1KHO 798: One Adventure Can Change Everything | Taryn Smith, World's Toughest Row

Summer gets busy fast. One minute you're easing into warmer weather and the next you're juggling sports schedules, swim days, camping trips, road trips, late nights around the fire and trying to keep the house from completely falling apart in the middle of all of it. And if you're a cat family too, there's still the everyday stuff waiting for you at home including the litter box. That's why Whiskers Litter Robot is such a game changer during busy seasons. It automatically cycles after every use so you're not constantly scooping or dealing with litter cleanup every single day. It just handles the dirty work for you and the Whiskers app notifies you about your unit like when a clean cycle is complete, when drawer levels are getting full or if the unit needs a 10 gym. You can always track things like your cat's weight and bathroom usage over time which makes it easy to stay aware of changes without having to constantly check in. Honestly during a packed summer having one less daily chore to think about makes a huge difference. Maintain your cat's litter while focusing on your growing family. Learn more about Whiskers Litter Robot models and starter kits today to get set up before the summer craziness arrives. Take an additional $50 off bundles with code 1000 hours when you shop Whiskers.com slash 1000 hours. That's an additional $50 off bundles with code 1000 hours at Whiskers.com slash 1000 hours. Welcome to 1000 hours outside podcast. My name is Ginny Erich and the founder of 1000 hours outside and back for a second time but it's gonna be a first time for you. Terin Smith Welcome. Thank you. I am so happy to be here today. Okay back for a second time because we lost the first interview and it was a glitch, a total glitch on our end and I was devastated and so I want to say thank you for your grace for coming back. Absolutely. I'm just thrilled we get to talk again. You are so sweet. You know what's so interesting Terin? I told a couple people because I think people understand you know you lose a conversation. It feels like gold you know you're like oh and I told a couple people and I was like she rode across the ocean. They're like oh we know who she is. Every person I told knew who you were. They were like wait who? Oh yeah I've been following her you know. So could you give the listeners an idea of just the scope of what you've done? You rode across the ocean by yourself and throughout that journey a mass just a massive following. People are so interested. Yes I competed in a race called the world's toughest row which brings competitors 3,000 miles across the Atlantic from Lagomera and Island and the Canaries all the way to Antigua and the Caribbean and it's an incredible event. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to have competed in it and I learned a lot about myself along the way. I would imagine. So 3,000 miles can you give like how much time does that take? I know there's a range. Obviously it is a race so people are coming in at different at different time periods but like what's the sort of norm amount of time. Now some people are on teams but you were completely alone. Yes I was completely alone. Most people choose to do this as a team of four. However I did it solo so those teams of four take about a month. It took me 46 days. We had really good weather this year. I was expecting it to take around 60 but we just had amazing conditions and I packed 85 days worth of food just in case something were to go wrong while I was out there. So you had talked about not really caring too much about social media. You know you do a lot of other things too. You've got yoga, you've got your yoga studio and actually you're relaunching classes and people can do those starting June 1st. That's super exciting and people can check out your website. I'll make sure I'll put the link in the show notes. They're gonna go to TerrenceMithMovement.com. That's where they can find all the information right? Correct. Okay so you're kind of like oh you know social media man not that big of a deal but within this 46 days your social media grew to hundreds and hundreds of thousands. Six hundreds, seven hundred thousand people. You talked about that your mom was the one who was posting right so you're sending her some information. She's making sure you're okay I'm sure. What do you think it was that I mean because obviously there's a lot of rowers. So it must be something about you, your personality, the fact that you're by yourself. You know and there were like huge people like Pierce Brosnan, Sharon Stone, Katie Couric. What do you think? It was such a surprise. When I started the row I had 2,000 followers on Instagram and I made these videos every day basically as proof of life for my friends and family that I'm on the boat, I'm doing okay, I'm actually having a lot of fun and here's a fun fact about ocean rowing. But about halfway through I posted a video, it was day 27 and it had been my hardest day at sea. It was scary, there was huge weather, I had hives all over my body from sun exposure, a marlin stalked me for three miles. It was brutal and it was terrifying but it was also one of my most successful days at sea because the boat did exactly what it was supposed to do and I was safe the whole time and I covered a lot of ground. I covered about 72 miles that day and so I recorded a video talking about this and I think it really resonated with people because it was just an honest account of my experience and I think that we all can appreciate life is this amazing and credible adventure but sometimes it is just scary and sometimes it is tough and I think in this world of optimization and comfort and ease we just need to acknowledge the fact that sometimes life hurts and that's part of it. Yeah what a thing, wow and it just blew up. So you talk then about you know maybe you're gonna have a book in the works, you go out and you speak now, so you're in your mid 20s, this just finished within the last six months you do this huge row. I was so drawn in by the part of just doing something out of the box and I had read a book last year by this man named William Desiree DeResowitz called The Miss Education, what's it called? It's called Excellent Sheep, The Miss Education of the American Elite. It's kind of a long title, you don't, you're like what even is this? But it's basically about