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Outside Podcast

Dispatches: Red Dawn in Lapland

Outside Podcast

Outside Podcast

Sports, Wilderness

4.42.1K Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2018

⏱️ 22 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On the 833-mile border between Finland and Russia, a band of elite Finnish soldiers are preparing to defend the country if Russia decides it wants to again redraw the map of Europe. With tensions still high after the Kremlin’s invasion of Crimea and Ukraine, writer David Wolman went to Finland to find out what this tiny band of Finns can possibly do if the Russian war machine heads their way. Quite a lot, it turns out.

Transcript

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0:00.0

This episode of the Outside Podcast is brought to you by Arizona, home of professional mountain biker Alex Pavon, who grew up in Flagstaff wanting to be not a mountain biker, but a professional ski racer.

0:12.0

I joined the ski team when I was about four,

0:15.0

like as soon as I could like ski without my parents.

0:19.0

In Flagstaff, you wake up every morning about 15 minutes from a ski hill and Alex Pavon was all in

0:25.1

on skiing from a very young age but then she got hurt and I tore my aCL mcl

0:32.3

LCL lateral and medium I tore my a c. c. l. c. l. l.

0:33.8

lateral and medial meniscus, my hamstring,

0:37.7

and like slightly fractured my femur.

0:40.6

She healed up, but then it happened again.

0:43.0

After extensive talks with myself, decided that maybe I should find a new sport because ski racing was trying to injure me.

0:52.0

So... ski racing was trying to injure me. So that's how I got into mountain biking.

0:57.6

In Flagstaff you wake up every morning about 15 minutes from excellent

1:01.1

technical mountain biking and Alex Pavon was all in from a slightly

1:05.2

less young but still pretty young age. So I bought my first like modern bike and just started

1:11.0

riding more. Soon after that, she started entering races,

1:14.0

and then found herself on the podiums,

1:16.0

and now spent six months of the year traveling and racing bikes.

1:20.0

I mean, it's a pretty good Plan B.

1:22.0

It's kind of your backup plan it sounds like like yeah it is it's not too bad.

1:28.1

It's not that growing up in Arizona made her a professional grade rider but it didn't hurt. If you want to go skiing, you can go skiing,

1:35.6

and if you want to hike the Grand Canyon, you can hike the Grand Canyon. It's very conducive to being

1:41.4

an athlete. Go to visit Arizona.com for their Arizona style backup plans.

...

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