Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / 331. Turning Pain Into Purpose: Paralympian Noelle Lambert On The Moped Accident That Changed Everything, Going On 'Survivor' & Finding Power In Perspective

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331. Turning Pain Into Purpose: Paralympian Noelle Lambert On The Moped Accident That Changed Everything, Going On 'Survivor' & Finding Power In Perspective · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

0:00
Speaker 1: Before I lost my leg, when I saw an antcot,
0:02
Speaker 1: immediately feel sorry for them. But now when I'm walking
0:05
Speaker 1: down the street like walking my dog, I don't even
0:08
Speaker 1: think about having a prosthetic leg. So the whole experience
0:11
Speaker 1: it's crazy, but it's gotten me to where I am today.
0:28
Speaker 2: Hey everyone, Emily a body here. You are listening to
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Speaker 2: episode three hundred and thirty one of Hurdle, a wellness
0:35
Speaker 2: focused podcast where I talk to inspirational people about everything
0:38
Speaker 2: from their highest highes and toughest moments to essential tips
0:42
Speaker 2: on how to live a healthier, happier, more motivated life.
0:46
Speaker 2: We all go through our fair share of hurdles. My
0:49
Speaker 2: goal through these discussions is to empower you to better
0:52
Speaker 2: navigate yours and move with intention so that you can
0:55
Speaker 2: stride towards your own big potential and of course have
0:59
Speaker 2: some fun.
1:00
Speaker 3: Along the way.
1:01
Speaker 2: For today's conversation, episode three thirty one, I am chatting
1:05
Speaker 2: with Noel Lambert. She is a two time paralympian and
1:10
Speaker 2: you may remember her from Survivor forty three.
1:14
Speaker 3: Now.
1:14
Speaker 2: I don't know if you remember this, but it was
1:16
Speaker 2: Kira Demanto who told me you need to get Noel
1:19
Speaker 2: on the show, and that is exactly what I did.
1:22
Speaker 2: I was so stoked that we were able to carve
1:24
Speaker 2: out the time recently to sit down and Noel could
1:28
Speaker 2: tell me all about her story, her journey to accepting
1:33
Speaker 2: the things that she cannot change, which was losing her
1:36
Speaker 2: leg in a frightening moped accident in twenty sixteen. Noel
1:42
Speaker 2: talks about where her mindset was immediately following that tragedy,
1:46
Speaker 2: and how she had her sights set on getting back
1:50
Speaker 2: to the athletic field playing lacrosse at UMass. Now, there
1:55
Speaker 2: are so many refreshing things about this conversation, but Noel's
1:59
Speaker 2: perspective that this accident truly happened for her for so
2:03
Speaker 2: many different reasons is really truly remarkable. There are so
2:09
Speaker 2: many people that could go through something like this and
2:13
Speaker 2: fall into a depression, really struggle with getting back into
2:16
Speaker 2: the swing of things, integrating back into society. But for
2:20
Speaker 2: Noel this was not an option, and so she talks
2:23
Speaker 2: about how losing this limb empowered her to chase after
2:28
Speaker 2: crazy dreams she never had before, ultimately landing her at
2:33
Speaker 2: the twenty twenty and twenty twenty.
2:35
Speaker 3: Four Payaralympic Games.
2:38
Speaker 2: Noel talks about going for the gold in both the
2:40
Speaker 2: long jump and the one hundred meters and falling short.
2:44
Speaker 2: What those failures meant to her, what she's excited about
2:47
Speaker 2: right now, including her Born to Run foundation, which has
2:51
Speaker 2: to date provided more than thirty different individuals with prosthetics
2:56
Speaker 2: to go after their big athletic goals.
3:00
Speaker 3: Well, I cannot forget to mention.
3:01
Speaker 2: Of course we talk a little bit about her time
3:04
Speaker 2: on survivor what a crazy chapter in Noelle's story. If
3:10
Speaker 2: you're not yet doing so, make sure you're following along
3:12
Speaker 2: with Hurdle over on social It's at Hurdle Podcast and
3:15
Speaker 2: I'm over at Emily a body. I do want to mention,
3:19
Speaker 2: coming off the Thanksgiving holiday, I am so grateful for
3:22
Speaker 2: all of you all around the world two hundred and
3:24
Speaker 2: twenty plus countries and accounting, and I'm planning for next year.
3:28
Speaker 3: So I want to.
3:29
Speaker 2: Take your feedback into account. Shoot us an email over
3:33
Speaker 2: at Hello at Hurdle dot us with guest names, thoughts
3:37
Speaker 2: on what you want to see from the show, and
3:39
Speaker 2: of course your listener questions always welcome.
3:43
Speaker 3: With that, let's get to it. Let's get to hurdling today.
3:54
Speaker 2: I am sitting down with Noah Lambert. She's a two
3:57
Speaker 2: time Paralympian. She's also a past contestant on Survivor forty three.
4:03
Speaker 1: How we do in Noel, I'm great, you know, happy
4:06
Speaker 1: to be here, Happy we can finally nil down a
4:09
Speaker 1: date and get this thing going.
4:11
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, had the opportunity to watch you at
4:15
Speaker 2: the Paralympics in the stud and you know, sometimes good
4:18
Speaker 2: things just take time.
4:19
Speaker 1: I know, I know. Well when you follow me, I
4:21
Speaker 1: thought that was pretty cool and all your accomplishments. I listen,
4:26
Speaker 1: it's a lot easier to run and one hundred meter
4:28
Speaker 1: dash than it is to run a marathon, so I
4:30
Speaker 1: give you a lot of.
4:30
Speaker 2: Cred But I am talking to the previous American record
4:34
Speaker 2: holder in the one hundred meter dash and the current
4:37
Speaker 2: American record holder in the long jump, which are two
4:41
Speaker 2: stellar accolades.
4:42
Speaker 1: No Al, Yeah, thank you. Well, it's funny because I
4:44
Speaker 1: actually just started long jumping in January of this year,
4:48
Speaker 1: so I've been able to have incredible success and I
4:51
Speaker 1: credit that to coaching alone and the team that I
4:55
Speaker 1: had surrounding me leading up to the games.
4:58
Speaker 2: Good on you to credit that on coaching a lot,
5:00
Speaker 2: because it definitely does take a certain amount of both
5:03
Speaker 2: tenacity and of course training. What inspired you to get
5:07
Speaker 2: into long jump having been a successful sprinter previously.
5:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, So in my classification group, which means above me amputees,
5:14
Speaker 1: they only offer one hundred meter in the long jump.
5:17
Speaker 1: And so for the first four years that I was
5:19
Speaker 1: even doing the sport, I never wanted to do the
5:21
Speaker 1: long jump because I didn't understand how people put one
5:25
Speaker 1: hundred percent of their trust into something that's not entirely
5:28
Speaker 1: theirs because we jump off of our prosthetic blades. But I,
5:33
Speaker 1: you know, I have an incredible coach in California who
5:36
Speaker 1: is one of the Team USA coaches. I was obviously
5:39
Speaker 1: still in Boston working with another coach, and the coach
5:43
Speaker 1: in California kept reaching out to me saying, listen, I
5:45
Speaker 1: can get you into long jump. I can teach it
5:47
Speaker 1: to you. If you could bring that same speed that
5:49
Speaker 1: you bring in the one hundred meter, I could just
5:51
Speaker 1: teach you how to take off and I'll get you
5:53
Speaker 1: jumping over five meters easily. And to put that into contexts,
5:57
Speaker 1: before before I started long jumping, only three above me
6:01
Speaker 1: ampute women in the entire world have ever jumped over
6:03
Speaker 1: five meters it's never been done in the United States.
6:06
Speaker 1: There have been a lot of athletes who have you
6:10
Speaker 1: had an incredible career and have retired and never touched
6:13
Speaker 1: that five meter mark. And I was trying to do
6:16
Speaker 1: this in my first season. So when he told me
6:19
Speaker 1: that he believes in me and he and he thinks
6:21
Speaker 1: that he can get me there, that was all the
6:24
Speaker 1: incentive I needed. And I moved out to California in
6:27
Speaker 1: January of twenty twenty four leading up to the Games,
6:30
Speaker 1: and I got right to work.
6:31
Speaker 3: Wow. Wow, it's so wild.
6:34
Speaker 2: Is there like an incentive for this coach to want
6:37
Speaker 2: to coach you? Like, it's kind of crazy if you
6:39
Speaker 2: think about it. To take a step back and be like,
6:41
Speaker 2: this random person who I've never met before is very
6:44
Speaker 2: persistent about what I should do with both my time
6:47
Speaker 2: and my body.
6:49
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, his accolades speak alone for himself. He
6:53
Speaker 1: is one of the top US Paralympic track and field coaches.
6:56
Speaker 1: He coaches all these incredible athletes that come home home
7:00
Speaker 1: with Paralympic medals. So when he showed an interest in me,
7:04
Speaker 1: I thought it was an honor and I thought, you know,
7:06
Speaker 1: this guy knows what he's doing, especially with amputees. I mean,
7:10
Speaker 1: you could have incredible coaches, but the tricky thing is
7:15
Speaker 1: is finding a coach that knows about prosthetic legs and
7:18
Speaker 1: how they work in different alignment because I mean, I
7:22
Speaker 1: didn't know a lot of this myself. I learned so
7:24
Speaker 1: much in the last year that I knew in the
7:27
Speaker 1: last five years, and that was me being honestly sick
7:32
Speaker 1: of doing the bare minimum and just reaching out to
7:35
Speaker 1: my competitors. I have incredible competitors in Italy who in
7:39
Speaker 1: Tokyo sweep the podium, and I saw that they were
7:43
Speaker 1: doing different things with their alignment, and they were nice
7:47
Speaker 1: enough to let me use their processus out in Italy,
7:49
Speaker 1: and I flew out to Italy and I learned so
7:52
Speaker 1: much within a span of two weeks. And then so
7:53
Speaker 1: once I got my alignment figured out, that's when I
7:56
Speaker 1: was thinking, Okay, now I just need the right coach
7:59
Speaker 1: if I really want to get into long jump, and
8:02
Speaker 1: everything kind of just worked out perfectly. The good thing
8:05
Speaker 1: is is he trains at the Tu La Visa Lee
8:09
Speaker 1: Training Center, and I've been there for camps and I've
8:12
Speaker 1: always seen like him and his group at practice and
8:16
Speaker 1: just seen their work ethic and it just inspired me
8:18
Speaker 1: and it really made me think, this is what I
8:20
Speaker 1: need to do to make this team because I knew
8:22
Speaker 1: going into Paris it was going to be a very
8:24
Speaker 1: tough team to make because the year prior to that,
8:28
Speaker 1: you know, when I did Survivor in twenty twenty two,
8:30
Speaker 1: it was very hard to get back in the swing
8:32
Speaker 1: of things of competing. And then for twenty twenty three,
8:35
Speaker 1: we have World Championships in Paris, and my name was
8:37
Speaker 1: not on that list when they called the athletes because
8:41
Speaker 1: it was a very difficult team to make, and that's
8:43
Speaker 1: what I knew that I needed to make a change.
