Latest / Adventure Sports Podcast / Ep. 1227: The Wisdom in Suffering with Christine Reed

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Ep. 1227: The Wisdom in Suffering with Christine Reed · Adventure Sports Podcast

0:08
[SPEAKER_01]: You're listening to the Adventure Sports podcast.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We talk with adventurers from around the globe to bring you the inspiration and motivation you need to get started in the outdoors or to keep you moving if you're already there.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Hi friends, I have Christine Reed with us today, and she has been on the show, at least a couple of times, and then we also know that her content was replayed at least once, so you may already know Christine Reed.
0:33
[SPEAKER_02]: She is a hiker, a trail runner, an author.
0:37
[SPEAKER_02]: She is what she calls post-fan life, so she did do event life phase, and she's done through hikes.
0:50
[SPEAKER_02]: republished is that right Christine?
0:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, about a month ago.
0:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, by Rocky Mountain Books.
0:56
[SPEAKER_02]: By Rocky Mountain Books, and then she also has a book, Blood, Sweat, and Tears.
1:01
[SPEAKER_02]: So
1:03
[SPEAKER_02]: She recently started a new podcast called The Outdoorsy Women Plus book pod.
1:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're going to visit about through hiking and one of it means to be a rugged outdoors woman, which by the way is her Instagram handle.
1:18
[SPEAKER_02]: So welcome, Christine.
1:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi, I'm so excited to be here with you.
1:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it's fun that, um, well, you've been doing this for a while.
1:30
[SPEAKER_02]: and you have quite the background in the outdoors.
1:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I kind of want to just rewind to how all that came to be.
1:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're going to pretend like we don't know anything about you.
1:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And just move forward.
1:42
[SPEAKER_02]: But you started out in a job you didn't love and decided to try a through hike on the Appalachian Trail.
1:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And then regretfully, I don't think that worked out like you thought it would.
1:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Not exactly, but trail tale as old as time, right?
2:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I was working in health insurance in Arkansas and just sort of hating life in my early 20s.
2:08
[SPEAKER_00]: And Google, I didn't even Google.
2:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I happened upon some information about the Appalachian Trail which I had never heard of.
2:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought, this seems pretty cool.
2:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I should do this instead of what I'm doing right now.
2:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Hmm, well part of our console, Reulin.
2:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I lived in Little Rock.
2:24
[SPEAKER_02]: little rock.
2:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
2:26
[SPEAKER_02]: So Northwest Arkansas is my old stomping grounds, but that's not a lot.
2:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not.
2:31
[SPEAKER_00]: No, but I just went through it.
2:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Not that anything's wrong with little rock.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It's just that it's completely different type of topography and everything else.
2:42
[SPEAKER_02]: So I had you done any hiking before you decided to attack the Appalachian Trail.
2:49
[SPEAKER_00]: not really.
2:51
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think when I was in sixth grade, I went to sixth grade camp and we did what everybody made a big deal to call in all day hike, which was probably like three miles.
3:04
[SPEAKER_00]: That's like winter.
3:06
[SPEAKER_00]: We were a bunch of 11 year olds, so I couldn't have been that far.
3:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember it being hot and dry and terrible, and I was living in California at the time.
3:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I have no idea where we were.
3:17
[SPEAKER_00]: So I did that.
3:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I have like a memory of that and then when I moved to Arkansas, there is a little hill in Arkansas in Little Rock that's called Pinnacle Mountain and it is about a one mile hike from the bottom to the top.
3:32
[SPEAKER_00]: It is like six or seven hundred feet of game.
3:34
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a pretty strenuous and it's very much a local right of passage kind of thing like you go out on a Saturday.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There's 150 people going up this one mile trail.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so I got dragged up that a few times while I was in college, hated every minute of it, every single time.
3:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I happened upon this 18th thing, and I thought, I don't know why, I feel so compelled to do this.
3:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't enjoy hiking, but I feel I feel like I need to do this.
4:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
4:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
4:06
[SPEAKER_02]: It sounds, I mean, this could have been a life-changing moment.
4:10
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm wanting to, I guess, just ask that question, did this change your life completely?
4:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Or was it just something that you tried on your journey?
4:18
[SPEAKER_00]: It did.
4:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
4:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, hiking became something that I love.
4:24
[SPEAKER_00]: It's always been a bit of a...
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[SPEAKER_00]: extra challenge, like my, you know, my body is not really designed for this kind of thing.
4:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And I struggle a lot, but it's very much a love-hate relationship and the things I love, I guess, outweigh the things I hate.
4:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Or I wouldn't still be doing it.
4:44
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, I mean, the AT led to the Wonderland Trail led to me writing a book about hiking, which led to more hiking and more writing.
4:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And like, I certainly would not be at this
4:57
[SPEAKER_00]: um, if not for the AT.
5:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Question, and this, this is kind of a hard one.
5:02
[SPEAKER_02]: By the way, I'm just going to tell all of our audience right now.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I usually tell the guest, if I ask something you don't want to answer, just say skip it, you know, and we can edit that out, or we can leave it in.
5:12
[SPEAKER_02]: But here's one, that might be a skip it question.
5:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Were you running from something or to something?
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[SPEAKER_00]: from something.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like from something always means to something something else.
5:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes we don't know what that is.
5:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, I was really not in a super happy, healthy place before the ET and when I found out about it, I think part of what
5:41
[SPEAKER_00]: What made me curious about doing something like that is the way people talked about it in the blogs in the forums was very much like the AT changed my life.
5:49
[SPEAKER_00]: The AT made me realize what was important.
5:53
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, sometimes we very boldly say things like the AT fix my problem, XYZ.
5:59
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, when I was I was 23, I had just graduated from college.
6:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't really know what I was supposed to be doing with my life.
6:05
[SPEAKER_00]: My social.
6:07
[SPEAKER_00]: interactions were largely alcohol-based like I was I was not doing anything worthwhile and I think I saw the ETS and opportunity to redefine myself and I didn't know what that meant at the time but I knew that I needed to get away from what I was currently in and it certainly did do that right like I knew what I needed to get away from I didn't know where I was headed
6:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Christine, it's interesting because the whole trail name thing, you know, it's a nickname that you pick up on the trail.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe someone gives it to you.
6:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe give it to yourself.
6:44
[SPEAKER_02]: But it becomes a new identifier.
6:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've even known of people that changed their name when they started their through like, because they were doing exactly what you're talking about.
6:57
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, I need to redefine myself.
6:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Whatever's going on right now is not the way I want to
7:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Was it like that for you?
7:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Dark fresh.
7:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I certainly did not change my name before I started the trail, but I was actually quite resistant to a trail name, because I'm not fan of nicknames.
7:18
[SPEAKER_00]: But I do think that the trail name is a wonderful allegory for an access point for people to feel that redefining in a really visceral way, because our name is such a part of who we are from before we have memory, right?
7:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do actually have a friend who just recently changed their legal name to their true name.
7:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's a really cool, like they have hype several trails and like their true name has become more their identity than their previous name.
7:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's like, that's kind of a presentation of that idea, yeah, you know, I don't want to go off on a rabbit trail, but I'm curious what you think about this.
8:05
[SPEAKER_02]: naming.
8:07
[SPEAKER_02]: So parents give us a name, which you already referenced.
8:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And it usually it's well meaning and loving and generous and all that kind of thing.
8:14
[SPEAKER_02]: But from that point forward, everybody else tries to rename us.
8:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Have you noticed this?
8:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Your teachers will say, oh, you are a good student, right?
8:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Or someone will will try to
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[SPEAKER_02]: pin some attribute of character on you are not or give you a nickname that's derogatory or you know people try to put you in a box and say you're one of those to stereotype.
8:43
[SPEAKER_02]: All these things are naming and it's inappropriate because no one has the right to name you.
8:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
8:49
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you think of that?
8:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think that all of us are carrying around a sorting machine in our head.
8:56
[SPEAKER_00]: The brain is a computer.
8:57
[SPEAKER_00]: It wants to put things into categories to make sense of them.
9:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And so when we meet people, we immediately want to say like, I know what type of person this is.
9:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Or like, I know what to expect from this person because it creates a feeling of safety to think that you know what this house person might behave or like what they might do in certain situations that are going to affect you.
9:18
[SPEAKER_00]: But I do think the concept of how we either allow or do not allow other people to form our ideas of ourselves is really interesting.
9:30
[SPEAKER_00]: The things that we take on and accept that other people want to put on us.
9:35
[SPEAKER_00]: or the things that we resist and the way that we allow others to shape our identity and our relationships to shape our identity is super interesting to me and it's really that is something that I talk about in a loan in Wonderland because I was very much searching for identity and I was also very concerned with ideas around independence and I think those things are really intertwined.
9:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do think like our early to mid to late 20s is a time when we really are asking questions like who am I?
10:05
[SPEAKER_00]: What am I about?
10:06
[SPEAKER_00]: What do I care about?
10:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Like what, you know, what labels am I giving myself?
10:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
10:13
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, I mean, I totally understand the human instinct to try to put people in containers because it makes us feel safer.
10:20
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's hard when you're the one who's having that done to you,
10:26
[SPEAKER_02]: you know what's funny, Christine is you just gave a description of my book.
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[SPEAKER_02]: So it has a lot to do with that.
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[SPEAKER_02]: It was written for younger adults who are trying to build a foundation for life and it has a lot to do with identity and how we're perceived with that.
10:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And it kind of makes sense because that's what a lot of through hikers.
10:48
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, a lot of people are motivated by I've got to sort this out.
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[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to go.
10:52
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's almost become a meme, right?
10:54
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not fair to pin that on through hikers, but it's valid, right?
11:00
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so, but I also think it's changing.
11:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I've noticed in recent years because of the content creation culture around through hiking that a lot of people are out there for
11:14
[SPEAKER_00]: lesser reasons than soul searching and identity right like I feel like in 2015 when I was on the 18th of the first time everyone I met was either running from something or trying to find something right like those are the two types of people and it was mostly people who are at a really critical structure in their life so it's like kids who just graduated high school, kids who just graduated college sure people retiring from their job people getting divorced and
11:40
[SPEAKER_00]: people experiencing death or loss.
11:42
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was it was very much people who are like I like I need to reassess things in my life and it sort of felt like you could almost go up to somebody and say like what's your trauma?
11:54
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you have one right?
11:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Like what's like what do you out here about and everybody has some like deeper reason and I do feel like now because of the the content creation culture and the the desire to
12:06
[SPEAKER_00]: be looked at in some sense, which I think is interesting, has made a bunch of people go out on trail for the purposes of trying to like create a YouTube channel or like get famous on Instagram.
12:20
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's definitely like this new motivation that didn't really exist back then of
12:25
[SPEAKER_00]: trying to make a name for yourself, rather than looking inward.
12:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do think that's like a visceral shift that I have witnessed in the last 10 years.
12:39
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's such a fascinating thing.
12:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, you've already listed three other things to get to topics for books.
12:47
[SPEAKER_02]: But I went to Kenya many years ago and we went into areas of Kenya where the younger generations had never seen white skin before.
12:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And so, of course, we were mobbed constantly by people that wanted to touch us and see us and we were quite despactical.
13:05
[SPEAKER_02]: The reason I bring that up is, that's when I decided I never want to be famous.
13:12
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to be known in that way.
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[SPEAKER_02]: And it's interesting because I run a podcast, well, a lot of people know who I am.
13:19
[SPEAKER_02]: I write books, you know, that sort of thing, but I still, it's not a desire of mine to be famous.
13:24
[SPEAKER_02]: It is a desire of mine to offer something to others that they may find encouraging.
13:33
[SPEAKER_02]: But sometimes you need to be well-known to be successful at that too.
13:38
[SPEAKER_02]: There's so many motivations.
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[SPEAKER_02]: The Appalachian Trail did it work for you.
13:45
[SPEAKER_02]: You were looking for a shift, did it work?
13:48
[SPEAKER_00]: 100%.
13:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, like I said before, like it changed my life, it changed my life in a lot of really long lasting and profound ways.
13:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Did I get what I went out there for?
13:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, no, because you never know what you're actually looking for.
14:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And you think you do.
14:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you get out there and you're asking a question in the trail answers a totally different unrelated question.
14:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Or there's, you know, it's always a very multilayer thing.
14:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like every hike that I've done, I've been like, this is the thing that I'm thinking about.
14:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Or this is the thing that I'm trying to find answers to.
14:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you get out there.
14:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's just,
14:23
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, whatever happens happens.
14:26
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think it's good not to be too attached to what you think is gonna happen.
14:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it's part of the nature of the human experience.
14:41
[SPEAKER_02]: We're asking a question, not knowing that it's the wrong question, to start with.
14:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And when we get to tell you what's on the trail, you get to a place where you actually have the time.
14:52
[SPEAKER_02]: You can't avoid this all-searching, which long walks do that for us.
14:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Then you start finding out that there are questions that you didn't even know were questions and the question you went out there to answer well that's that's like a few orders of magnitude down the journey from where you actually are sometimes yeah you think that that that can apply yeah yeah and I think.
15:16
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, because of the media, and I guess I should say like obviously I'm a person who writes about hiking like I have an Instagram following I just started a podcast like a kind of creation is a part of my world.
15:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And I really try to put what.
15:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope our healthy boundaries are grounded for myself to protect my experience and like keep it as authentic as possible.
15:39
[SPEAKER_00]: So often I feel in trail media like people talking about their experiences on trail trail story telling We get this like I went on the trail and I had this question and there was a story arc and I learned this and then we get to the end It is all meat and tidy with a bow and it's really easy to think
15:56
[SPEAKER_00]: that as a person who's lost and confused and has questions that going on trail is kind of sort of like sort of that out or solve the problem or fix something for you and I think it's just so much like less glossy than all of that and um
16:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the work that we can do, trailers are really lovely place to like work on things because there are so few distractions.
16:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And we really do have to face ourselves in ways that it's easy not to do in our normal lives.
16:25
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think people should also remember that like, that doesn't happen automatically.
16:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Like you, you really still have to put in the work and be prepared to go out there and like fight some stuff to get through.
16:39
[SPEAKER_00]: new knowledge and new ways of being in ways of understanding.
16:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
16:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, big life breakthroughs seem to always happen outside of our comfort zone.
16:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's one of the reason why through hiking offers that because it will definitely take you outside of your comfort zone.
16:59
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a very comfortable in every way.
17:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
17:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's also why
17:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Why did you do it if it's so hard Christine?
17:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Why should anybody consider it?
17:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I think everything is hard in different ways and we get comfortable or we get used to the kinds of hard that we are exposed to often.
17:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you go do something that feels big and hard and scary because it's unknown, it's probably not actually as hard as you think it is or that much harder than what you are already doing.
17:33
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just different.
17:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think also, it's just good.
17:38
[SPEAKER_00]: It's good to be uncomfortable.
17:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I maybe hadn't quite figured that out at that point, but I think I inmately sensed it, which is why I was drawn to doing it, because I knew it would be uncomfortable.
17:49
[SPEAKER_00]: But I also fooled myself a little bit, you know?
17:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I bought all the gear, I showed up on the AT.
17:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I had all the things in my backpack.
17:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I hadn't really put that much conscious thought into like what it was gonna be like when I had to pull out the rain jacket.
18:04
[SPEAKER_00]: and walk through the rain and be soaking wet.
18:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
18:08
[SPEAKER_00]: For 48, straight hours, you know, I had the coat.
18:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I was ready, I was ready, but I wasn't emotionally prepared.
18:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I think I had blocked that.
18:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just like, oh, I'm gonna get a lot of things I need and I'm gonna show up and like, I'll figure it out when I get there.
18:23
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just hadn't really put that much forth on and to like, what those discomforts would really feel like until they were happening.
18:31
[SPEAKER_02]: And we learned a lot that way and you ended up on the Wonderland Trail and you wrote a book about it alone in Wonderland, just for funnies, how do the two trails compare?
18:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh gosh, um...
18:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the Wonderland Trail obviously much shorter.
18:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say that they are both a lot of elevation gain for seemingly no purpose.
19:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, obviously this purpose you have to get from here to there, but I was not expecting the Wonderland Trail to be as much elevation gain as it is because it's a circle around.
19:12
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like a loop around a mountain and so I thought like,
19:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, you're like, not even summoning anything, I think that much elevation game, but it's a ton of elevation game, you know, in similarly the AT, unlike other long trails, like the PCT and CDT, the AT summits literally everything.
19:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And
19:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I could go to the top of every single mountain, and so there could certainly be a more direct path together when you're going.
19:43
[SPEAKER_00]: But it is like you're just logging up and down all day long on the AT and the Wonderland Trail is also that way.
19:50
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, in every other way, it's hardly a similar at all.
19:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Matt Rainier is a beautiful austere 14,000 foot volcanic peak and you know it's it's lovely Pacific Northwest and the AT is like you know, jungly, lush east coast, small mountains.
20:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, gosh, they're both very wet.
20:19
[SPEAKER_02]: It depends on the year, but yes, we need some more of that wet right now.
20:23
[SPEAKER_02]: I could take it for sure.
20:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
20:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Um.
20:28
[SPEAKER_02]: So you did a chunk of VAT.
20:32
[SPEAKER_02]: And clearly something about it appealed to you because you decided to do the Wonderland Trail.
20:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Was there something about the Wonderland Trail that answered the question that the AT didn't?
20:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, that's an interesting thought.
20:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think you know when you say they were certainly something that I peel to you like I think what appealed to me was being the type of person who did this type of thing.
20:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure.
20:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I really struggled on the AT and I looking back on it 10 years later.
21:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Can't really remember having fun on the AT.
21:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I mostly remember suffering.
21:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember it being really miserably cold.
21:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I remember it being really miserably hot.
21:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember all of the pain and feeling really slow and people leaving me behind and being the sweatiest most disgusting person.
21:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't remember like just pure joy.
21:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And I didn't backpack for three years after the AT.
21:33
[SPEAKER_00]: It was three years between those two trails.
21:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think part of that is because it was so uncomfortable.
21:39
[SPEAKER_00]: It was so painful.
21:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And I felt like, OK, I've done 650 miles of backpacking.
21:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I can say I'm a hiker.
21:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like I'm allowed to say that.
21:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And then time passed and time passed.
21:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think by the time I got on the Wonderland Trail, I'm sort of asking the question,
21:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Am I still a hiker?
21:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Do I still get to claim that identity when it's been so long since I've put this backpack on?
22:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And because I had only done the thing once, right?
22:08
[SPEAKER_00]: And there are certainly lots of people who through Pike 1 Trail, and that's all they do, and they go back to their normal lives.
22:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's a badge of honor, and I think that they did once.
22:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's great.
22:17
[SPEAKER_00]: No shade on that at all.
22:19
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think I felt this calling of like,
22:25
[SPEAKER_00]: do I still get to be a hiker if I have not done it in this long?
22:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And how do I feel about that?
22:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I just had questions, I think about that.
22:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And when I went out on the Wonderland Trail, like a little bit of it was to reclaim that and be like, no, this is like a thing I do, not a thing I did once.
22:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And immediately, if I'm getting on the Wonderland Trail, I went down
22:55
[SPEAKER_00]: and then found my way across got started back up the hill.
22:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, this is hard.
23:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And I am not having fun.
23:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember the need to myself at first day, do I even like that?
23:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
23:09
[SPEAKER_00]: What am I even doing out here and luckily I had gone downhill first before I went uphill, so then I didn't really want to turn around and go back to my card because it was this kind of glad back up the hill and I was like, okay, like I'm just gonna keep going and I think that first downhill is what kept me from quitting that day and allowed me to answer that question for myself.
23:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I think
23:38
[SPEAKER_02]: I did.
23:39
[SPEAKER_02]: I was or I am.
23:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
23:43
[SPEAKER_02]: It's choosing the right verb there.
23:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And all of life is like that for people.
23:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And as we go through phases of life, we have to answer those questions over and over again.
23:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Right for sure.
24:03
[SPEAKER_00]: doing sports.
24:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Like at what point are you like, I'm not a star soccer player anymore.
24:09
[SPEAKER_00]: That's that was past tense or whatever.
24:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think we all have to kind of probe those questions within ourselves.
24:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And and I think there's also a sense of like if if not that then what if I am no longer a hiker, what is filling that space now?
24:35
[SPEAKER_00]: like outside of hiking, or more hiking?
24:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Not like just hiking.
24:43
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think it was, it's been an evolution.
24:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that that transition to like considering myself a quote unquote rugged outdoors woman, which was really a joke when I said it the first time and it has become such a part of who I am in in a very many layered and kind of amusing way to myself.
25:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's nice to have a little bit more of a general idea of who I am.
25:06
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like when I'm hiking, I'm still a rugged outdoors woman, when I'm rock climbing, I'm still a rugged outdoors woman.
25:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't have to get so attached to like very specific things.
25:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I did, you know, I got super in the rock climbing, and I did that for a couple of years, and now I don't really live in a place where I can access like the tools that I need to do that.
25:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And it has felt a bit like a loss, but
25:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have to feel sad about it because it hasn't like hindered my overall sense of self.
25:42
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess I'm just kind of flashing through my mind, people do climb.
25:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you mind telling people where you are now where you live?
25:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I live in Tows, New Mexico.
25:52
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a beautiful gorge there.
25:54
[SPEAKER_02]: There are people climb there.
25:56
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very
25:59
[SPEAKER_00]: The rock quality is not great, oh yeah, and rock climbing is also one of those things that like if you want to do it a lot and you take a lot of time doing that you have to give up other things like it's to to like dedicate the time and my main thing for the last few years has been trail running.
26:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is also a thing that you have to dedicate a lot of time to to like choices, yeah.
26:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I just really feel like I could, you know, I could climb occasionally for fun, but it wouldn't be very fun because I'm out of practice and my fingers are weak and I don't have calluses and I'm scared and like all of the things that happen when you don't do it regularly.
26:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I've just said like, okay, like I may revisit that in the future because I really enjoyed climbing, but it's just not, it's not in the delexicon for this period of time.
26:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's completely okay.
26:52
[SPEAKER_02]: You have the permission to do anything you want.
26:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I mean, yeah, so people forget that.
26:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Especially when they get to the IM statement.
27:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're like, oh, no, this is what I'm going to do.
27:06
[SPEAKER_00]: When we become so identified with the things that we love that to let them go isn't just to let them go.
27:12
[SPEAKER_00]: It's to let a part of ourselves go.
27:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, that can be really hard, and especially if you're a person in the public eye or even in the eye of your friends and family where you feel like this part of me is part of these people's perception of me.
27:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And so now not only am I losing identity for myself, I'm losing identity to the people around me, like there's just so many layers to that.
27:36
[SPEAKER_02]: You know it's been a while since we've gone quite so meta on the Adventure Sports podcast and I really enjoy it I think it's been fantastic.
27:44
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm curious though.
27:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I was I was leading you into this But is your alone in Wonderland book kind of like that is it Deep thoughts deep thoughts by Christine
27:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I like to think so a little bit, um, you know, I talk a lot with my writer friends and my, my kind of outdoor literature space about the difference between, uh, a memoir and a trail journal, um, and there are lots of trail journals that are published that are like, day one.
28:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I hi to this many miles.
28:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I am at this person.
28:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I met this person.
28:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And like,
28:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Cool.
28:22
[SPEAKER_00]: That's great.
28:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't find that very interesting to read because I really don't care how many miles you hiked or how much food you ate unless I care about you as a person and it's difficult to care about you as a person if you don't tell me anything about your philosophy on life or where you come from or why you are the way you are or what you're trying to learn.
28:43
[SPEAKER_00]: or run away from or what that character arc that I made a joke about earlier is like without those things I don't care about your own meal.
28:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So don't like and that's you know and some people do like to read that stuff and like more power to you if you are entertained by that but that just doesn't do it for me and I think
29:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, alone in Wonderland is certainly in the memoir category, like you really get to see who I am and why I'm there and what I'm learning and the struggle and the human aspect of it.
29:20
[SPEAKER_00]: So if that's your jam, that's where my book is.
29:24
[SPEAKER_02]: What about Blood Sweat and Tears?
29:26
[SPEAKER_00]: So blood sweat tear is actually a short story collection by 26 women about their experiences on trail.
29:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So I wrote two of the stories and then I have 25 other women's stories and there it's hiking, it's backpacking, it's trail running and it's mountaineering.
29:42
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's all like foot travel by trail.
29:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's all centered around relationship to body as a theme.
29:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So all of the stories engage with questions of how does the trail help me better understand my physical vessel and to better love myself, my body, because I think that that's a really interesting
30:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Question to poke at because I think we all women especially, but honestly, I've talked to so many men who've been like, yeah, me to about like we have complicated relationships with our bodies and they're always changing.
30:20
[SPEAKER_00]: They're always evolving and Like the trail can be Such a powerful place to like come into deeper relationship with This bag of meat and bones that we're walking around in for however many years
30:37
[SPEAKER_02]: That's amazing, that's deep, and it's real, I don't want to stereotype, but it's common for men to be told to be tough and man up and so men stuff a lot.
30:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And when I say stuff, I mean, it's like, well, I'm not going to experience this emotion or even this physical pain.
31:04
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just not going to experience it.
31:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And I went through a phase of life where I did that.
31:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And by the way, man, that's not a good way to become a super athlete.
31:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Because you will get injuries, which I did.
31:17
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I ran until I broke a bone from running.
31:21
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's like, well, that will happen if you ignore what your body's trying to tell you.
31:25
[SPEAKER_02]: But here's something else that's fascinating about it to me, Christi.
31:29
[SPEAKER_02]: If you stuff doesn't matter if you're a guy or a girl, if you stuff, that emotion will manifest itself.
