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Talking Climbing Everest at 75 Years Old with Art Muir
1.8k Plays4 years ago
When Art first approached UA for coaching he was woefully unprepared for an attempt on Mt Everest. He not only didn't have the fitness needed he greatly underestimated the undertaking. Despite warnings from his coach that he was not ready to tackle this huge objective Art went anyway. What ensured on the mountain nearly cost him his life. Chastened, he returned to coaching with a realistic understanding of what it was going to take to succeed on the highest mountain In May, at 75 years old, Art summited Mt. Everest, making him the third-oldest person to have attained this feat. In this episode, Scott, Art, and his coach Seth Keena recap Art's experiences on the expedition, and the training process leading up to his summit bid, going back 2 plus years. We captured this interview while are was still in Kathmandu, fresh off the climb with emotions still close to the surface.
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Transcript
Introduction to Free Services and Community Engagement
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Uphill Athlete Podcast. These programs are just one of several free services we provide to disseminate information about training for mountain sports. If you like what you hear and want more, please check out our website, uphillathlete.com, where you'll find many articles and our extensive video library on all aspects of training for and accomplishing a variety of mountain goals. You'll also find our forum, where you can ask questions of our experts and the community at large.
00:00:30
Speaker
Our email is coach at uphillathlete.com and we'd love to hear from you. We've been very pleased and of course gratified that our podcasts are being received so enthusiastically. We've had requests to enable a way for listeners to have a conversation about episodes.
00:00:49
Speaker
We certainly welcome this idea and want to encourage those of you who do want to do that to do so on our forum so that the whole uphill athlete community can join in and benefit from this exchange. To do so, please start a new thread on the forum using the title of the podcast under the most appropriate category. Thanks for being part of this community.
Meet the Hosts: Scott Johnston, Art Muir, and Coach Seth Kena
00:01:13
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of the Uphill Athlete podcast. I'm your host, Scott Johnston, co-founder of Uphill Athlete. And tonight I have a real treat. I'm joined by Art Muir and his coach, Seth Kena. And some of you might remember a podcast I did a year or so ago with Art. And we were basically talking about
00:01:38
Speaker
how an older man can train or older person can train to do these big mountain events. And it's interesting that that podcast is one of our most popular podcasts. You're not a big name and we weren't talking about aerobic deficiency or those kinds of things, but yet that is one of our most viewed or listened to podcasts, downloaded podcasts.
Climbing Everest at 75: Art Muir's Remarkable Achievement
00:02:04
Speaker
So I think people will be interested in hearing what you have to say tonight
00:02:08
Speaker
well, mourning your time, sorry, you're in Kathmandu, but as real brief background, Art just climbed Mount Everest. And as far as we know, and I think we have this on pretty good authority, Art is the third oldest person to have climbed Mount Everest. And Art, I'm sure you're not gonna be embarrassed to tell us how old are you.
00:02:35
Speaker
75, I was 75 on January 9th, so you know, 75 in say four months, maybe roughly, I had figured it out, something like that. Yeah, very close enough, close enough. And so I wanted to get
00:02:50
Speaker
I wanted to get a chance to talk to Art while this was all still really fresh for him, and before he had to go, you know, goes home and reenter society back in the U.S., and he is basically stuck in Kathmandu. The government has imposed some flight restrictions, and so he's not able to get out, and this gave us a great opportunity to get together.
00:03:17
Speaker
So that's the backstory of what's going on here. And I just want to say, you know, congratulations, Art. Not just for the climb. I know the climb was, you know, the pinnacle of, you know, it was the end goal.
The Rigors of Training and Media Spotlight
00:03:33
Speaker
But I think what, you know, Seth and I know is you did a hell of a lot of hard work to get here. And I think that will be, that's the story that I think
00:03:45
Speaker
you know, yeah, the two or three days you climb Mount Everest. Okay, that's an interesting story. But then I'm sure some very interesting things happen to you on it. But I think for most of our listeners, the two year journey, two plus year journey is really what I think people are interested in. So thanks a lot for joining. Well, I'm, I'm delighted to be here and have the opportunity to
00:04:13
Speaker
Talk to you, catch up a little bit, Scott, and also share some thoughts about the work that Seth and I did together. But you put your finger on it.
00:04:23
Speaker
as an experienced coach, you really put your finger on it. There's a lot of, it's surprising to me, but there's been a lot of press here about the, you know, the age factor. You know, here's this guy, 75, who climbed Mount Everest. That seems to have elicited a lot of interest. For instance, we got to the airport, and this is a gaggle of reporters, and I felt like, you know, that it's kind of the fake celebrities standing there talking to people with clicking cameras and all this sort of stuff.
00:04:52
Speaker
But that's just a coincidence. That's just the sideline. I just happened, as you know, to come to this later in life. And for me, the thing is that, you know, it's so important. I told my kids this and I told my friends this. It's so important to have dreams in life and to pursue your dreams. You know, you may not achieve them, but to pursue them, you know, one step at a time. And there's a progression involved.
Physical Adaptation and Training Success
00:05:19
Speaker
I worked with uphill athlete now for three years, Seth for two, you for one, and I worked really hard before that when I started doing climbing, but I didn't have quite the right coaching expertise. I mean, I worked with really good trainers, but they were more adapted and had more expertise dealing with things like
00:05:41
Speaker
football players, for instance, elite college and NFL players. So I was working with really high level people, but their emphasis was on sudden bursts of strength and continuing things with interludes, you know, the idea of putting a huge force out. And as you know, mountaineering is completely different. And that's one of the wonderful things I think that
00:06:02
Speaker
You and Steve and coaches like Seth have helped redefine how people prepare for these climbs with long-term, strong aerobic bases. And we'll talk about that because I saw how that worked on my body. And it's the worst thing that's leading. It works for somebody my age. It works for everybody else too. We like to say that nobody sprints up Mount Everest.
00:06:30
Speaker
And so that, you know, it's very impressive to see athletes that are very powerful and can move very quickly with a great deal of agility. And that's, it's a wonderful quality, but it's not mountaineering. So that's the problem we have, we run into often. Yeah.
