Take a Walk with a 57-year old Book Author | Just 1400 Miles

Real quick, before we dive into this episode, I have a little sleep secret I want to tell you about. Look, sleep is crucial for your fitness, but it's crucial for just plain old everyday life and function. And I find I sleep great unless I have a migraine. And I've had more than my fair share since perimenopause all the way through postmenopause. My secret weapon was Blue Sky CBD sleep gels. Each gel contains 25mg of CBD and 25mg CBN for deep restorative sleep. Something about it helps to reduce inflammation, which I believe for me was key in helping me get to sleep. But the biggest thing is so many of the over-the-counter solutions, whether for sleep or migraines, can ruin gut health, and liver health. Neither one of those did I want to be problematic for me. So this option is recommended by healthcare providers worldwide and backed by thousands of happy customers, many of whom come from our Flipping 50 community. There is zero THC, so it's non-habit-forming. It's made by a trusted family-owned company that we all can feel good about. Third-party tested for purity and potency. And if you're interested, you too can try a sample for just $6. But even better, you can get 30% off forever with discount code FLIPPING50. That's FLIPPING50. Just go to flipping50.com/blueskycbd. We'll put that link in the show notes and you'll find it everywhere on Flipping 50 at My Favorites. What are you waiting for? Good night.

My heel lands on the soft pine needles and my foot rolls gracefully onto its ball. Just like breathing, my footsteps are automatic now. But this morning, I choose to focus on the feelings in my foot. The repetitive motion, like a metronome, lulls me into a state of being. I'm not thinking about what happened last night or 10 years ago. Or where we might eat dinner tonight, but I'm here in my body, every cell alive and alert. Not alert for danger, but alert for joy and grandeur. I step from left foot to right foot over and over. My body is a pendulum swinging ever so slightly back and forth to the rhythm of my breathing. I am one with my moving body. Like the ferns, I can't be any more present. I'm here.

That little excerpt was from Cathy Elkind, who is here with me in this episode, and I cannot wait to dive into this. Listen, if the recent podcast episodes about walking didn't inspire you to take a walk or just reinforce so that you can amplify the result of the walking you're already doing, this episode might. So talk about an adventure that she took with her husband, and it was a 1,400-mile walk, so it was no small feat. And I am finding this to be perfect timing for a little adventure that I have coming up, doing rim to river to rim in the south part of the Grand Canyon with a client of mine. And so I'm excited to kind of have this information. It's been feeding me this month to do all of these talks. And hopefully we will have amazing photographs and some maybe live recordings from on the trail about how we're doing as we check in. But for now, we're going to take you into this episode. And before we do that, I'm Debra Atkinson, you're listening to Flipping 50, where I share things that will help you dissolve those top struggles and concerns about midlife. I share what to eat, how to move, and how to change your mindset so you can have the energy and the vitality that you want, need, and deserve in the second and better half. My guest today is Kathy Elkind. She's a writer, a long-distance walker, and a speaker who shares her love of walking adventures along with her husband. Elkind has walked the GR5, the Andalusian Coast to Coast walk in southern Spain, and parts of the Camino Maturno. I'm not sure I said that correctly, but in Italy. She lives with her husband and walking partner in the Mad River Valley of Vermont. To Walk It Is to See It is her first memoir. In 2018, Kathy Alkind and her husband decided to take a grown-up gap year in Europe and walk the 1,400-mile GR5. I'm going to call it for short. You will hear her pronounce the entire thing across the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France. At 57, Kathy chose comfort over hardship, and unlike the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Coast Trail, the GR5 winds from village to village instead of campsite to campsite. She had me right there. She and Jim get to indulge in warm beds, delicious regional food every night, and croissants in the mornings. The GR5 is not all comfort. Walking day after day for 90 98 days. 98, yes, you heard that. Bring sickness, accommodation struggles, language barriers, storm-shrouded mountains in the Alps. Meanwhile, Kathy finds herself reflecting on difficult topics, primarily her struggles with dyslexia, overeating, and shame. But she also finds that the walking becomes a moving meditation, and the beauty of the landscape heals She begins to discover her own wise strength, and the days unfold, and she comes to the gratifying realization that a long marriage is like a long trail. There are ups and downs, and it takes hard work to keep going, but the beauty along the way is staggering. Written with real honesty and raw honesty and compassion, and rich with dazzling scenery descriptions, To Walk It Is to See It will inspire you Lace up your walking shoes and discover your own path. Can't wait to dive into this episode with you. Let's go, Kathy. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

