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How Gwen Jorgensen became an Olympic Gold Medal Triathlete

by RunnersConnect: Coaching Community, Running Experts, Inspiring Runners, No Fluff Blog
February 15th 2023
00:41:37
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I'm Elizabeth Jorgensen and I'm nancy jorgensen and this is the run to the top podcast. Hello, fellow runners, I'm your host, Finn Melanson, and this is the run to the top podcast podcast dedicated to making you a better runner. With each and every episode we are created and produced by the expert team of coaches at runners connect dot net, where you can find the best running information on the internet as well as training plans to fit every runner in every budget. Have you ever been curious about hearing from the families of olympic level endurance athletes? Perhaps you've been curious about the roles they've played, the support they provided and insights that they have for being so close to the athletes. Well in this conversation with nancy and Elizabeth jorgensen, you're getting just that nancy and Elizabeth recently wrote a book outlining and reflecting on professional triathlete. Gwen jorgensen arise from intrinsically inspired kid athlete to gold medal winner at the 2016 olympic Games in this episode, we talk about the themes of personal discovery, risk taking, goal setting, and team building, you'll enjoy and gain value for your own endurance sports journey regardless of whether you're at the level of Gwen, a weekend warrior or someone just getting their start in the road running or triathlon scenes.

If you struggle to get to sleep or stay asleep all night, then you're going to love the new product from by Optimizers called sleep breakthrough. Sleep breakthrough is a delicious sleep drink that supports your natural Melatonin production and relaxation without creating a dependency so you can have your best night's sleep on demand. I'll tell you more about sleep breakthrough in the science behind it later in this episode. But if you want to learn more now, head to sleep breakthrough dot com backslash run to the top. I'd also like to introduce you to a new sponsor of the show timeline, nutrition timeline has developed a groundbreaking product called Mid Top Your, that actually revitalizes your mitochondria, which creates energy in nearly every cell in your body. Later in the episode, I'll explain the science and how you can get a sweet discount. All right, Elizabeth and nancy Jorgensen, Welcome to the Run to the Top podcast. Thanks for having us. We're happy to be here. So we are here today to discuss this book. It's called Gwen jorgensen usA is first olympic gold medal triathlete, and my understanding after reading is that it shares the story of Gwen's becoming an olympic champion and all the highs and lows along the way, and the lessons learned and I liked how chapters alternated between her early upbringing, her collegiate years, early pro career, and then ultimately merging with the 2016 games.

Um, a lot of great lessons in here around learning to maximize what you have and maximize talent and I think how the potential for greatness exists in all of us. So, it was a very uplifting read in my experience, excited to chat about it here today before we get into the details and the takeaways. Um maybe nancy Elizabeth, if you could talk a bit about your backgrounds and how you are associated with Gwen, and just sort of like the inspirations for how the book was created. I'm nancy and I'm Gwen's mom, I'm a retired choral music educator. And so when I was raising Gwen, I was also working full time and seeing about 400 students of my own every day. And um when, when she was growing up, you know, we had no idea that we were raising an olympic champion, we were just raising two daughters, Gwen and Elizabeth, who's here with us today, and I just tried to do our best to give her a well rounded education. And as you said, that, you know, everybody has greatness within them.

Gwen just had something inside of her and was motivated to discover it. And when she finally did, um we thought there was a story there for other people to learn from. How about you, Elizabeth? I'm Gwen's sister, I am a few years older than she is, and I am her biggest fan. I'm also an english teacher, and Gwen really wanted us to put this book together. She wanted something out there to inspire young people to, like you said, follow their dreams, maximize their potential to realize that what they want is possible if they focus on the process and surround themselves with a really strong and supportive team. One thing that struck me in the early parts of the book is nancy, as you said, how self motivated Gwen is and how she has high expectations for herself, but also how she's incredibly self reflective. There's a lot of in depth introspection, I'd say for a middle schooler in a high schooler, very resourceful as well, like that story about how she was trying to reorganize her study hall session to get swim laps, and I loved that, and I think you guys were concerned that she was maybe too focused on the work and was having fun.

