Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Kara Goucher - Olympian & Author | Exposing Nike’s Dark Side (Oregon Project)

Transcript

Kara Goucher - Olympian & Author | Exposing Nike’s Dark Side (Oregon Project) · Success Story with Scott Clary

• 0:00
  Your goals and your dreams are so big and so important.
• 0:04
  You don't get anything for going to the Olympics.
• 0:06
  The Olympics are for your love of your country and the pride of yourself.
• 0:09
  We were gonna have everything you could possibly need to be successful.
• 0:12
  Everything's about getting every little advantage.
• 0:15
  The next group of women or girls won't take this shit.
• 0:19
  They'll know, no, we don't have to deal with that.
• 0:21
  I don't have to be treated like that.
• 0:23
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• 0:26
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• 0:27
  The thing that made me important and the thing that made me special,
• 0:30
  I can't even do that anymore.
• 0:32
  I'm nothing now.
• 0:33
  I think most people are a lot stronger than they think.
• 0:37
  I remember telling Adam, I'm worried I'm going to find out I'm not as good as I hoped I was.
• 0:43
  Welcome to Success Story. I'm your host, Scott Clary.
• 0:47
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  I'll see you in Boston.
• 1:51
  Cara, I appreciate you coming on.
• 1:55
  Thank you so much.
• 1:56
  I'm excited to go into this.
• 1:58
  I'm excited to talk about your entire journey,
• 2:01
  a lot of great things, a lot of not-so-great things,
• 2:04
  so we'll go into everything and just sort of like,
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  I just want to have like the sort of like the raw,
• 2:09
  unvarnished account of like your life really,
• 2:12
  because it's a really interesting story.
• 2:14
  But you wrote a book.
• 2:15
  You wrote a book about your life and I was listening,
• 2:18
  as I always do it to some podcasts before we jumped on.
• 2:22
  And I was interested in the fact that you said
• 2:25
  that you were very nervous about writing this book.
• 2:28
  And a lot of the stuff that you wrote about
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  and that's happened to you, and you speak about,
• 2:33
  it's not like it's that recent.
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  Like there's been some years removed
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  from when a lot of this stuff happened.
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  So talk to me about like why nerves
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  when you're writing a book and putting yourself out there
• 2:44
  speaking about this kind of topic,
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  especially when people would assume like,
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  okay, so it's happened, it was difficult,
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  but like it's happened in the past, you've moved on.
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  This stuff I guess really stays with you.
• 2:57
  Yeah, and I think a lot of it too is that
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  there were some details I was going to share in the book.
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  I kind of had this, this just mindset of I share all
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  or I don't share, because it's kind of like you never managed to that.
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  It's interesting now because isn't like your thought process
• 3:13
  about writing this book and worrying about judgment.
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  I feel like that's the reason why some really shitty behavior
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  does not get brought to light because of that exact thought process.
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  And people that do not have the influence that you have
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  and do not have the resume that you have.
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  I mean, you even had a little bit of self-doubt
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  about writing this book.
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  Can you imagine that's somebody who did not have the career that you had?
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  Trying to speak about people they've dealt with.
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  I mean, there's a lot.
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  There's a lot that happens you over your career.
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  Obviously not everybody is involved in like a massive drug scandal,
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  but there's other parts to it.
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  There's parts about sexual harassment.
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  There's parts about how you're treated as a woman.
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  These are things that are, I think, a little bit more universally applicable
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  and these are things that I mean, there's no need to feel shame about this stuff,
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  but I mean, you just intuitively did.
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  And I just want to say before we even start,
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  like I think it's really admirable
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  that you did put yourself out there.
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  And I just want to say thanks for writing this because
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  the more people to speak up, especially people that have influence,
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  I mean, the better it is for any woman who's
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  trying to just do their thing, kill it, high performance,
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  pushing boundaries,
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  working in fields that were traditionally dominated by men or whatever would have you.
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  So it's really admirable.
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  But I'm curious, now that you look back and you've written it,
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  what was the outcome, positive, negative,
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  but not just like the, I'm sure the public received it well,
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  but like in your personal life,
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  were you surprised by some reactions in a good way, in a bad way?
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  Yeah, I mean, for myself, it was extremely healing,
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  and which surprised me a little bit.
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  Like I woke up the morning, it came out,
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  and there was a piece on Good Morning America.
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  We had filmed ahead of time.
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  I didn't watch that.
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  I just went for a run.
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  I came back.
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  I was so nervous the night before,
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  but then as the day went on,
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  I just felt so much more at peace.
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  And I think especially over the last year,
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  I really just felt lighter and lighter.
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  Like I had been carrying around a lot of shame,
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  and a lot of just things that I was embarrassed about.
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  And it just has no control over me anymore.
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  Like I kind of put it out there,
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  and now it's lost the control.
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  So I think that surprised me how healing it was.
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  And then I think all of the people that reached out
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  and continued to who have been in similar situations,
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  like no, maybe they're not trying to do in the bus,
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  but something happened at work,
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  or something happened at school.
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  And that's been surprising the numbers of people
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  that have reached out, I think.
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  It's been a little hard to hear.
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  It's scary to think about that.
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  It's really scary.
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  Yeah.
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  And honestly, in the first couple of months
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  of the book's publication,
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  I kind of had to stop receiving any sort of communication
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  with people because I was getting really overwhelmed.
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  I didn't even feel bad saying that,
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  but I felt like I was taking out other people's trauma.
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  I'm much more removed from it now,
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  but I was surprised and saddened to be totally honest
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  that so many people could relate to this story
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  and the worst parts of this story.
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  But again, as you were saying earlier,
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  that was the whole reason that it had to be in there.
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  I mean, when I was in my height
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  of my running career as on every recover
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  of every running magazine,
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  I was being paid a lot for a runner.
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  I was the face of running in the newspapers all the time.
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  I looked like I had this perfect life.
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  I was in every advertisement.
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  And yet these things happened to me.
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  And so if they could happen to me,
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  they can't happen to anyone.
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  And that was really important to me.
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  Do you ever wonder, do you ever wonder
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  because when you're dealing with running was your work.
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  So when you're dealing with trauma
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  in a professional environment and your work,
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  performance is never at 100%.
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  And I know that sports psychology is very real.
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  So to the tune of like, I'm sure at the level
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  that you were operating at, you saw teams and athletes
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  always aligning with psychologists
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  to sort of optimize performance.
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  And it means a lot when a team
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  that is not optimized mentally will not perform
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  at the level regardless of their skills,
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  it is a team that is or an athlete that it.
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  But when you think back, do you think that your career
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  was even jeopardized to some extent by like the shit
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  that you were going through?
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  Like if you thought, where could I have gone with this
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  if I was basically like free of all this stress
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  and all this negativity?
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  You know, at the time and even while writing the book,
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  I didn't think about that.
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  I thought I was such a great compartmentalizer.
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  I think it started because my dad died when I was little
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  and I was really good at putting away anything that hurt
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  and not like if it doesn't serve me,
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  then I'm not going to address it.
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  I'm not going to feel it.
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  But I will say that after the book came out,
• 8:12
  a reporter wrote a story about it and said,
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  you know, it makes me think what she could have done
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  had she not been dealing with all this.
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  And that actually made me a little sad
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  because I had never given myself the grace to consider
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  that, you know, I was in the top program in the world
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  running for the biggest company in the world.
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  It's a sporting company in the world.
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  And all I ever saw was there were of course bad things
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  but I also had so many opportunities.
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  And so I never thought about it from that perspective
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  and it did make me feel a little sad.
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  I do think, wow, you know, at the height of my career
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  at the peak ages of my performance,
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  I was dealing with so much stress on a daily basis.
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  And perhaps I could have performed better
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  if I hadn't had all that other stuff going on.
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  Yeah, no, I just think it's, again,
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  it's important that you put this out there
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  because you think of the opportunity that,
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  like an environment like this could rob from somebody
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  that didn't, I mean, it's always interesting
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  how life sets us up.
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  And, you know, whether or not it's death of a parent
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  or it's a really hard upbringing,
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  it forces us to be a certain kind of person.
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  And maybe if you didn't have those traumatic events
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  that are really on in your life,
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  maybe like this negative environment
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  would have sidetracked you so much
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  that you actually wouldn't have been able
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  to perform at the level that you performed at.
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  It's, everything, it's life is weird.
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  Life is very strange.
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  Maybe if I hadn't been shoving aside my emotions
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  since I was a child, I wouldn't have been able to do it
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  in my late 20s and early 30s, you know,
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  but unfortunately, unfortunately,
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  however, when you look at it,
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  that's a skill set I was really good at.
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  But you think about like now when you put this out
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  into the world, and when you sort of talk about it,
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  when you bring it to life,
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  and you think about all the potential opportunities
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  that you're allowing for a younger generation
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  who align with the right team, right coach,
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  right environment, especially when they're younger.
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  And you hopefully that, you know,
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  if people act right and understand the duty of care
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  for a young athlete as a coach
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  or as a trainer, whatever, as a professional,
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  you hope you can enable opportunities
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  and post it maybe, you know, shed light on a bad organization
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  that could basically destroy someone's entire career.
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  If they ever, you know, replicated what happened to you
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  to a younger runner, younger athlete
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  that wasn't as mentally strong,
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  it's just, it's just very sad because you see it a lot
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  with, I don't know why you see it so much
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  with athletes and coaches.
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  I don't really understand it,
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  but like I've heard your story,
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  you hear a lot of stories of like trainers, coaches,
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  abusing and taking advantage to a degree of young athletes
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  to various degrees.
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  I come from a hockey background.
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  I can't remember the name of the coach,
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  but I think he was Theo Flurry who was abused
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  by a coach or trainer when he was younger.
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  Maybe I'm getting the athlete wrong,
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  but again, the point is, it happens a lot,
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  which is pretty effed up.
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  I think I don't know why either.
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  Obviously it's something about the dynamic of,
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  you know, your coaches, especially when you are extremely driven
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  at, when you're an extremely driven athlete
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  because they feel that your coach becomes the gatekeeper
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  to your dreams.
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  So, you know, you're willing to sort of like
• 11:28
  sidestep certain things and accept certain things
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  because you're so driven on this dream that you have,
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  that you're kind of willing to put up with a lot of things
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  that you absolutely should not.
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  And I don't know why coaches end up in that position.
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  Like how did they,
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  it was a, it was a gymnastics coach that,
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  so it was, he was the Larry Nassar,
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  but he was the, the like therapist.
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  He was the manual, so yeah, he wasn't an actual coach,
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  but he was like a really, he was a really bad guy.
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  He was a very, very, very bad guy, yeah.
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  He assaulted like hundreds of women,
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  I believe, between the Michigan and even with the US national team.
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  So, you know, and again, like you think about that case,
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  hundreds of women and it took so long for him
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  to be called to town.
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  Right?
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  Like how, it doesn't make any sense.
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  Like you have all these women,
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  you have all their parents, all their own support systems.
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  And still for some reason nobody wants to throw this guy
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  under the bus, even though he's a piece of shit.
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  And I'm sure people knew for years.
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  Yeah, but, but the athletes think,
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  well, everybody else is coming through here.
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  And everybody who's good,
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  everybody goes on to the Olympics comes through this guy
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  and they're not saying anything.
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  And I just think, you know, I think these things,
• 12:42
  I mean, he is an extreme example, obviously.
• 12:45
  But that's all this stuff happens, right?
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  Like you, you're so, your goals in your dreams
• 12:51
  are so big and so important.
• 12:53
  And you start to compromise on your own personal.
• 12:57
  I don't even know what the word is,
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  but things that you would allow to happen to yourself
• 13:00
  because you're like, well, they're doing it.
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  It's almost like your morals.
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  It's like you compromise on your own morals as a person.
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  It's just disgusting.
• 13:10
  I want to go through your story first
• 13:11
  and we'll get into.
• 13:12
  So we're sort of fast tracking a little bit
• 13:16
  because there's a lot of parts to your story.
• 13:19
  So let's start with where you started.
• 13:23
  So you were a late bloomer as a runner.
• 13:26
  So maybe you can just give me like a synopsis
• 13:29
  of sort of your upbringing.
• 13:31
  I mean, you just mentioned your dad passed.
• 13:34
  What prompted you to get into running?
• 13:37
  Yeah, so my dad passed away.
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  We can form my fourth birthday
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  and actually lived on the East Coast.
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  I was born in New York City.
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  And when my dad died, we moved to
• 13:46
  a totally different cultural city, Duluth, Minnesota.
• 13:51
  Completely different.
• 13:53
  Where are my mom's parents lived?
• 13:54
  And my sister was six.
• 13:56
  I was four and then I had a six week old sister.
• 13:59
  So my mom was just needed help.
• 14:02
  So we moved in with her parents for a little bit,
• 14:04
  got a house in Duluth and I grew up in Duluth.
• 14:07
  And my grandpa was a lifelong runner.
• 14:10
  What's super interesting to me is that he wasn't a racer.
• 14:13
  He was at a competitive runner.
• 14:15
  He ran before like seeing, running was for mental health
• 14:18
  or exercise helped your mental health.
• 14:19
  Like before that was a thing that anyone would say.
• 14:21
  He ran and he used to tell me,
• 14:23
  I just feel so much better.
• 14:24
  I just feel so much calmer.
• 14:26
  So anyway, he took me, I was very shy, very shy child.
• 14:31
  And he took me to my first race.
• 14:33
  And he loved to tell this story
• 14:35
  about all these kids line up, some mile race,
• 14:37
  and some of them have their parents running with them.
• 14:39
  And I had my grandpa and they shoot the starter gun
• 14:42
  and I just fall so hard.
• 14:43
  And I get up and he can see that,
• 14:45
  like I'm leading bad from my knees and he thinks,
• 14:48
  oh my God, like I just ruined the sport for her.
