Between Mountains & Muscles

 

I haven’t climbed the big mountains lately.

But I have been climbing.

For the past few months, hiking has stretched me in ways I didn’t expect not just trails and ridgelines, but perspective. The gym followed. A few consistent sessions. A handful of runs. Spin classes that humbled my quads. A Hyrox Challenger Doubles with three fierce friends intense, wobbly, almost catastrophic, wildly alive.

I have called myself strong this year.
And I have also remembered that I am weak.

Strangely, holding both truths at once has made me gentler. Strength without humility becomes noise. Weakness without courage becomes fear. Training the body has been training the ego too.

Now I am resting. Not by choice, muscle wear insists. No workouts for a couple of weeks. The days feel longer. The evenings quieter. I do not like it. But I respect it.

Because even hikers must pause.

I may not have stood on dramatic peaks recently, but I have staged my own summits, in spin rooms, on gym floors, along mild nature trails between meetings and life. Movement has been my wilderness, even inside walls.

And in the stillness, I have discovered something else: the company of writers. @substack essays, notes and quiet library shelves have carried me through afternoons and dim evenings. Other people’s words have become temporary forests, places to wander when my body could not.

I miss the real woods. I miss the raw air and the rhythm of boots against earth. But I know this: the wilderness is not only geographic. It is a posture. A mindset. A way of meeting resistance and rising anyway.

This is reflection season.
Rest season.
Preparation season.

The mountains will wait.

And I will return, backpack ready, mind steadier, spirit quieter.

Until the next trail, the next thought, and the next becoming.....

Bold Tracks & Backpacks.