanced immune and repair systems will expedite my recovery.

After dinner, we attended satsang with the entire ashram (first time we had done this) - usually it's just the ttc course alone, but this time it was with like 50 more proper yogic folks who chanted and sang like crazy. It was a pretty awesome experience and through the entire 90 minutes I had forgotten I even had any pain.

Heading to bed now much happier than I would have been had the last 4 hours not transpired as they did. And oh man tigerbalm how I've missed thee!

My first scorpion

2011-06-28T16:53:00.000+08:00

Unlocking a new level. The ultimate test of balance, strength, and flexibility.

Day 14 pic

2011-06-26T09:22:00.000+08:00

Regressed a bit yesterday

Recapping week 2

2011-06-25T19:04:00.001+08:00

This is the first time in the 13 days that I've been here where I've had a few hours to relax. I'm going to try to recap everything in a long post here.

Let's start with the kriyas. These are yogic "cleansing" methods. We learned and tested some of these today. The first one (pouring salt water in one nostril and having it pour out the other) was easy. #2 was sticking a tube up the nose and out the mouth to clean your nasal passages. And by "clean" I mean disrupt your nerves so they sneeze and puke out a load of mucus all over yourself. As you can see in the video in my previous blog post, I was not quite successful in meeting these objectives. Continuing on the forced vomiting, #3 was to slowly chew and swallow a strip of gauze into your esophagus. We only had 2 feet to play with while you are supposed to work up to 15 feet. You then pull it out, which I'm sure would have been a nice feeling had I been able to swallow a millimeter in the first place. Again Trevor fail. I dint even bother trying #4 because I knew it would be a wasted effort. You were supposed to quickly imbibe a bunch of salt water and then stick your fingers to the back of your throat to puke it all up. As someone who has survived the master cleanse an the gallon of milk challenge without puking, I knew this 4th kriya would not work for me so I just ignored it.

At the end of all 4 kriyas, only a few people were successful in de-phlegming themselves an they felt pretty good afterwards. I'm sure that the feeling is great to remove all your mucus, but I'm not quite sold on the theory. Although I'd highly recommend it to anybody looking to exercise their gag reflex.

Moving on,

We started our own teaching this week. Divided into groups of 4, 1 student is the teacher and leads the other 3 through a class. I was chosen to go first and put on a decent class. As predicted, my class went 10 minutes long because I talk too much, but I will say that I'm a pretty confident and effective teacher despite the mistakes I made. So far half the students have put on a full class and it's impressive to hear the reviews. Of course some are obviously better than others, but even some of the students who you would guess would be poor teachers actually do a pretty solid job.

Yesterday, Diya, a 12 year old girl who is here with her 14 year old brother and their mom, put on my class, and she was pretty damn good. I was trying to remember what I was doing when I was 12 years old. She and her bro are rockstars in this class. They're far more mature than the 18-25 year old crowd. I'm very impressed with that family.

Last night during our bhagavad Gita class, the discussion went haywire an somehow turned into a debate on the merits and religious questions surrounding mother theresa and other aid organizations that being in helpless children and "give them religion". Every woman in the class had something to say and it turned into this exhibition of high horses. I just zoned out an actually read thru the bhagavad Gita book while the drama took place an wasted an hour of my life.

Meditation is hard. Twice a day we are supposed to meditate for 30 minutes but the longest I've been able to keepy mind from wandering has been about 90 seconds. I try to bring it back by using various techniques such as focusing on my breath o repeating mantras or visualizing some symbols, but it doesn't work. I tend to just give in and try to focus my straying thoughts on one particular subject. One day I went through memories of papa, another day I tried to recollect and visualize every girl I've had sex with. I need to get better at this.

I'm pretty good at the chanting at this point, and I also understand most of the symbolism behind all the Hindi gods, as well as their theories. I'm impressed that I've been able to learn all this information so quickly. I like that their teachings (primarily thei concept of 1 supreme consciousness) are able to align with all the other religions of the world, and even in the chanting, we mention Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, Buddha, etc.) so that been a positive part of the experience. Many of the Indians are impressed with my ability to pronounce the Sanskrit. I credit my brief study of mandarin with this skill. Many of the weird non-English sounds are similar to the weir Chinese sounds so I am able to grasp it all whilst than most westerners.

On Wednesday morning, the distant clouds finally cleared and we had our first glimpse of the snow capped Himalayas. They were massive. It was an amazing sight to behold, and it only lasted for that day before disappearing again on Thursday. This made mr super excited for the upcoming trek which will start on July 16. Viewing a 7800meter peak from a distance is incredible so I can only imagine what it will be like to summit 2 6200meter peaks. I've been studying altitude sickness and actually found that oh pranayama breathing which we practice every day is actually the bed prevention one can have against getting sick. These intense breathing techniques put extra oxygen in your bloodstream and help remove extra impurities, so I'm definitely goin to try to begin every day on the mountains with an abbreviated 20 minute yoga session.

Regarding health and the body, we started out anatomy classes this week as well and so far we've covered the skeletal, muscular, and cardiovascular systems. I had never rally had a proper anatomy class I my life prior to this so I find it quite useful, and it's critical to have a good base understanding of the human body to be a proper instructor if this is a path that I choose to go down in the future.

About that future path, there's still a lot to figure out, but thus far I couldn't be happier with my decision to come on this trip. I still can't get over the fact that we're not even halfway done yet. It feels like it's been a year.

Kriyas!

2011-06-25T17:37:00.001+08:00

So this is what we did today

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Rise and shine day 12 pic

2011-06-24T07:57:00.000+08:00

You do WHAT with your hands?

2011-06-23T21:59:00.000+08:00

As I slowly traverse across the Asia pacific region, I find that I'm regressing when it comes to human use of eating utensils. After a year of chopsticks, I've nearly completely forgotten how to properly use a knife and fork.

Now in India, silverware is nonexistent. Sure they give you a spoon but they look at you like your a lesser being if you use it. You eat with your hands here. And by hand, I mean right hand. Because your left hand is for cleaning your asshole.

I'm not very good at either of these endeavors. Let's first start analyzing the eating cuz that's a bit prettier. As you can see in the pic, it's a huge mess. Sometimes you get some roti, which is like a tortilla, which you can use to help pick up the loose food. I have a tendency to turn this into a soft taco bar, which is also frowned upon. Proper eating is in bite sized portions, delivered to your mouth with the fingers. It's like we are all 2 years old again. Of course I always lick my fingers and this is also frowned upon. Everything is frowned upon. At least the food is all delicious.

Regarding issue #2 (no pun intended), I simply choose to avoid this altogether. Basically, they give you 2 options: 1: use toilet paper to wipe an then leave it in a bin next to the toilet, or 2: just use your left hand with a bucket of water. I choose option 3: wipe using toilet paper and then flush it down the toilet (like a civilized person). I haven't seen my roommates using any toilet paper so I'm pretty sir they go with option 2. I simply maintain peace of mind by assuming they do a fantastic job of washing their hands afterwards. Plus I'm happy I don't have a bin of shit-stained paper looking up at me every time I go to the bathroom.

Of course, this toilet paper conundrum is not unique to India, nor is it new to me. I have experienced all forms and processes of ass cleaning from all over the world. Simply wanted to share the most recent observations as I'm sure many of you were curious.

Day 11 pic

2011-06-23T12:40:00.000+08:00

Day 10 breakfast

2011-06-22T13:02:00.000+08:00

Yumm

Day 10 pic

2011-06-22T09:51:00.000+08:00

Breakfast day 9

2011-06-21T12:54:00.000+08:00

Day 9 pic

2011-06-21T07:52:00.000+08:00

Definitely noticing changes

Bugs

2011-06-21T01:06:00.000+08:00

When I was 15-16 years old, whenever I was bored, I used to go out into my backyard in corona with a fly swatter and just go on a massacre. I would easily kill 30-40 flies in 15 minutes until there were no more, and then an hour later go and repeat it. Of course the flies would always come back despite all their dead brethren lying on the ground beneath them.

