Dawn Patrol Is Still Too Early & A Tribute To An OG Rock Fighter

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Colin is rolling solo today and he starts the show reflecting on an early episode of The Rock Fight where he defended his anti-Dawn Patrol stance before reflecting on a recent Dawn Patrol experience that didn't really change his mind but was still worth it.

Then for The Parting Shot he pays tribute to one of the original Rock Fighters our own Justin Housman.

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Episode Transcript:

Colin True

00:00:00.160 - 00:01:37.488

Hey, everyone, before we keep going here. I need to tell you about our. Teammates at Darby Communications. Like I've been telling you, if you.

Run an outdoor, an endurance or an active lifestyle brand, there is no better PR and digital marketing, belay partner or drinking buddy than Darby. They can help your business reach new heights and they might just keep you from falling on your ass.

Since we started working with Darby, more and more people and this is an important point now. Guys, I want you to hear me on this. More and more people have reached out to us here at the Rock Flight because of that messaging.

Look, guys, I'm dead serious. If they can help us, they can help anybody. Hit them up@darbycommunications.com do it today.

Welcome to the Rock Fight, where we speak our truth, slay sacred cows, and sometimes agree to disagree. This is an outdoor podcast that aims for the head.

I'm Colin True, and today I'm here with some updated thoughts on an old episode of the Rock Fight and to pay tribute to an OG Rock fighter. But before we get to that, if you missed them, go back to hear Monday and Wednesday's episodes of the Rock Fight.

On Monday, we talked about MEC being sold. On Wednesday, Shantae, Salibair and I broke down some outdoor headlines.

And be sure to come back to the Rock Fight this upcoming Monday for some outdoor industry deep diving. And hey, are you heading to Switch back this June?

If so, be sure to put the Rock Fight live on your agenda for Tuesday, June 17th at 5:00 in the Trailheads Theater. I'll be there. Producer Dave will be there. Owen will be there. Shantae will be there.

If Switchback is going to be the event of the summer, then this will be the event at the event. Don't miss it. Lastly, be sure to follow and rate both the Rock Fight and Open Container on whatever podcast app you're listening to us on.

And all right, let's start the show.

Chris DeMakes

00:01:37.544 - 00:01:41.580

Welcome to the Rock Fight. Rock Fight. Rock Fight.

Colin True

00:01:44.440 - 00:01:53.514

You're listening to Rock Fight Radio. My God, is that Fitz's music? You know it is. Get ready for There's a smile on my toes.

FITS!

00:01:53.642 - 00:03:09.666

Woke up this morning feeling so alive Sunshine in my step Making my spirit jive Hope for comfort Rapping is so sweet Dancing on clouds with every beat There's a smile on my toes every single day Cool and warm together in a brilliant play Free range toe box my feet sing fits is the joy that each new step brings Deep heel pocket hugging me just right Fine gauge merino soft like the moonlight laughing and skipping Feeling so flat in a happy place with every smile There's a smile on my toes every single day Cool and warm together in a brilliant play Free raised old box lets my feet sing Fitz is the joy that each.

Colin True

00:03:09.738 - 00:19:42.680

New step brings that was there's a smile on my toes from Fitz. Cause that's what whole foot comfort looks like. New spring styles are in stores now. Didn't get your orders in? No need to cry. Just send Judy.

You know Judy. Everyone knows Judy. Send Judy an email@customerserviceitsock.com and she'll turn those frowns upside down. Oh, tell your feet that we said hi.

And now back to the show. Today's OG Rock Fight is presented by Oboz, who, as the cupid of the outdoors, wants to share their love of hiking.

And for this episode, I'm going to reflect back a little bit because this is the 348th episode of the Rock Fight. And if you go Back to the 21st episode of the Rock Fight, that episode was called Dawn Patrol is Too Damn Early. It was released on February 22, 2023.

And if you go back and listen to it like I just did, man, things have changed a little bit around here. I'll link it in the show notes. It's only like five minutes long if you want to check it out.

And I wanted to listen to it because I was thinking about Dawn Patrol again recently and I still feel the same way about Dawn Patrol that I did when I recorded that episode.

I think that Dawn Patrol is one of the more, I don't know, paradoxical activities that outdoorsy people do because I have never gone out to patrol the dawn and regretted it. But I really hate it because I genuinely enjoy my slow moving and productive mornings. Like, I am down for seeing the sunrise in beautiful places.

But if I have the option to do my normal routine and then head out later in the day, I will always take that option.

