Bum Rushed with conviction II

So it's happened to me again.

I never wanted to climb a 14er... I resisted knowing/learning enough about it to even think about doing it all the way up until I decided I HAD to do it. Looking back I suppose it's fear that tries to get me to veer away from the challenge I know deep down that I really do want to take.

Probably fear of failure is the biggie...makes me try to talk myself out of the thing before I have a chance to get obsessed with it.

So, on with the deal of the day...

I guess it was a few years ago I read a story about the Bataan Memorial death March. Some lunatics gather up each year and locomote their bodies across 26 miles of disastrous terrain in 50mph sand storm winds, fun elevation gains and such other things to commemorate the actual Bataan death march where a "forcible transfer of 75,000 American and Filipino prisoners of war" took place on a 60 mile death march that lived up to it's name. Thousands died on the march...here is the wiki

So these years ago I read the story about the Bataan Memorial and as I was reading the account the reporter gave of it I thought to myself "this is something I'd never want to do". She told all about the conditions of the course and the heat...everything she listed gave me yet another reason to think she was crazy and why I would not ever do this kind of event.

And then there was a paragraph in her report that gave me pause.

She tells it (I'll explain in my words) that somewhere along the trail she has stopped to deal with a nasty blister problem and somebody asks if she is ok. She says that the blister is killing her, blah, blah, blah, and looks up to realize she is complaining to one of the survivors of the actual death march. Not the march she is in where there are aid stations every few miles and 12 checkpoints where a friendly volunteer will hand you a Gatorade...he was in the march where if you move to slow from dehydration/starvation/injury they just bayoneted you to death. Well I think there was humiliation and tears welling up when she realized the gravity of it all and some handshakes happened and she managed to push past the blister problem...

Three seconds after reading that paragraph and I knew that I was going to do the Bataan Memorial Death March before too long. Last week I booked reservations on a cozy little cabin in Las Cruces 3/19 - 3/21 so I can toe the line for the next Bataan Memorial Death March

I've now officially become obsessed with it.

My 14er summit bid for this year has been put in the hands of chance. Training will pretty much run concurrent so I will be in shape to climb if I get a chance to go to Colorado but getting away from the business is hard. Getting away twice is VERY hard and that is the reason I didn't get to do this march last time. I could not get away so soon after the Colorado trip. I say I couldn't but obviously I could if I "HAD" to (gun to the head and all)so it's always a question of making things happen...but the fact is that it's very hard for me to leave.
I will be ecstatic if I can pull off both. I really want to but if I can't do both my next big event will be the Bataan and then I'll get back on my next 14er. I have summit fever right about now that isn't going to go away until I get at it but this Bataan thing is pulling me with great force. I know that I have to do it now when the survivors are still around because it's just something I feel compelled to do for them. Just to be a number out there on that one day a year is such a small thing compared to what they endured.... I have to do it now.

So there it is. This marks the second time I was smacked upside the head with something I clearly didn't want to do...and then all of sudden I knew I had to do it. I can't wait until that nest thing involves me becoming fabulously wealthy instead of pain/punishment but here we go. All systems are go Bataan.

Anybody wanna meet me out there.....you can ya know? ;)