8:45
Speaker 1: It was like that crossroads moment where you can go
8:48
Speaker 1: down one road, retires an athlete, go to one Paralympic games,
8:53
Speaker 1: you know, play division on lacrosse as an amputee, or
8:57
Speaker 1: I could just go down the other roads, twitch everything up,
8:59
Speaker 1: turn everything upside, and start from scratch. And of course
9:02
Speaker 1: I didn't want to hang up my athletic courage just yet,
9:05
Speaker 1: so I went down the harder road and I'm very
9:07
Speaker 1: grateful that I did.
9:08
Speaker 2: There's so much to impact in what you just explained,
9:11
Speaker 2: But the first thing that I want to ask you
9:12
Speaker 2: about is why it was so challenging for you after
9:15
Speaker 2: coming back from Survivor to get back into the swing
9:19
Speaker 2: of things, and.
9:19
Speaker 3: When you arrived home were you extremely malnourished.
9:22
Speaker 1: Doing the whole experience is one thing, but then coming
9:25
Speaker 1: home and trying to adapt to real life again is
9:30
Speaker 1: a completely different thing. That everybody who who go on
9:34
Speaker 1: that everyone who goes on that show, they don't realize
9:37
Speaker 1: because when I went out there, I knew I was
9:39
Speaker 1: going to lose weight. I knew it was going because
9:41
Speaker 1: I'm not eating anything. But the further you make it,
9:44
Speaker 1: the harder it is. And I made it I think,
9:47
Speaker 1: you know, nineteen twenty day nineteen or twenty days out
9:50
Speaker 1: of twenty six, so I made it pretty far. And
9:53
Speaker 1: when I got home, you know, I had lost about
9:56
Speaker 1: fifteen to twenty pounds. I don't know the exact number,
9:58
Speaker 1: but I I had lost all my muscle. And coming
10:03
Speaker 1: back home it was like you want to eat everything
10:05
Speaker 1: in sight, because that's what you dream about for all
10:08
Speaker 1: those days out there, is what you're gonna eat. And
10:10
Speaker 1: then it's like your social awareness is so heightened because
10:16
Speaker 1: for however long you're out there, you're trying to analyze
10:19
Speaker 1: everybody and trying to come up with a strategy and
10:21
Speaker 1: a social game, and then when you get to the
10:22
Speaker 1: real world, you don't believe what everybody's telling you. I mean,
10:25
Speaker 1: there were amount of the amount of times that I
10:27
Speaker 1: asked my fiance, I'm like, wait, are you sure? Wait?
10:30
Speaker 1: What do you I would I would second guess him,
10:32
Speaker 1: and he would just look at me and be like, yes,
10:34
Speaker 1: what are you talking about? And when I started getting
10:39
Speaker 1: back into practice, I was having a lot of prosthetic
10:41
Speaker 1: issues with the fit because you know, when I lose weight,
10:44
Speaker 1: my leg loses weight, and it was just mentally and
10:48
Speaker 1: physically tough to get motivated. And then you go when
10:51
Speaker 1: you watch the show live, and then you're on such
10:53
Speaker 1: a high because you're just watching yourself every single week,
10:57
Speaker 1: and then when the season's over, it's like, okay. I mean,
10:59
Speaker 1: I I'm very fortunate enough where I turned immediately to
11:03
Speaker 1: competing again and getting back in the swing of things.
11:06
Speaker 1: But a lot of people go through a very difficult
11:08
Speaker 1: time because they're on the highest advise. It's honestly, I mean,
11:12
Speaker 1: I don't want to compare the two, but when you
11:14
Speaker 1: come home from an Olympic or Paralympic games, like you're
11:17
Speaker 1: on such a high and then when you come home
11:18
Speaker 1: it's like, oh my god, what am I going to
11:19
Speaker 1: do with myself now? It's kind of the same feeling
11:23
Speaker 1: because people have to get back into the real world,
11:25
Speaker 1: they have to get back into their real jobs. And
11:28
Speaker 1: I never wanted to see myself as, you know, a
11:30
Speaker 1: reality television star. I was just going out to do
11:33
Speaker 1: the experience. And when I was done with it, it
11:36
Speaker 1: was it was great because I mean, my life didn't
11:39
Speaker 1: change where, you know, I don't need to work anymore.
11:42
Speaker 1: I don't need to do any of that, like obviously not.
11:44
Speaker 1: And I just wanted to enjoy the enjoy it and
11:47
Speaker 1: appreciate the fact that I was able to go on
11:49
Speaker 1: the show. And I would say it took me a
11:53
Speaker 1: year and a half to two years to get back
11:55
Speaker 1: in the swing of things. And I mean a lot
11:57
Speaker 1: of that is things that I could have done differently,
11:59
Speaker 1: but I was I was very new at it, and
12:01
Speaker 1: that's why I didn't make the team for twenty twenty
12:04
Speaker 1: three and for World Championships, because I wasn't doing anything
12:07
Speaker 1: differently and I really didn't get my you know, my
12:11
Speaker 1: body back to the way I wanted it. To and
12:15
Speaker 1: I really wasn't motivated, and I was worrying about the
12:17
Speaker 1: wrong things. I was blaming others when it was all
12:20
Speaker 1: upon myself, And so it was a good mental test
12:23
Speaker 1: for me. And it was you know, it was one
12:28
Speaker 1: of those things where my fiance says this to me
12:30
Speaker 1: all the time. It's if something doesn't go my way,
12:33
Speaker 1: all you have to say is good because then you
12:35
Speaker 1: use it to fuel you. So when I didn't make
12:37
Speaker 1: the team and I'm on the flight home from California,
12:40
Speaker 1: I literally competed and I took the red eye home
12:42
Speaker 1: that night, and I was just thinking in my head,
12:45
Speaker 1: you know what, good, I'm glad something like this happened
12:48
Speaker 1: because I was just kind of going through the motions
12:50
Speaker 1: this last year, and now I have the motivation to
12:53
Speaker 1: get me to where I need to for Paris twenty
12:56
Speaker 1: twenty four.
12:56
Speaker 2: Nothing changes if nothing changes, right, And what a really
13:01
Speaker 2: beautiful but I'm sure hard earned lesson that is to
13:05
Speaker 2: look at challenge or things not going as you'd hoped
13:08
Speaker 2: through this lens.
13:09
Speaker 3: It's like, okay, so what's next? What happens now?
13:12
Speaker 2: And then you as an individual need to make that
13:15
Speaker 2: choice of how you want to proceed.
13:18
Speaker 3: Move on, grow from things not going your way.
13:21
Speaker 2: I find it so interesting as we talk about all
13:23
Speaker 2: of these things a little bit so far, about your
13:25
Speaker 2: Paralympic experience, your experience on survivor none of this would
13:29
Speaker 2: have been happening if you hadn't gotten into that moped
13:33
Speaker 2: accident in twenty sixteen. So bring me to July thirtieth,
13:37
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen.
13:38
Speaker 1: No weel, Yeah, I just finished an incredible freshman year
13:41
Speaker 1: playing lacrosse at UMass LL. You know, as a freshman,
13:45
Speaker 1: I started every single game, one of the leading points
13:47
Speaker 1: scores on the team, so obviously very ecstatic about my
13:51
Speaker 1: athletic future and excited. And it was about a month
13:55
Speaker 1: before returning for my sophomore year, a couple of my
13:58
Speaker 1: friends and I decided we wanted to do kind of
14:00
Speaker 1: just one last vacation before we died during pre season,
14:04
Speaker 1: so we headed to Martha's Vineyard. I'd never been to
14:06
Speaker 1: Martha's Vineyard before, and all I remember was a beautiful
14:10
Speaker 1: Saturday morning and the only thing we wanted to do
14:12
Speaker 1: was go to the beach. But obviously we had no
14:14
Speaker 1: form of transportation because we didn't bring a car on
14:17
Speaker 1: the island. And then we saw a moped stand and
14:20
Speaker 1: I had never personally driven a moped been on a moped,
14:24
Speaker 1: but I was thinking to myself, you know, how hard
14:26
Speaker 1: could it be? And that stubborn nineteen year old girl
14:30
Speaker 1: that thinks she can is invincible, that could do anything.
14:34
Speaker 1: The funny thing is my mom was begging me not
14:35
Speaker 1: to go on a moped the entire week leading up
14:38
Speaker 1: to it. And so, you know, one minute on the
14:41
Speaker 1: main road, having incredible time. In the next minute, I
14:44
Speaker 1: see a dump truck heading in the opposite direction as me.
14:46
Speaker 1: One of my teammates was actually on the back with me,
14:49
Speaker 1: and I think because of the weight distribution and because
14:52
Speaker 1: I just had no idea how to drive the moped,
14:55
Speaker 1: I lost control and I veered left. I sidewiped the
14:59
Speaker 1: dump truck and the next thing I remember is laying
15:02
Speaker 1: on the ground and when I lifted up my legs,
15:04
Speaker 1: I saw that my left leg was it was completely gone.
15:07
Speaker 1: It was severed. On the scene, I remember turning and
15:11
Speaker 1: seeing my teammate, my friend Kelly, and I didn't see
15:17
Speaker 1: her missing any limbs, but I saw her bleeding and
15:20
Speaker 1: I was just thinking what just happened? And lacrosse was
15:26
Speaker 1: the first thing I thought about lacrosse and sports because
15:29
Speaker 1: growing up I was a three sport athlete. I have
15:32
Speaker 1: three older brothers. I've always been active. I've never gone
15:35
Speaker 1: through a time where I had a tough injury where
15:38
Speaker 1: I was sidelined. I was always active in some sort
15:41
Speaker 1: of way. So I was honestly laying there thinking that
15:44
Speaker 1: my life was over. I didn't think I was going
15:46
Speaker 1: to die because I was in shock. The adrenaline was
15:49
Speaker 1: kicking in. I wasn't feeling anything. But the man that
15:51
Speaker 1: was actually driving behind me took his shirt off to
15:54
Speaker 1: create a tourner quit to stop a bleeding, which obviously
15:58
Speaker 1: is one of the only reasons why I'm talking to
16:01
Speaker 1: you right now. He was the one that saved my life,
16:04
Speaker 1: and I also had a ton of bystanders coming to me.
