trail solipsism

in the past, say, oh, this last january, i found myself going on solo weekend hikes, and after about two of them, i found myself wondering why i was bothering.

i could run for 30 minutes and get a decent workout without freezing my tootsies off for 4-7 hours in the woods and risking poison oak and lyme disease and west nile virus and (as i now know) bubonic plague.

but that wasn't the most important reason for my growing ennui of january past. hiking by myself brought painfully to my attention just who it was that wasn't hiking with me.

i had fun when i got out there, sure, just like i always end up enjoying myself when i hike with a cold or lift with a headache. it's tough for me to stay unhappy when i'm on the trail (and properly equipped) or under the bar.

but something was plainly missing from my hikes back then, and i did, indeed, to my personal shame, draw upon my reserves of weekday hikes (thus keeping my hike-a-weekend-chain virtually unbroken) to justify a quick run on saturdays rather than a long, solo hike.

(of course, that couldn't last too long, once i found what all that spare saturday would be used for.)

eventually i got back into the swing of things, i don't remember exactly how or when, though i do know that somewhere along the way i got a fresh infusion of motivation (something, it turns out, that even i need once in a while).

but today i find myself, once again, facing a solo hike. not only a solo hike, but a hike on a trail that has now (in my fanciful mind) been sanctified, perhaps even more so than my beloved black mountain trail. this trail has seen me with my hetero life partner, and that was satisfying, but many months later, though not many months ago, it saw me with someone even mo' better, and when i stepped off the hiking trail, i stepped onto a different path than the one which had brought me to that hike.

that particular hike set me down the path to where i am now.

where am i now?

happy, that's where. but also a little apprehensive. it was hard enough hiking black mountain (BM! hah hah har har de har) without her. this will be tough.

i could just go run instead.

but i have something i didn't have back in january. i have faith (here's the part where I push the present discussion on to my stack and diverge into a discussion of how Locke from LOST inspired me to have faith, ho ho ho) that not long from now we'll be hiking that trail again together.

but that's not what drives me to hike instead of to run. i've got something else. i've got a better motivator than faith. i've got fear that she'll show me up in utah and on the desert death hike, and that just won't do. she hikes 7 days a week, usually with an extra 25lbs of 9mm death strapped to her waist, plus an anti-venitilation device just so things won't be too easy. she's got the drop on me big time for hiking fitness maintenance, so, party people, i'm going out there today with lots of water and a minimum of 15 extra lbs to train so my snotty girlfriend won't lord it over me when i'm panting and whining up the hill in 100F weather two weeks from now.

ain't love grand?