• 14:51
  And I shocked him by saying they're getting away from us
• 14:53
  and he had no idea that I was competitive, anything like that.
• 14:57
  And so that's how it kind of started.
• 14:58
  And I mean, I don't even know what place I got.
• 15:00
  It was nowhere near the front.
• 15:01
  But his pride in me that I finished made me want to run again.
• 15:05
  And so he wasn't really serious.
• 15:08
  He was just something I would do with my grandpa
• 15:10
  a few times a year.
• 15:12
  I grew up, you know, I'm from Northern Minnesota.
• 15:15
  So we figure skated, I danced, I skied all of the thing.
• 15:19
  And then when I was in middle school,
• 15:20
  was the first time I went up for organized running.
• 15:22
  And it was the first sport I ever,
• 15:24
  I mean, I've played every sport.
• 15:26
  I'm telling you, like I hadn't had like
• 15:27
  private lessons in every sport.
• 15:29
  Because my mom remarried someone who was very, very sporty.
• 15:33
  But it was the first time when I ran for the organized team
• 15:35
  that I could just run, right?
• 15:37
  Like I didn't have to think about how the rack
• 15:38
  it was at my hand or how I was doing my blade
• 15:42
  or how where I was going to strike the soccer ball.
• 15:44
  Like I had to think about those things while I was playing
• 15:47
  or how my pole was planted.
• 15:48
  Like I could just run.
• 15:49
  And so I fell in love with it pretty quickly.
• 15:52
  And then I ran throughout high school.
• 15:55
  It was pretty good.
• 15:56
  Want some state titles and made the nationals twice
• 16:00
  as a high schooler.
• 16:01
  And then I went on to the University of Colorado
• 16:03
  on a very small scholarship.
• 16:05
  I struggled with my running for a while.
• 16:07
  I'm five, eight now.
• 16:08
  I, you know, when I started running,
• 16:09
  I wasn't even five feet tall.
• 16:11
  So my body changed.
• 16:13
  And my first couple of years at Colorado,
• 16:16
  I was very, like also ran,
• 16:20
  not really noteworthy at all.
• 16:22
  But by the time I was a senior,
• 16:24
  I won three national title.
• 16:26
  And I really had bought into,
• 16:28
  I could be one of the best the United States
• 16:29
  and maybe even in the world if I had the opportunity
• 16:32
  to keep pursuing it.
• 16:33
  So you were like by all accounts as an athlete,
• 16:35
  like a relatively late bloomer, right?
• 16:37
  Yeah, and definitely professional sense
• 16:39
  because I graduated at 22.
• 16:41
  And then for the next four years,
• 16:42
  I just couldn't stay healthy.
• 16:44
  I had a string of stress fractures
• 16:46
  at a hard time even qualifying for the national meet.
• 16:49
  Look at what I'm thinking about going to the Olympics.
• 16:50
  Like I was barely getting into the national meet.
• 16:53
  So yeah, I was, you know, I was in my late 20s
• 16:57
  when I finally started to stay healthy
• 16:58
  and things really started to click.
• 17:00
  Was there, was there just a very quick aside,
• 17:04
  like a training strategy or something
• 17:07
  that you were doing incorrectly
• 17:09
  that you sort of pivoted into
• 17:10
  that allowed you to stay healthy,
• 17:12
  compete at a higher level.
• 17:13
  I'm just curious because if you're repeatedly getting injured
• 17:16
  as an athlete, like diet or training
• 17:19
  or something's off completely.
• 17:21
  Yeah, I think I hadn't bought into being a full-time athlete,
• 17:25
  right?
• 17:26
  Even though I had my Nike contract,
• 17:27
  I would go, my husband also, he's an Olympian
• 17:30
  and he also runs and he and I would go to practice
• 17:34
  in the morning and we'd run really, really hard
• 17:36
  and then we'd come home and hang out and play games
• 17:42
  and then maybe we'd go for a second run
• 17:43
  and then we'd be working on the house
• 17:45
  like finishing the basement
• 17:46
  and we weren't thinking about it as like,
• 17:49
  workout, eat right, nap, weight room, second workout, nap.
• 17:53
  You know, like we just didn't think about it like that
• 17:55
  and it really wasn't until 2000, the end of 2004
• 17:59
  when we moved out to Oregon to join this Nike Yorgan project.
• 18:02
  I mean, our lives were turned upside down
• 18:04
  because that was the first time we had been
• 18:05
  in a truly professional setting.
• 18:07
  I remember we had been there for two weeks
• 18:08
  and I was like, I'm so tired.
• 18:10
  I don't know if I can ever run again.
• 18:13
  You know, because we had training and we had drills.
• 18:15
  It's a lot.
• 18:16
  Yeah, we, they felt lovable.
• 18:17
  Then we'd get a massage and we'd go home and take a nap
• 18:19
  then we meet again in the afternoon and run again
• 18:21
  and we had just never done that
• 18:23
  but also included in that team.
• 18:26
  I got to see ART therapists once a week.
• 18:28
  Massage therapists once a week.
• 18:30
  I was getting all this body work
• 18:31
  and helping me stay ahead of my weaknesses
• 18:34
  and also I really realized as I got older,
• 18:37
  I'm just a more muscular runner than a lot of other runners
• 18:41
  and like really leaning into the way room
• 18:43
  and really leaning into strength training
• 18:45
  really helped me stay healthy.
• 18:48
  When, and this is actually after,
• 18:50
  so you said you already had your first Nike contract.
• 18:53
  Like I'm just wondering what it's gonna take
• 18:54
  to get you at this point to realize
• 18:56
  that you're actually good at what you're doing
• 18:57
  when you're getting a Nike contract.
• 18:59
  I mean, I'm so lucky I got that first contract in.
• 19:03
  I think it was because I had run,
• 19:05
  one, three titles in college and I'd won by a lot
• 19:07
  and so it looked like, wow,
• 19:09
  she finally stayed healthy for a couple of years
• 19:11
  and looked what she did.
• 19:12
  What could she do if she could say healthy for longer?
• 19:14
  But I signed that Nike contract
• 19:15
  and immediately had to have like knee surgery, you know?
• 19:18
  It was like,
• 19:19
  I'm sure they love that.
• 19:20
  Yeah, and honestly, like if my husband hadn't been still running,
• 19:24
  I don't know that I would have stuck with it
• 19:26
  because it just kept breaking my heart.
• 19:28
  I had dreams of going to the Olympics.
• 19:29
  I had dreams of like really being somebody
• 19:32
  and here I was like barely even qualified
• 19:34
  for the national meet and not even think
• 19:36
  about moving on beyond the national meet.
• 19:38
  So I definitely had moments where I was like,
• 19:40
  I don't know what I'm doing.
• 19:42
  I had applied for a postgraduate scholarship
• 19:44
  and gotten it and passed on it.
• 19:46
  This is like, I used to be somebody
• 19:48
  but my husband was still living the life day after day
• 19:51
  and so that helped me stay in it
• 19:54
  and seeing his successes like, okay,
• 19:55
  I do still wanna do this.
• 19:57
  I love that.
• 19:58
  I think that's, I mean, first of all,
• 20:00
  it's like two very obvious cliche lessons
• 20:03
  like your partner is important
• 20:04
  and then also like nothing is an overnight success.
• 20:07
  Like these are a cliche,
• 20:08
  so just everyone,
• 20:09
  it doesn't matter what you've accomplished,
• 20:11
  it's so, so true.
• 20:12
  So you made your first Olympic team at 29.
• 20:17
  Literally days before I turned 30.
• 20:20
  Okay, so like I was basically 30.
• 20:22
  I turned 30 like four days after, yeah.
• 20:25
  And that's very,
• 20:26
  I don't mean that's very old, right?
• 20:28
  For an Olympic athlete, yeah.
• 20:31
  I mean, just to be fair,
• 20:32
  women's distance running is getting older.
• 20:34
  Like we're more peaky.
• 20:36
  I don't know the age.
• 20:37
  I don't know the age group.
• 20:38
  So you, not like gymnastics,
• 20:39
  but it was, I had never made a team before
• 20:42
  and usually in your 30s,
• 20:44
  you're making your second or a third team.
• 20:46
  So it was late, but it's not unheard of, yeah.
• 20:49
  No, I mean, you did it, you did it successfully.
• 20:52
  So, okay, so obviously that is like peak achievement
• 20:57
  for a runner.
• 20:57
  That's when your career is like,
• 20:59
  I guess starting more or less,
• 21:01
  because that's when you start to get exposure,
• 21:02
  that's when you're starting to compete internationally.
• 21:04
  I'm assuming that's when sponsors start to make
• 21:06
  notice of you as well,
• 21:07
  because I mean, as a runner,
• 21:10
  there's no league, there's no money really
• 21:12
  until it's sponsor money.
• 21:14
  I don't like, and then Olympics are in,
• 21:16
  like they are for like amateurs.
• 21:19
  That's what Olympics are for.
• 21:20
  They're not meant to be for professionals, right?
• 21:22
  That's the, yeah, they're not meant to be for like,
• 21:25
  hey, so actually you don't get anything
• 21:27
  for going to the Olympics.
• 21:28
  And in fact, no, I didn't know that.
• 21:32
  And even if you went to medal,
• 21:33
  you don't get anything from the IOC,
• 21:35
  the International Olympic Committee.
• 21:37
  You might get something from your sponsor,
• 21:38
  you might have a bonus structure built in,
• 21:40
  but like you don't get anything
• 21:41
  because you're supposed to love it
• 21:42
  and you're supposed to be doing it for your country.
• 21:44
  I will say World Athletics,
• 21:45
  which is the head of track and field,
• 21:47
  they announced this year that they will be giving $50,000
• 21:50
  to every gold medalist in track and field this year.
• 21:53
  And it's been met with, it's been controversial
• 21:57
  because some people say you should be paying them more
• 21:59
  and some people are saying you should be paying them at all.
• 22:01
  Like the Olympics are for your love of your country
• 22:04
  and the pride of yourself.
• 22:05
  So it's been not as close a controversy,
• 22:07
  but they're the only first time that people get paid for it.
• 22:10
  That's really interesting.
• 22:11
  So that's new.
• 22:12
  So again, my background's hoggy.
• 22:13
  So the only reason I know about the professional
• 22:15
  versus amateurs is because I remember growing up,
• 22:18
  there's certain NHL athletes
• 22:20
  that couldn't compete in the Olympics.
• 22:22
  I think they were still in the playoffs
• 22:23
  and they were still getting paid.
• 22:25
  So it wasn't off season.
• 22:26
  So they weren't, they weren't able to qualify.
• 22:28
  I think that was the rule that I sort of learned about this.
• 22:31
  So you're not supposed to be getting paid as an athlete
• 22:34
  if you're competing in the Olympics
• 22:35
  by some sort of like organization or body.
• 22:38
  But now you're saying that's changed.
• 22:40
  Things are changed.
• 22:41
  Obviously, like when the dream team
• 22:42
  happened in basketball, like, yeah.
• 22:44
  It's not the same pure thing that it once was,
• 22:47
  but that still is the overall consensus.
• 22:49
  Like you can, your gold medal,
• 22:51
  you still get paid in other ways
• 22:53
  because you do appearances and you get contracts,
• 22:56
  but the Olympic community does not pay you
• 22:57
  and they still don't.
• 22:59
  So yeah, this is the first track and field
• 23:02
  is the first time that their governing body
• 23:04
  is going to be paying people for their medals.
• 23:07
  And like I said, seems like that,
• 23:09
  oh, yeah, that makes sense.
• 23:10
  It makes a ton of sense.
• 23:12
  It actually, so again, I only,
• 23:15
  sort of remotely follow like college sports
• 23:19
  and like what Olympic athletes make.
• 23:22
  And I know that a lot of them don't make a lot of money at all.
• 23:24
  But it always seems silly that they didn't get paid.
• 23:26
  It always seems silly that college athletes couldn't get paid
• 23:29
  because it always felt like we're not talking
• 23:32
  about your specific story where athletes
• 23:34
  were actually taking advantage of.
• 23:35
  But it always felt like all athletes
• 23:38
  were taking advantage of to some degree
• 23:39
  because they're the ones that are bringing the eyeballs.
• 23:42
  They're the ones that are training.
• 23:44
  Like they're the ones that are actually putting in the work.
• 23:46
  Yet they're the only people that don't get paid.
• 23:49
  Everyone else gets paid.
• 23:51
  I think that's blatantly obvious
• 23:52
  on the money maker sports, on football and basketball, right?
• 23:56
  Like they, I mean, for run,
• 23:57
  like contract and field and cross country,
• 23:59
  we rely on the football team success for our budget, right?
• 24:03
  So, but, but people are paying and buying jerseys
• 24:07
  and all this stuff for these other sport.
• 24:09
  And they're not getting anything, you know?
• 24:11
  So, I mean, that is changing, which is good.
• 24:15
  So, talk to me about when you joined the Nike Oregon project.
• 24:20
  And then, I guess you met Alberto Salazar.
• 24:23
  That was in 2004, correct?
• 24:25
  Yep, is that the end of 2004 is after the Olympics
• 24:28
  because he had been over there with one of his athletes.
• 24:30
  And my husband and I, we were in Colorado
• 24:33
  and we were just, we just weren't running well.
• 24:35
  He had made the 2000 Olympic team
• 24:37
  and he won the Olympic trials in 2000.
• 24:40
  And in 2004, we made it to the trials,
• 24:42
  but we both got knocked out in the first round.
• 24:43
  We didn't even make the final.
• 24:45
  And I had been seven, you know, four years earlier
• 24:47
  and he had been first.
• 24:48
  And so, we just said, what are we doing?
• 24:51
  Like, we only have so much time left in the sport,
• 24:53
  we really need to look around.
• 24:54
  So, we started talking to some coaches
• 24:56
  and then Nike said, you guys should really come out
• 24:58
  and visit with Alberto, check out the Nike Oregon project.
