“There are two goddesses in your heart. The Goddess of Wisdom and the Goddess of Wealth. Everyone thinks they need to get the wealth first, and wisdom will come. So they concern themselves with chasing money. But they have it backwards. You have to give your heart to the Goddess of Wisdom, give her all your love and attention, and the Goddess of Wealth will become jealous, and follow you. Ask nothing from your running, in other words, and you’ll get more than you ever imagined.” – Coach Vigil

The perfect prototype for this theory was a Czech soldier, a gawky dweeb who ran with such horrendous form that he looked “as if he’d just been stabbed through the heart,” as one sportswriter put it. But Emil Zatopek loved running so much that even when he was still in grunt in army boot camp, he used to grab a flashlight and go off on twenty-mile runs through the woods at night.
In his combat boots.
In winter.
After a full day of infantry drills.
When the snow was too deep, Zatopek would jog in the tub on top of his dirty laundry, getting resistance workout along with clean tight whities. As soon as it thawed enough for him to get outside, he’d go nuts; he’d run four hundred meters as fast as he could, over and over, for ninety repetitions, resting in between by jogging two hundred meters. By the time he was finished, he’d done more than thirty-three miles of speedwork. Ask him his pace, and he’d shrug; he never timed himself. To build explosiveness, he and his wife, Dana used to play catch with a javelin, hurling it back and forth to each other across a soccer field like a long, lethal Frisbee. One of Zatopek’s favorite workouts combined all his loves at once; he’d jog through the woods in his army boots with his ever-loving wife riding on his back.

It was all a waste of time, of course. The Czechs were like the Zimbabwean bobsled team; they had no tradition, no coaching, no native talent, no chance of winning. But being counted out was liberating; having nothing to lose left Zatopek free to try any way to win. Take his first marathon: everyone knows the best way to build up to 26.2 miles is by running long, slow distances. Everyone, that is, except Emil Zatopek; he did hundred-yard dashes instead. “I already know how to go slow,” he reasoned. “I thought the point was to go fast” His atrocious, death-spasming style was punchline heaven for track scribes (“The most frightful horror spectacle since Frankenstein” …”He runs as if his next step would be his last” … “He looks like a man wrestling with an octopus on a conveyor belt”), but Zatopek just laughed along. “I’m not talented enough to run and smile at the same time,” he’d say. “Good thing it’s not figure skating. You only get points for speed, not style.”

And dear God, was he a Chatty Cathy! Zatopek treated competition like it was speed dating. Even in the middle of a race, he liked to natter with other runners and try out his smattering of French and English and German, causing one grouchy Brit to complain about Zatopek’s “incessant talking.” At away meets, he’d sometimes have to many new friends in his hotel room that he’d have to give up his own bed and sleep outside under a tree. Once, right before and international race, he became pals with Australian runner who was hoping to break the Australian 5,000-meter record. Zatopek was only entered in the 10,000-meter race, but he came up with a plan; he told the Aussie to drop out of his race and line up next to Zatopek instead. Zatopek spend the first half of the 10,000-meter race pacing his new buddy to the record, then sped off to attend his own business and win.

That was pure Zatopek, though; races for him were like a pub crawl. He loved competing so much that instead of tapering and peaking, he jumped into as many meets as he could find. During a manic stretch in the late ’40s, Zatopek raced nearly every other week for three years and never lost, going 69-0. Even on a schedule like that, he still averaged up to 165 miles a week in training.

