A Better Way To Climb

Every tour seems to leave a few lasting impressions.

I’ll remember TAOS to TUCSON for an improved approach to cycling up hills.

I haven’t gotten much better—physically—at climbing. I’m still terribly slow. I need to change my workouts over the winter and see if improved training can overcome advancing age and yield faster results.

What I noticed on some tough climbs was a different perspective.

When you’re climbing a hill, it’s tempting to narrow your focus until the hill and the struggle become your entire awareness. You don’t even notice beautiful scenery or other people on the road. Nothing else matters—the whole world centers on you and your challenge.

Happens in other areas of life, too. Job loss, accident or illness, broken relationship—when you face some sort of adversity, suddenly everything is about the struggle.

I don’t mean to minimize anyone’s difficulty, and I’m not saying “just get over it.” Denial isn’t the answer to pain, fear, and loss.

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I stared out the hospital window a few weeks after my injury. Cars moved along the street, people came and went. It seemed like nothing had changed.

Didn’t they know the world had ended?

I wallowed in that myopic misery for years, angry that others went on with their lives as if everything was normal. Centered only on my own suffering, I was incapable of perceiving the beauty, humor, or love that surrounded me.

A wider focus might not have altered the difficult path I had to travel, but I believe it would have drastically changed the nature of the journey.

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On our TAOS to TUCSON tour the climbs weren’t easier or faster, but I noticed the scenery. I climbed tough stretches without really thinking about the difficulty because I attended more to the people and surroundings. I smiled and acknowledged the thumbs-up gestures of encouragement I might have missed if I’d had my head down, concerned only with grinding each pedal stroke.

You see the life lesson, right? For some folks, every moment of life is linked to their particular calamity. Every Facebook post, every conversation, every group discussion leads back to that thing. It’s always about the approaching doctor visit, the new pain, or the latest bad break. Those are realities, hills that must be climbed.

But you have to wonder if a difficult journey wouldn’t be a bit more palatable if traveled with a wider perspective.

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