16:09
Speaker 1: But I think it was definitely just one of those
16:10
Speaker 1: moments where it was like an out of body like
16:14
Speaker 1: I was sitting there like kind of watching it and
16:17
Speaker 1: just thinking is this real life? Like that this really
16:19
Speaker 1: just happened, And I was honestly thinking they were going
16:21
Speaker 1: to be able to reattach the leg. I was telling
16:23
Speaker 1: everybody you know, find my leg, because they're going to
16:26
Speaker 1: be able to reattach it, this isn't it. And everything
16:30
Speaker 1: that was severed was below my knee. And then when
16:33
Speaker 1: I went into surgery, they had to take the knee
16:35
Speaker 1: because it was too mangled. I would have a better
16:36
Speaker 1: quality of life if they took it, because if they didn't,
16:39
Speaker 1: I probably would have been doing surgery after surgery. It
16:42
Speaker 1: would have been delayed. And so my parents and I
16:46
Speaker 1: made the decision to just take the knee. Now, if
16:50
Speaker 1: you were to ask me, I would have been like,
16:51
Speaker 1: keep that knee because it would help me so much.
16:55
Speaker 1: I literally was in the hospital for four or five days.
16:57
Speaker 1: That was the only thing that was wrong with me.
16:59
Speaker 1: I didn't have a scratch on my body other than that.
17:01
Speaker 1: I was very lucky, very fortunate enough. And then I
17:04
Speaker 1: was in physical therapy for a week and then I
17:05
Speaker 1: was back home. So to only have two surgeries out
17:10
Speaker 1: of something like that, thank god, because it could have
17:13
Speaker 1: been a lot worse. I could have died. My teammate
17:15
Speaker 1: she actually it was all of her injuries were from
17:19
Speaker 1: the impact of the pavement, and she had a huge
17:21
Speaker 1: laceration on the back of her right leg. She had
17:24
Speaker 1: some shoulder issues. But I mean, when I look back
17:28
Speaker 1: and I'm so grateful that it was me that lost
17:31
Speaker 1: my leg because I was the one driving, and I
17:33
Speaker 1: take responsibility for that. But yeah, it was definitely an
17:37
Speaker 1: insane and when I was in the hospital, it was
17:40
Speaker 1: just I was so fortunate enough to have the support
17:43
Speaker 1: that I did. I mean, I credit me not going
17:46
Speaker 1: through a depression to the people that took the time
17:49
Speaker 1: to come and visit me. I had tons of visitors
17:51
Speaker 1: every single day. I had people from the Boston Marathon,
17:55
Speaker 1: the survivors reaching out and a few of them coming
17:57
Speaker 1: to visit. And once I saw them and heard their story,
18:00
Speaker 1: I snapped out of it because I'm thinking to myself,
18:03
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't go through what they went through.
18:06
Speaker 1: Nobody did this to me. I was the one that
18:08
Speaker 1: did this to myself. And I saw the sense of
18:12
Speaker 1: humor that they had. My late uncle at the time,
18:17
Speaker 1: he's he was a double blowne amputee and he was
18:20
Speaker 1: a huge impact on me in the hospital, and his
18:23
Speaker 1: sense of humor is amazing. It's incredible. I mean, he
18:25
Speaker 1: just he jokes around all the time. And he told me,
18:29
Speaker 1: he was like, if you want people to feel comfortable
18:30
Speaker 1: with you, just joke around with them. Get them it'll
18:33
Speaker 1: open them up and it'll make them realize that you're
18:36
Speaker 1: still a human being. It's just a prosthetic leg. And yeah,
18:39
Speaker 1: it sucks that we have to do that, but I
18:41
Speaker 1: understand it. I mean, before I lost my leg, when
18:44
Speaker 1: I saw an Antco'd immediately feel sorry for them. But now,
18:47
Speaker 1: when I'm walking down the street like walking my dog,
18:50
Speaker 1: I don't even think about having a prosthetic leg. So yeah,
18:53
Speaker 1: the whole experience it was. It's crazy, but I mean
18:57
Speaker 1: it's gotten me to where I am today.
19:00
Speaker 2: An insane story that you have and truly so interesting
19:05
Speaker 2: to hear you tell it and to hear about how
19:10
Speaker 2: you were so forward thinking despite such a chaotic moment.
19:14
Speaker 2: Heartbreaking to think about that your first thought was about sport,
19:17
Speaker 2: but then even to have the mindset of where's my leg?
19:21
Speaker 2: Want to make sure we bring that with me, right?
19:24
Speaker 2: That is truly insane to hear that that's where your
19:27
Speaker 2: head was in that moment.
19:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was crazy, and I was thinking about I
19:33
Speaker 1: was honestly, I can't I can't even say this out
19:36
Speaker 1: loud because it's just it's so funny to me. But
19:39
Speaker 1: I was thinking, Okay, well maybe this will get me
19:41
Speaker 1: out of the rent test that I have to do
19:43
Speaker 1: in like a month and a half because I didn't.
19:45
Speaker 1: I didn't train for it whatsoever all summer. I was
19:48
Speaker 1: that type of person that didn't do any extra work
19:50
Speaker 1: other than when I showed up. If it was an
19:52
Speaker 1: in game competition, I would run through a brick wall.
19:55
Speaker 1: But if you tried to get me to do any
19:56
Speaker 1: extra work, I was that lazy, stubborn athlete. So it's
19:59
Speaker 1: crazy to think about, but I needed something like this
20:03
Speaker 1: to happen to me because I never understood or appreciated
20:06
Speaker 1: hard work. You know, I was very fortunate enough to
20:10
Speaker 1: have the like the natural born gifted athlete. But you know,
20:14
Speaker 1: when I was going through my recovery and I'm driving
20:17
Speaker 1: myself back and forth to campus every single day without
20:19
Speaker 1: a prosthetic leg, I'm sitting on the sidelines with my crutches, thinking,
20:25
Speaker 1: you know what if I applied myself. What if I
20:27
Speaker 1: applied myself in practice, would I be playing one of
20:30
Speaker 1: the top division on programs in the country. Would I
20:32
Speaker 1: even lost my leg? So like having all those what IFFs,
20:34
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody goes through it, and it was one
20:36
Speaker 1: of those defining moments for me where I told myself, Okay,
20:41
Speaker 1: I can either let this be it and I could quit,
20:45
Speaker 1: or I could use this as motivation and work my
20:48
Speaker 1: way back on the field. I from a very very
20:52
Speaker 1: early on in my accident, I told myself that I
20:54
Speaker 1: was going to return playing divisional on lacrosse. I had
20:57
Speaker 1: no idea how tough it was going to be. I
20:59
Speaker 1: was just telling myself, you know, why can't I do this?
21:03
Speaker 1: And when I went and met with my processus for
21:06
Speaker 1: the first time, I walked in and he's an above
21:09
Speaker 1: the emputee himself. He's a paralympian and a downhill slope
21:12
Speaker 1: for skiing, so he's an athlete. He understands everything I'm
21:14
Speaker 1: going through. And I tell him that I want to
21:18
Speaker 1: get back playing lacrosse. And he has two kids and
21:21
Speaker 1: one of them plays lacrosse, so he understands what I
21:25
Speaker 1: have to be able to do, and me being an
21:27
Speaker 1: above knee amputee. He looks at me and he said,
21:30
Speaker 1: maybe we should start with running first. I don't know
21:32
Speaker 1: how you're going to be able to cut back and
21:35
Speaker 1: forth and be so quick off your prosthetic blade. And
21:38
Speaker 1: I don't know how you're going to backpedal, because when
21:40
Speaker 1: I have my running blade. If my blade travels further
21:45
Speaker 1: than my sound side, the knee will buckle and I
21:48
Speaker 1: will fall on the ground. So I need to figure
21:50
Speaker 1: out all these different ways. But I didn't even want
21:52
Speaker 1: to hear it from him. I was like, no, we're
21:54
Speaker 1: going to start with the lacrosse and I'm going to
21:56
Speaker 1: play lacrosse again. I'll figure out a way. I'll figure
21:58
Speaker 1: out a position that works. And so I spent that
22:00
Speaker 1: entire sophomore year. I mean, obviously I wasn't able to
22:04
Speaker 1: get a running blade right off the bat, because, believe
22:06
Speaker 1: it or not, a lot of people don't realize this.
22:08
Speaker 1: Insurance companies will not cover a running blade, which is
22:11
Speaker 1: considered a specialized prosthetic, and they only cover your everyday
22:16
Speaker 1: walking leg. But a specialized prosthetic a running blade can
22:20
Speaker 1: cost anywhere from ten to thirty thousand dollars depending on
22:23
Speaker 1: what type of leg you want. And you know, I'm
22:24
Speaker 1: nineteen years old at the time. I don't have that
22:26
Speaker 1: type of money. I wasn't go I wasn't trying to
22:29
Speaker 1: make my parents pay for all these new and exciting legs.
22:32
Speaker 1: But that's when I started learning about all these amazing
22:34
Speaker 1: foundations out there. That's coort apthies like myself. So started
22:38
Speaker 1: applying to a bunch I found. I found out from
22:40
Speaker 1: one that they were going to get me with a
22:42
Speaker 1: running prosthetic, but it was going to be about a
22:43
Speaker 1: six month process, and I just decided to create a
22:46
Speaker 1: different role for myself on the team in the meantime.
22:49
Speaker 1: I wanted to, you know, create that positive, that positive
22:53
Speaker 1: light on the bench, you know. And I never wanted
22:55
Speaker 1: to see or hear people sulking or crying or complaining
22:59
Speaker 1: because they weren't getting applying time, because in my eyes,
23:01
Speaker 1: they had the opportunity to show up the next day
23:04
Speaker 1: and to prove that they should be out in that field.
23:06
Speaker 2: Super interesting to hear about how you started to change
23:10
Speaker 2: your own perspective of how you wanted to invest in yourself.
23:15
Speaker 3: Right.
23:16
Speaker 2: There are so many people listening to this that have
23:19
Speaker 2: definitely gone through a time or maybe they're in it
23:21
Speaker 2: right now where they too feel like or can identify
23:25
Speaker 2: that they are taking the lazy approach right and so
23:28
Speaker 2: for you to then consciously change your ways, for you
23:31
Speaker 2: to have to not only try a little bit harder,
23:34
Speaker 2: but to drastically try differently to get back to a
23:38
Speaker 2: place that's nowhere where ultimately you really want to be.
