Chuck Jeager was the first to break the sound barrier in his Bell - X1 in 1947. Joe Kittinger upstaged him some years later by breaking it with his own body. He freefall parachuted from 19 miles above the Earth. Both men related how it felt to go faster than the speed of sound. Their respective rides each became "as smooth as a baby`s bottom".
The great British squash player, Jonah Barrington, talked often about a different kind of barrier. The pain barrier. He had a right to be heard on this matter. Back in the Sixties, he was probably the most highly trained athlete alive.
There is a proven other side of the sound barrier. But what`s this about the pain barrier, Jonah? For me there is no "smooth" other side where the pain stops. If I push physical exercise hard enough, it just hurts more and more, until the point of collapse. And his trainer, Bomber Harris, may remember. He pushed me right up to my barrier on several occasions back then. My father even paid him money for it.
So I`m not quite in Jonah`s league for tenacity in the face of pain. But I had hoped that his influence had rubbed off on me. And would stand me in good stead after my accident in 2004, when I broke my neck and came within a whisker of severing my spinal cord. But a strange habit has emerged in me this last winter. Heading uphill on snowshoes with weighty rucksack, and in deep snow, I`ve growled animal noises to pull me up those last few painful metres. Some of the noises I`ve come out with have been alarming, and given cause to wonder whether the demon-possessed in Jesus` time were just ardent hillgoers trying to squeeze the last calorie out of themselves.
But even growling doesn`t always do the trick. Last weekend I gave up 200 horizontal metres before my destination. It wasn`t that I lacked motivation. I`d driven two hours to get to the start in Weisstannental, and waded upwards for double that to reach Näserina.
The smooth other side of the pain barrier? I`m not there yet, Jonah.