Latest / Mind Over Mountain / The Olympian Who Never Planned to Be One - Speed Skater Erin Jackson

Transcript

The Olympian Who Never Planned to Be One - Speed Skater Erin Jackson · Mind Over Mountain

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Hi, everyone, Welcome to mind Over Mountain with me Cheryl Straid.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: This week my guest is Olympian speed skater Aaron Jackson.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: In our conversation, we talk about how her lifelong love
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: of skating led to her career as an elite skater,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: about looking for the silver linings during the hard times,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: and about playing rough in the roller derby. Let's listen
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: to our conversation. Aaron Jackson, Welcome to mind Over Mountain.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Hey, yeah, I'm excited, thanks for having me.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: It's so thrilling to have you here here.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Like many people, I have watched your amazing runs in
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: the Olympics as a speed skater, and of course in
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, most excitingly of all, you won the
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: gold and you were the first black woman to win
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: an individual medal in the Winter Olympics, which is astounding.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: And I am, just like you know, amazed by what
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: you do on the ice. But I think it's really
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: interesting and i'd love to ask you about this first
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: that before you ever came to the ice, you were
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: a champion inline skater, and I'd love it if you'd
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: take us back there and tell us about how you
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: began skating off the ice to begin with, raight.
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so I'm actually from Florida and we don't have
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: a ton of ice there, so yeah, I got my
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: start on wheels. I grew up just skating in my driveway,
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: Like my parents got me those little plastic skates that
• 1:30
  Speaker 4: fit over your shoes, and I would just you know,
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: just zip up and down the driveway all day.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: And I loved it.
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: And then from there I became like what we call
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: a rink rat, just basically someone who hangs out of
• 1:41
  Speaker 4: the local rink. I would skate around to the music
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: and you eat pizza the snackboard with my friends. Just
• 1:45
  Speaker 4: it was what I did for fun. And from there
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: I got into artistic skating, which is like figure skating
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: but on wheels, and that was super fun. I did
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: that for a couple of years. But my real passion
• 1:57
  Speaker 4: was going fast. Like I was a person who was
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: always get in trouble for skating too fast at the rink,
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: and I guess it was a little bit dangerous.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: So when I found the whistle, they'd be like, yes,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: slow down, really well down.
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah for sure. So that was always me getting
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: in trouble for going too fast. So when I found
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: inline speed skating. I was like, this is amazing. This
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: is the sport that I was built for, and I
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: don't know, I've just loved it ever since.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: So watching you on the ice, it doesn't surprise me
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: at all to hear that you were obsessed with speed
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: from the beginning. I love I love the idea and
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: the image of you going up and down your driveway
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: in Florida and around it, around that rink and being
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: stopped by the powers that be. You know, I grew
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: up in Northern Minnesota, and I'll tell you I went
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: to the Galaxy roller rink every Saturday night, and you know,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: but I wasn't like you. I was I could barely
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: skate backwards. So I'm super impressed. But how is it
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: that you made that transition?
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: Like, why did you decide?
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: You know, you were competitive as an inline skater, you
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: were going fast and winning, you know, world championships.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: Why did you decide to go to the ice?
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess fundamentally, the reason why a lot of
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: people make the switch actually from inline skating to ice
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: skating is that roller sports aren't.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: In the Olympics.
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: So if you have these dreams of wanting to become
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: an Olympian, then then yeah, you have to switch over
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: to ice skating.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: But that wasn't really my story.
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: I guess, like when I was younger, I would always
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: say like, oh, I'll never go to ice skating, like
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: I enjoy roller skating, like it's just what I do
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: for fun.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: And my main focus was always school.
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: So I think like from a young age, my parents
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: just really tricked me into thinking that like books were
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: cool toys and stuff like that. So I was just
• 3:42
  Speaker 4: this biggest nerd from I don't know, from the time
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: I was a young kid. So my idea was that,
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: you know, I would never switch over to ice. I
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: would just be an inline skater. I would go to college,
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: I would start my career all of that, and you know,
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: after I graduated from college, I went to the University
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: of Florida. Then, I guess I don't want to make
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: the story too long. I got on ice for the
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: first time with some friends, just for fun, and we
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: got some videos of that and it was terrible.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: And then the people, the people with the.
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: US speed skating team in Salt Lake City, they reached
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: out to me again because you know, they had been
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: trying to recruit me for a few years, but they
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: reached out to me again and they're like, we saw
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: this video of you skating.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: It's terrible.
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: Why don't you come out to the Salt Lake and
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: we can actually teach you how to do this? And I, yeah,
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: I guess I just didn't want to say no anymore.
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: And I was kind of intrigued from being on the
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: ice already, and yeah, I just kind of went from there.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: So how exactly was it terrible? It must not have
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: been that terrible if they if they reached out to you,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: they were like, oh no, no, no, we should have
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: never contacted her to get like what is it? Were
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: you following or I mean, was it a profoundly different experience,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: like in terms of like balance and agility from wheels
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: to blades.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: And I think it was really surprising to me because
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: I grew up on skates, Like I just consider myself
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: a skater, like more so than an athlete.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: I'm just a skater.
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: I thoughts, you know, going over to ice, it's just
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: another form of skating. It can't be that hard. But
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: I was surprised at how different it was.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: And yeah, it was about.
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: Finding balance, like like your your weight front to back
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: on the blade and like how to push off of
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: the blade to make speed. And I mean, yeah, it
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: was the videos up on my Instagram, but it's just
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: it's not very good.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: It's not very skilled.
