How People Learn to Keep Going: Best of Ageless Athlete 2025 (Part II)

Best of 2025 (Part II)
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[00:00:00] 

Kush: Friends, this is part two of our best of 2025. Of Ageless athlete. These are highlights of some of the best conversations we've had last year. So there is a point in hard pursuits where effort stops being loud, where what carries you forward isn't confide. But familiarity with discomfort, the people you're about to hear from have spent years and in some cases, decades in that space.

We begin with Sunny Trotter, a climber known for tackling long, intimidating lines. Talk about breaking ambition down until it becomes manageable, turning risk into something you can actually work with. Next, Judy Oyama, who helped shape modern skateboarding reflects on continuing to show up and to her sixties In a sport that never made that easy, and while [00:01:00] staying true to yourself matters more than staying relevant.

Out in open water. Andy Donaldson, who swam some of the world's most demanding crossings, describes what happens when progress disappears. And the only real task left is staying present. Next, we have Kitty Calhoun, a pioneering alpinist. Looks back on years. Spent living out of a car.

It was more than sacrifice, but this was focus and how voluntary simplicity sharpened her ability to endure in the mountains. Next we have Jamie Whitmore, whose career was interrupted by cancer. Speak with clarity about rebuilding a life through recovery and service. Next we have antiquity who works daily with aging bodies.

Brings the conversation back to anatomy and trust. What actually keeps people moving over the long term. Then we have solitude with [00:02:00] Susan. Mary Conrad paddling through Alaska where patience and judgment matter more than bravado. Then we have perspective from Jim Dini, whose decades in the mountains have taught him that partnership and restraint matter more than summits.

And we close with Joan and Doug Baron. Still racing and learning in the seventies. Not chasing youth, just staying curious. These are people who have learned how to stay engaged when things narrow, when comfort falls away, when experience becomes the real edge. If a voice here stays with you, each excerpt comes from a full length conversation in the Ageless Athlete Archive.

The show notes will point you to the complete episodes if you want to spend more time with them.

Sonnie: At the end of the day, I'm just a climbing nerd and I really like to reverse engineer my objectives. [00:03:00] And I think I started doing that like quite early on in my climbing.

I'd be like, okay, I wanna climb 14 C or 14 d or whatever it was, you know, back in 2000. And I was like, and this style is in the, the wall is in this angle or this angle. And I knew that if I did things at this angle, it just wouldn't prepare me for this angle. Like, I, I just, I just reversed, reversed everything.

And I was like, okay, well, and if I need to do 80 moves in this style, right? How do I prepare my body for 80 repetitions of this style at my limit? And so I think I always just reversed engineered things. I always wanted to be a little bit stronger than I needed to be to climb the route. And I, I still approach climbing like that.

I still approach my, my goals today like that because it's not reasonable for me anyway. Maybe for like Adam mantra, it's fine, but, or for people who are, you know, capable of doing so much volume, I don't know. But for me, I had to pick [00:04:00] certain climbs in certain areas over phases of time and be like, I'm just gonna focus on this one style because I, I felt like I couldn't be a V 12, V 13 boulderer in this style and then go to Smith Rock and climb to Boulder, not to be in the same.

Like, you know, or whatever it is, like in the exact same window. I, I feel like 

Kush: used time at that style, at it's zenith. Yeah. Right. Like you could perform at like a lower level of intensity. Yeah. But to perform optimally, you have to kind of prepare yourself in that style. 

Sonnie: Yeah. And I needed a little bit of time to shift and prepare myself.

And so with that particular route, I just, I knew that these pitches were long and technical and pumpy, and I knew that they were back to back to back. And so when I went ragging, um, I would, the way that I was structured my day is I would go for half a day, I would come, I'd run back to the, the camper or whatever, and then Lydia, my wife, would take half a day to go bouldering with her girlfriends or go for a long run or something like that.

So we would structure the day where I had half the [00:05:00] day, and it was never, I never climbed in the middle of the day. I always climbed in the morning or the evening, and then my wife. So that way we felt very like balanced. and there was times like, of course, when I was up on lcap, that was most of the day, but when I was just ragging, if I was in Smith Rock, I would try to bang out four or five long pitches very quickly and then be finished by one o'clock.

You know? And so I guess what I'm trying to say is that I would, I, I would take the, the, the main objective and then I would reverse it and be like, how can I, how can I focus on these climbs in this style, in this condensed period of time that would help me get higher fitness for, for, for the actual day of the, of attempts, you know?

Sure, sure. Yeah. And so, like, even today, like I, I actually remember, um, I remember reading about Frost Walla Ground again back in 1998, and he would do something like, I, I believe it was 305 13 moves a day. Wow. And [00:06:00] so he was on, like, you know, your training board. He'd have all the different angles, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 degrees.

But he would, he wouldn't finish training unless he did about 300 movements of around five 13 level. And I was fascinated by that amount of, well, one volume, but two, like, like approach. Because you know, when you're doing World Cup competitions and the finals is a 13 d or 14 a on site back in the 1990s, like your fitness had to be through the roof.

And so I, I was like, well, how many moves am I doing a day? You know, like, am I doing 300? Am I doing 400? Am I doing 100? When we go to the climbing gym and we start talking with our friends and we do three pitches, you know, and we're like, oh yeah, I'm kind of tired. I'm, I'm gonna go home like. Did you actually like do enough to be better the next week or the next month?

Or are you just doing enough to have a good time and maintain, you know, and I'm not saying it's [00:07:00] all about results, but if there's goals and objectives you have, it's, it's, I think it's important to look at it more seriously. More analytically. Yeah. 

Kush: And even in a lifestyle sport like rock climbing and even on a big road trip, I think there's a lesson here on how one can break down like really big audacious goals into manageable jump.

Because I think myself and maybe people listening, we don't always think of. A root and a goal in that kind of way where you can like, think of the total number of moves and maybe think of like how one can like, replicate that kind of intensity, that kind of volume at the gym or at a different crack.

Mm-hmm. And think about that big objective, but think about it like how you can get something out of your day at the crack. 

Sonnie: Yeah. Which would help 

Kush: one, get to that big objective. 

Sonnie: And, and I wanna be, yeah, yeah. Sorry, I just wanna be clear. Like, it's not something I do all the time. It's when it's, when I realize [00:08:00] that there's a, a climb or an objective that's very important to me.

And, you know, I, I like, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a climber through and through lifestyle, like everything, but there are times where I ramp it up to, to, to try to do something. And then there are times 

When I come down the other side and then, and it's, it's this journey of these waves. And so. Sure. Like, I think helping, you know, helping to look at climbing just a little bit more, like a little bit more, um, I don't know, maybe the word is just mindful, like being like, you know, am I, am I actually doing something that's going to help me achieve my goal or not?

You know, I just think sometimes that's, that's helpful in life. And I just want to say that it's never like a straight up line. It's always this, these waves, ,

Kush: I think Judy Oyama brings a kind of courage that's almost easy to overlook. The courage to keep showing up for something you love, even when the world has told you a hundred reasons [00:09:00] why you shouldn't. She is in her sixties now, skating with the same fire she had as a teenager, and what she shares here traces that whole thread, rebellion, identity.

Falling down, standing up, and the quiet determination to keep going just because it matters to you. This is Judy at her most honest. 

Judi: I know that it fed my drive because the more people kind of counted me out or, um, I mean, like, I remember going to a con meet, having teammates that I when I rode for Santa Cruz and we were supposed to go to a contest and they told me to meet at a certain time at their house, and they took off 10 minutes before I got there.

And I had my dad drive me all the way up to the contest and which was like an hour away. And so, I mean, I was used to being left out and so I just felt like I'm gonna, in my mind it was like, I'm gonna prove you wrong. And then I just kept skating and I feel like. Um, I always got, [00:10:00] uh, compared to Peggy Yoki, who's really sweet on the dog town, Z os but I mean, I still get even in my own town, Hey, you're Peggy Yoki or whatever.

So I, I'm trying to like just prove that there's more than one Asian American skateboarder and uh, girl skateboarder, women's skateboarders like that are unknown, you know? 'cause if you didn't get in the magazine, no one knew you. And now because of social media, uh, you can be found and, and get um, I feel like when I'm powering out and kind of proving to people that you can make a difference and be seen, and I think because of my age, I've gotten a lot of people that are in the mountain biking and swimming or other sports that say, you got me off the couch, or you made me realize that at 40 I'm not done. So that's the other part is I hope I'm inspiring, um, more people to just do something, do what they love, and don't let the age thing, uh, stop you. Because [00:11:00] people always like, aren't you worried that you're gonna fall? But, you know, I've fallen doing other dumb things, tripping on stuff, and I at least, you know, I luckily have the muscle and bones from lifting that's gonna help me be able to fall and just get back up like falling. It shouldn't be like a death sentence. 

