In today’s podcast, Lattice Coach, Mina Leslie-Wujastyk, delves deep with Emily Harrington into her recent transition to motherhood with partner, Adrian Ballinger, and their son, Aaro. Emily shares insights into her decision to have a child amidst their adventurous lifestyles and careers, and navigating the uncertainties that came with it.
Emily, a multidisciplinary athlete, has major achievements, not just in international and national sport climbing competitions, but also in big wall climbing, alpine climbing, skiing, and more. The North Face athlete ascended some of the most challenging routes and ascents, including sport climbing up numerous routes in the 5.14 range, Mount Everest, and free climbing El Cap in a single day via Golden Gate.
The discussion explores various aspects of Emily's journey, including her experiences during pregnancy, her expedition to Baffin Island while expecting, and her candid reflections on postpartum life. Emily opens up about her birth experience, returning to movement and climbing, managing body image issues, and finding balance between motherhood and her athletic identity.
Emily reflects on her attitudes toward risk as a mother and the evolution of her goals since having Aaro, sharing the challenges and triumphs of parenthood in the world of professional climbing. Emily also shares practical tips and tricks for managing training, travel logistics, and sponsorship commitments while being a devoted mother.
Topics include:
- Decision-making process behind starting a family amidst adventurous careers
- Emily's pregnancy journey and managing climbing and risk during this time
- Expedition to Baffin Island while expecting and decision-making process
- Experiences and challenges of postpartum life, including returning to climbing
- Reflections on attitudes toward risk as a mother and evolving goals
- Practical tips and tricks for managing training, travel logistics, and sponsorship commitments
Join us for this enlightening conversation with Emily Harrington, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and more. Don't miss out on this opportunity to gain wisdom and inspiration from one of the most accomplished climbers of our time.
The Lattice jingle is brought to you by Devin Dabney, music producer of the outdoor industry who also hosts the American Climbing Project.
The Lattice jingle is brought to you by Devin Dabney, music producer of the outdoor industry who also hosts the American Climbing Project.
In today’s podcast, Lattice Coach, Mina Leslie-Wujastyk, delves deep with Emily Harrington into her recent transition to motherhood with partner, Adrian Ballinger, and their son, Aaro. Emily shares insights into her decision to have a child amidst their adventurous lifestyles and careers, and navigating the uncertainties that came with it.
Emily, a multidisciplinary athlete, has major achievements, not just in international and national sport climbing competitions, but also in big wall climbing, alpine climbing, skiing, and more. The North Face athlete ascended some of the most challenging routes and ascents, including sport climbing up numerous routes in the 5.14 range, Mount Everest, and free climbing El Cap in a single day via Golden Gate.
The discussion explores various aspects of Emily's journey, including her experiences during pregnancy, her expedition to Baffin Island while expecting, and her candid reflections on postpartum life. Emily opens up about her birth experience, returning to movement and climbing, managing body image issues, and finding balance between motherhood and her athletic identity.
Emily reflects on her attitudes toward risk as a mother and the evolution of her goals since having Aaro, sharing the challenges and triumphs of parenthood in the world of professional climbing. Emily also shares practical tips and tricks for managing training, travel logistics, and sponsorship commitments while being a devoted mother.
Topics include:
- Decision-making process behind starting a family amidst adventurous careers
- Emily's pregnancy journey and managing climbing and risk during this time
- Expedition to Baffin Island while expecting and decision-making process
- Experiences and challenges of postpartum life, including returning to climbing
- Reflections on attitudes toward risk as a mother and evolving goals
- Practical tips and tricks for managing training, travel logistics, and sponsorship commitments
Join us for this enlightening conversation with Emily Harrington, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and more. Don't miss out on this opportunity to gain wisdom and inspiration from one of the most accomplished climbers of our time.
The Lattice jingle is brought to you by Devin Dabney, music producer of the outdoor industry who also hosts the American Climbing Project.
The Lattice jingle is brought to you by Devin Dabney, music producer of the outdoor industry who also hosts the American Climbing Project.
Mina (00:18)
My name is Mina and this is the Lattice Training podcast. And today I'm talking to Emily Harrington. So Emily is a very well known multidisciplinary athlete. She's a sport climber, a big wall climber, alpine climber, skier, ice climber, and ex -competitive athlete. So she's really kind of been and done a lot of things. She's a very seasoned athlete. She works with the North Face team. So there's lots of amazing, interesting things that we could
talk about in this podcast, but we've used this podcast to discuss her recent transition to motherhood with her partner, Adrian Ballinger, and their son, Arrow, who is 14 months at the moment. So we cover a variety of things from the decision to have a child to her experiences with pregnancy and the postpartum period, attitudes to risk, goal setting and how that's changed for her, as well as things like athletic identity and how
that's merged with her identity as a mother. We've talked about her training and have quite a few of her different trips that she's taken and experienced in different ways since becoming a parent. So I hope you enjoy and here is my chat with Emily Harrington.
Mina (01:40)
All right, hello, Emily. Thank you for coming on the podcast.
Emily Harrington (01:43)
Hi, thank you for having me. Excited to be here.
Mina (01:46)
You're welcome. You're welcome. So first of all, where are you at the moment?
Emily Harrington (01:51)
I am in Andermatt, Switzerland, so sort of the southern Alps on the border with Ticino, and we are here skiing for the month. Yeah. We do, actually. This is the third season we've been here, and last year it was pretty terrible. Europe had a pretty bad snow year. And this year, they're still saying it's subpar, like the locals are.
Mina (01:57)
Oh nice.
Oh, amazing. And have you got good snow?
Yeah.
Emily Harrington (02:21)
To us, it's all just so fun. Like, I love skiing. I love skiing in the Alps. It's so different than the US. I compare it more to like big wall climbing instead of like sport climbing or bouldering is like skiing back home in the US. It's just more involved. Like it's much more involved. It's a little bit more adventurous. It's still about the skiing, but you kind of have to have other skills in order to get to where you want to go a lot of times.
Mina (02:24)
Yeah.
nice.
Okay.
Oh, that's interesting.
Okay, yeah, I'm not a skier. I'm like, I mean, I have skied, right? But I learned as an adult, I'm definitely not a kind of seasoned skier. So I actually didn't realize the difference there. If anything, I'd have guessed that the mountains and things were bigger in the States because it feels like everything's bigger in North America. Ha ha ha.
Emily Harrington (02:52)
So it's fun.
Mm-hmm.
No, it's, yeah, no, it's actually completely the opposite. Here it's way bigger, the lifts take you up way, you know, they're just, all the runs are way longer.
Yeah, and it's just like, it's way more involved. Everything's above treeline here, so it just feels so much bigger and so much more vast. And the access here is different. You know, they have lifts everywhere and you can get up to the craziest places. And in the U.S., we don't have that as much. So.
Mina (03:26)
Yeah, of course, okay.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, okay, so there's a bit more infrastructure and yeah. Yeah.
Emily Harrington (03:40)
way more. And it's, yeah, we love, I love both, like back home, you know, in order to get to where, in order to get to the wild places, you have to walk a really long way and there's generally nobody around. And here it's like, if you're in Chamonix and you're taking the Aguila Medi up, you get to the wildest place and you're with, you know, hundreds of other tourists. But I kind of love both for different reasons.
Mina (03:50)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, I can see that. And did I see on your social media that Arrow has already started skiing?
Emily Harrington (04:12)
Yeah, I mean, if you want to call it that, he has kind of slid down a small slope between our legs. And we're kind of just like not trying to keep it fun, obviously not trying to push it. There's a lot of like snacks involved and he usually skis for like 10 minutes and it's really just, we just kind of want him to get used to the gear and wearing a helmet and having boots on and all
Mina (04:19)
Yeah.
Nice.
Yeah.
nice.
Yeah, the feel of
Emily Harrington (04:40)
Yeah.
Mina (04:40)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's cool. And for reference, you said he's 14 months. Yeah. So yeah, still. Yeah, nice. That's amazing that he can get used to that so soon. We've done a similar thing, like starting our little one early on a balance bike, and it's amazing how quickly they get it. Like not that long after walking. Yeah.
Emily Harrington (04:44)
He's 14 months, yeah, and he just started walking. So, you know, he's not very stable.
Oh yeah, we have one of those too. Totally, it's awesome. Yeah, it's just, it's all been so fun kind of introducing him to everything.
Mina (05:04)
Yeah.