Zatopek was a bald, self-coached thirty-year-old apartment-dweller from a decrepit Eastern European backwater when he arrived for the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki. Since the Czech team was so thin, Zatopek had his choice of distance events, so he chose them all. He lined up for the 5,000-meters, and won with a new Olympic record. He then lined up for the 10,000 meters, and won his second gold with another record. He’d never run a marathon before, but what the hell; with two golds already around his neck, he had nothing to lose, so why not finish the job and give it a bash?
Zatopek’s inexperience quickly became obvious. It was a hot day, so England’s Jim Peters, then the world-record holder, decided to use the heat to make Zatopek suffer. By the ten-mile mark, Peters was already ten minutes under his own world-record pace and pulling away from the field. Zatopek wasn’t sure if anyone could really sustain such a blistering pace. “Excuse me,” he said, pulling alongside Peters. “This is my first marathon. Are we going to fast?”
“No,” Peters replied. “To slow.” If Zatopek was dumb enough to ask, he was dumb enough to deserve any answer he got.
Zatopek was surprised. “You say to slow,” he asked again. “Are you sure this is too slow?”
“Yes,” Peters said. Then he got a surprise of his own.
“Okay. Thanks.” Zatopek took Peters at his word, and took off.
When he burst out of the tunnel and into the stadium, he was met with a roar: not only from the fans, but from athletes of every nation who thronged the track to cheer him in. Zatopek snapped the tape with his third Olympic record, but when his teammates charged over to congratulate him, they were to late: the Jamaican sprinters had already hoisted him on their shoulders and were parading him around the infield.

“Let us live so that when we come to die, even the undertaker will be sorry,” Mark Twain used to say.

Zatopek found a way to run so that when he won, even other teams were delighted.

You can’t pay someone to run with such infectious joy.

By the end of 1953 he held eight world running records—the only man in history to hold so many records at the same time. He was the first man to run 20 km in less than an hour. In total he set 18 world records.

Simone Moro bagged his third winter ascent of an 8000m mountain with his summit of Gasherbrum II. His earlier winter achievements include the first ascent of Shishapangma (together with Piotr Morawski) and Makalu (together with Denis Urubko). Denis bagged his second and Cory his first.

Looking back from the first ever winter ascent of an 8000m which was done in 1980 by Poles Krzysztof Wielicki and Leszek Cichy you will only see Polish climbers all the way until 2005 when Simone Moro climbed Shishapangma with late Polish climber Piotr Morawski. By this point the Poles had bagged seven 8000m winter ascents in the Himalayas, with Jerzy Kukuczka and Krzysztof Wielicki summiting six of them. Simone Moro and Denis Urubko’s winter climb on Makalu in 2009 closed the chapter on all 8000m firsts in the Himalayas during the official winter period, leaving only five 8000m peaks in the Karakoram unclimbed during winter (Gasherbrum I, Gasherbrum II, Broad Peak, Nanga Parbat and K2).

Now with yesterday’s summit of Gasherbrum II there are four left on the list:

Gasherbrum I (currently being attempted by Alex, Louis and Gerfried)
Broad Peak (currently attempted by a large Polish team headed by Artur Hajzer. Latest update that they have reached C3)
Nanga Parbat (Two Poles made it to C1 and retreated. One solo Russian climber also retreated)
K2 (No attempts on K2 this winter season)

I would not be surprised seeing the Polish team pulling of the first winter ascent of Broad Peak during winter. Maciej Berbeka from Poland actually got to the central summit of Broad Peak back in 1988 during winter, but not knowing that he was not on the main summit he retreated back to base camp only to find out he only reached the central summit.

Both Nanga Parbat and K2 have previously been attempted by Polish teams during winter without any success. These two will most likely stand as the last unclimbed 8000m winter peaks.

Read more on The North Face Journal and Explorersweb

Image shown from The Northface Journal

More updates should hopefully be dropping in to The North Face Journal in the next few hours.

Here is the post: What draws me back to Central Asia

I have some future plans for new challenges which are to be shorter but more physically demanding, but nothing is set yet. My plan now is to stay in Asia for an unknown period of time and take the rest as it comes.

Here are a few of my favourite pictures throughout this trip:

Before going on this trip I had done some brief research about the countries and I had very high hopes regarding Tajikistan after reading about its landscapes and mountains. It only took a few hours after entering the country to understand that I would definitely not be disappointed.

It took just a few hours to see that this country is much poorer than any other country visited so far. The standard housing is mud and stonehuts and people burn cowshit to keep warm.

