This entry is dedicated to the hecklers who mocked me with private emails and texts, taunting me for being a tough backcountry guide who can run around the desert for 5 days with a heavy pack but can’t manage to hold a 23-pound paddle board overhead without wimpering.

I found my vindication in November’s Outside magazine article about Salt Lake City’s Gym Jones, where tough-as-nails competitors go to train their heads as well as their bodies. If you haven’t heard of Gym Jones, you are not worthy, so forget about it. I like to think I have the mindset for their brand of training, but the truth is that I don’t think I’m woman enough to test that theory, so I’ll be satisfied to get a sneak peak inside the doors when I go home for the holidays. If they’ll have me.

I digress. I smiled in triumph at page 137, where I read about a killer shoulder routine called “30-30s.”

In the words of Nick Heil, “Parker giggled maniacally as she handed me two 20-pound dumbbells. She told me to raise them to my shoulders and push them above my head as many times as I could in 30 seconds. Then I had to hold the weights up, arms locked, for 30 more seconds, and repeat until I’d finished four one-minute sets without a rest. By the last set, I could manage only a few reps, my arms noodling while I emitted a snorting sound, like a warthog. At the end, I fell into the grass, soaking wet.”

I am tough! The walk from the lower parking lot across from Angler’s Inn to ‘the beach’ of the Potomac took at least 7 minutes, and I carried that paddle board overhead the entire time in both directions. No wonder my deltoids were on fire! I hereby challenge my hecklers to go home tonight and try the 30-30 workout. When you’re done, come back and tell us all about your noodly arms. If you can type, that is.