Lemme tell you about my hiking coach...

NOW let me tell you about my awesome coach, Regina Reiter. Last fall after completing the competitive swimming I intended to do for the year, I realized that having others to support me in my hiking would assist me in getting ready for this trip. So I planned a couple of hikes and sent emails out to about 50 of my closest friends and posted to my 1500 other closest friends on Facebook. One of my dear friends told me she would never go hiking (she is a dancer) and said I MUST meet her friend Regina. Yeah, yeah, so what… Finally, I called Regina and hired her to be my hiking coach. And she is awesome.
Firstly let me tell you about all her qualifications. She hiked the Appalachian Trail four years ago –completed the entire thing in seven months (over 2100 miles from GA to Maine). She works in the summer as a trail runner for the Forestry Service on the Appalachian Trail, too. She has also hiked the Pacific Crest Trail (2660 miles) , and of course has done the Foothills Trail (about 77 miles) and the Benton MacKaye Trail (about 288 miles) and the Superior Hiking Trail in Minnesota (275 miles). She has wilderness first aid training too. She is the mother of three adult sons and a naturalist who has taught at private schools, outdoor education centers and the like.
Secondly, she is patient, kind, funny, and willing to go at my pace. She encourages and prods, and is complementary and helpful. She makes me reframe things when I get into a disempowering context – like when I had hiked 7.5 miles on more difficult terrain than ever with a heavier pack and was disappointed because I could not make it all the way to the waterfall. I stayed in the disappointment, and she was in the acknowledgment of my accomplishments. I can now tell the difference between Mountain Laurel and Rhododendron. And the food – oh my God, the food… She prepares incredible lunches, including hiker’s pizza made with dehydrated tomato sauce rehydrated on the trail, sandwich rounds, lentil sprouts, and nutritional yeast. Yummy. And once we had sweet potatoes on the trail – dehydrated sweet potatoes rehydrated with hot water (heated on the trail with her little stove) and walnuts. You get the picture. She has successfully found places for us to spend the night at very reasonable rates ($20/night at the most recent – includes kitchen priviledges, too), so I don’t have to sleep on the ground. She is designing hikes that will train me for this trip and others beyond. And has connected me with the Benton MacKaye Trail Association (I’m a member now) and the Trail Dames Meetup Group. She also started a meetup group just for my training (Mary Hikes Kennesaw) and I have met lots of other cool people. I tell you, this gal rocks. If you know of anyone looking for a hiking coach, this is the person to hire for sure.