Flatlander Adventures - Just another WordPress site
Flatlander Adventures - Just another WordPress site
Hikes, Training

Plans Awry

I have not climbed Mt Rainier. My second attempt was also foiled due to a death in the family. It happened less than 18 hours before my flight to Seattle. Difficult and ultimately right decisions were made and I bowed out to emotionally present for my daughter. I have had a year to work through my feelings about putting in all the time, energy, training and financial investments into the whole process for a second time and not being able to join my teammates on their adventure. I honestly have not even worked through it and probably will not – my thoughts are still all over the place and it is a weird grieving process that I have put too much into several months ago I decided it is really just time to move on and put myself into new adventures. I tend to dwell but this is just something I need to put behind me – it isn’t someplace I want to be stuck.

What have I been doing in the meantime? Self care, increasing my training, correcting my least beneficial training habits, cleaner eating, streamlining my climbing equipment and hiking in Colorado. A book that I have been leaning into is Training for the New Alpinism: A Manual for the Climber as Athlete. I have learned so much from this book, it is invaluable for something who is new or even someone who has been climbing for years. I also picked up a copy of the training log.

I honestly have such incredible support in my life. Friends who will pick up with my for a quick morning hike, a longer weekend adventure or just an evening out to catch up on life. Sisters who drop everything when I need to talk or want to climb that next 14er. A husband who is unequivocally ambivalent about my passion for adventure, which is honestly the most perfect support system I could have asked for in a partner. He supports my desires to do it all with very little judgement and just enough pride in my efforts to make me know that he cares in his own way. Lastly my climbing muse is always sending me tips, new documentaries to watch, new books or podcasts to devour. Sustaining these relationships has put me in a good place and is ultimately setting me up for the big goals I have for myself.

Trying new things is my current focus. Adding something new into my training routine, making changes to my nutrition that have been put off for far too long, I will be doing some ropes training in the coming months and last month I did my very first solo hike in the backcountry. That was definitely a little bit out of my comfort zone and was a little unnerving but I felt physically prepared and mentally capable. The photos in this post are from my time alone in nature and if you ever have the opportunity, I highly recommend trying a solo hike.

For my hike I carried a Garmin inReach mini device and a can of bear spray. I pay for the monthly subscription for the Garmin, it just makes me feel safer to have it even when I am just traveling with my kiddos. We go off the beaten path frequently and often don’t have cell reception, God forbid anything ever goes wrong but it gives me peace of mind to know that I could call for help. I took the camera that I bought for Mt Rainier just to try it out. I’m a Canon girl but could not really find anything comparable to what I needed from Canon. The main reasons I bought the Olympus Tough camera was because it’s waterproof, drop proof and lightweight. The pictures turned out well (they are very similar to the quality of my iPhone photos) and I like that I can drop them to my phone with their app so I can edit them with VSCO on the go. I very highly recommend purchasing the lens barrier, this made it fit my camera goals even more because I could one-handed close the lens and toss it in my pocket without scratching the lens. If you are a camera snob then I recommend that you definitely do your own research but I was looking for something super easy to snap photos but that would be protected from my rough use.

So will I be climbing Mt Rainier? The short answer is yes. I will be signing up for a group climb with RMI this Fall for a climb in summer 2023. I have the intention of completing the climb but I am cautiously optimistic. I will be posting here more frequently as my training routine starts picking up. If you ended up here because you are hiking, have hiked or are considering a climb I would love to hear from you! Drop a comment below or reach out to me on Instagram @rebekahbaier. Have an amazing day!

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July 26, 2022by Rebekah Baier
Training

T-Minus 41 Days To Rainier

Just wanted to drop in with a quick update. This summer is disappearing quickly, I’m planning to drop in with more photos and updates before too long. Our 2021 Mt Rainier climb is on! We were rescheduled for the same date slot just one year later and will be traveling to Washington on August 3rd.

Finalizing our equipment list and getting last minute items ordered will be happening this Thursday. I have been on the fence about ordering or renting boots for the climb and recently made the decision to order them so I can be used to how they feel and try to break them in a bit. Yes, I will be wearing mountaineering boots in Kansas in the middle of summer. 🙂

Megan and I have been meeting twice a week at the gym for strength and the remainder of the week is hours on the treadmill and outdoors getting in those miles. I have been splitting my cardio time between running, long incline walks on the treadmill, spinning and HIIT. Unfortunately between several busy schedules, we were not able to get in the hikes that we wanted to in order to prep for Rainier. It is truly going to be a Flatlander Adventure and it is what it is. We are motivated and doing the best we can to prepare!

