Ep. 1019: Trekking Across the Namibian Desert - Gillian Millar
Adventure Sports Podcast
Curt Linville
4.6 • 579 Ratings
🗓️ 1 April 2024
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When Gillian was facing devastating challenges in her life, her husband, Aaron (ASP alumni), suggested she do an epic adventure to help process the grief and loss. Gillian decided to join a group of women that were aiming to be the first all-women group to trek across the Namibian Desert. By Gillian’s own admission, this adventure was terrifying and she was not remotely capable of completing it when she committed to do it.
Through months of training, planning, and preparing, Gillian set out with 17 other women from 12 nationalities to trek across the Namibian Desert. They collectively raised close to USD $70,000 for female survivors of war through Women on a Mission. Their mutual dedication to this cause not only pushed them beyond what they thought were their limits, but also wove the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood.
The expedition covered 144km (89.5 miles) over 5 days, scalings over 4,000 meters of the some of the world’s tallest sand dunes.
Gillian said of the adventure:
“The journey was an exhilarating mix of challenge and wonder, with long days of hiking in the searing heat juxtaposed with nights camping in the biting cold and howling winds as we neared the wild Atlantic coast. Our final evening was spent beneath a canopy of stars, beside a century-old shipwreck and amidst seal colonies.”
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey folks, welcome to the Adventure Sports podcast. |
| 0:09.0 | I'm your host, Mason. |
| 0:10.0 | Today we have a first-time podcaster, which is awesome, but you wouldn't know it. |
| 0:16.0 | Jill Miller is joining today to tell us about this world's first and all women's team running across the |
| 0:23.9 | Namibian desert. No one's ever done it until now. This was last year. And what was cool is I'll |
| 0:30.6 | tell the story real quick. Her husband, Aaron, you might know Aaron Miller. You might recognize that |
| 0:36.5 | name because he's been on the show twice and he also hosts the podcast Armchair Explorer and a number of other shows that they produce. And he has some awesome stories. Great storyteller. While Aaron and I were meeting up last year while I was in Denver, he was like, hey, my wife's out on this adventure right now. And it was crazy a sound of thing. |
| 0:56.9 | He goes, she's running across a desert in Africa. And I said, what? Why am I talking to you? |
| 1:01.9 | I don't know. Why don't I talk to her? And he's like, if you can get her on the podcast, that'd be |
| 1:07.0 | awesome. And this was, he was not wrong wrong this was incredible jill was facing some pretty big |
| 1:14.0 | challenges in her life she'll tell the story you know a lot of us are facing some sort of big challenge in |
| 1:19.5 | life or some sort of or many big challenges at the same time and what erin suggested to jill |
| 1:25.3 | which is what we often prescribe on this show, which is a big |
| 1:29.0 | adventure or some sort of adventure, some sort of time and nature that you can focus on, that you |
| 1:34.4 | can train for, and that when you experience is so exhilarating, so powerful, and can really |
| 1:41.3 | help you carry through those really challenging times in life. |
| 1:46.1 | And so when she committed, she was not ready, but she joined 17 other women from 12 countries |
| 1:51.4 | to run across the Namibian desert and raise a bunch of money for women on a mission |
| 1:56.3 | to help women who have been affected by war. |
| 1:59.6 | And the expedition was just under 100 miles, |
| 2:02.1 | five days, 4,000 meters of climbing. |
| 2:05.2 | And remember, this is all sand, mostly complete sand. |
... |
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