Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / 171. Molly Seidel, 2020 Olympic Medalist in the Marathon

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171. Molly Seidel, 2020 Olympic Medalist in the Marathon · 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
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: heavens and it's going to work out. And sometimes it's
• 0:09
  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
• 0:12
  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
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: going to be great.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Hey everyone, Emily a body here.
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: You are listening to a very special episode, episode one
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: seventy one of Hurdle, a wellness focused podcast, writ I
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: sit down with inspiring individuals to talk about big wins,
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: tough moments, and everything in between. On the show, what
• 0:51
  Speaker 3: you can expect vulnerability, motivation, and candid discussions with everyone
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: from top athletes and CEOs tom firing entrepreneurs on what
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: it really takes to follow your passions. My mission is
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: simple to inspire you to be your best self, move
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: with intention, and have some fun along the way. And
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: honestly saying that all together, the phrase have some fun
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: along the way literally couldn't describe today's episode today's guest anymore.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: I am resurfacing my conversation with Mollie's sidel from early
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: twenty nineteen. Because Mollie earned the bronze medal in the
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: Olympic Marathon. She's only the third ever woman to ever
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: medal in this event, including past Turtle guest Dina Castor
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: as well as Joan Benoit Samuelson. And get this, she
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: did this in her third ever marathon. I was watching
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: it at my dad's house in Trumbull. I was absolutely geeked, crying,
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: so overwhelmed with emotion and just so amped knowing her journey,
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: knowing her story, which I am so excited to bring
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: back to the feed today. This episode was originally episode
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: one hundred and it was the last recording in person
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: of Hurdle before the pandemic. Just so crazy to think
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: how much has happened since then. We recorded it in
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: Molly's then home in Boston, sitting on her couch, and
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: it was just a really special opportunity. Not long after
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: she had placed at the US Olympic Marathon Trials down
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: in Atlanta. For today's episode, Mollie talks about how she
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: earned her spot at the Olympics. Fun fact that Olympic
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: Trials was her first ever marathon back in early twenty nineteen.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: She qualified to be there based off for her half
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: marathon time. We talk about how she braved so so
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: so many hurdles to get there, including battling obsessive compulsive disorder,
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: disordered eating, and a string of injuries that at so
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: many times set her back seriously. It is the most
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: beautiful story of perseverance of mind and body. And ever
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: since meeting her and having this conversation, I have been
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: enamored by her. I am just so in awe of
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: how today she has emerged after all of this adversity
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: as such a strong athlete for sure, but really just
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: such an admirable woman at.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: Twenty seven years old.
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  Speaker 3: She has made such unbelievable strides in this sport, and
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  Speaker 3: I am so excited understatement of the year, to continue
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: to follow her amazingness going forward. Fun fact, back at
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: the trials, Molly's marathon time was two twenty seven thirty one.
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  Speaker 3: That's a five thirty eight mile average overall. In the
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: Olympic Marathon, she ran a two twenty seven forty six,
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: so basically in obscene heat and conditions and humidity, Mollie's perseverance,
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: her strength, her tenacity just shone through. I am just
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: so so geeked for her and again so excited to
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: bring this conversation back to the feed and share her story.
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: I'm looking forward to the opportunity of regrouping with Mollie
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: in the near future, so say tuned on that. Obviously,
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: so much more that we can bring into the mix
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: since this original conversation in early twenty nineteen. I am
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: also super super super stoked because Hurdle Merch is officially available. Sweatshirts,
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: hats and mugs. Link to snag yours is in the
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: show notes follow along with Hurdle at Hurdle Podcast. I'm
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: over at Emily a body with that. Let's get to hurdling.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Today.
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: I'm sitting down with Mollie Sidel. She is a pro
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: runner assume to be Olympian that will never get old.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: No, it really doesn't.
• 5:13
  Speaker 5: And every time my heart kind of like jumps a
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: little bit.
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: I feel excited and a little bit honored that I'm
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: sitting here on your couch.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: We're in Boston.
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: I am really just kind of in awe of you,
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: as I think a lot of people are right now.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's a I'm vastly underwhelming when people
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: actually made me. I had a girl tell me the
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: other day She's like, I expected you to be taller. Like, okay, okay,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know how to respond to that.
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: I'm sure you're kind of interacting with a lot of
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: people for the first time right now.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, it's wild because in the lead up to
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: the trials, a lot of a lot of pro runners,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: like myself, we kind of like it's almost like this
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: monastic life, like you really kind of narrow in focus.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: I was actually out in Flagstaff, Arizona, so it was
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: kind of like a very like focus on your training,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: like you're not really going out a whole lot. It's
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: just like you're nailing your one hundred and fifteen one
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: hundred and twenty miles a week and that's your life.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: And now it's like I get back to Boston where
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: all my friends are here, it's just a very Boston
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: is a huge running community in general, and so now
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: it's really weird. Like before I could just like bang
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: out my runs on the river and kind of like
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: put my hat down and go, And now I've even
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: just today I got stopped by a girl I always
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: like want to be polite and friendly and introduce myself,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: and I'm also like I kind of need to finish
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: my run kind of in a little bit of a rush.
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: Sorry, I'm technically working right now, and I mean forget
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: in real life, but I can't even imagine what the
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: outreach has been on social media. And I mean, I'm
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: sure other wonderful journalists are reaching out to you as well,
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: so it's probably just a lot.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a lot. It's been pretty crazy. I also
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: like try to keep the perspective of, like if I
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: start to like get overwhelmed or get kind of like cranky,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: like I just want to like go back to just
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: my little, boring life, I try to remember that this
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: is ultimately very good for the sport of women's running
• 7:17
  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
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: that all of a sudden people are really excited about it,
• 7:28
  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
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: what our sport is about.
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: I love it, and so for those that might not
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: be in the loop. Molly came in second at the
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: Olympic marathon trials with a two twenty seven thirty one.
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: That's a five thirty eight mile for twenty six point
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  Speaker 4: two miles.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: See, that's the funny thing.
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  Speaker 1: If somebody had told me that beforehand that I would
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: be able to run that on that course, I definitely
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have believed them.
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  Speaker 5: I wouldn't believe them if they told me I was
• 8:00
  Speaker 5: going to get second.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: But I was definitely nervous going into it with it
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: being a bit of a rookie in this area about
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: holding that kind of pace for that long. So sometimes
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: you just have to You just have to do it
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: before you're ready to do it.
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: And I mean you just said the keyword there, rookie.
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: So all of the headlines it's Mollie runs first ever marathon,
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: qualifies for the Olympics. So explain how that works to
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: people who might not totally understand how you just showed
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: up and ran your first marathon.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, going to the Olympics.
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So I think a lot of people have been a
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: little bit confused because a lot of the headlines have
• 8:41
  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.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: And I work the part time in a bakery as well,
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  Speaker 1: so it's like.
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  Speaker 5: Bisa takes two hour coffee break and runs marathon.
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  Speaker 1: I being a professional runner, I I do run a lot.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: I've been running since high school. I ran for many
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: years for the University of Notre Dame at the collegiate level,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: but I was primarily five k and ten k, so
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: that's three miles and six miles. And as I transitioned
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: to pro running after college, I moved up a little bit,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: was doing slightly longer races, but it's only within the
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: past I would say four months at this point that
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: I've moved up to the half marathon and now the marathon.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: So it was I was training at a pretty high
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: level going into this. By no means was I like
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: couch to five k or couch to marathon. I'd been
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: training upwards of about like one hundred miles a week.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: I've had many interruptions with injury, but it wasn't necessarily
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: a challenge to ramp up to marathon training. My body
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: handled it pretty well because I've got basically oh God,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: now I feel like I'm going to date myself. I'm
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: twenty five now. I've been doing this since I was
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: about fourteen and running consistently every single day, So yeah,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: basically eleven years at this point.
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: What made you decide to ramp up and go for
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: the longer distances?
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: Basically, I have struggled a lot over the past several
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: years with injury and things. I just felt like I
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: was hitting my head against the wall and kept getting hurt,
• 10:21
  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
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: with over the summer, specifically for or that was a
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: major part of it.
