Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / 368. Riding With Purpose: How To Define Success, Trust Your Gut & Build Self-Worth With 2X Olympic Gold Medalist Kristen Faulkner

Transcript

368. Riding With Purpose: How To Define Success, Trust Your Gut & Build Self-Worth With 2X Olympic Gold Medalist Kristen Faulkner · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: It's so much more fulfilling to do something you love
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: without validation than to do something you don't love with validation.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: What's going on, Emily Abadi?
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Here?
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: You are listening to episode three hundred and sixty eight
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: of Hurdle, a wellness focused podcast where we talk to
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: inspirational people about everything from their highest ties and toughest
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: moments to essential tips to live a healthier, happier, more
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: motivated life.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: We all go through our fair share of hurdles.
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: My goal through these discussions is to empower you to
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: better navigate yours and move with intention so that you
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: can stride towards your own big potential and of course
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: have some fun along the way.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: For today's episode, I am elated.
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: To bring you my conversation with Kristin Faukner, two time
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: Olympic gold medalist, a multi time national road cycling champion,
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: and truly one of the best to ever do it
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: to come out of the United States. That is an awesome,
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: truly special sentence. Considering that Kristin picked up cycling at
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: first as a hobby in twenty sixteen to relieve.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Stress from her then job in finance.
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: She started competitive cycling a year later, and while the
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: rest is history. In today's episode, we get into the how,
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: the why, what it was about cycling that really intrigued
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: Kristin from the get go, and how she came to
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: find so much success early on in the sport. We
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: talk about the difficult decision that she made to step
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: away from a more conventional nine to five into the
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: world of competitive cycling and what that required of her,
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: including an international move so far away from the comforts
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: of home. We dive into what it was like for
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: her to compete at the Olympics and how it felt
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: for her to be thrust into the spotlight after winning
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: not just one, but two gold medals. Kristin truly is
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: the embodiment of what determination and grint can do.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: I am so impressed by her.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: We first connected when I interviewed her for an article
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: in twenty twenty one, not all that long before, she
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: had just joined her first professional team. So what a
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: fun and cool, full circle moment, not only for me
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: to have the opportunity to chat with her again, but
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: to see just how far she's come within this sport
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: and honestly, within life. Make sure you're following along with
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: Hurdle over on social it is at Hurdle Podcast. I
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: am over on the socials as well, over at Emily
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: a Body And you know me, I wouldn't be an
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: intro if I wasn't giving some love to the Weekly
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: Hurdle Substack. That's a newsletter that I write. It comes
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: out every single Friday, landing directly in your inbox, providing
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: so much of the same inspiration, motivation, things you love
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: from the show, plus what I'm digging right now, what
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: I'm reading, what I'm listening to, what I'm watching, what
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: I'm wearing, and news from the woman's sports and wellness
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: world that has me hyped.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: I love writing it. I hope you love reading it.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: And again, the link to subscribe to that, which is
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: absolutely free, is in the show notes. With that, let's
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: get to it. Let's get to hurdling.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Today.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: I am sitting down with Kristin Faulkner. She's a two
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: time Olympic gold medalist. She's also recently won her second
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: consecutive US National road title earlier this year.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Kristin Faukner, Welcome to Hurdle. How are we doing?
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, really excited to be here.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: I'm so excited to have you here.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: It didn't hit me until I was looking back at
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: my notes from the last time you and I talked,
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: which was in twenty twenty one. How much has happened
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: since twenty twenty one. I mean, you had recently just
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: left your full time job in finance, and now you're
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: a two time Olympic gold medalist. When you think of
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: the Kristen from when we first chatted, what comes to mind.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, It's been a fast and furious four years since
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: I started racing in Europe, and in some ways I
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: feel like things have changed and evolved so fast that
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: I sometimes need to like take a step back and say, like, wow,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: you know, it's been a really fast ride in a
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: really great way, and it's been so exciting. But it's
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: also happened very very quickly. I'd be so proud of myself,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: you know. If the twenty twenty one year old version
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: of myself was speaking to me now, I think she'd
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: be very surprised, really excited, but also I think in
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: some ways relieved, because it was still quite scary for
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: me at the time. When I was leaving my job,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: I was leaving a world that I was familiar with
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: and many of my friends and family at the time
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: didn't know what I was doing. And so to go
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: from such a risky place of uncertainty and fear to
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: now where everything's kind of worked out, you know, it's
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: not only like a performance leap, but also I think
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: mentally it's been a big change as well.
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so what I'm hearing you say is that the
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: beginning there was a lot of uncertainty, and so much
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: has evolved. I remember when we first chatted, like there
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: were pennies for women in cycling, and now to be
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: in this place and to have sponsors and to be
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: able to really accrued such a really stellar amount of
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: media attention and everything, like, it's just so different.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, not only my career trajectory has changed rapidly,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: but women's cycling has changed so much in the last
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: five years. And when I started, I think I've said
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: this publicly, my salary and was seven thousand dollars the
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: first year, and that's not uncommon, you know, that was
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: very typical for a first year writer in Europe, and
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: there were many women who were making no money at all.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: And so to see that change and now we have
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: writers making you know, up to a million dollars a
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: year and many women making you know, several hundred thous
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: and you know, at least at the very top. I
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: think that just shows how much the sport has grown.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: And to have witnessed that during my really short career,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: both kind of the old version and the new version.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I feel like I entered the sport at an incredibly
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: interesting time and I've witnessed that change in my career,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: and I still think we have so many more changes
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: to come. And you know, in addition to the salary,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: there's the you know, the woman's toward of France. There's
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: maternity leave, there's more media coverage, there's just the first
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Perry Rebe. There's just been so many changes and it's
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: so exciting and I feel like I'm part of a movement,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: not just a sport.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: A movement, not just a sport.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of risk taking, especially when you got
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: in something that you know a lot about, having a
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: background invent your capital. Dial back to so many of
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: the conversations you had before you made the decision to
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: go all in on cycling. Talk to me about some
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: of the conversations that you had before you made that
• 7:01
  Speaker 3: decision and why they were so helpful for you to
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: really make that leap.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I had a few conversations that were very transformative
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: for me. And the first was with my psychologist who
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: I was seen at the time, and I said, you know, look,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: I really love cycling. It's I'm happiest on my bike.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: This is something that you know, going to the Olympics
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: is a big dream of mine and I really want
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: to pursue it, but I'm really scared because A I
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: don't have a ton of savings. You know. I think
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: there's this idea that I worked in finance and so
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: I got really rich, but actually I was a junior
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: analyst for you know, a few years, and so it's
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: not like I was making a lot of money. I mean,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: you know, it was like a great job out of college,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: but it wasn't like I had these savings, and so
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: there's this huge financial risk for me as well. And
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: I remember talking to my psychologist and he said, Kristen,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: you know, you found something that makes you feel so alive,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: and that is so rare, like so few people ever
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: find that in their entire life. And I really want
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: you to just hold that and realize how special it
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: is and the fact that you have found something that
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: that makes you feel so authentically you when you're doing it,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: lean into that and just ask yourself, turn off your
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: mind for a little bit, like ask yourself, how do
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: you feel like, how do you feel about yourself? How
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: do you feel about the idea? And I noticed that
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: I would get this, you know, these butterflies in my
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: stomach when I thought about the idea and it was
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: something that wasn't fleeting. It lasted, you know, a year
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: or two years of kind of this foe mending, you know.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: And so that was a very interesting conversation when you
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: just said, you know, you found something that makes you
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: feel alive, like cherish that and listen to it. The
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: second conversation was with my brother and we were eating
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: pizza one night and I was contemplating leaving my job
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: and I said, you know, I really want to try
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: and go for the Olympics one day, but it would
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: require me to leave my job. And I know that
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: if I try to keep my job and pursue the Olympics,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: I'm probably gonna end up being media glare both and
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: my brother said, Kristen, is the Olympics like a goal
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: of yours. Is it something you've you know, one of
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: many goals you have, or is it truly like a
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: life dream? And I said, it's my life dream. It's
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: the biggest dream I've had since I was a kid.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: And he was like, then why are we having this conversation?