Which I suppose makes sense because despite the benefits that come with an early start time, Dawn Patrol was born out of necessity, first with the military and then adopted by our community. It was a way to get in something adventurous before the tyranny of daily life began.

You know, better to get in that ski tour or surf session early before heading off to work and getting the kids to school. And I've been fortunate to have jobs over my career that have been pretty friendly to building in outdoor time.

So my DPs and how can you not call it DP, guys? It's hilarious. They've been Mostly elective.

Perhaps if I had had that early start, late finish, daily job, I would have been more willing to embrace that pre dawn window of activity. Because the crux of this conversation is about time.

The thing that no one tells you when you're young, that they really should, or maybe they do, but because you're young, you're also arrogant and stupid and naive and so much so that you won't listen, is that it's all about time. All of it. Life. Life is about time.

I remember being in my 20s, working a retail schedule that was loaded with flexibility and then complaining that I didn't have the do things. And then my career advanced to jobs with real responsibilities. And then my wife and I bought a house and we got a second dog.

Eventually our first kid came along. Every milestone heading into our early and mid-30s came with upside, but also with the sacrifice of time.

Eventually I had three kids between the ages of 3 and 8.

A job that had me flying somewhere every single week, a house in a place where a snowblower was an essential item, two dogs, extended family demands on the other side of the country. And the list just continued to grow.

And the slice that was quote, unquote, me time in the pie chart that was my daily time allotment had become minuscule, like incredibly thin, like almost not registering on the pie chart by the time I realized what had happened.

And even though it meant that most of what I said I had wanted out of my life had come to pass, I actually didn't have time to do stuff that was just for me. And I kind of wanted a time machine so I could go back to, you know, 20 something. Me. Look me in the eye and scream at him, stop fucking complaining.

You have nothing but time. Nothing at all but time. I have no time. You have all the time. Stop complaining.

And look these commitments, the average commitments of the late 20s to mid-40s adult, they're not flexible. They're literally like prison with no parole type commitments. Like, each dog that you get, that's seven to 10 years, you just signed up for that.

Each kid, that's a minimum of 18 years, your job, depending on what you do and how good you are at saving. And spoiler alert, I'm terrible at saving. Well, that could be a life sentence.

So if you are true to the outdoor experiences that you claim are your salvation core to who you are, dawn patrol becomes a pretty good option at some point.

Or you can become one of those folks who slowly stops doing sick, outdoorsy adventure sports to the point where they'll justify it by saying things like, ah, yeah, hey, I did all that when I was younger. I don't need to do that anymore. I checked all of those boxes, which we all know is code for, yeah, I gave up.

This is also where the hardcore adventure parents will chime in about doing outdoorsy stuff with their kids.

And much like not understanding the amount of time that we actually have when we're young, being an outdoor parent also carries with it the inability to understand how insufferable you are on this topic until your kids actually grow up. And for sure, it is an outdoorsy time hack to rejigger your outdoor lifestyle to include your kids. And you should.

There are a ton of upsides that come with that, and we'll get into that in a second, but there is really nothing more insufferable than being the outdoorsy parent. With kids under 10.

There's humble bragging on social media, and then there is posting about the hardcore outdoor shit you get up to with your toddler. The worst part is you don't think you're shitposting the rest of the world when you do it. Oh, but you are.

And I say this because the evidence is out there for the world to see that I was maybe the biggest offender of this.

My Instagram feed from 2011 to like 2017 is littered with pictures of my kids being outdoorsy and me positioning my family to be the envy of those who might see one of those pics and maybe get a little jealous that they weren't doing the things the same way. Captions like so proud of my kids for being like mom and dad and grateful that this is the life I get to lead with my kids.

Looking back on it now, oh God, is it cringy? And when I see the current crop of outdoor parents doing the same thing, it's just as cringy.

But it's also okay because it's frankly the way of things and kind of a sub circle of the circle of life.

That evidence of my humble braggy early parenting days may be cringy, but the fact is we did take our kids on river trips and camping and biking and rock climbing in the national parks and to the beach and desert and skiing and all that stuff. And those experiences have helped to shape who they are. Although we didn't let going outside define them.

Each kid has found the things that they're interested in and wanted to pursue, and rarely has that been an outdoorsy activity. But the outdoors isn't a destination.

It's something that becomes part of you and having that foundation of stuff that they did in their youth will be there for them whenever they need it as they get older. And I think that's the right way to approach this kind of stuff. And I eventually did learn my lesson about what to post and when, as I think most do.

If you look around the parents who post the most, the ones you know who are humble bragging the most about their little hardcore little rippers that spigot turns off at some point once those kids are in middle and high school.

