Greetings!
I hope you've had a wonderful week! We're almost to Friday which means work ethic is on the rapid decline in the office, so it's time for a new blog post!
I'll preface this post by asking this - Have you ever set out to accomplish a goal and fallen short?
As mentioned previously my yogic travels to Colorado were splendid. Although the city provided a great experience, the mountains were calling our name! And by our I mean my husband and I. (You'll hear MUCH more about him in future posts, I'm sure!) And since we don't half-ass anything, we decided to whole-ass the tallest mountain in the state, Mt. Elbert.
GULP
Standing at a cool 14,433', Mt. Elbert is the tallest fourteener in Colorado. From it's summit you can see the peaks of all other measly mountains that surround it (check out the #mtelbert on Instagram to see what I mean).
Armed with almost 300 ounces of water, hats, gloves, boots, wool socks, jackets for every form of precipitation Mother Nature could throw at us, and my rugged trekking pole (AKA, a stick) we arrived at the base of the mountain at 7 am ready to take on the adventure!
The temperature was mid forties with a chilly breeze due to the elevation, but we knew we'd warm up quick as we got moving! As we started up the 2 mile 4-wheel drive gravel road the sun began to rise which was a site to see. Being in the mountains hearing nothing but the breeze and our footsteps really brought a sense of calm and happiness to both of us.
After crossing a wide stream, reaching the actual trail head and hiking a little over 4 miles, we stopped for a brief lunch on a log and made friends with some wildlife. After refueling, we were on our way again.
About 2 miles later, my head hurt, my legs felt like cooked spaghetti noodles, and we could only walk about 15 steps before breaking from the pain in our hips and weakness in our lower bodies. We were approaching the false summit, at around 13,500' and I was refusing to give up, and nothing was going to change my mind... Except for the couple who were on their way back down the mountain from the summit.
Us: How much longer to the top?
Them: About an hour and a half to two hours.
Short on water, energy and morale, we made the decision to call it quits. After taking a moment to survey the scene and appreciate how far we had come, we decided to make our way back down the mountain.
Six miles and five hours in, we didn't achieve what we set out to do, but we definitely gained a lot. Although we couldn't say that we summited the tallest mountain in Colorado, we could say that we set out on a hiking trip in the beautiful Aspen covered mountains, spent 7 hours total bonding and pushing each other to keep going, talking and laughing over tuna salad and crackers, Pringles and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and most importantly creating memories doing something we thought we couldn't.
I'll end the post by asking this question - Have you ever thought about what you gained by falling short of a goal?
I'm sure if you think about it, there are tons of things you'll come up with. So in life, love, work, school, or maybe even yoga, consider the bright side of things, you may just find that you accomplished more than you thought.
Namaste.
