Wilding Fifty: Surf Tales
Wilding Fifty: Surf Tales
Keys to Freedom with Cat Martinez
In this episode with Cat Martinez, we discuss how her beloved truck has been her key to freedom, how surf trips are in fact work trips, the importance of board control, getting hit in the nose and hit by stingrays, and why she follows the sun food diet. Cat will enrapture you with her wisdom and warmth. I hope you will listen.
Highlights:
[00:00] A beloved truck
[04:29] Surfing as a work trip
[13:45] Board Control
[20:49] Hits to the nose and hits by stingrays
[29:37] Building strength
[39:28] The sunfood diet
Quotes by Cat:
"What I like to do is put my head down, work super, super hard, go to bed early, wake up early surf, go to work, do my thing. Repeat. And, it's amazing. You know when you live that super simple lifestyle, your savings just gets bigger and bigger. If you want it, just make it happen. Work for it."
“The best thing about surfing is that you have to be so tuned in and present, that everything in life is on pause. Aaaaaand, the ocean is always there for us. Good mood, bad mood, you can always trust that it’s there.”
"On your trip at some point, with whatever wave you're surfing, when you're that dialed in, you're timing everything that you do; the time that you wake up, the time that you drink your coffee, the time that you take your nap, you're timing it all around the perfect tide, the wind, everything. So when you take it seriously like that, I feel like you can score the most."
Connect:
Christine: Hi Cat.
Cat: Hi, Christine.
Christine: Well, this has been a long time coming. I am so thrilled to be here because you have been such an inspiration for this podcast.
Cat: Oh, thank you so much, Christine. , it's an honor that you asked. And I just love your passion and your smile and excitement about everything. , it's funny to get two surfers together to try and plan a date and schedule time.
Christine: That's so nice to be called a surfer. I don't know if I embody that quite yet. But it's nice to be called that.
Cat: You are.
Christine: I would like to start, if you could tell us about your beloved truck that you bought when you were 17? No…
Cat: I was 19 when I bought it.
Christine: For $1,700, is that right?
Cat: Yep. You got the numbers.
Christine: Okay, so tell us about this truck.
Cat: So, it was my first year of cutting hair and it was my first year of having kind of a legit job and making real money and before that I had just worked restaurants; In and Out and whatever, so I had a bunch of cash ready and I was thinking I was gonna spend way more than that. My dad, he works on cars, he's a general contractor, but he's great with mechanics and he's always worked on all of our cars and, so my mom, we call her Turbo. She's the awesome researcher and can find anything you need whenever you need it. So we had looked at quite a few trucks and then my mom found this, it's a 86 Nissan hard body, D 21, little pickup truck, 4 by 4.
Christine: It's got everything.
Cat: It was out in, gosh it's one of those cities out way past, even like Murietta and it was way out there. We drove out there and before this we had test drove a couple trucks and there was even this one, it was a old Tacoma. It had a 22 RE, like it was a really nice motor and I thought that was the one. It had sick paint job, camper shell, everything. But, my dad didn't like the sound it was making, it just wasn't right. So of course I'm gonna trust my parents and we go out and we take a look at the Nissan. The guy who was selling it was a mechanic. So the guy put it up for sale and there was only 130,000 miles on it. It ran like a dream. It was a manual, which I had learned how to drive when I was, before I got my license. That was the one and 1700 bucks.
Christine: So how long now have you had it, we're gonna reveal your age now, but how long have you had the truck?
Cat: Gosh, I guess that would make it, 15 years. I'm terrible at math, but I've had it for about 15 years. And I've put some money into it here and there, but, not having a car payment, and for 15 years, it's enabled me to save lots of money for things that I really care about, like traveling and doing surf trips.
Christine: Well, let’s go into that because you're a hair stylist.
Cat: A barber.
Christine: A barber. Okay, better term. And you work hard as a barber and a yoga instructor. But all of your extra money is for surf trips.
Cat: Totally.
Christine: Tell us where you go and how often cause it seems like every month or so you're off somewhere.
Cat: I like to keep it going. We go through seasons here, especially in the early springtime March and April, where the waves are typically pretty bad here. The winds are typically out of the south and they're really heavy at that time. Looking back at the past years, it's always around March, April. The waves just suck here, so it's nice to get away. I mean, even all year long, there's different places and that I love at different times of the year. I've been super fortunate to travel quite a bit.
Christine: So where do you go?
