#8 – "I'm not ready, and I'm going to die."
"I'm not ready, and I'm going to die."
Before a big mountaineering trip, it's normal to feel like you're not prepared and worry that you're going to drop dead — or get left behind, or mess up the trip for everyone else, etc.
The good news is that you're not alone if you feel this way, because almost everyone goes through a version of this. The even better news is that there are some very normal things that happen in training that can convince you that you're not ready when you're actually right on track.
In this episode, we'll talk about how the training effect, brain science, and cognitive biases mess with your head before a big trip — and what you can do to manage the anxiety they create.
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Episode Sneak Peek
[1:02] This episode was inspired by a post in my Mountaineers and Backpackers in Training Facebook Group that resonated with a lot of people. With the original poster’s permission, here’s the full text of the post. She got a ton of supportive comments from people who have felt the same way before a big trip … including me!
I was really ready to quit today. I felt like I wasn't making progress and I'd never be ready for the PCT, that the hike was going to kill me and it was going to be awful. Has anyone else ever felt this way a month before the trip? I'm just afraid 7 days of backpacking is going to be too much for me. I'm 49, and the longest I've ever backpacked is 3 days. I've been using Sarah's Mt. Rainier training guide and I'm on week 10. I'll only get up to week 13 before my trip. Not sure if I can do this. — Kimberlee
[1:58] My story of attempting the Grand Canyon R2R2R hike with not much training. Notice that I had very high expectations of what a person should do to train for an ultra endurance hike. And because I hadn’t done them, I had a lot of anxiety around this trip. Fortunately, I totally overestimated what it takes to get ready for a 42-mile hike, and I ended up being so happy that my anxiety didn’t stop me from attempting it.
[5:43] Some of our anxiety around not feeling ready comes from the nature of training itself. If you’re doing it right, you will hit your training peak a few weeks before your trip. At this point, it’s normal to be really tired, sore, and to feel slow. However, the way you handle the taper — the period between the peak and the climb — can reinvigorate you and restore your energy and confidence.
[8:24] How brain science and your survival instinct convince you that you’re not ready. Your brain is wired to convince you that new experiences (like climbing a mountain or setting out on a hard backpacking trip) aren’t just a bad idea. They’re literally going to kill you! This thought pathway helped your early human ancestors survive by keeping them in the safety of the cave. And it still fires all the time in the modern world, creating a lot of anxiety and self-doubt. Being aware of your brain and its tricks can help to relieve anxiety so you can get excited about your climbing or hiking trip.
[13:56] Another reason we get very anxious and down on ourselves before a trip is because we tend to overestimate the role that fitness will play in our success. This is an easy thing to beat yourself up over, because the endurance training season is long, and no one follows the program perfectly! The truth is, the you don’t have to be perfect in training (or anywhere close) to climb the mountain. It’s actually better to climb a little undertrained than overtrained.
[16:15] By the same token, we tend to underestimate the importance of mindset — which is probably the most important factor in your mountaineering success. If you go into your climbing trip with a feeling of fun, curiosity, and anticipation, you’ll very likely have a good experience, even if you’re undertrained. We get stories in the Facebook Group all the time where people totally surprise themselves by doing climbs that they didn’t think they were adequately trained for. So even if you think your training has been rocky or inadequate, go for it. You just might blog your own mind.
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