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133: Hiking the John Muir Trail Alone: Preparing for 250 Miles After Loss and Injury · The Everyday Awesome Project

• 0:27
  Polly Mertens: Hey superstars, welcome back.
• 0:29
  Polly Mertens: Polly here.
• 0:30
  Polly Mertens: And Sam Pruitt.
• 0:31
  Polly Mertens: What's up, beautiful humans?
• 0:33
  Polly Mertens: Oh, this is gonna be a fun one.
• 0:36
  Polly Mertens: This is like this is all about you, girl.
• 0:38
  Polly Mertens: This is all about you.
• 0:39
  Polly Mertens: How not to die on the John Mirror Trail is what we've called this.
• 0:42
  Polly Mertens: And you have no plans of dying on the John Mirror Trail.
• 0:45
  Polly Mertens: I know that.
• 0:46
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 0:46
  Polly Mertens: No.
• 0:47
  Polly Mertens: No, no, no.
• 0:48
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 0:48
  Polly Mertens: So let's But I'm the guest today.
• 0:51
  Polly Mertens: Yes.
• 0:52
  Samantha Pruitt: Samantha Bruitt is heading out on the John Mirror Trail.
• 0:55
  Samantha Pruitt: And why don't you like, yeah, you know the logistics of like miles and feet and stuff like that.
• 1:00
  Samantha Pruitt: So what are we talking about today?
• 1:02
  Samantha Pruitt: What what you know, what trip are you about to embark on?
• 1:05
  Samantha Pruitt: Tell us a little bit about like the trip itself.
• 1:07
  Samantha Pruitt: Give me the context.
• 1:08
  Samantha Pruitt: What is the John Muir Trail for somebody who's maybe never heard of it?
• 1:11
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 1:11
  Samantha Pruitt: And if you haven't, get a grip.
• 1:13
  Samantha Pruitt: No screen.
• 1:14
  Samantha Pruitt: The John Muir Trail is one of the through, one of the famous through hikes.
• 1:20
  Samantha Pruitt: So through hikes and backpacks are where you go from end to end, and you know, you do day after day of crazy enormous things with a backpack on your back.
• 1:28
  Samantha Pruitt: Uh the John Muir Trail specifically goes through the John Muir Wilderness.
• 1:32
  Samantha Pruitt: The trail is 211 miles, but I'm going to be doing about 250 miles, maybe a little bit more than that, because I have to get to the trail.
• 1:42
  Samantha Pruitt: So I have to take the PCT, Pacific Rest Trail, to the trail south of Mount Whitney.
• 1:48
  Samantha Pruitt: And then I get on the John Muir, do the entire John Muir, and then I have to exit twice to resupply.
• 1:54
  Samantha Pruitt: So hence all the additional mileage.
• 1:56
  Samantha Pruitt: Accumulative, it'll be about 55,000 feet of climbing.
• 2:02
  Samantha Pruitt: Uh-huh.
• 2:04
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 2:04
  Samantha Pruitt: And about 45 to 50,000 feet of descending.
• 2:08
  Samantha Pruitt: So let's just say these legs are about to get at it.
• 2:13
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay.
• 2:13
  Samantha Pruitt: Those legs and those feet.
• 2:15
  Samantha Pruitt: And we're talking and what it like Everest is how many feet?
• 2:19
  Samantha Pruitt: Like just to give somebody like this is like two Everests or something?
• 2:22
  Samantha Pruitt: Or I mean or I think it's like two and a half Everests.
• 2:25
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 2:26
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, not the same altitude.
• 2:28
  Samantha Pruitt: It is a high altitude hike.
• 2:30
  Samantha Pruitt: So like I start, when I start, I'm already at like 9,000 feet.
• 2:34
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 2:35
  Polly Mertens: And then I go up and down, up and down, up and down.
• 2:37
  Polly Mertens: You know, some of the peaks are 11,000, 12,000, 13,000, and then you come back down and they go back up.
• 2:43
  Polly Mertens: So yeah, it's just a lot of climbing and descending.
• 2:46
  Samantha Pruitt: Wow.
• 2:47
  Polly Mertens: And it goes across the Sierra Nevada mountain range, which is in California.
• 2:50
  Polly Mertens: And what have you, you know, you, I don't know how much you've studied.
• 2:54
  Polly Mertens: I I I'm fascinated by John Muir as a human being.
• 2:58
  Polly Mertens: I went to his, there's a forest dedicated to him in Northern California, north of San Francisco.
• 3:03
  Polly Mertens: So I went to the John, it's called Mirror Woods or something like that.
• 3:06
  Polly Mertens: And just these amazing, you know, like Yosemite exists because of John Muir.
• 3:10
  Polly Mertens: Can we just say that?
• 3:11
  Polly Mertens: Like, like he is why we have Yosemite.
• 3:14
  Polly Mertens: And I think the start of our national parks was like part of the seedling that he is.
• 3:18
  Polly Mertens: So what do you know about this Muir Trail?
• 3:21
  Polly Mertens: That like, why do this trip?
• 3:23
  Polly Mertens: What was it about that?
• 3:25
  Polly Mertens: Was it being in nature?
• 3:26
  Polly Mertens: Why, why go on this epic freaking adventure?
• 3:29
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, with Muir, it's really interesting.
• 3:32
  Polly Mertens: I mean, he's totally legendary in all things, the natural, you know, world, and in particular, the United States natural world.
• 3:39
  Polly Mertens: He's slightly controversial because for a man of his times, he did say and do some things that these days we would say are not politically correct.
• 3:47
  Polly Mertens: So there's a little controversy there.
• 3:49
  Polly Mertens: But overall, this trail and the wilderness that has been protected and named after him is purely magical.
• 3:58
  Polly Mertens: And really, he was one person who brought about most of the awareness and was doing some of the advocacy.
• 4:05
  Polly Mertens: But frankly, there's so many people that actually made this trail.
• 4:09
  Polly Mertens: It's just mind-blowing.
• 4:12
  Polly Mertens: And then I also found out, and now I'm trying to remember because I just had a brain fart if it was the PCT or the John Muir Trail.
• 4:19
  Polly Mertens: This might be the PCT.
• 4:21
  Polly Mertens: So if I'm wrong, forget me.
• 4:22
  Polly Mertens: But it was actually a woman's idea.
• 4:24
  Polly Mertens: Oh, this was the you and I did the PCT.
• 4:26
  Polly Mertens: It was the PCT.
• 4:27
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:28
  Polly Mertens: You and I were on the PCT.
• 4:29
  Polly Mertens: Premier, then it was a different advocacy advocacy group in Northern California, basically, that started the whole process.
• 4:35
  Polly Mertens: And those are the really the people that made it happen.
• 4:37
  Polly Mertens: But he was like, hey, y'all, nature's a thing.
• 4:40
  Polly Mertens: Get outside.
• 4:41
  Polly Mertens: An exquisite was an exquisite writer and documentaritarianism, you know, around like telling the story of nature that really pulled people in, including governments and agencies and just lay people like me into the space, right?
• 4:55
  Polly Mertens: So it's that type of person who's like, hey, do you see all of this natural world?
• 5:01
  Polly Mertens: A, you need to be out there and appreciate it because that's what real life is.
• 5:05
  Polly Mertens: And his writings are magnificent.
• 5:08
  Polly Mertens: And then, you know, just really helping to tell that story is what created people, the desire for people to want to preserve these lands and allow the public, like me, to utilize them at a future date rather than having them full of homes and you know, all kinds of stuff.
• 5:26
  Polly Mertens: But to be clear, we're on native land.
• 5:29
  Polly Mertens: So this was all native land.
• 5:32
  Polly Mertens: You're all on native land, and including this experience, you know.
• 5:37
  Polly Mertens: So if you think about that and the depth of that beauty and awe, that's really also quite magnificent.
• 5:44
  Polly Mertens: The peoples, the indigenous people that have lived in these mountains forever, you know, since the beginning of man.
• 5:51
  Polly Mertens: So some of the things we're going to go over.
• 5:53
  Polly Mertens: So I want to hear, you know, like why you're doing this trip, why you're doing it now.
• 5:56
  Polly Mertens: You have been preparing for this epic adventure for months.
• 6:01
  Polly Mertens: And we'll go into some of the places that you started in, you know, like from last year, you know, you were injured, you know, and now here almost a year later, it's like you're about to crush 250 miles.
• 6:12
  Polly Mertens: It's like, what the hell is, you know, and and there's been a long journey.
• 6:16
  Polly Mertens: Like you're about to take an epic journey, but you've been on a journey for a while.
• 6:20
  Polly Mertens: So let's start with.
• 6:22
  Polly Mertens: So before we go into like all the nitty-gritty, and I just can't wait, because you're such a good, I mean, like you, so if you guys if you're tuning into this and you don't know who Sam Pruitt is, okay, let me just give you a little quick backstory and you can add to this.
• 6:33
  Polly Mertens: But like ultra marathoner, triathlete, iron woman, ultra woman.
• 6:37
  Polly Mertens: I mean, you've just got into backpacking just a couple years ago, you know, like maybe three or four years ago, if you will.
• 6:43
  Polly Mertens: But like you're all things outdoor and endurance for many, many years, you know, run businesses around getting people outside, getting people on their feet, getting people moving.
• 6:52
  Polly Mertens: So it's no surprise to me that at 57, 50, almost coming up on 58, that you're like bing, like I'm going and doing something even bigger, right?
• 7:01
  Polly Mertens: So I'm super stoked.
• 7:03
  Polly Mertens: I want to hear why are you doing this?
• 7:06
  Polly Mertens: Like, what where did this start to come from?
• 7:08
  Polly Mertens: Like, why do this?
• 7:10
  Polly Mertens: Why, why do, yeah?
• 7:11
  Polly Mertens: Like, tell me a little bit of the backstory, help people understand.
• 7:14
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, the impetus.
• 7:15
  Polly Mertens: Well, I did start casually backpacking.
• 7:19
  Polly Mertens: You were on the first backpacking trip, weren't we hilarious?
• 7:22
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, we had no idea what the hell we were doing.
• 7:24
  Polly Mertens: It was and I'm still in the beginners.
• 7:26
  Polly Mertens: So if I went out with you, I'd be like, you know, you've been preparing for this.
• 7:29
  Polly Mertens: Like, yeah, well, it helps that I work part-time with REI and do a lot of things specific.
• 7:35
  Polly Mertens: And most people know what REI is.
• 7:37
  Polly Mertens: Uh, but yeah, I've gotten gotten more and more expert in it for sure in the last year, as I knew I would be doing something like this someday, one day, right?
• 7:46
  Polly Mertens: It was always kind of like a dream.
• 7:47
  Polly Mertens: The John Muir Muir in particular, because originally I thought I was going to do PCT, but just do California, which is still on the list, and that'll happen at some point.
• 7:56
  Polly Mertens: But what preempted that was it actually was my brother's dream to do the John Muir Trail.
• 8:01
  Polly Mertens: And he did do segments of it and particularly was obsessed and went many times to over Corsair Cursage Pass and into Cursage Lakes, which is an area I will be in.
• 8:11
  Polly Mertens: And so because he passed in December, I was at the time helping to care for him and spend a lot of time with him.
• 8:19
  Polly Mertens: So we would talk about this adventure I was gonna go on.
• 8:21
  Polly Mertens: So it was really just lovely for us to have this thing to share and talk about planning and just give him something to think about and envision and visualize me out there doing this.
• 8:32
  Polly Mertens: And so he knew I was gonna do it, you know, and I'm taking some of his ashes, and I will, of course, deliver them to the top of Corsage Pass and Cersage Lake Lake even.
• 8:44
  Polly Mertens: But yeah, so that's really the emphasis for doing it now.
• 8:48
  Polly Mertens: And when he passed in December, I was already committed to doing it.
• 8:52
  Polly Mertens: It was a matter of getting my permit and the whole lottery system and all that kind of stuff.
• 8:57
  Polly Mertens: So that's what's determined the date that I go is the permit.
• 9:00
  Polly Mertens: Permits are very difficult to get, but doing it really feels to me like a pilgrimage.
• 9:06
  Polly Mertens: And, you know, at the same time, like a very deeply personal initiation of sorts around my own self and identity in the next chapters of my life at this age, in this body, you know, with this kind of spiritual path that I'm on and things like that.
• 9:24
  Polly Mertens: So it all really sort of ties together.
• 9:26
  Polly Mertens: It's pretty intense stuff, honestly.
