Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / Episode 30: Colleen Quigley, Olympian & Pro Runner

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Episode 30: Colleen Quigley, Olympian & Pro Runner · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to episode thirty of Hurdle, a podcast that talks
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Speaker 1: to everyone from top CEOs to entrepreneurs about how they
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Speaker 1: got through tough times hurdles of sorts by leaning into wellness.
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Speaker 2: My name's Emily A.
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Speaker 1: Badi, and today I'm chatting with Olympian Colleen Quickly, a
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Speaker 1: Nike pro runner with the Bowerman Track Club and all
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Speaker 1: around rock star. I literally landed yesterday back in New
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Speaker 1: York City from recording this with her over the weekend
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Speaker 1: in Portland, where I joined my friends at Nike to
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Speaker 1: check out the Nike Cross Nationals, which is the high
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Speaker 1: school championships for cross country. I've got to admit it
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Speaker 1: was surprisingly emotional for me to see all of the
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Speaker 1: camaraderie and the bravery and the dedication of these high schoolers.
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Speaker 2: It was really special.
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Speaker 1: Before we get in today's episode, shout out to the
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Speaker 1: sponsor Athletic Greens, complete with twelve servings of fruits and vegetables.
0:52
Speaker 1: Having the green Spider first thing in the morning, before
0:54
Speaker 1: I head out the door makes me feel like a
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Speaker 1: better me. They're offering a special deal for hurdlesteners. It's
1:00
Speaker 1: twenty free travel packs valued at ninety nine dollars with
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Speaker 1: your first purchase. Just head on over to athleticgreens dot
1:07
Speaker 1: com slash hurdle to claim it. No code necessary. Again,
1:10
Speaker 1: that's athleticgreens dot com slash hurdle. Now let's talk about Colleen.
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Speaker 1: The first thing to throw out there is at this
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Speaker 1: twenty six year old definitely didn't grow up dreaming of
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Speaker 1: going to the Olympics to compete in the steeplechase.
1:23
Speaker 2: And if you've never heard of.
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Speaker 1: The steeplechase before, well you're certainly not alone. It's essentially
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Speaker 1: a three thousand meter obstacle race and each lap of
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Speaker 1: the track has four barriers or hurdles and a water pit.
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Speaker 1: After joining the track team her freshman year of high
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Speaker 1: school and finding her fast the scene, Louis native realized
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Speaker 1: she really had a knack for this running thing. She
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Speaker 1: landed herself a scholarship to run at Florida State University,
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Speaker 1: and despite being mega successful, she still was hesitant to
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Speaker 1: turn pro. But soon enough she was relocating to Oregon
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Speaker 1: to run as a Nike sponsored athlete with the Bowerman
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Speaker 1: Track Club, gearing up for the twenty sixteen Summer Games.
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Speaker 1: That's when injury struck quickly dealt with a major hurdle moment,
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Speaker 1: a nasty hamstring situation that almost derailed her from hitting
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Speaker 1: the track in Rio. In today's episode, I sit down
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Speaker 1: with a self proclaimed Barrlman Babe to chat her ever
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Speaker 1: evolving dreams, a brief stint in modeling, and how it
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Speaker 1: feels to be a role model for young athletes around
2:23
Speaker 1: the world. As always, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, all the things
2:28
Speaker 1: at Hurdle Podcast. Keep on tagging me with those Instagram stories.
2:32
Speaker 1: I love reposting them from the Hurdle feed and shoot
2:35
Speaker 1: me an email with a hurdle moment of your own,
2:37
Speaker 1: or just to say hi emilyat hurdle dot Us.
2:41
Speaker 2: I think that's it and with that, let's get to hurdling.
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Speaker 3: Today.
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Speaker 1: I'm sitting here with the lovely Colleen Quiggly. She is
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Speaker 1: a professional track athlete, a steeple chaser.
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Speaker 3: Can you talk to me about what steeple chasing is
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Speaker 3: for the unknowing, for sure, it's one of my favorite
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Speaker 3: things to explain to people who don't know what it
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Speaker 3: is because it sounds legit crazy. Basically, we're on a track.
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Speaker 3: So a track is four hunderimeters around. That's four laps
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Speaker 3: to a mile, and we are doing seven and a
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Speaker 3: half laps, so just short of two miles. But every
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Speaker 3: lap you are jumping over these big wooden barriers. They're like,
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Speaker 3: they look more like horse barriers than regular sprinter hurdles,
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Speaker 3: and those suckers are not going anywhere, so if you
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Speaker 3: hit one of them, you're going down, not the barrier,
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Speaker 3: and you got four of those on every lap, as
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Speaker 3: well as a water pit that is placed just behind
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Speaker 3: one of these barriers. So you step up on the
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Speaker 3: barrier and you leap over the water, hopefully only getting
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Speaker 3: one foot wet in the water, and then your next
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Speaker 3: foot should be dry. So you do that seven times,
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Speaker 3: so you have twenty eight hurdles and seven water jumps
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Speaker 3: throughout just short of two mile race. It's three thousand meters.
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Speaker 1: You're hurdling already and we just started. This feels awesome. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: it's so funny. I mean, do you wake up one
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Speaker 1: day and you're like, man, you know what my event
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Speaker 1: is gonna be. It's gonna be the steeple chase.
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Speaker 3: It's kind of weird. I mean, I didn't do in
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Speaker 3: high school. My older brother actually also was a runner,
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Speaker 3: and he ran the steeplechase in college, so I did
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Speaker 3: kind of have an idea of what the event was,
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Speaker 3: but I also just thought it was crazy and I
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Speaker 3: never imagined myself doing it. So my coach in college
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Speaker 3: saw me run for the first time in a cross
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Speaker 3: country race, no hurdles. I'd never hurdled before, and she
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Speaker 3: was like, I think he'd be a good steeple chaser,
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Speaker 3: and I was just kind of like whatever, lady, Like,
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Speaker 3: you give me a full ride to go be coached
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Speaker 3: by you, So yeah, I'll go.
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Speaker 1: Where were you at college?
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Speaker 3: I went to Florida State for four years.
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Speaker 1: Okay, So I feel like we need a little background.
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Speaker 1: We're sitting here at Nike headquarters in Portland, which is
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Speaker 1: an outrageous experience in a sound booth. We I feel
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Speaker 1: like we've been given the golden treatment. So we're very lucky.
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Speaker 1: And this weekend is the Nike Cross Nationals. It's also
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Speaker 1: fast Braid Friday. It is okay, of course, Well, my listeners,
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Speaker 1: my listeners don't know about fast Braide Friday, So why
5:22
Speaker 1: don't you cool them out?
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Speaker 3: Let me tell them with a snap Fast brad Friday.