All projects in the country such as building of new roads, bridges etc are done by foreign countries. The Chinese are building the roads and bridges and you see a lot of EU sponsored projects in the villages, such as new water pipelines. There is also a great presence of UN and WPF (World Food Program) vehicles on the roads. Although poor the people are very generous and the level of enthusiasm when you cycle past a village is crazy! Usually you get around 30 kids running next to you and screaming “Hello”.

After cycling through a lot of villages and ascending gradually during the first three days I finally started hitting the beginning of the longest mountain pass on this trip. The Anzob pass is at an altitude of just over 3300 meters above sea level and the views are spectacular.

Four hours after starting at the bottom of the pass I finally made it to the top.

At the bottom of the pass the temp was around 30C and as you can see on the pictures I had to put some more clothes on. The top of the pass was around 5C and the wind was quite strong. As I got to the top and started preparing some food I was invited by I guy living at the top of the mountain pass. He was a Tajik meteorologist who noted down numbers about the weather using old ex-Soviet equipment from maybe the 70s?

He generously offered me to sleep on the floor in one of the empty rooms, which I kindly accepted. He also made some tea and food, but I kindly declined the food since most of it smelled very old and did not look very healthy.

After a night sleep in a very cold room 5-10C, I cooked up some noodles (the same noodles I have eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day for the last month), gave the “meteorologist” my headlamp as a gift and started heading down the pass.

After rolling down the pass for a few hours me and Niklas made camp just outside Dushanbe, had a few bears and headed into the city the day after. I will stay in Dushanbe for another 4-5 days and then start cycling towards the Pamir Highway. It’s going to be the highest pass I cycle on the trip with an altitude of 4600 meters. Nighttime temperatures are around -10C so I will finally get to use my winter equipment. Unfortunately I lost my tent in Iran and had to buy a 2 season (summer and spring) tent which consists of a mosquito net and a rain cover, so I will most likely sleep with a lot of clothes on under my sleeping bag since the tent is made for 15C+ temps.

Ciao for now!

Red = How I have traveled so far
Blue = How I will travel the next couple of weeks before entering China

Once i reach Dushanbe i will write more about the coming areas i will travel through and also some information regarding my detour to Tibet.

And some shady spots

After reaching the border between Iran/Turkmenistan it was time to face the Turkmenistan beaurocracy. Like I mentioned earlier I only received a five day transit-visa so the welcoming feeling to this country was not enormous. After filling out 20 papers or so I started heading towards the Uzbekistan border 530km northeast of were i was.

After a couple of hours I stopped at a small village where I very quickly noticed how friendly and welcoming the Turkmen people are. It was great to see some female faces again after four weeks in Iran.

In order to make it to the Uzbek border in time I needed to average a minimum of 110km per day. This is usually not a problem, but throughout the whole Turkmenistan cycling I had a strong headwind, blowing sand and roads in bad shape. Because of this my average speed was dreadfully slow, so I had to get up at around 05am before the sun came out to eat som breakfast and then cycle nonstop for 10 hours until the sun set once again.

Since I only had five days in Turkmenistan and nearly only saw desert I cant really say to much about the country, except that crossing the country in the south is boring(!), but the people are lovely. Turkmenistan had intrigued me quite a bit before I went on this trip after reading up on the country. First of all I was curious as to why they dont want foreign visitors, but also how a country would be functioning with such a strange president that they had up until 2006.

Here are some of the weird things the old president did:

- In 2001, forbidding young men to wear long hair or beards.
- In June 2001, requiring foreigners wishing to marry a Turkmen national to pay a $50,000 fee.
- In 2002, renaming bread from chorek, the traditional Turkmen word, to Gurbansoltan edzhe after his mother.

- In January 2006, Russian media reported he had ordered to stop paying pensions to 1/3 (more than 100,000) of the countrys elderly people, cutting pensions to another 200,000, and ordering to pay the pensions received in the past two years back to the State. This has supposedly resulted in a huge number of deaths of old people, who may have had their pension (ranging from $10 to $90) as the only source of money.