You know, we realized that what we thought was a badass 4 year old who had discovered the love of the outdoors was actually just a toddler who wanted to do what mom and dad were doing. And sometimes that sticks, other times it doesn't. Either way, teenagers are not as stoked about your exuberant posts of them.

So if you're wondering where I'm going with all this and how I went from dawn patrol to lame outdoor parents, I'm about to tie it all together. Because the other day I went out for a dawn patrol. Yeah, gasp right. I was invited to go out surfing and to be at the break before the sun came up.

And my instinct at this invitation was the same as it's been for years. The ugh dude, can't we just go later?

But I didn't complain and I immediately said yes because the person who invited me out, it was my 19 year old daughter. So several things here.

One, my oldest kid, my 19 year old freshman in college is a night owl who will sleep in till like two in the afternoon if she gets her way. So pretty tough for the guy who wakes up at 4am every day to say no to the vampire in the bedroom next door.

Also, as my oldest, she's the one who was the most impacted by my time. As a look at my hardcore kid parent, there are countless pictures of her on her Strider bike and me and my mountain bike of she and I powder skiing.

We took our first surf lesson together us at the Rock gym, but like I said, those were more my priorities than hers. As she got older, she continued to like outdoorsy stuff, but she had her own priorities elsewhere.

But over the last couple of years she's been getting more into mountain biking and hitting the Rock gym. And when her boyfriend recently tried surfing for the first time, that reignited her drive to surf as well.

So to get a text asking to head out for a dog patrol with the two of them.

I mean getting to this point, isn't that what all that time I sacrificed was for because the funny thing here is that as your kids get older, you start to get bigger pieces of the time pie back. And as your life becomes more flexible and your free time returns, it also comes back to you with the knowledge of how special it is.

And while my daughter is just starting her own adult journey, the fact that she wants her pop to come surfing with her and her boyfriend at six in the morning is pretty special, even if she partly wants me to come. So I would load the surfboards and be the guy that hoses off the wetsuits afterwards.

After years of asking her if she wanted to go biking or hiking or surfing, she asked me and that makes the journey pretty worth it. Oh, and I guess the last thing to tell you is the reason we had to head out for dawn patrol that day.

I mean, why not go later in the morning or wait to go in the evening, right? Well, it was because her boyfriend had to be at work by 9am for him, Dawn patrol was the only time to go that day. And so the circle continues.

And as for that early rock fight, I still feel the same way about dawn patrol, but when your kid is the one pulling you out of the house early to go get after it, that makes it okay. This original rock fight was presented today by Oboz. And Oboz wants to share the love of hiking.

And we want to help them by uncovering all the different reasons we love to take the long walk, including the following five reasons. Number one, it builds resilience, especially when it starts raining halfway up. Number two, you get breathing room for your brain.

Finally, a place where intrusive thoughts echo nicely. Number three, every hike is a mini adventure, including the lost for 20 minutes part.

Number four, you actually notice the seasons changing, mostly because you start sweating before you leave the parking lot. And number five, hiking means the Oboz Bridger Boot Collection.

The Bridger Ridge is here to help you smooth out the rough trails in front of you with enhanced stability and protection. The Bridger Ridge is Oboz first boot with Gore, Texas.

So bring on the smiles and the miles in the Bridger Ridge boot and this hiking appreciation moment is brought to you by oboz of Bozeman, Montana certified B Corp. 6 million tree planter and inhabitant of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

Oboz is the maker of premium quality footwear for the trail and the cupid to the outdoor world. Oboz love hiking.

All right folks, time to set the record straight.

A few weeks back, listeners heard me rant on about a new sandal from Lem's shoes that Sandal the new Switchback Sandal is a classic single strap, single post style that I without much knowledge. Accused of of me too ing.

And look, in hindsight it's hard to me to a style that's thousands of years old, right? What I wasn't informed on was Lem's unique take on making footwear. And let's just say a few rocks were thrown back at me.

And rightly so, because Lem's has really elevated the design of minimalist natural movement footwear, anatomically correct fit, zero drop comfort and lightweight outdoor performance. And the Switchback?

It's crafted from a single piece of material and features a unique single strap design with one buckle for super ease of use, added comfort and getting it on outside. You can personally check it out yourself when it becomes available on Wednesday, April 23. And oh hey retailers.

Did you know that Lemz is looking for wholesale partners? Hit them up@supportemssshoes.com to add a little flavor to your shoe wall.

And be sure to stop by and say hi to the Lemz team at their booth at Switchback in Nashville this June. So to all the Lems fans, I may have offended. My sincerest apologies.

