I am sore, but satisfied on this bitterly cold morning, with a fire blazing and warming it up inside to counter the negative digits in the temperature outside. I enjoyed coffee by the fire as I meditated, then read more of The Outsider, by Colin Wilson, a book which is delighting and intriguing me the more I delve into it—it’s truly an amazing work, and I’m excited to have discovered a new author to read, and a prolific one, too.

This all came about after picking up an old copy of The Philosopher’s Stone off of the book exchange shelf at the Ten Sleep Library, for which I’m sure I exchanged a hunk of pop culture junk not worth a thousandth of what this (out of print) novel is worth. It has set me off on another long companionship with an author I appreciate, much as my seemingly random purchase years ago of a book by Reginald Ray at a used bookstore in Wisconsin started my exploration of everything Chögyam Trungpa had ever written, an experience that also played a significant role in me finally finding the ladder, and then managing, ever so slowly, to pull myself rung by grueling rung out of the pit of deep depression and despair that I’d been paddling around in, barely staying afloat at times, for more than a decade.

Where I am now, to discover another incredibly perceptive and far-ranging writer/thinker who has explored a wide range of pertinent topics about the nature of being human and the big questions that arise surrounding this state of being throughout his long and illustrious career, is an exciting development, to say the least. I struggle these days to find books that truly engage me—as I’ve observed before, the more familiar a person becomes with a practice (any practice) and the longer they are a participant in it, the harder it becomes to find those experiences within that practice that really connect with them, hold their attention, and absorb them fully.

For me, it’s the same with climbing—when I started, any old choss pile or road cut would do, but now, knowing what quality rock climbing is, I prefer not to climb on less-than-stellar rock. Such is life, such is questing for the ever-better experience and growth within oneself.

I reminded myself of this yesterday as I plunged into my daylong double workout, after an awesome bouldering session in which I was suddenly able to do the moves, and then put together, one of my “ultimate problems,” one that had been thwarting me since day one of the training this winter. Big moves, slopers, pinches, one-arm power, balance—it had all of these elements. After that, I declared to my bouldering partner, “Now, if I could just do this dyno, my day would be complete.” Then I hopped on the wall, and did the dyno, making us both laugh. I played on other problems for a time, and then came in to face the workout.

Improvement every week has been my experience, and yesterday didn’t disappoint—but after the power endurance pull-up fest, I fell into the mind trap of Team Whiny Baby (TWB). TWB came about a few years ago during a climbing trip in Greece, where a number of us discovered our tendencies to turn into whiny babies when we got tired out climbing. I joked that we’d make a commercial like the Hair Club for Men commercial—“Remember, not only am I the creator of Team Whiny Baby, but I’m also a member.”

In my head yesterday, little TWB voices started popping up saying helpful things like, “You don’t need to do this core workout today—you could just save it for tomorrow, or not do it at all this week,” and “Maybe you should just do half of this workout today, since you’re doing so much.” But, as I always think and figure to myself, those exercises that prompt these types of cop-out thoughts are probably the ones that I need the most—the ones I dread and struggle through and that make me hurt. The ones that aren’t as challenging or that I find sort of fun are probably the areas in which I’m already stronger than the TWB-thought-prompting segments of training, which is why they don’t bring the TWB thoughts up.

As usual, the big boss within won out over the TWB member, reminding li’l old TWB person that she, too, would be upset with herself if she didn’t finish her workout, even if she didn’t enjoy the process. And that today would be that much nicer, as would the following days, if she did everything yesterday, so that she could enjoy a long period of much-needed rest. Thank you, big boss. Isn’t it funny how we all within ourselves have multiple personas like this—the warring parts, one that wants the bada@# workout to be done in its entirety, and one that argues for leniency?

All it took, really, was pushing through the TWB-inducing areas of the workout to get me to do the rest of it. And since I always put the hardest, most dreaded parts of every workout first, this helps—because once I’ve put these portions of training behind me, and I move into the more fun, less tortuous parts of the workout, I’m happy to be doing them and really happy to be done with the others, instead of feeling them still looming before me with their threat of bodily pain and panting. I finished the workout with some soothing stretching, feeling wonderful to have accomplished it all, and armed with the knowledge that I would thoroughly enjoy my days off—and the resultant feelings of recovery by Saturday’s competition.