Running Nepal’s 3 Passes Trail takes you off the beaten mule path.
I pull myself upright after retching.
“Are you German-monking,” Dan calls from 20 yards ahead in an annoyingly chipper tone.
Some years ago, there was a popular TED talk by Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk. Google it. He teaches that happiness comes from gratefulness, and gratefulness comes from recognizing that the most valuable thing that can be given to you is this moment. This one. At this moment, what we have that is so valuable is the opportunity to enjoy, or at least the opportunity to learn from, a challenge. Dan and I have latched onto this mantra, and for years, have miss-called it “German-monking” (Brother David is actually Austrian). And as much as I am trying to do the enlightened thing, my let-me-just-wallow-in-my-pain, leave-me-to rot-on-the-trailside look I shoot back at him reveals that maybe, just for a moment, I’m not German-monking. I just want to stop. Just like on the ground and call it done.
By this time, we can’t have more than five miles to go. We’re over all three passes and nearing Namche, the end of our route. We should have cruised into the finish hours ago, but I have to stop and puke again.
Running the 3 Passes Trail is what drew Dan Patitucci and me to the Khumbu. For Dan, a hardened outdoor-sports photographer, of Interlaken, Switzerland, it’s his eighth time to Nepal’s Himalaya. For me, an avid trail runner, but comparatively a puppy when it comes to big mountains, it’s my first. He often comes up with these schemes, projects, objectives, things to teach me, and I’m typically game to go along with the experience. That’s how the relationship works, and how we ended up running in Nepal.
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