Conquering Everest: Challenges and Triumphs
00:06:51
Speaker
It's really interesting, but let me just summarize for people who happen to be listening, just how successful we were. This was a very,
00:06:59
Speaker
difficult year on Mount Everest. Like 2019, there was no 2020 season because of COVID. But like 2019, there were a very limited number of weather windows. There were two early on about maybe the 17th of May, something like that. And some people who were ready, like Kenton Cool, you may recognize him. He's a guide from the UK, John Gupta. And others took up a few people, and they had a very successful
00:07:29
Speaker
One or two days there, I think maybe a hundred and some people got to the top. And then we, under the Madison mountaineering, Garrett Madison is the guide that I used. He and the other guides and our star, Hank Ferba, who's in the Nepalese, worked really hard watching the weather reports to try and get us into a position where we at least had a chance to summit. Typically, you know, you make three rotations on the mountain and the last one you go,
00:08:00
Speaker
From base camp to camp two, you wait at night, you go to camp three, you wait at night, you go to camp four, and then you climb. We got to camp two, the weather closed in. We were above camp two, and camp two, and camp three, for something like 10 days. I can't remember exactly what it was, because it kind of blurs together, because the window kept moving. There was the jet stream, which was one consideration, but there were also these, yeah. So how high are camp two and three, just so people know?
00:08:28
Speaker
Camp 2 is about 21,000, Camp 3 is about 23,000, and Camp 4 on the South Pole is about 26,000. So, I mean, those are... Not very restful places to spend 10 days. I'll tell you, I mean, Camp 2 is pretty nice. There's actually a dining tent there. You know, we keep a staff. Camp 3 is on this precipitous slope. Really scary.
00:08:59
Speaker
And then Camp Boar is on the south call with 40 knot winds, freezing cold, tents ripped apart. It was a bit of an ordeal. But the point being, so they watched and watched the weather window and saw this small opening of May 23rd, 23rd, 24th. So we, for instance, I left it.
00:09:23
Speaker
kind of in the early way of 10 o'clock at night, started up from the South call. Some of our group, strong group, bastard group, younger group, which was everybody else just about, started at about midnight. And I got to the top at about eight o'clock in the morning. I was actually, I may not have been our first one, but I was there ahead of the group just because it kind of worked out that
Acclimatization and Fitness Milestones
00:09:48
Speaker
way. And it was cold and windy, but the sun came out and then it turned out to be a pretty nice day.
00:09:53
Speaker
So we, Garrett and his group, we put nine climbers on top. We started with four women, all four women who made it, which I think is interesting. We started with, let's see, 14, I think 14 guys, and about half of those made it. Anyway, so nine climbers, four guides, and 20 sherpas.
00:10:17
Speaker
hugely successful. Garrett is an example, spent two hours on the summit, just greeting people and stuff like that. I came down pretty crowded. I think maybe 130 people or something like that, summited on the 23rd. There's a big traffic jam at the Hillary staff and you know, I have these stories and all this sort of nonsense. But the point being that many teams fail because of a number of things. They didn't figure out the weather.
00:10:46
Speaker
They got COVID among the team members. They had COVID, which is pretty widespread here, among the sherpas, which just, you know, if you don't have sherpas, you don't climb Mount Everest unless you're a professional. That's just the bottom line. I had two fabulous sherpas. We had nobody get sick. So that was the 23rd. We came back down. And since then, the weather has been
00:11:13
Speaker
pretty atrocious. Now they extended the season. So there's a chance that they might have a couple more summit days. In fact, we met on our way out, walk trek trek trekking out. We met Jillian Jornet and David Goodler, which was delightful. I mentioned your name, of course. We had a wonderful conversation with them and they're trying to do something pretty special. But they've been up there for weeks training, trying to get ready to do things. So it's been a really tough year.
00:11:42
Speaker
And even though there were a record number of permits issued, I believe, that's my understanding, compared to 2019, only maybe half as many people summited or will summit. So it's been a tough year.
Support System: Coaches, Family, and Teamwork
00:12:01
Speaker
Well, all the more impressive really for you and your team, you know, snuck in there. I mean, I've been in pretty close contact with David and Killian since they've been over there.
00:12:17
Speaker
It's been interesting. I mean, we posted a few of their videos of them climbing, you know, their acclimatization climbs, and I know they were hoping for a weather window around right now, and I don't know if that's happening. Yeah, that's exactly right. You know, we trekked out, and we trekked out, which I'm really glad I did, by the way, you know, for people who were listening or ever want to come to every space camp. It's really special to come here
00:12:47
Speaker
in the end of March and then walk out at the end of May because the valley is so beautiful and it's not that way at the end of March. You know, they're just putting the crops in, there's nobody around. But I want to come back and we'll talk about David and Killian really quickly, but I will say this, people have to understand that in Nepal, COVID is a huge issue here.
00:13:11
Speaker
They have record numbers. The country is basically shut down. People are scared. I've been vaccinated and was vaccinated fully before I came. Many members from the U.S. of our team were as well. So our risk is really low. But the shops are closed. The people on the trails are masked. They are trying to keep their distance. We pass not close to each other. They're just very protective because they all
00:13:40
Speaker
had somebody, most of them lost somebody, you know, a friend or a family. It's just, it's so sad. And they just have this desperate need here. They have no money. Of course, they don't have any vaccines and they're really struggling. So that's sad. But the walk out of the Valley was something really special. So really glad I did that.
00:14:02
Speaker
I have a similar experience with my trips to Nepal that the post-climb trek out was just a gorgeous time to be there. Most of the time I've been there, I've been in the post-monsoon season also in Nepal. But it's a really special place. And to be there kind of after a successful climb, that's all the more rewarding. So I know what you're saying.
00:14:30
Speaker
It's a really I mean it's just people who visited a lot you know talk about how it's a magical place spiritual home that sort of thing it's it's really special but you can't see it early in the you know kind of late winter early spring. I do want to chat for a minute not to beat the uphill athlete drum too loudly but I do want to I do want to express first of all how grateful I am and how fortunate I was to find
00:14:59
Speaker
you and Seth and to work with you. Yes, you know, we worked really, I think we worked really hard, but Seth had to kind of help me figure out how hard I could work before I broke down.