I really hate insects. I am a huge bug killer. While I fully realize that it's impossible to eradicate all bugs, every bug that I see is a potential mosquito that could bite me or a cockroach that could crawl on my face, and if they are dead, then on some level, I am lessening my chance of being violated and therefore making myself better off.

Which brings me to this ashram. We are in the middle of the Himalayan forest. There's a fair amount of bugs here. I want to kill every one, especially the flies that land all over my face and ears while I'm trying to do a tough pose or relax or meditate. There are also these physically challenged giant cockroach-thingies that apparently can't figure out how to get on their feet because they are always stuck on their backs waving their legs in agony making a futile attempt to right themselves. And I've certainly sent a fair amount of insects to their grave, but as time goes on, I am becoming far more acceptant and sparing the lives of these things. I am short of weapons and throwing books or slamming my hand against my face just isn't a high value proposition when there is an endless supply of bugs coming my way.

Today in class we discussed the idea of supreme consciousness and how all bugs and plants and inanimate objects all posses some level of consciousness. I certainly didn't feel bad about all the bugs that I've murdered over the ears, but I kinda felt good about the ones I've spared.

(I was just interrupted while typing this post to kill an annoying fly in my room that was hovering around the ceiling and wouldn't leave)

Despite this latest extermination,
I've miraculously become relaxed with the flies that land on me during asana class. I have somehow managed to make my mind think that the flies are giving me a massage. I know this is complete bullshit, but I'm out of options and sometimes if you know you are fighting a losing battle, you just need to get creative.

Tomorrow comes video of me transitioning from crow to a new headstand form. Trust me it's sexy.

Monday dinner

2011-06-20T20:49:00.000+08:00

This is a bit subpar for the course but still delicious (and yes it is auce)

Hell week has commenced

2011-06-20T14:03:00.000+08:00

Well I guess it may be the first of 3 consecutive hell weeks, but yea, we are definitely getting challenged now.

Yesterdays discussion in lecture was one of the most intellectually stimulating experiences I've ever had, essentially using mathematical induction to define who "me" really is. I'll spare you all the details, but needless to say it was quite mind-opening to look at things in that light and use negation to come to a "proof". I'll be exploring this angle more.

Anatomy lessons star soon too so that should be challenging.

In asana class, we got torn apart in a series of advanced shoulderstand poses, while spreading legs apart and it honestly felt better than sex when we finished those up. I also have moved onto advanced headstands since I have improved my breathing and I'm able to hold the basic pose all day. Soon once I get the scorpion I'll upload a pic.

Everyone in the class, young and old, are all unlocking massive accomplishments that just one week ago they thought was impossible. The progress everyone is making is astounding. One of the neat things is that this class is so diverse (as opposed to a bunch of advanced, fit students). We have some 60 year old women, a 12 and 14 year old brother and sister, big thick ladies with back issues, 2 awkward men who have never done any yoga prior to last week, and others. So as a student, I get to witness our instructors working with every type of body and every type of problem that they have, which will do wonders for me if I decide to teach when this is all over.

This morning, arun had us do 12 straight sun salutations which whipped everyone awake real fast. Off to class now.

Good morning, day 8 pic

2011-06-20T07:54:00.000+08:00

1 full week complete

Weekend intensity

2011-06-19T22:02:00.001+08:00

Yesterday was our first "off day" and we had the option to stick around the ashram and do the basics, or head out on a trip to some local cities and temples. I chose to go out with about 18 others.

We visited a few temples which were wild. It's definitely different to experience these temples when you have an idea of what's going on. Most of it is still way over my head, but at least I can now explain why people bring money and coconuts and whatever else to offer the deities at these temples.

The second temple we visited was a bit out of the ordinary. Its purpose is that it was some sort of a "guardian temple" for all the other holier temples in the area. Somehow that means (symbolically) that it's filled with thousands of bells, notes from people with their personal wishes, and oh yes live goat sacrificing.

Let me preface the following by saying that Swami G did not know in advance that this temple subscribed to the branch of spirituality which involves physical sacrificing of animals. He explained later that the school of sivananda which we are studying has branched far away from the school of thought that the folks at this temple were following. Had he known about the goats, he wouldn't have taken us there.

However, we did go there, and yea there were goats, and when I saw a dude come out sharpening a scythe, I realized...holy shit this is going down! Initially I thought they were just going to slice the goat right there on a dais in the middle of the temple grounds, and there was a great deal of commotion, so I just waited but nothing happened. Finally I realized they were taking the goats out back through some side door and bringing the bodies out in bags dripping blood.

Finally, my curiosity got the best of me an i mosied out back following an unfortunate goat. There were about 6 dudes there. I kinda posted up 20 feet away while they lined the goat up. One guy held the head forward while another pulled the body back. Third dude just got up next to it with the scythe, said a prayer, and took a hack. Like a hot knife thru butter. Gruesome. Both ends of the goat kept sputtering long after the blade went thru it. One dude took the head with him an carried it towards a hill and just tossed it off into some pit. And that was it. I didn't take a video and kind of happy I didn't. Because I would have share it and people would have got disgusted with me. So therefore I hope this description keeps that disgust level down.

After I relayed the story to the other folks who didn't go out back with me, they were surprised I had the balls to do so. Hey you only live once, right?

We ended the trip swinging through a beautiful hill town called Almora which seriously looks like the Hollywood hills or san Francisco from a distance (see pic). Amazing sweets are made there and I went to town on these chocolatey caramel things. It was not a very healthy day.

We eventually made it back to the ashram where we did our evening satsang and then I hosted an impromptu talent show which went over very well. All the staff including swami said it was the beat executed talent show they had ever seen in any TTC they had ever done before (and just after the first week, nonetheless)...I'm not gonna lie, I was on point with my jokes, but we had some really awesome singing and dancing performances which made my job easy. A really fun ending to a pretty busy wild day.

Just about finished up with Sunday now, which has been the best day so far. I will elaborate later.

Day 7 pic

2011-06-19T07:52:00.000+08:00

I ate too much junk yesterday

Field trip!

2011-06-18T10:36:00.000+08:00

Week 1 done

2011-06-18T01:55:00.000+08:00

We've finally got a little bit of a break tonight so I'm trying to take advantage of it to create a substantial post.

Every day is nonstop from 5AM to 10PM, with just a few breaks to shower and relax. We have daily "homework" assignments as well, so much of our limited free time (10-20 minutes 3 times a day) is spent doing that, not to mention hand washing laundry. Luckily they gave us 2 uniforms that we can rotate.

I've said that our teachers are amazing but I haven't really elaborated. There are a total of 10 staffers. 2 of them are officially swamis, who have been initiated to this highest level because of their dedicated lives to the sivananda practice. The head swami govinanda received his education (gurukula) directly from swami visnudevananda who was the top disciple of swami sivananda who the practice is named after. Swami govinanda is the most senior Indian swami alive today underneath this yoga umbrella. He leads all our meditation and chanting sessions as well as giving us all of the history and education about the yoga theories. He's a very smart funny dude and is incredibly knowledgeable and wise about almost every topic. Sure there are a few stories and things that don't pass my sniff test, but he provides a fair amount scientific research to back some things up.

There's a lot of spirituality being taught. It's a modernized school of Hindi. Interesting stuff, and it's all adapted to accept and integrate all religions of the world today (you will see Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, and Buddha in some of the chants). It's a bit tricky to keep track of all the millions of Hindu gods and goddesses, and their symbolism, etc. It's also a bit farfetched at times, but at the end of the day, it's an interesting methodology of living a good, healthy life so I am able to respect and appreciate it all.

