Latest / The People Run Podcast / #71 “I Am A Runner”: Living and Racing With Cystic Fibrosis | Katie O' Grady

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#71 “I Am A Runner”: Living and Racing With Cystic Fibrosis | Katie O' Grady · The People Run Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Katie, you recently wrote something that caught my attention.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: You said you're not affected the number on the clock when it comes to running, obviously.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: But more with a question that you've been trying to answer from when you were 17.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: What is that question and what happened at 17 hasn't been answered yet?
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really trying to find out my true potential.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: I I use the times on the clock or my goals as kind of markers to get there.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, like a light post in the distance when you're having a bad run, you're just going towards that light post.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I um really truly want to figure out what I can do with my body.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I have a uh genetic life-threatening lung disease called cystic fibrosis, uh, which mainly affects the lungs, but it really affects every organ in the body.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the cells in my lungs don't work properly, and so it creates a very thick mucous environment in my lungs, which then attracts uh bacteria and infection, and people with end stage CF will need a lung transplant, and then that comes with a slew of other problems.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so growing up with that, I never wanted to look sick, and when I found a love for running, that really uh let me be able to prove to myself and others that I wasn't the sick girl because that's what I felt like people saw me as.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: I know you started running early, like how good were you uh back then?
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what did you believe before all this you were capable of?
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I was diagnosed when I was six years old, but I was born with CF, so I just had a little bit of a later diagnosis.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, in the beginning years, I had a lot of GI issues, which is another um symptom of CF, and it wasn't until later on that the lung part came in.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: But I started running with my dad doing local 5Ks in our uh community around five to six years old, and I just loved it.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: I like hold his hand the entire time.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: We would go and run a 5K, and um all I wanted to do then was just to get a medal, and I saw like these young girls of my age go getting their medals, and I was like, I'm gonna come back next year and get that.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then um, I I ended up joining modified track and modified cross country in middle school.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: But I remember when I brought it up to my mom, I was like, I want to go run, and she's like, you know, you're gonna have to run like a lot of miles, right?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Yeah, I was like, I run with dad, I'll go run it.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And um the rest is history after that, especially in modified cross country.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: I none of us knew I had a talent.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: They were just like, get her out there running, it's good for her lungs, or anything like that.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And my first race, I remember I had the gun went off and I went, and I noticed there was no one around me, and I like looked back at one point, and all the girls were behind me, and I was like, all right, we'll just keep going.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I kept, I was so scared they were gonna catch up, so I was just running as fast as I could.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I my mom or my dad told me this later on, and I came out of the woods at one part, and there was no one behind me for like a quarter of a mile, if not more.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And my mom called my dad and was like, She's winning, she's winning by a lie, and my dad like didn't believe her.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And uh yeah, so it started out, and uh the coaches started having eyes on me, the high school coaches from there.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: This is before you knew you even had I knew I had CF here, yeah.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, got it.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is middle school.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: I got diagnosed at six years old.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: But you were just like, I'm going for this.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um my parents were great.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: They never, we never, you know, I had to do extra treatments and medication on like the average kid, but I they never limited me in anything that I did.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, I didn't want to be sick, I didn't like looking that way, and they let me do any sport that I wanted also.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, oh, I'm gonna be like the normal kids, I'm gonna do soccer, I'm gonna do whatever I can.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: What was that like growing up?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: Were you just running and training?
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: It didn't affect you as much growing up, or not much.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't until high school.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: I so I got pulled up onto the varsity team when I was in the eighth grade.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I was ran winter and spring track, and it was around that spring track I started having a lot of issues breathing, and I couldn't figure out what it was, and uh we came to the conclusion that I had burnout.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: At some point you were like running, and if I correct me if I'm wrong here, I think you got a scholarship at some point for running.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I got a scholarship to run in college.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: I decided during that time to stay local, so I went to a smaller Division II school in New York.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm originally from New York.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: I live in Boston now, but uh called St.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Thomas Aquinas College.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I have questions about that as a New Yorker going to Boston, but we're gonna leave that for another, like so you you were really fast and had this whole running career for being able to do it in college.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, you had high ambitions and goals.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: What were you thinking at that time when you when you got accepted into college with the scholarship?
