RE: [Paddlewise] exhaustion

Julio wrote:

> How do you folks deal with exhaustion?
> 
snipage
> 
> What tricks do you have to go that extra mile when your body and
> mind are about to give up?
> 
> One that works for many people is to think of something that makes
> you very angry, concentrate on that, and swear with every stroke
> until you reach the destination point.
> 
> Others just cry, but not everyone gets better by doing that.
> 
> Ideas? experiences?
> 

 Hmmm,  a valid question, but also one that my initial reaction to is -
"don't go there".
In the 20-odd years that I have been cross-country skiing, whitewater
paddling, sea-kayaking, backpacking, mountaineering, winter ski touring,
rock climbing, and generally hanging around playing outside in all types
of weather conditions, I can honestly say that while I _have_ been in
some uncomfortable positions, I've never been in that bad of a
condition.  Not because it couldn't have been that bad, but because I
took precautions to make sure that it didn't get that bad.
 Generally, when you are in that kind of totally exhausted condition it
means that there has probably been a series of errors (or problems), any
one of which could have been the indicator that you should simply STOP
and then quickly, and as safely as possible, either retreat or move
forward to a safe position.
 Planning and constant evaluation of conditions are critical in tenuous
conditions - letting the environment dictate what happens to you can
quickly lead to the type of situation described originally.  You can't
control the conditions, but you are in complete and utter control of
what you do.
  Now, having said that, what I do when things start to get bad is to
think about other endurance events that I've been in - remembering how
badly it hurt, remembering hours of training with a coach who preached
swimming through the hurt, past the pain, into agony and thus finally to
success.  Thinking about the burning, gut-wrenching, pain of running a
long hard race, and knowing that I survived - realizing that _our bodies
are as tough as our minds can will them to be_. 
 Getting angry doesn't work for me - when I get angry I stop thinking
clearly and then a bad situation can quickly spiral even further out of
control.  Cool, dispassionate calm is what I look for when things start
getting bad.

my rather long-winded $.02

Dave Seng
Juneau, Alaska
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