• 9:28
  Polly Mertens: This is not just me backpacking on a trip, you know.
• 9:32
  Polly Mertens: I've done those trips too, you know, with friends and whatever.
• 9:35
  Polly Mertens: It's part of the reason I'm doing it solo, is for that reason specifically, is I want 20, 21, 22 days in the wilderness by myself with great intention.
• 9:46
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and I think that's really what sets us apart is yeah, there's a lot of training.
• 9:51
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, there's a lot of physical stuff and logistics, but how you approach things, I think you apply that.
• 9:58
  Polly Mertens: I would say, having, you know, been there as I've watched you step up to the race line of, you know, several races, it's never just running.
• 10:07
  Polly Mertens: It's never just going out and backpacking.
• 10:11
  Polly Mertens: It's like you have such intentionality and you're connected to so much more inside yourself and greater that you create this bigger context.
• 10:20
  Polly Mertens: Like you're like, this is, you know, I think I've been hearing you leading up to this.
• 10:24
  Polly Mertens: You haven't said the word yet, but I think we've talked about like oh, it started with an I.
• 10:28
  Polly Mertens: It was your initiation.
• 10:31
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, like there's some sort of initiation.
• 10:33
  Polly Mertens: And I don't even know, I don't even know if you know what that means quite yet, right?
• 10:36
  Polly Mertens: Like it's like there's a threshold that you cross as you take that first step, right?
• 10:40
  Polly Mertens: And it's like, okay, I'm I'm I'm you like like a leap of faith, like, okay, I'm out in the wilderness, and what's gonna happen, right?
• 10:50
  Polly Mertens: So totally, totally, and being completely at peace with whatever does happen and feeling capable and all of those things.
• 10:58
  Polly Mertens: But yeah, it's not just a physical journey, and I do have have always felt that way about endurance sports.
• 11:04
  Polly Mertens: But as I get older and I try different things, especially the more and more and more they are connected to nature, which is where I feel my best self and my most whole self, then it has that other really incredible depth of power and meaning and connection to the greater world and to the natural world and to all of humanity and all of that, you know.
• 11:28
  Polly Mertens: So it's really just like this incredible encapsulated thing when you drop into the wild like that, right?
• 11:34
  Polly Mertens: You're really re-rewilding yourself.
• 11:36
  Polly Mertens: Where was I?
• 11:38
  Polly Mertens: Oh, I was somewhere recently.
• 11:40
  Polly Mertens: Uh I was on a hike, I think, last weekend with my training partner, and we went into this like oak grove, right?
• 11:47
  Polly Mertens: You know, and we're and as you know, it was just like Alan hadn't been there before.
• 11:50
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, oh yeah, I was just kind of describing it to him a little bit.
• 11:53
  Polly Mertens: And we got there, and it I hadn't been there in maybe like six to nine months or something.
• 11:57
  Polly Mertens: And as and I felt the grandeur of it again, and I was and I was like describing it.
• 12:02
  Polly Mertens: And then when we went home and I was like describing to someone, I was like, it was like an oak cathedral.
• 12:07
  Polly Mertens: I was like, you know, and so there's these, you know, spiritual it's a church out there, yeah.
• 12:13
  Polly Mertens: If that's how people hell yeah, I mean, you know, I feel that way about my backyard trails, totally, totally like I'm all I'm walking into a mausoleum, a church, a significant, you know, area of ancient wisdom and native people and all of the just beauty and the natural elements of the dirt and the rocks and the trees and the animals and all that kind of stuff.
• 12:37
  Polly Mertens: Like, what it doesn't get better than that.
• 12:39
  Polly Mertens: Come on, people tune into it.
• 12:41
  Polly Mertens: So let's talk about like so you set this goal.
• 12:43
  Polly Mertens: So in December of that was 2025, you were, and now like now it's the logistics.
• 12:50
  Polly Mertens: I mean, it's not easy, like you said, to get the damn permit.
• 12:53
  Polly Mertens: I remember you were like week after week after week.
• 12:55
  Polly Mertens: So, you know, tell me, tell us like, okay, like how did how what did you have to do to secure the permit?
• 13:01
  Polly Mertens: How many times did you try?
• 13:02
  Polly Mertens: Like, and and like getting time off work and all that some of these logistics.
• 13:06
  Polly Mertens: Tell us some of that.
• 13:07
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:08
  Polly Mertens: So the first thing you have to do besides committing to yourself that you're doing this, okay.
• 13:12
  Polly Mertens: So that is that leap of faith, that courage, bravery, you know, slight stupidity, whatever you want to call it.
• 13:19
  Polly Mertens: I don't care.
• 13:20
  Polly Mertens: And then, and then you do have to actually start the logistical planning.
• 13:25
  Polly Mertens: This is no small fee to be out, you know, self-supported.
• 13:30
  Polly Mertens: Because I'm going solo, right?
• 13:31
  Polly Mertens: Totally self-supported for 20-something days in the middle of freaking nowhere.
• 13:35
  Polly Mertens: But you do have to have a permit.
• 13:37
  Polly Mertens: So you can't just willy-nilly go into these wild places without permits.
• 13:41
  Polly Mertens: Almost most trails and all of the long trails do require permits.
• 13:46
  Polly Mertens: So you have to go online, recreation.gov, you have to basically find the trails that you're trying to utilize, and then you apply for those specific permits.
• 13:54
  Polly Mertens: So, like you guys did Whitney recently, you know, you have to get a permit for Whitney.
• 13:58
  Polly Mertens: You can't just go climbing Mount Whitney, right?
• 14:00
  Polly Mertens: So, same thing, recreation.gov, you go on there.
• 14:03
  Polly Mertens: Well, I was trying to go the traditional route, which is southbound, starting Yosemite, finishing on Whitney.
• 14:10
  Polly Mertens: And I tried for six weeks entering the lottery, paying, entering the lottery, paying.
• 14:16
  Polly Mertens: It's not expensive, but it does add up.
• 14:17
  Polly Mertens: And you every week and every week, and then you're rejected, and you're rejected, and you're rejected because there's thousands and thousands of people trying to get these permits, right?
• 14:24
  Polly Mertens: And they release 50 a day.
• 14:26
  Polly Mertens: So your odds are pretty shit.
• 14:28
  Polly Mertens: And I got to, yeah, about the seventh week, and I was like, I I'm not gonna be able to do it this year, a based on time off and timing, but also there's weather windows, there's all these other things that you need to consider.
• 14:41
  Polly Mertens: You don't just go when there's snow and you actually can't pass on the desert and freeze to death.
• 14:46
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 14:47
  Polly Mertens: You know, like there's all these other variables for consideration.
• 14:50
  Polly Mertens: And I knew for me, living here in the desert, that going in the summer was ideal.
• 14:55
  Polly Mertens: And also getting time off work from my projects, the summertime was going to be ideal.
• 15:01
  Polly Mertens: So there were these other personal elements to it.
• 15:02
  Polly Mertens: So anyway, I finally just bailed all together on hoping and praying I'd get that southbound permit.
• 15:10
  Polly Mertens: And I started applying for the northbound permit.
• 15:12
  Polly Mertens: So I was applying for southbound and northhound at the same time.
• 15:15
  Polly Mertens: So I did that for three weeks, and then eventually I got the northbound permit from Cottonwood Pass on the PCT into the John Muir and then northbound, and I will exit at Yosemite.
• 15:27
  Polly Mertens: So I'm going the opposite direction, which is just not as popular and all of that, which I I don't care.
• 15:32
  Polly Mertens: And the reason is for good reason, because it's quite a bit harder.
• 15:38
  Polly Mertens: Because out of the gate, you start with the big mountain passes.
• 15:42
  Polly Mertens: So you're like not leisurely working your way into this 250-mile hike.
• 15:48
  Polly Mertens: You're like, so anyway, hey, guess what?
• 15:51
  Polly Mertens: Here's Whitney.
• 15:52
  Polly Mertens: Waiting.
• 15:53
  Polly Mertens: And generally, people, especially because of the high altitude acclimation and all the they're not fans of that, getting punched in the face day one, two, three, four, five, right.
• 16:04
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 16:05
  Polly Mertens: Uh so it just is what it is.
• 16:07
  Polly Mertens: And it just means that for me, the beginning of the hike, because I don't live at altitude, um, I'll be a lot slower.
• 16:13
  Polly Mertens: And I am totally fine with that.
• 16:15
  Polly Mertens: This is my journey, and I will do what I need to do when I need to do it.
• 16:20
  Polly Mertens: I mean, I have a rough plan and we can get into that, but like I am also so open to anything could happen.
• 16:26
  Polly Mertens: I could go faster, I could go slower.
• 16:29
  Polly Mertens: I could and highly probably will hit storms and will have to adjust my movement because of that and safety parameters, right?
• 16:37
  Polly Mertens: Whatever.
• 16:38
  Polly Mertens: I might not feel good one day.
• 16:40
  Polly Mertens: I might feel like a freaking machine.
• 16:42
  Polly Mertens: Maybe I do two passes one day because I'm like superhuman.
• 16:45
  Polly Mertens: How the hell do I know?
• 16:46
  Polly Mertens: I have no idea.
• 16:47
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, I really have no idea.
• 16:48
  Polly Mertens: And I'm totally cool with all that.
• 16:50
  Polly Mertens: Do you get and it's totally off, but I want to come back to a little bit.
• 16:54
  Polly Mertens: But do I was just thinking like trail name?
• 16:55
  Polly Mertens: Do you already have a trail name?
• 16:57
  Polly Mertens: I forget.
• 16:57
  Polly Mertens: No, I don't have one.
• 16:58
  Polly Mertens: That happens when you're out there on the trail, and it's usually people in that hiking community that you're around.
• 17:03
  Polly Mertens: Not that I'm hiking with anyone, but like at the camps, and then over the days and the miles, you sort of get that, and then people generally assign that to you because of some weird little quirky thing you might have going on.
• 17:13
  Polly Mertens: Me quirky?
• 17:15
  Polly Mertens: Can't wait to hear it.
• 17:16
  Polly Mertens: I don't think I'll be getting a trail name because I have no quirky.
• 17:20
  Polly Mertens: Exit with that one.
• 17:21
  Polly Mertens: But I don't know.
• 17:22
  Polly Mertens: For me, it might be something that I give myself based on the experience.
• 17:26
  Polly Mertens: I don't know.
• 17:27
  Polly Mertens: Again, like I'm open to what's gonna happen.
• 17:29
  Polly Mertens: No idea.
• 17:30
  Polly Mertens: So so tell me about the frame of mind.
• 17:32
  Polly Mertens: So even you know, some people are sitting here going, okay, coming up on 58 years old.
• 17:38
  Polly Mertens: You're like, you're gonna come out of the other end.
• 17:39
  Polly Mertens: Oh, I turned 57 on August 7th.
• 17:41
  Polly Mertens: Sorry, sorry, 50.
• 17:42
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, that's 57 on so don't try and steal my ears.
• 17:46
  Polly Mertens: I got shit to do.
• 17:47
  Polly Mertens: No, but like who I'm not a young person.
• 17:51
  Polly Mertens: Who even says, let me go out solo?
• 17:53
  Polly Mertens: Like, how many people have you told?
• 17:55
  Polly Mertens: Like, I'm going, well, you work, you know, you're at REI.
• 17:57
  Polly Mertens: A this even those people are like, oh hell no, solo female, 57.
• 18:04
  Polly Mertens: What?
• 18:05
  Polly Mertens: And I'm like, Yeah.
• 18:07
  Polly Mertens: Um initially, a lot of people were slightly terrified.
• 18:10
  Polly Mertens: You know, was I gonna be safe and all the things that they have stories in their head?
• 18:14
  Polly Mertens: And of course, I said, Yeah, I'm gonna be good.
• 18:16
  Polly Mertens: I'm totally good.
• 18:16
  Polly Mertens: I don't have that fear that you have, and all these ideas that you have, and whatever's going on in your brain.
• 18:21
  Polly Mertens: I don't have that, but thank you for your enthusiasm.
• 18:23
  Polly Mertens: And now, of course, people have just accepted as I've been planning and doing logistics and training and buying equipment and all those kind of things.
• 18:32
  Polly Mertens: And really, there's a whole army of people now that are incredibly right supportive and understanding and are behind me a thousand percent.
• 18:38
  Polly Mertens: Was there ever so was there ever a time where this seemed like an audacious goal to you, or has it always felt like, oh yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do that?