Kush: I want to bring in something deeper here. Your family, as Japanese Americans, from what I know, lived through the trauma of World War II incarceration camps, so how did that history maybe even shape your perspective? up. Growing up, I mean, this is 1960s, 1970s Santa Cruz, very white. you were, you stood out just by the virtue of who you were.[00:12:00] 

So

tell us how it shaped your approach to sports and your identity.

Judi: Well, I know one of the things my, so my parents are like born in Monterey and Gardena and, um, you know, they were all interned and sent to the horse stalls in Salinas and, or they had like a, um. Uh, what'd they call it? Assembly center at the different horse tracks in Northern California, in la in Anaheim, Santa Ana racetrack.

And, um, I know that as much as they tried to just spoil us because they didn't have a lot, um, it made me really appreciate just having the freedom to go do whatever I wanted. And I didn't take it for granted that I could go skateboard or go horseback ride or whatever. 'cause I knew that they went through a time where they just lost everything and that, they had to build back up.

And, um, my dad was fortunate enough that, uh, my, my [00:13:00] grandfather was a fisherman and actually his boat is in the Cannery Row. history books. And, um, my parents or my dad's side of the family, they had a house in Monterey. He lost his boat. But some family in Berkeley rented out my dad's house and when they came back from internment camp, their house was still there and there, there was, uh, soldiers from for or living in there.

And so they shared the house for six months where the soldiers lived upstairs and the family lived downstairs and they were able to keep their home. yeah, it was really fortunate. And that's like my uncle did, helped produce a movie called Beyond Bob Wire. And it was about the four 42nd troop, and I had two uncles in that.

And, um, so while their family was in internment camp, they were actually fighting for the US Army. And, um, and so basically I just feel very fortunate and I think my and my parents kind of never had any, they weren't like, [00:14:00] uh, bitter about it, you know, like, um, they just. Felt like, you know, it was a time that, uh, changed their life, but they were able to move on.

And my dad's 96, he's still alive. He was, I think 13 when he was in camp. And he, he, I can't tell, I wouldn't tell. I think he would understand and he would be really disappointed that we're at that state again, where we're, I mean, it's scary that they're just grabbing people off the street 

Kush: that is, yeah, no, sorry. That is such a uncanny observation, uh, that your dad has, right? Like, you know, your family lived through that period when they were, uh, uh, taken away for no fault of their own. And now we have families in California and all over the world, I mean all over the country who are also facing this, uh, constant nightmare. Your [00:15:00] childhood was anything but typical and did skating or picking that sport up, did it feel like maybe some kind of, um, like quiet defiance a way where you could just be yourself

amidst all of the other chaos

that must have been part of growing up in that 

era? 

Judi: I think, I think a 

little bit, uh, yes, because I guess what's fun about skateboarding and I still, you know, it's a little bit of renegade sport, like, you know, you're not really welcome. But you just do it and you, and you're kind of like looking around and making sure, like, okay, I'm on this street. Am I going to get kicked out?

Or, I mean, I've had neighbor and when I was a kid, I had a neighbor run my cones down with their car, and then the mother, the wife came down the street, And I'm like, you don't need to do that. Your husband did that. you know, so I mean, I've had other pe I skated at lunch, at one place, [00:16:00] and then the, I had some guy come down the street and just run him all over.

And I stopped him and started yelling at him. And he apologized like I got in his face about it because one, he could have hit me. Two, why is he doing that? And so. skateboarding is like, sometimes you have to sneak into a spot and you just try to not leave any marks and just go and, I mean, I still will jump fences or squeeze in between fences to go ride go to, if I go to a skate park too early in the gate's not open.

I mean, who thought a 60 something year old would be jumping, climbing over the fence? But, you know, I was a kid and I did it and I feel like, you know, I'm just riding a little earlier than I'm supposed to. So, I think that it's just part of one. Being, uh, independent. And two, just knowing that, you know, as long as you're not hurting anyone or any property, you should be able to, um, skate.

And I have a funny story that, uh, one time we were skating in San Jose and they were having a Criterion [00:17:00] bike race and on this road. So we were like, okay, well we can't skate here. So we went to this parking lot in an industrial complex and we set up cones and, you know, we're older, we always wear safety gear.

And this Mercedes comes jamming up through the parking lot and over to us and 

Said, skateboarders aren't allowed here. And I said, okay, well if we see any skateboarders, we'll we'll let him know. And he looked at me and he looked at all of us, like being a little older and wearing safety gear. He goes, oh, you guys look all right.

Okay. Well, and he just laughed and he said, you, I own this property and I saw you guys and I just thought I should kick you out. But. You guys can stay. And so, and I always laugh, my friends still laugh about that, 

Kush: Andy Donaldson has swam some of the hottest channels in the world, but this moment isn't about records or distances, it's about what the water exposed in him mentally, emotionally, spiritually. He talks about leaving a stable job, finding himself [00:18:00] unraveling mitzvah, and slowly putting those pieces back together again.

There is so much vulnerability here and a lot of courage too, not well, not the brash or loud kind, but the courage it takes to let your life change direction when the old version of you no longer fits. Here's Andy.

Andy, great segue into talking about the, the Ocean Seven, and obviously we don't have time to talk about each of these swims. Is so different and so has been, I am sure the planning, the preparation and the execution, but your answer on how the swim in the quote unquote warm and placid waters in Hawaii, bringing on the toughest challenge.

I, [00:19:00] yeah, I'm just, shocked hearing that because all these swims take place in these very diverse places, different conditions. And to the outsider, it might seem that the Hawaii swim might have been, let's say the, uh, you know, what they call a softball, like the, the easy one. and, and, and knowing you a little bit, I'm sure it wasn't lack of preparation.

Was it just mother nature that brought, brought conditions that you just did not expect? 

Pretty much.

Andy: So I'll, I'll take a, a tiny bit of a step back just to provide some context 

and, 

Andy: and then get talking about the Mokey channel. So. After Rot Nest had this success, discovered that I'm not bad at this stuff, [00:20:00] this long distance swimming that I wanted to continue and do more goals, achieve more goals, test myself.

And we'd raised, I think, $12,000 for this mental health charity. So I, I saw an opportunity to combine purposeful sport and, and really that was the genesis or the beginning, uh, of what went on to become this challenge to swim the ocean. Seven, the, the world's seven toughest challenge swims. Uh, and I set out to do them all in the space of a year, which at that time had never been done.

Uh, and, and do them try to break as many records as possible along the way, partly for the challenge in, in my own aspirations, but also because I thought, right, if we're raising money for charity less, how can we bring as much noise to this as possible? So I wanted to be quite outlandish with my goals.

There's probably a fair bit of naivety in there as well. So, but that was the, the background. And so [00:21:00] these swims, the, they're marathon swims all around the world, places like England to France, the English channel, the North Channel, which is Ireland to Scotland, the cook straight between the islands of New Zealand.

The Malachi Channel, which is between two of the islands, uh, Oahu and Malachi, uh, over in Hawaii, uh, the straight of Gibraltar, Spain to France, the Catalina Channel, Santa Catalina Islands back to Los Angeles over in America. Uh, and the Sru straight between horns shoot and Joao in Japan. And so they're all marathon and distance.

So 10 miles and up. And you know this, that's the shortest, the longest was the Malachi channel. 44 kilometers. So about 30 miles. And I'd got off to this absolute ripper of a start. So in the English Channel, I, I broke the British record set one of the fastest times ever in the North Channel, aside from basically [00:22:00] turning into an ice cube.

Uh, again, swam the second fastest time ever. And the C straight broke the world record went a titan that was maybe about 90 minutes slower than the inter islander ferry, like the, the, the Kiwis were just going mad. It was all over the news. So I was coming into, uh, this next one, the, the Malachi Channel, uh, with a fair bit of hype and expectation around me.

You know, I, I, you know, I had all these wins. I, was coming in fresh, hot. And I kinda fancied myself, you know, and I thought to myself, right, let's go for the, the world record is 12 hours, I reckon I could get across here in 10 or, or under. And so that's where my mind was. And funnily, and, uh, um, I'd been speaking to, uh, another swimmer that you've, you've been, you've had on the podcast here, Sarah Thomas, and, you know, very [00:23:00] incredible woman.

If, if you don't know much about Sarah, check her out. She's one of the, the greatest of all time in Ultra Marathon. So has done phenomenal things. And I remember something that she'd said to me, which was along the lines of, just be ready for the day that Mother Nature tests you. Like Mother Nature will humble you at some point.

There's no doubt about it. Just be ready. And, and on those days, it's gonna show you just how much you want this and, and really what you're made of. And so, back in Hawaii, I dove in. We, we started at 7:00 PM at night, sun. Beautiful. Like tropical island. Sun's going down. Uh, and I'm swimming along and I'm thinking to myself, yeah.