Overcoming Summit Challenges and Mental Fortitude
00:15:12
Speaker
There were, you know, if you look, it's such an interesting process because if you look at the progress, it's not linear, you know, it's, it's, you know, two steps forward, one step back, or three steps forward and four steps back, and then you have to recover because we all have different
00:15:28
Speaker
physical configurations and issues with our body and we had a lot of issues we had to work through, you know, because just because Everybody's got unique things. I had things like a neuroma in one of my toes. I had a sore wrist a Bucky knee shoulder But one of the things was so interesting is as I went along in the program I
00:15:56
Speaker
Before I used to kind of, some of the stuff I was doing, I kind of beat myself up and I'd hurt new things. But as I went along in the program, things started getting better. I had a, you know, some kind of a hip thing that just kind of went away. I can't remember it. And because once they're gone, you never remember them. But I have to tell you the thing that's amazing to me is I knew this was coming in. It was a long-term process. And the idea was this is not a race.
00:16:23
Speaker
This is just survival, preserving, keeping gas in the tank, having reserves, taking care of yourself, trying to eat well, trying to drink well, trying to, you know, all those things. And my knee, I actually had a cortisone shot in the knee that probably needs to be replaced at some point. No issues at all. That was number one. Number two, I had this, I'd forgotten from my notes, I had a sore wrist. Never thought about it. Never came up. Unbelievable.
00:16:53
Speaker
Um, maybe it's mind or mad, or maybe I'm just, you know, stupid, don't remember. I don't know. And the third thing was this neuroma, which is kind of a pinched nerve on my toe. It was really troublesome when I was doing certain kinds of things, but during the climb, going up and down, never an issue, never an issue. And, and one of the things I discovered, I think is so interesting is, you know, you, and Nepal is very hilly. People probably know that there are a lot of, you know, that there are mountains here. It goes up and down, up and down, up and down.
00:17:23
Speaker
And when we were walking out versus walking in, I noticed that my balance, you know, and my control as I step down these very slippery, very steep and precipitous steps that, you know, animals cross and people cross everything here. There's no roads. People know it's all by a porter or by yak or by helicopter.
00:17:49
Speaker
Um, but they kept getting any stronger and stronger. My balance got better. My foot placement got better. You know, it wasn't like I felt like one of the guys, you know, how you guys like walk through the mountains and it's like, no issues. But the thing was amazing. Once again, just like we were training, my body responded.
00:18:07
Speaker
You know, our bodies will respond to the right stimulus. If we stimulate the right way, we will react in a positive fashion, which of course is the whole principle of the training that you teach. And I'm stunned, and I've said this before, that even at my age, and I'm a normal guy, I'm an ordinary person, it's really important to understand that.
00:18:30
Speaker
that our bodies will still respond to this correction stimuli. That's what the train did, that's what the exposure did. And you know, when you sit on a couch all day long and watch soap operas and you know, eat bonbons, your balance doesn't improve. But if you're walking up and down steep places in a manner which you can't
The Role of Communication in Coaching
00:18:48
Speaker
afford to make a mistake,
00:18:50
Speaker
And there are a lot of places here you cannot afford to make a mistake. I don't care if you're trekking or climbing. It's a long way down, and there's rivers and rocks and stuff. I just think that we're like walking miracles. We just don't realize it. Well, I think what's also quite miraculous is where you were living and training, it wasn't exactly the mountains. You know, I think a lot of people can... Yeah.
00:19:16
Speaker
pulled these off by way, but we tell everyone where you live. It's Chicago. Yeah. Yeah. I live in Chicago, flat land. I think there is a ski area near me that's 192 feet of pure vertical. And I tried to go there. I was going to, I was going to skim a little bit, but they wouldn't remember that. I remember. Yeah. Yeah. It's the old trash dump.
00:19:37
Speaker
Yeah, you know and we had some people you know Scott I know that you and I'm not sure if Seth has been in his of them all but they've talked about these hypoxica tents we had three people who were express climbers that used the hypoxica tent one regular one of our regular climbers used hypoxica tent but did the trek in and Not a reflection on them necessarily None of them none of them made it
00:20:07
Speaker
In other words, you know, I think the evidence, it may be useful for people, I think, trying to do really rapidist tense, perhaps, there's some evidence. But, you know, the trek in allows you, even for a flat letter like me, allows you to, your body to adapt. And I have to, you can't, you know, this is a podcast, people can't do it. I don't know, can you see my arm?
00:20:35
Speaker
Yeah, it's got some veins. I see some veins in there. I mean, I tell you, it's the darndest thing. I looked like an experiment from William Harvey in the 19th century in the circulatory thing. Because what's happened is, you know, your body kind of eats the muscle, typically, but the veins, and this is true for all of our people,
00:20:59
Speaker
the veins are so prominent because the blood supply is you know has been enhanced so much it's just it's amazing and when we're walking out this is after climbing of course you know we use oxygen but walking out on the trek there are a lot of long uphills
00:21:16
Speaker
And we, as well as the guy who was the ones who walked up, just walked up these things. We didn't run up them, but we just walked up them continuously. And some of them were several hundred feet, and we're still at elevation. I'm just stunned at how our bodies work. If we take care of it.
00:21:43
Speaker
It's interesting the kind of the juncture between acclimatization and fitness and how they, you know, how one can supplement the other or certainly we have people who are very fit and then they say, okay, well, I've only got three days and I'm going to go climb, you know, some, I live in Iowa and I'm going to go climb mountain in Colorado and
Reflecting on Dreams, Goals, and Teamwork
00:22:07
Speaker
I've got three days. Well,
00:22:08
Speaker
You're probably going to feel pretty terrible and you're probably not going to perform well, but it has nothing to do with fitness. It's all about the fact that you just aren't acclimatized. In your case, having spent two plus months at over 17,000 feet,
00:22:24
Speaker
Yes, you increased your blood volume significantly, so you have the capacity to carry a lot more oxygen now, and your hematocrit levels, I'm sure, are sky high. It'll be interesting when you go home.
