Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / REWIND: Molly Seidel, Marathoner & Olympic Medalist

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REWIND: Molly Seidel, Marathoner & Olympic Medalist · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: You have to do all the work, and you have
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: to be brave enough to put yourself out there. And
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: sometimes a lightning bolt is going to strike from the
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  Speaker 1: heavens and it's going to work out. And sometimes it's
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  Speaker 1: just not going to flow, and it's going to be
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: one of those days that it doesn't work. But if
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  Speaker 1: you're not willing to put yourself up there and to
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: put yourself in a position to be great, you're never
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  Speaker 1: going to be great.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Hey, everyone, Emily Abadi here, Welcome to rewind on Hurdle.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Five days of episodes from the Hurdle Vault. I cannot
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: even tell you how often I get requests for interviews
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: with some of the amazing, amazing people that I have
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: already had the privilege of sitting down with, and sometimes
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  Speaker 2: I'm able to do a round two around three. But
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  Speaker 2: that is what this week is all about. It's me
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  Speaker 2: bringing you some of my favorite conversation back to the
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  Speaker 2: top of the feed from the last five years.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: I'll be honest, it's easy for me to forget that
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: there are new people joining the hurdle community every single week,
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: which means that there is a lot of content to
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: catch up on. Helping everyone on their journey to live happier, healthier,
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  Speaker 2: more motivated lives. For the last installment of our series,
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  Speaker 2: I am bringing back my first ever conversation with Mollie's Sidel.
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  Speaker 2: You know her as an Olympic medalist, a pro marathoner.
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  Speaker 2: It is absolutely crazy to think we had this conversation
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  Speaker 2: before she came in third in Tokyo. I love it
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  Speaker 2: and originally aired in March of twenty twenty. And with that,
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  Speaker 2: let's get to it, let's rewind, let's get to hurdling. Today.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: I'm sitting down with Mollie's Sidel. She is a pro runner,
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: assumed to be Olympian that will never get old.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: No, it really doesn't. And every time my heart kind
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: of like jumps a little bit.
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  Speaker 2: I feel excited and a little bit honored that I'm
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: sitting here on your couch. We're in Boston. I am
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: really just kind of in awe of you, as a
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: lot of people are right now.
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  Speaker 1: I feel like it's a I'm vastly underwhelming when people
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: actually made me. I had a girl tell me the
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: other day, She's like, I expected.
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  Speaker 2: You to be taller, Like okay, okay. I don't know
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  Speaker 2: how to respond to that I'm sure you're kind of
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  Speaker 2: interacting with a lot of people for the first time
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  Speaker 2: right now.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Well it's wild because in the lead up to
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  Speaker 1: the Trials, a lot of a lot of pro runners,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: like myself, we kind of like it's almost like this
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: monastic life, like you really kind of narrow in focus.
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  Speaker 1: I was actually out in Flagstaff, Arizona, so it was
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: kind of like a very like focus on your training,
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  Speaker 1: like you're not really going out a whole lot. It's
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: just like you're nailing your one hundred and fifteen one
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: hundred and twenty miles a week and that's your life.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: And now it's like I get back to Boston where
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: all my friends are here, it's just a very Boston
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  Speaker 1: is a huge running community in general, and so now
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  Speaker 1: it's really weird. Like before I could just like bang
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: out my runs on the river and kind of like
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  Speaker 1: put my hat down and go. And now I've even
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: just today I got stopped by a girl, and I
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: always like want to be polite and friendly and introduce myself.
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  Speaker 1: And I'm also like I kind of need to finish
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  Speaker 1: my run kind of in a.
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  Speaker 2: Little bit of a rush.
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  Speaker 1: Sorry, I'm technically working right now.
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  Speaker 2: And I mean forget in real life, but I can't
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  Speaker 2: even imagine what the outreach has been on social media.
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  Speaker 2: And I mean, I'm sure other wonderful journalists are reaching
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  Speaker 2: out to you as well, So it's probably just a lot.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a lot. It's been pretty crazy. I also
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  Speaker 1: like try to keep the perspective of, like if I
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: start to like get overwhelmed or get kind of like cranky,
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  Speaker 1: like I just want to like go back to just
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  Speaker 1: my little, boring life, I try to remember that this
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: is ultimately very good for the sport of women's running
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  Speaker 1: because we don't necessarily get a whole lot of press.
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  Speaker 1: A lot of people don't know what professional running is
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  Speaker 1: or follow professional road racing. So it is really exciting
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  Speaker 1: that all of a sudden people are really excited about it,
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  Speaker 1: and it's an Olympic year. It's kind of the prime
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  Speaker 1: time to capitalize on it and let people know like
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  Speaker 1: what our sport is about.
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  Speaker 2: I love it, and so for those that might not
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  Speaker 2: be in the loop. Molly came in second at the
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  Speaker 2: Olympic Marathon Trials with a two twenty seven thirty one
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  Speaker 2: that's a five thirty eight mile for twenty six point
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  Speaker 2: two miles.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. See, that's the funny thing. If somebody had told
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  Speaker 1: me that beforehand that I would be able to run
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  Speaker 1: that on that course, I definitely wouldn't believed them. I
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't believe them if they told me I was going
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  Speaker 1: to get second. But I was definitely nervous going into
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  Speaker 1: it with it being a bit of a rookie in
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  Speaker 1: this area about holding that kind of pace for that long.
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  Speaker 1: So sometimes you just have to You just have to
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  Speaker 1: do it before you're ready to do it.
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  Speaker 2: And I mean you just said the keyword there, rookie.
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  Speaker 2: So all of the headlines it's Mollie runs first ever marathon,
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  Speaker 2: qualifies for the Olympics. So explain how that works to
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  Speaker 2: people who might not totally understand how you just showed
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  Speaker 2: up and ran your first marathon.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, going to the Olympics.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So I think a lot of people have been a
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  Speaker 1: little bit confused because a lot of the headlines have
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  Speaker 1: been maybe exaggerating of it, like girl literally runs the
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  Speaker 1: first time in her life and qualifies for the Olympics. Incredible.
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  Speaker 1: And I work the part time at a bakery as well,
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  Speaker 1: so it's like Beisa takes two hour coffee break and
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  Speaker 1: runs marathon. I being a professional runner, I do run
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  Speaker 1: a lot. I've been running since high school. I ran
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  Speaker 1: for many years for the University of Notre Dame at
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  Speaker 1: the collegiate level, but I was primarily five k and
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: ten k, so that's three miles and six smiles. And
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: as I transitioned to pro running after college, I moved
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  Speaker 1: up a little bit, was doing slightly longer races. But
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: it's only within the past I would say four months
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  Speaker 1: at this point that I've moved up to the half
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  Speaker 1: marathon and now the marathon. So it was I was
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  Speaker 1: training at a pretty high level going into this. By
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  Speaker 1: no means was I like couch to five k or
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: couch to marathon. I'd been training upwards of about like
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: one hundred miles a week. I've had many interruptions with injury,
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  Speaker 1: but it wasn't necessarily a challenge to ramp up to
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  Speaker 1: marathon training. My body handled it pretty well because I've
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: got basically, oh god, now i feel like I'm gonna
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: date myself. I'm twenty five now. I've been doing this
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  Speaker 1: since I was about fourteen, running consistently every single day,
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  Speaker 1: so yeah, basically eleven years at this point.
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  Speaker 2: What made you decide to ramp up and go for
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  Speaker 2: the longer distances.
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  Speaker 1: Basically, I have struggled a lot over the past several
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  Speaker 1: years with injury and things. I just felt like I
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: was hitting my head against the wall and kept getting hurt,
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  Speaker 1: kept getting hurt doing this five k ten k training.
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  Speaker 1: I ended up leaving the training group that I was
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  Speaker 1: with over the summer specifically for or that was a
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  Speaker 1: major part of it. It just wasn't really working anymore.
