Paintball a.k.a. Running through the woods with no idea of what I'm doing

Weeks and weeks have gone by without too much excitement.  Welp, that all changed today when I played paintball for the first time!

I joined Erin and her friends for a 2-hour game of shoot-anything-that-moves as part of her 30th birthday celebration.  Early on I noticed that I have the aim of a blind person and so it was easier to just take one for the team by running down the middle of the playing field so that the opposing team would shoot at me thereby giving my team a chance to rain paintballs on them in return.

I wasn't entirely running around like a chicken with its head cut off the whole game, though.  I managed to take advantage of a wooden helicopter during one game... it was kind of a rush to sit in there scanning the woods for movement and then firing away when I saw someone moving towards my direction.  Unfortunately, the trees took the brunt of my shots.

The highlight of the day for me was at the very end.  I had a handful of paintballs left when I got shot for what I thought was the last time since game time was running out.  I quickly raised an arm, yelled "HIT!" and walked over to the other players who were out of the game.  I sat down and noticed three opponents sitting comfortably behind a barrier, just taking their time picking off my teammates while the clock counted down.  I had the bright idea that if I ran down and tagged home base to get back in the game then I could run back to where those players were and try to hit them (it had been nearly 2 hours of play time and I hadn't hit anything but trees).  So, off I went.

I managed to run back and find something to crouch behind while I took aim and fired at the other team.  We were so close to being done that eventually I stood up and just ran at them firing off shots.  As soon as I ran out of paintballs the game ended, so I was pretty happy that I went in to be the last person on my team that made it to the end.

Getting hit hurt as bad as you would expect, but the adrenaline prevented from me dwelling on the stings too much.  One shot to my right hand hurt pretty bad because the ball hit my ring which cut into my ring finger.  Two shots clipped my thighs.  Several shots got me right in the bum, but I didn't notice those until I sat down for the car ride home.  Despite the pain, I think paintball is going on my list of things to do again.  Next time, I'll have a little more strategy...I hope!

Ditch the Dieting!

Evelyn Tribole is very enthusiastic about getting the word out that dieting doesn't lead to permanent weight loss.  Here's a clip of Evelyn getting her message out:

We've got very preliminary evidence that supports what Evelyn is saying. Cool, huh?   The message that dieting is associated with weight gain is a great example of why my work here at Otago, looking at weight gain prevention, is so important...we've got a fair amount of women who maintained weight over 3 years without controlling weight through dieting.  How did they do it? We'll see!

"Why am I 'a beast'?"

Lately, I've been spending a lot of free time reading through parent interviews to look for themes related to their acceptance of the message that their child is overweight (based on body mass index).  I really enjoy reading through the transcripts!  It's been a fantastic learning experience for me to read how parents reacted in so many different ways.

One question every parent was asked is: "Did you share the health check information with your child?"  Then the parent is asked to explain the decision around that (keep in mind the children are between age 4 and 8).

One mother used the information to explain to her child that a healthy lifestyle is important so that the child doesn't get fat like Violet in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; if that happened, the ooompa loompas would take him away!

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Another mother told the child that the results say she is obese.  The child's response was, "Why am I 'a beast'?"

I think it can be a tough conversation to have with a child - explaining why adults are measuring around their tummy, checking their height and weight, and then trying to explain what those measurements mean so the child understands.  Clearly, some children are too young to understand the body mass index labels.

It appears that there are parents who don't want to share weight-related information with their child because they're concerned that the child will develop weight/body image/self-esteem issues.  Well, we've got inquisitive kids in the study and they want to know what's going on.  So, instead of focusing on body weight, the parents explain that the study is looking at what the family eats and how active the family is and go on to drive the point home that it's important to look at the big picture of what a healthy lifestyle is all about. (Interestingly, some children have been very accepting that they are overweight and it means that the family needs to think about eating less, choosing healthier foods and getting more active.  The key has been including the child in how they'll eat differently or be more active  - they love making decisions for themselves!)

So, I've asked myself, Why is it okay for adults to take the focus off of body weight for children and instead focus on an overall healthy lifestyle, but often adults find it okay to focus on body weight  instead of factors that contribute to a healthy lifestyle?

Why can't we all realize that we should be making choices because we believe we'll be healthier (and, hell, happier?!) as a result, not because we want to control our weight?

I'm very thankful that I've been a part of this portion of the study.  It's made me think long and hard about how I envision our weight gain prevention intervention because I've been concerned that adults won't participate if they aren't losing weight - even if they do end up making healthier lifestyle choices as a result!