Uh, we're on here. I've got this. And you know, like, like we were talking about [00:24:00] before, like everything that could have gone wrong pretty much went wrong. You know, we, we set off, uh, and quickly discovered that the currents were pushing the wrong way. And, you know, it brought my pace down from what is typically around four and a half to five kilometers an hour, maybe down to under three.

So, you know, as a swimmer, the swimming 44 kilometers, that's, that's hours, that's adding hours onto your time, and that's just completely out of your control. The waves were rough. The swells were high, about three meters high. I was getting thrown around like a ragdoll on a washing machine, and I was, I was throwing up.

I was, I was disorientated. We were, we were swimming through the night. My kayaker had forgotten to bring his lights, so he was like the silhouette of darkness out there. Uh, and I just felt so isolated. The boat was sitting maybe a hundred meters away, uh, and they turn off all the [00:25:00] lights because they don't want to attract in the sharks.

And, and I was just having the most rough swim known to mankind. I, I was really in a bad place and I. I remember distinctly one of the toughest moments of my life. You know, we were maybe seven or eight hours in, and I was nowhere near finishing the sun. I was nowhere near the other side. And I got this every 15 minutes.

I, I caught up with, with the boat. I would catch up with the boat I to get updates from the team on how I was performing. Uh, they'd pass me a drink and, you know, we, we would communicate on a whiteboard. Uh, but this time, Jay, uh, my mentor and, and coach, uh, he leans over to, to the side and he is like, Andy, I'm really sorry, but in the last two hours you've not gone anywhere.

[00:26:00] You've traveled, you've traveled maybe two, two or three kilometers. Wow. And I'm thinking to myself like, holy crap. What? And so the currents were so bad that we were just basically zigzagging around like this, just getting pushed side to side and not making really any real progress towards Oahu. And so, you know, being an accountant.

I was doing the maths in my head 1.5 kilometers an hour, or it would be taking me four minutes to swim a hundred meters, a far cry from the one minute 12 pace that I'd be holding in most of my other swims. And I was doing the math and I was thinking, geez, 1.5 Ks an hour to swim 40 something kilometers.

Jesus, I, I can't keep going. This like, how, It, it was, it was like this dagger to the heart [00:27:00] and, you know, my mind started racing like, why am I doing this? What, how am I gonna keep pushing forward? You know, what happens if I fail? You know, we, we, we only have so much budget, like, I can't come back here and do this again.

We have aspirations to try to do this all in the space of a year. Like, your mind is racing and, and it's very hard not to react in those moments. And, and so yeah, it, it was a, a really tough journey and I had to do a lot of soul searching. I'd never been pushed outta my comfort zone as much as I had in, in that point in time.

it was, it was, it was just. Very exposing. And so, you know, I think what ended up happening, I, I remember flipping on my back and just [00:28:00] looking up at the sky and, you know, it was pitch black. You're pin drop in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and there's no light and there's just stars as far as the eye can see, just scattered across the sky.

you know, I I, I slowed down. I tried to slow out my, my thinking down, taking some deep breaths. You know, I looked to the side. I, I saw the, the team out there on the boat, and they're here with me every step of the way. Uh, I thought about my, why, why am I doing this? What, why should I keep going forward?

You know? Yes, we had the mental health piece and, and trying to do, raise money for mental health. We had, you know, the messaging around what we learned along this journey. How could we inspire others to pursue goals? You know, I thought about my family, the, the people that supported me, uh, through thick and from through my life, through this journey.

Uh, my [00:29:00] grandfather, who has been a big source of inspiration to me, some of the struggled with mental health as well, with their mental health as well, and, you know, all of these things. That was my why. And I, I just thought to myself, well, I'm gonna keep going for them and I'll find a way and however long it takes to one stroke in front of the other, we will we'll find a way through this.

And, and sure enough, you know, as a team, we made a decision to, to try push further north. Instead of staying to the straight same line, we managed to escape the currents. It was gonna add an extra 10 kilometers onto our swim, but that was better than swimming nowhere. And we really just broke that challenge down into manageable chunks.

You know, you don't climb Everest and look to the summit. You, you just look one foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the other, one foot in front of the other. Uh, and you eventually get there. And, and that's what we did. And that's what, [00:30:00] and you know, it didn't get easier. It, it, the conditions worsened.

There, there was this unforecasted storm that we ended up swimming into, but we, we pushed on and, and. Together as a team, ended up finishing and getting across to Oahu in just shy of 16 hours. So way longer than I'd ever experienced before. I've never been in the water for more than nine hours before, so this was way outta the comfort zone.

But you know, it is like life. You, you get hit

with these un unexpected challenges and you learn more from those than you do from the good times.



Kush: This next clip comes from a conversation with. Kitti Calhoun, and it centers on a kind of strength we don't talk about very often, not talent, not fitness, but the ability to live simply and to suffer deliberately in service of what [00:31:00] matters most. Kitti talks about pairing her life down to almost nothing, living out of a car for years.

And learning how focus, minimalism and endurance fed each other. What stands out here is a deprivation. It's clarity, knowing what's essential, and letting the rest follow away.

Beyond some of your gifts, maybe your natural gifts, you know, you talked about being able to eat well, reasonably well at altitude, it seems like you also have this gift or this learned skill to be able to suffer. 

Kitty: Mm.

And 

Kush: to be able to, which I mean, it is certainly a, um, it is, yeah. It is a required attribute in, in, at, at pine climbing. But I mean, there, there are degrees. Mm. you seem to have found this focus and I'm just curious what, what that balance is. . Because I believe for a while you really paired down your living, right?

Kitty: Mm-hmm. Yeah. 

Kush: you were in the back [00:32:00] of a car, Subaru, maybe SUV. Right? 

I love climbing and all of that, but I, I think that myself and most of us don't have that capacity to be able to, constrain our, our living to that kind of simplicity. So tell us about that time 

Kitty: Yeah. what I did, I was in, um, at University of Vermont and this guy had asked me to, do the presidential traverse in winter in a single push. And, I'd never done anything like that. I thought, yeah, this would be interesting, you know, and it was a full moon.

So he started out and we had snowshoes, but we're like, ah, we don't need these. So we let put 'em back in the car And then before you know it, we're actually postholing and it, and it took a lot of energy and a lot more time than we anticipated. by the time we got to, the top of Mount Washington, this guy was getting hypothermic.

we had, I had [00:33:00] insisted that we each bring sleeping bags. 'cause like, I'm like, God, what's the worst thing that that could happen? Like, we could end up, somebody gets hurt above tree line, it's like we need to have sleeping bags. and so, um, we got up there and the, the, there's a, a tower, a, um, building up there and, but it was closed, it was locked.

Nobody was there. We couldn't get in. And there was a, um, sort of this, uh. Corner that where the wind was, blowing past it so that it was protected and inside corner was protected from the wind. And so I said, well, just get your sleeping bag here and I'll, I'll wake you up in a couple hours. I woke up.

I'd fallen asleep, and I was, and I was shivering. So I started doing jumping jacks, and that didn't warm me up. And so then I ate a Snickers bar and I got warm right away. And so I realized like, wow, okay, I always need to have a Snickers bar with me. but anyway, uh, [00:34:00] it was, it was challenging.

It was really beautiful, the sunrise, it was just a bright red ball in the sky that came up over the mountains, just amazing. And, um, and I was intrigued, but I also, you know, again, I was thinking about, okay, what really matters? What do you need? What do you don't, what can you get away without what's extra baggage?

and it's this thought of this, uh, minimalism that's helped me all along the way in being a successful alpinist. But I also think that, It goes along with the thought of voluntary simplicity and, and, um, which is about, focusing on the things that really matter so that you don't spend time and energy, you have limited time and energy in your life, right?

And, and so you don't wanna spin it on the things that aren't important. You wanna be able to focus on what's most important and these other things just become a distraction. The extra food, the extra clothes, the extra whatever it is that you don't need to accomplish your goal. [00:35:00] Whatever that could, whatever that is.

Kush: Can you actually just describe, uh, what that existence for you was like? 

Kitty: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd love to. It was, so I was in a Subaru and what I did was I thought, okay, what I'm gonna do is, um. I'm gonna, so after that experience, I thought, okay, I, I was gonna graduate in December, so it's gonna spend January in Colorado, February in, um, in Wyoming and March in the Cascades in April and the Palisades.

And so I, uh, took the back seat out of my Subaru and I could put, a foot locker there and then put this plywood board fit level on the rear wheel wells and the Foot locker. And so I could sleep on that and hide stuff underneath the, um, the board and then keep stuff in my foot locker. And then I only, you know, I only had two of everything because you don't wanna have too much because otherwise you can't find anything and it takes up space.