• 18:47
  Polly Mertens: Like, did it like um truthfully, it never ever felt audacious.
• 18:51
  Polly Mertens: Okay.
• 18:52
  Polly Mertens: Okay.
• 18:52
  Polly Mertens: So I just like I, when I know something in my bones, I just know it.
• 18:57
  Polly Mertens: And this was definitely one of those things, and I never have hesitated or wavered.
• 19:04
  Polly Mertens: The training was, you know, besides logistics, and we'll get into training next, but like taking on the training was a little initially like, whoa, you know, what's gonna be required?
• 19:13
  Polly Mertens: And can I do it coming out of the last year I just had?
• 19:17
  Polly Mertens: Will I be fit enough?
• 19:19
  Polly Mertens: So that was probably the only very small consideration was like that training, I had such a big gap to close.
• 19:27
  Polly Mertens: And it was like, was I gonna be able to close it?
• 19:30
  Polly Mertens: But in terms of, and again, we'll get into that, but like in terms of me mentally saying, I can do this, fuck yeah, dude.
• 19:37
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah.
• 19:38
  Polly Mertens: Well, you know, what's beautiful is because I've known you for however many years we've known each other, and I've seen you go after goal.
• 19:46
  Polly Mertens: Like, I remember when you set the goal for Iron Man, you know, a couple of years ago.
• 19:50
  Polly Mertens: And and it was like, and you weren't in Iron Man shape at all.
• 19:54
  Polly Mertens: It was like, uh-uh, like, you know, but you you set those goals, and I remember Moab, the Moab 240, you know, it was like, holy, you know, these things.
• 20:03
  Polly Mertens: And then you just like you said, it's a closing the gap.
• 20:05
  Polly Mertens: It's like, okay, there is a journey to get there.
• 20:08
  Polly Mertens: I don't just like wake up one day and want to go do the Moab 240 or hike the John Mirror trail.
• 20:13
  Polly Mertens: John Mirror did.
• 20:14
  Polly Mertens: I don't know.
• 20:14
  Polly Mertens: Some of this is, you know, I I think I watched a movie about that story, and it was like, he's just hiking around with a freaking canteen and like boots from the 1900s or 1910s or something.
• 20:23
  Polly Mertens: It was like, whoa, you know, like so, so we've got gear, thank you, REI, and and all the stuff that you found.
• 20:30
  Polly Mertens: But so I I think now we because we've been talking about the the training, let's talk about that.
• 20:36
  Polly Mertens: Like, what was the gap?
• 20:38
  Polly Mertens: And tell us, tell everybody, because I I've been around you long enough to know what was going on in your body last year.
• 20:45
  Polly Mertens: And so what, eight almost 18 months ago, almost two years ago, you were at Iron Man.
• 20:50
  Polly Mertens: Tell us like what happened after that, or as much as you want, you know, and how you started closing this gap, you know, and you had a couple setbacks along the way, right?
• 20:59
  Polly Mertens: Totally, totally.
• 21:00
  Polly Mertens: That Iron Man training was just a lot of long, slow distance cardio.
• 21:05
  Polly Mertens: So I wasn't even that fit, honestly.
• 21:08
  Polly Mertens: Wasn't doing a lot of strength training, was doing a lot of zone two and just like plodding along endlessly, like sucking up gazillions of miles just to make sure I could make a 140-mile race, you know, swimming back and running, swimming back and running, swimming back and running.
• 21:20
  Polly Mertens: Sort of the monotony of it all.
• 21:22
  Polly Mertens: Sorry, Drathlon, but that's who you are.
• 21:24
  Polly Mertens: So then I did that race.
• 21:27
  Polly Mertens: Lots of things went wrong that day, but I did finish the race, and I ended up coming down immediately with SIBO and SIFO.
• 21:35
  Polly Mertens: So SIBO is small intestinal bacteria infection.
• 21:37
  Polly Mertens: SIFO is the fungal version of that, and water exposure, not great.
• 21:44
  Polly Mertens: You know, you're in the water a long ass time, two and a half miles.
• 21:47
  Polly Mertens: That is, you know, a long time to be submerged in water, and that stuff is getting in every orifice, including your mouth and your nose and everything.
• 21:53
  Polly Mertens: And so I came out of that and had nothing but gut issues, gut issues, gut issues.
• 21:58
  Polly Mertens: And going in, my gut was already leaky and permeable from all of the training and all of the stress and everything else.
• 22:05
  Polly Mertens: So I was a perfect host for SIBO and SIBO basically.
• 22:09
  Samantha Pruitt: And then you worked her.
• 22:11
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 22:11
  Polly Mertens: And then you worked with coaches for like six months or not.
• 22:14
  Polly Mertens: I mean, you were doing detox.
• 22:15
  Polly Mertens: I I did a lot of health coaching stuff trying.
• 22:19
  Polly Mertens: To heal that first naturally.
• 22:20
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 22:21
  Polly Mertens: And then ultimately I had to take antibiotics because we weren't able to kill it, which was a bummer but crazy.
• 22:27
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 22:27
  Polly Mertens: And so uh yeah, that went on forever.
• 22:29
  Polly Mertens: And also we thought there could be some other underlying things.
• 22:32
  Polly Mertens: So we had to do all this other testing and rule out female cancers and you know, colonoscopy, all the different things.
• 22:39
  Polly Mertens: And luckily that was all clear.
• 22:41
  Polly Mertens: And we did, or I did ultimately heal that.
• 22:45
  Polly Mertens: So hallelujah.
• 22:46
  Polly Mertens: But yeah, that was not that took six months of from post-iron man to really even feeling well.
• 22:55
  Polly Mertens: Well, you know, I didn't seem like dude.
• 22:56
  Polly Mertens: I felt like so.
• 22:57
  Polly Mertens: Iron Man was in like November, and it was like middle of the summer that year, not 2025.
• 23:02
  Polly Mertens: I think that you were, I mean, you weren't working out very much.
• 23:05
  Polly Mertens: You just were feeling like crap all the time, you know, just lack of energy and just working, you know, like that's was your focus is like heal this gut, heal this gut thing.
• 23:14
  Polly Mertens: And so coming out of the summer, you know, 2025, tell us then what happened.
• 23:19
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 23:21
  Polly Mertens: And then in addition to that stuff that was happening, you know, my brother did have cancer and was in cancer treatment.
• 23:29
  Polly Mertens: So I was trying to be helpful there, just other family stuff and stress and life and work, it just like there was a big load.
• 23:37
  Polly Mertens: So there was a physical load on my immune system and my body fighting these infections.
• 23:41
  Polly Mertens: And then additionally, there was a huge emotional and stress load coming from all these other areas called life.
• 23:49
  Polly Mertens: Really, just called life, you know?
• 23:50
  Polly Mertens: Which led me to slowly go back to the gym and kind of, you know, be doing things.
• 23:56
  Polly Mertens: And I was getting back in shape or shape for me, you know, it's all relative, but mostly doing CrossFit, very little running.
• 24:03
  Polly Mertens: I wasn't super inspired to do a lot of cardio at that point because I had kind of fried myself with Iron Man, but trail running.
• 24:09
  Polly Mertens: So a combination of trail running and crossfit is sort of what I was up to at that moment.
• 24:13
  Polly Mertens: And then unfortunately, I hurt I came out of Iron Man with a little bit of low back issue from sitting on the bike and running on the pavement for so many miles, especially like with hypothermia and the wind and all the things.
• 24:28
  Polly Mertens: So I had a like a locked-up pelvis low back lock that I wasn't able to undo, even though I kept rationalizing it was this kind of injury and it was maybe this thing and whatever.
• 24:38
  Polly Mertens: Um, at the end of the day, I know that my back was totally compromised because I ended up uh blowing my back out at CrossFit.
• 24:45
  Polly Mertens: So that was the first injury was in August.
• 24:50
  Polly Mertens: So I actually injured myself for the first time in August.
• 24:52
  Polly Mertens: Again, I thought it was something totally different because of my history.
• 24:57
  Polly Mertens: I mean, I was treating that, and then I went back to CrossFit and was continuing.
• 25:01
  Polly Mertens: And then in September, while visiting my brother and going to his CrossFit up there, I just totally blew my back out doing deadlifts and running and pull-ups and all of these crazy things that we do.
• 25:13
  Polly Mertens: I just was a wild woman like I am, and I went total overkill, and that was it.
• 25:18
  Polly Mertens: I ended up on the floor, immobilized in this random ass CrossFit gym, you know, where I don't even hardly know these people.
• 25:25
  Polly Mertens: And they're like, oh, what's going on with the old lady over there?
• 25:27
  Polly Mertens: And I drug myself out of there.
• 25:30
  Polly Mertens: But that's when basically I blew out L4, L5, and I had full compression on what's called the S1 nerve route.
• 25:38
  Polly Mertens: So that's down your left side, left leg, left foot, all of that kind of stuff had, you know, massive compression.
• 25:45
  Polly Mertens: So then I was basically fully injured and not able to really function.
• 25:50
  Polly Mertens: Level nine.
• 25:52
  Polly Mertens: You were, I mean, I remember the pain you were in when we would talk, and and we were doing podcasts as you were like on some, you know, light painkiller.
• 25:59
  Polly Mertens: And it was just, I could just see how immobile you felt.
• 26:03
  Polly Mertens: Like you couldn't, you know, there was like you, it was it was like down your left, your left leg, as I remember.
• 26:08
  Polly Mertens: And it was just like, you know, like don't turn, don't twist, don't, don't mess it up, you know, for months.
• 26:16
  Polly Mertens: Well, and I couldn't sit at all.
• 26:18
  Polly Mertens: So that sitting, last time I checked, that's going to the bathroom.
• 26:21
  Polly Mertens: Okay.
• 26:22
  Polly Mertens: Who's tried to, you know, not sit down and go to the bathroom?
• 26:26
  Polly Mertens: So I got very good at that, by the way, which will be helpful in the wood.
• 26:29
  Polly Mertens: Okay.
• 26:30
  Polly Mertens: So I have that skill now.
• 26:31
  Polly Mertens: But no sitting, eating, standing up, you know, everything was basically standing up all day long.
• 26:38
  Polly Mertens: And then sleep was very, very difficult.
• 26:42
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 26:42
  Polly Mertens: And I just personally wouldn't do the hardcore narcotics and opioids.
• 26:47
  Polly Mertens: I just chose not to.
• 26:49
  Polly Mertens: So my body was under that fight or flight.
• 26:54
  Polly Mertens: My nervous system was totally blown out, obviously, at this point, for months as I tried to pursue healing, you know, through first getting the x-rays and the MRIs, and then getting into PT and then finding the right doctor, and that's not the right doctor, and then the next one, the next one.
• 27:11
  Polly Mertens: Because they basically all were like, drugs.
• 27:13
  Polly Mertens: We're gonna give you shots and we're gonna drugs.
• 27:16
  Polly Mertens: And you were like, What the yeah, no, yeah.
• 27:20
  Polly Mertens: And then it was a wait and see.
• 27:22
  Polly Mertens: I'm like, a wait and see for what my life to basically just exit the window while I witness it, like within the next breeze.
• 27:31
  Polly Mertens: Like, I don't understand what this wait and see is.
• 27:33
  Polly Mertens: So, of course, I me being me, as my own health advocate, I didn't tolerate those answers or solutions.
• 27:39
  Polly Mertens: And I kept pursuing.
• 27:40
  Polly Mertens: And eventually I got in and I did have to leave the area.
• 27:42
  Polly Mertens: I went to UC Irvine and they were amazing.
• 27:45
  Polly Mertens: And I had surgery in November.
• 27:47
  Polly Mertens: So September and October, and halfway through November, I basically was just in the pain cave.
• 27:52
  Polly Mertens: And then went into that surgery with the doctor who was brilliant, and said, as he's rolling me in, I have one assignment, as we have discussed, is I come out of this thing and I can run again because I'm a runner, I love to run and I want my life back.
• 28:10
  Polly Mertens: And he's like, Deal.
• 28:11
  Polly Mertens: We shook hands.
• 28:12
  Polly Mertens: We shook hands.
• 28:13
  Polly Mertens: And so that was the deal.
• 28:15
  Polly Mertens: And so then I went into surgery.
• 28:16
  Polly Mertens: And then, of course, I had to recover, which you know takes quite a bit of time.
• 28:20
  Polly Mertens: But I did all the PT.
• 28:22
  Polly Mertens: I did my own PT.
