Sipsey Street Irregulars: Praxis: "I am a cautionary tale."

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Praxis: "I am a cautionary tale."

Road March, when you're young and in good shape.

From Jim Z. we have this email entitled, "I am a cautionary tale." It is good advice.

Mike
III

Gentlemen,

I know that you have been pushing PT for a long time in both of your blogs, and who knows, I may be the only one this stupid. After back surgery in January, I was finally able to start jogging again at the end of April/beginning of May, and to date, have made good progress, being able to jog 2-4 miles straight, with an additional 2-4 miles of walking. Today, I put my ALICE pack on for the first time in over a decade. I loaded it with about 20-30 lbs. After 3 miles, it had worn me out. Please try to drum it into people's heads that they won't be able to slap on 60+ lbs of gear (20 lbs if you just have a rifle, ammo, and water) and go easily, even if they have been jogging and exercising on a regular basis, if they haven't practiced carrying loads as well. Like I said, I may be the only one this stupid/arrogant enough to think that I could cover this distance easily, but somehow I think that there are others who are as dumb as I am.

On an unrelated subject, can you remind your readers to check the GM angles on their topographic maps and keep checking them every 6 months? The GM angle is shifting quickly and so most maps' GM angles are out of date.

Thanks again to both of you for having such useful sites.

Thanks,
Jim Z.

1 comment:

pdxr13 said...: No kidding on the hazards of being 40+. Even if you have made some effort to not be more than 10 pounds over weight/light on drinking/no smoking, muscles and wind are not what they were just 10 years ago, let alone the super-human 19-year-old body of recent memory.

Careful on over-doing PT with the old body. Breaking and straining that was an accepted training technique of 20 year ago can be worse than no PT at all.

Start easy. Walk.

If something gets hot, hurts, feels wrong, it's time to slow down/stop, take a drink of water and assess the situation. Good shoes, good socks, good boots are worth their weight in avoided blisters and open sores.

30 pounds is not a starting weight!
Start with a pack carrying 2 extra quarts of water and an extra pair of socks and sneakers. That will be under 10 pounds including the pack.
Next week, add a hardcover book (3 or 4 pounds). Are the straps chafing yet?

Stretch before walking to warm up. Stretch out your pace and speed up your pace a little to approach 4 mph. That's a pretty fast walk, but not "speedwalking". Add weight to the pack as you can do this pace for 90 minutes at a time (6 miles).

Add a heavy stick as long as a carbine. Starting off with a stick or 3 pound wrist weights instead of a pack might work for you.

Progress to heavy field boots from sneakers/walking shoes. Note your effort increasing to maintain 4 mph. This is when you find out that your boots that are allegedly "broken in" hurt. Experiment with liners (gel-soles, neoprene, pads, etc.). Keep walking. Stay hydrated.

Good luck.

Bonus: you will lose weight, get stronger, and be hungrier! Food will taste better and even PBR is yummy after a long walk.; May 30, 2009 at 2:49 PM

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.

Sipsey Street Irregulars

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Praxis: "I am a cautionary tale."

1 comment:

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