[00:36:00] So. All you need is like two pairs of pants, long pants, you know, two pairs of underwear, two pairs of socks, two long sleeve shirts, right? That's it. Hat gloves. and so I had everything paired down just looked out of there. And, and I didn't have, you know, I didn't have any bills 'cause I didn't rent a house, so I had no bills.

So I didn't really have any mail and I didn't have a cell phone back then 'cause they didn't exist. and then I just, uh. Set aside $3,000 a year to live off of. So I'd get $3,000 out of the beginning of the year, like January 1st in traveler's checks, drive out west and then start alpine climbing in the wintertime.

And then, money I made, um, working for Outward Bound or working for American Alpine Institute, I would just put in the bank to save until the next year. And so I had $14 a week for food. So that was $2 a day. And what I learned from my friend LY Dean was that like, you [00:37:00] can live on that. Like you eat vegetables, vegetables, you know, aren't very expensive.

and, and, uh, made these giant pancakes. They were homemade pancakes, but they were like, you couldn't eat one, you couldn't finish one. It was so heavy. So you'd have to put it in your pocket because it's like you, you know, you're gonna be going, you're gonna be going for hours and hours and hours. 

Kush: Wow. And how and how long did you Uh, seven years.

Seven years. 

Kitty: Yeah. 

Kush: Yeah. Seven years in the back of a Subaru. Yeah. 

Kitty: I mean, when I was working for American Aop Alpine Institute, I just had to park my car somewhere and then fly overseas and, you know, again, I wasn't paying rent in Bolivia, 

Kush: you know? That's true. 

Kitty: Right? 

Kush: That's true. okay, fine question. Was there any point in those years, again, you know, living this, this life of simplicity and focus where maybe you thought you had pushed things too far?

I mean, again, like I said, I, I'm in a van, but there [00:38:00] are moments times when I'm like, oh gosh, you know, I'm here parked on the side of this highway in Central Mexico and I. I have, I'm connected to all of technology, but my van stove is not working and I cannot make a hot, hot meal. Right. So from, for me, that I feel like that was the height of privation.

Sorry. But like, that was what it was. So compared to like, compared to like your time, like what might have been maybe, let's say the Nter or maybe the, maybe the Zenit. I don't know. It could be one and the same. 

Kitty: You, you know, it was easy. I was in my twenties. This other technology didn't exist. It, so there might've been less, temptations or distractions then.

But, it was easy. It was fun. as when I, I decided, well, I'm not gonna live it with anybody because that's. Before I get married because that's too much of a commitment. Like either they're committed to me and I'm moving out of the Subaru or they're not, you know, and I'm gonna live in the Subaru and keep doing my thing.

And maybe, 

Kush: maybe two people in the Subaru [00:39:00] maybe that might have 

Kitty: Yeah. Been too much 

Kush: even for you, 

Kitty: that wouldn't, that wouldn't work. So it's like, okay. When I found, you know, when I found the perfect person, then that wa that was when things were gonna change. Like, I would move out of the Subaru, I would have an address, might have bills to pay, and that was gonna be, that was gonna be it.

But, you know, seven years and it all, yeah, it all worked out. It was a good seven years, 

Kush: Jamie Whitmore has faced things most of us hope we will never have to face. Cancer took so much from her physically, emotionally, professionally, and yet. What strikes me most when she talks is how much light she continues to give back. In this clip, she shares what that period was like and how she rediscovered meaning through sport, motherhood, and service.

It's not a story about pushing through pain, it's about deciding who you want to be on the [00:40:00] other side of it.

Jamie, this quote from you is indeed quite profound, that when you couldn't see the light, you had to become the light. Could you maybe help remember one or two things from that period where you manifested? This coat of yours? 

Jamie: I'd say the first, the first one was when I found out the cancer had come back.

I, I, I can remember sitting in the doctor's office and I was smiling because I was so excited to tell them like, Hey, I am, I'm swimming every day and I am lifting weights. And then I would drive to San Francisco and I would get radiation and then I would drive home and it was like, that was my day. I'd get up in the morning, workout, go do radiation, drive home, and I would just be exhausted from it.

And so on day four, I was so excited 'cause they had called me into their office and you could, like, doctors have this like straight face. They're just like. And so I'm [00:41:00] sitting here telling him like, it's so great and I'm, and I'm finally off my walker and I've got this cane and my, and my AFOs working. And, and, and, and you, you could tell that they had something to tell me.

And he just, he said, you know, Jamie, it would've not to tell you this, but your cancer's back. And I looked at him and I still kept smiling 'cause I was not gonna let them wipe that smile off my face. And then he said, it's much more aggressive and it's faster growing than we thought. Like they thought it was kind of medium, slow to medium.

And it was a very aggressive cancer. It was a sarcoma. They were worried it was gonna spread. And I still was smiling and they kept saying, so we need to have another surgery 'cause it's already the same size, it's grapefruit. And I just kept looking at him. And I left the office and, and I di I felt this very heaviness over me that, oh my gosh, like this is, this is real.

Like I could die. Like I survived all of that. I've been, you know, going along with life, trying to make the best of being disabled. Told I'd never run again, maybe never ride a bike. And now you're telling me the cancer's [00:42:00] back. And it was, it was such a long drive home and I had to call my ex-husband at the time, or my husband at the time, I had to call him.

I had to call family and I had to tell everybody like, it's, we're not done. Like I'm not done. And we had already set another surgery date and I just, I remember for about a day because that's all I would allow myself a, a day. I just, I was crying and I was processing. And then I woke up the next day and I was like.

I can't let this change me. I still, I still have to, I have to fight till the bitter end and, and I'm not done. So I went to the gym the next day and I carried on and people would look at me and I would just say, you know, here I am, like I'm doing this. And, and it, and it I did. But I remember that heaviness and then fighting that and looking to the positive of, well, I can still swim, I can still work out, I can still.

Like, inspire others to not give up. Like somebody's probably worse off than me right now. And, and [00:43:00] it was like that I would show up to radiation and there'd be all of these ladies sitting in this room 'cause you'd wait. And they were so sad. Like they, you could just see the heaviness on them. And when I would walk into a room, it was like I lit up the room.

They, I would start sharing stories and I would tell them all of this stuff. And I had many people like search me out, Google me, and send me emails saying that they were really scared about starting radiation. But after meeting me, they knew they could do it. And I, and it was so empowering, right? Like knowing that I could make a positive difference for others.

And it's just, it, I, I just allowed that to fuel me. Then I just kept being a light, kept being a light. And I, and I'm, I would say the next time was when I got sepsis and almost died after the second surgery. 'cause I was like, I just, just had, had it with hospitals and it was, and it, and again, it was another time that was just really hard and I, I mean, I was running a fever.

I didn't know where I was. I was becoming very like, what's going on? And I was having to have all these tests and stuff to make sure it hadn't affected my heart. And I, and [00:44:00] then it was just another setback. It was, I was so ready to like start riding my bike. I had just beaten my second cancer surgery and now I'm almost gonna die because of sepsis.

So that was another really hard time. And once again, it just had to do with people like emailing me or coming to visit me at the hospital and, and just like sharing how much of an impact like I had made thus far. And I just thought, well, I gotta keep going. I gotta, I gotta, I can't give up. And so I got outta bed and I would like hobble to the nurse's station on my walker.

And, and it was just this refusal, my dad always taught me, you know, you, you can't, you can't give up in life. Like you, you just, you can't, you can't allow that to be part of your vocabulary. You have to, when you start something, you finish it. And I had this, I had this motto that I was gonna be like Ned over in and I was gonna be racing well into my fifties and be super competitive.

And I was only 32 at this time. Right. Or 31. And I just thought like I. [00:45:00] This can't be the end of my story. I can't let cancer win. I can't let cancer dictate my next chapter. And so there was just this refusal of like, no, I'm gonna decide my next chapter. So that that was how I, I could continue on and be, be the light.

Was that just that refusal to give up? I think 

Kush: one other thing I sense from your story is that you took it upon yourself to also get your message out, and that started inspiring others. But I also sense that that service maybe came back to you because you found this purpose maybe in some ways different, maybe even greater than your calling as just an athlete.

Sounds like it came back to give you this, this mission that you can't let, [00:46:00] you can't let yourself down and you can't let you know your legion of fans down. In your fight. 

Jamie: I, you've, you've kind of nailed it. Like I'm a person of very strong faith, like very strong faith, and, and I did, I felt my sense of purpose, it was, and I often told myself that if I could help one person, then everything I went through was worth it.

And, and that a hundred percent. Gave me motivation because for me it was, this is part of God's plan for my life, and I, I need to honor it. Like, like that's the thing is we all, we all have this opportunity while we're here on earth to make the most of it. Right. To have the biggest impact. And you're either going to take from that or you're going to give, and I, I'm a giver.