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll backtrack a little bit.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my senior year of high school was a really hard time for me.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um at the same time, I was running still, and my mom had colon cancer, and she was getting really sick during that time.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think from all the stress uh from her getting sick, I ended up getting really bad pneumonia in the spring, uh, the spring season.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: And she ended up passing away right before I graduated high school, and that was one of the reasons I decided to stay close to home so I could be with my family when I needed to be.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I commuted so I could go home, do my treatments, and try to stay as healthy as I could be.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, going into that summer, I trained as best as I could.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of saw it as a rebuilding phase and going into college, I was like almost last on the team.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember we ran at Van Courtland Park, was our first invite, and I came in almost dead last.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember going up to my college coach because I was so nervous they were gonna take away my scholarship.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I was like, this is not me, this is not me, I swear.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: And she's like, Oh, I know, no worries.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: And uh yeah, so that whole year it was really a rebuilding.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: That spring I ended up, I think, placing at our conference meet, which was like our my best race the entire year in track, and then the next year I ended up becoming MVP of my team.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, wow, there we go.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, condolences first and foremost.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like thank you.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: And coming back MVP.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: I know, yeah, yeah.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, people were like telling me they're like, oh, you know, just have fun with running, like, don't put so much pressure on yourself.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, well, it's hard to have fun when you can't breathe.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And also, I have so much ambition, and I wanna, again, like I probably started this, I want to see my true potential out of my body.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like I get knocked down, I recover, and I try to get back to it.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that's I think it keeps me healthy in the long run, also.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen you describe having CF as like a yo-yo, like walk me through the cycles of of your running career now as this happened.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, it really stinks because I would be getting some really good training in really consistent mileage and workouts, and then I would get a cold, and immediately I knew that it was going to become a cystic fibrosis infection.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: I would have to go on antibiotics.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: If it was really bad, I might need IV antibiotics, might need to go in the hospital.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Thankfully, in high school, I was pretty good until I got pneumonia in regards to going to the hospital.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: I was still on antibiotics a good amount, like I feel like it was like every two to three months.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: I had to go on like a two weeks of oral antibiotics, and then I get knocked down and I have to rebuild back.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember one uh my sophomore year, I was running so well.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: I did like a 400 workout, and my coach was actually seeing my mom for physical therapy at the time.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: She's like, she's getting so fast, she is so fast, and I was so excited to see what I could do.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I was hoping to qualify for states that year in indoor, and um, I got really sick Christmas Eve from one of my cousins, and honestly, I don't I never got back to how fast that was back then.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't take it for granted.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean I've gotten I've ran P yards in the 5K and things like that, and now into the marathon and the half marathon, but where I was there was something special that maybe one day I can get it back.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, I don't know.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: When you get sick, what does it do to the fitness other than obviously having to take a break from from it and and relax and rest?
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: I feel it more in my breathing.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they say like CF if for people who don't have CF to try to visualize having it.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's like if you have a a straw and you put it in your mouth and you try to breathe in and out, in and out, that's how it feels, but then do that running.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I remember when I had pneumonia, I got really dizzy.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what was wrong with me.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's just like I wasn't bringing in enough oxygen.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh when I get sick, or when any any of us with CF get sick, we we lose a lot of muscle because we're just trying to breathe.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: So we're wasting all this, we're using all this energy that we can't get back.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then if I'm also running, which I now learned as I'm older, like rest is so important.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: I used to just keep digging and digging and digging and realized that I was just I was just digging myself into the ground.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that description of the straw and thinking of it running, and now I'm thinking of intervals for some reason.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's rough.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um you keep you keep crushing it, which we'll get into here shortly, but like, wow, that that's very descriptive.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my one of my friends in college, uh, I got like a really good photo of me running.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: We were down in Miami racing down there during spring break, and I like was like a gasping for air, and she's like, You look like a fish.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, Well, I can't breathe.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: How do you keep your humor through all this, right?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like, uh, I see even now we're talking in a lot of your run posts.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you even said it when we started this.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: I I just kept training, like did most sports, did most running.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Most people would think maybe don't run.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Here you are running, you did it in school, you're doing marathons, you're doing half.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: How do you do all that?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like, do you ever care what people think?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, no, I never really did.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: My mom always used to say that as she wish she like envied that part of me that I didn't care what like my classmates said about me.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: The only thing I was self-conscious was people telling me, Oh, you're sick, you can't do that.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's really and that it still stems to this day.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like, more recently, a family member told me, like, when are you winding down with marathons?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: You need to go back to school.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I don't even want to go back to school.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: I like running is my thing.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I am a runner, like that's who I am.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you're gonna take that, I'm gonna stop doing that.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's like asking me to stop breathing.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just like an insane thing.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: And but my humor and stuff, like me and my two other siblings were the same way.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: We kinda I think we like laugh through our pain.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, losing my mom.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: We recently just lost my aunt to the same cancer.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think humor is just our way of coping.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I mean, I love that about me and my family.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we laugh, we make each other laugh, make each other feel better, and I mean going through loss uh also just helps to look at life differently, I think.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um You know, it some some things happen, they're sad, but like humor is definitely one to help you forward and and think positive for sure.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: Take me back to like hospital a few years back with the doctor.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you said there was like a doctor that saw you as a runner, not Katie with CF.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: How daddy?
