Transcript
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Have you ever laced up your running shoes and felt an instant surge of freedom with every step you took?
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If so, you're in good company.
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In this episode, tara Pruitt, owner of Unstoppable, joins me to share how her love for trail running evolved into a journey of community and empowerment.
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From the joy of running through nature, organizing a trail running film festival and creating adventurous retreats, tara's story highlights the transformative power of embracing your passions and connecting with others.
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From channeling running as a means to combat depression to celebrating it as a catalyst for empowerment, tara's journey is a testament to the enduring power of perseverance and discovering one's passion.
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We'll dive into the transformative effects of physical activity on mental health and explore how it fosters positivity in every aspect of life.
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But that's not all.
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We'll also scale the heights of the Unstoppable Women's Mountaintop Retreat, a visionary endeavor designed to provide women with thrilling adventures in a supportive environment.
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Tara's efforts in creating spaces where barriers are stripped away reveal the power of connection and the magic that unfolds when we immerse ourselves in nature and reclaim our joy.
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Tara's journey into personal training, the establishment of her own studio and her dedication to cultivating personal connections with clients affirm the philosophy that physical strength and outdoor adventures are indeed pathways to a more fulfilling life.
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Tune in as we celebrate Tara's journey, the strength of the trail running community and the transformative impact of embracing the great outdoors.
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I'll see you on the other side.
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You're listening to Exploration Local, a podcast designed to explore and celebrate the people and places that make the Blue Ridge and Southern Appalachian Mountains special and unique.
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My name is Mike Andrus, the host of Exploration Local.
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Join us on our journey to explore these mountains and discover how they fuel the spirit of adventure.
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We encourage you to wander far, but explore local.
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Let's go.
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I am with Tara Pruitt.
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Her company name is Unstoppable.
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That's the name of her business, and you're going to know in the next few minutes why that has become such a powerful name.
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Business name for Tara Also kind of a really important sort of moniker in your life too, tara, I think.
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But thanks for taking the drive down.
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I'm glad we could finally put this together.
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This is going to be a great show, tara.
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Welcome.
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Glad to have you.
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Thank you so much for having me.
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Absolutely.
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What I'd like to do is spend a little bit of time just kind of talking about your journey, a little bit your story.
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We're going to talk about how you got into running, what running means to you, and then what you're looking to do to bring this running not just to women but just to anybody who would love the idea of trail running.
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The beautiful part of this to me, too, is that we did talk about this as Mental Health Awareness Month and we're not going to go really deep into that part of your story, but it really, I think, creates the framework behind Unstoppable, behind how you got into running.
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So let's start there a little bit about who you are, love for listeners to know who you are, what makes you tick and how we got to the word Unstoppable.
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My business name Unstoppable is about strength, endurance and adventuring, and those three pieces have played a major role in my life and I found that we all have this journey of learning about ourselves and trail running and exploring and hiking and backpacking has been a major piece of creating who I am today and who I choose I want to evolve into as I grow and the I think to tie it into the mental health aspect, it really I've always used running as a piece of handling depression, as since a kid I may not have known it as a kid Nobody.
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You don't put those pieces together all the time.
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But I do remember as a as a young child, even as early as 10 years old, that running helped me feel free and it helped me feel empowered and motivated and positive.
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And I would recognize that after I'd come back from a run or some form of exercise that I felt this rejuvenation and excitement and positivity that would just exude into other areas of my life.
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And I started putting the pieces of the puzzle together like, oh, when I'm not active or when I'm not using this as a part of my day-to-day kind of survival skills, I can tell a difference in my mood, or my depression would get worse, or I would feel less motivated to do other things get worse, or I would feel less motivated to do other things.
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And so I think that it was an early trigger for me that, okay, this needs, I need this as a part of who I am, and this has got to be implemented on a regular basis.
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Wow.
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And so when you first started getting to the running piece you were sharing earlier, that it was about more of an escape from something, and then it really has become something that you're sort of leaning into and is becoming a part of you and I wonder if you can just kind of unpack that just a little bit for us.