Cat: I mean all over, whatever has the opportunity. I just go. I think it was 2011, I had the opportunity to go to Australia for a couple months, cuz a girlfriend of mine was going over there and she was supposed to go with one of our other friends and it fell through and then she didn't wanna go by herself. So I ended up taking the ticket and that was awesome. And, I have some family over there too. So that was two months of, it was their summertime, so we were there January to March and it was just nonstop surf. I think there was maybe two days of that trip that I didn't surf and it was due to traveling, like driving and stuff.
Cat: Indonesia. I spent a couple months over there. That was the first overseas trip that I did by myself, my mom was terrified. But it was awesome. I mean, the Hindu people, they're just so beautiful and warm, and they're all about karma. So I felt really safe there and the waves are insane. I spent time on Bali and Lombok and Bongan, a couple islands, a little bit east of Bali. I lived in the Caribbean for a little while. The island that I lived on didn't have much surf. I lived on St. John and I was there to work on sailboats, so I was working most of the time. But, one of the captains that I worked for, he surfed. So there were a few trips during that winter I was there that he canceled the boat trips because we would take the boat over to Tortola, which is part of the British Virgin Islands. And there's some waves over there that are similar to Hawaii, some beautiful point breaks and just reefs all over. So that's been fun. I got to sail to Puerto Rico from there. That was really hard to leave. It's kind of like the Spanish version of Hawaii to me. I lived on Hawaii…
Christine: So not just trips. You actually have gone and lived in these places, it sounds for some extended time. And is it always guided by surfing? You're always looking for the wave? Is that the principle?
Cat: Most of the time. Moving to Kauai, that was kind of just a regular surf trip for me. When you go to a place so much, you make friends, and I was 22 at the time and I had no heavy commitments, no debt from some brand new car that I bought. So I shipped my truck over there.
Christine: Oh, you brought your truck! I was just got ready to go on about how smart this was, about never having a car payment, but then you're shipping your truck across the ocean. Then you lost all that money you'd saved right? In the shipping cost?
Cat: I mean, it was 900 bucks.
Christine: Oh, that's not too bad.
Cat: And I lived on Kauai for a year and I bought a one-way ticket thinking, I thought I was gonna be there forever. I had an amazing year there. It was almost like a one year sabbatical at 22. It was crazy.
Christine: Maybe that's where your good disposition comes from, cause so many people are having a quarter life crisis and you're just already on the sabbatical.
Cat: Totally. I try to, I mean, why not enjoy and just live and do everything that you're passionate about.
Christine: But it seems that you are able to do that because you take on this kind of like a frugal approach to living, right?
Cat: Totally.
Christine: Can you just talk a little bit about that? Cuz you're not making a ton of money necessarily, but yet you are very free in your choices and in your travel, in your way. What does the day to day look like? Or what are some of the decisions, or what do you say no to so that you can say yes to the things that are really important to you?
Cat: I guess a typical thing that people spend a lot of money on is hair and nails and things like that, cosmetic things. That's definitely nonexistent in my world. Partying and drinking, that's not a thing for me. I'll do it occasionally for sure, but you will never find me at a bar. I have gone out to bars before, of course. Like I'll go every now and then. It's like if I show up and I run into somebody, they’re always kinda shocked to see me there. I'm not going out and spending money on drinks cuz I don't really enjoy that. I don't like the way it makes me feel the next day. And the biggest thing I think is my truck. It always goes back to that. But, just making smart financial decisions and with cutting hair, if you really hustle, you can make a pretty good living cuz we're doing long days. Most of the time you're doing like 12 to 14 haircuts a day so you can really hustle. What I like to do is put my head down, work super, super hard, go to bed early, wake up early surf, go to work, do my thing. Repeat. And, it's amazing. You know when you live that super simple lifestyle, your savings just gets bigger and bigger. If you want it, just make it happen. Work for it.
Christine: So it's a simplification process. It almost seems a little bit like a monk, you know, where you’re, kind of immersed in the labor and not falling for the distractions. Just being in the moment of cutting the hair. And as you said, repeat. I think it's very smart. It's so easy to get caught up in all the glitter and the temptations and all the things that surround us, right? But it's going back to that question of what is it that really makes me thrive? What makes me glow? Or what makes me joyful? And, and to focus on that, if you can be honest, it's a great way to live.
