Latest / Adventure Sports Podcast / Ep. 1209: Extraordinary Nordic with Matthew Dougherty

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Ep. 1209: Extraordinary Nordic with Matthew Dougherty · Adventure Sports Podcast

0:06
[SPEAKER_00]: You're listening to the Adventure Sports podcast.
0:08
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk with adventures from around the globe to bring you the inspiration and motivation you need to get started in the outdoors or to keep you moving if you're already there.
0:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, here's your host, Kurt Lindville.
0:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, friends.
0:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for joining the Adventure Sports podcast today.
0:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I have coach Matthew Dordy with us, and he is the head coach for the Nordic and also Distance canoe racing.
0:31
[SPEAKER_01]: at a very special place.
0:34
[SPEAKER_01]: He's at Paul Smith's college and I don't know how many of you know what this place is.
0:38
[SPEAKER_01]: They have a documentary about Coach Matt and outdoor cats.
0:45
[SPEAKER_01]: That's actually I believe the name of the documentary and it explains so much about it.
0:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a very special place.
0:52
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all about endurance and adventure sports and we're going to dive into that.
0:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I watched the documentary already.
0:59
[SPEAKER_01]: and Matt Coaches, amazing college students, who are just killing it in Nordic competition, winning national titles, also competing internationally.
1:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And just an amazing opportunity.
1:15
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, I'm not going to take up time talking about it.
1:17
[SPEAKER_01]: When we have the man himself, Matt, welcome to the program.
1:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for having me.
1:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Excited.
1:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm glad to have you.
1:24
[SPEAKER_01]: This is cool.
1:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just saying before I hit record here, I've interviewed a couple of people that kind of headed up the outdoor sports sections at different universities.
1:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's always been a fantastic conversation, because these are people who not only do the thing, but they're just so skilled at helping others discover the outdoor sports, the adventure sports, the endurance sports, and
1:52
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, when you've had a career doing that sort of thing, it kind of puts you in a special place to encourage people in the outdoors, which is what the Adventure Sports podcast is all about, you know, just for context.
2:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's start with Paul Smith's College.
2:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Where is it located?
2:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Very unique place.
2:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Paul Smith's College is a unique place.
2:13
[SPEAKER_02]: We're in the heart of the Adirondic Mountains, which is in New York.
2:16
[SPEAKER_02]: The Adirondic Mountain, it's actually a park, and that park fits all the national parks of the U.S. inside of it.
2:22
[SPEAKER_02]: So a huge amount of land and Paul Smith's College is kind of at the heart of it.
2:26
[SPEAKER_02]: We're in the northern part of it, and we sit right on a lake called Lower St. Regis Lake.
2:31
[SPEAKER_02]: And you could actually paddle from our campus to New York City if you wanted.
2:34
[SPEAKER_02]: It's all connected waterways and we're, you know, 20 minutes from the high peak region, which is there's 46 mountains over 4,000 feet here in the Adorondex.
2:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're just really in the heart of this vast wilderness.
2:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, that's a special place.
2:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to say it this way because I have a Western bias.
2:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I apologize in advance, but a wilderness in New York is awesome.
2:59
[SPEAKER_01]: They have a place that unique, you know, that's cool.
3:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a, they had our index overall or just one of these incredibly unique places.
3:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And the fact that there's this college in the middle of it's truly special.
3:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, let's now find out who Matthew is, Matthew Doherty.
3:18
[SPEAKER_02]: So actually, I think from the earliest ages of my childhood, my family, my parents went to Paul Smith's college in the 70s, they graduated in 77, and then we moved back to New York City where they were both from.
3:29
[SPEAKER_02]: And somewhere around fourth grade, I was born, my sister was just born, and they decided to leave the city and they moved right back to the Adorondex, a little town called Serenic Lake.
3:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you just grow up here, it's ingrained.
3:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Like everything is outdoors because you're in the middle of a wilderness.
3:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And the neighboring town is like plastic, which hosts at the 1932 and 1980 winter Olympics.
3:52
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's a place that combines every aspect of outdoor adventure sports with traditional sports into like day to day to life.
4:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Nice.
4:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's very cool.
4:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Now that we know where you are, and a little bit about who you are, what have been your favorite outdoor sports over the years, personally?
4:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh man, my favorite one is probably I used to do adventure racing and it was really popular at the late 90s or early 2000s on race with EMS Solomon and a couple other teams and I just I loved that multi-day you know you might be riding a bike one day the next day you're in an inflatable canoe you're just switching it back and forth and just going day to day I really love that kind of racing that was my favorite kind of sport.
4:36
[SPEAKER_02]: out there.
4:37
[SPEAKER_02]: It still exists.
4:38
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't do it as much anymore, but yeah.
4:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and there's a component to it, which is route finding.
4:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
4:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
4:46
[SPEAKER_01]: To kind of orient youring.
4:47
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to be able to use a map on a compass, or you're not going to win the race.
4:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
4:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
4:51
[SPEAKER_02]: You have to generally, like, teams of three or four, and whoever's on that map in compass, I mean, you're a whole race depends on them being good at what they do.
5:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Thankfully, the team always had good navigators.
5:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I've had the honor of interviewing some racers, and they have said things to me like, yeah, in a long race, we finally realized if we didn't get 90 minutes of sleep a day, we could no longer read the map.
5:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah.
5:18
[SPEAKER_02]: We used to get, we call it the sleep monsters.
5:20
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, if you just go too long without sleep, you start to see things and think things that aren't real.
5:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes it's comical, it's rarely comical in the moment though.
5:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
5:29
[SPEAKER_01]: It's always looking back at it, but that's how extreme these events are.
5:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's there.
5:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's something.
5:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
5:37
[SPEAKER_01]: You also got into triathlon.
5:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I was right out of college.
5:44
[SPEAKER_02]: I was in like, class of doing an internship and they have a big iron man there.
5:47
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, I'll give it a shot.
5:49
[SPEAKER_02]: So I spent a bunch of time as a triathlete.
5:52
[SPEAKER_02]: I got to compete with Team USA at a World Championship and do a few of the World Cups over in Europe in the early 2000s.
5:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Fun.
6:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's ask, I don't know.
6:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm completely ignorant about this.
6:05
[SPEAKER_01]: What about mountain biking in the Etterundex?
6:08
[SPEAKER_02]: The Adorondex, because it's the way it was written into the Constitution of the state, like there's a different land classification, so it took a long time for mountain biking to get up to speed here in the east.
6:19
[SPEAKER_02]: But in the last 20 years, it's really awesome.
6:22
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's a ton of great mountain biking here.
6:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, I love mountain biking out west.
6:26
[SPEAKER_02]: I love going to Moab.
6:27
[SPEAKER_02]: I love everything.
6:28
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is East Coast mountain biking.
6:30
[SPEAKER_02]: We got some good flow trails, but it's also a good mix of that gnarly roots rocks wet mud.
6:36
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of it.
6:37
[SPEAKER_02]: But we're lucky.
6:39
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a great organization here that spilt trails all over the Adderon decks.
6:43
[SPEAKER_02]: So you can link every community together via their mountain bike trails.
6:47
[SPEAKER_02]: You might hop on the road for a little bit.
6:49
[SPEAKER_02]: But each town's got a little section of good mountain bike trails.
6:52
[SPEAKER_01]: that's kind of fun.
6:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can actually kind of tour from town to town to town if you want to.
6:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
6:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's obviously some some people who always put in an adventure together and try and link them all together into one route.
7:06
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, do all the towns in a day, you know, it takes 24 hours, just keep riding.
7:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's a long one.
7:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and we have a lot of that, where I am in Colorado as well, and the extreme sports, you know, it takes a unique kind of person, I think, but I also think almost everyone benefits from learning what they're made of and becoming fit and connecting with nature and pushing themselves.
7:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And from the documentary, I could see that you're a believer in that.
7:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
7:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Motivating your experience.
7:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Amazing.
7:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we do this big event called the Aderondic 90 Mile, and I just, I want everyone to do it because it's, it's pretty rough, it's a 90 Mile Can you race over three days and the value people get out of that though when they do it is so incredible I just want everyone to have that experience because like you can't not do something like that and learn about yourself and grow And that's, I mean that's the goal for me for everything is how do we help these guys grow
8:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, in the documentary, there is a little clip where you were talking to your team, your students.
8:11
[SPEAKER_01]: After I think it was day two.
8:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
8:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And he said, this is the hardest day of the event, you know?
8:17
[SPEAKER_01]: But you mentioned the pain cave.
8:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought, you know what?
8:23
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a really good term for it.
8:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know how many of our listeners know what you're talking about when you say the pain cave.
8:30
[SPEAKER_01]: But will you explain that to us?
8:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think it exists in a lot of sports.
8:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe not all sports, but it exists in a lot of sports.
8:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And when you really push yourself to the limit, it's this place you have to go to and just sit in the pain and keep producing power, whether it's watts on a bike or a canoe racing, it's just keeping up the tempo or producing power a different way.
8:52
[SPEAKER_02]: And you just go there and you have to kind of sit in that pain and after a while, you realize it's just pain.
8:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I can carry this amount of pain for,
9:00
[SPEAKER_02]: however much longer you have to and marathon can do racing is a great place to experience it because it's
9:05
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it might be six or eight hour a day.
9:08
[SPEAKER_02]: So you're just sitting there going the same pace and there's no getting out of it.
9:12
[SPEAKER_02]: If you go slower, it's just going to take you longer to get to the same thing.
9:15
[SPEAKER_02]: You're going to endure the same thing.
9:17
[SPEAKER_02]: So when you get to that place, I think that's that pain cave is what we describe as that place where you kind of sit in the pain and then hopefully you transcend the pain in a way.
9:27
[SPEAKER_02]: You're like, okay, this just hurts.
9:30
[SPEAKER_02]: I can make it hurt more, which is learning to go deeper,
9:35
[SPEAKER_02]: because it's just pain, it just exists, whether it go fast or slow, how I react to it.
9:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's generally where we find our greatest growth potential is when we're in those moments.
9:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I've heard really world-class athletes talk about this next point, and I'm not sure if I've really experienced it.
9:58
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's when you think you've gone as hard as you're physically capable of going.
10:04
[SPEAKER_01]: You think this is a hundred percent, there's nothing left, but somehow you find more.
10:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
10:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not talking about just the pain cave here.
10:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm talking about the sprint at the finish line.
10:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Right?
10:15
[SPEAKER_01]: How does that happen?
10:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not, I wish I knew exactly what it was, but it's all of these experiences.
10:22
[SPEAKER_02]: So for me, with my team, I love them doing the 90 mileer because if they get enough of those experiences, and they have enough belief in themselves, I know at some point it's gonna click.
10:32
[SPEAKER_02]: I think in the movie, there's a really great example and it's not necessarily clear that's what's happening, but this young man Griffin Smith is at the back of a pack and a sprint race and the classic race.
10:44
[SPEAKER_02]: and he, he looks rough, he looks like he's in a lot of pain and his teammate crashes out and he just digs deep and somehow he shoots to the front of the pack and gets a qualifying spot.
10:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And he, you know, in conversations after talks about like, I just knew, I could endure the pain and just do it.
11:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I could just do it.
11:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I needed to do it for the team and he dug deep and I think it's because of those experiences where
11:10
[SPEAKER_02]: you were either deep in the pain cave and to sat with it for a long time and you're like it's just pain, I can endure it or you've experienced it enough that you've risen above it enough times that you know there's something inside and if you need to push that button or click it over you can push past it and get to that next level.
11:27
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't happen often I'll say that but when it does I mean that's the goal and ticket that's what we're looking for and it's how do we get to that level.
11:34
[SPEAKER_01]: for the listeners who've not experienced the pain cave or this 110% whatever that is, you know, going beyond what you think.
11:43
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the superhuman part of these events, really.
11:46
[SPEAKER_01]: But it is human.
11:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me rewind a little bit.
11:50
[SPEAKER_01]: There are vast rewards for going there.
11:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And people here at term like pain cave, and they think, why would I sign up for that?
11:59
[SPEAKER_01]: right.
12:01
[SPEAKER_01]: But what are some of the rewards?
12:02
[SPEAKER_01]: What have you experienced?
12:03
[SPEAKER_01]: What have your your team's experienced?
12:07
[SPEAKER_01]: How does that show itself?
12:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's when we break it all down, we're looking here at these like surface goals of like making US teams and stuff, but what we're really after is true growth, finding out who we are and what our capabilities are.
12:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that doesn't happen in the easy parts of life.
12:26
[SPEAKER_02]: It only happens in the presence of adversity.
12:29
[SPEAKER_02]: At the start of the documentary, they put a fat quote, I love that this arctic explorer Ben Sonder says true growth only happens in the presence of adversity.
12:38
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's something I just truly believe.
12:40
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't change grow or learn about ourselves if we're just sitting in a nice hot tub.
12:46
[SPEAKER_02]: It's only when we're in the places that challenge us that we learn and grow and become better at what we do or who we are.
12:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think we have to find those places.
12:58
[SPEAKER_02]: We can't find them a lot, you know, it's got to be a certain amount.
13:01
[SPEAKER_02]: If we lived in the pain cave, it would be miserable.
13:03
[SPEAKER_02]: But getting there reveals something about us.
13:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think it also, the easier terms I have to use for people, like when they think of the pain cave, it's a cheat code to level up.
13:14
[SPEAKER_02]: How do I get to that next level?
13:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I got to find out what my limits are.
13:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And the pain cave is one of those places you can find that.
13:22
[SPEAKER_02]: okay what's the difference just this is a public safety announcement what what's the difference between the pain cave in the injury cycle yeah yeah for sure you uh we always talk about that on our team and stuff and it takes a lot of self regulation that's knowing
13:39
[SPEAKER_02]: What's the good pain on what's the bad pain?
13:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And that just, I think it takes a lot of experience there.
13:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And someone there to help, you know, I see that as my job.
13:46
[SPEAKER_02]: There's to come alongside them and just start to talk about what's going on.
13:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, no, this is an injury, this is a news arrest, and having a good support crew around that.
13:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's also for us why we say, you know, we don't go to the pain cave often.
14:01
[SPEAKER_02]: There's not so many times a year you can visit that place.
14:05
[SPEAKER_02]: because it does get to that point of injury and risk of stuff.
14:09
[SPEAKER_02]: So go there purposely and go there infrequently and then save the other times for when you need them.
14:16
[SPEAKER_01]: as the young man I was in cross country track and I was working really hard to get my distance up my speed up and that sort of thing and I started overtraining and I didn't know the difference.
14:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I would fill the pain, I'd go under the pain cave and then I would push, push, push, push, push, push until I broke my leg, stress fracture, you know?
14:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, my fibula, it was a hairline, but that took me out.
14:37
[SPEAKER_01]: That was the end of the racing season for me.
14:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought, wow, how do you tell the difference between this really hurts and oh, I'm hurting myself?
14:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's like a golden ticket thing.
14:50
[SPEAKER_02]: If you could bottle that up, you'd probably make a lot of money.
14:52
[SPEAKER_02]: If you knew that, but it's a really good support system around you.
14:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we are lucky now in this day and age.
14:59
[SPEAKER_02]: There's so much technology around us, even just simple stuff like monitoring, resting heart rate or HRB starts to give us some great things.
15:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, hey, something's going on.
15:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And for us here with our program, when we start to see changes there, we have avenues for we start to look at you.
15:14
[SPEAKER_02]: should be draw some blood and check all of our levels and see if something's missing.
15:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And we start to look at all of those opportunities now, which is lucky.
15:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I coach college cross country and track for nearly 20 years and started in the early 2000s and we didn't have that and a lot of stress fractures and unneeded injuries, I think, just because there wasn't as much availability of information as we have now.
15:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's one thing that's great about having a coach, right?
15:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Someone to walk you through some of those things out of ignorance.
15:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of people get hurt.
15:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, one of my sons, mountain bike racing.
15:48
[SPEAKER_01]: He became very competitive and did a fantastic job.
15:51
[SPEAKER_01]: But he used to go out on solo training rides.
15:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And when he would come back into the house, he would smell strongly like ammonia, because he was burning his own tissue.
16:00
[SPEAKER_01]: He was like, dude, I think you've gone too far.
16:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
16:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe that's a step too far.
16:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think that's where coaches are invaluable.
16:10
[SPEAKER_02]: They're the ones who can be there to help.
16:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And they see those things first.
16:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Someone from the outside sees it before you realize a tapping and they're there to help figure out how to get out of that hole when you get to it.
16:21
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... i want to talk about have a brand for just a moment so have a lives in gunnison and before we moved to gunnison i never met the guy but he won the call of a trail mountain bike race several times it's a five hundred mile race on on almost all trails uh... there are a few places where the trail goes to wilderness areas where you not allowed to bike so you have to take a road or another trail to get around the wilderness areas and then the race continues on but he's one at several times um...
16:48
[SPEAKER_01]: This is one of those deals where you don't really take time to sleep.
16:52
[SPEAKER_01]: It's pretty much 500 miles ago.
16:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
16:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I interviewed him, you know, he was just wildly successful at it.
17:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought, man, there's something unique about this guy.
17:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it turns out when we moved to Gunnison, his wife also helped to coach the mountain bike team that I was coaching.
17:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And so one time we're at an event, he's sitting next to me and I'm like,
17:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Man, why do you do it?
17:16
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you do it?
17:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And he had just told me that he had created about to ride around our area and it was going to take 72 hours to complete this ride and he was looking for someone to ride with him but he wasn't getting many takers for a 72-hour straight ride.
17:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, F.A.
17:36
[SPEAKER_01]: What's going on?
17:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Why do you want to ride a bike for 72 hours without rest?
17:41
[SPEAKER_01]: You know?
17:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And he says, I love the place it takes me.
17:44
[SPEAKER_01]: It's my thing.
17:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
17:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not sure that I have a great explanation for what that is.
17:51
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, the types of racing that you've done, you've been there.
17:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you explain to us an insight into that, the place it takes you?
18:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think it's a few things, but when it goes well and you're in the moment, even though you're probably in the pain cave and stuff, there's this kind of almost flow state that exists, and I think it's most easily equated to just being present.
18:16
[SPEAKER_02]: There's nothing but the moment, and I think anyone who's been on a mountain bike, right?
18:20
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're on a mountain bike and you're thinking about working stuff, you're probably going to crash.
18:24
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, you have to think about the rock.
18:25
[SPEAKER_02]: You got to think about the jump ahead of you.
18:27
[SPEAKER_02]: You got to think about that.
18:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Those things force you to just be there.
18:31
[SPEAKER_02]: You're just there.
18:32
[SPEAKER_02]: And when you're there and you're present with just yourself, then it's like this kind of transcending earth in a way you're just in this moment.
18:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And that is such a rare and special thing where it's just you and the elements that exist around you.
18:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's nothing else.
18:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's pretty unique and really hard to get to.
18:54
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's even harder.
18:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And this day and age, with everything around us to get to that point.
19:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And it goes back to the core tenants and man versus himself, man versus man.
19:06
[SPEAKER_02]: It goes back to all these things that I think were built for that are hard to get to.
19:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Well,
19:13
[SPEAKER_01]: in the documentary.
19:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I saw your students at the national competition.
19:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is Nordic, right?
19:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And I want to get into Nordic here and talk about the various events and all that kind of stuff.