Was this nature or nurture in her case, like was there an upbringing that she was exposed to that made her motivated for self discovery? Or do you think that there are people like going in the world where this is just in a, I think it's a little bit of both. Um You know, I've always been kind of driven and competitive in my job. Um And yet we raised Gwen and Elizabeth exactly the same and ended up with two very different adults, both successful, both motivated, both kind of competitive, but Gwen just always, she was always quiet and me many times allowed Elizabeth to speak for her and I didn't even always know exactly what she was thinking, but I knew there was a lot going on back there um you know, inside of her brain and she just, she, early on, she just seemed to know what she wanted and um wasn't afraid to ask us or to advocate for herself or to say, mom, I need to go to the y today I have to make up a swim practice or Mom I can't go to such and such an event because I have to be somewhere else.

And she just always she must have been driven because she always advocated for what she needed Elizabeth. One of the things that you talk about in the book is how on the one hand, Gwen has all of this drive and motivation. On the other hand, I think she talks about this in one of her reflection sections. She did lack self belief to some extent. Can you talk about some of the strategies that Gwen deployed to overcome this area of herself, because there's a lot of people in the audience who um there is a lot of self doubt and there is a lot of self belief issues when you're embarking on a training journey, whether it's getting ready for your local five K or a marathon or when circumstances like trying to make a college team trying to make the olympic stuff like that. Yeah, one of the, when she was young, she placed a lot of her self worth on her performances, so she didn't have a good race if she didn't get a p. R. She would think that that was a reflection of herself and she felt that way for a long long time and I think only through some coaches and some mentors and through some daily practice did that finally start to break for her?

Um One of the things that she does is at the end of each day, she writes down three things that she did well and three things that she can improve and that alone, right? If you just do that every day and then you look back before your five K. Or before whatever you're gonna do, you can see every day, three things that you really did well, and I think that that helped her in a small part overcome tying her performance to her self worth. One other question I have, and this is moving on just a bit too when she makes the switch to the triathlon, I know that she had had this lifelong goal of making the olympics, but it took some flexibility in the pathway to get there. And I think there are a lot of people in the audience, myself included at times, we tend to be a little bit rigid, a little bit inflexible about what it takes to get to a destination. Can you speak to how flexibility has benefited Gwen's uh realizing her potential and that was a good thing in the end.

Um you know, it's not only flexibility, it's also being open to what other people see in you and Gwen along the way had talents that either she didn't recognize or that she refused to recognize, So when she was swimming, there was a coach in high school who just happened to see her out on a cross training run and said you have talent as a runner and at first she didn't believe him, but eventually she took that coach's advice and and pursued the talents that she had in running. And then, you know, she swam in college, she ran in college, she was working as a C. P. A. And usa triathlon approaches her and says you could be a triathlete. And again, at first she was resistant. She said, I don't even know how to ride a bike. Um but eventually she recognized that they saw something in her and she was willing to pursue that possible talent.

So it's, you know, it's a combination of being willing to shift focus and trusting people um to know what what they see in you and and to believe in yourself when they point something out nancy. I love what you said there about being open to what others see in you and Elizabeth. I think this question is for you because you're a teacher and you probably have this opportunity on a daily basis to help your students realize talents that they have that maybe aren't self evident for one reason or other, is it the case that people are receptive to this? Or again, it's Gwen unique here, that uh she's willing to take in what others are saying and and use it to her benefit. I think it's a little bit of both. Right? Like I'll read a student's poem or essay and it'll maybe blow me out of the water. And I'll say to them, you are a poet. Like you are a writer and the kid will look at me and say no, I'm not. I got a d that one time in freshman english or whatever and it's like, no for real. Like I just read 100 and 80 poems. You are a poet like, and I think that it's planting that seed, it's just opening up their eye and then maybe I say it and then maybe I'll email their mom or dad and then they'll pull up the poem and they'll say, wow, this is a really good poem.

And then, you know, it's just that as a teacher, as a mentor, as a coach, what we say is it can have such a big impact on kids, both positive and negative. And but I think it's just about telling them what we see because we have the experience that they don't, I've got a bigger picture than my, you know, junior or senior in high school might have. Um I've never seen somebody be receptive on the first go, but you know, over and over then kind of like, Gwen, you do start to see okay, maybe I do have a talent when you enter one race and you do okay, and then you enter another one and it's a little better nancy. Maybe this question is for you first, obviously Gwen is a public figure and I can't remember if she mentions this during her college years or early on in her pro traffic on career, but her advice to herself is to be bold to announce her goals to the world, to share the journey and some of the ramifications of that are you know, you become a target, the media focuses on you, you deal with doubt criticism, all that kind of stuff.