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Speaker 3: It happens every Friday. I've been doing it for about
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Speaker 3: a year now, I think over a year. It's just
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Speaker 3: the silly, kind of silly but kind of serious thing
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Speaker 3: that I accidentally created with my followers on Instagram. I
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Speaker 3: posted this photo on a Friday with myself and a
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Speaker 3: French braid, saying, you know, just goofy is hashtag French
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Speaker 3: braid Friday because that's how it started. Is French Braid
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Speaker 3: Friday a thing? Because it should definitely be a thing,
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Speaker 3: and it just like silly and I all of a sudden,
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Speaker 3: I got all these messages from other girls being like yeah, totally,
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Speaker 3: and they send me pictures of them selves and braids
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Speaker 3: and like saying, you know, hashtag French braid Friday. And
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Speaker 3: I was like whoa, Like okay, people like it. So
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Speaker 3: I did it again. And then you know, a few
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Speaker 3: weeks went by, I wouldn't do it, and I did
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Speaker 3: it again. I keep keep getting all these photos and
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Speaker 3: it was getting, you know, traction. And besides the photos,
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Speaker 3: I was also getting stories of yeah, you know, I
6:20
Speaker 3: braided my hair like you did. And I saw your
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Speaker 3: photo and braided my hair like you, and it made
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Speaker 3: me feel so good. I went out and crushed my
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Speaker 3: workout after at practice today, and I was like, WHOA, Like,
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Speaker 3: that's actually, you know, that's actually really cool and like
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Speaker 3: kind of special. And so it kind of grew and grew,
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Speaker 3: and that idea of doing something to your hair that
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Speaker 3: makes you feel confident, it makes you feel like a
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Speaker 3: bad ass, makes you feel fast, makes you feel like
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Speaker 3: you can get on the start line for a race
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Speaker 3: or a workout and be like I got this, and
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Speaker 3: that's you know, it starts with something that's kind of
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Speaker 3: superficial and kind of silly. It is just your hair,
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Speaker 3: but maybe that's what you need to just feel a
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Speaker 3: little more powerful. And so it became more of a
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Speaker 3: serious thing as the weeks went by, and we ended
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Speaker 3: up changing the name the hashtag from French Braid Friday
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Speaker 3: to fast Braid Friday, just to incorporate or to be
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Speaker 3: more welcoming of all different types of braids or eether
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Speaker 3: their corn rows or Dutch braids or French braids or
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Speaker 3: whatever it is, and to to kind of get more
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Speaker 3: to the idea that it's all about feeling fast. So
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Speaker 3: no matter what type of braid, it makes you feel fast,
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Speaker 3: then you know you're doing the right thing.
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Speaker 1: So, I mean, it's a fun way to connect with
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Speaker 1: your a fun way to connect with your audience, and
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Speaker 1: your audience is pretty big.
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Speaker 3: It's growing. I would say, it's really fun to hear
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Speaker 3: the stories. I would say the best part of is
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Speaker 3: not just like seeing the styles, but seeing or hearing
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Speaker 3: what they did. I put in this braid and I
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Speaker 3: went and you know, I won the state meet, or
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Speaker 3: I set a personal personal best, or my team, you know,
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Speaker 3: qualified for nationals. We're going to Nixon and we all
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Speaker 3: were braids together and it made us feel like a team.
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Speaker 3: And you know that is like, seems like a really
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Speaker 3: powerful message to me.
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Speaker 1: So right now, you're a Nike sponsored athlete for the
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Speaker 1: Bauerman Track Club. You are inspiring young girls around the world,
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Speaker 1: one hundred and thirteen thousand of which follow you on
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Speaker 1: social media. But you didn't even start running until you
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Speaker 1: were a freshman in high school. So why do you
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Speaker 1: give me a little bit about your backstory. You grew
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Speaker 1: up in Saint Louis, that's right, yep. I went to
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Speaker 1: an all girls Catholic high school. Saint Louis is known
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Speaker 1: for their all boys and all girls schools, So it
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Speaker 1: might seem weird to a lot of people, but it's normal.
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Speaker 1: If you're from Saint Louis, And yeah, I started running
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Speaker 1: my freshman year basically just to stay in shape for soccer.
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Speaker 1: I went out for the cross country team that fall
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Speaker 1: just to stay in shape for soccer. I wanted to
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Speaker 1: play soccer in the spring. I was playing soccer growing up.
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Speaker 1: And I also danced growing up for about nine years,
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Speaker 1: and I resisted running for a long time. My parents
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Speaker 1: both they did marathons and road races and stuff. And
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Speaker 1: then my brother ran in high school and went on
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Speaker 1: to run in college. And I always said, I'm not
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Speaker 1: a runner, I'm a dancer.
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Speaker 3: You know. I didn't I didn't want to do what
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Speaker 3: they did. I was going to be different, and sitting here,
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Speaker 3: turns out I took it further than any of them did.
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Speaker 3: But yeah, so i've I Eventually, I just got addicted
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Speaker 3: to the running culture and being part of that team
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Speaker 3: that fall was so fun. The Crest country team, the
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Speaker 3: Cress country girls were awesome, and I just I was like,
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Speaker 3: I don't even want to do soccer anymore. I just
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Speaker 3: want to keep doing this. And so my dad, actually
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Speaker 3: he was teaching and coaching at an all boys school, uh,
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Speaker 3: and decided when I when I decided I wanted to
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Speaker 3: continue running and pursue running instead of the other sports.
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Speaker 3: He said, well, heck, I'm I'm over here coaching these guys.
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Speaker 3: I'd rather be coaching youth. So he quit his job
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Speaker 3: there and moved over to our school and started coaching me.
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Speaker 1: Wow, to come in really fun.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, it definitely formed a really strong bond in high school,
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Speaker 3: just because we got to spend that time together was
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Speaker 3: really special. And I trusted him a lot, and I
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Speaker 3: think that's what was ended up making me really successful
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Speaker 3: in high school. I totally trusted him. I did whatever
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Speaker 3: he said. And he's a really good coach and a
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Speaker 3: really good a really good high school coach. It takes
10:19
Speaker 3: a special person to be a good high school coach.
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Speaker 3: I feel like you're in I mean, we're always learning
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Speaker 3: and growing, but especially for young women in high school,
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Speaker 3: it's like a very so many Yeah, through sport is
10:31
Speaker 3: a great way to learn a lot of those lessons,
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Speaker 3: But if you don't have someone who's you know, kind
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Speaker 3: of guiding you in a healthy way to learn how
10:39
Speaker 3: to be competitive but also learn how to have some
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Speaker 3: grace with yourself and you know, if you're having a
10:43
Speaker 3: bad day, it's Okay, you know it's this is not
10:46
Speaker 3: going to make or break you. This one workout is
10:48
Speaker 3: not going to make or break you. You know, learning
10:50
Speaker 3: lessons like that I think was really important. Then I'm
10:52
Speaker 3: still learning those lessons.
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Speaker 1: I think we never stopped running. Okay, so you're running
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Speaker 1: track in high school and that's not the only thing
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Speaker 1: you're doing. You also start doing some modeling.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, about the same time as I started running, my
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Speaker 3: dance teacher was kind of encouraging me to start this,
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Speaker 3: you know, explore a new path which she thought it
11:16
Speaker 3: could be successful in. And so yeah, we went to
11:20
Speaker 3: like a little tryout at the local mall with my
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Speaker 3: mom and I ended up meeting an agent, which was awesome,
11:26
Speaker 3: which she ended up being a really great person to
11:30
Speaker 3: bring me into that crazy world of modeling. And then
11:33
Speaker 3: she introduced me to an agent in New York. And yeah,
11:37
Speaker 3: from there, I just started working and traveling around around
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Speaker 3: the world a little bit around the country. Some amazing
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Speaker 3: memories of you know, my sophomore year, I went to
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Speaker 3: Paris with my dad on spring break. It was so fun,
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Speaker 3: and I worked two days and then we just like
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Speaker 3: explored Paris and eight croissants and ran and he was
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Speaker 3: my coach, so I had to and I was there.
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Speaker 3: But stuff like that I never would have I never
12:03
Speaker 3: would have done without modeling. We I had great family vacations,
12:08
Speaker 3: but they were like camping in the woods in Colorado
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Speaker 3: and stuff, which is fun but totally different, you know,
12:13
Speaker 3: type of travel. Yeah, so that was awesome too. I
12:17
Speaker 3: was definitely loving that and had a great experience. I'm
12:21
Speaker 3: really glad now, in you know, twenty eighteen that I
12:24
Speaker 3: don't have to sit here talking to someone on a
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Speaker 3: podcast about, you know, some horrible experience that I had
12:30
Speaker 3: when I was young and doing this modeling and got
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Speaker 3: taken advantage of or had, you know, God knows all
12:36
Speaker 3: these horrible things that could have happened at that time
12:38
Speaker 3: that you know, didn't happen to me. I always had
12:41
Speaker 3: my mom or my dad traveled with me to every gig.