• 28:23
  Polly Mertens: I mean, I was like a PT queen for months, frankly.
• 28:26
  Polly Mertens: I know so much about PT now because I really just had to, you know, learn all that stuff for myself.
• 28:32
  Polly Mertens: And then I did find a good PT locally to work with to kind of fine-tune things towards the end.
• 28:37
  Polly Mertens: Um, and then yes, getting all the way to December.
• 28:41
  Polly Mertens: My brother passed in December, unfortunately, right before Christmas.
• 28:45
  Polly Mertens: And then coming out the other side.
• 28:46
  Polly Mertens: So it really took me till like the end of January, early February, before I was like, I got this Jean Muir trail.
• 28:54
  Polly Mertens: When did you get the ticket?
• 28:56
  Polly Mertens: When did you or when did you get the permit?
• 28:57
  Polly Mertens: Like when I had the permit in December.
• 28:59
  Polly Mertens: Oh, I knew I was doing this trail.
• 29:03
  Polly Mertens: Yep.
• 29:03
  Polly Mertens: And I was like, okay, so I'm not doing it, but I need to like figure out the training.
• 29:08
  Polly Mertens: And this was that one moment of not that I hesitated ever.
• 29:14
  Polly Mertens: I was fully committed, but it was it was this question can I close the gap?
• 29:18
  Polly Mertens: The gap is huge right now.
• 29:20
  Polly Mertens: Okay, I'm going from like immobilized back surgery, post-menopause, post-gut infection, like all of these things that were literally like, hey Sam, waz uh, well, you know, like everything.
• 29:33
  Polly Mertens: But can I take all of that, accept it for what it was and is, and make myself stronger?
• 29:41
  Polly Mertens: And I basically committed in February to I will not only rebuild to where I was and get back the quality of my life, which is running, trail running.
• 29:51
  Polly Mertens: You know, would I ever ultra run again?
• 29:53
  Polly Mertens: I don't know.
• 29:54
  Polly Mertens: That was questionable.
• 29:55
  Polly Mertens: I'm doing the John Muir trail, I will get back my strength, you know, I will rebuild myself mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, all of the things.
• 30:03
  Polly Mertens: And so I need to fucking get to work.
• 30:05
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 30:06
  Polly Mertens: And so in February, I got to work.
• 30:09
  Polly Mertens: That's how it started.
• 30:11
  Polly Mertens: And Sam Pruitt's style.
• 30:13
  Polly Mertens: 100%.
• 30:14
  Polly Mertens: When I put my mind in the game, you know, I'm I'm committed.
• 30:20
  Polly Mertens: And if it's a goal, a personal goal of mine, or even somebody I coach, if it's their goal, like I'm freaking all in.
• 30:27
  Polly Mertens: 100%'s not even good enough.
• 30:29
  Polly Mertens: Like, because you know, you're gonna have bad days.
• 30:31
  Polly Mertens: So 100% ain't even gonna get you there.
• 30:33
  Polly Mertens: You gotta go 200, you know.
• 30:36
  Polly Mertens: Well, and the beauty, I think, that I just want to point out is you've coached lots of people in physical exercise, endurance, recovery, you know, lots of things, right?
• 30:46
  Polly Mertens: You continue to today, right?
• 30:47
  Polly Mertens: So if you're listening to this and you're like, I think I'll do the John Mirror Trail and I'll just start hiking and like get a coach, get some advice or whatever.
• 30:56
  Polly Mertens: But you were able to coach yourself.
• 30:58
  Polly Mertens: I'm sure you, as you always do, my favorite Wikipedia, walking Wikipedia of everything.
• 31:03
  Polly Mertens: How did you start to close that gap?
• 31:06
  Polly Mertens: What steps did you take to go, okay, February and I'm leaving in July?
• 31:10
  Polly Mertens: What did you do?
• 31:12
  Polly Mertens: Like, what were the steps?
• 31:13
  Polly Mertens: Like, did you put a written plan?
• 31:14
  Polly Mertens: Did you have nutrition?
• 31:16
  Polly Mertens: Did you what did you and what did you did?
• 31:18
  Polly Mertens: I'm not training videos.
• 31:21
  Polly Mertens: There's just so many videos out there, but it's mostly about gear and uh there's so many gear nerds and all this stuff, or you know, pictures of some people having beautiful, lovely hikes on the jam you're like that ain't gonna get you freaking fit and have to.
• 31:32
  Polly Mertens: And so when you're creating a training plan, whether it be me and I was creating my own at that point or another human's, right?
• 31:39
  Polly Mertens: It's like you first of all meet the person where they're at, including me.
• 31:43
  Polly Mertens: So I couldn't be like, well, hey, two years ago I could run a hundred miles without stopping.
• 31:48
  Polly Mertens: So like I should start there.
• 31:49
  Polly Mertens: Well, that's ludicrous, right?
• 31:51
  Polly Mertens: I have to be real about where my current level of fitness was and what, if any, my constraints might have been, like any other human that I'd be coaching.
• 32:01
  Polly Mertens: Everybody has that, right?
• 32:03
  Polly Mertens: Strengths, weaknesses, et cetera, skill sets.
• 32:06
  Polly Mertens: And when you're building a program, you need to take all of that into consideration.
• 32:10
  Polly Mertens: So you need to take a full inventory.
• 32:11
  Polly Mertens: So I basically did a full inventory of myself.
• 32:14
  Polly Mertens: Where was I, right?
• 32:15
  Polly Mertens: Really, where was I?
• 32:17
  Polly Mertens: Like, where was my cardiovascular fitness?
• 32:19
  Polly Mertens: Where was my strength fitness?
• 32:21
  Polly Mertens: Where was my mobility, which was a huge limiting factor initially?
• 32:25
  Polly Mertens: Where was that flexibility and mobility?
• 32:28
  Polly Mertens: You know, because I hadn't been using my back for like six months.
• 32:32
  Polly Mertens: You need your back for everything.
• 32:34
  Polly Mertens: And let me just say, my core, like I it was where did it go?
• 32:38
  Polly Mertens: I mean, I just disappeared.
• 32:41
  Polly Mertens: Right, right.
• 32:42
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, so I had to be real about that, which meant a big part of my commitment was gonna be to strength training and mobility training in the gym.
• 32:50
  Polly Mertens: Period.
• 32:51
  Polly Mertens: I know myself enough with cardio and endurance that like I love to do that and I'll just do that all day long if you let me, right?
• 32:59
  Polly Mertens: But that's not gonna be something that gets me definitely not where I want to get long term for my long-term health and longevity.
• 33:06
  Polly Mertens: But it no way in hell is it gonna get me over mountains with 35 pounds on my back.
• 33:11
  Polly Mertens: I don't care how much cardio you do.
• 33:13
  Polly Mertens: Sorry, put a backpack on that weighs that much.
• 33:16
  Polly Mertens: What I mean, I weigh 130 pounds, so I'm literally carrying a load.
• 33:20
  Polly Mertens: How much percentage of my body weight?
• 33:22
  Polly Mertens: Like this is slightly nuts, right?
• 33:23
  Polly Mertens: And I got to go over big mountains.
• 33:25
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 33:26
  Polly Mertens: So I had to really be honest about that.
• 33:28
  Polly Mertens: And that's a good place to start because I do think a lot of people are sort of in denial about either what they really have for a level of fitness and what their weaknesses are, but how can you work on them if you're not honest about it and you don't deal with it?
• 33:43
  Polly Mertens: So that's where I started.
• 33:44
  Polly Mertens: Uh so I my primary focus was strength training with mobility consistently, consistently, consistently.
• 33:50
  Polly Mertens: So I was it the same thing every week, or were you building or were you shifting it around?
• 33:54
  Polly Mertens: Like, did you go, oh, I gotta work on core to start, and then I gotta build my legs, or what what were you?
• 34:00
  Polly Mertens: I'm just curious, like some of the component, like I think of the backpack, like I think of the core, you know, a lot of core there to hold your ass up, you know, because I've held the backpack and it just wants to go backwards, right?
• 34:11
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 34:12
  Polly Mertens: What were you?
• 34:12
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, up and down, right?
• 34:18
  Polly Mertens: So you can't just like pick a muscle group.
• 34:21
  Polly Mertens: You'll see people at the gym, by the way.
• 34:22
  Polly Mertens: Hey, beautiful quads or biceps, but I'm not sure how that's functional.
• 34:26
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 34:27
  Polly Mertens: It looks good in a tank top or shorts, but like what's up, whole body, whole body.
• 34:32
  Polly Mertens: Um, yeah.
• 34:33
  Polly Mertens: And for me, it's not a beauty contest or a whatever, like it's it's you know, functionality and performance are the metrics for me, right?
• 34:43
  Polly Mertens: And I have to really look at that and be honest about it and then build a program based on that.
• 34:48
  Polly Mertens: So when I first started, I could only go about three days a week because I was so weak, so sore, and it took me so long to recover.
• 34:56
  Polly Mertens: I was like three days a week.
• 34:58
  Polly Mertens: I mean, this is someone who went from six and seven days a week for years, years and years and years and years, unless I was recovering from a race, you know?
• 35:06
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 35:07
  Polly Mertens: So it felt a little demoralizing.
• 35:10
  Polly Mertens: Baby steps.
• 35:11
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, we gotta do the baby step.
• 35:12
  Polly Mertens: It's slightly demoralizing, right?
• 35:13
  Polly Mertens: It's like, god damn, are you kidding me?
• 35:15
  Polly Mertens: This is the kind of um weight I'm lifting.
• 35:17
  Polly Mertens: Like, what is this weak sauce, right?
• 35:20
  Polly Mertens: But at the same time, with humor, because it's comical, like I can't really beat myself up for it.
• 35:26
  Polly Mertens: There's really a reason that I have lost all this strength, fitness, and mobility.
• 35:31
  Polly Mertens: It's just get over it and keep showing up.
• 35:34
  Polly Mertens: If I would have just beat myself to shit and got my head so wrapped in where I was and how far backwards I've gone, I wouldn't have shown up consistently.
• 35:44
  Polly Mertens: And that's what it was going to require.
• 35:47
  Polly Mertens: And then I went from hiking.
• 35:49
  Polly Mertens: So I started just hiking, hiking, hiking, and then I slowly reintegrated running.
• 35:54
  Polly Mertens: So by March, I was starting to do a little bit of running, and then I was training more.
• 36:01
  Polly Mertens: So I've strength training now four days a week, running two or three days a week, very, very low mileage, very, very small, very, very slow.
• 36:09
  Polly Mertens: And again, super slow progression.
• 36:12
  Polly Mertens: Like generally, I would write a periodized program for somebody that every six weeks it would progress pretty quickly and significantly.
• 36:21
  Polly Mertens: Well, I got through a few of those training cycles and I was like, oh hell, I'm not progressing.
• 36:28
  Polly Mertens: Like I am, but it's so small.
• 36:30
  Polly Mertens: It's so small, right?
• 36:32
  Polly Mertens: And I also recognize, and I was, of course, studying this at the time, but how my hormones were having an impact on that, right?
• 36:38
  Polly Mertens: I'm a post-menopausal female.
• 36:40
  Polly Mertens: What else in my whole accoutrements of toolbox might be in disarray?
• 36:46
  Polly Mertens: So I was still trying to figure out my gut and get that back on track.
• 36:49
  Polly Mertens: So my nutrition wasn't dialed in.
• 36:51
  Polly Mertens: So there were other elements that I really also needed to, hey, let's get these things lined up.
• 36:56
  Polly Mertens: These are the the bricks on which you are building, you know, the mountain of your fitness.
• 37:02
  Polly Mertens: So you can't do that with a brick missing.
• 37:05
  Polly Mertens: Wow, wow, wow.
• 37:07
  Polly Mertens: So looking back, was there anything like I mean, standing here today, from what I've been, you know, leading up to this, we've been talking a little bit.
• 37:16
  Polly Mertens: It's like, I think you're fucking ready.
• 37:19
  Polly Mertens: So would you, would you like when you look back, is there something you're like, I'm so glad I did that?
• 37:24
  Polly Mertens: Or like that was a crucial step, or if I'd skipped that, or is there something you would have changed?
• 37:30
  Polly Mertens: Like, oh, I didn't need to do all that, or I don't know, anything that you would have changed about it?
• 37:34
  Polly Mertens: Um, and I'm not like trying to blow my own horn or whatever, but no.
• 37:37
  Polly Mertens: It worked.