like how we're robbing people of life by racing toward these finish lines that are kind of arbitrary like he uses the phrase the treadmill to nowhere and he says what is all this for? People are missing out on their youth entirely. Our glittering system of elite higher education and he's here, he talks about what about all the opportunities it closes down, not for any practical reason but just because of how it smothers you with expectations and one of his recommendations he worked with college students was to take the summer off and not to do an internship and not to do a fellowship but just and not to do anything to advance your career but just to do something and go live and you did that. I love this part of your story so can you talk about that decision to go work at Redfish Lake Lodge? Absolutely so when I was in college I took a summer to go and work at this little lodge called Redfish. It's in the Sawtooth Mountains, one of the most gorgeous places in the world and I went there was going to work in the little gift shop on site and I thought it was going to be a summer job. They're open from May through October so I thought I'll take a gap semester, go do this gig in the mountains and then that will be that and I'll go to law school. Okay well what where did that decision come from because that's a big deal. I do think that it's uncommon right as soon as you hit the post high school years everything is sort of laser focused toward law school, toward a job, toward a career so I think it's an incredible thing that you did it to begin with. Yes I went on a trip to the mountains over winter break that year with a friend from college. She was from Boise and her and her family invited me to go yirting with them and the Sawtooths and so we snowshoed into this little yurt. We had no cell service. We stayed in a height that was heated with a wood stove and I couldn't stop smiling the entire time. I just had a huge grin on my face and I felt happy and alive in a way that I hadn't since I was a kid and it was so playful and it was it was just fun and so I felt really compelled to go back to these mountains. It felt like it was something I absolutely had to do and that's what's happened throughout my adult life is that I just get this gut instinct that I have to go do something and then I bring the the rational side of my brain into it but for these big live choices I think you've got to trust your gut and so that's what brought me to the mountains and that's what really kickstarted this life of adventure. Yeah so one trip with a friend you go on this adventure and then you end up working at the Redfish Lake Lodge for many years. I did it started as that little job at a gift shop and then I started working for them in the off season too so we would close in October but I got to do HR for them. I would hire the staff for the next season and do a lot of the admin getting ready for the next year. My bosses was a huge huge believer in adventure as well and so as long as I had Wi-Fi I could work anywhere in the world that I wanted to and he was really supportive of me going and traveling and so one season I went and lived in the French Alps and learned how to backcountry ski. Another year I went to every continent in a calendar year and then I started training for the Ocean Row. And this all comes out of taking a little bit of time out of this track toward law school and going and doing these exceptional things. I just think back and I'm like I didn't think about doing any of that. I just became a teacher you know so I was like I went right back to the classroom you know I just was in the classroom and then more classroom and then right back into the classroom. But one adventure can really just change the trajectory of your life. Can you talk about how your grandpa's both sailed? Yes I think a lot of my love of love of adventure and love of boats came from my grandfathers. They're both lifelong Nebraska residents but they sailed little boats here on lakes and so growing up I got to spend time with them on those boats and they were very curious people. They were interested in everything and they were enthusiastic about what everyone else was doing as well. They were very motivating encouraging people and those moments really defined how I live my life and in my toughest moments at sea they were there with me. I could picture them so clearly sitting on the boat giving me a hand when I needed it and so I am grateful for this adventure because I also got to connect with them even though they both passed away. Yeah what an experience and how interesting that your grandfathers had done it. Now even though they were passionate about sailing you signed up to do this race having never rowed before. That's correct. I am from Nebraska, a notoriously landlocked state and my introduction to ocean rowing was an article in Vogue. I read about a team of women that rowed from San Francisco to Hawaii and they broke a world record and when I heard their story I was immediately inspired. I thought this sounds like the kind of old school gritty adventure that requires a lot of resilience and then I had this huge moment of envy because in my mind the only people that could row across an ocean would be Olympic athletes or ex-college rowers and then I saw an advertisement for the organizers of the Pacific Row and it said do you have what it takes to row across the Pacific Ocean? Spoiler alert yes you do or something like that. And so I started researching the sport a little bit more and I realized a lot of people do a crossing without a rowing background and I signed up having never been on a rowboat before in my life. Oh wow so did you end up going to law school? I have not. I am planning to apply in the next couple of years so I'm taking another year to write the book and then hopefully next fall or the fall after I will apply for law school. Okay so do you feel in general like you know this is a little bit of an offshoot path but you know you could go back to law school but you also have found an alternative route to a fulfilling life. You've got both choices now. Yes I do and I think life is long and there's time to do a lot of things and I want to do a lot of things. I don't think that I will have a career that I stick with for 30 years. I think that I'll probably do a lot of different things in this lifetime and that does require being a beginner which is an adult can be kind of scary but