I, I really like pouring into people. It's why I'm coaching high school because it's so important. Like people need to know that they're, that they're just, they're valued as a human being. Like they're valued for showing up every day. You don't have to be the fastest runner, but [00:47:00] you, you can show up every day and be part of this great community that you have to try.

Like, that's my, I would always tell my kids ever since they were little, you have to try. You have to try. You don't know. You don't know where you can go or what doors will open up or what you're gonna like if you don't constantly like, try things and then you can decide. I don't like that. Right. But, um, yeah, for me it's, it's definitely being out there.

I, as you can tell, I'm an extrovert and I, I, I love, love, love meeting people and, and just learning about them and then sharing my experience so that hopefully if they ever encounter something that they think, oh my gosh, I can't do this. They can remember the time that they met me and say, yes, I can. Yes, I can.

Like, that's my whole goal is teaching people that yes, you can, you can do it.

Kush: One of the things I appreciate about Andy Mc Whitty is how he makes movement feel less intimidating. A lot of us have reached a point because of age [00:48:00] pain, stiffness, or injury where moving, again, can feel whiskey or even a little scary. And Andy has this gift for breaking things down into simple pieces, hips, ankles, feet, and explaining them in a way that makes everything feel doable.

Again, this clip isn't a dramatic story. It's more like an invitation. A reminder that rebuilding trust in your body can start with the smallest possible action, and that confidence often comes from understanding not force. Here's Andy.

is there maybe a simple, drill you can teach us, Sandy, on how to simply just test for ankle strength or ankle mobility on whether, you know, we are doing fine with the, with that level of, [00:49:00] mobility, or one needs to maybe just add some strengthening, uh, or, or stretching into one's routine.

Andy: There, there's a, there's a few, I mean the, the, the classic sort of, um, I'm, I'm within the ankle here. I'm, I'm going to include the, you know, the muscles above that of, of the calf, which are super important for Absolutely. How Yeah. Propulsion. Yeah. You know, that type of thing. So there are some absolute classics like the, the heel raise, you know, so you stand on your toe, very light amount of support into a, a point such as a wall.

And can you achieve the, again, the, the, the, the sort of standard thinking for numbers around about 25, uh, single leg calf raises, um, for somebody maybe who runs that type of thing. But they're actually quite hard to do and quite hard to measure. People will go at different speeds, you know, so they might smash out 25 in, in, you know, a handful of seconds, you know, the 12 seconds or, or something.

Whereas it might take somebody else a minute. Well that, that's very different regarding endurance and strength if we, if we're [00:50:00] looking at that. So they have to be sort of standardized often with a metronome reaching a certain quality with each repetition. People will do all sorts. When you ask them to raise their heel off the floor, they can lean forwards to make it happen.

They can bend at the knee to make it happen. And that's actually not loading the calf. Now, to me, looking at that, that tells me something about that person and you know, why aren't they wanting to go there? Why is the, the nervous system avoiding, you know, and such like, but you know, you, your calf raises in whatever way you choose to do them are a good measure of overall ankle function.

I suppose there are other things to look at. E-version inversion, you know, that it's a little bit tricky to be talking about measuring those. There's the need to wall test. So if you place your foot at the bottom of a, a wall, uh, and lean forwards with your knee, how far can you take your foot away from the wall and still touch with your knee without the heel raising off the [00:51:00] ground?

and looking at differences again, I would say is the main thing. You know, noticing it is, yeah. Is one much different than the other. Um, there are some norms for that. Roundabout sort of 10 centimeters is a, a nice, distance to be able to achieve. I've seen normal, you know, that that's not an issue with a lot less and I've seen yeah, much greater.

cause we're all, we're all, you know, on that curve somewhere. Uh, so it's, it's having a look at yourself and finding what's normal for yourself. It is quite a complicated joint. It's like saying, you know what, what are the things to look out for in the shoulder? Well, there's yeah, tons.

And, and some can be quite tricky to measure as well. So it's, 

Kush: yeah, 

Andy: it's not, yeah. Yeah. But it, it's having a, a, a benchmark, having an idea, you know, can I do 25 good quality heel raises? Um, you know, and if you test again next year, oh, I can only do 15, you know, something's happened there hasn't it, that we, you know, we might need to address and look [00:52:00] into.

Kush: so I, I think the, you know, the heel raises, I, it seems like that's, that's one really good benchmark because that was part of my physio program and then I've had other friends tell me the same thing. So, uh, just very quickly, so. This is just, just articulating the drill for people saying, please, please correct me.

I think it is. Yeah. Uh, balancing on one leg and using minimal amount of support. 

Andy: Yeah. 

Kush: With your hands, like a 

Andy: finger on a wall 

Kush: or 

Andy: something. 

Kush: Yeah, that's a good one. Finger on the wall. And then starting from the heel on the ground. 

Andy: Mm-hmm. 

Kush: And then raising it all the way up as much as one can.

Andy: Yeah. 

Kush: And I think that's one rep and then doing it 25 times. 

Andy: Yeah. 

Kush: is there an indication on how high we should raise the knee? Oh, sorry. How high we should [00:53:00] raise the ankle. And second. Second is, will it, will it improve the drill if we start from like an elevated surface, like a stair? 

Andy: Mm-hmm.

Kush: Like a step and then go down lower. Because when one does that, I know it also helps stretch out, you know, the cough a little bit. 

Andy: Yeah, yeah. And you're working through full range at that point. And that's super relevant for climbers. If I was going to work as an exercise, then potentially, yes, we would go there with the heel being free and ready to drop down lower than the, uh, than the to are.

But for a standardized test, I would go from the floor most of the time, unless there something really specific I have just remembered. There is an app called Calf Raise. Oh. Um, which is free, I, I believe, I think, or certainly very cheap if, if, if not free. And it's an attempt to set up and film [00:54:00] yourself doing it.

And it's one of these that uses, uh, but that's quite common now in, uh, weightlifting and Olympic lifting where people want to track the bar and track the bar velocity and that kind of thing. And it will measure your ankle and your height that you are gaining with each, because yes, you're quite correct.

One of the things to look out for is when you can no longer reach that high point. And that's really, that's, um, I forget the correct term now. Is it functional failure or something like that? Or, you know, you've not actually failed. You could still probably do quite a lot of, uh, you know, quite a few more cal raises.

But for the purposes of the test, that's a fail. You know, the, the quality has dipped and so it is 25 good quality car phrases. But yes, that app had, I had forgotten about it. I've used it a few times now and it seems quite good. Gives lots of, of information for, uh, for physios and such like, as well. But, um, yeah, you can just use it, it will measure your height and it has a timer on it as well.

It's, it's [00:55:00] recommended as well to use a metronome, you know, sort of One second up, one second down one second. So we've got that standardized approach to it, um, so that people don't cheat 'cause the body is fantastic at cheat.

Kush: Susan Mary Conrad spent weeks alone in Alaska, and if you have ever been in a place that wild, you know, it has a way of stripping everything down to what is essential in this moment. She describes a night when the world felt way too big, whales surfacing besides a kayak. Darkness pressing in, whether changing faster than she could respond.

What she found in that discomfort shaped why she went back a second time. Here is Susan. I.

kush--he-him-_1_07-03-2025_110212: But you can take us into the daily of a day [00:56:00] while you were doing this expedition. Perhaps things like, you know, where would you sleep? What did you eat? what would be a good day or a bad day? How would that feel like out there?

susan_1_07-03-2025_100212: Yeah, that, that's a great question. And that's one way, like, just take, breaking it down to one day, that's like mentally wrapping your brain around a, a multi-month expedition. Anybody, well, I shouldn't say anybody, but you know, it's, it's not that difficult. With a certain skillset to paddle one day, right?

You just, you, you pack the boat, you click off some miles, you stop for lunch, take some photos, you find a, hopefully a suitable campsite. 'cause you are dealing with this extreme intertidal differences where, you know, setting up camp and breaking camp entails, uh, schlepping that gear in the kayak itself.

Sometimes the equivalent of up to two football fields over some pretty messy, uneven, and sometimes very dangerous terrain. [00:57:00] Um, but you find a suitable camp, hopefully you set up that camp, catch up on your journal entries and just thousands of calories and you climb into your tent and you have a good sleep.

And then you get up in the morning reverse everything and then repeat. So if you can do that one day, you know it's the mental game of breaking it down into bite-sized chunks. And much like I did for the whole expedition in, in, you know, it's too overwhelming to look at the whole map, the whole chart of the inside passage, but if you break it down, like most paddlers do, uh, via the, the resupply ports, so for me, there were seven sections that were structured around my six ports of call.

So these were towns that I would paddle into to retrieve my supplies that were mailed ahead to those towns, and that makes it much more manageable. Um, and, and then these ports become kind of like a milestone for the, for the next section. You, you get to get a, a roof over your head and hopefully a pillow under your head, a shower.

