A Hiking story...

Under most circumstances, I'm a very lazy person. I don't think I've been to a gym more than a few times in my life, and even a short jog down the street leaves me winded.

When I'm out in the mountains, though, I can just keep going an going. It's hard to find time for hiking these days, but last Friday I took a day of of work and went hiking south of Mt. Mansfield. Out of shape as I was, I still did about 10 miles over some very rough terrain.

While I hiked, I was thinking about how I can be this energetic about hiking when I'm so lazy about everything else. I have kind of endurance when I'm out in the woods that seems to be more about stubbornness and masochism than it is than any physical characteristic, I just keep going no matter what. I was thinking about why I'm that way. I think it goes way back to when I was 12 years old.

My family was pretty active in the Church of the Nazarene when I was growing up, and as a teenager I really enjoyed some of the New-England wide youth group events that we would go to, even if one or both of my parents came along as the youth leaders. One of these events which happened every September was an overnight trip to Mt. Monadnock in New Hampshire. In our group the adult chaperons generally stayed at the bottom and took naps in the shade or whatever while the teenagers were set loose to climb the mountain at their own pace. Other groups tried to keep together for safety, but this isn't really necessary at a place like Monadnock, if you get in trouble one of the 500 other people hiking the mountain that day will be by to help you out.

I was 12 years old when I got to go on this trip as an actually youth group member instead of just the tag-along son of the youth leader. I was hiking along on my own when I ran across a group of kids from a church in Connecticut. Among them was a very cute blond with blue eyes about my age who I had noticed before at some other events.

I was a short, skinny kid with thick glasses and a horrible haircut and the worst case of acne in the history of the known universe (or so I thought). Talking to girls wasn't exactly my specialty.

I attached myself to this group, hiked at their pace and took breaks when they did, hoping that I would be able to work up the nerve to say hi. On my second or third break with this group, I managed to sit down next to this girl on a mossy rock. I'm sitting there all nervous and sweaty palmed, and had just about worked up the nerve to say "Hi" when the youth leader for that group started talking about safety.

He went on and on about wilderness and bears and broken legs and how horrible it would be to die of thirst on the side of a mountain in the big outdoor wilderness of Mt. Monadnock State Park. "So we have to stay safe", he said. "And the way to stay safe is to stay together. And the way to stay together is to have your slowest hikers in front and your fastest hikers in the back."

He looked around the group and his eyes landed on me. He pointed at me.

"You'll go first", he said.

I was humiliated. There was no way that the cute little blond girl would do anything but turn her nose up in the air and look away if I tried to talk to her now. I was humiliated, and angry.

So when the group started up again, I went first, I went as fast as I could, and I never stopped until I reached the top, exhilarated, and a full twenty minutes ahead of the cute little blond girl and mister-safety-man.

And I've been hiking that way ever since.