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: You wouldn't guess that I was a skater from looking
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: at that video. So and I feel like that's what
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: really intrigued me, because I'm like, I need to figure
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: this out, Like there can't be this form of skating
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: but I can't do so I think that's what really
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: pushed me, was wanting to master this new type of skating.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: I love that that it rose not from some kind
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: of like higher up.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: Idea like I got to get a gold medal.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's nothing wrong with Monty in that, but
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: like that innate sense of like, damn it, I'm a
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: skater and I'm good at that. I've got to be
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: good at Yeah, how did you begin as a novice
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: on ice? Like you know, you know, where did that?
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: What was that transition? Like on a physical level?
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: Right, So the video from my first steps on ice
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: That was September of twenty sixteen, and I agreed to
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: come out to Salt Lake City for one month. So
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: this was like the middle of February through the middle
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: of March of twenty seventeen, and yeah.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: I was like, I'm going to go out for a month.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: I'm going to commit to this.
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: I'm going to like see if I could actually, you know,
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: do something in this sport. And it was a pretty
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: good time to come out because it's like the end
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: of the season for all of like the real speed skaters,
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: so they're all at home, they're not really skating anymore.
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: So I got to have a lot of like almost
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: one on one time with the coach, and I feel
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: like that's what really helped me in those early months,
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: I guess was just getting like one on one time
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: with the coach and being able to figure things out.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: And yeah, I mean it was it was a blast.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: It was really hard.
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: It was very physically demanding. It was like my first
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: time actually, I guess, like being devoted to a sport
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: because like I said before, I was mainly focused on
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: school and then skating was something that I did in
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: my spare time just for friend So the idea of
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: going into a sport and making it like my full
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: time thing, that was kind of a scary switch for me.
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: But I mean, I was really intrigued by it, and
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: I feel like in those early days, I really just
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: tried to make up for lost time because I'm like, oh,
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: I'm starting this at like twenty four to twenty five
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: years old, Like I need to make up for all
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: the time. But I'm just you know, not being an
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: ice skater, and like if my team had like one
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: training session per day, then I would be out there
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: like maybe two more times, just getting in all the
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: extra training sessions, out there with the little kids and
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: just you know, wherever I could fit in.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: That's amazing. But I just wanted to pause to do
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: a little bit of math.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Here.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Twenty sixteen, you're setting foot on on ice, and then
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: weren't you in the twenty eighteen Olympics as an ice
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: speed skater.
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: Yes, so it makes I don't know, it makes my
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: story a little less believable.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: I guess it was really really hard, but for me
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: it was hard. It was a very hard transition.
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I went out for that one month in twenty seventeen,
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: and then you went back to my life of inline
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: skating and roller derby and all of.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: That twenty seventeen, not even twenty sixteen. So really very quickly.
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, and then you know I came back though,
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: I came back in September, and then that's when I
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: like really locked in on ice skating. So yeah, it
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: was like, you know, the month at the beginning of
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: the year, and then from September through you know, that
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: first Olympic, So it was probably about four or five
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: months total. But yeah, I feel like I crammed in
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: a lot of years in those few months of you know,
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: really trying to make up for the lost time.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Well, and it does sound like even though that initial
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: transition was challenging, like there was also like all those
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: years of training, even though you were doing it kind
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: of like in a different way, you know, on inline skates,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: it's still probably you knew a lot of stuff in
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: your body done how to move in that way. So
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: how did you, you know, how how did you make
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: that first Olympic team in twenty eighteen.
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: It was a very big surprise. So I just went
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: to the Olympic Trial just as a race. You know,
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: it was going to be my first major competition in
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: this new sport. And I didn't even tell my dad
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: or anyone in my family that I was going to
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: the Olympic Trials because for me, you know, it wasn't
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: the trials, it was just this competition that I was
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: going to go skate, you know, I was going to
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: go travel and skate on a new rink for the
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: first time.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: And yeah, it was just going to be this fun
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: trip for me.
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: And then I ended up like accidentally making the Olympic team.
• 9:24
  Speaker 4: So that was a really fun phone call to my
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: dad was just kind of catch getting him up to
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: speed on what was happening, and then asking him if
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: he's going to come to the Olympics with me, and yeah,
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: it was.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: It was pretty interesting that and.
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: He probably said, did he go to the Olympics? He did,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: of course, you know, and by then your mother had
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: passed away that right, she died when you were in
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: high school. I'm so sorry for your loss. Were your
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: parents early on, you know, supportive of you from the
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: beginning You're pursuing this sport, I know, not on nice
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: but at least the inline.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: Skates, Yeah, definitely.
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: I mean my mom definitely preferred the artistic skating a
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: little bit like the figure skating staff, but she still
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: really supported me on inlines. I mean, she would wake
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: up super early in the morning to drive me to
• 10:10
  Speaker 4: these competitions and you know, sit in these stuffy rinks
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: all day with kids running around, and yeah, she made
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: all these sacrifices just for me to be able to
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: do what I love to do. And yeah, I feel
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: like I'm really fortunate to have, you know, such an
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: amazing family. He was like always there for me, always
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: supporting me, always, you know, trying to raise me to
• 10:28
  Speaker 4: do the right things. Like like I said, they tricked
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: me into being a nerd when I was a kid,
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: and I really appreciate that. And yeah, I don't know,
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: I feel like I'm really really fortunate.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm both a fellow nerd night of course, major
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: book lover.
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: And also I lost my.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: Mom young too. My mom died at forty five of cancer.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: And one thing that I know to be true in
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: my life, I'm curious if it's true in yours, is
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: that I do feel like I carry my mom with
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: me every day, but I especially carry her with.
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: Me in those big moments.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Do you feel your mother's presence with you when you've
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: done all these amazing things as an athlete and a skater.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely.
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: I mean it can be hard to have all of
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: these experiences and not be able to like actually share
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: them with her. It's like, yeah, you know, she didn't
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: see me graduate high school or college or switch to
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: ice or make the Olympic team or anything like that.