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Yeah, I think we moved around a lot as a kid and it was hard to make friends, it was hard to fit in, it was hard to find different areas where I felt like I couldn't connect with other kids my age and I imagined running away a few times and even attempted it and then got scared, went back home.
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I was like that's not going to work.
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And that's when I realized like okay, running feels pretty good.
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I've never been good at it.
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I'm still a very much back of the packer.
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I just realized that at first running was an escape and it was like okay, this, this gives me a chance to check out and I can push myself and challenge myself and push a little more.
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And then I started doing other things in life, like I taught group fitness for many years, I dabbled a teeny bit in bodybuilding, then I got, I found my way back to running.
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I hope listeners don't get mad at me, but I started road running and I did a few years of a stint of trying all the half marathons and then I did a marathon here locally and hated it and swore I was done with running.
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And then a friend of mine invited me to train for a trail race here in the area and I was like, oh you know, maybe I'll try that instead of road running, because I, after the marathon I was just determined to be done.
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It's like it just about crushed me one and done.
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It was crushed my soul.
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So then I was like, well, let's give this a try, I'll see how I like this before I sign up.
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And then I ended up getting.
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At the time the entry was kind of a lottery you mail your check in and your letter and registration, and if your check was cashed, then you knew you got in the race.
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And so I was like, okay, well, we'll just see, I'll just test this out.
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And I kind of had this love-hate relationship with it at first, because when you transition from being on the road to keeping a certain pace and running certain splits to, you've got to finish in this amount of time.
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And trail running was like just come out and have fun, who cares what your pace is?
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And yeah, if you do races some races you have cut off times, but you're it's a much more relaxed and chill environment.
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We're just here to have a good time, kind of a thing.
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So I was like, wow, this is a whole nother world.
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How did I miss this?
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And the more I learned about trail running, I was like these people are crazy and yet they're out here having the time of their life, like I need more of this in my life.
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So I got hooked on the trail running piece.
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But running was always this intro into all my other health and wellness avenues to.
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At first they became survival skills, in a manner of speaking, and then they turned into this passion of figuring out who I was and meeting these amazing people that you would have never met in any other path of life.
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Wow, wow, that's so good.
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And so you were a physical education major.
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I think you said you did that for about six or seven years, and it's very clear that coaching, working with people, seeing people kind of perform at their optimal and again, you're not trying to train an Olympic athlete, but it's more it's more like enjoy what you're doing, get better at what you're doing, find the releases and the benefits that come from all this, and and so you actually have a personal training studio as well.
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So so there's a lot of things that you do.
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So the word is unstoppable, and it just sort of occurred to me that that really kind of has set you in motion, because you have a personal training business, you do a trail running film festival that we'll talk about, you have a retreat that we're really going to dive into a little bit, and then you have the running piece.
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So, yeah, there's a lot of you.
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That's about pouring into other people, helping them to come along, it seems.
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Yeah, and to be honest, if you knew me in my teenage years, or even in my early twenties, you would have never, ever thought that this is where I'd be.
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I would have never thought I knew this is what I wanted.
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I envisioned where I am today as probably a late teen.
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Wow.
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But I was severely introverted.
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People are always surprised to hear that I am actually an introvert and they're like no way.
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No, you taught you know six to 12 group fitness classes a week and then personal train the other part of the day Like there's no way you're an introvert.
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Personal train the other part of the day Like there's no way you're an introvert.
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But it's honestly that that's probably another piece of why I love trail running, because it gives me a chance to like rejuvenate my soul and who I am as a person, so that I can give back well in the community and to those around me and and to my spouse my husband and my and our son.
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I think that if you'd asked my parents or my sister or anybody that knew me in my teens, they'd have been like uh-uh, there's no way.
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She does all of that because she's an introvert and she's quiet and she's the.
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She's the one that kind of sits on the sidelines and doesn't have anything to say until I have something to say.
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And then listen up yes, yeah, oh, that's great.
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Let's talk a little bit about the Trail Running Film Festival.
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Let's start there, because that's in the past.
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You've already had it, but it's a really cool concept, and then people are going to have the opportunity to attend that, if they want to next year.
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So let's talk a little bit about the Trail Running Film Festival, and it's interesting how you just kind of found your way into this and it was wildly successful for a couple of years running now.