On the physical side, asana practice is led by arun, who has been teaching for around 25 years. He is an amazing instructor with a great sense of humor. He is assisted by 6 other professional teachers with multiple years of experience. As we practice our asana poses, as well as our breathing and relaxation, they are all walking around the room assisting and correcting people. We do our asana practice twice a day and I have already discovered hundreds of things I have been doing incorrectly my whole life and I'm making many improvements. Every student is going through this same transformation. One of our teachers is this huge Lebanese dude with a shaved head (not mike Hanna) who is extremely inspirational to me and has really pointed out many deficiencies in my practice and helped me big time. He's a jokester and the only other Quasi-white guy around.

Throughout these classes, our teachers are also showing us how to actually lead a yoga class...duh that's what were supposed to be here for! It's quite intimidating but the power you have as a teacher is really amazing. Telling people to breathe and move and everything and having them follow your every word is exhilarating but comes with heavy responsibility. We will be advancing in this regard very quickly in the upcoming 3 weeks. Thus far I have been singled out for praise from the true teachers when we have done our brief teaching of other students.

The food has been nothing short of amazing. It's all organic vegetables and different everyday and always delicious without any bad shit in it. Night and day from any diet I've ever had before. Of course it's all u can eat so I can easily get myself in trouble here. While you can use a spoon, most people eat with their hands. I've done it a few times but I prefer using the spoon when the meal is so loose. Currently my duty or "karma yoga" at the ashram is to serve breakfast to everyone. It's pretty enjoyable. We also have 2 tea breaks and the occasional sweet which is again a healthy Indian sweet as opposed to any other candy I've ever eaten. The chefs make all this stuff from scratch in the ashram which is kore or less in the middle of nowhere 2 hours from the closest town Himalayas. It's pretty awesome.

Tomorrow is our "rest day" but I've decided to go on the optional trip to this temple complex 3 hours away. Well also stop in the "local" town of Almora so it will be nice to see a bit kore of this beautiful area. Got to Hit the sack now.

Dinner

2011-06-17T20:30:00.001+08:00

Every meal is different, awesome, and healthy as this. I'm going to start taking more pics

Day 6 pic

2011-06-17T07:51:00.002+08:00

Day 5 pic

2011-06-16T13:32:00.000+08:00

Got a bit sick last night, sore throat and lots of mucus.

Day 4 update

2011-06-15T21:55:00.000+08:00

So on day 2 it was discovered that I have been breathing incorrectly all my life. Mine was seriously the complete opposite of the proper breathing technique. As I breathed in, my chest would expand while my stomach contracted, as I try to fill my upper lungs. This doesn't make any sense since the biggest and strongest part of my lungs is in the diaphragm region behind my abs. Therefore the stomach should be expanding during the inhale and contracting during exhale! The class got quite a kick out of this as nobody else had the same problem. Almost a stupid human trick. I have been unlearning my wrong technique and improving proper breathing over the past 2 days and I'm noticing a huge difference.

We are really making a ton of progress in all aspects of the course so far in just 3 days. Many people who couldn't do a headstand for the life of them on Monday are already pulling it off. There's a pretty neat camaraderie being built up between everyone, male-female-young-old.
As I'm the only white guy, I get a lot of jokes and attention directed my way, which is fun.
Today, during our afternoon asana class, I was holding a strong headstand so Arun helped bring me into the scorpion position where I lean my lower legs over my head, separate my hands and put forearms on the ground, then lift my head off the ground so all my body is supported by my 2 arms. I couldn't hold my weight myself, but hopefully by th end of this course I'll be able to pull it off.
This Saturday a few of us will leave the ashram to visit a nearby town, Almora, as well as a very famous Himalayan temple which should be quite interesting now that I have this additional knowledge about the customs here.
Off to total lunar eclipse meditation...I'll reserve a post for that later...definitely the hardest part of the program.

Day 4 pic

2011-06-15T07:58:00.000+08:00

I'm so smug!

2011-06-15T00:25:00.000+08:00

Looks like I'll have to move to san Francisco after this is over.

Day 3 pic

2011-06-14T07:51:00.000+08:00

View from our balcony...will post better later

Day 2 thoughts

2011-06-13T21:55:00.000+08:00

It's only been 30 hours since we got started here and holy crap we've done so much.

We've done 3 physical yoga classes (asana practice), a few meditation and chanting classes, and 2 ceremonial things, along with amazing meals.

The entire day is a learning experience and while some things may be a bit farfetched and tough to wrap my head around (ceremonial deities & chanting, etc.), there is a reasonably legit science behind them that is being explained and it's quite interesting.

There's a great camaraderie between all the students. There are 29 total. I am the only white guy. There are actually 4 other guys, all younger than me, a few other white girls, and the rest Indian girls. Like I said before, they are all very outspoken and impressive.

I've got to head out for the final chanting of the night. Not much time to sit and rest at all but I will do my beat to continue to post updates.

Day 2 pic

2011-06-13T09:33:00.000+08:00

4:30am wakeup call

Day 1 recap

2011-06-13T07:22:00.000+08:00

Yesterday was theoretically our "intro" day but was still super packed.

After training all night then a 3 hour jeep ride, finally arrived at this beautiful himalaya ashram to meet the other 28 folks an 10 staffers who are leading this ttc.

I have to say I am blown away by the quality of every single person here. Slowly meeting everyone throughout the day was very enjoyable, and when we had our initiation in the evening, it was incredible to find out the stories behind everyone's reason for being here.

The day itself was a bit rough because I was so tired from getting about 7 cumulative hours of poor sleep over the previous 3 nights due to various circumstances (Mosquitos, late night drinking, sleeper train).

I just woke up from a very deep sleep, and it's 4:50 am and I still need to shower with a bucket and get down to a ceremony by 5. I have 2 cool roommates...a 27 year old engineer from Delhi named Venki and a 19 year old named Kalki, but they need to hustle it up!

More later...gotta go now.

Day 1

2011-06-12T14:27:00.000+08:00

I will be documenting my body's (hopeful) transformation throughout this class. This is the official "before"

Now things get serious

2011-06-12T10:13:00.000+08:00

While this blog will of course comment on all my negative (and positive) Indian observations, it will also make a conscious attempt at figuring out what the hell is going on inside my head.

All in all I'm a pretty damn confident guy. An I'd say I've been damn successful at making awesome things happen over the past 3 years since I quit my job with Raytheon. Everytime i look through my facebook albums, I feel pretty good about myself, but that's not sustainable.

As far as the concept of future is concerned, I've been lost for a while. It's just too easy to skate by in china and have a great time and get complacent without even trying. Living in the moment, doing whatever i want, carefree, no responsibility. This is awesome, and I love it. But depleting my IRA is not so awesome.

There are so many major endeavors (entrevors?) happening in the next 3 months that I'm using to reset myself. It starts today with 1 month in a yoga ashram. I've been doing yoga on and off for the past 6 years, but I never thought I'd find myself in a situation like this.

It will be an insanely intense mental challenge. There are 3 hours of chanting and meditation every day which I have never done before. There will be 28 days of seclusion which I have never come close to before. There will be a full vegetarian diet which I have never come close to before. I will go a month without boozing or jerking off, which I have never come close to before.

So point is, I'll very likely be a different person when I come out. I'll do my best to post updates and daily pics throughout the days.

Stay tuned!