00:22:40
Speaker
go in and get a hematocrit to just see. Yeah, I was thinking about that, jumping on a plane and going to Boulder or something, you know, wherever that place started. Well, you can get the test in your, you know, just in your local dock, just go in and have them draw a little blood and tell you what your hematocrit is. I mean, when I came back from K2, my hematocrit was 54. So, and normally, what is it?
00:23:03
Speaker
Normally, like, you know, low to mid low 40s. Yeah. And that's pretty typical for most people unless you live at high altitude. But as for people that don't understand the significance of that hematocrit is the essentially the percentage of your blood that's, that's made up of red blood cells versus the rest of the fluids that are in there. And it's illegal.
00:23:29
Speaker
from in most sports governing bodies to race to compete when your hematocrit is over 50. And, uh, whoa. Yeah. And so, but yours is right up there. Like mine was.
00:23:45
Speaker
I better get on the Twitter front right away. You know the other thing I wanted to mention too, well there's a number of things I want to mention too is that you know nobody succeeds at this doing something like this by themselves and it's not just the support I got. I was and I've talked to my team about this because I'm so grateful but it's not just the support I got from
00:24:09
Speaker
the two of you, and particularly from Seth over a long period of time, day by day, we talked every single day for two years. Mostly me, mostly my wife, but that's a different issue. But it's interesting because it takes coaches, it takes doctors, you know, I had excellent help.
00:24:28
Speaker
From a medical standpoint, it takes the support of family, it takes the support of friends, it takes the team members. We had a fabulous team. I tried to post some things about the members of our team. I haven't finished yet. What a great group of climbers, interesting people.
00:24:43
Speaker
Great guides strong Sherpas a support staff There's just the folks that ran base camp for us and then we're in the logistics I mean, it's just this whole army I feel like I feel like it's one of those things like the circus, you know We have the strong men on the bottom, you know and then you build a triangle you build the pyramid higher and higher and higher and you get the little person at the very top and
00:25:08
Speaker
And that's what I feel like, to do something like this. It's so gratifying because the web of connections is so strong and powerful. It's really special. It's really special. What were your Sherpa's names?
00:25:26
Speaker
Oh, I had two of them, Hassan Bote, who is a local, he's here from Kathmandu. He's been through the, he's been to the Loci face 70 times or something like that. Someone, you know, up and down, up and down. Really unbelievable guy. I can talk about him in a second. I just, I want to, you know, he's like, I don't know, five foot two maybe.
00:25:49
Speaker
powerful and strong and friendly and nice and gracious. So he was kind of my sherpa that went with me as I climbed, you know, to kind of keep an eye on things, make sure things were done well. And then I had another one, Dawa Bote, who's much younger, who I think is probably a relationship. I didn't actually get a chance to, who worked up high, the ones that were fixing the ropes and, you know, fixing the camps and stuff. And then we came together on summit day and all three of us climbed.
00:26:17
Speaker
And when I got to the summit, you know, you get above the Hillary stuff. I mean, I just have to share that for you. So anyway, you start out from the South Paul, I started out at 10 o'clock at night, and you start up the triangular face. You can't see anything. It's pitch black, of course. And all I can see is this string of lights.
00:26:34
Speaker
Now, we've all climbed in the mountains and people listening to climb mountains. You see a string of lights and people above you. That wasn't like this. This was like looking up an elevator shaft to the top of a building under all these lights. And I'm thinking, if I keep looking up there, I'm not going anywhere. So I'm looking down at my feet because I can't stand that. And then the wind is blowing. It's cold.
00:26:59
Speaker
You're somewhere between anxious and scared. You're nervous, you know, but you're working, but you're, I'm kind of trying to keep in that zone, that heart rate two zone that I know I can maintain for a long time that we've worked so hard on. It's just critical. And then finally you get to the balcony.
00:27:17
Speaker
the first stop where there's an oxygen bottle change. And it's like this crowd of people, all lights and changing and all this confusion and my oxygen mask didn't fit right and I do all this kind of stuff. And then you're walking along and then you see the sunlight line where the sun is starting to come up in the east. Let me tell you, that is a special, special moment. First of all,
00:27:42
Speaker
You know, you're not going to die. Okay, that's number one. Number two, you know, the sun is going to come up and be warm. Three, you're approaching the South Summit, which is, again, one of these things, like, you know, you're thinking, I'm thinking to myself, holy smokes, I'm walking along and I'm actually, I'm going to make it to the, yeah, I'm going to make it to the South Summit. That is so cool. Then you get up on the, over the South Summit onto the Summit Ridge. By that time, the sun is,
00:28:09
Speaker
you know, pretty much up and you see that iconic summit ridge, you know, where the people always get stuck and you're heading toward the Hillary step and you realize, I'm on the summit ridge of Mount Everest. Then you're climbing over these rocks, which were the Hillary step. And then you've got the snow slope and you walk up this thing and I expected an area to be at the top to be
00:28:35
Speaker
Oh, I didn't know like two ping pong table sizes kind of flat and horizontal. No, no, it's just as a ramp up. There's kind of a memorial there. And then this, it looks like a kicker for a ski jump. The other side is 9,000 feet down into bed. So it was, it was remarkable. And what I kept thinking was,
00:28:58
Speaker
Exactly what the training was and what Seth and I have worked on and what you work on with all your athletes is stay in the zone, long-term deal. I had, I think in, started at 10 o'clock at night, 8 o'clock in the morning, I had one sip of water. I think I might've had one go at some point because you're busy, you know, moving and climbing and you got all this gear on and oxygen masks. And so you have to train your body as you very well know,
00:29:26
Speaker
to be able to sustain this by burning fat and not sugar over a long period of time. But it was cold and windy when I got there. It was a little bit early. So I actually have my summit pictures sitting down on the very top ridge of Mount Everest. Because I was too tired to stand it up, actually. That's just the bottom line. I have friends that have these awesome summit photos.
00:29:54
Speaker
but I was there and it was pretty powerful. Yeah, I'm sure. Well, beautiful description. Yeah. Yeah. I was getting down for you, Art. You know, that's a, you know, it's interesting in the sense that
00:30:11
Speaker
By that time, it started to warm up. And I actually think the temperature changed because a lot of our guys got there. There was one woman who was very special. She may have set a peak-to-peak record from Everest to Lhotse, 11 hours, 59 minutes. Kristin Harla, just a wonderful sweetheart of a team member. She got there earlier. I think I was probably next. But I think by the time most of the guys got there, because I saw them coming up about an hour later, it was quite a bit warmer.
