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Team Annapurna

April 11, 2013 · by Julie

Kiwi Steve, Jake, Ruth, Nancy, Lisa, Bill, Tamy, Julie, Russ, Steve, Barry, Frank, Nort, Lou Anne, Mitch, D.K., Random Cute Kid, Gokul

April 11, 2013
Thursday

So. Everest kicked my ass. I didn’t get there, didn’t even get to try. The closest I got to that mountain was a fly-by on my way to Bhutan. Two months later I came home from Nepal and faced an even higher mountain: a career in shambles. An important client – THE important client – gone. Poof. Like that. Rebuilding my business has been slow and challenging, and may ultimately be impossible. I’m in my office, yet part of me is still sitting in Kathmandu, nowhere near the summit with supplies dwindling fast.

Everest and the Real Girl took a back seat for a while, but I still have a lot to share. After all, we made it to Annapurna Base Camp – not Everest, but not too shabby either! Today, though, I’m not going to tell you what we did on the way up that mountain because that’s not where my mind goes first. I’m going to tell you about Team Annapurna – the best team that I have ever had the honor to travel with, hands down!

My disappointment in being “strongly encouraged” to join the Annapurna team rather than the Everest team, due to the mysterious high pressure in the right side of my heart, began to ease at our welcome dinner in Kathmandu when I first met our Active Himalayas guide, our local guide, and my 15 fellow trekkers. We would meet our fantastic team of super-strong porters later. These guys were always a high point of our day, hauling our gear up the mountain then running back to guide us into the next teahouse, high-fiving us as we crawled up the inevitable last flight of stone steps before collapsing in a heap somewhere near the lemon-ginger tea.

Photo: Barry and Jake

But that first night, it was all shiny and new as we ate dinner on a rooftop in Kathmandu, eyeing each other warily and wondering who we would be tempted to throw off a cliff by the end of the journey. Five minutes in, we knew. Nobody was going off a cliff without the rest of us diving to save them. We clicked. Like Fred and Ginger. Like Gilligan and the Skipper. Like Barry and his Fanta. We were all seasoned travelers, most of us on a repeat trip with Active Adventures. We shared stories about our favorite places on the planet. Jake worried us a bit when he said Disneyland, but when the table went silent and all heads turned, he changed his answer to Switzerland. I’m still not sure if he was really joking. 😉

Then we were off.

Our mascot Trev. He likes beer.

Even though it wasn’t Everest Base Camp, this trek wasn’t easy. In fact, it was quite a challenge. We lived in close quarters in uncomfortable and unfamiliar conditions for days on end. As Lisa noted, we knew each other by smell after a while. Things went wrong: the hot shower we’d been looking forward to for a couple of days was glacier cold, the teahouse gave away our rooms, hiking poles broke, our water froze. We were tired, sore, and at times frustrated. Yet we laughed about it all, supported one another through the rough spots, and lifted our collective spirits by building human pyramids, doing jumping jacks to burn just four more calories to make an even 1000, counting the Chomrong Steps (Tamy says 2037), or dancing around a fire making total fools of ourselves and loving every second. We shared our precious toilet paper and gave up our hand warmers. We drank with Trev, who let Kiwi Steve drag him all the way from New Zealand to be our unofficial mascot. We were blissfully free of negativity. I love these people.

I give credit to each and every one of us for the success of this trek. We were all very different people but it was the perfect mix of personalities. I also give credit to Active Adventures, our guides D.K. and Gokul, and to our team of porters who made it easy to laugh and enjoy the ride. Active Adventures attracts a certain type of traveler, those who want to walk to dinner and become part of the chaos of the streets rather than pile into a van to watch life pass us by. Travelers who don’t want our gear to just magically appear in our teahouse rooms delivered by unseen hands, but who want to have some fun with the people who work so hard to make sure we’re safe, healthy, and as comfortable as possible. We want to be in touch with our experience, to be fully alive in each moment along the way, even when we have to put hot hard-boiled eggs down our shirts to stay warm.

Ultimately, this was the best trip of my life because of Team Annapurna! The Annapurna Range was a breathtaking backdrop, but the real beauty was found in the people I met along the way. To all of you – thank you! I would travel with any of you again, any time. You made the Post-Traumatic Step Disorder worthwhile.