In our conversations over the last few years, some things have stood out and one of the things is, you had just come back from a trip and you told me. I think you had gone to Costa Rica somewhere and you said, I don't go to sight see. I don't go to party. I think of these as work trips. I'm like, oh, but you're surfing, and it’s a work trip! You said, I just wanna be razor focused on my surfing. And I thought that is so smart. I mean as anybody who's in a creative realm, if you're working on any kind of project that you really enjoy that intense focus. And so it's almost like work and play become kind of one and the same thing. But I had never thought of surfing in those terms. So it really expanded my horizons in that way. Oh, surfing can be a work trip too. It's all about how you frame it.
Cat: Totally
Christine: Set it up for yourself
Cat: A hundred percent. I remember one of my buddies, Vince, I told him, I think I was going to Kauai, and I was like, I'm going on a business trip. And he's a financial advisor, so he took me seriously for a second. He's like business? I was like surf, surf and then surf and then surf again. When you treat it in such a way, you get into this flow. On your trip at some point with whatever wave you're surfing, when you're that dialed in, you're timing everything that you do. The time that you wake up, the time that you drink your coffee, the time that you go do this or whatever. The time that you take your nap, you're timing it all towards, around the perfect tide, the wind, everything. So when you take it seriously like that, I just feel like you can score the most.
Christine: Without a doubt. Well, let's go back to our surf session, which I think happened sometime in mid-September.
Cat: It was right when I got back from Cabo.
Christine: You were so kind because you had just literally flown in from Cabo the night before, and then you met me the next morning and I remember it was kind of a drippy, cold morning. And you're probably like, man, I left the sun behind me. But it was hilarious because we met in the parking lot and you pull your board out and you didn't have the fins with you because they were still wrapped up in their bubble wrap.
Cat: In the travel bag, which I keep at my, I've got like a little storage spot at my parents' house, and I totally blew it.
Christine: So you were like figuring, okay, what are we gonna do? You had fins in the car. Maybe I'll just swim around you. And then you ended up meeting your friend Alex.
Cat: Jack. Well, I think there was a Sunday. There were a lot of people there.
Christine: Who was the one who you said is a legendary glasser and he loaned you a Christensen board.. That was
Cat: That was Jack. He had just happened to, I think he was driving by or something. I Told him the situation. He was like, well do you wanna just borrow this? So, that worked out. I was so glad I could paddle with you.
Christine: And you were pretty happy to try out that board too?
Cat: Oh totally. I hadn't ridden one before and it was, I mean, it was almost like you looked at a wave and it just caught it for you.
Christine: So what is special about that board? Can you describe it? I mean, compared to what you would normally ride?
Cat: I have a fish, like, you know, this twin fin fish that, that's a thing when it comes to boards. I honestly, I just don't know as much as they do when it comes to the rails are like this towards the fins and that's why it feels like that. So I honestly couldn't tell you about that board, other than it just felt like magic. Some boards are just like that. I mean, I feel like that about my fish too. Robin Stockwell, he shaped my fish that I have.
Christine: He shaped my board too.
Cat: Oh, okay. That's right. He's a great shaper.
Christine: I love my board.
Cat: I feel like shapers, I just like to let them take over and however they wanna shape. If I'm getting a board from somebody, I’ll give out an idea of something I'm thinking about, and then just let them take over. Cuz they're the artists. But, that board, I can't remember what that model is called. It was pretty dreamy. But the waves that day unfortunately weren't. They weren't the greatest conditions for beginners.
Christine: They weren't, but the water, what I remember is that it was drippy and kind of cold, and then we got in the water and it was so warm. So that was one thing that was really nice. In September, oftentimes we get that really nice water. So, it was really fun to be out there. Anyways, I didn't even catch much, but I did have a really fun moment where I tried to paddle over wave, and it was already peaking and breaking and it literally, I did a whole back flip.
Cat: Oh my God.
Christine: It was the funnest thing though, because it just went so fast and I felt like I was an Olympic gymnast, and I went up and it was like the wave gave me this perfect spot and I was like, whoop. And luckily my board was nowhere near me. I have never felt that before.
Cat: Oh my gosh.
Christine: So that was my fun moment.
Cat: The roller rollercoaster. Wow. I know you, and your smile. I remember seeing you pop up from that and you just had the biggest smile on your face. It was epic.
Christine: Well, the thing that really stuck out for me from that session that I still carry with me now was, you said that it's a big responsibility when you take a board out into the water and that it's really important no matter how thrashed you might be getting from a wave, that it's important to hold onto the rails for dear life and don't let the board go. I mean, I know this intuitively, and I've heard this before, but something about that session really stuck with me. And then after that, I made a promise to myself that I was gonna start going to Terramar if the conditions were too big for me with the idea that I will try to have better board control at all times. It's never perfect, but that's kind of the I'm striving to do now.
