Happy Racers Go Faster with Sports Psychologist Dr. Kristin Keim | KoopCast Episode 37

what's going on trail and ultra runners welcome to another episode of the KoopCast a podcast where we explore all areas of ultra running including training racing nutrition physiology psychology as well as have a little bit of fun banter along the way and those last two areas of psychology and fun banter we have got in spades for you on this episode of the podcast with me today is none other than kristin kime who's a sports psychologist out of newberry south carolina and she has one of the more renowned practices in sports psychology today that consists of all different types of endurance athletes cyclists triathletes runners and mma fighters in particular she works with many of the country's best female cyclists many of whom we mention by name throughout the course of this podcast we also discuss her modus operandi which is happy racers go faster which not only reflects her own innate positivity but also her relentless pursuit to get the most out of the athletes she works with by centering on a philosophy that the person is first kristin's practice blends her academic background in clinical psychology with her personal background as a former national caliber cyclist and you'll definitely feel that theme of an athlete who has

been there and done that fused with a practitioner that wants to do the same with her athletes i caught kristin right after she presented to our coaching group and we bring some of those lessons into this conversation on how athletes should focus internally how they can go about building a village and how happiness and fiery competitiveness can in fact coexist we also spent some time going over how ultra running is this fantastic case study in mental fortitude and specific strategies on how to prevent the dreaded dnf i think regardless of the kind of endurance athlete you are ultra runner cyclist you will gain valuable insight into how to step up your mental game kristin's outgoing pull no punches and insightful demeanor is infectious right down to her very laugh that's punctuated by her subtle and dare i say beautiful southern drawl and i must warn you there's a sprinkle of salty language interspersed in this podcast so consider yourself forewarned let's get right into it here's my conversation with sports psychologist kristen kyle first off i appreciate like what you did for the coaches the other day they found that really insightful and oh good i hope that's that's when i'm like did what the hell did i just talk about well you know it's it's funny because um i'm always i i'm always brought back to this fact

that um when i when i was going through a lot of my initial coach training there was a very heavy physiology basis to that and there wasn't a formal system for it first off i mean there's not like there's like there are very few coaching degrees out there exactly yes yes and they're starting to emerge more and more and more in but they're very different even that because a lot of them like i know university of washington has one now but it's very scaled towards team sports like football and stuff like that not endurance which is different totally different you need to be a sports physiologist and a coach yep it's the problem yeah but that those didn't exist with with very very rare exceptions when i started to get into coaching and so as a as like a byproduct of that like i had to kind of like you know i had to kind of like seek out how to get education and it was a combination of certifications which are primarily driven by the national governing bodies so usa cycling and usa triathlon and usa track and field um uh mentorship that i could get from our own coaching group yes and our own coaching group and that's huge and our coaching group they all have extra science degrees and things like that so that's kind of like their lens uh their kind of lens that they uh that they look through and so as a as a byproduct of that like it's very exercise science and physiology oriented yeah and

you know i don't know maybe 10 years ago or something like that like i started to just like recognize that i had this like huge hole in my game with sports psychology because i'd never taken it in in in school it hadn't been overtly reinforced in any of those you know certifications or any of the mentorship anything like there's a little bit of it but not a whole lot right and so i started to seek out you know ways to kind of like round that game out and that goes on for forever because once you're behind the eight ball you know i've been coached for 10 years right if i split my split my career my 20 year career in half yeah i've been coaching for 10 years and i'm like oh crap i've got this big hole in my game i'm going to fix it i'm still always going to be like deficient in that so whenever we bring in sports psych people to to help our coaches up their game i always feel like i get like an extra like an extra dose of of education so i'm very appreciative that you could come and do that yeah and for me i'm just like uh it's it's that i mean those questions were were fantastic like i said um because i just it already shows probably the edge more of the human side and sports psych and what is sports psych i mean i think that's another piece that we go down it's like you know i got my master's in sports psych but most of my work comes from my doctorate in clinical you know like i'm very more um instead of psycho psychopathology which i think when i was working just as a psychologist um but getting my master's in sports psych helped me as a psychologist in a

hospital that i had different than my than the other my colleagues yep right um because i was going in not looking at what how do i diagnose you what medicine i went in like okay what are your strengths even if you're a drug addict you still have strengths you know so um and you know and i think that that's you know when i was in my master's program i had a professor who just you know took me aside literally and was like i think you probably want to work with like olympic high level athletes because i was myself and she knew that and she's like to do that she's just blunt she's like you're gonna have to get your doctorate like this is not going to be just what the master's program can teach you um but it also open up doors where you you know have more opportunity to to help people um but you're gonna have to do a lot more work and i've always appreciated the practice that you've built up because it's been an interesting one it's been it's been interesting to observe from afar because it's it's hard to promote the athletes that you work with because of the work that you're doing like we like when we're a coach like that that proposition is just a whole lot easier you know we can say listen i work with so and so athletes there's a little bit of appeal to authority there other people look at that and you know there's a snowball effect but with the work that you do that has to explicitly come from the athlete exactly yes and yes and even then i don't really i've

actually backed away from like i used to share so like if it's only times i'll share usually is like kate courtney one world right i'm not i'm not going to share that i was there you know um but but then i had athlete you know who might have also medaled you know so it's just that weird um it sometimes becomes uncomfortable but you know what the best didn't do is just a the elephant in the room talk about it like you know how did you was that okay you know just like how did you feel um you know and i think it's just humanizing it but yeah like um yeah it's it is a lot trickier it really really really is and um you know but at the same time what i'm working on doing is not having it be i want to you know not to say it's just like coaching but i don't a lot of the reasons why many people don't want to is they don't want people to know they're working with psychologists i want it to be like well i have no issues talking about you know my new human nutritionist and my coaches and i feel just as comfortable who my mental training or sports psychologist is just like my doctor is so-and-so and my psychologist is so-and-so my psychiatrist is so-and-so but that's what that's what i've been so appreciative of is the athletes that you work with have been very open and honest about the fact that they are working with you and that hasn't always

been the case it still is somewhat like taboo oh it is for yeah yeah yeah totally for for a high level athlete to work with somebody in the sports psych realm because there's a little bit of like you know weakness associated with it or whatever totally there's still the biases yeah it may no doubt about it i mean you work with the best of the best and if anything i have for like 10 11 years i know so i mean so anyway i'm just i'm just i'm just really appreciative client was because it's funny my first client wasn't and then went on to like literally be the best in the world like the first american ever to be the out of men and women you know in like the world tour right so um but that also took that athlete 10 plus years to get there right there's no magic fix we're gonna we're gonna talk about there's no magic fix because i'm sure that's something that you run across with the athletes that you encounter so let's set the table about let's set the table first with like your framework and i like i i like to start to peel back the onion layers on people's mantras because i think it like reveal it reveals a lot about how they view the world and how they view their professional practice yours yours is happy racers go faster it is and it's still on the t-shirts but it definitely hasn't it's i'd say like 2018 2019 it really robusted and like it like fully clarified but um