31:38
[SPEAKER_02]: It has to get out somehow and it will store itself in the body.
31:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And one classic example of this is that if you're working in a stressful position, your shoulder start to hurt, your neck starts to hurt, you know, your tense because your muscles are stressed out.
31:52
[SPEAKER_02]: And I mean, that's like stage one of this,
32:01
[SPEAKER_02]: And crippling diseases and things like that because we're not in touch with our bodies.
32:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I love what you're talking about, the idea of, whoa, I need to listen to what my bodies trying to tell me, boy, that was a lifeless and that took me decades to begin to learn.
32:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe you take a long time to keep learning it, right?
32:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it's once you realize, like I don't think I'm, I don't think I'm relating right to myself and like need to do better.
32:30
[SPEAKER_00]: It takes a lot of learning to get to a place where it feels good, you know?
32:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's challenges a long way, right?
32:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Every injury, every setback, every illness, like every time we have to reassess with our bodies,
32:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
32:51
[SPEAKER_02]: I like asking the question, what are you trying to tell me?
32:55
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
32:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And of course, that maybe that is a little bit too, uh, too much on the cognitive side.
33:03
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's a start at least, you know, to say, what are you trying to tell me, right?
33:09
[SPEAKER_00]: For sure.
33:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
33:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
33:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And like, should I,
33:14
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it like with little niggles and things as if like if you're a runner, you understand sometimes you're like, oh, my nie feels weird today or like, oh, I'm having like, you know, my leg is tight and I don't know why and it's like, okay, now I'm listening, I'm paying attention and but am I going to stop doing what I'm doing like.
33:29
[SPEAKER_00]: like it's a constant assessment of like do I need to stop or is this like what are you trying to tell me?
33:35
[SPEAKER_00]: and then like at what degree like how how bad is this like do I need to stretch more, do I need to massage, do I need to heat or ice or rest or move in a different way, do I need to change my gear?
33:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Like there's just so many potential answers.
33:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like the body is like a crying infant.
33:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And we have to tune in to learn not like secret mom power where you can hear the infant crying instantly know what they need.
34:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, and we just don't trade ourselves to do that in most realms of life.
34:10
[SPEAKER_02]: How important is that as a throughhiker?
34:13
[SPEAKER_02]: If someone's never done it before, they're like, okay, I'm headed on the PCT.
34:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I need to know what I should watch out for.
34:21
[SPEAKER_02]: What would you say?
34:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Gosh, it's such a trial and error and everybody's body is so different and if you've never done anything where you're moving your body all day multi day like
34:32
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not gonna know, like it's so hard to know what's what's serious and what anything means if you've never like I came from I had never hiked I was not athletic like I did not do sports in school I was like couch potato girl goes and I say it and I had I developed really bad tendonitis in my Achilles and plantar fasciitis and I like there were a few days where I could barely walk
35:01
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and luckily there was a gal around me who's much older and she had been a marathon runner for a long time and she was like, hey, you have flater fashion and then she was like, here's some things you can do and she taught me to do like, cafes and stuff and I did end up having to take a few days off and like, recoup and recover and very thankfully there was someone nearby who knew what I needed and was able to point that out to me.
35:29
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think, you know, on trail, if you're, if you're a newbie with no experience and no idea what body singles mean, like talk to people about what you're feeling, talk to the people around you, because there's a good chance someone might know or have some useful experience.
35:44
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to ask you an impossible question, but I'd love to hear your answer anyway.
35:48
[SPEAKER_02]: When you feel pain, when you're doing some athletic thing, whether it's through hiking or distance running or whatever it is, when you feel pain,
35:57
[SPEAKER_02]: At what point is it becoming an injury versus this is just a hard thing my body is doing?
36:05
[SPEAKER_00]: It isn't possible to know.
36:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I do think we get to recognize it in ourselves a little bit better, but I think it's it would be so hard to explain.
36:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I am dealing with an injury right now.
36:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a hip injury and I think it happened because I decided I was going to try to train for a 50 mile race and
36:23
[SPEAKER_00]: went pretty quickly from like 15 miles a week to like 30 miles of me.
36:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I increased too fast, which I know I shouldn't have done, but there was a timeline that was like the races at this time and I like I need to make up for not starting training a little over here.
36:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And I increased my bios a little too fast, and One run, I was like, oh my hip feels a little funny And then it got really tight after the run and it was feeling kind of inflamed And I think I took a day off and then it was my weekly running group in town and so I was like I'm gonna go running group and like see how it feels and I ran four miles and during the run It actually really didn't feel that bad, but then immediately afterwards it was like hot hot inflamed And I said I'm gonna stop.
37:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I got stuff
37:08
[SPEAKER_00]: So I stopped running for a week, like, I'm going to see how that feels, and it was still bothering me, so I went, how it looked at.
37:19
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was, you know, this was the first time that I've had that type of injury, where I felt pretty confident in like my decision to feel it out for like one more day, and then I was like, I have to cut it off now.
37:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So,
37:35
[SPEAKER_00]: You learn I guess ten years of practice right like ten years of hiking and running to be like okay I think I think I think I'm doing the right thing right now Here's not the original thing that I did and I think just my resonate with our audience here But you can do a run like on a track
37:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, go around at four times you've done a mile, keep going, you know, two miles, three miles, four miles, and at some point you're like, oh, I don't feel right anymore.
38:02
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm stopping.
38:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
38:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Great.
38:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Good for you.
38:05
[SPEAKER_02]: You made the right decision.
38:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Here's the other extreme.
38:08
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to go climb Mount Rainier.
38:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I summited, hooray.
38:13
[SPEAKER_02]: But something's desperately wrong with my body right now, and I have to hike back down again, and I don't have a choice.
38:24
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, when you can't stop because you have to survive it, that seems to be kind of the story of my life because I love mountaineering and that's what mountaineering is, you know, you get deep deep into something and high high up and there's no choice, but to get back out again, or you're really going to be in trouble.
38:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, one of the things I did in 2018, I took a wilderness first responder course, and I took it because I thought I was going to become a guide.
39:02
[SPEAKER_00]: I was looking at becoming a hiking guide.
39:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And then immediately after the course, I went and did the wanderlant trail.
39:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I said, I'm gonna write a book.
39:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I never did go become a hiking guide.
39:17
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not true, I guided one hike.
39:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I have in my prestigious hiking guide career, guided one hike, but the information that I learned in that course, I would say has been really invaluable to me, and I think
39:32
[SPEAKER_00]: that having like a basic knowledge and understanding of like when something is an emergency has given me a lot of peace of mind and I think that you know this obviously that's my more extreme than talking about like oh you've like pulled your hamstring or whatever but
39:51
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, when you're in a situation to be able to say like, how serious is this, I think that's kind of the thing is like being able to assess that house serious is this question when you're like in the black country far away from trailheads far away from car access.
40:06
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's really like the critical question to be able to answer and.
40:13
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, when you think about, when you think about first responder is coming to rescue you like they don't want to come rescue you because you pulled your hamstring like you need to walk a walk out with your busted hamstring and that can cause long-term permanent damage.
40:25
[SPEAKER_00]: It really can.
40:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think maybe that backtracking to the thing I said about increasing my balance she fast is like not setting yourself up for the situation where you're going to be in over your head.
40:38
[SPEAKER_00]: If you can avoid it and I know that's like.
40:41
[SPEAKER_00]: also such a heart like a lot of times we don't know that's that we're going to be in over our heads until we're there.
40:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and those kind of injuries can happen even if you're doing something that's like quote unquote within your, your skill set or like your abilities.
40:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but yeah, I mean, a lot of times the big adventures that we want to go on are going to have us in a remote place.
41:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And like the option is walk out or lay down and sleep in the snow like.
41:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, at least when you're backpacking, you can pitch your tent and say, all right, I'm not going to finish this day.
41:13
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to take a break.
41:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and sometimes that's the best option.
41:17
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, OK, like, I'm not sure how bad this injury is.
41:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And maybe if I rested, slept for a night, it would loosen up or, you know, if it's just like something being really tight, rest can help.
41:29
[SPEAKER_00]: That also depends on your timeline, so it goes to get out, helping no one's worried about you, wherever you're supposed to.
41:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Are you going to run out of food if you don't get up and go?
41:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it's kind of fun because we started to down this bunny trail with a whole idea of listening to your body and being able to communicate with your body.
41:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that's an art form.
41:50
[SPEAKER_02]: People think, well, I feel pain.
41:51
[SPEAKER_02]: I know what's going on.
41:52
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know that.
41:53
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't say that.
41:55
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I regularly get myself into situations where I'm questioning, oh, is this a big one or not?
42:02
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, is this the one that matters or not?
42:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Christine, in way of encouraging people to overcome challenges, especially physical challenges, so that they know they can still go do it.
42:18
[SPEAKER_02]: You have a physical challenge, right?
42:23
[SPEAKER_02]: and you've had to deal with that with your with your hiking.
42:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Will you describe that for everyone?
42:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
42:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
42:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I have pots, which is short for postural, orthostatic, techacardius syndrome.
42:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And it is a form of dysautonomia, which is dysfunction of the autonomic nervous system.
42:43
[SPEAKER_00]: So the autonomic nervous system controls everything that you are not consciously controlling.
42:47
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's your heart rate, your blood pressure, phase of dilation, temperature regulation, sweating, to a certain degree, respiratory rate.
42:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's essentially like, I didn't like your computers just not working the way it should.
43:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the signals are not.
43:06
[SPEAKER_00]: correct and so it causes me to have extremely high heart rate.
43:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I breathe very hard when I exercise and my body just reacts in a lot of weird ways to things and I'm kind of constantly having to check in, pay attention, and try to manage those symptoms.
43:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, when I got diagnosed, which was in the fall of 2020, when I was 30 years old, I had had this condition as long as I can remember, I don't remember my body ever being any other way, but I had just really learned how to.
43:42
[SPEAKER_00]: cope with it in a lot of ways, like I just knew this is how my body is.
43:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And finally finding out that there was actually something going on that was not within my control.
43:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Was a really life-changing experience.
43:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the things that happened when I got diagnosed was they gave me a list of symptoms.
44:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, check, check, check, check, yeah, that's all me.
44:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And at the bottom of the list, it's said exercise intolerance, which I laughed and then after the appointment went to my car and cried.
44:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, because it was just, it was just one of those moments where you realize like that all of the work that I've put in, like, and all of the work that I could possibly put in for the rest of my life is never going to change this.
44:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I actually was in remarkably good shape at that time, and I had the realization that like, this is as good as it gets like, I.
44:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I think on some level from the time that I became a hiker, until that time that I got diagnosed, I thought if I just try hard enough, if I just push myself enough, if I suffer enough, it will get easier.
44:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And I looked around at everyone around me who seemed not to be struggling in the same way that I was.
44:58
[SPEAKER_00]: and thinking, I'm going to be like that someday.
45:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I will be able to do it as easily as these people look like they're doing it next to me.
45:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, getting diagnosed, I realized that's not reality.
45:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I'm never going to get to be where those people are.
45:16
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was also
45:19
[SPEAKER_00]: such a freeing experience to know that like my body is this way because it is this way not because I am not working hard enough and also to have the information about what's going on and they don't understand pot super well but there's a lot of studying being done about it right now and even the information that they did have at that time was really useful to me to understand what's going on with my body and have to try to manage it better and it has gotten
45:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn't say it's gotten easier, but I've gotten better at it.
45:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And I suffer slightly less now because of it.
45:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I just think that that's a beautiful thing every time that I hear someone's story, where they're overcoming something, some big challenge.
46:04
[SPEAKER_02]: They're still doing it.
46:06
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not like, oh, roadblock, I guess that trip's over.
46:09
[SPEAKER_02]: We're done.
46:10
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, instead, it's, oh, well, here's a new parameter to work with.
46:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
46:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I think the challenges specifically with this condition are like, you're just going to suffer a long time.
46:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's it's really hard.
46:28
[SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to swallow and it's hard especially for people.
46:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's honestly harder for people who did not have this condition and then got it.
46:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Then someone like me who I've been this way my whole life.
46:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what a normal body feels like.
46:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I do know it's something.
46:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I've just heard a lot of stories of like young women, especially who were really impressive athletes and then they got pods and now they can't do the things that they used to be able to do.
46:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm still at a point where when I'm in good, in good condition with my condition and like doing well, managing my symptoms, like I'm still improving over like the most athletic I've ever been.
47:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, because I wasn't learning how to manage my symptoms until five years ago.
47:09
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like, I'm still on the upswing and for people who, once we're not dealing with these parameters at all, like they very likely will never get back to where they were.
47:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can imagine that's much harder, but one of the things that I tell people when they're like dealing with the beginning phases, because I have people reach out to me somewhat regularly to say, like, how do you do the things you want to do?
47:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to hike.
47:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to run and it just
47:35
[SPEAKER_00]: and I tell them like, this is not at all what you want to hear, but like, the difficulty of it is not going to change.
47:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Your ability to handle the difficulty is what you have to change.
47:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And when my doctor asked me like, what does it feel like to run for four straight hours?
47:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I told her, I was training for a 50K at the time when I got diagnosed and she was like, people with pots don't run.
47:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like,
48:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, should I not?
48:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it dangerous?
48:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And she said, no, but it's like, people don't do it because it, it's so hard.
48:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And she said, what does it feel like when you're doing that?
48:08
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, kind of like, I'm dying for four straight hours and she was like, how do you like, how do you do that?
48:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, I just, I've just practiced like I just,
48:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, this is what my body does and I'm going to see how long I can run for, you know, I started with a couch to 5K program where I was running like 30 seconds at a time.
48:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And I felt like I was going to die and then I was like, now I'm going to run for a minute at a time and it still feels like I'm going to die.
48:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I just learned how to cope with it and like how to suffer through it because it's what I wanted to do.
48:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And to a certain degree, like, yes, I can run at the same pace and it's slightly easier because my body has gotten better conditioned.
48:47
[SPEAKER_00]: but like the overall experience of it is like this is it's harder than it should be.
48:51
[SPEAKER_00]: It feels like I'm doing something my body is not going to do.
48:55
[SPEAKER_02]: When I was coaching high school mountain biking, I was a I was a assistant coach.
49:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I wasn't a lead coach.
49:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I didn't have that qualification in the way.
49:04
[SPEAKER_02]: But as an assistant coach, I was coaching young men and women who some of them went on to be like national leaders in pro mountain biking competitions.
49:16
[SPEAKER_02]: That kind of thing, these, I mean, where we live here in this valley is pretty remarkable place.
49:21
[SPEAKER_02]: We have a lot of limpians here and people that keep up with the Olympians who never compete.
49:26
[SPEAKER_02]: I remember at one point to your point, Christine, at one point, I said to someone who is quite a lot better than me, another gentleman who is helping to coach.
49:37
[SPEAKER_02]: I asked him something about how it gets easier as you get into better shape, you know, what to expect because he was definitely better at it than I was.
49:46
[SPEAKER_02]: He goes, oh, it does not get any easier at all.
49:48
[SPEAKER_02]: He says, you just go a little faster.
49:50
[SPEAKER_02]: You push yourself a little harder.
49:52
[SPEAKER_00]: The bar gets higher, right?
49:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
49:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's like, no, it's, get used to the pain.
49:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Welcome to the pain cave.
49:59
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what this is about.
50:01
[SPEAKER_02]: But we do get used to the pain.
50:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And it tells us it informs us.
50:06
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we become something of the IM changes, because we realize we're actually capable of it for willing to push a little bit.
50:15
[SPEAKER_00]: When I learned learning in many ways in our life and I think athletics is a great example but it's certainly not the only one learning how to push wherever the line is to be uncomfortable to suffer right like all the things we've talked about it's like knowing that you can do hard things allows you to do hard days and the first ones are always the hardest and the things I did very early in my hiking world like I submitted met with me.
50:43
[SPEAKER_00]: in 2014 before going out on the AT&T and I had never hiked more than four miles before and I didn't know windy.
50:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had no business on that mountain and it probably wasn't really dangerous situation because I didn't know how inexperienced I was or what I was doing.
50:57
[SPEAKER_00]: I just did it and it was absolutely one of the hardest days of my life and I will say I've done probably objectively harder things since then
51:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I have known, like, I need one of those things I keep in my pocket, in my backpack, and when I'm in a hard situation, I think to myself, if I could sum it up with me at that time in my life with that level of fitness and that level of experience, like, I can do whatever this thing that I'm trying to do is.
51:27
[SPEAKER_00]: and those things are building blocks.
51:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, like you said, like, it doesn't get easier.
51:31
[SPEAKER_00]: You just do harder than it is.
51:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, yes, if I went back and did not win you now, it would be easier.
51:37
[SPEAKER_00]: It would be easier than it was that day.
51:40
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm sure I would be pushing myself to go faster and to do it.
51:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I would still be holding myself to the, like, I'm here for a challenge mentality, you know?
51:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
51:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I want to ask you about another challenge that you've recently undertaken, you just started a podcast and the name of the podcast again is out Dorsey Woman Plus and book pod.
52:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Did I get that right?
52:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Brian.
52:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Outdoorsy women plus with a plus sign book pod and it's an extension actually of the Outdoorsy women plus book club which I run and we read all outdoor adventure memoir by women and gender experience of folks and in the book pod which just launched yesterday with its very first episode I'll be interviewing the authors of the books that we read talking about their
52:38
[SPEAKER_00]: and also they're writing process and they're their books so it's very much it was intended as a little extension of the book club but I think it's going to be a really cool place for people even not in the book club to just learn about interesting books that are out and hear about different types of adventures and also if you're if you're a book nerd and curious about books and like also a little bit about the writing process and and what storytelling goes into creating a book.
53:07
[SPEAKER_02]: I like that.
53:09
[SPEAKER_02]: That's right down my alley of trying to become a better author, and learning how people write.
53:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Matter of fact, I'm not going to name any names, but I just, night before last, finished a book that I absolutely thought was horrible.
53:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And kept reading it for esteem because I thought, you know, this is really valuable.
53:31
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm learning all these things not to do.
53:34
[SPEAKER_02]: So, for sure.
53:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, there's more than one way to learn or to encounter a book.
53:40
[SPEAKER_02]: But all of that said, that sounds like a lot of fun.
53:43
[SPEAKER_02]: I want to ask one more question, which is about women in the outdoors.
53:52
[SPEAKER_02]: we've had countless women on our show and I don't think of women or men in the outdoors is different because I just see us all as humans.
54:02
[SPEAKER_02]: But I've heard multiple women say no no there's a difference and this is my experience and I know that it looks by the name of your podcast if I the name of your Instagram handle this is something you've waited through.
54:22
[SPEAKER_00]: For sure, I mean, I'll start by saying, I can representation is really important.
54:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I think seeing people we can relate to doing things that we are not sure we can do is an invitation.
54:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think,
54:38
[SPEAKER_00]: that is why bringing more women's stories to the forefront is a big part of my mission, my personal mission.
54:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And all of the projects that I do are sort of fueled by that idea.
54:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's really easy for men to look at something like the outdoor culture and say, like, what do you mean?
54:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, we're all the same.
54:58
[SPEAKER_00]: We're all out here, right?
54:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, because you aren't being affected by the limitations
55:06
[SPEAKER_00]: those cultural expectations that are put on women and the barriers that exist.