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: And you know that can be hard, like really wanting
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: to share these moments with you know, the with the
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: people closest to you.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I do know that, you.
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: Know, she would be so proud and she would love,
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: you know, everything that I'm doing, and it would be
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: really cool to have her like be a part of everything.
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: But I know that that I still feel her with me.
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, her love is it with you always.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: So you get on that that Olympic team, as you said,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: by accident, but the people around you, your teammates, maybe
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: like got their less accidentally.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: And I'm curious, like was there.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Any kind of like resentment like who's this new kid
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: on the on the block or on the ice, like
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: or did they How were your teammates and how is
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: that community of skaters had they did you find from
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: the very beginning they all just welcomed you.
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: Well, I guess to take it a few steps back,
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: Like I moved from Florida to Salt Lake, city to
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: join the speed skating team, and you know, that's a
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: really big move and it can be you know, a
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: little bit scary, you.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Know, doing something like that.
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: But I felt like the move was was pretty easy
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: because I already knew a lot of these people, Like
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: I was moving to a new place, but it was
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: filled with familiar people because you know, a lot of
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: former or a lot of the current ice skaters came
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: from inlines. There are a lot of people made the
• 12:36
  Speaker 4: same transition that I made. So it's like I knew
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: a lot of these people already, you know, whether personally
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: or like seeing them from Afar. So I was already
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: like pretty comfortable with a lot of these people. But
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: I would say, yeah, I didn't really notice any resentment.
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: But I would say the feelings that I had were
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: were kind of on the on that realm. I guess,
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: I don't know how to explain it, but I felt right,
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: maybe a little bit like like imposter syndrome, Like I
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: felt bad. I had empathy for you know, like some
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: of the people who I, you know, beat out for
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: this spot because you know, I could just imagine being
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: in that position where it's like I'm approaching the Olympics.
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: My family has all of their plans laid out, like
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: I'm fully set on going, and then someone comes out
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: of nowhere and just like swoops in and takes my spot.
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: So I mean you can't really say like like my
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: spot or her spot or anything, but but yeah, I
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: still felt a lot of empathy and I felt, I
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: don't know, it's like I was very excited for the
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: opportunity to go to the Olympics and I wasn't gonna,
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: you know, pass that up, but I did. Yeah, I
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: did feel a lot of empathy for for the other people.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: I think that's a really wonderful thing to share, because
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: I will say, as somebody who like watches sports, I'm
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: always you know, excited for the winners and absolutely heartbroken
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: for those who don't, who don't make it or just
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: miss it or some some chance thing happens. But also
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: in your sport, which I find to be and I
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: think in any sprint sport, the difference between like you know,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: the winner and the loser or the first of the
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: second place, it's so small it's almost non existent, right,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: Like we're talking to that like a hundredths of a second.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: It's like, Okay, like somebody leaned forward like a little
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: bit more or something.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: It really is brutal.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: And you know, I know that you had inexperience in
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: the lead up to the twenty twenty two Olympics and
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: the Olympic Trials where you didn't come out in the.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: Place that you hope to. Can you tell us about that.
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So in twenty twenty two, I went into the
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: Olympic Trials ranked number one in the world, meaning I
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: had been winning a lot of the World Cups leading
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: up to that event. So you know, going into the
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: Olympic Trials, I thought, you know, I'm number one in
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: the world. I just need to be top two in
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: the country to solidify my spot on the Olympic team.
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: So it should be you know, just kind of like
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: a formality. And you know, I went into the race
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: feeling really confident, but then, yeah, something happened on the
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: backstretch where I almost fell. And in a race like
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: like the sprint, like what you're talking about, there's really
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: no room for error just because the margins are so tight.
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: So when I slipped on the backstretch of the race,
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: that cost me a couple placements. So I ended up
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: finishing third, with only the top two getting Olympic spots.
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: So I mean it was yeah, it was a pretty
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: wild feeling, like how did this just happen? Like I'm
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: trying to go to the Olympics to win gold and
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: I just missed making the Olympic team, and you know it,
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: I guess I was like saved by one of my
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: close friends and teammates, So someone who I grew up
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: with on the inline team back in Florida, Like I'd
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: been looking up to her ever since I was a kid.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: Her name's Britney.
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: Bow, and I just always thought it was so cool,
• 15:45
  Speaker 4: you know, getting to skate on her team, because she
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: was this amazing inline skater traveling all around the world
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: winning all these medals, and then she came and skated
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: on the same team as me, and I just I've
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: looked at her ever since I was a kid, and
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: you know, by the time I switched over to ice,
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: was already a world champion, a world record holder.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: All that amazing stuff.
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: And what she did for me was she declined her
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: spot in the race where I almost fell, Like she
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: declined her Olympic spot so that I could bumped up
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: a spot and make the Olympic team. And that's incredibly Yeah,
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: an incredibly selfless thing to do. And it's I don't know,
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: she's I owe her so much. She's just an amazing person,
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: an amazing friend and mentor. And she basically told me, like, Aaron,
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: this is bigger than us, Like this is for Team USA.
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: We have to do this to win a gold medal
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: for Team USA.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: And wow, that's a champ, I mean.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: And so so Brittany was at that point too. She
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: had qualified for two other events, so she knew she
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: was going to go to the Olympics, right, and so
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: she said to you, like take my spot in this
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: and to make room for you because she believed in you.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's I mean, I think that is such
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: an amazing act of sportswomanship where she's, as she said,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: she's thinking of not just herself, she's thinking of you,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: her teammate, but also the team altogether and what's best
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: for the team. That's that's really profound, profoundly generous that.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: She did that.
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, she's an amazing person. And I think it's a
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: really cool story to show the humanity behind the athletics.