23:42
Speaker 2: How did you manage that mindset? How did you not
23:46
Speaker 2: allow that victim mentality to take over you.
23:51
Speaker 1: I have to credit this to my teammates and my
23:53
Speaker 1: coaches alone, because, believe me, in the beginning, I did
23:56
Speaker 1: try to use my disability as an excuse or a
23:59
Speaker 1: reason not to do something, and none of them would
24:02
Speaker 1: have it. Everyone would look at me. If we were
24:04
Speaker 1: doing a run test and I had to hit the
24:07
Speaker 1: mark on a certain time, I would look at my
24:08
Speaker 1: coaches and I'd be like, well, obviously I'm not going
24:10
Speaker 1: to hit that time, And then I would hear my
24:12
Speaker 1: cats and say, no, I'll shut up and get on
24:13
Speaker 1: the line, and you're going to do this. My assistant
24:16
Speaker 1: coach is the sole reason why I was able to
24:20
Speaker 1: return playing in the first place, because obviously I wasn't
24:24
Speaker 1: going to go up to my head coach and ask
24:26
Speaker 1: her to practice with me every single day. She needs
24:29
Speaker 1: to run the team, she needs to run the program.
24:31
Speaker 1: And my assistant coach, her name is Carly. She was
24:36
Speaker 1: about I think three or four years older than me,
24:39
Speaker 1: and she played lacrosse at Oregon. Incredible athlete, and she
24:44
Speaker 1: was playing on the professional team, so she had to
24:46
Speaker 1: keep herself in shape, so she was working out anyways.
24:50
Speaker 1: She took it upon herself to literally put me under
24:53
Speaker 1: her wing and I had to do every single footwork, drill, lifting, drill,
24:58
Speaker 1: like anything you can think of, I was doing with her.
25:01
Speaker 1: And she was the one that taught me to not
25:05
Speaker 1: use my disability as an excuse or reason to give
25:07
Speaker 1: up or quit because she never wanted to hear it.
25:11
Speaker 1: I we would have that relationship where we would scream
25:13
Speaker 1: back and forth at each other, and that's what I needed.
25:16
Speaker 1: I didn't need someone to hold my hand. I needed
25:18
Speaker 1: somebody to yell at me and scream at me because
25:21
Speaker 1: right when I was young, that from when I was
25:23
Speaker 1: you know, born, that's how I was treated by my
25:26
Speaker 1: brothers and that's really how I respond best. And in
25:29
Speaker 1: high school that when I had all my incredible coaches
25:33
Speaker 1: that I had, they would realize the type of person
25:36
Speaker 1: I was and they knew how to coach me. They
25:38
Speaker 1: knew to give me that tough love, to not hold
25:40
Speaker 1: my hand, and that's how I excelled. So to have
25:44
Speaker 1: the relationship that I have with my assistant coach, I mean,
25:47
Speaker 1: she was the one that taught me to focus on
25:50
Speaker 1: the things that I can only control. And you know,
25:54
Speaker 1: she was all She's also big into crossbits, so she
25:56
Speaker 1: was reading all these all these book about mentat books
25:59
Speaker 1: about my mentality, and she was just we would have
26:01
Speaker 1: these conversations, and I remember one day I just dropped
26:07
Speaker 1: my stick because I was starting to really feel comfortable
26:10
Speaker 1: in practice, but something was missing. I wasn't getting any
26:13
Speaker 1: playing time, and I was starting to get very frustrated
26:15
Speaker 1: because I thought I was killing myself to get back
26:17
Speaker 1: on that field. And I just remember dropping my stick
26:19
Speaker 1: and I started hysterically crying. And that was the first
26:23
Speaker 1: time that I ever showed a motion to anybody. After
26:26
Speaker 1: my accident, I was that person that put up the wall.
26:28
Speaker 1: I didn't want to let anybody in. I didn't want
26:30
Speaker 1: people to feel sorry for me. I didn't want the pity.
26:35
Speaker 1: You know. I always portrayed my accident as a positive.
26:37
Speaker 1: I would joke around all the time to get people
26:40
Speaker 1: to feel comfortable with me. But what I was doing
26:43
Speaker 1: is I was keeping everything inside, and I was bottling
26:45
Speaker 1: up until the point where I exploded. And I remember,
26:50
Speaker 1: you know, tears are running down my face. I lifted
26:52
Speaker 1: up my head expecting her to comfort me and said
26:55
Speaker 1: she had a smile on her face and she said
26:57
Speaker 1: to well, this is what we had been waiting for,
26:59
Speaker 1: and you cannot go through something like this on your own.
27:03
Speaker 1: And we didn't feel comfortable playing you knowing that you
27:07
Speaker 1: haven't opened up to us, because if we put you
27:10
Speaker 1: in that game and you failed and you had something
27:12
Speaker 1: like this, you would have never come back. You would
27:14
Speaker 1: have quit. So we needed this to happen before. And
27:19
Speaker 1: I cried for about four or five hours that day.
27:21
Speaker 1: But I mean, I think I was twenty twenty one
27:23
Speaker 1: years all the time. And that was my first experience
27:26
Speaker 1: with realizing how important mental health is, you know, as
27:29
Speaker 1: a person, as an athlete. You know, growing up, I
27:32
Speaker 1: was very fortunate enough to have incredible parents and an
27:35
Speaker 1: amazing family. Things weren't handed to me, but I was.
27:39
Speaker 1: I was a very lucky kid. I didn't have to
27:41
Speaker 1: go through any difficult moments. And so having the mental
27:46
Speaker 1: struggle of going through something like this, and you know,
27:49
Speaker 1: always having the self doubt in the back of my
27:51
Speaker 1: head because I'm a human being, I do doubt myself
27:55
Speaker 1: before every single new adventure. But what I've learned how
27:58
Speaker 1: to turn that around is. I use it as motivation
28:01
Speaker 1: and I use it as fuel. I don't portray myself
28:05
Speaker 1: as somebody who has self doubt, but I still have
28:09
Speaker 1: it to this day. I mean, before every single thing,
28:11
Speaker 1: I'm thinking to myself, can I actually do this? And
28:14
Speaker 1: I always go back to those, you know, the lessons
28:17
Speaker 1: that I learned from my assistant coach, Carly, because she
28:20
Speaker 1: was the sole reason and the sole purpose why I
28:23
Speaker 1: was able to actually return to the field. I mean,
28:24
Speaker 1: I was doing things with my prosthetic leg that my
28:27
Speaker 1: processess when he saw me doing them, he said, he's
28:31
Speaker 1: never seen it before. I was cutting better off my
28:33
Speaker 1: prosthetic leg than I was with my real leg. And
28:35
Speaker 1: it was, honestly just it was me working at something
28:39
Speaker 1: and it was me just not taking Noah as an answer.
28:43
Speaker 1: But I will say this, if it was up to me,
28:45
Speaker 1: I probably would have quit that first couple weeks of
28:48
Speaker 1: practicing because obviously I wasn't working with my assistant coach
28:54
Speaker 1: the first couple of weeks, and I was failing epically
28:58
Speaker 1: every single day. I couldn't catch a path. I would
29:01
Speaker 1: hide in drills because I didn't want to put my
29:03
Speaker 1: teammates in a position to fail and she was the
29:05
Speaker 1: one that saw that and she took it upon herself
29:09
Speaker 1: to do what it to do what I needed to
29:12
Speaker 1: allow me to play. And I thought that was something
29:15
Speaker 1: that is I can never take away from and I
29:18
Speaker 1: always credit her to that, and that's why I always
29:21
Speaker 1: try to share the message out is you know, I
29:24
Speaker 1: am that person that believes it takes a village to
29:28
Speaker 1: be able to achieve your goals or to live out
29:30
Speaker 1: your dreams the way you want and to always find
29:33
Speaker 1: the one or two people in your life that can
29:35
Speaker 1: create a positive impact, because there are like a couple
29:40
Speaker 1: of people in my life where I wouldn't if it
29:42
Speaker 1: wasn't for them, I wouldn't be where I am today.
29:44
Speaker 1: And it doesn't just come naturally. You have to go
29:46
Speaker 1: out looking for it. You have to fight for it
29:49
Speaker 1: based upon if you're if you want to actually live
29:54
Speaker 1: the life that you want. So I was very fortunate
29:57
Speaker 1: enough to be able to lose my leg at the
29:59
Speaker 1: time that I did, because if I lost my leg,
30:02
Speaker 1: you know, after graduating college, I wouldn't be a paralympian.
30:05
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be as active because I wouldn't have learned
30:08
Speaker 1: the lessons that I needed to to get me to
30:10
Speaker 1: where I am today.
30:16
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Speaker 2: a wild such a wild thing. And to think about
31:59
Speaker 2: the fact that you hadn't emotionally let go after losing
32:04
Speaker 2: your leg and having to come back in that manner
32:08
Speaker 2: until that point that you described, I literally like let
32:11
Speaker 2: out a deep breath for you, because I can't even
32:14
Speaker 2: fathom how it felt to maybe not even knowingly be
32:18
Speaker 2: walking around with the burden of that, right, I mean,
32:22
Speaker 2: talk to me a little bit about even as early
32:25
Speaker 2: on as seeing your parents in the hospital for the
32:27
Speaker 2: first time, to not even get emotional then, well.
32:31
Speaker 1: It was pretty tough. It was. It was tough to
32:33
Speaker 1: get emotional when I first saw my parents because when
32:38
Speaker 1: my parents hugged me, My mom hugged me and she said,
32:41
Speaker 1: don't worry, everyone's praying for you. I made a post
32:43
Speaker 1: on Facebook and that just made me laugh because I
32:46
Speaker 1: was like, Mom, I don't need the whole world knowing
32:49
Speaker 1: that I lost my leg in a moped accident, because
32:52
Speaker 1: that's ridiculous. Just like I didn't say that. All I
32:54
Speaker 1: said is please pray for my baby girl. I'm like,
32:55
Speaker 1: why are you even posting anything to begin with? Yeah,
32:57
Speaker 1: I got so many text messages for people thinking I
33:00
Speaker 1: was dead, like they had no idea. And but when
33:05
Speaker 1: I did wake up the next morning after surgery, I
33:08
Speaker 1: mean I was hysterically crying in my hospital. Ben and
33:13
Speaker 1: my parents are the other. You know, you have those
33:16
Speaker 1: few people that create major impacts in your life. My
33:19
Speaker 1: parents are one hundred percent those people because how strong
33:23
Speaker 1: they were in that moment. Yes, it's very difficult for me.