Can you talk about some of the strategies that she used along the way to maintain confidence and focus? And I'll add one caveat there, I know that a lot of people in the audience again, myself included were not in the spotlight like Gwen is but there are still people that we answer to, like our family, our friends, our community and there are pressures when you put things out there. So curious if you have any thoughts there, I think in the beginning she was susceptible to some of the naysayers on social media, you know, she just, she kind of came out of nowhere and people thought well how can she be so successful at triathlon? She has never trained for triathlon and she reminded herself and I said it out loud, I have been training for a triathlon, it wasn't called, that it was called swimming and then biking and running and I've put in the time in in those disciplines and I think some of it was self reflection and you know, convincing herself that she had done the work. Um and then there were, you know, people online um feel free to comment on body type and body appearance and I think she just along the way had to learn to ignore it and listen to herself and listened to her team around her and her husband sometime, you know, boyfriend and then husband gave her some good advice and you know, said, you know who who is more important than the anonymous person out there or the coach who's telling you what you should be doing.

And so she was a gradual process. I think she came to the realization now that it just doesn't matter what all those anonymous people say, what matters is what my husband thinks, what my coach thinks, what I personally think. Um and yeah, and I was, you know, she um she's very comfortable now with herself and her self image and where other women, other athletes think they have to put on makeup and wear a certain dress and appear a certain way. Gwen just says now I'm just I'm not into that, I'm not into the makeup and um I am who I am and I do what I do and I'm here to please myself. It reminds me of another part in the book where she talks about the decision making process to go all in as a full time professional triathlete and all of the unknowns involved. There all the risks, everything you know, required to open herself up to the world.

Can you talk about how she was able to and maybe Elizabeth? This is for you, how she was able to minimize the unknowns there, the risks there and to focus instead on, I'll call it a higher priority. Yeah. I mean, mom and dad offered to help Gwen when she made that switch. Yes. And they didnt ever offer to help me like that. I was like, what the heck, mom. But Gwen just refused. Right. She she wanted to do it on her own and I mom, you probably have more insight because you had those conversations with her. Yeah, that was pretty much the only conversation, you know, we just offered and and when she turned us down, we said, well we're always here and she did end up moving back home for a couple of months, which saved her some rent. Um but basically she found these very small sponsorships and in the short time she had been working, she'd save some money. And I mean, I think as a parent, I also realized that she was telling me that for her own confidence level and everything that goes into it, she had to do it on her own.

She had to know that she was doing it independently. You know, she wasn't being um funded by her mom and dad and um because it was a, it was a big risk as you've heard on this podcast many times before from some of the best runners, coaches and scientists in the world. Sleep is one of the most powerful factors to upgrading your overall health and running performance and we all know it by now. But sometimes no matter how well intentioned we are getting good quality sleep doesn't come easy. Sometimes you can't get your mind to relax. Other times you toss and turn all night. One way or another, it all leads to poor quality sleep, luckily our trusted partners at by optimizers have finally launched a groundbreaking new sleep formula that doesn't rely on melatonin called sleep breakthrough. It contains magnesium, one of the most important minerals when it comes to sleep, P five P, an active form of vitamin B six that helps convert more magnesium into serotonin, which then helps us create more melatonin naturally potassium, which according to a 1991 study has a direct effect on the deepest phase of sleep plus a healthy in in glycerine touring and Gabba, which have all been shown in scientific literature to help calm the mind and get you to sleep faster, You'll fall asleep in minutes and you'll stay asleep throughout the night for an exclusive offer for our listeners go to sleep breakthrough dot com backslash run to the top.

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N. A. Plus as we age, eat too much and sit at our desks too much. Our mitochondria deteriorate and our bodies suffer mid top your restores mitochondrial function. So every cell in your body has the energy to do its job and keep you healthy and functioning right. In fact clinical studies have shown that 500 mg of europe within one of the main ingredients in mid top your can significantly increase muscle strength and endurance with no other change in lifestyle. Mid top your comes in powder form to mix into your favorite smoothie protein powder. If you're looking for a great 12 punch of muscle support or soft gels, Improving your Mitochondria is one of the best things you can do for your health. And with mid top you're from timeline nutrition, it has never been easier. So go to timeline nutrition.com and use promo code runners connect for 10% off the plan of your choice. I think it's the hallmark of a great accountant that she knew the numbers she had. The process is already like this. This was a jump into the unknown, but she had probably weighed everything out appropriately.