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Like this is so like why would you not go
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: do it? If you have one big life dream, then like,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: of course you have to pursue it. And I think
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: he just put it in such obvious, simple terms, like
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: why would you even consider not doing something so valuable
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: to you? And I think he made me realize that
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: a lot of my concerns were very petty.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: It's like, oh, I'm gonna you know, maybe have to
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: not make as much money, you're not have as much savings,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: or leave this cushy job, like all those things seemed
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: so insignificant compared to the bigger vision of my life,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: you know, and the things. So I think those were
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: two very important conversations that I had.
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: And totally understandable as well, that you would have so
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: many reservations you're stepping into unknown territory. And I want
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: to double click on a few things. The first thing
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: is cycling feeling so authentically you. What was it from
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: the get go for you when you started cycling in
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: New York City?
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: That made it feel so right.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: So I'm from Alaska and I love the outdoors. I
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: love the freedom of being in nature. I love the
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: freedom of adventure, and I feel like cycling combines a
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: lot of those things. You know, It's a little different
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: from running because you go on a ride and you
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: see eighty miles worth of terrain, you know, not just
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: eight miles, and so you're seeing so much more, and
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: it feels like this really big adventure compared to running,
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: which you still get the endorphins of the exercise, but
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: I don't feel like you can see and witness as
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: much of the world and of nature as when you're biking.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: So that was the first thing. I think the second
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: thing was just having the wind on your face and
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: the sun in your hair, like it's such an outdoorsy thing.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: And for me when I was living in New York City,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: it's a concrete jungle, and I felt very disconnected from
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: my roots my first year living in New York City,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: and I, you know, in many ways, I loved the gls,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: you know, the golodiness of New York City and starting
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: my career and being on this very professional path. But
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: I also felt that being in such a dense urban place,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: I was not in touch with the childhood version of myself,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: which was fun and free and playing outside in the
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: grass and in nature. And so I felt that going
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: to Central Park every day was a way for me
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: to reconnect with who I am at my core before
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: going and working you know, eight or ten hours and
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: kind of this newer version of myself which was pursuing
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: a career but different from my childhood. And so I
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: think that's what really attracted me early on, and then
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: when I moved to California, it was even more so
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: because you're you're riding, you know, along the coast, and
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: you're going on these incredible rides, and I just felt
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: every time I was on my bike it was this
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: combination of adventure, freedom, independence, and doorphins from exercise. I've
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: been an athlete my entire life, and I just felt,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: I guess the best way to describe it is I
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: felt like I was connecting with like the most pure,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: youthful version of myself, like the Christen that was, you know,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: ten years old and just felt like completely unencumbered by
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: people's expectations or my career goals or things that had
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: kind of come in the picture in the last fifteen years.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: Happy at the end of the day, right, like just
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: so good in your body. And that's something that so
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: many of us strive for every single day, day in
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: and day out. Is what can I do just to
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: feel content within my circumstances right now? And you took
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: that into your own hands by getting on your bike.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: You mentioned being an athlete your whole life, and you
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: said earlier that you'd wanted to be an Olympian from
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: a young age, but you didn't always anticipate that you'd
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: be an Olympic cyclist. To talk to me about your
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: journey up until you decided that cycling would be your sport.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So I think as a kid, I remember the
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: first time I watched the Olympics. I think I was
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: eight years old, and I was sitting in living room,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: you know, with my elbows on the ground and my
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: hand in my chin, and I was a swimmer at
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: the time, and I remember watching Michael Phelps and watching
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: some of these athletes and thinking, wow, I like this
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: is the pinnacle of human performance and it seems so
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: exciting I want to They were just like my first idols.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: My first role models were the people I saw on
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: TV at the Olympics, and from that moment I was
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: just entranced, like it became this big goal of mine
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: and I kind of kept it in the back of
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: my head my entire life, and I felt that every
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: time I really pushed myself in training as a swimmer,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: even when I was thirteen years old, it was, oh,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: but if I pushed myself really hard, maybe I can
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: make the Olympics one day, you know. And it was
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: always kind of this motivator for me. And the same
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: was true when I started growing. It was like, oh,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: if I push myself really hard, then maybe one day
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: I can go to the Olympics. And so it's interesting though,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: because I felt that it was this dream in the
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: back of my head, that there was this constant motivator
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: for me in sports. But at the same time, I
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: had so many other things that seemed to be more
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: immediate priorities in my life, like I wanted to get
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: good grades in school, I wanted to find a job,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: and these things I feel I got in the way
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: and so when I graduated college and I started viking,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: I was in my twenties, and I think I had
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: this aha moment where it was like, you know, all
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: of these things have kind of gone in the way,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: and I have this dream, but I've never really prioritized it.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: And I started asking myself, you know, why have I
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: never prioritized this thing that's so important to me? And
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: it seems silly in retrospect to have something that was
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: so viable, but I think it happens to a lot
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: of us where we kind of get caught up in
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: whatever we're pursuing in the immediate future, and there's kind
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: of this recency bias, you know, or maybe the people
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: around you at work or pursuing something, and so you
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: get caught up in it. And I think that was
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: the reallypotus for me starting this process of leaving my job.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: It was, you know, am I really pursuing the thing
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: that's most important to me? Or am I just pursuing
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: the thing that has naturally formed around me this path
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: of you know, graduating from school and getting a job
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: and moving up in my career. So yeah, I guess
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: the Olympics had always been there, but it just I
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: also think I had never been in an environment where
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: the Olympics was such a top priority. I mean, at
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Harvard there are athletes that go to the Olympics, but
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: I think the culture is much more focused on academics,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: much more focused on getting a job after college. No
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: one in my family had ever been an Olympian, and
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: so I think I just didn't grow up in an
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: environment where it was talked about, where I really knew
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: where to start, where I knew how to go about it.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: In some ways. You know, it's embarrassing to omit now,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: but I think this also happens with a lot of people,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: and especially a lot of women, where it was this
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: really big dream that I was almost intimidated to talk
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: about it because I felt like, oh, would people judge
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: me for having this big dream that might not be feasible.