I really like being new to something and then pursuing that to a high level. I think adventure opened up so many doors because now you're going to have the skill set of being an author and you can always go back to law school but had you stuck with that the entire time it doesn't seem like all of these extra offshoot options possibly would be an option so it's such an interesting way to live and I hope that people who are listening are really inspired. You know we've got kids that are close to graduation year and it really gets my mind spinning Taryn about you know how many other things are out there how many incredible experiences you can have. I mean because you kind of just gloss over it you're like I was in the French Alps one year I went to every continent you know I trekked through Patagonia I did the New York City Marathon you know so I mean these are huge things these are huge seasons of life that enhance your life so much school does too but it's different. I think there's so much to be learned by going on an adventure you learn things about yourself and the world and other people that you could never learn in a classroom and I think it also teaches you humility and it shows you that you're pretty small in this world but you're part of something much bigger than yourself and so I think it is an essential part of anyone's education. We live in a world where we have these devices at any point you can look up and know anything you want and I think what's lost in that is a sense of curiosity and wonder and that's the that's what I really use adventures for is to explore the world and embrace a sense of curiosity. Yeah I mean what does it look like to step foot on every continent in one year that's something that most people don't do in an entire lifetime that's a whole different adventure it's just one sentence like oh yeah well in 2023 what was the impetus for that? That was another one of those crazy ideas I had and I felt like I just had to go do this thing and so I sent it I went for it I booked some plane tickets booked the airbnb's got on a couple boats and made it happen. Does your mom get nervous? Yes and no I think she's gotten used to me taking on pretty big adventures and she certainly did a good job hiding her anxiety about the row from me because as a mom I think it would be such a nerve-wracking thing to watch your child go to sea by themselves but she was my biggest supporter both of my parents were I couldn't have done the row without them and she was there when I needed strength and support I would call her and I really could not have made it across without her help. Aw what a mom. As we move towards summer everything starts to look a little different the schedule loosens up there's more time outside more travel more life happening and that's a really good thing but it can make consistency a little harder to maintain having something flexible that supports learning through those changing rhythms can make a big difference and that's where iXL fits in so well. iXL is an award-winning online learning platform offering interactive practice in math language arts science and social studies from pre-k through 12th grade it adapts to each child's level keeps them engaged and gives parents clear visibility into progress what I really appreciate is how simple and organized it is everything is laid out by grade and subject so you can quickly find what your child needs whether that's staying sharp over the summer or getting a head start for the next year and because it's personalized kids can move at their own pace which helps keep momentum going in a natural way make an impact on your child's learning get iXL now and 1,000 hours outside listeners can get an exclusive 20 off iXL membership we may sign up today at iXL.com slash 1,000 hours visit iXL.com slash 1,000 hours to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. is there any parenting advice you have like how do you raise an adventurous kid? I feel so lucky that I had a lot of women in my life and a lot of men that encouraged me to go on adventures there were times when I thought oh I wish that I had you know apartment and a regular job and I wish I had a boyfriend and I wish I had this safer life and they'd say no Taryn this is the time to go explore this is the time to put yourself out there and go and see the world and those things are always going to be there for you but this is a really valuable way to spend your time right now because there were moments when I felt like I was falling behind my friends were getting married and having babies and and taking these other big life steps which are adventures themselves but mine just looked a little bit different and so I think it was crucial having having other adults in my life that said no you're you're doing something worthwhile right now. Yeah and if you feel compelled to do it go do it. Okay so of these large adventures that we've talked about sawtooth mountains sticking around for five years when you just sort of were exposed from this yurt trip and then you end up staying the solo trip in the french Alps and rowing across the pacific ocean no you rolled across the atlantic. Yes okay you you were inspired by people who were inspired by the pacific to the atlantic. You wrote you wrote across the atlantic and then the 2023 when you touched foot on every continent if you could pick one of those four things to do again for the first time which would it be. Oh no one's asked me this question yet. If I could do something for the first time again I would say the ocean row it was incredible to have fresh eyes in that experience particularly my first month at sea. I was so happy and so grateful because everything was working as it should I was safe I was healthy the boat was doing great and it was a really joyful time in my life it was also tough but that first month in particular was a lot of fun. Okay so let's talk about this whole subculture I didn't know anything about it until I started to research your life and so it was really interesting to learn that about the preparation about the fact that there are all of these coaches out there that there are all of these companies that make these certain types of row boats that will not flip over or will self self-write themselves you know in case of bad weather and that type of thing. So what was the training like? I spent about two years training for this endeavor so what I did first was