Stride and Spoke. Launching an adventure.

"Once, there was a girl who wanted to change the world & at first, she thought it’d be easy, because if everyone could see how beautiful it’d be, it’d take about a minute, but all the people she talked to were too busy to stop and listen. So, she went off & did beautiful things all on her own & pretty soon people were stopping and asking if they could come along & do that, too & that’s how she figured out how worlds change". -Storypeople, Brian Andreas

I'll never forget the day I moved from Maryland to Colorado to start a new adventure as a 21-year old ski bum. I had actually only been skiing a handful of times before I moved out west into a life I never knew I wanted, not even as the U-Haul was pulling out of my mom's icy driveway as she and my grandmother stood outside in the bitter January weather waving goodbye. All I knew was that I had to say "yes". When the opportunity presented itself to do something more than just graduate from college, go to grad school, get a job, buy a home...., something inside of me knew I had to say "yes", even if I didn't know what was behind door #2.

I had never been to Colorado before. I had never been west of the Mississippi. I think the furthest west I had ever been was Ohio and that's only because I got lost one time trying to drive home from Pittsburgh, got on the highway the wrong way and didn't realize I had crossed state lines until I stopped at an Eat n Park somewhere along the road and asked for directions (this was a time before mapquest or smartphones).

I had this special knack for getting lost. I always have. My internal compass has always been a little off. I go west when I am supposed to go east, right when I am supposed to veer left. As a result, I wander a lot. Sometimes those wanderings take me to really amazing places and sometimes they end up taking me to exactly the places I wanted to go. On occasion though, they will take me to a place I didn't even know existed. And that sort of discovery changes you. That's what Colorado did for me. I have a lot of people to thank for that move--most of which aren't in my life anymore. They may not know now and they certainly didn't know at the time that the move out west would set my heart in a trajectory for adventure, one which I will be forever grateful for. Fast forward through my one year in Summit County, Colorado and a brief move back to Maryland to finish my degree. I had decided that my life's adventure was complete and I can get back to going to grad school, getting a job, buying a house... I went to law school. Something inside of me must have still had an itch for something new because I opted to go to law school out west in California. This move was less eventful and I was more certain that it was the right decision. After all, I wasn't leaving home again to be a ski bum in training. I was a lawyer in training. This was the real deal. This was my real life now, right?

I moved to Caliornia, I went to law school. I wrote for law review, got good grades, was even published. I graduated with honors, passed the bar with ease and got a series of good jobs, ones that others would have killed for. I met some amazing people and worked for some amazing causes. I worked in an area of law that I loved and cared about, with people who were passionate and intelligent and progressive and capable. Sometimes I was paid well, sometimes not so well, but in the end, I was doing exactly what I thought I wanted to be doing. I got married and we even considered buying a home in San Francisco. But then something happened. I wasn't happy. My marriage ended. I left my beautiful, rent controlled, top floor apartment in North Beach. And I still wasn't happy when I went to work every day. Each day I became more and more convinced that I wasn't happy going into an office and arguing over the placement of source citations and commas. I would stare outside my window and watch the birds fly around and watch cyclists ride by on the bikepath near my Redwood City office and I would long to live the kind of life where I wouldn't feel like a caged animal all day. And then I thought about it some more. What was stopping me? There were a million reasons to stay put. But I felt this inescapable force, pulling me towards something else.

A year later, I quit my career as a lawyer and felt like a new person immediately. The weekend after I quit was one of my best friend's weddings in Madison. The weekend after that was a long-planned trip to Yosemite and a trip up the cables at Half Dome. I got home, dirty and tired and a little poor and thought to myself, "now what". I had done some occasional work at a ski shop in Berkeley for a number of years in the winters where I was between law jobs, so I went back there to buy myself time to think of a plan.

It wasn't even a month before the phone rang. It was Brett Rivers, a guy who much like myself, left the corporate life to build one for himself that allowed him to pursue his passion--trail running, opening a specialty run shop in the heart of the Marin headlands. I had just started to get into ultras earlier that year and had run my first one in my waning weeks as a lawyer. I had met him and others at San Francisco Running Company during my training. SFRC was this hotspot for the trail community up in Marin. They had all the gear you needed and none of the stuff you didn't. I trusted those guys to sell me my first pair of trail shoes a size and a half larger than I had been wearing them. I took their advice and it kept me alive and well and motivated through some grueling training and racing while I was still working 70 hour workweeks as an attorney. When Brett called me he wasn't sure what my job-situation was but wanted to fill in with some part time help. Somehow, three months later that turned into a full-time salary position with increased responsibility and one of the best work environments I could ever dream up. I still worked at the ski shop occasionally and evencreated a position for myself there working on social media, marketing and community events there which offered me some flexibility and creativity. And eventually opened doors to me taking on more clients in this role. I started offering advice to others when it came to training, which lead to coaching, which lead to clients and an organically built community of active friends who relied on me to connect them to each other. I was building relationships, fostering communities and supporting others in pursuit of their goals and brave steps towards their dreams.

And then life was good. But I want it to be great and I still believe that's a big distinction I overlooked for most of my adult life.

I still had this adventure stirring inside of me. There's always something new on the horizon. Sometimes it's waiting for you to find it and sometimes it finds you without warning. It wasn't until I started to meet more people in the outdoors industry, and then met someone who was involved in adventure racing that my eyes were opened to a new breed of athlete--my breed. I was a species that thrived on adventure and challenges and seeing new things and places and seeing old ones with new perspective. It wasn't all about pinning that bib on your shorts and it wasn't about medals or finishing times. Not always at least. It was about something bigger, about exploring the world around you and having the physical capability and the mental tenacity to take on those challenges. I took to training more seriously and I decided to start thinking outside the box on what my next great adventure would be. My life has changed so much, and I've wandered so far into the unknown and come out alive on the other side that very little scares me anymore. I want to live bravely and help others also embrace the adventurer in themselves.

That's when Stride and Spoke was born.

Stride (n): To move in a decisive manner in a specific direction; to move progressively forward. Spoke (n): A bar or rod that radiates from a hub to form a wheel; (v): the past tense of speak. I wanted to develop a concept that embraced the two things I loved the most: movement and communicaton. If there's anything I do better than staying physically active, it's talk. I love to talk and am unapologetic about it. As a matter of fact, I think I'm pretty entertaining at times. It's part of my job and part of who I am. It is also no secret to anyone that knows me that I am deeply passionate about outdoor recreation, racing and pursuing an active lifestyle. Without movement and adventure we would have very little substance to communicate. Without communication, our adventures could never be shared and never have the ability to inspire others into adventures of their own. You need both.

Stride and Spoke is a community. It is a concept. Maybe one day it will be something more. To move and to speak. To run and to ride and everything in between. To live simply and bravely, rambling onward towards something authentic--rambling onwards one adventure at a time. Follow my adventures, the adventures of others, share your own. Find inspiration where you didn't know it existed and make a path for yourself through the process of exploring outside the box. Move and connect with passion and purpose. Go decisively towards your bravest dreams and be your own best advocate in working for the life you want to live and the direction you want to create for yourself. You are not your day job, whether you decide to keep it or not.

Follow, learn, lead and inspire. And adventure on, always.

-Jenny

#adventure