Trail Safe Three-Pronged Self-Defense

The first time I did Mammoth—a race way beyond my limited ability at that time—when I got to the bottom of the mountain, it was all I could do to get off the bike, sit down, and allow my blood chemistry to return to normal. Then I packed up my bike, went back to the hotel, and slept like a stone for about five hours. I had just experienced 100 percent awareness for about seven minutes.

My fatigue did not result just from the physical exertion of the race. I had also expended an incredible amount of mental energy. Total awareness while participating in any outdoor activity requires both physical and mental energy. Total awareness makes your body and your brain tired. Total awareness uses energy. And energy is a limited resource. In order to raise our awareness of our environment, we need to override our own filtering system. But that requires energy, both physical and mental.

We can best utilize our energy by reprogramming our filters to serve us rather than blind us. Reprogramming of filters is accomplished by first by becoming more cognizant of our awareness and then by learning to tailor our awareness to the given situation.

How do we become more cognizant of our awareness? This question isn't one of those Zen conundrums. Quite simply, we become more cognizant of our awareness in the same way we become more cognizant of anything: by paying attention to it. Remember the first time you went on a hike with a real woods person; remember how amazed you were at how much that person saw; remember seeing all the flora and fauna that were previously invisible to you. And recall the next time you went hiking in the same area and how much more you saw just because you paid attention to it.

Next time you go for a walk down a trail, or are out on a run, stop and ask yourself, "What am I aware of; what's going on around me?" Don't make it a long stop. It's more of a quick bulletin. Then move on. In about 15 minutes or so, do it again. Now think about what you're doing here. You're telling your brain that paying attention to your environment is important. A brain is a quick study. If you explain to it what you actually want it to do, you'll be surprised at how quickly it picks up on it. Therefore, the first part of the reprogramming process is letting your brain know what's important to you.

You've now told your brain that you want it to pay attention to your environment. But remember that heightened awareness takes more energy and you may need that energy for other tasks. You actually want your brain to shift gears from one level of awareness to another, whenever the environment around you changes. That way you can keep yourself at the lowest, safe level of awareness for as long as possible and use as little energy as possible.

You can accomplish this quick switch in gears by giving your brain a shortcut, a mnemonic device to assist you so that you don't expend precious energy every time a change in your environment occurs. Let's go back to our analogy of the brain as a computer. Database searches work most effectively when the search criteria is as specific and restricted as possible, right? When we say we need "increased awareness," our brain is forced to perform an extremely complex search. Suppose, though, we predefine different states of awareness, then assign each of those states of awareness a specific name or, in our case, a color?