A couple of weeks ago I learned that one the interns at my work was training to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. This took me by complete surprise & I instantly bonded with her. Prior to this, I really hadn't made an effort to get to know any of the interns. Work has been pretty crazy lately & all of my energy has been focused on just staying afloat in the sea of deadlines. It took an offsite meeting with a couple of glasses of wine for me to strike up a conversation with her.
I was so inspired by her story that I volunteered to help her train. She was looking for a partner to climb Mount Wachusett with. "No problem!" I said, "I'm free this weekend!". But, she didn't have any free weekends to train... She wanted a partner to climb with after work during the week. Well, I wasn't going to pull back my offer to help, so I agreed. But, Mount Wachusett isn't very big... it only has a 2006 foot summit. Confused, I asked her how this was going to help her train? That's when she said we were going to summit it twice before the sunset. Now that just sounded like crazy talk to me! I was going to work a full day, drive an hour in rush hour traffic to a mountain, summit it twice & then drive back home? I think she saw the look of horror on my face & asked me if I was still in? Yup. I was in. It sounded just crazy enough that I had to do it. I've been struggling on my long approaches and really need to strengthen my overall cardio fitness.
Well, tonight was the night. We left work at 4:45pm and arrived at the base around 6:00pm. Halfway through the first summit, I announced that I didn't think I had a second summit in me. But, somehow I caught my second wind & pushed through the second summit to be rewarded with a spectacular sunset.
I really pushed myself hard on this climb... running on the flatter surfaces and keeping a steady pace on the steep, rocky parts. I was motivated to keep up with my partner & we were both running against the daylight clock. It was awesome!
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