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Rediscovering the Outdoors: 55-Year-Old Late-Blooming Athlete Gets Ready For Five Days on the Pacific Crest Trail

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Palo Duro Canyon State Park, TX

Life transitions offer up a host of new possibilities for us. After her kids were grown and out of the house, 55-year-old late-blooming athlete Kelli Bullard found herself with a lot of extra time and no plan. She found herself wondering:

With all this extra (gulp) time on my hands, what was I supposed to fill it with?

She thought back to her childhood and her love of the outdoors and then took a leap of faith, entering a contest hosted by Backpacker magazine. (I’ll let her tell you more about that herself.)

I had the pleasure of meeting her last month camping trip to Palo Duro Canyon State Park (just outside Amarillo, TX, where Kelli lives). And I’m super-excited to announce that this is the first of four articles she’ll be writing for us, sharing her late-blooming evolution, her training and her upcoming experiences backpacking.

Please welcome Kelli into our community.

A Journey of Rediscovery

Kelli Bullard (left) w/good friend

As a child, I loved being outdoors. Our household was TV-free during my early years, so I spent the summers riding bikes, climbing trees, and exploring the neighborhood in search of adventure. In my teen years, I found less and less time for the outdoors as my focus shifted to school, a part-time job, cute clothes and cuter boys (not necessarily in that order!).

My 20’s ushered in a season of new beginnings—I got married, bought a house, started a new job, and became a parent to one very spoiled cocker spaniel.

In my 30’s I launched into parenthood on a different scale, giving birth to a daughter and a son two years apart.

Over the next few years I fell head-over-heels in love with the adventure of parenting. I relished being known as the mom who baked the best chocolate chip cookies, cheered the loudest at my kids’ sporting events, and volunteered for every field trip and PTA fundraiser that came along. I threw birthday bashes and slumber parties, hosted after-school Bible club, and served as team mom for my kids’ sports.

The whirlwind of activities left very little time or energy for outdoor adventures of my own, but honestly I was too busy to notice.

Getting Back Outside

As the parenting era began winding down, I reluctantly made the transition from mom of teenagers to mom of young adults. In the process I began to notice a huge void in my life.

Now that I no longer wore the badge of team mom, PTA mom, and cookie-baking mom, who was I? And with all this extra (gulp) time on my hands, what was I supposed to fill it with?

I knew that somewhere deep inside stirred the dreams of my youth—the hopes and aspirations that I had set aside so I could nurture my family. The problem was, those dreams were buried so deeply I wasn’t sure how to rediscover them.

It took some real soul-searching but with the help of close friends, I came home from a girls weekend with a list of 40 things I wanted to do, ventures that would reconnect me with my dreams. Several of the items on the list were pretty standard fare: “Write a book,” “Learn a new language,” Read Les Miserables.”

But others signaled the reawakening of that long-dormant passion for the outdoors—activities like backpacking, paddle boarding, kayaking, parasailing, white-water rafting. (Notice how many of these involve water? That’s probably because I live where cactus and tumbleweeds outnumber the human population!).

Taking a Leap

Soon after my girls weekend, I saw a contest in Backpacker magazine and decided to enter. Three weeks later I got a phone call that I had won the contest! My prize? A 5-day backpacking trip on the Pacific Crest Trail.

At this point in the story you would probably expect me to be excited, overjoyed, ecstatic. The honest truth is, I was all those things but also a little bit terrified.

All this talk about reawakening a sense of adventure sounded great in theory but as reality set in, nagging doubts began to surface. Maybe I should have eased into this outdoor enthusiast thing a little more gradually. You know, take a day hike and see how it goes.

Last time I slept in a tent was 30 years ago, and nothing about the experience was pleasant. And I’m 55, not 25. Do people my age really do this kind of thing? Am I physically up to the challenge?
Kelli and Kellie hiking up the Rock Garden Trail

About this time I was thrilled to stumble upon Amy’s blog and read about other late bloomers like myself. Glued to my computer screen, I was entranced by stories of people like Cheryl McCormick, the 63-year-old who is hiking the entire Appalachian Trail. Lynn Knutson’s account of climbing three mountains at age 63, including Mt. Kilimanjaro, filled me with admiration.

The more I read, the more my confidence soared. These women had their own challenges, but they didn’t let that stop them. If they could do it, so could I!

The next course of action was to replace those negative memories of tent camping with a (hopefully) positive experience. So I bought a sleeping bag, borrowed a tent, and invited a friend to camp overnight in nearby Palo Duro Canyon.

That night the twinkling stars—millions of them, it seemed—dazzled overhead, and I lay awake for more than an hour just staring at them. The canyon was so peaceful, the beauty serene, and my heart ached with the joy of rediscovering something I hadn’t even realized I’d been missing!

Today as I prepare for my upcoming trip, I’m no longer terrified of failure. To me it’s more terrifying to imagine a life void of adventure, to settle for an existence that keeps us insulated from the breathtaking beauty of the natural world.

There are days I wish for a do-over, a chance to go back and make up for the years I neglected the yearnings of my heart. Obviously no one gets that chance, but there is something I can do. I can forget about the past and purpose to take advantage of today’s opportunities.

I’m no longer terrified of failure. To me it’s more terrifying to imagine a life void of adventure.

Every time I take time to connect with the outdoors, I find that I reconnect with myself. And that makes it all worth it.

About Kelly

Kelli followed her heart into the communications field 30+ years ago. She enjoys reading, writing, and spending time in the great outdoors so she'll have something interesting to write about. She is a contributing writer for Amarillo magazine, and her debut as a first-time backpacker will be featured in Backpacker magazine (Feb. 2014).  Kelli imposes on her good-natured husband, Steve, to accompany her on these adventures whenever possible.

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Other late-blooming athlete stories you might enjoy:


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