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: And I think that happens to a lot of us,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: where we sell ourselves short and we're almost afraid to
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: talk about things that are the most important to us
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: because they feel too big or too grand for us.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: And I really hope that we can get rid of
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: that phenomenon in our culture.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, it's so cool to hear you talk about
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: the evolution of that thought process for you, because many
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: people would have that thought process and to your point,
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: there be like it's too much, it's too big, I'm
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: being silly, whatever, and brush it off.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: But you were tenacious.
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: You were brave enough to say, hey, no, I want
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: to listen to this voiceless in my head that's saying
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: this is something that's really resonating with me.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: Where do you think that came from?
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: Was that behavior or something I know you said conventionally,
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: especially as women, this isn't something that's often modeled for us,
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: but that tenacity came from somewhere. So do you think
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: that was modeled for you from your family, maybe through
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: your work? Where did you garner that special level of
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: self belief?
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's a few things. So my parents
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: are both entrepreneurs and they're very much of this mindset
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: of if you want something, you have to make it
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: happen for your like, no one's gonna make your dreams happen.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: And my dad used to tell me when I was
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: when I was fourteen, I think I said I wanted
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: to get a job, and he's like, you know, don't
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: look for a job, create a job and it was
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: just this mentality of if you want something, you have
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: to be the one to make it happen. You can't
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: wait for the universe to may happen for you. And
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: that's also partially, I think an Alaskan ethos. You know,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: people are very independent. People build their own houses, people
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: start their own companies, and it's just a very kind
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: of rough at out mentality, you know, you don't have
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: I think in Alaska you have to do so many
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: things on your own because there aren't as many people
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: who can come fix light bulb for you, like, you know,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: all these things, and so it's like if you have
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: a problem, like you need to be to want to
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: solve it. And so that's something that has always been
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: in my family, I think in Alaska just part of
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: the ethos in which I was raised. And then I
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: had always been a very introspective child and I had
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: always like pondered a lot of deep life things. And
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: one thing that I remember, or especially as I had
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: this piano teacher who was quite old and she actually
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: passed away when I was I think in high school
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: and just seeing you know, grandparents passed away, and it
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: just made me really start thinking about my own life
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: and how I was going to get old one day
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: and thinking about, you know, if I were eighty years
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: old looking back in my life, what are the things
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: that I would be really proud of, what are the
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: things that I might regret? And how would it change
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: how I lived my life today? And so when I
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: was in my twenties and I, you know, was grappling
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: with some of these questions, I think it really hit
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: me that if I was eighty years old looking back,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: I would completely regret not trying to pursue the Olympics.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: And that was a big motivator for me as well.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: And so I think it was a combination of the
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: ethos in which I was raised, kind of having this
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: very introspective personality and then having people my life pass
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: away and trying to put myself in their shoes and
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: think about, you know, the trajectory of my old life
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: and what I was maybe maybe what I would be
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: thinking if I was, you know, eighty years old looking back.
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: Why is beyond your years to say with me the
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: lease here?
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: Kristin Now you mentioned that things in Alaska were a
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: bit different than they were when you moved away to
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: Harvard and then to then move to New York and
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: then San Francisco. Ultimately, aside from the lack of nature,
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: what would you say was the biggest shell shot coming
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: to these bigger cities.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: The number of people. So there were a lot of things.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: The first is I grew up in a very small
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: town of five thousand people. And my neighbor was my teacher,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: my swim coach was my best friend's mom. It was
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: a community that was incredibly integrated, and people played multiple
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: roles in your life, and so community was automatic. I
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: didn't have to build my own sense of community. And
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: then the same was true with my family. I'm one
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: of five kids, so I always had people around me.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: I never had to really seek out company and community.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: And then when I went away to boarding school, we
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: had our dorms, we had our classes, I had my
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: sports teams, and same with college. And so when I
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: moved to New York City, it was the first time
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: in my life where I felt like I had to
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: actually build a community, and I realized I didn't really
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: know how to do it because my community had always
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: just been automatically formed around me. And when I moved
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: to New York, I really wanted to, you know, I
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: started going to the gym and being on the elliptical,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: and that wasn't fulfilling. And I'd never really been a
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: late night person. I didn't drink a lot. I was
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: very into being healthy and going to betterly and a
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: lot of people in the early twenties, you know, they're
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: going to bars or staying out past midnight, they're drinking
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: a lot. And I found that I didn't fit in
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: super well with kind of the New York culture of
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: people in the early twenties, and so I didn't have
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: this community that naturally formed around me. And so I
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: was like, how do I find people who are similar
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: to me, especially in a city where it feels like
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: the predominant culture is very different from me. And so
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: when I started cycling, it really gave me a community
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: that I had been looking for, and people with similar mindedness,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: who like to wake up early, who like to be healthy,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: who liked to work out, who you know, were all
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: from all different walks of life, and that resonated with
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: me a lot more than what a lot of my
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: peers were doing. By the way, like, I'm sure they
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: had a ton of fun and I have nothing against it,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: just like for me, I just I really, I've never
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: been a late night. Sleep is so important to me,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: and even in college, I was always in bed by midnight,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: even though I had fun. And so I think moving
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: to New York it was the first time in my
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: life where I realized I had to learn how to
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: be intentional about making friends, finding community, and finding happiness
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: that didn't always come naturally in my environment. And that
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: also taught me to be proactive. You know, I had
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: to if I wanted friends, I had to find them.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: If I wanted to, you know, find fulfillment and activity,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: I had to find it. And so that taught me
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: to be very proactive. And also I think it helped
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: me when I moved to Europe because I didn't know
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: anyone in Europe. I had no friends, no family, I
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: didn't really have any teammates there, and so I think
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: moving to Europe was a lot easier because of my
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: experience in New York.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: So many things talking about here are things that are
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: very unsettling for many people, and you've done all of them.