That about sums it up for now, making sure to make good eating choices daily and to have active rest days has been two goals I am trying to keep.

Best to you all!

-Rebekah

June 23, 2021by Rebekah Baier
Training

Mt Rainier Climb Update

I just wanted to check in and let you know what’s happening over at my house 😉 This morning I got the following email from RMI (the company that will be guiding us on our Rainier climb). As of last Monday they had canceled all of their domestic and international climbs for 45 days out, this letter extends that existing cancellation window by an additional month.

Continue reading
March 25, 2020by Rebekah Baier
Training

The Adventure That Wasn’t

On my to-do list, I schedule out when to write my posts based on when I should have completed my next adventure to advance my training for Mt Rainier. This morning you were supposed to see a picture of gorgeous snow-capped mountains and my frozen face in half-smile, excited and tired on my climb to the top. If you can’t already tell – this post is going to be a different view of my journey towards the summit. I actually sat down at my laptop to pay bills and I was going to delete the task of writing this post off of my to-do list, when the words of a friend about this “being part of my journey too” crossed my mind and I decided to share my heart and share the whole journey and not just the successes.

So far I have had nothing but a serious go-get-em attitude, waking up every morning with fitness on the brain, prepping my kids for school while donning my gym uniform, shaking up a pre-workout and grabbing a banana or protein shake before rushing out the door to drop two kids off at school, another at the gym daycare and then spending two very productive and sweaty hours at the gym. It was a routine I’ve come to rely on heavily for the last 6 months. It was….a lot.

This morning I was supposed to be waking up before the sun somewhere cold, either my car or a tent near the trailhead of Decalibron in Colorado. I was planning to hike three new summits to add to my list of completed 14ers. Rationality is most definitely not a strength of mine and I ultimately made the final decision to not go after seeing the doctor – a mere 30 minutes before I should have been on the road. Instead of waking up to the majesty of the mountains that I crave, this morning I woke up in a warm bed and I was disappointed. This post is not going to be long enough for the all the thoughts that went through my head this morning, I’ll likely be touching on them on in other posts so back to the subject at hand.

Two weeks ago I was reaching the peak of my personal fitness, I was lifting more weight than I’d ever lifted before and it was a high. I was running up to three miles like I’d done it my whole life. One part of me felt like I was on my way to my ultimate goal while the other part of me was getting a little frustrated and mostly exhausted. I wasn’t letting my body rest like I should because the idea of being my best was filling my head and I couldn’t look past it. I hate labels so I’m skirting around what I’m trying to say – but my fitness was becoming an obsession. I am no newbie to obsessions, I’ve been in this head for 34 years and have been through a few. It didn’t feel good.

Two weeks ago I was in the middle of a cooldown stretch and my body literally decided at that point it had enough. Something in my back gave out. I am literally surrounded by the best people at my gym and I was able to get some relief, gather Ruby from the daycare and get out before I was overcome with pain and couch-bound. The rest of the day I was unable to find a position that kept me out of pain and it was quite simply awful. The most awful part was I could not believe how quickly my thoughts turned to “now you’ve done it” “there is no way you can come back from this” “you’re going to have to cancel the climb” “you just aren’t cut out for this”. These thoughts and so much other awesomely debilitating and fear-driven self talk crossed my mind for hours. These thoughts were simply untrue but they felt so true and so nasty and I was easily pulled into depression. I felt like an absolute failure and looking back it was so silly but so REAL. I had devoted so much of my heart, mind and desire into this goal that I was being crushed by the weight of it all.

I felt like an absolute failure.

This kind of crippling fear is what happens when you have put all of your worth, thoughts and energy into one ultimate goal. Our family obviously has a million other things going on in life like everyone else but it’s pretty obvious that my primary goal has been preparing my body to climb Mt Rainier.

Over the course of the week I had friends and family reach out to me, and every single time they said exactly what I needed to hear and every single time it brought me to tears. I have been so wrapped up in myself that I didn’t realize that other people around me have been watching. I am an incredibly introverted person and asking for help is distressing to me. So having friends reach out to me because they knew I wouldn’t ask for it reached me on a pretty deep level. Putting my pride completely aside, I was humbled.

One friend told me a harsh truth that (and I’m paraphrasing) “at least I didn’t have it as bad as XYZ”. To be honest, her words stunned me and left me a little angry because I was in the middle of a pity party and physically couldn’t get off my chair without searing pain. Every single day following our conversation I thought back on her comment and my anger eventually chipped away to nothing and turned into a realization that she was absolutely right. We are literally all in the middle of some sort of struggle, whether it be internal or physical – it is all about our perspective and mindset that will determine how much of our well-being it will overtake while we dig our way out.

