This week on the podcast you’ll meet adventurer and writer, Brooke Nolan.
Growing up exercise was a source of shame and embarrassment for Brooke.
And it was only in her late 20s that she discovered a love of outdoor adventure.
Fast forward a few years and in March 2020, Brooke found herself on the first all-female team to cross the Finnmark Plateau, which is an ice plateau in Arctic Norway.
(c) Turgleder
The crossing was a journey of 250km 14 days that required the team to drag sleds weighing up to 50kgs up to 20km each day in temperatures as cold as -30.
Oh, did I mention? Before committing to this expedition, Brooke had never seen snow before, and certainly didn’t know how to ski!
Now we could have spent the entire episode talking about the expedition, but as I said, this was March 2020 and Brooke and her team were off the grid for 14 days.
When they left, Covid-19 was a blip on the radar.
By the time they returned, it had become a pandemic, borders were closing and it was a race to the airport to try and get a flight home, which ultimately took her over 4 months.
In this conversation, we discuss:
* how her teacher lied and ‘passed’ her during Physical Education (PE) at school because she was bad at team sports,
* why exercise was a source of embarrassment and shame growing up,
* her lifestyle in her 20s, the toll it took, why she started experimenting with exploring the outdoors and what triggered that change in focus,
* spending her 30th birthday on the Inca Trail in Peru
* how she committed to joining the first all-female team to cross the Finnmark Plateau in arctic Norway despite never having skied or even seen snow,
* how she trained for it, including her training sessions with Trevor and Tim,
* powerful moments and insights from the trip,
* when they realised the outside world had changed due to Covid-19 and the race (and fight) to get home,
* the depression and sense of loss she experienced after the expedition
* how being unable to celebrate the expedition has affected her confidence and identity,
* the importance of self-compassion is how we see ourselves
* the struggle with comparing yourself to the athlete you were in the past,
* how the expedition changed her relationship with her body, and
* how her experience with the Imposter Complex has changed over the years.
Click here to listen on iTunes.
Notes and resources:
To find out more about Brooke or to say hello, you can find her on Instagram and follow her at We Are Explorers.