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: So finding community such a challenge, not only when you
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: move to a new city, but the older you get,
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: I would argue it can be even more challenging to
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: make new friends and find communities. So I love this
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: suggestion that you're putting on the table here, which is
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: I asked myself, what is it that I like to
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: do or what is it that I'm interested in, and
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: then seek community there rather than do something that doesn't
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: feel right for you, Because if you find community doing
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: something that doesn't feel right for you, then you're not
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: going to stick with that community at all, and in fact,
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: you might have maybe a little bit of resentment against
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: yourself that you flexed on your boundaries that otherwise made
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: you feel good.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Definitely. And I had friends who were in New York
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: City with me. We'd been friends from college, and what
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: I found was a lot of times we just had
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: very different interests and it was causing this rift between
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: our friendship because we would want to do very different
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: things when we hung out. And I so I had
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: to ask myself, like, what are the activities that we
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: both share rather than always trying to accommodate the other person.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: And I think that's also a life skill because we
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: have friends who like, we have space in our life
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: for friends who have different indreests than us, but we
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: always have to have something that shared. And similarly, I
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: think we're going to find the most happiness and the
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: greatest sense of community when we find people who share
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: our interests. You know, I had friends in New York
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: that were I was twenty four years old and some
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: of my friends were forty five, sixty five, twenty five,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: you know, in all different ages, and I was totally
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: okay with that because we had this common thread between us.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: And so I think sometimes community ends up looking different
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: from how we expect it to, and so we have
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: to really go in with this open mind and not
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: preconceived notions about a community that we're supposed to be
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: part of or what are friends supposed to look like?
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: And it's more about how do I feel when I'm
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: with these people, And so that was a lesson I
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: also learned.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so beautiful.
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: And I've always resonated with this like concept that the
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: community that or after is yours to build. Like you
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: get to say in what it is that you will
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: participate in, what you will be a part of, and
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: I think that's so special. And also I love that
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: note on you don't need to jive in every single
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: way to be friends with someone. An example of this
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: from my own life, like I have a very good
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: friend that I wanted to grab dinner with tomorrow night.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: And I know also right now that I am personally
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: training for a marathon, I'm trying to eat healthy.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: So the common interest is we want to get dinner
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: with each other.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: Just because this person proposes going to like a restaurant
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: that I don't want to go to, doesn't mean that
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: we still can't get dinner. It just means that it's
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: then on me to say, actually, like I'm trying to
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: eat this way or that way, would you mind if
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: we go here instead and that way? I don't feel
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: like I'm sacrificing my boundaries and I still get to
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: see the person that I want to see.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Definitely, I think for me too, I as one of
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: five kids, I always grew up trying to be perfectionist,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: as a great student in school. I was a peeper pleaser.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: I think that's common about woman. But also as one
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: of five kids, you didn't always have space to create
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: boundaries and get what you want. You know, you had
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: to be very easy going and go with the flow.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: And so I think when I was in my twenties,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: I actually had I was pretty poor at setting boundaries,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: pretty poor speaking out for myself. And I think those
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: years were really important for my life because I learned
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: how to say, you know, A had to communicate my
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: needs in a very respectful way. That was also setting
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: boundaries for myself, saying, you know, I really want to
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: hang out with you, but just not between ten and
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: twelve pm, or not from ten pm onward, you know. So,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: And like I could go to brunch with my friends
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: and it could be a boozy brunch for them and
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: a you know, a dry brunch for me, or you know,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: I could do stuff with my friends that we had
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: common interests. And I think that was a skill that
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: I didn't really learn until my mid twenties and living
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: in New York starting to cycle full time. I really
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: had to set certain boundaries because I had to take
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: care of my health when I started training as an
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: ely athlete, you know, so I had to be more
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: mindful and strict with myself. My diet, my sleep routine,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: my stress, you know, all these things. I couldn't be
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: traveling every weekend with my friends when they went on
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: these big trips because I had them train and go
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: to racism so over the last you know, five or
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: ten years. One of the biggest growth areas for myself
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: has been how to communicate incredibly respectfully but also hey guys, like,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: here's what I need, what do you need? How can
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: we meet in the middle. And I think that's a
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: really valuable skill for friendships over any relationship.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: You talked about the things that you had to manage
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: once you started to take cycling very seriously. Firstly, when
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: did you feel that tipping point, when did you know
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: that you were ready to go all in? And then
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: secondly you said sleep and nutrition and not traveling every weekend.
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: But if we could dial in a little bit on
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: some of the alterations that you had to make when
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: you got to that point as well.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: So I'll be honest, I think from the very beginning,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: I was pretty intense about it, and I was very
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: much wanting to go all in. So even in New York,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: you know, I would travel the race of them the weekends.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: I'd be going to bed really early, waking up early.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: I didn't drink a lot, and I was super healthy,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: and so I think from the very beginning I had
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: this goal that I wanted to be as good as
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: I could be whatever that looked like, and I wanted
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: to take it as far as I could. I didn't
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: know what that meant necessarily, but in the back of
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: my mind I definitely was thinking, you know, the best
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: of all worlds would be I go to the Olympics
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: for this, because that was kind of the pinnacle. So
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: even as a Cat five racer New York, I think
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: there was this kind of you know, in the back
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: of my head these musings.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: I'm going to pause you really quick.
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: For someone who doesn't know what that means, talk to
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: us about what it means to be a Cat five racer.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: A Cat five racer is basically the most entry level
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: for any amateur local race. And so if you want
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: to enter, if you want to enter a bike race
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: in the US and it's your very first bike race,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: you start it's called Category five, and then as you
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: start to get results, you move up to category four,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: category three, and the races are often segmented based on
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: your level. So often category fours and fives race together,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: and then categories ones two threes race together, so you're
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: always racing with people that are about your level. And
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: once you get to a Category one, that's usually when
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: you can jump into a full time professional team.
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: And who decides when you go or graduate from one
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: category to the next.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: Is this a points system?
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's rules within USA Cycling. I believe it's
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: USA Cycling that manages it. And it depends on your
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: race results from that category. So if you start as
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: a Cat five and then you get fifth place as
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: a race, you get certain number of points. If you
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: win a race, you get a certain number points, and
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: then once you've passed a certain number of points, you
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: graduate into a Category four and then got it.
