Guides Gone Wild

There's No Such Thing As Too Little Movement: Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge

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Today I bring you another dose of practical, relatable, do-able inspiration with my special guest Val Hopkins from 365 Mile Challenge.

Val’s business is all about meeting people wherever they are, bringing them into a supportive community, and providing them with tools, resources and motivation to build a movement habit that works within the limitations of their life, time and physicality - whatever those look like.

That would be inspiring enough, but wait until you hear about how Val, the tech-challenged nurse forced to retire early because of an injury, decided that she and her biologist daughter-in-law were JUST the people who should swoop in and save an internet-based movement community on the brink of shutdown…  literally weeks before COVID locked us all inside, by ourselves.

The same drive that gets Val and her community moving "a mile a day, their way", served the 365 Mile Challenge business well, and Val and Kayla recently started their fifth year as stewards of the company and its app, offshoot communities, ambassadorships, and virtual races.

I hope you’ll check out Val’s website, 365milechallenge.org, as well as #365MileChallenge and @365MileChallenge on Instagram - and maybe even get involved in the challenge, or a virtual race, or just take advantage of all the useful resources and tips she’s curated on her fabulous website!

When you’re stuck in a rut, or life is going sideways for whatever reason, sometimes it only takes a teeny little prod to get a teeny little dose of movement to get you redirected to a brighter place. So why wait for the rut?? You can start building a movement habit now, in community with Val, Kayla and 365MileChallenge.org!

Links to the good stuff:

Join us for our next Last Tuesday Virtual Meetup on 2/27!: https://www.guidesgonewild.com/meet

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

If you're more active at the end of the year than you were before you joined, it's a win as far as I'm concerned. I don't care if you've got two miles, if you've got 100, 200, 700. If you're more active at the end of the year after you've been in the challenge than you were when you started it's a win. You had a great year.

Jen:

Welcome to the Guides Gone Wild podcast. What is Guides Gone Wild, you ask? This is where you'll fill your ears and minds with the stories of everyday, extraordinary women who will inspire you to take your outdoor adventure game to the next level. Whether you're starting your journey from the couch or the trailhead, this is the place for you. So let's get a little wild.

Jen:

Welcome and or welcome back to Guides Gone Wild. This is Jen bringing you another dose of practical, doable inspiration today with my special guest, val Hopkins from the 365 mile challenge. Val's business is all about meeting people wherever they are, bringing them into a supportive community and providing them with the tools, resources and motivation to build a movement habit that works within the limitations of their life, time and physicality, whatever those look like. That would be inspiring enough, but wait until you hear about how Val, the tech challenged nurse forced to retire because of an injury, decided that she and her biologist daughter-in-law were just the people who should swoop in and save an internet-based movement community on the brink of shutdown, literally weeks before COVID locked us all inside by ourselves. That same drive that gets Val and her community moving a mile a day. Their way served the 365 mile challenge well, and Val and Kayla recently launched their fifth year as stewards of the company and its app. Offshoot communities, ambassadorships and virtual races. I love this whole thing and I know you will too, so let's stop wasting everyone's valuable time and get right into it with Val Hopkins of 365 Mile Challenge. Let's roll.

Jen:

Val Hopkins of 365 Mile Challenge, welcome to Guide's Con Wild this morning. Thank you, I'm excited to be here. I'm super excited to have you. I ran across your challenge. I think I was looking on. I was. I'm fascinated by this whole by out spraying and the event that they did, which I think was called Swell that was in the fall. I was following all the activity there and looking through the different women focused and run outdoor businesses that are on that website In the hopes that someday I maybe can talk to the folks behind that. And ran across you guys. I was like, oh my gosh, a mother-daughter doing a really cool thing related to just getting people outside in a very, very manageable, practical way. I'm going to talk to these folks and that is why I contacted you. So it's.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

I love that. You love what we're doing. My whole thing is to try to show people that you don't have to be an Instagram model to hike. You can just go outside and enjoy nature maybe 20 minutes a day, and you're doing great. And normally once they start doing that and they see what it means to be outside, they want to do it more. So that was my mingle. But first let me correct you Kayla is my daughter-in-law.

