Care Bilo
Job: Nanny
Primary Outdoor Sports: Climbing and Running
Favorite Beverage: Root Beer
Non-Outdoor Hobby: Reading
Trail Snack: Pringles
Favorite Season: Winter
Guilty Pleasure: Insta Reels
Book Recommendation: A Bolt from the Blue
Three Words to Describe Yourself: Fun, Passionate, and Motivated
“My friend Brittni, when we were in college, we started going on really small backpacking trips. We were like, let's try this backpacking thing and we’d backpack a 10 mile route in like 2 days. As we were doing more, we did a good segment on the Appalachian Trail over a week once. That was really cool. Then we were like, ‘Climbing seems cool.’ We were the only people in my friend group who weren’t settling down. Every year, we would go on a lady’s trip and do things. We tried climbing and it was really fun. Then, we gym climbed for probably a year and started meeting people. Then, they brought us outside. We met some friends. They took us to the Red River Gorge and that’s how it started.”
“I feel like when I’m climbing hard, I sometimes sacrifice having fun with it. It’s like I always have to be trying my project or doing something hard and not romping up some fun multipitch like First Kiss. That’s my favorite climb at Smith. I’ve brought so many people up it. Those days are just so fun.”
“I feel with projects and especially with Panic, I’d fall in the two same spots. The beginning is really, really hard. Sometimes, I’d just forget and once I did forget it and then I wrote it down. After I did that, it was like, ‘Well, you just do this. I’ll do all this.’ That helped. With projects. It’s like, ‘I just need to work on those moves.’ It’s a battle of strength because you have to be stronger to be able to do it, mentally too.”
“I was happy I did that. I was very tired and I was like, ‘I’m gonna fall. I could climb back down or I could keep going until I fall. And I was like, ‘I’m just gonna go,’ which is good. It felt like it was a screamer, the one I took, but I had that exposure to how fine it was. I know I’ve fallen from that point before and I remember the first time being terrifying. So I think having faced that before, I was more confident that it would be fine.”
“I do a lot of breathing. I will meditate on the wall sometimes when I’m scared. I’ll find a good rest and count down from 60 and just shake it out. And that really, really helps. In those moments, I can just kind of calm down and recenter myself because a lot of it is fear of falling and not trusting I’ll be able to make the next hold. Being able to calm myself really helps.”
“It’s a way to have fun and adventure. You have community. I really like that. I think it just brings some joy to my life and is definitely a confidence booster. I took falls and it was like, ‘Oh my gosh!’ I felt so good the next day. I was like, ‘I can go do these runs and I’m just Superwoman. It gives me some confidence.”
“It’s such a performance based sport and I really graviate towards those. I played softball and was a pitcher. So most of what you’re doing is very performance based. Climbing is so much like that, the perfectionist everything has to go the right way. I think that’s why I like climbing. The tangible results, being like, ‘Oooh, I can climb that hard.’ That’s cool to say.”
**Sensitive Content**
Following quotes contains description of an eating disorder.
“I have an eating disorder. Climbing is so body focused. A lot of times, if I’m falling on the wall, I always blame my size and food. I’m not like, ‘Maybe I’m not strong enough.’ In those moments it's, ‘Oh my God, just because I had ice cream last night.’
When I first started climbing, it was fun. I was just learning a new sport and my eating was good. I’m a big rule follower and I didn’t have any rules. I was probably on a slippery slope, but all of a sudden I was climbing and was like, ‘I need to fuel my body.’ I had this great relationship with food and it was amazing. I was like, ‘Climbing, you saved my life. I have a reason to fuel my body and I have so much fun with this.’
Then, I started becoming a hard sport climber. I don’t want to talk down on hard sport climbers, but there’s a lot of talk around food and your body size. A lot are always shirtless. Everyone is focused on your body.
Being out at Smith and in Adventure Town, everyone here is very small and I became hyper focused again. Then, I cut weight and all of a sudden, I was sending everything and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh!’ Instead of like, ‘you’re getting stronger’ and 'your mental space is there’, it was because I changed the way I was eating. I was cutting weight and got ripped because I wasn’t eating anything processed. I got my dream body. I’m sending all these 11s, and it was addicting.
I knew my body wasn’t healthy. I lost my period and I just remember being tired. I think a lot of times when I get injured or take these huge falls, it’s like building up to that. I can feel myself kind of getting fatigued.Then, I fell on Dreamin’ and it all just started spiraling down.
It was like, I don’t know, like six months just trying to restrict food. Then because I was so encompassed with this, my climbing was just horrendous. I couldn’t get up 10s. I couldn’t because I was shame spiraling. I kind of just fell apart and didn’t like it anymore and I wasn’t having fun with it anymore.
I remember one time in the Lower Gorge, I kept falling and I just started sobbing and I was like, ‘I can’t do this.’ I just got triggered and like, ‘everything is out of whack. You’re not taking care of yourself.’ That’s when I just kind of started focusing on myself and getting back into therapy. Talking about it, you know. Not working out two or three times a day. Just resting.
I started taking care of myself and then I sent 12a. I did not send 12a during my rampage when I felt like I was the strongest climber in my life. It was when I was fueling myself and having fun with it again.”
“No one starts as an 11 or 12 climber or being able to run marathons in a month. You really need to listen to your body and trust the process. Stay consistent. Don’t compare yourself to others and have fun with it. Do that things that you enjoy and if something starts feeling not fun, change it up within the sport.”