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: Okay, so you're already an excited Category five cyclist, but
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: you know that you want to take it seriously.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think from the very beginning. I mean,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: I also keep in mind, like I had some of
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: these boundaries in college because I was a rower and
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: so even in college we had Saturday morning practice and
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: so I couldn't go out really late on Friday night.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: So I'd established a lot of these routines to help
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: prioritize my sports and also my social life. To be honest,
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: like living in New York was just an extension of that.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: I think it was an extension of that and a
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: bit of an expansion of it just because New York
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: was so much bigger, there were more people involved. You know,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: cycling was earlier in the morning. We'd practice at four
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: thirty am, where it's rowing was at you know, six
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: thirty seven. So I think everything was just a bit exaggerated.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: And then I think where it really started to impact
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: me more maybe was on the weekends because when I
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: moved to California, like in New York City, most of
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: the races were in Central Park. When I moved to California,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: I would have to drive on the weekend to all
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: the races, you know, two hours each way or so.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: So suddenly the time I had for my friends was
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: you know, a little less than the weekends, and so
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: I just had to be mindful of how and when
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: I made space for my friends. And you know, I
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: have I have a friend and we would like go
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: to Trader Joe's every week, or we would go to
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: the Farmer's Market, and I had a friend, we'd like
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: go to Costco, and like there were all these healthy
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: activities that we would you know, do to hang out.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: And then I had other friends who were I would
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: see them at a house party at night, you know,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: before my bedtime, so I think it was just for me.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: I had to tell my friends like, oh, I can't
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: see you at eleven pm, but I can see you,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: you know, for lunch at you know, three, And oftentimes
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: I would go for these morning rides that were four
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: to five hours, so people would want to meet me
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: for brunch at ten and I would say, sorry, I
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: can't do that. I'm riding till one. So like, yeah,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: let's come up with an activity between one and eight pm.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: If it makes you feel any better.
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: I'm an early person, do and I'm not trying to
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: be an olympia, So you're me both.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: I just think that I had to be you know
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: how like like new moms or new parents, they just
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: have less flexibility, less time in their schedule. They're like, oh,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: I or even a working person, you know, They're just like,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: I have these hours. I'm a free and I kind
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: of felt that even though I was a young analyst
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: and my weekends should have been free, I had these,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: you know, very short windows where I was available. But
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: I still value my friends just as much and wanted
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: to spend time with them. I just had to be
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: a little bit more mindful of how I did it
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: so that I was protecting my goals as well.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: Taking a break from Jday's episode to talk to you
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: about my sponsor at Element, stay hydrated without the sugar,
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• 35:00
  Speaker 3: said something that put up a little flag for me,
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: which was that you would meet to ride at four thirty.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: Did you live near Central Park to do those laps
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: and did you feel safe doing that?
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: Well, we always met up with our team, so we
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: would do morning practice together, so I always felt safe.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: I did live near Central Park my first year, and
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: then my second year I lived also near Central Park,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: and so my first year I didn't know that I
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: was my lef cycling. So I was quite lucky that I,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: you know, picked up cycling and happened to live near
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: Central Work. My second year, I was very intentional about
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: getting an apartment that was close to work and close
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: to biking. And it wasn't in the coolest hippus area
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: of town. It was midtown. My priorities were biking and work,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: so I found some more close to biking and work,
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: and you know, you had it. It can be dark
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: in Central Park, but I think I was always with
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: my team. We had bike lads, you know. So actually
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: the most dangerous thing were these little muskrats that would
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: go across the road and then you didn't see them
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: and it was dark and you could always potentially hit
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: them or beaver. It was something. It was something like,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: they are these little animals on.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: The road, beaver.
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: I have a convection that I was walking to the
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: gym this morning and out of nowhere a rat just
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: like ran and I kicked it.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: And I am not the same I'm not the same person.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: It can it can really rattle you.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: It really did. It really did.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: Okay, going and moving to Europe such a big decision
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: and one that is really motivated by self belief. Talk
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: to me about how making that decision ultimately ended up
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: setting the stage for you to make your way to
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: the Olympics.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: So the first thing is I had to leave my job.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, if I had tried to keep my job
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: and train full time, I would have ended up just
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: being mediocre. Both and so and and by the way,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: I think there's a story that I like or I
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: left this high power, but I actually loved my job,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: like and that that's what made it so hard, is
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: that I had incredible mentors and incredible boss and I like,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: to this day, best boss I've ever had, and you know, manager,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: and so that made it extra hard. But I had
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: to leave my job if I wanted to pursue this.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: So when I got to Europe, I actually my first
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: year we lived in team housing for a few months
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: and the team had rented this house in Belgium, and
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: I think it was eight girls. We all had, you know,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: multiple people to a room. Our director and her husband,
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: who was the mechanic, lived in the same house with
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: their two year old son. So it was like this
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: big Brady Bunch feel and there was no escaping the team,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: like you were with them straight NonStop for three months.
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: And so just studying that in the context that that's
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: what it took if you wanted to make it in
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: this sport back in two thousand, nineteen dear twenty twenty
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: one and so different today. And so I did that,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: and then after that two month race block in twenty
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: twenty one, I realized that if I really wanted to
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: make it in Europe, I had to commit to living
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: in Europe full time. So I went to Drona and
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: was planning to just stay there for two weeks between races.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: And during those two weeks, I was in an Airbnb
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: and I signed it to your lease and I said,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: if I'm going to do this, I want to do
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: it right. I have to go all in. So I
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: signed it to your lease in Droona. I basically said,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go back to the US maybe during
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: my off season, but I'm committing to this for at
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: least two years. And then the other thing is I
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: think a lot of Americans who moved to Europe to
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: write to race, they still feel like America is their
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: home base. And so their apartment in Rona it's very basic.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: They don't decorate it, they get it, you know, it's
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: really small. Maybe they don't get Wi Fi, they don't
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: get a full cell phone, and they kind of treat
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: Gerona as this place to kind of stay in between races,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: but it's not their home. And I really made a
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: concerted decision. I was like, if I'm going to try
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: and make the Olympic team and I'm going to go
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: all in, I have to commit to this fully. And
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: so I got a good apartment. I decorated it, I
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: got a cell phone plan in Europe. I got you know,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: like all the things to really make it feel like
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: a home. Because I knew that I had to I
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: had to commit and I wanted to be happy for
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: several years if it was going to be sustainable. And
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: so rather than kind of jumping between the US and
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: Europe and doing this you know, half committal lifestyle, I
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: just decided I was going to go all in. I said,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: if I'm going to do this, I'm going to leave
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: my job. If I'm going to make this, take these risks,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go all in. And that was a
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: decision that was a little unconventional at the time for Americans,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: but one hundred percent necessary for me and important for
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: my success in the long term, especially with the Olympics.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: Was it lonely, Definitely, especially the first year. I didn't
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: know many people. And I think what made it really
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: lonely was not not just the act of going abroad
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: and not having a community. I think what made it,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: what hurt the most and was the hardest to overcome,
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: was that no one in the US understood what I
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: was doing. My friends and family, no one had been
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: a professional cyclist. There was no media coverage of the races,
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: although knew in their minds I quit this incredible job
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: to go be as Kibam. You know, It's like it
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: was kind of how it fell to the love of
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: them and even my parents who love me and support me.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: Three or four years into racing, they said, we were
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: talking about competitive you know, my races, and they said, well,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: we know how much work and sacrifice goes into it.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Your sister ran a marathon recently, so we totally understand.