Jen:

Oh, okay, I'm sorry, I totally should not have made that assumption.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

Yeah, no, it's fine, no problem at all. It's funny because she's normally very shy and this challenge already pre-existed. I joined it when we moved back from Germany and I think it was run by five people, but they were more like mommy bloggers. So they were trying to start a mommy blogger kind of challenge and they were kind of disheartened that most people who joined were women maybe you know, 30 to 50, and then you know some younger, some older, but it's not really the demographics they were looking for. And so the first year I joined I was in a cast, so I had fallen down some steps looking at wedding venues for my son and Kayla actually. But I thought, you know, if nothing else, it's just going to inspire me to get going. And it was a Facebook group and the members were all like, oh, you can do it, and this is what I've done and this is how you get started, and I thought, well, this is fantastic.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

I was a retired nurse, retired because I medically hurt my arm in moving a patient. So I know that being active and getting outside and getting moving and staying that way is essential for health physical health as well as mental health. I started an exercise group. I worked at a mental health crisis center for teens and I started an exercise group and you wouldn't believe the difference of fate. And it was just once a week. So from my training, from my experience, I knew that getting people active was essential to keep them happy and healthy for the rest of their lives.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

So I joined this challenge and I was trying to decide what to do next, since I couldn't be a nurse anymore, and they said we're going to let this go. It's not turned out to be what we thought it was and we're just going to let it die. And I couldn't do it. I said no, please. I thought we were possibly moving to India. I had no idea what kind of wifi situation I'd have. I have no experience at all running anything like this. But I said I can't let it die. I see the potential. I see the connection to the members and how they're connected to each other and they're all getting each other outside all the time. We can't let it go.

Jen:

So I jumped in and bought it and then I got to stop you here. I got to stop you here because there's so many things I need to unravel here. So are you traveling all over the world and you were coming back from Germany and maybe going to India. Was that as part of your? Is it your role, or do you have a partner that no it's my husband.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

My husband works for Boeing, okay, so we got to live in Germany for almost seven years, which was amazing. I loved it. And then we came back to the US and we thought we're going to stay here. But then a position opened up in India and I said, well, india sounds fun. We've never really, you know, looked at that part of the world before and we tried it. I would not recommend India during lockdown, just FYI.

Jen:

Oh, my God Okay. I was wondering what the year was that all this was going on, so it sounds like 2019 2020 was when you first got involved with the organization.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

I bought it in December of 2019, which is really terrifying, considering it starts every year, starts January 1st so I had to figure all this out and figure out registration in like two weeks and the website that I bought you know the name and the website the website was basically just a bunch of broken links. It was really a mess. And that's when I went to Kayla. It's like I know nothing about websites and Kayla is a scientist. She's a biological scientist but she said, look, I've had coding, we can figure this out. And so she joined me and together she's been doing a lot of the behind the scenes stuff our websites, our app, that we added all of that kind of stuff. Kayla does most of that. I do the customer service and answering the questions and the marketing and everything else. So we're a great team.

Jen:

Yeah, that's amazing. So so I didn't realize this. So you, it was kind of a going concern when you took it over. As far as it was a little, it was more than just a Facebook group, it sounds like.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

Yeah, yeah, it wasn't. It was a challenge, but it was mostly a Facebook group and they had actually the owners they had. I guess it started with five and they slowly, kind of, were dropping off. And then the people in December had decided yeah, I mean in June had decided we're not going to do it anymore and we're just going to let it die, and so they stopped participating in it or contributing to it and so it was slowly dying anyway. And then they said, well, maybe somebody wants to buy this. And I'm like I have no money, I have nothing, I have no idea what I'm doing, but I can't let it go because I saw the potential, so I jumped in and bought it.

Jen:

All right. So this is. This is an even more interesting story than I thought, so this is awesome. So, from just from a business perspective, I think this is cool and but the timing was, you know, in retrospect, a little bit dicey.

