My Year of Living Stenuously

When I first started this training venture Allan Stellar over at 365 Walks! asked if I had read Bill McKibben's Long Distance: Testing the Limits of Body and Spirit in a Year of Living Strenuously. McKibben's book documents his year long commitment to train as an elite cross-country ski racer. It is an interesting book, one that I enjoyed, and one I could obviously connect with.

However, besides the clear reality that McKibben started thin and fit, and I started soft and chubby, there are many more important logistical differences between McKibben's year of living strenuously and my year of living strenuously.

• McKibben was 37 years old when his training began; I am 50 (enough said).

• McKibben began his training during a time in which he already spent many winter days skiing in the woods, often travelling as far as 20 km. This last winter I made it 10 km once, and throughout that ski always felt as if I were on the edge of physical collapse.

• McKibben appears to have taken a year off in order to dedicate himself to training like an elite athlete; for me, taking a year off is not even a remote pipedream. I must work to provide, so my training must happen in conjunction with my job. However, since I do teach I am only a few weeks away from being able to spend much of my early mornings dedicated to living strenuously.

• McKibben trained all year with a world class cross-country ski and fitness trainer. His trainer developed a training schedule for him and stayed after him throughout the year to make certain he stayed on task. I am reading lots of books, tracking my training, and trying to figure out my own amateurish schedule.

• Early in his year of living strenuously McKibben worked with an Olympic trainer in Lake Placid. He was placed on a treadmill, hooked up to lots of monitors and machines, and had his VO2 max tested. I test my VO2 max by seeing how many times and how fast I can run up the hill without collapsing. And more to the point...I am not even certain what the hell VO2 max means.
  

• During the middle of summer, when heat and rain are prevalent over cold and snow, McKibben flew to Australia to find snow and cross-country ski racing. Not gonna happen here...my training will consist of dry-land sweating and grinding.

• Around Thanksgiving he flew to a cross-country training camp near Yellowstone National Park in order to spend a week working on his technique and to try and get an early start on his skiing legs. Nope, that's not gonna happen either...I have neither the money nor the time to pull something as grandious as this.

• McKibben eventually skied the Norwegian Birkebeiner, a 58 kilometer race in Lillehammer, Norway; I will ski the American Birkebeiner, a 50 kilometer race in Hayward, WI (about five hours from my front door).

• As McKibben's level of fitness increased, his goal evolved into finishing within the top half of his age group (which he did). My goal will always be to simply finish the damn race and then to cherish a pint or two (which I will).
  

And yet with all this said I enjoyed McKibben's yarn. It was especially interesting to read within the first couple of months of my own training. He is honest, funny, self-deprecating, and remains fairly upbeat, even when an aggressive form of brain cancer prematurely takes his father's life. It is a book I am sure I will revisit often over the next several months. And in the meantime, I must go train.