Alyssa Azar - Climbing to the Top of the World

180 Nutrition -The Health Sessions.

This week we welcome back Alyssa Azar to the show. Alyssa began trekking in 2005 with her first challenge, crossing the Kokoda Track in Papua New Guinea. Alyssa then trekked in Nepal, completed treks such as Everest Base Camp and Kokoda numerous times, Mt Kosciuszko in Australia, the Aussie 10 (the 10 highest peaks in Australia), Mt Kilimanjaro.

After completing Mt Kilimanjaro in 2011, Alyssa began climbing by doing a mountaineering course in NZ. Since then she has climbed in South America and Nepal on various expeditions to different peaks including: Ama Dablam, Aconcagua, Manaslu and two Everest Expeditions.

Alyssa was on Everest both in 2014 and 2015 when the Avalanche and the Nepal Earthquake occurred and closed the mountain.

In 2016 Alyssa returned for a third time and on the 21st May 2016 became the Youngest Australian to Summit Mount Everest. She has since gone on and climbed again on Aconcagua as well as a summit of the highest mountain in Europe – Mt Elbrus in Russia. Alyssa is currently preparing for a Northside Everest Expedition climbing from Tibet.

She is also now leading climbs on many of the Seven Summits in 2018 and 2019.

Questions we ask in this episode:

• What drives you to want to achieve goals that appear to be so hard?
• Tell us about your training routine leading up to a big climb.
• What strategies to do you take to recover from a huge climb?

https://shop.180nutrition.com.au/

Stu

This week, I'm excited to welcome Alyssa Azar. Alyssa was the youngest person to cross the Kokoda track as an 8 year old in 2005. And the youngest Australian to summit Mount Everest, of which she has now climbed twice. Unbelievable. In this interview, we discuss her diet, training and mindset used to get her to the top of the world and how she approaches goals of such a magnitude. I hope you enjoy this chat as much as I did as she's a real inspiration who is truly following her dream. Over to Alyssa.

01:20 Hey guys, this is Stu from 180 Nutrition, and I am delighted to welcome Alyssa Azar to the show. Good morning Alyssa, how are you?

Alyssa

01:27 Good morning. I'm good.

Stu

01:29 Thank you so much for joining us Alyssa. And I'd love it if you could just tell our listeners that may not be familiar with who you are, a little bit about yourself please.

Alyssa

01:41 Yeah, so my name's Alyssa Azar. I'm 21 from Brisbane, but essentially I'm a mountaineer. And so just recently summited Everest for the second time. So originally climbed it from the south side and just recently got back from climbing it from the north side in Tibet. But really, how I got started into that was quite young.

02:02 I got into trekking, and that kind of happened just being exposed to it through my dad. So pretty much since I was four or five years old, he was guiding people across the Kokoda track. That's what he does for a living. And so I was kind of exposed to this world of adventure a little bit. But was always interested in the mountains and so I think I was always gonna sort of end up there at some point. But yeah, most of my weekends were out bush walking and I just loved it. And yeah, kind of harassed my dad to take me to Kokoda. I was obsessed with it. And yeah, he did. So I was eight years old when I first crossed the Kokoda track. And then from there, every few years we'd try and do another trip somewhere. And it was then, Everest base camp, Kilimanjaro, and it was often Kilimanjaro that I realized Everest had always been this thing in the back of my mind. And I'm gonna go for it and set the goal and then I knew, it's gonna be a few years away, but yeah started preparing for it and that's essentially been my life I guess. For the last few years now.

For full transcript and interview:

http://180nutrition.com.au/180-tv/alyssa-azar-interview/