That's awesome. Um, another one of my favorite sections of the book was, you know, when she talks about being in this uh training group environment down in Australia, and a lot of the mindset shifts that happened in that era. There's one quote in the book where she says, uh quote, it feels so strange to not be thinking of winning end quote. And I think this revolves around her sort of renewed focus on process driven goals. So Elizabeth or nancy, if you want to take this, can you talk about what process driven goals are and why Gwen felt the need to make that switch. The process is what we can control. It's the small daily things that we do, uh getting enough water, getting enough sleep, um, nutrition right? It's the things that we can control the outcomes things like where you place in a race, you can't control that.

And so it was all this shift of, if I do all the little things right, if I control my process correctly, I shouldn't have to worry about the outcome because I'll know I did all the things right? Even if I don't win, I'm going to feel satisfied because I did everything else right? You know, I always think like if I were to sign up for a race, I could train really well. I can be super prepared, okay, I want a place in the top, whatever in the race. And then I get there and Gwen comes with all her friends, there's no way I'm gonna win, but I could still be happy with the outcome if I did all the little things right? There was one more quote I think in that same section where it was either her or her coach said, remember that your decisions aren't sacrifices, they are investments. And I really liked that because I think she was worried at the time about, you know, was she making a sound lifestyle decision, moving to Australia? Was she making a sound economic, economic decision? All that kind of stuff. So can you explain that quote a bit more because that's that's a mindset shift for a lot of people in the audience as well. Yeah.

You know, I think Jamie turner, her coach just had, so such a great influence on her and not only in that he watched, you know, every every practice, every workout, but his philosophies um made sense to her and she incorporated in them, incorporated them into, into her preparation and um that was a big one because that, you know, sacrifice versus investment, because she had given up a job and she had moved across the world, she she'd never been about more than 90 minutes away from home and she just picked up with the job, moved to Australia and um she, I think viewing it as an investment as Jamie coached her to do, um Just got her to invest even more into the career, into this, into the shift and um it's, you know, so much, they say so much of sport is, is mental.

Um you know, 90% of the people that show about a race could win it, and the ones that have the possibility of really winning are the 10% that have their mental game. And so I think that just in viewing viewing everything she'd done as an investment and not something that she gave up helped her. One thing that interested me about that section as well is that she deliberately went out and sought a group, she went out and deliberately sought community because she realized that that was gonna be one of the components that leveled up her performance and helped her get her potential is that I know this is outside the scope of the book, but is that something that she has tried to maintain in her career sense, like that's like an indispensable part of training in the same way that like eating right, sleeping right, all that kind of stuff is essential. When she switched from triathlon to marathon, she did that, she looked for a daily performance environment. Um, she wanted to be with the best distance runners in the United States and she found that or what she thought was that, um, in the Bowerman Track Club out in Portland and she trained with them for quite a few years.

Um, you know, she just, she saw the value of surrounding yourself with your competitors with people who can push you with people who can hold you accountable people who can motivate you. But then also those same people are the ones that you turn to on the line and there they are right on race day. Um, your, your friends, but you're ultimately, you know, using their competitive edge as an advantage for yourself Well, and even now that she's, she's announced that she's returning to triathlon and she's training again, she's in Boulder with, you know, two Children. Um, and it's harder to just pick up and, and find a group to train with, but even in Boulder training in her hometown, um, she finds somebody to run with her and she has a running partner. And when she's in the pool, she's um, she put out a call for a swimming partner, and so she has a somebody who swims with her every day, and she just says she needs that she needs to have some sort of community um to help her on this journey.

We were talking about process driven goals just a moment ago, and I want to come back to this because there's a section at the end of the book where Gwen outlines a list of questions that you should ask yourself as you're embarking on a goal, embarking on a journey. And there's two that I wanted to talk with you both about in particular, the first question that she lists, or one of them in this goal setting process, what will you do to help others? How will your goals help others? And that really struck me, because when I think about goal setting in a lot of circumstances, I think of it as a very selfish one dimensional uh setting, where, like, it's it's sort of all about me, it's all about like something I'm trying to accomplish in the future, and again, this was kind of a perspective shift for me. So Elizabeth, what comes to mind for you when she poses that question? I think it's partially what her being her best self has done to motivate others. Um I'm thinking of, we were at triathlon race, and a woman came up to Gwen and just said that she changed her life and she was so serious and so emotional about how just seeing Gwen out there motivated her to get up and to walk, and then to run, and then to do her first triathlon and how just how her life became better because of Gwen's example.