Photo: Barry and Jake

This isn’t the end though, it’s just the beginning of the next adventure. I have a new Everest to climb, one even more challenging than the mountain in Nepal. I’ve always had a strange career – one that made a list of the 20 oddest jobs on the planet a few years back. Now the industry is changing, shifting, adapting, morphing into a patchwork of skills that are barely recognizable as the career path that I chose. I have the opportunity to redefine myself, or to redefine the field in which I work. I’m not entirely certain which path I’ll choose to take.

I am sure of one thing though: The lessons Everest taught me will guide me into the future. Initial disappointment turned into absolute joy. Redefining my goal led to a more rewarding outcome. The relationships I built along the trail lasted much longer than the view from our summit. And the journey…the journey is what still makes me smile. Every day.

I’m going to keep trekking.

Namaste.

Kathmandu!

October 8, 2012 · by Julie

After a very long 2 1/2 day series of flights – Los Angeles to Seoul to Bangkok to Kathmandu – I’m here!

For now, I’ve chosen Thamel Eco Resort as my home base hotel. I leave for 9 days in Bhutan on Thursday.

I always learn from travel, and I’ve already learned a thing or two on this trip:

1. Always book your own hotels, even if it seems more convenient to have the agency book it for you just this one time. They will get you the worst room at the most jacked up tourist price. You can always do better on your own.

2. The Bangkok airport is fascinating at 4am.

3. Solar Oil saves your cuticles from the dry air of airplanes and altitude. Ask your manicurist or get it at a beauty supply store. Don’t accidentally pack it in your checked bag.

4. Solo travel can be lonely. Breakfast was nice, and I met a few other travelers who were alone at the moment, but joining tour groups later today. I had some nice conversations until their tour leader arrived and activities started. Then I ceased to exist as they went about doing what they paid to do, and getting to know one another. It’s very quiet here now.

5. I can blog from my iPhone! This is a total experiment, so I apologize in advance for the inevitable glitches. Pretty cool though.

I’ll be wandering Thamel today, probably camera-less, just soaking it all in. I like to spend my first day (after sleeping 16 hours) just feeling out the vibe of a city. Later, I’ll make plans and See Things. For now, I’ll just Be Here.

Namaste.

Leaving Tomorrow!

October 5, 2012 · by Julie

October 5, 2012
Friday

The Journey is the Destination

The Changing Path

It came up so fast – tomorrow I board a Thai Airways flight to Bangkok, then on to Kathmandu to begin the adventure! Thing is, it’s not the adventure I’ve been sharing with you for the last several months. At all. I stopped sharing because, quite frankly, I had no idea what to say. I’m still coming to terms with my feelings about how this trip has evolved, and I swing from hating every second and wanting to cancel it to knowing that once I get there, it will be overwhelmingly, jaw-dropping amazing and I will forget that it’s not the trip I planned.

Expectations are dangerous. And painful. They truly are the cause of our suffering. I expected to go to Everest. I expected to see Nepal, Bhutan, and maybe even Tibet with a friend. I expected to be perfectly healthy and in great shape by now.

Expectations suck. They can be shattered.

Here are the highlights, the pieces I can put together and make some sort of sense of at this point.

The Trek

I wanted to go to Everest Base Camp. I’ve always wanted to go. Wade Davis, my first inspiration to become an ethnographer, recently wrote a book about Everest. Talking with him about his experiences at a lecture at the Bowers Museum back in March just sparked the fire. I was going to do it!

I psyched myself up for it, told all my friends and family, and even blogged about it. I trained hard – but wait. Something was wrong. I was getting short of breath, light-headed, and even passing out on training hikes that were a bit challenging, but should have been easy for me. They weren’t easy. I thought my asthma was acting up again. So I went to my primary care doctor, who sent me on to a cardiologist.

The good news is, I don’t have asthma! The bad? Asthma was a misdiagnosis from way back when. What I do have is two different congenital heart defects. They’re minor, but for some reason that we still don’t understand I also have mild pulmonary hypertension which is causing my symptoms and is likely related. My western doctors have been great at doing tests, and more tests, and more tests, and fine-tuning the diagnosis. We are still in that process, and I still need more tests when I get home. However, they have done NOTHING to address the shortness of breath and dizziness while exercising. Zero.

