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It is my 600th post. I began this blog in 2019 and finally, I have written 600 posts. That means I have written nearly 1000 posts together with my other blog Omi-merchant’s Way of Sustainable Prosperity.
It wasn’t to commemorate the 600th post, but I ended up climbing Mt. Watamuki again on Saturday, the 15th.
Yes, the 15th of the month and the day to visit the main shrine. Every 1st and the 15th of the month we visit a shrine in Japan and I climbed the mountain on October 1st to visit the shrine at the summit.
This time, it didn’t necessarily mean to visit the shrine but I climbed the mountain to attend an event held at the summit.
The children( from elementary school to high school) in our town wrote messages to the future generation and put them in time capsules like these in the photo and buried them
in a tower called the tower of youth on the mountaintop. They will stay there for 50 years to be opened by future generations.
In order to attend this ceremony, I had to climb the mountain without taking breaks. The ceremony was held at 10:30 in the morning, but I had to take part in a recycling activity of PTA that morning and by the time I finished it and got to the mountain foot, it was already 9 am. That meant I had to climb the mountain in one hour and 15 minutes( We usually arrive 10 to 15 minutes before in Japan).
The last time I climbed here, it took me one hour and 40 minutes, and I didn’t take many breaks, only 3 or 4 times and 5 minutes each. Usually, it is supposed to take about two hours and 30 minutes, that is what it says on the guide site.
To get to the summit in one hour and 15 minutes means doing it in half of the average time. I had to keep walking without taking any breaks. I couldn’t run because trail running was forbidden here since it is a sacred mountain.
I couldn’t have run anyway, walking up was hard enough. Yes, it was like running a marathon. It was the hardest hiking ever. I have done quite a bit of hiking, but never nonstop walking uphill like this. I was out of breath many times and I really wanted to rest, so I did, I had to, but only for 10 seconds. My breath wasn’t settled yet, but I had to keep going. This time I had a time limit and it wasn’t to do with just my willpower, I had to keep my appointment.
This is the kind of accountability Tonny Robbins is talking about, isn’t it? If you make a promise to others, you have no choice but to do it.
It ended up being another Kanreki challenge, you know the 60-year-old challenge. It was not as hard as Biwaichi but was probably as hard as Hinoichi Nordic walking.
I said ultra-endurance sports weren’t good for longevity but doing them occasionally would be okay, as long as you limit your regular workout to zone 2 level. They certainly give you a fresh feeling.
Yama Nobori or Tozan, which mean mountain climbing is very popular in Japan and I think it is one of the main Shizenha biohacking activities in Japan. Even though we call it mountain climbing, it is more like hiking and doesn’t mean rock climbing. In Japan, the landscape is very different and we don’t have the type of hiking trails where you don’t necessarily aim to climb to the summit so much, when we do Yama Nobori we always aim to the top. There are a lot of low mountains up to 1000 meters(3281 feet)high, and they are pyramid-shaped with the top in the center. We always climb to the top but it isn’t so hard and we can mostly hike up the mountain without using our arms. In that sense, it is more like hiking, but in Japan, we distinguish between walking on flat land or hill and walking up to the mountain top. Hiking in Japan represents the former and the latter is usually called mountain climbing.
Up until now, I preferred walking on flat land, which is why I love Nordic walking, but I am getting to enjoy Yama Nobori, too. The sense of accomplishment you feel at the summit is incredible.
The view is fantastic.
I would like to do Yama Nobori more often this Autumn.
Anyway, it ended up being a great 600th post-celebration, and climbing up to the summit symbolizes the feeling of achievement even more. Well, my goal is to climb up the mountain in 50 years, at the age of 110, to attend the time capsule opening event.
The 500th Post: Bio-Hack Your Mind to Think like Centenarians
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