Moreover, we’re sometimes fed up with the daily routine and don’t want to go through the day we just had once again when writing the message in the evening. One of the most common question people ask us is why we do this... Why we devote so much time end energy only to be freezing cold for weeks, work hard avery day and go through lot of suffering... Vašek has no problem answering such a question - he simply enjoys expeditions, barren frozen lands, he loves these kind of things... But what about me? Of course I love it and enjoy it as well but I always knew that there must be also something else that drives me to do it; something I’d never been able to address. However, I think I might have succeeded in defining of this “something” today.
My feet have been bothering me for few days already - for most of the time we walk with “ice grippers” attached to our shoes and I think that the shoes got a bit worn out after we’ve walked almost 400 km (248) and I can feel the steel spikes under the soles of my boots. There’re moments when I think that I can’t bear even to stand on my feet not to say walk on them. But to stop walking means that I get cold immediately and what’s more, lose precious time which I can spend moving on towards the north. So I walk... I tough it out and walk. And, Vasek does the same every day with his swollen shin.
I had a moment today when my body was screaming, ”Stop it, no more pain!” and when something in me twisted. I was just listening to the soundtrack from Once at the moment and memories were running through my head - memories of home, of my girlfriend, of her crying at the airport when I was leaving... I was down. Thousands of emotions... I was still walking, suffering, feeling sorry for myself - pathetic, isn’t it? And then it happened. I pissed myself off... and jumped into the fight with myself. All I felt a moment ago was gone now - no pain, exhaustion or self-pity, just anger! Enormous anger which turned into energy. I suddenly felt so strong! I was just in the middle of the worst mess of rubbled ice which is so hard to walk through because the sleds get stuck very often. But I, full of anger, started to pull the sleds like crazy as if I didn’t even noticed the mess I was walking through. The more the sleds refused to follow me, the harder I pulled. I don’t know where the energy came from - I think that one just needs some really strong emotion to find in oneself the energy which seems to be no longer there. Soon, pushing my way forwards, I left Vasek behind me. When I got to the smooth ice, I run... pulling some 60 kg (133 lbs.) behind me, I run as if I just hadn’t been through the two weeks of the worst conditions I’ve ever experienced. I suppose I wanted to run away from that stupid self-pity, to show it that I’m not giving up. I run for two hours and only then did I calm down. It was a powerful energy infusion, infusion of my inner strength which arrived only in the moment when I was down. Down enough for something to happen...
And I think that this is what attracts me to the extreme expeditions - to get out of myself strengths which otherwise I wouldn’t even know I have. To live through the moments when you’re desperate but when something rises deep inside of you (some inner strength I believe every human being has) and you just go on... you go on stronger than you were before.
Today, I would like to thank again to some of the people who helped us with the expedition. We want to express our thanks to two guys who helped us to prepare and plan the expedition diet.
One of them is our dear nutritionist Petr Havlíček who we just called, told him what we were up to and he said without hesitation, “OK, come over and we’ll see what we can do.” He’s a great guy. Even thought the very thing he told me when we first met was that I’m to skinny for such an expedition. Later, when I told him that I’m a vegetarian, he wrote me off completely :-) After we met, he planned number of testings and then he designed a special diet to feed us up (we both gained 10kg - 22 lbs.). He also planned the diet for each of us during the expedition - for Vasek with jerky and bacon, for me with cheese and additional protein as he came to terms with the fact that I’m a vegetarian :-)) As far as we can tell, the diet works great for us - we’re not hungry, we like the food, we eat our daily portions and we feel as good as you can feel after two weeks on an expedition :-)
The other guy is Mr. Palata who owns a company selling Enervit products in the Czech Rep. We’ve both have been working with him before and he’s always willing to give us advice on which products are the best for us. We especially enjoy the R2 drink which we have every day as soon as we get to the tent - it’s for muscle recovery. But what matters to us is that it tastes great - sweet and delicious it’s our everyday treat after the long day we had. We also use Enervit energy drinks which we drink during the day and I have also a protein shake.
Pavel
