Cry of the Wild
By Garett Graubins
Newsflash: Parenthood and outdoor adventure can co-exist.
The trail map is still there … somewhere. In fact, it’s where you left it: Right on the kitchen counter, barely poking out from under three children’s books, a spit-up towel, pacifier (known in parent-speak as a “binky”), and last night’s baby bottle.
Many outdoors-loving parents think that their goals, dreams, and fresh-air aspirations belong in storage once the little one arrives. “There’s not enough time in the day,” they lament. “I can barely make it through the grocery store—how can I squeeze in a trail run or climbing session?”
Maybe your Everest plans will need to log time on the back burner (although in the case of John Griber, they didn’t—read on), but there’s no reason to surrender other grandiose projects once tummy time replaces those all-day training sessions.
Many outdoor athletes are able to maintain their activity level once junior arrives. It just takes some creativity … and occasionally a sense of humor.
Roll with It
When endurance runner Joe Kulak woke up one morning and discovered that he was a dad, he decided it was time to go shopping. On the list: diapers, baby wipes, and a jog stroller.
“Get a reputable, heavy-duty model,” recommends Joe, who has completed the Leadville Trail 100-Mile Endurance Run 11 times. “Make sure the seats recline so the kids can snooze, and look for shocks and a collapsible frame.”
Kulak’s race results barely skipped a beat when his first daughter, Amanda, was born. And he kept going strong when Emily came 19 months later—although he admits to running barely enough miles to stay race-ready (a claim which his friendly rivals identify as “sandbagging”). Still, he admits it doesn’t always come easily. “My two daughters are sometimes referred to as my “time-deprivation training consultants,’” he explains, “and dirty running socks smell like roses compared to messy diapers.” Time crunch and diapers aside, Kulak always talks about his girls—now 41 and 22 months old, respectively—before mentioning his most recent 50-miler.
For Kulak, proper stroller technique and a little ingenuity have gone a long way toward helping him stay competitive. He provides these tips for training with a jog stroller:
- Make sure the kids are comfortable. That means always having the “Three B’s”: blankets, bottles, and binkies.
- No snacks for kiddies while running. Plenty of snacks for Dad, if he’s running long.
- Make sure all stroller tires have equal pressure so the stroller doesn’t pull to one side.
- It’s better to run with both hands lightly touching the stroller than to try to run with one arm pushing and the other swinging.
- Schedule stroller runs to coincide with morning and/or afternoon nap times.
Finally, Kulak adds: “Seek out hills. Pushing a two-seater stroller uphill beats the Thigh Master for best leg-strength exercise anytime.”
Joe Kulak's family greets him in Sea Isle, N.J., following a 75-mile, all-night training run.
Photo: Maureen Kulak
Harnessing Parenthood
“I never owned a stroller,” says endurance runner Kami Semick, the 2006 National Trail 50K champion and mother of a 5-year-old girl. “I always invested in a support system that would allow me to carry Baronie [her daughter] close to my body during the day.”When Baronie was only a few days old, Semick took her out on her first hike. Granted, Baronie was in a sling and the pace was slow, but at least they were outdoors. Semick explains how it evolved from there: “She progressed from a sling to a front pack to a backpack over the course of her first four years. I was able to easily carry her at 10-15-20-25-30-35 pounds, because she slowly put on the weight.” In the process, Semick actually grew stronger, too.
Semick’s garage looks like an REI flagship store. “We have a sturdy child-carrying backpack for hiking; a bike trailer for road biking; a pulk for cross country skiing; and a trailer bike that attaches to my mountain bike so we can ride single track.”
On some occasions—like when she is training for a 100-mile race or the World 100K Championships—Semick needs to log three-hour training runs. That’s a little too long for Baronie to bounce around in a harness or trailer, so Semick makes special arrangements. “I found an athletic club here in Bend [Oregon, where she lives] that sits right on the trail system and has child care that allows me to run for up to three hours at a time.”
She adds that contingency plans are always necessary, during her runs, “I just carry a pager in the event the caretakers at the Athletic Club need to call me back.”
A Mountain of Diapers
Mountaineer and high-altitude snowboarder John Griber is not one to think small. That is, unless it involves his 4-year-old, Nevin. Griber, his wife Becca, and Nevin truly live the mountain lifestyle. From their home in Jackson, Wyoming, the Grand Tetons are literally close enough to touch.
Griber regularly heads up into the Tetons or to other countries for mountaineering expeditions. Some of his noteworthy expeditions include the Antarctic Peninsula and South Georgia Island, Antarctica; Apolobamba Range, Bolivia; Patagonia, Argentina; Tian Shan Range, Kyrgystan; Cordillera Blanca, Peru; and Mount Kenya, Africa.
With such an obvious lust for travel and far-flung exploration, how has Griber taken to fatherhood? In the same way he relishes high peaks, as evidenced in the way his voice shifts into an excited tone when he talks of Nevin. But it has involved an adjustment.
“Initially, it feels like your whole life is going to change,” says Griber, recalling Nevin’s earliest days. “Then you figure out time management skills much better.”
At first, up until Nevin turned 3 years old, Griber used a ski sled to work in his training. “I put him in the sled and toured because that was the only way to get outside for some exercise,” he explains. “I would go cross-country skiing on an established track—I’d ski while he fell asleep.” Griber enthusiastically explained the importance of getting a “super-killer, really well-covered sled.”
“Before we figured out the ski sled thing, we were putting Nevin in the backpack and taking him to the ski area for easy ski runs,” Griber adds during a phone interview with Nevin gabbing away in the background. (“Becca’s away and I’m playing Mr. Mom,” Griber laughs.)
Griber would also place little Nevin in the pack and skin uphill from their Jackson home. “I would try to put in an hour effort while he was napping. It was great training, having a 20- or 30-pound pack on!” It also demanded some flexibility and an ability to laugh: On more than one occasion, Nevin had a “blowout” and Griber would find himself changing a diaper way up in the hills, some times with soft snow wafting around them.
With Nevin quickly growing into a little boy, Griber hasn’t been bound by the sled, nap time, or diaper bag as much. “We can do pretty much anything now,” he says. “Just today, we were fishing on the lake [nearby Jackson Lake]—he’s learning to cast his own spinning rod and fly-fish.” Griber also explains that Nevin has taken a liking to catching bugs: “We bring his bug catcher everywhere we go.”
And, as Nevin grows, Griber has realized he still has the bug to go on big-time expeditions. Recently, he went to Everest for several months, leaving Nevin and Becca back in Jackson. But he stresses that it’s not easy, and it’s also very different from his carefree pre-parenthood days. “It’s totally hard, because he’s at an age where if I leave for a weekend trip, he’s so sad to see me go,” he says. “It’s incredible how fast they change and grow … it’s totally tough to miss that.”
John and Nevin Griber celebrate a colorful catch.
Photo: Becca Griber
And it’s heartening to know that even Griber, an extremely die-hard adventurer, has moderated his schedule for the sake of parenthood. “I had a chance to go to Asia this fall and I turned it down,” he says. “I had to back up a little bit and think, ‘Hey, the mountains are going to always be there, but Nevin’s only going through these changes once.’”
Joe Kulak and Kami Semick would most certainly agree.
Garett Graubins is an avid trail runner and father to a 7-month-old boy. He lives in the Bay Area, where he, his wife, their son, and dog frequently enjoy doing Leapfrog Runs (see sidebar) amongst the redwood and eucalyptus trees.Posted on September 20, 2007