Here's my technique...
Cause I really REALLY love to have fun.
I start, as everyone, in the bar/pub/cafeteria/square talking and laughing with everyone - GREAT time, here we go to do something stupid with everyone who is stupid enough to do it - but heaven forbid if anyone says that.
Then everyone goes and I wish good luck... right, like if I look stupid... not that they are, mind you - is just that I wonder.. er... do they know they CAN do this ANYTIME they want? well... I rumble...
As I was saying, sometimes I even wave good bye with a charming wink... "loosers", again, not that they are, there's a lot of fun in exercise, but I don't think there's any in exageration.
In a few sundays I go out with some sporty friends to do some heavy BTT (biking), with really expensive bikes, heart control rist watches, GPS and isotonic drinks... altough I tend to stand out... I'm one that does not take the heart reat control rist watch, and it's easy to ignore the remarks they make in my 4x4 SUV... or 125 cc's desert motor bike.
You see, the part I like is the one where you don't risk your bones, it's the one where you rest them... there are limits, and I knew most of them at age 25 (31 and counting... not sure in which direction though).
The point is, I too arrive in time to what I like best, the "bar/pub/cafeteria/square talking and laughing with everyone" one, and to this date, no one ever looked down on me saying "cheater"... for they know one of my mottos: "work smarter, not harder"... it took me 25 years to earn my right to hang loose, out of experience, not lazyness.
They - my close friends - also know I only like one kind of sports: one that leaves me almost for dead and giving all I have for some rest and sleep, but one that makes me wake up the following morning wanting to do the exact same thing, and that may or may not include tiring yourself till you drop - for me it HAS to include adrenalin or CHI buildup.
That's called having fun, nothing to do with sports, or everything for that matter. I think I could run a marathon, probably, but it's not that I don't have the muscles/cardio, it's that I really don't have the patience... I've done your 4 days with no sleep, two weeks with no food, 1 and a half turn around the world with no money, fighting championships european and world titles, only to rebel... I know what drives a hicker to Everest even after loosing friends or limbs, knowing that will - luckily - stop you from loosing and get you there all the same - sometimes you DO need to risk it all, sometimes it's just plain stupid to risk anything at all.
Those who go to the 8 km Summit know what they want, and it's not "getting there", it's "GETTING there"... if they didn't, they would pay with their lives.
I guess what I'm trying to say, in another long LONG text (exercizing fingers here) is that people don't need an excuse, they need a motive, a reason... a passion. Then they become cats, not sheeps.
Kind Regards,
AMR
http://www.alvaromrocha.com