Happy Monday, everyone! I hope you had a fun and relaxing weekend.

   My weekend included a hike. A hike with a novel approach. At first, my hike may not seem novel at all. Long time readers know that I love to hike. In fact, my location was not even novel. I hiked a trail I have hiked and ran on many times over the years.

   So, what was so novel about it? Well, in many ways I am re-learning how to be a hiker. I have had several short hikes over the summer and early fall but I have had some challenges since I hiked a 14ner back in the summer of 2019. The few hikes I have been on since that time have been exhausting and frustrating. But yesterday, yesterday was a good hike. It was not long or particularly difficult compared to what I have done in the past but I felt like a champion. I loved yesterday.

    A quick backstory. I have not felt well for almost a year. This summer I hit a low point. I would become exhausted walking across a room. There were other problems as well. After a summer of testing it turned out that I had a sleep disorder and an iron deficiency. I can work with that. And with the help of my trainer, Mark, I have. Mark never lets me give up on myself and calls me out when I want to shy away from a challenge or revert back to old ways of thinking. So, when I met with him on Saturday he told me to “take a hike” so to speak. It’s what I need to do to rebuild my strength and endurance.

   The thing about re-starting an activity that you have done before is that you never start where you left off. There is a rebuilding process. In addition, if you are a woman or man “ of a certain age”, success may look different than it did a few years earlier. Now, I will state here and now that I have every intention of continuing to challenge myself and even get up another 14er. It is just going to look and feel different getting to that point. I need to be patient with myself, trust Mark, and trust the process. 

It is with that mindset that I felt incredibly free on my hike yesterday afternoon. It was a new beginning after overcoming some setbacks and I was feeling good. The old trail looked both familiar and fresh. It was a new journey. A chance to start again and see where I end up in nine month’s time. 

It was a novel hike.

How about you? Are you looking at anything with fresh eyes or getting back into something that you had to give up for a while?

As always, I would love to hear from you.

Until next time,

Laura