Cat: That's awesome.
Christine: So do you have any tips for that? Because it’s still is challenging. What could you suggest in terms of holding onto your board or board better tips for board control, I guess is the question,
Cat: The first thing that comes to mind. Well, there's two things that instantly popped into my mind. One was when I was about 14 or 15, a friend that I was surfing with, it was on a bigger day and he was a really good surfer and I was getting pretty worked on some of these duck dives, and I'll never forget him saying, he is like, whatever you do, hold on your rails. Hold on for dear life. He's like, you're in for the rollercoaster ride. That's exactly what he said. And I'm like, well, I guess that's true. And if you think about it too, on bigger days, especially if you hold onto your board, That's gonna help you pop back up to the surface. If you let it go, your board's gonna be way up here and you can be way down here. So it's gonna help you if you hold onto it. The second thing that pops into my mind is one of my coworkers, he has one of those hand squeezing, those hand workout things,
Christine: Like a grip ball or something?
Cat: Yes. To strengthen his hands. So something like that. Just anything that's gonna help build your strength. And your grip climbing is a great thing for that too. At the climbing gym, they have all kinds of things to help with your grip and holding on.
Christine: What about when you're catching the wave too? What happens with me sometimes is if I, you have to commit and if you don't commit, and then you freak out last minute, and then you still need to hold onto your board. Or you actually have caught something and then you gotta have board control when you're ending. And I still don't know how to kick out or go back over the wave or anything. But do you recommend kind of just moving back down onto your border? Because those are also moments when you need to hold on.
Cat: Well, that's a tricky one because when you're dropping in, I mean, you should be aware of your surroundings at all times, number one. So if you're paddling into this wave and you're about to stand up and you see that there's somebody maybe in the flats that's paddling out and you could come pretty close, that's when I would definitely hold onto your board, cuz you don't wanna hurt the other person. If you're going to eat it on the drop and you know it's coming, , and you didn't see anyone around you, I would try to get away from your board if you can. I've broken my nose twice from surfing and it's always my board hitting me in the face.
Christine: Do you know why that's happened? What if you were to look back or can you even piece it together?
Cat: Well, the most recent one was, it was about a year ago. I was surfing right where we paddled out. I was on my fish, that Robin board, which is, it's three inches thick, like all the way out to the rails. It’s pretty old school, style fish. And it's kind of heavy and I just remember it was maybe chest high day, but super peaky. It was a beautiful morning. I was maybe on my second or third wave. I wasn't wearing a leash that day. I was just so relaxed. You know, the waves were just so perfect and it was just so fun. And I got a little bit too comfortable, let my guard down a bit. I kick out of this wave, it was the left. So I'm front side and I kick out of the. I kind of like fall into the water, and as I'm swimming up to the surface, my board was flying down on the rail straight to my nose. Oh, it hurt so bad. So, I was being too careless. I was too relaxed and just if I had held onto my board or kicked out in a different way, that would've never happened.
Christine: It's funny, but I hear this again and again, that it's when you let your guard down or that it's those moments of relaxation that often times that's when the injury, or even like in a foot or two foot of water, when you're coming in, that's when people can have these weird mishaps.
Cat: It's so true. And the first time that I broke my nose, same story. The waves were terrible. I think I was 16 years old. I was surfing with my friend Nicole, south side of the pier. It was the holiday. I think it was Labor Day or something, and it was Red Tide. The water looked terrible, the waves, even more terrible. It was windy, it was small, but we went out anyways. We had nothing else to do. And so we go and paddle and catch a couple waves and my second wave, I'm just not even caring cuz the waves are so small and terrible. I just, it didn't matter, we were just out there to move around and I'm popping down the line on this left and I just kind of hit this little chop and I just kind of go with it and I just fall into the wave and I think I kicked my board out. This was so long ago. I don't really remember, but I was wearing a leash that day, and I think what happened was, because I remember being underwater and just waiting to float back up, and as I was floating up, my board just. Bam. Just like slingshot, like back into my face and that was like a one to two foot day. I feel like the worst injuries happen on the smaller days for sure.
Christine: I remember seeing you at the yoga studio you're right after the second time and I was thinking, wow, Cat is such a badass! She just got nailed in her nose!
