path to strength via weakness

I am getting ready for my four-day-camping-trip to Adirondack Mountains. It is a State Park in upper State New York. It is expected that it is covered with two-foot snow minimum and the temperature is expected to be around -10~-20 C (-6~7 F) at the base, with wind gusting at 32~50 km/h, thus with a windchill around -28~-18 C. The condition above tree ling could only be much worse. I am shocked that I am doing this. This is the first time in my entire life that I would actually make such a decision because I know I might be able to handle it.

Yesterday, I was doing Cross Country Skiing in Mt. Prospect, VT. The temperature is about -20C with wind at 23-32 km/h. This was the first time in my life I actually did such a thing and enjoyed it.

Looking back, it is a long and winding journey from birth to this point. I felt compelled to jot down my journey.

No one is born to be sick and unfit. This I believe.

When I was born, I was very sick though. My mum had high fever immediately following my birth, and as a kid, I was a valued patron to the hospital to the point, I knew the doctors, nurses (the one who give shots) very well (which is rare in a Chinese hospital). My nose bothers me--it is hyper-sensitive, and any dust and pollen in the air can make it angry.

I had pneumonia twice before I entered elementary school, and spent many nights with IV bags. It is in retrospect a plus for my academics. My dad would dose off beside me, and to kill the time, I could only open my school bag and read those books I had read too many times.

Physical education is very much neglected in all schools in China, no matter what they claim. We had P.E. class three times a day (each for 40 minutes), but they were notoriously interested in military drills--standing, turning, and walking. Then they devoted the remaining time to testing, which we all did horribly. The administration had some rules regarding how fit students must be vis-a-vis those tests, but most test scores are cooked. We have like 40 students in a class, and while some take the test, the rest just stand there and watch. Finally, we will have 5 minutes to ourselves (if we are lucky) doing fun things, like playing soccer (actually we use a tennis ball and pretend that we are playing soccer on a basketball court). It is not surprising that we lost interest in P.E. classes. To be honest, we had very little activity time each week.

Things changed for the better in the last two years. We had a new guy in the school leadership, who is notoriously tough. He decided to put Physical Education on the top of the priority list. Test scores were no longer cooked, and those who failed must re-take it to pass it. We are "advised" (actually required) to stay after school to do drills so as to improve. We were little kids and it is amazing how quick we could improve. I started only able to do 20 rope-jumps in a minute and I was out of breath. In two weeks, I could easily do over 100 rope-jumps in a minute. In winter, we are required to come out and jog in the playground. I do not remember the specific number, but I think it should be 2 km per day. At the time, to add more political correctness to the program, the leader called it "jogging to Beijing", and the idea is that, within a winter (which is not long in Shanghai), we would cover enough distance to go from Shanghai to Beijing. I had lots of fear for that leader, but I am at the same time very grateful to him. Because of that, I felt I was in much better shape.

Good times are short. I entered junior high. I was a naughty one. Between classes, we often have 10-15 minutes, and I often liked to play chasing games with my friends. Also during lunch recess (about 2 hour long), I played that as well. This annoyed my class teacher. I had nothing but horrible memory of her--she apparently felt disgusted by we all get sweaty and put a ban on any activities involving physical exertion during recess. P.E. classes are boring and insufficient as ever. Later, some friends and I would so hate the P.E. classes (the drills especially) that we would ditch the P.E. classes altogether.  This made things very bad. I went from lean to overweight in junior high. (It is still shocking to see pictures of mine when I was really young and skinny, what a contrast). I would have trouble walking upstairs everyday and we are only on fourth floor! Getting sick becomes predictable in spring and fall, and one illness lasted especially long.

Then it was high school. I entered high school in horrible shape and high school was very much the same story as junior high, though we have much less those nonsensical military drills. The weird thing is the P.E. classes are not after school, and it is usually before lunch time. I often felt nausea eating directly after  workout, and I began to avoid this by simply slacking off in P.E. classes. Fortunately, I liked sports and I can do sports after class, which makes up for the lack of participation in class, but that changed as well, after I broke my leg. That injury took a long time to recover--I could not walk properly for two months and I was sedentary all day eating those high-fat high -sugar junk food all day. I soon accumulated several new layers of fat, and those aerobic activities became ever harder. Even with miracle, I would be confident that I would fail the long-distance running part of the P.E. tests. I also entered into a bad cycle, the less fit I am the less I like sports and the less I work out.

Great things happened when I went to a high school in PA, US as an exchange student. I told myself I need to change, and unlike politicians, when I want change, I take actions. I signed up for the Cross Country JV. Things were so bad, were so so bad when it started. The first practice, we are asked to run along a trail loop twice. I was trying as hard as possible to keep up with the second slowest running because I was so afraid that I would get lost. At the end of one loop I was exhausted and the coach asked me to stop. When I finally arrived at my room, I just collapsed on my bed, and without showering, I just slept for an hour.

My last meet was in November. It was in a high-altitude school. It snowed the night before, and the snow partially melted. We went there with lots of layers of clothes. We toured the trail. Then my teammates took off their clothes and only wore a thin thin vest and shorts. I was like "Seriously?". I followed and we ran. Very very unpleasant. The partially melted snow, after stepped on by three previous groups (women varsity, men varsity, women jv, and then us), made the trail so muddy that when I finished, the lower part of me was as muddy as the trail. I felt cold as well. I quickly put on clothes, and changed socks and shoes (how lucky I even thought about carrying extra pairs!). There are some wonderful parents who brought chili soup and it was so marvelous even for me, who stayed away from anything spicy. It was a bad run for me, and I thoroughly regretted not ditching it at the time(the coach knew it is a tough run and asked beforehand if anyone does not wish to come and several did). Now? I am so proud I did it. What did not kill me made me stronger.

Winter I did swimming. Not as dramatic as the Cross Country season put me in shape. learnt free style, which was fun. Did not do any sports in spring, other than occasional Frisbee.

I returned to my old high school, quite different a person. The long-distance running was a piece of cake. Even after not running at all for spring, and summer (I did some Taw Kwon Doo in summer), I was still in relative good shape). My high school is relatively rural, and I kept a habit of running like 3k every day after school. It was, to be quite honest, very pleasant until it turns cold. Though I was a slow running in US, I easily became an excellent runner in my high school, getting an excellent score for my long-distance running, and represented my class to participate long-distance running in school sports meet. Nevertheless, I still could not deal with cold weather well, a thing that would change in college)

Let me stop here, but strenuous life would not. I will test out very survival ability in bad conditions very soon, and failure or success, I won't regret it. I wish myself good luck.