• 25:02
  So, when he got back from the Athens Olympics,
• 25:06
  he closed out there.
• 25:07
  And I mean, it was just, like as I mentioned earlier,
• 25:09
  it was professionalized sport.
• 25:12
  Yeah, it was like, you know, we were living
• 25:14
  in superior Colorado because we couldn't afford a house
• 25:16
  in Boulder and we were driving to the college
• 25:19
  to meet our college coach to train
• 25:21
  even though he's a college coach,
• 25:22
  which we love him, by the way,
• 25:23
  still have a great relationship with him
• 25:24
  and he actually coached me at the end of my career again.
• 25:27
  But now we're going on the Nike campus, you know,
• 25:30
  you're training in the Lance Armstrong Center.
• 25:32
  We're running on the Ronaldo field,
• 25:33
  but all of these things, it's a different level.
• 25:36
  It's totally different, right?
• 25:38
  Underwater treadmills, ultra G treadmills,
• 25:40
  access to, if my shin is sore,
• 25:42
  I don't have to fill out a form
• 25:44
  and get the Olympic, you know,
• 25:45
  get the Olympic training center to approve me to come.
• 25:48
  I'm seeing, I'm getting in that day for an MRI, right?
• 25:51
  It was just so different and it would be,
• 25:56
  and Alberto was like, don't sell your house,
• 25:58
  come for six months, if you hate it, you can go back.
• 26:01
  And we were just sort of like, we would be crazy
• 26:04
  to pass up this opportunity.
• 26:05
  Because everything, I mean, like when you're looking at it
• 26:07
  outside in, yeah, like how could Nike screw anything up?
• 26:12
  It's Nike.
• 26:13
  Like Nike must have vetted the best of the best.
• 26:15
  They invested all the money.
• 26:17
  Like anybody who's working with Nike,
• 26:18
  this is not like some no name trainer.
• 26:21
  Not like an upstart, Fanny, you know?
• 26:24
  But I guess I was Larry Nasser, right?
• 26:25
  He was also like a very notable name,
• 26:28
  like the good one.
• 26:29
  He can see him, yeah, he's like, I can fix you, right?
• 26:32
  But yeah, I do remember saying the only thing
• 26:34
  that scared me about going there was that
• 26:36
  we were going to have everything you could possibly
• 26:38
  need to be successful.
• 26:40
  And I remember telling Adam, I'm worried I'm going to find out
• 26:43
  I'm not as good as I hoped I was.
• 26:45
  Like that's how I knew if we went there
• 26:48
  and I couldn't do it, I just couldn't do it.
• 26:51
  I just wasn't that good.
• 26:52
  So right off the bat, you're already, you're like mentally
• 26:58
  you're saying, I'm sort of like trusting this guy's expertise.
• 27:03
  I'm going to trust what you're trusting whatever he does
• 27:05
  at this point because you're just like basically saying,
• 27:07
  I'm submitting myself to him in his training program.
• 27:10
  And whatever he says, he knows better than me.
• 27:13
  He's worked with better athletes and me.
• 27:15
  Okay, I see there's a power dynamic.
• 27:17
  It's not healthy.
• 27:18
  Right off the bat.
• 27:19
  It was a men's only team.
• 27:20
  We were actually heard of there because of my husband.
• 27:23
  And I was sort of like a consolation, like Alberto said.
• 27:26
  He wanted to coach Adam and he's like, but I'll also coach you.
• 27:29
  You know, and he said, I coach high school boys.
• 27:31
  That's about similar level.
• 27:32
  And it did not hurt my feeling.
• 27:34
  I was like, okay, I wanted the opportunity.
• 27:37
  I was like, this is the best program in the world.
• 27:40
  I get to be the first woman to ever be here.
• 27:42
  Like I'm in.
• 27:43
  I want to be a part of this so bad.
• 27:45
  So yeah, I mean, we both felt so lucky.
• 27:49
  And we literally a few weeks later,
• 27:52
  we were driving out to Oregon from Colorado.
• 27:55
  Where did Alberto come from?
• 27:58
  Like where did he come from?
• 27:59
  He's actually born in Cuba,
• 28:00
  but he moved to the United States really young.
• 28:03
  I think before he was two, I didn't mean like literally where he was.
• 28:06
  I meant like where'd he come from professionally?
• 28:08
  Like where did Nike find him from?
• 28:10
  Well, so he grew up on the East Coast
• 28:11
  and he was an extremely good high school runner.
• 28:14
  And then he ended up going to the University of Oregon
• 28:17
  where he won a bunch of titles.
• 28:19
  And he came in right after Steve Prifantane,
• 28:22
  who died in a car accident.
• 28:24
  And so, and you know, Nike, a lot of Nike is based off of pre.
• 28:28
  Like a lot of the ethos and their biggest track
• 28:31
  mean is the p-funting classic.
• 28:33
  And when Alberto was coming through Oregon,
• 28:35
  they were sort of desperate for another pre.
• 28:37
  And he kind of fit the very different personalities,
• 28:39
  but he fit the mold of like kind of being brash
• 28:41
  and being very successful.
• 28:43
  And then he ran the marathon and he won New York City
• 28:47
  three years in a row and he won Boston.
• 28:50
  And he just seemed to be this God.
• 28:52
  I mean, there, until recently,
• 28:53
  there was an Alberto Salazar building on the Nike campus.
• 28:56
  So he was just like the next great American distance runner.
• 29:00
  And Nike is built out of running.
• 29:03
  I mean, Bill Barramann and Phil Knight were runners.
• 29:05
  So that's how, and he went to the Evo,
• 29:08
  which is where they were and that's how.
• 29:10
  So everything was kind of a lining.
• 29:12
  It was like, it made sense, okay.
• 29:14
  So, it's a project Oregon for people that are not part
• 29:18
  of this world was really built around Alberto Salazar.
• 29:20
  Like that was, that was, yeah.
• 29:23
  His idea, he saw the Boston marathon.
• 29:25
  And there was one American in the top 10.
• 29:27
  And everyone was going crazy and he was like,
• 29:29
  remember when we used to win this?
• 29:30
  Like this is crazy.
• 29:31
  And so he basically went, you know, he's very close with Phil Knight
• 29:35
  and he said, I want to start something.
• 29:36
  And I want to get American distance runners back on the podium.
• 29:39
  Originally, he was thinking more marathon,
• 29:41
  but as it progressed, he went to the track as well.
• 29:44
  And he got a huge budget and he just had to convince people
• 29:48
  that he was good coach because he hadn't been coaching.
• 29:51
  You know, he was his own entity and athlete
• 29:53
  and stature.
• 29:56
  Funny enough, it doesn't always translate.
• 29:58
  Yes, no, it doesn't, it doesn't.
• 30:00
  Send to the Oregon project had been around for four years
• 30:02
  before we got there.
• 30:04
  And he had definitely had had success.
• 30:06
  He put Dan Brown on the Olympic team in 2004
• 30:08
  and two different events.
• 30:09
  But I think the thing he saw in Adam and a little bit in me
• 30:12
  is that he hadn't had like an NCAA champion come there, right?
• 30:16
  He had had guys that were pretty, pretty good,
• 30:19
  but never like one necessarily.
• 30:21
  And so he was super excited about the opportunity
• 30:24
  to work, especially with Adam, someone that had made
• 30:27
  an Olympic team was obviously very talented,
• 30:29
  had won a national title in high school and college.
• 30:32
  And you know, after we got there,
• 30:36
  over the next two years, the Oregon project really became
• 30:39
  more and more and more serious and, you know,
• 30:42
  bigger name athlete coming in.
• 30:44
  So I mean, there was a point when you felt
• 30:48
  something was off with him.
• 30:50
  I'm curious, out of all the cohort of athletes,
• 30:56
  you know, outside of Adam and all the other people
• 30:58
  that you, you know, your husband and all the other people
• 31:00
  that you sort of communicated with and interacted
• 31:02
  with on a day-to-day, are you the first person
• 31:06
  that felt something was off or was,
• 31:09
  they're like whispers and rumors or was it like nothing?
• 31:12
  Did you feel like you were sort of shouting
• 31:14
  into a void that something was a little bit weird
• 31:16
  and uncomfortable?
• 31:18
  I mean, Adam and I both felt like things were
• 31:22
  a little off here and there.
• 31:24
  Just certain rules that he felt were stupid,
• 31:27
  you know, that bothered us a little bit,
• 31:29
  definitely bothered Adam a lot.
• 31:31
  The key felt like NCAA rules were stupid,
• 31:34
  just certain things.
• 31:35
  So there were a little things,
• 31:37
  but it's kind of like this.
• 31:38
  But NCAA rules is different than like predatory coach.
• 31:42
  Right, right, right.
• 31:43
  But that's the point is like we had a teammate
• 31:45
  that was in college and it would sort of like,
• 31:48
  you start to compromise your standards.
• 31:52
  So we compromise a little bit on the NCAA stuff, right?
• 31:55
  And then we compromise a little bit
• 31:56
  on how he treats this person.
• 31:57
  Then we compromise a little bit on that.
• 31:59
  And I think that's how it built over time.
• 32:02
  I didn't see the predatory behavior.
• 32:05
  I mean, looking back I did, but in those moments,
• 32:08
  I was just like, oh, I'm getting attention.
• 32:11
  Like Alberto cares about me right now.
• 32:13
  He's talking to me right now.
• 32:14
  And for someone who obviously has issues
• 32:20
  with wanting a male figure in their life to look up to
• 32:23
  and also just being such a driven athlete,
• 32:27
  it's just hard to describe, but it's like this slow burn.
• 32:30
  And when you look back, you can see how it was happening,
• 32:32
  but in the moment, you know, it went so far
• 32:35
  before I was like, oh my God, it can't be here anymore.
• 32:39
  I think that I think that someone's
• 32:43
  how we view someone and how others view people
• 32:48
  and their charisma and their accolades and their resume.
• 32:53
  It's like, it's a little bit intoxicating to a degree
• 32:56
  and you don't realize it's some shit
• 32:57
  that it just pretty fucked up.
• 32:59
  In intoxicating is the perfect word.
• 33:00
  I've actually done other interviews.
• 33:02
  It's like he is so charismatic.
• 33:04
  Like he charmed my family.
• 33:05
  And he's, look, not everyone's,
• 33:08
  people aren't all good and all bad.
• 33:09
  He's funny, he's smart.
• 33:11
  He's very engaging.
• 33:12
  He looks you straight in the eye when he meets you.
• 33:14
  He like really makes you feel like he's paying attention to you.
• 33:18
  And he's, he's famous worldwide.
• 33:21
  I mean, we were racing in Europe and we got into cab
• 33:23
  and the cab driver just started freaking out
• 33:25
  because Alberto Salazar was in his cab, right?
• 33:27
  Like you're living in this world.
• 33:29
  He has a building on the Nike campus.
• 33:30
  He's huge.
• 33:31
  And so you, you like the attention.
• 33:35
  Even if it makes you a little bit uncomfortable at times,
• 33:37
  it is a little bit intoxicating.
• 33:39
  You feel like, well, I'm, he's, he's singling me out
• 33:41
  out of all these people.
• 33:43
  And it just, it's sort of like a slippery slope.
• 33:46
  Because when I look at your story,
• 33:48
  there's, there's all these different pieces to it.
• 33:51
  And I could see that all this stuff
• 33:52
  happening at the same time.
• 33:54
  So we talk about the drugs and the doping
• 33:57
  and then there's a sports psychologist
• 33:58
  that comes into this Darren treasure.
• 34:00
  And then there was, I think, sexual advances on you as well.
• 34:04
  But I think you, at the time, you were like,
• 34:07
  you didn't, you didn't really realize how,
• 34:11
  how wrong those things were in the moment.
• 34:14
  And then I think there was,
• 34:15
  so I want to just understand sort of the environment
• 34:18
  that you're in because there's a lot happening
• 34:21
  at the same time.
• 34:22
  So it's not just sexual advances.
• 34:24
  It's not just authority figures
• 34:27
  that maybe aren't guiding you in the right direction.
• 34:29
  It's not just doping.
• 34:30
  And I think you've seen like syringes and stuff.
• 34:33
  Like it's a lot of shit happening at once.
• 34:36
  And I feel like for somebody who's just trying to like
• 34:39
  win at life and be a high performance person,
• 34:42
  this is a lot of distractions, a lot of stress.
• 34:44
  So I think you're just like, okay,
• 34:45
  I'm focusing on my North Star.
• 34:47
  I'm going there.
• 34:48
  And all this other shit, it's not quite right,
• 34:51
  but I don't want to let it jeopardize my life and my career.
• 34:57
  And this is like the, yeah, this is, go that sort.
• 34:59
  Yeah, I couldn't, I couldn't second guess
• 35:01
  the explanations I was given, right?
• 35:03
  If the syringes in the refrigerator are for allergy shots,
• 35:07
  that's what I got to go with.
• 35:07
  Cause if they're not, if I even think for a second,
• 35:10
  I don't know if that's true.
• 35:12
  What now I've completely compromised.
• 35:13
  I'm living here, the shots are in the fridge.
• 35:15
  Anybody could think they're used on, you know,
• 35:18
  same with like the, the dirty jokes
• 35:21
  and the talking to me about sexual stuff.
• 35:23
  I'm like, hey, I'm the only woman here.
• 35:25
  Don't be the prude.
• 35:26
  Don't get kicked out.
• 35:28
  Just just roll with it, laugh with it.
• 35:30
  Just don't, don't be that person, you know,
• 35:33
  and, you know, and we had this sports psychologist,
• 35:36
  and they were, and he is not a sports psychologist,
• 35:37
  but we were told he was.
• 35:39
  And they're working in the other also very sketch.