What are you thinking, mom? Um Yes, that, and in addition to that, I think it's part of that group training environment where your goals will make your training partner better and you do that with the faith that they are doing their best will also make you better. Um I also think um when Gwen was kind of at the height of things, she developed a scholarship fund and put her own money in and got other people to donate to it, and um gave gave scholarship money to young athletes, junior athletes, which, you know, um that helped somebody else and and in turn even a greater audience beyond those people. Um she's volunteered at the boys and girls clubs, she really makes um she's found um something that she can give back to and she can do that because of her success in sport.

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And does that diminish the nutritional value? Well, it turns out they actually dry or dehydrate the ingredients and crush them into a powder. This results in almost zero nutritional loss. If you've been skeptical about using a greens product and how effective it could be. I really encourage you to give a G one a try for 30 days. You can even get a free year supply of vitamin D. In five free travel packs if you start now just head to athletic greens dot com backslash R. T. T. T. To give them a try. I love both of those answers. And I think for the everyday runner out there, even if you aren't a public figure similar to what you both said, it can be easy to overlook the influence you have on your immediate environment. Maybe you going out for a run every day is more motivating your partner to be more conscious about daily activity or your friends or anybody in your community. And so I love that answer. I think it makes it relatable if you can do it, they start to believe well maybe I can do it. She she does it every day. So why can't I? The other question that I wanted to get your feedback on is about values.

She asks, what are your values, what do you stand for and how does that fit with your goals? Uh nancy, could you comment on that a bit more what Gwen's values are, for example. Right. And I think some of that comes back to how she responds to social media and deciding what's important and who is important in your life and for her what was important was discovering her best. It wasn't um I mean the long term goal was the olympics but the bigger goal was I need to find how much I have and explore that and then who is important. Um you know, for her, it's all about family, um she regularly begs us to move to colorado, so we can have family dinners once a week. Um and then of course her more immediate family group, you know, her husband and her two sons. Um and and that I think is is that's at the core of what's been driving her the whole time Fast forwarding to sort of the end of this book.

Again, obviously, Gwen became the first American to ever win the Olympic triathlon gold medal in the 2016 games. And at least in my circles, it's not often the case that you shoot what you aim for and you ultimately reach your potential. There's always that carrot that like there's still some more you could do, but at least in Gwen's case she went to the very highest part of the sport and she achieved what she set out to do. And I have a lot of questions on this, but the first one is, is Gwen somebody that when she hits her potential, she is at a loss for purpose because it's already been satisfied or is she somebody that it's very easy for her to find the next thing. I think it's both um kind of, when she, when she achieved the gold medal, she did feel like she tapped out that particular goal and she knew she wanted the next one and what that would be and it was marathon. Um so I, you know, at that time, I think she didn't want to just, it was, it was hard for her to think, well, I got the gold medal, so now I'm gonna just do that again.

That didn't make sense to her. Um now I think she's shifted her thinking and she's ready to go back and try triathlon again. Do you have any thoughts for Elizabeth? Yeah, I mean, I think it's both right there was that letdown after the olympics happened that a lot of professional athletes will talk about an emotional release, but she was very much like goal achieved. I want to do the next one. Like what's, what's next? The last question that I want to ask you both before, Maybe we talk about what's next for all of you is uh actually a question that rich role posed in the sort of prelude to the book. And I think a lot of folks who listen to this are familiar with him and his podcast and media company, but he asks, how do you keep going when everything you see and hear makes you want to doubt yourself and question your future. And I love that question. I think it's a universal problem that we all reckon with, what has been Gwen's answer to that through her professional career, would you say?

And maybe nancy will start with you. Yeah, I think, um, I think it's been a process and um it's all the experiences, um the kind of like the writing down the three the three things every day that she's done well. Um it's been an accumulation of those plus um some of the external or more recognized successes um every time she has a success, I think that that builds up that cushion you have to resist what people are saying about you and you know, it's it's hard, I think even in my age, I sometimes I succumb to what somebody is saying about me or what I think they're saying about me and um I think she does a lot of reflection and um coaches herself in self confidence and because I don't know how you would do anything other than that at the level she's at with all the media attention. Um you kind of have to develop that confidence to buffer the all the negatives kind of brings me back to that first question you asked to, is, was it an eight or was it learned?