Observations so far

2011-06-12T08:56:00.001+08:00

- All the food is fantastically amazing. I order a random different dish everytime with no idea of what's in it and it always kicks ass.
- Delhi autorickshaw drivers can all go die. They are total scum and make Chinese cab drivers look like professional limo drivers.
- Mumbai is a hectic city. There's nothing like it. Way overpriced "Posh" places built directly on top or across the street from horribly rough slums. Unlike china, the government can't sweep the crap under the rug. It's a wanna-be LA meets Shanghai price discrepancy meets favela.
- Taj Mahal is momentous. Truly a world wonder. Mr Rajiv at Sai Hotel was an amazing host. Heading to the othe side of the river in agra is straight proper India. SLUMDOG!
- India trains can be the seventh layer of hell, especially when they are 2-3 hours delayed and you are stuck on them or waiting for them in a shithole train station. Never ride in an overnight sleeper class cabin to save a few bucks. Still, despite the terrible cleanliness and cramped quarters, passengers are more civilized than Chinese peasants.
- New Delhi is much more beautiful than Mumbai. Relatively well paved roads and actual sidewalks are highlights.
- There are about an even number of really nice, good, honest helpful people and complete scam artists scheming for you to give them money for total bullshit. I've never felt better in my life about not giving people money and having them whine about it. It's turned into a game of "who can out-fuck each other more" at this point.
- Chinese babies = split pants...Indian babies = no pants
-Indian men really enjoy holding each others hands everywhere. Apparently this is also true in Iran. Makes Florida Betas look heterosexual! You guys need to step your game up!
- Indian women can be loathsomely slow. Their clothing is horrendously inefficient for any logistical movements
- The "India smells" come and go...but when they come, they come hard
- Couchsurfing has been great, with chan being an awesome host in Mumbai and Isabel a great travel partner in Agra
- Being able to talk cricket earns respect. Being able to play "street-cricket" earns you a crowd of onlookers

I'm currently 6.5 hours into a "6 hour train ride" that was already delayed an hour before we boarded and will still take another hour to reach our destination. Guess this is par for the course. Hopefully in a few hours I will be arriving at a yoga ashram for 28 days of non-insane India.

I'm worried that my train ride back to Delhi after these 28 days will completely negate the entire experience!!! Must upgrade ticket! Oh shut here come the smells again...must be dead bodies.

Taj headstand!

2011-06-12T08:50:00.001+08:00

Spitting

2011-06-07T21:17:00.000+08:00

I'm not gonna lie, I am a big spitter. I love to spit. Whether I'm brushing my teeth, taking a shower, going for a run, riding my bike in the cold, playing baseball, or any other situation that requires it, I am all about spitting (and occasionally snot-rocketing)

That being said, I'm a very very VERY courteous spitter/snot-rocketeer.

The same cannot be said for Chinese or Indians. However, I think I prefer Chinese spitting - at least they provide a warning hock.

Yes, everyone who's ever been to china is extremely familiar with the 5 second performance that takes place any time a chinese person (equally male or female) decides it's time to let loose some mucus. It's about a 3-4 second "hocking" process, followed by the projection of spit out of their mouth. It is fully disgusting and they never make any attempt to silence the spit nor do they use any discretion on the spit location. No thoughts of spitting into bushes or gutters, just let loose wherever they are physically facing at that moment in time. More than once, I've been a victim of a side-projection bicycle spit as I flew past they're slowpoke asses.

In India, the spitting is a lot less frequent, but when they spit, they spit to win. These Lugees are freaking HUGE! You could feed a small child for a week with the amount of calories within an Indian spit. And just like the Chinese, the direction of trot spits is with complete oblivion to anything/anyone around them. However, THEY GIVE ZERO ADVANCED WARNING. That's right, no hock! All of a sudden you'll see a rainstorm out of nowhere and before you know it, the Indian dude has disappeared. Truly silent but deadly.

So pick your poison...I for one would go with the warning siren..but at the end of the day, we're all stepping in Asian saliva.

Sent from my iPhone

And It begins

2011-06-06T11:07:00.000+08:00

Off to a good start

2011-06-05T21:26:00.000+08:00

Ive had this card for 5 years...this is the first time It's gotten me any access to a lounge for free. Legit

Don't call it a comeback

2011-05-25T10:10:00.000+08:00

It's been about 4 years since I officially sat down to write a blog post.

I've done some pretty awesome stuff in those 4 years. It's all well documented throughout my facebook photo albums & videos, but only my most hardcore stalker friends (my favorite ones) bother to check through all that. I think Facebook "blogging" is a great archive, but doesn't yet have the simple comb-thru accessibility as blogger. Plus nobody reads Facebook notes.

Therefore, with my upcoming trip to India, I'm going to jump back on the blogging train. This will be a trip unlike any that I have ever done before. Usually I'm all about combining fast-paced exploring and hard-core local partying. While the first week in Mumbai, Delhi, and Agra will follow this tried and true formula, the following 2 months will be an entirely new experience.

There will be a lot of yoga, a lot of vegetarian-ism, a lot of Himalaya trekking, and a lot of introspection.

I fully realize that the above sentence more or less labels me as an incredibly gay liberal hippy. And while I admit that there are certainly many things that I have done in my life that are aligned with being a gay liberal hippy, please take the time to admire my full body of work and realize that I spend plenty of time as an extremely straight ultra-conservative badass as well.

Anyways, the trip starts June 5th and you can expect plenty of cool stories, cultural complaints, and half naked pictures as I do my best to document the journey.

-tgribbs

Race Results

2008-02-14T23:36:00.003+08:00

12/05/2010: Shanghai Marathon (26.2 Miles)
Time: 4:08:21 (Only trained for half, partied all night before)
Place: 1517/????(Overall)
  Bib: 189

11/14/2009: Tom Walker Half Marathon (13.1 Miles)
Time: 1:46:12 (Rolled my ankle on a pinecone at mile 2)
Place: 59/226(Overall)
  Bib: 1140

3/29/2009: Tri-Gator Super Sprint (250 meter swim, 4.5mi bike, 1.2mi run)
Time: 31:09
Place: 9/183(Overall)
  Bib: 7

5/18/2008: Florida Ironman 70.3 (1.2m swim, 56m bike, 13.1m run)
Swim: 38:31
   T1: 2:50
Bike: 2:30:09
   T2: 2:32
  Run: 2:00:26
Time: 5:14:26
Place: 307/1995(Overall) 41/152(Age Group)
  Bib: 1220

04/12/2008: Escape from Ft. Desoto Triathlon (1/2m swim, 10m bike, 4m run)
Swim: 14:03
   T1: 2:50
Bike: 23:58
   T2: 1:05
  Run: 24:40
Time: 1:06:34
Place: 31/854(Overall) 4/45(Age Group)
  Bib: 106

03/16/2008: Waldo Triathlon (1.5K swim, 40K bike, 10K run)
Swim: 13:23 (short, obviously)
   T1: 2:54
Bike: 1:08:17
   T2: :56
  Run: 45:01
Time: 2:10:31
Place: 1/11(Overall)
  Bib: 159

2/24/2008: Five Points of Life Gainesville Half Marathon (13.1 Miles)
Time: 01:37:40
Pace: 7:27 min/mile
Place: 38/510
  Bib: 1214

2/10/2008: Gasparilla Half Marathon (13.1 Miles)
Time: 01:31:47
Pace: 7:00 min/mile
Place: 95/2299
  Bib: 16055

1/13/2008: Disneyworld Marathon (26.2 Miles)
Time: 03:31:35
Pace: 8:04 min/mile
Place: 362/12964
  Bib: 334

11/03/2007: Florida Ironman (2.4m swim, 112m bike, 26.2m run)
Swim: 1:02:48
   T1: 3:48
Bike: 4:58:27
   T2: 3:01
  Run: 4:15:26
Time: 10:23:28
Place: 267/2277(Overall) 8/51(Age Group)
  Bib: 217

10/27/2007: Suncoast Triathlon (1/3m swim, 10.3m bike, 3.1m run)
Swim: 9:40
   T1: 1:33
Bike: 25:35
   T2: :57
  Run: 21:08
Time: 58:50
Place: 9/404(Overall) 1/12(Age Group)
  Bib: 27

9/23/2007: Escape to Miami Triathlon (1.5K swim, 40K bike, 10K run)
Swim: 29:23
   T1: 1:39
Bike: 1:07:11
   T2: 1:27
  Run: 50:25
Time: 2:30:05
Place: 40/800(Overall) 7/48(Age Group)
  Bib: 673

5/20/2007: Florida Ironman 70.3 (1.2m swim, 56m bike, 13.1m run)
Swim: 36:09
   T1: 4:33
Bike: 2:34:28
   T2: 2:29
  Run: 1:49:41
Time: 5:07:18
Place: 313/2048(Overall) 14/89(Age Group)
  Bib: 349

