We are going to Everest the Crunch.
37 times up a 242 meter hill over 2 days. Roughly 31-32 minute walks up the Coquitlam Crunch, with a team taking shifts driving us down after each one, to reach the equivalent hight of Mount Everest.
Follow our journey on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everestthecrunch/
We start at 6am Pacific time. Wish us luck!
My Japanese yams and butternut squash have been baked. I’ve got 3 ziplock bags filled with a mix of salted cashews, pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries, and nerd clusters. I made a huge vat of meaty pasta sauce last night and had a massive bowl of pasta for lunch today, I’ll have another one tonight. I’m also going to boil some eggs and stack my energy drinks in the cooler tonight. Next up, packing my clothes, including rain gear for Saturday.
Today is a prep day for Everesting The Crunch. We start tomorrow morning at 6am. I’ve got a few more things to prep, but the most important thing will be an early bedtime and a good nights sleep.
I’m excited, but also dreading it. I know it’s going to be hard and there is too much time to think. Tomorrow I’ll just be excited, and the most important thing will be to start slow, to curb enthusiasm and adrenaline, and recognize that this is a marathon (an uphill double marathon over 2 days… 30-32 minutes at a time), it’s not a sprint.
I’m not just preparing my supplies, I’m preparing my mind too.
I don’t want to do it. It’s going to be very hard… it’s going to suck.
I have to do it. I’m going to do everything in my power to be successful… it’s going to suck.
That’s the internal conflict of doing hard things.
The suck in ‘it’s going to suck’ is the part that makes it worth doing.
If it were easier, more enjoyable in the moment, it wouldn’t actually be hard. It also wouldn’t come with as great a sense of accomplishment. It wouldn’t be something as memorable. The internal conflict is real, it might even be necessary. Because if there wasn’t an element of ‘suck’, it wouldn’t be as rewarding. The trick is to embrace the suck, and to understand that it’s one of the hard parts of doing hard things.
That said, do hard things. Not because anyone is watching, not for anyone else but yourself. Recognize that the internal conflict is just part of doing hard things, not a reason to avoid it. And so that challenge you’ve been thinking of doing, or that goal you’ve talked about but haven’t acted on even though you really want to do it… The one that’s going to be hard, that you know will in some way suck getting to the end…
Start it. Do it. And know that the act of doing it is the reward, even though it’s also going to suck.
Despite the fact that we have not actually met at the scheduled time for years, my buddy Dave and I have had a running calendar invite to connect for breakfast every 3 weeks. We’ve kept the invite in our calendars as a little reminder to connect. Pre-covid we actually did meet every 3 weeks, taking turns buying each other breakfast.
Covid ruined that.
Then in January 2021, with loosened covid restrictions, whereby we could meet people outside our bubble as long as we were outdoors… we decided to meet and do the Coquitlam Crunch. This 241 meter hill climb became our breakfast meeting replacement.
Soon our goal was to do at least 40 a year, one for every school week. We have surpassed that every year. Today was our 259th time (although I say 258 in the video) and our next attempt will be our Everest challenge. How did we go from weekly walks to trying to do 37 (the hight of Mt. Everest) in 48 hours?
Dave shares the inspiration for the challenge in this video:
No more training is going to help at this point, it’s just rest, carb loading, and food prep now. Our mantra is ‘one at a time’… each time up the crunch we only have to worry about that one. We’ll get to 37, one-by-one.
Follow our journey on Instagram: @EverestTheCrunch
Dave Sands and I will be Everesting the Crunch starting a week from today. Our training has tapered, and we just need to stay injury free. This morning after a shoulder workout at the gym, we hopped onto the Crunch to do just one, and we created this video inviting people to join us next week.
I mentioned ‘Do hard things’ briefly in the video, this is something that has been on my mind a lot recently as I head into retirement. I’m not just going to the gym, I’m trying to make gains. I’m not just trying to go up the crunch again, I’m trying to walk up it 37 times in less than 48 hours, which involves walking up hill the distance of 2 marathons. I’m not just continuing my daily blog, I’m planning to write a book starting in November.
Hard things.
