The mountaintop is easier after the treadmill

Years ago, when I was a strapping young man, I won the manliest man award on a mountain climbing expedition. Seriously. Our youth group went on Wilderness Trek after my junior year. It was a bonding camp experience. Rough kind of camp. Eighty pound packs on your back for 20 mile hikes kind of camp.

I loved it.

Did I mention that I won the manliest man award?

That summer, I was the manliest. Lately I’ve gotten soft from too much poetry and social media. But then, oh boy, I was seventeen. I drove a beat up 1967 Mustang and it was the summer of my contentment.

I worked at Seaworld of Texas that summer on the Rio Loco raft ride. My job was simple. I put on my park services smile and helped load people onto inflatable boats so they could get soaked. The loading mechanism was a rotating platform. Basically, I worked on a treadmill. In south Texas summer heat.

I wore a lot of sunscreen and drank a quart of water an hour. It was awesome. Seriously, I loved working at Seaworld (even though I never got any free beer).

By the end of the summer, after 8 weeks on the Rio Loco treadmill, I was ready to climb a mountain.

In fact, I was so ready that I made the summit climb twice. That’s right, I climbed to the top of the mountain with the lead guide. Then looked back down and saw some folks struggling way, way, way far down from the summit. So I went after them to give them words of encouragement and help the up. After all, I had been there. They could make it there too.

Apparently, this was a little unusual.

I can’t take the credit though. The Rio Loco deserves all the credit. It got me in shape so that I could do all kinds of good stuff. It didn’t take anything out of me to go back down and climb back up again. My legs were used to 8 hours of treadmill, baby!

The moral of the story: Put in time on the treadmill and you’ll be ready for the mountain.

NOTE: This post is part of Robert Hruzek’s writing project What I Learned From Mountaintop Experiences.

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Tagged as: Climbing, Kids and Teens, Mountain, rio loco, seaworld, WILF