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  Speaker 1: I have so much respect for my previous coach, but
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  Speaker 1: it was just frustrating for the both of us that
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  Speaker 1: I couldn't do the kind of training that he wanted
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  Speaker 1: me to do. When I began to be coached by
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  Speaker 1: my current coach, who's a good friend of mine, who
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  Speaker 1: was a Soccony teammate of my teammate of mine, John Green,
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  Speaker 1: we kind of came to the realization that my body
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  Speaker 1: really thrives off of super high mileage, longer tempo runs,
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  Speaker 1: the type of training that a marathon or would traditionally
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  Speaker 1: do as opposed to fast interval workouts that a track
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  Speaker 1: athlete would do. So he was like, let's try this out.
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  Speaker 1: We'll see if you're mileage can get up just build
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  Speaker 1: a good base, get aerobically strong, and then we'll see
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  Speaker 1: what happens. And I was feeling really healthy, really strong,
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  Speaker 1: and he thought it would be fun to hop in
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  Speaker 1: a half marathon. Jumped in a half marathon in December,
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  Speaker 1: qualified for the Olympic trials, and we figured, hey, it'll
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  Speaker 1: be a cool experience, like we'll go out and then
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  Speaker 1: maybe a couple of years from now, when when you're
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  Speaker 1: a little bit older, when you're closer to the age
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  Speaker 1: that women traditionally start moving up to the marathon, then
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  Speaker 1: you'll then you can try and be competitive. So, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: this was all kind of a big shock, like going
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  Speaker 1: in and with my first marathon build up really going
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  Speaker 1: a lot better than I expected.
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  Speaker 2: And I love what you told runners were old. You
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  Speaker 2: said you were going into it and keeping an open
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  Speaker 2: mind knowing how much it's going to hurt, and prepared
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  Speaker 2: for that amount of pain, the idea of pain and running.
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  Speaker 2: And I feel like I've been talking about this a
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  Speaker 2: lot lately because it's so true. The pain is part
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  Speaker 2: of what you sign up for.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think a lot of people assume that when
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  Speaker 1: you get to the pro level of running, that it
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  Speaker 1: doesn't hurt anymore that if it's this idea that if
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  Speaker 1: you get fast enough that it won't hurt anymore, and
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: if anything is the opposite, I think, well, it's funny
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  Speaker 1: because I think I'm the biggest change in going from
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  Speaker 1: high school to college professional running is your relationship with
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  Speaker 1: the discomfort of running changes, and you're able to kind
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  Speaker 1: of like come to terms with it and handle it,
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  Speaker 1: because that's running at its core, is just being uncomfortable
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  Speaker 1: for a long period of time and like battling inside
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  Speaker 1: your own head of your brain constantly telling you to stop.
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  Speaker 1: And I hate to admit how many times in races
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  Speaker 1: I have had the thought of, like, you should just
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: stop right now, and it's like, nope, I can't stop.
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  Speaker 1: I have to keep going.
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  Speaker 2: I think it's probably pretty refreshing for people to hear
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  Speaker 2: that you still feel that way for people who are,
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: you know, maybe even just starting out.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So, speaking of starting out, you didn't just show up
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: in Atlanta a contrary to some of the headlines, and
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: I were.
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  Speaker 1: Super oblivious about things in many senses. I had no
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: idea how much to warm up for before a marathon,
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  Speaker 1: because for road races and shorter stuff we warm up
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: twenty minutes or three miles, and so I was assuming
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: that i'd do the same thing for a marathon. And
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: I like asked a couple of people. They're like, oh
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: my god, no, you don't warm up for a marathon.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: You're gonna be running for twenty six miles. I'm like,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: I'm really glad, I asked.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: I'm glad I didn't go run an extra three.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly because that my coach is like, why would
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: you do that. You'd be running like thirty two miles
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: that day then, so extra I know.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: Okay, so you didn't just show up and running.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: I did not just show up.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: You said you grew up running, But talk to me
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: about where you grew up, what you what your interaction
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: was with sport from a young age.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, grew up grew up running in Wisconsin. Basically, I
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: went to a super super super small school, Like my
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: graduating class was thirteen kids. Grew up in Wisconsin, and
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: I knew that I loved running, but I was doing
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: a lot of other sports as well. I played field hockey,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: ski racing was our main sport that was kind of
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: like our school's pride and joy. So those were kind
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: of like my main sports, but I knew that I
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: loved running and I knew I was good at it.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: I basically got into it through my church. They had
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: a church team and they needed extra kids for like
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: the Catholic School League, and they let me join through
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: my CCD and found out that I was pretty good
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: at it. But at the same time, this was like
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: a pretty pretty small pond to be running in. So
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: by the time I got into high school and I
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: was the only person on our track team, and I
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: was like, well, I hope that, like I can still
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: be competitive and ended up in going out and winning
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: quite a few state titles at the Wisconsin state level.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: Is that just constant one on one coaching.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So it was basically my middle school track coach,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Brian Borkowski, who I'm still super super close with. He
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: was just like, well, if you need someone to coach
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: you too, like I'll like come and like run with
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: you after school, like if you want to him, like, yeah,
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: that would be And he was actually pretty much the
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: first person that got me kind of dreaming of someday
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: doing the marathon because he would do Boston every year,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: and in my mind, Brian was just like the coolest individual.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, he goes out and
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: like runs the Boston Marathon and does all this training
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: and he's still super fast, and he'll run my workouts
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: with me. And like, at the time, I was running
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: like twenty miles a week, it wasn't anything for him
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: to like run this extra stuff with me. But he
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: just showed me how to love running. Like he just
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: loved running so thoroughly that it showed me that, like,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: running is this thing that, yeah, it's hard, it's painful,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: but at the same time, like it is just like
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: it brings you together with people, it helps you find
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: confidence in yourself, and it's it's this sport that's just
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: so much more than just running in circles. Right, So
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: I really am so grateful for him for teaching me
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: how to love running despite all the challenges that it brings.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: Did you find in high school then that your love
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: for running was kind of a lonely experience. You didn't
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: have a ton of people to do it with aside
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: from your coach.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: See that's the thing. I never feel like running alone
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: is lonely for me. And I don't know if part
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: of that is developed from so much time running alone
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: because Brian would only be able to meet up a
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: couple times a week. So yeah, about half the time
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: I was running solo, and then during cross country season,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: I'd basically be running alone for the majority of the season.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: And I had to learn a lot of self reliance,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: I guess, not that I didn't have other people supporting
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: me and helping me, like my family was super supportive.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: I had a lot of friends through the sport, but yeah,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: it's I think I had to develop that sense of like,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: regardless of whether there are people to run with, whether
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: or not the weather is good or bad or whatnot,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: you just go out and run regardless. And I think
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: that really helps nowadays because I do. I do a
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: lot of my training solo, and I run a lot
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: more now than I was in high school. And so
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: it's just being able to get that like internal drive
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: or I don't know it, probably the fact that I
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: have OCD probably plays into it a little bit of
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: just like it's really not a struggle to like go
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: out every day because I'm a little bit obsessive. I'm like,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: oh no, I just I have to go out and
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: do it. And after a while it doesn't even become
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: a choice. It's just like brushing your teeth. It's kind
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: of like, oh, it's not a question of whether I'm
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: running today, I am running today, right.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: I actually said that to my dad the other day
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: about going to the gym. He just got a membership
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: with the Why and I was like, you just need
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: to establish what days are your gym days, and then
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: you'll wake up and it'll be Tuesday and it's like, Okay,
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: it's jim Day's jim Dy. Yeah, that's just it taking
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: the guestwork out of it so you can make it
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: actually a habit, and then that keeps you accountable obviously, Yeah, because.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: When it's when you don't have to like make a
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: conscious decision every day of like oh do I want
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: to run? Like do it like the weather's not good,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: like factoring all that in like it's so hard. But
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: if it's just like in your mind like oh nope,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: going out and doing this, it's just not it's just automatic.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: It takes out that extra guesswork and it makes that
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: much easier to get out the door.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: And I think that's why people love training for marathons, right,
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: because it brings another level of consistency and regularity and
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: kind of makes you feel like you have your life
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: together even when you might not, just because you have
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: a schedule to follow. You have something that just feels
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: constant when everything around you might feel a little bit chaotic.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, and that's what the times in my life
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: where I've had running and taken away from me, so
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: like during injuries per se it, I do notice just
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: how unstructured I feel like I'm just like a drift
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: kind of and I have no way of like, yeah,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: I just feel like my days are just kind of
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: lost then, and it doesn't help that this is my job.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: So imagine then, like not only do you not like
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: have running with the endorphins and the structure that it gives,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: but then it's like I just don't have anything to do,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: so right, yeah, that can be. That was a real
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: real struggle, especially like over the past several years. Once
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: this was like my full time job totally.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: So in high school, you went a few state championships
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: and then you go to Notre Dame.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: So I ended up I won nationals for cross country
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: my senior year of high school, so got a scholarship
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: to Notre Dame, which I was just like so excited
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: about it was the chance to get college paid for
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: it just because I can run in circles. Kind of
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: still blows my mind a little bit. But I went
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: to Notre Dame, had an incredible team around me, but
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: really struggled my first two years. I struggled with a
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: lot of injuries. I ended up my freshman year having
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: mold in my dorm room, so I was really really,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: really really sick.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was just not a great situation and it
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: was hard. I thought. By the end of my sophomore year,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: I was considering quitting the cross country team just because
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: I couldn't get anything together. I was just so hurt.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: I was just in pain all the time and it
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: just wasn't fun anymore. And I ended up basically like
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: I didn't qualify for regionals my sophomore year, just kind
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: of like peaced out, went and did research down in
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Argentina for the summer, and it was just like kind
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: of fell back in love with it because it was
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: running regularly and doing really high mileage. Was a great
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: way to fight some of the culture shock because I
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: was the only American on the crew that I was with,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: So yeah, kind of fell in love with it. And
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: when I came back, we ended up getting a new
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: coach that year, and Sparks just kind of changed my
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: entire collegiate career.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: And you mentioned before that you had OCD, So when
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: did you start seeing that develop?