Yeah, that's cool. And I mean, I hope it goes without saying that there are so many things that we could talk to you about on a podcast to do with climbing, because you're obviously a multidisciplinary athlete and you're very experienced. But we really wanted to talk to you, do like a deep dive focus today on the transition to motherhood and everything that comes with that. So obviously, Aro is going to be central to our conversation. He's 14 months old. He's your first child. And I guess it'd be really nice
some insight from you into, I guess, various different ways that that's impacted yours and Adrian's lives as professional athletes.
Emily Harrington (05:47)
Yeah, and it was very interesting because Adrian and I are 10 years apart. He's 10 years older than me. And so I think in a lot of ways I wasn't as ready as he was. He's been ready maybe for the last few years and you know with what he does in his style of climbing and skiing and ski mountaineering it's a lot higher risk in a lot of ways and
Mina (05:53)
Okay, yeah
Emily Harrington (06:14)
For the last few years, he's just been kind of talking about how he, he's maybe ready for the next phase of life. He's ready to not take as much risk. He's ready to not be as selfish with his time. And so it's kind of been a conversation for the last few years between us of him being, you know, into his mid forties and starting to just not push, but, but say like, I'm ready when you're ready, basically.
Mina (06:40)
Yeah.
Emily Harrington (06:41)
And for me, I was, you know, in my early thirties and kind of just like, oh, I don't know if I'm there yet. I still, there's a lot of things I want to do. And just really worried that having a child would kind of take away our ability to do adventures together. It's one of the cornerstones of our relationship is the ability to go out and have fun adventures. The two of us, it's kind of, yeah, it's one of the most important parts of.
our relationship. And so for me, there was a lot of fear around losing that. And it took me a while to come around to the idea of, of yeah, just taking that step. It was, it was hard for me, but at the same time, I had a lot of conversations with women who were getting to that age where it was, it was, it was becoming hard to get pregnant. And that was something that
started to really stress me out, honestly. I started worrying like, oh no, what if I, what if I all of a sudden I decide too late and then I can't get pregnant? And so I think that it's a conversation that's an important one to have because oftentimes we do skip over that. It's really stressful, especially, you know, for a woman when you get to your mid thirties, it's like you wanna have all this life and you wanna live all this life before you have a child and then oftentimes it can,
feel pretty stressful later on when it's suddenly hard to have a child. And I've had a lot of friends who have encountered that. Um, and so even though I don't think I was totally ready to have a kid, um, there was this, this internal struggle and stress that, oh my God, what if I can't get pregnant? And, and that was sort of when we started trying is because
Adrian was ready. I wasn't totally ready, but I also was like, Oh my God, if I want this, I kind of have to go for it, even though I'm not totally ready.
Mina (08:39)
Yeah, yeah, I can see that. And there's so much uncertainty through the whole thing, isn't there? Like, you don't know, it might take you two years to get pregnant, and by that point, you might be ready. Or it could happen straight away. Ha ha!
Emily Harrington (08:50)
Exactly. Yeah. And that was also my idea. I was like, exactly. I was like, Oh, it might take us a year. It might take us two years. We had all these plans. But I, you know, I think luckily for us, I got pregnant right away. But it was also very surprising. I was like, Oh, I'm supposed to go on an expedition. Adrian says to go on an expedition. Like, what do we do?
Mina (09:05)
Mm-hmm.
Sure, yeah, then the reality is like, oh right, we're doing this.
Yeah, of course. And I wanted to ask you about that, and I guess that leads into how pregnancy was for you, because you had that expedition to Baffin Island, didn't you, where you made a beautiful film called Earthside, and the trip looked amazing. But watching it, I was really like, having been pregnant myself, I was like, oh, I wonder what that was like, that inner turmoil. And obviously you talk about that a bit in the film, so it's not like it's sidelined as a topic. But how was that for you?
Emily Harrington (09:24)
Okay.
Mina (09:46)
How did you feel?
Emily Harrington (09:48)
Yeah, I was and it was like, it was actually pretty tumultuous. My first trimester, I had, I think they call it like a subchorionic hemorrhage. So I actually had like a lot of, I had a lot of bleeding really early on in my pregnancy and I thought that I had miscarried. So that was like really traumatic. And I remember actually calling Hillary, I was like, I just had a miscarriage. Like I don't, you know, I'm still going to go on this trip.
Mina (09:59)
Okay.
Mm-hmm.
Emily Harrington (10:17)
but I don't know how I feel right now and all these things. And then I actually went to the hospital and they did an ultrasound and they're like, oh no, there's still a heartbeat. It's just, again, something no one tells you. And I was like, really? I just thought for sure that that's what just happened. And then it was a little bit high, my pregnancy was a little bit high risk for a few weeks. And so I was actually very much on the fence about whether or not I was going on that trip. And...
Mina (10:31)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Emily Harrington (10:46)
In the end, it turned out to as the pregnancy progressed, I think I was around like eight or nine weeks when they were like, okay, now things look to be totally fine and normal. You're having a normal pregnancy, you should feel, you know, you should feel free to go on this trip if you feel comfortable. And so that was, it was definitely a hard decision to make. But at the same time, it was one that I
Mina (10:57)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Emily Harrington (11:12)
I, it felt right. Like, I don't know how else to explain it. Like it felt like a good, it felt very much within my comfort zone. It felt like I was actually feeling relatively okay. I wasn't super sick. Luckily, like a lot of women get in their first trimester. I had a little bit of nausea, but otherwise I felt more or less okay. And I had, you know, one of my close friends, Hillary, who.
Mina (11:15)
Mm-hmm.
Hmm, yeah.
Emily Harrington (11:38)
had been on, she basically had been in the same situation as me. She went on an expedition while she was pregnant in her first trimester and she was like, you can do this if you want and I will be there and it's going to be okay. Like if you want to do this, if you want to go skiing, like you can take as much or as little risk as you want. She'd been to Baffin Island before on another trip and so it really was just, it turned out to be this perfect setup for me.
and I felt super comfortable going into it.
Mina (12:09)
Oh, that's good, yeah. And good that you didn't have too much sickness as well. I kind of wondered watching the film. I was like, is Emily vomiting off camera in between some of these things or is she one of the lucky ones? I was one of the lucky ones with my first little boy as well, I wasn't sick.
Emily Harrington (12:25)
I felt quite good in the first trimester. And I just had this amazing, amazing experience in Baffin with these amazing women. And it really was a very positive, it was a positive thing for me to be able to go out and have that experience and have that trip and kind of figure out where my risk tolerance was at the time. And yeah, it just felt like the stars aligned and I had this...
perfect adventure before I got too pregnant. Ha ha ha.
Mina (12:58)
Yeah, and it's nice to have that with some female friends as well, like before you enter this new chapter. And it sounds like you were also like super sensible. And you know, there was a particular line that you talk about in the film called Polar Moon, and you decided not to ski that. So, you know, what were your thoughts around that? Was it just instinct?
Emily Harrington (13:01)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I mean, I kind of just felt like, you know, it was the type of line where those two girls, Christina and Brett, were super stoked on it. It was kind of their trip that they had planned all along and they were there to go do First Descent. And, you know, for me, I just wasn't in that place at all. I was definitely like, it was a very like instant, oh, that's like, not an objective that I want to be a part of.
Mina (13:41)
sure.
Emily Harrington (13:49)
that's totally for those two girls to go out and kind of crush and have an adventure together and then Hillary and I were more like, yeah, well, we're just gonna go skiing and keep it chill. I mean as chill as you can keep it in Baffin, which is still like these massive gorgeous cool wars that we were skiing. But you know, in terms of risk, it felt very much within my comfort zone.
Mina (14:01)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, nice. And another thing I wanted to ask you about with your pregnancy was...
that you shared your journey and your kind of continuation of climbing and skiing publicly, I guess through films like that, but also through social media. And how is that? I know as someone that climbs and is also a mother, like I've always been quite nervous about how much I share on social media because I can be quite sensitive and social media can be quite a grizzly place. And did you have mostly positive interactions or was it a bit of a mixed bag?
Emily Harrington (14:40)
Yeah.
Yeah, I had mostly really positive interactions. I think the thing about it is, and I suppose you kind of adjust to this, the more you share and the more, you know, in the public eye you become, but it's like you could have a hundred positive supportive comments, but that one negative one is what kind of digs in and kind of that's the one that stings and that's the one that you feel. And I've had a couple experiences like that.