33:28
Speaker 1: It's just as much difficult for my parents because I
33:32
Speaker 1: am their baby girl. They feel as though they should
33:35
Speaker 1: be protecting me. And they never showed me that they
33:40
Speaker 1: were scared. They never showed me that they doubted me
33:43
Speaker 1: in any way. My mom from the beginning told me
33:46
Speaker 1: that I would play lacrosse again, that I would live
33:47
Speaker 1: the life that I wanted to, and they just showed
33:51
Speaker 1: me the support that I needed. And it's like they
33:55
Speaker 1: made it. They obviously it was a big deal, but
33:57
Speaker 1: they didn't make it a big deal. They didn't make
33:59
Speaker 1: it seem like it was life changing on them. And
34:02
Speaker 1: obviously that's what a lot of people don't realize is,
34:06
Speaker 1: you know, when someone goes through an accident, they also
34:09
Speaker 1: don't think like a lot of people don't think about
34:11
Speaker 1: the people that are closest to them and how it
34:12
Speaker 1: affects them. You know, my mom was telling me that
34:16
Speaker 1: one of my brothers, who I'm most alike and we
34:19
Speaker 1: bickered back and forth, we always butted heads, he was
34:21
Speaker 1: crying over my hospital bed like the night before, and
34:24
Speaker 1: I was like, you didn't videotape this, like this is
34:26
Speaker 1: things that I like, I would love to see And
34:28
Speaker 1: when I was crying in my hospital bed, like my
34:32
Speaker 1: parents were obviously right there. But then my head coach
34:34
Speaker 1: walked through the door, and when she stepped into the room,
34:38
Speaker 1: I simply asked the question, Okay, what do I have
34:40
Speaker 1: to do to play again? Because this cannot be it.
34:42
Speaker 1: I won't allow this to be the rest of my story.
34:44
Speaker 1: And she looks at me with a smile on her face,
34:46
Speaker 1: reassuring me that my position on the team is going
34:48
Speaker 1: absolutely nowhere in the community from U mass Lola is
34:52
Speaker 1: going to be behind me one hundred percent. So in
34:54
Speaker 1: that moment, that's what I needed to hear. I needed
34:57
Speaker 1: to hear that I had the support system. And that's
35:00
Speaker 1: what really made me snap out of it because I
35:02
Speaker 1: thought to myself, I can't feel depressed right now because
35:05
Speaker 1: I have a whole community that's willing to do whatever
35:09
Speaker 1: it takes to get me to the next steps or
35:12
Speaker 1: get me back on my feet. And I thought that
35:14
Speaker 1: was just something that I can never talk about enough,
35:17
Speaker 1: because that's it's If I didn't receive that, I don't
35:21
Speaker 1: know how I would have taken everything.
35:22
Speaker 2: Also, you said the word depression again, which triggered me
35:25
Speaker 2: to think about you saying earlier that you never went
35:29
Speaker 2: through one, and to think about going through that much
35:32
Speaker 2: of a life altering moment, not just because yes, now
35:35
Speaker 2: you're walking around technically with one like one prosthetic, but
35:39
Speaker 2: then also like it truly changed the entire trajectory.
35:43
Speaker 3: Of your life.
35:43
Speaker 2: So aside from the village, talk to me about maybe
35:48
Speaker 2: the mental gymnastics or what you did personally to stay
35:55
Speaker 2: on a brighter path, because it's, without a doubt, would
36:00
Speaker 2: have been a lot easier to slip into the opposite.
36:06
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Yeah, absolutely. You know, in the beginning, I was
36:10
Speaker 1: definitely self conscious having, you know, not having a prosthetic
36:14
Speaker 1: leg yet I'm on crutches. I don't want people staring
36:17
Speaker 1: at me. I'm wearing pants every single day to class
36:20
Speaker 1: because I don't want people to look at me differently.
36:24
Speaker 1: And then it was something in my head clicked. I mean,
36:28
Speaker 1: from early on, I always had that sixth sense of humor.
36:30
Speaker 1: I always had that stubbornness or I always had to
36:33
Speaker 1: be the jokester on the team and the classroom. And
36:36
Speaker 1: then I started using that to help me and to
36:39
Speaker 1: benefit me, especially on my social media, because when I
36:43
Speaker 1: started joking around, it allowed other people to open up.
36:47
Speaker 1: And mentally, it was like it was me thinking, Okay, well,
36:52
Speaker 1: if I could just get people to laugh, then they
36:54
Speaker 1: won't treat me differently. They won't treat it like a
36:56
Speaker 1: big deal. And I think every day, like my social
37:01
Speaker 1: I just use my Instagram and I would just like post,
37:04
Speaker 1: I would post things and the caption would be all
37:06
Speaker 1: jokes aside. And I think that just helped me because
37:09
Speaker 1: it never really made me think too much about it.
37:14
Speaker 1: And then once I received my everyday walking prosthetic, it
37:17
Speaker 1: was more so of Okay, now I have to walk
37:22
Speaker 1: perfectly so that people don't stare at me, or people
37:25
Speaker 1: or I just I didn't want the pity in the beginning,
37:28
Speaker 1: where I like, when I look back on it now,
37:31
Speaker 1: I had nothing to be ashamed of. I had nothing
37:32
Speaker 1: to try to fix. Did I have to portray a
37:35
Speaker 1: message out to the world with like my sense of
37:38
Speaker 1: humor to allow other people to be okay with my disability. No,
37:42
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have to do that. But what I will
37:44
Speaker 1: say is it helped me mentally because I always was
37:49
Speaker 1: that stubborn person of It's like, okay, I'm going to
37:52
Speaker 1: make I'm just going to make a joke of it,
37:53
Speaker 1: and hopefully that allowed it. And honestly, yes, it helped
37:57
Speaker 1: other people connect and be more comfort with it, But
38:00
Speaker 1: then it helped me be more comfortable with myself. I
38:04
Speaker 1: remember when my friend picked me up from the hot
38:06
Speaker 1: or picked me up right when I got out of
38:07
Speaker 1: the hospital. I wasn't even home for ten minutes, and
38:10
Speaker 1: I had my friends come and pick me up because
38:11
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't want to sit at home,
38:13
Speaker 1: and I'm literally in the car taking selfies with my
38:17
Speaker 1: nub like I'm lifting my nug and I'm like, I'm
38:19
Speaker 1: taking selfies and I was just I mean that, and
38:23
Speaker 1: she was taking pictures of me doing that, and it's
38:26
Speaker 1: it's crazy to think about, because you know, I don't
38:28
Speaker 1: always think of like how was I able to go
38:30
Speaker 1: through that mental toughness, in that mental block of being
38:34
Speaker 1: okay with my accident, And to be honest with you,
38:38
Speaker 1: it's taken me a lot. I mean it's taken year.
38:40
Speaker 1: It took years because obviously, once you're comfortable with one thing,
38:44
Speaker 1: something else, something else happens, and something else is new.
38:49
Speaker 1: I wasn't in a relationship, I didn't have a boyfriend
38:51
Speaker 1: when I lost my leg, and that was something that
38:53
Speaker 1: I was thinking very early on. It was like, Okay, well,
38:56
Speaker 1: who's going to love me? Because I view myself as broken,
39:00
Speaker 1: which is I view that as something terrible that I
39:03
Speaker 1: even even had to think about that. But I was thinking,
39:07
Speaker 1: how am I going to love somebody else? But I
39:08
Speaker 1: can't even love myself? And one of my friends literally
39:12
Speaker 1: told me, she's like, no, well you're prettier without your leg.
39:15
Speaker 1: She's like your aura, how you present yourself, You are
39:18
Speaker 1: more gorgeous without it. And ever since she said that
39:21
Speaker 1: to me, I just I owned it.
39:23
Speaker 2: Whether or not this level of inquiry is due to
39:29
Speaker 2: your accident. The sentiment of I have to get to
39:33
Speaker 2: a place where I can love myself so that someone
39:35
Speaker 2: else can then love me as well is something that
39:39
Speaker 2: is so profound and so resonant. Right, so many people
39:42
Speaker 2: listening to this right now, hearing you say that and
39:45
Speaker 2: being like, huh, yeah, yeah, and that relationship with self
39:50
Speaker 2: right is ever evolving.
39:53
Speaker 3: But I do believe that.
39:56
Speaker 2: As women, so often we're growing up and we are
40:00
Speaker 2: told someone else is going to come into the picture
40:02
Speaker 2: and complete you, and I completely disagree with that sentiment.
40:08
Speaker 2: I have always been of the mindset that I want
40:11
Speaker 2: to be you know, I will never be a hundred,
40:13
Speaker 2: but I want to be working to get to one
40:15
Speaker 2: hundred on my own and meet someone who's doing that
40:17
Speaker 2: same work, and together we are so great, but individually
40:21
Speaker 2: we're really freaking awesome too.
40:23
Speaker 1: That's it's so great that you bring up a point
40:26
Speaker 1: like that, because I do know so many people who
40:28
Speaker 1: want relationships left and right. They just want to be
40:30
Speaker 1: in a relationship. They want to be in a relationship,
40:33
Speaker 1: And what I try to tell them is you need
40:35
Speaker 1: to look at yourself in the mirror, and you need
40:37
Speaker 1: to be loving of yourself, comfortable with yourself before you
40:41
Speaker 1: can give that to anybody else, you know what I mean. Listen,
40:45
Speaker 1: was I looking for a relationship when I met Absolutely not.
40:49
Speaker 1: I literally was not. I mean, like, I was just
40:52
Speaker 1: living my life the way I wanted to. Obviously, yeah,
40:54
Speaker 1: it would be nice to share my life with somebody,
40:56
Speaker 1: but it wasn't something that like I needed at that point.
40:59
Speaker 1: And then when it happened, it was like, oh my god. Okay,
41:01
Speaker 1: I get the saying that. Honestly, it happens to you
41:05
Speaker 1: when you're not looking for it, when you're not trying
41:07
Speaker 1: every single day or every single weekend to find someone new,
41:11
Speaker 1: and you just live life for yourself. I mean, it's
41:16
Speaker 1: a game changer.
41:17
Speaker 2: Talk to me about twenty nineteen and embarking on this
41:21
Speaker 2: journey within track and field again, a sentence that was
41:26
Speaker 2: certainly not in your vocabulary before July thirtieth, twenty sixteen.