So this comes on the heels— pun intended, see what I did there— of recent podcasts and recent content at Flipping 50: Really Rich in Walking. And to everybody listening, we'll put those in the show notes too in case you're intrigued. But I— this is just Such good timing. I want to know though, what made you decide to take on what to some seems like a really daunting adventure despite being in what you describe as the last third of your life and like what that might bring to a lot of women concerned maybe about joints or, or energy? What, what got you there to the trail?

Well, let's see. I was 57 and my husband and I had just moved, left Massachusetts and moved up to Vermont. And we're both very outdoors people and we, I had always wanted to do a grand adventure and he did too. So we kind of felt like it's now or never as our bodies, we wanted to, while our bodies were still well enough to, healthy enough to go off and do amazing adventures. And my husband is more hardcore than I am. Can climb up and down mountains and bicycle. He can do almost anything still. He's very strong. And I don't care about being super hardcore anymore. I love to walk. And I— we kept asking all these people why, when we were thinking about what are we going to do for this sort of— we called it an adult gap year. What are we going to do? What's our adventure going to be? And we ended up talking to a Frenchman who talked about the GR5. And I, so I looked up, I Googled GR5, and the GR5, or the Grande Randonnée 5, actually starts up in the, um, Hoek van Holland in Netherlands, and it goes through the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and through the whole length of France down to the Mediterranean. And he had actually only done the, um, 5 or 6 weeks through the Alps, which is the more well-known part. But I didn't really know that. And we started planning for this grand walk. And I will say that even Jim, my husband, he was a little— he was—

I—

he was a little concerned it wouldn't be sort of hardcore enough, but it was. And all the culture— he ended up loving it just as much as I did. And it became, you know, an amazing experience for both of us.

Well, and I'm gonna come back to that. So amazing experience for both of us and for you as a couple. I want to dig into that a a little bit, but I want to not pass over something that you said. So to anybody who this is new for, like the concept of a gap year, say a little bit more about that because we might even just need to define what that is and who most often does it and why you recommend it. And where were you in terms of gap? I mean, were you retired?

Um, I had a business. I was in, uh, eating psychology coach or a mind-body coach. And I had my own business, but I, you know, was moving it up to Vermont. So we thought, and before starting it again, sort of restarting it again, it was a perfect time to do like a gap year. Again, it wasn't a whole year. And let's— yeah, let's define gap years. It usually is between high school and college. Many— not many— some students take a year off. And in Europe, actually more students take gap years off to try to figure out what they want to do with their life or explore and travel. So we were familiar with gap years. Our kids had not done a gap year, but they had friends that did them. So I had always heard about it and we just like the idea of taking a break in life. Why can't people on the edge of 60 take a year off and, and explore? And for me, it was a quest to start to think about or process how I want to show up for the last third of my life. And, you know, and also I had just finished going through menopause and I really— not just, but I had, you know, the last 8 years had been a huge transition of hormones. And, and I wanted to see what this new body could do because it really is— it is kind of a new body for us. And I wanted to see what, what she could do. I used to be a runner and I stopped running. Through menopause, and, and I was just curious. So that's, um, why— did I answer the question?

Yes, you did. And as you were talking, I'm like, oh my goodness, I may or may not have unconsciously just had a gap decade, which I love. Okay, so what, what things— first of all, 1,400 miles, I cannot skip that. So You're talking to somebody here who's done 8 Ironman distance triathlons. I mean, the whole concept of doing 140.2, mind you, miles in one day across different modes of exercise, or for many of our listeners thinking 26.2 miles in a day, you know, doing a marathon, either one of those are big, big things. And you're like 1,400 miles of vacation.