Cat: Oh my gosh, it hurts. But, you know, to answer your question, it's all what's happening in the moment. That's the best thing about surfing it tests our, ability to adapt to whatever's going on right when it's happening makes you practice being quick with your thoughts and, you just have to trust yourself, go out with the intention of taking responsibility for your board and yourself and being aware of who's around you so that if it is a steeper day and you might be falling on a couple takeoffs, just paddle to where there's less people and, you're not gonna be in anyone else's space. You just gotta do the best you can.
Christine: You also mentioned that this season you've had some bad luck with stingrays.
Cat: Oh yes, first time in my life. Really, I've grown up going in the water here, right out front in the harbor and all of Oceanside and I have never, ever been stung by a stingray until this last, and it was the day of my flight to Costa Rica. I had a red eye flight and I remember, I went to the 8:30 class, I think it was Michele's class, and then I drove straight down here to just paddle out for a quick hour. Then I was gonna go and pack up my boards and get ready to go. I suited up and I was with two of my friends. I remember walking out, I was in maybe thigh deep water, and the waves looked so fun, and it was so clean. I was so excited. And I just remember taking my last step to push up onto my board to paddle. And as I took that step and pushed, I just felt it go into my foot and it just felt like a knife. It was so gnarly. I instantly turned around, started walking in, and both my friends, they knew exactly what happened. They helped me get up the beach because there’s a lot of sand in that area. And my friend Rick was like, don't try not to put any weight on it. Just lean on us and we'll get you to the car. And, so they threw me in the van. I gave Vince my keys to my truck, and he moved it out of the meter. Actually, he drove it to his house and Rick drove me to Vince's house. He was the closest so I could get in the bathtub and get hot water started and it instantly felt amazing once the hot water hit it. But it's crazy how you take it out and it's just right back there. That was at some of the worst pain. It's crazy how that that little stinger can, just the venom that it injects is so gnarly.
Christine: I've heard so many different stories. Some people say that you actually have a little bit of time before the real pain sets in to get the hot water, but it sounds like you had very little time. So that was just the urgency to get you out of the water.
Cat: Totally. The beach, the 10 minute drive to get to Vince's house, I was biting my arm, like hitting my leg, just trying to do anything to lessen the pain that was in my foot. That's so intense. It's crazy.
Christine: I've never been stung and I grew up here too. I grew up in the ocean and in Baja where there were a gazillion stingrays. And my brother and I would wear tennis shoes in the water.
Cat: No way.
Christine: Jump off a sailboat and watch the ground beneath us explode. But I, knock on wood, I've never been stung either.
Cat: Wow. So what was that like two months later? I got hit down in South Oceanside. And I didn't even step on it. I was standing in the water, just admiring the beautiful day.
Christine: Oh no.
Cat: And it just comes out and all of a sudden it swam up to my foot and got my foot. Unbelievable. I couldn't believe it.
Christine: So sometimes you can't prevent it. Right? ,
Cat: It's true. I mean the best thing that you can do is when you're paddling out or if you're going in the ocean, just do everything you can to not stand. You know, when you get to where your fins are clear, you start paddling. Get on the board early. And I talked to, when I got back from that Costa Rica trip, I talked to Bill, the head of lifeguards here in Oceanside, and he said that this last summer that we had, they made record breaking just here in the harbor from North Jetty to South Jetty, 56 stings in one day.
Christine: Whoa. That's a lot in one day. My sister-in-law, they came from France and she, we had this whole picnic on the beach and she was in the water for like five minutes and got stung. And the lifeguard said that that was their eighth of that day. I thought that was a lot, but 56!
Cat: That's crazy.
Christine: Crazy. My daughter insists that, she says, oh, it's only the tourists that get stung. She's like, I feel him under my feet all the way all the time. I’ve stepped on their eyeballs and they don't sting me. But, she's probably a sting waiting to happen too.
Cat: Oh gosh, I hope not. I feel so terrible when I see little kids getting stung.
Christine: Well, let's go back to your history with surfing. So can you tell us when you started
Cat: I started surfing when I was 14. I had always wanted to start at a much younger age, cuz you know, we grew up coming down here, bodyboarding and, I had cousins that surfed and my brother taught me how to skate when we were little. So that's what we grew up doing from a super young age. So skating and riding BMX was like the thing, and then going to the beach and I always wanted to surf. It was so funny looking back at this because my mom, she was hesitant because she thought it was too dangerous. And I'm thinking to myself, Dad builds us ramps and rails and we set up this whole track. Every Saturday we skate and we're on concrete and these metal rails and ramps and, I'm thinking to myself that's way more dangerous than surfing.
