Well, that was a lifetime ago. In my new life, I am trying everything. I thought I hated running, turns out I kind of enjoy it. The era of "nope" is gone. I am in the era of experiencing as much of the world as possible and hiking seems like the kind of thing world-experiencers(I know this is not a word)would be down to try. I do not have hiking shoes, but I do have my running/outdoor shoes. I am not sure what one typically hikes in, or what hiking type people carry around in their neat backpacks. I do not know anything about hiking. People take a lot of pictures, and look like they have not showered in a few days, and that is the extent of my knowledge. I typically think of hiking as camping to a whole other level and I have a deep seeded hatred for camping. The people in my life who enjoy hiking seem like perfectly reasonable human people, so it cannot be all crazy, right? Okay, can I just say this here: nature kind of freaks me out. There are things that grow in the wild that seem to exist just to make people itchy and red. Who has time for that nonsense? People like study that stuff. People know this tree from that tree and that plant from that plant. I am over here like, well that's a tree and it provides me shade when I want to read outside. That is where my basic knowledge of nature ends. Never mind that I got my wilderness survival Merit Badge, and a few other nature related Merit Badges at Boy Scout Camp. I also got a Merit Badge for like wood carving and other nonsense. What I mean to say is that I could not survive in the world if I was suddenly thrown into a situation where I had to. Nature is freaky plain and simple.
Okay, I have veered far away from sanity here. Allow me to reel myself in. Martina and I got ourselves to the general vicinity of Dragoon Gulch, which is the name of the series of trails we would be ascending and if we were lucky, descending. Before we began, we made the decision that we would take the hardest way up the hill. We were feeling confident after last week's hike and if I am being totally honest, I was a little cocky. I mean, I could climb up ANYTHING after tackling that area of Sacramento last week. I HAD THIS! We followed a series of arrows pointing us to the start of the trail and we headed off. It was all petty straight forward at first. The trails appeared to be fairly busy, but it was a gorgeous day, so that made a certain amount of sense. People were jobbing, walking, riding bikes and many people were out there with their dogs. It is a really stunning sight, but fires look pretty too and they do serious damage. I would not be fooled by the gorgeous scenery. I was still on the look out for plants that want to cause me pain. Eventually we reached our first decision. The path split into two ways, but they were not labeled as EASY and HARD. What were we to do? As luck would have it, a woman came through who could tell we were confused and told us which one was difficult and which one was not. The steep and strenuous path was shorter, but provided quite a work out. Ultimately we decided we would head up the steep way and down the other way.
It did not take very long on our way up the steep trail for me to rethink this entire endeavor! I was sweaty, breathing incredibly hard and my entire lower body was hurting. Wait, people do this for fun?? How is that even possible? I wanted to quit. As I thought about quitting I realized, I could not quit. On a hike, you have two options: Keep moving forward, or head back down. There is no quit on a hike. On the treadmill, I can easily just quit. I can hit stop and go home. On the side of the hill, I could not just sit down and quit. I could keep moving forward, facing my fears, conquering my self doubt and getting that picture at the top, or I could admit defeat and slink down the side of the hill, but I could not quit. With Martina's encouraging words, I knew I could not go back down. I had to press on, so on we went. As we conquered more of the hill, my heart was pounding about as hard as I can ever remember and Martina and I started talking about some of our health goals. I said a big one of mine was to get to a place where I was not winded walking up and down the stairs in our apartment. I realize there are people who can walk up or down a flight of stairs and not feel winded. I do not understand how that works. I have spent my entire life feeling winded and I realize that a big part of this journey is getting myself to a place where it takes serious actual activity to leave me winded. After two rest stops for me to catch my breath, Martina and I arrived at the top of the hill. I did it! I did something I had never really done before. Here was another thing I could hang my hat on over the last year. Of course, this was not really about making it up the side of a hill for a picture, although I got my picture. This was really about being in a place mentally where I felt like I could do it. I am sure a year ago or two years ago, I could have made it up the side of this hill, it is not like it is Mount Olympus or something, but I would have never BELIEVED I could have climbed it. I never would have attempted it. I would have just assumed I was too fat and never would have thought of it as something for us to do.
3 months into the year and I am doing many things I have never done before. I ran for 10 minutes nonstop, then I ran for 15 minutes nonstop. I walked over 3 miles last week, and in a week, I went from riding a bike 3 miles in 15 minutes to 4 miles in 15 minutes. This weekend I willingly hiked up a hill the most strenuous way to hike up it. As we drove up to the Vineyard for our wine tasting, we realized there were other places to hike and made note of them so we can go back! I am not saying I am going to train to be a legitimate hiking type person with the backpack and the nature knowledge, but I know that it is hard work that is fun and gives me a great work out. It allows me to look at something gorgeous while still being active. Many people might read this post and just think "duh" and that is perfectly fine. It probably is "duh" that hiking is fun. As someone who is perfectly content to stay inside and watch movies or read all day, this is not a "duh" situation. I have never loved the nature scene. I had a great time on Sunday and am definitely going to be looking to do more hiking in my life.
I have been at this for almost a year now and am learning so much about myself. I am still not happy with the physical change I see in myself. I see pictures of people who have lost as much weight as I have, and they look drastically different. I do not look drastically different. I look different yes, but it does not feel drastic, but I keep believing it will come. Where the change is drastic, it my attitude. I want to be out in the world now. I want to try new things. I want to say yes and I am saying yes. On the side of that hill, never once did I think someone was looking at me and judging me for being a fat guy breathing heavy. Never once did I think someone was looking at me and thinking I was not going to make it up the hill. This is a huge deal for me. The only thing I can do now, is keep looking forward and finding the next challenge!