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Speaker 3: They were overprotective. I hated it. At the time. I
12:46
Speaker 3: was like, I'm you know, I'm so grown. I was sixteen.
12:49
Speaker 3: I was like, I don't need to but yeah, they
12:52
Speaker 3: were definitely on top of like making sure that I
12:55
Speaker 3: had a positive experience, and so I did and we
12:58
Speaker 3: had so much fun.
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Speaker 1: But there got to be a point where you kind
13:01
Speaker 1: of knew that you needed to leave that behind. Like
13:04
Speaker 1: it was and like you said, it was a lot
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Speaker 1: of fun and you definitely got a lot of opportunities
13:08
Speaker 1: that you know, young women at that age certainly do
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Speaker 1: not come across all the time.
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Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, and it was and so you know that, yeah,
13:15
Speaker 3: that point, I had two opportunities really that a lot
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Speaker 3: of people at that time are in their life don't
13:20
Speaker 3: always you know, get which it was go to school
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Speaker 3: for free and run in the NCAA Division I school
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Speaker 3: that's you know, ranked pretty high and has a good reputation,
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Speaker 3: like that's a great opportunity. Or moved to New York
13:33
Speaker 3: and it's you know, big time agency wants to sign
13:36
Speaker 3: you and things that you could be a successful high
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Speaker 3: end model and make a bunch of money and live
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Speaker 3: this like glam glam lifestyle. It's like those seemed like
13:43
Speaker 3: two pretty great options to me when I was sixteen,
13:46
Speaker 3: I was like, that's going to be you know, either
13:48
Speaker 3: of those could be really cool. But I think when
13:50
Speaker 3: it came down to it, I loved running so much
13:54
Speaker 3: because so my team wasn't in high school, it wasn't
13:57
Speaker 3: like super good. A lot of people maybe ticket as
14:01
Speaker 3: seriously asided, especially like junior and senior year, and so
14:05
Speaker 3: it felt a bit like an individual sport in a
14:07
Speaker 3: lot of ways, where in the winter it would just
14:09
Speaker 3: be like after school, it's snowing, and I got my
14:12
Speaker 3: tights on and my gloves and my hat and I'm
14:14
Speaker 3: going for my run. You know, I'm doing it. And
14:16
Speaker 3: so I put in a lot of yeah, a lot
14:18
Speaker 3: of work, made a lot of sacrifices, misgraduation and miss graduation. Yeah,
14:22
Speaker 3: I had, Well, graduation was the same day as sexuals
14:25
Speaker 3: and I had to get to the state meet, so
14:26
Speaker 3: I had to miss Who schedules that kind of time,
14:29
Speaker 3: I know every year. It happened every year, and a
14:31
Speaker 3: lot of seniors would choose graduation, you know, if they
14:34
Speaker 3: didn't have a good shot of going to state meet.
14:35
Speaker 3: But I was trying to win the state meet, so
14:37
Speaker 3: I was like, I'm not going to graduation. That was
14:39
Speaker 3: like a no brainer. That's so funny.
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Speaker 1: That your dad's your coach, because any other parent would
14:44
Speaker 1: be like you're going to.
14:45
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, They didn't care. They were like, no, we're
14:47
Speaker 3: going to the state We'd rather go with you in
14:48
Speaker 3: the state meet than going to your graduation. And you
14:50
Speaker 3: won the state and I won the state. Yeah right,
14:54
Speaker 3: Colleen won the state meet totally. But that was that
14:57
Speaker 3: whole like so many things that I put in into it,
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Speaker 3: that I sacrificed for that that I you know, I
15:02
Speaker 3: really loved then the joy of like winning the state
15:06
Speaker 3: meet or you know, going to Nationals. My senior year,
15:09
Speaker 3: I finally made it to Nationals, so my parents went
15:11
Speaker 3: with me to San Diego and we got to do
15:13
Speaker 3: that whole thing together. That meant at the end of
15:16
Speaker 3: the day, so much more to me than you know,
15:19
Speaker 3: going to school and my friends would be like, oh,
15:20
Speaker 3: we saw you in seventeen magazine or whatever, and I
15:23
Speaker 3: was like, yeah, that was cool too, and it's like
15:24
Speaker 3: a little embarrassing, but it didn't mean the same, you know,
15:28
Speaker 3: deep down, and I was like, not as proud of that.
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Speaker 1: And so I think it's pretty impressive also in your
15:33
Speaker 1: teenage years to have this outlook knowing how valuable the
15:37
Speaker 1: work that you're putting in at the time is truly
15:40
Speaker 1: to like the long term outcome a lot of the time,
15:43
Speaker 1: and please, I still feel like I'm a little bit
15:46
Speaker 1: of a diva sometimes, like, oh, I don't want to
15:48
Speaker 1: do the work totally, but you you had this mentality
15:51
Speaker 1: and you knew that you needed to do the work
15:53
Speaker 1: if you want to read the benefits. I think a
15:55
Speaker 1: lot of people aren't willing to put in the work.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I know it's kind of like crazy that
15:59
Speaker 3: I I mean, I was only like sixteen, but for
16:02
Speaker 3: some reason, when you work really hard for something, you know,
16:05
Speaker 3: and then it pans out or you know, you reach
16:07
Speaker 3: your goal, that means so much. The reaching the goal
16:10
Speaker 3: means so much more than if you can kind of
16:12
Speaker 3: breeze by. And I always felt like that. I mean,
16:14
Speaker 3: there's definitely, don't get me wrong, there's definitely some learning
16:18
Speaker 3: and some work that goes into modeling, but I also
16:20
Speaker 3: felt like so much of it was just like I
16:22
Speaker 3: just got lucky, like I have my grandma is gorgeous,
16:25
Speaker 3: and I got a lot of her great jeans, and
16:28
Speaker 3: like I didn't do anything to get that way, and
16:31
Speaker 3: it didn't feel like as much of like my because
16:35
Speaker 3: of me. It just kind of happened to me versus
16:38
Speaker 3: like the running. Definitely some against some good genes going
16:42
Speaker 3: into that, but I also knew like I was working
16:45
Speaker 3: my butt off and practice every time. I don't know
16:46
Speaker 3: if I didn't do that, then there's no way I
16:48
Speaker 3: was gonna ever win the state meet. So yeah, it
16:51
Speaker 3: felt it felt more rewarding.
16:54
Speaker 2: I think.
16:55
Speaker 1: So you go to Florida State, how's that.
16:58
Speaker 3: I loved it there. I spent four years there. I wish,
17:01
Speaker 3: you know, I wish I could have spent more. I
17:04
Speaker 3: just loved it. I was probably ready to graduate, but
17:07
Speaker 3: I remember freshman year, finishing my freshman year and being like,
17:10
Speaker 3: I don't want to be a software I just want
17:11
Speaker 3: to do freshman year again. It was so fun and
17:14
Speaker 3: everyone's like, oh my god, you're obnoxious, but I just loved,
17:17
Speaker 3: like I loved the team. All of a sudden, I
17:19
Speaker 3: was surrounded by these people who loved running as much
17:21
Speaker 3: as I did, and they made sacrifices for running the
17:24
Speaker 3: same way that I did, and they had achieved things
17:27
Speaker 3: in the NCAA that I wanted to achieve. And I
17:29
Speaker 3: got to train with them and learn from them and
17:31
Speaker 3: you know, grow because of them, and I just thought
17:34
Speaker 3: that was the coolest thing ever. I was like, this
17:36
Speaker 3: is exactly you know what I wanted. Plus the sunshine
17:40
Speaker 3: and everything didn't hurt either.
17:41
Speaker 1: How did you find that kind of work life balance
17:45
Speaker 1: with keeping up with your education, also participating in the
17:50
Speaker 1: track team and being a very like high performing member
17:54
Speaker 1: of the track team.
17:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so I was. I was a three sport athlete.
17:58
Speaker 3: Basically cross country as in the fall, indoor track is
18:01
Speaker 3: in the winter, and outdoor track is in the spring.
