Training For The Bibbulmun Track

In this episode, I interview Summit Strength graduate Helen, and she talks about her training and preparation for the Bibbulmun Track (a 1000km thru-hike).

Inside, she shares some insight into the training, exercises, and workouts she performed prior to this hike and explores some challenges she faced on the trail and how she has adapted to return to life.
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A fantastic episode for any hiker who is interested in the Bibbulmun Track, or any other long distance thru hike.

This week, I am enrolling for my signature program, the Online Summit Program.
 
 
I am looking for no more than 10 hikers who want to get strong and pain-free, so they can conquer every adventure.
 
 
If you want to find out more, send me an email to [email protected] with the words 'tell me more' and we can have a chat. 

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Episode Transcript:

Rowan:
All right. Hello, hello guys. So, in today's episode, I interview Helen who previously worked through one of the Summit Strength programs in preparation for an end-to-end trip on the Bibbulmun Track which is a big trail over in Australia which took her over three months to complete, over a thousand kilometers of hiking. And inside this episode, she shares a little bit of insight into her preparations and training, both on the physical and mental side leading into this big, big trip. She talks a little bit about her adventure and her time on the trail over those months of actual hiking, and then she talks about some of the adjustments she's had to make after this adventure which is pretty typical things that a lot of people do struggle with after a really significant adventure like this. So, for anyone who's interested in preparing for a big hike, a big through hike or a big multi-week adventure, I think this episode is full of value, full of insight, and I really do think you're going to enjoy it. So, that's enough from me. Let's get into it.

Rowan:
Okay. So, welcome, welcome, Helen. Really, really excited to have you on the show. Welcome to the podcast. Yeah, really excited to have you here.

Helen:
Thank you, Rowan. It's a real privilege to be on the show. My goodness. Just kidding.

Rowan:
I am, yeah, really, really stoked that you chose to come on board because kind of as we were saying before we hopped on the show, your sort of story and your journey that you've gone through, and I'm not going to get into it yet, but basically the journey you've gone through before, during, and after this big hike you've done recently, I think it's going to resonate with so many hikers out there and I think it's going to be an absolutely awesome episode, so really, really excited to get into it. But before I get ahead myself, let's just start with the basics and start from scratch. So, if you just want to answer me the questions where are you from, what do you do, and what is your background in hiking?

Helen:
All right. So, I'm in Perth in Western Australia, and what do I do, my husband and I have our own small business in property development. So, we've been doing that for quite a while now, and this hike was actually our reward to ourselves for having worked pretty intensively over the last six, seven years or so, and we haven't had a big holiday. So, this was it. Yeah, so that was it. My background in hiking is I've always been a walker. I just haven't been able to stop walking, and I think it's something I inherited from my dad, and I didn't actually get into hiking hiking until my kids were in high school. They were taken on an overnight hike with one of the big companies in WA, and they learned a lot, came home, and then they taught us.

Helen:
So, we were super excited to go out and try all the things that they've learned on backpacks and how to make instant pudding on the trail when they were 12 and 13 years old. So, that's what we did, and we've got the photos still in our mantelpiece, and we've all got the crap equipment, and they've got their schoolbags on their backs, and it's the crap sleeping mats, and it's very, very primitive, but we got out there and we did it. So, it was cool.

Rowan:
Ah, how good, how good. I love that, and I love that it's like those things are such a special family memory of that type of stuff, and I think I've got something similar with my old man when he sort of came on some of the overnight hikes we did at Scouts, and we got those pictures, and yeah, it is a pretty special thing. I love that, love that. So, tell us when we first started working together and when we first sort of we had a conversation about coming on board one of the Summit Strength programs, what specifically were you wanting to train for?

Helen:
Well, the actual hike itself?

Rowan:
Yeah.