• 37:40
  Polly Mertens: Ta-da! I mean, the only thing I'd say I took I did a slow roll on was the nutritional elements.
• 37:47
  Polly Mertens: I knew there were problems happening, like I was having a hard time eating.
• 37:51
  Polly Mertens: I was had a lack nauseousness, I had a lot of diarrhea, like I had a lot of GI stuff still following me.
• 37:58
  Polly Mertens: And I did again have to go back and like have an endoscopy, have all these things and kind of rule out like, really, is there something still in there or something problematic that hasn't been resolved?
• 38:08
  Polly Mertens: And all of those scans are clean, everything is clean.
• 38:11
  Polly Mertens: So I'm I'm super stoked on that.
• 38:13
  Polly Mertens: But it just the gut takes a long time to heal.
• 38:18
  Polly Mertens: So if I would have done anything differently, I would have been more aggressive up front with that piece because it had me going into workouts, critical workouts, underfueled.
• 38:29
  Polly Mertens: I was bonking.
• 38:30
  Polly Mertens: I would text you sometimes and I'd be laughing my ass.
• 38:32
  Polly Mertens: I've remembered I was like, I just had the most ridiculous bonk.
• 38:35
  Polly Mertens: Like, literally, I'm in the middle of the gym, like, I don't think I can move.
• 38:38
  Polly Mertens: How am I gonna get out of the gym?
• 38:40
  Polly Mertens: I got nothing.
• 38:42
  Polly Mertens: Like my tank, I would just be like, uh, empty because it took that long for my metabolism also to be like, oh shit, she's building muscle again.
• 38:53
  Polly Mertens: Like, this is no joke.
• 38:55
  Polly Mertens: Okay.
• 38:56
  Polly Mertens: Oh shit, she's gonna command high intensity workouts again, which I hadn't done high intensity in a long time, dude.
• 39:04
  Polly Mertens: Because of iron and all the shit.
• 39:06
  Polly Mertens: Almost two years, um, which are now my favorite thing.
• 39:09
  Polly Mertens: I'm fucking hooked on these things, but to get that level of fitness before you can actually perform at that level takes a long time.
• 39:16
  Polly Mertens: So the nutrition was challenging, but no, a hundred percent the strength.
• 39:20
  Polly Mertens: Like I, you know, was bragging to you chicks the other day because we're all on this journey together.
• 39:25
  Polly Mertens: We have this little chit-chat of girls that are women and they're empowering each other.
• 39:29
  Polly Mertens: But I was like, I'm freaking PRing on everything, which is blowing my mind.
• 39:34
  Polly Mertens: Okay, I'm lifting more weight, heavier weights, and I mean like full body than I ever have.
• 39:44
  Polly Mertens: That's what a PR is, and I'm going, what the hell is going on?
• 39:49
  Polly Mertens: Okay, so I have definitely tapped into some secret sauce there, and then my running is 100% back to where it was, in addition to these speed workouts that are like, you know, I was running those speeds three, four, five years ago.
• 40:03
  Polly Mertens: Wow, and I'm like, okay, I guess she still got it.
• 40:07
  Polly Mertens: So I'm having fun too.
• 40:11
  Polly Mertens: By the way, that's a big part of it, right?
• 40:13
  Polly Mertens: I'm having fun, I'm really enjoying it.
• 40:17
  Polly Mertens: Like, I'm the project and I'm enjoying the build.
• 40:22
  Polly Mertens: And and the journey, right?
• 40:25
  Polly Mertens: I was just thinking about that this morning.
• 40:27
  Polly Mertens: I so I'm doing not anything near craziness like crazy town that you're doing.
• 40:31
  Polly Mertens: It's pretty crazy though.
• 40:32
  Polly Mertens: You tell me what you're doing.
• 40:33
  Polly Mertens: It's not uh Yeah, so I'm doing a Tour de Mont Blanc, I'm not doing it with a big 30-pound pack on me, and I'm gonna have a day pack or whatever.
• 40:40
  Polly Mertens: It's 105 miles, 10 days, you know, six to eight hours a day, stuff like that.
• 40:45
  Polly Mertens: And one thing I was really noticing, because you and I know, you know, we're we're in this year to live, right?
• 40:52
  Polly Mertens: And we're seeing people that were here one minute and are not here the next, right?
• 40:57
  Polly Mertens: And so it's just like, wow, like I'm just being so grateful for every hike, right?
• 41:03
  Polly Mertens: And I'm like, I'm watching videos of people on this.
• 41:07
  Polly Mertens: I mean, like our Sierra's are beautiful, and this is the Swiss Alps and the Italian Alps and stuff, and it's just jaw-dropping seeing this.
• 41:15
  Polly Mertens: I'm like, I don't want it to go fast.
• 41:17
  Polly Mertens: Exactly.
• 41:18
  Polly Mertens: Right?
• 41:19
  Polly Mertens: Exactly, and it's all now too.
• 41:21
  Polly Mertens: Like, I can just smear through all this training, like these hikes, like, oh, check it off.
• 41:26
  Polly Mertens: Like, oh, check, check, check.
• 41:27
  Polly Mertens: That you know, trail that I did, I said about the cathedral.
• 41:30
  Polly Mertens: It was like that's a moment in my life, right?
• 41:33
  Polly Mertens: On the journey, like you said, and like don't just be like, oh, going to get a tour de Mont Blanc done.
• 41:39
  Polly Mertens: Check, it's like right.
• 41:40
  Polly Mertens: No, and the build, the process, the work, right?
• 41:44
  Polly Mertens: The path to actually get to the starting line of whatever the hell it is, is freaking 90% of the deal.
• 41:51
  Polly Mertens: We put this flag out there, like, I'm coming for you.
• 41:56
  Polly Mertens: But why we do that is like, oh, I get to go on this epic months long.
• 42:01
  Polly Mertens: I mean, like some would say, this this race started or this track started for you when you got off the bike and or the run in Iron Man, some might say, right?
• 42:10
  Polly Mertens: And you've been been on this two plus year journey of down and down and up, right?
• 42:15
  Polly Mertens: And you are at your, you know, 250 miles from the crescendo, but like you've been all these miles and all these places and all these things you've learned along the way, and the people, you know, you and all the people, right?
• 42:27
  Polly Mertens: So exactly, and the amount of growth besides the physical, which is what we're alluding to here, that we are both so deep in, right?
• 42:38
  Polly Mertens: All the other stuff, the spiritual growth, the emotional growth, the mental and psychological understanding and comprehension, and just all of it.
• 42:47
  Polly Mertens: I mean, even the learnings, like I'm a nerd, right?
• 42:49
  Polly Mertens: I'm learning all the things, and like I'm so excited about just what I've learned about my body or about hormones or about nutrition or whatever, right?
• 42:58
  Polly Mertens: These are things I've always had a passion for.
• 43:01
  Polly Mertens: But when you're putting it to really good use, called yourself, like self-investing.
• 43:07
  Polly Mertens: And of course, I do use this with my clients, it's not like I'm hogging all the information, but like there's so it's incredibly rewarding because then you see results and results, and sometimes there'll be setbacks, like life will happen, you know, maybe my training didn't go great one week or whatever, all things do happen, you know.
• 43:26
  Polly Mertens: But then you get back up, dust yourself off, and get back in the arena and get back in the arena, right?
• 43:32
  Polly Mertens: This is your damn life.
• 43:33
  Polly Mertens: Okay.
• 43:34
  Polly Mertens: Tell me a little.
• 43:34
  Polly Mertens: So when you talk, you know, like let's shift to that emotional and mental fitness required.
• 43:40
  Polly Mertens: Because one of the things that I see that's a part of your protocol, if you will, is you know when you're my experience looking at so I when I trained for Iron Man, half Iron Man, be it, it took a lot of time, right?
• 43:55
  Polly Mertens: Like there's a lot that goes into that.
• 43:57
  Polly Mertens: So for you, with like this epic thing, like you've got to like carve out space in your life, right?
• 44:03
  Polly Mertens: So that's one of the stuff.
• 44:05
  Polly Mertens: So, you know, you being, you know, fit and prepared and going in, you know, mentally, physically for those workouts and stuff.
• 44:12
  Polly Mertens: What was going on these last seven, six months with emotional and mental clarity?
• 44:19
  Polly Mertens: And and fitness, let's call it.
• 44:21
  Polly Mertens: I mean, really since February, so February, March, April, May, June.
• 44:27
  Polly Mertens: So five months when I start on July 8th, has been, you know, that's probably been the biggest roller coaster.
• 44:37
  Polly Mertens: Because there's still so much going on in my life.
• 44:40
  Polly Mertens: It's not like all of a sudden said, okay, y'all, hey, I'll be back in six months.
• 44:45
  Polly Mertens: I'll, I'll, I'll see you on the other side of that, right?
• 44:48
  Polly Mertens: Like there's all this stuff still going on.
• 44:50
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 44:50
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 44:51
  Polly Mertens: And I'm not I'm normal, just like everybody else, right?
• 44:55
  Polly Mertens: So figuring out how to continue to allow your goal, no matter what it is, this big, epic, audacious, whatever it is for you, human being, okay, to still sit at the forefront of your mind and your schedule and your priorities, and and and right, like still keeping it there, even if like maybe today it's right here, and then tomorrow it's a little bit off to the side, right?
• 45:24
  Polly Mertens: Because I have a big work day or I have a whatever thing, a family obligation or something.
• 45:28
  Polly Mertens: But it's still there, not over here out of sight.
• 45:31
  Polly Mertens: And then two weeks later I might come back to oh shit, I guess I was supposed to be training for that thing.
• 45:35
  Polly Mertens: Whoa, you know what I mean?
• 45:37
  Polly Mertens: Like that sort of keeping it at least in the periphery, if not in the forefront at all times, I think is critical.
• 45:43
  Polly Mertens: And I do think from what I've seen training many, many people, and literally thousands and thousands of people, you know, with races and stuff like that.
• 45:50
  Polly Mertens: That's a big mistake a lot of people make.
• 45:53
  Polly Mertens: They set that thing, that goal in January, or whenever the hell they set it right, or the building of the business, or whatever the thing is.
• 46:00
  Polly Mertens: And then they are in life doing life, and that goal is out there, and sometimes initially they're working on it, right?
• 46:07
  Polly Mertens: And then very slowly it starts creeping out of the peripheral vision and into the background of their life.
• 46:15
  Polly Mertens: And pretty soon it disappears.
• 46:17
  Polly Mertens: So to me, that's a big mistake.
• 46:19
  Polly Mertens: And and doing that and keeping on track with that is probably the most challenging for all humans, including me.
• 46:26
  Polly Mertens: I think, you know, when I hear that, one of the things that I think about, especially because I coach so many people in business, is like pretty much if you're gonna jump on a coaching call with me, I'm like, what are the three things you're prioritizing right now?
• 46:36
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 46:36
  Polly Mertens: And whether it's a 90-day priority or this week or today, like we're talking about that, right?
• 46:41
  Polly Mertens: Because we've got to keep, you know, that right?
• 46:44
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 46:45
  Polly Mertens: And what that does is it people don't get it, I think, until they like it's like there's gotta be a lot of no to other things, right?
• 46:53
  Polly Mertens: Like, what are you saying?
• 46:54
  Polly Mertens: You don't even need to tell me what you're saying no to, because I know that there's other things.
• 46:57
  Polly Mertens: Like, I'm not sitting here like thinking you only have three things to do today or this week.
• 47:01
  Polly Mertens: I know that.
• 47:02
  Polly Mertens: So what are you saying?
• 47:03
  Polly Mertens: What are you saying no to?
• 47:05
  Polly Mertens: Because you're saying yes to what, right?
• 47:07
  Polly Mertens: Exactly.
• 47:08
  Polly Mertens: And so that's I think that's how it translates for me over here is like you said yes to this big epic thing.
• 47:14
  Polly Mertens: And if you said yes to other things, or yes to drinking on these nights, or yes to whatever, like that yes that you said was a priority, it really isn't, right?
• 47:26
  Polly Mertens: And so you're you're like, no, it's it's a big thing, and and you know, you keep it where it needs to be as a priority.
• 47:32
  Polly Mertens: So a lot of things.
• 47:33
  Polly Mertens: And there's lots of ways you and I talk about on the pod all the time about how to do that.
• 47:37
  Polly Mertens: If you don't have a coach, like how to do that on your own.
• 47:39
  Polly Mertens: But you do have to figure out initially, like, I need to clear some fucking decks, right?