41:31
Speaker 1: Oh my god. No, Yeah, I hated running. I hated
41:33
Speaker 1: everything to do with it. If you mean still to
41:35
Speaker 1: this day, if you go back and you ask or
41:38
Speaker 1: talk to my high school coaches, even my college coach,
41:42
Speaker 1: they would laugh, they laugh in your face because they're
41:44
Speaker 1: just like this girl is now a Paralympian for track
41:47
Speaker 1: and field in twenty nineteen, when I graduated, obviously didn't
41:51
Speaker 1: want to hang out my athletic career just yet because
41:53
Speaker 1: I'd only been running for about two years. And when
41:56
Speaker 1: I returned to play my junior season, someone from the
41:59
Speaker 1: US Paralymic Track and Field World reached out asking if
42:01
Speaker 1: I've ever thought about competing, and I thought, you know,
42:05
Speaker 1: this would be an incredible opportunity to represent my country.
42:08
Speaker 1: And when I was in the hospital, I was watching
42:11
Speaker 1: the Olympic Games. It was at the end of July
42:15
Speaker 1: of twenty sixteen, and I kept seeing commercials or promotions
42:19
Speaker 1: for the Paralympic Games. But obviously, in the back of
42:21
Speaker 1: my head, I'm like, I don't even know what sport
42:23
Speaker 1: I would play. And when I received that message, obviously
42:29
Speaker 1: was in the back of my head and I'm thinking, Okay,
42:30
Speaker 1: this would be very cool. But I chose to my
42:34
Speaker 1: senior year just spend it only worrying about lacrosse because
42:37
Speaker 1: it was I was going to be done with lacrosse
42:38
Speaker 1: after that for the rest of my life. And once
42:41
Speaker 1: I was done, that's when I started doing the research.
42:44
Speaker 1: I found a track meet that was in Arizona, was
42:47
Speaker 1: a disabled track meet called the Desert Challenge Games. Signed
42:50
Speaker 1: myself up for it, had no expectations. One of my
42:54
Speaker 1: roommates that I roomed with a couple times in college,
42:58
Speaker 1: she did track and field that you role, so she
43:00
Speaker 1: was kind of give me some tips. But I didn't
43:03
Speaker 1: have a track coach. I had no idea how to
43:04
Speaker 1: come out of starting blocks. I was literally trying to
43:06
Speaker 1: google above me eputs coming out of starting blocks. Nothing
43:10
Speaker 1: was coming up. I was like stalking all these people
43:12
Speaker 1: that compete, like Scout Bassett, all these all these big names,
43:16
Speaker 1: seeing what they do. And then I showed up for
43:21
Speaker 1: the track being in Arizona, literally ten percent confident my
43:25
Speaker 1: athletic abilities, and my mom traveled with me. It was
43:29
Speaker 1: very funny, and so did my processus. And then I
43:32
Speaker 1: realized the entire US Paralympic national track and field team
43:35
Speaker 1: was going to be there, all the head coaches, and
43:37
Speaker 1: I was going to be competing against the reigning national champion,
43:39
Speaker 1: which was Scout Bassett, and I wanted to go home.
43:43
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't want to do this. I'm
43:45
Speaker 1: I'm I don't even know how to come out of
43:47
Speaker 1: the starting blocks. I'm gonna fall. Start, I'm gonna fall.
43:49
Speaker 1: Something's gonna happen. And my mom is great because she's
43:53
Speaker 1: the one that keeps me in check and in line.
43:54
Speaker 1: She's like, shut up, like, I don't care I crawl
43:57
Speaker 1: across the finish line. You're gonna crawl across. You're gonna
43:59
Speaker 1: get across the finish lin and you're gonna be fine.
44:01
Speaker 1: And then the night before the race, I was joking
44:04
Speaker 1: around with my mom saying, hey, Mom, like, wouldn't it
44:06
Speaker 1: be funny if I won? And she completely shot that down.
44:09
Speaker 1: She was like, no Ah, there's no way you're winning
44:11
Speaker 1: this race. This girl, wow, this girl's been doing this
44:14
Speaker 1: for eight years or however long. Just use her to
44:18
Speaker 1: motivate you to go faster. She my mom is that
44:21
Speaker 1: type of person that she doesn't want she won't get
44:24
Speaker 1: her hopes up about anything, so she didn't want me
44:25
Speaker 1: to get my hopes up. And then waking up the
44:28
Speaker 1: day of the race and getting to the competition venue,
44:32
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever been so nervous in my
44:35
Speaker 1: entire life because growing up I was always a part
44:37
Speaker 1: of team sports, so having to actually compete in an
44:40
Speaker 1: individual sport and having all the pressure beyond me was
44:43
Speaker 1: just something that I wasn't comfortable with. And I'm literally
44:48
Speaker 1: looking around, I'm seeing what everyone's wearing, and like female
44:51
Speaker 1: track and field athletes were literally nothing. They wear sports bras,
44:54
Speaker 1: spandex or underwear. I'm literally wearing like a baggy tank top,
44:58
Speaker 1: baggy shorts. They say, like, look cross on it, so
45:01
Speaker 1: already I look as though I do not belong. And
45:04
Speaker 1: then when the gun went off halfway through the race,
45:07
Speaker 1: I heard my mom literally screeching because I was winning.
45:11
Speaker 1: When I crossed the finish line, not only did I win,
45:15
Speaker 1: but I also I also hit the qualifying times to
45:18
Speaker 1: be part of the US Paralympic national track and field team.
45:20
Speaker 1: It didn't look pretty at all because I don't know
45:22
Speaker 1: what the running form is. I've ran with the lacrosse
45:24
Speaker 1: sick for however many years, and that's really I mean.
45:28
Speaker 1: When I got home, that's when I thought to myself, Okay,
45:31
Speaker 1: I need a coach now because I cannot do this
45:33
Speaker 1: on my own. And we had World Championships in Dubai
45:36
Speaker 1: four months later, so I was trying to qualify for that.
45:39
Speaker 1: I didn't really understand how to qualify for it. So
45:41
Speaker 1: it was like all these things were happening. And then
45:45
Speaker 1: once you're a part of the or once you hit
45:47
Speaker 1: the qualifying times when you're doing the Paralympic Games, you
45:51
Speaker 1: need to go through national classification and international classification. Basically
45:55
Speaker 1: what classification means. It's like a doctor's appointment. So you
45:58
Speaker 1: walk into a room, they analyze your disability and they
46:01
Speaker 1: put you into a group. Mine is very easy. I'm
46:04
Speaker 1: an above the imputee, so like all right, T sixty three,
46:06
Speaker 1: you're an above the emputee. But for people who are
46:09
Speaker 1: visually impaired, people who have superba palsy, it's a lot
46:12
Speaker 1: longer process because they're very thorough and they want to
46:15
Speaker 1: put you into a classification group that you're meant to
46:20
Speaker 1: fit in. They don't want to put you in a
46:21
Speaker 1: group and then you kill everybody, or they don't want
46:23
Speaker 1: to put you into a group and then you're getting
46:24
Speaker 1: killed by everybody. So then I went through national classification,
46:29
Speaker 1: and then I need to go to I needed to
46:31
Speaker 1: find an international classification opportunity and that was in Paris.
46:35
Speaker 1: So I was able to go to Paris, I think,
46:38
Speaker 1: and it was July or August of twenty nineteen with
46:40
Speaker 1: my mom, and then I was finally officially able to
46:43
Speaker 1: be a part of the team, and then I was
46:45
Speaker 1: able to qualify for World Championships. So it was very quick,
46:49
Speaker 1: but it was very cool experience.
46:53
Speaker 2: I know today you're sponsored by Noble, but at that time,
46:57
Speaker 2: when you started to have all of these inspirations, you
47:01
Speaker 2: talked about a running blade being between ten and thirty
47:04
Speaker 2: k That's only the tip of the iceberg. So in
47:07
Speaker 2: your mind, how is this feasible knowing the costs that
47:12
Speaker 2: were about to be associated with it.
47:14
Speaker 1: Obviously that's one of the main issues for Paralympic athletes.
47:18
Speaker 1: When I graduated college, I was back home living with
47:20
Speaker 1: my parents, so I was telling myself, I'm going to
47:23
Speaker 1: ride this out as long as possible so I don't
47:25
Speaker 1: have to have too many bills to pay. It's not
47:27
Speaker 1: about I mean, it is about your accolades, but it's
47:29
Speaker 1: also how you portray yourself and just fight for that.
47:33
Speaker 1: I mean, the hardest part is, I think getting an
47:35
Speaker 1: agent that you believe in. I found an agent very
47:38
Speaker 1: early on kimse A Audi from Blue Sky Sports, and
47:42
Speaker 1: I told her, told her my goals. I was like, listen,
47:45
Speaker 1: I would love to be a motivational speaker. I would
47:48
Speaker 1: love to be able to be a full time athlete.
47:51
Speaker 1: I't have a full time job. And when COVID happened, honestly,
47:56
Speaker 1: it helped with my motivational speaking because I was able
48:00
Speaker 1: to come up with a stump speech. I was able
48:02
Speaker 1: to do zoom calls back and forth literally every single day,
48:05
Speaker 1: and my agency would just critique me and everything I
48:08
Speaker 1: was doing. So once I was able to get a
48:12
Speaker 1: stump speech down and finally like excel that career and
48:16
Speaker 1: like get that career, started that and then I started
48:19
Speaker 1: getting my name out there more, I was able to
48:21
Speaker 1: do Survivor. But I mean, I was very grateful to
48:25
Speaker 1: have signed with Noble. I was a huge Noble fan
48:27
Speaker 1: when I was in college because they're, you know, a
48:29
Speaker 1: Boston based company. Now now they're definitely have expanded. I've
48:34
Speaker 1: been very fortunate and very lucky, and I know a
48:36
Speaker 1: lot of other athletes it's not as easy for them.
48:40
Speaker 1: And I think we're you know, we're getting there. We're
48:44
Speaker 1: trying to create the movement and the patterns of normalizing
48:49
Speaker 1: and getting the word out there for Paralympic sport. I mean,
48:51
Speaker 1: Paris was incredible. We had so many people watching, we
48:54
Speaker 1: had sold out stadium, which is I mean, it was
48:57
Speaker 1: amazing and it's everything that we need to bring us
48:59
Speaker 1: into LA twenty twenty eight.
49:01
Speaker 2: Speaking of being a keynote speaker, being a CUP public speaker.