it wasn't me it was um when i was working at at highland hospital during my um pre-doc um and and in in that i was working with um in a pain clinic where a high significant amount of my clients are actually um borderline personality disorder and i was also working in neuropsych where i was doing you know robust tower you know neuropsych tests that took me three weeks to write up but i also was trying to still keep my head in sports psychology and keeping one arm in there because i didn't want to close the door and get trapped which a lot of my colleagues did they just went full clinical you know and don't really have any sports like peace peace to their practice and i just knew i was like no i want to be a sports psychologist i want to work with athletes and what i learned out of it was i wanted to actually work with people that wanted to get help and a lot of times when you work clinical or in a hospital you're these aren't people coming to you because they really want to change you know and most athletes at least if i feel like it's going to be a good fit i can tell that they're willing to do the work because i'm not gonna it's not just sitting here talking to me like you could to your best friend right there's gonna be homework it's training in a way you know so um but i uh i was working with um megan garner i can talk you know share about that she's retired but um and two other athletes who had just hurt you know so i was still riding you know i couldn't race but

i still had my foot in with like katherine mccurry matisse like all these like you know pro women and men at like friends of mine in the bay area that i trained with and i still could ride with like i was hanging on group rides and stuff but i had to in a way because i just had to keep the network right and i had to keep me in that performance and so you know i i was working with her and um another athlete who's one of the best i think made olympic law team um who was just like a little junior kid you know was one of my first clients and then um some of the guys on the um oh gosh california men's protein giant cow giant so you know u23 some of the best and um so i figured like five or six but they were all like either junior xyz champion um you know megan was on uh yeah i think at that time um the it's now 2020 one of those first teams and then went on to do tipco you know uh here in america before going over full-time in europe and uh one of the at one of the guy athletes suffered from a little bit of a depression and um you know i was already clinically trained so we were kind of just you know working a little bit through that and you know he just like wrote an email one day to me and he goes he's like yep he's like just like you always say dr kyle happy race just go faster and he was just kind of summarizing kind of the lens that we were working on with through his kind of

depression and i just me the marketing me was just like and that was just when hashtags were being created right so yeah and so i kind of and i knew that was going to be a big thing just like that you know and i was on the twitter i was already on you know there was no instagram so it was just like twitter instagram was just about to happen i think and so um that's where it came from and it did he he was really able to encapsulate that for me like just and i just it was it i was like that's that feels like me that sounds like me and it was kind of a joke too you know like just trying to make the heaviness lighter you know and um and but in a day scientifically if you know no matter how much work you do to be optimally to perform optimally whether it's at work or or you know trying to win the giro rose or genitalia and what we've learned you know unlike what some people have proven about racing from anger and like negative um you're going to consistently do better if you are in a better headspace in a story well so there's an efficacious nature to it absolutely like happy racers go faster there's there's efficacy to that but it also like encapsulates what you were actually doing like you were actually trying to bring out other and at that point in time very high level

cyclists their happiness for lack of a better exactly it is no it is and i think that that it's not making it like dumbifying it like you know believe me not every day is going to be happy and you know i've helped people you know who cried every day of a grand tour and still want it you know i mean it's it's it's just able to say like all right let's take a breath and yes there's still negative there's still a lot of pressure but we're going to focus right here right now on what's in your control you know and so all these things are part of happy racers go faster and if you're not enjoying it even though it is hard but you can be able to like you know i can get someone to just hit reset for a second doesn't mean you're not emotional but it's just bringing it back to like the meaning and purpose and humility and all these things over the last you know 10 plus years that i have hopefully tried to help a generation almost now of athletes and the endurance world understand that happy racers go faster and then to be a happy whole physiology mind spirit um you've got to be you know rested and you've got to understand the the you know the efficacy that to be happy you need to rest and um have a social life and you know not be tunnel vision dog matted over trained with no social life you know because that's not going to lead to happiness 100 and happy human happy athlete yeah so yeah you you kind

of brushed over this aspect that i want to dig into a little bit more and and this is like this this concept of training or racing to like prove something or out of anger and a lot of athletes out there are going to identify uh with that psychology very specifically because of the two espn documentaries that uh just came out in may one of them was with michael jordan the the best one or one of the best doesn't matter how you slice it miserable yeah miserable his whole career lindsey vons is the same way yeah if you saw her documentary i just feel sorry for the whole time i was like she would have quit a long time ago it was miserable right i mean i'm serious and now it's happening to michaela sheffron yeah you know michael phelps missy franklin but we're gonna so so this brings up a more important thing so most athletes are gonna they're going to be in touch with those things there's this one documentary with michael jordan there's another one with lance armstrong you can totally mention lance armstrong i don't have an issue with that okay it's it's that's not taboo here at all but i could tell you what i really think if that comes up as well but um what what i want to kind of like get from you is is you see this behavior and you see this psychology in elite athletes kind of like lauded to a certain extent meaning that it's it's it's put out there in the public and people view it as a reason why they were great you then have to go back into your

practice with your athletes having seen these things or heard of them or whatever and have to then work with them on that like how does that how does that all unfold because you just mentioned it is this unhealthy behavior that we should start to steer people away towards yet we still have all of these examples of high of some of the best of the best that can win we'll throw away their you know what they're doing personally and things like that right but they can still win races just still and yeah they're still winning with that type of psychology so what like what do you say to that yeah um i mean i think it just goes down to the consistency piece um you know and even though it was out of the anger were they weren't angry the entire time right so you might get a few good results out of yourself and you know the michael jordan one was really fascinating because you know i do think that i don't think he was miserable his whole entire career i think he was you know um a lot of it's the psychology of the other players too i call it the boss effect um i think a lot of you know marionna voss i'm not taking away that she was an amazing athlete but i do think i don't think she was that much more except for that the fact that she got really good and then you as an athlete just think that she's going to beat you you know um so i think there was the michael jordan effect the lance effect whatever you want to say so there's that piece that often is not noted is how much of

you know of greatness is also because other people let them be where they are you know too and it's a more complicated than a straight up answer but i do get sometimes you know should i be racing from like more hardcore you know i just look at them and i start laughing because they're like kittens really you know i'm like no you don't need to be a lion except for so i have one a good example i have an athlete and she's very um uh been working with her for six or seven years now but very engineer very you know gonna think about data very about data very you know just intellectual not very emotional i mean you know for a woman you know she's anti most of the things and more of on the side of what you know maybe we put the traits of a male athlete pro athletes use lots of engineers and guys like that right um but i finally tapped into like this part of her that's like and so one day she's you know we're trying to get more excitement and fire and like this this i want to beat people so i've had to work a lot on that with men and women of okay it's cool to be a domestic it's cool to be like in the top 15 but your coach is telling me that your numbers and everything say you should be top five what's missing and it's that it's the it's different to go out there and be vulnerable and be vulnerable and figure out what is your internal locus of control for driving

to push yourself because the minute you're thinking about the other person they're dictating your competition right so i think michael jordan and you know even lance to that they those two they were just so about them they weren't worried about beating other people they might have said that but really they were just able to really harness that internal drive whether that's from you know we could always say it like you know uh floyd landis i mean tyler my any of these people like not to say what they did was right by any means but also what happened in their backgrounds that led to them maybe making not the best choices right with anyone anyone athletes i mean most top athletes how i like to like say it in a kind way because i put myself there were not because most people would not ever want to go and put themselves in that level pain right so there's we all kind of have some void you know not to get i'm not freudian i'm very behavioral cognitive behavior and all that but you know there is part of something we're trying to prove and most of the time it's just we're just trying to prove something to ourselves it's not necessarily about the external that's when it's healthy it's when it's the external and that's where that like i'm angry and i'm gonna like you know whatever if you're able to internalize it maybe you get a few good races out of it but at the end of the day it's more of an external control that eventually is gonna you know bite you in the ass