take a lot of classes on sea safety and navigation and then I spent about six weeks learning how to row on one of the little ocean like a little coastal rowing boat and so it was a lot smaller than my ocean rowing boat but this one helped me develop a good technique in good form and then in 2025 I went and lived on my ocean rowing boat in England for collective seven weeks and so I would row it up and down a river I would drop anchor overnight and then eventually I rowed out into the North Sea and got into some bigger conditions and it was the best way to prepare because I felt really at home on my boat by the end of it by the time I got out to sea I was comfortable living on my boat and I think that sometimes when teams train they might go do a three to five day row do a little training camp but that's the longest time they've ever spent living on their boat whereas living on it was was great preparation for the two months that I spent out there. Yeah if you were on it for seven weeks then your entire row I know you thought it was possibly going to be longer but was only 11 days longer now I mean only 11 days on a row boat in an ocean is not really an only thing that's a really long time but you had had that practice do you feel like there was a lot of people that it's what it seems like when I started to look into the paperwork and like all the different websites and the different rows that you can take and this is such a huge subculture where there are people that had really good advice I mean it is it is wild that you had never done it. I benefited from amazing coaches and trainers so I worked with the entire team at Rannick they're the ones that build the boats and Lizzie at Rannick helped train me and so she gave me a lot of amazing pointers on how to be safe on the boat how to actually use it and then she helped me navigate while I was training in England and gave me a lot of great areas to go and and train in and then I also worked with the coach Gus Barton he did all of my strength and conditioning and so I had workouts that I did and he was phenomenal I had never really lifted before I started training and now it's my favorite thing to do at the gym it's it feels so great to be strong and so there there are some aspects of the ocean row that I brought with me after the after the journey. I remember reading about Gus Barton because I was reading through different you know there's all these articles about you obviously and so Gus Barton came up and I went to his website and it was all about building capability you know that that I mean and what a thing to build to build capability you can't measure that but you can see in your life that you have built capability because you're like well whatever comes up like oh I'm interested and even on their website when you go and look at the world's toughest row there was like a drop down or something that you could click that was like interested basically what you did you know yeah I guess I'm interested I I'll try that thing that I've never done before so I thought that was a really cool thing to read about what an incredibly vibrant subculture there is there can you talk about obviously I'm sure that this gets brought up a lot but you got to learn all of them how to row how to navigate how to anchor how to deal with storms how to pack your food all of those logistics but can you learn how to be by yourself? That was the hardest part and looking back at training that's what I really learned how to do I was still based on land while I was training I was at a marina for a lot of those nights but it was a very isolating experience and what got me through those periods a lot of books and podcasts from Plung Village which is a Zen Buddhist monastery in France a lot of books from Tick-Nit Han, Pema Chodron and it's all about accepting and permanence accepting the all-weather passes and learning that I always have the conditions for happiness that's always there and so how can I find that and each and every moment no matter what's going on around me I can't control the weather I can't control my conditions but I can't control my response to that and so I teach yoga I from the beginning wanted the one of the row to be a meditation on impermanence and joy and finding happiness even in those those dark scary moments and people can go to your online yoga studio which is reopened June 1st so I'll make sure that link is in the show notes you offer a lot of different things and people should be following along because sometimes there can be retreats you've got all sorts of different things over the years people can bring you in to speak as well doing this alone is more uncommon correct it is most people do it as a team okay so you could do a team and if you go on the website you can see all the winners from years past and then there's all of these I mean statistics and also just information like well you use a bucket in order to go to the bathroom how much weight does the average rower lose during your crossing you know all these different things and I loved it too it would talk about different people that had one and all of the little idiosyncrasies it was like the first you know pair of sisters the first twins the first mother daughter team all of these different things so when people do it as a team they're swapping spots for rowing is that correct the boat must obviously be slightly bigger it's correct when people do it as a team they typically have a shift pattern of two hours on two hours off or three hours on three hours off whereas with a solo row well I was out there I rowed during the day and then I tried to rest about six to eight hours at night and so in my mind the the solo shift pattern is a little bit easier yeah that would be tricky right you're only getting you're only sleeping two to three hour shifts for a for an extended period of time did you ever consider rowing with anyone else when I first discovered ocean rowing I actually did reach out to several teams and I said hey are you they were looking for a fourth on their team and I did lots of interviews and no one picked me to be on their team because and I don't blame them for I'm from Nebraska I don't have any rowing experience I don't have any nautical experience I don't fault anyone for that but I'd already made it up in my mind that I wanted to row across an ocean and so I decided to do it myself which is the best thing that could have happened for