How I Found My ‘Mountain’ and Started Climbing

Pursuing passion for the sheer joy of it

This past Saturday, I ran a trail-based half-marathon. It was hard! And incredibly motivational. I want to share the experience not because you necessarily should run such a race, or even jog at all, but because I believe strongly that we all need to find our own personal mountain — a real or metaphorical, physical or mental or relational pursuit that we find meaningful — and climb the hell out of it.

That, my friends, is the surest path to happiness, science says (OK, I paraphrased the science a bit, but you get the idea).

I fell only once on the rocky trail, but the blood (and sweat) was worth it.

The race was in the White Tank Mountains outside Phoenix. Narrow, rocky trails. Some 1,700 feet of elevation gain. This would be much harder than a typical half-marathon. And I hadn’t run this far since doing my one and only marathon in 1986.

A little backstory: I’d stopped running altogether in my late 40s due to back and hip pain. It’s frustrating, even demoralizing, when you can’t do the thing you love.

Then about two years ago I discovered yoga, which helped stretch and strengthen my whole body — a veritable physical makeover. I began mountain biking again, another passion I’d dropped. Then, as I was preparing to mountain bike 60 miles on my 60th birthday — a stretch goal…