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, he he's awesome, and that was such a like a magical day that I I'll always remember.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: I had signed up for three marathons that year.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I believe it was three, it was New York City, I was supposed to run.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I signed up.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, maybe I signed up for two because I kept trying to run.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it was like New York.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: I had had gotten a bid for, I was running in a charity.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: I had to back out of that.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then me and my dad, my dad's favorite marathons, the Steam Town Marathon in Pennsylvania.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: So there was a time where I signed up for that and we were both gonna run it, and then I was also sick, and then we was then the next year I deferred to run New York and had to give that up also because I was ended up being hospitalized that September.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when I first moved to that was a year after I moved to Boston.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: I went to the hospital.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: I had been getting sick.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: It felt like every single month I was on oral antibiotics.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: I would get better, start trying to run again, immediately got sick, and it was just getting harder and harder.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was like losing a lot of weight.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, besides when I had pneumonia back in high school, I was like the skinniest I ever was.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I just kept losing my muscle.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I finally told my doctor at the time, I was like, I think I need to come in the hospital and get an IV and get medication for like the next two or three weeks.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And she agreed.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: She's like, let's do that.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And while I was there, a doctor walked in while I was receiving IVs, and his name was Dr.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Euler.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: My doctor at the time, who ended up retiring a few months later, she had told him all about me.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he was trying to get a team together to run the Boston Marathon.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted to get 10 people with cystic fibrosis to run under one team, and it was to inspire another runner who had CF that was, I think he was going through a bit of a depression, wasn't being active.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: So he was like, Oh, if I can get these runners, can you come and run with us?
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: And at the time, now looking back, having tried to sign up for three marathons and going out of not being able to do any of them, he asked me to run it with them, uh, the Boston Marathon, and I was like, um I don't know if I can, considering I just kept getting sick and kept getting sick.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: But him seeing me as the runner like lit up my world because at that moment was one of my lowest points, and I was just so upset to be in a hospital room and not out there on the roads running.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: Was that your first bossing?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: So what ended up happening was um I'll backtrack a month later after the hospital stay, a new medication came out on the market called Tricafta, and it's been a game changer for a lot of people with CF.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: It is not a cure, but it does go into the cells that don't work and kind of corrects the gene, which is amazing.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like the first time I could really take a deep breath was like so.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: The first time I took it, about an hour or two later, I started just throwing like coughing up all this mucus, which is really gross, but it's really satisfying.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's like years and years of this cement almost, and it was all coming up.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the first time I could take like a deep breath.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it felt like, you know, I in terms of like a building, if you were to like take a deep breath, you went up like two floors, I would hit a locked door.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then for the first time, I could go three more floors up.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like that feeling to be able to keep going was amazing.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when uh that Christmas, Dr.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Euler called me and he said, I got a bid for you to run Boston.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Are you in?
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Of course I am.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: So when Boston came around, it was COVID.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it got canceled, and I eventually, when races started coming back, there was the Providence marathon in Rhode Island that popped up.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: It was like the first marathon I saw we could run.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: And like a bot, I was coaching at the time at Tufts University.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: So me and one of the other coaches were like, let's do it.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we gotta get in there.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: My dad ran it with me too.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: So that was my first marathon, and then I ran Boston the year after when I could finally when Boston was finally open to the public to run.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's awesome.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, how does that feel like you have a doctor that sees the athlete first?