19:27
[SPEAKER_01]: But I saw them kind of finding out things about themselves.
19:31
[SPEAKER_01]: They may not have known before.
19:33
[SPEAKER_01]: yeah and pushing themselves in ways that you just don't see every day and honestly it was very very touching I mean I was almost getting emotional I was like man these these kids and you met were the one who took him there you showed him how to do it how to dig deep like that
19:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's something that they will carry for the rest of their lives.
19:57
[SPEAKER_01]: They know that they have that ability to dig deep and to get through things that a lot of people would just cave into.
20:04
[SPEAKER_01]: There.
20:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So how do you get a group of people to understand that and to reach so far beyond themselves to have those kinds of experiences and that kind of growth?
20:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think some of it is almost super basic.
20:25
[SPEAKER_02]: It is sometimes as simple as standing next to them in whispering.
20:28
[SPEAKER_02]: You can do this over and over and over to the point where they believe in themselves.
20:34
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think the whole world needs that.
20:35
[SPEAKER_02]: We all need that at times, just that.
20:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you can do this.
20:39
[SPEAKER_02]: I believe in you so you can do this.
20:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And then just continually providing opportunities for them to test themselves and to keep going to another level.
20:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And I mean, once you convince an athlete that they can do something and they believe it, then they're going to surprise you for sure and they're going to surprise themselves time and time again.
21:01
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's the level, it doesn't matter what level of sport you're competing at, that's what you're trying to get to, whether you're on like the modified track team or on a college Nordic ski team, how do I get better from where I am and believe that I can keep moving forward?
21:16
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think it is that.
21:17
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the community we create in our program around the athletes that it is not an individual.
21:23
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a team.
21:25
[SPEAKER_02]: This is even if you're the slowest skier on the team or the fastest skier requires all of us moving in the same direction.
21:32
[SPEAKER_02]: And it requires all of us feeling the same things no matter what place we're getting.
21:36
[SPEAKER_02]: We are all pushing ourselves to the limits every opportunity we get.
21:41
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think another part of it, too, is we do focus pretty consistently.
21:45
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a small window in life where you get this opportunity, this chance to do this.
21:51
[SPEAKER_02]: and they don't come often.
21:52
[SPEAKER_02]: So you need to every time you line up, take that, roll the dice, and try and find out where your limits are.
21:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And then when you find your limits say, can I go a little bit more?
22:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Can I dig a little bit deeper?
22:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And I really do think as a simple as building that community.
22:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we have this really strong trust relationship.
22:10
[SPEAKER_02]: They trust me, I trust them.
22:11
[SPEAKER_02]: And when someone says, I believe in you, I think you can do pretty incredible things.
22:17
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, what do they call that?
22:18
[SPEAKER_01]: The Peter principle or something, you set the expectation and people tend to want to rise to meet it.
22:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
22:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's a way to motivate.
22:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And I can I can tell that you set a high bar.
22:28
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's a beautiful thing.
22:30
[SPEAKER_01]: There's you mentioned kind of the support of the group.
22:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And in the documentary, one of the racers said, we're not really a team where a family now and we have family problems.
22:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
22:43
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's part
22:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so, I mean, we have this unique set up with our program.
22:51
[SPEAKER_02]: They all live in the same house, you don't have to, but most of them end up, it's a house right on the lake.
22:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's a travesty for their future life because they have Lakefront view and college, it's a million dollar view and it's going to be harder to get when they get older, but we do so much together.
23:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And we train a 40-week season, so they're training almost year round and a lot of that times together.
23:14
[SPEAKER_02]: So, yeah.
23:15
[SPEAKER_02]: the challenges of it are great and the hardships of it are great.
23:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And we say we don't want to avoid the hard things because if we can go through those hard things like interpersonal relationships and just the overall living together stuff together, we're much more prepared for life after college, for life in general.
23:33
[SPEAKER_02]: So as a family unit, we get annoyed with each other like a family gets annoyed each other.
23:39
[SPEAKER_02]: We get annoyed with 30 dishes, but
23:41
[SPEAKER_02]: We say, because we're a family, we have to come back to figure out how to solve these problems.
23:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And every time we do, we just get to be a stronger unit.
23:49
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's always up and down in Rocky, but these groups stay together.
23:54
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, they are units for a year.
23:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm watching them, you know, eight, ten years after them.
23:59
[SPEAKER_02]: They're still a group, even if they're separated by justants.
24:03
[SPEAKER_02]: That's there supporting each other and learning, you know, for a lack of better words.
24:07
[SPEAKER_02]: How to human together.
24:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, and I think it's kind of a one of the secret sauces here.
24:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it adds another layer that allows us to, to achieve at a higher level.
24:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and I, I want to mention the secret sauce.
24:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Your, uh, your teams are competing at the highest levels.
24:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, yeah, competing for national titles.
24:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And let's talk a little bit about the, the college there.
24:32
[SPEAKER_01]: How many students do you have?
24:33
[SPEAKER_02]: around 700 students at this college.
24:36
[SPEAKER_01]: 700 students.
24:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, and you're competing against colleges and universities of what sizes?
24:43
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... for eight ten twenty thousand students yeah okay so you have a you have a group of hundreds to draw from they have a group of tens of thousands to draw from and you guys are beating them are holding your own it's a it's a true honest parity right yeah absolutely you've got some special sauce something in the water somehow how is that happening
25:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think there's a lot of unique things.
25:09
[SPEAKER_02]: This college is like fully bought into Nordic.
25:12
[SPEAKER_02]: We have our own Nordic Center on campus called the Vic VIC.
25:16
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's like out the back door of campus and the college runs it as a Nordic Center.
25:21
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's part of the kind of the culture here is Nordic skiing.
25:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And we have a long history in Nordic skiing in the 1950s, US Championships were here.
25:30
[SPEAKER_02]: A lot of people on the from-pulse mist through the 50s, 60s and 70s were on US team.
25:37
[SPEAKER_02]: long history.
25:38
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that the community at the college and the community at Arondex, there is this really strong kind of support system for what we're doing here.
25:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And that is one of the parts of the secret sauce is a place that is committed to people.
25:54
[SPEAKER_02]: And I start with that because I think it takes two important things for athletes to come and develop.
26:00
[SPEAKER_02]: A place that offers them space and support.
26:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Those are the things I say.
26:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Space to come in and say we don't need you to develop at this rate, we don't need you to score this many points.
26:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Just come here and do the work and see what happens.
26:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the support, the tools you need to do that, you know, that's not just a place to ski, but you know, when the snow is bad, can we travel, can we find man-made snow to ski on all those extra pieces that help an athlete to develop?
