Cindy Present | Get Out Girl

getoutgirl.com 1023. The day after. Three days, two nights, 60 miles of paddle boarding with 10 other friends, now teammates, Foundation 1023 Team PTSup. The first to ever navigate the length of Lake Travis 60 miles on paddle boards. Launching in Marble Falls, Texas at Camp Creek at dawn on a Friday and heading south toward Mansfield Dam, ending at Emerald Point Marina at 4pm on the following Sunday. Personally, almost 40,000 paddle strokes, over 11,000 “paddling” calories and 60 amazing miles on a Texas River that I adore and have lived out my entire life on. Most know that this event was a bucket list item that Kristin McLain and I had imagined  3 ½ years ago. What I didn’t know at the time was the story wouldn’t begin or end as it was originally scripted. But that is life - and as I have learned, “Things do not happen for a reason, but it’s what you do with what happens that becomes your reason.” Through the course of the weekend and at the wrap up of our acco...

Three years ago a friend and I were recovering from doing a 21 mile paddle board event the day prior, savoring in the joys of accomplishing a goal and now wondering what was next. "If we could paddle the distance of Lake Austin, how about we paddle the distance of Lake Travis next?" In a mere nano-second later, we were both "in", already conniving how we should do it the following summer. Before the sun set that day, we not only had a new bucket list item, but we had already shared with our significant others our excitement, much to their dismay. (Of course, anyone that knows me also knows that my "what if's" more often than not include a luring of my poor husband to the ends of the earth on multi-mile endurance expeditions! Needless to say he was not so thrilled, as he automatically knew it was in his future!) Less than a year after that item went on the bucket list, Kristin, my friend that shared the same dream, was killed. We had already be...

Anyone that knows me knows that I LOVE mermaids. I’ve always felt I should be a mermaid – the peace, tranquility and flow that water must mean to this aqua-loving species. How water must influence their entire life – not because they live in it, but how it must make their soul, their spirit, their mind feel and respond to everything else that surrounds them. Simply watching a mermaid “flow” has a synergy, a tranquility to it. (Yes, “I believe” ;-) Mermaids thrive in, around or on the water. They live because of it. I do to. I’ve always lived by the lake – except for a hiatus of show skiing at Sea World when I didn’t live by the water, but worked by it, in it and on it 8-12 hours a day. And I never “worked” a day in my life because I was by the water. And I still don’t. I’m blessed enough to not only continue to live on the lake, but I also paddleboard almost daily to Lake Austin Spa Resort where I’m Director of Fitness and Activities. My life is surrounded by water. And that...

I've biked, run, ridden horses and hiked this trail my entire life. And on every excursion throughout my half century life, I've either hurdled, bounded, carried my bike or lowered my horses head to give him rein to cross the same rock. Year after year after year.  ​ It's passable. Maneuverable. Jumpable. But it's always anticipated, always awaited, knowing it has to be navigated with a bit of caution hit it on the fly and keep moving.  Two months ago I took it - step, jump, launch. Vault. Land. And it dawned on me "The Rock" has been here my entire life. A life that has seen love, accomplishment, loss, pain, change, injury, new generations, lost generations, lost friends. And that rock is still there. Just like the trail. My rock. My go to. Where I release, find solace, escape and ground in what is right, what is good, what is real, what is bigger than me that gives me purpose, hope and a larger connection.  I've run this trail in...