But, I started saving up my allowance. My grandparents would come down from Westminster like once a week. I'd get like 20 bucks from my grandma and grandpa. And so I just started stacking it and putting it away and putting it away. At one point, I think I had around $500. I can't remember why, but my family and I were down in Pacific Beach and we walked into a surf shop and I remember browsing the boards and I found this one board. It's a 8’ 6” Murphy Siren, and it had these blue stripes going down the top of the deck. I just fell in love. Blue's my favorite color, and it was like this beautiful, like dark blue that fades into a lighter blue and I had was like, mom, dad, come look at this board. And I think I was about $300 short. I think it was around 800 bucks or something like that. It was brand new. I just said, Mom, Dad, please help me get this board. They just couldn't say no at that.
Cat: So we got the board, and I'll never forget the first surf going to Forster Street. It was January. I had a wetsuit, this old wetsuit, and I just remember paddling out not really knowing exactly what to do, but it felt natural in a way. I'd watched it so much and I'd been in the waves and ocean so much that it felt, I felt safe and I just remember paddling out and just fighting some waves and paddling for a couple, but not quite getting into it. And then the first one that I paddled for that I got into, I'll never forget, it's like a video in my mind still of paddling and I've got the view of these blue stripes down my board and I stood up and just seeing the water rushing this way and I'm going this way. Oh, and my mom and my brother and his girlfriend at the time and my best friend Nicole, were on the beach and they just all started hooting and hollering. That was it, I was hooked.
Christine: That is great, I love the fact that you bought, you saved every penny for this board, and then your parents helped you out, but it was $800 for a brand new board. I just love that contrast with your truck, cause you didn't buy a used board or anything. You went right straight for the top, spanking new board.
Cat: The blue stripes had me.
Christine: But you knew what you wanted, right? You knew from an early age right where your cash was going.
Cat: Totally. And then didn't you say that you also did a surf camp too?
Cat: So my mom realized how addicted I was already just from that first session. Over those next couple months, it was like, I was just begging, can we go surf? It was kind of a every Sunday thing, and then it turned into multiple days a week. I think it was late spring or something. I can't remember when the surf camp started, my mom was like, okay, let's, put you in the surf camp. I'm like, okay, I'm down. And it was on north side of the pier. All the counselors and even the groms that were in the camp, most all of them, I'm still friends with to this day.
Christine: Did you experience any challenges with learning to surf? It seemed like you had such a good preparation with bodyboarding and skateboarding that you kind of took to it right away. But do you remember any specific challenges along the way?
Cat: Surfing's hard and it's such a progressive thing. I think that's why we all keep coming back to it. Cuz you know, we're never gonna be as good as Kelly Slater. There's always room to improve, so every day is different and sometimes your arms are tired. And you just aren't getting as many waves cuz your arms are just weak. So I feel like in the beginning, when you're learning how to surf, that can probably be the biggest challenge because your body is learning to get conditioned to what you're doing. And then especially when there's swell in the water and there's more current, it's gonna tire you out faster. And you wanna stay out longer, but sometimes you physically can't. You have to know when you need to go in cuz you're tired or
Christine: Do you still struggle with that now or do you feel now you have that strength and that know-how?
Cat: I go in waves with that. When I come back from a trip, I'm just like, I could paddle forever, and never get winded.
But then, you know, we have spells where it goes flat or it's like south wind every day, and then you're not surfing every day. And I don't care how many pushups you do, it's not the same. If you're not surfing every day, you're not getting that same, muscle memory going. But I think the biggest challenge has always been barrel riding. I've gotten barreled front side, but backside barrels is, it's tough. It's really, really hard. I went to El Salvador, what was that last year? And I spent three weeks at Los Flores and it was pumping like 10 to 12 feet, sometimes 15 feet faces like it was huge.
Christine: That sounds crazy.
Cat: Is so scary. It was huge and for me it's backside. But I mean it's a sand point break. Like it breaks off these rocks, but then it's all sand. So you know, it's not like a huge wave of consequence, but there's a lot of water moving and it's powerful and the current's pretty gnarly. I definitely got humbled that trip for sure. Backside barrels is just not my thing. But you know, I've been surfing for 20 years now and I'm not gonna give up. I'm still gonna try. But, unfortunately here we don't really have that much opportunity. Sometimes we do, like Oceanside can get pretty sick and pretty often it's a lot of closeouts. I gotta stop being picky with that. Cause sometimes you don't feel like paddling out and getting super beat up and just pulling into closeouts cuz it takes a lot of energy. And it'd be nice to have just a perfect peeling wave to practice on.