26:27
[SPEAKER_02]: in this place, this college, and then the larger community aturonics is an exceptionally unique place for that.
26:34
[SPEAKER_02]: The athletes can come in and just spend their time doing their work and know that they have the space and support they need, no matter whether it takes one years or four years to develop into the level they want to.
26:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And that, I think it takes pressure off.
26:49
[SPEAKER_02]: It also just allows people to know like, this is your journey, not our journey, which is a really important part of it.
26:56
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a really big part of this year.
26:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's dive into Nordic skiing in particular, because when you say skiing, you're thinking primarily Nordic, I think, and those people when they say skiing, they're thinking primarily outpine.
27:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, right?
27:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there's a difference.
27:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's what is Nordic, I mean, people probably say, it's cross country.
27:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
27:19
[SPEAKER_01]: But there's so much more than that.
27:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
27:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So what is Nordic skiing?
27:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so Nordic Sea and we'd most people around and especially in North America would think of it as cross-country skiing.
27:29
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a pretty big umbrella, so it encompasses several sports.
27:33
[SPEAKER_02]: So, under Nordic I would throw by half on a little, by half on might want to say that they're on umbrella.
27:39
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's the sport where people ski and then shoot targets, really popular sport, one of the biggest sports in Europe, then there's ski jumping, Nordic combined, which is an event where you ski and ski jump and based on your jumping, either going to a time differential or
27:56
[SPEAKER_02]: that kind of a thing.
27:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And then there's Nordic skiing, which in the US we've had some, you know, I think pretty good traction in the last few years with like Jesse Diggins winning Olympic medal.
28:05
[SPEAKER_02]: So more people are familiar with that.
28:08
[SPEAKER_02]: But that has a full array of events in it from short races called Sprint's all the way up through 20 and 50 kilometer long races.
28:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Nice.
28:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Classic and skate skiing.
28:18
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's different styles of skiing within this sport.
28:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so you mentioned ski jumping.
28:24
[SPEAKER_01]: We're talking about the big ski jumps.
28:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
28:28
[SPEAKER_01]: The big, the whole, the flying human ski jumps.
28:31
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the way I think of it.
28:32
[SPEAKER_01]: That combined with cross country.
28:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to use the term.
28:38
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the style, right?
28:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Versus skate skiing.
28:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Will you build the contrast between those two?
28:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So people know what we're talking about?
28:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so that one, I mean, that's one of the more unique sports overall, like Nordic combined, which is under the umbrella of like ski jumping and stuff and that it's
28:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's one of the oldest Olympic sports in the winter Olympics.
28:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I have to look at it.
29:00
[SPEAKER_02]: But basically, you have specialists who ski jump, but they don't ski.
29:04
[SPEAKER_02]: These people do both.
29:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And so you would go off the jump and based on your distance and your competitor's distance, you're going to go out and ski race in the afternoon.
29:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And you're going to, if you're the first person get a head start by a certain number of seconds, based on how far ahead of the next person you are.
29:21
[SPEAKER_02]: and the first person across the line wins the event for combined.
29:25
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the real basic in order to combine the event that exists.
29:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's fun.
29:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I, uh...
29:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying to get a picture in my own mind of what these events look like when you're actually there, you know, watching the Olympics to see that by Athalon.
29:43
[SPEAKER_01]: That's super cool, but you only see someone like, you know, they're fish boning up a steep slope and then they pull out a rifle and try to hit a target and then they're off again.
29:51
[SPEAKER_01]: That's really the only thing you get, but what's it like?
29:55
[SPEAKER_01]: to participate in that, to put in the effort that's required, and then when your heart's beating at 200 beats per minute, be able to hold a rifle still enough.
30:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, what?
30:06
[SPEAKER_01]: That's amazing.
30:08
[SPEAKER_02]: It's fascinatingly amazing.
30:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And we have a, had a number of really great by athletes and still do you on campus or one of our skiers.
30:14
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a Ron Tanguei was on the US Junior Team for World Championships.
30:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And to watch them day in day out, and our coach, and they come in,
30:22
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, the heart rate's 170, laid down on the mat, and then fire off five bullets at a charterate smaller than a silver dollar, 50 meters down a range, is pretty incredible.
30:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And to watch them hit them, time and time again.
30:35
[SPEAKER_02]: It's miraculous.
30:38
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of physiology behind it that makes it more possible than we think, but it takes a tremendous amount of practice and experience to get to that point where you can control your heart rate and breathing.
30:49
[SPEAKER_01]: knowing how to fire between heart beats or something like that.
30:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's all of those things that are a factor in by Athlan.
30:56
[SPEAKER_02]: If your heart is beating fast and your chest is too in contact with the mat, then your rifle is going to move more.
31:02
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's just your position and your breathing.
31:05
[SPEAKER_02]: How you hold your breath or where you shoot at and your breath.
31:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Did I shoot too late?
31:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to miss load.
31:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Did I shoot too early at the time?
31:12
[SPEAKER_02]: That's, and they, if they do it really fast too, you know, 20 seconds on the mat, 23 seconds, they're just in and out, very fast to hit five targets.
31:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So these are very, very unique events.
31:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to bring up one other event, which people would say is not Nordic, but it's a first cousin in the Olympics for the first time this year with Schimo.
31:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Schimo not nearing.
31:35
[SPEAKER_01]: What did you think of that?
31:37
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought it was fascinating.
31:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Last year, a bunch of seven of our athletes were at the World University Games in Trino Italy and we were able to watch the first schema competition at World University Games in Trino and we went in person and in person that I mean it's fascinating.
31:53
[SPEAKER_02]: I love it because I love that country skiing and it's just a way to make that country skiing a little fun, more exposed and make it a race.
32:01
[SPEAKER_02]: it's fascinating and it's also really interesting to watch because I mean some people fly up the hill and then some people fly down the hill and it's almost there's a middle ground you could be a great climber and do well at it you could be a great descendor and do well at it and I've seen both it was really fun to watch in the Olympics this year and I have young kids three under the age of 12 and that was that are favorite event this year in Olympics.
32:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I really enjoyed it, too, because AT skiing is just one of my favorite things in the world.
32:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, I don't race.
32:31
[SPEAKER_01]: My transitions take minutes, not seconds.
32:35
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that sort of thing.
32:36
[SPEAKER_01]: The transitions are amazing, too.
32:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just blown away how fast they were.
32:41
[SPEAKER_01]: That was something else.
32:43
[SPEAKER_02]: We were doing laps right after the Olympics on our local way of a T-bar here.
32:48
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just doing some backcountry laps with my kids on AT skis and a couple of my skiers.