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: It just wasn't really working anymore.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: I have so much respect for my previous coach, but
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: it was just frustrating for the both of us that
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: I couldn't do the kind of training that he wanted
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: me to do. When I began to be coached by
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: my current coach, who's a good friend of mine, who
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: was a Soccony teammate of my teammate of mine, John Green,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: we kind of came to the realization that my body
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: really thrives off of super high mileage, longer tempo runs.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: The type of training that a marathon or would traditionally do,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: as opposed to past interval workouts that a track athlete
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: would do. So he was like, let's try this out.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: We'll see if you're mileage can get up. Just build
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: a good base, get aerobically strong, and then we'll see
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: what happens. And I was feeling really healthy, really strong,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: and he thought it would be fun to hop in
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: a half marathon. Jumped in a half marathon in December,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: qualified for the Olympic trials, and we figured, hey, it'll
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: be a cool experience, like we'll go out and then
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: maybe a couple of years from now, when you're a
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: little bit older, when you're closer to the age that
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: women traditionally start moving up to the marathon, then you'll
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: then you can try and be competitive.
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: So yeah, this was all kind of a big shock.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Like going in and with my first marathon build up
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: really going a lot better than I expected.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: And I love what you told runners were old.
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: You said you were going into it and keeping an
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: open mind knowing how much it's going to hurt, and
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: prepared for that amount of pain, the idea of pain
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: and running, and I feel like I've been talking about
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: this a lot lately because it's so true.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: The pain is part of what you sign up for.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think a lot of people assume that when
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: you get to the pro level of running that it
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: doesn't hurt anymore. That if like, it's this idea that
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: if you get fast enough that it won't hurt anymore,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: and if anything is the opposite, I think it. Well,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: it's funny because I think I'm the biggest change in
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: going from high school to college professional running is your
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: relationship with the discomfort of running changes and you're able
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: to kind of like come to terms with it and
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: handle it, because that's running at its core, is just
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: being uncomfortable for a long period of time and like
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: battling inside your own head of your brain constantly telling
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: you to stop. And I hate to admit how many
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: times in races I have had the thought of, like,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: you should just stop right now, and it's like, nope,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: I can't stop. I have to keep going.
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: I think it's probably pretty refreshing for people to hear
• 12:55
  Speaker 4: that you still feel that way for people who are,
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: you know, maybe even just starting out. Yeah, So, speaking
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: of starting out, you didn't just show up in Atlanta
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: a contrary to some of the headlines, and.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: We're super oblivious about things in many senses. I had
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: no idea how much to warm up for before a marathon,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: because for road races and shorter stuff, we warm up
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: twenty minutes or three miles, and so I was assuming
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: that i'd do the same thing for a marathon. And
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: I like asked a couple of people. They're like, oh
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: my god, no, you don't warm up for a marathon.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: You're gonna be running for twenty six miles. I'm like,
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: I'm really glad, I asked.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: I'm glad I didn't go run an extra three.
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly because that my coach is like, why would
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: you do that.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: You'd be running like thirty two miles that day then,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: so extra I know.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: Okay, so you didn't just show up and run.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: I did not just show up.
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: You said you grew up running, But talk to me
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: about where you grew up, what you what your interaction
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: was with sport from a young age.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, grew up grew up running in Wisconsin. Basically, I
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: went to a super super super small school, Like my
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: graduating class was thirteen kids. Grew up in Wisconsin, and
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: I knew that I loved running, but I was doing
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: a lot of other sports as well. I played field hockey,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: ski racing was our main sport that was kind of
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: like our school's pride and joy. So those were kind
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: of like my main sports. But I knew that I
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: loved running, and I knew I was good at it.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: I basically got into it through my church. They had
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: a church team and they needed extra kids for like
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: the Catholic School League, and they let me join through
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: my CCD and found out that I was pretty good
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: at it. But at the same time, this was like
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: a pretty pretty small pond to be running in. So
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: by the time I got into high school and I
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: was the only person on our track team, and I
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: was like, well, I hope that, like I can still
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: be competitive and ended up in going out and winning
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: quite a few state titles at the Wisconsin state level.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: Is that just constant one on one coaching.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So it was basically my school track coach, Brian Borkowski,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: who I'm still super super close with. He was just like, well,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: if you need someone to coach you too, like I'll
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: like come and like run with you after school, like
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: if you want to him Like, yeah, that would be great.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: And he was actually pretty much the first person that
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: got me kind of dreaming of someday doing the marathon
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: because he would do Boston every year, and in my mind,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: Brian was just like the coolest individual.
• 15:22
  Speaker 5: I was like, oh my god, he goes.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Out and like runs the Boston Marathon and does all
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: this training and he's still super fast, and he'll run
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: my workouts with me.
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: And like, at the time, I was running like twenty
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: miles a week.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: It wasn't anything for him to like run this extra
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: stuff with me, but he just showed me how to
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: love running. Like he just loved running so thoroughly that
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: it showed me that, like, running is this thing that yeah,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: it's hard, it's painful, but at the same time, like
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: it is just like it brings you together with people,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: it helps you find confidence in yourself, and it's it's
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: this sport that's just so much more than just running
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: in circles. Right, So I really am so grateful for
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: him for teaching me how to love running despite all
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: the challenges that it brings.
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: Did you find in high school then that your love
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: for running was kind of a lonely experience If you
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: didn't have a ton of people to do it with
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: aside from your coach.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: See that's the thing. I never feel like running alone
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: is lonely for me. And I don't know if part
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: of that is developed from so much time running alone,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: because Brian would only be able to meet up a
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: couple times a week. So yeah, about half the time
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: I was running solo, and then during cross country season,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: I'd basically be running alone for the majority of the season.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: And I had to learn a lot of self reliance,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: I guess, not that I didn't have other people supporting
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: me and helping me, like my family was super supportive.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: I had a lot of friends through the sport, but yeah,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: it's I think I had to develop that sense of like,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: regardless of whether there are people to run with, whether
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: or not the weather is good or bad or whatnot,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: you just go out and run regardless. And I think
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: that really helps nowadays because I do. I do a
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: lot of my training solo, and I run a lot
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: more now than I was in high school, and so
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: it's just being able to get that like internal drive
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: or I don't know it, probably the fact that I
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: have OCD probably plays into it a little bit. Of
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: just like it's really not a struggle to like go
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: out every day because I'm a little bit obsessive. I'm like,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: oh no, I just I have to go out and
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: do it. And after a while, it doesn't even become
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: a choice. It's just like brushing your teeth. It's kind
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: of like, oh, it's not a question of whether I'm
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: running today. I am running today, right.
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: I actually said that to my dad the other day
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: about going to the gym. He just got a membership
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: with the Why and I was like, you just need
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: to establish what days are your gym days, and then
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: you'll wake up and it'll be Tuesday and it's like, okay,
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: it's Jim Days gym day.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: That's just it taking the guesswork out of it so
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: you can make it actually a habit, and then that
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: keeps you accountable obviously.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because when it's when you don't have to like
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: make a conscious decision every day of like oh do
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: I want to run, like do it like the weather's
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: not good, like factoring all that in like it's so hard.
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: But if it's just like in.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: Your mind like oh nope, going out and doing this,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: it's just not it's just automatic. It takes out that
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: extra guesswork and it makes it that much easier to
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: get out the door.
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: And I think that's why people love training for marathons, right,
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: because it brings another level of consistency and regularity and
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: kind of makes you feel like you have your life
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: together even when you might not, just because you have
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: a schedule to follow. You have something that just feels
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: constant when everything around you might feel a little bit chaotic.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and that's the times in my life where
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: I've had running and taken away from me. So like
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: during injuries per se it, I do notice just how unstructured.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm just like a drift kind of
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: and I have no way of like, yeah, I just
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: feel like my days are just kind of lost then,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: And it doesn't help that this is my job. So
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: imagine then, like not only do you not like have
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: running with the endorphins and the the structure that it gives,
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: but then it's like I just don't have anything to do,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: so right, yeah, that can be. That was a real
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: real struggle, especially like over the past several years. Once
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: this was like my full.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: Time job totally.