For the psychology fans out there... I attended an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy workshop with Steven Hayes before I arrived in New Zealand.  During one session, each of us closed our eyes and envisioned a conversation that we would have with a younger version of ourselves.  Why?  Adults are generally more compassionate towards children.  So, the idea is to think of a situation, say, the time my pediatrician told my mom that I could stand to eat a few more salads.  Then I'd visualize the conversation that I'd have with that 8-year-old Sara: "Yeah, you're overweight and 20 years from now you'll be considered 'overweight' and that's okay.  You'll spend a long, long time being frustrated by your weight, but you'll do your best to make choices that support your health.  You'll finish an IRONMAN!  You'll be healthy and happy because you don't obsess about becoming skinny.  In fact, you'll go on to pursue a PhD because of that conversation between your mom and your doctor - you'll study how to teach women how to listen to their own hunger and satiety cues; how cool is that?!"

My hope is that some day we'll all realize that it's not someone's excessive body weight that's a problem, it's the behaviors that lead to excessive body weight that should be addressed.  (One overweight boy sought approval from his dad by eating five apples in a day because they're 'healthy', but the boy doesn't understand that even too much of a healthy food can have an impact on his health/how he feels-making him aware of that would be important!).

Also, I think reassuring people that it's a process to make healthier choices is super important, too.  There are just too many uncontrollable things in life to expect a huge change that leads to a huge impact overnight...

  Seems like I've got my work cut out for me with my intervention!

Hopeless Ridge Part IV - a.k.a. the trip to Lake Monowai 2013

We began Day 3 with a descent to the lake where we were met with dense tangles of trees and vines.  Nothing about our trip was easy!  Hours later we reached Monowai Hut - such a sight for sore eyes!  We  cooked up a hot lunch and lounged for a little while before embarking on another 3 1/2+ hour walk to the Clark A Frame.

My walking slowed to a snails pace on our way to the A Frame.  Walking up hill was bad, but walking downhill was even more painful for the quads.  Nonetheless, I carried on.  What choice did I have?

The forest eventually gave way to a wide open field surrounded by, you guessed it, more mountains!!  It's amazing how the scenery can take away a bad mood in seconds.

After a night on the mountain, we were overjoyed to be in a hut, but the funny thing is this one in particular was quite cramped for four adults, had signs of mice-like inhabitants, and had mighty big spiderwebs with creepy crawly things lurking in them up in the corners of the ceiling.

No matter.  Chris surprised us with CHAMPAGNE!  I was walking slow enough that Chris had time to scoot ahead and scout out a place in the nearby stream to chill sparkling wine for us. It was SO refreshing to feel those little bubbles with each sip!  We had another special treat after dinner - steamed chocolate puddings. YUM!  Daniel broke off pieces of his chocolate bar with hazelnut chunks and sprinkled those on top, too.  Deeeelicious! 

It seems silly how little things can be such a big deal out there in the backcountry, but I guess that's why I love tramping so much... everything, from cold water to a cool breeze to a tasty treat, means so much more when you're far away from the comforts of home.

That night, I assumed, again, that sleep would come easily.  But, again, it did not. 

We tried killing all the sandflies that had snuck into the hut, but the crack in the door was wide enough for more to enter.  We tried retreating into our sleeping bags to escape getting bitten, but our bodies in such tight quarters generated so much body heat that it was too hot to sleep!  

My sleeping bag has a special zipper at the feet so that I could unzip it and allow some colder air in, but this put me at risk of something biting me.  So, I'd stick the toes of one foot out for a few seconds, assuming that sandflies wouldn't notice, and then I'd quickly pull my toes back in.  Then, when I assumed the sandflies lost hope of biting my feet, I'd stick out the toes of the other food for a few seconds.  Eventually, I realized the ridiculousness of this - there was no way I could play peek-a-boo with my feet and the sandflies all night.  So, I caved and just laid out there in the open - I didn't care if the sandflies feasted on me - I just wanted to sleep THAT bad.

Our last day had it's own challenges, but I think you get the idea that this was a tough, tough trip.  We reached Green Lake Hut on our route back to the car - what a fantastic location for a hut!  Mt. Cuthbert looked amazing from across the lake.  

As you can see from the sign in the picture above, we still had 5 1/2 hours to go before we hit the road that the car was parked on.  We ate lunch, I threw my bathing suit on and went for a quick dip in the lake (it was hella cold!!!) and then we set off for the last leg of the trip.  