kind of as well look at it so for me it's just figuring out who that human is and what their drive is and even though they may not be you know the you know a very emotional person going back to this one example you know one day she was just like i just i just want to kill bitches you know or something like that and i was like oh yeah it's like who is this person like i even felt like i cuss now with this person right like and so on the back of the number we put like kb you know just some like that that reminded themselves that like i am here to go and bury myself and that this should hurt worse than you know my train you know i'm saying so figure it by finding that fight in themselves but it doesn't have to be this like like this i hate people and i want to fucking like proof something to someone else because you will i mean i would say it like i wouldn't be a good fit for an athlete like that but i can promise you even though they might be winning they're not happy sure there's a difference but what i was what i was kind of teasing out of a little bit of that dialogue is that happiness and like an internal sense of competitive competitiveness or a desire to succeed those two things can coexist they don't have to be mutually exclusive like you can be happy with the things that you're doing if you're if you're reflective upon them from an internal perspective if they have meaning to you yep cool yeah i'm glad i kind of understood that correctly yeah totally

it's all about the internals i mean there's thousands and thousands of i mean that's going back to the sport evidence-based research and sports psychology that you know that internal drive and that internal like meaning and purpose um is all you know is always going to because i do get that question like do i need to be more you know whatever and i did again i just laugh i was like the minute you say that you need to be something is probably what you don't need to be 100 you just need to be you and we'll find it and we'll figure out you know you know for one example good example is is kate courtney like her big thing is sparkle and joy and happy that doesn't mean she's not out there to kill and to dominate because you don't win world championships you know but like but again if people go back and watch her world championships she wasn't worried about annika she had her head down she was just going yeah she was like i'm in pain and i'm keeping on this tempo and and she had raced the race right for her instead of like attacking on those heels and stuff she would get dropped but she was keeping you know her level what she knew numbers she knew she could do and it just goes back to what she knew she could do and did she know that she could win worlds it wasn't that she didn't think she was but she didn't have the pressure to think she had to yeah you know which is a lot different too yeah and once again the common theme is is like the internal focus like she knew what she could do she knew you know her strengths and weaknesses and things like that and yeah she's

trying to like maximize that as much as possible and at the end of the day she won right and for the listeners out there some of our listeners are are gonna be more runners just well they're gonna be like highly engrossed in ultra running and only ultra running we're talking about the raining well but it's good to for every sport to look so i have like my downhillers is a great example there i mean i have a downhiller who wants to when you know when covid's over next time he wants to spend a whole winter with this uh u.s ski team oh gosh i mean you know i'm saying like all my athletes i get them to look at other sports mma or whatever so runners you're gonna learn you're gonna hear a little bit more cycling today well i would i wanted to set the reference of who the athlete was that we were talking about is the reigning mountain bike look them up yeah no she's not reigning oh sorry yeah mountain bike world champion kate courtney yes okay uh 2019 yeah 2018 yeah who in my professional opinion can save cycling because cycling needs saving but that's another conversation yeah i know anyway we'll we'll we'll we'll leave that for another discussion that's another time um you and i have this really common piece of framework and the listeners to this podcast and our coaches now that i'm thinking about this a little bit more our coaches will will completely profess to this is that we go through great lengths to make sure that we have a common language

and so when in the coach in our coaching world when i say tempo run our coaches know exactly what intensity it's at exactly what the framework of the interval should probably know what it is exactly but you do the same thing with your athletes like you you make sure that you and the athlete are on the same page from a vocabulary perspective and there's kind of a couple examples that i want to go through that i think are really intriguing the first one of which is goals versus objectives and then the second one that i've heard you talk about a lot is balance versus energy management so why don't you time and energy management versus time management which is the same thing as balance totally so why don't you like take us through that and why that's so why that why that commonality is is so important to have well i mean actually it was i had when i was working on my master's and i was one summer it was like literally the worst summer of my life up until now um and i and i say that like that was what my therapist at the time because you know you it's funny people are like i i just talk about my therapist and i i tell people my yeah i don't think i want to go a therapist who had never been to a therapist you know to kind of understand like what's it like on the other side but um they make us in our doctorate programs go to therapy and um she you know i was remember i was talking about um i was doing this paper on cold setting like like a intense literature review like mini like thesis um and uh it was the best thing ever because in it i found all these different ways that other sports

psychologists had gotten away from the world word goal and um and yeah and i just felt like it was getting trivialized and so one day when i was writing it um i just thought about it like from the lens of kind of how i did from my dance education and i remember just you know i mean i was a you know high level competitive athlete like tennis and soccer and i was thinking about how can i what's a common theme against some of these things because in dance you don't really have goals right and you don't have it's not like a sport like that but we definitely had like daily objectives of like what am i working on today that's going to make me a better dancer okay i'm working on my turnout today or and so i just it was just kind of came up like out of just you know magically appear where i was just like i think that i like that word objective so i just started using it in that you know kind of report in my lurcher review report as of other ways and so um you know blueprint's been one that's been used um uh blueprint blueprint and objectives were the two um there's some other ones that i think still just you know kind of at the end of the day goal sounds better and i don't not not say goal because sometimes the language is just easier to say you know goal but most of my athletes who've been work with me they get indoctrined and they they even say it so we just don't ever really say in the kind uh household of sports psychology uh goals but like it's not that they're they're different i think it's an

objective sometimes i feel like it got so trivialized with the goal setting that i think it took away the importance does that make sense because of the word because it's just everywhere and you know just like you know the the fads of language um and so i think sometimes our receptors and our brains just need something you know how i like to say kind of sexy just something different and so that's been my job is to kind of just create my own language um with these performance things whether it's objective so most of the time when i'll have athletes do is like create like in the middle it's like a well it's you know it's a vision board is what it's called and um you know kate courtney's like her some of hers are like incredible and some of my i mean i have one athlete she like is an amazing uh draw like artist and so she just draws like these mountains and then interweaves hers and some do it like a collage so i tell them there's no you can't fail at your vision board um but you know it is a fun way for even if you're a 30 year old to do something handsy crafty and think about it but at the end of the day it's just creating kind of um realistic and timely you know all the kind of the basics of goals right um in a in a in a something that you can see visually versus just in your head um and some don't like to do that but i still make them journal and like do the you know objectives what are your what do you what is your coach wanting you to do what do you want to do and if they don't do it then

they don't do it but the ones that do it who listen to me and do what i say they get better a little faster well because it's clear what they're it's clear what the purpose is yes thank you and then you can say that a little louder if you want to agree with me your purpose why the fuck are you out there running in 100 degrees doing temper whatever right like um and then some days you just need to go out there and do your trainings like i get that like just get done and it doesn't you know it's not gonna be all pretty but something's going on in your life then you probably shouldn't be training if that's becomes more the norm you're just doing the training it's you're not intrinsically going to have that your muscles your body doesn't sense that and it's junk miles if your brain is not connected to your legs or your heart or your soul and i hate to get woo-woo but that's that's reality of what this is really goals is you are taking this on versus you know someone telling you to do it yeah you might get good but and you might even do be the best in the world but who who cares if you weren't happy yeah you know you started you started to get into some of like the like the process that you use when you're working with athletes and there are going to be a lot of people that are listening to this that are lead athletes but more commonly they're just going to be you know what we commonly call age group athletes or everyday athletes yeah yeah um but the the

