"It's Father's Day, so Dad gets to choose, and you don't get to complain."
That's what I told the boys several hundred times.
I used that line with glorious abandon. Such a giddy feeling. Oh, the power!
And while it didn't stop them from complaining entirely -- of course it didn't -- it reduced the resistance to a dull roar.
So we stuffed ourselves silly with breakfast foods at Snooze, drove toward Idaho Springs, and set out on a three-mile hike along the Chief Mountain Trail.
I'd had my misgivings. The "moderate" hike we went on last Father's Day had me huffing like an asthmatic sloth, and I was in better shape back then.
Visions formed: A line of stalled hikers twenty-deep crawling along behind me, breaking free only when I step aside to let them pass, buff senior citizens and energetic toddlers and the guy with the walker from Office Space streaming up the mountain, pulses barely elevated, while I slink back to the car to wait for my family, stewing in my shame and failure.
"It's Father's Day, so Dad gets to choose, and you don't get to complain."
My words come back to me and I wonder if sometimes you can be too smart for your own good.
We start walking and I am very much out of breath. I am also standing aside for every person coming back down the trail, fatigue in courtesy's clothing.
Then we stop for a break near a sign that says "Chief Mountain Trail: 2 miles" and Mike wonders aloud, "Hmm, is it actually three miles one way, rather than round trip?"
To him: "No no no no no, you would not do this to me. You would not say this to me at this point. That would be beyond cruel. This is something you CHECK. BEFOREHAND."
To myself: "How, how, HOW am I going to get through this?"
Thankfully, my Wiser Kind Self was on-call, and she talked me down. Or up, as the case may be.
"Tell you what we're gonna do. We are going to take one hundred steps. Then we are going to rest for ten seconds. Then we are going to take another hundred steps. After a reasonable number of sets (five?) we will take a longer break. Then we will start again. Let's go."
That's how it got done. I climbed the mountain one hundred steps at a time.
As it is in outdoor recreation, so it is in life, with any challenge that feels too daunting.
Break it down into smaller, more manageable pieces.
(My Wise Ass Self in all her gleeful smarminess cannot stop herself from mentioning that this is a mere fraction of a fourteener: Ooh, big deal! Which is why my Wiser Kind Self is driving and my Wise Ass Self isn't even allowed to touch the radio.)
