"It Completely Changed My Perspective on Fear"
Plus, the LWCF, running vests for women with D-cups, and Lauren Guthrie
Hey readers,
I’m writing to you from my mom’s house in a very rainy and cold Minnesota. Before business: Congrats to everyone who ran Chicago over the weekend!
The Land and Water Conservation Fund is dead
Elliot Woods explains the infuriating death of the LWCF:
The Land and Water Conservation Fund died quietly [last] Sunday night amid a news cycle dominated by the FBI’s inquiry into allegations of sexual misconduct by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and the staggering death toll from an earthquake in Indonesia. Created in the 1960s to direct revenues from offshore oil and gas development into a fund that would improve recreational opportunities for Americans, the LWCF is widely held up as the country’s single greatest tool for funding conservation. Throughout its lifetime, the LWCF has funded everything from playgrounds to battlefield monument preservation, fishing access sites, and easements across private land to provide access to public land.
What I’m reading
The Total Reinvention of Gwen Jorgensen: She won Olympic gold in a sport that chose her. Can she do the same in the one she truly loves? [Erin Beresini for Outside]
Brazilian Big-Wave Surfer Sets a Record: The waves that almost took Ms. Gabeira’s life helped her set a world record: On Monday, she won two awards for riding a 68-foot wall of water, the largest wave officially surfed by a woman. The feat happened Jan. 18 at the same beach in Nazaré where she almost lost her life. [Manuela Andreoni for The New York Times]
I Climbed Telluride’s via Ferrata and It Completely Changed My Perspective on Fear: Here’s the thing I’ve realized about fear: It’s okay to have it. It’s okay to acknowledge it. If we didn’t have fears, we’d be running around like crazy people with reckless abandon. [Locke Hughes for She Explores]
The Best Running Vests and Packs for Women with D-Cups: These favorites fit larger-busted women without squishing or bunching up. [Jenna Blumenfeld for Outside]
Women in the Active-Outdoor Industries: Lauren Guthrie: Lauren Guthrie, Head of Regional Merchandising for The North Face, gives insight to her professional trajecotry and personal values that drive her. [On Camber Outdoors]
And congrats to Caroline Gleich, who proposed to Rob on top of the world.
Other reads
“The Long Shots” by Luke Alfred for The Atavist (and edited by the one and only Jonah Ogles):
McGrath was nursing a secret. He was injured, badly, and had been for months. At first, in 2015, he thought the pain running like a hot wire down his left leg was a pulled muscle, but he soon realized that it was the recurrence of his 25-year-old rowing injury, which affected his fourth and fifth vertebrae. “It robs you of joy, an injury like that,” McGrath told me. “It was hell to sit and difficult to walk. The only thing that really helped was to lie down.” He felt alone; he’d been separated from Elke for years, and while he had clients at the gym, none gave him purpose like Manyonga had. Friends told him that he should consider moving back to Ireland.
And….
“In Praise of Mediocrity” by Tim Wu for The New York Times:
If you’re a jogger, it is no longer enough to cruise around the block; you’re training for the next marathon. If you’re a painter, you are no longer passing a pleasant afternoon, just you, your watercolors and your water lilies; you are trying to land a gallery show or at least garner a respectable social media following. When your identity is linked to your hobby — you’re a yogi, a surfer, a rock climber — you’d better be good at it, or else who are you?