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: That was through high school just being around like my
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: family and the structure of that. It really helped being
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: able to and I think it's lower stress in high school.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Mine comes out a lot more when I'm under high
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: stress situations, high pressure. So it really started kind of
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: like becoming this really big negative influence on my life
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: during college, just because I was under so much stress
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: with school, so much stress with running, and I didn't
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: have good ways of managing that anxiety. And that's ultimately
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: what OCD is. It's you have all this anxiety and
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: you develop control mechanisms to try and feel some sense
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: of relief or some sense of control over the world
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: that just feels like it's spinning out of control.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: So what were some of your control mechanisms.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Knocking was a big one for me. I would like knock,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: especially on wood in like repetitive patterns, saying things over
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: and over to myself when it gets really bad. I
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: would like flip light switches, like you can't like leave
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: a room until you've done certain things of like, oh,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: I check things. I flip the light switch on, like
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: obsessively checking like ovens. And I was pretty good at
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: like hiding it from a lot of people because I really, like,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: you know consciously, like this is super weird. I don't
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: like you consciously know that it's not necessary to do
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: these things, but you have to do it, like your
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: body almost like you just feel this sense of dread
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: if you don't. And then obviously it would reflect in
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: my running sometimes I would kind of obsessively seek out mileage.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: And then ultimately it came down to eating. Yeah, it
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: developed into really negative, disordered eating habits.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Talk to me a little bit about that.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: A lot of that it doesn't necessarily stem from body
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: image issues, though, I that is a huge problem in
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: our sport, this idea that you need to be very thin.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: I was kind of like obsessively purging at certain times,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: so making myself throw up. That was more towards like
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: the early end of college. And yeah, just like only
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: eating certain kinds of foods, eating certain amounts, and yeah,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: it's just finding ways to like exert control over the world.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: By controlling something like what you put into your body
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: is something so easily that you can control. So when
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: you're like I can't, like I feel like everything is
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: just like spinning out of my like out of my control,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: I'm able to just like manage this one thing right.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: Here, right. And so a lot of people casually will say, oh,
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: I have the worst OCD.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: I hate it when people say that, like, and I realized,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: like I think, I think there are a lot of
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: people in the world who do have OCD tendencies. But
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: like saying like I wash my hands all the time,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: I'm so OCD, or like I just need to make
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: sure my room is clean. I'm so OCD. I'm like,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: you don't know what real OCD is, Like it's a nightmare, yeah,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: And it's like it's just these repetitive thoughts. And sometimes
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: it's this feeling that your brain is like a radio
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: that's turned up to like full volume, and it's just
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: these repetitive thoughts. You can't get them to quiet down,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: and you can't focus on the world because your brain
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: is just so loud, and so it's it's hard. But
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: I think like people who actually are really struggling with it,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: like getting help and like seeking therapy. For me, ultimately,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: that was the biggest thing for me, is learning how
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: to manage it. It's like my life is so drastically
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: different now than it was, and I've been on and
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: off medication for it. Ultimately, like meditation actually really helps.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to be good with it. And I know
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: that sounds so like millennial, like, oh yeah, I'm meditating
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: every day, but like that actually has been a super
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: big thing for me. And then just running, even though
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: some of my OCD tendencies exert themselves on my running,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: my running is a very good way to manage my OCD.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Something about like the rhythmic nature clearing my mind. It's
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: just like sometimes I feel like my brain doesn't fit
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: with my body. Sometimes it's just like my brain is
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: just exploding, and then I go for a run and
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: it's like my brain finally fits inside of me, Like
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: everything just makes sense and everything sinks up in a
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: way that I feel like my truest self when I'm
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: out running. And I think that's ultimately why I love
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: running so much, because this is the only time that
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: I like my brain works.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: I can relate with that for sure, and I mean
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: when it came to dealing with your OCD and then
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: what eventually became disordered eating when you got help, was
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: it because that you were ready to seek it or
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: was it because that people started to catch on to
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: the fact that you had a lot of ticks per se.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: So it was it was a combination of things. I
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: originally early in college, started going and seeing just one
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: of the Notre Dame like counseling center therapists because I
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: knew this was a problem and it was really affecting me.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: It's like when it gets to a point of like
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: that you feel like you it's disrupting your normal life,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: that's when it gets really hard. So in terms of
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: my OCD, that was something that I was able to
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: identify that I needed help on, sought out help, and
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: learned of ways to manage it a bit better. In
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: terms of my eating disorder, which then kind of took
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: on a life of its own that was much more
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: of like I was in such denial about it, and
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: I think because of how our sport is structured, the
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: normal control stops of like when you see someone losing
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: a lot of weight, like struggling mentally, that isn't something
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: that kicks in quite as early as it would in
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: other realms, just because with running, it's like this idea
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: that like, oh you look so fit, you look so lean,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: you look so ready to race, that in other spaces
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: would have been like, oh, you look really unhealthy, like
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: you aren't well right now. But I was running so well.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: I was winning NCAA championships. This was later in college,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: just as more my junior senior year, and I ended
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: up having probably lost about twenty pounds at that point.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: But it was that I was running so well and
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: I looked so quote unquote fit that things were okay.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: And I thought things were okay because I had moved
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: past the point where I was knocking on things all
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: the time, where I was forcing myself obsessively to purd
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: that now it had transformed into kind of this life
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: of its own. I think that's what's insidious about it,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: is that with mental health issues, it can so quickly
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: transform into one thing.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Can go from one thing to another. So I was like,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: I don't have a problem anymore. But it became fairly
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: apparent by the end of my senior year that there
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: was a huge problem. Once I had gotten so NWU
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: putritionally deprived that my bones started breaking.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: Talk to me about a what were you actually putting
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: into your body at this time, because you mentioned that
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: you were so particular about the foods that were okay
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: and the foods that were not okay.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it was. I won my first NCAA
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: championship at the end of my junior year. I think
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: it was kind of this idea of, oh, if I
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: want to win national championships for cross country, which is
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: arguably one of the hardest running national championships to win,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: just because it's so competitive. I was like, I need
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: to be all in on every sense of my life.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: So I was running super high mileage, at least for
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: a collegiate athlete. I was running aboute hundred miles a week.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: But then I was eating all the things that I
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: thought were I was supposed to, that were quote unquote clean,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: that were healthy, like good proteins, fats. I wasn't like
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: cutting out anything by any means, but I actually I
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: was gluten free at the time because I thought that
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: I had like my stomach would get super upset when
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: I had certain foods. But it was just because I
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: was so nutritionally deprived that like my body couldn't handle it.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: I guess, which I've found out since then, But yeah,
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: I was probably the volume of food. I was nowhere
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: near the amount of calories that I needed to beating,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: but I was still eating a lot, so I was
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: able to kind of like fly under the radar. So
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: I was eating the amount that probably someone who was
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: running fifty miles a week should be eating, but I
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: was running double that, and so I just slowly kept
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: losing more and more weight, but I kept running faster
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: and faster and faster. Throughout that senior year. It was
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: like I came in at probably I won my first
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: NCAA championship that passed spring at one hundred and twelve,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: came in after the summer, having just trained so hard,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: not eating enough, eating so quote unquote clean. I was
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: probably one o five one oh six. Then going to
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: the next season at one hundred and every time, because
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: you keep running faster, you think, oh, this is my
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: new racing weight, like this, this is what I should
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: be at. And then by the time I got to
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: the spring and summer of my senior year, which was
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: the twenty sixteen Olympic trials where I was just so
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: obsessed with making an Olympic team. I had my world
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: standard for the five k, but I was probably ninety
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: five pounds and just so unwell mentally and physically, and