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: So in high school, you win a few state championships
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: and then you go to Notre Dame.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: So I ended up I won nationals for cross country
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: my senior year of high school, so it got a
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: scholarship to Notre Dame, which I was just like so
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: excited about. It was the chance to like get college
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: paid for it just because I can run in circles.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Kind of still blows my mind a little bit. But
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: I went to Notre Dame, had an incredible team around me,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: but really struggled my first two years. I struggled with
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of injuries. I ended up my freshman year
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: having mold in my dorm room, so I was really really,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: really really sick.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was just not a great situation, and it
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: was it was hard. I thought by the end of
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: my sophomore year, I was considering quitting the cross country
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: team just because I couldn't get anything together. I was
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: just so hurt. I was just in pain all the
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: time and it just wasn't fun anymore. And I ended
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: up basically like I didn't qualify for regionals my sophomore year,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: just kind of like pieced out, went and did research
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: down in Argentina for the summer, and it was just
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: like kind of fell back in love with it because
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: it was running regularly and doing really high mileage. Was
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: a great way to fight some of the culture shock
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: because I was the only American on.
• 20:28
  Speaker 5: The crew that I was with, So yeah, kind of
• 20:31
  Speaker 5: fell in love with it.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: And when I came back, we ended up getting a
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: new coach that year, and Sparks just kind of changed
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: my entire collegiate career.
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: And you mentioned before that you had OCD, So when
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: did you start seeing that develop?
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: That was through high school just being around like my
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: family and the structure of that. It really helped being
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: able to and I think it's lower stress in high school.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Mine comes out a lot more when I'm under high
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: stress situations, high pressure. So it really started kind of
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: like becoming this really big negative influence on my life
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: during college, just because I was under so much stress
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: with school, so much stress with running, and I didn't
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: have good ways of managing that anxiety. And that's ultimately
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: what OCD is. It's you have all this anxiety and
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: you develop control mechanisms to try and feel some sense
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: of relief or some sense of control over the world
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: that just feels like it's spinning out of control.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: So what were some of your control mechanisms.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Knocking was a big one for me. I would like
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: knock especially on wood, in like repetitive patterns, saying things
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: over and over to myself when it gets really bad.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: I would like flip light switches, like you can't like
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: leave a room until you've done certain things of like,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: oh I check things. I flip the light switch on,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: like obsessively checking like ovens. And I was pretty good
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: at like hiding it from a lot of people because
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: I real, like, you know, consciously like this is super weird.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: I don't like you consciously know that it's not necessary
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: to do these things, but you have to do it,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: like your body almost like you just feel this sense
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: of dread if you don't. And then obviously it would
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: reflect in my running sometimes I would kind of obsessively
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: seek out mileage.
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: And then ultimately it came down to eating.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it developed into really negative disordered eating habits.
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Talk to me a little bit about that.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: A lot of that it doesn't necessarily stem from body
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: image issues though that is a huge problem in our sport,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: this idea that you need to be very thin. I
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: was kind of like obsessively purging at certain times, so
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: making myself throw up. That was more towards like the
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: early end of college. And yeah, just like only eating
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: certain kinds of foods, eating certain amounts, and yeah, it's
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: just finding ways to like exert control over the world
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: by controlling something like what you put into your body
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: is something so easily that you can control. So when
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: you're like I can't, like I feel like everything is
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: just like spinning out of my like out of my control,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: I'm able to just like manage this one thing.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: Right here, right.
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: And so a lot of people casually will say, oh,
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: I have the worst OCD.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: I hate it when people say that, Like, and I realize,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: like I think, I think there are a lot of
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: people in the world who do have OCD tendencies. But
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: like saying like I wash my hands all the time,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: I'm so OCD, or like I just need to make
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: sure my room is clean. I'm so OCD. I'm like,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: you don't know what real OCD is, Like it's a nightmare. Yeah,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: And it's like it's just these repetitive thoughts. And sometimes
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: it's this feeling that your brain is like a radio
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: that's turned up to like full volume and it's just
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: these repetitive thoughts. You can't get them to quiet down,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: and you can't focus on the world because your brain
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: is just so loud and so it's it's hard. But
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: I think like people who actually are really struggling with
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: it like getting help and like seeking therapy. For me, ultimately,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: that was the biggest thing for me, is learning how
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: to manage it. It's like my life is so drastically
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: different now than it was, and I've been on and
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: auth medication for it. Ultimately, like meditation actually really helps.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to be good with it. And I know
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: that sounds so like millennial of like, oh yeah, I'm
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: meditating every day, but like that actually has been a
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: super big thing for me. And then just running, even
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: though some of my OCD tendencies exert themselves on my running,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: my running is a very good way to manage my OCD.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Something about like the rhythmic nature clearing my mind. It's
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: just like sometimes I feel like my brain doesn't fit
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: with my body. Sometimes it's just like my brain is
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: just exploding, and then I go for a run and
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: it's like my brain finally fits inside it me, Like
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: everything just makes sense and everything sinks up in a
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: way that I feel like my truest self when I'm
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: out running, And I think that's ultimately why I love
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: running so much, because this is the only time that
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: I feel like my brain works.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: I can relate with that for sure.
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: And I mean when it came to dealing with your
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: OCD and then what eventually became disordered eating when you
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: got help, was it because that you were ready to
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: seek it or was it because that people started to
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: catch on to the fact that you had a lot
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: of ticks per se, So.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: It was it was a combination of things. I originally
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: early in college started going and seeing just wanted the
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: Notre Dame like counseling center therapists because I knew this
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: was a problem and it was really affecting me. It's
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: like when it gets to a point of like that
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: you feel like you it's disrupting your normal life, that's
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: when it gets really hard. So in terms of my OCD,
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: that was something that I was able to, like, I
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: identify that I needed help on, sought out help, and
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: learned of ways to manage it a bit better. In
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: terms of my eating disorder, which then kind of took
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: on a life of its own that was much more
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: of like I was in such denial about it. And
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: I think because of how our sport is structured, the
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: normal control stops of like when you see someone losing
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: a lot of weight, like struggling mentally, that isn't something
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: that kicks in quite as early as it would in
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: other realms, just because with running, it's like this idea
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: that like, oh you look so fit, you look so lean,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: you look so ready to race, that in other spaces
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: would have been like, oh, you look really unhealthy, like
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: you aren't well right now. But I was running so well.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: I was winning NCAA championships. This was later in college,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: just as more my junior senior year, and I ended
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: up having probably lost about twenty pounds at that point.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: But it was that I was running so well and
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: I looked so quote unquote fit that things were okay.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: And I thought things were okay because I had moved
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: past the point where I was knocking on things all
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: the time, where I was forcing myself obsessively to purge
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: that now it had transformed into kind of this life
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: of its own. I think that's what's insidious about it,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: is that with mental health issues. It can so quickly
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: transform into one thing.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Can go from one thing to another. So I was like,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: I don't have a problem anymore. But it became fairly
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: apparent by the end of my senior year that there
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: was a huge problem once I had gotten so new
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: putritionally deprived that my bones started breaking.
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: Talk to me about a what were you actually putting
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: into your body at this time, because you mentioned that
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: you were so particular about the foods that were okay
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: and the foods that were not okay.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it was. I won my first NCAA
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: championship at the end of my junior year. I think
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: it was kind of this idea of, oh, if I
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: want to win national championships for cross country, which is
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: arguably one of the hardest running national championships to win,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: just because it's so competitive, I was like, I need
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: to be all in on every sense in my life.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: So I was running super high mileage, at least for
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: a collegiate athlete. I was running aboute hundred miles a week.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: But then I was eating all the things that I
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: thought were I was supposed to, that were quote unquote clean,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: that were healthy, like good proteins, fats. I wasn't like
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: cutting out anything by any means. But I actually I
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: was gluten free at the time because I thought that
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: I had like my stomach would get super upset when
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: I had certain foods. But it was just because I
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: was so nutritionally deprived that like my body couldn't handle it.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: I guess, which I've found out since then, But yeah,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: I was probably the volume of food. I was nowhere
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: near the amount of calories that I needed to be eating,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: but I was still eating a lot, so I was
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: able to kind of like fly under the radar.