Christine: That's what we always want.
Cat: Totally. But it's nice that, you know, we have Trussels right here and growing up that was a big thing. I used to go to Trussels, I used to surf Lowers every Wednesday. Because I was homeschooled, so I had time back then. The crowds were so minimal. Nowadays it's a different story. You can go up there on any random day and it's just packed. But, it is really important to, going back to the traveling thing, it's important to go and find these waves where you have the room to practice. I think you said you were in Peru, Was it a, was it a super long left that you were surfing?
Christine: Chicama. It's purported to be the longest wave in the world.
Cat: It's true.
Christine: I dunno if it's true, but it's very long and it's such a different experience because you walk out, first of all, the stretch of beach is so long. And just to walk out to the break. It's like a mile walk, at least it seemed like that. And you walk all the way out there and then, you try to catch it. And I was, it was back in, January of last year, so, very beginning stages, but it was very small when I went too. I got pushed a little bit. I know that you're not supposed to, but it was a tough wave to catch and I worked with this guy Jorge, who was so sweet and so he pushed me a couple times in the waves and then once I caught them, you could ride them for a long time, it was so fun. Such a different wave though, right? It's like that kind of rolling wave that almost seems like it. It just keeps on going and it's supposed to get really big in May. So actually when you're, or maybe April too. So maybe when Oceanside is starting to peter out, maybe you could check out Chicama.
Cat: For sure.
Christine: You also mentioned that nutrition is something that's really important for you, right? To feel your best and to thrive. And so I was wondering if you could go into that a little bit.
Cat: I nerd out. What started it all was when I was 18. I had this boyfriend who his parents were, his mom was vegan, dad was vegetarian. They were both neuromuscular therapists. They were very into holistic health. They grew most of their food and all their meals were just amazing. They tasted so good and never any meat and not the things I was used to eating, growing up. Like my mom always had fruits and veggies and we always had a garden and I grew up eating out of the garden, but I didn't know about preservatives. I didn't even realize that the foods that I was eating a lot of the times had preservatives in them or added sugar. I had no idea. I just thought it was food, you know? And were just taught to be grateful for what you have. There's so many people in the world that would kill to have what's in front of you. So you just didn't ask. And. Kim, she gave me this book and it's called The Sun Food Diet Success System by David Wolf, and I read that and it just changed everything. I was just blown away by what I had read, and I went out and bought a dehydrator and I went a hundred percent raw for three weeks straight. I did all the crazy recipes. They were so fun, but very time consuming.
Christine: And did you feel okay immediately on a raw diet? Cause I hear different stories that some people, they have a really hard time adjusting to it and other people really like it.
Cat: I've heard that too, that a lot of people are sensitive to raw foods, but I think because I've grown up eating a lot of raw and just straight outta the garden, that maybe that helped me out a little bit. I felt great. And everything is so flavorful because you're just using all these fresh herbs and ginger and rosemary and, all these things. Everything just tastes so alive and vibrant. It was great, but all the prep and the dehydrating, it's a lot of time.
Christine: What, what is the reason for
Cat: dehydrating? Just to make the different recipes. Like for example, I made this raw meatloaf.
Christine: Oh, I see. So it kind of carries a different texture or feeling. You're almost fooling your palate a little bit.
Cat: Totally. Yep. It's more for like you're going for those meal style recipes. So I did that for three weeks. I felt great. I loved all the flavors. But I'm not going to do all that work all the time. Basically, I just kept all the same principles, but just fine tuned them over the years and figured out how I can get all these different greens and things into my. Into my body, but without all that prep and just making it easy. So, salads. I'm like the salad queen. I'll claim that right now. And smoothie queen, you can get so many good, amazing greens and, things that your body needs without, I'm gonna take that back because I was gonna say without it tasting like what people might think it would taste like, but when you've eaten this way for so long, your taste buds change. You start to crave more of that bitter green flavor for me. Like sweets, I was definitely a sweet tooth when I was a kid. Ice cream, cakes, brownies, whatevers. I loved it all. But nowadays, a hundred percent cacao, if I can find that anywhere, that's my kind of sweet that I like.
Christine: That's the most nutrient dense food on the planet. Isn't cacao the super of all super foods.