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: It's the exact same thing. And I almost just burst
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: into tears. I was like, you really, you really don't understand.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: And these are people, I mean, they're my parents, like
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: they love me. They wanted to understand, but there was
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: just it was so inaccessible to them. They couldn't watched
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: me on TV. They didn't know, and no matter how
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: much I explained to them. I think a lot of
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: my peers thought that I just would wake up and
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: go ride for two hours and be a bit of
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: an influencer and then you know, come home and just
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: they don't realize how hard it is and you know,
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: you're you're crashing, You're away from in races. You're away
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: from home, you're struggling to keep up, You're getting dropped
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: off the back, you run over cobbles, You're you know,
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: hauling bike bags through a million airports. You're living in
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: team housing and you don't know anybody. You're trying to
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: get a visa and a foreign country you're trying to
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: get a rental agreement. And the foreign country, you don't
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: speak the language all the time because it's catchalow and
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: about Spanish, and so there's just all these things. And
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: so I think that was actually what made it so lonely,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: was it wasn't the physical loneliness. It was the emotional
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: loneliness of not feeling understood by anyone in my life.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: And even the cyclist that I got to know in Europe,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: they didn't understand how much I'd given up in the
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: US because a lot of them had just grown up
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: in cycling. They grew up in the cycling world. They
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: were from Europe, their family lived an hour away from
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: where they lived. Their families would come watch their races.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: There was a prestige in it because they were professional cyclists,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: which the culture in Europe, you know, idolizes and values
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: and so I felt that there was really no one
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: who understood where I'd come from or where I'd gone,
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: let alone both.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: Thanks for sharing that.
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: It's so beautiful to hear the compassion that you have
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: in your voice, because it was such a both situation.
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: It was I love these people so much. I recognize
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: that they also loved me so much, and they're not
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: trying not to understand your words exactly. It just wasn't accessible,
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: and so to have that level of awareness is such
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: a beautiful thing and something that although having it didn't
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: make it easier, it also was able to an extent,
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: I'm sure to bring you a little bit of peace
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: despite feeling so lonely. You bring up another really good
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: point that it was so inaccessible to so many people
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: in America. I remember when you and I first connected
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: in twenty twenty one, I interviewed other women that were
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: on the team you were writing with at the time.
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: We're talking lawyers, nurses, former doctors. These are all women
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: who had very prestigious, difficult, diligent education required careers that
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: made the decision one day to walk away from something
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: that paid them very well to pursue their passions. So
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: to now again bring this full circle and hear not
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: only how difficult it was for you to step into this,
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: but know that you also walked away from something like that.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: Wow. It brings me chills thinking back to it.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, something that's so hard is that most people, when
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: they pursue something unknown and risky, it's unknown and risky
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: partially because it's not part of the culture in which
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: they're from. You know, if you grew up in a
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: family that wants you to be a lawyer and a doctor,
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: and then you decide to go be an artist or
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: a musician, there's going to be this feeling of being misunderstood.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: And what can happen is that when you do that
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: and you kind of get this undercurrent of disapproval from
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: the people in your community, it can almost isolate you
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: more from those people, and that can make you feel
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: less grounded and already risky endeavor. And so I think
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: it's so important to try as hard as possible to
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: hold compassion for those people and maintain those relationship knowing
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: that they might not understand what you're doing for several
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: years during this pursuit. And that was the case for
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: me with a lot of my friends. I feel like
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: they know at a high level, they trusted me, they
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: supported me, but they were also just confused, you know,
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: And I had to just acknowledge that they might not
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: understand for several years, and there was only so much
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: I could explain to them, and I had to just
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: accept that that might be how it's going to be
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: for a few years, and had to be patient with
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: that and know that our relationship wasn't going to change
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: in the long term. It just might look a little
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: different for a few years.
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: Would you say that the Olympics was the validation that
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: you were seeking or were you able to garner some
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: of that with things like the Perry Rube.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: I think by the time the Olympics came around, I
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: had long forgotten my desire to be validated, given like
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: five years, like I had fully just accepted that I
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: was never going to get validation. I mean, after the comment,
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: by the way, I love my parents, after the comment
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: about comparing to my sister training for a marathon, by
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: the way, like no, like this is not a comp
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: like training for a marathons.
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: They love to the family exactly everyone training for a marathon.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: Exactly, Like I don't want to be little bet at all,
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: but it's a different level of reading your life and
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: trying to pursue a support that you started in your
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: mid twenties. When I did get validation for the Olympics,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: it was really overwhelming and surprising, and I didn't know
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: how to handle it because I had gotten so used
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: to having to self validate for so long, and I
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: had completely come to terms with the fact that I
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: didn't actually care what other people thought. It didn't matter
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: to me, It wasn't important to me as long as
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: I really loved what I did and I felt purpose
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: and passion in it. And so I totally come to
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: terms with this for five years racing in Europe and
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: come to the terms that I would never get the
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: validation from the people that initially I maybe missed. And
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: so when the Olympics happened and everyone gave me all
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: this validation, I was so confused. I was like, I
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: didn't actually know how to process it, and I had
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: just gotten so used to not needing validation from other
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: people and self validating, and so when I got all
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: this validation from other people, I was so confused and
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: its super overwhelmed, and I actually didn't know how to
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: handle it. For a while. And it also though, was
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: very cathartic for me because it made me realize that
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: me pursuing the Olympics was entirely for me, Like there
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: was no there was no seeking external validation in that goal.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, it had been a goal of mine since
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: I was eight or twelve years old, before I even
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: really knew what external validation looked like or meant. And
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: so when I left my job to pursue the Olympics,
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: like there was no validation, Like no one thought I
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: was going to do it. No one even knew what
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: I was doing for five years. And so then when
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: you're pursuing something entirely for yourself and you're not looking
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: for external validation and that setting that you get all
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: this external validation, you kind of feel like you know where,
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: Like you guys came out of the woodwork, Like where
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: did you come from? Like why haven't you been following
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: my career for five years? And it made me feel
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: a little uncomfortable actually, because I felt that it was
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: very bi modal. It was either they didn't support and
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: understand and validate me, or they did, like there was
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: no in between, Like as I was accruing results, in
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: Europe over five years, my personal sense of accomplishment was
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: steadily growing in these micro steps, and yet for everyone
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: else it went from black and white it and went
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: from not knowing anything to knowing everything about my career,
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: and so there wasn't this kind of micro growth in
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: their recognition of my success. It was just black or white.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: And that was really hard for me in the begin
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: because I felt like, where have you guys been for
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: five years? Like no one thought I was interesting? And
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: then I win these gold medals and now everyone thinks
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: I'm interesting, And actually there's five years of history that
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: has kind of been erased or overlooked that was there
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: for five years, but no one noticed it. And so
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: I felt in some ways like the only thing that
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: mattered was the Olympics, not the five years of everything
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: that led up to it. And it just made me, Yeah,
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: it made me question, like do people you know? My story?