• 28:56
  Speaker 5: So I was eating the amount that probably someone.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Who was running fifty miles a week should be eating,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: but I was running double that, and so I just
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: slowly kept losing more and more weight, but I kept
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: running faster and faster and faster. Throughout that senior year.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: It was like I came in it probably I won
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: my first NCAA championship that passed spring at one hundred
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: and twelve. Came in after the summer having just trained
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: so hard, not eating enough, eating so quote unquote clean.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: I was probably one o five one oh six. Then
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: going to the next season at one hundred and every time,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: because you keep running faster, you think, oh, this is
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: my new racing weight, like this, this is what I
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: should be at. And then by the time I got
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: to the spring and summer of my senior year, which
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: was the twenty sixteen Olympic Trials, where I was just
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: so obsessed with making an Olympic team. I had my
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: world standard for the five k, but I was probably
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: ninety five pounds and just so unwell mentally and physically,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: and that was that was the breaking point. I broke
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: my back and my sake rum in quick six session
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: and just didn't even make it to line at the trials,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: And that was kind of like the rock bottom moment
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: that I knew, like, you can't keep doing this, You're
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: going to kill yourself.
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: When you have this moment, is it a conversation you're
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: having with yourself or does it quickly become a conversation
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: that you're having also with your coaches, with your family,
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: with your parents and probably uncomfortable conversations.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, those were awful. So it was I'm very,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: very very lucky that I have people around me who
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: love me and were able to see and people around
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: me who love me and who love me regardless of
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: whether or not I'm running. And so basically, like I
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: had a balling conversation with my mom about how she
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: was like, I just want you to be healthy, Like
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: I don't care about Molly the runner. I care about
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Molly the person. And what Molly the person right now
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: needs is help, Like you can't do this, And I
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: think I had convinced myself was like, I don't have
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: a problem. I just like, like, I just need to
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: gain a little bit of weight back and I'll be fine.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Like I know, maybe I'm a little bit too low
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: right now at ninety five. Think you're like, oh, I
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: just have to get back up to one hundred pounds
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: and then I'll be fine. And it was this realization
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: and talking with friends and family and my coach and
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: be like, no, like you need to like really take
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: this seriously, Like you are not healthy. This is going
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: to be a long time to get back where you
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: need to be. And I don't think when I was
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: at the worst of my disorder that I realized just
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: how hard it was going to be. Eating This sort
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: of treatment is really fucking hard, but ultimately it's worth it.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: It just takes time and that was. I'm very glad
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: that I had that support because I would not have
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: gotten through that alone.
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: When you broke your back and then your sacrum, did
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: it start out as just something that fell a little
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: off then all of a sudden and it was like,
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: oh my god, this is broken or was there a
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: big moment that you knew wow?
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: For my back? It was kind of like a It
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: like started out feeling really really sore. This is a
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: couple days after indoor Nationals, so March of twenty sixteen
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: really sore. Gradually progressed. We thought it was a backstrain
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: for a while, just from having a long season, got
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: an x ray, realized that there were fractures. Cross trained
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: so hard all through the spring with the intention of Oh,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: if I just cross trained super hard, I'll be a
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: back running in six weeks and I'll be able to
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: make the trials, and got back on the ground, was
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: running and I was in a track workout. It just
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: so unhealthy. Weight was so low getting ready for the trials,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: and I literally like I felt like I'd been shot
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: in my butt basically like it just went and I
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, and had to like literally
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: sit down at the track just stop and we knew
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: what it was. Yeah, but even then I was like,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: maybe I can still make it back because I was
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: just yeah, like mentally unwell at that point.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: How do you accept that you need help?
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: It was it was hard. It was hard getting to
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: that point of like being willing to say, like, Okay,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: I'm going to take a step back from my running
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: and going to turn down these pro contracts that I've
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: been offered, I'm going to give up on. And at
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: the time, I thought I was giving up on my
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: running career. And that's what like, I just felt like
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: I was giving up that I needed to keep pushing
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: and pushing and pushing and I couldn't anymore. And it
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: was it was hard. Yeah, I went back to Wisconsin.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: I was like, man, I'm like moving back home. Cool,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: like super successful and uh yeah. I went into treatment
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: just outside of Milwaukee and spent four months in super
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: intensive treatment. And then the still continued to like seek
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: treatment over the next two years, just on a more
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: infrequent basis, but staying with my therapist and I actually
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: still talk with him fairly frequently. It's been kind of
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: like my main go to guy because it's still something
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: you need to like keep maintaining you're never fully done
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: with it.
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: So that was an in patient program, so you were
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: there for four months, So it.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Was an intensive outpatient because we lived so close that
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: it was actually better for me, and my therapist thought
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: of this that if I was living at home, that
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: it would be a much better situation for me to
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: have the structure of family, for like my mom was
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: able to like make me meals and be able to
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: really watch what I was eating, and he knew that.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: I was like, when I hit rock bottom, I just
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: went all in, Like I was willing to do whatever
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: I needed to do to save my running career because
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: I knew if I didn't take it seriously. He was like,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: my therapist was super hard on me, like very frank
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: of like, if you don't take this seriously, you will
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: never run again. And I was like, I'm going to
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: be as dedicated to this as I am to my running.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: So if you want me to drink three Insure shakes
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: a day, I will drink three goddamnage or shakes today
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: and like do all this and like and I think
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: he was actually pretty surprised about how quickly I was
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: able to do it. Usually something like that will take
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: like six months to a year of pretty intensive work.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: So I think he was very surprised at just how
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: like crazy, like crazy invested I was, and like, let's
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: do this.
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: So while you're going through this program, how are you
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: rehabbing your body as well? Obviously a big part of
• 35:29
  Speaker 4: it is reshaping maybe your relationship with food and also
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: the mental side. But what are you doing for rehab
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: for all of your bones and yeah, that kind of stuff.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: So I didn't run for a while. I obviously like
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: just needed to like let my body.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: Heal, talk me through the mental side of that.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: It's hard, It's really hard because running is kind of
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: like what keeps me stable. Part of it is like
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: at least when you're like coming back from something like that,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: at the very beginning, it is just so physically painful
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: to move that it's like you just can't do anything.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: And just I had been so obsessively cross training and
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: pushing through the pain, which is something that you become
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: very good at when you're a runner. But you need
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: to be able to separate like the good pain or
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: like quote unquote discomfort when you're training from like the
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: bad pain of like, oh, this is broken, and so
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: being able to just learn to be still for a while,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: And that's something that I still struggle with in times
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: that like I need to take off where I just
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: have a trouble sitting still sometimes. Yeah, just learning to
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: be like okay with your body and okay with your
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: mind and learning some of those calming techniques and finding
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: other ways of managing my OCD and anxiety without having
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: to resort to obsessively working out or controlling the foods
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: that I was eating right And then because at the
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: same time you're doing this, you're having to gain weight,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: which goes against basically everything in sports culture and just
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: like I don't know, freaking Instagram culture nowadays, like no,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: only drink Kale smoothies and you can lose another five pounds,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: and just like this idea of like, oh I have
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: to gain ten pounds and yeah, it's like my weight
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: was so low that even just like eating normal meals
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: and then they were having me drink like two extra
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: Insure shakes a day, like you're going to gain weight
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: off that. So it's like the mental side is just
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: like trying to process, like you've gone through all of
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: this stress and like losing weight and losing weight and
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: losing weight, and you just feel like a failure as
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: your weight goes up. But yeah, you kind of just
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: have to buck up and it sucks, but you get
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: through it.
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I can only imagine how difficult it's
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: got to be to get over those mental hurdles of
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: just accepting this new way of life and these new
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: patterns and counteracting the things that you were so diligently
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: working toward.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, and you have to relearn just how to
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: live and how to think, because I think for the
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: longest time, my mind had been set to this idea.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: It's in sport, it's always okay to be a little
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: bit underweight rather than overweight. The worst thing you can
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: do is be one pound overweight. It's fine to be
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: three pounds underweight. And now my thinking is totally shifted
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: of like I cannot go under like my minimum baseline weight,
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: like because I will get injured and I will like
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: my bones are gonna suffer. So it's better Now in
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: my mind, I'm like, Okay, it's better to be a
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: little bit overweight in your training, and then like I
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: don't know, you can get down to like your race weight,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: but you can't go below that and just straight up
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: you don't have the energy reserves. Like, I'm so much
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: stronger now in the training that I'm doing because I
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: actually have energy to train rather than just like running
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: off fumes and being so light that sometimes like that
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: your body can just propel itself.
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: I'm curious to know what your relationship is these days
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: with a scale.