55:13
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's easy not to see them.
55:14
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really easy not to see barriers when you're on the other side of them.
55:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
55:18
[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, women face barriers in so many ways and I think one of them was for a very long time representation.
55:28
[SPEAKER_00]: When all of her media was going through very few filters,
55:35
[SPEAKER_00]: the people who are making decisions at the big outdoor companies about who's going to be in the advertisements and it was who's on commercials and who's you know in movies and in books and that was largely meant in the outdoor space up until probably the last 10 years or so.
55:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And social media, I think, was a huge factor in the democratization of the outdoors for women because we can go find women who are doing the things that we want to do and we can witness them on Instagram and on YouTube and in these places where there are not the barrier of someone else deciding yes your story gets to get published or your story gets to get created.
56:15
[SPEAKER_00]: We are creating our own stories, and we are able to put them out for anyone to see, and I think that's made a huge huge difference.
56:21
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I recently read 30 below, which won the Banff Book Award last year, and it is the story of the Tenali Dam Souls.
56:31
[SPEAKER_00]: a group of six women who were the first all female team to summit Denali in 1970.
56:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And part of the book is going through the backstory of each of their mountaineering career and how they were absolutely the only woman everywhere that they went and that they faced so many obstacles of then just literally telling them no, like it was every mountaineering club around the world did not accept women at that time.
56:58
[SPEAKER_00]: and every expedition did not want a woman there, and you get, you get, I mean, and they really went through like one of the women was like, I applied to go on this expedition to do blah blah and they told me there wasn't going to be any woman's toilet there so I couldn't come.
57:14
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and so it's like it's really easy.
57:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Like thank you to everyone who wasn't that long ago and like that's where we were then.
57:23
[SPEAKER_00]: And so one of the women said and she found these six women around the world like
57:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Three of them were from the US, one was Canada, one was Alaska, one was New Zealand, like they really had to go to the ends of the earth to assemble this team, and they planned their trip by letter writing, and they wrote, wrote letters to each other, and they were like, okay, here's the dates and like show up here, do this, and they got themselves there, and they found some very small sponsorships.
57:53
[SPEAKER_00]: They also got turned down for sponsorships from most of the companies they reached out to.
57:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and they got themselves to this mountain, and they sent it in generally, and I would highly recommend reading the book.
58:03
[SPEAKER_00]: It's an amazing, like, story.
58:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but it really, it really reveals a lot of those barriers that were quite explicit at that time.
58:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And I do think, obviously, we've come a long way.
58:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And the barriers are in many ways.
58:18
[SPEAKER_00]: more implied in some places like there's still lots of times where like as a woman you go out hiking or you go out mountaineering or you do something and like you're the only woman there and it can feel really
58:32
[SPEAKER_00]: unwell can aim to be the only woman in a space and I think a lot of men even though they wouldn't say you shouldn't be here in those words like they will make you feel like you shouldn't be there and some of that may not even be fully conscious intention from men but it's it's so ingrained in
58:55
[SPEAKER_00]: culture of like what women should be doing and where we shouldn't be and I think there's still a lot of conversation around like should women leave their kids with their grandparents to go some at Mount Everest or should we leave the expectations of
59:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Family and motherhood and these other things like if you look on any social media about women who are talking about being childless by choice Look at the comments on those posts and tell me that there are Limitations on what people think women should be doing, right?
59:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's it's very threaded throughout all of our culture, but I think outdoor culture
59:36
[SPEAKER_00]: is very affected because there are so many women who are like, well, I can't go do that because I need to do these things that I'm expected to do.
59:43
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and a lot of those limitations are like we were talking about earlier letting other people tell you who you are.
59:48
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of those limitations are also things that we let people tell us we shouldn't do and they become a part of what we believe about ourselves because we do absorb the stories that are told to us by the people around us.
1:00:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:00:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I...
1:00:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I would like to add to that men, I am one, I is one, don't do that to women, stop it, welcome people for who and what they are, no matter the background, no matter who they are, where they come from, their skin color, their gender, whatever, everybody has something to offer and you can learn from anyone and just embrace humanity because that's what it's really all about.
1:00:29
[SPEAKER_02]: So guys, stop it.
1:00:31
[SPEAKER_02]: You may not even know you're doing it, but stop it.
1:00:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, being conscious of it and recognizing that you can contribute to the problem, even if you don't intend to, I think one of the most powerful things that men can do is read women's stories, listen to women's stories, and I think that's also like been a really lovely side effect of my, my projects has been.
1:00:52
[SPEAKER_00]: When when I first published a loan in Wonderland, I thought this is a girl's book and this is for for women to To relate to and to see someone doing something then think I can do that to and I really wanted that That effect of the book, but I've been I've been really pleasantly surprised by the men who have read my book and have reached out to say like I learned something from your experience And I think that's super powerful.
1:01:14
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you're a man who has never read an out toward venture book by a woman
1:01:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you will learn something.
1:01:20
[SPEAKER_00]: It'll be good for your perspective, and you'll really have an opportunity to see the other side of the sale as they say.
1:01:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, well, I agree with you.
1:01:31
[SPEAKER_02]: I am gonna say this though, Christine.
1:01:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I believe in girl power, but I also believe in man power.
1:01:39
[SPEAKER_02]: In women power, and boy power, I,
1:01:43
[SPEAKER_02]: We all need to be empowered to be better people.
1:01:46
[SPEAKER_00]: For sure.
1:01:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, no one should be too much.
1:01:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Which means you're never going to become a better person unless you're first or something like a comfortable, because that is where the growth happens.
1:01:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like we've come so full circle in this conversation.
1:01:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's perfect.
1:01:57
[SPEAKER_02]: We're back where we started.
1:01:59
[SPEAKER_02]: We're out of time.
1:02:00
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's a perfect time to wrap it up.
1:02:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for sharing your heart with us today.
1:02:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that the reality of what you share is really good.
1:02:09
[SPEAKER_02]: The reason is because so many people hear the big stories that we have on the podcast, you know, this gal ran 25 marathons in 25 days or something.
1:02:19
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, they're like, well, it's no.
1:02:21
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's so good to also hear the heart of what it takes sometimes to step out and try and do and be what it means to be a human that's exploring all of these things.
1:02:33
[SPEAKER_02]: So thank you, Christine, for that very much.
1:02:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I really appreciate that, Chris.
1:02:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
1:02:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Now you're welcome.
1:02:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Everyone out there.
1:02:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't care what it is, but make sure you're find your thing and get out there and have some fun.