process can be remarkably similar whether it's physical training which is kind of more my world or mental training which is predominantly your world and i think one of like the common themes with it is is you have to like meet people where they're at like we would never have an athlete that you know has that runs 40 minutes for a 10k all of a sudden have them do five minute per mile repeats out on the track because they're not at that level of fitness and same thing in your world like you're developing tools and skills and and and and awareness in a certain framework so that they can essentially catch on so how how do they like how does that start like how does an athlete who's out there says okay i want to work on my mental game like what what are the the like fundamental building blocks that they can work on just to start out with if they have no exposure to this in the first place um well i mean if they're working with a coach um you know first off you know i think a coach sometimes like my job with some of my top athletes becomes more of like the account manager you know so um like that it is it is which uh you know um i uh you can only have so many top level athletes right so when you're the account manager you know um but even for them some of them came to me with no dialogue but they didn't really know what they wanted like most don't a lot of people don't either they're injured and they you know are in crisis or they're they're you know undiagnosed ot over training syndrome

whatever you want to call it burnout same thing to me um under you know they're underperforming i mean there's these things why but a lot of people don't have the language and and you know for me it's i think the first thing would be go you know go like listen to some a sports psychologist on a podcast um go and check out a sports psychologist website read some of their articles um you know i have a list of books that i always recommend that aren't really like this is sports psychology right but they are where the the my the athletes are going to be introduced of like what human behavior and how that that impacts us um and sometimes you know you can just you know email an a sports psychologist set up an intake call and also just see what it's about and i think that's kind of you know the first step is that we're not scary and it's i'm not going to be a good fit for everyone and i am old enough and mature enough to typically know that and if i look an athlete up you know i'm either going to be like whoa that's just i i don't know that sport i don't time to learn that sport you know um but i can direct them towards maybe a sports psychologist that that's their niche though i i'm kind of against that too um just like yes i'm a you know sports psychologist in the framework that people think i'm a cyclist but like most people don't realize i was a high level dancer but i've also played tennis and soccer and you know all these other sports um and i'm interested in other sports

besides just you know the endurance athletes but that i am an ex i hate that word expert but that's more my expertise is endurance athletes and i think it's just that and um bringing up with your coach and have a dialogue so what's you know it's not the coach is not doing something wrong it's just sort of like hey like how can i you know up my mental game or you know i'm having some anxiety coach and then it's just like oh okay well you know let's talk about it having a dialogue and then the coach and the athlete realizing like okay what are some resources before you know you go to a sports psychologist and i think it is i think it's just like seeing if there's some books on it um you know just it's not scary so you know there's no perfect way um but i think the best way is just you know um you know go to the applied sports psychology association of applied sports psychology ask there um they actually have a little area where you can type in you know where you live now this is what gets complicated though with my high level athletes like who the heck is going to newberry south carolina is not going to have some sports psychologist for me to see right um so i'm kind of you know but if you're on a break or you're a runner who does spend a significant time in one location like you know in california or you know you might be able to find a sports psychologist who's in denver or something that you could go to physically but honestly the tella with sports psychology is there's no difference

like it's not going to be better in person than it is going to be someone you talk over the phone or through skype it's about the rapport it's about that human athlete and and and me or whatever um that's what it's going to be a bore it's more about that relationship and it's the same for coaching we i was about to say the exact same thing we we have uh we have somebody uh in our in our coaching group his name's dominic who he's gonna i've already recorded a podcast with him that's going to come out in a few weeks and i go through that whole thing with him like how do we match up coaches with athletes and it's all rapport based it's not it is oh i have an athlete that's training for the western states 100 this other coach has done the western states 100 yeah those those like technical matches or niceties they're nice yeah but but the necessity is the rapport yes 100 100 and the beauty of social media and and the often and being authentic on it like you are like i love how you're just you so athletes are going to either like you or not so that so then it's already a good fit right because if they're not like jiving with what you're doing then then you're saving everyone time and energy right so that's why i'm just me i'm like either you like this or not and you know and most most often i get athletes you know it's a snowball effect so now you know coaches you have good coaches who always kind of refer to me right but even then that doesn't mean it's gonna be a good fit it typically is because usually i'm in unity with the coach see what i'm saying so you just kind

of that synergy um i call it the village that's another one my thing that i started is you know it takes a village to raise an athlete um i think that really has just started to evolve the last like five years where athletes realize you know to be the best it's not just having a good coach you got to have the a great nutritionist a sports psych a physio a personal trainer you know all that um and i think teams should pay for that that's a whole nother thing well that's what i try to do a lot on this podcast because i i i realize like my own limitations as a coach are confined to you know practically what the information that i can absorb and i can't be an expert in all areas that person or burn you out no like i mean i think a lot of coaches blur boundaries not meaning to do it in a mean way but but that does it that hinders that relationship of coach and athlete um because you know the coach becomes to everything talking about you know the divorce they're going through or whatever it's not that you don't talk about it but like you can't be their therapist about it you know coaches of always the analogy that i've always used is coaches are the very proverbially the jack of all trades and masters of none and we have to be because we have to use psychology and physiology and tactics and even equipment you know like even we have to have all that too yeah it's tough you don't know how many times i have to tell i ask athletes that's the last time you got a fit good bike fit and and it like was a game changer or nutrition is

the biggest one yeah like i have this one athlete and he's i yeah i can't he hasn't really talked about working with me but he drives me crazy because like he is the quintessential like poster child and i've had a few athletes where i've gotten them to work with nutritionists and i'm not gonna say they quit me because of that but they got so much better because they finally were focusing on their nutrition they're like well i don't need sports like now actually you do but if you don't want to work with me then it's probably not a good fit see what i'm saying so it's like all right but i got them that nutritionist right so because i knew it was clear and day i was like um i don't think you're eating enough during your racing and i mean i just don't think you're yeah and i can't i'm not you're a nutritionist i can't tell you what macro might you know in the minute they get someone that they buy into because they've worked with so many athletes and then their performance gets better and i'm like well yeah because you like you do need to eat during a race hello yeah i've always found that the practitioners that have a specialty so in your area right be psychology yeah but it can also kind of like bleed out of their specialty uh to a certain extent those are always the ones that end up doing the best job because they're not so focused like in this specific silo like the ones that drive me crazy are the really narrowly specific sports scientists that if you get them they're brilliant within their little area of our mechanics or nutrition and it's very micro yeah exactly so i

typically don't refer athletes to that one person i bring like i i'm the i'm the filter yes yes definitely let's not let's not go that down that rabbit hole too much though you mentioned this really cool thing like it takes a village and we're i agree with you we are starting to see this a lot more in elite sport and almost to the point where you can probably find a few cases where the village is too big too big too many cooks in the kitchen so yes and i've actually had that help athletes shave some people all out and off and it's hard but definitely oh yeah so what does kristin's like ideal village look like um i think it takes time i think you know at some points i'm gonna be the head more heavily involved with an athlete and the other times athlete is really gonna just lean on their coach and may not need me as much because they're they're just in a good place you know and it's good to talk about what's going right right um but yeah my job is to um not like i'm not here to keep you having to keep coming to me i want you to have your little wings and jump off and fly but know that i'm always there because i have athletes that i've worked with and i may not see them for five years and all of a sudden they email and they're like can i work with you again and i'm like um yeah like i didn't say like oh she doesn't work with me or he doesn't work with me anymore i'm like hell yeah dude and we'll jump right back in right and they're uncomfortable but i'm like no like