I did find a wonderful acupuncturist and specialist in Chinese Medicine, Michael Vercos at Pacific Bay Integrative Health Center in Santa Monica. Between the herbs and the acupuncture, my cardio world has changed. I never realized how it really felt to run – I never knew I shouldn’t be gasping for air, feeling faint, and getting a migraine a few hours later like clockwork. With his treatment, I am improving. However, I am still far from normal.

Because of this, I know I will be slower than the rest of the group at high altitude – and maybe even at lower altitude. I thought it was best to be honest with the trekking company, and perhaps hire an extra porter/guide to stay with me if I ended up being too slow, so I didn’t hold up the group. Nobody wants to be That Person, but since I knew there was a chance, I thought I’d be prepared.

Big mistake. Huge. Ethics suck.

Although they were very polite about it, the trekking agency made it clear that they really didn’t want me on the Everest Base Camp trek. They gave me the choice, but the tone was clear – if I chose to go, they would consider me a liability from Second One. I felt like I wasn’t wanted. I was devastated. I don’t feel like it would have been fun to go where I’m not wanted, and where everyone immediately considers me a pain in the ass. Hiring an extra porter wasn’t an option they really wanted to offer. Instead, they offered to switch me to another trek – Annapurna Sanctuary – which is lower altitude, and well within an altitude I have successfully tackled before. I switched. I want to hike with people who want me hiking with them. So. Annapurna Sanctuary, it is.

Another issue with the switch is that it’s a shorter trek. This has pros and cons. The main pro is that China is not issuing Tibet Permits in October. The shorter trek leaves me a potential window if they begin issuing them again in November, so it’s possible I can still make that work. We’ll see. The cons are numerous, from the disappointment to having to pay for an extra week’s lodging in Kathmandu at the end, which was still cheaper than changing my flight date. In the end, what should have been the less expensive trek ended up costing me more. I’m hoping to make good use of that time though, trying to get a Tibet Permit, or perhaps traveling to the south, or even just to Bhaktapur or some such place. I’ll make the best of it. But dealing with logistical changes and even a slightly different gear list has left me scrambling and stressed out rather than truly excited.

The Solo Travel

Then there was another change in plans. Although she didn’t plan to trek with me, a friend was supposed to join me for the first part of my trip. We were going to travel to Nepal together, then on to either Tibet or Bhutan, then I would return for the trek. A few weeks ago, she learned she was unable to go and she had to cancel. So here I am, traveling solo yet again. Now, for the record, I’m used to traveling alone. I enjoy it to an extent, and there are definite benefits. But this time, I was looking forward to company for at least part of the trip. I was still able to go to Bhutan, but as most of you reading this are probably aware, single supplements are the solo traveler’s punishment. For what, I’m not sure. For being too much of a loser to have a travel partner? Whatever. What it means is that Bhutan cost me twice as much as it would have in a group of two. Not a surprise, just yet another disappointment.

I was excited again when it seemed I might be able to connect with another friend who is traveling solo in Asia right now, but it turned out she’s arriving in Kathmandu the day after I leave for Bhutan, and she’ll be moving on before I return. I won’t see her either.

So. Solo it is. Story of my life.

At this point, with the flight tomorrow morning, I’m trying to get back in the game and remind myself that this is the beauty of travel. It always changes. The path you take is never the path you expected to take, and those detours are what make the memories. Like taking the Lares Trail when the Inca Trail permits were sold out, and meeting only locals along the way – no other trekking groups for days! Instead, we met farmers and herders who shared their lives, stories, and homes with us. Or driving from Victoria Falls back to Bulawayo in Zimbabwe, and running into a random guesthouse on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, where we ate the best french fries in the world as a local reggae band started an impromptu party that mesmerized us into dancing for hours. Or taking a standard wine tasting tour in Stellenbosch, South Africa that unexpectedly ended with Mark Bilton of Bilton Wines inviting all of us back to his home for a tasting in his private cellar. Fabulous wines, by the way! Get your hands on them if you can!

It’s the moments you DON’T plan that are the best moments. The real moments. Life.

I’m off to live mine. xoxo

Day 91 – Vegan Goodies!