• 35:42
  And so it's just like again, again,
• 35:44
  I think it goes back to my childhood a lot of like,
• 35:48
  if there was an Olympic gold medal for compartmentalization,
• 35:50
  I am winning it, right?
• 35:52
  Like syringes has to be allergy shots.
• 35:54
  Cause otherwise everything I believe in
• 35:56
  and everyone I care about is a lie, put it over here.
• 35:58
  Yeah, I don't like it when Alberto talks to me like that,
• 36:00
  but he also calls my mom and tells me he loves me
• 36:02
  and says that he feels like he's a father figure.
• 36:04
  So I'm just gonna remember he's a father figure.
• 36:06
  So bad and comfortable stuff put it over here.
• 36:08
  And I just can't let anything else come in.
• 36:11
  And I'm running really well.
• 36:13
  And I'm, you know, I'm like, when did I start running
• 36:17
  really well when it came here?
• 36:20
  So I don't want to risk losing this
• 36:22
  cause this is the path to everything I've ever dreamt of.
• 36:26
  So maybe just help me understand like this timeline
• 36:31
  of your life with Alberto.
• 36:37
  And what was going on with,
• 36:39
  cause there's a couple people that are involved
• 36:41
  in this story.
• 36:43
  I've read that Dr. Jeffrey Brown was a doctor
• 36:47
  that all people were going to.
• 36:49
  There's a sports psychologist there in treasure.
• 36:51
  So can you maybe in your words just summarize
• 36:56
  all the different things that were happening
• 36:58
  that obviously you've written about in your book,
• 37:00
  this very, very, just a quick summary
• 37:04
  of all the different people and players
• 37:06
  that were taking part in what eventually you testified
• 37:11
  about this story.
• 37:12
  So just so people can wrap their heads around
• 37:14
  all the different things that were happening,
• 37:15
  all the different players.
• 37:16
  And it's actually wild because when you think
• 37:19
  about all the people involved,
• 37:21
  I think that most people would probably have
• 37:23
  the exact same reaction as you.
• 37:25
  Like there's so many, there's so many people
• 37:28
  that have been like signed off on that are part of basically
• 37:32
  this, I don't know, I don't want to call it like a,
• 37:35
  like a cult, but it's like a little bit of like a,
• 37:38
  whatever it is, a little bit of a cult.
• 37:40
  It's like how could, how could this,
• 37:43
  how could this be anything but legitimate
• 37:45
  and exactly what they say it is?
• 37:46
  Just walk, like walk everybody through
• 37:49
  sort of the, the few key players.
• 37:51
  Yeah, so obviously Alberto is the head coach
• 37:53
  and he is the super famous athlete that everyone loves.
• 37:57
  And then we have Darren Treasure
• 37:59
  who we were told was a sports psychologist.
• 38:01
  Turns out he is not a psychologist,
• 38:04
  doesn't even have a degree in psychology,
• 38:06
  but he, we had to meet with him twice a week.
• 38:09
  We had to tell him like our biggest fear
• 38:12
  is that first we were told everything was confidential,
• 38:14
  but then it would start to come out later.
• 38:16
  Like Alberto would say, why did you tell Darren,
• 38:18
  you were worried about that workout
• 38:19
  or why did you tell Darren you're,
• 38:21
  but you have to see him because they worked together
• 38:23
  and Alberto and Darren traveled together.
• 38:25
  In fact, when I would go to the starting line of arrays,
• 38:28
  I would talk to Alberto and give him a hug
• 38:30
  and then the last person that would talk to me would be Darren.
• 38:32
  Like it was so controlling.
• 38:34
  And then there's Dr. Jeffrey Brown
• 38:36
  because everyone on the team had an underactive thyroid,
• 38:42
  supposedly, right?
• 38:44
  So I had seen Dr. Jeffrey Brown recommended to me
• 38:47
  by the USATF, which is the United States
• 38:49
  Track and Field Association.
• 38:51
  And they, they recommended Dr. Brown
• 38:54
  as a like credible endocrinologist.
• 38:56
  He had actually been at one point associated with USATF.
• 39:00
  And I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism there.
• 39:03
  I took a low level of sinthroid,
• 39:05
  but all of a sudden all of my teammates
• 39:08
  are also going to see him.
• 39:10
  All of a sudden it was on payroll.
• 39:12
  He's on payroll comes to the Beijing Olympics with us.
• 39:16
  And you know, I do believe that people have underactive thyroid,
• 39:20
  but I'm starting to see like what are the odds
• 39:22
  that everybody on this team?
• 39:24
  And then there were some of us that were just on sinthroid,
• 39:26
  but then there were other people
• 39:27
  that were on different medications.
• 39:30
  Then there was another doctor.
• 39:31
  I don't want to say his name because he passed away.
• 39:33
  I didn't get to see him, which is interesting,
• 39:35
  but he prescribed inhalers.
• 39:37
  So most of the team was also on an inhaler.
• 39:40
  And so there's all these people
• 39:43
  that are a part of the team, right?
• 39:45
  And everything's about like everything's about
• 39:49
  getting every little advantage.
• 39:51
  I just want to take a second and thank the HubSpot podcast
• 39:53
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• 39:56
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• 39:58
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• 40:23
  And so these drugs, like just to clarify,
• 40:26
  what are these drugs?
• 40:27
  Okay, like people can read between the lines
• 40:29
  or obviously being used for performance enhancement
• 40:31
  to some degree, but I'm assuming that
• 40:33
  by the Olympics committee, if they're prescribed, they're okay.
• 40:36
  There's a great, right?
• 40:36
  So you can get an inhaler if you have a prescription for one,
• 40:39
  but it helps, obviously, it dilates your lungs.
• 40:42
  And it dilates all the little things
• 40:43
  and it helps you get more airflow.
• 40:45
  Thyroid is a little trickier
• 40:47
  because if you take too much and you don't need it,
• 40:50
  then your thyroid stops working,
• 40:52
  which is eventually what happened to me longterm.
• 40:54
  But then there are also medications
• 40:56
  in the endocrinology space that I was not prescribed,
• 40:58
  but that my teammates were something called
• 41:01
  side-a-mail that you would take right before you run,
• 41:03
  which is arguably a performance enhancer.
• 41:05
  So at this point, a lot of people would call this gray area
• 41:11
  because technically you can use an inhaler
• 41:13
  if you have a doctor's prescription
• 41:15
  or a flow vent, all these different allergy things.
• 41:18
  And technically you can take all these different medications
• 41:20
  if you have a thyroid condition,
• 41:22
  but this really is what we call now
• 41:24
  medicalization of the sport,
• 41:25
  using medicine to get advantages that you otherwise wouldn't have.
• 41:30
  I mean, what are the odds that everybody on this team
• 41:33
  had horrific allergies, horrific lung capacity,
• 41:36
  and thyroid condition?
• 41:38
  I mean, how would we all have gotten to this place?
• 41:42
  No, of course, it's ridiculous.
• 41:43
  It's ridiculous when, of course, but it's okay.
• 41:48
  So when was like the straw that broke the camel's back,
• 41:53
  when was like the moment between you and Adam,
• 41:56
  because obviously you're having conversations about this
• 41:58
  at this point, and you're probably back and forth saying,
• 42:01
  this is not normal, because you testifying,
• 42:06
  you testifying, it's probably pretty scary
• 42:10
  because I'm sure the thought,
• 42:12
  is this gonna totally blow up my entire career,
• 42:15
  crossed your mind, probably a lot, quite a bit,
• 42:19
  more than once, for sure.
• 42:20
  So what's that moment?
• 42:23
  I mean, honestly, it was a lot of little things
• 42:25
  like my coach had a prescription for Andregel,
• 42:27
  which is topical testosterone,
• 42:29
  and I started to, you know, I would live with him,
• 42:32
  Adam and I would live with him in a teammate
• 42:33
  when we would travel and it started to get real uncomfortable
• 42:35
  but I was around it, it would just be sitting out,
• 42:38
  and you know, you talk about blowing up,
• 42:40
  when I first, when I first went into Usada
• 42:43
  to tell them what I thought I knew or what I had seen,
• 42:46
  I was crying and I was like,
• 42:47
  I might have been doped and I don't know.
• 42:50
  Like I'm terrified that maybe he rubbed that on me,
• 42:53
  and anyway, long story short,
• 42:55
  I was able to get a hold of all my medical records
• 42:56
  that took a really long time,
• 42:58
  because people don't want me to have them,
• 42:59
  but they were able to look for patterns in my testosterone
• 43:02
  and thank God, it was totally good,
• 43:03
  but it wasn't with all my teammates.
• 43:06
  But anyway, but it was just building, right?
• 43:12
  All these things are building
• 43:13
  and we had gotten a new teammate,
• 43:15
  and Adam had left the team.
• 43:17
  He was basically just supporting me,
• 43:18
  like still running with me and around with the team,
• 43:20
  but he wasn't racing for the team anymore.
• 43:22
  And I had had my son,
• 43:23
  I mean, there was just so much building,
• 43:26
  and I was in Eugene, Adam meet, and Adam wasn't there,
• 43:30
  and I watched one of my teammates do something,
• 43:32
  and I called him and told him what I just saw,
• 43:35
  and he said, do you think they're cheating?
• 43:36
  I couldn't believe how quickly I just said, yes.
• 43:40
  I couldn't believe it.
• 43:41
  I had never admitted to anyone
• 43:43
  that I actually thought they were cheating.
• 43:44
  Like I had said, that's weird,
• 43:45
  or I don't understand that,
• 43:47
  or that doesn't make sense,
• 43:47
  but I had never said it.
• 43:49
  And that would have been probably in June,
• 43:52
  and then we still had,
• 43:54
  it was a world championship year,
• 43:56
  so it was like, okay,
• 43:57
  I just need to stay on the straight and narrow,
• 43:58
  get through the world championships,
• 43:59
  make the Olympic team next year,
• 44:01
  and then I can move on.
• 44:03
  Have you said publicly what that thing was,
• 44:05
  that prompted that reaction?
• 44:07
  The, that made me think you were cheating?
• 44:09
  Yeah.
• 44:11
  Yeah, yeah, this is one of my teammates,
• 44:13
  winning this 10,000, I just didn't believe it,
• 44:15
  I didn't believe what I saw at all.
• 44:17
  Oh, you didn't see them injecting something,
• 44:19
  you just saw the result, okay, okay, okay,
• 44:22
  I gotcha, gotcha, sorry, I understand.
• 44:24
  Yeah, and so,
• 44:25
  and then I started to look back at other things,
• 44:26
  like the way they were working out versus the way I was working out,
• 44:29
  I actually did talk to Alberto about that,
• 44:31
  and he kind of gas lit me and was like,
• 44:32
  well, you had a baby and you're a woman,
• 44:35
  and I'm like, okay, well, we've always trading the same,
• 44:37
  and you still have to recover whether a female or male.
• 44:41
  But I kind of was just like walking on eggshells,
• 44:43
  trying to get through the world championships,
• 44:45
  and the thing that finally broke me,
• 44:46
  which is pretty embarrassing,
• 44:47
  because you have to think,
• 44:49
  this has been building for years,
• 44:50
  I've actually been sexually assaulted by my coach
• 44:52
  by this point twice.
• 44:54
  Really?
• 44:55
  Oh, I didn't realize that.
• 44:56
  Oh shit, okay, that's another part of the story.
• 44:58
  So Alberto, actually sexually assaulted you?
• 45:01
  Yes, and, but I had convinced myself it was a mistake,
• 45:05
  but ever, anyway, we're on the plane,
• 45:07
  I've had it today goo,
• 45:09
  and I've left my husband and my child at home,
• 45:12
  and he came on to me,
• 45:14
  and it's kind of embarrassing,
• 45:16
  but that's what broke me,
• 45:17
  because everything else I could kind of compartmentalize,
• 45:21
  and I could kind of make an excuse for it,
• 45:24
  but this was just so blatant,
• 45:26
  and I just remember,
• 45:29
  I'm on this flight from Portland to Korea, South Korea,
• 45:34
  and I just went,
• 45:35
  or maybe I was to Tokyo for a second,
• 45:37
  but I just went in the bathroom and just started crying,
• 45:40
  and I was like, I can't do this anymore.
• 45:42
  And so as after the world championships,
• 45:44
  where I told my husband,
• 45:44
  I can't do this anymore, like, I cannot,
• 45:47
  and I hadn't told my husband about everything that had happened,
• 45:52
  and then I slowly started to open up to him,
• 45:55
  but it kind of sad that that's what made me leave
• 45:58
  and not all of the stuff before,
• 45:59
  but that was whatever, for whatever mental reason,
• 46:02
  that's what I just felt just so degraded, basically.
• 46:09
  This was supposed to be my father figure, you know?
• 46:12
  When you start to sort of speak up,
• 46:19
  I guess when you testify as well,
• 46:25
  what else starts to come out about him?
• 46:28
  You know, it's one of those things where like,
• 46:31
  once you finally remove yourself from the situation,
• 46:34
  and then you look back,
• 46:36
  you see how it was so different than you thought.
• 46:38
  Like, honestly, when you said it was like a cult,
• 46:40
  that's actually a great term,
• 46:41
  because we didn't question anything,
• 46:43
  I didn't question anything.
• 46:45
  When I got away from it,
• 46:47
  I mean, I had to go to therapy,
• 46:48
  I started to look at things and talk about things,
• 46:51
  and my family would be staring at me like this,
• 46:54
  with their eyes like that, saying,
• 46:55
  care, that is not normal, that is not.
• 46:58
  Yeah.
• 46:59
  All these events between an athlete and a coach,
• 47:01
  or the way people talk to each other,
• 47:04
  and it really wasn't undoing.