- In February 2005, ordering the closure of all hospitals outside Ashgabat, saying that if people were ill, they could come to the capital; also ordering the closure of all rural libraries of Turkmenistan, saying that ordinary Turkmens do not read books anyway.

After my five days in Turkmenistan I entered Uzbekistan.
Only being here for a couple of days so far this country and its people have really made an amazing impression on me. The Uzbeki people are in my opinion the nicest people during my whole trip so far. Bukhara where I am at the moment is a small town with a nice old city and some very nice sites to see (if you enjoy that kind of thing).

Anyone up for a carpet? This one is only 300 euros!

I will stay here another two days and then cycle towards Tajikistan during the next 8-10 days. Tajikistan is hopefully going to be one of the major highlights of this trip! More to come later… ciao!

After walking for around two hours we ended up in a thunderstorm with heavy rain and strong winds, but we decided to keep going for another three hours since we were expecting to find the basecamp after around 4-5 hours. At 20.00 we had still not reached the basecamp so we decided to pitch the tent and keep going early in the morning.

In the morning a shepherd was driving by our tent and asked if we wanted to hitch a ride to basecamp which was just over the hill (2km) from where we pitched the tent, so we happily accepted, but instead of taking us to the south basecamp he dropped us of at the west side of the mountain. Instead of backtracking to the south basecamp we decided to try and climb over the west ridge up to 4300 meters of altitude and then cross over to the south high camp at 4200 meters.

The climb over the west ridge was very steep and the whole side was covered in loose rock and small stones that created small rockslides and made it painstakingly slow to climb. We also had all the gear and food with us which weighed in at around 25kg each. After four hours we came up to 4300 meters and thought we had just one more crossing to do before making it to high camp, but instead of an easy ledge it was a 20 meter drop, so we had to climb down to 3700 meters again and cross another ridge and then continue up to 4300 meters again. On the way down to 3700 meters we were once again hit by a thunderstorm and the temperature dropped quite heavily. After climbing for seven hours we pitched the tents around 1km from the high camp.

Climbing Damavand from Adventureblaze on Vimeo.

Two hours after leaving our camp in the morning we found the high camp and could start preparing for the climb to the summit (5610 meters).

Climbing Damavand from Adventureblaze on Vimeo.

After cooking some tea and eating some food we started our climb to the summit. There were quite a few other people at high camp that started climbing at the same time as we did. The first two hours of the climb was in darkness and I could see the distance from the people climbing behind me increase more and more.

Climbing Damavand from Adventureblaze on Vimeo.

At around 6am the sun came up and the view was amazing!

The air started getting a lot thinner, but I kept a high pace towards the summit and I was almost alone since the other climbers were a few hours behind.
The last 500 meters before the summit was hard work and the breathing was very heavy. I kept pushing and at 09am I was standing on the summit! Fantastic feeling!

Climbing Damavand from Adventureblaze on Vimeo.

After reaching the summit I was hit by an extreme level of exhaustion. I had climbed to the summit at a very high pace and really pushed myself as much as I could. My quick ascent really drained all my energy. Only a couple of minutes after I had started climbing down from the summit I started feeling weak and tired and had a very hard time to even walk. The decent down to high camp took me equally as long as my climb up to the summit had taken. After reaching the tent at high camp I literally collapsed in my sleeping bag for a couple of hours before heading down to basecamp, which was another few hours walk. At basecamp we took a ride with one of the local guides and slept at his house until 07.00 and then we headed back to Tehran.

Tonight I will start heading towards Mashad and will enter Turkmenistan on Wednesday September 3. I only received a 5 day transit visa for Turkmenistan and the distance from the Turkmenistan border to Uzbekistan is 530km, so I will have to cycle at a steady pace for the next few days until I have crossed the Turkmenistan desert and headed into Uzbekistan. My next post will be from Uzbekistan.

More photos are available in the Damavand album.

Take care everyone!