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: You know, like people see all these stories about like
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: our placements and our performance. But yeah, I think it
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: was a really cool story to show that, you know,
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: we're all people and and yeah, she's a really good person.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: I do think it's always that interesting dynamic because I obviously,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: you know, any kind of competition, but certainly at these
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: elite levels that you're that you're at, you know, like
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: you do have to be like absolutely set right on
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: like that winning mindset. And we use these terms like
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: cutthroat and you know, like you know, warriors and going
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: to battle all of that up.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: But really, more and more what.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: I find when I talked to athletes there is this
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: value of of like collaboration and togetherness and rooting for
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: each other even while you're you know, beating somebody, you know,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: dashing ahead of them to the finish line.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like a family for sure.
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: So you did go and there you are at the
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: at this at this you know, at.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: The twenty twenty two Olympics.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: And not only do you know that you've you know
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: that you're one of the top ranked people in the
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: world in this in this event, but then Brittain, I
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: imagine you also want to deliver not just for the team,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: but for Brittany, for this sacrifice that he made for you.
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: Well, take us inside your mind.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: What happens, what happened on that start line, but also
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: what do you go through? How do you prepare to
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: start an event mentally and physically?
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's see.
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: So yeah, us in general, how I prepare for an
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: event is you know, I'm normally pretty calm. I'm normally
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: pretty relaxed going into a competition. And I think it's
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: just from I don't know, the training, like having confidence
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: in my training and in my coach.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: Like I always joke that I have the easy job.
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: My coach has the hard job because he's figuring out
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: all the stuff that we're gonna do, and I just
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: listened to him and show up and do what he says.
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: So yeah, like jokingly, I have the easy job in
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: that regard. But yeah, I show up to the line confident, ready,
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: I have a couple cues in my head. Normally it's
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: about making sure to sit extra low, which helps us
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: get a lot of speed in the race. So yeah,
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: I show up to line pretty confident. And in that
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: particular situation, you know, I'm I get asked a lot
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: if I felt a lot of pressure because Brittany had
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: given up her spot for me.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: But yeah, like not any negative sort of pressure.
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: It's more like if Brittany believed in me enough to
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: give me her spot, then that made me believe in
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: myself even more.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: And it was just really cool to have her there, you.
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: Know, in in center ice while I was racing, and
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: then after I ended up winning the gold medal then
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: just being able to you know, hug her and be like, yes,
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: we did it, like we won this medal like fourteen
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: USA for US for US speed skating, and it's it
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: was a really really cool moment.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: And I went back and watched that that particular race
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: again and it's so it happened so quickly. You know,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: it's like what was your time in that, right, like
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: thirty seven seconds or so? Yeah, thats right, I'm sure
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: you about that exactly thirty seven point.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: Points row eight, maybe point zero.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: I'm surprised you don't have it like tattooed on your
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: wrist or something, right, But it's a good idea, you know.
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: To the to the to the to the viewer.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: It's like, you know, it's like, wow, that that was
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: over so quick, Like did she even feel it, but.
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: I'm going to guess that you feel it.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Is there pain involved in those thirty seven seconds.
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: Ideally there's no pain involved, but I don't feel I.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Did feel soone that race.
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: Surprisingly, Oh really so Brittany actually thinks it's hilarious that
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: I had like an actual thought of pain in that race.
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: Going through the last corner, I was thinking, man, my
• 21:11
  Speaker 4: leg's hurt a little bit, like I hope I'm going best,
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: and I don't know. She just thinks it's hilarious that
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: I actually had like a fully formed thought like that
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: in my race, because normally we're just you know, we're
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: just in full autopilot mode. But yeah, I actually have
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: that thought like, oh this this kind of hurts.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: And when you say hurts, it's like your muscle's burning
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: from just like so much expenditure. Because like you're down
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: in that I mean, what is that position called? It
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: looks to me like a kind of I mean, you're
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: basically in like a squat, right, or not quite a squat,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: but like you're so bent over, like you must just
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: have to do. Do you do a lot of strength
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: training in addition to this skating that you do to prepare.
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: For that yeah, definitely a lot of strength training and
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: a lot of like lactate threshold training, so just being
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: able to you know, I don't want to be too technical,
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: but increasing like the amount of time before you feel
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: that burn and then just getting better about tolerating that
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: burning feeling. So yeah, we do a lot of training
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: around you know, the buffering that lactic acid.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Well, we could get a little technical and nerdy, you know,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: we're more on this show about like the.
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: Heart and the emotions and the viewings.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: But I'm also I'm kind of like a geek, a
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: science geek like you, and a book geek like you.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: So this lactate threshold, I mean, I think maybe let's
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: just explain to listeners.
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: And you can correct me if I'm wrong. Here's what
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: I think this means.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: It's like that feeling when you're like, okay, this hurts
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: and I want to stop right Like, you know, I've
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: been practicing doing dead hangs for the last year, like
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: increasing my time that I can just hang from a bar,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: and it just feels like absolute like torture, you know,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: And so I hold on until I have that feeling
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: where like if I don't let go right now, I'm
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: going to die. So that's the layman's way of describing
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: the lactate threshold.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: Is that right?
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I correct.
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: It's like as you work your muscles, you just have
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: like this acid that keeps building and building, and you
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: reach a point where it's like okay, like I have
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: to stop. So yeah, we're just really trying to push that.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: Point to the limit.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: So you get you know, in training, what you do
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: is you get to that point and your coach is like, okay,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: so now we're gonna are we going to try to work?
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: What do you try to do like.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Another ten seconds into that or another three minutes into that,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: or what does that look like for you?
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: Yes, I was like, maybe if you can reframe it
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: and think, you know, once it starts hurting, now you're training.
