Long Distance - Testing the Limits of Body and Spirit in a Year of Living Strenuously

Informationen zum Autor Bill McKibben  is the author of more than a dozen books, including  The End of Nature ,  Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age , and  Deep Economy . A former staff writer for  The New Yorker , he writes often for  Harper's Magazine ,  National Geographic , and the  New York Review of Books , among other publications. He is the founder of the environmental organizations Step It Up and 350.org, a global-warming awareness campaign that in October 2009 coordinated what CNN called "the most widespread day of political action in the planet's history." He is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College and lives in Vermont with his wife, the writer Sue Halpern, and their daughter. Klappentext A new edition of a classic McKibben book about what it takes to be a world-class athlete and where the true meaning of endurance can be found. At 37! the celebrated writer and environmentalist Bill McKibben took a break from the life of the mind to put himself to the ultimate test: devoting a year to train as a competitive cross-country skier. Consulting with personal trainers! coaches! and doctors at the US Olympic Center! he followed the rigorous training regimen of a world-class athlete.Along the way! he learned to cope with his physical limitations and! when his father was diagnosed with a life-threatening brain tumor! discovered something about the real meaning of endurance. Told with his trademark intelligence! humor! and honesty! Long Distance is an insightful examination of the culture and mind-set of endurance athletes! and a moving and inspiring meditation on finding balance in our often harried lives. 1 I came seeking sweat and found only enlightenment. It was the first day of January, and I was checking in to the Kripalu Center, a "holistic retreat" in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts. I'd come to meet Rob Sleamaker, who had agreed to help turn me into an athlete-- to coach me for a year until I was as tough a cross-country ski racer as my genes would allow. Wandering the halls in search of Rob, who had been hired by Kripalu to teach a weekend course on yoga and skiing, I came across the dining hall, where they were serving butternut squash for supper. "They've put orange juice on the squash," said the woman next to me in line, in a tone that implied orange juice was a tangy form of arsenic. I took my tray to the nearest empty chair, which turned out to be next to a man describing craniosacral massage. "You know," he told me in a confidential tone, "if you're generating mucus in one membrane, you're generating it everywhere." For some reason I ate more quickly than usual and then checked the bulletin board to see if Rob had left a note, but found only posters for upcoming events: "Healing Ourselves/Healing the Planet with Grandmother Rainbow," "The Weeklong Never-Ending Chant," "Living in the Higher Worlds Without Getting Altitude Sickness," "Somatic Explorations of the Jaw." I wandered into a room where a man was orienting first-time visitors. He himself had moved here full-time, he explained, and changed his name to Domadaar. "I want to thank you for coming to share your energies," Domadaar said. "Don't worry about remembering what I'm going to tell you--what's important for you will stick with you, and the rest will dissolve into air." I was beginning to develop a rash. I had come here to jump-start the process of jockification. Forget Grandmother Rainbow; I was looking for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Or so I thought. Finally I found the room where the cross-country skiing group had gathered. They were sitting cross-legged, listening as a man talked. It must be Rob, whom I'd spoken with on the phone but whom I had never laid eyes on. I'd read his book Serious Training for Endurance Athletes, which was filled with lots of graphs of things like "Ventilation and Lactic Acid Changes at the A...

Product details

• Authors: BILL MCKIBBEN
• Publisher: Rodale USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 26.10.2010
• EAN: 9781605291246
• ISBN: 978-1-60529-124-6
• No. of pages: 224
• Dimensions: 139 mm x 213 mm x 14 mm
• Subject: Guides > Sport > Winter sport