But there is a perspective there. You kind of have to go back and remember like, okay, actually, most people are super supportive. And I get a lot of messages from women kind of telling me how important it was to see like both sides and see that I continued to climb and, you know, to talk about it and kind of explain what I was going through. I think that. That part should be more important to me than the random kind of.
Mina (15:46)
Mmm.
Emily Harrington (15:47)
in some ways like ignorant comment of you're, you know, you're being irresponsible or you're endangering your unborn child or stuff like that. Like I have learned to kind of let it roll off my back, but it's taken a while and I do have like a, you know, I do have like a rule now and that is like a lot of times I just don't read comments like on YouTube or whatever it is. I just, I just try not to read them because, you know.
Mina (16:02)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Emily Harrington (16:16)
It also takes a lot of time. So yeah.
Mina (16:20)
I was gonna say that apart from anything else, it's probably when you have a big audience, it's like super time consuming if you read everything.
Emily Harrington (16:27)
Yeah, I just, yeah, I try not to anymore. Ha ha.
Mina (16:34)
Hmm, yeah. And I think you have to be kind of strong in your own decisions and where you've drawn certain lines. And there's so much context that goes with it, people that...
Don't climb, for example, even don't climb at all will see things and be like horrified, but it's really hard to have that context of like how easy something is for a professional athlete to do. You know, I used the analogy once of someone, I was like, I'm like a runner that's going for a walk, trying to explain, you know, like top roping in a pregnancy harness when you're like 36 weeks. And people are like, you're rock climbing. And you're like, wow, I'm kind of, it's like walking on the pavement really in terms of like risk level.
Emily Harrington (16:57)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sort of, yeah, totally. Exactly, exactly. And I had, like, thankfully, living in Tahoe, it's just a very active place and a lot of pregnant women ski. I mean, I skied probably five times before I gave birth and I was in my third trimester. And so a lot of times, you know, my doctor was very familiar with skiing and would.
Mina (17:15)
Something like that.
Mm-hmm.
Emily Harrington (17:38)
kind of be like, oh, well, like, you know, if it's anything like skiing, I think that it's probably totally fine if you're well within your comfort zone and all of that. So, you know, I tried to listen to the professionals and in most cases, my OB was very supportive of my decision making around, you know, continuing activity.
Mina (17:40)
Mm-hmm.
That's nice, yeah, that's cool to have someone there with that medical background that also gets your sporting background is really cool. Yeah. And so then moving into kind of postpartum, I mean, it'd be interesting to hear what kind of birth experience you had if you're kind of happy to talk about that, because it gives us a bit of a context into how your kind of initial postpartum period and like return to climbing was. Did you have a kind of straightforward birth experience?
Emily Harrington (18:04)
Yeah.
Yep.
Yeah, I had a pretty straightforward birth experience. I was a week and a day late. So I was actually induced, which was not the most pleasant experience. But everything went very quickly as soon as I was induced. I think my entire labor experience was six hours. So it all happened very fast. But as a result, it was like really, it was like from zero to 100.
Mina (18:34)
Okay.
Mm-hmm.
Oh wow.
Emily Harrington (18:57)
like incredibly, incredibly painful. But other than that, it was a very normal birth experience. I did have some tearing, so I had stitches, but otherwise it was pretty just, you know, I don't know, basic average birth experience, very average size baby. Go
Mina (18:59)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, sure. Sure, sure. Yeah.
when you returned to kind of like that initial postpartum period, what did that look like for you in terms of like returning to climbing and also skiing and things like that? Was there like a long period of time where you were just focused on kind of the basics of recovery before going back to sport specific stuff or did you go back quite quickly? How did that look like? What did that look like for you?
Emily Harrington (19:44)
I mean, I tried to be patient and I tried to, you know, be gentle with myself, but I did get back fairly quickly. I got back to climbing within a few weeks, just pretty mellow, what I would consider mellow climbing. And then skiing, we actually had the best season of snow. Like basically my...
Arrow was born and it just started snowing in Tahoe and it didn't stop snowing. And it was essentially the biggest winter of our lives. And so there was a lot of stoke around skiing. And I definitely pushed it on that front. I went skiing, I think, like 10 days after giving birth. And it was, yeah, it was like, yeah. You know, and granted it was like pretty mellow.
Mina (20:21)
Hehehehehehe
Whoa, good effort.
Emily Harrington (20:40)
You know, it was relatively mellow, relatively shorter days, but I did get back really quickly. And that's actually where I got the most negativity on social media and all of that from other moms and other women was like, you're going back too fast. Like you're, you know, you're gonna ruin your uterus. Like all of these, like, again, just like random things that were a little bit insulting and.
Mina (20:51)
interesting.
Emily Harrington (21:08)
That was kind of the hardest, honestly, with people telling me that I shouldn't be doing what I'm doing. And I was like, I'm just trying to feel sane and do my thing and I have a baby and just figuring it out. It's like everyone else. Yeah, that was an interesting one, actually. I got a lot of negativity for climbing too soon or skiing too soon, all of those things. But ultimately, you gotta do what feels good.
Mina (21:15)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
That's so interesting that it's that side of things that you got more criticism.
Emily Harrington (21:38)
Yeah, it was. It was surprising. I think that's why I was, I think that's why it affected me, is I was a little caught off guard. Because I was like, wait a minute, like, why is everyone telling me what I should be doing? After I have a baby? Yeah.
Mina (21:47)
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely.
Emily Harrington (21:58)
but I don't know, I think there's this whole, and I get it, I actually kinda get it. I think there's a whole getting back to, getting back and getting your body back, and there's this whole culture behind that, and maybe I think there's this idea that as female professional athletes coming back really soon perpetuates that ideal and puts pressure on women and all of that, but I was just trying to do what felt good, and I'm naturally someone who's gonna push it.
Mina (22:00)
And then.
Emily Harrington (22:29)
Ha ha!
Mina (22:30)
Yeah, yeah, and also I think as a community we have to understand that there's a range of experiences. There's a range of birth experiences, there's a range of postpartum experiences, and all of those things. And there's so much complexity that goes into how you feel postpartum that there is gonna be this range of when people go back and when people feel safe and comfortable going back. And it should be acceptable at either extreme of that really and anywhere in the middle.
Emily Harrington (22:52)
Yeah, absolutely.
It should, yeah. Yeah, but I do kind of understand. Like if you had a really traumatic birth and it was really hard postpartum physically to get back, I think that there can be some sort of like, put, you know, a little bit of, I don't know what the word is, like resentment or kind of like a little bit of, yeah, just kind of feeling shitty when you see other women kind of getting back at it really quickly.
Mina (23:08)
Mm.
Emily Harrington (23:24)
I think because there is such a wide range of experiences and it is so emotional and you're kind of going through so much, I think that when you're struggling, it can be hard to see on social media when it looks like someone is having an easy time, which it wasn't easy. It's not easy raising a child and having a newborn and being postpartum, but sometimes I think you can kind of gather that from that tiny little sliver of social media that you see.
Mina (23:25)
Yeah.
Mm.
Yeah, it's that classic Instagram highlights issue, isn't it? That we don't see the full picture. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Emily Harrington (23:57)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, which maybe I could have done a better job of telling the full picture, but I didn't feel terrible after giving birth. Like I was more or less just, I think, middle of the road, normal.
Mina (24:13)
Mmm, yeah.
And I wanted to ask you about a bit about body image because you've openly discussed kind of body image previously on podcasts. And of course there was the film Light directed by Caroline Treadway that you took part in. And how did that kind of history of feelings and behaviours interact with your experience postpartum? Because obviously it's a time of like huge bodily change. I mean, I remember after my son, I was like, oh, I still look six months pregnant but there's no baby in there anymore. And things change really rapidly.
Emily Harrington (24:23)
Mm-hmm.
Mina (24:44)
but you know, I certainly felt like my body was really alien to me, and there was certainly a bit of like, whoa, what's going on here, and what does the future look like?
Emily Harrington (24:55)
Yeah, it was hard. It was really hard. I, you know, I thankfully had this little crew of women who were going through it pretty much at the same time as me, or, you know, they were six months ahead of me. And we have this little WhatsApp group that we were kind of chatting on and it was really helpful to have that support to be able to talk about those things to be able to be really vulnerable and be like, I don't
Like My body feels totally different. I don't know if it's ever gonna be back to how it was before. I miss it. Like, you know, I'm really struggling. And it was just kind of, it was hard. It was really hard. I think as an athlete, it's really hard. to kind of, even though, you know, You can say all the right things, like female bodies are amazing and we are amazing and we do amazing things and postpartum is this amazing time, but...
multiple things can be true at once. It was this beautiful, magical time, but it was also really hard emotionally and physically, and just hard to feel not like myself. And I think one thing that I really underestimated was the whole like breastfeeding process and how hard that would be and how taxing and how time consuming and how sort of like trapped I would feel by it.