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: Was all over these headlines and these newspapers, and everyone
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: felt like they knew my story, But then inside I
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: was like, really, no one really knows my story, Like
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: no one really knows how hard it was, how much
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: I suffered, how much you sacrificed, And instead the headline was,
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: you know, Kristen Lee's finance job and then wins two
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: gold medals, and it's like this this Cinderella story, and
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: not much talk about my you know, accomplishments for five years,
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: my growth, the slow changes, the crowd, all these things.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: And so I felt that my story was not given justice,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: like my accomplishments were given justice, but my story and
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: the journey and the struggle wasn't. And so that was
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: actually really hard for me to reconcile because I felt
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: that there's a discrepancy between my story and what other
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: people heard about.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: The real story.
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: That going at it almost in a sense alone for
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: so long requires such a great sense of mental fortitude
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: for individuals who feel as though they too are on
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: the path to something that does personally excite them. Also alone,
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: what would you say to them? What advice would you
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: offer to them?
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: You know, you have to be patient, but also it's
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: so much more fulfilling to do something you love without
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: validation than to do something you don't love with validation.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: And it's something we hear a lot when we're young,
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: but it's so hard to believe, and now having been
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: through it, it's so obvious to me, and I just
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: wish that I could convey that message to other people
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: so much, because the journey can be so hard that
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: you have to love what you do. And if you
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: really love what you do, then you will find the
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: courage and the grit to keep going even when it
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: feels lonely and hard. And I think sometimes people set
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: these goals about something they're not passionate about and they
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: really struggle to get there. If you're deeply passionate about
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: the process, and you're really doing something you care about,
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: that will get you through the really hard times. And
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: I just wish I could tell young people to find
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: something that really resonates with them that they're deeply passionate about.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: And I don't think they understand how important that is
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: to success because we often think that there are certain
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: paths for success, you know, and certain jobs that are
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: going to lead to success, but actually it leads to
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: success as this ability to continue getting up when you
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: fall over and over and over, and that can happen
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: in any field, in any job, but it's so much
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: easier when you have this intrinsic passion because getting up
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: just feels like natural, you know, it doesn't feel as
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: hard as if you aren't motivated.
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: Also, this concept that you get to define what success
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: looks like for you, Like, your definition of success doesn't
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: need to be what may be seen as a little
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: bit more acceptable. Right, So if success to you is
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: I'm going to wake up every day and feel at
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: home and confident and happy in my body, and you
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: have a definition of what that feels like and maybe
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: what that looks like, then good on you, Like, don't
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: let someone else decide what that will be for you.
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: I know that when you first got into your career
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: there were people that had an opinion on what the
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: best writing weight was for you, and you had the
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: opportunity to say, I can feel that out for myself.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's actually even more pronounced now, you know.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: And the Pelton like still rider weight is a big issue,
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: so many things, how much you should eat on the bike,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: how much you should drink. And for me, you know,
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: I've knock on wood, never broken a bone biking. I
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: feel like I recover super fast, I have incredible fatigue
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: resistance and all these things are because I feel really well.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: And you if you throw me on a climb at
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: the beginning of a race, I'm not going to have
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: the power to whatt ratio of other people, but I
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: have the sustainability and durability that is because I trust
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: my body and I listen to it. And that's just
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: one example, but I think it's true in so many
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: areas of life and on the bike off the bike,
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: that if you really trust and listen to your body,
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: I think it knows best. And that's true with rider weight,
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: but it's also true with pursuing your goals and defining success.
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: I really appreciate you sharing how all of that attention
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: after the Olympics made you feel. I also know that
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: oftentimes the best way to not process emotions is to
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: jump right into something else, which is something that you,
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: maybe for better or for worse, had the opportunity to
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: do immediately following the Olympics. When do you think that
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: you were able to process those feelings? Are you still
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: processing them where we at?
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: I think sometimes I am still processing them, to be honest.
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: So after the Olympics, you know, the day after I had,
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: you know, twelve hours of media, next day, twelve hours
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: of media. The next day I flew to the Tour
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: de France. The next two weeks we're done doing sponsor
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: events and the next three months we're doing speaking events,
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: podcast interviews. And so I feel like I never owned
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: my time after the Olympics, and I never really had
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: the time to process in the way I needed to,
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: And looking back, I think that was unhealthy, Like I
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: wish that I had owned my time, and you'd think,
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: you want a gold medal, you've deserved the right to have,
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: you know, a little bit of time. But it's actually
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: we still have sponsors and this was the biggest thing
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: for them too, and they're paying my salary, so I
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: also to get back to them what they've basically invested
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: in me. And so I really was struggling with that balance.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: And I don't know if I'll ever fully process what happened,
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: because it was the biggest dream I'd ever had and
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: it came true and that's something that you can pinch
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: yourself for for the rest of your life. And even
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: though I still sometimes think about it and I'm like,
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: what the f like, like it happened like that, you know,
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: and you know, excuse my language, but I just I'm
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: so proud of the journey that I continued on even
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: when it was hard and sometimes I hear these stories
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: of Olympians and they're like, oh, I want to medal,
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: and my life didn't change. It went back to normal.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: And I realized that actually, you know, metals and accolades
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: like don't change your life. And it didn't bring me
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: as much fulfillment as I wanted. And I don't really
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: understand those people. My goal, like my medals changed my
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: life and they really did. And and I don't just
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: mean that in terms of getting a higher salary, you're
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: getting more speaking, like, my personal fulfillment was so high,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: and I think the reason is because I stuck. I
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: love the process, and it was a goal that I
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: was doing for myself. It was never a goal that
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: I was doing for validation from anyone. I never pursued
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: the Olympics because it was prestigious. I pursued the Olympics
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: as I was an eight year old girl who thought,
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: this is the pinnacle of whatever I want to be
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: when I'm older. And so when you achieve something that
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: is so intrinsically motivated, it really changed it. It does change
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: how you view yourself. I think before I knew I
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: was capable of these things, but when you actually do it,
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: it can bring so much self validation to yourself, and
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: I think for me, it's not the validation of winning
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: gold medals, it's the validation of Wow, I really had
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: the courage to trust my gut. I followed through and
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: I did something that no one thought I would do
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: because I trusted myself. And that is the validation that
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: I am most proud of. Was like the courage and
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: grit to stay on the journey. And that's something that
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: absolutely changed my life when I won those cool medals.