18:03
Speaker 3: So that like off season thing that a lot of
18:05
Speaker 3: athletes talk about does not happen for the cross country team.
18:09
Speaker 3: So it's you can never kind of be like, oh, I'll,
18:11
Speaker 3: you know, focus more in school this semester because in
18:15
Speaker 3: my off season I'll maybe I'll take an extra class
18:17
Speaker 3: and then I can have a lighter load during the
18:19
Speaker 3: track season when we're traveling more and stuff. It was like, no,
18:23
Speaker 3: like you just got to get it done whenever you
18:26
Speaker 3: know you can. So definitely from the gun having to learn,
18:31
Speaker 3: you know, priorities. Time management was huge, and hey, like
18:34
Speaker 3: we might be in the van for three hours driving
18:37
Speaker 3: to meet this weekend. That's three hours of like study time.
18:41
Speaker 3: You know we wave exams when you get back on
18:43
Speaker 3: Monday that you're missing on Thursday, Well you have three
18:46
Speaker 3: extra hours on the way there and on the way
18:48
Speaker 3: back to study. So definitely trying to just use every second,
18:51
Speaker 3: you know, not wasting any time. I don't remember watching
18:54
Speaker 3: a lot of TV or playing a lot of video
18:56
Speaker 3: games or like anything like that, because I knew I
18:59
Speaker 3: had a high priority on school, and I thought that
19:02
Speaker 3: I never thought it was going to go pro. So
19:03
Speaker 3: I thought I was actually going to use my degree
19:05
Speaker 3: when I graduated, and I was going to need to
19:08
Speaker 3: have good grades and you have a good resume when
19:11
Speaker 3: I graduated.
19:12
Speaker 1: So I think it's so impressive. I mean, someone DM
19:15
Speaker 1: me this morning and they said, I feel like I
19:17
Speaker 1: would need to be on some sort of drug to
19:20
Speaker 1: maintain your normal level of productivity. And I said to
19:24
Speaker 1: her that my normal level of productivity is because I'm
19:29
Speaker 1: my own boss, So I can't just phone it in
19:31
Speaker 1: and show up at a desk, and I have to
19:34
Speaker 1: get things done. If this stuff doesn't get done, then
19:36
Speaker 1: where's the money coming from? How's this all happening. So
19:39
Speaker 1: you've got to work hard if you're reaching for a goal.
19:42
Speaker 1: You've got to work hard if you're reaching for a dream.
19:45
Speaker 1: And in your case, you wanted to do it all.
19:48
Speaker 1: You wanted to be on the track team, you wanted
19:50
Speaker 1: to do well in school, and to do both. Sometimes
19:52
Speaker 1: that had to be kind of symbiotic in your existence.
19:56
Speaker 3: And you care a lot about it, Like you're very
19:57
Speaker 3: passionate about your work, and so, I mean, it definitely
20:00
Speaker 3: still seems like work, but it's also it's also fun.
20:03
Speaker 3: Like I also really enjoyed what I was studying, and
20:06
Speaker 3: I really enjoyed being on the team and like going
20:08
Speaker 3: to practice. So it was definitely sometimes stressful. You know,
20:11
Speaker 3: sometimes certain classes weren't fun. If I'd take like a
20:14
Speaker 3: history class or whatever, that was not as much fun.
20:16
Speaker 3: But just trying to balance all that together and realize,
20:20
Speaker 3: you know that I really love what I do too,
20:22
Speaker 3: which I'm sure it's true for you as well.
20:24
Speaker 1: What were you studying? I studied dietetics. Oh yeah, it's
20:28
Speaker 1: such a good question.
20:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, which also pairs really well with athletics totally.
20:33
Speaker 1: So you said you never thought you'd want to go pro,
20:35
Speaker 1: just like you never thought you could go to college,
20:37
Speaker 1: right a running scholarship. You see a pattern. Yeah, okay,
20:41
Speaker 1: so you're kind of coming to as understanding that like
20:45
Speaker 1: pro is in your reach. Yeah, so talk to me
20:48
Speaker 1: about that.
20:48
Speaker 3: That was crazy. I remember vividly sitting in it was
20:51
Speaker 3: I was on my recruit trip to Florida State and
20:54
Speaker 3: I was sitting in the head coach's office and he
20:58
Speaker 3: was talking about, oh, like the distance coach Karen Harvey
21:02
Speaker 3: is really you know, she's really psyched about you or whatever.
21:04
Speaker 3: I don't think he necessarily thought I was like something
21:07
Speaker 3: crazy special to be using a full scholarship on. But
21:11
Speaker 3: she really believed in me, and I was like okay.
21:14
Speaker 3: And then I went and sat and talked to her
21:16
Speaker 3: and she was talking about you know, training and stuff,
21:19
Speaker 3: and then she threw in and just so you know,
21:23
Speaker 3: you know, I don't coach pros. So when you graduate,
21:27
Speaker 3: if that's what you're gonna do, you're going to have
21:29
Speaker 3: to find a pro coach. I helped a couple people
21:32
Speaker 3: along the way as they were like transitioning before they
21:34
Speaker 3: found their pro coach, and so for a few months
21:37
Speaker 3: I coached them. But it's not like that. I'm not
21:39
Speaker 3: looking to do that. So just so and I just remember, like, what,
21:44
Speaker 3: like you know out yeah, like Poz for those following Paz,
21:51
Speaker 3: what wtf are you talking about? And like why are
21:54
Speaker 3: you telling me that? I was like, I, you know,
21:55
Speaker 3: I was so clueless as to I think my own
21:59
Speaker 3: potential or like the possibility. I thought you had to
22:03
Speaker 3: be so so so so so far ahead of where
22:06
Speaker 3: I was to even think of that, so it wasn't
22:08
Speaker 3: on my radar all and I just remember being like, okay, cool,
22:10
Speaker 3: like not going to be a problem coach. Yeah, and
22:13
Speaker 3: then yes you neior year, everyone was just like, so
22:16
Speaker 3: were you going to the Olympics because I graduated in
22:18
Speaker 3: twenty fifteen and the Olympics were in twenty sixteen, so
22:22
Speaker 3: I had one year after graduation to train and I
22:24
Speaker 3: was like, I don't know, like can you.
22:29
Speaker 1: I'm like trying to think about how that would mentally register,
22:33
Speaker 1: like someone too mean in all seriousness and look at
22:37
Speaker 1: you in the eye and be like, so are you
22:38
Speaker 1: going to the Olympics next year?
22:39
Speaker 3: Yeah?
22:40
Speaker 2: Is that what you're gonna do?
22:41
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go to Target next week if you want
22:44
Speaker 1: to go to there.
22:44
Speaker 3: That's pretty much my reaction too. I was like, well,
22:48
Speaker 3: when first, when people first started asking me, I legit
22:51
Speaker 3: was like no, like I answered like that like no,
22:55
Speaker 3: like shot like you know something joking matter, like no,
22:59
Speaker 3: I'm not doing that, like stupid, yeah totally, and then
23:03
Speaker 3: like I don't know that. Halfway through maybe the year,
23:06
Speaker 3: I was like I started answering it, like I don't know,
23:10
Speaker 3: you know, and then like the last half of the year,
23:12
Speaker 3: I was like, well, I'm definitely gonna try.
23:15
Speaker 1: So how does one just decide they're going to try
23:17
Speaker 1: to go to the only Yeah, Like what happens there?
23:19
Speaker 1: Do you have to find a pro coach?
23:21
Speaker 2: Yeah?
23:21
Speaker 3: I had to start. Basically, it's kind of like the
23:24
Speaker 3: process of finding your school that you want to go
23:26
Speaker 3: to all over again, minus the school partner.
23:29
Speaker 1: Yeah.