me if I had done it on a team I would have been miserable they're small boat well and you wouldn't be so famous okay but sorry I interrupted all right you would have you yeah yeah it ended up being a really good thing because those boats are small and the joy of the row was the solitude and being with these animals and being with the ocean and being with nature by myself and there's always two people rowing so if you have to do something like go to the bathroom no one's going to stop rowing you're going to have an audience for that and I would not want that for 30 days oh oh was that interesting yeah really have to get good at sharing space what a story Karen that you apply you applied and you interview I mean okay now do you think anyone would take you probably because you're famous for it I think yeah I think if I wanted to do it on a team I would be able to find one because I made it across the ocean without any incident I was completely safe at the end I kept a really good course and the boat did phenomenally and so I did I could get to a pretty high level with ocean rowing while I was out there yeah yeah I know you don't have any plans to do another one but now I feel like you would be top top picked there are in speaking of finishing it you finished in 46 days there are people who don't finish so on the website it will say DNF did not finish is what I'm assuming that stands for and they sometimes they have to be rescued so what might happen in a situation like that yes so for example this year there was a boat that capsized and for some reason the boat didn't self-right like it was supposed to and so this rower got in the life raft and they had the e-purb which is this device you have on board that if it's activated it sends a signal to a satellite and then the satellite notifies the coast guard and they organize a search and rescue with whatever freighter or sailboat might be nearby and then you do get rescued and he's he got rescued he's safe and so we bring all of this safety equipment with us for that reason and it worked like it was supposed to and and he got back to land but it is still a risky endeavor we make it safe with the right equipment and with the right training but there there's a lot of risk involved there were people that had to be restocked with supplies all sorts of things I I imagine could happen but they had all of these specifics like the first father and two sons to row the Atlantic the youngest pair to row any ocean the first physically disabled team of four to row I love when they have all of these different characters the first person with ALS the first brother and sister team the first deaf person the oldest woman she came in in 2019 took her 10 days longer than everybody else but you know what a cool thing but sometimes you'll need a new rudder yes while you're out there things will break and so sometimes teams have a rudder break and that's what you use to steer the boat and so that's a pretty important piece but a lot of times you'll actually get to land faster if you have someone bring you a spare part and then just keep rowing as opposed to getting picked up by a freight ship because if you get picked up by a cargo ship you're going to go wherever that ship is going which means you might end up in the Philippines or something and so in a life or death situation you'll obviously get on that boat but if you have the option of getting some spare parts and then just keep keeping going then you might as well do that have you met an incredible amount of people ocean rowing is the coolest community you couldn't find one other thing similar between us everyone has very different life stories and different reasons for taking on this challenge but it is such a huge endeavor that's very motivated driven people and that was one of my favorite parts was getting to connect with all of these other ocean rowers yeah and I would imagine then you stay in touch there are a lot of group chats yes yes and some people will do it again and some people won't but but still then you just gain this incredible community I read a book very recently actually like in between our last conversation and conversation too called wave walker and it's a memoir of this woman named Suzanne Haywood who spent her childhood on a boat a larger boat her dad wanted to sail around the ocean now it's like a it is a page turner shocking book because he told the family we're just going to go for two years and come back she was like seven years old and then it's like six years later eight years later 10 years later and she ends up I mean this is her whole childhood so it is and it's not great like it's a it's a page turner of a story kind of shocking but she talks about the experience of being in a boat in these swells and she was too young to be up on top so she's kind of like below deck and just she said it felt like a roller coaster right where you're like lifting lifting lifting lifting then crashing down it was kind of terrifying to read about honestly can you talk about what does it feel like to be on a boat like that in an ocean you talked about the marlin is that what you said yes I'm just by marlin stalked by a marlin you've got hives and then just the weather in general I know you said it was pretty good weather for a good portion of it but what is it like to be in those huge waves how do you steer in you know in just an ocean with current and things like that yeah we had a variety of conditions so the first week to 10 days or so was pretty lovely honestly it was gorgeous skies bluebird days and the following sea then around christmas time it got really choppy so it felt like you're in kind of washing machine conditions and just really thrown around quite a bit then the wind died off completely which was gorgeous for a couple hours and then it was just a slog pulling the boat because normally you have a little assist from the wind and get some drift that way but it was it was miserable when the wind died off and then the conditions really picked up and there were huge waves again pretty confused seas so there were waves just coming from every direction and sometimes a wave would crash over the side of the boat with so much force that I was knocked out of my shoes and out of my seat and those moments are scary it was scary to have a wave crash over the boat because then of course the deck floods with water and there are two little cutouts on the side of the boat