Lazy North Americans
Recent exposure to another part of the world left me with a feeling of disappointment. We in North America are horribly inactive and the by-product of our industrialized society has really created the modern day health problems known as stress related illness.
A few weeks ago all forms of local media graciously reported that myself and fellow Red Deerian Glenn Moore were heading to Tanzania, Africa to climb the great Mount Kilimanjaro for charity. (www.thewaterschool.org) The fundraiser and the climb were very successful and our determined group persevered with 23 of 24 individuals reaching the 5895m summit, far higher than the typical summit success average. Personally it was the greatest challenge I have faced in my life so far, the effects of altitude and the limitations in your ability to work it creates is an incredible and very individual experience. At times I would walk no more than 30m before collapsing for 2-3 minutes of rest with a heart rate of likely 150+ bpm. The anxiety and frustration of an inability to perform or maintain my heart rate I am sure only made it worse. In just shy of six hours, but truly what felt like an eternity, I reached Uhuru (the Swahii word for Freedom) Peak under the careful and watchful eye of Odell, one of our porters who had become my personal guide for those last few kilometres. It’s a funny thing when you get there, you sort of can’t believe you made it, you quickly hurry to take your photos and videos as though you might forget altogether and just as quickly begin to head back down simply because inside you are so exhausted that you are afraid if you don’t get going right now you’re not sure if you will make it back to camp.
Now not to belittle the personal sense of achievement that myself and the others share for having conquered the world’s highest free standing mountain but this story is about how we in North America have created a lot of excuses to be inactive and the modern day illness called stress. I make my living in the fitness industry. I trained for this climb for about four and half months. Growing up a strength athlete I was way outside of my comfort zone but after losing 18lbs in preparation I felt I was in pretty good shape for the coming adventure. Spending time in Tanzania you suddenly realize in that part of the world being active is simply a way of life. It was unusual for me to see hand drawn carts of goods for sale, supplies and everything else in the cities. It was more unusual to see people walking, carrying many items miles from any city or town. However the best example of amazing fitness as a result of a lifestyle requiring a great deal of activity came on the mountain from our guides and porters. We were only carrying our 20-30lb day packs walking pole, pole (pronounce poleE poleE, Swahili for slowly, slowly) while our team of porters is carrying about 30-50lbs of their own gear and camp supplies and another 30-50lbs of your additional supplies, food, etc, usually balanced on their heads; walking quickly up the mountain and often in simple running shoes. Each day they would reach camp long before us, often with our tents fully setup and prepared and busy boiling drinking water and preparing the evening meal. On summit day Odell needed no rest but he would patiently rest and wait with me as I struggled to persevere onward. Our lead guide Godfrey travelled to the summit three times total assisting climbers to reach their destination. Another of our guides aptly nicknamed Masai (the Masai are Tanzania’s tribal herder/warrior people) ran a full marathon the day prior to our trek leaving the city of Moshi. It was by far the most amazing example of fitness, conditioning, commitment and hard work that I have ever seen.
I left that mountain with a true sense of respect for a people and culture that was previously foreign to me, but I also left with an awareness of how our complex lives have made us lazy and allowed us to create excuses for being ill and overweight. Day to day in North America revolves around our careers and this word stress is constantly applied to all the difficult decisions we must make every day. On paper it seems crazy that this could make us inactive, overweight, and sick but as I sit here in front of my computer I am reminded it’s very real. March 1-6, 2010 myself and 23 others trekked over 100kms through four distinct climates and faced numerous physical obstacles for the pursuit of clean water worldwide. And yet that exhausting task now seems easy compared to the tiredness I feel after spending a day in my office or dealing with the day to day tasks of life in North America. If you don’t like exercise, or on the days you simply don’t feel like it remind yourself that obesity is now labelled as an epidemic in North America. Try to find ways to set aside the “stress” of each day for a couple an hour or two and go and do something active. I bet if we all did this we would relieve major “stress” off of our health care system and some major illness would drastically decline. Just a thought.
If you search “Red Deer Personal Trainer” on YouTube you will find I have posted a morning and evening video from each day of our trek explaining what it was like and how I felt, it’s amazing to hear my voice change on summit day and how foggy my thinking was at times.
