Archive for January, 2008

Weekly Heroic Challenges

January 17, 2008 at 6:51 pm · Filed under weekly challenge

I came up with this idea when I admitted that doing mundane, normal, daily life stuff is boring. It never ends, I get little satisfaction from completing it, I have a hard time prioritizing and picking a place to start, and I have no motivation. I guess partly that’s my perfectionism – there’s always more I could be doing, something that’s left undone or done imperfectly.

My thought is that if I batch some of this stuff together into what feels like a Big Thing, I can pat myself on the back for doing it, and more importantly, something will actually get done. Some weeks the theme will be pure fun, others will be more practical. I will be forced to let other normal life tasks slide, the weekly challenge will be the highest priority.

And just to clarify, I’m using the word “heroic” in the sense of big and bold and out-of-the-ordinary, not like saving babies from burning buildings.

As always with these projects of mine, we’ll see how long this lasts. Even if I can only keep it up for a couple weeks, it will be a couple weeks of forward momentum that I wouldn’t have had otherwise.

So that’s that.

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Inca Trail

January 3, 2008 at 1:19 pm · Filed under Travel

My dad expressed interest in the elevations on the Inca Trail. Seemed like good information to keep, so here it is.

The group leader (Bobby) wrote down the basic elevations for me and I translated it into feet and miles. Unfortunately, it doesn’t give times, so without living through it, you can’t tell if it’s steep or a gradual incline or what. But this gives a general feel for it – we kept asking Bobby what to expect and he would always say “Inca flat” which means up, down, up, down.

The second day is universally acknowledged as the hardest. The 1200 meter increase is incredibly steep for about an hour or so at the end (“Dead Woman’s Pass”). The third day is also hard, but due to the steep descent. The 1000 meters down happens very fast.

We practically ran on Friday. There is a checkpoint at the campsite, so all the groups lined up to be the first in line for when it opened at 5 am. Once we got through, there was a lot of pressure to keep up and keep in front of the other groups, to be the first ones to Machu Picchu.

For reference, I acclimated in Cusco which is 3,310 m / 10,860 ft.

Inca Trail Elevation

Photo by me.

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