Mina (26:19)
Hmm, yeah, especially in those early days where it can be like, you know, periods of cluster feeding and just, it can feel like, like you say, a mixture of this amazing bonding experience and just like overwhelming at the same time. It's a lot.
Emily Harrington (26:36)
Totally overwhelming. And so, so much. It's so much. Yeah, I really underestimated it.
Mina (26:46)
Yeah. And actually you mentioned on social media that you stopped breastfeeding quite recently. Was it November 2023? So quite recently.
Emily Harrington (26:53)
Yeah, I think end of October, yeah, was when it was kind of, it just naturally, I wanted to go a whole year, but Arrow was kind of not as into it anymore. And it was, you know, getting to the point where I just wasn't breastfeeding him very often. It was like maybe a few minutes every day. And yeah, it just, it just kind of naturally tapered off, which I think was again, like a very, you know, a very fortunate process. Like we were both sort of over it.
And it totally changed everything. My body changed, my brain changed, like my energy levels changed, everything shifted. And it was kind of crazy because I kind of just had accepted that I was, I think I almost didn't remember what it was like to not be pregnant or postpartum or breastfeeding. It's kind of like two years. And I didn't realize how...
Mina (27:34)
Mmm.
Emily Harrington (27:51)
tired I was and how much energy I was expending. And yeah, it was just this crazy realization of, oh my God, like I kind of feel like I used to feel, I think, but that was so long ago.
Mina (28:04)
Yeah, it's like you're recognising this old version of yourself or your energy levels that suddenly comes knocking and you're like, oh, that was missing.
Emily Harrington (28:08)
Yeah, it was so funny. Yeah, you like, I didn't even remember that was missing. I just thought I was, I just thought this is how I am. Like this is, this is who I am. This is what it's gonna be like. And then as soon as I stopped, I think women, I think all women have, again, have a very different experience with breastfeeding and with stopping breastfeeding. And for me, it was this dramatic shift.
Mina (28:35)
Yeah, I've certainly heard that and that there can be quite an emotional like come down almost as well from the kind of hormonal changes
Emily Harrington (28:42)
Yeah, yeah, and I didn't experience that, but I've had friends that were like really terrified to stop breastfeeding because they got so much like serotonin from the act of actually breastfeeding, but that wasn't me. So when I quit, it was just like, I just felt like I had more energy and I felt like I had my body back in a way.
Mina (28:53)
Mmm.
Yeah, it's so interesting. It's amazing how such a kind of biological process can be so varied for different people. Just like some women are horrifically sick for nine months when they're pregnant and some women feel great. Like, you'd think that there would be a bit more like of a standard experience, yeah. Which makes the whole thing really hard because you don't know what you're committing to.
Emily Harrington (29:20)
Yeah.
Consistency, yeah, totally. And I guess, yeah, it does because it's hard. You don't know what you're gonna get and then you don't know what kind of kid you're gonna get, like what kind of infant or newborn you're gonna have. And I think that's why, that's the biggest lesson I've learned is you cannot compare what you're going through to what anyone else is going through or what they will go through. Or if you have another and go through a second pregnancy, that also could be
completely different than the first. So I think the biggest lesson I learned through all of this is to just never compare. Like your experience is gonna be totally unique to you and it's gonna be beautiful and amazing, but it's also gonna be really hard and really emotional. No matter what happens, it's always gonna be all the things and it's gonna be your unique experience.
Mina (29:58)
Yep.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, and that you can't always figure it out. And I think that kind of translates into parenting as well. Like.
you can't always figure out the reason that they didn't sleep well that night and then they slept well the next night or whatever it is, or the reason you're feeling sick or you're not feeling sick. Like sometimes you just have to kind of play the cards you're dealt, but it makes, you know, you think, I've certainly found it's made me quite, like more responsive than kind of a planner. Like I think I used to like to kind of like have a schedule and a plan and like, you know, I knew what I was doing and why I was doing it
Emily Harrington (30:31)
totally.
Mm-hmm.
Mina (30:55)
would be whereas now I feel like I'm way more responsive to my environment because that actually just works better.
Emily Harrington (31:01)
Yeah, you're more adaptable and resilient because you'd have no choice.
Mina (31:07)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's slowly like steam-roll it out of you.
Emily Harrington (31:12)
Yeah, and like I think it's I think it's quite cool actually because you can go into it with I think I've gotten rid of a lot of bad habits actually through parenting and pregnancy and motherhood because I Just think I like you I was a planner and if things didn't go my way It was really hard and I was really hard on myself and I really struggled and I was total perfectionist and you just can't
Mina (31:23)
Okay, interesting.
Emily Harrington (31:40)
It's just way too hard to be that way when you have a kid. You have to be adaptable, you have to be flexible. Nothing is ever gonna go the way that you want it to and therefore that perfectionism, that obsession with having everything go as planned and being super bummed when it doesn't, you just get practice with things not working out. And then you...
Mina (31:43)
Mmm. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Emily Harrington (32:06)
kind of learn how to go with the flow. And I think that that's helped me a lot mentally in all aspects of my life now.
Mina (32:11)
Yeah.
No, I can see that. And it probably really changes the way that you set goals, I imagine. Has it changed? Have your goals in climbing kind of changed a lot since being a mother? And if so, how have they changed?
Emily Harrington (32:32)
Yeah. So that was a, that was a struggle that I had last year was I had this whole plan of I'm going to get back, I'm going to start training really hard and I'm going to go back to Yosemite and I'm going to try to free climb El Cap and it's going to be like this whole thing, I'm going to come back and I, I went to Yosemite and I was just, I was actually terrified. I didn't want to be up high. I didn't want to be in exposed places. I, I just felt scared and
like this very visceral feeling of I do not want to be there. And I've never had that before with like, I mean, I've had it before like in the mountains and things like that, like, oh, I don't want to take this level of risk. And in my mind, it's not that risky climbing up there, but for some reason it was just this feeling of this isn't what I want to be doing. I really can't, I really don't think I can emotionally handle it. And it was a good realization of, oh, I can listen to that.
I can listen to what I actually feel, what I feel is true for me, and I can shift and I can come up with a different goal, something that's more motivating. And so my goals have changed. And I think right now I'm more excited to be sport climbing and be trying to get stronger and work on my strength and all of those things that are just a little bit less mentally taxing than climbing.
on a big wall in an exposed place or, you know, my skiing is, I'm starting to feel a little bit better about taking risk and thinking about it. Whereas before I think it was this very emotional response of like, I don't wanna take any risk. I want everything to be mellow. I don't want, you know, I don't wanna be scared at all. I don't wanna be worried. And so it's gotten a little bit better and I'm a little bit more open to.
going back and climbing big walls. But last year it was really hard for me to feel like I should be ready and I'm back and really not actually wanting to be there. And I think over the last year, I've learned to kind of listen to that voice and adapt and be a little bit more nimble. And it's helped me kind of realize what I actually want out of climbing.
Mina (34:42)
Yeah.
Emily Harrington (34:56)
And I think it's a much more, I think it's a much more genuine approach.
Mina (35:05)
Yeah, yeah. And did you kind of have, do you feel like you had any insight into those feelings before you got to the valley, or is it literally like you started climbing and it was a bit of a shock that you were like, oh wow, this isn't where I wanna be?
Emily Harrington (35:19)
I had
Mina (35:26)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Emily Harrington (35:49)
And then I got there and I realized I don't even want to be up on the wall. Like it's too much. And I don't know. I think it was a combination of being stressed about the logistics and then also just actually not wanting to do that kind of climbing. And so, yeah, I've, I've definitely like shifted. It took me going there to kind of realize and, and then it took me not beating myself up about it and being like, okay, well I needed to go there.
Mina (35:59)
Mmm.
Mmm.
Emily Harrington (36:18)
kind of work through it and realize that it's not where I wanted to be and, and then reset and come up with, with new goals that were a little bit, um, you know, mellower and a little bit logistically less challenging. Cause Yosemite is just such a hard place to exist anyway. Yeah.