23:30
Speaker 3: So I was interviewing and visiting and talking to on
23:33
Speaker 3: the phone different coaches all throughout the country. Some of
23:36
Speaker 3: them have their own like teams, and that team has
23:39
Speaker 3: a sponsor that sponsors the whole team. And then some
23:41
Speaker 3: of them, you know, they're just like they're saying, hey,
23:44
Speaker 3: like I'm a coach, this is my fee, and you
23:47
Speaker 3: can be sponsored by whoever you want and come work
23:50
Speaker 3: with me. And then you know, some coaches are are
23:53
Speaker 3: still coaching at the collegiate level and then they have
23:55
Speaker 3: a group of pros or whatever. So it works in
23:58
Speaker 3: many different ways. But I was interested in a few
24:02
Speaker 3: coaches that I knew had a good reputation and had
24:05
Speaker 3: experienced coaching the steeplechase, which I thought was really important.
24:08
Speaker 3: I didn't just want a distance coach. I wanted a
24:10
Speaker 3: steeple chase coach, right, So the coach I chose is
24:15
Speaker 3: Jerry Schumacher, and he coaches the American record holder in
24:20
Speaker 3: the steeplechase for the men's side, Evan Jaker. And he
24:23
Speaker 3: and Pascal Dobert, which is our assistant coach and kind
24:27
Speaker 3: of our hurdles coach. They both taught Evan how to hurdle,
24:32
Speaker 3: so brought him from being a baby freshman in college
24:36
Speaker 3: and ab and brought him up, you know, the right way,
24:39
Speaker 3: and taught him how to do it. And then just
24:42
Speaker 3: a few years later he broke the American record and
24:44
Speaker 3: now has a silver medal in the Olympics and the
24:47
Speaker 3: steeple chase. So I knew there were pretty good coaches.
24:50
Speaker 3: I was like, I mean, this kid has potential for sure,
24:52
Speaker 3: but yeah, and they were coaching two other guys in
24:55
Speaker 3: the steeple chase as well at the time, so didn't
24:57
Speaker 3: have any women in the steeple chase, but I they
25:00
Speaker 3: could coach it, and so I felt really confident in that.
25:02
Speaker 3: And that's where Selene Flanagan was was being coached too,
25:06
Speaker 3: and I knew she was really good obviously.
25:09
Speaker 1: I just like can't even imagine, like I have this
25:13
Speaker 1: option to go be in Oregon and work with Nike,
25:18
Speaker 1: and man, like that sounds like it could be pretty cool.
25:22
Speaker 3: Yeah. I talked to her on the phone for the
25:24
Speaker 3: first time. My college coach had a connection with her
25:26
Speaker 3: and so she like passed along her information and I
25:30
Speaker 3: called her one Sunday and she was like, yeah, I
25:32
Speaker 3: did my long run this morning. I ran whenever twenty
25:35
Speaker 3: two miles or whatever it was. And now I'm doing this,
25:38
Speaker 3: I'm hanging out.
25:38
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my god, I'm talking to on a
25:41
Speaker 1: Sunday phone call, just a casual phone call.
25:44
Speaker 3: It was nuts. But she was right for the gun,
25:46
Speaker 3: super welcoming and just easy to talk to, very little key,
25:52
Speaker 3: and just like she didn't make it seem like a
25:53
Speaker 3: big thing. And she's very open about what it was
25:56
Speaker 3: like to be trained by Jerry and to be living
25:59
Speaker 3: here and work with Nike, and you know, she's a
26:02
Speaker 3: total pro at that point, so she knows, you know,
26:05
Speaker 3: even giving me advice about agents, and that's just like
26:08
Speaker 3: the whole process. That was really important for me to
26:10
Speaker 3: have somebody who's done it before. I didn't know anyone
26:12
Speaker 3: who had gone pro, So I was like, I don't
26:14
Speaker 3: even know the first thing about.
26:16
Speaker 1: This totally, And I mean, I've heard so many good
26:18
Speaker 1: things about Slane being like a really excellent role model.
26:21
Speaker 1: When I was sitting down with your teammate Emily in
26:23
Speaker 1: field before, Emily was like, yeah, Selene and I are
26:25
Speaker 1: talking every day about what I should be doing.
26:28
Speaker 3: Yeah.
26:28
Speaker 1: I'm just like, it's like she's your big sister, so.
26:30
Speaker 3: Nice to have. Yeah. I mean, Jerry Schumacker is a
26:33
Speaker 3: great coach, but he's not the kind of guy who's
26:36
Speaker 3: going to sit there and hold your hand, especially if
26:37
Speaker 3: you're injured or if you're off the you know, you're
26:40
Speaker 3: not in the normal workout schedule. It's you know, he's
26:44
Speaker 3: got twenty something athletes. So if you're injured and you
26:47
Speaker 3: have to be doing your own thing, you know, that's
26:49
Speaker 3: kind of on you to figure out what you need
26:51
Speaker 3: to do. Go see doctors, go seept staying on your
26:53
Speaker 3: rehab exercises, get in the pool, do your cross training,
26:57
Speaker 3: and come back to practice when you're ready to work
26:59
Speaker 3: out again, right, which is super hard.
27:01
Speaker 1: Totally.
27:02
Speaker 3: Emily's going through that right now. I've been through that
27:04
Speaker 3: a few times more times than I wish I have
27:07
Speaker 3: gone through. But it's tough.
27:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's definitely tough.
27:11
Speaker 3: Well, having somebody like Shoaling there to help you figure
27:13
Speaker 3: out how much questrating to do? And am I seeing
27:16
Speaker 3: the right pt? And you know, I feel like I
27:19
Speaker 3: have been, but I'm not making any progress? Like what
27:21
Speaker 3: do I do now? Maybe I need an MRI, Like
27:23
Speaker 3: there's just so many things that you need a sounding
27:25
Speaker 3: board for.
27:33
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Speaker 1: Again, that's Athleticgreens dot com slash hurdle. Let's get back
28:27
Speaker 1: to it. I'm back here sitting with Colleen QUIGLEI so
28:38
Speaker 1: talk to me a little bit about your injury. So
28:41
Speaker 1: you move to Oregon and you're prep in for the Olympics, right,
28:46
Speaker 1: and you have a little bit of a hurdle moment.
28:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, I definitely didn't start my pro career off on
28:55
Speaker 3: the right foot. I pushed my season too long in
29:00
Speaker 3: twenty fifteen, probably longer than I should have, kind of
29:03
Speaker 3: nursing an injury because I really I qualified for the
29:07
Speaker 3: World's team that summer, and I really wanted to go.
29:10
Speaker 3: I didn't want to give up my spot on that team.
29:11
Speaker 3: But I also kind of had this injury that I'd
29:14
Speaker 3: been nursing all season and it just it wasn't getting
29:17
Speaker 3: any better. But then I ended up having to take
29:20
Speaker 3: a lot of time in the fall to get that
29:22
Speaker 3: healthy again.
29:22
Speaker 1: And so what were you dealing with?
29:24
Speaker 3: It was a high hamstring. I think I don't even
29:26
Speaker 3: ever really don't one of those so annoying, very different
29:29
Speaker 3: than say a high hamstring. Everyone's like, oh yeah, like
29:33
Speaker 3: it's still a hard spot. You don't get a lot
29:34
Speaker 3: of blood flow there, just not a lot of great
29:37
Speaker 3: things you can do. So I got PRP and splash
29:40
Speaker 3: of rehab. PRP is called I can't remember what it stands,
29:43
Speaker 3: where it's like platelet something something. They basically take out
29:47
Speaker 3: your blood from your arm and they spin it and
29:49
Speaker 3: like these like centrifuged things, and then they take the
29:52
Speaker 3: healing factors of your blood and they inject it right
29:56
Speaker 3: into the spot that hurts. So they would inject it
29:57
Speaker 3: into the hamstring with like this big needle, and not
30:00
Speaker 3: only that, they just kind of they get in there
30:02
Speaker 3: with Then you don't kind of jab around a bit
30:05
Speaker 3: breaking up scar tissue and stuff and injecting fluid in
30:09
Speaker 3: a space that doesn't need extra fluid, you know, not
30:13
Speaker 3: you know, a comfortable procedure, but it can help because
30:17
Speaker 3: there's not a lot of blood flow there, so it
30:19
Speaker 3: needs to be kind of in the injury had been
30:22
Speaker 3: kind of so old that it needed to be woken
30:24
Speaker 3: up again and be like, tell your body go back
30:26
Speaker 3: there and fix that I know you like kind of
30:28
Speaker 3: gave up on it, but I need to go back
30:30
Speaker 3: and like make it right again.