Uh, hello.

A lot of people think that's an oxymoron, like That would not be— they should not be in the same sentence. How long did it actually take you and what was your— was there an average that you walked or aimed to each day?

So we walked for 98 days and I will put in a little caveat. We biked the first week. So when you're starting out in the Netherlands and northern Belgium, it's quite flat. It's very flat. And I was a little worried that Jim would mutiny because he thought it would be boring. And as I as I was reading different blogs, I learned that you were also on pavement a lot. So I'm thinking, well, we both like to bike, why don't we bike the first week? And that would cut out about 3 weeks of walking and just jump us into sort of the first small mountain range, which was the Ardennes, into the hills. So that's what we did. So that, you know, made it a little bit more manageable. But, um, and walking, um, we— I would say We average— so it's all in, you know, we transferred everything into kilometers, and I started thinking in kilometers, but I'll switch back to miles. I would say we averaged about 12 miles a day. You have to— because we're walking village to village in Europe, it's always village to village. Some days, you know, the longest day we did like 22 miles, but that was only once. Um, you know, sometimes it was probably 7 miles. Um, so you kind of have— it's not just what you plan, it's what the— where the villages are. And, um, but I would say the average would be 12 miles, I would say. And the wonderful thing about the GR5 is it does start out flat and rolling hills, and Luxembourg's a little bit steeper hills in different places. And then you get to the Vosges Mountains for 2 weeks and the Jura Mountains in France, and those are mountains but not big mountains. And finally you get to the Alps of 5 weeks of walking in the Alps over 4,000 feet every day of climbing and coming down. So it builds up.

Wow. Okay, so no, no small task. And you had me here at— so I'm not a camper, so, you know, when you go village to village, I'm only in like chapter 2. I wish I had been further, but I'm— I got far enough to realize, oh, oh, I could do this. Like, there's a, there's a hotel, there's a shower or a bathtub and a bathroom and all the things that, you know, more height maintenance me likes. I love that.

Yes, I had, um, Jim and I had backpacked when we were younger before kids, and even with kids we went backpacking. But I had gotten to the point in life I really didn't want to carry a heavy— I didn't want to carry all that camping equipment anymore and And again, this is one of the reasons that we picked the GR5 is that you could go to village to village. And in Europe, many of the villages have small little hotels or auberges or gîtes, which are fairly inexpensive hotels. And the restaurants are sometimes right there or they just serve a family meal. So it's very affordable and it is nice to have that hot shower at the end of the day. It's wonderful. So it's the way to do it.

What about gear? So did you have to carry a certain amount of gear yourself on your bikes from place to place? It wasn't like delivered for you?

No, it wasn't delivered for us. So yes, when we were on our bikes, we had two panniers and we had those packed up. And then when we switched to having our backpacks, we did carry— I think my pack was about 17 pounds. Jim's was probably a little heavier. And we had sort of, we called it our walking clothes and then our evening wear. And then, you know, of course we needed rain gear and then a warmer layer of gear. I had 2 light wool shirts that I went back and forth between. We had 4 pairs of socks each. I had a sun shirt because I have fair skin and I didn't, you know, I had to be careful. Sun hat, you know, anything that you were going to take for a day hike, you took. And then an extra set of clothes to change into. And we washed our socks every night and our underwear and our shirt every single day. And we took a day off once a week or once every 10 days and did a little bit more laundry.

Love that. Okay. And even As little as I've read in the book, I was like, I think I was feeling for you what I might be feeling. But within that first week when you were still biking, very early, you did not feel well. I mean, did that give you some trepidation about what have I gotten myself into?