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: that was that was the breaking point.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: I broke my.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: Back and my sacrum in quick succession and just didn't
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: even make it to line at the trials. And that
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: was kind of like the rock bottom moment that I knew, like,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: you can't keep doing this, You're going to kill yourself.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: When you have this moment, is it a conversation you're
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: having with yourself or does it quickly become a conversation
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: that you're having also with your coaches, with your family,
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: with your parents, and probably uncomfortable conversations.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, those were awful. So it was I'm very,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: very very lucky that I have people around me who
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: love me and were able to see and people around
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: me who love me and who love me regardless of
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: whether or not I'm running. And so basically like I
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: had a balling conversation with my mom about how she
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: was like, I just want you to be healthy, Like
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: I don't care about Molly the runner. I care about
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Molly the person. And what Molly, the person right now
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: needs is help, Like you can't do this. And I
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: think I had convinced myself as like I don't have
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: a problem. I just like like, I just need to
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: gain a little bit of way back and I'll be fine.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: Like I know, maybe I'm a little bit too low
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: right now at ninety five. Think you're like, oh, I
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: just have to get back up to one hundred pounds
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: and then I'll be fine. And it was this realization
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: and talking with friends and family and my coach and
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: be like like no, like you need to like really
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: take this seriously, Like you are not healthy. This is
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: going to be a long time to get back where
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: you need to be. And I don't think when I
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: was at the worst of my disorder that I realized
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: just how hard it was going to be. Eating this
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: sort of treatment is really fucking hard, but ultimately it's
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: worth it. It just takes time. And that was I'm
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: very glad that I had that support because I would
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: not have gotten through that alone.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: When you broke your back and then your sacrum, did
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: it start out as just something that fell a little off,
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: then all of a sudden it was like, oh my god,
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: this is broken or was there a big moment that
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: you knew wow for my back.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: It was kind of like a it like start out
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: feeling really really sore. This is a couple of days
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: after Indoornationals, so March of twenty sixteen, really sore, gradually progressed.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: We thought it was a backstrain for a while, just
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: from having a long season, got an x ray, realized
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: that there were fractures. Cross trained so hard all through
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: the spring with the intention of, Oh, if I just
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: cross trained super hard, I'll be back running in six
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: weeks and I'll be able to make the trials, and
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: got back on the ground, was running and I was
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: in a track workout be it just so unhealthy, weight
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: was so low getting ready for the trials, and I
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: literally like I felt like I'd been shot in my butt,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: basically like it just went and I was like, oh
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: my god, and had to like literally sit down on
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: the track just stop. And we knew what it was. Yeah,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: but even then I was like, maybe I can still
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: make it back or something, because I was just yeah,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: like mentally unwell at that point.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: How do you accept that you need help?
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: It was It was hard. It was hard. Getting to
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: that point of like being willing to say, like, Okay,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: I'm going to take a step back from my running
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: and going to turn down these pro contracts that I've
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: been offered. I'm going to give up on. And at
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: the time, I thought I was giving up on my
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: running career. And that's what like, I just felt like
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: I was giving up that I needed to keep pushing
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: and pushing and pushing and I couldn't anymore, and it
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: was it was hard. Yeah, I went back to Wisconsin.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: I was like, man, I'm like moving back home. Cool,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: like super successful and uh yeah. I went into treatment
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: just outside of Milwaukee and spent four months in super
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: intensive treatment and then the still continued to like seek
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: treatment over the next two years, just on a more
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: infrequent basis, but staying with my therapist and I actually
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: still talk with him fairly frequently. It's been kind of
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: like my main go to guy because it's still something
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: you need to like keep maintaining. You're never fully done
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: with it.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: So that was an in patient program, so you were
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: there for four months, So.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: It was an intensive outpatient because we lived so close
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: that it was actually better for me and my therapist
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: thought of this that if I was living at home,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: that it would be a much better situation for me
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: to have the structure of family, for like my mom
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: was able to like make me meals and like be
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: able to really watch what I was eating. And he
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: knew that. I was like when I hit rock bottom,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: I just went all in, like I was willing to
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: do whatever I needed to do to save my running
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: career because I knew if I didn't take it seriously.
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: He was like, my therapist was super hard on me,
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: like very frank of like, if you don't take this seriously,
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: you will never run again. And I was like, I'm
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: going to be as dedicated to this as I am
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: to my running. So if you want me to drink
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: three Insure shakes a day, I will drink three Goddamnature
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: shakes a day, and like do all this and like
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: and I think he was actually pretty surprised about how
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: quickly I was able to like do it. Usually something
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: like that will take like six to a year of
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: pretty intensive work, So I think he was very surprised
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: at just how like crazy, like crazy invested I was,
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: and like, let's do this.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: So while you're going through this program, how are you
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: rehabbing your body as well. Obviously a big part of
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: it is reshaping maybe your relationship with food and also
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: the mental side. But what are you doing for rehab
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: for all of your bones and yeah, that kind of stuff.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: So I didn't run for a while. I obviously like
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: just needed to like let my body heal.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: Talk me through the mental side of that.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: It's hard, It's really hard because running is kind of
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: like what keeps me stable. Part of it is like
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: at least when you're like coming back from something like that,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: at the very beginning, it is just so physically painful
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: to move that it's like you just can't do anything.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: And just I had been so obsessively cross training and
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: pushing through the pain, which is something that you become
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: very good at when you're a runner. But you need
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: to be able to separate like the good pain or
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: like quote unquote discomfort when you're training, from like the
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: bad pain of like oh this is broken, and so
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: being able to just learn to be still for a while.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: And that's something that I still struggle with in times
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: that like I need to take off where I just
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: have a trouble sitting still sometimes. Yeah, just learning to
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: be like okay with your body and okay with your
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: mind and learning some of those calming techniques and finding
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: other ways of managing my OCD and anxiety without having
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: to resort to obsessively working out or controlling the foods
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: that I was eating right And then because at the
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: same time you're doing this, you're having to like gain weight,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: which goes against basically everything in sports culture and just
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: like I don't know, freaking Instagram culture nowadays of like no,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: only drink Kale smoothies and you can lose another five pounds,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: and just like this idea of like, oh I have
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: to gain ten pounds and yeah, it's like my weight
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: was so low that even just like eating normal meals
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: and then they were having me drink like two extra
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: Insure shakes a day, like you're going to gain weight
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: off that. So it's like the mental side is just
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: like trying to process, like you've gone through all of
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: this stress and like losing weight and losing weight and
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: losing weight, and you just feel like a failure as
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: your weight goes up. But yeah, you kind of just
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: have to buck up and it sucks, but you get
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: through it.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I can only imagine how difficult it's
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: got to be to get over those mental hurdles of
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: just accepting this new way of life and these new
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: patterns and counteracting the things that you were so diligently
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: working toward.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, and you have to relearn just how to
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: live and how to think, because I think for the
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: longest time my mind had been set to this idea.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: It's in sport, it's always okay to be a little
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: bit underweight rather than overweight. The worst thing you can
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: do is be one pound overweight. It's fine to be
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: three pounds underweight. And now my thinking it's to totally
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: shifted of like I cannot go under like my minimum
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: baseline weight, like because I will get injured and I
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: will like my bones are gonna suffer. So it's better
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: now in my mind, I'm like, Okay, it's better to
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: be a little bit overweight in your training, and then
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: like I don't know, you can get down to like
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: your race weight, but you can't go below that and
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: just straight up you don't have the energy reserves. Like
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: I'm so much stronger now in the training that I'm
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: doing because I actually have energy to train rather than
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: just like running off fumes and being so light that
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: sometimes like that your body can just propel itself.
