By Scott Jones

Over 20 years ago, Terri and I ran the Victoria Marathon together. It was a bucket list endeavour. While I was glad I did it, I had no desire to do it again. So how the hell did I sign up to do an event that will take about 36 hours? Excellent question!

Our friend Kim introduced me to the Rich Roll podcast who had a guest appear named Colin O'Brady. O'Brady is one of those super adventure type dudes - he has scaled Everest several times, walked across Antarctica and rowed a boat on open ocean. On the podcast, O'Brady talks about a book he wrote called 'The 12 Hour Walk'. The premise is simple - walk out your door and have no inputs for 12 hours. Your phone is on airplane mode and you can't listen to music, podcasts or audio books and this is done solo so no conversations are permitted. You can bring food, water etc. (it isn't a death march) but you can't sit in a restaurant. It doesn't matter how far you travel, it can be 5 km or 50 km, but the goal is to remain uninterrupted for 12 hours. (Think about how many times in a day we are interrupted by an email , text scrolling etc. Probably once every 20-30 seconds) Eventually, I completed two 12 hour walks - once in Edmonton and once at the lake. It was a remarkable experience and I accidentally walked about 45 km each time.

O'Brady also happens to be one of the co-founders of the 29029 Everesting event, along with Jesse Itzler and Marc Hodulich. They had their first event in 2017. This event takes place at ski resorts across the US and Canada. The number 29029 is the vertical feet of Mount Everest and depending on the ski resort, the participant has to walk up the ski hill and gondola down however many times it takes to reach 29029 vertical feet (some events it takes 19 ascents, others 8 - it depends on the vertical feet gained per ascent). As I mentioned in the last blog entry, Kim signed up to participate in 2023 and Terri and I attended to be her support team. In addition to that, I volunteered on the mountain and was able to vicariously experience the event with the 300 athletes. When I first arrived, I thought that the event was bonkers and I couldn't imagine why someone would do it. 36 hours later, I was hooked and wanted to give it a try.

The universe concurred with this plan and because I have the best wife ever, I was able to get signed up as did Kim for her second go around. I began training in earnest for this in about November 2023. Because I am no spring chicken, I approached this with a slow and steady mindset. I began by consistently lifting weights 2 times per week, running once per week and continued to teach or do yoga. Gradually, stairs and hills were incorporated once a week, starting with 3 sets of stairs (a set consisted of on average 125 stairs which equals about 8 flights). Over the course of 7 months, the long days culminated into 10 hours covering 70+ sets of stairs and walking over 30 kms!

So back to the original question - why? There are a couple of reasons. One, I liked the idea of challenging myself and doing something kinda out there. I have always enjoyed suffering in the trees as a way to regulate my nervous system. I enjoy the reactions of people who scrunch up their face or pretend to retch at the thought of climbing stairs for 10 hours or doing this event. It feeds my contrarian soul. The biggest answer to the why comes from the fact that I have been very intentional about closing the book on a 30+ year career as a police officer and what better way to put an exclamation point on that than by walking slow and steady up a mountain 8 times.

Interestingly, I have a photo of me taken on August 23, 2023 in my police uniform for the very last time.

The 29029 event begins exactly one year later - August 23, 2024!

In my next blog post, I will write about lessons I learned from this training and process.

Until then, be well!

Scott