Mina (36:37)
Yeah, even without a child, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. And you definitely see, or I certainly see a lot of new parents bouldering a lot, especially in like the first year. I certainly did. I mean, I bouldered anyway before, but I was kind of more in a sport climbing kind of groove. And then as soon as I had Isaac, I was like, bouldering is nice and easy. Not easy as in the climbing is not easy, but like the logistics are easier, right? Has that been something that you guys have done or are interested in? I don't feel like I've seen much
bouldering stuff from you.
Emily Harrington (37:10)
Well, no, and I think I really need help, Mina, because I thought that bouldering would be really easy with a baby. I was convinced that this would be my time to be a boulderer. And yes, we got sucked into sport climbing pretty much right away because we had a third. We're super fortunate to have a nanny who is a climber who comes climbing with us and either helps take care of Aero or is a belayer. We climb in a three.
Mina (37:23)
Yeah.
nice.
Emily Harrington (37:39)
It's pretty tight, like we're pretty dialed. But Adrian left, he went on a ski trip in January and I was in Vegas and I was like, okay, I'm gonna boulder, I'm gonna go bouldering. And I don't think I've got it figured out because it felt so much harder to me than going sport climbing. Like I had so much stuff, I was carrying so much stuff and then like the, you know, a lot of times when you go sport climbing, I kind of, maybe I'm just not tailoring the experience well enough because a lot of times when I go sport climbing,
I pick a spot that's got a lot of flat ground and there's sometimes a nice cave for him to nap and he kind of stayed in one place the whole time. And with bouldering, we were just like moving from one boulder to the next and I had all this stuff. And then the ground was super uneven so Arrow couldn't be crawling around because he was gonna fall between two boulders.
Mina (38:24)
Mmm.
Emily Harrington (38:30)
By the end of the day, I felt like I had been on an expedition. I carried all this stuff. I was so tired from carrying things, like carrying pads and carrying all this stuff and carrying him that I was like, bouldering is not easy. I don't understand how it's easier.
Mina (38:38)
Mm.
I guess it depends a lot on the venue actually as well. Like we've done a lot of trips to font where it's quite flat.
Emily Harrington (38:50)
I think it does.
Mina (38:55)
the walk-ins are pretty chill, flat, pram-able. Like we've got one of those off-road prams. So when he was younger, we could just, you know, and we could stick loads of other stuff in the pram and like the storage of the pram. And you know, so you'd have pads on your back and then you'd roll this pram in. And then we would basically, but we would still, you know, rather than going from one boulder to the next, to the next, to the next, we would, like, I would have a project and David, my husband, would have a project. And we would maybe go to his in the morning
Emily Harrington (39:01)
Yeah.
Mina (39:25)
I would play with Isaac and then Isaac would have a nap in the afternoon and I would climb. We'd have gone to my project, timed going to my project with his nap because it was always a bit easier mentally for me to climb when he was sleeping. Whereas David found it, he could like double.
Emily Harrington (39:32)
Great.
Yeah.
Separate, yeah.
Mina (39:44)
Yeah, he could like separate a bit more and, whereas I found it like if he was awake or, I would just, I was really distracted. So then I would often climb when he was sleeping. Yeah.
Emily Harrington (39:53)
Yeah, that was another thing with bouldering. Yeah, I felt like with bouldering, I was more distracted when he was awake. I don't know why. I guess because I felt like I could tend to him because I could just step off the boulder. Whereas if you're like sport climbing and just kind of let it all go. But I think I'm just so used to sport climbing and it's very comfortable for me. But I also just think Fontainebleau is easy with kids. It's not necessarily bouldering.
Mina (40:05)
Yeah, you're down on the ground, aren't you? Yeah, you're more available.
Mmm.
Emily Harrington (40:23)
I think that's what I learned.
Mina (40:23)
Yeah, you might be right. Yeah, not all. Yeah, I mean, you're not gonna go to like upper chaos, are you, with a toddler? I'm sure people do, right? But it's not an easy choice.
Emily Harrington (40:31)
No, but we are. Yeah. We are supposed to go to Rocklands this July. And I've never been before. And I'm excited, I think. I do think there's that I've heard there's like quite a bit of hiking and stuff, but we'll figure it out. And we're going to be with Paige Claussen and her husband and they they're pretty dialed. So I think it'll be like a good family experience.
Mina (40:40)
Oh nice.
Nice.
Yeah, they'll know the best crags to go to. Yeah, and the walks there from my experience, I haven't been for a few years, so I haven't been to quite a few of the newer areas, but the kind of quite established areas, although they may have longer, like semi-long hikes, they're not super steep or kind of strenuous ones. Mostly.
Emily Harrington (40:59)
I'm trying to set my expectations though. Yeah.
Yeah, good. I just need to figure out my systems. Like we figured out sport climbing and I think I just need to dial in my bouldering systems.
Mina (41:31)
Yeah. And does Aro still sleep in the day a couple of naps or? Because I think that's key for me was like timing it with his with Isaac's sleep.
Emily Harrington (41:37)
He does? Yeah.
He does one nap a day, but he's not a great napper. He's a great night sleeper. And then during the day, it's a little bit hit or miss. Like if we're at home, he's way better. Out at the crag, he'll sometimes nap for an hour. But like, again, the day we went bouldering, see this is my one anecdotal experience. He refused to take a nap the whole day. It was the one day in his entire life he just didn't nap. And that's why I was like, bouldering doesn't work.
Mina (41:46)
Mmm. Okay.
Yeah, yeah, it's too stimulating. Yeah, I guess that's part and parcel, isn't it, of being a parent is that they're all so different, but they're all so changing. You know, you get used to one set of like, almost like child rules of like, this is how they operate. And just as you get used to it, they're like, oh, I'm gonna drop that nap or, you know, I don't do this anymore. And so you've got to be so flexible.
Emily Harrington (42:13)
Yeah.
Totally. They're gonna change. Yeah. And totally. And we've had this whole like, our like parenting philosophy is that he has to be like resilient. And so we're trying to like, kind of roll with it. And, you know, even though he doesn't nap, like we're still gonna bring him climbing. Like we're still gonna, we took him to Nepal on a track and we were like, he's gonna, he's gonna sleep in a tent in a down suit.
Mina (42:40)
I'm sorry.
Yeah.
Emily Harrington (42:55)
He's gonna figure it out and maybe he doesn't sleep as well, but it's all gonna be okay. So our whole thing is like, he's gonna be resilient no matter what. Ha ha.
Mina (43:03)
Yeah, wow, yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. How was that? Because that seemed like quite a big undertaking with a young child.
Emily Harrington (43:11)
It was, it was a big undertaking. It was, I think I went into it with, I set my expectations. I was like, this could be a nightmare. Like we've never done, you know, cause it's two from the US, it's two quite long flights and we'd only ever done one, like overnight flights. So that kind of worked out, you know, and then the flights where they're like awake for 10 hours are kind of the ones where they're night. It's a nightmare the whole time. Cause you can't entertain them for 10 hours.
Mina (43:23)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah.
Emily Harrington (43:40)
And so I was just really stressed about the travel. And then I was stressed about him getting sick. And then I was stressed about altitude. And I just had all these, but then I just decided that I was gonna just go with the flow and whatever happens, he's gonna be fine. We're all gonna be fine. It might just, we might just be really tired. And I went into it with those types of expectations. Like it's gonna be really hard, but we're gonna figure it out. And it actually turned out way, way easier than I thought. He, he was
Mina (43:57)
Mm-hmm.
Oh, that's good to hear.
Emily Harrington (44:11)
much more adaptable than I thought he would be. And we had spoken to a pediatrician about signs of altitude sickness in non-communicative children. And so we were really prepared and we kind of knew what we were in for. And I think he did, in all honesty, he did better than we did at altitude in a lot of ways. He just seemed
Mina (44:35)
Mmm.
Emily Harrington (44:40)
like he was kind of thriving. And it was pretty amazing actually. It was a trip that I will always cherish, I think, because it was just so much easier and more magical than I thought it could ever be. And that was really special. Yeah, it was cool. It was really cool. It is, it's easy to be like, oh, it's too hard.
Mina (44:59)
That's amazing. Yeah, that's so cool. Because it's so easy to not do these things. It's so easy to just be like, it's too hard.
Emily Harrington (45:10)
Yeah. And the cool thing was like, I also witnessed a much different like experience with child rearing. So like, you know, in our culture, I feel like it's just primarily on the parents to take care of the child. And then we got to Nepal and we had, you know, Adrian's company has been employing a Sherpa team there for decades at this point. And they're very, we're very close with all of them. They're very much like family. And they essentially like...