• 47:05
  Honestly, I ran well for a couple of years,
• 47:08
  I made another big team,
• 47:09
  and then I just kind of hit bottom,
• 47:12
  and it took me a couple of years of like,
• 47:13
  really working on myself and,
• 47:18
  I don't know, it's like,
• 47:20
  it's like reliving everything again,
• 47:23
  but with a pair of glasses on,
• 47:27
  and it's like you're angry at yourself and you're sad,
• 47:30
  and it says all these conflicting emotions,
• 47:32
  because you still, even with all the bad stuff,
• 47:35
  there's still good stuff,
• 47:36
  so you're still mourning not having these people
• 47:39
  in your life anymore, which is super weird,
• 47:41
  but you are still.
• 47:42
  But that's a definition of like,
• 47:44
  that's like a Stockholm syndrome,
• 47:47
  like these are like,
• 47:48
  these are, I don't know what this particular version
• 47:54
  is called, but like the narcissism and the gas lighting,
• 48:01
  it's only effective if you have a relationship
• 48:05
  with that person, right?
• 48:07
  And then they take advantage of that relationship,
• 48:09
  and I'm no expert on narcissism and gas lighting,
• 48:11
  but I think this is why people,
• 48:14
  to an extreme degree, stay in abusive relationships,
• 48:18
  because they always justify,
• 48:20
  well, it was just a one time thing.
• 48:23
  It was just, well, you know, it's not gonna happen again.
• 48:26
  Yeah, and I mean, that's how I got through it.
• 48:29
  I did it myself, it's a mistake,
• 48:31
  or he had had too much to drink,
• 48:33
  or whatever I would say, you know,
• 48:36
  to justify the behavior and then put it away,
• 48:39
  and you know, when it really started to unfold,
• 48:42
  and when I really started to deal with it,
• 48:44
  I was embarrassed, I remember calling my family
• 48:47
  and being like, I'm embarrassed,
• 48:48
  like these things happened to me,
• 48:50
  and I never told you, and I never told anyone,
• 48:53
  and you know, my mom and sister were horrified.
• 48:56
  So as my husband,
• 48:57
  telling my husband some of this stuff was,
• 48:59
  it was horrible.
• 49:01
  I've learned through therapy
• 49:03
  and meeting a lot of other people
• 49:04
  that that's actually totally normal,
• 49:06
  that you don't tell, and you just keep it to yourself,
• 49:08
  but yeah, I think you have to, right,
• 49:12
  to feel properly.
• 49:14
  Yes, totally, and I just think another thing,
• 49:17
  just that I want people to understand is,
• 49:19
  it's not like you see it for what it is,
• 49:21
  and then you're just totally over it, right?
• 49:23
  Like I said, I have spent seven years with these people,
• 49:27
  they were my entire world, you know,
• 49:29
  and they were the only people I hung out with.
• 49:31
  I've lived with them, I traveled with them,
• 49:32
  I trained with them on a daily basis, so,
• 49:35
  it was really hard, it was really hard to leave,
• 49:36
  and it was hard for a long time.
• 49:39
  Was, what was the, what was,
• 49:42
  you know, as you go through your healing process,
• 49:45
  you took a really strong stance,
• 49:47
  and you started to speak out,
• 49:48
  and I think that not only,
• 49:50
  that probably helped you heal to a degree,
• 49:53
  but I mean, then you start to,
• 49:55
  I love your perspective of,
• 49:58
  you'll never fully come to terms with what happened,
• 50:02
  but you have to reframe as to why you're speaking out
• 50:05
  about it, why it's not something to be embarrassed about,
• 50:08
  and I think that what you've done very well
• 50:10
  is you've realized that, at the end of the day,
• 50:11
  this happened to you, and it's horrific,
• 50:15
  but think of the potential of not speaking out,
• 50:20
  and not calling out this bullshit behavior,
• 50:23
  because then what's gonna happen to the next woman athlete
• 50:26
  that goes through this program, or whatever,
• 50:28
  because this, again, this is a wildly recognized program,
• 50:32
  this is something that was supposed to be the epitome
• 50:34
  of Nike, of performance,
• 50:37
  to tie it into the Olympics,
• 50:40
  tie it into professional running,
• 50:42
  so I think that you have to speak up.
• 50:44
  I think that you're doing a lot of people into service
• 50:46
  if you didn't, that's the way I feel at least, but.
• 50:50
  You can't swear for you in stuff I look at myself,
• 50:53
  and those times are very differently now,
• 50:54
  like I actually was surviving,
• 50:56
  you know, I was doing the best that I could,
• 50:58
  I could really was,
• 51:00
  but yes, honestly a big testifying against him
• 51:04
  on the dope inside was super hard,
• 51:07
  but testifying against him on the sexual assault stuff
• 51:09
  was way harder, and I almost didn't do it,
• 51:11
  I actually said I can't do it at first,
• 51:13
  but the reason I ended up doing it was that I have two nieces,
• 51:18
  they both run, and they just started to think like,
• 51:23
  they're being raised the same way I am,
• 51:25
  they to be kind, be respectful,
• 51:27
  appreciate your opportunities,
• 51:28
  which is how I raised my son too,
• 51:30
  and they could sign themselves in the same situation,
• 51:33
  and I could help stop that.
• 51:35
  You know what's really messed up?
• 51:37
  Like, this is not like we're having a conversation
• 51:40
  about something that happened a hundred years ago,
• 51:42
  we're having a conversation about something that happened,
• 51:46
  like he testified in 2021,
• 51:48
  which is less than three years ago.
• 51:52
  Yeah, this stuff happens, you know,
• 51:54
  and I think that's why I don't,
• 51:56
  I would never tell a survivor you have to talk about it,
• 51:59
  because everyone's on their own path,
• 52:01
  but if you can, I think you should,
• 52:03
  because the more that we talk about it,
• 52:04
  the more that we destigmatize it,
• 52:06
  and the more the next group of women, our girls,
• 52:11
  won't take this shit, if you wanna mute, they'll know.
• 52:15
  No, we don't have to deal with that.
• 52:17
  I don't have to be treated like that.
• 52:19
  The whole environment has to change
• 52:21
  because outside of sexual assault and harassment
• 52:25
  and misconduct outside of the doping,
• 52:28
  even the formal policies that Nike had
• 52:32
  towards treatment of pregnant athletes was okay.
• 52:36
  Well, there's no policy.
• 52:38
  Yeah, yeah, so policy is putting in nicely, right?
• 52:41
  So there was no policy.
• 52:42
  So you think about all these factors combined,
• 52:45
  the fact that you still sort of succeeded
• 52:47
  in spite of is very admirable.
• 52:50
  It's just phenomenal because all of this is almost like,
• 52:56
  it's all stacked against you.
• 52:57
  It's all stacked against you.
• 53:00
  So, super difficult sort of period of your life,
• 53:05
  and the testifying is very recent.
• 53:09
  What changes have been made to like walk me through
• 53:12
  even like the outcome of Alberto Salazar,
• 53:15
  Project Oregon, what happened with the testifying
• 53:18
  about the doping, what happened with the testifying
• 53:20
  of the sexual assault and abuse, what was the result?
• 53:24
  So the first hearing on the doping stuff
• 53:26
  was Usada versus Alberto Salazar and Dr. Jeffrey Brown.
• 53:30
  And I testified there for hours on both in both cases.
• 53:35
  They were handed down a four year,
• 53:37
  so it was held before the American Arbitration Association
• 53:40
  and they were both handed down a four year suspension
• 53:43
  in 2019, which they both immediately appealed,
• 53:47
  but he couldn't coach during that time.
• 53:50
  We had the appeal, I wanna say sometime in 2020
• 53:54
  where we all testified again.
• 53:57
  And this was in front of Cass,
• 53:59
  which is the court of arbitration to sport
• 54:01
  and they upheld the ban.
• 54:02
  So he served a four year ban from October 2019
• 54:07
  until his ban was lifted last year,
• 54:10
  but there was also the safe sport side.
• 54:13
  There was originally three people on the safe sport side
• 54:16
  that two other women that testified with me.
• 54:20
  And that the first hearing he wasn't there.
• 54:24
  We got to talk in private and he was banned for life.
• 54:29
  Then he appealed that decision as well.
• 54:31
  So we went in front of a judge and at that time,
• 54:34
  he had witnesses.
• 54:36
  I didn't have any, it wasn't me versus him.
• 54:39
  It was the safe sport versus Alberto Salazar.
• 54:43
  That testifying was honestly ranked,
• 54:45
  like probably the worst experience in my life.
• 54:48
  I was really living it.
• 54:49
  You were really living it and then you have his lawyer
• 54:52
  telling you a liar the whole time, second guessing it,
• 54:54
  making you describe it over and over again,
• 54:56
  then saying, well, you said it was this
• 54:57
  and now you're saying it's this
• 54:58
  and it just was a horrific experience.
• 55:01
  But that was in 2021
• 55:04
  and the lifetime ban was upheld.
• 55:07
  So safe sport only has jurisdiction
• 55:09
  in a Olympic level sport in the United States.
• 55:12
  So he could still coach at the NCAA.
• 55:14
  He could coach for another.
• 55:15
  Which is horrifying.
• 55:16
  Yeah, as I go, let's go put him in front of younger athletes now.
• 55:20
  Yeah, yeah.
• 55:22
  So the jurisdiction isn't great,
• 55:24
  but it does prevent him from coaching
• 55:27
  Olympic level professional athletes in the United States.
• 55:31
  And what happened that the safe sport
• 55:34
  is the sexual misconduct, correct?
• 55:37
  Okay, understood.
• 55:38
  Why do we not have rules that if you get barred
• 55:41
  from coaching because of sexual harassment or assault
• 55:44
  at an Olympic level,
• 55:46
  how are you ever able to coach anybody ever again?
• 55:49
  Because the NCAA hasn't joined safe sport.
• 55:52
  And so because of that,
• 55:54
  they're the only groups that have joined safe sport,
• 55:58
  which was decided by Congress
• 56:00
  and is funded by Congress.
• 56:02
  It's just that Olympic level sport
• 56:04
  and it was really formed after the Larry Nassar scandal.
• 56:08
  And there's a lot of people who both say to my face,
• 56:10
  well, I'd run for them.
• 56:12
  He's such a good coach.
• 56:13
  And then like, okay, you take that knife out of my back.
• 56:16
  Real quick.
• 56:18
  And I think that's really sad.
• 56:19
  I think it's really sad that people think,
• 56:22
  especially men like, well, I don't care
• 56:23
  because he wouldn't do that to me, you know, he's great coach.
• 56:27
  So maybe again, you know these details
• 56:30
  because you lived it.
• 56:31
  So I don't want to sound like overly simplifying.
• 56:33
  But like, why is the conversation
• 56:36
  whether or not he can coach NCAA
• 56:38
  and not why is he not in jail?
• 56:40
  Like I don't, I don't, it doesn't make any.
• 56:45
  Yeah, well, to be fair,
• 56:46
  I didn't bring any charges against him in that sense.
• 56:49
  Both of the incidents were in foreign countries.
• 56:52
  One was in Italy and the other one was in Portugal and Lisbon.
• 56:56
  And, you know, there was the statute had run out in Italy.
• 57:00
  It had not in Portugal.
• 57:02
  And I just felt like just doing that alone was so traumatizing.
• 57:08
  And really, my goal was not to ruin his life,
• 57:12
  was not to put him in jail.
• 57:14
  It was just to make sure he couldn't do this to another athlete.
• 57:17
  And that happened and I can live with that.
• 57:21
  Okay.
• 57:22
  I'm sorry for going so deep on all these,
• 57:25
  I find it just, I find it important
• 57:29
  to just walk through what happened
• 57:30
  because if even one person listens to this,
• 57:34
  that's going through something even remotely similar,
• 57:36
  I just want them to understand that like,
• 57:38
  he had the journey is not easy,
• 57:40
  but know that there's people that will support you
• 57:42
  and you'll come out on the other side.
• 57:43
  Okay, that's really what I'm trying to get at.
• 57:45
  But.
• 57:46
  It's really hard, you know,
• 57:48
  but it was definitely worth it on both counts.
• 57:50
  It was a lot of testifying, crying, a lot of stress.
• 57:54
  I have no doubt, it's like,
• 57:55
  I don't want to make you relive it at the third time right now.
• 58:00
  So let's sort of move on to where you're at right now
• 58:05
  because even before we started recording,
• 58:07
  we were talking about, you know,
• 58:09
  there's very casually like, okay,
• 58:10
  so there's all these doping issues in US sports.
• 58:14
  But this is that this is one incident.
• 58:18
  I don't think has there been anything significant
• 58:21
  a doping scandal since I haven't heard of one
• 58:25
  to the degree of what you've gone through.
• 58:28
  But then also in US sports is, you know,
• 58:30
  that's in terms of Olympics, that's one country.
• 58:33
  Then we talk about all these other countries
• 58:35
  and you just testified this week.
• 58:37
  I think about other countries that are,
• 58:39
  you know, not as regulated as a US by any means.
• 58:42
  And I'm just thinking this is going on in the US.
• 58:45
  I mean, like it's almost like comical to think
• 58:47
  that other countries would police their athletes
• 58:50
  more than the US if it's gonna be
• 58:53
  like an international competition
• 58:54
  where your country's reputation is on the line.
• 58:58
  Yeah.
• 58:59
  So I was the last couple days I was in DCE.
• 59:03
  I wasn't testifying.
• 59:04
  I was meeting with funders and congressmen asking them
• 59:07
  to support you, Sadda.
• 59:08
  So you saw it as the United States
• 59:10
  if I don't be an agency.
• 59:12
  And we, I'm on their board now.
• 59:15
  They're 10 member boards.
• 59:16
  So obviously I speak with a little bit of bias.
• 59:19
  But they do the most testing in the world.
• 59:23
  And they have the most robust testing program.
• 59:26
  And I think it's great because US athletes
• 59:29
  that are doing well, you can trust in them more
• 59:32
  than you can a lot of other athletes
• 59:33
  because they are being tested on a regular basis
• 59:35
  and they are being held to the highest standard.
