This episode of She Explores is brought to you by Deuter.

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I've seen them on the trails as far from home as Patagonia

and as close as New Hampshire.

And speaking of German, stay tuned for later in the episode when a member from the Deuter team teaches

me a few phrases.

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I'm Gail Straub and you're listening to She Explores.

For you right now, like what is the significance of trails in your life?

It's pretty much everything. It informs everything that I do these days, whether I'm

promoting trails or thinking about building them or working designing them or advocating for

them or trying to get more people out you know it's so much of what I do. Lucky enough that I've been able to

create my job doing these different things and it's just trails are life.

This is Serena Dufoe, founder of Trails Inspire.

Today she says that trails are her life, but it wasn't always that way. She didn't

step on a trail until she was 19. Serena's story is one of patience, both on the

trail and in shaping her career. And even today, trails in my life

is not what you might expect to hear from someone with fibromyalgia, a pain syndrome

characterized by chronic pain, fatigue, and tenderness to the touch.

Nor would you expect to hear it from someone who says this

about her upbringing in suburban Chicago.

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