Mina (45:17)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Harrington (45:40)
took Arrow the minute we got there and just took care of him like the whole time. Like as this like very communal experience, you know, they like didn't even ask. They just like changed his diaper and, you know, took him into the kitchen and we're just like, it was very much like a communal experience of raising a child, you know, and a lot of times a lot of cultures would just be like, oh, he has a dirty diaper and give them back to the parents to deal with it or oh, he's crying.
Mina (46:03)
Mm.
Mm.
Emily Harrington (46:10)
And they just kind of, you know, they just kind of took care of him. And it was really cool to see. And it was really cool to see how he shifted from being a little bit, having a little bit of stranger danger and always wanting to be with us and being really stressed about being away from us. By the end of the trip, he was just totally fine not being with us. And, you know, it was, it was really cool. And it was, it was a fun experience too, cause we got to relax a little bit more.
Mina (46:24)
Mm-hmm.
Mmm.
Emily Harrington (46:39)
because we weren't always having to take care of him.
Mina (46:44)
Yeah, sure, yeah. And does that kind of experience make you feel more relaxed about doing longer trips away from him or expeditions as he gets older?
Emily Harrington (46:54)
Yeah, I think I'm still not quite ready to do like a big long, I'm going to do a two week trip coming up, which that'll be the longest time I'm away from him. And we just did like five days, I just did five days. And we left him with my parents, which totally stressed me out going into it. Because again, I, I think there's this idea that like your kid needs things to be a certain way and you do things a certain way, like
Mina (47:00)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Harrington (47:23)
he needs to nap at a certain time in this certain, you know, in his crib and you know, everything's kind of like regimented that you just get into a routine with your, with your child. And I was just stressed. I was like, Oh my God, my parents are going to take them out to a restaurant for every meal and they're going to like, he's not going to nap on time and he's going to only eat French fries and like all of these stresses. And that probably happened. And then he was fine. And it was awesome. And they loved it. And
Mina (47:43)
Hehe
Mmm.
Emily Harrington (47:52)
he loved it and he was great. And so yes, having those experiences does kind of ease my stress about it. And I think it's gotten a lot easier. In the beginning, it was it was hard to leave him. I didn't think I would be that kind of parent. Like I thought I'd be totally fine leaving my kid. I was kind of scheming ways to like take trips when I was breastfeeding and all of that. And then once he was born, I was like, really, really attached to him.
And so it's been a process and it's been quite hard for me to wanna take trips away from him. But I think it's good for, I do think it's good for both of us. And these experiences have helped me a lot, sort of like let go and have a little bit more trust in others.
Mina (48:39)
Hmm, yeah definitely. It's an interesting dynamic, isn't it? I remember thinking the same before I had a child that it would be...
I would be totally happy with just going away on a climbing trip for a week or something. And to find yourself not wanting to do those things is a strange kind of dynamic. And it sits really, or for me, it certainly sat strangely with my identity, because I was like, but this is what I do. I disappear off on climbing trips. And I was just like, but I feel like I can't admit to the fact that I don't want to go.
Emily Harrington (48:59)
It's so weird, isn't it?
Yeah.
Totally. I mean, yeah, even last year we came here to Switzerland last year and I had trouble like going skiing for the day because I just didn't want to be away from him. I would have to come all the way down to the town for lunch so that I could see him and just know that he was okay and like kind of like feel that I was with him. And it was really, yeah, it was hard and it was really confusing because I just have never known myself to be that way.
And I think I've kind of come to terms with it and gotten, I think the more I've learned to accept it, actually the better I've gotten at like taking those little smaller steps to, you know, having space from him and having some time for myself.
Mina (49:58)
Yeah, exactly, and yeah. And you build up that kind of tolerance or that knowing of what you can, what's fun and what's not fun anymore. And like, is this amount of time, this amount of time feels good, this amount of time actually doesn't feel good and I didn't wanna be there for the last three days. I wish I'd come home a bit earlier or whatever. And that, like you said, that all changes over time, but it's another point of which you need to just be adaptable.
Emily Harrington (50:07)
Yeah.
Yep.
Mina (50:24)
Yeah, no, it sounds like you're doing a great job of figuring it all out. Day by day.
Emily Harrington (50:29)
You know, day by day. And like you said, it changes.
Mina (50:34)
Yeah, of course, yeah. And do you see your goals being different over the next few years as Aro gets older? Do you think stuff like the trip to Yosemite that just didn't feel like it was right or the right time, do you think that stuff will come back into focus or do you think it'll stay how it is for a while?
Emily Harrington (50:55)
I do, I think it will come back into focus. Again, I think it's because I kind of have accepted where I'm at and I've accepted that I need to be a little more patient with myself. And then I think those feelings are allowed to kind of, that motivation is allowed to come back at a pace that's more appropriate for me. You know, instead of like pushing and trying to force myself into a goal or a...
Mina (51:20)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Harrington (51:25)
a mindset that I'm really not feeling. I accepted the place that I'm at right now and kind of shifted my goals and decided to do things that are a little bit, you know, as soon as I did that, as soon as I started focusing on other things that were a little bit easier, a little bit logistically simpler, I've started thinking like, oh, okay, now I think I could be ready for this in the next six months or something like that. And if I'm not, I'm totally okay with it.
Mina (51:51)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Harrington (51:54)
Like I'm totally okay if I'm not in that place. But there is that fire that's starting to kind of like, instead of this dread, like I had a lot of dread going into Yosemite, a lot of like feelings of, you know, just reluctance and I don't have that as much anymore because it's like, I've given myself the freedom to not do it, essentially. And I think when you give yourself the freedom to kind of do what feels right and what feels true for you, then it leaves some space for those.
Mina (51:55)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Emily Harrington (52:24)
those types of more positive motivating feelings to come back. And I think that's where I'm at right now, which is really nice. I had like some ideas for goals this spring, and then I ultimately decided that I wanna stick around Las Vegas, which is where we have like a little piece of land and go sport climbing for a bit, but I am gonna take a little side trip to Yosemite just for a long weekend. And so, you know, it's a compromise.
Mina (52:32)
Mm.
Yeah, you're mixing things up a little bit like testing the water again. And I guess, yeah, sure. And I guess with risk management, there'll be some things that in early motherhood.
Emily Harrington (52:56)
Mm-hmm. Exactly, yeah. But not like diving headfirst into the deep end. Ha ha ha.
Mina (53:10)
like perhaps your comfort zone gets smaller and then that some areas of risk will gradually expand as like you said, the fire comes back and you start to feel more comfortable with this new identity and this icon of identity merge. But then there might also be some elements of risk management that just have fundamentally changed now you're a parent. And I guess it's differentiating between those things like what are the things that are maybe not gonna change and that just feel different now versus the things that will slowly kind of re-expand.
Emily Harrington (53:41)
Yeah. I think that, yeah. And I think that line is always changing, right? Like, I don't know, a year ago, again, a year ago here in Switzerland, I was just like, I don't want to do anything that has any level of risk. I just not even like the smallest chance. Like I just can't handle it. Maybe I'll never be able to handle it. And I started to accept that. Like, maybe I'll never be able to do that. Maybe I won't. And that's okay. But now that we're back,
Mina (53:46)
you
Mm.
Emily Harrington (54:10)
this year, it's shifting again. And I do feel okay with taking a certain level of risk as long as it's very well thought out. Like today, actually, we had a really amazing day of skiing where Adrienne and I worked together really well and we communicated a lot. And we did some things that were like, I wouldn't say dangerous, but I would say things that kind of-
scared us a little bit or like, you know, they give you that feeling of like, okay, I'm, I'm not like doing something reckless, but we're doing things that aren't just super mellow. We're not, we're not, we're not staying super mellow. And it's because we've, we're really calculated and we're talking a lot about what we want to do and how we want to do it. And last year, it just wasn't, I,
Mina (54:49)
Mm.
Yeah, it has a calculated risk attached to it. Yeah.
Emily Harrington (55:07)
It wasn't even in my mind that I could be skiing what we did today. But today it felt really good. I think I had, like, I was thinking a lot about it today. I was like, I am actually quite confident in the conditions and I'm quite confident in myself and we're making really good decisions and we're kind of looking at all of, we're looking at all of the information and it really felt good today, even though there was like a tiny little element of fear.
Mina (55:12)
Mmm.
Mm.