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: Was the perception and pride I have for my courage,
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: my character of sticking through. And so when, yeah, when
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: people talk about how an accomplishment doesn't change your life,
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: I actually just I mean, in my experience, it did,
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: and I think it's because the motivation was so intrinsic
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: and it was something I truly only did for myself.
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: You're like, I respectfully disagree. The pinnacle of everything I
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: wanted to be when you were an eight year old girl,
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: that's what you thought. Someone comes to your Instagram page
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: right now, they see this gold medalist, Olympic cyclist, National champion.
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: When you look in the mirror, now, though, what is
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: it that you see looking back?
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: At you, Kristen, I see someone who is very courageous
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: and has a lot of grit and really trust herself
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: and believes in herself, and someone who really knows what
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: she wants in life and has the courage to go
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: do it.
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: I would be remiss before we wrap up here if
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: I didn't bring up what you just went through at
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: the Tour de France Fem so recently making a difficult
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: decision to withdraw from the Tour de France fem on
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: January thirtieth, you wrote on Instagram after making this decision.
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: Most people get to choose what moments they share on
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: social media. For us research, it's just our raw selves,
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: and we don't get to choose what the camera zoom
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: in on or what people see. It's beautiful, it's messy,
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: it's real, and I hope it's relatable and reminds people
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: that even the strongest struggle, whether you're an Olympic medalist
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: or not. It's interesting now to read that after our
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: conversation and think that there were so many times where
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: cameras weren't around, and now they are there and they're
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: capturing this for you, the good, the bad, the difficult,
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: the highs the lows.
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: Is it a good thing? Is a bad thing? What
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: do you think?
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: I think it's both. You know, when there's no cameras,
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: you want people to see the good moments, and when
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: there are cameras, you don't want people to see the
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: bad moments. And I think it's true. It's not good
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: or bad. It's messy. It's just real. And it's the
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: same way we view people. I don't think people are
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: good or bad. I think people are everything in between.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: And when the camera's on you, people go from not
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: seeing you at all to seeing all of you, and
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: that is good. It is bad, it is messy, it
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: is everything in between. And I think one of the
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: biggest changes in my life since the Olympics is having
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: to come to terms with the fact that I don't
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: always have a say now on when the cameras are
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: on me and my life that was so private and
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: so personal for so long no longer is, And knowing
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: that the authenticity that I always wanted to be seen
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: for I'm now seen for. But it includes the good
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: and the bad, and so yeah, I think it's not good,
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: it's not bad, it's everything in between.
• 59:15
  Speaker 3: How's the pressure now after winning that Olympic goal. Do
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: you feel like it's different when you show up to
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: a competition.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: Yes, But I think the biggest thing is that there's
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: just more media on me, but people don't always that
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: doesn't cerrely mean they know me any better. And so,
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: you know, one example, going into the Tour de France,
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: I was really sick, and I think people had all
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: these cameras on me, and they saw me struggling, and
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: they saw me crying, they saw me not feeling well.
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: And yet you know, there's things that cameras see and
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: the things that cameras don't see. And the week before
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: the tour when I was really struggling and I was
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: sick and I wasn't sure if I should race, and
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: the contemplating, and there's just more scrutiny on me, but
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: that doesn't necessarily mean people understand me better. And so
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: it's been difficult for me to go from being unknown
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: to widely known, and yet the ability to share my
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: story and myself hasn't fully caught up with that media attention,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: you know, so I still feel like there's a lot
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: of parts in me that people don't know. And how
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: can I build And I think building my brand sounds
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: like a very political thing to say, like a very
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: social media influencer, but it's like, how do I share
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: myself with the world? And because that takes time, right,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: and yet I haven't had much time since the Olympics,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: and so there's cameras on me without I haven't I
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: want to publish a book. I haven't published a book
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: about my story. I haven't. You know, There's only so
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: much I can share in this short time frame. The
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: biggest hurdle is just sometimes you can feel widely known
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: but misunderstood at the same time.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: What do you want them to know?
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: I know that there's a lot and we could talk
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: about it forever, but if you had to really pinpoint
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: what it is that you want people to know about you,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: your heart, your character, what would you say that is?
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: I think I want people to know who I am
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: off the bike, you know, and not just what my
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: resume says, like, yes, I'm this Harvard grad who worked
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: in finance and won Togle Medals, but like the things
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: that that's part of what I see when I look
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: in the mirror. But I also see someone who's very
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: compassionate and who's very fun loving, and who likes to
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: crack jokes, and I'm very sweet and playful with my friends.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: And I love the outdoors and I have a sarcastic
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: sense of humor, and I love to grow my own vegetables,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: and like, I want to be a farmer one day,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: and like, those are the kinds of things that I
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: sometimes feel. I don't feel offended that people only know
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: me for my accomplishments, but sometimes the hard part about
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: being in the public eye is that you're known for
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: the things that don't necessarily make you you to the
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: people who love you most.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I'm down to garden at some point if
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: you want to do that together. Although I'll admit, being
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: a fourteen year resident of New York, I don't necessarily
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: have a green thumb myself. But your Alaska background should
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: help us both because.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: Sar with tomatoes, they're pretty low maintenance.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: Perfect, perfect.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm so glad that we have the opportunity to
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: sit down together today.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: It's been such a long time coming.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: Right now, Kristin, you have an opportunity to offer yourself
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: a piece of advice. I want to go back to
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 3: when you made that difficult decision to walk away from
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: your full.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: Time job in finance and uproot to Europe.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: yourself during that hurdle moment?
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: Trust your gut. I think we all really deeply know
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: what we want in life and what we need, and
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: it's really really hard to turn off the noise around us,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: the expectations around us, and sometimes we need to really
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: ask ourselves how we feel about something like how does
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: this idea make me feel? And I wish we spent
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: more time sitting with our feelings Like this sounds sounds
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: the lame, but like I wish we spent more time
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: learning how to listen to our bodies and to our
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: feelings and use that to guide us. And I think
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: for me, I always knew what I wanted, but I
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: struggled to come to terms with it and accept it.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: And you know, in in terms of leaving my job,
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: it took me years to fully come to that acceptance
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: of what I wanted.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: I couldn't agree more.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: I could have definitely used a class on thinking about
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: my feelings a lot more than I could have used
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: a class on statistics at Yukon. And again, I'm just
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: so happy that we have this chance to sit down
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: and yeah for a bit, Kristin.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: For those that.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: Aren't following along with you just yet, where do they
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: get to know more about you on the internets?
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 2: Give me the details.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: You can find me on Instagram. I'm Arctic Fox A
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: R C T C F A U O K S.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: I'm over at Emily Body and at Hurdle Podcast. Another
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: Hurdle conquered. Catch you guys next time.