49:06
Speaker 2: About a year ago, now you gave your first ted X,
49:09
Speaker 2: which was so remarkable to watch, and it had three
49:13
Speaker 2: really resounding lessons in it that you took away from
49:17
Speaker 2: your injury and your journey thus far, becoming comfortable with
49:20
Speaker 2: being uncomfortable, using self doubt as motivation, and the importance
49:24
Speaker 2: of surrounding yourself with the right team, something that you
49:27
Speaker 2: and I have spoken a lot about today. Right now,
49:30
Speaker 2: when you think about your life as it stands, what
49:33
Speaker 2: is the most uncomfortable thing that you deal with regularly?
49:39
Speaker 1: That's a great question. I think the most uncomfortable thing
49:43
Speaker 1: that I deal with is the self doubt that I
49:47
Speaker 1: continue to have. You know, every single new adventure that
49:50
Speaker 1: I try, I doubt myself that I don't know what
49:52
Speaker 1: it is. When I was going into Paris, I was
49:55
Speaker 1: coming off of the best season I've ever had, you know,
49:58
Speaker 1: as a track athlete, I was able to jump five meters.
50:02
Speaker 1: We talked about early on how there was only three
50:04
Speaker 1: above me iputies in the world that I ever did it.
50:07
Speaker 1: I was able to do it in my first season,
50:09
Speaker 1: and not only did I do it once, I did
50:10
Speaker 1: it nine competitions in a row. And then when I
50:13
Speaker 1: was mentally leading up to Paris, I was thinking about
50:19
Speaker 1: all the wrong things. I was thinking about the weather,
50:21
Speaker 1: the wind, things that I can't control, and it was
50:24
Speaker 1: very difficult because it changed my whole mindset and it
50:28
Speaker 1: just made me not act like I was acting all season.
50:33
Speaker 1: And when I got to Paris, I was very confident,
50:36
Speaker 1: but I was also in a very uncomfortable position because
50:39
Speaker 1: I wasn't feeling how I was feeling all season, and
50:44
Speaker 1: that was me not prioritizing the mental aspect of the sport.
50:49
Speaker 1: And you know, it was very easy for me to
50:52
Speaker 1: start long jumping in the beginning because I had no
50:54
Speaker 1: idea what I was doing. And I, you know, I
50:56
Speaker 1: am very coachable. I if you tell me how to
50:58
Speaker 1: do something, I'll figure out way to do it. But
51:00
Speaker 1: then once I understand and once I realize how to
51:03
Speaker 1: do it, that's when I start to overthink everything and
51:05
Speaker 1: I try to critique the little things in me and
51:08
Speaker 1: myself and my coach. We were trying to get that
51:11
Speaker 1: extra oom from my blade so that I could break
51:14
Speaker 1: the world record because I think I jumped like five
51:16
Speaker 1: point twenty nine meters and the world record was five
51:19
Speaker 1: point four to six meters, which is only like, it's
51:22
Speaker 1: not that far off. So We're trying to do everything
51:25
Speaker 1: possible so that I could do this at the Games,
51:28
Speaker 1: and I am just worrying and thinking about things that
51:30
Speaker 1: I shouldn't be worrying or thinking about. I needed to
51:34
Speaker 1: mentally take a step back and appreciate the long road
51:39
Speaker 1: it took to get there, and it just put me
51:42
Speaker 1: in It was like I already knew the outcome going
51:44
Speaker 1: into it, and I think I I mean, honestly, there
51:48
Speaker 1: were so many things that I could have done differently.
51:51
Speaker 1: But when I look back on it now and I
51:54
Speaker 1: think about it, it's it's something that I need to
51:57
Speaker 1: work and do better at. As an athlete. You know,
52:00
Speaker 1: it's very easy for me to just show up and
52:02
Speaker 1: do the best that I can, But then the hardest
52:04
Speaker 1: part is to mentally figure all these things out. You know,
52:08
Speaker 1: wouldn't you think after going through everything that I've been
52:10
Speaker 1: through and having getting to accomplish so much that I
52:13
Speaker 1: wouldn't deal with self doubt. Absolutely not. I am a
52:16
Speaker 1: human being and I deal with it just like everybody
52:18
Speaker 1: else deals with it. But what I jumped, I think
52:21
Speaker 1: I jumped like four point sixty six meters in Paris
52:25
Speaker 1: and that wasn't even close to what I was jumping
52:27
Speaker 1: all season, And that just shows it's, you know, there's
52:31
Speaker 1: things that I need to work on other than practicing.
52:34
Speaker 1: It's my mental health. It's it's working with a sports psychologist,
52:38
Speaker 1: getting to visualize everything and getting to and not worrying
52:42
Speaker 1: about you know, I'm literally on my weather app. I'm
52:44
Speaker 1: looking at the wind gage and I'm trying to think
52:47
Speaker 1: the wind going to be because obviously I knew that
52:50
Speaker 1: in the stadium it was swirling. So I was like, Okay,
52:52
Speaker 1: I just need to find the perfect moment. When I
52:54
Speaker 1: go into LA twenty twenty eight, it's like, Okay, I'm
52:57
Speaker 1: bringing home that gold medal because I'm thick of it.
53:00
Speaker 1: We'll figure it out.
53:01
Speaker 3: You live and you learn, right, yeah, and listen.
53:03
Speaker 2: It's understandable though, like in any situation where it's a
53:07
Speaker 2: high stakes moment where you really deeply, passionately care about
53:10
Speaker 2: something you are going to have all of these questions, right,
53:15
Speaker 2: you're doing what feels like the best you can with
53:17
Speaker 2: what you have. I can totally relate to, like checking
53:21
Speaker 2: the weather or just trying to control things that are
53:24
Speaker 2: beyond your control simply because you're just grasping for it.
53:28
Speaker 1: How do you mentally go into a marathon? My brain
53:31
Speaker 1: would explode if I you know what I mean in
53:34
Speaker 1: going into it when I mean my fiance ran the
53:36
Speaker 1: Boston Marathon, and leading up to it, I didn't know
53:39
Speaker 1: what to say to him because I was kind of
53:42
Speaker 1: just letting him. I mean, he obviously put in the work,
53:45
Speaker 1: but then like once you're the big days there and
53:47
Speaker 1: like you want to get a good time at.
53:48
Speaker 2: The end of it, all you can do is the
53:51
Speaker 2: best you can with what you have. And I think
53:53
Speaker 2: that I, at least at the very least. That doesn't
53:56
Speaker 2: mean that you might not be frustrated or angry if
53:58
Speaker 2: a scenario is less than I deal. But I've had
54:01
Speaker 2: circumstances in the past that were less than ideal, and
54:04
Speaker 2: I showed up on the day and I gave it
54:06
Speaker 2: everything that I have and I'm better for it. Just
54:08
Speaker 2: like you talking about your experience, you know you didn't
54:11
Speaker 2: want to lose your leg in a mopad accident. But
54:14
Speaker 2: now you credit that moped accident as being the thing
54:17
Speaker 2: that has made you exactly who you are today, and
54:20
Speaker 2: it's a person that you're proud of, and it's a
54:22
Speaker 2: person that you wouldn't change if you had the opportunity to.
54:25
Speaker 2: So I think that it is up to us to
54:28
Speaker 2: choose to take adversity and use it to our strength
54:33
Speaker 2: if possible.
54:34
Speaker 3: And again, to your point.
54:35
Speaker 2: It doesn't mean that there aren't going to be days
54:37
Speaker 2: where you're doing things and you're like, I'm not the
54:38
Speaker 2: most proud of the way that I handled that moment.
54:41
Speaker 2: But now having that experience in Paris, you can move
54:44
Speaker 2: forward knowing what you know now and choose to pivot
54:48
Speaker 2: if that feels right for you. I have to ask you, like,
54:51
Speaker 2: do you feel as though that you've forgiven yourself for
54:53
Speaker 2: how you handled that situation?
54:57
Speaker 1: Yes, I definitely I've forgiven myself. I I wish I
55:00
Speaker 1: attacked Paris how I attacked the trials, because I went
55:03
Speaker 1: into that I was like, this is in the bag.
55:05
Speaker 1: I know what I need to do. I jumped five
55:06
Speaker 1: twenty at Paralympic Trials and then we don't compete at all,
55:12
Speaker 1: and honestly, like my coach said something to me when
55:14
Speaker 1: I got back to California. He was like, I'm just
55:16
Speaker 1: like not seeing it and it was me overthinking everything,
55:19
Speaker 1: and that's when it started. It's that's when it started
55:23
Speaker 1: to kind of downfall. And then when I got to Paris,
55:26
Speaker 1: I couldn't jump over five meters I practice, I couldn't
55:28
Speaker 1: do it. I don't know what it was. And then
55:30
Speaker 1: the competition happened and I think on my third jump,
55:33
Speaker 1: I had a small to foul and when I look
55:36
Speaker 1: back on it, I think it would have gotten me
55:38
Speaker 1: a bronze medal. But then I'm thinking, Okay, but I fouled,
55:41
Speaker 1: so it doesn't count. It's nobody to argue with but myself.
55:46
Speaker 1: And then when I went back to my family's Airbnb
55:49
Speaker 1: and I'm with my fiance and I like, I held
55:52
Speaker 1: it in. I wasn't trying to cry in front of
55:54
Speaker 1: everybody because I just I didn't want to, but people
55:57
Speaker 1: could see that I was pissed, and I was just
55:58
Speaker 1: I felt so ashamed. I just felt so defeated in
56:02
Speaker 1: that moment. It's like I don't want to say that.
56:05
Speaker 1: Like that whole season was a waste, but like in
56:07
Speaker 1: my eyes, like it was just so it was such
56:10
Speaker 1: a tough pill to swallow. It would have been so
56:12
Speaker 1: much easier if I got fourth place and I jumped
56:15
Speaker 1: when I was jumping all season, but to literally not
56:18
Speaker 1: even come close. But then the next day I had
56:21
Speaker 1: one day in between my hundred meter and my long jump.
56:24
Speaker 1: So the next day I am sitting at my parents
56:26
Speaker 1: at Airbnb, and I'm trying to just refocus and get
56:30
Speaker 1: myself ready for the hundred. But you know, when I
56:33
Speaker 1: go into the hundred meter, my coach is literally gonna
56:34
Speaker 1: probably kill me for saying this, but I know I'm
56:36
Speaker 1: not gonna meddle, Like these girls are so fast and
56:40
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to run the best time for me possible.