Helen:
Oh, okay. Yeah, sure. I was planning on doing the Bibbulmun Track end-to-end. So, that's from Kalamunda, all the way through to Albany in the south of WA, and it's 1,005 kilometers long. That was the hike that we were aiming to complete, and it was me and my husband were doing it together, and I guess he's pretty busy, and it was my responsibility being the planner of the household to, yeah, to plan it all and including the training. And so, it was very overwhelming, and then I was doing some, I guess, panic trolling around the internet and came across you. I think it was actually through the Bibbulmun Track users Facebook group, and someone on there mentioned that they'd had a great success with you, and I looked you up, and yeah, I was super stoked, absolutely stoked to find your website and comprehensive information, and I just thought, "My goodness, answer to my prayers," because you've got all the information there on that is relevant to what I needed to know. Yeah, that was me.

Rowan:
Awesome. Awesome. And then so roughly how much time were you setting aside for this hike, just so people can get a good perspective on that distance? How long were you sort of thinking this was going to take you?

Helen:
Sure. So, we planned on 76 days. That was broken down into 56 days actual hiking and 20 days of rest in the track towns, and initially we weren't going to have that many days to have a rest, but I'd met another end-to-ender and he said, "Yeah, you need that rest." So, you need to have at least two full days per track town to do your washing on one day and actually lie down and do some decent rolling out and ease your legs back into it on the second day. When I knew we were going to have really long sections that were going to be really hard, I planned for a third day of rest as well in those towns. So, it was great. So, yeah. So, 76 days total.

Rowan:
And then aside from obviously getting ready for 76 days of being on trail or give or take and getting ready for the demands of that, what were the other sort of challenges that you were facing that kind of made you want to come on board to training in the first place?

Helen:
The challenges, my goodness, I guess there was, oh, so many things. I wanted a community around me of fellow hikers and who were doing long distance specifically and because it's a very different beast walking for so long as opposed to walking for a week. So, yeah, and I'd done week-long hikes before and done all the prep for that, but I just felt that basically two and a half months was pretty intense and just having a like-minded community around dehydration, what kind of food to eat, getting that appropriate nutritional balance, how to plan your rest, how to do all that kind of stuff, and then the actual stress and strain on your bodies which obviously needs a lot of preparation. So, how do you hike, how do you prepare for that. I guess you're hopefully getting close to your peak fitness when you start. So, basically you're in a good shape, but you're not exhausted I guess because you can overtrain as well. By the time you get on the track, your body is just like... falling apart.

Helen:
So, I really just wanted that knowledge of a good balance. Yeah, I think that was where I was coming from, and then some of the information specifically you have around ankles and knees was something that was really appealing as well. So, yeah, got in touch

Rowan:
And then tell us a little bit about the training that you did do through Summit Strength, when you got your program and the stuff you went through, what did that all look like for you?

Helen:
Sure. Well, unfortunately, I didn't meet you until I got to the six weeks beforehand. So, I enrolled for a six weeks program. So, I did everything very intensely in terms of I literally just crammed every video that you sent through, repeated every exercise. I had YouTube going while I was trying to cook dinner of information on how to look after your back and how to look after your knees and foam rolling and balls and everything else, and I must say that getting the ball in the mail was such a good thing. I was very excited, and it became my very best friend during training and actually on the hike as well. So, yeah, so then I started on the program, and so I did a lot of squats and lunges, single dead lifts, upper body work as well, and some core work.

Helen:
But I guess for me, some things you can go, "I understand that in principle," but I guess the information that I got that was supplement to me was the ankle work and the footwork. So, walking on your toes, walking on your heels to build up that strength, some of the instability work. Yeah, because I remember you were talking about how if you trip over you needed to train your peripheral vision and your sense of balance. That was really extremely useful for me because I had to spend a lot of effort not tripping over on the track. So, I incorporated some of those balanced activities into my training with your help. And what else did I do? Oh yeah, and the other thing was I guess what I really appreciated was the slow breath count when you were doing moves. So, either in your single dead lifts or doing squats, it wasn't about going like the clappers and getting into the point of not being able to walk. It was about learning how to breathe.

