Category: Thoughts

Adventure does this crazy thing to my entire neural network.

Contemplating future adventures, past adventures, other peoples’ adventures sends tiny cold rockets down my veins, freezing my heart into this standstill of sudden patience and attention. It has the effect of setting my mind someplace starry, banishing my endlessly rolling thoughts.

Adventure sets me dreaming.

It makes me dwell on useful, important stuff: like how shaking it can be to talk to someone with a different set of guiding principles; like how beautiful and safe a face can look when it suddenly smiles; like how good always exists with the bad, and how pleasure can be found amongst self-torturous suffering.

If directing my mind toward adventure is enough to make me a better person, what about the adventure itself? The long summer days of dust in the eye and chapped lips. The almost physical lumps of blood recirculating upon a night’s rest. The battle to put away the small tin mug of weak coffee and face the day; what other context allows us to be so brave, every single morning?

A good functioning brain is the effect of good functioning brain chemistry. Adventure is the stuff of just that.

 

Not 70 miles.

Not 35 miles.

Not even 15 miles.

It’s 5 miles. Drink of water. 5 miles. Drink of water. 5 miles.

When the road turns uphill, when it begins to rain, when the gears aren’t sticking; you have to find a way to do something hard without fixating on the fact that it’s hard. This is the desired mindset: putting yourself in a position to succeed the long haul, by making it manageable in the mind.

At the base of this is brain chemistry.

We feel the way that our brain feels, and that comes from a collection of neurotransmitters hooking to various tipping points. Exercise—endorphins. Smile—dopamine trigger. Gratitude—more dopamine. The power of the endurance athlete is being aware of how to emit these neurotransmitters at pivotal points in order to keep going.

Break it down.

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