2014 Portland-to-Coast (part 1)

A week ago now, at 2:00 in the morning, I found myself facing my greatest fears.

Since I was about three years old, I have been dreadfully afraid of the forest. It's a long story that I won't get into right now, but just trust me, I had a bad experience.

Yes, I go to Girls Camp nearly every summer, and I have a great time, but it is rare that you will ever find me in a forest all alone.

One such rare occurrence was early last Saturday morning….

It was me with my little headlamp in the middle of the Cascade Range in the middle of the night heading toward the Pacific Ocean, walking as fast as my legs could carry me.

I am a member of a 12-person, 2-van Portland to Coast relay race walking team. This is the second year I've done this. Only, last year, I had the easy legs of the race. Last year, I dodged homeless people and walked the bridges and waterfront of downtown Portland. My second leg was at 1am on a windy road in the middle of nowhere with no shoulder on the road to walk on--thank goodness for little traffic.

This year, I was surprised to find that I had been assigned the difficult and very difficult legs. Yikes! Last year, I was in much better shape. This year, I had been a major slacker.

When I received the email with my leg assignments, what could I do? I wrote back to the team captain and sent her five simple words…."I can do hard things."

What I learned from facing those hard things and the experience I had was astounding.


To be continued…..