Helen:
So, learning how to breathe appropriately with being calm and getting through those moves in a way that not only you built strength, but you weren't stressed, and for me that was a real eye-opener as well. I took a lot of that being calm onto the trail. So, things like when you're walking up a hill using your heel appropriately, making sure your breath is calm and slow. I have never gotten up hills so easily in my life and there's a lot of hills on the Bibb Track. They were just a breeze because I just kept the training in mind and your repetition of use your heels, use the heel walk, and push through the heels, and that calm breathing. My goodness, you just cannot get stressed and not find yourself being able to get up a hill with that attitude. It was great. And the using the poles and learning how to walk using the poles. My back was straight. I was very comfortable. Yeah, it was fantastic. Yeah, really appreciated it.

Rowan:
I love it, love it.

Helen:
Oh, and I did all the video calls in as well where I could, and just to build up that sense of community and extra knowledge. Did the nutrition video, took advantage of that and had the one-on-one with a nutritionist. So, that program was excellent because he got me to incorporate some of the dietary suggestions into my training. So, I had a specific day where I thought about nutrition and that was revolutionary. Turned out that I'd been incorporating too many carbs into my diet and that was contributing to a really strong sense of fatigue. For me, it was about adjusting my carb intake so that I wasn't getting tired and increasing my protein intake and being able to maximize my energy on the trail. So, yeah, that was really, really good training. Yeah, fantastic.

Helen:
And even some of the stuff that I did on one of the earlier videos about wearing a backpack, and at the time I was like, "Yeah, I know all that stuff, whatever." And then I got on the trail and I was like, "Oh, that's what he was talking about," and it all went click, click, click. It made sense. And so, yeah, that was a bit of a late revolution, but in my mind, but yeah. Yeah, I really appreciated it.

Rowan:
And then through the preparation and training process over those six weeks, were there any particular roadblocks that came up along the way, and if so, how did you go about overcoming them?

Helen:
Roadblocks, I think one of the big roadblocks that I had was mental, was absolute panic, sheer panic on my part about have I got it right, have I done it right, and absolute sheer terror of this day of walking out my front door with a full backpack was looming. And so, I messaged you about that, and you recommended that I read a book called The Appalachian Trials and about that mental health strategy. So, that looking after yourself mentally on the trail, and it was a very simple read, great story, very practical. And so, I did the exercises that were involved in that book. So, it was very simple.

Helen:
I guess one of the first things was to go, "Yeah, this is doable." Everyone panics at some point, and there is that overcoming sense of terror and why am I doing this, and it was the why that the author of the book really got into, why are you doing this. And so, you write down your 20 reasons of why you're doing it, and then you visualize how it's going to feel like at the end of the journey, and you write that down. And then you're going to write down what am I going to tell myself on the trail when I want to quit because there are days obviously when you just go, "Oh, really, this way too hard, way too wet, way too many snakes, just way too hard," and you can refer back to your why at any stage.

Helen:
So, I had my whys all written down in the notes on my phone because I took my phone with me because obviously using the camera. I didn't have reception much, but yeah, I certainly used the camera and had access to my notes. So, on those days that I was feeling low, I could look at my notes and go, "Yeah, this is me being really excited, and this is why I'm doing my walk and I'm not going to give up." So, yeah, for me, that was a massive block. Yeah, for sure.

Rowan:
Let's talk a little bit about how the trail went. So, you went through your six weeks, you did your training, your prep, you work through all those things, you step down the trail, pack on your back. Talk us through it. How did it all go?