You'd think that after four days of walking I would have gotten used to walking with a pack, but it never got easier.  That last day was hot and I wasn't sure how I was going to manage another 6 miles after already walking 6 miles before lunch.  I mustered up all the energy I could and got moving.  

But, you know what?  Just when things couldn't possibly get worse a sandfly would come along, as I walked uphill, and would look at me and say, "Oh! Hello there!  You look like you're a bit cranky and I see that you're walking a bit funny - you must be sore!  I'm also guessing that you're probably thirsty or hungry or, heck, both!  Well, why don't I make your day a little more craptastic!" and then, gosh darn it, the damn thing would fly right up my nose or straight into my eye.

ARRRRG! WHY?!!!

Somehow, all of us made it back to the car without a mental breakdown (confession, I may or may not have whimpered once or twice because I just wanted it to be over).  Honestly, this was the type of trip where tempers could fly, but our crew kept it all together.  We put one foot in front of the other until we finished.

Once again, we were back to smiling once we reached the car.

This is our "And what?" pose after four days of tramping.  We're so badass.  

The great thing about this experience is that we saw parts of New Zealand that so few people get to see - most people don't think to hike off track where we had been (for good reason, I suppose, but those views were pretty darn awesome!).  There's something special about that.  So, no hard feelings.  We all knew going into the trip that no one in the group had been in this area before and we were in it together.  It makes me smile that the four of us pushed on and accomplished what we set out to do.  

With that said, I'm determined to make my next vacation destination as sandfly free as possible.  Maybe Antarctica?!!

Hopeless Ridge Part III - a.k.a. the trip to Lake Monowai 2013

Our 6 mile hike into Rodger Inlet Hut was just a warm up for the rest of the trip.  Ah, yes... our second day of walking was quite eventful!  We left the comforts of Rodger Inlet Hut to head up to the bushline (roughly 4 hours of walking).

There were sandflies everywhere!

Lake Monowai - with some snowy mountains in the distance

It was obvious to us that no one had been on the route to the bushline in quite some time.  The giveaway was downed trees along the route that were supposed to mark the track, but looked like they had been down for a while, and the track markers hadn't been replaced on different trees.  At one point, the trail disappeared abruptly and we spent a considerable amount of time fanning out trying to find the next tree on the trail with the orange marker.  Our maps told us that, basically, we just had to head up the mountain and that we did; eventually, finding the trail again.

The crew checking the maps.  Lake Monowai in the background.

The trees gave way to a breathtaking view.  At this point, it got much easier to navigate.  It didn't get any easier to climb, however!

Photo credit Chris Niebuhr

But, my God, the effort was worth it!  The views at the top were spectacular!  

I don't care that it's cold, snowy, and windy, or that the climbs can be long and grueling... I love being in the mountains!  

Photo credit Daniel Bilson

Photo credit Daniel Bilson

Eventually, we needed to walk down to the lake and end up at Monowai Hut on the far right side (can't be seen in this photo above).  The original plan involved walking along this mountain in the picture below (sort of like a tramper's highway) and then cutting down to the hut.  We were expecting this to be (very) roughly a 20+k day (over 12 miles).  

But, the plan changed and we went a different way.  Cutting diagonally became the new plan.  This proved to be more challenging than originally expected.  The mountain range is clearly very steep.  What we couldn't foresee was the number of fallen trees we had to climb over or under or go around... or the number of times we'd get stuck in the given space between two trees or a fallen tree and the ground because we'd forget we're a wider load with packs on... or the number of streams we'd have to cross (balancing across logs requires greater concentration when one's legs have turned to jelly after so much walking).

We tried following streams down to the lake twice to speed up the process of getting to the lake.  The second time was a vain attempt to get to the hut before the sun went down.  

I made a few poor decisions that made the day more challenging: choosing not to wear a raincoat or waterproof pants, deliberately walking through the stream, and not pulling the rain guard over my pack.  So, I was starting to get cold from my drenched boots and the water that my shirt and pants had absorbed from rain knocked off of trees that I grabbed to catch my falls.  Plus, I was starting to struggle with the added weight to my pack from absorbed water from shaken trees.  On top of that,  I had used a lot of upper body strength to pull myself up some of the steep sections of terrain that we crossed earlier in the day.

My body ached all over in no time.

We held out hope that we'd make it to the hut (which meant we'd have a dry place to warm up, make dinner and go to sleep).  But, we were losing daylight and so the decision was made to find a place to pitch the tents.

But... we were stuck.

The stream turned into a waterfall that we couldn't go down and we had jumped from a higher point to get to where we stood.  Going back the way we came from seemed impossible because the banks surrounding us were wet and too steep to climb up and the plants growing along the banks couldn't hold our weight plus the weight of the packs.