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So the Trail running film festivals originated in Bellingham, washington, and they used to travel around the states and host these in different cities, and, of course, we're a major outdoor community here, so they would come to Asheville.
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And, of course, after when 2020 hit, everything quit.
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And so, in 2021, december of 21, they sent an email out to their entire email subscriber list and they were like, hey, we want to bring this back, we're thinking of doing it this way.
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If we do this in this specific manner, would any of our email subscribers want to be a host?
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And so I was.
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I and I know many people in our community were just ready for something to bring us back together and inspire us, and nothing does that more than documentaries of, of people's stories.
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We all have a story and we all have a story to share that could inspire someone else, and that's what these films do.
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And it's pretty incredible to me that when I applied for this, I was like they'll never pick me.
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There's just no way.
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I'm just a normal runner in the community, Not really anybody that they should be like.
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Oh, she's the one she knows everybody because I don't.
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But they picked me.
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And when I told my husband, he was like you did what?
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And I said well, this is probably going to be a team effort, so get ready.
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Yeah, get ready.
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And so in 2022, I had eight weeks to plan the trail running film festival and I was so grateful that our community came together and were so supportive and between sponsors and people at the Orange Peel you know they're a very popular local music venue.
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This was not on their radar at all and they stepped it up and they enjoyed having us there.
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Something different and unique and special to our community and it sold out and we had.
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It was unique to look out on this stage as an introvert, trying to make myself talk and see everyone in the community connect in a way that we all had missed for a couple of years.
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To see them be like, oh, I haven't seen you in so long.
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We should run together.
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Or how's your kids doing?
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You know they're in different schools now.
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Or seeing even people that host different trail running activities around town connect and be like I didn't know you did that, and it was just really special to me to look out and just see that happening versus the cherry on the top with their films themselves.
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So it was so cool and so I got a chance to bring it back again this year and again was a huge success.
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Again at the Orange Peel.
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They were, they've been, they were just been truly amazing to have something different there, and we'll see what next year brings.
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I hope that we can make that happen again.
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So let's stay with the theme of you making big impacts and inviting people in to be a part of things.
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You have a really special and this is, I think, is going to be, the inaugural right.
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It's going to be the very first, ever, Unstoppable Women's Mountaintop Retreat and it's a round running trail getting people connected all different levels.
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This is amazing and I can't wait for this part.
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Let's really kind of dive into this, because I'd love to know where your heart was for this.
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Where did this come from?
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Because I can already tell like you're a connector, you love people, you love seeing people being connected to one another.
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And then you're doing it around this, the outdoors and trails and this is really, really cool.
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So let's just dive right in.
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What is this event?
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Where did it come from?
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This has been on my mind for a few years, and I've been too chicken to do it.
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All right.
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So the film festival kind of ties into this a little bit, because it was something I felt drawn to and needed, and I had heard other people talk about needing something like that.
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Same thing with this women's mountaintop adventure.
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I've heard other women say, man, I wish that there was a retreat for women to connect and be able to have a place to escape, but I don't have a tent or I don't have all the backpacking gear, I don't have all the setup to be able to have a place to escape, but I don't have a tent or I don't have all the backpacking gear.
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I don't have, you know, all the setup to be able to be out there.
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Um, or I'm afraid to be by myself or I'm afraid of exploring beyond my comfort zone, which generally is someone's local area around their home that they've just repeatedly used.
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So this, this, this has been on my mind for a while and just listening to what others are looking for from a connection standpoint.
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But what really made me like go for it was I'd been stalking the cabins at Sandy Mush Bald for a while and I didn't get a chance to get up there last season when I saw all these other adventure women posting their retreats around the globe.
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And I saw someone from I believe she's from Arizona.
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She posted that she was going to host an event here in Western North Carolina and I was like hold on a second.
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This is my turf and so I told my husband I was like I pulled the plug, I'm doing it and I committed to the cabins at Sandy mush and I'm going to make this happen because I didn't want to sit back one more year and watch someone that doesn't even appreciate our mountains.