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: I'm curious to know what your relationship is these days
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: with a scale, do you get.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: I actually don't weigh myself at more. Yeah, Like I'm
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: fine with like being weighed, but I think it's I'll
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: get like too wrapped up in the numbers. And so
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: I found that it's a lot better for me to
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: actually just like I've got a better awareness of my body.
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: So I was out in Ethiopia in the fall doing
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: some volunteer work with girls, got to run and training,
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: and I lost weight while I was over there, and
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: so when I came back, I was like, Okay, like
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: I can feel that I'm under the weight that I
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: need to be. I just don't feel good right now,
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: Like I need to focus on like gaining some weight back. Yeah,
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: or even like after this marathon cycle, I'm I'm doing
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: fairly light training right now compared to what I was doing.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: So like I'm okay with like gaining some weight, getting
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: like my reserves back up as I enter the next
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: training cycle, because I know it's going to be a
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: really long spring and summer, Like as I get ready
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: for the games.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: Right, And how special is it now that you have
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: this sense to feel how it is that you're doing,
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: because before so much of quote unquote how you felt
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: was based on what you would look down and see.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. It's like just being able to like have
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: that like I guess confidence and awareness in my body
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: and to like step to the line and no, I'm
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: not necessarily the skinniest girl on that line, but that
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: I'm like confident in my body is like I'm much
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: more at peace with it and I don't, like I'm
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: not a obsessed with it like I was. Right, Yeah,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: and that just brings me a lot of like relief.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: Okay, So four months through the treatment program, then what happens?
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Uh? Then I was actually healthy enough at that point
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: that my therapist had kind of told me, like, I
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: don't think you should be like training super heavily. But
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: I was like, but I want to train heavily, and like,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: if I can get super healthy in the next four months,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: would you let me like go and maybe spend the
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: fall out in flag Staff, live back there in a
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: healthy way, and then come back, maybe go back to
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: Notre Dame in the spring. Then, And so I like
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: went all in on treatment, got healthy, got back up
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: to the weight that he had wanted me at, and
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: then ended up being able to go out to flag
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: Staff for that fall do do some training, and then
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: with the intention of coming back that next spring and
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: hoping to run well so that I could get a
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: pro contract. Sorry if this timeline is supers, Yeah, I'm
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: running this fall of twenty sixteen.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Okay, So I got to go out to.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: Flag Staff just be with friends. I took the fall
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: off of school because this was after I'd graduated, but
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: coming back for a fifth year now, so I was
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: not at Notre Dame for that fall. Came back in
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: the spring, and even though my body was in a
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: much healthier place and eating disorder like that, it just
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: kind of SAPs your bones. It has very long term
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: repercussions that I don't think I was fully prepared for
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: just how severe they are going to be. And I
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: ended up fully fracturing my hip at the end or
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: my pelvis at the end of my fifth year. So
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: I finished out my NCAA career being effectively immobile, not
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: able to do anything, and with just nobody was offering
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: me contracts because I was effectively a broken toy, and yeah,
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: nobody was interested.
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: When you fracture your pelvis, that's such a horrible sentence
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: to say. When that happens to you. Are you do
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: you feel like you're just back on the ground again. Yeah,
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: it was.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: I continue to run on it for a while. It
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: was kind of a situation where it was so excruciatingly painful,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: but I was really in denial about what it was,
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: and I think my coach was hoping that it was
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: something different than it was. And I was under a
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: lot of pressure to perform, but eventually got to the
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: point where I could not walk, so we went in
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: got the MRI. It showed that it was very severely fractured,
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: and so that was it. And it's just I thought
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: that was truthfully, I thought that was it, that I
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: was going to be done. And I healed up. I
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: finally was able to do stuff again, and sock Andy
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: was willing to offer me a contract to come out
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: to Boston run on a team that they were putting together,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: and for me at the time, that was way more
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: than I deserved. Like nobody would have offered that kind
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: of contract, that kind of developmental contract, and so I
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: like I'm still so enormously grateful to them for that.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: So I moved out here. I was training for a
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: year and I had quite a bit of success my
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: first year of training, but kept running into this problem
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: that my hip that I had thought healed would just
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: get sore. The more track work that I was doing,
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: kept getting hurt, kept getting hurt, and right after USA
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: USA ten K Champs on the track after that first
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: year of running, Pro went back in got another their
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: MRI to see if there was something wrong and they
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: found that it actually never healed fully, that I had
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: a two millimeter gap in that pelvis. So yeah, another
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: they're biggie and then they're like, okay, you need to
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: have this like surgically repaired, like this won't heal on
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: its own. So that was went in on my birthday
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: in summer of twenty eighteen. They drilled out the bone
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: marrow from the two crests of my hip on the
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: very top, spun it down to get the stem cells,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: and then injected in the bottom. And that was like,
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: I've been through some really painful things in my life
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: and having to do that with no pain, like because
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: they couldn't do pain medication and they couldn't put me
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: out for it because I needed to be awake to
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: like manipulate myself. That was quite literally like what I
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: imagine hell to be.
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: Like, yeah, I can't how like how does someone endure.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: One the amya zanax? So at least I was like
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: chilled out while it was happening. The doctor who did
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: the surgery was like, she's one of my favorite people,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: super super nice. She gave me like a sandwich halfway
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: through because it's like a two part surgery. But yeah,
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: it was. It was hellish. They pulled out like and
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: even like after you go through the drilling and like
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: the bone marrows out, your hip is just so hurting
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: so bad, and then they unsheathe this like needle that
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: is the biggest needle I've ever seen to inject the
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: stem cells into the bottom of your like like the
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: very bottom part of my pelvis. And it was just
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: like oh my god. But you just kinda yeah, you
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: just get through it.
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: Did you think at this point, even though you were
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: getting quote unquote fixed, that you were going to be
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: able to come back to running? Were you sure of it?
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: They gave me a fifty to fifty chance of it
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: working and then like even then it might not like
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: with the full knowledge that like I might never run
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: at the same level again, just with how impinged and
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: like impaired my hip would be. So yeah, I'm happy
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: to say that I was the better half of that
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: fifty percent. Yeah, it was kind of like truthfully, it
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: was kind of miraculous. But yeah, it was basically six
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: months of not being able to do anything. So yeah,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: from July of that year to the next January.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: So now we're finally in January twenty nineteen.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: Twenty nineteen. Literally, I know, sorry, if there's so much stuff,
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: it's like the timeline's wild, but yeah, then it's like
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: literally starting from square one, right, And so yeah, twenty
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: nineteen was hard because it was like trying to like
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: build back up off of nothing.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: What advice would you offer to people who, like you,
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: just feel as though they are getting knocked down time
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: and time and time again by injury.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: I would say that the number one thing is to
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: if you are feeling like you're just in this injury
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: cycle constantly hurting things, you have to get back to
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: a point where you feel fully healthy. You don't want
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: to constantly be playing ketchup and I think that was
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: my problem for a long time, is that I always
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: had something going on and I would try to push
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: through it, and then it would cause another injury. And
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: I'd try and push you that and it'd cause another injury.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: And I almost think that those six months of being
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: able to just like sit, let everything heal, and then
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: start building off of it, coming from the standpoint of
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: my body is finally healthy, my hip is finally healed.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: I'm not like nursing something and then trying to push
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: through it. I think once you're coming from a standpoint
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: of being healthy, then you can build off of that.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: It takes a long time, but if you're constantly like
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: facing the tiny things or large things, you're going to
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: be hitting yourself against a wall constantly. And that's not
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: to say that through twenty nineteen I didn't have a
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: lot of injuries. I mean, that's ultimately why I ended
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: up with my new coach, because I had so many
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: like imbalances. But now I do feel that at least
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: I'm in the standpoint where like I'm able to train
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: at a higher level because like my hip is repaired
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: and because I took the time to let it heal
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: and it was really freaking hard being patient enough to
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: do that, but and it sucked at the time.
