the mountains make you strong

the mountains make you strong.

it's an oft-repeated maxim in training. trails and roads help to build endurance. the track and intervals help to develop speed and technique. but for strength, you go to the mountains. the mountains give you strength.

the physical strength for muscles and sinew to continue churning and turning even as the incline rises.  the cardiovascular strength for lungs and heart to keep breathing and beating despite an increasing load. but above all, and most importantly, the mental strength of character to keep going uphill against all obstacles in all terrain in all conditions while still wanting to take on more.

anyone can go fast. anyone can accelerate. but to be strong, to stay strong, in the face of challenges that repeat, that attack, that persist, that increase, that grow, that rise ever higher and higher and higher and higher and higher and higher so that every hill only reveals another, higher, steeper, harder successor...that can only be learned from the real thing. the source. the mountains.

the mountains make you strong.

the mountains have existed through the passage of untold millenia, eternal as the messages of time carved upon the patterns and shapes and colors of the rocks. they have stood vigilant beside the eons, impervious to the whispers of the seasons that linger through the valleys and peaks and ridges of the crests. they have seen the maturing of the sun and the gathering of the moon and the multiplication of the stars flung across the abyss of night to fill the sky to bridge the void to reach the side that signifies the beginning of the edge of infinite.

they have seen these things. and they have listened. and smelled. and tasted. and felt. and come to know it all as wisdom. marked great and vast upon the face of the ages.

and this they keep. because they know its value. on a scale beyond the comprehension of the tiny creatures that dare to clamber upon the glories of the hills.

and because they know its value, they know it can only be understood by those who can respect its meaning.

and that form of respect only comes with appreciation, and that form of appreciation only comes with experience, and that form of experience is only earned by those who accept the strength to rise as high as the message being imparted.

the mountains make you strong.

the mountains have much to share, if you let them.