I think we find more meaning out of life when we try to do hard things. That said, I’m not trying to do it alone. We need to also make connections and maintain meaningful relationships. It means so much that I’m doing this with Dave, and it means so much to us that our family and friends will be there to support us.
This is just me sharing some uncertainty and self-doubt. I’ve shared that in a couple weeks my buddy Dave and I are attempting a physical challenge of walking up a local hill 37 times in 2 days, which will be the equivalent of the hight of Mount Everest. You can search my blog for ‘Everest the Crunch’ to find out more. I’ve also mentioned that the distance travelled will be as far as 2 full marathons (up hill), and involve over 19 hours of walking over 2 days.
Here is something that I didn’t mention. Dave and I have both decided that if one of us can’t make it, the other person will not continue either. We aren’t doing this as some sort of badge of honour, we are doing this as a challenge… together. It was an idea born out of our finding a way to connect during Covid, and we value the opportunity to spend intentional (and healthy) time with a friend.
In fact, that’s why we also decided to raise money for men’s mental health. We recognize how important this time together has been for us. We also know that men usually don’t get together to have a coffee or even a beer and just chat… they usually need an event, be it a sports game, a barbecue, or a birthday… Or a walk or a hike. The act of doing something together becomes the reason to gather, and thus the opportunity to chat.
Dave and I have found this time invaluable. A fun fact about our walks, very early on we created a rule that we could only talk about work on the way up the hill, no ‘shop talk’ on the way down. So, we’ve had a lot of opportunity to talk about life, family, anything and everything; Time we would not have made if we were just meeting for a coffee, although very often we do meet for a coffee after our walks.
So, on August 21st and 22nd, with the support of family and friends, we will attempt to climb the Coquitlam Crunch 37 times. And we will do it together or we will fail together… and that’s where the idea of the weakest link comes in. So far, the most we’ve done in a day is 10 times up The Crunch. That’s just over 1/4 of what we have to do over 2 days. Today we did 5, and we probably won’t be doing more than 2 or maybe 3 in a day leading up to the challenge. Today felt really good and made me optimistic about our chances for success.
But… but it is clear to me that Dave is fitter than I am. His pace is slightly faster, and during the challenging 457 step segment my heart rate climbs a good 20+ beats a minute more than his. Dave knows I need to go slower than him and is very accommodating. I keep track of my heart rate to ensure that I’m not pushing too hard. But I feel like I’m the weakest link in our journey to 37 climbs. I feel like if WE are not successful it will be because of ME.
Dave is awesome, he would not begrudge me quitting. He knows that like him, I know how to push myself. We see it in each other in the weight room 5-6 times a week. He knows that if I can’t continue, I really can’t continue. I’m not worried about external judgement. I am worried that I’m the one that will let our team down.
Maybe it’s years of competitive sports. Maybe it’s just who I am, but the idea of me being the one that lets a team down is haunting. The idea that I could be the weakest link is painful.
The coach in me says, ‘Give it your all and be proud of what you can do.’
The competitor in me says, ‘Win at all cost, failure is not an option.’
Overall, my confidence is high, but I won’t lie, the idea of being the weakest link is unsettling.
It was January 2021 when I started doing the Coquitlam Crunch with my buddy Dave Sands. Two years ago Dave had a holiday in Ireland and on our subsequent Crunch walk he asked me, ‘Have you ever heard of Everesting?’
No, I hadn’t.
He explained that a friend’s son had ridden up a hill a number of times in order to ride that hill for the equivalent hight of Mount Everest… Everesting.
Then he said, ‘We should do this for The Crunch’. He expected me to say ‘No’. I didn’t. We then decided to coincide it with our retirements and his 60th birthday (one the day before we make our Everesting attempt).
37 times up the Crunch will be about 9,000 meters, a bit more than the height of Everest. According to my calculations, to get to that height will require walking the equivalent of two full marathons, at least 19 hours of uphill walking, and over 100,000 steps. We will be taking breaks. We’ve got family and friends to help drive us down the hill, so that we are only walking up, and not down too. It’s still going to be very hard. The most we’ve done in a day is 10, we will really have to push ourselves to be successful.
Please follow us on Instagram: EverestTheCrunch
And follow along on August 21st and 22nd.