00:30:38
Speaker
So I started down and you can kind of feel the warmth and oxygen, of course, makes a huge difference. We were still on oxygen coming down, but we ended up with a great big snafu at the Hillary step where there are two ropes, but there's not enough room to climb. And so the people who were
00:30:56
Speaker
coming up, just kept jamming into the, and basically into the slot. So we had about a 40 minute delay there, where somebody finally took charge. In fact, Garrett Madison was on the ridge, the summit ridge, below the Hillary steps, stopped all the traffic coming up. So the people crowding up could come up, then people coming down could actually come down and then it could take some turns. And so he did a really fabulous job of that. And then it was just,
00:31:26
Speaker
You know, I'm thinking about it. The walk down to camp four from the summit was okay. There weren't a lot of people at that point. We passed most of them. But the one that got me was when now, you know, cause you've been so focused on the summit, you get up there. Now we're at camp four. Now we're going down from camp four down the low C phase, which is very steep across the low, cross the yellow band down to camp three and then all the way to camp two.
00:31:53
Speaker
You realize that the distances and the elevations are enormous. I was so focused on just
00:32:07
Speaker
You know, kind of moving and getting up and taking care of myself and trying to get dressed. There's a lot of stuff going, a lot of confusion. But then you, when you're coming down, you see how enormous the loves he faced is because you're in this big circuit Everest on the one side, load seat, and then loop seat. And it's just this, the vast system detail, the distance, it kind of, it kind of hit me because you're looking down and you can see how far people are. It's, it's, it's stunning that
00:32:37
Speaker
that people have figured out how to climb these giant, huge, spectacular mountains and come back alive. Now, you know, there is danger. I think four people have died this year on Everest. So you have to be aware of it. And it's scary, but it's this kind of satisfaction, I guess, in fulfillment. But again, you're so focused on it. When I finally got down to
00:33:05
Speaker
Camp four, I have to admit, but I was really tired. I'm in the tent trying to get some water, trying to get some food. Um, I also have to go to the bathroom, which is like, you know, 40 mile an hour window. I want to get back out of the tent. But anyway, here he comes, puts his head in, asks, you know, how I'm doing. And I have to tell you, I was thinking about my family and thinking about my friends and I started crying. It was really, it was emotionally just overwhelming.
00:33:35
Speaker
I think anybody who has spent much time in the mountains can empathize with that exact same emotion. It's why we go there.
00:33:54
Speaker
It's so, it's so, um, and that's, you know, that's kind of what I take away from this is not the fact that I'm some, you know, an older guy doing this. The thing I take away from this is that we can still do all of these amazing, wonderful things. Our bodies will let us do it. If we want to put in the work and we have these, it makes life so vivid and so powerful and so, you know, emotional.
00:34:20
Speaker
I have this, you know, two years ago when I came to Everest and failed because I, you know, got hurt and I wasn't ready, just as Scott as you had told me, I wasn't ready. I still have a bond with those people. It's really close. This group, we are, we spent so much time in doing things such a difficult, challenging way. We're just so close to one another. We're all here, by the way. We're all here in the hotel.
00:34:46
Speaker
He didn't drink the excess, I have to tell you. But it's like a fraternity party. We have like five meals a day and ice cream and beer and it's all kinds of stuff. But you know, you build these things. It isn't just the memory of what you do as an individual. It's the bonding that you get and the shared experiences. And it makes life just so much more vibrant. You know, colors are bigger. The greens are greener.
00:35:15
Speaker
You know, you just feel better about yourself and other people. It's, it's worth the effort. And I'm hoping that, I have to tell you, I'm hoping that what I can do is, is change the message from, um, you know, the guy who 75 old American clients, that that's not the message. The message is that, you know, if you take care of yourself and if you put the effort into doing the things that your body says you should be doing, which is exercise, you
00:35:41
Speaker
in the right way. I don't mean food food stuff or you jump on a treadmill. I mean the stuff that, you know, that you coach, that Seth teaches, the lifting weights, you know, you were a lot, one of the things that's so great about uphill athlete is you allowed me to vary the program if I want to do some barbell training, okay, a little bit of that. And it worked out great and it's, it's really fun to be, at my age, to be able to lift up something heavy and then kind of like
00:36:09
Speaker
dropped on the floor frankly i really i actually like doing that yeah i don't know moving heavy things around just makes you feel good about yourself yeah so long as that bar was warm enough for you huh no that was a problem
00:36:27
Speaker
at 20 degrees I had to call Uncle, I can't remember exactly. But I'm looking forward to going back in the summer with that, you know, hot barbell in the hot garage. That picture you sent us one day of, you know, the thermometer in your garage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's good fact that you're Everest.
00:36:56
Speaker
You kind of get used to it. I don't know. I can't wait to see what my wife, what Leslie thinks about, you know.
00:37:02
Speaker
having lived through all this sort of stuff, but she thinks about it. Because I don't have, at this point, I don't really have any plans, you know, to do next. I'm just kind of, this is so all consuming and so kind of almost overwhelming. I still need time to process it, which is another reason why the walkout was so lovely. You know, it may be time, and the others, not many people, a lot of people have a hell of a doubt.
00:37:27
Speaker
But those who walked out, I think, really enjoyed that kind of decompression. There is this certain kind of entry back into the real world to take some time to adjust.
00:37:40
Speaker
You know, you've been living in a tent for 63. The other day, I slept in a bed without a sleeping bag. It was the first time in like 60 days or something. It was really wild. I'm thinking like, oh, this is pretty comfy. I think we were in Namche with electric blanket or something. I can't remember. But it's been a great trip.
00:38:04
Speaker
Like with other people, especially the two of you, I absolutely could never have done it without you. And so I'm really grateful and it's just been a wonderful experience. I mean, you know, what else can you say? Go ahead, Seth, sorry. Oh, okay. I'll say my nice thing to art now. Yeah, no, it was just so great to work with you art, I think, more
00:38:34
Speaker
Quickly.