3/25/2007: Strawberry Fields Triathlon (.25m swim, 11.5m bike, 3m run)
Swim: 10:14
   T1: 2:01
Bike: 30:04
   T2: 1:10
  Run: 19:36
Time: 1:03:05
Place: 35/449(Overall) 4/31(Age Group)
  Bib: 401

1/28/2007: ING Miami Marathon (26.2 Miles)
Time: 03:29:48
Pace: 8:00 min/mile
Place: 163/2539
  Bib: 1346

1/7/2007: Orange County Half Marathon (13.1 Miles)
Time: 01:33:00
Pace: 7:06 min/mile
Place: 130/6251
  Bib: 10836

10/08/2006: San Jose Rock N Roll Half Marathon (13.1 Miles)
Time: 01:32:24
Pace: 7:03 min/mile
Place: 248/8291
  Bib: 1390

9/24/2006: NIKE Run Hit Remix (5 Miles)
Time: 35:26
Pace: 7:05 min/mile
Place: 237/7737
  Bib: 1385

7/15/2006: Camp Pendleton Triathlon (1.5K swim, 40K bike, 10K run)
Swim: 29:52
Bike: 1:13:10 (includes T1, T2)
  Run: 45:34
Time: 2:28:36
Place: 87/689(Overall) 4/17(Age Group)
  Bib: 2025

7/9/2006: Carlsbad Triathlon (1K swim, 25K bike, 5K run)
Swim: 18:22
Bike: 49:15 (includes T1, T2)
  Run: 24:04
Time: 1:31:41
Place: 151/773(Overall) 9/27(Age Group)
  Bib: 447

6/25/2006: Breath of Life Olympic Triathlon (1.5K swim, 40K bike, 10K run)
Swim: 27:17
   T1: 3:35
Bike: 1:07:36
   T2: 1:46
  Run: 47:09
Time: 2:27:19
Place: 71/385(Overall) 6/9(Age Group)
  Bib: 294

6/18/2006: Playa Del Run Huntington Beach (1K swim, 5K run)
Swim: 16:44
Total: 40:59
Place: 48/122(Overall) 4/5(Age Group)
  Bib: 193

6/4/2006: San Diego Rock N Roll Marathon (26.2 Miles)
Time: 03:28:19
Pace: 7:57 min/mile
Place: 576/15771
  Bib: 2491

5/21/2006: Playa Del Run Santa Monica (1K swim, 5K run)
Swim: 16:52
Total: 41:26
Place: 24/106(Overall) 2/5(Age Group)
  Bib: 168

3/19/2006: Los Angeles Marathon (26.2 Miles)
Time: 03:31:50
Pace: 8:04 min/mile
Place: 739/25256
  Bib: 998

2/5/2006: Pacific Shoreline Half Marathon (13.1 Miles)
Time: 01:37:07
Pace: 7:25 min/mile
Place: 317/5462
  Bib: 3714

1/8/2006: Orange County Half Marathon (13.1 Miles)
Time: 01:42:01
Pace: 7:47 min/mile
Place: 379/5105
  Bib: 10896

12/11/2005: Honolulu Marathon (26.2 Miles)
Time: 03:35:24
Pace: 8:13 min/mile
Place: 781/24265
  Bib: 7097

9/24/2005: NIKE Run Hit Wonder 10K (6.2 Miles)
Time: 00:42:57
Pace: 6:54.9 min/mile
Place: 204/5668
  Bib: 2366

8/14/2005: Americas Finest City Half Marathon (13.1 Miles)
Time: 01:39:53
Pace: 7:37 min/mile
Place: 554/5401
  Bib: 658

6/5/2005: San Diego Rock N Roll Marathon (26.2 Miles)
Time: 03:51:16
Pace: 8:50 min/mile
Place: 1993/20410
  Bib: 2717

Trevor Gribble, YOU are an IRONMAN!

2007-11-09T04:09:00.000+08:00

I think it was back in 2003, when Ski and Zach announced that they were going to train for and run in the Los Angeles Marathon. My thoughts at the time, "Are you crazy? There's no way you will do that." Such an event was unfathomable in my mind. The seed was planted.

It was early April 2005, when I was stretching after a 5 mile run around Balboa Island - my longest run to date. I bumped into my neighbor Christina as she was taking her dog for a walk. She mentioned that she had finished the San Diego Marathon the previous year. Inspired, I immediately returned to my computer and signed up for the June race. Things were starting to materialize.

Later on in 2005, I was over at Joe and Shawn's apartment. We were flipping channels and stumbled onto coverage of the Ironman triathlon. The standard comments were uttered: "That's just insane" & "Just finishing one of those, you are the man" … An ultimate goal was now apparent.

A few months later, I ran my 2nd marathon in Honolulu. I improved 16 minutes since San Diego, and was feeling pretty good. I got a smoothie after the race and went to my hotel's hot tub to relax. I randomly met fellow UCLA alum Terrie in the hot tub. She had crushed me in the race and mentioned that once she got back home, she was starting up her training for Ironman Coeur d'Alene. I was in awe. Within a few minutes, my eyes opened up to the world of triathlon.

First week of March, 2006, I started swimming during lunch at the Janet Evans Swimming complex in Fullerton. I hadn't swum a lap in about 14 years. The complex was under construction and the changing tents and showering trailers were pretty weak, but the great coaches & lifeguards (Mitch, Ally, Kyle) made up for it. Multisport was underway.

LA Marathon 2006, I was stretching before the race when I noticed a guy wearing an Ironman 70.3 California hat. I asked him, "That was a few weeks ago, right? How did you do?" His response: "No, it was yesterday"…and he was running the LA marathon 15 hours later as a training run. I realize that Ironmen are insane.

November 5, 2006, I woke up in Corona at 8:00AM, got online, and "luckily" was able to sign up for the Florida Ironman to take place exactly 1 year later. I realize that I am now officially insane.

November 3, 2007, I woke up in Panama City Beach at 3:30AM, put some oatmeal in the microwave, and thus began an incredible adventure …..

November 3, 2007, 5:23PM…Trevor Gribble, You are an Ironman!
When I look back and connect the dots that led me to this accomplishment, the above moments are the ones that I remember the most. Along the way, there were countless friends and family, as well as random individuals who I met at pools, gyms, trails, races, in the office, on planes, etc., with whom I discussed endurance sports and everyone provided advice and encouragement.

Everyone who competes in an Ironman has a different set of stories and reasons that led them to sign up for their day of agony & rejoice. For me, it was simply a random set of chance encounters with the right people at the right time.

So, a HUGE Thank You goes out to everyone I mentioned above. Also, thanks to Ruttenberg, Teddy, Jared, Suraj, Victor, Kollitz, G, Luquin, Shane, Cristian, Eli, Isola & Gigi for giving up your couch/floor/bathroom for me the night before a race or training day. Thanks to Dzuy, Terry, Gilbert, Mckane, Kellogg, Romanof, Melissa, Kavita, Tarun, Matt G, Tommy, Teddy, Mom & Dad for coming out to races along the way, racing with me or cheering me on. Thanks to the BR-629 homies for not mentioning my 5:00AM Tours de Jerusalem & Tel Aviv to Shannie & Momo. And a HUGE Thanks to Eli, Gilbert, Sheryl, Kayla, Lloyd, Mom & Dad for making it out to PBC and spending 10 hours getting drunk and cheering me on. And of course as I mentioned in my earlier email, thanks to everyone who has been cool enough to simply listen to a word out of my mouth about this crazy endeavor.

Now, onto the race report:

In the days leading up to the race, it was pretty surreal. People were biking and running up and down the street non-stop. It was just a crazy sight to see as you couldn't walk across the street without dodging someone. Anytime you made it out to the beach you would see at least 15-20 people swimming in their wetsuits. There was no denying it… this was the REAL DEAL, time to put on the game face.
All my preparation went smoothly. Nothing too exciting to report here. I arrived on Wednesday afternoon with my parents. The weather was perfect, and aside from some gaudy decorations, our condo was perfect. The next 2 days, I got in 2 wetsuit practices, a couple quick bike workouts and short runs…my body was working properly. Nutritionally, everything was going good as well. On Friday night, everyone else arrived. I was pretty tired so I hit they hay around 9:30.

