Adventure Durability
Adventure is a muscle. If you stop using it, you lose it.
Not adventurous?
People often say they're "not adventurous." I don't think that's true. I think adventure is a bit like endurance. If you stop using it, you lose it.
Nobody expects to sit on the sofa for five years and then run a marathon. Yet many people expect to feel excited about exploring somewhere new after years of following exactly the same routines.
Adventure has muscles
Curiosity. Confidence. Comfort with uncertainty. The willingness to take the path you've never taken before. Like any muscles, they either grow or they weaken.
I never thought about this until I started building T-RUN. Originally, I travelled long distances looking for adventure. Mountains. National parks. Famous trails.
Then one day I realised something. The adventure wasn't far away. It had been there all along.
Hidden valleys. Forgotten forests. Ancient paths. Nature reserves just beyond the last tram stop. The only thing that had changed was me. I'd trained myself to notice them.
Hidden in plain sight
Earlier this year I spent several days exploring Vienna. Thousands of people. Parks full of walkers. Cyclists everywhere. Yet on many kilometres of forest trail I saw almost nobody running.
The trails weren't hidden. They simply weren't part of most people's mental map.
That made me wonder. Maybe the biggest barrier isn't fitness. Maybe it's adventure durability.
Adventure durability
Children have enormous adventure durability. Every path is interesting. Every hill is worth climbing. Every corner might hide something new.
Then life slowly replaces exploration with efficiency. We learn the quickest route to work. The same supermarket. The same coffee shop. The same holiday destination. Eventually we stop noticing alternatives.
Adventure hasn't disappeared. Our ability to recognise it has faded.
The good news is that durability can be rebuilt. It doesn't require flying across the world. It starts by taking a different street home. Walking through a woodland you've ignored for years. Following a trail instead of a pavement. Leaving the city for just an hour.
Rebuilding the habit
Every small adventure strengthens the habit. Every exploration expands the map in your head. Eventually something changes.
You stop asking, "Where can I find adventure?" Instead you start asking, "What have I been walking past all this time?"
That's the idea behind T-RUN. Not escaping your city. Rediscovering it.
Because the greatest adventures are often the ones hiding in plain sight. You just have to rebuild the durability to see them.
Adventure durability is one of the ideas at the heart of my next book, The Way of the Trail Runner.