Helen:
Oh, it was epic. I was so excited. On the first day, my mother-in-law decided to drop off two kilos of food that we had extra that we had to carry. So, that was pretty interesting. We were carrying a lot more on our first day. We were carrying eight days worth of food, and so we were pretty well maxed out on our packs, and it was a very hilly section, and I was super excited because we got on the hills. They're pretty steep steps at that stage rather than a straight trail, and so I was able to use all my training and just powered up those hills. I was very excited even despite the extra weight that I was carrying, the unplanned weight.

Helen:
And my husband who hadn't followed, I guess, the advice was really struggling, and he'd refused to get poles, hadn't done so much training, et cetera, and in the end, I ended up having to give him my poles. So, that was our first two weeks of us arguing about poles on the track, and in the end, we had to message our daughter and just go, "You know what? You need to get your dad some poles and he needs to do this properly," because I knew the hills were going to get harder.

Helen:
So, yeah, we had all our food drops organized. So, I think we were carrying eight days worth of food for the first three sections, and then after that we managed to get food drops every four days using some of the trail companies along the way. So, that was pretty cool. Super lucky, we've had a very wet winter and there was a lot of wildflowers out. So, everywhere we went, there was just amazing yellows and amazing oranges and reds and purples and just blanket of color. So, it was absolutely unbelievably beautiful, the track.

Helen:
And then as we got south of Dwellingup, so that's about, I don't know how many Ks, about 120-odd Ks away from Perth and got further south from there, and the hills got pretty intense at that stage and was just relentless and extremely wet. So, it was a lot of rain and then we're just up and down, up and down. So, our legs certainly got very tired at that stage. Then after we got from Collie onwards, yeah, the hills just kept on coming, and we'd had a plan for a break day before some of the really bad sections. So, that worked out really well as a strategy.

Helen:
And then again because of the rain, we went six days from Northcliffe to Walpole wading through water, and it was just ridiculous. I ended up with almost like a PTSD every time I came across a puddle because of this water was just... Yeah, six solid days of wading, and we just had to plow through it. I mean, obviously, you need to get to the hut. The huts were at least a couple hundred meters away from each nearest massive puddle and swampy area. That was pretty intense. So, yeah. We were pretty lucky the water had started to drop. So, like people who'd gone through previously, the water was up to their thigh, upper thighs, and we were around our knees and ankle depending on where we were. That was pretty cool.

Helen:
Got that over and done with, and then we're along the coast for two solid sections, and it was just beautiful, absolutely stunning. We were really lucky the weather, and yeah, it was beautiful. We were really lucky with all the crossings that we had to do. We managed to time it with the tides and the rain and everything else so that we weren't wading through ridiculously deep water. So, yeah, we were just super stoked.

Helen:
And then on the last day, daughter came and met us as a surprise in the last hut, and I was just so excited to see her and just started bursting out crying because we were actually going to double hut. I missed that one. So, it was lucky we went in. So, that was really nice. So, that was our last ever hut experience for that trip, and that was her first ever hut experience and her husband. So, that was really excited. They spent a lot of money on equipment without talking to me, and they realized that they should have talked to me. So, they were very cold that night, but yeah, it was super excited. And then my son-in-law made Bibbulmun Track medals for us. So, once we got to the terminus in Albany, they presented us with our medals. So, yeah, it was very exciting, a very emotional ending. Yeah, it was great.

Helen:
And I guess one of the surprise things about the track was just how many friends that we've made because I guess spring is peak hour on the trail doing the end-to-end. So, yeah, we've made some definitely some lifelong hiking friends, and yeah, looking forward to catching up with them again. So, even though we were in and out of each other's company, because obviously we were hiking at different speeds and sometimes we'd go for a few days without seeing each other and catch up again in the track towns, it was super exciting knowing that there was people looking out for you, there was people who knew what you were doing and why you were doing it and happy to celebrate the really good points and things that you could share some of the downsides as well. So, yeah, it was just a beautiful, beautiful journey, for sure.

Rowan:
Amazing, amazing. And through all that, obviously you spent a long time on the trail, was a big, big adventure, and I assume there were lots and lots and up and downs throughout. Through that whole process, were there any sort of challenges, struggles, issues you faced or anything that maybe you hadn't really first considered when you first set off or before you set off?