And then I started shivering... just a little at first... I was only a wee bit chilly... but, eventually it got to the point where I was visibly shaking and my thoughts were slowing down.  Hello, hypothermia.  

D'oh!

Chris managed to push Daniel back up to the point that we had jumped down from and then we handed our packs up to Daniel.  Next, poor Chris had to push and poor Daniel had to pull each of us gals up.  Then, we got Chris up.  The boys left to go find a spot to pitch the tents.  Johanna helped me pull the wet clothes off and put dry clothes on.  What a relief!  Almost instantly I was getting warmer!

The boys found a spot to put the tents and so we trudged up to the campsite.  Chris carried my pack for me because I was exhausted.  

After the tents got set up, I crawled into my sleeping bag to speed up reheating my body.  Chris headed back to the river to get more water while Daniel used what we had to make hot drinks.  Yay!  

I recovered and assumed sleep would come easy.  I was wrong.  The tents were pitched on a slight slope.  So, we'd push against the tent bottom with our feet to stretch the legs for a bit and then slid to the bottom of the tent to rest uncomfortably in the fetal position.

My knees ached so bad from being bent!  My toenails throbbed from being in boots all day!  All I wanted to do was SLEEP!  

The next morning we woke up and tried to wrap our minds around how epic our trip had been - and it wasn't over yet! We still had two days of walking ahead of us!

After some coffee, we packed up camp.  The group had a renewed drive to reach Monowai Hut and we were hellbent on getting there before lunchtime.  So, once again we were on our merry way.

Hopeless Ridge Part II - a.k.a. the trip to Lake Monowai 2013

Whoa, nelly. I've finally started returning to normal - that tramping mission was killer!

Well, there isn't an official "Hopeless Ridge" sitting high above Lake Monowai, but there's good reason that Daniel, Chris, Johanna and I gave it such a name (in fact, we called this particular section of Fiordland a lot of things like, "Helpless Ridge," "Glimmer of Hope Ridge," and various other names that capture our feelings of defeat, hope, and In your face Mother Nature! You didn't get the best of us this time!)

So, I bet you're wondering what all this drama is about?

Basically, we dealt with minor nuisances from the start.  On January 1st, we drove for about four hours (with a hiking pack between my legs in the front passengers side of the car and a pack between Jo and Chris in the back) from Dunedin to the Lake Monowai carpark to camp at the head of the trail for the night.  We put up tents in a light rainfall, got our first taste of sandflies (literally - Daniel swallowed one accidentally!), and experienced the most stinky longdrops in New Zealand (thankfully, my friends from Broome County Office for Aging had given me a fantastic going away present - a turtleneck to wear while running.  I wore it on this trip and it was perfect for covering my nose to block the stench in the toilet!).

The sandflies at the campsite were out for blood, so we took refuge in the car until bedtime.  Much to our dismay there were about 30 little buggers flying around.  We got straight to work squashing them.  The trick was to attack them one by one with our pointer finger because pounding them against the window with a fist was less efficient and just caused our hands to hurt.

Once the pests were dead, we played Hangman on the condensation of the car window.  Everyone took a turn picking a tramping themed word.  You wouldn't believe how hard it was for two Americans and one kiwi to guess the Canadian chick's word "toque"!

Here's a clip of us guessing Chris' word:

After an exhilarating round of Hangman, we turned to asking each other the trivia question on the bottom of the the bottle caps off of our Tui beer bottles.  Oddly enough, two bottle caps had "ABBA" as the answer to completely different trivia questions.

And this concludes the first night.

The next day we set out bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to make our way to Rodger Inlet to spend a night in the Rodger Inlet Hut.  Little did we know that the 6 mile (over 6 hours) hike in would be cheesy easy compared to the days that would follow!

Hopeless Ridge Part I - a.k.a. the trip to Lake Monowai 2013

Welp, the trip to Lake Monowai kicked my ass.  I'm still mentally and physically exhausted after two days of rest.  Our group of four battled wind, rain, snow, sandflies, blisters, scratches, scrapes, bumps, bruises, falls into rivers, slips in muck and even a night sleeping on the side of a mountain.  I had my own personal issues like hamstring tendonitis at the outset, hypothermia and a little issue with dehydration.

Anything I write beyond that description will only sound exaggerated (as if it doesn't already!).  So, until I can figure out how to sum up the experience, I'll leave you with a picture - this one is definitely worth a thousand words.