Jen:

But obviously you pulled it out, so now I want to hear about, like, I guess, first, why don't we flash forward to today and like tell anyone who's listening, kind of, what the 365 mile challenge is, like, what, what are all the different challenges that you're going to be facing, and then maybe tell me a little bit about how you actually survive lockdown to this? Or what it looked like for those especially for those first, you know, six months or like inside outside, inside, outside, you know.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

Oh, it's not the first. It was. It was the first couple because it started right after COVID, I mean right before COVID. So it was really kind of very interesting, but what it is now.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

So if you were to look at the 365 mile challenge today, it's an annual challenge, it's a five to. The calendar goes from January 1 or whenever you join, up until December 31. And the goal is to get at least a mile a day. Now that mile can be walking, hiking, bike riding, swimming I have people who kayak and paddle, as long as George the one doing the work, it counts. So obviously not like motorcycles, right, as long as you're out there and getting active, it counts. And it's not a competitive challenge. You're not competing against other members, so it's all about you, so you don't. You know, I'm not worried about how many miles do log. That's up to you, because it's your challenge is going to be different for anybody. I have some members who have been members from the start and they're now doing triples. Or I just had a lady turn in 2021 miles for last year just hiking oh, she counts, or hiking miles. So that was pretty amazing to me. So it's an annual challenge. The goal is at least a mile a day that you can do more. We have passes for singles, doubles, triples and extreme, which is anything over a triple. We also have monthly mini challenges like this. Right now we have winter bingo going on, but it's adventure bingo, so it means like hike in the snow, get your mile in the snow, in the rain, under a full moon. You know things like that, Just trying to give people more incentive to get get outside, and they have prizes, and then we have on the next one coming up is to push your limits because right after that we have over National Park Week.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

We have a virtual race, is a marathon, but it's over the nine days of National Park Week, so it's a 365 or twist. You can do it any way you want. You can combine walking, hiking, biking, whatever, and you have nine days to get the miles to make your marathon. So it's something that everyone can do and I've had people say this is the first marathon I actually completed and it counts because it's your marathon, you get a medal for it, you did it. You did 26.2 miles over nine days. That's an incredible accomplishment. So we have things like that, I have virtual races and I have many challenges to keep it going, to keep you incentivized, maybe inspired, all throughout the year, all the way through to December.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

And then we also have a great, amazing team of ambassadors and we're doing a monthly theme which is Try Something New. So, like from January 15th through the end of February, we're doing winter sports. So we're going in on, like, winter bike riding. So we're not just what you need, what kind of clothes you need, that tire riding, what it's like, that kind of stuff. Last week we did snowshoeing. So all year long we'll be taking deep dives into different sports just to give people the basic what they need to try it, what they need to think about, what they you know what to expect it. What kind of muscles do you need? Where are you going to be sore? What kind of equipment? How much money does it cost to get into this? Can you rent it? All that kind of stuff.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

And then at the end of the year we have an app that records your miles and the different ways you do it all year long and then you get little badges and things as you go and at the end you get a completion certificate and then I mail out your pack, depending on which one you earned at the end of the year because you can change your goals. So, people, I have seen people start with a single, say this is my goal, I want to get 365 miles this year. And then they're doing really great and they end up getting a double. So that's why I don't send out the patches, even though they pay for my registration. I don't send them out until January of the following year Because who knows what they're going to do.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

But it also goes the other way. I had one of my ambassadors get severely injured during a bike ride so she thought she was going to get a triple and she ended up getting a single. So you can adjust your ways either way, and I think that's why I like this challenge. It's a long challenge. So if you get injured, if you get sick, if you change jobs, if you move, you know life happens right. But you don't have to stop. You can just adjust and then keep going.

Jen:

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, I know that. I love that, I love it, love it, love it, love it. So tell me about this app, or like I guess, or is this essentially a kind of self report, what you did type thing or does that? Is the app somehow potentially tied into, like if you wear a Fitbit or something like that, where you can kind of get it automatically Tally?