00:38:37
Speaker
I felt like we fell into a really great communication situation where you kind of really knew what I was looking for. I think I made that pretty clear in terms of what the feedback I wanted as a coach to sort of keep you on the edge and to manage the other things in your life, all the factors that everyone has going on. But I just really feel like
00:39:05
Speaker
Um, you know if I were to say some outstanding bullet points about Working with you as an athlete, you know, your communication Was was excellent, you know, you were you're really honest about how when you were really You were tired if you had any pains where they were what you thought might have caused it Um, you were really proactive about you know doing the recovery work. I think it it was a
00:39:34
Speaker
both a very, you could tell, I could tell you saw the big picture of the training where you were, you know, you knew that this was a long-term engagement, um, that took a lot of time. Um, and it wasn't very sexy. It wasn't all big, heavy deadlift iron drops every day. And, but also at the same time, I could tell, you know, you were really tuned into the moment. You say, okay, you know,
00:39:59
Speaker
with the pack carry today, I'm not going to wear the boots because my knee, you know, I'm thinking maybe the, you know, these sorts of little things. And I think, okay, so we, you know, we can stay on track with that. We can stay consistent. You're, you know, you're staying ahead. I'm not, you kind of took the reins in some ways that made it, you know, a lot of the consistency happened. And, you know, I like what you said about,
00:40:26
Speaker
you know, people being, you know, positive reactors to the stimuli. I think funny, I use that same coinage and I think for in this instance, you know, yeah, you're doing some deadlifting, which is great, you know, and you're doing a lot of time on the stair machine. And so I think a good big picture lesson is that, you know, the, the, the positive
00:40:53
Speaker
the reaction in the positive direction towards being, you know, endurance for high elevation. You know, so we had a very specific goal we were working towards and that was kind of front and center with everything. So, you know, it wasn't just to get fitter in general, but there was some very specific things going on. I just looked before our call and you did, you know, two months leading up before Everest, you left, you did,
00:41:20
Speaker
I think 40 or 42 stair machine workouts.
00:41:27
Speaker
You probably wish you forgot that number, which is at least 40 hours. It's probably much, much higher than that. I didn't look at the total hours. You did nine muscular endurance workouts. It was some serious work going on here. It was quite impressive the way you managed that.
00:41:54
Speaker
Well, you know, it's, it's great stuff because one of the things I thought was interesting was, you know, people have, this was during COVID too. So, you know, in my case, I could do most of the things we needed to do. A stair machine was one thing I really couldn't replace. I had to go to the gym. The gym was limited. You know, we, we tried to do some with two sessions a day or something, but I could only do it. Only had.
00:42:15
Speaker
an hour and a half squat. So normally, and from before, like when I first worked in Wisconsin, we could do some longer ones. But it worked out great. And the other thing is, I did try to be, you know, honest, although sometimes it's hard to describe kind of because you're not even sure how you feel.
00:42:32
Speaker
But I also had a lot of fun sending some of the comments to you. We did actually have a lot of fun with that. I think it's really important for people who are following this program or trying to do things on their own to understand that it's not just the physical part here. The mental stuff that is part of the training program
00:42:54
Speaker
that you and Scott and the other coaches that uphill athletes promote is about mental toughness, too. In other words, preparing, making sure that you are in the right zone for a long period of time. And I haven't looked at it yet, but you may recall that I wore a heart rate monitor for several days coming in and for some of the early climb. Then it turned out to be
00:43:19
Speaker
Draining my watch too much and I couldn't you know, I don't look good There are other kind of considerations since it was a secondary one, but it'll be interesting to see You know, I could it helped me by looking at my watch to see my heart rate was helped me make sure I was Doing the things, you know, I was trying to stay in that zone where I knew I could do something for a long periods of time for hours a day as opposed to you know for minutes or just short periods of time and I I could see it in some of my other team members
00:43:49
Speaker
who didn't quite know where that, they were strong, okay, and they did really well. They didn't know quite where that limit was, and they would be pushing themselves, and I could just tell they were working harder than they needed to. So it's a really important part of the training, the mental part of it, not just mental toughness, but also the mental awareness of how your body's reacting.
00:44:12
Speaker
Yeah, I'm getting there. I'm not there yet. I'm not a high-class, high-level athlete, but I've learned a lot about that. And it's important because you can do things at one level for long periods of time. And if you exceed that level, you can basically toast yourself almost right away. So I think that's one of the really important things. And I know that that's behind a lot of the programming that you do is
00:44:42
Speaker
It's a mental aspect of it. So you're teaching, you know, people how to use their bodies so they can sustain fat burning, you know, the, the shorthand fat, but close to glycogen over long periods of time. And that's, that's what made it happen for me. I mean, I'm still kind of shocked, but it works. I think another important aspect is that up there, you know, your brain is suppressing your heart rate.
00:45:08
Speaker
at elevation. So even if you want to, you know, say go above zone two, you really can't you're not your heart's not going to do it. There's it's recognizing the brain is recognizing there isn't enough oxygen.
00:45:24
Speaker
up there to get any returns. So it's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, another element too, about these, the untold amount of hours that you were hiking on the stair machine or a few, a couple of times you did get out, uh, out of town to go get into the mountains. You know, you're doing long, same thing, long, easy to rate, easy intensity, long duration. You know, when you're moving that for that long,
00:45:53
Speaker
in the exact environment you're going to be going to, you learn to move well, you increase your movement economy. And again, this is the specific modality of training that is really beneficial.
00:46:09
Speaker
you know use just any old you know pace just because it feels good but it's like quite specific and so you know those fractional energy that you're saving moving up you know the load safe face etc it all adds up so that you get up and down off Everest and
00:46:26
Speaker
You know, you're not all wobbly on your feet, you know, you can do it. You know, Seth, it's so interesting. I forgot about something I just mentioned because, you know, people ask like, what's the toughest day and what's the hardest day and all this kind of stuff. And as you know, we do three rotations. The first time up to, you know, camp one, then to camp two and then back down to base camp through the ice ball again. Next time is from base camp up to camp two, try and touch camps three and then come back down.