August 2, 2012 · by Julie

August 2, 2012
Thursday

The Training

Look! It’s Vegan Bodybuilder Me! 🙂

Okay, so I have a long way to go to lift that kind of weight, but way back at the beginning I promised you some tips and tricks about training as a vegetarian. To be honest, I’m not vegan – but I’m getting there and I keep a vegan kitchen at home. I still find it challenging when I travel and yes, my Barney Boots are leather, but I do what I can, when I can to live as cruelty-free as possible. I don’t preach, I just hope to set an example that others might want to follow, even if it’s one step at a time. (Like climbing that mountain, you know?)

It helps that I am in LOVE with Vega products. I found Vega about six months ago when I first started my journey to Everest-land. I was searching for a way to get more vegan protein and there it was – fabulous stuff! Since then, Brendan Brazier has taken off like a rocket with his Thrive books and Vega and Vega Sport line of vegan yummies. For two months I had Thrive Direct vegan meals delivered to my house and/or my hotel, but when my expensive transmission failed, I had to take a break. It sure beats the hotel food I’m stuck with now though, let me tell ya! I could starve to death eating vegan on the road. Hello? Room service? MORE VEGAN OPTIONS PLEASE! But I digress…back to the point.

I can find a few Vega products at my local Whole Foods, but come on now – chocolate coconut vegan protein bars?! Who wouldn’t want to give those a nibble? Whole Foods doesn’t carry them, so when I got a tweet about Vegan Proteins, I clicked on over. If you know me, you know that I am also a huge supporter of small businesses whenever possible. I love what these guys (and a girl) are doing! They’re vegan bodybuilders raising funds for a documentary and competitions, to get the word out that you can, in fact, be healthy and (super) fit, AND vegan!

But wait! There’s more! They’re also SUPER friendly, fun, and have incredible customer service. My FedEx guy dropped off a box (with that cute picture of me drawn on it) just a little while ago. I needed that chocolate coconut bar to have enough energy to dig through it all! Of course, what I ordered was inside and it was all perfect. Plus there were samples of a bunch of goodies I’d considered ordering (did they read my mind?) and handwritten, personal thank-you notes! Despite a long, frustrating day, I’ve had a huge smile all evening – this is the kind of small gesture that makes me happy, and makes me want to tell the world about a great business!

So – where do you get your protein? Give Vegan Proteins a shot. You’ll probably even get a great drawing of yourself and a good laugh! How can you beat that?

(And no, they had NO idea that I would be blogging about this. They didn’t know me from any other random California vegan protein fiend. Like I promised at the beginning, I don’t take free stuff and I write honestly about what I actually use and know.)

Now, I’m off to finish that chocolate coconut bar…but not before I take care of The Details. It’s off to the post office to send my final balance for the trek off to ACTIVE New Zealand. (Yes I’m going to the Himalayas, but they run fantastic trips in New Zealand and South America too!)

Whew! All that’s left is to keep training and then get on a plane! Yay! Kathmandu, I’m on my way! 🙂

Days 25 & 26 – The Flight

June 11, 2012 · by Julie

Tuesday and Wednesday
May 29 & 30, 2012

The Flight

I’ve put down a deposit on the trip, started training and testing gear, and booked myself out of work for five weeks. But there’s one major piece of the puzzle still missing – booking my flights to and from Kathmandu.

I’ve waited this long because the trek isn’t the only element making up my trip to Nepal. Although she won’t be trekking with me, my friend Susan will be joining me for the first couple of weeks in Nepal. Or Tibet. Or Bhutan. That’s the hold-up. I’m not 100% sure when she wants to arrive, and what we will be doing for that first couple of weeks. She’ll be returning before me, but we want to book the same arrival flight, so it requires some coordination.

Tuesday, we both review some of our options. A side trip to Tibet is our first choice and there are fixed departure tours from Kathmandu leaving every Tuesday and Saturday. According to the emails we’ve received from a few different agencies, we would need to arrive in Kathmandu by Tuesday in order to get our Tibet permits in time for a Saturday departure. So we look at the calendar and decide that our goal is to arrive in Kathmandu by Tuesday, October 9 at the latest. On Wednesday, I start looking for flights.

