Today (I wrote this text on the 25th of March, 2025), I will try to explain how to change a relaxing walk into a survival.
If you read my blog regularly, my Dear Friend, you will undoubtedly know how I changed a relaxing walk into a survival. The fact is that between October 2015 and the Fall/Winter season of 2021, I was regularly doing street photography and dressing adequately for the weather. If it was hot, I was wearing a T-shirt and shorts. When it was cold, I wore a winter cap, jacket, jeans, and warm shoes. Still, since the Fall/Winter season of 2021, I started to expose my body to cold by walking in summer clothes in frigid temperatures. It was the first step of changing a relaxing walk into a survival. This transformation was a journey of self-discovery and pushing my limits, and it was not always easy.
But the rewards of personal growth and resilience were worth it.
The second step came almost three years later (on the 18th of August, 2024, to be more precise). It was a day when I started rucking. Rucking is walking with additional weights in a rucksack. I started from 10 kg (22 lbs.). Today, I have a barbell plate weighing 30 kg (66 lbs.) Over six months, I increased the weight in my backpack three times. Undoubtedly, my subsequent increases won’t be as spectacular as during the first six months. Still, the fact is that walking in summer clothes in frigid temperatures with a 30 kg rucksack on my back and shoulders is the main thing that changed my relaxing photo walks into survival.
Sometimes, while walking, I want to leave my backpack, order a warm taxi, and return home as soon as possible.
Luckily, for today, I’ve never done such a thing. Even if exposing my body to cold and walking with 30 kg in a rucksack hurts, I know I want to be tough and finish my walk as planned. From the chronicling duty, I will add that today it was 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit), and I was walking for two hours, taking 11.5k steps. This journey of personal growth through discomfort is truly motivating, and it’s this growth that keeps me going, even when it’s tough.