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: Do you get I actually.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: Don't weigh myself any more. Yeah, Like I'm fine with
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: like being weighed, but I think it's I'll get like
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: too wrapped up in the numbers. And so I've found
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: that it's a lot better for me to actually just
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: like I've got a better awareness of my body. So
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: I was out in Ethiopia in the fall doing some
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: volunteer work with girls, got to run and training, and
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: I lost weight while I was over there, and so
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: when I came back, I was like, Okay, like I
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: can feel that I'm under the weight that I need
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: to be. I just don't feel good right now, like
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: I need to focus on like gaining some weight back
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: or even like after this marathon cycle. I'm I'm doing
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: fairly light training right now compared to what I was
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: doing so like I'm okay with like gaining some weight,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: getting like my reserves back up as I enter the
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: next training cycle because I know it's going to be
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: a really long spring and summer, like ause I get
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: ready for the games, right?
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: And how special is it now that you have this
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: sense to feel how it is that you're doing, because
• 39:49
  Speaker 4: before so much of quote unquote how you felt was
• 39:52
  Speaker 4: based on what you would look down and see.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. It's like just being able to like have
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: that like I guess confidence and awareness to my body
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: and to like step to the line and no, I'm
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: not necessarily the skinniest girl on that line, but that
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: I'm like confident in my body is like I'm much
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: more at peace with it and I don't, like I'm
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: not obsessed with it like I was, right, Yeah, and
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: that just brings me a lot of like relief.
• 40:17
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• 40:25
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  Speaker 2: No code NASA.
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: Okay, So four months through the treatment program, then what happens.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: Uh. Then I was actually healthy enough at that point
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: that my therapist had kind of told me, like, I
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: don't think you should be like training super heavily. But
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: I was like, but I want to train heavily, and like,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: if I can get super healthy in the next four months,
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: would you let me like go and maybe spend the
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: fall out in flag Staff, live back there in a
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: healthy way, and then come back maybe go back to
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: Notre Dame in the spring then, And so I like
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: went all in on treatment, got healthy, got back up
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: to the weight that he had wanted me at, and
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: then ended up being able to go out to flag
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: Staff for that fall to do some training, and then
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: with the intention of coming back that next spring and
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: hoping to run well so that I could get a
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: pro contract. Sorry if this timeline is yeah, I'm running
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: this fall of twenty sixteen, Okay. So I got to
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: go out to flag Staff just be with friends. I
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: took the fall off of school because this was after
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: I'd graduated, but coming back for a fifth year now,
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: so I was not at Notre Dame for that fall.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: Came back in the spring, and even though my body
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: was in a much healthier place and eating disorder like that.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: It just kind of SAPs your bones. It has very
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: long term repercussions that I don't think I was fully
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: prepared for just how severe they are going to be.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: And I ended up fully fracturing my hip at the
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: end or my pelvis at the end of my fifth year.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: So I finished out my NCAA career being effectively immobile,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: not able to do anything, and with just nobody was
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: offering me contracts because I was effectively a broken toy.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: And yeah, nobody was interested.
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: When you fracture your pelvis, that's such a horrible sentence
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: to say. When that happens to you, are you do
• 44:55
  Speaker 4: you feel like you're just back on the ground again.
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. I continued to run on it for
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: a while. It was kind of a situation where it
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: was so excruciatingly painful, but I was really in denial
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: about what it was, and I think my coach was
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: hoping that it was something different than it was, and
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: I was under a lot of pressure to perform, but
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: eventually got to the point where I could not walk,
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: so we went in got the MRI. It showed that
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: it was very severely fractured and so that was it,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: and it's just I thought that was truthfully, I thought
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: that was it, that I was going to be done.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: And I healed up but finally was able to do
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: stuff again, and sock Andy was willing to offer me
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: a contract to come out to Boston run on a
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: team that they were putting together, and for me at
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: the time, that was way more than I deserved, Like
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: nobody would have offered that kind of contract, that kind
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: of developmental contract, and so I like, I'm still so
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: enormously grateful to them for that. So I moved out here.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: I was training for a year and it had quite
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: a bit of success first year of training, but kept
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: running into this problem that my hip that I had
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: thought healed would just get sore. The more track work
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: that I was doing, kept getting hurt, kept getting hurt,
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: and right after USA USA ten K Champs on the
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: track after that first year of running, Pro went back
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: in got another their MRI to see if there was
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: something wrong and they found that it actually never healed fully,
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: that I had a two millimeter gap in that pelvis.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: So yeah, Ano, they're biggie and then they're like, Okay,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: you need to have this like surgically repaired, like this
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: won't heal on its own. So that was went in
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: on my birthday in summer of twenty eighteen. They drilled
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: out the bone marrow from the two crests of my
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: hip on the very top, spun it down to get
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: the stem cells, and then injected in the bottom. And
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: that was like I've been through some really painful things
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: in my life and having to do that with no pain,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: like because they couldn't do pain medication and they couldn't
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: put me out for it because I needed to be
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: awake to like manipulate myself. That was quite literally like
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: what I imagine hell to.
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: Be, Like, yeah, I can't how like how does someone
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: endure one?
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: They amy a xanax, So at least I was like
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: chilled out while it was happening. The doctor who did
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: the surgery was like, she's one of my favorite people,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: super super nice. She gave me like a sandwich halfway
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: through because it's like a two part surgery.
• 47:31
  Speaker 5: But yeah, it was. It was hellish. They pulled out
• 47:34
  Speaker 5: like and even like.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: After you go through the drilling and like the bone
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: marrows out, your hip is just so hurting, so bad,
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: And then they unsheathe this like needle that is the
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: biggest needle I've ever seen to inject the stem cells
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: into the bottom of your like like the very bottom
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: part of my pelvis. And it was just like, oh
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: my god. But you just kind of, yeah, you just
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: get through it.
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: You think at this point, even though you were getting
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: quote unquote fixed, that you were going to be able
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: to come back to running, were you.
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: Sure of it?
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: They gave me a fifty to fifty chance of it working,
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: And then like even then it might not, like with
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: the full knowledge that like I might never run at
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: the same level again, just with how impinged and like
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: impaired my hip would be. So yeah, I'm happy to
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: say that I was the better half of that fifty percent. Yeah,
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: it was kind of like truthfully, it was kind of miraculous.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it was basically six months of not being
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: able to do anything.
• 48:33
  Speaker 5: So yeah, from July of that year to the next January.
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: So now we're finally in January twenty nineteen.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: Twenty nineteen. Literally, I know, I'm sorry if there's so
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: much stuff, it's like the timeline's wild, but yeah, that
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: it's like literally starting from square one, right, and so yeah,
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: twenty nineteen was hard because it was like trying to
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: like build back up off of nothing.
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: What advice would you offer to people who, like you,
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: just feel as though they are getting knocked down time
• 49:01
  Speaker 4: and time and time again by injury.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: I would say that the number one thing is to
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: if you are feeling like you're just in this injury cycle,
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: constantly hurting things, you have to get back to a
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: point where you feel fully healthy. You don't want to
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: constantly be playing ketchup. And I think that was my
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: problem for a long time, is that I always had
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: something going on and I would try to push through it,
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: and then it would cause another injury. And I'd try
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: and push you that and it'd cause another injury. And
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: I almost think that those six months of being able
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: to just like sit, let everything heal, and then start
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: building off of it, coming from the standpoint of my
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: body is finally healthy, my hip is finally healed. I'm
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: not like nursing something and then trying to push through it.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: I think once you're coming from a standpoint of being healthy,
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: then you can build off of that. It takes a
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: long time, but if you're constantly like facing these tiny
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: things or large things, You're going to be hitting yourself
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: against a wall constantly. And that's not to say that
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: through twenty nineteen I didn't have a lot of injuries.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's ultimately why I ended up with my
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: new coach, because I had so many like imbalances. But
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: now I do feel that at least I'm in the
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: standpoint where like I'm able to train at a higher
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: level because like my hip is repaired and because I
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: took the time to let it heal. And it was
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: really freaking hard being patient enough to do that, but
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: and it sucked at the time.
