Lakeland College

Climbing the Hills
Posted on 7/13/2006 11:27:39 AM

So how is summer going?  If you're anything like me, it's going too fast and the weekends are too full.  It's summer in Wisconsin, I try to live it to the fullest.  I'd love to hear about how you're spending your summer!  

As you know, I'm an avid bicyclist.  I've written before about various aspects of biking and would like to continue with this theme.  I love the life metaphors that present themselves on the road.  My favorites are the metaphors having to do with hills.  When I'm on my bike, I try very hard to focus on the moment but as a human being, this is sometimes a difficult task.  I can't help but raise my eyes and look for what might be looming ahead.  When I see flat road, I happily shift my eyes back to six or eight feet ahead - or look around at the countryside.  Hills are a different story.

First off, it has seemed to me that there are many more uphills than down.  I know in my mind that this can't be... yet, if I was a betting woman, I'd lay money that it is so.  The only conclusion I can come to is that the uphills are more memorable through the pain associated with them... the downhills go too quickly and I take them for granted.  Life lesson number one.

I am guilty of seeing a hill in the distance and "awful-izing" the amount of effort it will take to climb the hill.  When I've made the climb to the top, I inevitably realize a couple of things about the actual effort: 1) it wasn't nearly as bad as I had predicted; and 2) I was more prepared than I thought for the physical effort required to make the climb.  Life lessons numbers two and three. 

The hills, I've learned, prepare me for other hills - even for bigger ones.  Once I climb a particular hill, the power of that hill is diminished the next time around.  More life lessons. 

As I watch my odometer mileage increase, I hope that some of this is starting to sink in.  I'm almost - but not quite - grateful for the hills.  And I've changed my previous approach to pedaling furiously down them.  Lately, I've found myself reaching the top (taking just a second to feel full of myself), and coasting down the otherside while I enjoy the breeze in my face.  Maybe that's what it's all about.