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Now that's probably a little harsh, but, like, this is my hometown and I want to share it from the perspective of what these other amazing, beautiful businesses are doing for our community, like Lisa's story, and highlight that and showcase that, without it seeming touristy, without it seeming like a salesy thing, really is meaningful to me to pull people together to enjoy this historical piece of land that sits on this epic mountaintop, that you have these breathtaking views, that you will, you, you just have to sit up there and enjoy them.
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Like you, you cannot.
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They look fake.
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You cannot, you cannot like just go up for one day.
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You have to be up there and let it rain on you, or let the sunset, you know, soak in below the clouds, or let the sunrise come up above, you know, the fog in the.
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A taste of what that truly feels like and experience it firsthand.
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I'm going to want to do this again, oh yeah.
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Well, it's so cool that you it's not just like a two-day thing.
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I mean it's Thursday to Sunday, it's the June 20th, to, excuse me, june 23rd.
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So in that, even in the hike up and all the things that you will do, there's an element of decompressing and unplugging entirely.
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And I love the fact that you have it over a few days, because sometimes it takes people a little bit of time just to decompress and just say, okay, I'm good, now I can be present here.
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This isn't just something I'm doing on the weekend.
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So the fact that you're doing it for so many, you know, days in a row, I think is a testimony to you kind of understanding a little bit about getting people out in nature, getting them to the point where they're ready to to just be, to be present, to receive whatever it is that you guys are going to have for them.
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So so you're right, we we are such a busy, busy society culture of if you're not busy or you're not tackling things or you're not exhausted at the end of the day, that we're not succeeding in life.
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And I think that's another attraction to me about not only the places like cabins at Sandy Mush, but getting out in our mountains is it really brings you back to the realities of what's truly important in your life, and I hope that the women walk away from this retreat really uh and questioning what their focuses should be on, and ultimately, I hope it's they realize themselves first, because when we take care of ourselves, that spills over into every other aspect of our life.
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First of all, our close, close ones are loved ones.
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But you're right, it takes a few days to kind of like let that go and be like everything will survive without me, like everything will survive without me.
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But the start of the retreat will be Thursday evening, so that people don't have to necessarily miss work Thursday and Friday, so if they are somewhat local, we won't start until Thursday evening and we're going to start the weekend off at my studio space, because it's near and dear to my heart that women learn to strength train space, because it's near and dear to my heart that women learn to strength train, and so we'll go through a very beginner approachable strength training class that will be body weight focused but have the option to down the road if they have access to a facility, a gym or anything at home that they can incorporate this so that they feel empowered and strong, to not only tackle the do's, the don'ts and the how of strength training and why it's so important to incorporate this in their day-to-day life, but how it will trickle over into their adventures.
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You know, to feel strong on the trail, to feel like you can catch yourself if you fall or if you're carrying a loaded pack or if you're newly getting into it, that you can feel solid being out there.
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So it's very important to me that we talk about the whys and make sure that we're doing this in a well-approachable manner.
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But so then we'll have dinner and hopefully by a workout, which is the most unfriendly way to break the ice but hopefully after the workout and we have dinner, we'll have a chance to kind of let the guard down and really show up and be present for the next two to three days, that's great.
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And so Friday we'll wake up early and we'll head to Hot Springs and we'll have some adventures in Hot Springs.
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We'll have lunch in Hot Springs and then on Friday afternoon we'll head over to the cabins at Sandy Mushbald.
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I'm excited because Natalie from Food for Adventures is going to be cooking for us.
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I keep nudging him and bugging him because I think I'm more excited about food.
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We'll do anything for food.
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So I've already nudged him with some of my ideas for recipes or things.
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I mean, he's so good at what he does anyway so.
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I know he's totally going to walk our worlds with his food.
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So Friday, well, he'll have us some dinner ready so we can, and so we'll smell all his fabulous food while we're settling in and kind of getting our sorts about us up at the cabins.
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And then Saturday we'll have breakfast there at the cabins and we will head out.
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Natalie's going to help do a short, brief class on foraging, because that's his specialty as well.
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And then I'm going to lead a class on a wilderness awareness.
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So I call it wilderness awareness 101, because there's an element of safety.
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I don't like the element of survival.
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I like the awareness of knowing what the possibilities are and how can you be most prepared for those possibilities.