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: Instead of thinking, oh it's hurting, I have to stop,
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: So just think like everything before it starts to hurt,
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: that's just your warm up, and now you're pushing to
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: like work harder, you know, past that pain threshold. So
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: I don't know, I feel like that helps me is
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: thinking like Okay, now it's starting to hurt, this is
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: when the training starts.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: And I feel like that little reframe helps me a lot.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's astonishing to me, and I think this
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: applies to anyone, you know, whether you're an elite athlete
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: or just an ordinary person trying to poke along and
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: you know, run a mile. You know that how much
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: mindset and how much that mental fortitude plays into your
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: ability to do it, Because almost all any kind of
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: you know, exercise, you reach that point where it's like, okay,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: this is I'm outside of my comfort zone physically, and
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: so mentally you have to say like it's okay, we're
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: safe here. Have you done any formal kind of mindset
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: work or or is this just something that you've figured
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: out on your own.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like.
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: It's something that I've kind of figured out on my own.
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: I mean, I I feel like I have a lot
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: of little like mental tricks that I'm not sure how
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: I ever came up with. There are a lot of
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: things that I didn't even realize I was doing, like
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: until you know, I kind of mentioned something to a friend,
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: But yeah, I don't know. I feel like, yeah, I
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: don't know which direction I should go from that, but yeah,
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: I feel like there was this recently one of my
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: I was talking to one of my teammates about how
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: I find the silver lining in everything, and it's but
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: I didn't realize until kind of recently. It's like a
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: simple example can be like if I miss an exit,
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: then I think, oh, well, maybe there's something quote like
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: something new and cool that I might see along the way,
• 25:11
  Speaker 4: or maybe I'm avoiding a slowdown that would have happened
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: on my original route or something like that.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: So like that's kind of like a small example.
• 25:17
  Speaker 4: But I feel like I have that for even like
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: all the bigger things in life. It's like I always
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: can reframe things to I don't have like a better
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: perspective on it.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: I love that, And you know, I want to ask
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: you a lot more about your your skating career and
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: your roller derby career.
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: We're going to get through that in a minute.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: But what you just said really brought to mind this
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: letter that I received, This dear Sugar letter. Can I
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: read it to you and we can respond to it?
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Oh definitely, Deer Sugar. I'm not an athlete, though I
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: used to be one in high school. I've been loving
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: your new podcast. I think you and your guests might
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: be the perfect people to get me out of this
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: little pity party I've been having for myself lately. There's
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: no other way to say it, but this, the past
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: year of my life has sucked. I lost my dad
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: to cancer last spring. I was downsized out of a
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: job when the federal agency I used to work for
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: lost a good portion of its budget.
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: I got another job, but I'm not really happy there.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: Then a few months ago, I slipped on ice in
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: my driveway and broke my wrist. It's mostly healed, but
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: not all the way. I feel down in the dumps
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: from this string of bad luck. On top of those things,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: I'm a single mom of two teenagers who have become
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: grumpy and aloof lately. I know it's normal teenage behavior.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: I know life has many challenges and losses, but I
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: need some of my joy back. My question for you
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: and your guest is how do I get it? Could
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: you give me your top tips for how you pick
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: yourself up when it seems like everything is knocking you down? Signed, Joyless.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: So what you just said, Aaron about the silver linings mindset,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: I think so much applies to this letter. That you know,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: even when the things are difficult or bad or don't
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: go the way we hope that like if we can
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: find some kernel of wisdom or beauty or truth or
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: like a lesson that we learned to make us braver
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: and stronger, that is what always helps me through those
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: difficult times.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely, I feel like it's Yeah, I feel like
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: what I was.
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: Getting at is like what you were saying, like there's
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: always a meaning behind something that you're going through, And
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: I think in the moment, when you're actively going through
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: it, it can be kind of hard to see that.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: But if you kind of look at, you know, other things.
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: That you've experienced in life, like in the past, then
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: you can see there's this kind of cycle where it's like, Okay,
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: you're feeling these tough things, but then there are a
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: lot of things that you learn from it and that
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: you can bring from it. So I just always try
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: to remember that, like, even though I could be going
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: through something hard right now, like I know that it's
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: gonna help me in some way, Like I'm going to
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: learn something from it, I'm going to become stronger from it,
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: And I don't know, I think that's that's really helpful
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: with helping me to like never panic about anything you know,
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: going wrong in life.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: Just knowing that it's just.
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: Part of a story that's just going to keep developing
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: and you know, hopefully keep getting better.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think what you said exactly about how
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: how hard it is to remember that you know when
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: you're in it.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: And this is where.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Joy list is right now, right like, yeah, she's saying,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: like I just what I'm feeling is everything sucks and
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: everything's going badly. And I think that the advice maybe
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: both of us have for her is like in those times,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: you actually need to actively seek out your ability to
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: find the silver linings or to find any any bit
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: of joy, and that is that involves I think, like
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: making it a practice, whether it be like some people
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: will journal at the end of the day and write
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: like three things they're grateful for, I would suggest something
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: like that, or like if you find solace in nature,
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: I'm a big advocate of going for a hike, you know,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: or getting yourself outside or in an environment that makes
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: you feel good and whole and.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: And so joyless.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: You know, the advice I would give to get into
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: the kind of mindset that like Aaron is suggesting is
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: you know, you have to seek it out. It's probably
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: not going to just come to you if you're you know,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: if you passively wait for it.
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent.
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: It's like, there are some days where I might not
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: feel like going to practice, I might not feel like training,
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: and instead of waiting for the moment that I do
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: feel like it, it's like I just have to go
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: to practice and then the feeling will come from being there,
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: from being around my friends, from.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: Doing what I love to do.
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: So yeah, I think just like you said, finding a
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: couple of things I make you happy, and you know,
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: doing those things and.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: Then like letting the good moments come from that.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: And you know, I'm a huge like I'd love to
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: make lists, and I think that in a way, this
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: letter from Joyless, it's like a list of the bad things, right,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: And I'm sure it felt bad to write it because
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: it's like, here's all the bad stuff that's acted happening,
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: and maybe start Joyless with a list of.
