Why we go further
On mountains, miles and why we keep going back.
Errigal's north face, the last climb of the Seven Sisters Skyline. Fifty-odd kilometres in my legs, and a wind coming over the top so sharp it felt like it was trying to peel me off the hill. Every step up the scree slid half a step back. I wasn't thinking about the finish. I was thinking about the next step.
Talk to most people about a challenge like that and the conversation goes the same way. "That looks incredible. I'd love to do something like that, but…" Then comes the excuse. Work's too busy. The kids are young. I'm not really the sporty type. I'm not fit enough.
Some of those excuses are genuine. Most are just the easiest way to avoid starting. Bronnie Ware, a palliative care nurse, spent years with people in the final weeks of their lives and wrote about what they regretted most. At the top of the list: wishing they'd had the courage to live the life they wanted, not the one others expected of them. Close behind: wishing they'd let themselves be happier. The excuses we make now have a way of becoming those regrets later.
That's why the goal has to be big. A goal you know you can hit changes nothing; you carry on as you are. A goal that scares you a little makes you rethink the way you live. You go to bed earlier. You turn up on a wet Tuesday. You start paying attention to what you eat. And the habits you build chasing it, patience when it gets hard and the discipline to keep going when you'd rather stop, stay with you long after the goal itself.
Then the effects spread. The patience you build in hard training shows up in a hard week at work. The people around you stop being your support crew and start being inspired. And you find out what you're actually capable of, which no amount of comfort can tell you. Most of all, you learn that the voice telling you to stop speaks early, and it's usually wrong.
Of all the reasons people give, "I'm not fit enough" is the easiest to fix. It's also where most people stall, because something gives: a calf that tightens in week four, a knee that starts to ache as the training builds, a back that's had enough by Thursday. That's what the gym is for. Two or three short sessions a week of squats, deadlifts and calf raises make every step cost a little less, give your tendons more room to cope, and keep you turning up week after week. It isn't glamorous. It's the reason the glamorous days happen.
On that final climb up Errigal, the wind never dropped and the legs never stopped burning. But they kept working, step after step, until there was no more mountain to climb, only the thin ridge that locals call One Man's Pass and the whole of Donegal falling away underneath.
That's why we go further. Not because it's easy, but because the alternative is looking back one day and wishing we had. If the only thing stopping you is a belief that your body isn't capable, that's the one excuse you can start working on this week. Don't let it become the regret. This plan is where it starts.
