At 27, she threw caution to the wind and launched herself at something no one had ever done before: a 1000-kilometer solo run across Kyrgyzstan, a country she’d never set foot in, a distance that dwarfed anything she’d attempted.
The logistics alone nearly broke her – the route planning, the gear calculations, navigating a foreign culture from half a world away. But somewhere deep down, she knew she got this. Everyone said it was madness, told her to aim smaller, dream safer. She ignored them all.
On September 18, 2016 she took off to stagger through the ancient gates of Osh in southwest Kyrgyzstan, legs destroyed, spirit soaring. It took her twenty-five days to cover over 900 kilometers from Karakol in the northeast through the jagged Tien Shan mountains, completely alone, carrying everything she needed in a 12-kilo pack strapped to her back.
The terrain tried to swallow her whole – ancient nomad trails that barely existed, tracks so brutal they seemed designed to turn people back, mountain passes punching up to 4000 meters. She slept wild in a tent the size of a coffin or crashed in nomad yurts when strangers opened their doors. The weather threw everything at her: scorching 35-degree days that baked her skin, thunderstorms that turned the mountains into chaos, snow that shouldn’t have been there yet.
This wasn’t just about running the Tian Shan peaks. It was about diving headfirst into the hidden world of Kyrgyz nomads, into a country still clawing its way out from under the Soviet boot, where poverty ran deep but hospitality ran deeper. The people she met, the moments she lived – they burned themselves into her soul.
When she crossed that finish line after 23 days of almost running herself into the ground, she hit the ground and wept. Years of pushing, of deliberately making herself miserable in the most beautiful corners of the earth, had forged her into something unbreakable. The revelation hit like lightning: there was almost nothing she couldn’t do now. Keep pushing, keep growing, keep expanding what’s possible.
That’s why she won’t stop encouraging others to pursue adventures. It’s not the pretty Instagram moments or the epic views – it’s what happens to you in the suffering. Adventure doesn’t just show you the world. It rebuilds who you are, stretches your limits until they barely recognize themselves.
As Jenny puts it: “Bigger comfort zone, bigger life”.