56:43
Speaker 1: I'm trying to make it to the finals. So Saturday
56:46
Speaker 1: comes around, I qualify, and I think once I qualify
56:50
Speaker 1: for finals, like it was like okay, I can breathe,
56:52
Speaker 1: like it's it's fine. Literally, I competed in the in
56:56
Speaker 1: the hundred, I got seventh. Uh well, I got eighth,
56:59
Speaker 1: But the only reason where I got seventh is because
57:01
Speaker 1: the person that was gonna win fell and like knocked out.
57:05
Speaker 1: I was like you couldn't knock out everybody. Let me
57:08
Speaker 1: come home with about no and then so I was
57:12
Speaker 1: just like Okay. Literally the next morning, I fly to
57:16
Speaker 1: Italy with my fiance and like, I'm like, I don't
57:18
Speaker 1: want to think about track. I don't want to do anything.
57:20
Speaker 1: And that was something like I mentally needed. It was just,
57:24
Speaker 1: you know, it was a nice reward that I gave
57:26
Speaker 1: myself after a very tough season. I need to be
57:29
Speaker 1: proud of myself, regardless because a year ago I wasn't
57:34
Speaker 1: qualifying for World Championships and I told myself, I just
57:37
Speaker 1: want to qualify for the Paris Paris Paralympic Games. Going
57:40
Speaker 1: into it, I was ranked second in the world for
57:42
Speaker 1: long jump. Never could have ever imagined something like that,
57:45
Speaker 1: getting to qualify and compete and represent my country. It's
57:50
Speaker 1: just it's such an incredible feeling that I need to
57:52
Speaker 1: be proud of and proud of myself just for doing
57:55
Speaker 1: so many things to take away, so many things to learn,
57:58
Speaker 1: but also so many things to be proud of of
58:00
Speaker 1: having a healthy and happy season and yeah, just being
58:05
Speaker 1: able to appreciate it, being able to go out to California.
58:07
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, I was away from my family, but
58:09
Speaker 1: I was still in beautiful weather. I wasn't dealing with
58:12
Speaker 1: the New England weather of the winter. I was in
58:16
Speaker 1: the warm weather every single day, surrounded by incredible teammates
58:20
Speaker 1: that helped me.
58:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, I hear you. And it's like you have these
58:23
Speaker 2: moments when you're like, what did I just do? What
58:27
Speaker 2: a waste of a season? Right, But then you come
58:29
Speaker 2: around and you think to yourself and you realize, no,
58:32
Speaker 2: like all of these things, they may not have gotten
58:34
Speaker 2: me where I wanted to be right now, but they
58:37
Speaker 2: have so much to offer me in the long haul. Again,
58:40
Speaker 2: that shaping that perspective and finding the power in your
58:43
Speaker 2: own perspective, which can be just so so valuable. Now,
58:48
Speaker 2: someone like you, I come if I was on social media,
58:51
Speaker 2: I go to your Instagram page and I see this
58:53
Speaker 2: Paralympic athlete, someone who, of course, as we talked about,
58:58
Speaker 2: was on Survivor and has really overcome a lot of
59:01
Speaker 2: adversity in the last eight years. But when you look
59:04
Speaker 2: in the mirror, Noel, what is it that you see
59:07
Speaker 2: looking back at you?
59:09
Speaker 1: I think I see a person that you know, just
59:13
Speaker 1: wants to do everything they can for the amputee, for
59:16
Speaker 1: the disabled community. You know, we didn't talk about it,
59:19
Speaker 1: but one of the things I'm most proud of is
59:22
Speaker 1: my nonprofit that I started when I was a senior
59:27
Speaker 1: in college. While I didn't start, my family started, my
59:30
Speaker 1: incredible uncle, incredible mother. And to be able to give back,
59:36
Speaker 1: you know, everything that I've learned after becoming an amputee
59:39
Speaker 1: and putting it into a foundation and getting to donate
59:42
Speaker 1: specialized prosthetics to amputees who just want to live a
59:46
Speaker 1: normal life is something that you know, I can never
59:50
Speaker 1: take for granted, and I can never It never gets old.
59:53
Speaker 1: Every single time we do a new donation and I
59:58
Speaker 1: get to see how it affects them and the things
1:00:00
Speaker 1: that they're able to accomplish with their new prosthetic leg.
1:00:04
Speaker 1: It's a full circle moment for me, one because I
1:00:06
Speaker 1: was sitting in that position just waiting for a prosthetic
1:00:08
Speaker 1: leg to play lacrosse again. And two it's just such
1:00:13
Speaker 1: an incredible moment because it inspires me so much to
1:00:16
Speaker 1: be able to want to give back even more. And
1:00:18
Speaker 1: when I look in the mirror, that's what I want
1:00:21
Speaker 1: to be remembered by, obviously, like I would love to
1:00:23
Speaker 1: be remembered of this incredible athlete who's a world record holder,
1:00:27
Speaker 1: a gold medalist, you know, a survivor contestant, because you know,
1:00:32
Speaker 1: that's the only thing that I'm recognized nowadays, is that's
1:00:36
Speaker 1: that's my claim to fame, which I you know, I
1:00:38
Speaker 1: love it. I love the show, and I think it's
1:00:40
Speaker 1: still cool that I still get recognized a couple of
1:00:42
Speaker 1: years later. But when I think about my story and
1:00:45
Speaker 1: everything that I've been through, it's amazing to kind of
1:00:48
Speaker 1: see what we've been able to do with the foundation.
1:00:51
Speaker 1: And the sole reason why that is even a thing
1:00:54
Speaker 1: is my mother. I mean, she is the brains of
1:00:57
Speaker 1: the operation. I am just the face. She does all
1:00:59
Speaker 1: the hard work when she has a full time job
1:01:02
Speaker 1: on top of it. So I'm just very grateful to have,
1:01:06
Speaker 1: you know, people believe in the same message that I
1:01:08
Speaker 1: want to portray, and I'm just it's you know, I
1:01:12
Speaker 1: think we've donated thirty four different specialized prosthetics since two thousand,
1:01:16
Speaker 1: eighteen twenty nineteen, so we just want to keep growing
1:01:19
Speaker 1: in as much as possible. It gives me an opportunity
1:01:21
Speaker 1: to meet incredible people and turn this accident around into
1:01:25
Speaker 1: something that it's something that's good. When I look back
1:01:28
Speaker 1: on my accident. I do view it as such a
1:01:29
Speaker 1: positive because I've been able to do so many extraordinary
1:01:33
Speaker 1: things with my life because of that accident. But you
1:01:35
Speaker 1: know the best part about it is the foundation.
1:01:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, and for those that want to look into it more,
1:01:40
Speaker 2: it's the Born to Run Foundation. I'll link it in
1:01:43
Speaker 2: the show notes as well as we wind down here.
1:01:46
Speaker 2: Two more questions. Firstly, what are you excited about right now?
1:01:51
Speaker 1: What am I excited about right now? I am getting
1:01:53
Speaker 1: married next September. I got we got engaged in August
1:01:58
Speaker 1: of two thousand and I knew that I wasn't going
1:02:03
Speaker 1: to be able to plan a wedding with Paris in
1:02:06
Speaker 1: the mix, so we set the date of two years,
1:02:08
Speaker 1: and now that date is creeping up a little bit.
1:02:11
Speaker 1: But again, I have a wonderful mother that loves to plan,
1:02:15
Speaker 1: so I'm just letting her take the reins of all
1:02:17
Speaker 1: that I was able to get a wedding dress. I say,
1:02:21
Speaker 1: it was funny my grandma came and every single dress
1:02:24
Speaker 1: I'd tried on, She'd be like, are you saying yes
1:02:26
Speaker 1: to the dress? Oh?
1:02:28
Speaker 3: Grandma?
1:02:30
Speaker 1: So I was able to do that, but I think,
1:02:32
Speaker 1: you know, being able to start this new chapter, and
1:02:35
Speaker 1: then you got LA twenty twenty eight, and then you
1:02:37
Speaker 1: got four more years, which is crazy, but that's going
1:02:39
Speaker 1: to come out. That's going to come very quickly, I'm sure.
1:02:41
Speaker 3: So Amen.
1:02:43
Speaker 2: Right now, Noel, you have an opportunity to give yourself
1:02:46
Speaker 2: a piece of advice, knowing what you know. Now, let's
1:02:49
Speaker 2: say back in that moment where you finally allowed yourself
1:02:53
Speaker 2: to feel with your assistant coach. Knowing what you know, now,
1:02:56
Speaker 2: thinking back to that Hurtle moment, what would you tell
1:02:59
Speaker 2: your younger.
1:03:01
Speaker 1: To just believe in myself every single step of the way.
1:03:05
Speaker 1: Stop doubting myself. But you know it's crazy. I think
1:03:08
Speaker 1: this self doubt is what gives me fuel and gives
1:03:11
Speaker 1: me fire to enjoy life every single moment. Don't think,
1:03:15
Speaker 1: don't take things for granted, don't just go through the motions.
1:03:18
Speaker 1: Because I find myself sometimes a practice I'm complaining, like
1:03:21
Speaker 1: I don't want to be there, or repeddn't go the
1:03:24
Speaker 1: way I wanted it to. And then I just tell
1:03:26
Speaker 1: myself because I do think back to those moments, you know,
1:03:29
Speaker 1: when I wasn't an amputee and I was lazy, and
1:03:32
Speaker 1: I think, you know, what did I tell myself. What
1:03:35
Speaker 1: did I vow to myself and to everybody else is
1:03:38
Speaker 1: I'm not going to just go through the motions. I'm
1:03:40
Speaker 1: going to do whatever it took, and then that gives
1:03:43
Speaker 1: me the motivation and that drive. So just go into
1:03:46
Speaker 1: every single practice, even if you're having a difficulty, and
1:03:49
Speaker 1: just do the best that you could do in that moment,
1:03:50
Speaker 1: and then tomorrow show up and just try to be better.
1:03:53
Speaker 2: Every day is a chance for another rep Noel, I'm
1:03:55
Speaker 2: so happy that we were able to sit down and
1:03:58
Speaker 2: make this happen.
1:03:58
Speaker 3: For those that.
1:03:59
Speaker 2: Aren't fallowing along with you on social just yet, give
1:04:02
Speaker 2: us your info how do we keep up?
1:04:04
Speaker 1: You can follow me at Noel Lambert on Instagram, and
1:04:08
Speaker 1: you can follow the Born to Run Foundation on Instagram
1:04:11
Speaker 1: and the website.
1:04:12
Speaker 3: We love that.
1:04:12
Speaker 2: I'm over at Emily a Badi and at Hurdle Podcast
1:04:15
Speaker 2: Another Hurdle Conquered.
1:04:17
Speaker 3: Catch you guys next time.