• 44:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I also think it's I also think that it
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: was probably important for you, like your mom said to
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: you when you were younger, like I care about Mollie,
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: my daughter, not just Molly the runner. You probably also
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: had to get to a point where you cared about
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: Molly the person and not just Molly the runner.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think it's like, yeah, having to think
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: about like, oh man, I don't want to like destroy
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: my body so like years from now I can't walk,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: which I think previously I was definitely under the opinion
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: like I'm just gonna go as hard as I can
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: now and not think about Molly at age forty five,
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: and now it's like I want to make sure that
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: like my pelvis doesn't snap when I'm that old. Yeah,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: So it's like, yeah, definitely try and even not even
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: from that standpoint, just thinking like if I want to
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: try and stay in this sport for the next hopefully
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: ten years, Like I see women now who are competing
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: at a super high level in the marathon at age
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: thirty five thirty six, it's like I'd ultimately like to
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: do that, but I need my body to be healthy
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: to do that, and I can't be like constantly just
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: like tearing myself apart.
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: So what's the first race in twenty nineteen that you
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: come back to and it's like Molly's back.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: I did the BAA ten k that was in June,
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: so it actually had been based almost exactly a full
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: year since my previous race at USA outdoors on the track,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: and I actually raced way better than I thought I
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: was going to. I actually think I like prd in
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: the ten k and there, so I was like shocked.
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: I was like feel towing the line that day.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: I was so nervous, but I was so excited. There's
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: just like nothing feels like racing feels, and I was
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: just so like ready to get back into it. Yeah,
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: it was terrifying. I was like, I really hope I'm
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: still able to do this.
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: So you do the ten k and then you're feeling high.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: Feeling high, go and do a couple more races and
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: then do Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta on July fourth,
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: and I hurt my hip again and was on crutches
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: for two weeks, and I definitely like called coach Sparks,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: my college coach, and cried to him and was like,
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: I think this is the end of my running career.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: And he was like, you're being dumb. You're too dumb
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: to quit running. Like you're going to get through this,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: just like you've gone through everything else. You just need
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: to be patient. Right, got through that, spent the summer rehabbing.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: When did you say you went to Ethiopia? That was
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: actually November? Okay, so that was part of it. I
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: had gotten involved with girls got to run previously. I'd
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: been out in January of twenty twenty nineteen actually doing
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: a relay and it was a really good way of
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: while I was injured and kind of building up to
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: focus on something that wasn't just me. Yeah, And I
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: think that actually really helped as well, because it's like
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: running is such a selfish sport that you're just so
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: self focused all the time. It's like how does my
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: body feel? How am I performing? And being able to
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: think like bigger picture of like what's going to be
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: good for all of these people who aren't me was
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: really important for me and realizing like that ultimately, like
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: our sport is super silly and inconsequential and like there's
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: a huge world out there, and it just gives you
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: a good perspective on like, I'm doing this because I
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: love running and it fulfills my goals. But there's more
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: to this than just.
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: Me, right, And so you come back from that trip
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: and you qualify for the trials at the Rock and
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: R San Antonio. Yes, one ten twenty seven.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that was well, yeah, it was. Yeah. I
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: was very surprised, just because it was very hard to
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: train in Ethiopia. It's really high. I had only been
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: running consistently since September at that point, and John was
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: now coaching me, so my my current coach and my friend,
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: and so we had no idea how that was going
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: to go. I think John always has a lot of
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: confidence in me. But yeah, we were both pleasantly surprised
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: with how well that went.
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: And that's up and that's a one ten twenty seven
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: half marathon. I feel like we just like throw these
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: numbers around.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's probably like what are these numbers? Now?
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: What's going on? But then there was more to be had.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So after that race, I was originally set to
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: debut in the marathon at the Houston Marathon, and then
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: the Houston Half is the big race that everybody does
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: before the trials, and my coach and I were talking
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: and he was like, you know what, like maybe like
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: you could switch to the half at Houston. And I
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: was like, would you let me do the Olympic trials
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: like for the marathon. He's like, I'm not wild about
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: the idea, but like maybe we can do this, Like
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: this might be a really cool experience, and like we'll
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: see if Houston will let you switch to the half.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: They let me switch to the half and went out
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: to altitude. Then beginning of this past year twenty twenty,
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: was just train them a butt off and got to
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: the line, ran very well at Houston, and yeah, then
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: just was like kind of got that like little inkling
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: in my mind of like, Okay, I think I can
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: do this. And I think what I didn't even realize
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: until more recently was just the dramatic difference I would say,
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: between how fast you have to be as a half
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: marathon or to qualify for the Olympic Trials in the
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: marathon versus I mean, within reason, how fast you would
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: run a marathon to qualify for the trials in a marathon,
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: for women, you have to run a marathon in under
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: two forty five and if you are qualifying use a
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: half marathon time, you have to run the half marathon
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: under one thirteen. That is a big difference. I think
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: it's I think it's like talks to how.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: Much of a badass you are that you qualified being
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: a half marathon er.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: And there are other women who do qualify off the
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: half marathon. I don't know the exact number of us
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: that did, but yeah, it's I think it's kind of
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: this expectation like if you're going to be like, if
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: you're qualifying off the half, you have to be willing
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: to go out and like freaking send it like totally. Yeah,
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: you have to kind of know what you're getting yourself into.
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: So, needless to say, you come off of the Houston
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: half marathon, you're feeling great and you're like, Wow, I
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: guess it's time to go out there and run a
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: full finally.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, But I was like, that's not to say
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: that I wasn't scared out of my goddamn mind because
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: it was effectively the deepest field the Olympic marathon trials
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: it ever had, just the state of women's distance running
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: in the US right now is insane. There are so
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: many women who are so talented. So going into this,
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: I really was trying to keep my expectations fairly low
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: the secret to happiness to really say, But yeah, I
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: was not by any means try like just seeing like, oh,
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: we have Sarah Hall, who's run two twenty two for
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: the marathon. We have like Emma Bates, Emily Sism, Molly
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: Huddle who's like a thirty time national champion, Desi Lynden,
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: who's fricking won the Boston Marathon, like all of these women.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: And every time I would think, I think of like
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: five new other women who were doing this thing, and
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: so I'm like, okay, like let's just like go out
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: with the goal of just seeing what you can do.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: Try and like keep your expectations based on your effort
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: rather than on like places, because like I was so
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: mentally prepared to do so badly in this race that
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: I was just like typing myself up, like your self
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: worth isn't based on how you finish in a marathon,
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: Like your time in the marathon doesn't tell you anything
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: about your value as a human. And so I was
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: so ready to do so badly in this race, and
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: then it went so much better than I expected it too,
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: And I almost don't know how to like react to that.
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: Now, do you attribute that to anything specific?
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: I think I've been over the last I guess it's
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: five years now at this point, I've running has broken
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: my heart so many times. I've had so many failures
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: in this sport that I try to, like not to
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: say that I always expect the worst, but I'm always
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: ready for it if it comes. And that's i think
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: part of my mentality going into that race, of like
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: just expecting it to hurt so badly the entire time,
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: because that's just I've kind of gotten used to that
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: over the last couple of years. Like, and I'm okay
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: with that. I know that sometimes like life's just sucks
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: and you just have to get through it. And I
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: kind of expected that to be the marathon, but when
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: it's not. That's why I was so surprised that, Like
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: the first twenty miles, I was like, the marathon is
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: obviously hard, But then I'm getting into it, I'm like, oh, man,
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: like I feel like consistent and smooth in this Like
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: I feel it's this feeling of like power I guess like,
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: you know, you're running hard and you feel tired, but
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: you're like, I can keep running at this like all
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: day long.
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's this indescribable high.
