Transcript
WEBVTT
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Welcome back friends.
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This is your host.
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Kush can deal.
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Well with the each list athlete podcast.
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Maybe tap into stories and secrets off.
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peak performance.
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And today's show.
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We traveled to the remote mountains of Nueva Leon.
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Mexico.
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Where we visit two trailblazing rock climbers.
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Who have been quietly pushing the frontiers of the sport.
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And doing so while forming a wonderful and loving relationship with each other.
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As well as the beautiful yet remote communities, the visit.
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I'm so grateful for them for coming on the show from the living room of the caravan.
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And I'm sure they had to hustle to find the best wifi.
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To make this possible, given the remoteness of their location.
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Maggie and Chuck Odette.
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54 and 68 respectively.
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Are a Testament to pursuing.
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Passion over competitiveness.
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And embracing climbing as a lifelong learning journey.
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They both climbed five, 14 and 99.5%.
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I'll create an rock-climbing.
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And have so much wisdom to share with the.
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Emphasis on diligent preparation.
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And mindful lifestyle choices.
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They share insights into maintaining health, strength and vitality in older age.
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From a holistic perspective.
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Including the importance of nutrition.
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And body maintenance.
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This is also for you climbing.
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And traveling couples.
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Check-in Maggie used to run a couples climbing clinic and have some fun nuggets to keep your relationships.
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Vibrant yet purposeful while being on the road.
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Excited to dive into this.
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Conversation and share all the fun things that came out of this.
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If you enjoy the show, please drop me a note and let me know.
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What you think.
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I'm at.
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Kush at each list, athlete dot go, or just drop me a DM on my social media handles.
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Hello.
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Chuck and Maggie, or should I say.
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Hola.
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Since you guys are in, in Mexico, curious, what brings you to Mexico?
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Where in Mexico are you?
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we're in El Salto.
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which is, slightly south of Monterey, Mexico.
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and what brought us here is the, the survivable winter weather.
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rarely do you see freezing temperatures and the daytime temps are 60s Fahrenheit typically on the average this time of year.
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that's what we were after, somewhere we could survive the winter.
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Although we've had
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some 80 degree days.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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80 degree days are great for, catching sun and, doing yoga, outside, and, colder days are, better for, good friction and for, climbing hard.
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Typically.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Excellent.
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And sounds like you are here in the winter.
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And, El Salto in Mexico makes for good winter climbing, and I'm guessing this is part of your, seasonal migration, so to speak, as you, as you travel to different, different climbing areas based on conditions.
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Yes.
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Yeah, definitely.
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We, we don't like to freeze.
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And we also don't like to fry.
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Yeah, we definitely travel.
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we follow the weather, I guess would be the way to put it.
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I think that sounds like a good balance.
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And I think every once in a while, you know, one has to, climb in suboptimal conditions where it might be a bit warm or, it might be a bit cold.
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What kind of climbing are you guys doing in, El Salto?
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And is that your favorite style of, the sport?
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this is our first time here.
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We've never been here before, so it was an experimental trip, to figure out if one, we like it, and two, if it's something we want to do in future winters.
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the climbing is, limestone, sport climbing, and, it's, honestly, it's better if you're more of a technical climber.
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Because most of the terrain is, vertical to gently overhanging.
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there are a couple caves, but they're pretty limited in the number of routes.
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and, we've spent most of our time in the four months that we've been here in, in the couple of caves that are here.
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And, so we pretty much climbed just about everything we can climb or everything we want to climb in the four months, so whether or not it'll be a future stop will be, is something we'll have to think about.
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Four months sounds like a juicy, long tenure to spend in in the remote mountains of Monterrey, Mexico.
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I was.
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in the same place, a few years ago, I think right before COVID and, I combined a trip to El Salto with, uh, Potrero Chico.
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And while, yes, I absolutely adored El Salto and not just for the climbing, but also the vibe and the community and, the beauty and the culture of the place.
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I.
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It couldn't last beyond three weeks.
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And it could be also because as much as I like to think that I may still have some of that dirt back climber in me, I do spend the majority of my time in, in a big city in San Francisco.
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So yes, I'll have to build that stamina and, come back to, because unlike you guys, While you guys are finishing business over there.
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I mostly have unfinished business.
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So I have projects to get back to.
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And I think I might've seen maybe one client that you guys might've done one of your many clients.
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I think there was that, there was, there's a really steep climb in, the Tekelode cave.
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I forget the name.
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It's this classic 12 C and I spent maybe Nosferatu.
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Nosferatus.
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Yeah.
