(photo by: Alison Violette)
Back in March when I first came to the decision to give this a try, I was feeling supremely confident! I mean, my goal was September… six months away! Well, here I am three months in and at the half way point. Here is a quick synopsis of where things stand.
1) I have felt great on the trail – better than I ever have in fact. This is attributed to several factors: hiking more often, yoga – lots and lots and lots of yoga, filling in the gaps by running and biking around the neighborhood, my surgery results being very positive and losing lots of weight!
2) My pace is still far off where it should be. I am hiking stronger and feeling better than I ever have on the trail (see above), but my pace has been off where it has to be. We’ve had some obstacles (namely – snow, snow and more snow) so I am interested to see where things will be at this summer with clearer trails and fairer weather. The short of it is that I just need to pick it up. No excuses.
3) Maintaining focus on training is very, very hard. Life has a funny way of throwing distractions and roadblocks at you. Many days it is easy to get home and say “Screw it I am not going for that run.” or “I don’t feel like getting out of bed early to go to yoga”. These past several weeks have been especially overflowing with many such distracting stressors which have caused me to fall off the wagon a bit. Despite that frustration, the first step is being aware it is happening. With the completion of a couple of major events and projects in the next couple of weeks, I should be able to get back on track in short order.
I’ve got the whole world in my hands!
4) Most importantly, I am still finding that with time on the trail comes a great amount of peace and solace. The mental, physical, psychological and spiritual challenges that come with hiking are only superseded by their rewards. Overdue timelines and missed summits are not raining on this parade. Spending time with my friends, meeting new people and sharing in these incredible outdoor experiences is a reward greater than the journey itself.
There is a lot of work ahead of me and I will be spending a lot of time out on the trails this summer, always with the eye on the prize. But I definitely won’t be forgetting to enjoy myself along the way!
Three more months to go…. yikes!
Pathway To The Presidentials 