• 59:37
  But you saw it is not the top, right?
• 59:40
  The top is WADA, which is a world anti-doping agency
• 59:43
  and we all answer to WADA.
• 59:45
  So every country has their own,
• 59:47
  what's called NATO,
• 59:48
  which is their national organization of dope,
• 59:51
  if I dope being.
• 59:52
  And what happened, what came out a couple of weeks ago
• 59:55
  was that there were 23 positives.
• 59:59
  I'm gonna try to say this is simply as possible.
• 1:00:01
  Sorry, we can totally get into the weeds on this if you want.
• 1:00:03
  But this drag TMZ.
• 1:00:05
  Yeah. TMZ is a new,
• 1:00:07
  I don't even know what the drug TMZ is.
• 1:00:09
  I just know of the celebrity news outlet.
• 1:00:11
  But, yeah.
• 1:00:14
  It's a manufacturer.
• 1:00:15
  It's not Climbuterol that could be found in meat.
• 1:00:17
  It is only made in a pill farming.
• 1:00:19
  It's 100%.
• 1:00:20
  If it is in your body, you took,
• 1:00:22
  it can't be contaminated through anything, right?
• 1:00:25
  It's not like that.
• 1:00:26
  You got to take a via pill, yes.
• 1:00:28
  So this drag became famous because Valiyeva,
• 1:00:30
  the young Russian figure skater at the Beijing Olympics,
• 1:00:32
  she had tested positive for it.
• 1:00:34
  First she said her grandfather had burped on her drink
• 1:00:37
  and her father had a prescription for it
• 1:00:40
  and then she changed it to,
• 1:00:41
  and she's a young teenager.
• 1:00:43
  So someone else is baking up the story
• 1:00:45
  and they changed it to,
• 1:00:46
  he had made her a strawberry dessert
• 1:00:48
  and he had spit up in that or whatever they said.
• 1:00:50
  Anyway, she ended up with a four-year band
• 1:00:52
  and it was really bad because she skated up the Olympics
• 1:00:54
  and she displaced people,
• 1:00:55
  but then the medals were re-awarded.
• 1:00:58
  Long story short, in 2021,
• 1:01:01
  there was a swimming competition in China
• 1:01:02
  that helped select their Olympic team.
• 1:01:05
  Remember the 2021 Olympics were deferred a year.
• 1:01:07
  So, you know, it's the Olympic year in 2021.
• 1:01:11
  They're having this competition,
• 1:01:12
  23 Chinese athletes test positive for TMZ.
• 1:01:16
  Now according to the rules of your underwater,
• 1:01:18
  would you have to be certified to compete in these events?
• 1:01:22
  If there's a positive test, it has to be reported.
• 1:01:24
  Whether you find no fault
• 1:01:26
  because sometimes there are no fault cases, right?
• 1:01:28
  Sometimes it is from the meat.
• 1:01:29
  I mean, it's very rare, but it does happen.
• 1:01:31
  But even if it's no fault,
• 1:01:33
  these have to be reported.
• 1:01:34
  And what happened was it wasn't reported.
• 1:01:40
  They had their own investigation three months after the fact
• 1:01:43
  and they said that they found traces of TMZ
• 1:01:46
  and the sink and events in the kitchen of the hotel
• 1:01:48
  where the athletes were staying.
• 1:01:51
  So, I just like few things here.
• 1:01:53
  This is a pill, right?
• 1:01:54
  It's not like in your cleaning supplies or anything like that.
• 1:01:58
  And then also, this is in during COVID.
• 1:02:00
  This is in 2021 in January where COVID things are high.
• 1:02:02
  So, you're going to tell me that they didn't clean the kitchen
• 1:02:04
  that two, three months later,
• 1:02:06
  they were able to find traces of this, whatever.
• 1:02:07
  It is what it is.
• 1:02:09
  13 of these athletes.
• 1:02:11
  23 now.
• 1:02:12
  Well, 23 positives.
• 1:02:13
  So, Shenata, which is their anti-doping agency,
• 1:02:16
  eventually reports it to Wata,
• 1:02:18
  saying this is a mass contamination case
• 1:02:19
  we're not going to hold a new one accountable.
• 1:02:21
  Wata says, sure, that makes sense.
• 1:02:23
  And nothing gets announced.
• 1:02:25
  13 of these athletes end up swimming in the Olympic.
• 1:02:28
  I think five or six of them end up winning medals
• 1:02:31
  at the Olympic Games.
• 1:02:33
  And no one knows.
• 1:02:35
  And so, there's whistleblowers that went to Wata
• 1:02:37
  and said, these athletes are using TMZ
• 1:02:41
  and it's been covered up.
• 1:02:42
  Wata doesn't do an investigation.
• 1:02:44
  So, finally, these whistleblowers start going to the media
• 1:02:47
  and they actually come to Usada as well.
• 1:02:49
  So, the New York Times spent a year and a half investigating this
• 1:02:54
  and finally blew up in this story the other day.
• 1:02:57
  It's crazy.
• 1:02:59
  Wata, if we can't trust Wata,
• 1:03:02
  our world, then what can we do?
• 1:03:04
  Like, who do we trust?
• 1:03:05
  So, US taxpayer dollars go to fund Wata.
• 1:03:09
  United States is the biggest funder of Wata.
• 1:03:11
  It's $4 million, you pay, it's sense for you,
• 1:03:13
  but you pay to fund this world anti-doping agency
• 1:03:17
  and they're not following their own rules.
• 1:03:19
  Other things that have come out in this
• 1:03:21
  is that the Chinese gave Wata an extra 1.9 million
• 1:03:25
  over what they're supposed to give,
• 1:03:28
  which that's not supposed to happen.
• 1:03:29
  You're not supposed to take any extra money
• 1:03:31
  because it's a conflict of interest
• 1:03:32
  and 500,000 of that was noted for investigative purposes.
• 1:03:36
  Also, another thing that's come out in the last couple of days.
• 1:03:40
  Another thing that's come out in the last couple of days
• 1:03:42
  is that there's this sportswear company in China.
• 1:03:45
  I think it's pronounced ANTA, it's ANTA.
• 1:03:48
  They outfit the Chinese Olympic Slim team.
• 1:03:52
  They outfit the Chinese Olympic team
• 1:03:54
  and they also have been paying Wata.
• 1:03:58
  So the conflicts of interest here are just so bad.
• 1:04:02
  Well, it's almost like, it sounds like
• 1:04:03
  it's all started with a really lazy scan.
• 1:04:08
  It's like, well, you know,
• 1:04:10
  it's a little suspicious if one person has TMZ,
• 1:04:13
  but if we just give everybody TMZ,
• 1:04:15
  they can't actually think that we did that on purpose.
• 1:04:18
  So they're just gonna forget.
• 1:04:20
  It's not even like an intellectually complicated plot.
• 1:04:26
  It's just like, no, I'll just give everyone TMZ
• 1:04:29
  and say it was an accident.
• 1:04:30
  Like, I'm sure they believe that.
• 1:04:31
  But then it's seeing at that hotel, right?
• 1:04:34
  So if everybody's eating the same food
• 1:04:36
  and everyone's contaminated,
• 1:04:37
  everyone's gonna test positive.
• 1:04:39
  And I think what's really hard moving forward
• 1:04:42
  is that first,
• 1:04:42
  China did not use the rules that are,
• 1:04:45
  that you have to use according to Wata.
• 1:04:46
  Wata didn't investigate it.
• 1:04:47
  They accepted the explanation.
• 1:04:49
  And just from the optics, it looks like, okay,
• 1:04:53
  so this was just months out from the Olympic game.
• 1:04:56
  Oh, the other point that is important to note
• 1:04:59
  is that the IOC, the International Olympic Committee,
• 1:05:01
  is 50% of the funding for Wata.
• 1:05:04
  So Wata doesn't necessarily want a big scandal
• 1:05:07
  on the eve of the Olympic Games.
• 1:05:08
  And then remember,
• 1:05:10
  just a few months later Beijing hosted the Winter Olympics.
• 1:05:14
  So just everything about it,
• 1:05:16
  like banning these Chinese athletes for the Olympics,
• 1:05:19
  when knowing that the next Olympics are being held
• 1:05:22
  in Beijing just months later because of COVID,
• 1:05:25
  it just, it's bad, but now athletes are pissed
• 1:05:29
  and not just in the United States, all over the world
• 1:05:31
  because if we can't trust Wata, what are we doing?
• 1:05:34
  So basically I was on the hill meeting
• 1:05:36
  with different senators and Congress people
• 1:05:38
  and just basically pleading our case
• 1:05:41
  to hold Wata accountable.
• 1:05:42
  Because right now,
• 1:05:43
  no one can actually hold Wata accountable.
• 1:05:45
  The only way we could maybe is by like,
• 1:05:47
  removing their funding,
• 1:05:48
  but we need Wata.
• 1:05:50
  We need,
• 1:05:51
  yeah, the United States can't be in charge of everything.
• 1:05:53
  That would be crazy and a huge conflict of interest.
• 1:05:56
  So we need a robust,
• 1:05:57
  trustable world anti-doping agency,
• 1:06:00
  but right now we do not have it.
• 1:06:03
  And the athletes aren't mad.
• 1:06:04
  Yeah.
• 1:06:05
  Well, I was gonna say who elects the leadership at Wata?
• 1:06:08
  So some of them are through the IOC.
• 1:06:10
  It's very, it's so complicated.
• 1:06:14
  The vice, the vice chair is someone from China.
• 1:06:17
  It's very political and that's part of the problem.
• 1:06:20
  And I don't know if you'll remember
• 1:06:21
  when the whole Russian,
• 1:06:22
  Russian doping scandal happened.
• 1:06:24
  So Chi and there was a movie about it called Icarus.
• 1:06:27
  So yeah, after that,
• 1:06:29
  it was like, how could this have happened?
• 1:06:30
  How could we have not known that they were swapping samples
• 1:06:34
  that they were covering up tests?
• 1:06:36
  And Wata said basically like, we don't have enough money.
• 1:06:39
  Like we don't have the jurisdiction to hold them accountable.
• 1:06:42
  We don't have the funding.
• 1:06:43
  We don't have an investigative team.
• 1:06:45
  And so after that in 2017,
• 1:06:47
  all of these people, Michael Phelps testified from people
• 1:06:51
  from other countries did and Wata was reformed.
• 1:06:54
  And so now they can hold countries accountable
• 1:06:56
  and they do have the funding.
• 1:06:58
  Their funding is huge.
• 1:07:00
  Their funding went up 52% between 2019 and 2023.
• 1:07:04
  And yet they didn't follow their own rules, right?
• 1:07:08
  So it's just this really bad situation.
• 1:07:12
  And I have a lot empathy for the athletes.
• 1:07:14
  Three of these athletes that won medals
• 1:07:17
  at the last Olympics have already qualified
• 1:07:19
  for the Parasol Olympics.
• 1:07:21
  Two more might as well.
• 1:07:22
  And athletes, I mean, obviously the swimmers are the most mad.
• 1:07:26
  They're like, so I have to go race this person
• 1:07:28
  who I know failed a drug test for the last Olympics
• 1:07:31
  and beat me.
• 1:07:32
  And now they're coming back.
• 1:07:33
  I mean, just imagine, you know,
• 1:07:35
  talking about having to compartmentalize
• 1:07:37
  and not like having to totally put that aside.
• 1:07:41
  So yeah, basically it's a huge disaster.
• 1:07:44
  It's really so it's almost like like so.
• 1:07:48
  There's doping issues globally.
• 1:07:50
  And this is just one that was really prevalent.
• 1:07:52
  Honestly, I hadn't been a whistleblower
• 1:07:54
  that blew it open.
• 1:07:55
  We wouldn't even know about it
• 1:07:56
  because it would have been just swept under the rug.
• 1:07:58
  It was swept under the rug.
• 1:07:59
  So you got to think about all these other countries.
• 1:08:02
  I'm curious if you still think that there's doping issues
• 1:08:05
  in the US with certain sports,
• 1:08:08
  but also with other countries.
• 1:08:09
  I mean, this was one whistleblower.
• 1:08:12
  So it's interesting because the US
• 1:08:14
  has the most testing facilities and the most testing.
• 1:08:17
  And still the US athletes still win.
• 1:08:21
  They're still, they're still, you know,
• 1:08:22
  they still do quite well.
• 1:08:26
  So if every US athlete was always losing,
• 1:08:30
  that would be a little bit of a red flag,
• 1:08:33
  but US athletes are still winning.
• 1:08:34
  And I don't think the doping is across all sports
• 1:08:38
  in the US.
• 1:08:38
  I'm sure some people try and get away with it or whatnot.
• 1:08:40
  But I think that the checks and balances and the rules
• 1:08:44
  make it probably a little bit difficult
• 1:08:46
  for a US athlete to dope as much as, you know,
• 1:08:50
  maybe a Chinese athlete or a Russian athlete
• 1:08:54
  or whatever, pick a country, it doesn't matter, right?
• 1:08:57
  But I am curious, like, just your take on,
• 1:09:00
  what's the fix?
• 1:09:02
  Because you have all these different countries
• 1:09:05
  that all operate with different infrastructure
• 1:09:07
  and different ideologies and different cultures
• 1:09:10
  and different everything.
• 1:09:14
  And I don't think, you know,
• 1:09:17
  every country operates from the same moral lens as the US.
• 1:09:21
  And even people within the US don't always pray
• 1:09:23
  from a great moral lens either.
• 1:09:25
  But I think it's harder when there's more regulation.
• 1:09:28
  But look, the US is not perfect.
• 1:09:30
  I know you're a hockey guy, so I was asking about this.
• 1:09:32
  I knew I was gonna be talking to you.
• 1:09:34
  So you can't be drug, like, you saw it,
• 1:09:36
  doesn't drug test for the NHL.