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congratulations on sending that amongst all of the other, things.
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Taking a quick step back, we'd love to know where are you guys from and, how old are you and, what did you have for, breakfast today?
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who goes first?
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I'll go first.
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I am from Michigan originally.
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I am 54 years old.
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And I've been climbing since I was 28, so what is that?
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26 years now.
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It was February.
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Yeah, 26 years I've been climbing.
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and what did we have for breakfast?
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We had eggs.
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We had eggs for breakfast.
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Not very exciting.
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Lots of
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huevos in Mexico.
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Lots of huevos in Mexico.
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eggs may not Always be exciting, but they are a good standby and, I'm often also eating, a lot of eggs.
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You have been following this, I would say this nomadic climbing lifestyle if I may for some time.
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Would love to hear a little bit more about how did you guys get started with climbing full time?
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And what were you doing before you were climbing full time?
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Do you want Chuck to tell you how old he is first?
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Because he's really
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old.
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Actually, you're right.
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I forgot that part of the question.
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Yes, sure.
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Yo
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soy sesenta y ocho años.
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Sesenta
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y ocho años.
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Eres muy joven, en anos de perros
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Yeah,
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yeah.
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I also came from Michigan.
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but, ironically, neither Maggie or I ever met while we were both in Michigan.
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Growing up anyway.
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you were like a grown up when I was a kid.
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Funnily enough, I also spent a little bit of time in Michigan, a tiny bit, and I didn't meet you guys either.
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Okay, great.
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you guys are Michigan natives and, at some point you became climbers and at some point you started living the climbing dream, climbing full time.
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At what point did you guys figure out just climbing and living a normal life was not maybe enough or you were looking for something more and you decided to switch to climbing full time?
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Oh,
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that's the advantage of getting really old is you have this thing called retirement.
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So we geared everything toward that moment to make it happen as early as we could.
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For me, it was 59 and a half and that made baggie for 45.
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So we just banked as much money as we could and saved like mad for, the last, I don't know, maybe four or five years.
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so we cut back on climbing.
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we still climbed and trained, but we cut back on our climbing and worked hard and saved even harder.
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And, the company I was working for, which was Petzl had a pretty good retirement program.
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And I invested heavily in that, and by the time I hit 59 and a half, I felt like we could, go to the road full time, and we did.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, we, I lived in Michigan still until I was 40, almost 40.
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we met later in life, and both have had, lifetimes of climbing, basically, before we met one another.
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Yeah.
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at, the Rocktoberfest event in the Red River Gorge in 2007, which was also, it coincided with the Petzl rock trip.
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That particular year.
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so he was there for work and I was there just because living in Michigan, the red is your home crag, six hours is nothing to drive for a weekend.
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And, and we met in 2007, but we didn't actually enter into a relationship until 2009.
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And by that time you were, what, 51 or 52?
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somewhere in there.
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yeah, and I was 39, I think.
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we had a lot of time to think about the role that we wanted climbing to play in our lives before we ever met each other.
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And then when we did, one of the first conversations we had was he asked me how I would feel about going on a really long road trip.
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And I said, Yeah, I'd love it.
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And he said, No, really, how would you really feel about it?
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life would not be like, so easy all the time.
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And would you be okay with that?
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and, but it was, I think it was a good foundational beginning to this relationship, because it's worked out pretty well.
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Absolutely.
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this was a bonus because you answered another question that I was going to come to, which is, which is how you guys met, but before, before I, I get there.
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So let's say, so you guys were living in different places and maybe, living a lifestyle, which is closer to the Monday to Friday lifestyle.
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And at some point, Chuck, you retired from what you were doing full time, but Maggie, that.
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Were you also retiring from what you were doing or was it a more conscious, conscious change where you were like, Hey, whatever I'm doing with my day to day is, not what I'm seeking for the next stage of my life.
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And you decided to, get on the same, path as, as Chuck.
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so
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I had, when we met just a couple of years before we met, I had actually already made a major lifestyle change because I didn't feel like I was getting the opportunity to climb often enough.
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So I had a really good job, full time job in management and, I quit that job.
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and started working part time at the climbing gym and a yoga studio, both two part time jobs.
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Okay.
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so that I had a little bit more freedom in my schedule.
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Well, and so that the work I was doing was more closely aligned with what I love to do.
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so when we met that those were the jobs that I had and I actually was in the background in my mind trying to plan how to move, leave Michigan and move somewhere.
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In the Southwest, but I didn't really have a fully formulated plan yet, so that, seed was already there, but when he retired, we, I moved to Utah in 2009, so we could be together, and so he retired in 2015, so we did have some, that many years of planning together when it came down to it, so I don't know if that answers your question.