00:22:10.199 --> 00:22:22.780
And a lot of the fears that we hold on going out solo or what do I need to pack, what do I not need to pack, what are the potentials of happening and how can I be prepared.
00:22:22.780 --> 00:22:27.836
But so often we let those fears take over that we don't even take action.
00:22:27.836 --> 00:22:33.577
So being able to utilize what you carry and then just being able to take those steps and feeling empowered.
00:22:33.577 --> 00:22:36.084
So it's not going to be a certification.
00:22:36.084 --> 00:22:39.634
You won't walk away with any kind of promise, know, promise of anything.
00:22:39.775 --> 00:22:51.115
This is for educational purposes only oh, that's huge and then saturday night, we're all going to cook together as a crew oh yeah, which I think the best conversations happen on in two places in our world.
00:22:51.656 --> 00:23:02.344
Well, three I lied in the car, because you're not confronting with someone in the car on the trail because, again, you're not face to face, and the car on the trail because again you're not face to face, and there's something about like opening your heart.
00:23:02.344 --> 00:23:05.564
When you're on the trail, what says is set on the trail stays on the trail.
00:23:05.564 --> 00:23:26.262
And then when you're cooking, there's something special about those moments shared around the table when you're cooking with someone else and you're telling stories and you're sharing life experiences and you're connecting in a way that again that could happen on the trail with someone that you're like wow, I just learned this valuable life lesson from someone.
00:23:26.262 --> 00:23:31.682
So it's important to me that we cook together up there and then, of course, enjoy the fire.
00:23:32.336 --> 00:23:34.041
That's the best part of the whole event.
00:23:34.082 --> 00:23:34.564
That's right.
00:23:34.564 --> 00:23:37.275
So was it your idea to cook together.
00:23:37.275 --> 00:23:37.674
That's right.
00:23:37.674 --> 00:23:38.576
So was it your idea to cook together.
00:23:38.596 --> 00:23:39.717
Actually I gained.
00:23:39.717 --> 00:23:45.623
So I did a poll recently and some of my followers responded.
00:23:45.623 --> 00:23:51.107
I would say, out of the dozen that responded, half of them were like cook together and I was like okay.
00:23:51.188 --> 00:23:51.929
Smart smart.
00:23:52.189 --> 00:23:53.790
I was like that's the best feedback ever.
00:23:53.790 --> 00:23:54.771
It's so good.
00:23:55.075 --> 00:23:55.675
Yeah, it's so good.
00:23:55.675 --> 00:24:03.923
I mean, I'm thinking of the times that I've just been out and the beauty of this thing, too, is that you already have several hours underneath your belt, so to speak.
00:24:03.923 --> 00:24:22.267
You guys were together for a few hours and now you get to come and there's stories of just reconnecting what you just experienced together, the aha moments, the connections, all this kind of stuff is just so kindred about people coming together and fixing and preparing, and everything in the outdoors tastes good.
00:24:22.267 --> 00:24:26.000
It's going to taste even better because you're going to have a great cabin to stay in and you got Natty that's leading the way there.
00:24:26.000 --> 00:24:33.768
But yeah, there is something that's very, very, very smart about preparing together, breaking bread together, being together.
00:24:33.768 --> 00:24:41.489
Yeah, and it's hard to put into words or why, but it's true, like you said, when we're outside something drives up the appetite.
00:24:42.796 --> 00:25:02.914
But then when you've made it yourself and then you sit down with the people you just made it with and it tastes better, it has more flavor, it has more meaning and there's studies that show that all of that is connected and it will imprint a memory for eternity, that that you will never forget.
00:25:03.095 --> 00:25:09.683
And if you think about back back to our childhood, that's where a lot of our memories would come from is something around.
00:25:09.683 --> 00:25:14.510
You know cooking together or doing events together, or you know family stuff together.
00:25:14.510 --> 00:25:22.406
That's where you're going to see conversations really flourish or not flourish in some cases, but there's something about that.
00:25:22.406 --> 00:25:28.423
Like you said, the breaking the bread together but when you've made it and you've enjoyed being outside.