Singapore Airlines and Thai Airways seem to be our primary options, but I’m a frequent flyer mile diva so I immediately go with the Star Alliance airline – Thai Airways. I never actually bother to use my frequent flyer miles for overseas travel – it’s a huge pain and takes more of my time than it’s worth – but I fly so much for work that I always want to make sure that I achieve elite status for the following year. I’d rather pay the money and have that elite status than use banked miles for the trip. I go straight to the airline’s website and I’m surprised to find that fares aren’t bad at all. Much less than I paid to get to Africa last summer. I play with several itineraries, looking at a day or two earlier, leaving on weekdays rather than weekends, all kinds of combinations. The key here seems to be to find a way to somehow NOT get stuck in Seoul, South Korea for a 20-some hour layover. It’s possible, but takes some trial and error.

In the end, I find a great series of flights out of LAX through Bangkok, for $1644. I decide that I want to be able to change the date on my flight home, just in case, but that I don’t need to pay $300 more to be able to change the routing. We’ll be leaving Los Angeles mid-day on October 6 and arriving in Kathmandu mid-day on October 8. There’s one connection in Bangkok, with a 10 hour layover. Not really enough time to do anything interesting, but better than delaying our arrival with an entire lost day in Seoul. My flight home is similar, leaving Kathmandu on November 10 and arriving home on November 11. I’m also surprised that Business Class is only $3000 more, and I briefly consider booking it for this terribly long flight. However, I’m not traveling alone and it would be really mean to book Business Class when my friend would be in Economy. So I decide to just let that go. In order to meet a client’s budget, I flew in economy seats for 57 hours straight returning home from Africa – on rather uncomfortable Ethiopian Airlines planes – and I survived. I even got cute little airplane shaped crackers. This won’t kill me.

I double check with Susan, to make sure the departure flight will work for her since our plan is to travel together on that leg of the trip. She says it’s great and I should book it. No matter how much I’m looking forward to any trip, hitting that “submit” button when booking a long, expensive flight is always the moment of truth. My finger hovers over the mouse. I re-read the flight itinerary over and over, just to be sure I’ve got it right. I hesitate. I get butterflies in my stomach. Finally, I click. And it’s done. The butterflies don’t subside, but somehow they change. Nervousness becomes excitement. The trip becomes real.

When I get the confirmation email I notice that my seat selection only registered for the first leg of the flight. On long flights, I always try to get an aisle. On short flights, I prefer a window. I’ll have to call them tomorrow to fix that, since it’s after 7pm and their local office is closed. My vegetarian meals are noted though, and I am happy.

I forward the itinerary to Susan and a few hours later, she forwards me hers. It’s done! We’re really going to Nepal!

Day 12 – The Compromise

May 18, 2012 · by Julie

May 16, 2012
Wednesday

The Training

First things first – a huge THANK YOU to all of my followers here, and on Twitter and Facebook! You are keeping me motivated today, because quite frankly this is the kind of day where I would normally just give up and skip a workout in the name of sheer exhaustion. I am totally overwhelmed by work and travel today, and finding time to run seemed impossible. So here’s what I did:

I skipped breakfast and went down to the gym to run on the treadmill in the morning. Those of you who know me know how hard this was for me to do. I often skip breakfast to get in an extra 20 minutes of sleep before heading off to a field site, but to run? Never. I have no energy in the morning. None. Zero. Even if I eat breakfast. Today was no different. Even though this run was shorter than yesterday’s, it felt much, much, harder. I got through it though, and I probably should have at least had an energy bar or some such thing before heading down to the gym. I was planning to pack a few, but I believe they’re still sitting on my kitchen counter at home. I was so rushed and overwhelmed trying to pack and get out the door that I forgot to throw them in my bag. So I struggled through this run, but I finished it and for today that will do just fine.

But in the spirit of my crazy week and Murphy’s Law, here’s the thing – I didn’t have to run today. It was a rest day. When I got to the gym and opened my running app, it warned me that I needed to rest today in order to be prepared for tomorrow’s run, and asked me if I was SURE I wanted to run today anyway? Um. What?? Apparently, after the long run I was supposed to rest TWO days rather than the usual one day. Crap. All the mental gymnastics about where I was going to fit running in and what I was going to give up in order to do so weren’t even necessary. But here I was, on the treadmill, ready to go. So I ran anyway. Lesson learned – check the schedule before stressing out!