Yes, very much so. And that whole bit about listening to your body. Do I listen to my body and stop, or do we— you know, for me, I get excited when I'm on these adventures, and it's that, um, you know, euphoria and the excitement just keeps— it can push me on, and the excitement of the day. But then really, I— as we biked along, I did get sicker and sicker, and I eventually did go to the doctors. And I— what I found was that I really need to pay attention to my body and learn that, that euphoria has to be tempered and to pay attention to it. And, you know, before we left Vermont, I was— I could walk, you know, I walked 4 to 6 hours just practicing. But to learn the first couple of weeks after biking was learning to walk, you know, day after day after day, which, you know, it just takes practice and learning. There were a few times also you'll get to where I actually took public transportation and only walked sort of half a day. That's a great— another great thing about walking in Europe, because I just, I couldn't do the long days and my body just wasn't ready for it. But once, I think it's about 3 weeks into it, I, you know, I found my groove and, and we went up, you know, Jim was very good about, you know, we went at my pace. So that's kind of what you have to do when you're working— walking with someone else is go at the slower person's pace.

Were there, were there other things? I mean, clearly, you know, this is a need to adjust when needed, or you found reasons you had to change plans. Were there other instances where this was true too, like weather or any other obstacles that you endured?

Um, obstacles of sometimes finding places to stay. So in the beginning, we had started out in very late April, and it's not touristy or walking time yet, so we would just book places out 2 or 2 days out or 3 days out. And then, um, as it got more into summer, we would try to book, you know, 5 days out. But there were sometimes places where we just couldn't find anywhere to stay. We did run into another walker who told us about this, um, uh, it's a spreadsheet that has all the different places to stay. But even with that, sometimes there were— it was hard to find places to stay. And one time, basically, we learned that you could, you know, we would just stop and take a train, you know, 4 stops away and stay in that city or town. So we learned to look look, you know, off the trail for places to spend the night. One other thing, one time when we were in the Alps, there were— we were— it was pouring rain and we were up on a col, and there was— it wasn't snowing, but there was still snow in the col. The col is a part, the low point between two mountains, but you have to get up and over the col. And the weather was coming in, even, you know, it was starting to hail. And but again, the good thing about, um, the Alps and walking in Europe, there are so many different trails that there's always an alternative. Um, they call it the, you know, the bad weather trail. So you, when there's bad weather, there's a way to go around. So we, we definitely learned a lot. Um, and, uh, yeah, so beautiful.

So will you go back and do it again, or is that like a one-and-done thing and you're onto what's the next adventure for you?

Um, we actually, in 2021, we went to southern Spain and walked something called the, um, Andalusia coast to coast. So that was a 3-week walk, but it was 21 days of walking. But we, we, again, we like to— we've come to appreciate the culture that you're walking through, and we added a whole nother week and did some side trips. And we kind of figure, like, since we're there, we might as well enjoy it. And we've— I think we've actually not slowed down because we feel like we need to, but we've slowed down. We want to get into a town by about 2 so we can go, you know, experience the culture. And I kind of call it slow, slow travel is what I've been calling it. And, and then last year we went in November for— oh no, October to southern Italy and walked in Puglia for a couple of weeks. So it's become our new way of, of traveling.

Very cool. What— I think there's a lot of women who would be listening, and one of the obstacles— so like me, many would appreciate their warm shower, warm bath, warm bed, and clean clothes. And then there's also the You know, what about food sensitivities and dealing with that? So as you were eating along the way and probably eating during the walks for sustaining your energy, what became important for you, you know, in terms of your own personal definition of eating well while you were on what you call vacation?

Well, we didn't call it vacation. People, you know, on social media would say, wow, you're having a long vacation. I'm like, it's not a vacation. This is an adventure. I definitely called it an adventure. What we found is that it was because we were in smaller villages. I think if you were in bigger cities, it would be easier to find, you know, gluten-free or vegan and things. I— both Jim and I are lucky. We can pretty— we can eat pretty much anything. So our bodies can handle pretty much anything. And we kind we enjoy eating what, what is served to us. So we're not, you know, we're not too fussy. But what we did find is that it was hard to get enough vegetables because, because we do value health and, and we do love our vegetables. So we would go into little grocery stores and, you know, buy cucumbers and little tomatoes and, you know, oranges and apples, anything that packed well. But you also had to remember we didn't want make our packs too heavy, we would buy lunches. We always ate lunch on the trail. It was a way to save money. We'd have cheese, bread, chocolate, apples, and sliced cucumbers or carrots or some sort of vegetables. So we ate as many vegetables at lunchtime as we could because we didn't always get them at dinner, or sometimes we did get them at dinner, but not for breakfast. Breakfast many times is just coffee and a croissant. So sometimes there's more yogurt and things like that.