i don't take it personal um you know and that's just a that's just a you know i'm i guess i'm blessed with that lens that you know um i've really always understood not to take things personal that it's more about the other person than me and that's just trainings of a psychology and being a psychologist and going to therapy right so um it might i might be disappointed or a little bit hurt but i know it has nothing to do with like the quality of my work um you know and so the village is going to start with you know the ground the the first thing is a good coach i mean i i you know no offense and a coach might send an athlete to me and then i through a few sessions and sometimes even the first session i can be like oh this is a bad match or this is toxic between you and the athlete or the coach and the athlete oh the coach and the athlete yeah yeah like not not good like this is the problem like the coach is sending the problem sending the athlete to me when really they're the problem the relationship's the problem so um so i again work on getting them to leave and find a new coach so that's it it's like the the basics is going to be fundamentally you have to have a good coach a one that you believe in one that's like just you know you yeah that you believe in that you feel like you're getting good workout you understand that the coach has a vision for you that the coach also has things that they feel like you like you should in a way i hate the shoulds in the woods and the coulds but they have at least a vision you know you they're you're they're not just

plopping you into this cookie cutter program where you're trying to win kona but yet you find out that you're doing the same training as their weekend racers yeah you know which i literally just yeah have had a lot of that kind of stuff happening it's weird that you see that so much though like that's what always like yeah it's really sad i mean i i've seen it toxic it's really bad yeah i mean i've seen it over the course of my coaching career too and i've always had this idealistic notion that eventually that's just going to get weeded out but apparently it hasn't and i don't know why lazy and people and people are getting it for money and you know maybe they you know they had three kids now i mean i you know i'm not saying they're but me bad people but um they're definitely not a good fit for my athletes and that's all i'm here to protect okay so so this village concept like you're the centerpiece is the athlete obviously the athletes in the middle and then what i like to have them do is look at the coaching relationship coach kind of like the training so you know the training physically and the goals and objectives for the physical part like this winter we're going to work on increasing your whatever or like for you know a good example for kate it's not like any coach or athlete listening to this i don't think this is like opening up you know pandora's box but like she's still very young and is competing against athletes who've been racing for like 15 years so there's still some things fundamentally for her to still be good in five or ten years right

that she has to work on so that's why i hate when athletes compare because you know an athlete who might be in their 30s late 30s or mid 30s is not going to be the same doing the same trainings that someone in their early 20s is doing you know so um so yeah so it's really important that you you know kind of just get a coach that you believe in and you just kind of focus on the physical aspect and then you know then it's nutrition so you know so then you know are you working on your nutrition in a good way not like you know i do get eating disorders and stuff like that and if anyone has a significant eating disorder then they shouldn't be competing they shouldn't be training like they just need to be working on that and that's not my expertise people who have a previous history of having an eating disorder it never goes away so that's something to teach someone right there i've actually had athletes go on be like well you know when i when i got over my eating disorder like it just went away magically and i'm like well i'm cured no no you're not and you need a fire and probably go to a different therapist if they said that you were you know cured um because it's going to come up in other ways and other obsessive ways and typically unhealthy obsessive ways whether it's you know relationship sex drugs alcohol spending exercise yeah which that's a whole nother one exercise addiction which is i think should be in the dsm of psychology it's not but it should be um and i've written papers so people go on my website i've written some papers recycling tips on it and everything

um but you know so the nutrition so these are actually areas they write like on their vision board like two or three objectives that's it like what are something the vision there was that their family so like what does their social network look like you know so you know and again i've not even been brought up yet right so there's that physical piece you know one day i want the sports site to be with the physical piece we're just not there yet so i'm a realist right so then we work on our social so we're working on our bio psycho social but in sport it's kind of bio social psych piece in a way would you i mean that's just kind of what i've learned to not not push and force against um because the more that i get them feeling confident in their coaching and their nutrition and their social network that's an that's like a beautiful platform for me to be able to teach things that are going to be obtained because when someone's in a crisis and and it's just like you know for you know having panic attacks or a deep depression it's you know that's just way much harder for me to work because we have to kind of take those other things out those variables out yeah and that's typically the framework that we've worked with as well where the like the the coach is kind of the linchpin and this whole village village analogy with obviously the athletes at the center of it right but in terms of the village it's getting built around the athlete and that's just it's more a somebody's going to listen to this podcast say ah you're totally

biased on that because you are a coach of course you think that you know that's the most important person but the but the reality doesn't mean that's the person that actually is do you say like the coach like you got you are you gods is how i look at it you coaches do not understand how much power y'all really have like so like way more power than i will ever have yeah because like i will tell an athlete something literally a thousand times and the minute the coach mentions it once the athlete comes back and says so and so said and you know what i say i'm like i don't care if it was like the clown at the grocery store as long as it's in your head now bravo yeah because i don't i don't have any ego around that right but they are y'all are gods a lot of that a lot of that and try i mean trust me i realize that and you know in my experience working and just realizing it and sitting with that but also like you said like the coach then needs to make sure that that everyone is on the same blueprint so like the athlete is the center but the coach now wants to make sure like all right i'm going to make sure that i have a talk once a month with kristin you know um or you know i i got the nutrition plan and handwriting or whatever from you know whatever you're um um the athlete i think i feel like the athletes should promote that and kind of i help the athlete be the driver's seat is what i'm trying to eventually get through but we have to work on it and so you know a really confident just like

really efficacious and autonomous athlete is going to be able to say i need a rest day on that day and not feel uncomfortable and be like you know you now have to work around that i i just don't feel i'm not feeling it yeah for whatever reason right you see what i'm saying so it takes it takes time and then the other parts of the village are going to be the finances you know that is part of it right um so the village is not just like these humans the village is everything that is important and that like keeps this will so you kind of look at the athlete as the hub right then you got the spokes to each thing visually that's what i want my athletes to do i used to make them kind of create that and then i just said you know do whatever you want to so and then you know and then having like the inspiration piece so then you know having a good chiro when you come home right having a good acupuncturist when you come home um getting your pt and all these people to give you what to do when you're on the road um you know it's funny i think megan went mommy sharing this example when she was on rob a bank and bulls dolman highly dutch teams um she had had some hip issues i mean she's just a you know was a sprinter who became a climber and you know to do that you've asked a lot of your body and you know she was kind of you know treating toning her body to be something to match and be able to race you know with maybe a mar ab or something but she's not maybe not built like that and genetically

going to have that so her body you know your body just takes a toll you know in 10 years of racing at the top level like she did she was you know tape from head to toe and but that was kind of her thing to get all the tape on versus is it really helping right and and like literally in the middle of a rosa right like she's like in the pink jersey she would do 30 minutes yoga you know before the stage still but it was like if she didn't do that it was like that's just what she did mentally and physically to be like i'm ready right but she got her village to kind of like create and help these things and then if she didn't feel like you know for me it was hurting something she could just do us a quick skype with her physio from you know wherever they were in idly right so at the high end it gets a little bit your village gets a little bigger but then the problem is you get on these teams and then they want you to have this trainer and that person and so that's when things get a little chaotic and we have to like talk to team managers and just you know try to say like yo like this athlete just needs these people and this extra is actually making it more challenging okay let's talk about that because there's gonna once again there's gonna be athletes that are listening to this podcast is like okay i've got a coach you know i'm gonna go find a nutritionist to work with i'm gonna you know my family's gonna be part of my village i'm gonna have my training partners the social network that's gonna be part of my village i'm gonna look at other athletes and