I got a decent nights sleep, woke up at 2am with a little cough, and started freaking out, but managed another 1.5 hours of sleep and woke up at 3:30am feeling fine. A quick bowl of oatmeal & strawberries, some stretching, changing into my clothes and I was on my way. Setting everything up in transition was smooth…I took my time, making sure I got all my bathroom business out of the way before making it to the beach. We were supposed to be at the beach by 6:30 but I didn't make it out until 6:45, whatever.

Saw my dad holding up a sign and went to say my final goodbyes, Eli, Kayla & Lloyd also found me at this point. I was pretty pumped up. The pros took off and then I went into the start corral. It's not every day that you go from the National Anthem to Ozzy's "Ironman". As soon as the first chord hit, all my nerves went down the drain. I wanted to hear that in the morning to pump me up but I forgot, so this just made my day. I slotted myself 2nd row on the inside of the buoys, and boom, we were off.

I was hoping to break 1:10. The swim felt pretty good, I was able to have decent spacing and my goggles stayed on tight the whole time. When I exited the water after the first loop, I saw the clock and it read 39 minutes. I was pissed. Then I realized it was the pro clock, and I had actually swam the first lap in 29 minutes! Sweet! My half ironman swim was 36, so this was a huge improvement. Jumping back in for the 2 nd lap was probably the hardest part of the race for me. My heart rate was skyrocketing, but I eventually settled into a groove and did it all again. This time it took me 33 minutes and I exited the water at 1:02:48, 7 minutes faster than my goal time.

Made it through T1 pretty smoothly (Getting the wetsuit stripped off was great!), jumped on the bike and rode comfortably at the start yet still passed about 50-60 people in the first 6 miles before turning onto the 79.Through the first 20 miles I was flying, passing tons of people. I made the turn onto the 20, and then I dealt with packs for the next 50 miles, charging to the front 4 times only to be passed back within 5 minutes of breaking free. It has been beat to death, but with so many riders & a flat course, packs were inevitable, so I just dealt with it as legally as I could. I finally had some space from miles 73-90 before another pack came up behind me. When I hit the bridge at mile 98, I made my move and pushed it for the last 14 miles. I passed back a decent amount of people here and ended up arriving in T2 in 4:58:26, the 4th fastest split in my age group! I was hoping to ride sub 5:20, so again, I was 20 minutes faster than I had hoped. Sub 5 hours was HUGE. Plus I didn't spend a cent on Aero-wheels! 100% stock, baby.

T2 was great, the volunteers were amazing, grabbing my bike, handing me my bag, and helping me get my shoes on, comforting me along the way. I was through it in about 3 minutes, so now I had taken about 6.5 minutes total on my transitions, and I was expecting around 10, so I was another 3 minutes faster than expected.

I started the run at about 6:08 into the race, in 170th place at the time. Considering there were 94 pros who started the race, I was pretty stoked at this point. Although, as I had only run a max of 3 miles after a 5 hour ride, I really had no clue what I was getting myself into. Finally saw my cheering section about a half mile into the run…it must have been great for them to finally see me after sitting around all morning getting drunk. The next 6 miles were decent, I was sticking to a 9 minute/mile pace, and people were cheering loudly, although I was getting passed by lots of good runners. When I hit mile 7 and started the run back to the half way point, that's when I hit rock bottom. Miles 7-14 were filled with self-doubt: "What the hell are you thinking putting yourself through this"..."This is the stupidest thing you have ever done in your entire life." Even when I got to my cheering crew again at mile 12.5 I was hating life. My stomach was sloshing, my legs were hurting, and I just wanted to die. This picture perfectly captured the agony of that moment. I made the halfway turnaround and picked up my special needs bag just as the male overall winner was coming down the finishing line. That actually gave me inspiration as I did not get lapped out on the run course. By now I had run out of salt tablets and had already started to experiment with coke, which was actually working to settle my stomach. I popped a few Tylenol that I got in special needs, and managed to pick up the pace a little bit. I would do the famed Ironman shuffle at about a 9:30 pace from aid station to aid station, then walk each one picking up Gatorade and pretzels to increase my salt intake, as I could feel my muscles getting dehydrated. At mile 15, I found a guy who was going about my pace, and I ran and chatted with him until about mile 18, when he could no longer hang at my pace and told me to go on without him. I was now picking up speed, and made it to mile 20 before picking up another Ironfriend, Mark from Canada, for the next 5 miles. With less than 1 mile to go, we were coming through the awesome section of fanfare and one of the tents with a stereo started playing Soulja Boy. As stupid as it may sound, you have no idea how much that song hit the spot at the 140 mile mark. I got a huge smile on my face and I seriously started doing the dance as I was running past the music, it was awesome! The crowd was going nuts cheering me on. As soon as I had "youuuuuuu'd" twice, I just got a super adrenaline kick and started actually running again. My quads and hamstrings amazingly found some juice and I was flying for the last half mile, passing about 7 or 8 people as I came towards the finish line. I just kept screaming this whole time knowing that it was going to be over so soon. I saw the family up ahead on my right, and Gilbert came out with the flag & the beer. I was expecting some PBR, but I guess Steel Reserve Malt Liquor was going to have to do. From there, I just glided in for the finish, shaking up the tall boy and popping it open over my head as I approached the line.

I broke the tape as the clock read 10:23:28, meaning I had just ran a 4:15 marathon. That was slower than I had hoped for but still, my overall time was 22 minutes faster than my goal. Technically, this finish fell within my "ecstatic" zone. I placed 267th overall out of 2277 starters, and 8th out of 51 in my age group. I finished while the sun was still up and managed to head over to the beach to catch a killer sunset.

It was a great day, and now I can try to go back to living a normal life.

-Trevor

*The complete photoset can be found on Picasa.

Escape to Miami

2007-09-25T01:16:00.000+08:00

Lets start with a quick recap of the events leading up to this race:

Thursday night: Out til 4AM in Gainesville. Good times.
Friday morning: Up at 8AM, drive 5 hours to Miami.
Friday afternoon: Awesome 10 mile run on South Beach. Felt great.
Friday night: Out til 4AM in Miami. Caught Michael Jordan, Scott Storch, Fat Joe, DJ Kahled at Mansion.
Saturday morning: Up at 11AM, next few hours spent packing things up driving to race site, dropping bike off, meeting up with Kollitz for lunch in Coral Gables...relatively smooth.
Saturday 5:00: Headache
Saturday 5:30: Awful Headache
Saturday 6:00: Sore Throat
Saturday 7:00: Ready to die
Saturday 7:00 - 3:45AM: Toss and turn, close eyes as much as possible, up every 45 minutes to drink some water and take a piss. Awful night.
Sunday 3:45AM: Up. Feeling like crap. Throbbing Headache.
Sunday 4:30AM: Leave Coral Gables, drive to race site, not feeling any better.
Sunday 5:00AM-6:00AM: Set up transition area trying to talk myself into racing despite physical condition. Look all over for tylenol but can't find any. Oh well. Hydrate well, eat well. Meet up with Tony, who tells me his friend has already backed out because of a headache, and I decide that I'm not going to puss out and I'm going to try and race.
Sunday 6:15AM: Board the ferry to "Escape Island" holding head in hands feeling like complete crap.
Sunday 6:45AM: Pop 2 energy pills, jump off of boat, short swim to shore. BOOM ADRENALINE KICKING IN. Feeling much better now.
Sunday 6:45-8:05AM: Wait on island for what seemed like forever so that they could ferry all the 750-850 racers out there. Lost adrenaline rush, but maintained hydration, stayed focused and was ready to go.
8:05AM: Race start.

