Pain Is Only Temporary

Your lungs will be burning, you won't be able to move your legs anymore and you will be dying of heat, but remember that pain is only temporary. That is what I will tell anyone before doing agony hill. Let me start off by saying that agony hill is the hardest time trial we do on my cross-country ski team. It is not a long time trial distance-wise, but it feels like forever. It is only one mile long, but it has over 1,000 feet of elevation gain. When I first heard about this time trial three thoughts came to mind: what the **** is that, do we really have to do that and this is going to suck.

The first time we did this time trial was in June. It was over 90 degrees in Salt Lake. I was sweating before we even started. I was starting first and I didn't know where I was going because I had never done it before. One of my teammates told me not to worry about where to go because I would probably get passed and I could just follow that person. She meant for it to be encouraging, but you could take it either way. I asked her where the finish was and she replied that it was just at the top of that hill *points to the top of the first of four hills*. Another one of the senior girls gave me a pep talk before starting the time trial... Although now that I think of it she might have been giving herself a pep talk and I was just standing near her... She told me or herself "pain is only temporary and it will go away once you reach the top, you can do it". I found that really encouraging and thought of it multiple times during the time trial.

 I don't really remember most of what happened the first time because I have tried really hard suppress that memory. However, I do remember thinking that I was done at the top of the first hill, which was really only about 1/4 of the way to the actual finish. Also, that I was chanting in my head pain is only temporary for the first two minutes, after that I gave up and was cursing the person who came up with this time trial and my coach for making us do this and the girl who told me where the *top* was and pretty much everything else in existence. I also remember how I felt when I finished... my lungs were burning, I couldn't move my legs and I was dying of heat, but my teammate was right in the fact that pain is only temporary. It might be a long temporary, but it still goes away eventually. 

At the end of September my coach informed us that we were going to be doing Agony Hill again on Halloween. Everyone groaned and complained about doing it on Halloween, but at least it wasn’t the day after Halloween (which apparently it was last year). Flash forward to 7:00 am Halloween morning. Before our coach got to the spot where he was supposed to pick us up, we were sitting there talking about how absolutely terrible it was going to be. Also about how we were not going to be able to walk later that night on Halloween. When our coach arrived with the van, we all piled in and drove down to Salt Lake. On the way down there we listened to some interesting music... It was everything from EDM music to Ed Sheeran to Eminem. When we got down there, I was determined to beat my time from last time (26 minutes). I felt more prepared this time because I got a better warm up and actually knew where the top was. I'm not going to bore you with the details of the actual time trial because my thoughts didn't change that much compared to last time. Other than the fact I skipped chanting pain is only temporary and went straight to cursing everything. Once I finished and got over the fact that my lungs were burning, I couldn't move my legs anymore and I was dying of heat (I way overestimated how cold it would be and wore pants), I realized I beat my time from last time by over a minute!

I was proud of myself for improving by so much. My advice for anyone doing this time trial is remember that your lungs are going to be burning, you won't be able to move your legs and you will be dying of heat, but pain is only temporary and the pain will end when you finish (even if it is 24 hours after you finish).

Trust me it's a lot steeper in real life. Photo courtesy of me

- Claire