I want to climb a volcano.
There, I said it. I know it sounds totally crazy, especially for an overweight fifty-year-old, but I don’t think it is and here’s why…
As many of you know, I have been fitness crazy since my last bout with cancer. I spent a year learning to run, increasing my strength and my stamina. Last fall I ran The Bridge of the Goddess half marathon. It was epic. But training for it also took hours and hours of my time. Some of my runner friends were like, “You could totally do a full marathon!” I looked at the hours it took me to train for the half and decided that that was a big ole noper.
About the same time, I came up with a case of plantar fasciitis and my podiatrist told me that while I could still run once it was healed, I should probably mix that up with some other form of exercise, so I took to hiking.
And I absolutely love it.
Always wanting to challenge myself, I did Cascade Head on the Oregon coast.
Then I did Saddle Mountain.
Then I did Dog Mountain.
Big climbs. Big, BIG climbs.
I plan on doing several mountain hikes this summer and then next year I’m going for Mt. St Helens. It’s practically vertical in places as you scramble over pumice and rocks, but it’s so close and how many people say they’ve climbed a volcano???
I don’t feel like this is my year. I am still too heavy (I am one of those odd cases where a person can train for a 13 mile run and still be 40 pounds overweight!) and I feel like I can be stronger, so I consider myself in training:
To hike up the side of a volcano and look inside.
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