This is a bit out of the ordinary for this blog in that it is purely an exploration of the psychology of the three of us rather than an update as to what we are doing. However, it is about how we are doing, and there are, I think, enough of you out there who are interested in that topic that it is worthwhile posting. And as for the rest of you, you can just skip it!
The central question is how the experiences of the three of us differ from one another, or, to put it more simply: whether and why we are each having fun on the H2H.
It isn't an easy question to answer and each of us, I think, will have a different answer. I will give mine and also try to describe what I think has been going on for the other two, but I may very well be wrong. Russ and Sally, if you want to, feel free to post about if and how I have misunderstood you.
For me the answer is quite simple: yes, it has been fun. There have been some things that have not been fun (hiking in bad weather, interpersonal friction, some foot pain), but they have for me been definitely outweighed by all the things that have been fun. I get up each morning happy to hike; I have enjoyed almost every minute of every hike, even when the weather has been bad; in Russ and Sally I have two excellent hiking companions who are good people, as fit or fitter than I am, and with whom I get along far better than I would with almost anyone else; and most importantly I'm doing what I have planned and dreamed of for the last couple of years (my fundamental motivation). Add it all together, and yes, I'm definitely having fun.
For Russell, I think the answer is also yes, but with more qualifications. He has suffered more from foot and leg pain than I have, and he has also suffered more from the absence of the rest of his life (work, friends, home and what he does there), than I have. In addition, I think that it has taken him a while to identify a sufficient fundamental motivation (that which keeps him hiking day after day through good weather and bad), and I'll explain what I mean by this.
At first, I think Russell thought that the H2H would be a wonderful holiday He loves being outdoors, he loves exercise, he loves the mountains, and in addition he saw this as an opportunity to lose weight, reset his metabolic clock to age 21, and have normal sleep rhythms for an extended period for the first time in years (his work as an ER doc means that he works nights about a third of the time).
Furthermore he saw this as a chance to do something extraordinary -- something that he could be proud about for the rest of his life.
But what it wasn't was his dream. It was something I suggested that he thought would be a huge amount of fun to do with me, but he didn't take ownership of it in such a way as to make it his dream too. And that's absolutely OK, except that it left him without the same fundamental motivation that I have.
The problem is, Russell soon realized that the H2H isn't a holiday, at least not in the normal sense of the word as a time for relaxation when you can do what you want. It is an expedition, with all that that entails. For example, it entails doing what the "plan" (or perhaps more accurately, the expedition leader -- me -- decides) even when you don't feel like it and even when for you there would be other, better, options. It entails hiking some times even when the weather is awful, and even when you are in chronic pain, and even when you are tired and sick of hiking. It entails spending large amounts of time with other people who may be good people but are not your best friends, and who are also stressed and might at times irritate you (or you are irritated by them, which is not quite the same thing but which has much the same consequences). He discovered that an expedition is, frankly, a very difficult thing to do.
And in the face of this difficulty, I believe that Russ's original fundamental motivations began to crumble. He discovered that although he loves being outdoors hiking in the mountains, he doesn't love it enough to do it for several hours a day for five or six days a week and in the rain or when he is in pain. He realized that he could get most of the weight loss and metabolic reset benefits without hiking every day all day long. And as for doing something extraordinary: well, if you hike most of the time for four months across half of Europe, that is still extraordinary regardless of whether or not you walk every step of the way.
And so, as his original fundamental motivations crumbled, I think that it started to get more and more difficult for him to find the energy to get up and hike each day, particularly when the weather was bad or he was not feeling good.
However there was another motivation that I haven't mentioned so far, but that has, I believe, in the past couple of weeks become more and more clear to him: he doesn't want to let me down. He knows that doing the H2H is my dream, and that it would be difficult psychologically for me, as well as less safe, if I were to hike it alone. And underlying everything is that he loves his brother. And that, I think, has become his fundamental motivation. And I am truly moved and deeply grateful.
Pause.
So, does that mean that the H2H is now fun for Russell? No, not by itself, but I think it opens up the possibility of it being fun. When you don't know why you are doing a thing, or don't see a sufficient reason for doing it, it is very difficult for you to make the best of it, to find ways to enjoy yourself even in objectively crappy circumstances. I think Russell now knows why he is doing the H2H, and I hope that this (and various other changes, including a new -- fourth? -- set of boots :-) will allow him to enjoy himself more of the time.
And now to Sally. I think that Sally would also say that it has been fun, but I'm not sure. In many ways I believe that Sally has been travelling the same road as Russell: her initial fundamental motivations were I think similar to his, and have similarly and for similar reasons crumbled.
An additional difficulty for her has been sleep: she takes a long time to fall asleep and has difficulty sleeping if her room isn't dark. Since we have been sleeping fairly frequently in mountain huts, where night-time peace and quiet are the exception rather than the rule, and since it has been usually difficult or impossible to shut out the morning light, and lastly since we have been fairly consistently getting up early, she has been somewhat sleep deprived.
And, crucially, Sally doesn't have the same commitment to me that Russell has (and, by the way, there is absolutely no reason why she should). She does have that commitment to Russell, but for a couple of reasons this is a less satisfactory fundamental motivation for hiking the H2H.
First, she looks at Russell suffering (because of chronic pain), or not having fun (because the weather is bad), and she sees that it would be objectively better for him personally not to hike some days. Second, I think that she believes that the basis for his fundamental motivation is negative (guilt at the thought of letting me down), rather than positive (love), and so she thinks that he is doing what is bad for him for a bad reason.
The result: if the weather is bad she'll hike if Russell is hiking, in order to support him, but she doesn't like it at all and sees no other valid reason for doing so other than to support him (I think that she feels that if I'm dumb enough to go off hiking alone in the mountains, that is my business :-).
So, when the weather is good, as it has mostly been, then Sally is mostly having fun. But when it isn't, then she isn't. And I'm not sure that the good weather day good feelings are outweighing the bad weather day bad feelings in her overall assessment of her enjoyment or lack thereof of the H2H. I certainly hope they are, but I'm not sure.
I wish I knew of a way to help Sally find a more satisfactory fundamental motivation, but I suspect that I am not a good enough expedition leader for this.
Failing that, then the only way I see at present to make her feel better when the weather is bad would be to have us not hike, and that would require me either to abandon my dream of hiking the whole way from one house to the other, or to put that dream at risk (I talked about this at some length in the blog post from Oberstdorf, I think, but basically it boils down to the following: we have to get out of the high Alps before winter returns, and every day we delay increases the risk that we will not achieve this).
And I'm not willing to do this. I am willing to adjust our hikes when the weather is bad (i.e., by taking easier options or even cutting out a stage by taking a more direct route as we did a couple of days ago from Chindonne to Barme), but not to abandon or put at risk the dream.
As said, I may be wrong about some or all of the above, and maybe this is all just psycho-babble mumbo-jumbo that is way too complicated and unnecessary, but that is how I currently see it. Let's see if Russell and / or Sally set me straight!
And with that we return to our regularly scheduled programming....