One friend gave me the truth that I think I’ve known deep down for a while about the limits I’ve been pushing my body to and it gave me the motivation I didn’t know I needed to reevaluate every single thing I’ve been so hyper-focused on for many weeks by putting the physical demands of my training into perspective and how I’m going to reach them without hurting myself again.

Unknowingly, I was looking for pity and the people around me were not going to give it to me and I actually cannot thank every single one of you enough for that.

Almost the same second I knew I was hurt, I was immediately fighting against recovering with every single thought. I couldn’t stop thinking about how I was going to still go to the gym, but swim instead of my regular routine. How I was going to still go on the hiking trip not matter what. Once I had my situation put into perspective and realized I was literally going to be forced to be inactive for a week, it was up to me to change my mindset. Again, thanks to everyone who reached out to me I had quite the support system to prop me up for success.

Turning lemons into lemonade was not easy and I won’t go into detail by detail but eventually my week looked like this. I’ve been putting off dealing with nutrition issues and I had the perfectly ideal opportunity to start intermittent fasting since I wasn’t constantly hungry from all the calories usually burned at the gym. I truly rested my mind and body for an entire week, even typing that seems insane to me because it doesn’t seem possible that I allowed myself to do that. I returned to the gym this week. I was happy to be back but my mood was not great. It was a mixture of being afraid to hurt myself again, not knowing how hard I should work, being irritated at all the unknown factors, knowing I was going to be “a week behind” and dreading the given that I would be starting a few notches below my usual energy level. Keeping myself honest and honoring the recovery process, I let my body guide the week and put in a little less than half of the hours of a typical week. And that was ok. I put aside the negative thoughts and let the truth reign loud and clear – I cannot heal if I push myself too hard.

At my most recent chiropractor appointment, (this is not verbatim) he told me that I had been spending so much time focusing on building my big muscles that the smaller muscles weren’t able to compensate and resulted in injury. I had to laugh because he has no idea how applicable this was to my situation. I have been so focused on the big picture with all of its shiny spotlights that I wasn’t nurturing all of the components that will ultimately be just as important to get me there. Daily working on my mental health and the “why” behind my goals. Most importantly – giving myself grace. I am 110% the hardest person on myself, I care about things that aren’t even rational.

In closing, I have to share the exact words I received from a friend and fellow gym goer. As soon I read her words I felt this weight lift off of me and I immediately could feel my mindset begin to change. There is a group of us there every day – pushing ourselves to the limit with our earbuds in and determination on our faces. We workout alone but there is a comradery among us that is pretty awesome as we all silently cheer each other on.

“You have every right to be pissed off and upset and discouraged. You are training for a heart-felt, passionate goal and now you are not able to train at your potential for a bit. But this is far from a stopping point.
You now get to exercise your mind versus training your body for the next few weeks. And trust me your mindset is going to make you summit Mt. Rainier and your body will just follow even when it hits absolute true fatigue during your climb.
Seriously have a bitch fest and scream fit!! Get it out of your system!!! Then turn it around and use this time as a huge tool for your training.
You pamper that back make your core strong and keep up your stretches. In the meantime Focus your passion and training to knowing this hiccup WILL make you a stronger hiker. And is part of the journey towards completing the hike.
Because I guarantee when you are in the middle of the mountain and fear and doubt and pain wants to start settling in before finishing or quitting too soon, your MIND will be that much stronger because you are dealing with this now!”

This morning I didn’t hike a mountain (or three). I got up and sent my oldest off to Scouts camp in the fleece sweater I would have been wearing at over 14,000 ft and an old pair of my hiking boots. I kept my pjs on and cuddled my younger two on the couch while I read a book. I’m currently writing this while drinking hot coffee and planning a slow Saturday spent in the sunshine in our backyard. My morning looks a bit different than it was supposed to but it is still every bit as fulfilling. There are many adventures to come this year and I honestly feel better than I have during this entire journey. I have different truths, altered priorities and new standards to hold myself to. I am not going to go as far as to say that an injury was necessary but something needed to get my attention. Yes I’m obviously returning to a serious workout regimine, but I am returning with the new perspective that every single day

I am good enough.

February 29, 2020by Rebekah Baier

Recent Posts

  • DeCaLiBron
  • Plans Awry
  • T-Minus 41 Days To Rainier
  • Back To The Beginning: Off-Trail Adventure in Tomichi Creek
  • Mt Rainier Climb Update

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