• 47:43
  Polly Mertens: Like, I gotta make space.
• 47:45
  Polly Mertens: There is only so many hours in the day, there is only so much physical energy.
• 47:49
  Polly Mertens: So, like in the beginning, for me, I'm really good at like organizing my schedule and making my health and wellness a priority at this point, you know.
• 47:57
  Polly Mertens: But I also only had so much physical energy because I was still healing and recovering and all those things.
• 48:05
  Polly Mertens: So that was really interesting for me to like have to balance that too, you know.
• 48:09
  Polly Mertens: So it was like, okay, what needs to happen in the course of my day?
• 48:13
  Polly Mertens: When do these workouts need to happen?
• 48:14
  Polly Mertens: When does this nutrition need to happen?
• 48:16
  Polly Mertens: How can I get some extra sleep to ensure?
• 48:18
  Polly Mertens: And then by the way, how can I still stay on top of all these other life responsibilities I have?
• 48:24
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 48:24
  Polly Mertens: And so you have to really say, if I'm doing this and I'm committed to my personal goal, what do I need to do differently?
• 48:35
  Polly Mertens: What does my life need to look like on the daily to ensure that can happen?
• 48:39
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 48:39
  Polly Mertens: You know, I think there was a lot of legit, so like when we consider this as like how not to die on the trail, it's like, A, you've got a lot of just, you know, being out and working your body and stuff like that, but there's a lot of logistics and supplies and skills and stuff that you had to up level as a backpacker now, not just I'm a hiker, I'm an outdoors, but like, because like you alluded to, like you and I only backpack.
• 49:04
  Polly Mertens: I'm like, how many nights have you been out in the wilderness before?
• 49:07
  Polly Mertens: Probably under 20.
• 49:08
  Polly Mertens: And now you're about to go for more than 20 in one fell swoop.
• 49:11
  Polly Mertens: So what are some of the like in order not to die on this thing, like how what did you have to level up?
• 49:16
  Polly Mertens: Where did you I mean you work at REI, so God, like that's just great, but there, what were the logistics supplies skills?
• 49:23
  Polly Mertens: What did where where did you start to fill in those holes too?
• 49:26
  Polly Mertens: Well, it's a bit of a reality check when you sit down and you make your itinerary.
• 49:32
  Polly Mertens: Because I mean, you don't just want to go, I gotta do so.
• 49:36
  Polly Mertens: I need to go 250 miles.
• 49:38
  Polly Mertens: Where the hell am I going?
• 49:39
  Polly Mertens: Like, what's the direction?
• 49:41
  Polly Mertens: How am I actually?
• 49:43
  Polly Mertens: Where is this trail?
• 49:44
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, what the hell is this thing, right?
• 49:47
  Polly Mertens: It's different when you're like, well, I'm gonna go do a local hike and I'm familiar with the trail.
• 49:51
  Polly Mertens: I've done it a hundred times or whatever.
• 49:52
  Polly Mertens: I don't think anything of it.
• 49:53
  Polly Mertens: I know where I'm going.
• 49:54
  Polly Mertens: But in this case, I'm no, I have no idea.
• 49:57
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 49:57
  Polly Mertens: I have not been there.
• 49:59
  Polly Mertens: I do not know.
• 50:00
  Polly Mertens: I have been to the end.
• 50:01
  Polly Mertens: So by then, who gives a shit?
• 50:03
  Polly Mertens: It's the end, right?
• 50:04
  Polly Mertens: And I've done Eustachy and Half Dome and some stuff up in that region, but these other trails, and I've done Whitney, but all these trails.
• 50:10
  Polly Mertens: So logistically, you have to sit down and literally write yourself an itinerary, okay, for 20 days or whatever your number is that you're going to do this.
• 50:19
  Polly Mertens: And I'm planning about 22 days because I have to leave the trail and come back and whatever.
• 50:24
  Polly Mertens: Where will how fast do I think I can go?
• 50:27
  Polly Mertens: How slow do I need to go?
• 50:29
  Polly Mertens: What is the elevation gain?
• 50:31
  Polly Mertens: Where are the water sources?
• 50:32
  Polly Mertens: So I have to track every single lake.
• 50:34
  Polly Mertens: You can only camp in certain places.
• 50:36
  Polly Mertens: I can't just pop my tent wherever I want, you know.
• 50:39
  Polly Mertens: And there are a lot of rules on this permit about what I can and cannot do in the wilderness because we are protecting the wilderness.
• 50:46
  Polly Mertens: Thank goodness.
• 50:48
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 50:48
  Polly Mertens: Right?
• 50:49
  Polly Mertens: So figuring that itinerary out.
• 50:51
  Polly Mertens: So one whole sheet is just the itinerary.
• 50:54
  Polly Mertens: And it's literally every single day, my goal is to go from A to B.
• 50:57
  Polly Mertens: That's X amount of miles, accumulative miles, elevation gain, you know, is where's the water source?
• 51:04
  Polly Mertens: Is there a bear box there?
• 51:06
  Polly Mertens: Because there's some places where there's bear boxes, but I have to carry a bear canister the entire time.
• 51:10
  Samantha Pruitt: Wow.
• 51:11
  Polly Mertens: And how much food do I need to get from A to B to C D D D or whatever, right?
• 51:16
  Polly Mertens: So if you take a 22 mile or 22-day itinerary, which is what I currently have, I literally have day by day all of that.
• 51:24
  Polly Mertens: Now, will it be perfectly how I execute it?
• 51:26
  Polly Mertens: Come on, no.
• 51:28
  Polly Mertens: What?
• 51:29
  Polly Mertens: I mean, uh to the best of my knowledge and abilities, I'm figuring out this could be reasonable, but I'm referencing maps and I'm referencing guidebooks and I'm referencing all this information or to put all of this together and into my brain and make it personalized and then spit it on paper.
• 51:46
  Polly Mertens: So it's really quite hilarious if you look at the thing.
• 51:49
  Polly Mertens: And so I will do chunks basically, where I do a chunk of days, and then like I said, I'll leave the trail twice, and my husband's gonna meet me off trail.
• 51:59
  Polly Mertens: So I have to hike seven miles off the trail over a mountain pass to get out, resupply with food, because I can only carry so much food.
• 52:09
  Polly Mertens: There's plenty of water out there as long as it's filtered, but I can only get so much food, and then I have to hike back over that mountain pass seven miles back in to get back to that trail.
• 52:16
  Polly Mertens: And I have to do that twice in two different places.
• 52:19
  Polly Mertens: So that's part of the logistical stuff.
• 52:22
  Polly Mertens: A lot of people will have their stuff shipped into the trail in a big bucket, like a canister bucket, and then they pack them in with mules.
• 52:31
  Polly Mertens: So a couple hundred dollars, you get a trash bag, trash can full of your dehydrated together or whatever.
• 52:37
  Polly Mertens: I'm like, I'm gonna just hike out, take the extra miles, and just you know, at least I'll get to eat real food for one day, take a shower in a hotel room.
• 52:47
  Polly Mertens: Look at me being a lap of luxury.
• 52:50
  Polly Mertens: Uh, see my husband so he knows I'm still alive, and then come back.
• 52:53
  Polly Mertens: Wow, keep going.
• 52:55
  Polly Mertens: Um, I also have a whole list of just gear.
• 52:58
  Polly Mertens: Now that seems like how it that can't be complicated, but that's probably the second most complicated part, right?
• 53:04
  Samantha Pruitt: Totally.
• 53:05
  Polly Mertens: One is the logistics of getting through the trail itself safely, how many days, how much mileage, refueling.
• 53:11
  Polly Mertens: And the other is so I can carry a backpack that weighs about 35 pounds.
• 53:17
  Polly Mertens: I've done 40 before, it was too much.
• 53:19
  Polly Mertens: And I know that five pounds is a lot of difference.
• 53:22
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 53:22
  Polly Mertens: When you are going up big ass mountains at high altitude, oh damn.
• 53:26
  Polly Mertens: I mean, it makes a big difference.
• 53:28
  Polly Mertens: So in my pack, fully loaded with water and food, it's about 35 pounds.
• 53:33
  Polly Mertens: I wish it was 30, but dude, I've tried everything under the sun to try and eliminate stuff, and I just can't.
• 53:38
  Polly Mertens: So you've got water, water filtration systems, you've got your food, including your bare canister, right?
• 53:44
  Polly Mertens: Any clothing that you need, including rain gear, because I will get rain probably almost every day.
• 53:51
  Polly Mertens: And then cold weather gear because there's still snow on a lot of these mountain passes, right?
• 53:56
  Polly Mertens: And then you have very little bit of like toiletries, first aid, a camp stove that's like this big, you know, and all it does is boil water.
• 54:05
  Polly Mertens: I mean, it's not like I'm making meals out there.
• 54:08
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 54:09
  Polly Mertens: It's amazing how 35 pounds adds up.
• 54:11
  Polly Mertens: Tent.
• 54:13
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 54:14
  Polly Mertens: My sleeping bag, right?
• 54:16
  Polly Mertens: All of these things need to be waterproofed or protected from water.
• 54:20
  Polly Mertens: Totally.
• 54:20
  Polly Mertens: Actually, all my stuff's just sitting right here behind me, which is kind of hilarious.
• 54:24
  Polly Mertens: Um, that's really about it.
• 54:26
  Polly Mertens: And then a few little odds and ends, but like it is bare bones.
• 54:30
  Polly Mertens: So the bulk of the weight is food and water for sure.
• 54:33
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, thank God.
• 54:34
  Polly Mertens: Like you said, you're going off and just replenishing.
• 54:37
  Polly Mertens: So and there's so many lakes, so there's a lot of water sources.
• 54:41
  Polly Mertens: So the other trails, PCT is an example, the whole lower region is in the desert and there really isn't water.
• 54:48
  Polly Mertens: It's very problematic, and people get it's very dangerous, and people get dehydrated, and they're drinking from animal uh reservoirs, and that's not with not with what you've been facing the last couple of years.
• 54:59
  Polly Mertens: Hell no, I'm hell no.
• 55:01
  Polly Mertens: So I'm going up into the big mountains where all the water is clean and beautiful and lovely, and we'll keep it that way because we protect our nature in that way, you know.
• 55:08
  Polly Mertens: So tell me, so there's been a couple training, like, you know, some of this we talk about the skills, you know.
• 55:14
  Polly Mertens: So you've got the physical fitness, like get the body in a place where it can tackle this kind of miles and stuff.
• 55:21
  Polly Mertens: But I mean, you and I like you did Catalina last year.
• 55:25
  Polly Mertens: Okay, so maybe five days out, you know.
• 55:27
  Polly Mertens: So I and I think you've been doing your local mountain in the desert there.
• 55:32
  Polly Mertens: So tell us a little bit about the skills and what it took to prepare.
• 55:36
  Polly Mertens: You know, you've done these overnighters in the last couple months.
• 55:38
  Polly Mertens: What were you doing there?
• 55:40
  Polly Mertens: Like why what were you what was the gap, or did you know your gaps?
• 55:43
  Polly Mertens: And you just were like, I'm gonna go out and find some gaps, and then I and know that I need to learn that for before.
• 55:49
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 55:49
  Polly Mertens: Hey, the biggest gap is climbing high mountains, steep mountains with a pack on, you know, and I do use poles, but the these are things I wouldn't normally necessarily so like adapting to that and utilizing the poles, which has been incredibly helpful.
• 56:05
  Polly Mertens: And I will, of course, use them in great like daily, I'm sure, daily.
• 56:09
  Polly Mertens: And then when you just kind of like get used to your gear, especially like I have new gear, I did upgrade a lot of stuff in order to try and shave weight.
• 56:18
  Polly Mertens: So I have a new tent, so I had to learn my new tent, right?
• 56:22
  Polly Mertens: I have a new stove, so I had to learn my new stove, I have a new water filtration system.
• 56:26
  Polly Mertens: So you do all of that in advance.
• 56:29
  Polly Mertens: You do not wait until you are out in the wild and going, wow.
• 56:33
  Polly Mertens: And I'm saying this because I literally just had a guy at REI the other day, God bless him, who's about to do the PCT trail, and he called the store and said, I just bought this tent.
• 56:44
  Polly Mertens: I have no idea how to set it up.
• 56:46
  Polly Mertens: And he came into the store and I cleared the whole area, the area of the climbing area, and we set up his tent.
• 56:55
  Polly Mertens: He didn't know how to do anything, not even how to put a stake in the ground to hold the tent in place.