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: The good things and then maybe act on those things.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: You know, like if it's like if skating in your parents'
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: driveway is thrilling.
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: To you, you know, go do that.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: If you know, you know, taking a hot bath, you know,
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: at the end of the day, and like watching your
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: favorite like terrible TV show, you know, do that, like
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: whatever it takes for you to find that sense of peace.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: I'm wondering, like, when can you think of a time, Aaron,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: that you have been like kind of down in the dumps,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: like like this letter writer that you are there times
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: that you've had to actually like pull yourself up and
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: out from something that felt joyless to you.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: I was actually talking with a friend about this a
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: couple of weeks ago, where I feel like I'm normally,
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: you know, pretty good at realizing like why I'm feeling
• 30:47
  Speaker 4: a certain way and then you know, trying to like
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: rationalize it or you know, talk to myself through it.
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: But there was this time I think this was about
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: a year and a half ago. So I've been dealing
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: with a back injury for a few years now, and
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: in the middle of the pre Olympics season, so yeah,
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: this would have been like yeah, almost two years ago. Yeah,
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: in the middle of that season, right before we got
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: into the main part, like the World Championships and everything,
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: I really you know, messed up my back a little bit,
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: you know, more than it had been and you know,
• 31:17
  Speaker 4: I wasn't able to skate for a while and just
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: you know, having that that downtime where I wasn't able
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: to do what I love to do. I wasn't able
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: to keep you know, pushing forward in my sport.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: Plus I was injured and it hurts, and it was
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: the middle of winter and there are just so many things,
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: and yeah, it was it was a really tough time
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: for me, and it took a little bit longer to
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: know bring myself out of it. But you know, it
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: was really helpful to you know, be around my friends
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: and you know, find the things that I did enjoy doing.
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: Like if I couldn't be active, then I could still
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: i don't know, have a movie night with my friends
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: or hang out with my pets or something like that.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: Well, so Joyless, we wish you the best of luck.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: I think it's you know, what we're saying is do action,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: like you actually have to act on it. And and
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: that I think is you know, of course, one of
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: the hardest things of this because when we feel down
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: the dumbs, it's the time that we just want to retreat.
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: But like it is when we need to step forward
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: for ourselves.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: I've done that in my life as well.
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: So talking about stepping forward.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: You are also a trailblazer and a history maker in
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: this one beautiful way.
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: I said this at the outset.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: You are the first black woman to win in an
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: individual sport for the US at the Olympics, at the
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Winter Olympics. And I wonder for you what that moment
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: felt like personally, to make history in that way.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's yeah, it's kind of strange.
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: I didn't even really realize that this was a stat
• 32:53
  Speaker 4: you know, until later when I saw it in a headline,
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: you know, after I won the medal. It wasn't something
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: I had thought about because I don't know, it seems
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: like there should have been so many more, you know,
• 33:02
  Speaker 4: before me, right, But I think, yeah, it's kind of strange.
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: It's like what, I know, I had the same reaction.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: It's like that that just happened, and yeah, you know,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: so recently in twenty twenty two.
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's pretty wild.
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: And I guess my thought was, like, how do we
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: fix this so that it doesn't become a headline, so
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: that it's just kind of commonplace, you know. Yeah, And
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: you know that's you know, trying to get more people
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: of color involved in winter sports. And I think the
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: easiest way to do that is to just keep doing
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: what I'm doing, to try to keep being a good example,
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: to try to keep you know, progressing and excelling in
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: the sports that it gets more visibility.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: And yeah, I mean I feel like that's.
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: A that's a really big goal of mine, is to
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: help other people, you know, realize the joys of of
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: doing what I do. But it's also hard because it's
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: not the easiest sport to get into. So yeah, my
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: my main goal is you know, helping with that accessibility
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: barrier because it is really expensive.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: So it comes down to you know, the the the
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: expense of winter sports in general, but in skating in particular.
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: How how is.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: It that you see that change can be made when
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: it comes to accessibility, Like are are there are there
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: programs that are actively doing you know, outreach to communities
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: of color or to to communities who you know, for
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: people of all races that who couldn't otherwise afford the
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: equipment and and so forth that it takes.
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: I'm sure there are some some programs around the country
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: that are doing that. I haven't heard of any like
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: you know, big big national ones or anything, but you know,
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: I would really love to be a person who can
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: who can help with that, you know, because I like,
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: who knows if I could have stuck around in this
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: sport if I didn't make like accidentally make that twenty
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: eighteen Olympic team, Like that just opened so many doors
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: for me as far as funding and just like getting
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: expenses paid for and everything like that. So you know,
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: without that, like, who knows if I would have even
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: made it to becoming Olympic champion, like if I could
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: have afforded to stay out here and do this sport.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I don't know if it feels like that.
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: I feel like I owe it to you know, the
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: next generation or even this current generation, to you know,
• 35:07
  Speaker 4: help someone else reach that goal. And yeah, I mean
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: the first step is to like let people see someone
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: like them doing the sport.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: So I try to be really visible.
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: And yeah, I mean there are other programs like what
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: I'm talking about, Like there's one for skiing and snowboarding,
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: and there's a woman, her name's Anette Diggs, and she
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: came up with this program called Edge Outdoors that basically
• 35:30
  Speaker 4: does the same thing that they do outreach and they
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: try to get people involved in the sports. So mainly
• 35:37
  Speaker 4: women of color and skiing and snowboarding, and I've talked
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: a lot with her, and yeah, she's willing to help
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: me out get with getting my own organization started for
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: speed skating.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: I think your visibility. The thing you said about visibility
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: is absolutely on point and so important. What about you
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: when you were a younger skater a teenager, were there
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: any skaters of color that you looked up to or
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: felt like mentors to you?