Um, and just as many calories as you possibly can, socialize a little bit, right? That's the big part [00:58:00] of it is just eating your way through these towns and then you set off on the, on the next leg of the adventure. So.

kush--he-him-_1_07-03-2025_110212: For sure. you know, you, you, you described like, let's say, um, a day that you would want ha to happen, you know, like a day which would start like this, which would have a bunch of paddling and then camping eating. So that is perhaps a day on script.

susan_1_07-03-2025_100212: Yes.

kush--he-him-_1_07-03-2025_110212: So he, he, here's a funny question. So if you think back roughly like out of, let's say in your last crossing, how many days do you think were just like the one you described the ones where things went off?

Script

susan_1_07-03-2025_100212: Yeah.

kush--he-him-_1_07-03-2025_110212: things, things went awry for all

susan_1_07-03-2025_100212: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And Mother Nature for the most part, mother Ocean is going to dictate that. There were days where I had plotted out on my chart. I'm okay, this is a 20 mile day, which was pretty typical for me, 20 to 25 miles a day, but [00:59:00] I, uh, set off and within a couple miles it's like, uh, no, like the wind kicked up, the sea state kicks up.

It's a headwind. You're, you know, you just can't even paddle against it anymore. It just makes no sense. So you turn around, either go back to where you were or you hack out, which typically this happened probably 15 to 20% of the time where you're hacking out a pretty miserable campsite. But you are so thankful just to get off the water.

Yeah. And then also bears, right? That is a big, you talk to any inside passage paddler, and one of their biggest fears is encountering bears in camp. And, there was one day where I, was actually gonna go around this headland and out into the exposed Pacific. And, um, conditions seemed okay at the time, but once I got around the corner, it was the same kind of thing.

Like, uh, just gonna go with my intuition on this one, which has always been, you know, pretty good. And so I turned around and I landed on this small island that it actually had camped on in [01:00:00] previous expeditions. Other paddlers have camped there. We all know that bears can swim. Uh, but I really wasn't thinking of bears at this time, and it's still early in the day and hadn't set up camp yet, fortunately.

and I had just paddled a couple of miles. And a bear, a mama bear and a cub show up, like just come galloping out of the forest and came to a screeching halt within, oh, maybe 30 feet of me. They were that close and I didn't have my protection on me. My bear spray was in the kayak, which was stashed behind a log.

I had food in my hand, it was lunchtime. I had food in my hand and I've just shocked or scared a mom with a cub, you couldn't be in a more dangerous situation. So that idyllic little island, um, was very short lived. obviously I survived the encounter. She wasn't aggressive. She ran back into the woods after I went ballistic and I packed up that boat so fast Paddled back down this channel. I had come up earlier that day where I found this little, I [01:01:00] discovered this little, um, floating platform. It's where fishermen sort their nets. It was just in the middle of this narrow channel and there were a couple of fishing boats nearby. And I explained what happened and asked if I could, you know, sleep on that float.

'cause there was no way I was sleeping on land that night because they, they were so close and they said, yeah, of course you'll, you'll be safe here. So that was a plan B that, you know, worked out to my advantage. But it, you know, it, there's just, there's, there's no known outcome and that's what makes an adventure.

Right. Otherwise, we could all just go to Disneyland.

kush--he-him-_1_07-03-2025_110212: 30 feet in front of, uh, mama Bear and her, uh, Cub. when it comes to, yeah, people imagining like animal

susan_1_07-03-2025_100212: Mm-hmm.

kush--he-him-_1_07-03-2025_110212: of the dangerous kind. It doesn't sort of get more, um, scary than that. You did not have your base spray on you, did you practice any safety maneuvers? I feel like every now, every, every time you go through, yeah.

Every [01:02:00] time you do some research on like fending or wild animals, you hear something different. Should I run down? When should I make myself bigger? Should I, should I turn away or should I stare down? Like,

susan_1_07-03-2025_100212: Right.

kush--he-him-_1_07-03-2025_110212: what is actually, what is actually effective?

susan_1_07-03-2025_100212: Yeah, exactly. And, and you know, like I said, it happens so quickly. These encounters always happen so quickly you're not expecting them and. She was so close, and I just remember my eyes locking on her hump, right? And that's when you say, oh shit, this is a grizzly. This is a grizzly bear. And I could see the gradations in her fur, like going from like this beautiful, almost coppery brown to a darker black and then down to the claws, like these massive claw and then the little cub right behind her.

But you know, my brain, it took my brain a few seconds to calibrate, like what was happening. 'cause I hear the galloping first, and then all of a sudden she's in front of me and I'm like, like literally two or three seconds. That seemed like an eternity. And did I do the right thing? I, you know, I didn't have my bear spray on me.

And I, all of a [01:03:00] sudden I had like Michael Jordan jumping abilities. I just jumped on this log, like superwoman, and I just started yelling, yelling and screaming, and waving my hands. Now. She wasn't being aggressive. If she was being aggressive. Then what I've researched and people I've talked to is that you make yourself small, right?

You just, you're, you're not a threat. Just, just keep on moving. But she wasn't being aggressive. She was just right there. And so I just helped her know that, you know, I, I'm here, I'm human, you know, I'm not, I'm not a bear, I'm human. and I'm not really a danger to you, but just like, we're not jiving, just go away.

And that's, I was very lucky that's what happened. And when I paddled into a small port a few days later, and I talked to some hunters, fishermen, people that have lived in these waters, you know, all their lives, and asked them if I did the right thing. And they were like, well, you're here to talk about it.

Um,

kush--he-him-_1_07-03-2025_110212: Yeah.

susan_1_07-03-2025_100212: I guess I did the right thing, but I, it was really just, it wasn't my time, [01:04:00] it wasn't my turn, and I was just incredibly. Fortunate that she wasn't being aggressive, 

Kush: This next comes from the second part of my conversation with Jim Dini. We did two episodes together, and honestly, both are worth listening to in full because Jim carries six decades of mountain and adventure and climbing wisdom in a way. Very, very few people can. Yes. Beyond all of that, he also shares some invaluable life wisdom on how to live a life well with all of its quirks.

For this highlight reel, though I chose just one moment from part two where he talks about the partners who shaped him, the trust that develops in storms, and the emotional cost of spending a [01:05:00] lifetime in the high mountains. It's one of the most honest parts of our whole chat. And if it resonates, yes, go back and listen to both episodes because this is.

Just a glimpse of the depth Jim brought.

Jim: You have to be able to embrace failure. 'cause there are so many factors that come in that will keep you from doing a climb. Largely the weather conditions. So many times they're going into a climb and, uh, conditions weren't right.

The weather wasn't right. You can get up and they'd come back the next year and do it. So, uh, what, what was I getting? So my, my theory has always been getting to the top is optional. Getting back down is obligatory. Yeah. You know, you get back down, you can always go back. If you don't get back down, that's it.

You're over, you're done. 

Kush: Exactly, exactly. And you. Develop this, I don't know, this, uh, uncanny sense [01:06:00] perhaps, Jim, of knowing when to turn back. So getting back to that like, yeah, like maybe, maybe you can talk about maybe one of your more difficult, uh, decisions, but maybe in in hindsight 

Jim: you are correct.

That's a good point because that's real critical. You know, uh, young climbers say, what's the most important thing I need to do to get into serious alpine climber? So the most important thing is your partner. Now, one thing I learned when I was in Special Forces, I was on a, an operational, a 12 man a team.

I learned that you had to have faith in your partners so that they could take, uh, watch your back when you were, for example, if you're on a climb, you can't have your A game every day. You wanna have a partner that if you're having a bad day. They're out front. And I've learned that the support, uh, one of the things, you know, you read the chapter about, uh, the climb in China when there were four of us.

Yes, yes. [01:07:00] I decided at that point that I always wanted to climb with just one other person. And that person's critical. What do you have to have in a person like that is, first of all, they have to buy the plane ticket. What, what I mean by that is that a lot of times you'll get some, oh yeah, I'll go, I'll go.

And when it gets time to buy the plane ticket, they, oh, well, you know, I can't go. So you go, you want somebody that's gonna be reliable. You want somebody that's gonna have the same level of commitment you do. Maybe not more, maybe not less. Right. Right. About the same level of commitment, because when you're on an alpine climb, there are so many, uh, temptations to go back down.

Because let's face it, it's always, you're always, we don't doing these new big roots and big, big faces. There's the danger element, there's the weather, there's the, uh, work, there's the, you cold, you're not eating mu well. So it's not that much fun sometimes. And it's so easy to make an excuse. I mean, 

Kush: there are more reasons, multiple ex more reasons to want to go down than to stay.