Helen:
Yeah. The six days of walking through water, it was ridiculous. It was so bad, my husband took a photo of me because I was walking ahead and it's become a meme at my daughter's work about this is how bad it feels. So, I mean, people had said that, yeah, that section had water, but yeah, no one had prepared me for that idea of six days and the impact that that has on your body, and no matter how much you think you know your feet, you don't, or your boots after six days because there's no opportunity for them to ever be dry. Your socks were just manky. Everything stank to high heavens because you're walking through swamps and everything. Like I say, I ended up with almost like a PTSD and I wasn't the only one. Everyone was like, "Okay, so how can we avoid puddles in the future?" And so, yeah, it was intense. It was very intense.

Helen:
And I think if you had orthotics because I had some inserts in my shoes as well so I was having to take those out of my boots to walk so I didn't damage them. Luckily, I had actually brought spare insoles for my boots and put those in without the insert so my feet got extremely sore. Yeah, and other people with orthotics were having a similar experience of that, of foot pain, and just that sheer mental exhaustion of having to concentrate so hard for so long because we couldn't actually see the trail. There's rocks everywhere, obviously, which you can't see. So, you're constantly having to use your pole as a depth gauge so you didn't suddenly fall in because there was one lady who was ahead of us, she'd fallen in quite badly, and obviously with her heavy pack, she thought she was going to drown. So, yeah, she thought that basically the earth was swallowing her up. So, yeah.

Helen:
There was that sheer mental exhaustion which was very hard to deal with especially, and you just get tired. You start to fall over. I fell over twice in that section. So, that lady, she keeled over. Yeah, it was just exhausted. And we met one gentleman he was mentally exhausted, and he'd came across a puddle, and he just waded all the way through it. It was very deep even though there were... And he was so stressed out that he didn't even see the signs, huge signs that were written in the sand, diversion this way. Yeah, he was just so stressed out.

Helen:
So, you've got to try and maintain this calm and look after your mental health when you're being so stressed so continuously because you do miss opportunities if you're so tired that you can't see them in front of your face. You can't blind yourself to opportunities either, again because you're tired or the person who's passed you said, "Oh, there was no way around." We'd left a big note in the sand for the people who were behind us saying, "Oh, yeah, there's a diversion for this particular puddle." Yeah, they had just seen the puddle, come across a really stressed out guy, and didn't see our notes in the sand. So, your mental state and levels of exhaustion really do affect the decisions that you make and potentially put you in a quite dangerous situations that you don't necessarily need to be in.

Rowan:
Yeah, absolutely. And on that point, was there any sort of particular, I guess, tricks or strategies or tactics that you use to sort of keep your mental state where it needed to be or reduce that fatigue and exhaustion through such a obviously stressful period and tough period? Was there anything you sort of fell back on then?

Helen:
Oh my goodness. What I did was is I tried to see some of the beautiful things and appreciate those when they did occur, lik you suddenly found a beautiful flower or something. Taking the time to have a rest, even though you might have 25 Ks to go and you know you're going two kilometers an hour because the swamp is so bad. Take the time to rest. Have that cup of tea or have that packet of soup or whatever because you'll feel so much better afterwards, and you'll be able to get through no matter what the weather throws at you.

Helen:
We were absolutely freezing at one point. We stopped. All our wet weather gear had failed. It was just abysmal. We stopped, got changed, had a hot drink, felt a lot better, warmed our body up again, got back on the trail, and we were happy. We were chatting and laughing away. And then the temperature plummeted straight afterwards and started hailing but we were still able to keep going. We didn't make any bad decisions. We kept control of the hills. We didn't get lost because we'd taken the opportunity to have that mental break and snap out of it.

