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Bonus: Felicia Pasadyn's Backstory Before Running · The People Run Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I get asked a lot is like when the pressure is on, don't you feel really nervous or ever feel like you might crack under the pressure?
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: And my answer to that would be like, I mean, I was racing Katie Ledecki, you know, in in big national swim meets in the ages of, you know, 19, 20, 21.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so I kind of have learned what mental tactics and positive self taught for me to calm those nerves.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, the list could go on about what swimming taught me about.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh from what I understand, you were swimming before this.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I swim from my first 50-yard freestyle four years old, and then my last swimming event was when I was 21 in May of 2023.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm March of 2023, actually.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: What did uh the world of like swimming teach you or help you now that you transitioned to running?
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: It it taught me everything I need to know that has helped me be successful in running for sure.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: I credit so much of not only let me actually start with the physiological reasons why I'm thankful I started swimming at a young age.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: To begin pushing yourself and testing your lung capacity and hit workouts that hit a little bit of VO2 max, some lactic acid, as well as the aerobic build as early as four or five years old on a club swim team.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like I wasn't just doing swim lessons, I was fully on a club team with my three older sisters and was doing races, and then to start doing two-a-day workouts as early as 11 years old and take a sport so seriously.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: My aerobic engine is huge from this sport, from the sport of swimming.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like I think that the reason why I'm a VO2 Max is so high is really because of my history of swimming.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then let's get to the mental aspect, which is learning how to set very ambitious goals and work every day for those.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Learning how to use your the talents and treasures of your teammates to learn more about yourself and work as a in a collaborative nature, um, to learn what it means to listen to your body, still work like an animal, but know when it's time that you're getting a little sick or you need to take a small break or what a taper looks like.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then a last big one that I get asked a lot is like when the pressure is on, don't you feel really nervous or ever feel like you might crack under the pressure?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And my answer to that would be like, I mean, I was racing Katie Ladecki, you know, in in big national swim meets in the ages of, you know, 19, 20, 21.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so I kind of have learned what mental tactics and positive self-talk for me to calm those nerves.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, the list could go on about what swimming taught me about how to be a better person runner, but I would start with those.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's all cool.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know you swam with Katie Lovecchi.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a big fan of um, I I follow as well.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: My claim to fame, and I hate saying this because it just sounds like I'm riding her coattails, but my claim to fame is there was this one 400-meter individual medley in the summer of 2022.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was like summer national.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: So the best of the best were there.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: We were in the same heat.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And the first 50 butterfly, I happened to take it out fat just a hair faster than her.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so the splits came up as F.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Pasadine and then Katie Ladecki.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Granted, she did beat me in that race, but I got third to her in that race.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it was fun to be on the podium with her.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's so cool.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she's an icon.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, who are some of your early inspirations?
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's gotta be insane to like have some big names in swimming, but then come back to running now.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, okay, I'm lining up with some of the biggest uh at the time, obviously, right?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: With running, like you started sports at a very young age.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Was there some early inspirations that, hey, I want to go into endurance sports, swimming, and running?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think when I was younger, and this is so classic, but Michael Phelps and Katie Ladecki were like the people I would look up to, and the way that they just attacked their training.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, these two are individuals where it's now recognized through better understanding their stories.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: They are we're genetically blessed, yes, but they work like lions in the pool, you know, like just so relentless.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I really valued that.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then I I've always, and this is like kind of unrelated, but I just appreciate who he is as a person and and how he's changed the sport of basketball.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm a big LeBron James fan.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: He grew up only about 25-ish, 30 minutes from where I also grew up.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And the way that he gives back to Akron, Ohio, and the way he talks about just being like a kid from the Cleveland area, but believing in himself, working really hard, and then accomplishing and literally becoming basically the greatest of all time in his sport is such an inspirational story to me.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: I'm with you there, and Michael Phelps, Kato Ladecki definitely goats in their field, um, for sure.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh did you always think you're gonna go into endurance sports, you know, from early age, just watching those people?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think that because in my family, all we knew is so Selena, Vanessa, and Cassandra are my three older sisters, and they also only did swimming and running.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: And my parents were sort of like, we're not gonna drive a separate car for Felicia to go do dance or synchronized swimming or some of these other sports I had like kind of asked about.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a little bit logistical earlier on, like from ages five to 10 when I was still curious.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was um, it was due to logistics.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: But then by the time I got to 11 or 12, I was so mentally committed to my sports of cross-country swimming, track, and swimming again in the summer that I never really turned my head toward another sport.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I just felt like I had a knack for endurance sports and I loved how challenging it was.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just liked hard practices, and I didn't really like the idea of practices that were like skills and drills where you just kind of bounce the ball around.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um I know that sounds strange, but that's just what I fell in love with.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds like you had early on that discipline you mentioned and training.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, like what's different from then and now.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think when when you're younger, you you don't know any different, almost sometimes doesn't feel like a choice.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, for example, yeah, it was kind of an option where if you got a certain cut time, you could be in something called gold elite in my club team, which means you could start swimming two times a day.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: But everyone in the history of the team who got invited to gold elite would do the double.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just like, okay, I made the cut time, I'm gonna start doing two a days.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then just liking it because that's what my sisters were doing, what my friends were doing.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then I think once you become more independent with your own training schedule, like I would self-coach running in the summers of in high school, or self-coach my running on the weekends during college, or sometimes add on extra um lift sessions if I felt like I wasn't as powerful off the blocks.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: These were the moments where I was really taking hold of the way that I was training, and it felt empowering to have that autonomy and just desire to train so hard.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I do think that from a young age, liking it and then I don't want to say being forced to do it, but just like that being the norm, like no questions asked, just work really hard.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: It it impacted me in a very positive way because then my brain chemistry grew to just really like eat that up.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: What was uh the drive and like switch to running for you from swimming early on and then you pivoted to running?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't really a switch, it was more like a coming back to the thing that I love.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: So imagine it like you're you love um key lime, Greek yogurt, and then you get a little bit sick of it for two or three years, and then you rediscover it at the grocery store, and you're like, I always knew I was gonna come back to this.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's like that because from seventh through 12th grade, I was actually a decent runner.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think by the time I left middle school, I was like 5'10 mile, and by the time I left high school, I was 449 mile.
• 7:57
  unknown: Wow.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: So I was good, not gonna lie.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and but because of injury prevention purposes and having a stress fracture in high school, I said, I'm gonna set running aside for now because my body might not be sturdy enough to handle division one athletics.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: But my swim self is.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I chose to swim in college, had a fantastic career in like from my perspective, loved it, swam during my masters, always knowing I'd come back to running when I was stronger, knew myself better, didn't have a coach telling me you have to run this mileage.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, the day that I finished my last swim event, I got right back into my running career.
• 8:35
  unknown: Okay.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because I knew that I loved that sport.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't like a completely new thing in 2023.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: It was more like a coming back home to something, you know, body's developed and you're having fun with it now.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.