A friend of mine recently sent me a really powerful message about her own experience with surgery recovery. She wrote:
“It’s tough when our concept of ourselves doesn’t fit our current capabilities. … Honestly, now I’m stronger than I have been in a long time, and I do something I never did before which is stop and chill when things aren’t right rather than pushing on. I couldn’t do this before and was really always propelling myself forward sometimes regardless of the cues or consequences my body was putting out.”
This message resonated with me perfectly this past weekend. My image of myself in the outdoor space is as a strong capable mountain athlete. But the truth is, that’s not the current situation. And I’ve been learning some hard lessons about this recently.
This past weekend, I decided to go hiking on my own in Hatcher Pass. I also decided that at almost 9 weeks out from surgery, it was time to push myself a bit more.
I figured I would do one hike and then go camp on Archangel road where I knew some friends would be camping. So I headed to the top of the pass, parked my car, and started hiking up Skyscraper Peak. Now, Skyscraper is pretty steep to start, gaining over 600 feet in the first half mile or so, but I figured I’d done hikes like that before, so it wouldn’t be a big deal.
However, when I walked to the base of the trail, I suddenly got anxious. There were a ton of people around hiking and driving up the road. I chose to hike alone because I could go at my own pace, but all of a sudden I felt the need to prove myself to these strangers, to show that I knew what I was doing and that I was competent and experienced. If I really think about it, I was probably just trying to prove those things to myself. So I started up the trail at a very fast speed. And I quickly learned that for someone who has been taking it pretty mellow for the past 3-4 months, that was not a good ides.
About halfway up the slope, my body started to reject my speed and my decision to go fast. My eyes started to water, my lungs burned, and I felt like my body was going to burst open. I stopped for a few seconds to take some deep breaths, but was intent on pushing my way up the slope. Finally, at the top, my rational brain kicked in. I recognized that if I didn’t fully stop and calm down my nervous system, I was going to have a bad day.
So I walked a little ways off the trail and just sat still for ten minutes watching the cars on the other side of the pass below. Once my body returned to a more normal state, I continued along the ridge line toward the summit. But just before making it to the summit, I took another detour. A sunny spot overlooking Independence Mine was calling my name. I decided to lay down and enjoy the sunshine, and ended up taking a 30 minute rest break. I was happy to sit again and enjoy the nice weather. I realized there was no rush. I was out alone and had no plans the rest of the day.
After my rest, I continued to the summit. Now you’d think I’d learn my limits for the day, but I soon had another lapse in judgement. I wanted to go just a bit further. So I continued along the ridge line, past the summit to the more scrambly section of the ridge. After dropping down away from the summit and back up another hump, I realized that I was suddenly uncomfortable being up so high and exposed. It was a strange feeling because I’m typically quite comfortable on ridges and mountain scrambles. But I started to realize again that I didn’t trust my body. My weak core made my body feel unbalanced while traversing the ridge. So I again stopped myself and turned around back to the summit and back along the ridge toward the parking lot. But on the steep downhills I continued to feel anxious and scared of falling. I felt like I had never walked in alpine terrain before. I felt clumsy and out of place. So I took a brief detour off the trail again, and spent a few minutes watching some paragliders land on the ridge next to me. I uncomfortable made my way back down the slippery slope to the parking lot. By the time I got back to the car I was happy to be on flat ground again.
Of course, at this point, you would assume I would’ve said, “I’m done with hiking for the day.” But that’s not how my brain works. Instead, I said “Oh, it’s only three o’clock. I have time for another hike before meeting up with my friends.” In essence, I wanted to go on another hike to prove to myself again that I was more capable than I’d felt on Skyscraper. And to be fair, I decided that I would go on an “easy” hike. I chose to go up the mostly flat Lane Basin Trail to check out the valley up from Archangel Road since I had never been up there before.
My second hike of the day started out much more smoothly. Archangel road wasn’t as busy as the pass road and I felt more comfortable taking my time along the trail. I wandered up to a small lake and listened to the ptarmigan squaking in the distance. I stopped and let a family cross a small snow field before me, recognizing that I needed to take my time on the snow because my stability is not great right now. I made it across the soggy flats and further up the valley toward the glacier. I stopped an sat at the top of the small waterfall and ate a snack, and finally, I was at the back of the vallye. And again, I should have stopped at the end of the flat section, but my curiosity got the best of me. So I decided to keep going up the trail above where the hut used to be. It got pretty steep again, but this time, I went slowly. I took a few breaks and wasn’t as gassed by the time I reached my destination. I was a little nervous on the way back down, but again, not as nervous as I was on the first hike (and I took a few more rest breaks on the way down).
By the time I got back to my car after the Lane Basin hike, I was in a much better headspace. My abdomen was a bit sore from about 8 miles of hiking overall that day, but I mentally felt better. On my second hike, I had made better decisions, taken more rests and analyzed the terrain a bit more before blasting off up the hill. I was happy to be back out hiking in steeper terrain and learning about my abilities and limitations in that terrain.
Overall, last weekend I learned that rest breaks are my new friend, and that in order to do the hikes I want to do, I’m going to have to rest more and take my time. And again, this goes against my belief system about myself as a strong athlete. But maybe what I need to do is reframe my belief about the definition of a strong capable athlete. Maybe the strength is in knowing and respecting your limits. And the benefit is that my body will respond better, my mind will respond better, and I will actually enjoy the scenery that I am there to see!