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome, and gets him to the start line, if you will.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I had a a doctor back when I was in New York, and she was like, You need to stop running.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, You're insane.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Which I hey, if your doctor's telling you to stop running, maybe you should look into why, but there was really no reason why.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I had gone back to my other CF doctor in New York, and she was like, Don't stop running, you're fine.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I kept doing the like nothing ever happened.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh continuing my running.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: And but to have him, he's just amazing.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: He we uh three of us had signed up for the Hyanna's half down in Cape Cod and he came down there and was like filming us.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the other things he did when we got the 10 of us together is he wanted to put a documentary together.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: So he hired a filmographer and everything, and they followed us around, and so he was taking in some B-roll while we were down there, uh, which is very cool.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and he actually even also ran the Boston Marathon with us, and he didn't know at the time, but he had a broken leg.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because a dog a few like a month or two earlier hit him in the leg and uh broke his leg.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: So he ran, and so all of us with CF beat him.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was like symbolic in the end.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: No, that's really cool to have him there support you guys are running all together.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yeah.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: Did you get to run with some of the other people that also had CF and was part of this crew?
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so one thing about CF, unlike I think any other disease, is we can't be around each other.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: Ah, okay.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because of the infections in our lung, we could pass that on, and we like the bacteria in my lungs could be different from someone else, and their bacteria could be stronger, and if it hit my lungs, it could be a death sentence, kind of thing.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: So we have to stay six feet apart.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: So we kind of made the six feet apart rule uh cool before COVID came around.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: We were already doing it.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I I didn't.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: I've met a few people with CF, but we just try to like stay away.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: Why f I didn't run with any, yeah.
• 18:25
  unknown: Yeah.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: What was it like after taking the the medication for a while?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what changes did you see other than being able to breathe more, coughing all this meatness out finally and just having more long?
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: I uh less sick was a big one.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: I can't tell you last time I've been on antibiotics, uh, since I've been on um I actually just started a new new drug in that series that's even better than Tricafta.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, just being able to breathe.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: But when I had first started Tricafta, despite my lungs and everything being amazing, my body had to catch up because I had been sick for so long and all that muscle loss.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I didn't see the running come back right away.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: That was a building phase for me.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I was used to you know, starting over from scratch and building back up.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: But since then I've been so healthy that I now have muscle.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: I can actually lift weight and build muscle where I felt like before I was like always five pounds.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: I could never go anywhere in college with the lifting, and um, you know, being able to breathe and not getting sick really helps me stay consistent with my training, which is the key to running for sure.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, talking about that key, I mean I saw you recently ran a half PR.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um thirty-four.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how did that race unfold?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: So that was another interesting one.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: I the past three weeks have been hard.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of hurt my calf one of the weeks, so we had to take like wind that back a little bit in my training, and then my aunt um came down with colon cancer as well, but her battle was really quick.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was like a full 16 days from diagnosis to her passing.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I had been in New York for the past week and came back with only three days before the race, and I had to travel back down to Connecticut for it and stay with my aunt.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: Thankfully, I had her close by.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it was not ideal training leading up to that.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: And my one workout, the one workout before the race was I bonked.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: I like couldn't complete it, I was just so exhausted.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I think I ran it really well, considering all of that.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: I felt really, really strong the entire time.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like the last three miles that there was like these little hills that for some reason just felt like a wall.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I yeah, and I PR'd by a minute, so I can't complain about a PR.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: I I think I still have more in the tank.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Have if I had those good three weeks of great training and nutrition and fuel and all of that, I think and recovery, I I could have definitely ran faster.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very confident about that.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, so not the greatest of training, nutrition, everything in life being thrown at you.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yet you still ran a 134 PR.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: And you bumped the last training.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what do you attribute that to?
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, not sleeping well.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: I was sleeping in a different bed.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: That was very hard down in New York.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: I was having a lot of stomach issues, stomach issues that day.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I think just the overall stress of losing my aunt, like everyone was just so sad.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was a tough week.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: So no, I mean like you still ran, you said a strong race.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how how'd you pull that off?
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think I just believed in the training.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I've been doing these paces.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, like when I was talking with uh Nell, Nell Rojas is my coach, and she was like, Well, you know, depending on how the rest of the week goes, maybe it just becomes a progressive run or a workout or something.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: And when the day came, I was like, that the past two easy runs felt okay, and I was like, I want to just try.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've I've trained up to this point, and I don't want the marathon to be my next race.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: I want to try to see what I can do today, and that really helped.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean there was any points where it hurt, but I I always do this thing when I'm like in the pain cave.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: I imagine I hear my mom yelling for me, like hey, I can hear her voice, and I'll tell you those middle miles, I started really like really imagining that, and that really helped.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: I can relate to that.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: I I uh get pretty dark sometimes in the middle of uh like a training block.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: Katie, what does your training look like on a you know consistent regular basis?
