Sure, I did some things since my birthday last December that were more superficial in nature, I suppose, like getting another tattoo or getting waxed for the first time. But I also set some goals for myself this year that I never would have anticipated completing a year ago.
On June 18th, Mike and I participated in Mud Run MS, a fundraiser put on by the National MS Society, obviously a cause close to my heart. It was a 10k run, with over 30 military-style obstacles and tons of mud and water. I trained for months worrying I wouldn't be able to run the 6 or so miles. In the end, I realized it wasn't about how fast I did it. It was about completing it, and I did. It took my husband and I 1 hr, 40 minutes to finish. It was a rainy, chilly day, and we were both freezing by the time we finished. I stood by one of the food carts that came down from Portland holding my free Ninkasi beer while my hand shook so much the food cart guy gave me a bowl of soup for free. Even so, I'm so glad I did it, and I plan to do it again next year.
We had two weeks to recover from the Mud Run before we were to climb Mt. St. Helens, and I was really nervous about it. We purchased our permits to climb several months ago, but I didn't think about it much until the time got close. Whenever I'm nervous about something like that, I become really ambivalent. I didn't want to think about it or even pack for it until the day we left. However, once we got into Cougar, WA, where our cabin was, I was feeling a lot more excitement than dread. We had our permit to climb for July 1st, a beautiful, clear day. We took 6 hours to get to the top, and during those 6 hours, I thought of giving up at least a couple of times. I'm glad I didn't though. I kept pushing on, even when our water supply got low. It was worth the tremendous effort. The view was amazing, and so was the high of getting up there. The trip back down to the car took another 3 hours, and we were both in pain by then.
You'd think after all that, we'd relax the next day. We can't seem to do that. We toured the other side the mountain, the side that blew off with the eruption, on Saturday. Then we headed to a place called Ape Cave. Lower Ape Cave is an easy hike, so we chose to do Upper Ape Cave, which is considered strenuous. It was the most fun I've had in a cave, scrambling over rocks and up an 8 foot wall. I felt like a million bucks after we got out of there. It was tough, and we both had injuries we were nursing from the climb on Friday, but it felt good to conquer that cave.
After succeeding at those two goals that were looming over me for most of the first half of this year, I feel like I can do anything. I am more fit and stronger than I've ever been in my life. I am motivated to try all sorts of new things now that a month ago, I would have considered out of my reach. Maybe turning 40 was just the push I needed to start living again and stop just existing.