00:25:28.423 --> 00:25:29.948
It's pretty special.
00:25:30.194 --> 00:25:31.637
Oh, it's really special, yeah, yeah.
00:25:31.637 --> 00:25:39.323
So the expectation is not these mountaineer, 25 years experience.
00:25:39.323 --> 00:25:42.803
I mean, you're talking to me, you're really open to a lot of different.
00:25:42.803 --> 00:25:47.661
This could be somebody who is in their 20s to somebody that's in their 60s and-.
00:25:48.242 --> 00:25:49.425
And beyond, and beyond.
00:25:50.317 --> 00:25:58.924
So there's no caps or limits on any of this stuff, and it sounds to me like this is a retreat that people could come to, that they don't have to have it all figured out.
00:25:58.924 --> 00:26:02.825
This, this is about helping them figure this out.
00:26:03.015 --> 00:26:04.057
Find your inner wild.
00:26:04.358 --> 00:26:05.502
Find your inner wild.
00:26:05.502 --> 00:26:06.005
I like that.
00:26:06.635 --> 00:26:10.046
And you know you could be a hiker, a backpacker, a trail runner.
00:26:10.046 --> 00:26:11.537
You'll have options.
00:26:11.537 --> 00:26:18.567
As we play in hot springs, you know to explore whatever, whatever avenue you are at in this point of life, you know.
00:26:18.567 --> 00:26:22.473
Explore whatever, whatever avenue you are at in this point of life, you know.
00:26:22.473 --> 00:26:35.047
And then up on the, on the property, at the cabins, you know if you're ready to and you're in training mode for a race and you're trail running and you want to go up and down the two and a half mile and then the mile loop around and then there's a half a mile to each bald, go for it like more power to you.
00:26:35.047 --> 00:26:43.395
But if you're just wanting to take a leisurely stroll and have some quiet time and that's more where you're at in your journey, then then this is also the place for you.
00:26:43.435 --> 00:26:45.542
So, yes, all different aspects.
00:26:45.542 --> 00:26:47.789
I think that was my.
00:26:47.789 --> 00:26:53.404
The other thing that was really important to me was I love attending multi day events.
00:26:53.404 --> 00:27:10.586
Sometimes in the trail running world we call it stage, stage, day stage events where you run an X amount of mileage, make it to the next point, run X amount of mileage, you know, point to point or back to base camp, whatever that may be, but I also like the option like what if I'm just not feeling it today?
00:27:11.046 --> 00:27:11.166
and.
00:27:11.666 --> 00:27:34.997
I just want to chill and hang out, and if you want to sit on the front porch that day and have your downtime with a quiet cup of coffee, by all means this is your trip too, and so there's plenty of avenues to make this what you want it to be, but enough of activities that you feel like you've gotten other avenues to be able to learn from and connect with people in a different way.
00:27:35.438 --> 00:27:54.344
Oh, that's good when you think about coming out of this weekend, when you think about the people who are going to reflect back, because we go through these experiences and then they impact us, but then it could be a day, a week, a month down the road that when people reflect back on it, that those benefits come out even more.
00:27:54.344 --> 00:28:13.276
You're a very purposeful person, so when you think about this and you think about somebody coming out of this, what are a couple of top, couple of things that you hope and not that you're like stressing on it and if they don't have this, they don't express it to me it's not a success, but what are the things you really hope in that people get out of this for them?
00:28:13.276 --> 00:28:16.905
And that also love to hear your perspective of what you hope to get out of this too.
00:28:18.519 --> 00:28:21.951
I'd also love to hear your perspective of what you hope to get out of this too.
00:28:21.951 --> 00:28:22.794
That's a great question.
00:28:22.794 --> 00:28:45.896
Ultimately, I want to give the freedom for people to come and check out and just maybe they're missing that in their life, Maybe they're missing just some quietness, Maybe they're missing connection with someone and that it was just odds or fate, whatever you may want to call it that they met this person, someone other in the group, someone else in the group, and they become friends for life.
00:28:45.896 --> 00:29:02.398
So I think if I could encourage anyone attending to just come with an open heart and a willingness to just be, because a lot of these types of events are so overly planned, Like I've got it planned.