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: Managing all CF and just training obviously to get your full potential.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I train about six days a week.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm running.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: I strength strength train twice a week.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: I have a strength coach as well, um, and she's great.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: She she's really helped me really get strong.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: I got injured a few years back, and she's really helped me like rebuild my need to make sure I'm strong when I'm training for all this, all these miles.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been doing a lot of yoga to make sure that I'm staying very like stretched and everything.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because from I think my years of coughing, I get really tight back too, and I think just like from coughing.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I've been really working on that to even help helpfully open up my lungs more.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, and I I try to stay well-rounded.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: We go and hang out with friends, go to different restaurants.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: I have my dogs and all that, and that obviously really helps when maybe I'm like in a bad rut with the running or had a bad run.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: And having my husband is great.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, he he's always like, Oh, you know, you you did this, we didn't have a good night, you didn't sleep well, maybe that's why you didn't run well, or there's uh big storms coming in, and your asthma is acting up.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: So he's great to keeping me level-headed, especially after the half.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: I started having these crazy thoughts.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, Oh, like maybe I'm not as fast as I thought I was, and he's like, Kate, you had really bad three weeks.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: You don't think that like affected you at all?
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, that's true.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: So the voice of reason, shout out to husband.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: No, that's cool.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: How do you and like your care team manage regular fatigue versus like, okay, maybe I need to pull back and manage some things in the middle of any block or just running in general?
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's been a learning experience for me.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I actually just recently had this um right before I got injured with this weird calf strain.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: I was running well, I was hitting my paces for workouts, like was feeling good, but I was starting to feel like I was being worn down and like I should know better and I should have spoken up about it.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I was like, But I'm hitting paces, like I'm fine, like I'll just keep going.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then that injury happened, and this is around the same time I actually I lost my job.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: I my aunt was diagnosed with cancer.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, uh a rat ate all the wires in my car, so there was like all these like things that were happening, and then the calf happened, and I was like, crap.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so I had talked to Nell about it, and I was like, I knew better to back off, and I'm gonna keep myself accountable and I'm gonna tell you when things are stressing me out in case we need to pull back on the training.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, important.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh funny you say that that's one of the things I learned from Nell uh during our conversation is managing stress and just getting that recovery.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: Shout out to the city.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked about that too.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: Shout out now.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, we've talked about that too, especially at the camp, because when before these new medications come came out, if I was running myself into the ground, I would get an infection.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thankful I don't do that now, but I can feel it in my whole body.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like it just feels worn down, exhausted.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I've had depression happen because of it, and I have really bad anxiety.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: So it's important to rest, recover.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh naps for me is the the game.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: Oh changing.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: I've done naps too.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Katie, you ran a 319 marathon PRL.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: What did it feel like when you crossed that finish line?
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like, thank God.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: That was a a a tough that was a tough marathon.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: That marathon was just hills on hills on hills.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I ran the Newport Marathon down in Rhode Island, and I had asked a bunch of people about it.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, oh, there's a few hills.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's not bad though, it's actually really pretty core.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, great, like a few hills are fine.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up in New York.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: We all had mountains pretty much.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: We had to run up uh up.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: I lived up by like West Point, and so I was like, that's not not a problem.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: That there, the back half had this hill.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't even the steepest part of the hill, it was after that, it was a gradual hill that just killed me.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: I just like couldn't get back down to pace.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I had three miles to go and I looked at my watch and I realized I could still PR.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: My PR before that was a 321 that I ran at Boston, and I was like, I can do it.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I just like tried as hard as I could to keep going, keep pushing the pace as much as I could, and I came away with a PR.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't my A goal, but again, a PR is a PR, and that was such a hard course, and it made me realize if I could run a flatter course like Indy, like what could I what could I do?
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: Touching on that potential again, uh Yeah, yes.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: Did you feel you got to celebrate that race regardless though?
