I’ve always been a climber. As a kid on the bike, I always had to be the first to top out on the saddle up Beauty Creek. All through college I tackled the local routes around CDA. As a ranger in Yellowstone, it was all about reaching the summits. And for nearly a decade in Gardiner, I rode the hill up to Mammoth Hot Springs four to five times a week (sometimes more), six months a year. It wasn’t the smartest training—time trialing up the 1,200 feet from the desert basin to park headquarters night after night. Every evening I tried to top my previous best. Legs spent, lungs ready to burst. But I wasn’t training to win races, I was simply doing it for the love of the climb, the love of the bike, the burn, the quest for the PR. I was doing it because I love to feel fit, strong, lean, mean and sinewy, because spondy (ankylosing spondylitits) can make you feel the opposite. Fitness gives, spondy takes. Some nights, when I was really hurting, I climbed as a middle finger to spondy.
I’ve been charging hard these last several months on the bike, in the gym and the pool, and recently, with the change in weather, spondy has been knocking on the door. Living with spondy means flare ups, and right now, the flare is for real. The thing about living with spondy is that it’s always there, the chronic pain doesn’t go away, it just ebbs and flows, rises and falls like the tide. When the tide’s low, you go hard. When the swell rises, you hold steady.
It hit me in the pool today, that living with spondy is much like the climb. It’s painful, arduous, filled with uncertainty and oftentimes relentless; but when you reach the summit, when you get through each day, there’s a sense of accomplishment and pride, a feeling that you can always overcome no matter what the next climb throws at you. I’m not entirely sure why I’ve always loved the climb, but I believe it’s made me a better, stronger, more resilient—and perhaps badass human (even when spondy makes me feel anything but badass). So, here’s my message…keep climbing my friends. Keep climbing. Whether it’s physical or purely metaphorical, keep climbing. The climb is where you uncover the good stuff.
With nothin’ but love, MWL