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: Even from afar Let's see.
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there were a lot of people, I guess in
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: inline skating when I was growing up who I really
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: looked up to, and I think but actually, one of
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: my earliest people I looked up to, like outside of
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: my sport, but still then skating was Michelle Kwan actually
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: in figure skating, because I watched a ton of figure
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: skating when I was little with my mom, and you know,
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: I just thought it was really cool, you know, watching
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: her out there and you know, just being you know,
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: a leader and in a force in that sport. So
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: I would say, even before I was a competitive skater myself,
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: you know, I really looked up to Michelle Kwan. And
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: then once I got involved in inline skating, you know,
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: there were some really awesome legends. One of them is
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: is Keith Turner. So he was a really big name
• 36:50
  Speaker 4: in the sport, like when I was just a kid,
• 36:53
  Speaker 4: and you know, just seeing people like that, you know,
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: like making a name for themselves in the sport was
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: really really inspiring and important.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: How you're doing that for so many, so many young skaters,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: So that's amazing.
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: But I want to shift a.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: Little bit because you know, I you know, you you
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: mentioned Michelle Kwan, you mentioned your past as an artistic skater,
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: you know, the beautiful, graceful, lovely kind of stuff that
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: we see and love watching at the Olympics, that figure skating, Right,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: But you've also gone in a different direction on wheels,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: like I would say maybe the most diametrically opposed direction
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: roller derby, right, roller derby. So you you tell us,
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: tell us about your your history and experience with as
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: a as a roller derby skater or player.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: So I've heard I heard about roller derby when I
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: was I don't know, probably in high school because my
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: manager on the inline team played roller jam, which is
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: like the w weve of roller skating. So this is
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: like the super dangerous but choreographed style of roller derby
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: that was popular, like back in the nineties. So yeah,
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: I grew up around someone who did this when she
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: was younger, and I just thought it was super scary
• 38:09
  Speaker 4: and had been trying to get me into roller derby
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: for a while, but that was the only thing I
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: knew was what she used to do, and I was like,
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: I don't want to do that, like you have all
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: these broken bones, like your back is broken, Like I
• 38:19
  Speaker 4: don't want to do that. So I had heard about
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: it for a while, and then finally, when I was
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: in college, one of my old friends who used to
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: speed skate and we went to the same high school together,
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: she was like, Oh, we have this team in Okaala,
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: the city that I'm from. Why don't you come out
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: and try it? And then I don't know, I guess
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: I was done.
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: Being scared of it.
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: I was like, Okay, I'll give it a shot, and
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: I just instantly fell in love. Just it's an amazing
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: sport with amazing people. It's super exciting, really fast paced
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: and hard hitting, and I don't know, I recommend it
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: to anyone, like, if you can't play it, at least
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: go watch it.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: Get involved somehow. But yeah, I really really love roller Derby.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: It's literally hard hitting. I mean it's very raucus. You're
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: you're actually can you describe to those who haven't seen
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: roller Derby?
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: And I second?
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: I second your suggestion, go, you know, just like google
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: it and look for it online because it's a really
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: amazing thing to watch, very entertaining.
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: Can you describe what happens? Like, what's the object of
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: roller derby? How do you interact with the other players
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: on the rink?
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: See, I should come up with like a quick rundown
• 39:24
  Speaker 4: of how to describe the sport, so I feel like
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: I describe it a different way every time. But let's see,
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: So on the track at one time, you'll have ten people,
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: so there will be five from each team, four blockers
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: and one jammer, and the jammer is the person who's
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: trying to score points. So once the whistle goes off,
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: then everyone can move and the jammer will try to
• 39:46
  Speaker 4: get through all the blockers, and for each blocker they
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: pass after that they get four, they get one point.
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: So yeah, it's just basically the teams the blockers are
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: playing offense and defense at the same time because both
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: jammers are trying to score. So they're like playing defense
• 40:01
  Speaker 4: against the other jammer and offense for their jammer. And yeah,
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: it's just a very very fast paced sport. And it's
• 40:07
  Speaker 4: played in two minute increments, like up to two minutes.
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: So if you're the first jammer to make it through
• 40:13
  Speaker 4: the wall, then you're what's called the lead jammer, and
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: then you can end the jam at any time. You
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: can end that two minute period. So let's say I'm
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: the lead jammer, I get out, I score my four
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: points or whatever I'm going for, then I can end
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: it before the other jammer can score any points basically, And.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: And the blockers are are like literally kind of like
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: bumping each other off to protect their jammer, right.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, Yeah, it's super physical.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: It's kind of like football. It's like football on wheels
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: or what sport or wrestling? What sport would you most
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: compare it to, Like if you're trying to you know,
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: think about that, what's happening, you know.
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it could be Yeah, it can be like football.
• 40:52
  Speaker 4: But the jammer is the ball, I guess. Yeah, like yeah,
• 40:57
  Speaker 4: there's the person that's trying to get through the pack
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: of people.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, are you actually the jammer or are you
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: like yeah, I'm.
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: Usually the jammer. It's yeah, it's it's a fun job.
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: But yeah, sometimes you get i don't know, hit to
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: the floor.
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: Because you are at the ball. Yeah, that's the jammer.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: So Aaron is the ball and these big gnarly people
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: on wheels are trying to like knock you out.
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: So and it's not even always big people, Like sometimes
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: the smallest people can be the best blockers.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: It's pretty wild.
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: Isn't that the truth?
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that little, you know, speedy, speedy person zooming around like.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: Taking them on.
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: So, so like I also.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: Understand that that ann Roller Derby people sort of famously
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: have kind of like shown names or nicknames, and what's yours?