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

Yes, it will connect with anything like an Apple Watch or a Fitbit. It connects to things like Map my, the Map, my Run Map, my Walk Map, my Hike, those kind of things, so it will automatically download for those. It's also got a built-in pedometer if you want that, or you can just manually enter it if you don't want to be bothered with being connected and remember you know all that kind of stuff so, and it can differentiate and show you in graphs how you get, how you've done this week, this month, this year. It's really cool. It was very difficult.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

When I first bought the challenge, they had a sheet and you just make an X. At the end of every day you make an X. It had 365 squares and that was it and I thought, okay, we've got to update this a little bit, please. So we dove in and said you know, I have absolutely zero tech experience, why don't we do it now? So we found a place, kayla and I sat down, we wrote about all the things that we'd love it to do and we interviewed like 50 different companies and found one we can afford and they said it would take four months.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

It took nine months of blood, sweat and tears from both of us. But we got it done and we love it. And then we've had to do a couple updates along the way because that's how apps are, but it's fantastic. My people, all my members, say they love it. It really helps. They don't have to think about it. Plus, they like the little badges that pop up oh, you've done 5% of the 355 mile challenge. You know things like that that remind them that they're doing it. You're doing a great job. Even if you haven't hit the 365 full, you still get rewarded along the way and I think that's really important to keep it going right.

Jen:

Yeah, absolutely Absolutely. I love that. That's very, very cool, because I mean, you know some of these devices have that kind of stuff built into it, but it's not. I don't know. It's a little less meaningful maybe than when you're working in a community like you guys have built around this or that. You know you bought around this essentially. So do you have like what would you say? Are most of your people coming back year after year? Do you have people that are lifers, essentially?

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

Oh yeah, I have people who join when I joined as a member, so they're still there. So I have legacy pasties where every year they get a different past for how many years they've been in the challenge. And I just had eight made and I had two people who still had, who are ready for year eight this year, which is pretty amazing right.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

And these are the people who the first couple years they were really working hard to get their 365. And one of them is the one who got over 2000 miles this last year, just from hiking.

Jen:

Yeah, that's amazing. So they're definitely. I mean, it is exactly the kind of just from a from a developing good habits standpoint. It's just it seems like a check saw the boxes. You know you're not asking for anything. That's just outside the realm of possibility for most people and it's just the repetition that makes it like muscle memory and you just kind of do it and probably you feel worse when you don't do it than when you do. That's amazing.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

It does happen and I do. I ban certain words. I have some banned words, you know, besides the normal political, religious stuff. I don't let people say just or only. Oh, I, you know it was raining, I wanted to do five miles but I just did too Like no, it was raining and I did two miles.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

So you have to learn to make everything a positive and celebrate every single mile, no matter what you plan to get out there. Because if you start putting negative connotations on it, if you start thinking, oh, you know, I've got to get out there and get seven miles because I only got three last week, you're going to quit, you're setting yourself up for failure. You've got to make it positive and be happy and proud of yourself for every single mile that you've done. And I try to tell people, if I could, I'd get rid of the 365, but you know people need a goal. But I really just want people to get active. If you're more active at the end of the year than you were before you joined, it's a win. As far as I'm concerned, I don't care if you've got two miles, if you've got 100, 200, 700, if you're more active at the end of the year after you've been in the challenge than you were when you started it's a win.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

You had a great year and, who knows, maybe next year you'll do more, maybe next year you'll do less. You don't know, because life happens right. But if you're active and you learn new things and you find different ways to stay active that maybe you'll like like I've had people learn no-suring. I've had people learn stand-up paddle boarding from our challenge and now it's become part of their normal recreation things that they do in the summertime. So how great is that.

Jen:

Yeah, now, that's what I like about it too is that there's all these little mini threads that run through it, that kind of help people expand their horizons of what they're doing too when they're getting active, and just broaden the scope of what they consider worthwhile activity. And I just love the fact that you're so right that when you say Justin only, it's like literally anything over zero is awesome. So, but where did you learn all these mindset tricks? Or is this just a way that you have you been an optimist and just been very positive like this all along?

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

No, but I think you have to be positive. I think if you sit there and dwell in negative, nothing's ever going to get better. You're just going to perpetuate what you make right, and I'm always. I think everybody out there needs somebody on their side. Everybody needs a cheerleader that you know is going to be happy with what you've done and help you to see how awesome you are. And I'll take that role. I'm okay with that. That's one of my favorite things. So, yeah, I'm good with that. I think maybe that's part of being a nurse, or maybe that's why became a nurse, I'm not sure. But I'd like to see people do the best that they can be and maybe, if they're not doing their best, that day realize hey, tomorrow's another day, we start over.

