Outlive

Surviving as long as you can while doing consequential things

Feb 06, 2023

Reflecting

Getting excited for ice climbing this month. It is always fun to listen to people who know what they’re talking about. It is also funny to listen to them respond to nonsense…

She seems very nice, but she’s going to die.

- Will Gadd

He also wrote a wonderful piece on why climbing is worth the risk. It is great to have a long lifespan, but it shouldn’t just be measured in years. Years lived are great. But so are miles run, pounds lifted, countries explored, and peaks summited. I want a long lifespan, but I don’t measure my life with a strong preference for dying in a nursing home over dying in an avalanche. Ideally, I want to avoid any bad outcomes. Practically, I want to make good bets while doing consequential things. You might be able to outlive some 100 year lives in half or three quarters the time.

But cumulatively, I really believe that if you spend enough time in the mountains you’ll get killed there. That’s what’s going to happen. So you try to do your best at surviving as long as you can.

- Will Gadd

Training

This morning’s white board:

6 Rounds not for time

8 Romanian deadlifts as heavy as possible
15 m sled push 405 lbs.
12 GHD sit-ups with medicine ball

Our next run has a wet and dry option (I’m going with wet):

Fueling

Bison tenderloin, beef liver, kidneys, and heart with onion, garlic, bacon, and tajin:

Supplementing

When asked by a reader for top supplement priorities, one of my top five was magnesium. At the recommendation of Dr. Cam Sepah, I take Magnesium Acetyl-Taurate. But there are other formulations worth considering. Dr. Andrew Huberman recommends Magnesium L-Threonate and Chance Chambers recommends Magnesium Glycinate. But whichever specific formula you take, these are crucial supplements that are nearly impossible to get in adequate doses with food alone.

Measuring

The standard American diet takes a lot of risky gambles with uncertain consequences. This, courtesy of Jeff Nobbs, is probably my least favorite:

Recovering

Having experimented with every conceivable recovery gimmick and fad, I can resolutely say that what matters is to just get some rest. I am so grateful to have a consistent nine hour sleep opportunity window so that I can get the same eight hours of sleep each night. Quite a few of my CrossFit friends have babies at home which makes that difficult (/impossible). I well remember a few years of falling asleep all over the place while trying to coax babies and toddlers to sleep. At one particular low, I fell asleep at the foot of the bed while the fully awake toddler discovered that it was fun to repeatedly jump off the bed and land on top of me, pro wrestler style. It wasn’t quite enough to fully wake me up for the first few, but enough to incorporate into my dreams this sensation…