The power of experience in the winter of your life: when seniors show us the way!
Heading for Everest at 73
This Sunday the cherry trees start to bloom, Marc Batard did a Rabit test in the sand hills of the Fontainebleau forest, imagining that he was climbing the slopes of Nuptse and Everest, which he is going to conquer 40 years after his feat of climbing without oxygen, in less than 24 hours solo with a miserable energy bar in his pocket!
Marc Batard is a French mountaineer, lecturer and painter, born on November 22, 1951 in Villeneuve-sur-Lot. He is best known for having made the first solo ascent of Everest without oxygen in less than 24 hours.
Youth
At the age of 18, he discovered the high mountains. He began mountaineering in the Pyrenees, in Luchon. Despite his small stature (1.67 m and 55 kg), he had an extraordinary physique that placed him above the average of other great mountaineers. With only two years of mountaineering behind him, he ranked 22nd out of 45 places available for the 200 candidates in the aspiring guide competition. His technical skill and his very strong endurance enabled him to achieve this performance[1].
Records
At the age of 23, Batard was the youngest mountaineer to climb an 8,000-meter peak without oxygen: Gasherbrum II (8,035 meters). He became a guide and embarked on a series of exploits, particularly in the Himalayas. He achieved firsts in terms of speed of ascent, such as on April 27, 1988, when he climbed the southwestern pillar of Makalu (8,481 meters) solo and in 18 hours, Cho Oyu (8,200 meters) in 19 hours[1].
On September 26, 1988, he climbed Everest solo without oxygen in 22 hours and 29 minutes from the South Face base camp[1]. As such, he is listed in the Guinness Book as the first mountaineer to climb Everest in less than 24 hours. During this ascent, he lost eight kilograms, and on the descent weighed only 46 kilos for a starting weight of 54 kilos, he considers that he was at the extreme limit of his body[2]. He is nicknamed the sprinter of Everest[3]. In the same year, 1988, and in the space of 9 months, he climbed four peaks over 8,000 meters without oxygen and reached the Dhaulagiri (8,167 meters) in winter.
This time he opened a new route, avoiding the dangerous ice waterfall, with female rope access technicians to finish equipping this route designed 5 years ago, which will finally allow enthusiasts to climb safely without killing their dream of climbing.
This team of old timers (Marc, 73, and Gérard, 78), both guides, will keep the joy, the passion and that touch of madness that so many of us lack.
His VO2max will soon be revealed to you, but he already has a super cardiac reserve with a maximum heart rate of 173 bpm; this suggests a new equation to me for maximum heart rate = maximum heart rate = age + 100 = 173!🙃
The world upside down: the older I get, the more my maximum heart rate increases!
His minimum HR for a day on his feet is 63 bpm, so that already gives him a good reserve HRmax (173-63).
Marc is young in his metabolism and wise in his ability to regulate his sensations: easy, medium, hard of the HARE perfectly: his governance score is top notch!
And yet, in the imagination: the winter of life is scary and this afternoon, in the village, they burned Mr. Carnival, who was so kind to the birds (see photo) and who was sacrificed on the altar of tradition. Yes, Mr. Carnival symbolizes the difficulties and negativity of winter, like the cold, sadness and gloom that is burned!
I say that our so-called “modern” societies must revive the tradition of “seniority”, which refers to the respect and consideration given to older people as individuals with experience and wisdom. It also encompasses recognition of their role in society and the way in which their contribution to the community is valued.
This wisdom of the body in action must be worked on, unlike the search for past performance, and it is time to embark on training with no constraints other than deciding which sensation register I am going to go for in the present moment. This quest for the moment is what we propose to help you rediscover by giving you a program adapted to your level of sensation acuity and your VO2max and power reserve.
Marc climbed these extremely steep sand dunes thanks to muscle power maintained by an active life that was not necessarily sporty but supported by outings in the mountains, more or less technical, but above all in a joyful and good-humored way.
So yes, thanks to this blog, the sadness of that burned Mr. Carnival with his bird perched on him, I find the joy of continuing my research in the field of personalized training science.
As such, to definitively chase away my carnival-like sadness, I present to you the discovery of the week:
A 30-30 high-sensation session - easy (see figure 1) is identical in terms of watts, VO2, accumulated lactate (around 14 mM) to that at 100-50% of vVO2max at controlled power (figure 2).
And the icing on the cake is that it allows some people to recover more thanks to a more refined management of active recovery! This 30-30 session based on feeling is physiologically very intense and long. Athletes can reach 30 repetitions, often compared to 20 with the imposed power, which is nevertheless similar with the self-managed “hard” feeling.
This 3°-30 session, based on the sensation that we are presenting here on the bike, should be done in a race as the final session of the marathon week (on Monday, for example)!
In conclusion: So it's not a question of waiting until you're 70 to become a senior in the management of your energy and power, you can gain years by embarking on training, a marathon in a jersey and without a net other than that of looking AFTER the race at your speed and HR curve and relating them to how you felt on the course.
But don't jump the gun: you can start transforming your usual sessions into sessions based on sensations, or even better, follow our sessions that will get you out of your habits that are no longer helping you progress and...
Have a good week
Burn your habits and it won't be sad!