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: Can't even imagine maintaining the pace that you were running
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: and feeling that level of high. But I can relate
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: to that feeling because earlier last year I ran Chicago
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: at a pace that I had never dreamed of, and
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: you're out there and it just is as if you're invincible.
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And then even with the crowds at the trials,
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: it was crazy. There were so many people there. It's
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: like going through its scream tunnel and you're just like,
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: but that's the funny thing. I wasn't like elated by
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: any means. I felt like my emotions were very in
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: check and like I was just in like this flow
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: state that I just felt like I was.
• 53:51
  Speaker 2: Like going, talk to me about the moment you realize
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: what's about to happen. As you were getting toward mile
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: twenty five mile twenty six.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: Well, I want to preface this with I was in
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: more pain in those last two miles, and I have
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: been just about in any race of my life, like
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: it's so frickin' hard, so like you can't really like
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: enjoy it because one you're so terrified that someone's gonna
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: catch you, and then they give you that tiny little
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: flag like six hundred meters from the finish, and you're like,
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: this is way too early to be giving me this flag.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of race left, but I think coming
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: down once you hit the final downhill, because it was
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: downhill for the last two hundred meters, and so by
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: that time, I was like, I'm pretty confident that I'm
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: going to the Olympics at this point, and I could
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: see my my whole family was there, and I could
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: see my brother and my sister holding up these ridiculous
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: cutout heads they'd had of me, and my sister is
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: literally inhysterics, like sobbing, and that's when I was like
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: starting to like break, like just break apart. I was
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: just like, oh my god, Yeah, it was. It was
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: wild because you're just crossing the line and it's like
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: the culmination of every dream you've had you're like a kid.
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: It was it was like next level and just realizing
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: like damn, like I just like did that. Yeah, I'm
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: still kind of processing that moment I.
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: Don't think anyone ever fully processes that moment. You just
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: replay it and replay it and replay it, and you
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: probably ask yourself, how does it get better than this?
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: And I think maybe the answer to that is when
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: you run in the Olympics.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's like, I don't know, it's just
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: like it's such an honor to get to like say, like, oh, yeah,
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: I'm representing the US like at the Olympics. And I
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: think that's the that's the core of it, just the
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: opportunity to go out on the world stage to represent everything,
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: like represents the country that I grew up in and like,
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know, it's just a sense of pride and
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: I'm really really looking forward to getting to do that.
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: And everyone dreams is like being competitive at the at
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: the Olympics, but at the end of the day, it's
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: about like going out and just being a willing to
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: like give your best effort and do everything you can
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: on the day to like, I don't know, put the
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: best foot forward for the country effectively.
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: I love it. And the metaphor of the best foot
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: forward as you move forward with running, you're just so oh,
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: it's a seat Joe because it's running so good at
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: this Okay, so talk to me about what life's like now.
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: Obviously you said your training isn't a well deserved down beach.
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, my coach has been super nice. He knows that,
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: like sometimes in full time off, that my body doesn't
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: respond super well to it, so he's letting me run
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: in these two weeks after the marathon, which really helps. Shockingly,
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: my body actually feels like pretty okay right now. So like,
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: I've just been doing easy mileage. I think I did
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: like thirty miles last week, and it's just nice being
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: able to like enjoy being back home in Boston finally
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: with my sister. The weather's been really nice. I'm back
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: with my friends and just kind of like in that sense,
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: my life is much calmer. In the sense of media
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: and social media specifically, things have been absolutely insane, which
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: I don't think I was prepared for.
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about that.
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: It's been wild.
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So I mean, how many, like if we just
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: take Instagram as a platform for example, like, how many
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: followers did you show up to the trials with?
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: I showed up on Trials morning, probably with either a
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: hair under eight thousand or right around eight thousand.
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: And now what are we at like forty five carry five? Yeah,
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: I just got verified as of today. That was exciting.
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just like it's almost like a joke to me,
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: Like every time I see it, it doesn't seem real. And
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: like now, I definitely I'm not super good with posting
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: all the time. I'll go dark for long periods of time. Also,
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: I usually don't have very good quality photos on my Instagram,
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: So now, for one, it's really weird having all of
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: these great photos from the trials. I don't know what
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: to do with it. It's really ruining my blurry iPhone
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: running photo aesthetic. But yeah, it's uh, it is kind
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: of fun and definitely like having a little bit more
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: of a platform. A lot of people have been like
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: reaching out or dming, so I apologize if anyone hearing
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: this has DMed me, and I haven't responded. I'm still
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: working through everything and I truthfully probably won't get to
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: them all.
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: I think you're entitled to have some time to occur
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: it and I mean, but the thing about social media
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: is that there's no denying that you want to do
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: the best you can to help as many people as
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: you can, and I think, I mean it speaks to
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: the work that you did in Ethiopia, like you want
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: to show up and help other people, and sometimes it
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: feels as though there's just not enough time to help
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: as many people as you want.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: No, and that's what like, Yeah, it's like there's always
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: a new message to respond to. There's always like five
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: different things, and I feel like you can just kind
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: of like spiral into it and there's no getting out.
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: And then obviously you always have like the haters online
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: of people like responding to stuff, and it's almost like
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: you can't even respond. It's like it's not even worth it.
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: So and truthfully, I'm usually sow a wall with my
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: social media that I miss half the stuff on there.
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: So probably for the better.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: Sometimes probably for the better, or just like at the
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: end of the day, I just try to I try
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: to keep in mind a piece of advice I was
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: once given that don't accept criticism from anyone that you
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: wouldn't accept advice.
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: From oh good one. Yeah I dig that.
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's good to keep in mind of like all
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: the RANDO like let's run haters.
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure, and there are definitely a lot of them.
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: When it comes to walking away from that trials experience,
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: aside from obviously a place on the Olympic team, what
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: would you say, just from that experience and from running
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: a marathon, maybe one of your biggest takeaways was whether
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: it's technical or a little bit more metaphorical or whatever.