Super curious, did you track your— say, any changes in your body? In, in your weight, of course, and that's easier. Your body composition? What happened to lean muscle mass? What happened to body fat?

So I am of the belief of I don't ever weigh myself, so I have no idea. I haven't weighed myself in 15 years, probably 10 years. But yes, my— over, over time, you— I could tell my shorts were, you know, not falling off, but there was more room. And I also found that I had to kind of force myself at breakfast to eat even when I wasn't really all that hungry, which— or at least put some of— if, you know, put some more in my pocket so that I because once I started walking, I would get hungry, but I wasn't— and usually I'm— I love breakfast, but that was kind of interesting. And I don't really know why, but, um, I knew— I think I needed more calories than I would, you know, felt like eating. And I have a history of emotional eating, and I work very hard to just savor the food and eat slowly and enjoy it and not I don't have any many rules around don't eat that or don't eat this. I listen to my body as much as I can, and I'm very careful about not making rules around food for myself.

Very cool. You open the book with a scene where you're standing in a river naked, and many women would probably find the idea of standing in broad daylight, even with their partner of 27 years, naked, a little precarious or embarrassing. How did the 1,400-mile walk change your body esteem, if it did, or were you always so confident?

Oh, I wasn't always so confident, um, but I have always— I don't know, I'm, you know, Jim and I are very close and he, he loves my body. He's fine with my body. And I do, you know, I have a belly, uh, postmenopausal padding is what I sometimes call it. And I've actually always had kind of, you know, that's where I store fat and I've had to just embrace, slowly embrace it. What was interesting that next day after that standing there, which I actually felt fine. We had seen so few people on that trail that I didn't worry about running into anybody. But the next day I was recording a YouTube video and I sort of looked at myself. And I was like, oh my goodness, you know, I feel so strong, like walking every day and hiking up these mountains. And still in my head, the word strong to me means young and thin. You know, our culture has embedded that in my brain. And I just noticed that I got triggered by it because I looked at myself and, you know, I'm round and I'm beginning to get turned gray. And, oh, it was— that was interesting. It was very interesting. So I believe that body acceptance is— personally, for me, it's been a long road and still noticing when things trigger you. And I'm also a mindful self-compassion teacher, so I tried to use self-compassion and, and just note it, being aware of, of how I look. And I also You know, we all have— I think many, many women have bellies after menopause, and it's okay. We have to make it okay in our society. You know, we're not, we're not 22 anymore, and that's okay. But we're still strong. We can walk across the continent with a belly.

Very cool. What— I have a friend actually who who wrote Never Be the Same Again. Mark LeBlanc is from National Speakers Association, where I first met him, and he's been more than an acquaintance from that since. But he did the Camino in Spain, and he's done it more than once. And, and the title of the book says it all, you know, and how it changed him. What about you? I mean, what— how were you different, you know, pre and post that adventure as an individual and then potentially as a couple?

Individually, I think I definitely figured out that I am, you know, stronger than I think. And I think most women are stronger than they think. And I also— I have a hard word with the word strong because I feel like we need more words for the word strong. Because I'm stronger, but it's a wise strength. Like, I know now to go at my own pace. And so I'm emotionally stronger when I go at my own pace. And does that make sense? Yeah. And as a couple, so I'm a lot stronger. And I think most women are stronger than they think if they follow their own pace. And and, you know, begin— I feel that I know I trust myself so much more, and I think I definitely have more confidence. I'm much happier. I go off hiking by myself now, no trouble. And as far as Jim and I as a couple, you'll see as you read the book, but I, you know, I think every person— well, not maybe not everyone, but I questioned, you know, in this last third of my life, do I want to stay married? Do you know, we've only got a short amount of time. How do I want this to look? And I I come to the realization yet that, yes, I do want to stay married. And I'm not going to— I don't want to do any spoilers, but we communicate in a deeper way. And also, I found the act of writing the memoir, which was a whole other learning process, but having to write your husband's or partner's dialogue— when I was writing our dialogue as the narrator, writing the dialogue of these two characters, about Kathy and Jim, you learn so much that, man, oh man, he might have been right. And maybe I was wrong. So that was a— I don't know, I kind of feel like if you need any marriage therapy, just try to write a short memoir about, about your, your spouse. I don't know.

