Summits of my life — Never Quit Motivation

One of the best ways to stimulate growth is by climbing a mountain. The mountain does not care who you are, how you grew up, how much money you have or how successful you are in life. It only cares about how well you prepared and how much you are willing to grind to get to the top. It is a super simple way to boil down all of life’s hassles and minute worries down into the straightforward process of just walking up that hill. Conquering a mountain is not only a great way to explore the outdoors and take in the breathtaking beauty of a rugged nature landscape, but to also explore your inner self, your motivations, capabilities and limitations.

Though mountaineering is not one of my high priority activities, I do find a lot of value and growth in it. I highlight some of the 10,000+ feet peaks I have been working on below, and intend to do many more in the near future.

Pikes Peak (14,115ft)

I have looked at Pikes Peak every single day for the past 10 months since moving to Colorado in the Fall of 2022, and finally summited the region's crown jewel in July of 2023. I attempted to make it a door to door but ran out of gas to complete the return mountain bike leg home. Thanks a ton to Calvin Muramoto for pushing me up and down the mountain and for the ride home!

The mountains are relentless, they take everything you have, but when you allow yourself to take on these types of challenges you get good at giving it every thing you have. This capability can then be used to become better at every day things like caring for loved ones, performing well at work, or pursuing personal goals.

Giving everything is relative and depends on your current physical and mental fitness. To some it is completing their first 5K after a long layoff, to others it is the current Pikes Peak Marathon course record of 3:16 (almost 4 times faster than what I managed!). While I failed to complete the door to door, I gave it everything I had and valued the opportunity to get to see where my limits are, as that is the only way to improve on them.

Mount Rosa (11,506ft)

The mark of a good challenge is when it ends up giving you what you didn't know you needed, rather than what you knew you wanted. Back in November 2022 I had put the May 6th 2023 Fort Collins Quadrock 50 miler on my calendar, my first ultra since the 100K in February 2020. I wanted to feel the motivation and drive of racing fellow competitors again, and hoped that this would help me get over my physical and mental blocks of running longer distances faster after the knee surgery.

Throughout training I started to realize that I would not be able to get my fitness to a point to be able to run fast enough and long enough in time for the race. That may or may not come back with time. Instead of worrying about that, I started to appreciate my time in the mountains for much more than just preparing for a race. I found motivation in something much more primitive, a need to go out and explore with nothing more to support me than the things I carried on my back, a need to push myself physically and mentally, and a desire to spend time away from all the noise and comforts of modern day life.

I started another chapter of self-discovery simply by stepping out of the front door and moving long distances under my own power. Instead of driving 300 miles round trip to run a race where I would inevitably gain motivation from stocked aid-stations, cheering spectators, and a shiny finisher medal, I just needed to step out of my front door and replace all those external factors with intrinsic drivers. In the process I knocked out another roundtrip door to door +9000ft peak summit with the iconic Mt Rosa (11506ft).

This is the power of the backyard adventure. You can go as far or as fast as you want. You can go whenever you want. It renews your concept of success and failure. You are not concerned how other people evaluate your performance and you make your own judgements about success and failure. I have never run slower in the mountains but have never had more fun doing it.

Cameron Cone (10,707ft)

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to summit Cameron Cone and make it a door to door on my 35th birthday. If you have done the Manitou incline and are ready for the next local challenge, this is it. Between the 4200ft of gain in the 3.5 mile ascent (the last 2000ft in the last mile), the never ending lose scree, and the constant class 3 scrambling, the descent is as hard earned as the ascent. A (not so) hidden gem, brutally constructive, making you work for every inch of forward progress.. this is one of the hardest mountains I have done in summer season and I am really glad it is in my backyard.

The farther you go and the farther your push yourself, the more you are stretched out and the more you reveal about yourself. You are stripped raw and those experiences embed into your life and you learn a lot about who you are and how you respond to challenges and hardships. I like going to these places from time to time to learn more about myself, as these opportunities come few and far in-between in the modern world of digital convenience. Here is to another trip around the sun and the ability to gain more knowledge forged by mountains.