Swim: As I was not feeling that great, I did not want to go tread water in order to get a prime spot in the mass swim start, so unfortunately I was in the middle of an insane logjam of swimmers and struggled to find any room. I had to stop 3 times to adjust my goggles as they filled with water. Finally, I turned around the first buoy, 1/3 of the way into the race and got some space. From there it was just a long hard swim back to shore, and I wasn't feeling that great. I basically threw out all technique, breathing every other short stroke. I knew that I was not going to improve at all on previous swim times and was just happy to finish.
Swim Time: 29:23 (98th overall)

T1: I took my sweet time here. Being sick, once my headache subsided, the biggest concern I had was cramping up on the bike. I made sure to get my endurolytes and an oatmeal bar, washing it down with gatorade before jumping on the bike. Also stashed an extra oatmeal bar and hammer gel in my back pocket for nutrition along the ride. I could have sped things up by putting this crap on my bike in the first place, but I didn't bring any tape, so I was forced to just knock it out in transition.
T1 Time: 1:39 (408th overall...ha!)

Bike: Decided I was going to just ride balls out and hold nothing back. If I cramp up, I cramp up, and call it a day. Greatest decision ever. My good nutrition paid off and I absolutely flew on the bike, passing everyone in sight. I estimate I passed over 60 people and guarantee that I did not get passed by a single person. (2 "elite" guys who I passed, passed me back when I slowed down to eat my oatmeal bar, but I passed them again) It was a bit windy which slowed us down one way and sped us up the other. The 2 hills on the causeway were tough but I rocketed up them as best I could. I was sure that I averaged around 23-24 mph, which would have put my bike in at just over an hour, 12 minutes faster than my previous best. However, according to my bike computer, the actual course was about 25.5 miles long, so my time was longer, but still very good.
Bike Time: 1:07:11 (30th overall)

T2: As I entered transition, the clock read something like 1:38, it was then that I realized I had completely forgotten to start my watch when the swim started, oh well. Again, I took my time in nutrition, unscrewing a bottle of endurolytes and taking another 4, downing with gatorade.
T2 Time: 1:27 (343rd overall...ha!)

Run: Without my watch starting from the beginning, I didn't really care about trying to pace, just went out and ran comfortably at a solid pace. The first hill going over the 395 was a beast. Much harder than I remember it being during the Miami Marathon. However, I stayed steady, and when the leader passed me, I realized he was only 2 miles ahead of me, so I was only about 14-15 minutes back, 2 miles into the run. Not bad considering the circumstances. I kept the run strong, and felt pretty good during the second half. Turned it up a notch for the last mile and a half and passed about 7 people. Came down the homestretch, made the turn for the finish line, just as the clock read "2:29:58" Doh! I wasn't going to break 2:30. Only now did I kick myself for failing to start my watch. I could have picked it up even more over the last half mile to break 2:30 if I knew what my time was. Oh well. Ended up finishing in 2:30:05, and hopefully I get a sweet jumping pic when they post up the pics online in a few days. Be sure to check back for that.
Run time: 50:25 (54th overall)

Total time: 2:30:05 (40th overall out of ~800)

Given the circumstances, I couldn't have been happier. Had I been 100% I would have gotten a much better swim start and quicker transitions, easily cutting off about 4 minutes. I don't know if the bike or run would have been any better, but yea, top 25 would have been a real possibility. AND, most importantly, I would have only lost to 1 woman. As it were, 3 finished ahead of me :) Again, isn't that the only statistic that matters?

Shoutouts to Jeremy (Thanks for letting me use your couch as my sick-bed), Tony (Thanks for the haircut and the pre-race pep talk), Matt (good meeting up with you after the race, sorry about the crash), and Brian (3rd place was kick-ass, good luck in Kona)

Lesson learned: Don't stay up til 4:00AM 3 nights in a row before racing. Even if it involves Michael Jordan.

PS: The drive back to Gainesville SUCKED!

Ironman 70.3 III - Showtime

2007-06-09T05:01:00.000+08:00

**I apologize that this post is well overdue, but I know that you were all waiting on the edges of your seats, so here you are:

The 3:45AM wake up call never sounded so good. After a sweet 5 hours of Britney-induced sleep I was ready to go. After a nice warmup jog along Alligator alley and some stretching in my hotel room I was ready to head to the starting line. Despite a frantic 10 minute search for my wallet (which I eventually found,) I was feeling pretty good.

Setting up the transition area was relatively smooth. Bathrooming it was smooth. I was happy with my hydration. So far so good. Nice to not have a wetsuit for a change (No need to piss in it during the warmup swim).

I was in the 4th wave. 6:31AM start. The sun rises at about 7:30AM. So we relied on ambient light as we headed to the starting line. I was definitely getting some butterflies. I chatted with some of the guys I had met on the Tri-Gator team. Took one last bathroom trip at about 6:18 during the national anthem. Nothing more American than taking a dump in a porta-pottie while singing along to the Star Spangled Banner.

Feeling great now, pumped up and ready to rock. The swim was going to be long but the water was perfect temperature, had decent visibility, and my body was fully shaved and silky smooth!

BANG!

And we're off, feeling good, God this is nice to not have a wetsuit. I'm staying inside the buoys on the way out, trying to getting some space, getting some kicks but doling out some kicks as well. Breathing every other stroke, not as good as I'd like, trying a few 4 stroke breaths, but that's not going too good. I swam pretty straight from buoy to buoy so that was good. No 50 feet out of my way nonsense.

Sweet, I'm passing some slowpokes in the blue swim caps, made up 3 minutes on them. I made it to the halfway point before I got passed by a green cap who started 3 minutes after me. That was disheartening, but expected. My goggles stayed relatively dry, not takin on any water which would have sucked. I took in a few gulps of water, but it was fresh water and that was a welcome change from the triathlons I am used to. After making the final left turn back towards shore, it seemed like forever to get back, but I knew I was feeling really strong... YES! Swim exit! 35 minutes in! Hmm I thought I felt good enough to hit 32 but oh well.

Exit the water, now it's a long run over sand, grass, and mulch (why the hell couldn't they put some mats over the mulch). Had some trouble getting the tri-top over my head. It was bunching up on me since I was all wet. Then as I jumped on the bike I knocked off my endurolytes which I had taped to the top tube, so I crumbled up the piece of tape and stuck it in my back pocket. That was kind of messy but oh well there should be plenty of electrolyte replacement options along the way.

And we're off on the bike in my new tri shoes, no socks. This was risky because I hadn't really trained without socks and had no idea whether or not I would chafe. But I got out on the course and felt fine. The course wasn't very packed with riders so I was pretty comfortable, picking people off one at a time at first. About 5 miles in, I was passing a guy around a curve and I slowed down while turning and passing him. Eventually I got passed him and kept going, when a motorcycle comes up besides me and a guy shows me a yellow card! What the hell is this? A penalty? Is this soccer? I was pretty pissed and I asked him what it was about and he said I did not complete my pass in 20 seconds. Whatever. So that meant I had to stop and sign in at the penalty tent at like mile 28. Oh well, live and learn.

Back to the bike, everything again was still smooth. I was upset that I got passed by like 2 or 3 draft packs (which is A MILLION TIMES more illegal than failing to pass within 20 seconds), but otherwise, no complaints. Eventually I passed a female pro, who had started 6 minutes ahead of me, so I felt pretty good about that. There was a rough headwind about 45 miles in, I probably slowed to about 15mph to fight through it, but afterwards it was smooth sailing on the return to transition, and I was finishing up the last 5 miles of my ride at about 24mph, passing back a few people who had passed me earlier on. When all was said and done, I had finished the bike in about 2:34, averaging 21.7 mph so I was again, very pleased.

So I get to the transition area, quickly get my socks and running shoes on, and hit up a portapottie to take a well-deserved piss. I check my watch and see that I am about 3:18 into the race, which is well ahead of my goal, and I am pretty stoked. I realize that I can run a 1:42 half marathon and break 5 hours! Since I have ran a 1:33 half marathon before, I figure this is a legit possibility. I know 8 minute miles are 1:45, so I do some quick math and figure I probably need to average about 7:45 minute miles to break that magic 5 hour mark.