Helen:
If you can just keep going, going, going, you can sink into this malaise and not realize it, and next thing you know, you're lost, you've missed the turn off point, that kind of thing, or you've gone the completely wrong direction. We met one guy, he'd gone completely the opposite direction. Yeah, he hadn't realized until he'd done five kilometers for no reason, and he suddenly realized, "Oh, I've seen this before." After five kilometers, he recognized it. So, yeah, you can really sink without knowing it. So, yeah, have a break.

Rowan:
Yeah, absolutely.

Helen:
Have something yummy to eat along the way.

Rowan:
Yeah, that's it. One other thing I wanted to dive into a little bit is sort of how things have gone for you after the trail because obviously, this has been a massive adventure, have gone through so many struggles. You've worked through this thing that you've been leading to for quite a while and it's been a long-term plan of yours. Now that it's all over, once you've been off the trail, how things have been going for you, what's been going through your head, and how's it been adapting back to normal life?

Helen:
I would say it's been a serious challenge coming back to normality because we were on the trail for so long. So, we've been off trail now for three weeks, and I think my stomach is only just coming to terms with that. So, I've really struggled with eating food because we've had a lot of family things on. Everyone wanted to catch up. So, it's a lot of party food, and it's made me just feel really nauseous compared to the very simple diet that we were on, on trail. On the trail, we were eating just a lot of buckwheat and rice and dehydrated beans in jerky which is very, very lean. So, very lean diet, and just eating that rich food was just horrible, and the sheer amount of food you need to adjust to. So, obviously, you're not hiking so much every day so how much do you eat? And then, so my husband, he went the opposite way. He just stopped eating because he was obsessed about putting on weight.

Helen:
We're slowly getting back into it, I think, and eating normally, and I think one of the things that helps to manage as well is in terms of proportion sizes, eat too much, too little. We've definitely gone back to what we were doing on the trail which was measure everything out. So, having the half a cup of muesli or a cup of rice or whatever it is, just measure it out so that we're not undereating and we're not overeating and just keeping it really simple. So, that's something we've done to help.

Helen:
Our sleep has just been all over the shop because obviously we've got electricity now, and again, seeing people, friends and family after work. Yeah, electricity's been a serious challenge because it's so artificial. Yeah, it's just when you're used to going to bed at seven o'clock or 7:30 and being asleep by 8:00 and then up at dawn. Just missed dawn a lot, the waking up because I'm still waking up at dawn here in Perth so that's about quarter to five. I'm still waking up at quarter to five, but the sheer lack of birds and the lack of waves because we were by the ocean for the last two weeks. Listening to traffic and airplanes and train and people, it's just horrible.

Helen:
Yeah, that's still a challenge, but yeah, getting into it slowly, and I think the last two days, I think I've started to feel more relaxed. First two weeks, we just kept falling asleep all over the shop. So, that was definitely something you need to take in... People had said to us before we left that you need to allow yourselves two weeks to a month to adjust back, and I was like, "Yeah. Okay." But I didn't realize just how important that was as part of the planning. Plan time to fall asleep in the middle of the day. And eventually, I managed to stay awake all day. That was pretty good. That was a good feeling. That took a while.

Helen:
But yeah. No, it's just your body's got to cope with and rejuvenate itself. It's got to refresh itself, and part of the strategies for that part of allowing yourself time to have a nap, whereas we sat in the spa a fair bit to try and keep our muscles loose, planned quite a few massages. So, we had about two or three massages in the first week we came back. Let me think. What else? Oh yeah, I had one last week as well. So, yeah. Just, yeah, look after yourself. Hot water bottles. Yeah. You want your body to be able to do it again because we're hoping to do it again next year, and yeah. Yeah, I want my body to still be strong, and I don't want to lose the fitness that I gained. My body was amazing. It was a freaking machine. I'm full muscle, and I want to maintain that and keep that going and celebrate that achievement some more. So, yeah.

