I awoke on the morning of May 28th and begun my first 0 in a string of many. I paid for a giant breakfast with an all you can eat pancakes but they were so large I could barely eat one. But needing to get my moneys worth I slowly worked on the second.
My friend Mikaela soon arrived and we hung out at Grumpy Bears for a little catching up before hitting the road. We made it to outside Las Vegas that night and went to the Arizona Hot Springs. The following night we made it near Green River, Utah and the next we made it to Gunnison, Colorado.
We were greeted Wednesday night and Thursday morning, May 1st with a rain storm that turned into a snow storm in the morning. Of course I did not set up my tent that night so I had to do so in a hurry when the rain started coming down. We packed in a hurry that morning and headed down to Lake City, Colorado, a small town of 400 people. This is where the highline speed walking competition would take place.
There are speedlining competitions in other countries but this was the first one in the United States. I sent a video in of me walking a 50 meter segment a few months prior and was invited to compete in this competition. There were 7 ladies in total competing and 13 men.
The way it works is there is a 130 meter line with a 60 meter racing segment marked by flags. You have 6 minutes upon getting on the line to get to the far flag. When both racers are there and ready one of the judges gives a countdown and then you begin. The times of each athlete doesn’t matter it is just who crosses the flag first and best out of 3. My friend Kearstin from SLC also came out to support and another friend Brian was competing in the men’s division.
Friday morning we each did a qualifying race to get our seeds in the bracket. Later that day I had my first race, against a girl named Emily. I have heard of Emily in the world of highlining but had just met her the day before. I have looked up to her since I first heard the story of her being the only woman to cross the 3 Kilometer line and doing so at night in below freezing temperatures, a feat that took her 6 hours.
The first race began and she was a bit ahead of me but took a fall. I remained steady and ended up beating her by a couple seconds. The second race we both stayed steady and were neck and neck the entire time. I picked up my pace at the end and again beat her by only a couple strides, advancing to the semi finals.
Saturday I raced Day-Young, a woman who is 8 seconds away from beating the women’s world record. Needless to say she smoked me by a minute and a half. However because of the way the bracket worked I would have one more race to determine 3rd and 4th place.
The girl I was supposed to race against for 3rd and 4th was feeling very ill after her race before and needed to forfeit our race so I took 3rd by default.
It was a super cool experience to be a part of and it felt like it opened many doors for future potential. There aren’t that many women who compete in speedlining on the world level so if I put any amount of effort into training I could compete at a World Cup which would be so cool.
After the competition I went back to Salt Lake City and spent time with my boyfriend and friends. I got to do more highlining and a bit of climbing. My boyfriend got two weeks off work so he will be joining for the first two weeks of the sierras.
I am in Bishop, CA as I write this and Nick and I will head out on trail tomorrow! The Sierras are still quite snowy but it is melting fast. It will be a tough stretch but I am looking forward to finally being in the Sierras and getting to tackle it with Nick.
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