• 1:09:40
  For like, when they do the Winter Olympics and,
• 1:09:43
  oh, oh, for the, yeah.
• 1:09:44
  The actual NHL, like, they don't,
• 1:09:45
  they also don't test the NBA or football,
• 1:09:50
  which I can't think of right now.
• 1:09:51
  But hockey, so in hockey.
• 1:09:54
  Yeah, that felt you.
• 1:09:55
  Yeah, the NFL, the biggest one.
• 1:09:56
  But I like, that's the one I don't want.
• 1:09:58
  I was, I'm Canadian too.
• 1:10:00
  So I'm gonna get hate for this.
• 1:10:01
  But I like my sports hockey.
• 1:10:02
  So like, I'm coming, I just moved down.
• 1:10:04
  I just moved to the US and the love for football is beyond.
• 1:10:09
  Yeah, right.
• 1:10:10
  And I grew up in Northern Minnesota.
• 1:10:11
  So like, I get the hockey love, like, that was art.
• 1:10:13
  They even lost our professional team for a while
• 1:10:15
  because we're so obsessed with the high school hockey.
• 1:10:17
  And now we finally have wild again.
• 1:10:18
  But so I get it.
• 1:10:20
  But like, for instance, the National Hockey League,
• 1:10:22
  they have their own testing, but they can't be tested
• 1:10:25
  at the start of the playoffs until the first game
• 1:10:28
  of the season.
• 1:10:29
  So I'm sorry, what?
• 1:10:31
  Like, that's when the dopey would happen,
• 1:10:32
  recovering in the playoffs and then in the office
• 1:10:34
  and when you're training and getting ready.
• 1:10:36
  So I just want to be clear that we have problems
• 1:10:38
  in the United States and even for, even for sports
• 1:10:40
  that aren't so stupid, even for sports
• 1:10:43
  that are under use artist jurisdiction.
• 1:10:46
  Like, look, if you really want to get away with it
• 1:10:48
  and you're willing to take a lot of risks,
• 1:10:49
  you, you might be able to, like,
• 1:10:51
  you thought it has limitations.
• 1:10:52
  They can only test you from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.
• 1:10:55
  If you want a microdose in those other hours,
• 1:10:57
  but at least they have such a robust testing program
• 1:11:02
  that you got that you have to be on your toes.
• 1:11:03
  But that doesn't mean people won't dope.
• 1:11:06
  But what is the solution?
• 1:11:08
  It's so hard, but I believe the solution
• 1:11:10
  is everyone needs to be held at the same standard
• 1:11:13
  and it should be thousands and thousands
• 1:11:15
  of tests a year per country.
• 1:11:18
  And for instance, this whole Chinata situation,
• 1:11:21
  they didn't follow the rules,
• 1:11:22
  so there should be a then a sanction.
• 1:11:25
  I mean, I don't want the athletes to have to pay,
• 1:11:28
  but if we truly want clean sport,
• 1:11:30
  it's like what happened with the Russia scandal.
• 1:11:33
  Like, it was unfortunate that there were some clean
• 1:11:35
  Russian athletes, I'm sure, and they had,
• 1:11:37
  that they provided a way for them to be able to compete
• 1:11:39
  at least in track and field.
• 1:11:41
  Like, they had to prove it.
• 1:11:42
  They had to live outside the country.
• 1:11:44
  They had to be open to more testing.
• 1:11:45
  But what are we doing?
• 1:11:47
  Unless we actually hold these countries accountable
• 1:11:50
  and unless we actually have this standard that makes sense,
• 1:11:54
  it's just gonna be like this.
• 1:11:56
  It's never gonna be fixed.
• 1:11:57
  No, it's never gonna be fixed.
• 1:12:00
  So this is, you know, you speak on this now,
• 1:12:04
  you're speaking to senators,
• 1:12:05
  you're, you haven't testified on this yet.
• 1:12:07
  Maybe, maybe one day, maybe someday.
• 1:12:13
  But talk to me about, because outside of athletes,
• 1:12:16
  I think all high-performing people
• 1:12:18
  sort of succumb to this at some level,
• 1:12:21
  you exit your career in a relatively negative way.
• 1:12:25
  And even when people exit their career in a very positive way,
• 1:12:29
  something business person sells their company,
• 1:12:31
  they still have this identity crisis.
• 1:12:33
  I have what do I do now?
• 1:12:35
  So I can only imagine when you exit your career
• 1:12:38
  in a not-so-fun way,
• 1:12:40
  you must have some sort of identity crisis.
• 1:12:43
  And I want, I want you to help people
• 1:12:47
  who do have an identity crisis,
• 1:12:49
  because I mean, the level that the shit that happens to you,
• 1:12:54
  I hope that no one else has to go through,
• 1:12:56
  even though I know someone else will.
• 1:12:59
  But the mental forward to the you exhibit is phenomenal.
• 1:13:03
  And I just want people to understand like,
• 1:13:06
  how did you transition into a successful, happy, productive,
• 1:13:12
  sort of second-win second season to your life
• 1:13:15
  after going through all this shit,
• 1:13:17
  because I'm sure it wasn't easy.
• 1:13:19
  Yeah, I mean, look, no, I'm not like the poster child.
• 1:13:23
  I wanted to run at the 2016 Olympics.
• 1:13:26
  I thought that maybe to have another child after that would be
• 1:13:28
  like my glory, I'd, you know,
• 1:13:29
  run in the third Olympic Games and be done.
• 1:13:32
  The top three make it in the marathon at the trials.
• 1:13:34
  I was fourth, which led to literally three years
• 1:13:38
  of like questioning my value.
• 1:13:40
  What can I do, you know, I was running
• 1:13:42
  but really half-heartedly I kept getting injured,
• 1:13:44
  which I think was my body saying, you know,
• 1:13:46
  we all agreed you were going to be done after the Olympics.
• 1:13:49
  And I really struggled with,
• 1:13:50
  if I'm not making the Olympic team what value do I have?
• 1:13:53
  And honestly, in a weird way,
• 1:13:55
  turning 40 helped a lot because I just realized
• 1:13:58
  I was on the second side of life
• 1:14:00
  and I couldn't be worried about that anymore.
• 1:14:04
  But I think I was open to, you know,
• 1:14:06
  I struggled for a couple of years trying to make something happen
• 1:14:08
  so that I would know I was done.
• 1:14:11
  And look, you're like, you're trying to like say,
• 1:14:14
  like I just want, I don't want my body
• 1:14:16
  to be able to compete anymore.
• 1:14:17
  One more, I want to have one more good race
• 1:14:19
  and then I know, you know, and it just wouldn't happen
• 1:14:22
  every time I'd prepare, I'd get hurt or I'd run bad.
• 1:14:25
  But I understand it's so hard.
• 1:14:28
  And my husband went through this too.
• 1:14:30
  It's like you've had this, this pursuit for so long
• 1:14:33
  with blinders on almost.
• 1:14:34
  And the thing is in life a lot of times,
• 1:14:38
  things rarely end the way you want them to.
• 1:14:40
  And you have to be okay with that,
• 1:14:42
  but there is a whole other life after that.
• 1:14:44
  And I basically struggled for a couple of years
• 1:14:48
  really questioning who I was.
• 1:14:49
  And then I just sort of started paying attention
• 1:14:51
  to opportunities.
• 1:14:53
  And for me, I love running
• 1:14:54
  so things in the running industry.
• 1:14:56
  I eventually got hired by NBC.
• 1:14:58
  I'm the distance analyst for NBC now
• 1:15:00
  for all the Olympic games and the big track meet and stuff.
• 1:15:02
  And I love this side of my life.
• 1:15:04
  It's so fun and I get to still be in the sport
• 1:15:06
  and I get all of that knowledge that I learned along the way.
• 1:15:10
  I'm applying here on a totally different platform
• 1:15:12
  but I get to, I get to apply that.
• 1:15:14
  And so I totally understand the feeling of like,
• 1:15:19
  I'm nothing now.
• 1:15:20
  The thing that made me important
• 1:15:21
  and the thing that made me special,
• 1:15:23
  I can't even do that anymore.
• 1:15:25
  But that's actually not true.
• 1:15:27
  That's one thing that made you special
• 1:15:29
  and made you feel important.
• 1:15:31
  There are other sides to you.
• 1:15:32
  So it's just, it's acknowledging that it's a loss
• 1:15:35
  and it's sad and there's like a more eating period, I would say.
• 1:15:39
  But then realizing no one is one thing.
• 1:15:41
  That's just like no one person is just one thing
• 1:15:44
  and then really being open to what else do I have to offer
• 1:15:47
  and what else could I do and taking a risk?
• 1:15:50
  You know, I never ever wanted to be on TV.
• 1:15:51
  That was nothing that ever, ever interested me.
• 1:15:55
  When NBC first asked me to audition, I told them no
• 1:15:57
  and my husband said, you're good at it.
• 1:15:59
  You was like, just do it.
• 1:15:59
  It's an experience and it's something on your resume, you know?
• 1:16:03
  It's ended up being a career that I have absolutely loved.
• 1:16:05
  So I think just being open to changing
• 1:16:08
  and knowing that you are more than that one thing
• 1:16:11
  that you shined at.
• 1:16:13
  You know, you went through so many tough periods
• 1:16:17
  but when you fast forward,
• 1:16:19
  there's a lot of good lessons that you've learned
• 1:16:21
  from all the different things that you've gone through.
• 1:16:23
  And I would love to hear a lesson that you've learned
• 1:16:27
  for yourself, but also maybe just a lesson for a young athlete
• 1:16:31
  that you wish somebody would have told you
• 1:16:33
  when you were first starting out.
• 1:16:37
  I mean, I think one thing I wish I would have realized
• 1:16:38
  when I was younger is that success doesn't happen overnight.
• 1:16:42
  And I mean, you mentioned that earlier,
• 1:16:43
  but it's it, it especially now this day,
• 1:16:46
  you do like social media and everything.
• 1:16:48
  You feel like everyone just is crushing it right away.
• 1:16:51
  But the reality is if I was talking to a young athlete,
• 1:16:54
  I'd say I hit my peak in my in my mid 30s,
• 1:16:57
  my early to mid 30s.
• 1:16:58
  And when I was 15 killing myself because I didn't PR,
• 1:17:01
  I couldn't have imagined that I'd be doing it
• 1:17:03
  for another 20 years, you know?
• 1:17:05
  And so just have to do something.
• 1:17:07
  Yeah, and just know that life is a long journey.
• 1:17:11
  And I know we all want success right away,
• 1:17:12
  but good things take time and it takes practice
• 1:17:16
  and it takes loving and it takes working at it.
• 1:17:18
  So I wish someone had told me that when it was younger
• 1:17:20
  because I felt like everything hinged
• 1:17:21
  on every race that I was running.
• 1:17:25
  I think one of the things I've learned about myself
• 1:17:26
  is when I think most people are
• 1:17:29
  because trust me, I'm not that strong,
• 1:17:31
  but I'm just so much stronger than I thought it was.
• 1:17:34
  You know, I've been able to weather a lot of storms
• 1:17:37
  and yeah, some of them are really hard,
• 1:17:39
  but they've made me smarter
• 1:17:41
  and they've made me more complete and more sure of who I am.
• 1:17:44
  And I think most people are a lot stronger than they think.
• 1:17:48
  You hear people say, oh, if that happened to me,
• 1:17:49
  that would kill me.
• 1:17:51
  And it really doesn't.
• 1:17:52
  And as long as you can work your way through it,
• 1:17:54
  you're actually better on the other side.
• 1:17:56
  I know it sounds so cheesy, but it's true.
• 1:17:58
  It's so true.
• 1:17:59
  It's so, so true.
• 1:18:01
  I mean, you also, if I'm not mistaken,
• 1:18:04
  there was a neurological order runner's dystonia.
• 1:18:10
  I have no idea what that means, by the way,
• 1:18:12
  so maybe explain because all I understand
• 1:18:15
  is that it limits how you can run.
• 1:18:16
  Is this a physical or is it a neurological means
• 1:18:20
  it involves your mind or brain to some capacity?
• 1:18:23
  Yeah, okay, so it's not just like a physical purely,
• 1:18:26
  so there's a brain condition of some sort
• 1:18:28
  that limits how much you can run.
• 1:18:31
  And I want you to also just speak about
• 1:18:32
  how that's impacted you, but also just thinking back
• 1:18:35
  of all the bullshit that you dealt with.
• 1:18:38
  Like this is, yeah, difficult,
• 1:18:43
  but you've dealt with more difficult shit.
• 1:18:46
  You've dealt with a harder situation
• 1:18:48
  that ultimately, when you,
• 1:18:52
  life is again, we just spoke about this
• 1:18:54
  at the beginning, life is so strange how it works.
• 1:18:56
  Like everything that happens in your life
• 1:18:58
  is horrible as it can be,
• 1:19:00
  really does set you up for like the next chapter.
• 1:19:03
  And all the different things in your life
• 1:19:06
  that made you hard and made you able to persevere
• 1:19:09
  and injure, then when something like this happens,
• 1:19:13
  all of a sudden it's like, you know what?
• 1:19:15
  I figured out how to deal with like 200 other horrible things
• 1:19:20
  that have happened in my life.
• 1:19:21
  And at the same time, I've won 10,000 times,
• 1:19:25
  so I'll figure this out as well.
• 1:19:27
  I'm sure this is probably what allowed you
• 1:19:28
  to sort of tackle this with grace and not let it
• 1:19:32
  destroy you psychologically, mentally, physically.
• 1:19:36
  But as a runner, you can't run as much anymore.
• 1:19:40
  That's not easy.
• 1:19:41
  So what happened?
• 1:19:42
  Yeah, so I started falling when I was running
• 1:19:45
  and just having lack of sensation in my lower left leg.