Rowan:
Absolutely. And we're coming relatively close to the end of this episode today. I guess if there was anyone listening today who was sort of considering this specific adventure, like the Bibb Track or maybe considering another sort of long-distance multi-month hike, what advice could you give them having gone through something like this?

Helen:
Oh I guess the advice, train. Train and train and train some more. With the program, all the information, that was so specific and relevant to hiking, do the program. My goodness, there is just a absolute wealth of information that you will use every single day of that trip. It certainly, for me, was a lifesaver and I had that training in my head every day, and I think I even posted on quite a few different posts that I was using the training, and yeah, it was a absolute lifesaver. So, train, train, train, train, train some more and get that mental, physical prep done, and make the most of the nutritional information because when we did the hike, I had read that most people lose between five and 20 kilos when they do the end-to-end, and I'm a very slight person, and I did not want to lose any weight at all. So, had the nutrition absolutely bang on. So, I only ended up losing about two kilos.

Helen:
So I know I definitely had a distribution of my body and built on a lot of muscle during the hike, but yeah. Make the most of the training. Get the support and information that you can get which is completely, absolutely relevant to you. Yeah. I know I had spoken to other people who'd gone to see nutritionists and done training that wasn't specific to hiking and they didn't find it relevant at all. So, yeah, this is a fantastic program. Yeah, absolutely, 100% do the program.

Rowan:
Oh, good. Well, I like the sound of that theory. Well, yeah, well, I think thank you, thank you so much for coming on today, Helen, and sharing all of this because it's been so interesting just hearing a little bit more about the journey you've been through. Such an awesome, awesome hike and event you'd gone through, and I bet I could grill you for hours and hours and hours on this and still hear more and more and more.

Helen:
Yeah, for sure.

Rowan:
But either way, it's been really interesting hearing a little bit about it. I really appreciate you sharing all this because I know there will be a lot of hikers out there listening who maybe are leading into a big adventure like this. Maybe they are feeling a bit overwhelmed. Maybe they are sort of want to do the Bibb Track, or maybe they are struggling after coming by an adventure with a few things and just be able to know that they're not alone, there's other people that go through this, and it is a similar thing. So, I really do appreciate you coming on board, and it's been absolutely awesome having a chat through this. So, thank you so much, and I think it's been an awesome, awesome episode.

Helen:
Oh, thank you. Look, I really appreciated it, and big shout out to the Facebook group who go in live and just for their support as well. It's just been fantastic. Yeah, I just loved the opportunity, and so it's been a privilege to talk to you and give back to you and your business. So, thank you.

Rowan:
So, there we go, guys. I really do hope you've enjoyed today's episode. I hope you've enjoyed hearing a little bit about Helen's story, and I really do hope you've gotten some value out of all of it. Now, if you were in a similar position to Helen, if you were stepping into leading into a big multi-week multi-month hike, if you were on a bit of a shorter time period leading into adventure, and you were feeling a bit overwhelmed or you just had a big hike coming up which you wanted to be 100% physically and mentally prepared for, if you fall into any of those situations, I would absolutely love to help you.

Rowan:
Now, this week, if you haven't heard already, I am doing a promotion for my signature program which is the Online Summit Program, the same program that Helen has gone through. Now, inside this program, we'll teach you the strategies, the tips, the tactics that'll help you get ready, get 100% fit, strong, and resilient for this adventure that you can use before, during, and after whatever hike you may have coming up. Now, if this sounds like something you might be interested in, you want to learn a little bit more about it, just flick me an email to [email protected] with the words tell me more. Now, from there, we can organize a time to have a bit of a chat and really dive in and see if and how this program may be a good fit for your goals and your situation.

Rowan:
So, if you want to find out a little bit more, shoot me an email to [email protected], I'll leave that email address in the show notes below, with the words tell me more and we can take it from there. So, thank you so much for listening today. I hope you've enjoyed it, and we'll talk to you soon. Bye.​