We e also decided to do a bit of fundraising:
And if you are local, come join us for one trip up… in a couple weeks.
In less than a month I’ll be ‘Everesting the Crunch’, (follow @EverestTheCrunch on Instagram). We travelled to Kelowna yesterday, and it was a no workout day, so in keeping with my commitment to ‘never miss two days in a row’, I had to get a workout in. I decided a brisk walk up a nearby hill (x4) with pushups at the top and bottom would suffice.
Unfortunately once my heart rate was up, I could taste the smoke from nearby fires, but at least it wasn’t as bad as yesterday, when Kelowna had the worst air quality in the world. And admittedly, I was still feeling the affects of some afternoon drinks at the campsite… but off I went anyway.
Well it turned out to be a full-on 46 minute workout with my heart rate peaking above 150 at the top of the hill all 4 times, while never going faster than a brisk walk. What matters is not missing 2 days in a row, and going up hill to keep the training going for Everesting the Crunch.
~
Dave Sands and I will be going up the Coquitlam Crunch 37 times in less than 48 hours, August 21st & 22nd. That’s 9km vertical, the distance walked (mostly up hill) will be 2 marathons, and it will take over 19 hours of walking time.
If you are local, you can join us for a crunch or two and/or donate to support local mental health initiatives. You can donate here.
A while ago my buddy, also named Dave, and I decided that we were going to Everest the Crunch: Travel 37 times up the Coquitlam Crunch, which is equivalent to the height of Mount Everest, in 48 hours. We’ve been doing the crunch regularly since January 2021, and today was number 239 since then.
Today was also a day when we went up the Crunch 6 times, and then walked down once (we only count it as 1 crunch because we only went down it a single time). We organized rides and drove our own cars up at the start and after 3 trips up, so that we could drive down as well.
Six is the most trips up we’ve done. We did 5 a while back then had a several week slowdown thanks to m sciatic pain that I was dealing with. The pain is gone, but it did set us back a fair bit. Today I realized just how much it set us back. We are just under 10 weeks away from our attempt to do 37 trips up this hill, and as of today the most we’ve done is 6… and the 6 took a lot out of me!
Like I shared in a video, we didn’t hydrate well enough.
Also, I think we ate too much protein and not enough carbs. But even fixing that next time, going 6 times up, just under 1/6th of what we’ll be doing in August, took more out of me than expected.
I think Dave and I will succeed with this challenge, but I’ll openly admit that it’s going to be a lot harder than I originally thought.
Today I learned a good lesson. I’m in pretty good shape, but almost all of my cardio training has been under an hour. The only exception has been training to Everest The Crunch, (climb a local power line hike 37 times in two days this coming August, to exceed the height of Mt Everest). Two weeks ago we did 4 times up and ended with one trip down the crunch.
This week we did one more trip up for a total of 5 up then one down.
It was a gorgeous day. We got started by organizing cars and help driving at the top, then headed down to the base and started walking up around 7:45am. At that time the sun wasn’t out yet and I was dressed warmly, but not appropriately. This was my first mistake. I was wearing heavy, fluffy long underwear under water resistant track pants, and a cotton shirt under a hoody and a rain shell.
By the end of the second trip up the hill I was a hot mess. My long johns and cotton shirt were soaking wet. I felt either too warm or chilled from the sweat, there was no happy medium.
My second mistake, and the bigger of the two, was that I didn’t eat enough. I brought no snacks, and only had a protein shake about 45 minutes before starting. There is a stairs section of the crunch that always gets my heart rate up pretty high, and on both the fourth and fifth trip up the hill my heart rate didn’t really go down after the stairs. Basically, I was running on empty.
My buddy, Dave, who is doing this adventure with me (it was actually his idea), appropriately lectured me. And, I’ll be wearing quick dry layers and bringing more sustenance than half a water bottle of flavoured water the next time we are doing 3 (and more) hours of exercise. Lessons learned.
The good news is that 5 trips up still felt completely doable, and I’ll be prepared to get to the next level in a few weeks when we go for 8 trips up. We are still a long way from being ready for 37 trips up in 48 hours, but I’m confident Dave and I will be ready when the time comes… especially since I’ll be a bit more prepared.