Jen:

Yeah, absolutely, Absolutely. This is very cool. So it seems as though you've got a very well-established base. Now, like let's harken back to COVID, like what were your biggest struggles during that time frame? Because I mean, you know, I mean it's a mile, so even in the times when we were stuck inside, you could potentially get that done. I mean, were people doing that like walking around their house 5000 times? Or jumping jacks or like how did you kind of navigate that old piece? Well, it was getting people could.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

You know some people could get outside, other people really couldn't and they were getting really bored. So Kayla the scientist came up with this incredible science-based conversion chart. So anything that you're doing, there's a way. If it's a nonlinear activity, we can still re convert it to miles. So say, you know, I'm lifting weights, this is what I'm doing in my house, I'm doing aerobics, an hour of aerobics and I lifted weights. That doesn't count towards a challenge? Oh yeah, it does, because we have a conversion chart and now the conversion chart is integrated in the app, so you can pick one of I think it's like 50 different activities and put in how long you did it, and it will automatically convert it to miles.

Jen:

Oh, my God, that's brilliant. I love it. Well, and because, to your point, life does happen and sometimes you know, for better or for worse, you're stuck. Or you know, maybe you're traveling and you're in a city that you're not familiar with and you're stuck in your hotel or whatever.

Jen:

Right, I just I love the fact that there's really no excuse. If you're using this app, there's a way to get something logged. If you're, as you said, nonlinear, which, or you're linear, not, you know, I don't know what the right terminology is, but as long as you're actually not sitting in your chair, there should be a way to make some progress. So I love that.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

Yeah, as long as you're not under, you know, sitting on a couch under a blanket, you can find a way to work it in to your activity if it's something you love, if you love to dance, which is you know what a lot of people did during COVID they were dancing around their living room. I did it in India because I was in a little hotel room and you, they weren't really allowing a lot of people to walk, and if you did, go to market something, personal space is different in India and it was COVID, so people were all like we did an interview, so I stayed in the hotel room a lot and what am I going to do in the hotel room? And that's where I would dance, I would do all these things. And Kayla came up with this amazing conversion chart and it just was a game changer for me, and I think it was for a lot of our other members too, because they'll work really hard. I just have someone who's redoing their yard, so they're moving boulders and all of that, which is really hard work, but they want to be able to count it for the challenge, which I think they should be able to.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

I don't like the ones that are only hiking or only running or only walking, because people get bored and sometimes you can't do it. I mean, I love to hike. I'm a hiker backpacker for a long, long time and there are some days or some weeks, or when we first moved into this house, I couldn't do it for a year. So if I would have joined that challenge, I'd have a zero, and then you feel like you fail and I don't want people to ever feel like they failed. That's very important to me. So this way, okay, you can't go out, you can't hike, you can't bike in your backpack, you can walk around your driveway. Do that, do something.

Jen:

Yeah, yeah, no, that's great. I mean yeah because I mean I can vouch for that, the property that we own. I mean sometimes I wind up making like 15 beds and you know a couple hours, and I could tell you one thing you get very sweaty doing all that. You're being active.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

Get my backpack, and you don't want to go home that night Totally so full of sweat from working all day. I wasn't actually doing it, right, right, right, I didn't get credit, oh my gosh, right, no, that's not good, that's hilarious. You have to keep it positive.