where the water can stream out but it's it's intimidating it is scary and that was part of the reason I wanted to do this was that I wanted to put myself in conditions that pushed me outside of my comfort zone but that didn't make it less scary oh sure was that the first time you had experienced that because you've been on your boat for these longer periods of time in training but was that your first time experiencing something like that completely I experienced nothing like that during training did you feel panicked in the moment I just kept going and there's you have a lot of adrenaline and there's really no other option you just have to keep rowing have to keep going and I felt very alert during those moments those are my sharpest memories from the crossing are the ones where I was scared and panicked I was very locked in and that was an interesting part of the journey is your brain adapts to those conditions and so when I arrived in Antigua I was used to having huge amounts of adrenaline and endorphins every single day and then when I got back on land and I didn't have that I actually went through a pretty big crash and I struggled those first couple months because I'd lost my my sense of purpose and my direction and my goal I had accomplished it and it took me a while to find my footing again oh that's a part you wouldn't even think of is it you know what is it like afterward it was I mean it's triumphant and you have tons of people who are following like Pierce Brosman yeah but then you do you have the single focus mission and then all of a sudden you would feel rudderless to a degree I would imagine right like what's my direction that's so interesting okay I know you're not planning on doing it again but often when you do something for the first time you learn are there are there any specific things that come to mind I would do this different I would bring different clothes I would I don't know yes I if I were to do the whole thing again I wouldn't have spent those first six weeks actually learning how to row on that small boat because it's a very different technique informed to ocean rowing and so I could have just spent that time either living on the boat the ocean rowing boat or lifting at the gym or I could have used that time better but I had no idea I was new to this and I think that's part of it is just accepting you're gonna take some missteps when you do something big like big like this and it's not going to be perfectly efficient but if I were to do it again that's something I would change yeah and I think I would have I would have if I were to do it again I'd trust the process more and trust that I am going to get to land safely because there were some moments when I didn't feel like I was going to make it and I think I caused myself some unnecessary stress during those times yeah and I think I'd have greater faith in myself yeah what a life lesson that is isn't it how often our worries don't actually come to fruition what a lesson yeah for someone who's like myself who is considering sitting on a boat on the you know sitting up on top because you could go in there's a small part where you could go in right exactly I had two cabins and I was able to get in those cabins and shut the cabin door and that's how I slept at night is that where supplies I'm assuming that's right yeah okay so you can go in but if you're sitting up on top you you think of yourself being in the middle of the ocean you know we live in Michigan so Michigan has got the Great Lakes and when you go over to the great you know any of the coastal any of them it just you know like goes on forever right just all you see is blue so when you're out there and you're sitting on this boat how common is it to see other life whether that other boats or wildlife or are there huge swaths of time where it's literally just you I had a lot of company throughout my crossing so there was a little bird she came up to me my very first morning at sea and she flew laps around the boat she would dive into the waves fly back up in the sky she had so energy and life and spirit that the first thing that came to mind was Joe March the character from little women and so I named her Joe March and she stuck with me until my last morning at sea what no wait yeah she would fly laps around the boat in the mornings and evenings I lost her for a couple days in the middle but then she came back and she became such a good friend to me I really miss her now that I'm back on land I miss seeing her every day and so she was a she was a great company I had a shark my first morning dolphins always came to me on my lowest days when I really really needed a pick me up dolphins would come and swim around the boat I had whales come and say hi and then I saw quite a few cargo ships as well so it was a it was an eventful crossing in that regard I really can't even believe that about that little bird it's like what was that bird thinking I know isn't that amazing that is phenomenal and it went across the ocean with you yeah were you so sad the couple days that it was gone I was devastated I was I was so sad I'm glad she found her way back Joe March I love that talk about then here's a brand new experience another new experience is writing a book yeah you know we'll be you know on pins and needles waiting for this one but I know when you go and speak you speak a lot about a lot of different topics you say we're meant to go out into the world and do big things so you talk about community and adventure and resilience and purpose when you sit down to write a book like this about your experience do you have thoughts on what direction are you getting advice I mean that's a pretty blank slate it is I I think I'm going to write just about not only a robe but also my life leading up to it and what brought me to this moment and so it's been wonderful to get to reflect on what happened in my childhood that made me want to do something like this I remembered when I was in third grade I actually did write an essay that if I could go anywhere in the world I'd want to go to the middle of the ocean and I hadn't really thought about that but I have always had this strong sense of adventure and thinking about my time out in Idaho and how that really influenced where where my life went and also a lot of the the failures and the rejection along the way I think that that has defined my life just as much as these successes have and so now's an