other people to find inspiration totally yes role models yeah role models absolutely and there does become a point to where this village gets too big too big and components of it are counterproductive to the objectives yes they are your vocabulary the objectives and i have seen this play out both an elite sport yeah and with weekend warriors where there are too many people giving them influence especially when you're female directions oh really what so why is that in your experience oh yeah like you know when you're you could be i mean you know my top athletes get that they'll be riding their bike you know and and uh you know the bay area and you know someone will say something about like oh you know like you you need to keep it in this gear or i don't know just something and then they're in the middle of a training like that's their job yeah yeah you know and um as a female it was just like i think now more women have coaches it's a little bit more normalized but when i was racing you know it was really big deal for if you're a female that had a coach but everyone wanted to coach you you know everyone had their two cents oh right right and i and a lot of women still i mean still really get that a lot like feedback i mean you know i had an athlete one time they were in like i think even it might have been kate like in a championship jersey and the person didn't really think that they were the champion oh god yeah you know i'm saying like where

did you get that jersey yeah did you buy it at the store yeah do you buy it at the store i don't think mint do you know i don't think you know most men have never had that experience where it's like did you just buy that in those situation in those situations kristen do you think that that's coming from the other person going uh this person doesn't know what the fuck they're doing versus i really want to help them i think it's more of a place of just um not not thinking just thinking like you know i mean literally just being impulsive with let me just sit with the situation and maybe it was out of something positive but i think you know i would invite men or women to just you know keep to yourselves and you know like if someone reaches out from wanting a coach you know let someone reach out and ask versus um providing without someone really showing interest in it and you know i don't need assistance you don't need to touch my lower back or touch me how many times in group rides no i've seen i didn't ask to be touched i've seen that play out on the cycling world you don't see that as much with the men you see that way more women like i'd much rather get dropped than your than your hand on my um booty let's let's so there's gender issues to that so that's a whole nother layer but you know just to simplify it a little bit i think um you know you've got to figure out your you know it's your recipe yeah and so you know you've got to take ownership whether you're a top level athlete

listening in this who might feel like they've got too many cooks in the kitchen and at the end of the day it just goes back down to you your coach and your sports psychologist usually the people that really know you and are there for you and and your significant other so like you know like megan when we went at rio she took she actually brought over her physio even though she was with like usack you know it was still like he was part of her village he got her through a lot um her husband obviously her family her coach cory hart and myself yep i think the takeaway message for the athletes is is when you're building out this village be deliberate with it and bigger is always better yes yes well and you know helping out like again helping athletes have those hard conversations i mean you know i've had athletes stay with at coaches for a long time doesn't mean they didn't think about changing over to what was you know the hot hot coach at the time right or questioning but any good relationship that's you're gonna have like any relationship your challenge areas you gotta work you gotta work at it communication yep let's um let's kind of make a hard pivot to ultra running um i've always thought that ultra running is like this beautiful uh case scenario for sports psychologists because it's this it's this sport that it's incredibly physically difficult when you're in the races very long durations low intensities and at the same and at

the same time it's not very high on the technicality scale it's not like a mountain bike race where you've got to be like laser-like focused on this you know descent or you're going ass over tea kettle not not typically the case in most races some are yeah some are very yeah yeah but but my point with that is is there are these in ultra running there are these huge spaces of time for an athlete to think yes and because of that one of the things that i've like consistently noticed for going uh in going out to races and particularly at the 100 mile distance is this concept of the mental dnf where i can sit in an aid station laid into the race 70 80 miles into the race and i'll stay there from the time the leaders come through to the time that the last people come through and they shut the aid station down and the runners that drop out are physically indistinguishable from the runners that continue on i can't like their gates are the same you know they don't look you know any they don't physically look like they're under any more or less duress than one another but yet something is going on where they're like i can't i can't do it anymore and the only thing that i can chalk that up to is this long time and space that they have to think about what's going on so enter your world instead of already going in and having you know a script like a movie you know like a performance

you already kind of know what you're going to be facing and and what to have in your mental script of what you're going to do over to whatever our you know pr time or whatever you're trying to do so is that so in the in the sport of ultra running you've got a lot of like tools in your toolkit that you can use this mental script being one of them do you think that that's something that's meditation all that huge for these sports okay so how so for the for the runners that are out there that you know there's no races going on so it's weird to talk about this so maybe in 2021 when somebody revisits this this podcast like they're in this they're they know that they're going to enter this 100 mile 100k really long race and they're gonna they know that they're gonna encounter some some aspect of the race that's going to require a certain amount of mental fortitude to get out of the aid station which they can work on now because if they will live in a safe space where they can get out and run not everyone can do this but you can still practice these things before an actual race okay maybe you're not doing the distance of a you know the full distance but these are still things that you still can utilize in longer distances that you might be training so let's pick a couple of those out that might be easy for the listeners to uh to kind of grasp hold of we've already gone through you know step one if you if you think you want to up your game in this is let's just go get educated pick yes you know lowest common denominator listen to a podcast go read an article and things like that yeah but then step number two is kind of like putting these things in practice what are the things that the athletes can

like put in practice on a day-to-day basis to like alleviate this really specific situation that i came up but it can apply to anything obviously totally and i think it is a self-fulfilling prophecy a lot of those those people probably have visualized too much like what would go wrong um without saying okay these things could go wrong and this is what i'm going to do and the first is that internal drive that unless you know you're bleeding out of your you know your i mean literally you hurt yourself like or you are because this is where i have an issue with some of my athletes where they heat exhaustion they they're they literally could kill themselves like right it's just a race okay i'm sorry so i have the opposite where people keep going when they shouldn't so i think it's just learning and having like kind of a ethos of an agreement you know that you make with yourself and your coach and you know me that like no matter what i'm never going to quit there's a difference between quitting and giving up so quitting it's okay to quit that means you're injured you're dehydrated you didn't eat enough um you just you know someone just gave you a message that you know someone sick in your family or you know whatever um or you just knew that you weren't ready at the start line and you decided to start but you knew like you know that you hadn't slept in two weeks that you you know have been sick and you just came off mine i mean just all these stupid reasons like you shouldn't even be at the start line and if you're at the start line already thinking about what could

go wrong then you should just go and pack your backs because it's not going to end pretty so that's kind of that self-fulfilling prophecy um but if you're you know at the start line and you have your good village around you and you have your village of support and you have your objectives for your race and um then you hit a hot spot of just like you know i'm really in pain like this is really hurting but if i you know go i know i know how to deal with cramps i'm gonna go i'm gonna eat some bananas i'm gonna take a breather and then i'm just gonna go slowly i'm not gonna just go right back into that tempo and i'm just gonna keep going and i'll give myself another you know 20 minutes you know um but we we go over that we go over the kind of what could go wrong and then you uh role play it to yourself um that's kind of the next step then you can add in like meditation mindfulness and these more constructs that for me unless you just really become a meditate just because you meditate and you practice mindfulness doesn't mean you're gonna like obviously be able to get out of these kind of situations right um you have to be able to know that like that the situations happen because you're human right even if you do everything perfect you could just malfunction and malrace i've all had that happen um you know mechanical malfunction is what could happen with the ultra runner because on any given day you could be really good or really great really good or really bad and you just don't ever know really you know because we're all human so i think it's just that also being understanding