Jen:

Yeah, no, I love that. So tell me a little bit more about your ambassadors, like, was that a program that you inherited with the business, or was that something that you guys you know kicked off yourself? And then, what does that look like today? How do you choose these folks? What do they do for you? Tell me a little bit more about that, okay.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

When I started, they did have ambassadors, but they didn't really know. All they did was share like marketing graphics. Basically that's all. I was an ambassador and basically that's all we did was share marketing graphics with our personal, and that didn't seem like they were really getting involved. So it took me a little while to figure out that. First we had like a schedule, instagram, this that I'm like guys, this is. I don't want it to be work, I want you to have fun. They're all volunteers, but I will ask them if they're interested, if someone is doing something in the challenge, if they're posting, encouraging other people a lot. That's very important to me. That's really what I look for. I look for a knowledge, experience on the challenge, and their whole goal is to get people outside and help them any way they can. That's the number one big thing for me and that's what my ambassadors are. Right now I have eight ambassadors. You see. I have one who's been there from the beginning with me. I don't have any that came from the old group. I just have one who's been here from the beginning. I think one, yeah, just one. But what they do is they like will write blogs about snowshoeing, they'll research different things. They'll write posts.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

I have a group called my first 365. We have a thing called mileage Monday where the people you know they get on and everybody reports their miles just to celebrate so everybody can celebrate with you. Sometimes that can be intimidating Because, like I said, I have people on here who are crazy. You know badass hikers and they're already over 200, 300 miles and we're not even out of January yet. So for new people or people who are just getting started, that can be really, really intimidating.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

So I have a chat on the side setup called my first 365. And it's for people who are just starting to get active, maybe People who are just their goal is just to get to 365, so they don't get discouraged by the other people with the crazy mileage, which is wonderful, I'm not putting that down. I just for people who you know it can be discouraged in thinking maybe I'm not doing well enough. So we have a chat room and I've got three of my ambassadors that keep that going and monitor people and talk to them about maybe some ways to get them outside, how they're doing, encouraging them, that kind of stuff.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

I have another chat set up for adventure outside folks. So I have a couple ambassadors who are really into that and they're setting that up. We're gonna do things on simple things like using hiking poles, what you need to pack in a day pack to go like day hiking. What to do for backpacking. That's my most hated bingo square in the summer. I have go sleep overnight and a lot of people just hate it because they're afraid of it. So this year we're gonna make that not scary.

Jen:

That's brilliant. Yeah, that's awesome. So, yeah, I mean, you basically have like I don't know, I guess it's kind of the equivalent of like a couch to 5K group and you've got like your you know, they're trained for your half marathon group. You train for your marathon group. Yeah, everybody's kind of getting the community and support that they need, depending on where they are in their journey, and I think that's amazing.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

Well, that's the whole thing of this challenge, even though we're all part of the 365 mile challenge. Everybody's working towards their own goals, but we're working on the goals together. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely yeah. So we just we're all helping each other get to whatever those goals may look like.

Jen:

For that, person, yeah, and so do you see a ton of interaction with. I mean, I assume there's still kind of some sort of online forum, whether it's a Facebook group or you might have a. If you have a membership site or something built out, do you see a lot of member to member interaction on that, or people like hooking up with each other to do things or like, do you see anything interesting coming out of that group setting?

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

I do. There's a lot of encouragement with the group in the Facebook. Facebook is kind of I don't know if it's dying, but it's definitely changing. I really wanted to go out, so I've got Instagram, but Instagram really isn't a great interaction thing. It's kind of like a look at me, well, great, look at me. You know what I mean. That kind of thing. Yeah, threads is good. I've had a lot of really good interactions with people on threads, so I'm trying different social media venues. But there's also a chat available in the app so that people can cheer each other on in the app as well. Oh, okay, it was very important for me to have that put in there. But the Facebook group is where everybody shares pictures of what they've done and where they've gone, and that's the big thing. I tried to do that in the app, but they said I need a server to size of Delaware, can't quite afford that. Yeah, yeah, we're not at that stage yet.

Jen:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. So one last question I had on the ambassador program. So is that something that people apply for every year, or how do you select those folks and how? If people are involved in the challenge, I assume they don't come out of nowhere. These are people that have done it before that decide that they want to be ambassadors. So what's the process of becoming an ambassador?