Emily Harrington (55:37)
Um, it was just, it was a nice place to be in. It was a nice place to be like talking about risk instead of before. I was just like, I don't even want to talk about it. I have one, nothing to do with it. It's too scary. I'm too scared. I'll never want to do this again, you know? And it's definitely shifted. And so who knows? Um, I definitely, I think that both Adrian and I talk a lot more about the risks we take and whether or not they're worth it. And I, I think that we will not.
Mina (55:37)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Emily Harrington (56:06)
eliminate risk from our lives because we have a kid now, but I think that we will be very, very selective about the risks that we take.
Mina (56:14)
Mm, yeah, that seems to make a lot of sense. And does that, I wanted to ask you also about him, about Adrian and his work and his, you know, all the expeditions he goes on, presumably he still goes away for some periods of time and his work kind of inevitably comes with some risk and how does he manage that as a new father?
Emily Harrington (56:37)
Yeah, and I would say his, yeah, I would say his, he has kind of the tougher job in terms of the risk and how it relates to his career and parenthood. I think what he does just inherently entails more objective hazard. And so we talk a lot about it and he hasn't been ready in the last year. He's not ready this year to do anything.
that's that risky. He's going to go to Everest this year and guide, which in our world feels relatively, it doesn't feel that risky, honestly. Guiding Everest, using oxygen, that's something that we're both very comfortable with. It's just a long time away, which is, I think, hard. But he's definitely...
Mina (57:05)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Mm.
Emily Harrington (57:32)
starting to talk again about wanting to do something that's a little bit more, you know, a little bit more of a personal goal. So that would entail more risk, skiing a bigger peak, but maybe not this year, maybe next year, stuff like that. It's definitely still on his mind, but we're still in this phase of like, he's still not sure. He's not sure if that's something that he...
Mina (57:56)
Hmm.
Emily Harrington (57:59)
still wants to do if he really, really wants it, or if he doesn't really need it. And if he's totally happy just raising arrow and, you know, guiding and doing things that are well within his risk profile and his risk tolerance. It's something that we just like talk about all the time. And it's definitely a question mark, I would say, as to whether or not he is going to be ready to take that.
you know, level of risk again. I think for sure he's in a different place than he was, you know, in his twenties. And when he was just, you know, really pushing it in terms of like mountaineering and ski mountaineering and all that, I think it's totally changed and he's very comfortable with that.
Mina (58:47)
Yeah, it's really interesting. I feel like we don't often hear from fathers as much in the kind of discussion of parenthood and climbing. And we're always interested to hear how they're handling their kind of respective kind of roles, especially when it comes to professional athletes and things that involve long time away and risk and things like that. So it sounds like you guys have a really good dialogue around it all.
Emily Harrington (59:14)
Yeah.
Yeah, we're trying to talk about it a lot. I do think like there's something biological in women that kind of automatically makes you step back and like refrain from taking risk. I don't know, it's like I feel like something shifted like chemically in me. And I'm not sure that happens to men as much. So I think maybe that could be like, I don't know, maybe that's.
Mina (59:35)
Mmm.
Emily Harrington (59:44)
Maybe that's not true, but it just feels that way to me. Like I felt a very dramatic shift like in my body about toward risk. And I think for him, it was just like a much more gradual thing. And maybe just came with age, honestly, and with like losing people in the mountains and realizing, oh, that's like, this isn't what I really want. This isn't what I care about as much anymore. And kind of why I think it's kind of why he was ready to have a kid five years ago. Is he was kind of like, okay.
Mina (59:52)
Mm.
Emily Harrington (1:00:14)
This is like, I'm good. I've done a lot of things that I wanna do and I feel good about it and I wanna be around.
Mina (1:00:22)
Yeah, yeah, now I can see that definitely. And...
to shift just a little bit the conversation, you obviously train with Lattice, and I wanted to ask you a little bit about kind of training and how that fits into all of this, and kind of separately to motherhood, like how do you focus your training when you do so many disciplines of, like you do lots of disciplines within climbing, but you also then are a high level skier, and then you go away on trips quite a lot. Like how does training fit into that picture for you?
Emily Harrington (1:00:55)
Yeah, it's been, it's always been a struggle of mine to kind of balance all the training and to balance training and my goals in rock climbing because rock climbing is always kind of my number one passion and it's what I love to do most and I want to excel at it, you know, but that said, I love skiing as well and I'm married to a professional skier and mountain guide and someone who
cares deeply about going skiing and it's a big part of our relationship and it's something we do together. It's one of those like adventures that we do together. And so it is super important that we take trips like this and we get to go on bigger ski trips. And it's kind of like, you know, I get my time and he gets his time. And so it's very much like how we compromise and how we operate as a family. And...
Mina (1:01:46)
Mm.
Emily Harrington (1:01:48)
It's always been a big struggle for me. It's always been really hard for me to structure my training and kind of understand what I need to be doing. And honestly, it's always been hard for me to not overdo it. You know, I'm someone who will like go skiing and then I'll go to the gym and try to do a million different things in a gym session and then ski the next day. And then, you know, I've always just not been good at like resting and recovery and all of that.
Mina (1:02:01)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Harrington (1:02:18)
And I think that's where like Lattice has helped me so much is it's given me permission to like not do as much all the time. And I think that's been the biggest thing. And it's given me a structure and some consistency. And kind of this idea that like I have a plan and I can stick to the plan and I don't have to always do more. Like that's-
Mina (1:02:30)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Harrington (1:02:47)
what I've always been guilty of is like doing too much all the time and then I kind of crash and burn and I'm lucky that I haven't really been that injured um but it's just been so helpful to tell Maddie like okay I'm going on a ski trip for a month and I'm gonna have I'm gonna be able to go to gym once a week but then I'm gonna have a hangboard and then she writes this plan and I can feel really good about like doing the 30 minute
Mina (1:02:52)
Mm-hmm. Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Emily Harrington (1:03:15)
hangboard workout at the end of a ski day twice a week. And like knowing that I'm staying consistent, that's just really helped me, I think mentally and emotionally. And then physically I do feel much better, I think, because I'm not over training, I think. And I do love, I do believe that like, me not focusing on rock climbing 12 months a year has been really beneficial for me.
Mina (1:03:23)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Emily Harrington (1:03:45)
I do think that that's why I am still climbing today. And I think it's why I have not had any like dramatic injuries. Um, and I think it's helped my motivation a lot.
Mina (1:03:56)
Mmm.
Yeah, yeah. Now I can see that, that it's like a balance, isn't it? Of like...
doing your sport enough to feel satisfied that you're doing the thing that you love enough and also seeing that progression versus like diversifying and keeping your body intact. Especially when you throw in like pregnancy and postpartum and like, you know, having a kid and everything that goes with that. Did you start training? Like when did like postpartum kind of rehab turn into training for you? Like, cause I think I certainly remember
Emily Harrington (1:04:16)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mina (1:04:35)
my son that there was a time when I was like, I'm rehabbing, and then there was suddenly a moment where I was like, I think I'm training. Like, this feels like training again.
Emily Harrington (1:04:41)
Yeah.
Yeah, it's so funny because I actually wrote Maddie about lattice training, like, I think like three months postpartum or maybe even two months postpartum. And she was like, she was like, you need to, she's like, you should wait a few more months before you kind of start training and you should just do what you do normally and like, you know, climb and, but she was basically like, you need to rehab. Um, and I was like, okay, cool. That's.
Mina (1:05:10)
Mmm.
Emily Harrington (1:05:13)
good advice. Cause I really wanted to like dive back in and start training. And you know, I was really anxious and motivated but I didn't start, I don't think really training until maybe April of last year. So that was like five months postpartum, five-ish months. And it was quite hard at first. I felt pretty terrible. I felt pretty weak, but I actually
Mina (1:05:30)
Mm-hmm.
Emily Harrington (1:05:41)
It was kind of nice because I've always been really afraid to do lattice because I was afraid of the assessment and how like, how hard it would be for my ego. And then with postpartum, it was kind of like, Oh, I'm, I'm like starting from zero. I know that like it's a clean slate. I don't have to be like stressed about the fact that I'm pretty much shit at everything, which I was, um,
Mina (1:06:00)
Mmm.
Hehehe
Emily Harrington (1:06:07)
And it kind of felt nice to be like, okay, we're starting fresh here and kind of just having no ego involved. And it's been a really positive experience. And honestly, it's, it's been kind of funny because I feel really, I feel stronger than I have maybe ever. And it's totally weird. It's like, and I'm just using like, you know, like board climbing. It's about the only like measurement I can use. Um.