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I also think it's I also think that it
• 50:39
  Speaker 4: was probably important for you, like your mom said to
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: you when you were younger, like I care about Mollie,
• 50:46
  Speaker 4: my daughter, not just Molly the runner. You probably also
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: had to get to a point where you cared about
• 50:52
  Speaker 4: Mollie the person and not just Molly the runner.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think it's like, yeah, having to think
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: about like, oh man, I don't want to like destroy
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: rowing my body so like twenty years from now I
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: can't walk, which I think previously I was definitely under
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: the opinion like I'm just gonna go as hard as
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: I can now and not think about Molly at age
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: forty five and now it's like I want to make
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: sure that, like my pelvis doesn't snap when I'm that old. Yeah,
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: so it's like, yeah, definitely try and even not even
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: from that standpoint, just thinking like if I want to
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: try and stay in this sport for the next hopefully
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: ten years, Like I see women now who are competing
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: at a super high level in the marathon at age
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: thirty five thirty six, It's like, I'd ultimately like to
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: do that, but I need my body to be healthy
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: to do that, and I can't be like constantly just
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: like tearing myself apart.
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: So what's the first race in twenty nineteen that you
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: come back to and it's like Molly's back.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: I did the BAA ten k that was in June,
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: so it actually had been based almost exactly a full
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: year since my previous race at USA Outdoors on the track,
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: and I actually raced way better than I thought I
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: was going to. I actually think I like PRD in
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: the ten k and there so I was like shocked.
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: I feel towing the line that day, I.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: Was so nervous, but I was so excited. There's just
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: like nothing feels like racing feels, and I was just
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: so like ready to get back into it. Yeah, it
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: was terrifying. I was like, I really hope I'm still
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: able to do this.
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: So you do the ten k and then you're feeling high.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: Feeling high, go and do a couple more races and
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: then do Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta on July fourth,
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: and I hurt my hip again and was on crutches
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: for two weeks and I definitely like called coach Sparks
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: by college coach and cried to him, was like, I
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: think this is the end of my running career. And
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: he was like, you're being dumb. You're too dumb to
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: quit running. Like You're going to get through this, just
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: like you've gone through everything else. You just need to
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: be patient. Right, got through that, spent the summer rehabbing.
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: When did you say you went to Ethiopia?
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: That was actually November, Okay, So that was part of it.
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: I had gotten involved with girls, got to run previously.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: I'd been out in January of twenty twenty nineteen actually
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: doing a relay and it was a really good way
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: of while I was injured and kind of building up
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: to focus on something that wasn't just me. Yeah, And
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: I think that actually really helped as well, because it's
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: like running is such a selfish sport that you're just
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: so self focused all the time.
• 53:25
  Speaker 5: It's like how does my body feel? How am I performing?
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: And being able to think like bigger picture of like
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: what's going to be good for all of these people
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: who aren't me was really important for me. And realizing
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: like that ultimately, like our sport is super silly and inconsequential,
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: and like there's a huge world out there, and it
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: just gives you a good perspective on like I'm doing
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: this because I love running and it fulfills my goals,
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: but there's more to this than just me, right, And
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: so you come back from that trip and you qualify
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: for the trials at the Rock and Roll San Antonio,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: Yes one, ten twenty seven. Yeah, and that was well, yeah,
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: it was.
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: I was very surprised, just because it was very hard
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: to train in Ethiopia. It's really high. I had only
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: been running consistently since September at that point, and John
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: was now coaching me, so my current coach and my friend,
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: and so we had no idea how that was going
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: to go. I think John always has a lot of
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: confidence in me. But yeah, we were both pleasantly surprised
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: with how well that went.
• 54:32
  Speaker 4: And that's up and that's a one ten twenty seven
• 54:35
  Speaker 4: half marathon.
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: I feel like we just like throw these numbers around.
• 54:38
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, it's probably like what are these numbers?
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: Now?
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: What's going on? But then there was more to be had.
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So after that race, I was originally set to
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: debut in the marathon at the Houston Marathon and then
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: the Houston half is the big race that everybody does
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: before the trials, and my coach and I were talking
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: and he was like, you know what, like maybe like
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: you could switch to the half at Houston, And I
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: was like, would you let me do the Olympic trials
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: like for the marathon. He's like, I'm not wild about
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: the idea, but like maybe we can do this, Like
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: this might be a really cool experience, and like we'll
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: see if Houston will let you switch to the half.
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: They let me switch to the half and went out
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: to altitude. Then beginning of this past year twenty twenty
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: was just train them a butt off and got to
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: the line, ran very well at Houston, and yeah, then
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: just was like kind of got that like little inkling
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: in my mind of like, Okay, I think I can
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: do this.
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: And I think what I didn't even realize until more
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: recently was just the dramatic difference I would say, between
• 55:43
  Speaker 4: how fast you have to be as a half marathon
• 55:46
  Speaker 4: or to qualify for the Olympic Trials in the marathon
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: versus I mean, within reason, how fast you would run
• 55:53
  Speaker 4: a marathon. To qualify for the trials in a marathon
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: for women, you have to run a marathon in under
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: two forty five and if you are qualifying using a
• 56:01
  Speaker 4: half marathon time, you have to run the half marathon
• 56:04
  Speaker 4: under one thirteen.
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: That is a big difference.
• 56:08
  Speaker 4: I think it's I think it's like talks to how
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: much of a badass you are that you qualified being
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: a half marathoner.
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: And that there are other women who do qualify off
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: the half marathon. I don't know the exact number of
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: us that did, but yeah, it's I think it's kind
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: of this expectation like if you're going to be like,
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: if you're qualifying off the half, you have to be
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: willing to go out and like freaking send it like totally, Yeah,
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: you have to kind of know what you're getting yourself into.
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: So, needless to say, you come off of the Houston
• 56:37
  Speaker 4: half marathon, you're feeling great, and you're like, wow, I
• 56:39
  Speaker 4: guess it's time to go out there and run a
• 56:41
  Speaker 4: full Finally.
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, But I was like, that's not to say
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: that I wasn't scared out of my goddamn mind, because
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: it was effectively the deepest field the Olympic marathon trials
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: that ever had. Just the state of women's distance running
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: in the US right now is insane. There are so
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: many women who are so talented, So going into this,
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: I really was trying to keep my expectations fairly low
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: the secret to happiness and really say, but yeah, I
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: was not, by any means try like just seeing like, oh,
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: we have Sarah Hall, who's run two twenty two for
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: the marathon. We have like Emma Bates, Emily Sism, Molly
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: Huddle who's like a thirty time national champion, Desi Lynden
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: who's fricking won the Boston Marathon, like all of these women,
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: And every time I would think, I think of like
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: five new other women who are doing this thing, and
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: so I'm like, okay, Like let's just like go out
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: with the goal of just seeing what you can do.
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: Try and like keep your expectations based on your effort
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: rather than on like places, because like I was so
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: mentally prepared to do so badly in this race that
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: I was just like typing myself up, Like your self
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: worth isn't based on how you finish in a marathon,
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: Like your time in the marathon doesn't tell you anything
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: about your value as a human. And so I was
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: so ready to do so badly in this race, and
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: then it went so much better than I expected it too,
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: And I almost don't know how to like react to that.
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: Now do you attribute that to anything specific?
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: I think I've been over the last I guess it's
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: five years now at this point, I've running has broken
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: my heart so many times. I've had so many failures
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: in this sport that I try to, like not to
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: say that I always expect the worst, but I'm always
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: ready for it if it comes. And that's I think
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: part of my mentality going into that race, of like
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: just expecting it to hurt so badly the entire time,
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: because that's just I've kind of gotten used to that
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: over the last couple of years, like, and I'm okay
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: with that. I know that sometimes like life just sucks
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: and you just have to get through it. And I
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: kind of expected that to be the marathon, but when
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: it's not. That's why I was so surprised that, Like
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: the first twenty miles, I was like, the marathon is
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: obviously hard. But then I'm getting into it, I'm like, oh, man,
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: like I feel like consistent and smooth in this Like
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: I feel it's this feeling of like power. I guess,
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: like you know you're running hard and you feel tired,
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: but you're like, I can keep running at this like
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: all day long.
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's this indescribable high.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 59:15
  Speaker 4: I can't even imagine maintaining the pace that you were
• 59:18
  Speaker 4: running and feeling that level of high. But I can
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: relate to that feeling because earlier last year I ran
• 59:27
  Speaker 4: Chicago at a pace that I had never dreamed of,
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: and you're out there and it just is as if
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: you're invincible.