One more note – if you ever have a chance to influence the design of a hotel, in the name of all that is sacred in the universe, please, please, please do NOT make sweaty people in gym clothes walk through the lobby to get back to their room. It’s like the walk of shame. You know you look like hell and probably smell a little bad too. In this state, you have to walk past 20 or 30 other smartly dressed hotel employees and guests, hoping that your clothing and water bottle scream “healthy and active” rather than “socially clueless and disgusting.” There should be a dedicated stairway or elevator right from the gym to the other floors of the hotel, so you can sneak through without offending any of the upscale guests with your sweaty presence. Really. It can’t be that hard.

The Details

Checking my email, I saw that I have one from ACTIVE Himalayas. From the subject line, I believe they’re confirming that the deposit I sent to New Zealand a couple of weeks ago has arrived. I don’t have time to open it – as it’s either check my personal emails or actually write this. Another compromise today. I’m glad to see the email though, even though it reminds me of all the other things I still have to do: coordinate the flight with a friend and book it, get travel insurance (with medevac!), book the Tibet leg of the trip, decide how many extra hotel days I need to purchase – so much to do! But right now, it all has to wait another week or so, until I get home.

The Gear

I’ve been eating many meals on-site at my field location, but today there was no vegetarian option so I managed to sneak out for a quick lunch. In doing so, I passed a Go-Lite store having a 50% off sale! I only had a few minutes to wander in and drool over all the running and hiking clothes that I both want and need, so after grabbing a few things off the rack I looked at the time and realized that I needed to get back to work. No time to try anything on today, plus I only had my business debit card with me. So I reluctantly put everything back on the racks and vowed to come back tomorrow. Eat lunch? Or shop for gear that’s on sale? That’s a compromise to worry about tomorrow. Hmm…

Day 3 – The Details

May 8, 2012 · by Julie

Monday, May 7, 2012

Handling The Details

My first order of business for the trip today (fit in around all my business for, well, my business) was finishing my part of the trip confirmation. ACTIVE is in New Zealand and I confirmed by phone last week. After that, they sent me an email with a reference code to log into their online booking site, where the details are all laid out for me, and where I sign away my life. I’d logged on quickly last week, but the first item was to print, sign, and fax or scan the contract. Since my printer and scanner are BOTH acting funky when accessed from my travel laptop lately, I put it off until I was on the computer in my office. I did, however, download and read the gear list, information about Nepal, and their reminder to “get fit” with some tips on how to not be a slacker and ruin the trip for yourself and everyone else. Tips that I learned, in Peru, will do you absolutely no good with regard to high altitude. Fit or not, you can end up being That Person as soon as you hit 12,000 feet or so. So the goal for me is to make sure that the altitude is the ONLY problem that I will be dealing with in the mountains, should it hit me hard again.

Today, I logged back in to print out the contract and realized that I could just mail it back along with my $750 non-refundable deposit. Gulp. The moment of truth. I just had a very expensive and unexpected car repair, but I’ve budgeted for this trip well in advance. Still, anything non-refundable always causes a moment of pause – that brief moment of fear before you dive in completely – but it was only a moment. As I slid the check into the envelope the fear lifted and was replaced by firm commitment. This is real. Whether my friends (who are still debating the trek portion of the trip) choose to go or not, I’m doing this.

The Training

I was really busy with work all day and didn’t get to the gym. As evening hit I was exhausted – mentally more than physically, but my allergies were also really terrible and I had a sinus headache. I really, really, REALLY didn’t feel like working out. At all. In any way. All I wanted to do was kick back on the couch and watch the two hour finale of The Amazing Race. I indulged my fantasies of a workout-free evening for about an hour before realizing I felt restless and guilty. I mean, this inertia is exactly the kind of scenario I might run into on the trek, especially if I suffer from altitude sickness. I remember that altitude headache – today’s sinus headache’s got nothing on that monster. It’s not even in the same league. If I can’t get in some cardio in my own living room when I feel like I do now, how do I expect to keep putting one foot in front of the other through worse pain and exhaustion in the Himalayas?

So I dragged my spinning bike in front of the television, cued up the TiVo, and spent two hours multi-tasking – some hard spinning AND the Amazing Race finale. I used the legs of their race as a guide – I’d crank up the tension on the spinning bike and tell myself I couldn’t ease off until all of the teams got the next clue. By the time the winners crossed the finish line (for the second time), I was drenched in sweat and feeling really good about my night.

If I can keep this up, I’ll be ready. Mind over matter. Mental as much as physical. No doubt.