32:53
[SPEAKER_02]: They were like, how come you can't take them off that fast?
32:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I said, this is a great question.
32:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I have no idea.
32:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Like shit.
32:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Just jump up in the air and pull them off and they're gone.
33:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Take my ski boots off.
33:04
[SPEAKER_02]: I take my time getting my off.
33:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, it's an amazing related sport to Nordic.
33:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I would like to see the Nordic sports grow more because I think that there's a quality to them that you don't get out of Alpine skiing and I'll let you take a swing at this one.
33:25
[SPEAKER_01]: People come to the Gunnison Valley because they're going to crest a bit to Alpine ski.
33:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And on their way up to the mountain, they see Nordic skiers.
33:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And we have grim trails in the city park.
33:37
[SPEAKER_01]: We have grim trails at the golf course.
33:39
[SPEAKER_01]: We even have grim trails on the mountain bike trails and heartmins.
33:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And so all free trails just come and ski all you want on the Nordic skis.
33:48
[SPEAKER_01]: During the peak of this season, we probably have close to 50 miles of groomed Nordic skiing here.
33:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And no one even knows it.
33:56
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, well, a few people use that.
33:58
[SPEAKER_01]: But they're on their way to the mountain, right?
34:00
[SPEAKER_01]: What's the difference?
34:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I think it's the exposure is the thing that needs more for more people here.
34:09
[SPEAKER_02]: So we are a little Nordic center here, the Paul Smith College of Education, say it's a little, it does have 45 kilometers of trails.
34:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Nice, groom really well.
34:17
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, one of the things that we worked on the last few years is just partnering with local hotels.
34:22
[SPEAKER_02]: As your people come in to stay here and visit the Adirondex, we know that they're going to go to white face to downhill ski.
34:28
[SPEAKER_02]: off from this so we built partnerships and say they come out to the thick we'll give them a lesson give them rental and a lesson at this you know discounted rate and get people on them and most of the time what we hear is that they never had the opportunity because they weren't didn't know where it was they had no exposure to it and that's all it took and now I can think of these families I see that have come back three or four winners now with their families and their first time skiing was just
34:52
[SPEAKER_02]: someone reaching out and being like this is something else you can do and I think in Nordic seeing we've got to find a way to do more of that because it is alpine schemes pretty obvious you drive past them out and you see it you have had exposure to it even if you haven't done it before
35:07
[SPEAKER_02]: and Nordic scene isn't as much that way.
35:09
[SPEAKER_02]: So if I had a billion dollars, I always dream.
35:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I would just create opportunities.
35:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Free opportunities, we just drive people in buses, say we're gonna stay here, and we're gonna teach you to cross-country ski.
35:19
[SPEAKER_02]: I just know that a percentage of the people are gonna love it and keep coming back to it for life.
35:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I love both, Alpine and Nordic.
35:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I really do, but for me, they're almost completely different sports.
35:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like they shouldn't both be called skiing.
35:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, they are totally different events.
35:36
[SPEAKER_02]: They are granted both on skis, but it's hard.
35:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's part of the US, too.
35:41
[SPEAKER_02]: If we talk about skiing everyone, obviously, things out fine.
35:44
[SPEAKER_02]: We do need a different name for what we do on Nordic skis.
35:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe lean into Nordic as the terminology, but people just don't, I think, know what Nordic means, you know?
35:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
35:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and that's just culturally different.
35:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Like you go to Europe, everybody knows, you know?
35:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
35:59
[SPEAKER_02]: You go into the mountains in Italy and you watch on the weekend.
36:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Everyone drives up out of the cities to the little villas.
36:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And they go both the Alpine and then they cross-country ski.
36:08
[SPEAKER_02]: But we don't have as much of that background here in the United States.
36:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, how is Nordic skiing?
36:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to say beneficial good for you in a way that maybe Alpine skiing wouldn't be.
36:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So people understand the contrast.
36:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
36:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the physiology of skiing is pretty phenomenal.
36:25
[SPEAKER_02]: So I grew up as a runner and elite runner and stuff.
36:28
[SPEAKER_02]: And you can only go so far before you really break down and enter yourself.
36:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Running has some limits.
36:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And skiing really doesn't have that.
36:35
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't have the impact of like a running and it also involves your entire body.
36:39
[SPEAKER_02]: So even going out for casual ski is like a full body workout and I think it's also amazing because you're out.
36:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Every Nordic center is pretty much in nature.
36:51
[SPEAKER_02]: You're connected to nature.
36:52
[SPEAKER_02]: So in my opinion, you're rejuvenating your soul and your spirit in those moments as you're connected to nature skiing.
36:59
[SPEAKER_02]: So it gets you a little of everything and it gets you that piece of
37:03
[SPEAKER_02]: sense of peace at the end of the ski and you've just gotten this like bonus of like a great work out without going to the gym It's just phenomenal phenomenal for you.
37:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, one thing that I think is so cool about it is it's one of the sports where you can do in a lot of places where there is no ski heel You don't need to ski heel, right yourself propelled you are on skis.
37:26
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a different feel alpine skiing is more about turns
37:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
37:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
37:31
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going fast in turning.
37:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
37:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And Nordic skiing almost feels like a walk or a run but you're still gliding across the snow and turning is a completely different animal.
37:43
[SPEAKER_02]: It is a completely different.
37:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So how do you turn on Nordic skis to be effective?
37:54
[SPEAKER_02]: It's I'd say like it's really you know there's so many different levels of skiers in the Nordic skiing world you know at our level we do stuff called the step turn and we're we're stepping around a turn pushing on our outside skis all the way through just a lot of people mimic their alpine turns they're just going to try and carve a turn using their skis and I think it depends on
38:14
[SPEAKER_02]: The speed you're going really, that you do that.
38:16
[SPEAKER_02]: We have to use a little both depending on the venue we're at for that.
38:21
[SPEAKER_02]: The more you do it, the better you get at it.
38:23
[SPEAKER_02]: But it is just like taking little steps around the turn.
38:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that there are some people who have decided Alpine skins, not for them.
38:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Too fast, little too crazy.
38:33
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just not my thing.
38:35
[SPEAKER_01]: But I would argue they should try Nordic, because they might find a love there.
38:40
[SPEAKER_02]: for sure and it's I mean I I love skiing at our venue and seeing like literally 70 year old women and and packs out on the trail skiing together.
38:49
[SPEAKER_02]: They're they're doing skiing at their level and you know I have kids on the US by Athon team out there skiing.
38:55
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a place for everyone.
38:56
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a type of ski for everyone.