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: Like 319 or I did.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was kind of like melancholy, I guess, about it, but me and my families, we went out for some drinks, we got a really nice dinner, uh, I saw some friends that I hadn't seen in a while.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we know how to celebrate me and my family after races.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: So they always help, and then as the weeks went on, I I pondered about the race, where could I fix things, um, and things like that to kind of help me move forward.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll tell you right now, my this training box has been really great.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like I've been feeling really, really good.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm really hopeful for Indy.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, should be a fun one.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um Katie, when you had to take a break from running, like what did you miss most?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh my favorite thing about running is just being on a trail, feeling like I'm flying, like listening to the birds and the crickets all around me.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: And when I haven't been able to run, if I was either injured or when I had pneumonia or really sick, uh, I all I wanted to do was be out there, just just running.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't care about a PR, I didn't care about times, I didn't care about the next race.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: All I wanted to do was just go out for a run.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: If that was for five minutes or if that was for 10 miles, whatever it was.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: And to this day, I don't take a really good run for granted.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like I love the feeling of just like hitting that runner's high and just feeling like you're floating, like like a like a feather out there, just lightweight.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: And um that's like the only time I feel like the world for me goes quiet.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: I don't hear anybody's expectations, I don't hear my own self and my own doubts.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm just like in the moment.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that those are special times for me.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, get that little break from the world, if you will.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: We talked about this potential.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what is that for you trying to find that potential?
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what it is yet, or it's something I'll I'll know when I get there?
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think so there's a pre-fontaine quote that I love.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um I have right here.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: So I always forget it.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: But to give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like I was given a gift for someone with CF to be able to run the times I can run and to have the the talent and the ability to run the way I am.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I can't not try to see what I can do.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I want at the end of my life to look back and be proud of what I've accomplished.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I just feel like I'm not done right now, and I I want to just keep trying to see what I'm capable of.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's truly it.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: As someone with CF, to keep proving to myself that I am as as good as the other runners I used to run against, and um to prove that I I might have CF, but it's not not defining how um how I am to live my life.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: Do you still think about that often, like the runners you used to compete with?
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, all the time.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: I I see a lot of them, and a lot of them are still they're like 20 minutes ahead of me in the marathon, and uh I do go down a rabbit hole every once in a while.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, why can't I be there?
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: Why am I not there?
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it doesn't do me any good.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, I think my journey's a little different.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: They're a little healthier than I was up to this point.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm really healthy now, thank God, and I can keep really training, and who knows what can happen.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I can I can get up there one day, hopefully.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: How do you get out of that funk when it happens?
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, all right, let me is it husband being the level-headed person right there?
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: He's definitely one of them.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, Kate, look at the times you're running.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, people would love to be running these times, or you really think of the times.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: I even think this too, like when I was down, bad, really sick, like how much I just wanted to run, let alone try to run a PR.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I have to remember those times.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: I my mom is like my biggest inspiration.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: I think of her and what she would want from me and how proud she'd be of where I am right now, and just not taking what I can do right now for granted because tomorrow could look differently.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: As I've learned having CF, um, I mean, it's always a fear of mine that the meds will stop working.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just try to keep my head up and you know, if I'm training, it it makes it easier not to let the head wander a bit into like the what ifs because I'm working on it.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, you're training, you're tired.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: Plus I go, yeah, I get so tired I can't think about anything.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna take a nap.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_01: Going back to that pre-fontaine quote, you give an a hundred.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: Recovery and everything's as as best you can be.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: Is that the potential there for you?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: Or is there like more?
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's a time goal in my head, but I won't I won't say it here, but that's kind of just helping me uh like I guess see uh see the light in the distance is kind of what I'm going after.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: But if at the end of the day I don't get that time goal, at least I've given it my old to get there.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: It it's just kind of a marker again to help me see the headlight, I guess, in the distance to yeah.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: So continual progress, but we do have a time goal.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yeah.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you got indie coming up, uh Indianapolis Marathon, if we want to say the full um or CNO.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: Why that race?
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: Nell told me to run it.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh she said it was a flat course, and I had told her my time goals and everything, and she's like, Well, if I was you, no more Newport, Rhode Island races or these hilly races that I kept signing up for.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: And she she said um Indy was one of her favorites, and she won it a few years ago.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, all right, we'll go there.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: What are you taking from your last block into this block or not taking Newport versus Indy?
