As I write this, I have arrived in Whistler with my support team of Terri and Jack (my oldest boy) as well as my Everesting partner Kim and my brother is on his way here. The anticipation of the event (which begins in 2 days) is something I haven’t experienced for quite some time - I feel like a high school kid ready to play football again oddly enough. I kinda want to run through a brick wall! I have had time to ponder and contemplate this journey and came up with a list of things I learned throughout (in no particular order);

• ’As cliche as it sounds, this is more a mental game than physical’- The training for this event began in earnest in November 2023. Specifically, a week would include resistance training (one ‘push’ day and one ‘pull‘ day), a run, a stairs/walk day and taking or teaching yoga 2-3 times a week to maintain mobility. The progression of the weeks was a combination of lifting heavier or increasing repetitions, gradually increasing run distance (from about 5 km to 13 km), increasing stairs/walks from 30 minutes and 5 hills all the way up to 10 hours that included 70+ stair climbs and 30+ km covered. Also, rucking was introduced where I would carry a weighted pack that went from 8 lbs to 20 lbs. What I mean when I say it was such a mental exercise was during the long training days of 8-10 hours (which in and of itself is a bit bonkers) the days progressed in a non-linear fashion. Sometimes easier, sometimes not, but always able to accomplish the training goal that was set (be it sets of stairs, distance, time on feet etc.). There were incalculable instances of easy almost pleasant experiences all the way to deeply uncomfortable sensations, especially in my back, hips, knees, ankles and feet. The physical ‘suffering’ aspect was overcome by keeping my brain on the goal and task at hand. I had a mantra during this - ‘pitter patter MF!’
• I was recently asked what were some of the worst parts of this training and my answer was none. There were no worst parts. It was obviously difficult at times but my body was able to adapt as was my mind. I was impressed with how my 53 year old tractor body was able to move more, eat more, hydrate more in training conditions of all kinds.
• I was able to briefly experience the elusive flow state during a training day a couple of months back. It was on the main set of stairs we trained on we called the ‘Ezio stairs’ (Ezio Faraone was a police officer killed in the line of duty in 1990 - I had met him as he had worked with my dad. I thought it a cool way to honor Ezio by saying his name as frequently as I did). As I was climbing the stairs, the weather was atrocious - rainy, windy and cold. At this point, I looked at the stair in front of me and everything else disappeared. All I focussed on was putting one foot in front of the other as the rain poured off of the steps. There was no past or future there was only the present moment of one foot in front of the other. This moment will prove useful during the event.
• My relationship with time was altered - there were minutes and hours that seemed to last a lifetime, but more often than not, the hours flew by. It didn’t matter if it was a heavy stairs day or flat, long training day, but as the length of the training days increased, the speed with which the day progressed seemed to accelerate.
• My relationship with pain was altered too - my body would often send fake danger signals during training. For instance, somewhere out of the blue my toe or ankle would start to ache with no precipitating event and if I just waited it out and kept moving, it would fade away. Sometimes the pain signal would migrate elsewhere but usually it lied and if I gave it no attention, it would leave too. This even started to occur while resting which I attribute to an anxiety response as the date drew closer. And once again, if I let it be, I would return to baseline.

If you are interested in real time updates follow @twistedoakyogaandwellness on Instagram (Terri’s Instagram) and/or @scottjones1859 (my Instagram)

The next blog post (plus an upcoming episode of our Just Us on Justice and Other Things podcast) will talk about what happened during the event!

Be well!

Scott