• 1:19:48
  I started, and I fell into traffic
• 1:19:50
  and I finally realized like, I need to go to the doctor
• 1:19:53
  and it took a year to get the diagnosis
• 1:19:55
  because I had had MRIs and I had MRIs by brain
• 1:19:59
  and I had some lesions so they thought I had MS.
• 1:20:01
  And then long story short, I was finally diagnosed
• 1:20:04
  with repetitive movement, dystonia,
• 1:20:07
  which happens in musicians a lot or writers.
• 1:20:09
  It's a movement that you do again and again and again
• 1:20:12
  and they don't know why it happens.
• 1:20:14
  A lot of people have a bad fall before it.
• 1:20:16
  It happens and I did have a very bad fall,
• 1:20:19
  but I feel like the symptoms had started before that.
• 1:20:23
  But basically when my left leg swings through
• 1:20:27
  to land on the ground, instead of just the muscles needed
• 1:20:30
  to land on the ground and then push off firing,
• 1:20:32
  everything fires out once.
• 1:20:34
  And so I have no sensation that I've hit the ground
• 1:20:38
  that I'm pushing off the ground.
• 1:20:39
  You'll get this analogy because you're a hockey player.
• 1:20:42
  This is what I said to my doctor,
• 1:20:43
  the first time I went in, I said,
• 1:20:45
  it's like I'm on the most freshly zamboni diced
• 1:20:49
  and I have a slick shoe on and my foot comes down
• 1:20:52
  and I don't know that it's gonna,
• 1:20:55
  like it does not feel like.
• 1:20:55
  I know exactly, I know exactly the feeling.
• 1:20:58
  Oh, this is so many people and they just look at me
• 1:20:59
  with a blank face.
• 1:21:00
  And it's actually a horrifying feeling
• 1:21:02
  because you feel like you just don't have control
• 1:21:04
  of your body at that point
• 1:21:05
  because your foot is just not catching
• 1:21:07
  and it's doing whatever it wants.
• 1:21:09
  It is the,
• 1:21:10
  the only person that I've ever told that actually got it.
• 1:21:13
  So that's what it felt like
• 1:21:15
  and it's been really frustrating
• 1:21:18
  and I got a second opinion at the Mayo Clinic
• 1:21:20
  and they confirmed the diagnosis
• 1:21:22
  and the doctor there told me you just have to stop running
• 1:21:24
  because it can get really bad.
• 1:21:25
  It can affect your walking, which had happened.
• 1:21:27
  That's what ended when I ended up going to this
• 1:21:29
  specialist because I was having a hard time walking.
• 1:21:31
  But you know, my neurologist, she's amazing
• 1:21:35
  and she's like you used to run 135 miles a week,
• 1:21:37
  you used to run the Olympic marathon.
• 1:21:39
  Just don't listen to them when they say you can't do it.
• 1:21:43
  Let's figure out a way to find out what you can do.
• 1:21:46
  And I am so grateful for her shout out to Dr. Jill Olson.
• 1:21:48
  So I started going to PT.
• 1:21:50
  I started doing really intensive therapies.
• 1:21:55
  Just to figure out a way that I can still run a little bit.
• 1:21:57
  And basically, the things that work best for me
• 1:21:59
  is I do take a Parkinson's medication
• 1:22:01
  before I go run to help my muscles relax a little bit
• 1:22:04
  and not be so controlled by my brain
• 1:22:07
  and not my body.
• 1:22:09
  And then I also get Botox injections quarterly.
• 1:22:12
  So every three months in my lower leg.
• 1:22:15
  So that when my brain sends the signal
• 1:22:16
  for everything to fire, it just can't.
• 1:22:19
  Because it's been Botox, so it's been.
• 1:22:22
  And so I can't run the way I used to.
• 1:22:24
  I can't go run up in the mountains like I used to
• 1:22:26
  because I catch my foot really easily.
• 1:22:28
  I can't tell the clearance I'm making.
• 1:22:32
  But I'm still getting out there
• 1:22:33
  and setting goals that are different.
• 1:22:35
  Like I said, a goal a couple of weeks ago
• 1:22:36
  to run under my son's fastest 5K time.
• 1:22:39
  And I did it.
• 1:22:40
  And you know what, it felt pretty damn good.
• 1:22:43
  I love that.
• 1:22:45
  Totally different, you know, four minutes slower
• 1:22:47
  than I used to run in the 5K,
• 1:22:48
  but it still felt pretty awesome.
• 1:22:51
  I think that's how life is.
• 1:22:52
  Like you have to keep redefining your goals, right?
• 1:22:55
  And you have to keep redefining your goals.
• 1:22:57
  And who you are as a person cannot be static.
• 1:23:00
  It has to be fluid and it has to be evolving.
• 1:23:03
  And I think that it's because a lot of people
• 1:23:07
  have trouble even accomplishing that first milestone
• 1:23:10
  in life, like that first major success.
• 1:23:12
  A lot of people try to accomplish
• 1:23:13
  a first major success their whole life
• 1:23:15
  and never even get there.
• 1:23:16
  But when you do accomplish something that, you know,
• 1:23:19
  0.001% of the population accomplishes.
• 1:23:24
  And then you're like, okay, what do I do next?
• 1:23:28
  Because there's no playbook.
• 1:23:30
  There's no playbook for life after the Olympics.
• 1:23:32
  Are you kidding me?
• 1:23:34
  Like it's it's the top 1% or 0.01% for a reason
• 1:23:39
  because not a lot of people get there.
• 1:23:40
  But as a high performing person,
• 1:23:42
  like this is something that you will eventually hit
• 1:23:45
  because you'll perform at the top of whatever sport
• 1:23:48
  you're in, you will make more money
• 1:23:50
  than most of the people that you went to high school
• 1:23:52
  in university.
• 1:23:53
  Like doesn't matter what the thing is,
• 1:23:55
  you'll build a business bigger than all your friends
• 1:23:58
  that are still W2.
• 1:23:58
  It doesn't really matter.
• 1:24:00
  It's like you still have to make sure
• 1:24:01
  that you like take care of yourself.
• 1:24:03
  And you take care of like your future self.
• 1:24:05
  And I think that a lot of people lose their identity
• 1:24:06
  and they lose their purpose.
• 1:24:08
  And just because you're a high performing person
• 1:24:10
  does not mean you kill it in all other areas of life.
• 1:24:13
  You see a lot of broken relationships,
• 1:24:15
  a lot of people, I mean not from your world,
• 1:24:18
  from the business world, they lose their health
• 1:24:19
  and their wellness, both mental and physical
• 1:24:22
  because they just don't have identity anymore.
• 1:24:24
  Or they sacrifice their identity
• 1:24:25
  for the one thing that they know how to do.
• 1:24:28
  So it's I think it's an even stronger person
• 1:24:30
  that can not pivot, but like adjust gracefully
• 1:24:35
  as life goes on to like a new version of themselves
• 1:24:38
  and be happy and proud of that.
• 1:24:40
  There's many seasons of life.
• 1:24:42
  Like you don't, I don't want to be,
• 1:24:44
  I didn't want to be 40 and be dead.
• 1:24:46
  And be like, well, I compost everything.
• 1:24:49
  There's no point in living.
• 1:24:50
  There's nothing that's gonna bring me joy.
• 1:24:51
  It's like, no, I still have a lot.
• 1:24:53
  I still have more than half my life left.
• 1:24:54
  Like I need to reassess what it is that want.
• 1:24:57
  Yeah, yeah, right?
• 1:24:59
  Like I have a lot, lack going on.
• 1:25:01
  And but I understand that it's hard.
• 1:25:04
  But yes, like really redefining what success means
• 1:25:08
  and redefining what happiness means, it helps so much.
• 1:25:12
  What would be some words of advice
• 1:25:14
  just for a younger athlete
• 1:25:15
  when they're looking to get involved with a team
• 1:25:17
  or a coach or a mentor?
• 1:25:22
  Just what would be the one rule
• 1:25:25
  or the one sort of just thought or insight
• 1:25:27
  that you give to that person
• 1:25:28
  just so that hopefully they don't find themselves
• 1:25:30
  in the wrong, wrong space?
• 1:25:32
  I think it's important when you're looking
• 1:25:34
  for a coach or a mentor.
• 1:25:36
  Make sure there's someone associated with them
• 1:25:38
  that you can check in with
• 1:25:40
  that isn't gonna get back to that person, right?
• 1:25:42
  So maybe there's like just a liaison that talks to you
• 1:25:45
  or a teammate just someone
• 1:25:47
  because it's hard to know, especially when you're younger,
• 1:25:50
  is this the right fit for me?
• 1:25:51
  And you need to be able to bounce it off other someone else
• 1:25:53
  like a neutral party, even when you're in it.
• 1:25:56
  And make sure that yeah, you should stay, you know?
• 1:25:59
  For me, I had nowhere to go.
• 1:26:01
  Where was I gonna go?
• 1:26:03
  Everyone that I would have talked to about it
• 1:26:05
  was up the Nike chain all the way to feel night.
• 1:26:08
  So like, who am I gonna go to?
• 1:26:09
  So I really encourage people to make sure
• 1:26:11
  you have someone else that you can go to
• 1:26:14
  if you started to feel uncomfortable
• 1:26:16
  a question if it was the right place for you.
• 1:26:18
  Yeah, it can be like a sanity check, almost.
• 1:26:21
  Like I feel something's wrong.
• 1:26:23
  In partial third person, you know,
• 1:26:26
  third party is not involved in this.
• 1:26:28
  Is this normal that this is happening?
• 1:26:30
  And yeah, okay, that's good advice.
• 1:26:33
  Because I think this is an interesting dynamic
• 1:26:36
  between coach and athlete or agent
• 1:26:40
  and young like performer artist, actor, whatever.
• 1:26:44
  This is like a, it could be a,
• 1:26:46
  it's like the power dynamic is off.
• 1:26:48
  The power dynamic is always off, right?
• 1:26:50
  I mean, it happens in corporate too,
• 1:26:52
  but I just think that it's because in corporate,
• 1:26:58
  you're not, you're not looking for a mentor
• 1:27:01
  till you are of a certain age.
• 1:27:03
  Usually you're like 25, like I mean,
• 1:27:05
  it's not to say that predatory behavior doesn't exist,
• 1:27:08
  but I think that at least you have a little bit more
• 1:27:10
  understanding of how the world works
• 1:27:12
  and what should and what shouldn't happen.
• 1:27:14
  In sports, you're just so damn young,
• 1:27:17
  you have no idea what's going on.
• 1:27:19
  Like you really don't know what's going on.
• 1:27:21
  You really, it's like you're just assuming that
• 1:27:24
  whatever happens is this is the way it's supposed to be.
• 1:27:27
  And that's when people can take advantage, unfortunately.
• 1:27:32
  Okay, last thing that I always like to ask
• 1:27:34
  because we started this conversation
• 1:27:37
  talking about you're speaking about your book.
• 1:27:41
  When you look back at what you wrote
• 1:27:43
  and all the information you put out there
• 1:27:46
  and you sort of put some more information
• 1:27:50
  that you're slightly hesitant to put out there,
• 1:27:51
  was there something that you still wish
• 1:27:55
  that you put in the book that you didn't?
• 1:27:57
  That is good.
• 1:28:00
  Well, the original copy of the book was twice as long
• 1:28:03
  as it is and the editor like edited it down.
• 1:28:06
  So you had a good editor too.
• 1:28:07
  Yeah, yeah.
• 1:28:08
  So there's a lot of stories that I thought mattered,
• 1:28:10
  that he didn't think mattered.
• 1:28:12
  And so I would love if all of those little stories
• 1:28:15
  had been in there because I think it helps you see
• 1:28:17
  how I became who I am and what the tipping points were.
• 1:28:19
  And things like that, but I will say overall,
• 1:28:22
  he kept the stories that mattered the most.
• 1:28:25
  And is there one story that you thought was?
• 1:28:29
  I know people ask me that there's so many little stories, right?
• 1:28:32
  About it's okay if the book was fine.
• 1:28:34
  I'm just scared.
• 1:28:35
  No, I think there was nothing that when I read it,
• 1:28:38
  I was like, I really wish that had still stayed.
• 1:28:40
  I felt like it still told the complete story.
• 1:28:42
  And so no, I'm good with it.
• 1:28:45
  Good.
• 1:28:46
  You can do it another one, you'll do it another book.
• 1:28:48
  More stories, yeah.
• 1:28:50
  All right.
• 1:28:51
  So if people want to connect with you,
• 1:28:53
  where should they go?
• 1:28:54
  Where do you want them to?
• 1:28:56
  Obviously we'll put it in the show notes,
• 1:28:58
  like the link to the book, Amazon,
• 1:28:59
  wherever you can buy your books.
• 1:29:01
  Social, anything else?
• 1:29:03
  Yeah, you can follow me on Twitter and threads
• 1:29:06
  and Instagram at caregoucher.
• 1:29:09
  I do have a Facebook page,
• 1:29:10
  but I'll be honest, I never go there.
• 1:29:12
  But you can follow me there and see what I'm up to
• 1:29:14
  and there's ways on there to get a hold of me
• 1:29:16
  if you need to.
• 1:29:18
  Perfect.
• 1:29:19
  And then when we kind of cover this a little bit,
• 1:29:21
  but I just want to, I want to,
• 1:29:23
  I always like closing with this question.
• 1:29:26
  If you were going to go back and tell your 20-year-old self,
• 1:29:29
  one, one lesson, what would that lesson be?
• 1:29:33
  Honestly, it would just be something
• 1:29:34
  that I used to tell myself when I was younger
• 1:29:37
  and wasn't having the success that I saw other people having.
• 1:29:40
  And I would just tell her, be patient,
• 1:29:42
  let a line, you're gonna roar
• 1:29:43
  and just have the patience it's all gonna pay off.
• 1:29:46
  The end.