I had 3 kids, hiked not at all, and a stroll along a 15 minute path to a waterfall became a bush walk. . . . . that is until I attended Filex National Fitness Convention and missed a presentation by Wild Women on Top about their Coastal Challenge (choose from 55 – 110 km non stop challenge). I was mildly interested and through being late to the conference ended up on the front table sitting with Di and Lisa from Wild Women on Top. They told me about their coastal challenge, and I mentioned they ought to come to Tassie and do some of our iconic walks. “We do” they said, “where else do you go?” I asked. “Machu Picchu, Kilimanjaro, Everest Base Camp . . . . . . “. Well I felt I’d been struck by lightening. Everest Base Camp – I’d forgotten I’d wanted to do that. Not shelved while I bought up kids, but TOTALLY forgotten.
Well I mulled it over for a day or 2, had dinner with a pal who listened to my lightening bolt moment and said something like ‘sounds like you’d better do this’. Permission!! I was not sure how to make it happen – afford – take 3 weeks out from my family – justify as a “I just need to do this” to my ever tolerant husband. So I mulled it over for another week before I said to my husband that I wanted to do this (we already had plans to go to Brazil in 2016 so to find $$XXX for this – well seemed like a selfish indulgence, and then there’s the mummy guilt. He was pretty calm about it, just a “so how are you going to afford this with us going to Brazil in 2016?” “I’ll give up diet coke and sell my Infant Aquatics book online” I offered lamely. “Well you’ve thought it through then, go for it”. I really did marry the right bloke and I have given up diet coke and the book is almost published.
I’m very grateful to have this goal of going to Everest Base Camp – it was in 12 months time – now its 9 months. First thing I did was to tackle this from a fitness point of view. These are the questions I set out to answer:
– how fit do I need to be
– what kind of training do I need to do,
– how do I sustain my enthusiasm for increasing fitness work over 12 months
– how do I tackle the mental stuff / what are the mental challenges
– and uhum – where exactly is Everest, where is Base Camp, how high is it
– how do I deal with mummy guilt (I’ll be away for Mothers Day, my 47th birthday and my son’s 14th birthday)
I’ve answered most of these questions and I will blog them as time permits! It was fortunate that Filex National Fitness Convention focused a lot of finding your inner purpose and finding a way to summarise it. Mine is to “find the right balance” and this echos in my mind constantly as I try to be the best mother and wife I can, run my successful business, launch a book, keep up with friends and sustain and increasing fitness load.
