Same Hills, a Different Man

It was just in passing, during training. Mino said something like: in the evening we're going for a walk up Skalka. As if it were nothing at all.

I hadn't been on any hill since I finished school. Not Skalka, not anywhere. I couldn't imagine what that would mean, how hard it would be. But I had some idea — that's why I didn't much want to go. I went anyway.

Skalka near Medvedzie is a small hill below Javorový vrch. Kids go up it on a Sunday walk. By the time we got to it, I'd had enough. I wanted to turn around and go back. Mino just said: come a bit further. And I went — but really, just a bit.

It doesn't look like much. It's an ordinary hill, no mountain, no achievement worth talking about. But that's exactly what shows how hopeless my life was back then. How completely lost I was — in a body that didn't want to obey me, and in a head that couldn't imagine it could be any other way. This, and a lot more, is what the whole first half of the book is about.

The first entry from the smart scale I bought around then is from November 9, 2017: 106.5 kg. Between that evening on Skalka and that number lies half a year of grinding work.

That grind can't be summed up in a sentence about progress. It was a series of evenings when I didn't want to go, and I went. Just like that first one.