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, to believe in myself, I felt like I didn't feel good the training block leading up to Newport and the race itself from from the moment I started, it didn't feel great.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: But the fact that I came away with a a personal best by like I think it was over a minute, was huge.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: And um, like that alone tells me I have a a lot more to give in the marathon, especially if it's a flat course and having better training and feeling really good this time around.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's what I gotta think about.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: And even this half marathon that maybe I didn't run my best, like but how strong I felt, it just like gets me excited to really test it out on the marathon.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because I think I'm gonna I really think I'm gonna do well.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh I've run indie and I I think based off everything you shared so far, it should be good.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_01: Weather's usually great.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: Almost I've never heard of a bad weather, knock on wood here.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: Very flat course, very easy on the stress levels.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know how some races like getting to the start line is like a mission and and it just adds to your um your stress, which you don't want going into uh 26.2, if you will.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: Right, yeah, definitely not.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: Beyond the clock, right?
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: Because we're not talking about times.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: Beyond the clock, you go to Indianapolis.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_01: What makes it a success?
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think I feel good crossing that finish line.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: I know I'm not gonna feel great, it's a marathon, but to feel strong and feel like I gave it my all no matter what the time says on the clock.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: I've noticed with the marathon where it's different from like a 5k or 10k, like uh I ran those in college and and I used to get so upset, like, oh, by the time, like, oh, I could have ran faster this or that.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: But the marathon, it is a journey.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: It like every time I finish one so far, and um Indy will be my fifth.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I'm just thankful that I crossed that finish line.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: You go through so many ebbs and flows in those races.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and when I ran Boston, I was just got over the hills, and I remember thinking like, F this, why am I doing this?
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm never signing up again.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then I finished with a 321 and re-qualified for Boston.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, hell yeah, I'm signing up, gonna do the next one.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I I think no matter what, I will be happy to finish that race because it's another marathon that I've got under my belt.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: Every single one I've learned something different.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: So if I can finish strong, no matter what the time says on the clock, that'll be a good day for me.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: Is Boston uh a repeat goal for you?
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: I signed up, so we'll see.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, if I get accepted.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: The 319 should get me, unless I needed more than a six-minute buffer.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: My age group is um uh 325.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: So hopefully, yeah.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: It would be nice to try to run Boston again.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean it's in my backyard.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: Hopkinton is like 20 minutes from me, which is nice to not have to travel very far.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it would be cool to see if I could run faster than that 321 that I ran there a few years ago.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: What would that mean to you going back to Boston this time around?
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: Probably a lot better, a lot healthier, faster.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: Healthier, faster, just know the course in my body a lot better because that was only my second marathon ever.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: And um my god, the the fans are great there too.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like I just heard my name everywhere I was going.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I don't know this many people here.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's no way, but um, it was just amazing.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: I I remember from when I ran the Providence marathon, I did not train well.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: I was walking and things like that, and to running Boston.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know I could feel so good up until like almost the end.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: The end was a little bit tougher after those hills, but it's just the crowds get you going, and I remember coming down on that last stretch.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it was just so cool.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you can see it in like the distance.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd love to go back there.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I can hear the excitement and see the smile driving the race.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure you're visualizing the miles right now.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, I was.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: Katie, let's reflect a bit.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: If you could go back and talk to your 70-year-old self and the runner you are today and become in, like, what would you tell her?
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: To not stop running, um, to keep going back to it.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: Even when you're at your lowest, find your way back into it.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_00: If it meant, I mean, I loved coaching, running, uh finding your way to what makes me feel like that feather on the trail.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, just don't don't give up, just keep going back to it.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: Thing it it gets better, especially when those new medications come.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: Might be some more the way tech is heading.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm hoping my doctor, this is before I think it was even right it was right around when Trikafta came out.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, I think you'll see a cure in your lifetime.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, Well, now, yeah, now with AI, I was like, even my husband's saying it's like, oh, all the cures are gonna be coming out, you know, because that'd be awesome.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: AI can figure it out.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it'd be amazing.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let's hope so for sure.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: Katie, we started this combo talking about a question you've had about feeling the full potential of your body.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think you'll ever have the answer to that question, or the point is never answering that question?
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good question.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was thinking about this kind of the other day.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because uh, my only issue, and with I think all runners, we just always keep upping the level, upping the ante.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like even if I do run that time goal or feel like I've hit my potential, I think I'm just gonna keep running uh forever and ever.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the that's the opt that's the ultimate goal in the end, is just to keep running uh for as long as I can.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_01: Keep running, I love that.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_01: Katie, thank you for sharing your story.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you coming on the podcast.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited to see what's gonna happen in D based off everything we just said.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: Hills above hills, great weather.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: Nell being the coach, uh, it should be a good race, and obviously you're feeling better.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thank you for having me.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone, catch you on the next episode.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for tuning in.