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: You got For me, I guess it's this feeling of
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: going into that race. I felt like I even like
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: on the starting line, I didn't feel like I belonged.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: I don't deserve to be here. I haven't done enough
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: to earn my way here. There's so many people here
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: who have done so much more. I even now like
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: I've felt like a fraud a little bit. And being
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: in that race and finally getting up there, it was
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: actually kind of cool. The final part of the course.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: You go out underneath the Olympic rings, turn around and
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: come back past the Olympic torch, and as we're coming back,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: you're seeing the women coming out still and one of
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: those women was Desy Lindon, who was in fourth at
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: that time and trying to trying to still close the
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: gap make the team, and she saw us, she saw
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: me and Alphine coming out and she just like looked
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: straight at us and gave me a thumbs up, and
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: I was I felt like it was like that moment
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: of like, no, you deserve to be here, Like you
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: freaking go after this, like don't disapport Deesse Lindon because
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: like she's just like the freaking biggest hero of mine.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: Like I cried watching her when Boston coming through mile
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: nineteen and be like, oh my god, she's gonna do it.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: So like getting that kind of like validation and like
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: realizing like no, like I I can perform at this level,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: like regardless of what I've gone through the last couple
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: of years, Like I have worked way too damn hard
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: and stuffered too damn much to give up now. So
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: I think that kind of validation of like coming overline
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: being like I'm glad that I didn't chicken out, or
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: like I'm glad that I was brave enough to go
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: and run hard before I believed I was ready to
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: run hard in that race.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 2: And I think that happens for so many people, right
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: regardless of its running or I mean, how many times
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: do we question do I belong here? Can I show
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: up here? Am I allowed to take up space? But
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: how beautiful is it when you do show up and
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: you tell yourself that I do belong here, Yeah, because
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: so often Yeah, And I think a.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: Lot of people probably sell themselves short. I think I
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: definitely have done that on a lot of occasions, assuming
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: like I shouldn't be up with the front pack because
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: I'm not fast enough to run with that group. I
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: should play it safe and stay back here. And that's
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: not to say that sometimes it doesn't work out, Like
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: I've definitely had times where I've tried to go out
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: with the front pack and I've blown up spectacularly. I
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: think it's it's this idea that like, you have to
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: do all the work, and you have to be brave
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: enough to put yourself out there, and sometimes a lightning
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: bolt is going to strike from the heavens and it's
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: going to work out. And sometimes it's just not going
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: to flow and it's going to be one of those
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: days that it doesn't work. But if you're not willing
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: to put yourself up there and to put yourself in
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: a position to be great, you're never going to be great.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: So you talk to me about maybe one of the
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: biggest takeaways aside from going to the Olympics, from the Trials.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: What would you say was one of the best pieces
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: of advice that you were offered going into it.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: A couple of the amateur women who had qualified for
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: the trials. I was kind of hanging out with them
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: before the race, just sitting with them. They were super nice.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: They were like my race moms, and they kept saying
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: they were the women who first told me, don't warm
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: up twenty minutes, like more than five minutes, but then
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: also saying like, remember, stay calm, stay patient. The race
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: doesn't start until at least sixteen miles. So on that course,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: they were eight mile loops, so that would have been
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: the going into the third lap. So those first two laps,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: I was conserve your energy, stay in the pack, tuck behind,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: draft off people because it was super windy. It was
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: like twenty miles an hour. But I was like, use
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: as little mental energy as you can because the race
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: starts on the third lap, and like you have to
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: be ready by the time you get to the third lap.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: You can't exhaust your legs early in the race trying
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: to race these first sixteen miles because it doesn't start
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: till till like well into the day.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: And how valuable is that that that helped you get
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: to that point, and then really kicking in.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: That saved me. That saved my race, like being able
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: to go into the third lap and like Okay, now
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: I'm ready to go. And I think at that point
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: a lot of women in that race were because a
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: lot of women's legs were just absolutely fried. People had
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: been playing little strategic games fighting each other, making moves,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: and with how windy it was and how hilly it was,
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: I think it sapped a lot of people's legs and
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: a lot of women said that after the race that
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: their legs just felt trashed. Yeah, And I think like
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: between the sixteen to twenty two mile mark is when
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: quite a few of the top group ended up dropping out.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: And so I think it was definitely a matter of
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: just learning to like preserve yourself as long as you
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: can and like choose your battles. Because that's not to
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: say like the last six miles were the hardest I've
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: ever run, but I felt like I was able to
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: get to that point and still be like, Okay, you
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: can be competitive, you can you can fight this out
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: and not feel like you're redlining.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: The entire time you mentioned the forty five thousand new
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: social media followers. God, they come to your page now
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: and they see this triumphant woman. Got laugh. It's true.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: It's just so weird, this triumphant woman who has maybe
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: even surpassed her wildest dreams. You look in the mirror, now,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: what is it that you see staring back at you.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: Despite everything over the past week and even that race, Like,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: I feel like my general opinion of myself hasn't changed
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: at all. Like all of this is fun. It almost
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: like still doesn't seem quite real. But I felt like
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: going into that race, I was in a really good
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: place mentally. I went into that race because I was
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: assuming that it was going to go so badly. I
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: had come to terms with the fact that it was
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: like the outcome of this race doesn't affect my opinion
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: of myself. Like I was so obsessed in twenty sixteen
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: with making a team. I felt like that was what
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: I had to do to have value as a human.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: And this time around, it was like, I feel like,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: I love the training that I'm doing, I love the
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: community that I'm surrounded by in Boston, I love the
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: I love just like being in this place right now
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: that I am in my life and making an Olympic
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: team doesn't change that about me. Like, sure it would,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: like that is my highest goal as an athlete, but
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: at the end of the day, like my value as
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: a human doesn't rest on that, and so going into
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: it and making that team it's so cool. But at
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: the same time it makes me so happy, but I
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: feel like my happiness isn't contingent on that anymore. I
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: feel like a more complete person who's got other things.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: And like, truthfully, the happiest moment of that day wasn't
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: crossing the finish line and like having the adoration of
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: people like, oh my god, you made the team. It
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: was sitting in the bar that night, eating a burger,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: surrounded by my favorite people in the world, getting to
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: just celebrate this moment and be be in it and
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: just being happy that I was healthy and able to
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: walk without pain after that race, and surrounded by people
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: that I love and just realized that I was going
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: to the Tokyo Olympics. And yeah, It's like there are
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: these huge moments in our life. I think everyone assumes, like, oh,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: you make an Olympic team and you're just happy for
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: the rest of your life. Like no I'm still going
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: to struggle. I'll probably still like get hurt multiple times
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: through my career. There's going to be other things. But
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: as long as I'm okay with like being who I
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: am at my core and able to live with that,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: that is what brings me. That's what brings me like peace.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: It's not getting metals or yeah, yeah, getting metals or
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: breaking records or whatnot. All those are temporary. You need
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: to be okay with who you are at the end
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: of the day.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think it's really special that the best
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: part of that day is the celebration of the event,
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: because I think so often, especially in events and milestones,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: where you work so hard, there's so much build up
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: that we don't take the time to stop, look around
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: and enjoy all of our hard work.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, and just to enjoy it wasn't even necessarily that.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: It was like being able to appreciate all of the
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: people who helped me get there, like seeing my mom
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: and dad so happy and having seen them like have
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: to drive me to eating disorder treatment and like be
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: with me through that, or like my sister who was
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: like having to help me like hobble around on crutches
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: all summer and like, I don't know my brother who
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: was one of the people who was there at those
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: twenty sixteen trials with me that I was like at
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: my breaking point, he got me through it. It's like yeah,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: it's just like those are the people who got me
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: through the worst of times, and now I get to
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: share this with them and it's just so much fun.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: And like now they're going to get to come to
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: Tokyo with me and like get to just share that. Like,
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know that that's what was really special. It's
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: the act of It's the act of running on the day,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: like actually being in that race and realizing that there's
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: no other place that I would rather be in the
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: world than full flight in the middle of a race,
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: just hauling and just being in it, and then getting
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: to celebrate and just be surrounded by my favorite people
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: and just appreciate what we've been through to get to
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: that moment.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: You have an opportunity right now to offer the Mollie
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: who is in the thick of it, she's struggling. You
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: have an opportunity to offer her one piece of advice.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: Looking back on it, what do you tell her?
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: I would say that nothing lasts forever, in that nothing,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: no bad thing is going to last forever. No matter
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: how bad it gets, it won't last forever, and good
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: things won't last forever. So it's like you just have
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: to be in the moment and get through it. And
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: this idea that it's okay to feel sad and hurt
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: and to just let yourself experience those motions and just
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: realize that no matter how much you're hurting right now,
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: that will pass and you're going to be able to
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: get through it. But you just have to accept it.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's going to be really really hard and you
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: just have to keep moving and stay strong. And even
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: now it's like I can appreciate I can appreciate the
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: pain that I went through in eating a sort of
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: treatment or when I had my injuries, because I realized,
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: like that's turned me into the person that I am now.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: But I think I just needed to fully experience that
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: when I was in it, and yeah, it sucked, but
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: now it's like on the other side, I can appreciate it.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I feel like I didn't say that as
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: eloquently as I wanted to, but just this idea that
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: there's going to be so many ups and downs, but
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: none of them are going to last forever. So just
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: be able to keep riding it out and you're going
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: to get through it. And I don't know, no matter
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: how bad things might be, you never know what's going
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: to happen. And then that to.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: Day, I personally am so grateful for your time and
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: I actually have zero debts in my mind that this
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: is going to impact and help a lot of people,
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: some of which you maybe just don't have the time
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: to get there to their DM.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: I apologize if I left you on unread.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: It's okay, it's okay.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Thanks so much.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: Please take a moment and leave a quick review by
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: clicking the link with a description to this episode. We
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: all face multiple hurdles in life. I want to hear
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: about yours. Reach out to me at Emily at Hurdle
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: dot us, connect with the podcast Instagram, Twitter at Hurdle
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: Podcast Mollie. Where do they find you? How do they
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: keep up with you? How do they follow you on
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: your road to Tokyo?
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: Probably the best way is through my Instagram at by
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: Golly Mollie. I have a pretty much inactive Twitter account
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: at by Golly Molly twelve so probably don't rely on that.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: Or if you're around the Boston area and out running,
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: come say hi to me. You'll probably see me down
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: by the river. Run with me.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: Perfect I am Emily Abodi. Another hurdle conquered. Catch you
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: guys next time.