Khaavren's Physical Fitness Routine to return to fighting trim: "The reader may recall that Khaavren had determined that, rather than permitting history to wash over him as if he were a piece of driftwood by the banks of the Laughing River, he would prepare himself to take an active part in it. He had further determined that he was in no condition to do anything useful; therefore, he reasoned, he must remedy this condition at once. He thus began to attempt to recover some of the form and physical situation he had enjoyed years before--driving his aged body (or, at any rate, what felt to him like an aged body) as hard as he could. He rose before dawn, and, before even so much as taking a glass of klava, he would slowly run through a series of motions he had learned of Aerich and which were designed to put his muscles into such a state that they could suffer certain abuse without being damaged--these were very slow actions, taking each joint in the body in turn and slowly causing it to extend, stretch, or turn; the result, though Khaavren didn't know this, was very similar to the motions and gyrations of an Issola snake-dancer. These motions and actions took rather more than half an hour, and when they were done, Khaavren took himself out of doors and ran in a regular route that took him some three miles to complete. We must say that he had begun by walking this route, and then, after some weeks, he had begun to trot through parts of it, and so on; but now he was running the entire distance, and indeed, was beginning to run it at a good speed. Having completed the run, he would pause long enough to drink a glass of water and another glass of a certain combination of fruit juices that he had learned of years before from Tazendra, who pretended it replenished resources of the body which running tended to consume. Then, having taken this sustenance, he would retire to the weapons room and there spend two hours running through the sword training that he had begun learning as a child, and that had never entirely deserted him. He would thrust, parry, advance, retreat, circle, and go through complex combinations and patterns that had been handed down from Tiassa swordsmen of antiquity, improved by practice in combat, refined by theoretical studies, and tempered by experience. To these traditional maneuvers, Khaavren, like the Tiassa he was, would add in his own techniques, taken from his observations of Aerich's coolness, Tazendra's aggressiveness, and Pel's ferocity. When finished with these exercises--and the reader must understand that, as Khaavren drove himself through these with all the enthusiasm of a Tiassa, he was by now exhausted and trembling in all of his parts--he was not yet done. Next came the part where he worked to make his muscles stronger. On certain days, he would work on lifting heavy objects; on other days, he would attempt to increase his flexibility by straining his various limbs to the limits of their movements. On other days, he would combine these activities. Often, his wife, Daro, would come to him when he concluded his regime and with her own hands rub and massage his muscles. Whether this aided Khaavren in his efforts to return his body to what he called "fighting trim" we cannot know; but there is no question that it was enjoyable for both of them. We should say that, when he had first begun to subject himself to this regimen, he had discovered in terms that left no room for doubt how far his physical state had deteriorated. He would quickly find himself covered with perspiration, and note that his breath was coming in gasps, and sometimes he could barely sustain himself upright for the trembling in his limbs; whereas at night it would seem as if he were, as he put it to himself, "trying to sleep in a pool of own aches and pains." But he was a Tiassa, and he had made a decision; nothing was going to shake his resolve. The more his body seemed to object to the treatment to which he subjected it, the more determined he was to do more. He played mental games with himself, saying that if he could push himself a little harder to-day, he would ease off to-morrow (which agreement with himself he would promptly break the next day), or else he would try to convince himself that it was easier than it had been the day before, or sometimes pretend that he was displaying his prowess before a host of admirers who had never seen such a display of strength and endurance, and were cheering him on. But, most of all, he simply gritted his teeth and carried on, pushing himself for no other reason than that he had decided to do so, and his self-love would permit no failure, no cessation, no easing up in the effort. In all, he would spend five hours at these activities, at the end of which time he would bathe and then break his fast--and break it well, for by this time he would have built up a prodigious hunger. He would drink more of Tazendra's juice combination, as well as eating hot bread, butter and certain fresh fish that the Countess caused to be brought to Whitecrest Manor directly from the piers. In addition, he would have kethna procured from smokehouses in South Adrilankha, and various vegetables that Daro, the Countess, pretended would help improve his hearing and eyesight. " The Lord of Castle Black, paperback, Chapter the Thirty-Sixth, pages 9-11.