VO2 Max, Music, Parties and Effortless Weight Loss

You would be excused for thinking that Verbier was nothing but sybaritic indulgence. I assure you, nothing could be further from the truth. To begin with, the tramp’s motive in having the WLW is not just to visit music festivals, but also to be in touch with nature in an active way without, of course, being trapped in the claustrophobic life (as he sees it, having grown up in one) of a village. The days therefore alternate between long (3 hour) workouts in a gym (one of the challenges being to find a good gym in the middle of nowhere – so far, while not always easy, this has not been a problem) and serious hiking. While the initial walk through downtown Verbier was not to the tramp’s liking, the hikes were. It is hard to imagine how different the hikes in Verbier are to those in Schwarzenberg. To begin with they are much higher: Verbier itself is 1300m and the walks can go to over 3000m – significantly higher than Kanisfluh and, of course, well above the tree line. Very little walking is under cover of trees or forests even at the beginning of the walk (except for the 20 minutes to Medran where one catches a cable car up before beginning serious ascents). Every day hiking day lasted at least 4 hours and more often 7 or 8. This demanded the usual hearty breakfast (porridge with flax seed for the trampess; eggs, flax seed bananas, knaeckerbrot with nut butter for the tramp), plus nuts and a little chocolate for a snack and then back to the WLW for a proper meal with a light supper rather sooner than might ordinarily be expected (after all, one could not go to bed late without prejudicing the next days big work out or walk). Despite huge breakfasts, snacks and late, but fulsome lunches, the trampess has noticed that the scale reports a continuing downward trend: one could consider this effortless weight loss. Not because there is no effort in climbing a mountain, I assure you there is, but because it is done for the sheer joy of being part of a spectacular landscape. It just happens that it burns calories in a way that only 10 hours in a gym could - and who, tell me who, wants to do that??!!

The hikes were as varied as one can imagine: along an aqueduct through fields, across marsh, over rocky terrain with wild flowers pushing through everywhere, across glacial ice, up steep granite and gravel slides that may well be wide pistes in the winter, along dirt roads that provided the perfect excitement for mountain cyclists, and along very narrow, tricky paths with big drops on one side that happily did not (or rather would have provided too much excitement for even the most experienced cyclists, and therefore were safe for tramps). The inclines varied as well: sometimes the gradient was pleasant, whether up or down hill, sometimes as unrelenting as Kanisfluh but with the psychological disadvantage of the view being so open, that there was no disguising just how long that upward path was. Further interest was provided by the fact that the maps were not always very accurate, and that the same names recurred in different locations. As your tramp and trampess became more knowledgeable, they were able to take a view of the maps, which enabled them to override these small, but troubling, inaccuracies. Dear reader, the hikes are magnificent and the trampess rued the days when gym was the order of the day (except of course for the shower which was most welcome) except that the first day at Biosport caused a breakthrough in the trampess’s understanding of the tramp’s strange loss of energy at Kanisfluh.

The trampess, as usual, began with an half hour workout on the treadmill at the usual rate of 10k/hr. Not feeling as perky as usual, I wondered how I would fare when increasing the speed to 12k. Just as your trampess was suffering these gloomy thoughts, the tramps reminded her that we were at a much higher altitude than in Bezau and that she should take that into account in training (he emphatically intoned that he would not being doing more than a 5 minute warm up – the tramp being well known to grab any excuse to avoid a hard cardio workout). Lightning struck! It is all about VO2 max and altitude. The tramp suffered from sleep apnoea that went undiagnosed for some time (ultimately restricting his lung capacity), he does not like cardio training, he does not like to run and he is not happy at altitude. The trampess works hard at cardio (though she loves it almost as much as the tramp), ran the marathon last year and is (at least at the altitudes she has been to) indifferent to altitude. Voila – the tramp simply needs to build his VO2 max to be able to sustain the effort for Kanisfluh! Breaking the news gently to the tramp over one of her best culinary efforts, the trampess explained her theory and, more to the point, the prescription for cure. The tramp was stunned. It was too logical, too inescapably logical. But after a deep sigh, he replied that climbing in Verbier was enough altitude training, he would be unduly stressed if he began long efforts on the treadmill as well. He is resigned to the trampess’s faster ascents and to the fact that at sea level, he may just have to step on the treadmill – or take up running.

The arrival of more friends for concerts inevitably meant parties: lunch parties before concerts, lunch parties after morning concerts, parties after evening concerts. The food was excellent, the wine and champagne abundant and the puddings too delicious to resist (happily, often raspberries, strawberries or a mixture, but occasionally something decadent and very chocolatey,). Mostly though, it was the company that made the event: serious music lovers and serious music makers. One evening in particular was memorable both for what it took to arrive and what was there once we did. The Smart, while a zippy little vehicle, has only one principal disadvantage: it only holds 2. The night after the Brendel concert, your tramp and trampess were invited to a party through the grace of French friends who had come for the concert of a young prodigy of whom they are patrons and who is studying with Brendel. Our friend decided that the sensible course was to leap into the Smart with the tramp and let the trampess come with his wife and driver (the wife had been there before and he was confident she would find the way). The tramp, always solicitous of the trampess, suggested they wait and allow us to follow but our French friend shares some similarities to the trampess in his eagerness to set out, so the men forged ahead and the women followed. Except, of course, they didn’t. We went too far and then returned but all the way back to where we had started (missing the turing a second time). After a few phone calls and some incredulous sputtering, we caught up to the tramp and friend. And then the trek began (the trampess was not in her walking shoes!). You might have thought, dear reader, that the cars had taken us to our destination, but you would have been wrong. They took us to the foothills: the driveway still had to be climbed. Some driveways in Verbier are very short; others, of which this was one, up in the hills above Verbier, are actually quite long. The trampess was delighted that instead of wearing the 4” Armani stilettos that she really, really wanted to wear, she wore the sensible little flatties that saw her up the hill without too much difficulty. The trek was worth it: a magnificent chalet, old beams, big rooms, books everywhere, a welcoming host and hostess and, of course, le tout Verbier, including Brendels (pere et fils) and other distinguished musicians. A magnificent dinner followed and eventually, and I do mean eventually, the tramp, trampess, and friends left – fortunately driven down by one of the many drivers assigned to taking weary party goers down to their cars!

The next day should have been a 7 hour hike to make up for the magnificence of the previous evening but it was not. The young prodigy was performing with Brendel fils in the church. Afterwards there was, as you have now come to expect, a splendid lunch party, with prodigy, patrons, a few musicians and a few locals, including our hosts from last night. Again, a long delicious lunch and then a gradual pulling away. Our French friends drove us down to Le Chable where we had moved the WLW and the Smart before breakfast (and then taken the cable car up) in order not to cause a major traffic jam in the afternoon when it came time to de-camp for Garmisch. The WLW can handle the alpine roads, but not at a speed the local Porsches (or even Volvos) appreciate. To be stuck behind the WLW with no possibility of passing on a long and winding road might by many be considered an invitation to an accident. The tramp does not like to issue such invitations.