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

What I normally do is. I will ask them if anybody's interested. I'll do it like a chat, a side chat. Hey, is anyone interested in being an ambassador? Just DM me or ask me questions here, whatever you want, and then I have a list of that. The ambassadors have helped me create talks about what it's like to be an ambassador, what the time commitments are like, what I want from the ambassador, what your real goal is, and so I send that to them and I have them redo that to see if that's something they still are interested in. And then I have a thing I started last year called guest ambassadors. So it's like for a month, if they get to try it out this, maybe make a couple Facebook posts or a blog that I'll put up on the website and spread out to all the social media channels. Hey, this is who I am, this is what I'm doing. I had one guest ambassador last year did a different place every day, which she said was really struggling at the end of the month. But to find a different place.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

But something like that and a lot of people took her up on the challenge of that, so, but she also saw how much work it was. She goes. I think I'll just stick to being a guest ambassador every year, right, but yeah, it has to be someone who's been in the challenge, it has to be someone who stayed active and it's important for me to see that they're encouraging other members as we go Because, like I said, that's my number one criteria. I have two ambassadors who are still working at the my first 365. They're not high mileage ambassadors, I don't care about that. I want people who are very encouraging to other people.

Jen:

That's my number one thing that's awesome, that is very cool, like there's literally an ambassador for everybody Sounds like so yeah, that's great, that's so great, all right, so it's a January to December challenge. Is there, you know? Okay, it's now December, january 25th when I'm talking to you.

Jen:

So is this something that people can opt into pretty much anytime during the year and they just kind of amortize what they have missed or they try to make up for it, or is there? You know? I assume people can join at any point. What's the process there?

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

Yeah, they can join at any point, Anything's fine, and it depends on what they want to do. You wouldn't. You would think that, oh no, I've already missed. What is it? 24 days, 25 days, 20, a mile, you know. So 25 miles over a year, it's not very much, Just like it's good of a mile a day. You have to be what a mile and a tenth or something like that, so you can make it up easily. Even I've had people join as late as October and still make the 355. But it's up to you. Is that number the most important or being it with a group that can help you get active and stay active and learn more things and maybe have some fun mini challenges, stuff like that along the way? Is that more important? So if you want help getting active, no matter when it is, then you can join us, and of course, I run sales mid-year things like that.

Jen:

Yeah, Now that makes perfect sense, because it is. It's much more about the journey than the destination. In almost every case.

Jen:

So yeah, that makes sense. All right, a couple more questions. First off, tell me a little bit about your personal 365 challenge year, Like what do you like to do? Do you like to do longer hikes, fewer longer hikes? Do you make a point of getting a mile in every day and maybe does that look differently and you like to hike? It sounds like you're definitely a big hiker. What does your challenge look like usually?

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

What I try to do is like we move to a house that basically was a disaster last year. So for the first year it was basically I wasn't even doing anything except walking around my driveway. That was my mile for the day. It was kind of ridiculous, but all of my time was going to getting this house livable because we were living in it. But it was a disaster. But now I also had a little bit of a health problem last year. That kind of limited me a little bit. So no real hiking. But now I'm back so I go hiking when I can.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

I live out in the middle of the woods so I'll go walk down the road and into the woods and I do tend to fall a lot. I'm kind of famous for it. So I go out bushwhacking through the woods and look for animals, look for plants. I love taking pictures of photographers, so my miles are wherever I am. I try to get out in the poor wherever I happen to be. If I'm home, it's the woods around my house. If I can go out and go hiking, then I'll go everywhere. My goal was to do the AP. It's funny, it was 2019. And I fell and ended up with a kind of significant brain injury following a face planting right into rocks not the best thing. So it sounds terrible. But if I had been successful on that hike I wouldn't have known that they were selling the 365. I wouldn't have been back to here.

Jen:

They were selling it.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

They were going to let it go. So things happen for a reason, right.

Jen:

Yeah.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

And the AP is still out there for me.

Jen:

I'm going to get there and I've heard it can be done one mile at a time, so it can.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

You just have to really go back and slow.

Jen:

Most of the time, yeah.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

Yeah, as long as you don't mind freezing temperatures and snow. Yeah, you're fine.

Jen:

Yeah, yeah absolutely All right. And then my last question I'd like to ask people is what is your favorite piece of outdoor gear that you have that you got for less than $50?

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

My trekking poles.