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understood because, because for you, for Chuck, it was, let's say a more, definitive event.
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And for you, Maggie sounds like you had consciously been, been moving your lifestyle to do the things that you cared more about.
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Which is right.
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Which is moving into doing something which was closer to, to, to climbing and then gradually shifting to a point where you could, shift to, to climbing full-time.
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Yeah.
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And you already spoke about how you guys met and another, tiny bit of coincidence.
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My last time climbing at the Red was also at that same event, so I was already living in California, but I took a couple of over stoked friends from here and Came down to Slade to attend that same thing.
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That's a rock trip.
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It was funny quite the fun event I mean we had all these I guess iconic Climbers come from all over.
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It was really fun to, partake.
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And yeah, great to know that you guys are out there, uh, finding chemistry within, uh, all of that, all of that, uh, wonderful climbing, talking a little bit about, uh, your climbing itself.
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You guys mentioned when you started climbing, were you guys always sporty and athletic and do you think you guys are naturally.
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gifted as climbers.
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I'm wondering, how did you discover the sport and what kept you going with the sport?
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by today's standards, I think we both started way too late to be gifted.
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the young kids today are develop, developing the kinesthetic sense for climbing at almost as soon as they're walking.
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And for us, it was both as adults.
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So developing that kinesthetic process takes quite a bit longer and, my start came, through a, through an alpine background.
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So I took an outdoor recreation class in college and as part of that class, I did a ropes course and that rope course led me to investigate this idea of maybe going out west and actually experiencing actual mountaineering and learning how to do it safely and properly because there were no gyms back then.
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And, so I took a Paul Petzl course in the Tetons and spent six weeks there.
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learning how not to kill myself in the mountains.
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And, that led to eventually more alpine objectives throughout that early adulthood.
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And eventually I figured out that I liked, through the help of a friend who was an avid rock climber, I liked the rock climbing pitches the most.
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and hated the slogging and the long hikes and the snow crossings and the ice climbing and objective dangers.
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I just like to climb rock and this friend told me about the city of rocks and basically said you can drive a car right up to the base of a rock and get out and start rock climbing and I made him.
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Take me to this place and show me this, show me these rocks and from then on I became more and more hooked on the idea of just rock climbing, the physicality and so on.
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But you were always
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an athlete
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too.
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Yeah, I mean I had a competitive sports background in high school and college with baseball, football, all the usual Michigan sports, baseball, football, swimming.
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You went to college on a baseball scholarship.
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Yeah.
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One sided sport.
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Not quite, doesn't quite translate to climbing so well, but the training ethic and the whole idea behind being regimented about, diet and exercise and whatever else training you can do to support that final outcome.
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Chuck, I am with you on the, on climbing being the highlight and, the main course and, all of the effort that it takes to the crag being the effort.
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I feel I'm a bit of a misfit here in California because climbing mountains and track climbing and a bit of Alpine, that is the name of the game.
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And, to me, I've always been mostly just motivated with the idea of the climbing itself.
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And then I'm like, Hey, if I want to go hiking, then I can go on a hike.
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And, and you, Maggie, what is your, story of coming into, climbing?
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I have a
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little bit more of a modern story.
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I basically was on a trip, for work, a trip to Sedona, Arizona.
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I was in Arizona for work and I went to Sedona while I was there and saw people climbing there just from the road.
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I was driving and I saw people climbing and thought, Oh man, that looks really cool.
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I want to try that.
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And when I came back to Michigan, I told my mom, about my trip and for my birthday that year, my 28th birthday, she got me a starter package at a climbing gym.
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so my first climbing experience was in a gym.
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but that quickly.
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quickly changed.
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after I think I'd gone to the gym three times when I hooked up with a group of people to go to the Red for a weekend, and then in my background before that, I was always into endurance or endurance sports.
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I was a runner from the age of seven distance runner.
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I was also into mountain biking and a little bit of skiing and in Michigan water sports, you have to water ski.
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So lots of water skiing.
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but I was always just really mediocre at all of them.
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I did them all, but in a really mediocre fashion.
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And I didn't get good at better at climbing for a long time too.
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One thing I am trying to explore in this podcast is, some of us who discover, these sports that we love later in life are able to perhaps pour more love and get the most out of them.
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Bye.
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Bye.
00:19:05.601 --> 00:19:20.480
more back because perhaps we did not get exposed or get spoon fed climbing as toddlers and there is more of that, hey, I don't take this thing for granted because I've had to earn it.