Mina (1:06:26)
Wow, that's cool. Yeah, that's really cool.
Mmm.
Emily Harrington (1:06:37)
because we've all been board climbing at this point for however many years. And I'm now sending things on the board that I've never been able to do before. And so I think it's working. Yeah, it feels really good. It's been really fun and really motivating. And I think another part of it is before I had Aero, I had so much time to go climbing and I basically took it for granted and I could climb all the time.
Mina (1:06:42)
Mm.
That's amazing. That's cool. That's awesome. Mm.
Emily Harrington (1:07:07)
And I think having a child gave me this focus and this appreciation for even getting to go train for an hour. And I'm very deliberate and I'm very like, okay, this is my hour, it's my time. And I really enjoy it. I really love it. And before it was a little bit more wishy washy, maybe I wasn't as motivated. Now it's like that time is precious and I'm going to use it well.
Mina (1:07:16)
Mmm.
Emily Harrington (1:07:35)
And I think that's also shifted. I'm much more deliberate about my time.
Mina (1:07:39)
Yeah, and it's probably much higher quality time as well, let you say, because you're doing less volume. So when you do go, you're probably, maybe not as rested in some ways, like sleep wise and stuff, but like more rested from the sport itself. And so you get these kind of like high quality injections. Mm.
Emily Harrington (1:07:44)
Totally.
for sure.
Totally. Yeah. I think that's what's, I think that's part of it for sure.
Mina (1:08:05)
Yeah, and I think it's a real struggle to do that when you're not forced into it. And I think being a parent often forces that kind of structure a little bit more, which depending on where your weaknesses lie, can be really good. Do you know, like if to improve actually, if you're super strong fingers, super strong everything, and actually what you need is endurance, that might be harder to fit in because it's a bit more time consuming. But...
Emily Harrington (1:08:29)
But yeah, but I'm the opposite actually. So that it's been great. And I've never been able to focus on like pure strength because I was always climbing all the time because I needed to climb all the time because that was what I did. And now I don't have the time to climb all the time. So I just have really focused like quality sessions. And I think that's changed a lot in my climbing.
Mina (1:08:31)
Mm.
Oh, that's really interesting to hear. And do you feel when you say go sport climbing, like does that translate? You know, you're saying you can do stuff on the board that you couldn't do before. Are you finding that like crux sections of routes are feeling easier? Is it translating that way?
Emily Harrington (1:09:09)
Yeah, it is translating that way. I mean, I haven't I had one project this winter that I was successful on and it was, um, yeah, it was like, I just, I thought it might be like multi season project, and I just kind of went up and did all the moves. And then like three days later, I just one hung it and I was like, Oh, okay, like this is going faster than I thought it was. And then I did it and now I haven't had a
I'm actually really excited to have another project because it was almost like it was a little below my level and I thought it would be at above. Yeah, I was like, oh, okay. Okay, so maybe I'm like, maybe I thought it would be like a nice little postpartum, like, you know, climbing 514 again. And I was like, oh, I actually, I actually just did it quite quickly and maybe I need to choose something harder now. So it's exciting because I haven't really tested that yet. And now we're here and I'm just
Mina (1:09:44)
little bit of an anticlimax.
Mmm.
Emily Harrington (1:10:08)
Yeah, skiing and hangboarding.
Mina (1:10:12)
Nice. And after this trip, you'll go back to Vegas? Or, but you said a little bit of a Yosemite. Oh, nice.
Emily Harrington (1:10:18)
I'm going to Argentina for two weeks. Yeah. Well, I'm going to Argentina for two weeks to go sport climbing. Um, that'll be my big trip, my like sponsor trip for the year. And then Adrian goes to Everest and that's when I'm going to go to, to Vegas. And maybe, and yeah, a quick trip to Yosemite, but primarily I'd like to find like a sport route to try in Vegas to have, be like a more of a mega project.
Mina (1:10:24)
Yeah.
Mm.
And how will that work with Aro? Because you were saying you had like a three really dialed with a nanny, but obviously he'll be away. Do you have people that can kind of sub in for that three dynamic to work?
Emily Harrington (1:10:49)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, so that's why I chose that area is because, you know, Las Vegas has kind of become like the mecca of climbing in the US at this point. And there's so many climbers that live there, and so many of our closest friends live there. And so myself and our nanny are going to go to Vegas for the spring. And then I have a lot of climbing partners lined up and people who are, you know, excited to.
Mina (1:11:18)
nice.
Emily Harrington (1:11:21)
to either be a third or we'll leave Arrow with the nanny at home and then go climb for the day on specific days. So that's why I chose that because, you know, I was talking to Maddie about all these goals and she was kind of like, okay, but maybe you need something that's a little bit logistically easier. And that was when the light bulb went off in my head and I was like, oh my God, she's so right. I should just like do something that is way easier. Like we have a...
Mina (1:11:29)
Yeah.
Emily Harrington (1:11:47)
place to live there. We don't have to live in the van. It's just going to be so much mellower and there's so much climbing around there. And I have all these partners. I don't have to struggle with partners. And so I'm super excited because I think it'll be really fun. And I've never been excited for Adrian to go to Everest.
Mina (1:12:02)
Yeah, yeah, I guess you've... Ahahaha
Yeah, I guess it's a balance, isn't it? Like you can, so long as you have periods of time where like the logistics and the stress are all a bit like lower level, then you can do those pushes like Nepal, for example, where you're like, this is gonna be intense. There's lots to think about, there's lots to kind of navigate, but we can make it work. But if you were like doing that all year round, you'd probably like not have that much fun in the end, right? So it's gotta be, you gotta do a bit of both.
Emily Harrington (1:12:31)
Yeah, that's actually such a good point. Yes, it's such a good point. Like you need to have, we need to have those like logistical challenges just because I think it's fun and good to push ourselves in that way. But then, you know, when it's, and when it's my time, when I wanna like focus on my climbing, I also think I've learned that it's better when that logistic side is mellower.
Mina (1:12:45)
Mmm.
Emily Harrington (1:12:58)
You know, like going to Nepal was, was kind of fun because Adrian and I didn't have an objective. Like we had no, and we've never gone to Nepal to just go walking. Like the objective was to go hiking with our baby. So we like toned down the objective because we knew that the logistics were going to be maybe insurmountable, like it might not have worked. So we couldn't have both. And I think that's a good, it's a great point. Like right now with the baby, it's like you either have to have.
Mina (1:12:59)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Emily Harrington (1:13:25)
like a very easy, easy logistics with like a big goal, or it has to be flip-flopped. Ha
Mina (1:13:31)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's really interesting to hear another perspective on motherhood and climbing and what that looks like. Cause like we said at the beginning, it's so different for everyone and so different with different children and as they age it all changes. It's just like fascinating. Yeah.
Emily Harrington (1:13:49)
Yeah, it is.
It's so fascinating. And like, I think I'm most afraid, I guess the part, like I'm most afraid about when he starts going to school because I think that's when, I think that's actually when it's gonna feel more restricting. Cause right now we can just go to Nepal. We can go, you know, when your kid's in school, it's gonna be quite, it's gonna be quite a bit different. I think we're, Adrian and I aren't gonna get to do as many trips together. And you know, we're gonna have to pick.
Mina (1:14:07)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Emily Harrington (1:14:20)
where we want to live, you know, because right now we kind of split our time between Vegas and Tahoe and it's really nice balance. So that's, I think, our next like big challenge is that school age where, you know, theoretically it's easier because you have more free time, but you're kind of like for people like us who travel all the time, we're going to be locked down a little bit more. So, but we'll, you know, we'll just like everything we just, it won't be perfect and we'll get through it. And, you know, mostly it's all good.
Mina (1:14:31)
Mmm.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, and I guess you've just gotta look at all these things as like new challenges and new ways to kind of figure out a slightly different picture of what things look like. I guess in the States as well, you have so much, you have a lot of choice of really cool places to live that have like multi-sport opportunities. Or it seems like it from across the pond. Ha ha ha.
Emily Harrington (1:14:51)
And pretty fun.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think especially out West, it's just like, there's so much and there's so much to do. It is quite everything is quite far, which is kind of I guess the downfall. Europe is everything is really close in Europe. But yeah, we are really happy where we are. And it's yeah, it's been really good so far. So
Mina (1:15:28)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh well thank you so much for coming on and sharing. Really appreciate your time.
Emily Harrington (1:15:44)
Yeah, yeah, it was a lovely chat. Thanks for having me.