Our Challenge Their Freedom

Ten days ago I took out on the High Sierra trails of Mammoth mountain with 18 women for  Freedom Challenge to raise funds and awareness for human trafficking.   All of us challenged ourselves for their freedom.  Each of us would find the challenge unique to our strengths and weaknesses.  For some the challenge would be physical, for others it could be the fundraising or simply the logistics of carving out time to travel there.  For me the challenge was clearly a physical one.

Last year, it wouldn’t have been possible for me to hike the distance.  This year after receiving a steroid shot in my knee I chose to take on the challenge and began steadily increasing my hiking distance.   Just a month before challenge, I’d completed a 7 mile training hike. I was set to complete a 9 mile hike two weeks before the challenge but unfortunately caught a bug that lasted almost two weeks just before doing the hike.   I thankfully recovered in time to do the challenge but I wasn’t at the fitness level I’d hoped to be at when I did the challenge.   I decided to strike out on the hike and see just how much I could accomplish.  It was clear from the start of the hike I was substantially slower than the other women in our group.   Everyone was gracious to wait for me but as I completed the roughly 1200 elevation gain after 5 miles I decided to return with the group that was hiking a shorter distance.  In the end, I would complete a distance of 9 miles.  Still a significant distance.  I made the decision based on how I was feeling physically.  It was clear to me that my blood sugar was lower than usual and I was a bit light headed.  I’d been checking my heart rate.  It would go as height as 150 when I would stop but recovery fairly quickly. Understandably, I was a little disappointed not to have completed the full 12 miles.  Everyone on the team reassured me that I’d done a great job!

Catching a cold and recovering from it was somewhat outside of my control.  Moving forward, I plan to time my hikes with the hopes of increasing my hiking speed so that I don’t keep the team waiting should I consider hiking another challenge.