What was that? What was that like for you to have him read it?

Yeah, well, he read many different drafts because I wanted him to feel totally comfortable. And I— this is another way way that I love him is that I'm pretty vulnerable and out there. And there were a few things he asked me not to share, and I didn't, and I took them back and changed things. And but he's, he seems perfectly, he's very, you know, he feels comfortable enough in his own skin and in our marriage to, you know, we share a fair amount. And I was a little worried, like, I just had my book launch last week. And I was a little worried when you know, all these friends of ours are going to start reading it and things like that. But so far, I, I've been fine about it, and he's been fine about it too. So we learned a lot from each other, just again, and just even sharing it. And he would say this part, you know, let's tone that part down or something like that. And I did.

So, so good. So what do you say to women who are listening or listening with their partners, even who, you know,, dare to do something like this, but maybe they feel like there's too many unknowns that navigating all of the logistics and transportation and, you know, what an adventure it would be, but a little less maybe adventurous about doing something they don't know enough about.

What would you say? Well, I think there's a couple of different options. If you're super nervous and you you know, sign up for a guided hiking, you know, walking vacation. If you Google walking vacations, they're all over the UK and all over Europe. There's lots and lots of walking vacations, and they'll move your bags around for you. And they're, you know, you can even, even walk with a guide in a group, you know, start out that way. There we had guidebooks for the second two parts The GR5 sort of divided into 3 parts and we had guidebooks for the last 2 parts. Cicérone Press is a European press and it has guidebooks for all over Europe and that's what we use now. And so a guidebook helps you out a lot. You, you could read my book and then, you know, just pick the Jura and go for 10 days and walk in the Jura and use the guidebook that I suggest, you know, as that'd be a good starting out point. So those, those, that's, that's what I would suggest.

I'm gonna ask one more question before I let you go. Was there something that you missed? Like, when you finished, you got back home, what, what was something that you just, you were really looking forward to? Fill in the blank. Maybe it's eating or doing or seeing Oh, it was seeing my children.

That was the— my kids were living out west at that time, and so basically I got on a plane, you know, 3 days later and went to see them. My daughter had grad— we had missed my daughter's graduation from nursing school, so— but my family had all jumped in and gone to see them. But yeah, I missed my— even, you know, my adult— my children in their 20s. I, I miss them even though we did use FaceTime and, you know, we communicated with them. But that's what I missed the most.

Very cool. Kathy, where can listeners learn more about what you follow, you, and of course get their hands on the book?

Well, you can order the book anywhere you buy books, any local books. Your local bookstore can order it if they don't have it in stock, or Amazon and all the big sellers. And it's To Walk It Is to See It. My website is Kathy with a K, elkind.com, and I have pictures from the walk if you want to see those. And you can also order the book through my website. Um, and Instagram is Kathy Elkind too. Um, and I also have a YouTube channel too, so Kathy Elkind. There's some letters after it, but I think if you just Google it, it comes up.

You'll be findable. Okay, great. And Liz, Listeners, we will link to all of those so that you can get your hands on the book. You can follow Kathy on Facebook and Instagram, and we'll try and find that YouTube channel as well. The show notes for you to get all access to those things and to potentially leave me a message and say, I wish you would have asked this, you can do that too at flipping50.com/takeawalk. And what are you waiting for? Probably you should be lacing up your shoes if you're not outside walking right now listening. It would be a good time.