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: I'm really boring. My Derby name is just Aaron Jackson.
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: Come on, sorry, So okay, why why how did you
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: end up with Aaron Jackson?
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: So when I first started playing, I just wanted to
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: play on my real name. But when the team that
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: I started on before was more of a recreational team
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: and then I later switched to like a world ranked team.
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: So when I started on the rec team, they're like,
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: but you have to have a name, Like you have
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: to have a Derby name.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: Everyone does.
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: So when I started on that team, I had a
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: Derby name, and then I switched to my new team,
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: I just went by my real name. But the name
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: that I had for like a few months was miss Jackson.
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: It's like ex apostrophe em. So, yeah, I don't think
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: anyone really knows me by that name anymore because this
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: was like twenty twelve.
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: Maybe, so it's been a long time.
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: But you're like, I'm just going to keep it simple.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So you and my burning question that I have
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: to use, Well a phrase I hear a lot like
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: a roller Derby queen, Like, what is there such a thing?
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: Who is the what roller Derby queen? Are you a
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: roller Derby queen? Is everyone who roller Derby's a queen?
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: I feel like, yeah, probably everyone. Because it's not like
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: a sport where you can have one person be the star.
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: It's like a whole team of people who are you know,
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: working towards this one goal simultaneously. I mean it's yeah,
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: it's kind of hard to pick just one person who
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: could be, you know, the star of the team. But yeah,
• 43:17
  Speaker 4: I'm always trying for it. I'm always trying to be
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: the best at it, but yeah, I can't do it
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: without the people blocking for me.
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: And like, that's right.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: So what I'm assuming that you've kind of put that
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: roller dervy activity on hold as you pursue speed skating
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: on this elite Olympic level.
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: Is that true or are you still out there?
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: One might one might assume that incorrectly, but oh my gosh,
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: I probably should be.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: So I did. I did for a little bit.
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: I know, yeah, I put it on hold for a
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: little bit because let's see, the last time I play
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: was in twenty twenty four, and I did get hurt
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: a little bit, I like broke my wrist and but
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: I don't know, I still love the sport a lot.
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: So you know, after that happened in twenty twenty four,
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: I was like, I have the Olympics coming up in
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: less than two years, like I need to lock in.
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: But actually, just a week ago I went to Los
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: Angeles to watch roller derby and to like catch up
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: with some old friends, and I got the itch again
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: and I agreed to play in a roller derby tournament
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: in when is this in a month? Oh man?
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: I got like a month.
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: I got a month to get ready to get back
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: into roller Derby shape.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: So wish me luck.
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: I will, I will. I'll be thinking of you as
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: you jam.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: I love the idea of you actually being like the
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: football that everyone wants to tackle. But oh my gosh, Aaron,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: that is that is really funny that I wish you
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: was gonna hurt all the all the luck.
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: It's gonna hurt, you know, it's gonna hurt a lot.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So besides for being you know, the next world
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: champ at roller Derby, what about your your speed skating?
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: What's next for you? What's ahead?
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm planning on going another four years. I mean, yeah,
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: I just love skating so much. Yeah, I can't imagine
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: not doing this. Like I'm sure there will come a
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: time where I'm like, Okay, I need to hang up
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: the skates, but I yeah, I don't really feel that
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: right now.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: I feel like I'm still really enjoying what I'm doing.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: I love it.
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: I feel like I'm just really fortunate to have made
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: a career out of something that I just loved doing
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: as a kid. Because I think something like we do
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: a book club during the summer months with the sport,
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: like with our team and it's normally like a sports
• 45:39
  Speaker 4: psychology based book club. And you know, through talking through that,
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: you know, I realized that there is kind of a
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: difference between me and a lot of the other people
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: on the team. Like a lot of people started the
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: sport because they wanted to go to the Olympics, but
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: I started the sport just because I loved doing it.
• 45:57
  Speaker 4: And I always said I would never go to the
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: Olympics because I wasn't interested in the sport in that way.
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: So I don't know, I've just always loved the sport
• 46:05
  Speaker 4: for what it is, and it's just cool that I
• 46:07
  Speaker 4: also get to go to the Olympics, and it's cool
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: that I also get to travel the world and meet
• 46:10
  Speaker 4: all these amazing people and have all these fuel experiences.
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: So everything like that is just icing on the cake
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: to just you know, enjoying what I'm doing. So yeah,
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: I can't imagine being done with it at any point now.
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: Like I've already gone to college, I've already gotten my degree.
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: I'm still going to classes here in Salt Lake City
• 46:26
  Speaker 4: because there's still a lot of things I want to
• 46:28
  Speaker 4: learn and I can do all of that while still skating.
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: So I just can't imagine being done right now.
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: Oh that is so cool and I'm wishing you all
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: the best. I'm going to be rooting for you at
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: those next Olympics. It's such a joy and pleasure to
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: watch you skate.
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: You move so dang.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: Fast over the ice and it's totally inspiring. Thank you
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: so much for taking the time to talk to me, Erin,
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: It's been a delight.
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate this was super cool.
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: Thanks for listening.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: If you'd like to send me a letter seeking advice,
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: please email it to me at Deardearsugar at gmail dot com.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: And don't forget to rate, review and subscribe wherever you
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: get your podcasts, Happy trails and I'll see you next week.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: Mine Over Mountain with Cheryl Strad is an iheartwomen's sports
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: production produced by Britney Brown and Rodney Brown of Barbara
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: Jean Productions. Supervising producer is Kaylin West at Realme. Associate
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: producer Amaya Brathwaite. Our executive producers are Molly Barton, Jerry
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: Carita Grace Views and Jesse Katz. Our theme song is
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: composed by Gramoscope Music. Don't forget to rate, review and
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, happy trails, and I'll
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: see you next week.