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And then even with the crowds at the trials,
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: it was crazy. There were so many people there. It's
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: like going through its scream tunnel and you're just like,
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: but that's the funny thing. I wasn't like elated by
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: any means. I felt like my emotions were very in
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: check and like I was just in like this flow
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: state that I just felt like I was like going.
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: Talk to me about the moment you realize what's about happen.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: As you were getting toward mile twenty five mile twenty six.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 5: Well, I want to preface this with I was in
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 5: more pain in those last two miles, and I have
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 5: been just about in any race of my life, like
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 5: it's so freakin' hard, so like you can't really like
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 5: enjoy it because one you're so terrified that someone's gonna
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 5: catch you, and then they give you that tiny little flag,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 5: like six hundred meters from the finish, You're like, this
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 5: is way too early to be giving me this flag.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 5: There's a lot of race left, but I think coming
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 5: down once you hit the final downhill, because it was
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 5: downhill for the last two hundred meters, and so by
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 5: that time, I was like, I'm pretty confident that I'm
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 5: going to the Olympics at this point.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: And I could see my my whole family was there,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: and I could see my brother and my sister holding
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: up these ridiculous cutout heads they'd had of me and
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: my sister is literally inhysterics, like sobbing, and that's when
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: I was like starting to like break, like just break apart.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: I was just like, oh my god, Yeah, it was.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: It was wild because you're just crossing the line and
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: it's like the culmination of every dream you've had, so
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: you're like a kid. It was it was like next
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: level and just realizing like damn, like I just like
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: did that. Yeah, I'm still kind of processing that moment.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 4: I don't think anyone ever fully processes that moment. You
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 4: just replay it and replay it and replay it, and
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 4: you probably ask yourself, how does it get better than this?
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: And I think maybe the answer to that is when
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 4: you run in the Olympics.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's like I don't know, it's just
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: like it's such an honor to get to like say like,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, I'm representing the US like at the Olympics.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: And I think that's the that's the core of it,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: just the opportunity to go out on the world stage
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: to represent everything, like represents the country that I grew
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: up in and like, I don't know, it's just a
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: sense of pride and I'm really really looking forward to
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: getting to do that, and everyone dreams is like being
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: competitive at the at the Olympics, But at the end
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: of the day, it's about like going out and just
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: being a willing to like give your best effort and
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: do everything you can on the day to like, I
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: don't know, put the best foot forward for the country effectively.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: I love it and the metaphor of the best foot
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: forward as you move forward with running, you're just so oh,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 4: it's seat Joe, it's running so good at this Okay,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 4: So talk to me about what life's like now. Obviously
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: you said your training isn't a well deserved down beach.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, my coach has been super nice. He knows that,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: like sometimes in full time off, that my body doesn't
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: respond super well to it, so he's letting me run
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: in these two weeks after the marathon, which really helps. Shockingly,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: my body actually feels like pretty okay right now. So
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: like I've just been doing easy mileage. I think I
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: did like thirty miles last week, and it's just nice
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: being able to like enjoy being back home in Boston
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: finally with my sister. The weather's been really nice. I'm
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: back with my friends, and just kind of like in
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: that sense, my life is much calmer. In the sense
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: of media and social media specifically, things have been absolutely insane,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: which I don't think I was prepared for.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about that.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: It's been wild.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So I mean, how many, like if we just
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 4: take Instagram as a platform for example, like how many
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: followers did you show up to the trials with?
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: I showed up on trials morning probably with either a
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: hair under eight thousand or right around eight thousand.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: And now what are we at, like forty five carry five?
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I just got verified as of today.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: That was exciting. Yeah, it's just like it's almost like
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: a joke to me, Like every time I see it,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: it doesn't seem real. And like.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 5: Now, I definitely I'm.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: Not super good with posting all the time. I'll go
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: dark for long periods of time. Also, I usually don't
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: have very good quality photos on my Instagram, So now,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: for one, it's really weird having all of these great
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: photos from the trials. I don't know what to do
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: with it. It's really ruining my blurry iPhone running photo aesthetic.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it's it is kind of fun and definitely
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: like having a little bit more of a platform. A
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: lot of people have been like reaching out or dming,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: so I apologize if anyone hearing this has DMed me,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: and I haven't responded. I'm still working through everything and
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: I truthfully probably won't get to them all.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: I think you're entitled to have some time to occur.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 4: And I mean, but the thing about social media is
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 4: that there's no denying that you want to do the
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 4: best you can to help as many people as you can.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 4: And I think, I mean it speaks to the work
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 4: that you did in Ethiopia, like you want to show
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 4: up and help other people, and sometimes it feels as
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 4: though there's just not enough time to help as many
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 4: people as you want.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: No, And that's what like, Yeah, it's like there's always
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: a new message to respond to. There's always like five
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: different things, and I feel like you can just kind
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: of like spiral into it and there's no game out.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: And then obviously you always have like the haters online
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: of people like responding to stuff, and it's almost like
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: you can't even respond.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 5: It's like it's not even worth it.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: So, and truthfully, I'm usually sow a wall with my
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: social media that I miss half the stuff on there,
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: so probably for the better, sometimes probably for the better,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: or just like at the end of the day, I
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: just try to I try to keep in mind a
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: piece of advice I was once given that don't accept
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: criticism from anyone, that you wouldn't accept advice.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: From Oh good one. Yeah I dig that.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's good to keep in mind of, like all
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: the RANDO like let's run haters.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm sure, and there are definitely a lot of them.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 4: When it comes to walking away from that trials experience,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 4: aside from obviously a place on the Olympic team, what
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 4: would you say, just from that experience and from running
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 4: a marathon, maybe one of your biggest takeaways was whether
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 4: it's technical or a little bit more metaphorical or whatever you.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: Got For me, I guess it's this feeling of going
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: into that race. I felt like I even like on
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: the starting line, I didn't feel like I belonged. I
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: don't deserve to be here. I haven't done enough to
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: earn my way here. There's so many people here who
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: have done so much more. I even now like I've
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: felt like a fraud a little bit, and being in
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: that race and finally getting up there, it was actually
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: kind of cool. The final part of the course. You
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: go out underneath the Olympic rings, turn around and come
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: back past the Olympic torch, and as we're coming back,
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: you're seeing the women coming out still and one of
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: those women was Desy Linden, who was in fourth at
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: that time and trying to trying to still close the
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: gap make the team, and she saw us, she saw
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: me and Alphine coming out, and she just like looked
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: straight at us and gave me a thumbs up, and
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: I was I felt like it was like that moment
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: of like, no, you deserve to be here, Like you
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: freaking go after this, like don't disappoint Deesse Lindon, because
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: like she's just like the freaking biggest hero of mine.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: Like I cried watching her win Boston coming through mile
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: nineteen and be like, oh my god, she's gonna do it.
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: So like getting that kind of like validation and like
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: realizing like, no, like I I can perform at this level,
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: like regardless of what I've gone through the last couple
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: of years, Like I have worked way too damn hard
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: and suffered too damn much to give up now. So
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: I think that kind of validation of like coming overline
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: being like I'm glad that I didn't chicken out, or
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: like I'm glad that I was brave enough to go
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: and run hard before I believed I was ready to
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: run hard in that race.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: And I think that happens for so many people, right,
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 4: regardless of its running or I mean, how many times
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 4: do we question do I belong here? Can I show
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 4: up here? Am I allowed to take up space? But
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: how beautiful is it when you do show up and
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 4: you tell yourself that I do belong here?
