![\"HOKA](\"http:\/\/blogemea.hokaoneone.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Elisabet_2rs.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Elisabet Barnes\u2019 grandfather invented the modern compass, but that didn\u2019t prevent her from feeling lost in life. Her story of reinvention is the latest in our Huck x HOKA series, looking at mavericks who found a new perspective through running.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Finding yourself alone in the middle of a desert at night with not even a mobile phone for company, let alone Google maps for navigation, would leave most of us feeling lost. But for Elisabet Barnes, it was when she finally started to find her way.<\/span><\/p>\n Back in London, she\u2019d seemingly had the perfect career as a high-flying management consultant: good money, sweet benefits, strong LinkedIn profile. Yet she felt untethered, struggling to locate an inner compass she so badly needed to point her in the right direction.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI was working really long hours,\u201d she says. \u201cMy only focus was my next promotion. I was a top performer and had a great career path outlined \u2013 but I also felt lost. It wasn\u2019t what I was passionate about, I got into it because it was the right thing to do, an expectation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Then her father died suddenly. \u201cHe just didn\u2019t wake up one day. He was fit and I thought he had another 20 years in him. Nothing prepares you for that. It was really hard.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n This, coupled with her mother\u2019s Alzheimer\u2019s diagnosis and her husband getting cancer, triggered a change.<\/span> \u201cIt was the wakeup call I needed. I was just working. Life was passing me by. That was the catalyst for everything.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n She gave up her city job and entered the Marathon de Sables, an epic, but gruelling, race through the Sahara Desert, where midday temperatures clock around 48 degrees Celsius and the apparently endless dunescapes can disorient and mentally torment even the most focused of competitors.<\/span><\/p>\n Yet Elisabet loved it. \u201cI just had a great time in the desert,\u201d she says. \u201cI felt free. <\/span>The landscape is mesmerising. It\u2019s so vast and arid, yet beautiful, and it makes you feel really tiny. You realise how powerful nature is. Fo<\/span>r the first time in my life I was doing something I was passionate about.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n She liked it so much she entered it again; she\u2019s now run it four times and actually won it twice. Does the piercing temperature not make it an incredibly inhospitable place to run? <\/span>\u201cThe heat can be tough but it\u2019s also pretty cool to observe the effects of it as the ground gets really hot and you can see mirages or heat shimmer on the horizon,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n But then handling harsh environments and framing that experience in a positive way is pretty much in her DNA. <\/span>Elisabet comes from a family with world-class orienteering credentials, that is the lo-fi art of racing through unfamiliar terrain using a map and a compass. Her uncle, Jan Kjellstr\u00f6m, introduced the sport to the UK, while her grandfather, Alvar Kjellstr\u00f6m, was also a skilled orienteer and cross-country skier. He invented the modern compass, through his company Silva, to help him fare better at those twin passions.<\/span><\/p>\n Growing up in Sweden, Elisabet loved ice-skating and cross-country skiing, but as she grew older sport slipped off her radar. \u201cI rebelled quite a lot as a teenager. Rock concerts and partying became more interesting and I fell out of sport and became a bit unfit,\u201d she says.<\/span><\/p>\n Then at uni, she started running and quite enjoyed it. But after her studies, she fell into a job in a management consultancy, where the hours were long and she had to travel a lot. Soon running fell by the wayside. \u201cWork really took over,\u201d she says, and she soon found herself living a life which could not have been more different from that of her adventurous forefathers.<\/span><\/p>\n But giving up a big money career is a real risk. Did she worry she\u2019d regret it? \u201cI\u2019ve taken a lot of risks to get to where I am \u2013 I left a stable career and comfortable life for one that\u2019s more uncertain but definitely more interesting. That\u2019s how I want to live my life. Why would I want to make safe choices and arrive safely at death?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Instead, she revels in running through deserts in the dark. She says, \u201cThe nights are spectacular with black star-filled skies and if you\u2019re lucky, a full moon. Running the night stage is a completely unique experience as I am often on my own during those hours. Just me, my head torch and the stars.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n During the days, she is almost hypnotised by the hostility of the desert wilderness. \u201cI am able to draw a lot of energy from the magical environment, like the intense sun and the vast sand dunes that are almost like a sea. It provides a sense of tranquillity, yet has a very powerful energising effect if you let it. I can\u2019t actually explain what happens, but you think the very simple life you lead there. The time for reflection helps you realise things about yourself, good and bad, and act on those.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou go back to basics with no shower, no WiFi and no phone. You focus on eating, sleeping, running \u2013 and surviving. This makes you see things from a different perspective, and realise what\u2019s important in life. Okay, I never have more than three toenails intact, but I also meet some amazing people and get to travel to the most incredible places on the planet.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Huck is a youth culture channel. It celebrates and explores independent culture \u2014 people and movements that paddle against the flow.\u00a0Find out more about\u00a0HUCK<\/a>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\nCatalyst for change<\/h3>\n
![\"HOKA](\"http:\/\/blogemea.hokaoneone.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Elisabet_1rs.jpg\")
<\/p>\nRebellious streak<\/h3>\n
![\"HOKA](\"http:\/\/blogemea.hokaoneone.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Elisabet_4rs.jpg\")
<\/p>\nSeeking peace and tranquility<\/h3>\n