38:59
[SPEAKER_02]: There's trails for everyone that you can make work.
39:01
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's a sport that anyone can do.
39:04
[SPEAKER_02]: My wife, we moved here from, we were in Virginia Coach and when we moved to the Atterondax and she's from Detroit.
39:10
[SPEAKER_02]: So she didn't have as much experience across country skiing.
39:13
[SPEAKER_02]: She picked it up right away and got into it and you think someone from the Midwest who didn't grow up skiing and she found a place in it.
39:21
[SPEAKER_02]: So it really does have
39:22
[SPEAKER_02]: value for everyone.
39:23
[SPEAKER_02]: I think most people and once you get into it, it's hard not to love it.
39:26
[SPEAKER_02]: You want to keep doing it again and again.
39:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
39:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it also made a way for us to go back packing in the winter time in the Colorado Rockies.
39:33
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, it opens up things to you.
39:36
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it does.
39:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
39:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, let's talk just a little bit more.
39:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to talk about Paul Smith's college and I also want to talk about this documentary that you put together.
39:49
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, I've said a couple of times you're competing at the national level.
39:53
[SPEAKER_01]: What kind of results are you getting?
39:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so our programs.
39:58
[SPEAKER_02]: competing at the USA level and regularly every year we're on the podium at nationals and we're winning national championships pretty regularly so this year twenty twenty six our men's team won the USA national championship nice our women were national runners up and over the last five years I don't think we've finished worse than third in the overall points at nationals and we've won three national championships in that time frame.
40:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we're also competing to get spots on U.S. teams, so whether it's U.S. by Athlon or USA Nordic, which is the Nordic combined and we're heading athletes at our level training compete to get onto the U.S. teams to make it to Europe to compete for whether a world championship, our viewcups and all of that.
40:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're seeing pretty consistently good results.
40:47
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the great results because we're such a small school, but
40:51
[SPEAKER_02]: I would just count it up a couple of weeks ago.
40:52
[SPEAKER_02]: So over the last six years, we have had 15 of our athletes represent the U.S. at various levels for byathlon, order combined, and order skiing.
41:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Nice, that's amazing.
41:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And now the documentary kind of shows what it's like day-to-day to be on the team, working with you and to be a part of the magic that you've got going there.
41:21
[SPEAKER_02]: So I guess I would have been filmed finished, what would have been three nationals ago.
41:26
[SPEAKER_02]: So two years ago it finished.
41:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and they followed us.
41:32
[SPEAKER_02]: They really started, I think, a year and a half before that.
41:34
[SPEAKER_02]: So they just, yeah, 2022 I think is around when they started, and they were with us for about a year and a half.
41:42
[SPEAKER_02]: This came up.
41:42
[SPEAKER_02]: It very strips, and yeah.
41:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Who is the they let's give great so yeah credit we're credits do adrenaline films Was the main par for doing other videography and then Bob jury was the documentary and and they were the team that Came up and visited us with spend weeks with us at a time.
42:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know I'd dozen maybe 20 different times We saw them they would just come up and it was great
42:07
[SPEAKER_02]: We, they really became part of our team too over the time, so Mike Murray is the head cinematographer for adrenaline films and he was here in person with his crew getting all the shots and then Bob was, you know, the person kind of telling them what they want to get, you know, like we got to make sure this is what's happening the next day.
42:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's go there and film them like that.
42:28
[SPEAKER_02]: So, you know, it's incredible.
42:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I watched the documentary before our interview here, and I didn't know what to expect at first.
42:37
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I thought, I don't know, I'm a documentary, okay, and it's about cross country skiing.
42:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, how do they get this to be good?
42:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's really good.
42:48
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really, really fun.
42:50
[SPEAKER_01]: It was moving, it was inspirational, and I think it did a great job of showcasing some of the magic that you have going on there.
43:00
[SPEAKER_01]: and I would recommend people to watch it.
43:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's it's phenomenal.
43:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, say the name for us, and where people can find it.
43:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
43:07
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's Coach Matt and the outdoor cats.
43:10
[SPEAKER_02]: It's on Apple TV.
43:11
[SPEAKER_02]: It's on Amazon Prime.
43:13
[SPEAKER_02]: It's on YouTube.
43:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Hulu.
43:15
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just about everywhere right now that you can find it's streaming.
43:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Nice.
43:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Matt, I'd like to ask this.
43:23
[SPEAKER_01]: How does it feel to be the coach who gets to be a part of a program like this?
43:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Who gets to, and don't be humble about it, you deserve a lot of credit.
43:34
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you are, you're making winners.
43:37
[SPEAKER_01]: How does that feel?
43:39
[SPEAKER_02]: It's incredibly rewarding.
43:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I've spent my entire professional life as a coach, which probably wasn't the route I expected, but this is where I've ended up.
43:47
[SPEAKER_02]: So you, I think all coaches are trying to build towards this and to after 25 years of coaching to get to this point where
43:56
[SPEAKER_02]: All the pieces are there, and you're finding the right athletes and finding success is incredibly rewarding.
44:02
[SPEAKER_02]: It's super humbling for me too, because I still feel like I'm just a little coach.
44:07
[SPEAKER_02]: You had a lot to learn out here and a lot more to go before I I really know what I'm doing per se.
44:15
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, and to have a documentary about it is, is rewarding when you can see your life's work is actually meaningful, and that what you're doing is achieving the goals that you've set out to do, which is just, you know, trying to affect people's lives in a positive way.
44:29
[SPEAKER_01]: How much of that do you think is relational?
44:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's 100% relational.
44:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I know this, for me, I was asked years and years ago, like, oh, you should,
44:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I have great success, coaching like marathoners, you should do a digital or you should coach people online.
44:46
[SPEAKER_02]: I kind of dabbled in it a little bit with a friend who had a big coaching platform and I said, you know, this doesn't really work for me in it.
44:53
[SPEAKER_02]: At the time, I didn't really understand why, but now as a molder, I know I need to be face-to-face with people and I need to be able to build that relationship every day so that when something's happening, I think there's a point in a movie, one of our athletes, it's just struggling one day.
45:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And I know what's going on, I know that person so well, I can just lean over on the course and say, you know, what they need to hear, because in
45:19
[SPEAKER_02]: partnership with each other and we have built that partnership in a meaningful way and that takes yeah, having relationships and being there in person and actually spending the time to build those bridges.
45:32
[SPEAKER_01]: What does it feel like personally to get to know these students on that level, to become family, literally, family, and then a quarter of them
45:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's the most rewarding thing I can do in my life and also when they leave it's the most heartbreaking thing when they graduate, it's the worst week of the year by far.
45:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't like it.
45:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Wish they could all stay.
45:59
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm glad they believe or wouldn't be great if they stayed.
46:02
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, doctors stick around for eight, 10 years, but these guys need to get their degrees and move on.
46:08
[SPEAKER_02]: I am super thankful, though, that most that they stay in your life throughout, like, you know, I get texts from them.
46:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I get even athletes I coach, you know, 15, 20 years ago.
46:19
[SPEAKER_02]: I think when you build a relationship this way, they're still part of your life even if they move off to California and live there.
46:25
[SPEAKER_02]: You're going to be hearing from them and part of their important moments in life throughout.
46:31
[SPEAKER_02]: But it is the best work I think I could ever do in my life as working with these people and building relationships for four years and then the hardest work when they leave.
46:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
46:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to share something I've never shared on the show before, because in a strange way it relates and I would just like to hear your perspective.
46:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I went to a telequal high school in Oklahoma.
46:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And we had a world-class choir that I was blessed to be a part of.
47:00
[SPEAKER_01]: A Marjoram alone was an amazing teacher and director and she took us to a level that a bunch of redneck kids from a small town in Northeastern Oklahoma couldn't even understand.
47:13
[SPEAKER_01]: We won national contests consistently, first place, over and over and over again.
47:18
[SPEAKER_01]: We sang on the stage of the Grand El Opera.
47:21
[SPEAKER_01]: We traveled around and just she was a magnificent choral director.
47:27
[SPEAKER_01]: My senior year, she said, I hate to tell you this.
47:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But most of you probably all of you will never experience this level of music again.
47:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't believe her because I, excuse me, I didn't believe her because I thought we're just high school kids.
47:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you kidding me?
47:45
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's so much out there.
47:47
[SPEAKER_01]: The whole world is out there.
47:48
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to, she was absolutely right.
47:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It was such a unique, special experience.
47:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what your work with these college students feels like to me.
48:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I get that same vibe.
48:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I get that, we've got something so special here that you may never experience it again.
48:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and I say that to the athletes.
48:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I think this year at our National Championships that I can remember the last day our men's team was in the lead and this is it for a lot of you.
48:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is the last time to experience, the experience of challenging yourself at this level but also being with a group like this.
48:28
[SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, I think my, my charge to them was to, to soak it in, to find their limits, but then also to remember that I feel like it's a little bit of their job to take that and try and recreate it when they leave here, whatever they're doing, create that community, create those people that you're driving towards something so that they can experience it too.
48:47
[SPEAKER_01]: What a beautiful thing to have had experienced it, because then you know it's possible.
48:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
48:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
48:55
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
48:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely.
48:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
48:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And it can apply to so many different facets of life.
49:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And I want to say thank you to you, even though I've never been coached by you.
49:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to say thank you to you because of the work that you're doing, the change lives for the better.
49:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can see it in the film.
49:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, you can see it in your amazing record, you know, in your competitions, and you can see it in your sincerity, and we need more people like you, Matt, in this world, and thank you for what you're doing.
49:31
[SPEAKER_02]: I appreciate that and I would say one thing, it's for everyone, you know, I don't the documentary does a great job, but also there are people on that team who never ski before they came to college.
49:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, maybe they don't win a national championship, but, you know, this year I watched the young man who came from Georgia, learned to ski here, and he scored for us in a race.
49:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was just one race that he scored for us, but that was a life changing moment and his accomplishment is the same as, you know, the guy's winning national championships.
49:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And that constantly reminds me that it's for everyone.
50:01
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not for just the elite athletes.
50:04
[SPEAKER_02]: It's for everyone of us to find whatever we can do to pursue like that.
50:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Hmm.
50:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
50:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we're running low on time, but can you give us an anecdote, a story that you think kind of encapsulate some of what we're talking about here?
50:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, my anecdote is,
50:26
[SPEAKER_02]: The people who've come here and skied here who didn't think or had never been told, they were capable of something.
50:34
[SPEAKER_02]: And they, I have a number of people on the team I can think of who've come here.
50:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And we just provided them the space, the support, and the belief.
50:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And we told them they're good enough, you can keep doing it.
50:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And they kept after it.
50:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And then they achieved wildly beyond anything they can imagine.
50:51
[SPEAKER_02]: The documentary shows Griffin Smith charging into, like,
50:55
[SPEAKER_02]: At a moment where his teammate crashed and he realized, now he's the score and he's got to pick up that torch and carry it.
51:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
51:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's a person who, you know, became that person in college because he was surrounded by all these people.
51:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And those are the things that are possible when we surround ourselves with people who believe.
51:15
[SPEAKER_01]: just believe.
51:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
51:17
[SPEAKER_01]: That's beautiful.
51:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I, I want to lean into the community of it just a little bit.
51:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that there are a lot of people to do adventure sports solo.
51:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm one of them quite often.
51:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And I love it.
51:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
51:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But the community matters too.
51:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's important to find your people and to do the thing that you love together.
51:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you're an expert at that, obviously.
51:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Any advice for people who are like, yeah, I'd really like to do that.
51:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how.
51:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, just step into opportunities.
51:49
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the biggest thing I've done.
51:51
[SPEAKER_02]: I think learn it in my 25 years of coaching and I tell my athletes, like there's opportunities ever that just start stepping into them, take a chance, which is the uncomfortable thing to do, but whatever, you know, I think here in the Adirons, I think it's the community group runs.
52:06
[SPEAKER_02]: If you want to be in a community, just start showing up at that, or if it's the mini-tries and like placids.
52:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Just start showing up at these places and you'll start to find those opportunities and one of them, some of them will click for you.
52:19
[SPEAKER_02]: you'll find your place.
52:22
[SPEAKER_01]: That's excellent advice.
52:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you very much for your time Matt.
52:25
[SPEAKER_01]: The documentary movie is Coach Matt and the outdoor cats and cats, by the way, is Bob Cats.
52:33
[SPEAKER_02]: We are the Bob Cats.
52:36
[SPEAKER_01]: When I was first started looking it up, I was like, well, there's not a Broadway musical.
52:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, right.
52:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
52:42
[SPEAKER_01]: The Bobcats, but it's, it's, uh, it's, uh, it's, as the hyphen cats.
52:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So coach Mad and the outdoor cats, the school is Paul Smith's college.
52:53
[SPEAKER_01]: What a great thing you've got going on.
52:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for introducing us to it and for your time today.
52:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much.
52:59
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, take care, man.
53:01
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, you too.
53:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, for everyone out there, don't forget to get out there and have some fun.