By now, it was about 9:45AM, and the sun was getting pretty high in the sky, but it was time to roll. The course was like half street, half dirt trail. The street portions were all well-shaded but the dirt trail was just deadly in the heat. My first mile on the blacktop was about 7:15 so I knew I was going too fast. I slowed down to near 7:35, 7:45 for the next couple of miles, but it kept getting harder and harder. As I was finishing my 1st of 3 laps, for the first time since the swim, I was passed by a woman. That is always a very disheartening moment in triathlon and one that I desperately try to avoid at all costs. Luckily, it turned out to be the overall female winner Katja Schumacher, who was on the 2nd of her 3 laps.

As the 2nd lap started, I was at mile 4 and still on pace for 5 hours. I did not need to stop and walk at all until I hit mile 8 out on the dirt path. By now I had been running for an hour and it was getting really hot and I was just dying. I checked my watch as I finished my 2nd lap, and I was now right on pace for 5 hours. I knew that miles 7 and 8 had been slower than 8 minutes, thus negating the time I had saved by running the first few miles sub 7:45.

As I started the 3rd and final lap, I knew it was now a battle of will. At the 9th mile, I realized I was not going to break 5 hours, but I could still beat my goal of 5:30 by a huge margin. I went as hard as I could, drank whatever they were serving at the aid stations, and just powered through. By now I could care less if I was being passed by anybody. I just kept pushing and eventually saw the homestretch in the distance. As anyone who has ever finished an endurance event knows, you automatically get some adrenaline boosters in that last quarter mile. I turned my speed back on, and triumphantly sprinted down the finishing chute, high-fiving every spectator along the way. Given my vanity, I also made sure that I had a good spacing behind the finisher in front of me so that my finishing picture would be unobstructed. Needless to say, I was successful in that endeavor.

So yea, when all was said and done, I ran a 1:49 half marathon and finished the entire half Ironman in 5:07. That was good enough for 14th out of 89 in my age group and 313/2000+ overall. Given that the Ironman field is the best of the best and there aren't very many flimsies competing, I was very pleased with those results.

I greatly enjoyed my post-race euphoria for about 10 minutes, singing in the finishers area as I always do, until I realized that there was NO RECOVERY FOOD! This was no good. At even the lamest marathons that I have done, there is always SOMETHING to eat after the race, but there was nothing. My body was cramping up as I waited in line for a massage. I went to the medical tent and got a small gatorade which was helpful.

Finally, about an hour after I finished, they delivered about 500 PIZZAS! What the hell is this? I guess that's what you get after a half Ironman - pizza. Oh well, food is food.

So that was that. I hung out for a bit before finally deciding to leave. It was quite a schlep to get out of there, carrying all my gear to my car a mile and a half away, and during the course of doing so, I managed to somehow lose my cell phone. That was a bummer, but I did not let it take away from the joy of having just completed the greatest physical accomplishment of my life thus far.

Ironman 70.3 I: The background and the build-up

2007-05-22T00:35:00.000+08:00

I guess it all started in January 2005 when I was at Big 5 looking for some swimming goggles. As any guy will tell you, a typical trip to a sporting goods store lasts about 2 hours, as you peruse through every section of the store, take a few swings of the newest baseball bats, shoot some hoops into the tied off basketball rims, make a few putts in the golf section, etc. etc. Well, on this fateful trip to the store, as I meandered about, I stumbled across a 50% off sale on all speedos.

At this point in time I had no business whatsoever with a speedo. I hadn't been in a pool since July 2004. I sure as hell hadn't swam laps in a pool since I took swimming lessons when I was 10, and I definitely didn't wear speedos back then. I was expecting to just buy some goggles and swim in my board shorts...But for some reason, I talked myself into it, and ended up spending $15 on a pair of speedos that would forever change my life.

Now, I had already gotten the ball rolling on the whole "going to the gym" thing. After my 31 day road trip where I put on 20 pounds of beer and pizza, I was working out 3-4 times per week for the most part, taking a few 1-hour spinning classes, hitting the elliptical for half an hour, maybe put in 1-3 miles on the treadmill or the local sidewalk, spend an hour lifting. But I was still very far away from wearing a speedo with any confidence. Yet, 24 hour fitness had an indoor pool, so at the end of every workout, I'd head to the locker room and throw on the speedo...IMMEDIATELY followed by my board shorts. I'd then slowly walk to the pool, put my goggles on, and when no one was looking, I'd quickly rip off my shorts and jump in the pool, minimizing the chance that anyone could see me standing around in the speedos. When I finished my swim, I'd again wait for a strategic "no-shame" opportunity and jump out of the pool, grab my towel and cover up.

It wasn't a perfect system...but it was a system. Biking, Running, Swimming...It was all getting done....

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fast forward 2.4 years
~~~~~~~~~~~~

May 19th, 2007....I pack $3500 worth of triathlon equipment into my car and drive 2 hours south to Orlando, Florida, to check in to the Florida Half Ironman Triathlon.

Now marathons & half marathons are one thing...anybody does them. With the exception of Boston, every marathon is filled with a bunch of flimsy participants who only take running half-seriously.

Short Triathlons are a little more serious. Triathlon is a sport that it takes a lot more $$ and commitment to get into, so your average competitor is usually pretty serious about the event and it is a much tougher field to compete against.

But when we step it up to IRONMAN. Let me tell you that is a whole 'nother world altogether. Anybody crazy enough to get to the point in their life when they decide, "yea sure I can go for a 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, and a 13.1 mile run back to back to back," is insanely committed to their craziness. The average racer probably has a bike worth at least $5000, trains 2-3 hours a day, and grew up competing on a swim team or as a cross country runner. We're not messing around anymore. This is the cream of the crop and they've traveled far and wide to get to Disney World so they can strip down to their speedos at 6:00AM on a Sunday morning and put themselves through a living hell.

And I was one of them.

The only difference being, I'm sure I was the only one out of 2000 who decided it would be a good idea to go to the Britney Spears concert at the House of Blues in Downtown Disney 8 hours before the race started.

To Be Continued....

Chipotle Insanity

2006-12-10T10:31:00.000+08:00

For whatever reason, I have never really been much of a Chipotle guy. Perhaps I just haven't lived in close proximity to a Chipotle, perhaps I usually just decide on Baja Fresh before the thought of Chipotle even crosses my mind?...I'm not sure, but this afternoon, after attending the UCLA vs Texas A&M basketball game at the Anaheim Honda Center, I went to Chipotle for just the 2nd time in my life.

I ordered a chicken salad to go, and it ended up being pretty tasty, but that's not the point.

As I returned to my car, it hit me that the only other time that I patronized a Chipotle was in Tucson, Arizona, immediately following the UCLA vs Texas Tech basketball game at the McKale Center in the first round of the 2005 NCAA Tournament.

Pretty crazy if you ask me.

Purely out of respect to the incredibly awesome random similarities of these 2 visits, I will refuse to patronize a Chipotle until immediately after the next time I attend a UCLA vs (insert Texas school here) basketball game on a neutral court.

Best.Victory.Celebration.Ever.

2006-12-06T10:49:00.000+08:00

So yea on Saturday afternoon we finally beat USC and we celebrated and there were some great youtube videos that came out of that affair, and that was fantastic.

But the events which took place on Sunday afternoon put our victory celebration to shame.

Around 2:00PM PST, UCLA lost a Mens Soccer match to UC Santa Barbara in what would have been our milestone 100th National Championship.

And I couldn't be happier.

The kids at UCSB completely made my day.

They stormed their school's soccer practice field, ripped out the goal, marched it across campus, through Isla Vista, and launched it into the OCEAN!!!

European Hooligans don't have anything on that.

Well done Gauchos. Well done.