30:32
Speaker 1: So you're really nurse in this injury and real and yeah, the.
30:36
Speaker 3: Months are, you know, just flying by. I'm like, Okay.
30:38
Speaker 3: At first, it was like no big deal, you know,
30:41
Speaker 3: I still got a year, and then it was like king,
30:43
Speaker 3: I got like eight months, and then it was like, okay,
30:46
Speaker 3: were you is six months away? Like behind time to
30:49
Speaker 3: keep going, and the panic definitely was setting in. I
30:53
Speaker 3: remember lots of tearful phone calls to my parents being
30:56
Speaker 3: like I don't know, like what I'm gonna do. Maybe
30:58
Speaker 3: I've made the wrong decision. You know, I feel stupid.
31:01
Speaker 3: I'm here. I haven't even run a step since I've
31:03
Speaker 3: been here. I've been in the pool every day. It's
31:06
Speaker 3: raining every dang day, Like I'm Viseral part Line, Like,
31:10
Speaker 3: so it's the winter and like all my teammates, I'm like,
31:13
Speaker 3: I have no friends. All my teammates are out there
31:15
Speaker 3: running every day and I'm in the pool. It was like,
31:17
Speaker 3: not a good start.
31:18
Speaker 1: How did you shift that headspace to be more positive?
31:22
Speaker 1: Because I can only imagine that right at the beginning
31:25
Speaker 1: of your pro career, This must have been so much pressure,
31:28
Speaker 1: a lot of it that you're inflicting on yourself.
31:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just signed this contract with Nike, and I
31:32
Speaker 3: had all these you know things, goals for myself in
31:35
Speaker 3: the contract that they had. I had for myself, and
31:37
Speaker 3: they had for me that I was supposed to hit
31:39
Speaker 3: along the way, and I was like, oh, God, like,
31:42
Speaker 3: you know, that does seem like a lot of pressure.
31:44
Speaker 3: It's so crazy when I think back about that time,
31:47
Speaker 3: because I vividly remember the day of the final. It
31:53
Speaker 3: was in Eugene, organ at the University of Oregon's track,
31:57
Speaker 3: this very historic famous track called Hayward Field. It's where
32:02
Speaker 3: they hosted the trials in twenty sixteen, and my whole
32:04
Speaker 3: family was there. My mom, my dad, brother, and sister
32:08
Speaker 3: were all there to cheer me on. And even though
32:10
Speaker 3: I'd been through all this, and you know, I'd been
32:13
Speaker 3: healthy running for about ten weeks before the trials, so
32:15
Speaker 3: I wasn't a complete wreck, but they also knew that
32:19
Speaker 3: I had been through a lot that year and that
32:21
Speaker 3: I wasn't I definitely wasn't one hundred percent. So everyone's
32:25
Speaker 3: there to cheer me on, and I, for some reason,
32:27
Speaker 3: I probably should have been like crapping my pants at
32:30
Speaker 3: that time. I'm you know, I'm only twenty two and
32:35
Speaker 3: this is my first I guess I was twenty three
32:37
Speaker 3: by then, my first ever trials, and all this stuff
32:41
Speaker 3: had happened to me, and I just remember like having
32:44
Speaker 3: lunch with my family the day of the final. I
32:47
Speaker 3: made it to the final fine, and I remember having
32:51
Speaker 3: lunch with them and just being so relaxed and like,
32:54
Speaker 3: I don't know, just I was happy. I was like,
32:56
Speaker 3: I'm at the Olympic Trials. This is something both my
32:59
Speaker 3: parents really wanted to do and strive to do and
33:02
Speaker 3: never were able to accomplish, just trying to qualify for
33:05
Speaker 3: the trials. Right. My brother as well, he has struggled
33:08
Speaker 3: with his own injuries in the past and has never
33:11
Speaker 3: seemed to be able to string together the training in
33:13
Speaker 3: order at the you know, with the right timing, which is,
33:17
Speaker 3: you know, it's hard. A lot of people don't realize
33:19
Speaker 3: it happens every four years, and if you get injured
33:21
Speaker 3: right before, you have to wait another four years for
33:24
Speaker 3: another shot.
33:24
Speaker 1: Right.
33:25
Speaker 3: So that's kind of what happened to him, is he
33:26
Speaker 3: did never the timing never really aligned for him when
33:29
Speaker 3: he was running well you know, it didn't work out.
33:32
Speaker 3: So anyway, I was living this dream that they, you know,
33:36
Speaker 3: had dreamed of and I was doing it and that
33:38
Speaker 3: seems really special just being there and that I, you know,
33:42
Speaker 3: I had a real shot of going yeah, And so
33:44
Speaker 3: I remember getting the start line just feeling, you know, relaxed.
33:48
Speaker 3: I was still a little nervous, but mostly just relaxed
33:50
Speaker 3: and excited. And I knew my job, and I knew
33:52
Speaker 3: my race plan that had with my coach, and I
33:54
Speaker 3: was like determined to make the most of the tools
33:58
Speaker 3: that I had with me totally. But when looking back,
34:01
Speaker 3: I'm like, how did I get there in such a
34:03
Speaker 3: calm like state that was so like ready to actually
34:08
Speaker 3: do what I needed to do. I actually just wrote
34:11
Speaker 3: this article for Runner's Ruled about how attitude impacts recovery.
34:15
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, there's so much research.
34:16
Speaker 1: I remember there's this one University of Illinois at Chicago
34:19
Speaker 1: study and they'd inflicted a small wound inside some students' mouths, Like,
34:24
Speaker 1: it wasn't painful, it's a small wound, and those that
34:27
Speaker 1: showed dissatisfaction or symptoms of stress and depression or slower
34:31
Speaker 1: to recover than those that did not. So if you
34:33
Speaker 1: had like a good attitude, they recovered faster than those
34:36
Speaker 1: that were like stressed about exams or something like that.
34:39
Speaker 1: So to have this positivity, yeah, little did you know
34:43
Speaker 1: the magic that was happening inside so real?
34:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, unreal. Yeah, And then I went to Rio and
34:50
Speaker 3: then I just went to real. I remember it was
34:52
Speaker 3: so fun because at that point we had I believe
34:57
Speaker 3: it was six Bowerman Babes. So we're the Barnman Trap
35:00
Speaker 3: Club and all the women. We decided to call ourselves
35:02
Speaker 3: the Barman Babes self proclaimed. Some some people get like
35:06
Speaker 3: uncomfortable with babes and we're like, no, we created that
35:09
Speaker 3: name for ourselves, like we're embracing it. You can call it.
35:12
Speaker 3: Call us that too, like, well, cool with it. And
35:14
Speaker 3: I think there were six of us that got to go,
35:17
Speaker 3: and so we went to a training camp right after,
35:19
Speaker 3: and we were just like Cloud nine. Besides Laine, the
35:24
Speaker 3: younger group of us. I had never been to an
35:27
Speaker 3: Olympic Games before, so we were like just giddy, like
35:31
Speaker 3: excited for the gear and excited to learn all about
35:34
Speaker 3: the facilities that we were going to use there, and
35:36
Speaker 3: you know all the things that I heard their dynamite
35:38
Speaker 3: it was cool. Yeah, it's pretty cool. We actually didn't
35:42
Speaker 3: stay in the village. My team and I stayed at
35:44
Speaker 3: hotel that was closer to everything. There was actually pretty
35:48
Speaker 3: spread out, and so they wanted us to stay. My
35:51
Speaker 3: coach wanted us to stay near where we were gonna
35:54
Speaker 3: practice and run and where the track was and stuff.