00:46:55
Speaker
We couldn't do that because the weather was so bad on our second rotation. We had to stop at camp one and then go to camp two and then touch camp three and come down. But here's the thing. My hardest day was actually the third rotation on the summit climb, moving from base camp through the ice ball past camp one up to camp two. I got to, I got through the ice ball, which is, you know, plenty challenging. Let me tell you. Um,
00:47:21
Speaker
Got to where camp one was, rested for a while. And then I was just beat into the ground. And so that walk from camp one to camp two, I had to do it. Normally it's across a fairly flat glacier, somewhat upward. It's a slow walk. People do pretty well. I had to rest step that walk every single step. I took something like, I don't know, I think it took me 13 hours or something like that. I was just trashed.
00:47:50
Speaker
And then somehow my body reacted and when I started from camp two up to three, up to four, up to decline, it was, I was good. I felt strong. I was confident. I mean, you know, I mean, I had to move at a deliberate pace, but it was steady. So, you know, we have these good days and bad days and you have to recognize that.
00:48:09
Speaker
when you're having a bad day, how to maximize. Just like you said, you have to be as efficient as possible. Do what you can do, not panic. Our bodies are just, I mean, it's just, it's miraculous. I just can't get over it. But I was really lucky because I came into my strength, I think. After I got to camp too, we were pinned down for a while. My appetite came back. I started drinking really well.
00:48:37
Speaker
crashing, flapping noise from the tent, no longer kept me awake at night. You know, it was just a great experience. I was lucky it all came together at the right time. I'm going to just back up just a couple to emphasize a couple of things here that I've heard you say, Art, and I think it's very important for people to hear. One is
00:49:04
Speaker
that I think we know this from experience of coaching hundreds of athletes in the past, but you were certainly the beneficiary of this and you and that this arrangement between the coach and the athlete is, it's a very intimate one. And it's also, it's a partnership. You're in this together. And just like any
00:49:31
Speaker
good relationship or partnership, the communications are critical. And we emphasize communications over and over and over again to the athletes we coach because we're sitting here maybe 2000 miles away from you.
00:49:50
Speaker
And we are trying to discern how did art feel after such and such a workout. And of course, because we use training peaks, we can see your heart rate, we can see how far you went and how long and how much vertical. We can see all the hard data, which is a very important thing for us to see. But more importantly is your perception of how it went.
00:50:16
Speaker
Are your legs still heavy from what you did two days ago? Or was this a workout where you felt like Superman? And I think that that level of communication, which
00:50:29
Speaker
Unfortunately, we, and Seth, I know has had this experience too, I think all of our coaches, it's hard to convince some people how important that communication is. And without it, we're essentially we're flying blind. It's very easy for us, Seth or any of us to actually write a training program for somebody.
00:50:50
Speaker
But the real art of coaching, and I don't mean, no pun intended there are, but the art of coaching art is that this ability to adjust and change and monitor how things are going, and without this really good feedback, and I think that's
00:51:13
Speaker
You were obviously highly motivated and especially I think after your previous year where I think we both can agree you weren't like you said, you weren't really ready. I wasn't ready. And then you had, you know, obviously had a great coach. But I think what really puts the kind of the icing on the cake of your coaching here was the fact that you guys developed a really tight communication bond.
00:51:38
Speaker
Yeah, I, you know, Scott, I have to tell you, I think it's true and I decided that mostly because you remember you and I, you'd kind of, you know, started me out.
00:51:48
Speaker
helping me understand how important communication was. Okay, so I kind of got the idea and I really tried hard with Seth because, you know, it's we come from almost different worlds. Here he is, you know, a young outstanding expert rock climber, you know, athlete, you know, kind of stuff. He's got to relate to this, this old guy, okay, whose body doesn't work the same way.
00:52:09
Speaker
And it's true, you know, I've got my issues, but your other clients and your other athletes have their issues. You know, they may be, and they're different. So I decided to try and be as honest as I could be. And sometimes it's really hard because, you know, you ask me a question like, how do I feel? And I think to myself, you know, I don't know, I guess I feel okay. You know, that doesn't help the coach at all. And the other thing is,
00:52:39
Speaker
So people have to understand that Seth and I talked virtually every single day. All right. I mean, that's a couple of exceptions. I gave him a day off once in a while, you know, virtually every single day for two years. And we have never met in person. Okay. We've never met in person. And, and I, and I feel like that is not an impediment to what we're, what we're trying to do.
00:53:03
Speaker
Which is amazing when you really think about it. How many times can you say that is, you know, the case in anything you do? But I can understand it's critically important that, you know, your athletes probably should err on the side of too much information as opposed to, certainly as opposed to too little. Well, that is, that there's, we have folks who, you know, their comment after workout is,
00:53:33
Speaker
Went okay. But then we have other people that will write 500 words, which I'd rather read your 500 words. There's probably too much. I don't want to lose my, I think my power here, but I'm just moving aside quickly. Someone probably, so we can chat if there's more.
00:53:54
Speaker
So, but anyway, I think that's a really key component, this whole communication thing. And, and we, you know, we just see it over and over and over again, that the people that, you know, really connect well with their coaches are the ones that communicate, you know, consistently. And, and, and I think, you know, what one of the things you just said to me, or just now to Art was that having to think about how did I feel?
00:54:19
Speaker
And having to write it down, it's almost like a diary. You're having to bear your soul in this, your training log and say, okay, here's how today went and here's what I'm feeling like. And I think that that's in a way that helps us be a little more introspective.
00:54:37
Speaker
from compared to what we often are, because we're in such a hurry, rushed up world now. And people don't have much time to consider, how am I doing? How is this feeling? Am I tired? And I think that that's another benefit of this, when you're talking about the mental aspect of it, is that's part of the mental game, is paying attention to how you feel. Yeah. Yeah. You know, the thing about this is that I'm proof.
00:55:07
Speaker
I'm proof that your system works. That's why I think it's so great. I'm not the only one, of course. You had lots of success. Lots of athletes. But that's what I think it's so great about. And that's why I'm so grateful for uphill athlete because it works. It's worked for me. It works for me. It's going to work for everybody.