that you're human that like shit happens that your ego is not attached your self-worth's not attached to the outcome so as long as you believe some athletes their best races are races like that where they fought and kept climbing even though they felt like they were they got dropped but then everyone else crashes themselves out you know i'm saying and they have winning but if they had given up in that moment right and the kate's a good example like she was not like looking to be winning right but she just head down kept doing her thing wasn't worried about what anyone else was doing and then she was able to ride away and you know and get the win um but that's working on that like knowing committing like no matter what even if i know i can win as long as i know i'm right now giving my best i'll be disappointed with second but like fuck yeah i got second you know so um so those things are kind of easier things i think to do is just to kind of have that ethos of like no matter what i'm not going to give up um but i it's okay to quit and give myself permission to quit if there's some internal external thing that is overplaying my willpower and that's what's different your willpower is that ability to suffer through the pain that you should have already been training so you know your training at some point should almost be harder than what you're ever going to race if you have a good coach and and and if you're at that level to be able to train at that modality

does that make sense 100 yeah i want to go back to like two really specific elements that you you brought up and and dive into those a little bit more the first one of which i i use this same exercise with my athletes is what are you going to do it's this role playing in advance of the event to to kind of flush out some of the situations that suck yeah now you kind of know what it's like what what to expect and what to do if it happens but in ultra running the situations are okay you get lost right yes you come into an aid station and you've bonked and you're cramping and there's five other you know things going on all at the same time like what are you going to do and i actually started i'm just now remembering this i started doing this with um uh some of my athletes after discussing the same thing with uh uh with a with a mma coach oh yeah yeah yeah yeah and he would have his fighters do that he'd be like okay you're in so and so's guillotine what are you gonna do like just when they're like sitting around like talking about it and the way that he what that act the other person is doing too which is pretty i work with them in my fighter as well so it's fascinating how it's different and how you can pull from that yeah but my i'm i guess i guess my point with that is this coach was describing the same exercise to me yeah okay what are you going to do you're caught in so-and-so's guillotine yeah we're sitting here chair chair like how do you actually get out he said the fighter would like he'd describe all these things that are going on first i'm going to do this

then i'm going to do this and then the coach would cue him okay i'm going to be calm i'm going to remain i'm going to you know keep even though you're in i know i can this high anxiety kind of situation you're going to relax into it and get into the right be able to pull out that you're connected and in present yeah because you're not going to get out if you're thinking about what we do next you got to be fully invested in what do right the second right and so the the the scene the scene that i was trying to paint here is is this coach is describing this exercise with this athlete and he was saying that the athlete was actually like kind of partially going through the motions and the angles and the movements that he would do if he were actually in that situation so it also became not only a psychological um activity but but a kinesthetic activity as well because there's kind of yeah there are more senses involved yep and i've noticed that as well when i take my athletes through this situation that they start to like almost pantomime what they would do if they were caught like okay if i get lost i'm going to turn around and they actually like turn around right to you know yes to to like actually as if they were actually visualization so you know either you can see yourself like through a move like you're like you know the real and you see yourself or you see yourself in it like you know you're the block like from your eyeballs right versus like watching a movie

of yourself you could visualize like that it's one way to visualize and another way is to actually just be doing it as if you're in that moment um and both ways are great sometimes it's good like lay in bed and just think about you know okay every this is everything i'm gonna go right and then you know i'm just gonna remind myself that like to be more aware if i feel like in my head that might be getting lost that intuition right especially i think for long distance running and ultra mountain biking and all these things you have to really rely on um your ethos of just kind of uh you know being more in a way i'm still like if you're doing the sport you already kind of have a meditation of mindfulness because you're doing so i work from that you know because it's like you know you wouldn't choose to do that sport if it wasn't you you know being able to be present in in the moment because you just wouldn't be able to access that length of duration do you see what i'm saying yep so that's the first thing is this is this so this role playing or the scenario playing like what are you going to do when the hits the fan yeah because it's going to happen because it is and it's never it's not never but sometimes it is the situation yeah sometimes what you're choosing to do so i tell people it's like you're going to get a mechanical and mountain biking and have to pit right so if you can't just be okay with that and freak out every time you have to pit then we're going to have issues right and irrespective of how close the artificially generated scenario is to the real one that

actually happens the skill sets can still translate so encourage all the athletes that are out there that are thinking about this in their you know they might be preparing for a big race like think about what you're going to do when the shit hits the fan because right exactly running there's a lot of that going on it's just picture us well i even have athletes that can't picture themselves winning that's a whole nother issue yeah okay so that's the first thing it's like the second thing i want to kind of peel back is is like how do you instruct your support crew and when i ask when i ask athletes this inevitably it all it revolves around driving directions and the gear that they need yeah like i need them to turn left at the stop sign and get to this aid station by 8 42 a.m right and i'm going to need the pink jacket and i'm like okay well if that can they be saying exactly yes exactly yes yes and okay having signs and you know humor is a big one like having funny shit you know like that your your wife knows about you that you know she's gonna have friends on the on the course yell at you you know like that you don't even like may not even know um but like you know since i'm not talking to the wife and everyone i get the athletes to tell the people that are going to be in their support crew what they need but also what they're going to need mentally what what to say when i look like i'm in like

like not a good place you know what's how what level of energy do they need to be at and then when i'm winning or whatever what would be a good thing and energy to have with you know that i need to keep just like and you know annihilating or whatever right um so that's a huge part of it is like at your ultra running or ultra marathon riding or you know the biking or whatever you're doing um is having a support crew but also just what are they saying you know hold it are they going to be holding you know a piece of paper up with um you know your uh cue words is a big thing so with runners or mountain bikers i'll sometimes have them do like um words that get them back into the present when they start to go into like panic mode or this really hurts you know um and it could be breathe um or it could be like um push through the bullshit or i mean i don't know like kick kill bitches right like it can be all these whatever you need to get hype but it's funny because a lot of you know my athletes really just instead of being hype they need to be grounded and centered for optimal performance yeah and we and we see this it's so funny that you mentioned that we see this in ultra running where an athlete has not done this prior proper proper preparation with their crew and inform them hey this is how this is the energy i want you to have these are the things i want you to say if i'm high do this if i'm low do this if i'm doing great you know tell me this they haven't gone through that

and inevitably it's it's huge it's huge it's huge and inevitably the way that that manifests itself actually out on the race course is there's this energy mismatch between the runner coming into the aid station and their crew so the runner comes in and the crew they want to help i mean that's that's you know it's in it's in their nature and they think that the default way to help is to be over enthusiastic and yelling and screaming and things like that when in when in some cases in reality it's just don't say anything don't just give me x y be robotic exactly exactly having no being vanilla and and the so then the the other part of that is then you can watch the athlete leave the aid station and it's like they ran another three miles because of all of the energy that would that it took to like manage whatever energy or lack thereof the crew was throwing at them exactly and so it's a lot of times it's like be vanilla but then when the athlete is leaving then that's when you you know you can cheer yell whatever like you know as they're getting out and going you know so it's i had it really be significant with my downhill racers their mechanics right so what do you have their mechanics do like like do you just have them like i have like the the mechanics will go live with the athlete oh just to get to know them really get to know each other it's like like like your bestie now you know so i mean that's why good you know a lot of good athletes will have the same mechanic