opportunity to celebrate what didn't work out because it's gotten me to this moment oh and you're gonna get to come up with a title and do all these marketing things and go on book tours one adventure leads to another one a completely different adventure and that's a whole new skill set that you're learning it is yes and you never know what that's gonna lead to because this would be like prime for a children's book too I thought about that while I was out there so much because a lot of what I saw just couldn't be captured by a camera but I think the watercolor would be an amazing way to to illustrate my experience out there so maybe that's a new skill I'll try to pick up as well yeah I mean couldn't you imagine you know being a little girl or a little boy and reading about this adventure in a children's book to you I mean I think it could spawn off into all sorts of different things so I mean this is just an incredible incredible thing you've done and it's so inspiring to other people so you talked about community this is one of your speaking topics you talk about adventure resilience purpose what did you do or how did you figure out how to regain your sense of purpose once this big adventure was over when I got back it was really helpful just to spend time with family and friends I gave up my social life to bring the road alive as it as that should be that's that's one of the the prices you pay to do something like this so that wasn't ever a complaint but it was really nice to get to start spending time with friends and I just started signing up for stuff that I was new to so I took spin classes and signed up for tennis lessons and watched different movies and read different books and tried to stir the pot a little bit and see what see what's gonna be fun and I think having some some time to just let things settle and let things integrate also helped my first month back on land I couldn't picture myself being on the boat it was impossible to imagine it and so when I did interviews it felt like I was talking about someone else's life after that first month though I started to regain my my memories of it and I feel it feels a little bit easier to think about now why do you think that is I think part of it is that the last couple weeks were really scary and I think I spent quite a bit of time in flight or flight and part of my response to that was just shutting that off for a while once I actually got to land and was safe and now I can look back and think you were actually really you were safe the whole time everything worked as it should but it was relentlessly gray it rained a lot and it was it was scary I'm sure I'm sure who is there when you landed there was an amazing crowd there in Antigua my mom was there my dad one of my best friends from Idaho she came down to see me in and some of our family friends from here in Nebraska wow it was a very special welcome yeah welcome brigade and they they had an idea because obviously it took like almost two weeks less than you originally thought or around there even more possibly it took less time than you thought so they were just kind of tracking because you were checking in every day so they knew about when to come they did I had a tracker on my boat and it gave an estimated arrival time and so as I got closer and closer that got more accurate were they just like screaming their heads off yeah there was a lot of noise was there news there um not there on the island okay so I wrote in there's all of these super yachts in Nelson's dockyards they all blow their horns I wrote in made it to the dock got off the boat and I went did a little interview just with the race director on land and then within an hour I went and did a remote TV interview oh my goodness just immediately right into it right into the spotlight what was the name of your you call it a team even though it's just you is that right yeah it was so the the team name was Alan Z which is also the name of the boat and that name had two meanings the the first is that let's go in French which felt like it really captured the spirit of the endeavor but the reason we chose that is because my grandma and grandpa were a part of a dance club called Alan and I know they would have been huge supporters of this endeavor they were definitely with me throughout the the crossing in spirit and it was a nice way to get to connect them to the trip what a beautiful tribute was that immediately you kind of knew or was it hard to figure out it was hard to figure out I talked with my mom a lot about that and she helps me come up with the name yeah okay so we talked a little bit about that you speak so people are interested in that they can go to your website you do all types of speaking and I wanted to highlight that one of the things that you've done is you've spoken for virtual science classes so this could be for elementary or middle school students it could be for home schoolers so they would say like you know they give their feedback and say the kids were so captivated by these stories of ocean rowing and then they're learning about geography meteorology marine biology rowing equipment so you know when you think of someone speaking you think of them on a big stage and of course those are things that would happen to talk about resilience and adventure and community and purpose but can you talk about were you surprised to get those other types of speaking opportunities too and was it cool to see how the kids responded I love getting to talk about this with kids I actually just did one last night from the beginning I've connected with elementary schoolers so before the crossing I went to a fifth grade class here in Omaha and shared the journey with them and then we sent each other some messages while I was out at sea and they actually sent me with cards as well so one of my really tough moments I could look at the notes that they gave me and afterwards I went and told them all about the journey and I've gotten to go to lots of other elementary schools and scouts programs and just talk to kids who are enthusiastic about being outside and they always ask the best question they're curious they want to be out on boats or out in nature too and so that's um that's one of my favorite parts of this next adventure that was an incredible idea to connect with the class before you went because and they're learning geography they're fault they're never gonna forget that that's gonna be