• 57:02
  Polly Mertens: First, I was like, Don't you have YouTube?
• 57:04
  Polly Mertens: The manufacturer, I'm sure, has a little so nervous and so anxiety ridden and so stressed, and so so really it was talking him off the ledge from all of that, right?
• 57:16
  Polly Mertens: Like, what am I gonna do when it rains?
• 57:18
  Polly Mertens: What am I gonna do with this?
• 57:19
  Polly Mertens: You know, like these were the conversations we're having.
• 57:21
  Polly Mertens: And I'm like, pretty sure I just saved your life.
• 57:23
  Polly Mertens: Because if you just went out there winging this, this was not gonna end well.
• 57:26
  Polly Mertens: No, no, you're just trying to go, where's the instructions or you know, holy smoke.
• 57:31
  Polly Mertens: Totally.
• 57:31
  Polly Mertens: You don't have reception, you can't be on YouTube.
• 57:34
  Polly Mertens: There's no reception.
• 57:35
  Polly Mertens: I'm gonna be literally completely off grid.
• 57:37
  Polly Mertens: I do have an SOS, it's called a Garmin InReach Mini that is my life-saving device.
• 57:43
  Polly Mertens: And I did purchase rescue insurance.
• 57:46
  Polly Mertens: So to me, those were really big, important elements, a not just for my own safety, but for my loved ones to know she's alive.
• 57:54
  Polly Mertens: I can see she's a spot there, slowly moving across that mountain or whatever.
• 57:59
  Polly Mertens: And if something happens, I will get rescued and it will be covered by my insurance.
• 58:04
  Polly Mertens: So that's important too.
• 58:06
  Polly Mertens: Good, good, good.
• 58:07
  Polly Mertens: So you did these training backpacking.
• 58:09
  Polly Mertens: Did were they just one-nighters and did they go flawlessly, or did you like go, oh crap, I gotta like, because yeah, you said you've upgraded some things.
• 58:17
  Polly Mertens: Did you find that out this year, or you just kind of knew going in, like, I don't have a good water thing, or I don't have whatever?
• 58:26
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, I just knew going in based on Tatalina and just my general knowledge now, or I guess it's not generalized, I'm getting pretty damn good at this shit, but like understanding gear and what's required and all that stuff that to go that many days, yeah, what I had was not gonna be the right solution.
• 58:43
  Polly Mertens: And then the tent ultimately was just too big and bulky.
• 58:46
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 58:46
  Polly Mertens: And I mean, I got a tent that weighs half as much, and it's so small and it's so streamlined, and it's just like ridiculous.
• 58:53
  Polly Mertens: And the other thing I'd say to be a gear nerd, because I have turned into one apparently, who to thunk?
• 58:59
  Polly Mertens: Because normally I'd be like, I don't give a shit.
• 59:01
  Polly Mertens: Old t-shirt, running shorts, right?
• 59:02
  Polly Mertens: It's all good.
• 59:03
  Polly Mertens: Let's go.
• 59:04
  Polly Mertens: Ultra runners, we barely even want to put clothes on, right?
• 59:07
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, we don't want to do anything.
• 59:08
  Polly Mertens: So becoming a gear nerd has been fun.
• 59:12
  Polly Mertens: But what I have found along the way, and I say this now to people that I do work with at REI on their adventures, is like you gotta love your gear.
• 59:20
  Polly Mertens: And so what I found, um, I even actually changed my pack, which was a huge commitment and challenge for me, massive.
• 59:28
  Polly Mertens: And I wavered and wavered and wavered and wavered on it, but I didn't love my pack.
• 59:34
  Polly Mertens: I liked it, it was good enough.
• 59:36
  Polly Mertens: It was a big investment, right?
• 59:38
  Polly Mertens: So, like changing that was gonna be no joke.
• 59:41
  Polly Mertens: But the pack I have now, I'm like, who are you?
• 59:45
  Polly Mertens: Oh so in love, it spits me like a freaking glove.
• 59:49
  Polly Mertens: It's a German brand.
• 59:50
  Polly Mertens: I would have never even considered it.
• 59:52
  Polly Mertens: So again, these are just me learning and exploring and being curious and you know, investigating and whatever.
• 59:59
  Polly Mertens: So loving your stuff, even when I go, like I can take almost no clothing, right?
• 1:00:05
  Polly Mertens: Like I have an outfit, okay, and then I have a couple extra pairs of socks and something to sleep in.
• 1:00:12
  Polly Mertens: Like, so picking what I'm going to wear, yeah, which in the past to me would have been like, whatever.
• 1:00:19
  Polly Mertens: Right.
• 1:00:19
  Polly Mertens: I'll wear a sports bra and just trompse up and down these mountains, right?
• 1:00:23
  Polly Mertens: No, no, you will not do that.
• 1:00:25
  Polly Mertens: So picking the very specific, like this feels so good on me.
• 1:00:29
  Polly Mertens: For how many days you're gonna live in it, right?
• 1:00:32
  Polly Mertens: How many days I'm gonna stink in it, yeah, and then also just how it maybe doesn't rub me here and it fits like this.
• 1:00:42
  Polly Mertens: And so I had to try shirt after shirt after shirt, and I was like, what?
• 1:00:46
  Polly Mertens: Right?
• 1:00:47
  Polly Mertens: And it was the little things.
• 1:00:49
  Polly Mertens: It was like, this isn't quite long enough, that's not quite long enough.
• 1:00:51
  Polly Mertens: I don't have enough sun coverage, this is sliding up on my back, this sports bra is digging in, like things that I otherwise would have been totally tuned out on.
• 1:01:00
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 1:01:00
  Polly Mertens: Well, and I think one of the things I've thought about for you is when you're either in a race or you're just training at home or in your comfortable, like nearby, like you just kind of go, Oh, I'll I won't do that again.
• 1:01:13
  Polly Mertens: But you're out so far away from any sense of like change, you're like, I guess this is what I got.
• 1:01:20
  Polly Mertens: So you gotta like make damn fucking sure like that dude.
• 1:01:23
  Polly Mertens: Trying to find the right pairs of socks.
• 1:01:27
  Polly Mertens: I'm like, this this sock thing's getting expensive.
• 1:01:30
  Polly Mertens: Socks and hats and all, yeah, the shoes and the sunglasses, like every piece of it.
• 1:01:35
  Polly Mertens: Like, I I totally get that now.
• 1:01:37
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah, the devil's in the details.
• 1:01:39
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and once you have it, that's what you have, and that is what you have.
• 1:01:43
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, okay.
• 1:01:44
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and tough shit if something is not ideal at that moment, it is too damn late.
• 1:01:50
  Polly Mertens: I mean, I am blessed with this coming in and out opportunity to see my husband, so I will change my shoes somewhere along the lines on one of those.
• 1:01:58
  Polly Mertens: Um, which is great that I have that opportunity, but generally I you wouldn't.
• 1:02:03
  Polly Mertens: This that would not be a thing, you know.
• 1:02:05
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:02:06
  Polly Mertens: I just want to ask you a couple of so is there anything more about logistics or training that no, but people can call me.
• 1:02:13
  Polly Mertens: You kind of train, I'll trade after I get home.
• 1:02:16
  Polly Mertens: You want to get trained for this?
• 1:02:17
  Polly Mertens: I'll train you in a heartbeat.
• 1:02:18
  Polly Mertens: This is so fun.
• 1:02:19
  Polly Mertens: So fun.
• 1:02:20
  Polly Mertens: You know how to, you're gonna know how to well, you know, already know, but you're gonna be able to train people on how to survive and and get out there.
• 1:02:26
  Polly Mertens: You know, I mean, you already give away, let's say, free advice when you're at RDI, but like somebody that's wanting to do this and is like, all right, I need the the guide that's been down this road.
• 1:02:36
  Polly Mertens: Like you've done all, you know, and like you said, like somebody you could say, oh, you should get this backpack, but that's not the backpack for them.
• 1:02:42
  Polly Mertens: Like, no, you should find the backpack that you love.
• 1:02:44
  Polly Mertens: No, you should find a bra that fits you just right and whatever.
• 1:02:47
  Polly Mertens: But you can help them with the just like I remember you've helped me when I was training for Iron Man.
• 1:02:51
  Polly Mertens: It was like, oh, just train this way, not this way, you know, things like that.
• 1:02:54
  Polly Mertens: So just a couple little so what are I was gonna say, what are you most afraid of, but what are you most uncertain about out there?
• 1:03:01
  Polly Mertens: Like what like what is like a black box?
• 1:03:03
  Polly Mertens: Like, I don't know what's gonna happen here.
• 1:03:05
  Polly Mertens: What are you like, what sets like uncertainty in your mind?
• 1:03:08
  Polly Mertens: What is there anything that your mind's like, hmm, I wonder, either from like a you know, there is one thing and one thing only, weirdly enough, and it is the bears.
• 1:03:19
  Polly Mertens: So we don't have grizzlies, but we have black and brown bears.
• 1:03:24
  Polly Mertens: They love food and the smell of humans, so that's why we have a bear canister, and all smelly things go into the bear canister, but you smell too.
• 1:03:33
  Polly Mertens: So you don't get into the bear canister at night, okay?
• 1:03:36
  Polly Mertens: You're in your tent, and I'm by myself.
• 1:03:39
  Polly Mertens: So realistically, there is plenty of opportunity that I will see bears and mix and mingle with bears to some extent.
• 1:03:46
  Polly Mertens: I have many times in the past, it's not a new thing for me.
• 1:03:49
  Polly Mertens: I've been trailing ultra running a long ass time.
• 1:03:51
  Polly Mertens: I've seen no shortage of bears, and I'm not afraid of them per se.
• 1:03:55
  Polly Mertens: But like you can't carry bear spray, you can't carry any kind of there's no way for protection-wise.
• 1:04:02
  Polly Mertens: You basically just have to get very big and very loud and try and scare them off.
• 1:04:06
  Polly Mertens: And generally they all scare off.
• 1:04:08
  Polly Mertens: But, you know, if they want that smelly thing in the middle of the night, they're going to get it.
• 1:04:14
  Polly Mertens: They're an animal.
• 1:04:15
  Polly Mertens: It's a thing, you know.
• 1:04:16
  Polly Mertens: So I am a little bit reading like the bear reports and stuff like that, not trying to make myself too crazy, but there is the far out app that's what I'm going to be using.
• 1:04:25
  Polly Mertens: That's where my map is downloaded.
• 1:04:27
  Polly Mertens: So I don't have to be on the app, even though I can use it for small periods of time if I need to, but the map, that's where my map sits.
• 1:04:35
  Polly Mertens: Um, and I have a paper version too, just in case.
• 1:04:38
  Polly Mertens: Just in case.
• 1:04:39
  Polly Mertens: But on there, it has up-to-date reports, bears, in-camp grounds, and stuff like that, and issues with water sources or fires.
• 1:04:48
  Polly Mertens: Like lots of times, people do the PCT or they do these trails.
• 1:04:52
  Polly Mertens: And if there's a fire in the area, you detour you need to know about it.
• 1:04:57
  Polly Mertens: You need to get the hell out.
• 1:04:58
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:05:00
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and that's where some of those road angels help, you know, people that have come from somewhere.
• 1:05:04
  Polly Mertens: And you know, there's always like trail talking, you know.
• 1:05:07
  Polly Mertens: So um, we didn't go into much of that.
• 1:05:09
  Polly Mertens: Maybe we'll come back because I know there's gonna be stories.
• 1:05:11
  Polly Mertens: So, like the the after of this in August 2026 is gonna be like, tell me all the stories.
• 1:05:17
  Polly Mertens: Who did you meet?
• 1:05:17
  Polly Mertens: How who was the coolest?
• 1:05:19
  Polly Mertens: Like, you're gonna come back with like your phone's gonna be blown up with all these people following you and loving on you, and you're loving on them because that's just who you are.
• 1:05:26
  Polly Mertens: And that we haven't talked much about that because this is like okay, the survival of it, but there's also the humaning and the connection that you're gonna have too, right?
• 1:05:35
  Polly Mertens: Sure.
• 1:05:36
  Polly Mertens: I'm really doing this as an introspective pilgrimage, right?
• 1:05:39
  Polly Mertens: So the other black box, not in a bad way, there's no fear associated with it, whatever, but it is what probably drives me most to do things like this is that internal journey I'm about to have, right?