35:57
Speaker 3: So we stayed in a hotel over there.
35:59
Speaker 1: But so give the rundown. What happened at the Olympics.
36:02
Speaker 3: So I ran in. So you have to run a
36:04
Speaker 3: prelimb to get to the final, just like pretty much
36:07
Speaker 3: any championship. You have to run a race in order
36:09
Speaker 3: to get to the race where they hand out the
36:11
Speaker 3: medals and everything the medal. So the kind of pre
36:15
Speaker 3: race went fine. I was a little bit, you know,
36:18
Speaker 3: it's always nervous that I felt like, for sure I
36:21
Speaker 3: have the ability to make the final. I deserve to
36:23
Speaker 3: be in the final. But everybody, no matter if you
36:25
Speaker 3: win the Olympics, everybody has to run in the qualifying race, right,
36:30
Speaker 3: no matter you're ranking so and anything could happen in
36:33
Speaker 3: that race, right, Like the number one seed could get
36:35
Speaker 3: tripped and end up you know whatever, something crazy happens
36:39
Speaker 3: and then she hurts herself and can't run the final
36:41
Speaker 3: or you know, like all these crazy scenarios. I was like,
36:44
Speaker 3: just get through the prelimb safe and clean and you know,
36:48
Speaker 3: feeling good. And so we did. My teammate and I
36:51
Speaker 3: both did. I had another teammate at that time who
36:54
Speaker 3: was also running the steeple chase who had just graduated
36:57
Speaker 3: that year and signed with us, so we're training buddies
36:59
Speaker 3: and stuff. Both made it to the final and I
37:02
Speaker 3: finished eighth in the final and Courtney finished eleventh. It
37:07
Speaker 3: was weird, like when it was over, it was kind
37:10
Speaker 3: of like this, I mean a lot of Olympians talk
37:12
Speaker 3: about this, where it's like we're so excited, it's like
37:14
Speaker 3: this huge deal, and then it's over and you're just
37:16
Speaker 3: kind of like down the other side of this cliff
37:20
Speaker 3: of emotional cliff and you're like whoa. And then the
37:23
Speaker 3: next day I got super sick. I had this like
37:25
Speaker 3: horrible throat thing that turned into a nasal thing where
37:29
Speaker 3: I was like just glowing crap out of my nose
37:32
Speaker 3: the best of the summer and I wasn't done in Rio.
37:37
Speaker 3: Which was probably the toughest part was that if my
37:40
Speaker 3: season had ended there, I think I would have recovered
37:43
Speaker 3: and been fine, but we my coach shifted me off
37:46
Speaker 3: to Europe. We wanted to keep racing. There's more races
37:48
Speaker 3: after the Olympics, and so I went out to Europe
37:50
Speaker 3: and ran I think two or three more steeple chases
37:54
Speaker 3: after that, and didn't go great. It wasn't like horrible.
37:58
Speaker 3: I think I pr by a teeny bit in one
38:00
Speaker 3: of them.
38:01
Speaker 1: It wasn't horrible. I just pr well.
38:03
Speaker 3: I knew I was in the shape, in shape for
38:05
Speaker 3: a good pr but I didn't run as well as
38:07
Speaker 3: I should have, just because I was sick and just
38:09
Speaker 3: emotionally exhausted after that and just needed like break, And
38:13
Speaker 3: so finished the season off and then just went home
38:16
Speaker 3: and yeah, relaxed, went home to the fancy that my
38:19
Speaker 3: family for a while and just be like glad that
38:22
Speaker 3: it was it happened, Glad that has happened, and then
38:24
Speaker 3: glad that it was like kind of over.
38:26
Speaker 1: People talk about that a lot, especially marathoners, or I mean,
38:29
Speaker 1: I feel like events in everyday life that you just
38:31
Speaker 1: work so hard toward, whether you know it is athletic
38:34
Speaker 1: or it's just maybe something big at the office. You
38:36
Speaker 1: work day in and day out for months and months
38:39
Speaker 1: leading up to this thing, and then when.
38:40
Speaker 3: It's done, it's like, what am I supposed to know?
38:42
Speaker 3: I hadn't really thought about after. Yeah, I just was
38:45
Speaker 3: focused on that thing.
38:46
Speaker 1: But like, what now, talk to me about that after,
38:48
Speaker 1: Like what's it been like? So I was going to
38:51
Speaker 1: the Olympics.
38:51
Speaker 3: I had in my head. You know, we've talked about
38:54
Speaker 3: how I wasn't going to run in college and then
38:57
Speaker 3: I wasn't going to run professionally. Well, I had in
38:59
Speaker 3: my head that I would run one Olympics and then
39:03
Speaker 3: at that point I would say I had a year
39:06
Speaker 3: to train. So I thought, either after that year, you know,
39:09
Speaker 3: I don't make it and it's a bummer and I
39:13
Speaker 3: wish it could have. But I gave it my best
39:14
Speaker 3: shot and I'm only wasted a year on the project. Anyway, Right,
39:18
Speaker 3: you have to wait three years still the next Olympics.
39:20
Speaker 3: So I was like, you know, that's not that bad
39:24
Speaker 3: if I do make the team, awesome. I went to
39:26
Speaker 3: the Olympics. Check like, what's next? Let go be a dietician.
39:30
Speaker 3: After Rio, I pretty much immediately was like, well, I'm
39:33
Speaker 3: going to the next Olympics. Now I could like that
39:37
Speaker 3: was fun. It I could do better, So.
39:40
Speaker 1: We're trying to do better.
39:41
Speaker 3: Twenty twenty is just less than two years away. Now.
39:44
Speaker 3: I love that you have perspective on it though. I
39:46
Speaker 3: mean you told Runners World the ultimate goal is to
39:48
Speaker 3: inspire people to take on challenges, to build the team
39:50
Speaker 3: aspect in and to just give people extra confidence to
39:53
Speaker 3: do something that's scary. Yeah, when you talk about how
39:56
Speaker 3: you are on social media and with fast Bread Friday
40:00
Speaker 3: and just your attitude is pretty priceless. Yeah, taking on
40:05
Speaker 3: like a new challenge or you know, something that really
40:08
Speaker 3: scares you is it can be daunting, for sure. But
40:12
Speaker 3: a few things that have really helped me was I mean,
40:14
Speaker 3: the number one thing for sure is joining a team.
40:17
Speaker 3: I joined the Barber and Track Club because I wanted
40:19
Speaker 3: to be surrounded by people who inspired me and who
40:21
Speaker 3: had done the things that I've already done, the things
40:23
Speaker 3: I wanted to do and could kind of show me
40:26
Speaker 3: the way. So that's like Slaine and the older guys
40:29
Speaker 3: to Evan has been a big mentor that way too,
40:33
Speaker 3: And so yeah, anyone who's likes has this big goal,
40:37
Speaker 3: has a big dreams. It's hard to do those things
40:39
Speaker 3: by yourself. You need people along the way to support
40:42
Speaker 3: you and show you, you know, show you the way,
40:46
Speaker 3: and so that was a huge thing. And having a
40:48
Speaker 3: good coach too, I mean that could be you know,
40:51
Speaker 3: even if you're talking about a non athletic endeavor, a
40:53
Speaker 3: good boss or whatever, someone who is directing you and
40:57
Speaker 3: helping you. Those things been amazing to me.
41:01
Speaker 1: Sometimes you just got to talk it out. When you
41:03
Speaker 1: look back right now on your running career thus far,
41:06
Speaker 1: and please, I'm going to keep saying this far because
41:08
Speaker 1: there's so much more for.