Yeah. [01:08:00] 

Jim: It makes, it's very easy, I think, to have an excuse to go down, but if you don't push hard when you're alpine climbing, you'll never get up. But if you push too hard, you'll never get to climb again. So there's this fine line between pushing too hard and pushing not hard enough. And I don't know how to define that.

I guess I've been lucky because I've always pushed really hard, like light talk and I, but I, I, a lot of times I've come down, but you, you gotta push that, uh, umbilical cord, but you don't wanna break it. So it's, it's hard to decide. I I maybe I've, I've had a lot of luck because I've always gotten back down.

Here I am. I, I've never even been injured by a climbing. 

Kush: yeah. I mean, you, Jim, what I'm learning is you have had this, this really unique combination of this, this burning desire and talent and, and maybe luck to, to want to go and do some of the [01:09:00] most, let's say, outrageous climbs first a sense.

Jim: Yeah. 

Kush: But you've also had, had the savvy to know when to stop. Well, you know, 

Jim: I think for alpine climbing, there's, there's some factors. You need to have a certain skill set. You have to have the skill. You need to have good judgment. 'cause you can look at a face, you can say, okay, it looks like going over there safer.

There's not, you know, you can always pick out a route that is, uh, maybe gonna have less objective danger than other routes, but there's no big route on an alpine crime that's totally safe. So you have to have good judgment, you have to have good skillset, and little luck doesn't hurt. 

Kush: You know? May I ask you this question, you know, over the decades since you first rented the Tetons and the car curtains?

Yes. Technology has come such a long ways, uh, better training, better gear, and also [01:10:00] just superior weather forecasting. But we still hear of accidents in the Alpine, like every year. You know, you talked about Kyle Dester and his partner, sadly, perishing, and, and these things happen. So in, in your. Perspective, like what is it that climbers ness of today are maybe not heating?

Are they being too aggressive? Is it something else that's still causing Yeah, that still continues to make alpine climbing so dangerous? Well, 

Jim: alpine climbings keep pushing harder and harder roots and, uh, alpine climbing is never gonna be totally safe. And I think I've always exercised good judgment.

And, but even, even if you exercise good judgment on a, on a route and when to go and when not to go, you still there, there's still factors up there that are going to create dangers that you can't mitigate. You can [01:11:00] mitigate, but you can't eliminate. So to some extent, maybe I've had some luck too, you know, here's another thing. Uh, I first, my first offline climbs were in Patagonia, and then Alaska and Terra Forum. Well, but, uh, I've always wanted the, well, for example, in Alaska, I've done a lot of, first since all around Denali. I've never stepped foot on Denali because to me, I wanted to do the technical crimes.

He, like the moose is too, uh, Mount Bradley, uh, the aspire, you know, I had no interest, uh, kicking steps in snow to get to the highest, highest point. So I, I, I remember when I, when I moved to Seattle to work for Patagonia as a regional sales rep and my wife at the time, uh, we ended up developing a bunch of friends and we go to parties and I'd be introduced as the climber, right?

So people go up to me and say, well. Have you called? How, how is Mount Rainier? I said Mount [01:12:00] Rainier. I haven't climbed it. And uh, they, they would go, you haven't climbed it. I go, well, you know, I've only been here for here for a few years. You gotta work your way up to that. Yeah. They'd look at me like, oh my God, what's wrong with this guy?

'cause they, they knew a guy, the next door neighbor was outta shape that who climbed it. Yeah. Never been. And I still, I've never climbed Mount Rain here. I had no interest. I'm more, yeah. So me, for me it's remote peaks, peaks to not, not o other people aren't on piece that takes some real work and technical ability to get to the top of.

So, uh, I like around, uh, Mount Fork or Mount Hunter, all those pieces are surrounding the Denali, but not Denali.

Kush: This next one lands in a very different emotional place than the rest of this compilation. Chris has spent a lifetime chasing snow, filmmaking and adventure, but in this clip, he talks about a trip to Mongolia that shifted his perspective in a way [01:13:00] he did not expect. It is not a story about risk or physical challenge.

It is about being humbled by a culture that lives with so much less, yet makes through the world with a kind of openness and generosity that's easy to miss in our modern lives. What Chris shares here is gentle, reflective, and grounding. It is a reminder that sometimes the biggest transformations happen internally.

In quiet moments far from home.

chris-anthony_2_07-17-2025_100735: 100%. I definitely, several times where I've been completely off the grid. I mean, if we would've had somebody get hurt or, anything go wrong, that's when you realize how far away you are help, which also takes you back to what were the pioneers doing, you know, the, you know, captain Cook that, you know, out there just roaming the seas and yeah, you didn't, you couldn't [01:14:00] call somebody for help.

You couldn't call for rescue. Um, you went west in the United States with a horse in. a trailer, uh, uh, a trailer, and you, you're just off the grid. So I've, I guess in some glimpses of the wave, I, I've gotten to fill that it's given me such great respect for our pioneers, for history, for all of that. And an answer to your other question is do I, it's made me a different person, but it's also made me realize easy we have it right now. We, I think we lived right now during the best time of the human race, we're, we're like, I can go over there and run hot, hot water. I can go, I'm sitting here comfortably talking to you wherever you're at in a van. the things that are at we have taken. So for granted, I can turn a light off and on and, um, it's just. It's, it's, it's almost numbing because we're so used to it. But when you get to go on these [01:15:00] trips and you go to these places, and then you realize in some of the places, this is how people live. And if you're, your Western mind would like, oh my gosh, they're poor.

They don't have these things. They aren't, are not poor. They are living in equilibrium with the, the circumstances and the environment they're in. They're rich in a whole different way, and they're there and they're living life. Um, which makes you realize don't need all this stuff. that, and I, I take, we're taking a lot of things for granted and for them, like just the basic necessities that give them thrill and joy, during the day, ba just down to the basics, family food. warmth shelter. that's, I, I feel privileged that, I've had at least glimpses of moment of being around that and with those people and, and, and it has changed me. 'cause I did think, oh my gosh, they're poor. They are not poor. some super aliens might come here and think we're primitive [01:16:00] sitting, doing what we are right now, you know, um, but, and feel bad for us.

But, but it's, that's been the true blessing of this whole journey that I've been on, is that those opportunities to, uh, experience that. because of that, I literally cherish everything that's around me right now.

kush--he-him-_2_07-17-2025_100735: Perspective indeed is everything you know. And, you know, one can, yeah, one can be part of the, let's say the, uh, the wealthy 2%, 5% living in this country and constantly be dissatisfied with one circumstances. And one can also lead a life which might seem to an outsider of like extreme privation in the barren landscapes of Mongolia or somewhere else.

And, and yeah, just not understand that one doesn't need all of these comforts. And I think [01:17:00] another beautiful thing about. Being able to go deeper into the sculptures through the lens of, let's say, adventure sports or something else is, you know, if you're just a tourist, you know, like you go for two weeks and you check off the boxes and you stay in your nice, uh, hotel, like you, you don't get to see that side.

But you were out there trekking and commingling and spending time and maybe skiing with the locals there. I think it helps, helps you gain a perspective of how rich their lives are. And I'm guessing that also helps, uh, bring across a different angle on somebody from the west to them. because you know, you go out and you share these like, precious moments and I think it probably also shifts their idea of like, you know, you know, a white person from like the US is, is maybe more nuanced [01:18:00] and maybe similar to us than what we would know just by looking at something on our screens.

chris-anthony_2_07-17-2025_100735: It. One thing definitely it, it's always funny that, um, you definitely don't feel as. Tough as you, you, you, as you think you are when you come across this. And then they, um, they, they look at us at all the things that we need to, like, get through the night and the luxuries that we have. So, for example, when we in Mongolia, didn't know exactly where we were going to stay. We just started trekking and with the horses and with the, and we, we were trying to find a tribe of the ua, Mongolians Mongolians that live in these mountains. we didn't know where we were gonna find them. And the way I explained to students when I go speak at schools, coming into Denver, Colorado on a train years ago, then you hire some local, Indians [01:19:00] to trek you a hundred miles into the mountains to go try to find this tribe of. Native American Indians that you've heard about, but you don't know quite where they're at. And apparently they do a unique thing. And that's what we did. And we trekked and then we, we found, um, in the, literally in the middle of the night, we found, we came across a man, uh, a man with his daughter on a horse. And they were, you know, in that fur and everything else. It was a step back in time. And of course, they didn't speak our language, we didn't speak their language. somehow we were able to communicate and they pointed us, the, the man to point us in the direction of what would be a home. And so we, we went up a hill and we got to this yurt and woke this family up in the middle of the night.

And, you know, they're, they're off the grid. There's no power, there's no anything. We, we shocked the heck out of 'em. they invited us [01:20:00] into their home because it was 2030 below 30, below outside, and our horses needed to be fed and we needed shelter and we needed, uh, to rest. And we traded money meant nothing to them.