00:55:27
Speaker
We do have a pretty good track record, I have to say, on our behalf. This does work. It takes patience and it takes dedication like you had. If you're consistent and focused on this and you have a long time horizon,
00:55:44
Speaker
Then you can get it done for sure It's not yeah, this is what we say over and over again that we don't have magic We're not you know, we're not there's no secret sauce here We just you know, we know how to get you ready for these things, but it's not like some giant secrets not rocket science at all, right? Pretty straightforward
00:56:06
Speaker
And I will say one thing, Seth, you were talking about, you know, Seth being half your age and having to kind of relate to what it's like to be that old.
00:56:19
Speaker
Seth and I do a fair bit of stuff together. He's had a lot of practice now in dealing with an old guy who can't keep up. Whatever. That's my contribution too, right? I think I've warmed Seth up for you so that if I get what it's like to be an old guy now.
00:56:43
Speaker
Well, yeah, it's always a pleasure. Well, yeah, I would say just personally, I think I sustained a pretty serious injury a number a few years ago now. And that event really brought me down in terms of my physical ability. Yeah, I think that taught me a lot about
00:57:12
Speaker
know this really wrapping my head around different progressions of just people and how personalized progression is and how to truly modulate and give appropriate training stimuli and I do think it's you know it's I didn't just book learn it I unfortunately had to learn it through experience but
00:57:36
Speaker
You know, I think one thing, and this kind of relates to the comments discussion that Scott was just having, which is, you know, I think you can kind of develop an empathy for yourself, just like I developed, you know, an empathy
00:57:54
Speaker
for you while we're working together and it's incredibly beneficial because you really can't fake your fitness level. You can't fake your deadlift. You can't fake your aerobic threshold. You really are where you are and the training to be effective has to be where you are.
00:58:19
Speaker
being fully open to, oh, okay, I got really sore from that, or, you know, that workout was really easy. Was it supposed to be hard kind of things in the comments? Like, that's like real honest and full value, you know, commentary and discussion level, I think it's great to have that. And it's part of my work that I really, really like. I really enjoy the,
00:58:49
Speaker
pure honesty of the um yeah i'm working with folks yeah you know i i think too seth it's about part of it is it's really helpful to have a specific defined objective you know in this case i knew what i knew it was what i wanted to do you know i don't know what the next step is going to be and i've been thinking about you know coming back to you talking about that because we're gonna let's assume we take something that is perhaps less demanding
00:59:18
Speaker
than trying to climb Mount Everest. One of the things I've given up, as you know, in the last few years, playing golf with my friends, playing paddle tennis, maybe I want to compromise, be able to do some of that. So it's going to be fun to kind of figure out what the next objective is going to be, if there is going to be one, and then adapting the program
00:59:38
Speaker
Because, you know, you have lots of different levels, you know, from pretty challenging to incredibly difficult things that you're working with people doing. So, it's fun because your system, you know, allows you to do that, depending on what your client needs. Just another, you know, great aspect of the uphill athlete franchise and what you're trying to do.
01:00:02
Speaker
Yeah. I, at the time I was working with you, I think 23 or 24 athletes. And I will say that you were doing, you were in the top three of volume a week of math.
01:00:18
Speaker
Well, I think that this speaks your fitness level, our ability to really modulate the training. I think we had to do resting. I mean, we were doing like two rest days every 10 day period. I think we had a very unique style of modulation, really fit.
01:00:44
Speaker
You know, and, and it also, like, like we were talking about earlier, you were really, you know, really communicated, but, um, you're also just tough and fit, man. I mean, you gotta own that. So. Well, I can't wait. I I'm, I'm worried I'm going to lose the.
01:01:03
Speaker
I'm going to lose my phone here just because I can't plug it in and talk because I've lost my things. I don't want to do that and didn't have it cut off. So if it's okay, I just kind of want to wrap it up. And I will say this. I don't know what the next step is going to be, but I have to tell you, I'm really looking forward to whatever it's going to be. This has been a great journey. Again,
01:01:30
Speaker
Ordinary guy allowed to do something really extraordinary.
01:01:35
Speaker
Right? That's, that's what I think. I mean, this is a lifelong dream. I started when I was 12, my dad gave me a copy of Herzog's Annapurna. Then I read 1963, um, the expedition, Norman Dearham Fuller's book, Chris Bonington's book. I've been fired by this thing. I went to Everest on the North side as a trekker in 1990, got to the advanced base camp with Jim Whitaker, saw the North Pole, said, you know something? I actually could climb that if I had to, but never thought I'd get above that.
01:02:04
Speaker
And here I am, you know, 25 years later, whatever it is, after having walked up to the top of the highest point on earth and having walked back down, I mean, holy smokes, how good is that, right? How good is that? Pretty good. It doesn't get a lot better, that's for sure. It sure does. Yeah, congratulations. And not just for getting to the summit, really, but for doing what it took to get to the summit. That's the impressive part, I think.
01:02:32
Speaker
Yeah. And I think you would agree. I mean, these, these kind of, I agree. Scott, you know, people like Steve has talked about this in some of our podcasts. I mean, I'm sure Seth would totally agree. It's that it's cool to have these goals. Some, you know, some really hard climb or some big race, but whatever it is you're training for, you know, once that's accomplished.
01:02:51
Speaker
it's like okay well that was interesting but it's not as satisfying the accomplishment isn't the satisfying part it's the fact that you could do what it took to to accomplish that goal right it's like Peggy Lee is that all there is she had a famous song is that all there is and I thought it was so strange I actually had been so focused on the process of getting ready
01:03:14
Speaker
that that became the event for me and i realized well wait i gotta go climb the mountain now well i better say i better say goodbye because i know i'm gonna lose you guys in just a second we'll let you go and good luck on getting out of there i hope you the airlines start flying soon or they're coming
01:03:35
Speaker
I'm grateful to you both. You know, it just wouldn't have been possible without you and many other people. So it's a pleasure to talk to you as always. And I'll probably circle back when I do get home, assuming that that's sometime in 2021. Thank you. It's been great. Thanks so much. Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye. Thanks for joining us today. For more information about what we do, please go to our website, uphillathlete.com.