the coolest part of their schooling the whole thing is following you and then you know you're blowing up you sending in all these messages where did that idea come from to connect with the classroom of students before you left my mom was a teacher here in Omaha and I was actually working as a substitute teacher at the time and so I think it felt natural to go and talk to some elementary schoolers before I went on the row and there was it made me feel a lot stronger and resilient at sea because I knew that there were kids watching me and I didn't want to traumatize them I needed to make it safely to land but I also I find a lot of joy and their support yeah I mean they're still in the same class because this just happened earlier this school year exactly and so they were able to follow along I thought that was a really cool thing and it wasn't something I was expecting you know you're expecting you go into some corporate environment you know we're gonna talk about adventure and resilience and purpose you know but then you're like oh no and I speak to all these kids too another thing that really benefited kids so first of all there's a lot of sponsors here so you can look at everybody's different teams and see who's sponsoring I thought it was really special that the Redfish Lake Lodge was one of your sponsors yes they were my first sponsor for the row and that it really meant the world my former boss actually came to the start line with his wife to see me off and the friend from Idaho that came to the finish lunch it was their daughter and so we're very very close now and that's a part of the it feels like home what a cool full circle moment I love that part of the story so you have all these sponsors but then you also partnered and I think this is seemed like it was kind of common where you partner with an organization to raise support and so you are able to raise over 40 000 to support girls on the run that's a whole other part of it yes I got to partner with girls on the run I think the world is a better place when girls do sports and it was amazing to get to highlight the work that they do while I was out at sea and people were so generous while I was while I was rowing um it's amazing that that people believe in women's athletics like that yeah a nonprofit that inspires girls to be joyful healthy this is basically like what you were talking about too that this is what you wanted the road to be you wanted it to be joyful you want to talk about impermanence and community and um and they've got an organization that inspires girls to be joyful healthy and confident using fun experience based curriculum that integrates running could creatively integrates running and so they're learning teamwork skills did you know that that was a part of it you know some adventures you just do it's just an adventure right but then the sponsorship part the sponsorship part and the support of a nonprofit seemed like it was a common thread in this type of adventure yes most people do choose a nonprofit to represent while they're out there and I think that's another unique part of ocean rowing that brings it just brings another layer of I don't know what the right word is you know people bring amazing stories to why they choose these different nonprofits and so sometimes they know someone personally who dealt with a certain type of cancer or there was this organization that really helped them as a parent was going through something tough so it's it's um you just connect with people in a really deep level right away because people are representing causes that are so important to them yeah that's so personal and it's so impactful 40 000 to that organization more than what an impactful thing for girls across the country and then and then also it connects them to your story you know so someone who's you know maybe a decade older or you know 12 years older or something like that like oh what is that person doing and it's so inspiring so it's not only the money but it's also that connection to your story I'm so thrilled that we got to talk twice and hopefully when the book comes out we'll be able to do it again I'm very excited about this book and I love the backstory part of it because it just shows that you can do a lot of things with your life and we're sort of heading into this graduation season whether people are graduating from high school or from college and it reminds you you know to do these it started small it started with a winter yurt trip which I think a lot of people wouldn't do they don't want to snowshoe in and you know and have to have the you know the fire that's gonna heat it and but but adventure spurs on adventure and you just don't know where it's gonna take you so tearing this has been an absolute delight I love your story in some ways the second time through it was cool because like I said when I had told people about it everybody knew who you were I've been following her you know so it's just a cool connection even with the people that I know so we always end our show with the same question the question is what's a favorite memory from your childhood that was outside one of my favorite memories for my childhood was out at Johnson Lake where my grandparents lived my cousins and I took it was the winter we took ice chunks that had frozen over the rocks broke them off and we meant we made an igloo and we just spent hours and hours days probably a whole week out there and this little igloo and my grandma and grandpa were there we'd bring out thermos as a pot chocolate and it's one of my favorite memories from growing up because that's when I learned how much I love being outside yeah one experience and you would learn so much just trying to like fit all the pieces of ice together and that's so cool that your grandparents were so supportive of that bringing out your hot chocolate it is an honor to know you and I'm so impressed and inspired and enthusiastic about all these cool things that you're doing your your online yoga studio has been closed for a bit because you did the row so this is a very exciting that this is coming back online on June 1st you do live classes you do yoga challenges you have a library of videos for on-demand joy just a lot that you offer there and then I know that at certain times you've done retreats and in-person events so people can keep an eye out for all those things Taryn thanks for being here twice thank you so much for having me again