41:09
Speaker 3: You to go.
41:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, what can you say? Has been one of the
41:13
Speaker 1: best pieces of advice you've been given.
41:16
Speaker 3: Kind of my go to for this is something that
41:19
Speaker 3: I've used a lot since it was given to me
41:23
Speaker 3: by my dad. In high school, there was this race.
41:27
Speaker 3: It was the state meet actually my senior year, and
41:30
Speaker 3: I went into that race I really wanted to win.
41:33
Speaker 3: I not won a state championship yet in cross country
41:36
Speaker 3: range track, and it was my senior year, so it's
41:39
Speaker 3: like my last chance. I really wanted a bit. And
41:41
Speaker 3: so his last advice to me was pretty simple. It
41:46
Speaker 3: was it's not over till it's over. And it seems
41:50
Speaker 3: kind of weird and kind of like, well, duh, but
41:52
Speaker 3: there's so many points in a race and in life
41:56
Speaker 3: where you can be like you just feel like it's hopeless,
41:59
Speaker 3: or feel like it's not going to happen, and so
42:02
Speaker 3: you're not you haven't even seen the result yet, but
42:04
Speaker 3: you're already resigned to giving up and throwing in the
42:07
Speaker 3: towel and not even seeing what would happen if you
42:11
Speaker 3: kept trying, even though it might not be going your way.
42:15
Speaker 3: And so, you know, he said, anytime you get in
42:17
Speaker 3: the race and you feel like you feel like, shoot,
42:20
Speaker 3: it's not going the way I had imagined it going,
42:22
Speaker 3: just keep going and just see what happens, and you
42:25
Speaker 3: might have to change. But it's not over until you
42:28
Speaker 3: cross the line. So you haven't lost until you cross
42:30
Speaker 3: the line right and then you know, if you cross
42:33
Speaker 3: the line and you've lost, then we'll deal with that.
42:34
Speaker 3: But and so I did. I followed his advice, and
42:38
Speaker 3: something really weird happened in the race about it was
42:42
Speaker 3: about eight hundred meters to go, two laps to go.
42:45
Speaker 3: The girl who I was probably most worried about beating
42:48
Speaker 3: me just kind of I was in the lead, and
42:51
Speaker 3: she took off. She went around me with two laps
42:54
Speaker 3: to go and just started killing it. And I was like, damn, like,
42:58
Speaker 3: there goes another championship, Like I can't follow that. We
43:03
Speaker 3: still have two laps to go. I can't hold onto
43:04
Speaker 3: that pace for two laps. I was like, I was
43:07
Speaker 3: so bombed. I was like shoot, and I was like, well,
43:10
Speaker 3: you know, it's not over till it's over. And so
43:12
Speaker 3: I kind of went out like kind of chased after her.
43:15
Speaker 3: I wasn't like on her. She definitely was gaining on me,
43:18
Speaker 3: but I also picked up my pace. And then when
43:21
Speaker 3: we crossed the start finish line with one lap to
43:24
Speaker 3: go where they ring the bells and one lap to go,
43:27
Speaker 3: she was ahead of me. And I could see her
43:28
Speaker 3: ahead of me cross the line and stop because she
43:32
Speaker 3: thought the race was over. Oh my goodness, and we
43:34
Speaker 3: still had another four hundred meters to go, and so
43:36
Speaker 3: then I was like, what is she doing? Like I
43:39
Speaker 3: still didn't even like everyone in the stands knew what
43:43
Speaker 3: had happened when they saw her take off eight hundred
43:45
Speaker 3: meters ago. Everywhere in the stands was like no, like
43:48
Speaker 3: she miscounted, but I had no clue, and so I
43:51
Speaker 3: was like, well, yeah, I was like she's out. And
43:53
Speaker 3: then yeah, I was like I feel great, And I
43:55
Speaker 3: finished ended up pring by like twenty seconds because of
43:59
Speaker 3: that third that we made. Wow, and yeah, and won
44:02
Speaker 3: the race. It was so it was like crazy. But
44:05
Speaker 3: and after we got done, I went to my dad.
44:06
Speaker 3: I was like, you're right, Like I almost freaked out
44:09
Speaker 3: when she did that. And then I just told myself
44:10
Speaker 3: it's not over yet, like maybe you can get still getter.
44:13
Speaker 1: It's amazing.
44:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've used that so many times in racing and
44:18
Speaker 3: just in like normal life stuff where you get so
44:21
Speaker 3: worried about something not going the right way, and it's
44:23
Speaker 3: like it's not over yet, like we could still turn
44:25
Speaker 3: it around, Like we can still say this.
44:27
Speaker 1: You have the opportunity right now, looking back on your
44:31
Speaker 1: time so far as a professional athlete, to offer yourself
44:36
Speaker 1: one piece of advice. Maybe looking back on that time
44:39
Speaker 1: where you're getting the god knows needles into the back
44:42
Speaker 1: of your hamsterring. What what would you tell the Colleen
44:46
Speaker 1: at that hurdle moment in her life.
44:49
Speaker 3: I'm so glad that I did have the support that
44:51
Speaker 3: I had at that time. I know that, you know,
44:54
Speaker 3: I had mentioned that there were so many tearful phone
44:56
Speaker 3: calls to parents and boyfriend and everything, and they were
45:01
Speaker 3: telling me, doctor can't really fix it. You know, there's
45:03
Speaker 3: certain things you can try and do, but this is
45:06
Speaker 3: something you're gonna have to go through, and you're just
45:09
Speaker 3: gonna do that. You're going to go through it. And
45:11
Speaker 3: I do think I have learned. Even though every injury
45:14
Speaker 3: I've had has been its own special form of misery,
45:18
Speaker 3: I definitely have learned something either about myself or even
45:22
Speaker 3: if it's like about the way that I run that
45:24
Speaker 3: I didn't realize I had a weakness here, or even
45:27
Speaker 3: things about my posture or mental strength. There's I started
45:32
Speaker 3: meditating and that's been helping a lot. There's always something
45:35
Speaker 3: to learn from those really difficult times. Even though it's
45:39
Speaker 3: like the last thing you want to hear when you're
45:40
Speaker 3: going through something hard, you're gonna learn a great lesson.
45:43
Speaker 3: You're like, no, this is just horrible for the sake
45:45
Speaker 3: of being horrible, I promise, but a lot of yeah,
45:49
Speaker 3: a lot of these people were trying to tell me
45:50
Speaker 3: those things, and maybe maybe I didn't know it right away,
45:54
Speaker 3: but I definitely found out later that like, yeah, I
45:58
Speaker 3: do this now, and I never would have started doing that.
46:00
Speaker 3: And if it wasn't for that, injury. I'm like, well,
46:03
Speaker 3: that's interesting, that's interesting.
46:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome. Thanks so much for sitting down with
46:08
Speaker 1: me today. I wish we had so much more time.
46:10
Speaker 1: You have to go lead a bunch of women doing
46:12
Speaker 1: some fast period Friday stuff. Please take a moment to
46:15
Speaker 1: leave a quick review by clicking the link with the
46:18
Speaker 1: description to this episode. We all face multiple hurdles in life.
46:22
Speaker 1: I want to hear about yours. Reach Out to me
46:24
Speaker 1: at Emily at Hurdle dot us. Connect with the podcast
46:27
Speaker 1: on Instagram and Twitter at Hurdle Podcast Colleen. Where do
46:31
Speaker 1: they find you?
46:32
Speaker 3: I'm on Instagram at Steeple, Underscore, Squigs or you can
46:35
Speaker 3: just look me up as Colleen Quickly. I'm a Twitter too,
46:38
Speaker 3: but I don't really is it so Instagram is the
46:40
Speaker 3: best way.
46:40
Speaker 1: It's cool, all right? I am at Emily Abody. Another
46:44
Speaker 1: hurdle conquered. Catch you guys next time.