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Because so often, Yeah, And I think a lot
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: of people probably sell themselves short. I think I definitely
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: have done that on a lot of occasions, assuming like
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: I shouldn't be up with the front pack because I'm
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: not fast enough to run with that group. I should
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: play it safe and stay back here. And that's not
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: to say that sometimes it doesn't work out, Like I've
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: definitely had times where I've tried to go out with
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: the front pack and I've blown up spectacularly. I think
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: it's it's this idea that like, you have to do
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: all the work, and you have to be brave enough
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: to put yourself out there, and sometimes a lightning bolt
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: is going to strike from the heavens and it's going
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: to work out, and sometimes it's just not going to flow,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: and it's going to be one of those days that
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: it doesn't work. But if you're not willing to put
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: yourself up there and to put yourself in a position
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: to be great, you're never going to be great.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 4: So you talk to me about maybe one of the
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 4: biggest takeaways aside from going to the Olympics, from the trials,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: what would you say was one of the best pieces
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 4: of advice that you were offered going into it.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: A couple of the amateur women who had qualified for
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: the trials was kind of hanging out with them before
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: the race, just sitting with them. They were super nice.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: They were like my race moms, and they kept saying
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: they were the women who first told me, don't warm
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: up twenty minutes, like more or five minutes, but then
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: also saying like, remember, stay calm, stay patient. The race
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: doesn't start until at least sixteen miles, so on that
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: course they were eight mile loops, so that would have
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: been the going into the third lap. So those first
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: two laps I was conserve your energy, stay in the pack,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: tuck behind draft off people because it was super windy.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: It was like twenty miles an hour. But I was like,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: use as little mental energy as you can because the
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: race starts on the third lap, and like you have
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: to be ready by the time you get to the
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: third lap. You can't exhaust your legs early in the
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: race trying to race these first sixteen miles because it
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: doesn't start till till, like well into the day.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 4: And how valuable is that that that helped you get
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 4: to that point and then really kicking.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: In that saved me. That saved my race. It's like
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: fast being able to go into the third lap and
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: feel like, Okay, now I'm ready to go. And I
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: think at that point a lot of women in that
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: race were because a lot of women's legs were just
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: absolutely fried. People had been playing little strategic games fighting
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: each other, making moves, and with how windy it was
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: and how hilly it was, I think it sapped a
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: lot of people's legs and a lot of women said
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: that after the race that their legs just felt trashed. Yeah,
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: And I think like between the sixteen to twenty two
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: mile mark is when quite a few of the top
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: group ended up dropping out, and so I think it
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: was definitely a matter of just learning to like preserve
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: yourself as long as you can and like choose your battles.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: Because that's not to say like the last six miles
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: were the hardest I've ever run, But I felt like
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: I was able to get to that point and still
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: be like, Okay, you can be competitive, you can you
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: can fight this out and not feel like you're redlining
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: the entire time.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 4: You mentioned the forty five thousand and new social media followers. God,
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 4: they come to your page now and they see this
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 4: triumphant woman. Don't laugh, It's true. It's just so weird,
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 4: this triumphant woman who has maybe even surpassed her wildest dreams.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 4: You look in the mirror, now, what is it that
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 4: you see staring back at you?
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: Despite everything over the past week and even that race,
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: Like I feel like my general opinion of myself hasn't
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: changed at all. Like all of this is fun. It
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: almost like still doesn't seem quite real. But I felt
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: like going into that race, I was in a really
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: good place mentally. I went into that race because I
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: was assuming that it was going to go so badly.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: I had come to terms with the fact that it
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: was like, the outcome of this race doesn't affect my
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: opinion of myself. Like I was so obsessed in twenty
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: sixteen with making a team. I felt like that was
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: what I had to do to have value as a human,
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: And this time around, it was like, I feel like,
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: I love the training that I'm doing, I love the
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: community that I'm surrounded by in Boston, I love the
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: I love just like being in this place right now
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: that I am in my life and making an Olympic
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: team doesn't change that about me, Like, sure it would,
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: like that is my highest goal as an athlete, but
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: at the end of the day, like my value as
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: a human doesn't rest on that, and so going into
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: it and making that team it's so cool, But at
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: the same time it makes me so happy, But I
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: feel like my happiness isn't contingent on that anymore. I
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: feel like a more complete person who's got other things,
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: And like, truthfully, the happiest moment of that day wasn't
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: crossing the finish line and like having the adoration of
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: people like, oh my god, you made the team. It
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: was sitting in the bar that night eating a burger
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: surrounded by my favorite people in the world, getting to
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: just celebrate this moment and be in it and just
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: being happy that I was healthy and able to walk
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: without pain after that race and surrounded by people that
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: I love and just realized that I was going to
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: the Tokyo Olympics. And Yeah, It's like there are these
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: huge moments in our life. I think everyone assumes, like, oh,
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: you make an Olympic team, You're just happy for the
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: rest of your life. Like, no, I'm still going to struggle.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: I'll probably still like get hurt multiple times through my career.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: There's going to be other things. But as long as
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: I'm okay with like being who I am at my
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: core and able to live with that, that is what
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: brings me. That's what brings me like peace. It's not
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: getting metals or yeah, yeah, getting metals or breaking records
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: or whatnot. All those are temporary. You need to be
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: okay with who you are at the end of the day.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think it's really special that the best
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 4: part of that day is the celebration of the event,
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 4: because I think so often, especially in events and milestones
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 4: where you work so hard, there's so much build up
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 4: that we don't take the time to stop, look around
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 4: and enjoy all of our hard work.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, and just to enjoy it wasn't even necessarily that.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: It was like being able to appreciate all of the
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: people who helped me get there, like seeing my mom
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: and dad so happy and having seen them like have
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: to drive me to eating disorder treatment and like be
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: with me through that, or like my sister who was
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: like having to help me like hobble around on crutches
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: all summer, and like, I don't know, my brother who
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: was one of the people who was there at those
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: twenty sixteen trials with me that I was like at
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: my breaking point and he got me through it. It's like, yeah,
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: it's just like those are the people who got me
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: through the worst of times, and now I get to
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: share this with them and it's just so much fun.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: And like now they're going to get to come to
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: Tokyo with me and like get to just share that.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: Like I don't know, that's what was really special. It's
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: the act of It's the act of running on the day,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: like actually being in that race, realizing that there's no
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: other place that I would rather be in the world
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: than full flight in the middle of a race, just
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: hauling and just being in it, and then getting to
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: celebrate and just be surrounded by my favorite people and
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: just appreciate what we've been through to get to that moment.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 4: You have an opportunity right now to offer the Mollie
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 4: who is in the thick of it, she's struggling. You
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 4: have an opportunity to offer her one piece of advice.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 4: Looking back on it, what do you tell her?
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: I would say that nothing lasts forever. In that nothing,
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: no bad thing is going to last forever. No matter
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: how bad it gets, it won't last forever, and good
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: things won't last forever. So it's like you just have
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: to be in the moment and get through it. And
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: this idea that it's okay to feel sad and hurt
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: and to just let yourself experience those emotions and just
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: realize that no matter how much you're hurting right now,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: that will pass and you're going to be able to
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: get through it. But you just have to accept that
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: sometimes it's going to be really, really hard and you
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: just have to keep moving and stay strong. And even now,
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: it's like I can appreciate I can appreciate the pain
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: that I went through in eating to sort of treatment
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: or when I had my injuries, because I realized, like
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: that's turned me into the person that I am now.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: But I think I just needed to fully experience that
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: when I was in it, and yeah, it sucked, but
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: now it's like on the other side, I can appreciate it.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I feel like I didn't say that as
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: eloquently as I wanted to, But just this idea that
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: there's going to be so many ups and downs, but
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: none of them are going to last forever. So just
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: be able to keep riding it out and you're going
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: to get through it. And I don't know, no matter
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: how bad things might be, you never know what's going
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: to happen.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 4: And then that today I personally am so grateful for
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 4: your time and I actually have zero debts in my
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 4: mind that this is going to impact and help a
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 4: lot of people, some of which you maybe just don't
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 4: have the time to get there to their DM.
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: I apologize if I left you on unread.
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 2: It's okay, it's okay.
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Thanks so much.
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 4: Please take a moment and leave a quick review by
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 4: clicking the link with a description to this episode. We
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 4: all face multiple hurdles in life. I want to hear
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 4: about yours. Reach out to me at Emily at hurdle
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 4: dot us, connect with the podcast Instagram, Twitter at Hurdle
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 4: Podcast Mollie. Where do they find you? How do they
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 4: keep up with you? How do they follow you on
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 4: your road to Tokyo?
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: Probably the best way is through my Instagram at by
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: Golly Mollie. I have a pretty much inactive Twitter account
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: at by Golly Molly twelve, so probably don't rely on that.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: Or if you're around the Boston air and out running,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: just come say hi to me. You'll probably see me
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: down by the river. Run with me.
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 2: Perfect.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 4: I am Emily a body, another hurdle conquered. Catch you
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 4: guys next time