Physical Challenges

When I was a kid, I used to watch a children's game show called "Double Dare" in which two teams of kids would take turns answering trivia questions. Sometimes, a team would get stumped and would pass their question to their opposing team by saying "dare". If the opposing team didn't know the answer, they would reply "double dare", at which point the original team could take a guess or perform a "physical challenge". The physical challenge was usually some sort of trick they had to perform in a few seconds, like try and land a checker on a checker board that is attached to your partner's head. Or they could be really gross, like having to dive face first and blindfolded into a bowl of whip cream, looking for a teething ring. Sounds kinda silly today, but as a kid I loved it!

I've noticed that many people who are in shape typically surround themselves with physical challenges. Whether it's riding a bike over a long distance, mountain climbing, or parachuting, many people in shape simply have a great time with their bodies. They are able to use them and do something they truly enjoy doing. Weighing over 300 pounds has been an excuse for me to not enjoy such things. Over the years, my hobbies have been more sedentary than active. Being a movie fan, I love sitting on my couch watching films. I also have a love for building plastic model kits, especially those which are science fiction in nature. Again, as much fun as these activities are for me, they don't exactly have any physical health benefits.

For a while I've considered getting more involved in activities which will help me get my body moving. Our church has an hiking group in which people get together and hike one of the countless trails we have in the Pacific Northwest. I was invited to join in on the latest hike yesterday and, with serious reservations, I accepted. I've been wanting to find ways to be more active, and hiking is something I've never really done as an adult. Of course my main concern was "can I do this?" The trail was going to take us to Aldridge Butte, a little-known area in the Columbia River Gorge. I did some research on this trail and found that it was a 3.2 mile round trip trail, listed as easy-moderate. Knowing full well that "easy-moderate" was a score not generated with a 320 pound person in mind, I braced myself for the very real possibility that I was not going to be able to overcome this physical challenge. When we parked at the bottom of the gorge and I looked up to see where we were going, I realized this was going to be a hell of a steep climb, something I wasn't remotely used to. Nevertheless, I psyched myself up and I was determined to get to the top.

We had to walk up a gravel road just to get to the trail head, and by that point I was already breathing heavily. The trail itself was completely shaded by trees, but that didn't matter to my body which was producing so much sweat that my entire shirt, sleeves and all, was soaked. By about 1/3 of the way up the trail, I looked like I had taken a shower with my clothes on. Did I mention that not another single person in our group even broke a sweat? About 3/4 of the way up the trail, our climb went from moderately steep to very steep. I pushed and pushed and pushed as much as I could. Every time I looked ahead and saw more trail, I'd hear a voice say "is it much farther Papa Smurf?" It was about this point that someone in our group shared with me the secret of a hike: don't focus on the past or the future, but focus on the here and now. With that in mind, my exhausted self focused on whatever it could. The trees. The sounds of the birds. The back of the shoes of the person walking in front of me. The rocks I was walking over. An hour later after we started, we reached our destination.

My God, I had never seen such a sight. The Columbia River Gorge is a place I have been many, many times in my life. I thought I had seen it all. But all of the views I have ever seen were achieved through the action of driving to viewing points. Suddenly, after spending an hour breathing so hard that my lungs hurt, I was looking at a site that had never looked so awesome. With all of the sweat in my clothes, the bug spray trying to drip into my eyes, and the achy muscles I had all over my body, I felt more exhilarated than I had felt in years. I looked out onto the beautiful canyon below which stretched for miles and miles in both directions for what felt like the first time. My friend Lynn asked me how I was doing, and I turned to her with what must have been a big-ass grin on my face and said, "I did this." Afterwards, we posed for pictures, noticed how tiny our cars looked from our vantage point, and then spent the next 40 minutes hiking our way back down to them.

For the rest of the day, I was glowing. I also felt challenged. I immediately decided that one day, perhaps when I've dropped another 50 pounds, I will return to this same trail and see if I can do it better. For now, I'll continue to bask in the fact that I climbed 1100 feet in just over 1 1/2 miles in one hour, and I didn't quit. And I conquered a great physical challenge.