And to Lemz, well, you did pay for this advertisement, but more importantly, you made a believer out of me. I've eaten my words and they tasted like freedom. Check out the new Switchback Sandal by heading to lemshoes.com.

All right, time for the parting shot. And this isn't so much of a parting shot as it is a tribute to our guy, Justin Hausman.

Because you're going to be hearing less of Justin on the show going forward. For one, Justin has just landed his dream job and also, we're changing some things up here at RF hq.

And look, the rock fight isn't what it is without Justin.

He and I first connected on Twitter over our shared love of Bedrock sandals, and as I was looking for ways to include more voices in the show early on, he hit me up on Twitter offering to join the show because, as he put it, he had an endless barrel of opinions. So, you know, outdoorsy and opinionated, good fit for this thing. The first time Justin came on, we talked about hiking boots versus trail runners.

Funnily enough, it was two episodes after the one we just got done talking about with Dawn Patrol. So major throwback episode today, guys.

It was so much fun that he came on again the next week and eventually just becoming a weekly guest to talk about outdoorsy topics.

I Always wanted the show to run multiple days a week, and I knew we'd need repeat guests that you guys in the audience could form a connection with in order for that to happen. And for over two years, Justin has been that guy.

We also launched Gear and Beer together last year, and while it didn't really work in the long term, we still made 34 episodes that you can go listen to, and they're awesome.

The door is open for Gear and Beer to return at some point, and that was kind of one of the brainchilds of what Justin brought to the table here because he's a beer guy and a gear guy. So let's make a podcast about it.

So you know, Justin has been a surf and outdoor journalist for a long time, and ever since we've known each other, since we met, I knew he was looking for something different and hopefully something in the world of conservation. So landing the job.

He just started as a writer for Save the Redwoods, checked the boxes of using the skill he is so, so good at, which is writing and deploying it in conservation. And then the sweetener here, getting to do both of those things in the place that he loves so very much, Marin and the Bay Area at the same time.

Rock Fight as a company is evolving.

We launched Open Container with Doug Schnitzbahn, we brought in new Voices of the Rock Fight podcast, and we're developing a new show with Shante Salibair. So we're all evolving. And while Justin is not going away entirely, I can't let that happen. You will be hearing him less.

But here's the thing I really want to say. Technology, despite what Justin might say, is amazing. It's easy to beat down tech as the end of us all.

And I don't know, maybe the AI and tech doomsdayers will be right. I don't know what will happen. Here's what I do know.

Justin Hausman is now one of the best friends that I have seriously like, top tier, all time, top five best friends. And aside from my family and producer Dave, he's the person I've spent the most time with over the past two years.

That doesn't happen without the tech we have in our lives because 90% of the time we spent together was on a zoom call recording a podcast. So the world may be a messy and awful place right now, but I'm grateful. I'm grateful for you as our audience. I'm grateful for the Rock Fight.

I'm very grateful to have Justin Houseman in my life. That guy is my brother and I love him and I could never repay him for the time he has given me over the last two years.

And like I said, we're not losing Justin. But you will be hearing him a little less on the Rock Fight.

And I wanted to let you know that while letting you know that he's my guy, Justin will always be my guy. And maybe we'll get him to bring back gear and beer. I'd like him to bring back gear and beer right in. Should Justin bring back gear and beer?

Write it in myrockfightmail.com but as we change and evolve over here, we just wanted to keep you guys up to speed. And that's today's parting shot. So we're going to wrap it up there today, come back on Monday for our outdoor industry scoop.

This week, producer Dave will be off. It'll just be Owen Comerford and myself. Check out the latest from the Rock Fight podcast network. Open container. Go follow that show.

Go throw Schnitzman some love. The Rock Fight is a production of Rock Fight Loc. Our producer today was me. I'm the producer today. Art direction provided by Sarah Gensert.

I'm Colin Truth. Thanks for listening. And Chris Demaicz is back, everyone. He's back to sing the Rock Fight Fight song. We'll see you next time. Rock fighters.

Chris DeMakes

00:19:42.760 - 00:20:43.480

Rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight.

Welcome to the Rock fight Where we speak our truth Slay sacred cows and sometimes agree to disagree.

We talk about human powered outdoor activities and big bites about topics that we find interesting like pop culture, music, the latest movie reviews, ideas that aim for the head. This is where we speak our truth. This is where we speak our truth.

Rock fight. Rock fight. Rock Rock fight Welcome to the rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight. Welcome to the rock flight Rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight.

Rock fight. Welcome to the rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight. Rock fight.