• 1:05:52
  Polly Mertens: So it, yes, I love nature and I love hard things and the experience and the beauty and all that stuff, but what the hell's going on inside this human?
• 1:05:59
  Polly Mertens: You know, and I expressed it to you before.
• 1:06:02
  Polly Mertens: It it feels very much like a leveling up of Sam Pruitt.
• 1:06:06
  Polly Mertens: So, yes, physical, of course, mental and emotional, but in other ways, spiritually, soulful, whatever, however you interpret all of your things, how you relate to the universe here.
• 1:06:16
  Polly Mertens: That shit's about to go down.
• 1:06:18
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay.
• 1:06:19
  Polly Mertens: And that is pure magic.
• 1:06:22
  Polly Mertens: It only happens when people really do very hard things in nature, in my opinion.
• 1:06:28
  Polly Mertens: This is where that is an opportunity for all of us.
• 1:06:31
  Polly Mertens: And that is awaiting.
• 1:06:34
  Polly Mertens: I can't wait.
• 1:06:36
  Polly Mertens: I have no idea what's going to happen in that arena.
• 1:06:38
  Polly Mertens: I love it.
• 1:06:39
  Polly Mertens: I was going to ask you, what are you most excited about, but that might have answered it, you know?
• 1:06:43
  Polly Mertens: Oh, totally.
• 1:06:44
  Polly Mertens: That's what you're saying.
• 1:06:45
  Polly Mertens: Unknown on the internal.
• 1:06:46
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:48
  Polly Mertens: And I get it because it's like the stillness, the silence, all of that.
• 1:06:51
  Polly Mertens: So, what do you most want people to know either from a survival standpoint or a training standpoint, or like set yourself on fire by having epic goals standpoint?
• 1:07:02
  Polly Mertens: How not to die.
• 1:07:03
  Polly Mertens: What do you want most people most to know?
• 1:07:05
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 1:07:06
  Polly Mertens: What's your advice?
• 1:07:07
  Polly Mertens: On the how not to die side of it, the biggest thing I see, and I I see this a lot, even just on daily hikes.
• 1:07:15
  Polly Mertens: For real, dude.
• 1:07:17
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 1:07:17
  Polly Mertens: Is that people are just not equipped.
• 1:07:19
  Polly Mertens: I'm sorry.
• 1:07:20
  Polly Mertens: Like they don't have the basics.
• 1:07:22
  Polly Mertens: And you don't go into the wild, even if it's a two or three mile trail from your house, or much extreme beyond that, without the basics.
• 1:07:32
  Polly Mertens: Like I'm always shocked.
• 1:07:34
  Polly Mertens: I see people all the time, and I'm like, damn.
• 1:07:36
  Polly Mertens: And then unfortunately, I'm rescuing people a lot.
• 1:07:39
  Polly Mertens: You know that.
• 1:07:39
  Polly Mertens: I always have rescue stories, you know?
• 1:07:41
  Polly Mertens: And it's like, this is this could have gone really bad.
• 1:07:45
  Polly Mertens: And there's no reason for it.
• 1:07:46
  Polly Mertens: And then, of course, we have friends that have, you know, been in Peril's way and somehow miraculously survived.
• 1:07:51
  Polly Mertens: And there's plenty of people that have not, of course.
• 1:07:53
  Polly Mertens: So I think that how not to die is please just do the basics.
• 1:07:58
  Polly Mertens: Just start with the basics, right?
• 1:08:00
  Polly Mertens: And that's just so simple.
• 1:08:01
  Polly Mertens: I mean, at REI, for example, we do these hiking basics, running basics, backpacking basics.
• 1:08:07
  Polly Mertens: Like these classes are free.
• 1:08:08
  Polly Mertens: Just freaking get some free training.
• 1:08:10
  Polly Mertens: And if you don't want to do that because of whatever ridiculous idea you have in your head when someone's willing to give you this information for free, just get on the freaking computer and look at YouTube and look at videos and figure the shit out.
• 1:08:22
  Polly Mertens: So that, that, that, that, that.
• 1:08:24
  Polly Mertens: I can't say that enough because the safety is the number one thing.
• 1:08:28
  Polly Mertens: Totally.
• 1:08:28
  Polly Mertens: Like you're you it's the goal is not to start it, it's to finish it.
• 1:08:31
  Polly Mertens: You know, it's like like like you're doing this thing, right?
• 1:08:34
  Polly Mertens: Not to end up with statistic or something.
• 1:08:36
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 1:08:36
  Polly Mertens: And then the other element of that, and it's more, you know, personal, is you sure the hell better know how to trust your gut.
• 1:08:46
  Polly Mertens: Your instinct, your intuition, if you don't have that developed in you, and you go into a really challenging, yeah, dangerous, yeah, wild situation, never mind the everyday stuff.
• 1:09:01
  Polly Mertens: Like you put yourself really out there, the risk goes up very quickly.
• 1:09:06
  Polly Mertens: And so you not knowing yourself, your skills, your capabilities, and then not trusting that, that's the other thing I've seen many times is people make really poor decisions sometimes because their gut says a thing, but for example, they want to keep up with these other people or they want to get to the summit because the whole thing is the summit.
• 1:09:27
  Polly Mertens: And so I'm gonna do it at any cost.
• 1:09:29
  Polly Mertens: It's like, have you lost your mind?
• 1:09:32
  Polly Mertens: Is your life worth this?
• 1:09:34
  Polly Mertens: And I do think mostly people know the right decision and they will many times override it.
• 1:09:41
  Polly Mertens: And I will not do that.
• 1:09:42
  Polly Mertens: If something doesn't feel right to me, stop.
• 1:09:46
  Polly Mertens: Okay, reassess, understand what's going on, what needs to happen, if it's taking time out, if it's changing directions.
• 1:09:56
  Polly Mertens: I mean, I have maps to follow, for example, and I plan to stay on this trail, right?
• 1:10:00
  Polly Mertens: But if I need to change and take a different trail and go over here because of whatever the hell, like so there's river crossings.
• 1:10:07
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah.
• 1:10:07
  Polly Mertens: And it's actually a big safety peril that I will experience is snow on mountains where there is no trail, and I'm basically sliding up and down mountains with spikes on, but still, that's dangerous.
• 1:10:18
  Polly Mertens: And then additionally, these water crossings and me being solo water crossing is very, very dangerous because there's nobody to save me, right?
• 1:10:28
  Polly Mertens: So it's a very particular skill set.
• 1:10:30
  Polly Mertens: You have to be very careful.
• 1:10:32
  Polly Mertens: And there will be cases, I'm sure, where I cannot cross.
• 1:10:36
  Polly Mertens: And I have to either wait for humans behind me to eventually come that will be aiding me in my safety, and I could sit there for hours, or I have to go all the way around.
• 1:10:47
  Polly Mertens: And if I have to go all the way around, it just adds gazillions of miles and whatever.
• 1:10:51
  Polly Mertens: Tough shit.
• 1:10:52
  Polly Mertens: Rather than me just being an idiot and saying, I'm a badass, I can do this, I can get across, I can see the other side.
• 1:10:59
  Polly Mertens: It's only gonna take five minutes, you know, like just being a Yahoo.
• 1:11:02
  Polly Mertens: Don't be a Yahoo.
• 1:11:03
  Polly Mertens: Or not listening to your gut, like I should wait, you know, something like that.
• 1:11:07
  Polly Mertens: Totally.
• 1:11:08
  Polly Mertens: And I would I want to add to that, I think, too, is we haven't touched too much upon it, but like I know you were doing these training.
• 1:11:14
  Polly Mertens: It's like uh, you know, I remember when I before I did Iron Man, like uh three weeks before or something, I had I did another triathlon, you know, just to have the full-on experience.
• 1:11:25
  Polly Mertens: It was like, okay, I had all this training, but I was like, go through the whole damn thing, get in the water with other people and do the biking with other people and all this stuff.
• 1:11:32
  Polly Mertens: So, like, you know, do a practice run or runs of this, right?
• 1:11:37
  Polly Mertens: Don't just like this guy, like, I'm doing the PCT and I've never set up my tent.
• 1:11:41
  Polly Mertens: What the like, I'm sorry.
• 1:11:44
  Polly Mertens: Go for a couple of nights nearby, go in your backyard, even like do the whole experience, you know.
• 1:11:50
  Polly Mertens: That's what I said.
• 1:11:50
  Polly Mertens: I go, you can go to a park where there's grass, you know, and you can put these stakes in the ground.
• 1:11:55
  Polly Mertens: I mean, like, there's you know, it doesn't have to be out, you know, miles hundreds of miles from another.
• 1:12:01
  Polly Mertens: I said, Hey, when you come back, I didn't say if, come on by and tell me how it was.
• 1:12:07
  Polly Mertens: I just want to check in on you, make sure you're good.
• 1:12:10
  Polly Mertens: All right, my dear.
• 1:12:11
  Polly Mertens: Wow.
• 1:12:12
  Polly Mertens: So any parting words of just any last things you want to say, like this is your last sort of recording, not on all social media, but with our podcast for before you go.
• 1:12:22
  Polly Mertens: What else is on your heart?
• 1:12:24
  Polly Mertens: Not really, except that I will share the story afterwards, and I will share it possibly along the way on my social and everyday awesome that will basically be when I leave the trail to resupply, I'll do a post.
• 1:12:37
  Polly Mertens: Basically, a lot of people want to know is she's still alive and that kind of thing.
• 1:12:41
  Polly Mertens: Um, and maybe share some cool stories and pictures there.
• 1:12:44
  Polly Mertens: But then afterwards, I will put together some kind of compilation for sure.
• 1:12:48
  Polly Mertens: I'll put it up on YouTube or whatever, because it's a must.
• 1:12:50
  Polly Mertens: Like, this is just gonna be an exceptional experience.
• 1:12:53
  Polly Mertens: I can't wait.
• 1:12:54
  Polly Mertens: And I really want to inspire definitely these, you know, my fellow 50 plus females, that anything is possible, physically, mentally, emotionally, all of this wilderness stuff, just life, right?
• 1:13:05
  Polly Mertens: But frankly, anyone, and I know I am.
• 1:13:08
  Polly Mertens: Like, I have coworkers that are 20 years old at REI, they're like, damn, you're basically the age of my mother.
• 1:13:15
  Polly Mertens: You know, like if you can do this, like I need to step up my game here, right?
• 1:13:19
  Polly Mertens: And so that's really fun too, to sort of have hear that and see that and feel that.
• 1:13:24
  Polly Mertens: Get after it, get after it, sister.
• 1:13:27
  Polly Mertens: Well, thank you so much for sharing all this.
• 1:13:29
  Polly Mertens: I can't wait to celebrate your birthday, to celebrate your your you know, your 250-mile journey, and just hear all about the the after coming out the other side.
• 1:13:38
  Polly Mertens: So thank you for sharing what you've been putting, you know, these last two years of your life.
• 1:13:43
  Polly Mertens: You've just worked so hard, and I commend you and I acknowledge you for the inspiration that you are to me as your partner, and all the women out there, and anybody listening to this, thank you for being the most you you can be.
• 1:14:02
  Polly Mertens: Thank you.
• 1:14:05
  Samantha Pruitt: I love you, I love you too.
• 1:14:07
  Polly Mertens: And you know, you mirror that to me, and I mirror that to do to you.
• 1:14:11
  Polly Mertens: That's why we're in this together.
• 1:14:12
  Polly Mertens: And I think the more we all put mirrors up to each other in this way, right?
• 1:14:18
  Polly Mertens: That's what it really is.
• 1:14:19
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, that's what it really is.
• 1:14:21
  Polly Mertens: Look what's possible.
• 1:14:22
  Polly Mertens: This is what's possible, yes, because it recalls us to our possibility, totally exactly.
• 1:14:29
  Polly Mertens: Epic summer, my friend, epic bucking summer, epic life, dude.
• 1:14:34
  Polly Mertens: Epic life, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:14:35
  Polly Mertens: All right, what's our what's our closing thoughts, my beautiful humans?
• 1:14:39
  Polly Mertens: Well, you might not recognize me when I come out the other side because I'm not sure what's gonna happen with this hair or this body.
• 1:14:45
  Polly Mertens: So just if I look different, don't be surprised.
• 1:14:48
  Polly Mertens: Um, I definitely will be different, but in my core beliefs is still what I believe that how your life feels is not as important as how it looks or how you look.
• 1:14:59
  Polly Mertens: And every day is your opportunity to find your awesome.