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Monday, April 5, 2010

A SHUT UP and PUT UP weekend





What an amazing weekend! My friend and I spent our Easter weekend in what would turn out to be a SHUT UP AND PUT UP camping trip in Luray VA. While I have always grown up camping, this weekend was a lot of firsts for me. It was the first time I had kayaked and the first time I tried repelling. I went into this weekend with alot of worries, I didn't know if I was strong enough to hold my own bodyweight in repelling or that I would have the endurance to paddle 13 miles down a river or be able to keep up on the hikes. There are a million and one reasons why I should have those fears, I'm still overweight, I have an injured knee , a huge fear of heights and I'm having some Lupus problems. All of those are great excuses on why I wouldn't be able to do what I did this weekend. Yet when the time came and the harness was on, I just clipped in and went over the edge. All of that worrying about not being strong enough almost stopped me from even trying and I knew that I would just have to dig down deep, SHUT UP about all my excuses as to why I might not be able to and PUT UP. Boy am I ever glad I did! I loved repelling and cannot wait for the next time I get to harness up! This is coming from a woman who a year ago was challenged to slide down a children's fire pole and was so paralyzed with fear of heights that I clung onto that poll for over 20 min. unable to slide down it... fast forward to this weekend and I was hopping down the side of a ravine! I also discovered that I LOVE to kayak!! I always tell people " Oh I don't have any upper body strength" but this weekend proved that I cannot keep saying that any more. I started out that day by putting my kayak in the river convinced I would make it to mile 8 - because i knew that was the first of only two pull out points along the way. I "knew" that there was no way I would be able to paddle for 13 miles. Then all the sudden the mile markers kept passing me and I hadn't hit what I thought for sure would be the end of my kayaking trip, a wall of fatigue! But that never came and the next thing I knew I was pulling my kayak out at mile 13 wishing we could have continued even farther. I had my mind set that 8 miles was all I could do but my lesson in repelling the day before reminded me to not tell myself what I can and cannot accomplish but rather to just SHUT UP and PUT UP! Now that I've come home, I started making a SHUT UP and PUT UP list of all the things I want to do - despite any fears or doubts I may have to try them and I can't wait to start scratching them off as I do them!

1 comments:

Chare11 said...

Alexis, you are so beautiful and such an inspiration! Keep up the great work and enjoy your success. Losing weight feels so good! = )

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