Cat: Totally. My favorite thing actually to do is when I find that a hundred percent cacao, I break a little bit of that off and dip it in a hot coffee in the morning before surf. Oh, it gets to going.
Christine: That sounds good.
Cat: I definitely crave more of natural sweets, you know, all the fruits, eating fresh and clean like that, and focusing your diet on foods that thriving on soil and sun and water.
Christine: How are you sourcing? Is it farmer's markets? Are your parents? You're eating out of the garden from their place?
Cat: I'll definitely cruise over to my parents' house and pick off the trees. You know, different times of the year, different things are going off. Farmers' markets maybe once a week. But Frazier Farms is usually my go-to. Their produce is usually always pretty good and fresh and affordable.
Christine: I love to nerd out on that stuff too. And it's true. I think that the science is showing how we are so much bacteria, right? More bacteria than we are human. And it's those bacteria that we're feeding and that they actually will change over time and they're the ones that start to crave. Same thing. I was such a sugar-aholic as a kid and for a long time my gut was probably telling me, oh, feed me more sugar feed and more sugar. But then when you start to change, and I love the salads too. I always make a big daily salad. Like right now I've been picking the dandelions wherever I can find them in the yard because of the little bit of rain that we've had, they’re popping up again. But that bitter green is something that I never could imagine eating. Even though I grew up, my parents were kind of health nuts, but in the different vein. The way it was in the eighties and seventies. But now I crave it. Or you search for that good feeling that you have after. It's a little bit like everything we look for, the feeling of surfing, or, any of these activities that make us feel good for the long term.
Cat: Totally. I could never imagine going back to eating processed foods or fast food. I just couldn't even stomach it. There's no way.
Christine: It's such a problem right now because it surrounds all of us. There's so much. It seems like the culture at large is just pushing it on us all the times to be sugar addicts and processed food addicts and you have to take a pretty strong stance or have a pretty strong, family culture. Self intention, to work against it. And then you feel a little bit strange.
Cat: Oh, for sure. Totally. The culture now, especially in San Diego too, the breweries. It’s all about drinking. And all these craft cocktails, and along with that is the greasy food trucks. And it's just this culture of overeating and over drinking and just over indulging. When you do tap into that shift and you get used to it, and then you realize how your body's actually supposed to feel after a meal. You will just never go back. But I feel like it is hard sometimes to convince people to even try it. Cuz it seems so unattainable to eat like that. But when really it's so simple, I don't even cook food really. The most that I use is my blender and a spiralizer. I love doing zucchini noodles for salads. It's all about the knife, the spiralizer. The blender.
Christine: So what do you do for protein? Do you worry about that? Like how do you source it?
Cat: I don't really worry about it too much. I do throw a protein powder in my smoothies, but if you're getting all of your greens and spirulina powder is huge for me too and you're getting all of those amino acids and everything that you need. It's enough protein.
Christine: Amino acids is where it's at, isn't it? And spiralina is a huge source of that. Is that right?
Cat: It's huge.
Christine: Okay. I was eating spiralina for a while and I've stopped but I'll bring that back in.
Cat: You gotta get it for sure, another thing that I love to do is make a chia seed pudding. Because that helps sustain me throughout a whole day of cutting hair, you know? Throw some coconut milk in there, some vanilla protein powder. Cinnamon cacao.
Christine: Chia seed is also one of those that has calcium and protein. I'm trying to remember all the other ones.
Cat: All the omegas. It's so good at self sustaining.
Christine: Is it the Tarahumara, the people, and I think it's in the Chihuahua Desert, one part of Mexico, that are the runners, right? And they sustain themselves. They run like on average 25 miles a day, in sandals where it's like more ergonomically suitable anyways, but they're sustaining themselves on chia seed.
Cat: Yep. They carry chia seeds in their satchels. That's all they carry with them. Chia seeds are a huge part of my every day,
Christine: Okay, well thank you for reminding me about spirulina.
Cat: Oh , for sure, totally.
Christine: This is great Cat. Thank you for all of the wisdom you bring to everything. It's really nice. I know you from the yoga studio and we didn't even talk about yoga. That'll be for another time, I guess. But I really, I appreciate you, you have just such a wonderful energy and you're so kind and loving, and thank you for the surf session and all the inspiration.
Cat: I appreciate you. Oh, its my treat and I appreciate you. I feel the same, same exact vibe about you. You're the best.
Christine: Thank you.