their entire life yeah yeah exactly i uh i did this it is a little bit of a personal anecdote i did this really cool uh like uh 300 kilometer uh race over in italy called the tour de giance okay and it was a state it was like completely outside of anything that i've that i've ever done it was going to take me four or five days and you know on and on and on and on and my wife was going to be my crew which you know as you probably recognize that could be a blessing or a curse right typically yes the wife or husband yeah they can either have like too much sympathy or yeah you're worried about them the whole time but anyway you go right exactly yeah you're worried about them exactly that's another piece so so i was going through okay what do i want my wife's name is liz and i've mentioned her a few times on this podcast so she doesn't mind um but um so i was i was internally going through okay how am i gonna like coach liz on this whole thing right right and i one of the things that was intriguing about this race is like it was so much unknown for me like i hadn't done a six-day stage race or anything like that i'd done something that's that lasts 30 hours certainly not anything that's four days so i don't really know like how i'm gonna react after day three or four or five or anything like that just hormonally like your energy at yeah between the stages yeah so i didn't want to guess so the what so the only thing i told her like from the psychological perspective is i'm not

quitting unless i've got a bone sticking out yes okay so just don't sounds like me just don't let me don't let me quit don't just don't let me quit like i don't you know i didn't want to predict like okay if i'm in a good mood i want you to do this if i'm in a bad mood because i don't know i didn't know so i like boiled it down to like the simplest objective yeah walking crawling if i still can do it i you're you're kicking my ass to go to the start line 100 so needless needless to say i think the like the second piece that i really wanted to drive home with the listeners is like coach your crew on how you want them to like manage their energy balance off of your energy and things like that yep and again that's taking that ownership the wheel and know that no matter what i say this all the time no matter what you're driving this engine no matter what against your team like the your team director or the bike company or whatever you're a human being for optimal performance you've got to you've got to stand up and you got to like you got to ask and and and and work towards getting what you need get your needs met um met and i think that's just that empowerment but across genders yep 100 and races yep and stuff yep so um you know what we're learning in the world today i i'm very i'm very very very honored and lucky that i got my education at like one of the best universities for

multiculturalism being taught and emphasized in all of our education clinically and as a sports psych um and so uh though a lot of the different sports that i do work with are going to you know be a lot more of the white dominance um you know it's i still work with women and we still have a long ways to go with um women and and in in in in outside of sport so why do we think it's going to be to any different in sport and the same for mental health yep something outside of sport is an issue it's only going to be like on fire exasperated within like a smaller culture and that goes across any sport i totally agree with that we see it in trial running as well um the last the last area that i wanted to get your uh take on kristin this is going to seem like a totally shameless plug but i think one of the themes that is like that has emerged throughout this podcast this is like hey if you think an athlete's a good fit they're a good fit if they're not a good fit they're not a good fit i mean you're you're really open about that that it's a athlete first mentality um that you have but a lot of athletes are gonna are gonna listen to this and go okay how like how do i know or what are what are some like telltale signs that i can use that would demonstrate to me that sports psychology would help me up my game i mean as a coach when i'm working with an athlete on a day-to-day basis like i can i don't say i get it right all the time because i never get it right all the time

but um i can kind of tease that out where i i reach the limit of my capabilities in that area and i say listen it's going to be in your best interest let's you know get you with somebody like yourself or some of my other colleagues that that i work with but for the athletes that are that are out there that don't work with uh coaches or want to like take it on their own accord yeah like how do they suss that out i think it i mean i want to get to a point where no matter what if you are a coached athlete and you're a weekend warrior or trying to win worlds and go to worlds or age group whatever that you would at least um maybe have a few sessions with a sports psychologist that could help you figure out what you need um we're not there yet but i think that you know i would invite that that you don't have to be world class you don't have to be whatever you know i want you to be like like i love like i will have a conversation with the with the world class athlete like world champion level athlete i should say because everyone's world class in my book um and then i'll have a conversation with an athlete who hasn't raced in like five years but still wanted to like work with me because they're in grad school or whatever right and it's i'm having the same conversations so it's really little about what people would maybe put under their umbrella of sports side and with my top level athletes i'm not teaching themselves they got themselves there i didn't their coach didn't either they got themselves there right so i just think it's it's if it sounds cool if you're like oh my god like it's not about just sport i can help what working with most i would

say you know to plug myself in a healthy way is i'm helping you as a human and and if you're struggling in an area or not struggling or just think hey i want to be a better version of myself which i know will help my my sport then heck yeah go talk to someone it's not you know that's a good thing it's like you know we just you know most people when you get on insurance you find a pcp i want to live in a world where you find a pcp and a psychologist that doesn't mean you talk to them every week maybe you just have a touch a check with them once a month you know um so don't be like don't be afraid like break the mold let's let's normalize mental health um because sports performance is high performance is part of mental health so i look at it yep that's a great place to leave it kristin i really appreciate your uh perspective on that um great first off yeah first off thank you for coming on the podcast and also thank you for doing that with our with our coaches i'm really appreciative of that um where can people go and find you to learn a little bit more about what you do yeah so um i do need to update my website because i usually put on my podcasts we're the worst oh god i'm so bad and then i can't remember then i'm like i know i did a podcast where do i find that one you know like to go look myself up and like google myself i'm like oh my god i feel so like that's where i have my my own issues i'm like oh my god i feel so weird doing this to find the articles that i've done or you know whatever so my podcasts that i've done and all that

are on my website any articles i've ever written or contributed to like i've helped with some um you know sport and like uh depression ones with um uh some really amazing journalists uh like bonnie ford and stuff um so those are all there on all kinds of a wide range of topics of of sports performance and mental health and um that's kind performance consulting.com very easy and you on that website can find how to contact me um most people will just go through my website um which is you know what i prefer and then on social media i am at the k2 which the short story about that is that i had a coach i was kind of a climber when i was racing and um mount k2 it's one of the highest peaks and kristen kind of squared so it was kind of this thing um and that was like the early 2000s and it stuck it stuck and so when i was like you know trying to be graduating and i got my doctorate and i was like oh my god i need to change that and i polled everyone and they were like no do not change it it's perfect it fits you you're not like the norm you kind of go against the norm of just trying to break that you know i'm just me i'm be authentic you know just like this isn't something like i'm not freud i'm not gonna like sit on a couch and you know you know shame you or guilt you it's like we're just gonna have a chat i'm gonna find out your strengths and we're gonna make you help yourself be a better version of yourself and who doesn't want that

oh everybody does you know so at the k2 for twitter instagram and then at the account performance consulting on linkedin i don't really do anything on linkedin but i'm also go give kristen a follow on instagram because i know that whenever i need to bring my heart rate down five or ten beats if i'm getting all riled up about something i can go to kristen's instagram feed and it will instantly calm me down and get me re-centered so oh that's that's that's kind of my goal so i just i it gave me goosebumps just there because that's yeah i can be high energy don't worry i can help people up but most of us in today's world just need to be a breath of fresh air you know something that's just yeah calming and centering and um that's kind of what i mean i think that's all what we all need right now so podcasts are a great way i love your podcast um you know i think you have really great information and um you know so i just encourage people to you know diversify you know follow some coaches and some people outside of your sport i say that to every sport you know appreciate that christian yeah kristen i appreciate the uh the the kind words there everybody go give kristen a follow she's a fantastic human being as well as a really killer sports psych person and a really good athlete as well kristen thanks again really appreciate it awesome and there we have it thanks folks thank you to kristen for coming on the podcast today

that was really fun i hope everybody left this podcast with some mental tools that you can put into your toolbox things that will make you a better ultra runner thanks to all of you for listening really appreciate the heck out of each and every one of you listeners i appreciate all the feedback that i've gotten in this podcast so far very early in the game but i'm very appreciative of everything that i've received on social media and also a lot of the reviews that i've seen on apple podcasts big shout out to mike carson for all of the post-production editing and audio engineering for this podcast as well as the rest of the podcast in this lineup we'll see you guys out on the trails people you