Like, like you couldn't offer 'em money, but we could offer food, we could offer other things. and then they actually gave up our, their beds, which were these big things on the floor and in their, their living room, which was a dirt living room. And they had a fire going and they had some of the young li inside so they wouldn't be too cold outside and they'd help keep the indoor clean. walked into this world of this, this, this life. We took this step back in time and again, I thought. I need to give one of these people my coat because their stuff doesn't look as good. And it turns out that their stuff was all more adapted to the environment than our stuff. And we had to come with so much stuff to even survive in that environment.

And they, so they, we were so cumbersome and so [01:21:00] clumsy and, and moving. We just had so much that we needed to survive in their environment. And they were just laughing at how just clumsy we were as they moved around all the way down to the skis. So the next day we got to go out and ski with this family they have their homemade skis with their leather bindings and there's, uh, horse hair on the bottom of the skis that are, is faced one way so they can slide in forward, but they can walk up the hills and they literally would slide down the mountain, climb back up, slide down the mountain. I'm sitting there, uh, putting all my gear on and make it, it

kush--he-him-_2_07-17-2025_100735: Yeah,

chris-anthony_2_07-17-2025_100735: 15 minutes longer. By the time I was ready to go back up the mountain with my at gear on, they were at the top they had every, they, they, everything was just easier for them. They were so, and we were just like a clumsy mess with all this modern stuff.

Kush: I love. Ending the [01:22:00] episode with Joan and Doug because their version of courage looks different from every other story in this compilation. It's softer, it's joyful, and it shows up in the simple choice to stay curious, to keep learning. New sports, new skills to train together to support each other and to explore what's still possible in your seventies.

Their energy is so contagious. Here are Joe and Doug.

Both of, you're doing these things, you know, uh, well into your seventies where so many of your, you know, so many of the people you used to maybe train with and, and race with are no longer doing that with you and beyond maybe just sheer desire.

Is there something else that you have [01:23:00] learned or incorporated about your thoughts on identity and maybe even longevity that has, that is keeping you guys still in the game with maybe same kind of fire? That you've had when you first got into it? 

Joan: For me, um, I didn't find swimming till I was 65, but it was like the, um, it was like the two trains merging to one.

Like I had tried a whole bunch of other things and I got in the water and um, for some reason it was the right time. Um, and I suddenly realized that, that I was not so bad at swimming as I was. I used to, I'm very self-critical, so I don't think I'm a very good by Gracer. I know I'm not the greatest runner, although I really love running still.

Um, but. Um, I also [01:24:00] thought that it might be a good idea to hire a coach. So what do I do? I hired Trent Grimsey, the world record holder in the English Channel. Um, and he, uh, sent me workouts and we would talk. Um, and before I knew it, he invited me to swim the English Channel on a relay team. Um, and that was, um, talk about getting out of comfort zone.

I mean, that was, you know, beyond anything that I had even, uh, thought about. I had done a couple of triathlons, short distance swimming, and Doug reminded me of the first time I got into a lake with, um, this group that swims in Lake Washington. And I was absolutely terrified. I was in tears, I was terrified.

Um, I hated it. and somehow something changed that, um, I just fell in love with it. It was where, I found peace for the first time. I wasn't competing with someone else. I wasn't feeling bad that I was off the back of the pack in a bike race, and it wasn't, I wasn't racing with anybody. [01:25:00] So for me, it's the getting out of my comfort zone on a regular basis, which is like every day in the pool.

the English channel was one of the best experiences of life. I never thought I could do it. And believe me, when I was in that 60 degree water and my hand was touching jellyfish for half the time, I thought it could just get me the hell outta here. But, but the doing it, the doing it, the doing something that I thought I couldn't do really, challenging myself in that way deeply is, was, and is really inspiring.

So that, That continues to be the motivation. And now I've grown to, to, I mean, what got me through the pandemic, swimming, I mean, that pool is probably a salt water pool by now. I cried so much in it. But, but that's, that's the, you know, I can do anything in the pool. I can cry, I can think crappy thoughts.

I can be pissed off at the person next to me and no one knows what I'm thinking. I'm just swimming along and it's 

Kush: peace. John, you had, John, you had, uh, so how old were you when you swam the [01:26:00] English Channel? 65.

Okay, so you were 65 when you Yeah. Swam the channel 

Joan: with a relay team. 

Kush: Yeah, with a relay team. And what I find remarkable in that story is that you decided you wanted to excel at the sport. And instead of maybe just looking for a coach in your normal, swimming environment in your community, you went and reached out to this world champion.

And this. This world champ, like they agreed to coach you as well. So, I mean, I don't know, like if it's common for somebody who's won like world medals to have, you know, some random person reach out to them and would they already impressed with, let's say, other things you had done? Why did they honestly just take on this person from the other side of the world as a student? 

Joan: Lemme tell you this, so, so 10 years later, I, I wanted to really improve my stroke. So the interesting thing [01:27:00] is that swimming is very technical. It's a very, very technical sport. And I mean, you can just go in and swim like crazy, but to be proficient at it.

It takes a ton of practice. It just, Doug is always amazed at how much you need to swim to be able to improve, but, it, it takes a lot of swimming to improve in it, and you have to, I always say, I always find it very interesting, and I'll get to your question, that swimming attracts very rigid people, which is such, it is so odd because here we are very rigid and, have to have it my way.

People in this fluid environment. and you have to surrender. You have to surrender to, to what's happening because if you fight with it, you'll get, you'll get bitten back. You, you won't, you won't, uh, make it to the other end of the pool if you're fighting to breathe, if you're, you know, whatever. And so learning the techniques so that you can, so that you can, and all the coaches say, be one with the water.

I have no idea what that means sort of until now, somewhat. But, um, I, [01:28:00] it's, it's a concept that you can't, it's a feeling you can't get to until you're more proficient, um, because you have to trust, I mean, things that were such an anathema to me, trust, surrender, be in the moment. So what do I do at age 75?

I saw a video of Brent Hayden, who was the Canadian bronze medalist in the hundred meters, tons of swim videos, tons of swim videos, um, at the Olympics year. Tons of swim videos. I get tons of them. clothing, videos and swim videos, are the name of my social media.

But so what do I do? I contact Brent Hayden and he's, he lives in Vancouver, which is like two and a half hours from this. And I said, would, can I work with you? and told him a little bit of my story and he said, sure. So I went up to Canada. Um, I've been up a couple of times and we do, I sent him video of my stuff and I would have to say that my stroke has improved by 50% since working with him just a little while ago.

Kush: To continue on, uh, Doug, so again, you know, as we were chatting, [01:29:00] you discover, let's say your powers a little bit later and then you dove right in.

I'm, yeah. I'm also, uh, wondering like if you are able to maybe point to maybe some things that you are doing or something that you have that have allowed you this kind of consistency with running, including the fact that you hope to continue doing that for a long time. Are there something, some habits that you care to share that we can learn from?

Doug: Well, Joan and I have different, um, theories on this, but I'll give you my theory or, or my, uh. My philosophy when it comes to, to running basically my story is that my, uh, success is because of, my consistency. And my consistency is because I'm basically lazy. And what, what I mean by [01:30:00] that is that, in particular when it comes to running and, and especially ultra marathons, there's this real tendency to go out there when people first start doing it and they fall in love with it.

And, and it's understandable. You go out running on all these beautiful trails and you go to the beautiful places and you meet all these interesting people and it's something that you just wanna do more and more of. But people, um, a lot of runners get to the point where. They just wanna do more and more of it without letting their bodies rest.

And the end result of that is that you can keep that up for a while, maybe even, you know, a number of years. But ultimately it catches up with you. And what happens is that most runners eventually quit running because of the fact that they get injured or they have some sort of chronic problem that is made worse by their running, whether it's related to their heart or you know, they have to have a hip replacement or knee replacement, stuff like that.

And [01:31:00] oftentimes that's what ends their running career by basically doing less. I give my body a chance to recover more often. And so, for example, I always take one day off a week from running. And so that I give my body the opportunity to rest and recover during that period. And also, I typically. during the year I'll take like, typically a whole month off, you know, not running all together, but just doing anything intense.

And once again, it's just allow my batteries to recharge. And so, you know, it's, I'm not saying that I never get injured 'cause I have been injured on occasion from overuse, um, type of, uh, activities. But by basically, not overstressing my body, it's allowed me to continue doing this for many more years than most of the people that I've run with.

I mean, there's a lot of runners out there who I ran with 20, 30, 40 years ago who are not [01:32:00] running today simply because their bodies are not capable of doing it anymore. you know, I think this works for me. It may not work for everybody, but, um, this approach certainly works for me. Allows me to keep on doing it, um, at the level that is sustainable.

And I think that's key for me. [01:33:00] [01:34:00]