While I normally do adventure recaps on Tuesdays, today I thought I'd do something a little different. In the fitness community Transformation Tuesday is a big feature on social media across the internet. Many of us like to share our journeys with each other if for no other reason than to say "life is never easy - I know it's hard and I got through." It helps to inspire others to be their best selves. I know for me that Tuesdays are always extremely motivational if for no other reason than I know this could be the story that changes someone's life! For me personally, hiking saved me. If it weren't for me finding this passion in my life I have no idea where I would be today. Here is my story.
This is me in June 2010, only 2 months after knee surgery and carrying more weight than I care to remember - both in my pack and on my body.
After struggling through some personal issues in 2008 I had gained a few pounds. My doctor was treating me for depression and the pills made me gain weight and slowed down my thyroid function. The lower my thyroid functioned the more weight I put on and the more depressed I became. It was a vicious cycle. By early 2010 I was weighing close to 155 pounds. At 5'1" I was unhealthy and overweight. Then, a slip and fall in a friend's kitchen caused major damage to my knee which required an easy surgery but required physical therapy to be able to walk and pedal a bike again. I gained 25 more pounds due to the steroids and the physical inactivity. I was absolutely miserable. I had hired a personal trainer to help me lose the weight, but with my knee pain it was so hard to do many exercises without severe modification. Weight training was helping me get stronger, but without cardio I knew I'd never lose the weight.
Since I was in a lot of pain and walking was a skill I could manage I started hiking more seriously. I could only do short day hikes, 3-4 miles, but since we live near a national park a lot of backpacking trips would fit this description. I could do a round trip total of 6 or 8 or 10 miles in a weekend! I started hiking as often as I could with a group I found on Meetup.Com that was local to my area. I was often times the slowest person in the group, the one everyone took a break and waited for. I was the one who didn't get a break ever because by the time I caught up to everyone they had been taking a break for a LONG time! Sometimes I really got discouraged, but I had made some amazing friends in the group who helped support me and encourage me on those hard hikes.
Me hiking through a rock quarry in August 2010 with my Meetup friends.
Little by little, my injured knee got stronger every day. After about 6 months of working with a trainer and spending my weekends with the hiking group I was able to start doing light impact cardio at a gym - elliptical and bike training. While the pain in my knee was still aggravating, it had lessened dramatically and I was able to work on my endurance. Combined with the strength training, I knew I was getting stronger and was slowly starting to do a better job keeping up with my friends on our hiking trips! By the time we rang in 2011 I had dropped more than 30 pounds, my thyroid began functioning better on it's own, and my depression was lessening. Not only was the physical activity helping my moods, but being outside in the fresh air and sunshine with good company was helping lift my spirits. While I was shedding weight, I was also shedding a dark cloud that had been built up in my soul for a long time.
Hiking on the Appalachian Trail in the Spring of 2011 - thinking how hard it would be to go all the way to Maine one day!
In the late spring of 2011 I met Jennifer Pharr Davis. She was the female speed record holder for the Appalachian Trail. She was going to try to (and did!) set the overall speed record during the summer. I had already started throwing around the idea of doing a thru hike after spending some time with friends who had done large sections and, after meeting her and listening to how she spoke of the life changing experience of hiking the trail, I knew I had to do it... but how on earth would I manage something like that?! That summer a friend of mine began a bucket list item - hiking the 900 miles of trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park before her next birthday. She spent every single weekend out on the trails and by now I was one of the faster hikers. I spent most of my weekends with Elise and other friends of hers doing obscure day hikes and combinations of trails that no one could ever even dream of! With Elise at my side I took my first ever multi-day backpacking trip. Because of all the hard work I put in with her, by the fall of 2011 I knew for sure I could not only start a thru hike but I also knew I would complete one!
Me at McAffee's Knob - the most photographed location on the entire Appalachian Trail. May 2012.
By the time I left for Springer Mountain in Georgia on March 27th, 2012 I had lost 50 pounds. I was a strong hiker who for the first month of the trail didn't spend more than a night or two with the same person because I usually completed more miles. I was physically prepared for the trail and even dropped 8 more pounds throughout the length of my hike. By the time I walked to Maine I was the strongest and fittest person I had ever been in my life (with the worst diet probably!). After getting back home to Tennessee I wasn't walking 20+ miles every day and the weight started to come back - much to my horror. Granted, some of those last 8 pounds were caused by dehydration and would be gained back... but it's hard to tell yourself that when you've worked so hard to lose so much weight in the first place. Hand-in-hand with coming back into the real world from a thru hike comes post-trail depression. The inactivity and depression started throwing me back into a spiral of sadness I remembered from years ago and it scared me.
I started running about a month after I got home from the AT as a way to stay busy and fit when I couldn't go hiking every single day. I was running 5K's at Thanksgiving and New Year's and doing the miles started to feel normal to me. After moving to Millinocket in 2013, I made it a priority to take a walk nearly every night around town. Sometimes I even ran a 5K by looping twice around the greenway they had at Millinocket Stream. It wasn't until we moved to Syracuse that I started seriously thinking about running as a way to fill my time. I ran my first half marathon in the spring of 2015 after training through the brutally cold winter outdoors before daylight. For the first time since finishing my thru hike I truly felt accomplished and proud of the things I was doing. Running went from something I really hated to something that kept me focused and sane. By the time we left for the Benton MacKaye Trail in the late spring of 2015 I was in the best cardiovascular shape I had ever been in!
Crossing the finish line of the Syracuse Half Marathon with an official time of 2:05:45 - better than the goal time I trained for!
I now consider myself extremely lucky to call myself a hiking guide. I now get paid to share my love of the trails and backpacking with people who are new to the sport. In my free time now I've run a multitude of races, added two more long-distance trails to my hiking resume, and I am even training for my first full marathon in the spring of 2016. If you were to ask me 5 years ago if I ever would have seen myself here I would have told you that you were crazy!
The reason I'm sharing this story now is because I feel like it's important to tell people that small changes add up. I get messages of people asking me how to start hiking with a group; people who are slow and overweight like I was and are afraid to make others wait on them. The reason I'm sharing this is to tell you that we all have to start somewhere. Hell, I even had to learn how to WALK again before I could hike. We all start slow. We all need time to ease into it. If you want to start hiking - GO FOR IT! Hiking changed my life. It saved my life. I'd hate to think where I could be today without it.
Has hiking caused a positive change in your life? I'd love to hear about it! Please leave me a comment or find me over on Facebook to get the conversation started!