Jen:

They were Amazon specials, but if you do fall a lot, that would probably be a good choice.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

I fall a lot, and I was a runner for a long time, and so my knees now are punishing me for that. So downhills are the devil, unless I have my trekking poles.

Jen:

Yeah, do you have any? Are they a specific brand or anything?

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

The ones that were on sale on Amazon at the time. They're purple and if you look at my challenge and my website and all of my branding, purple is kind of a big part of it. So they were purple and I got them they were really inexpensive at the time and I decided to try them and I've used them. Oh, I can't even count Thousands and thousands of times, thousands and thousands of miles and they're still in perfect condition.

Jen:

That's awesome, that's good.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

So I can't give any brand a shout out, because it was just the I think it was like an off-brand, maybe one from China. I think it was from China.

Jen:

But that makes my point, which is that you don't necessarily need top end fancy pants equipment to get at it in the outside. So this is a good reminder.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

They're really expensive ones and I just don't like them. This is in my garage into a gym, and they just put my little baskets in my gym and never get used.

Jen:

Oh my gosh, All right. Are they purple also? Or is that why you don't like them? No, they're white.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

White with cork prints. That part's nice, but yeah.

Jen:

I like my key points. Ok, that works. That works. All right, val, this is awesome. So 365mileChallengeorg is the website. Are there other places where people should go to get more information, to find out more about what it is you're doing? Sure.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

We have a business page on Facebook and I post a lot of the blogs and things like that on Facebook so you can kind of see what we're about. So our latest one someone wrote a really nice blog about a snow shirming. I think it was Kate, who's one of our ambassadors. So you can read through a lot of that, see what we're about, Learn some things. Maybe. If you're not ready to join which is fine Follow us on Instagram. We're at 365mileChallenge on Instagram and we're on threads. So I'm not on Twitter, but I think that's a good start.

Jen:

Yeah, absolutely Absolutely, and I can attest to the fact that you have a lot of really really good information on the website which I think it sounds like you're also putting it on Facebook which, even if you decide not to join the challenge, is just a very good, good, practical information about different ways that you can get outside, and, yeah, the helpful hints are all there. So you bring a ton of value and I hope lots and lots of people take you up on this challenge because it's a good one.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

Well, thanks. Thank you very much. I really appreciate that. No, I really you talk to it every day and you put your heart out there. You want to make it.

Jen:

It's nice to hear that people like it. Yeah, and this is like, yeah, and I think I can totally tell you're making a huge difference to folks and it's such a great. I just love the whole thing. I just love it.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

I'm starting to finish, so thank you so much for putting it into the world.

Jen:

Val and keeping it alive.

Val Hopkins, 365 Mile Challenge:

Thank you very much. This has been fun.

Jen:

Thanks, hope you enjoyed that and I really hope you'll check out Val's website, 365milechallenge dot org and the 365mileChallenge hashtag on Instagram. You can check it out on Facebook, maybe even get involved in the challenge or a virtual race, or just take advantage of all the useful resources and tips she's curated on the website. I, for one, can attest to the fact that when you're stuck in a rut or life is going sideways, for whatever reason, sometimes it only takes a teeny little prod to get a teeny little dose of movement to get you redirected to a brighter place. So why wait for the rut? You can start building a movement habit right now in community with Val Kayla and 365mileChallenge dot org. And speaking of community and a Guides Gone Wild Superstar named Hopkins no relation to Val I want to remind everyone that next Tuesday, february 27th, at 7 PM, we are hosting our last Tuesday virtual meetup on Zoom, and this month we are talking all about sauna and cold water dipping and yes, I'm spilling a few of the beans here.

Jen:

One of my anticipated super special guests is Amy Hopkins from Saltwater Mountain Co. Whom I interviewed back in September about her cold water dipping practices and business based in York, maine. But we've got lots more fun planned as well. Check out that interview. It's linked in the show notes. But more importantly, come join us Tuesday at 7 PM Eastern. You can grab the Zoom link or register for the calendar invite at guidescomewildcom slash meet. Hope to see all you hotties on my screen soon. And in the meantime, here's my challenge to you Keep getting a little bit wild every day, your way MUSIC.