And I think it's this combination of both for her and she's always been able to say what she needs. And you could say that selfish right, that I have to get to this workout at this time, or you could look at it like she's focused and she's dedicated to her goals and she knows what she needs to invest in order to have the outcome that she's seeking, by the way, one of the things that struck me in the book is how awesome of a support system that Gwen has constantly had around her, you know, you both. And then of course, Patrick, I think it's impressive to get that behind the scenes. Look at just how many people are equally sacrificing some element of their livelihood to make something like a gold medal happen. Even even in these individual sports, it really does take a team. I was very impressed by that. It's fun to, I mean, I enjoy it. The being Gwen's biggest fan, it's, it's just, it's a hoot and, you know, people ask me, you know, how did you raise an Olympian and sacrifice so much of those early years for that goal.

And, you know, I'm going to say what Gwen says is that it wasn't a sacrifice, it was, it was an investment and it, I didn't invest time and drives to the pool and long days in the chlorine air. Um I didn't invest that because I thought I was raising an Olympian. I invested that because we had two kids and I thought that was the right thing to do that, you know, for Elizabeth when she wanted to go to basketball practice or she had an orchestra rehearsal? Well, we took her and, and we, we sat there and enjoyed it and the same for Gwen. And so we were investing in that short time that you have kids, seems like a long time when you're doing it, but the years are really so short when you can give them what you want to give them and and what you think they need and invest in them a couple more questions here before we close out. I think it'd be fun to catch up on what Gwen's up to and what you folks are up to I guess first with Gwen, what is next for her, what's she up to these days?

What's her next professional goal, stuff like that? Well she just had her second baby George and I was part of that southwest debacle and so I was unable to go out and meet Georgia but mom you've met him, I've met him and he's she is so lucky, she's had two babies and they are both easy babies. Just content happy to be happy to be where they are. And I think maybe that's part of the way there, you know the atmosphere in their house, they're just she and Patrick both are very loving and spend tons of time with the kids and um that's her family priority. Um but you know her professional priority is she's she's she wants to qualify for the Paris Olympics in 2024. She wants to be part of the relay which she did not get a chance to do in rio. They didn't have the relay in that olympics. And so that's you know a potential that's been untapped and so I am super excited to see how she's gonna do like talk about reading the blogs and what they're saying and can she do it?

Can she not? She gonna qualify as she's gonna make the team? I don't know. So I'm I'm very excited for the next couple of months, which I think will be very telling and Elizabeth. What is next for you? Have you been enjoying this tour process with the book? And I have to talk about what's up with, you know, I think what's next for me is I hope that we can get the book into as many hands of kids as we can. Middle grade young adults. I hope they pick up the book, you know, as an english teacher and they enjoy it that they see a little bit of and that they're inspired to follow a dream to make a goal, to surround themselves with some really positive people. Um Mom and I are offering author talks to groups. Um we're giving some book talks to like families and so if if anyone's interested in that they can definitely contact us, reach out to us and we can set something up awesome. And how about you nancy? Yeah, I mean, Elizabeth and I are a team right now. We're doing the podcast tour. Um we also have um an educator guide for teachers or coaches who might want to use the book with a group that has questions, discussion questions and worksheets and um little projects related to the book.

And and we also hope that, you know, somebody who pay, it's the book up who maybe isn't athletic or doesn't think of themselves as athletic, but maybe has another goal. Maybe they want to be a concert pianist or an artist or write books themselves that that they see in Gwen, someone who had a big dream and did the work and found out what their potential was and took it as far as they could. Well, I gotta say, I really enjoyed the book, I hope we didn't give too much away, but simultaneously made people interested in what's left to be discovered here. It inspired me, I'm probably gonna go for a run after this and thank you both for writing it um before we go, you know, we'll make sure to link to everything in the show notes. But are there any final calls to action or just thoughts that you want to leave the audience with? And maybe Elizabeth will start with you. And I loved your interviewing style. I thought you were. So it was clear that you were researched and you did your homework and that that was an easy conversation to have you knew what you were talking about.

And so I I don't know if that answers your question or not, but thank you, this was wonderful. Thank you And I will echo that we've we've done quite a few podcasts and this one was a great one. and I also think just kind of what you said fin in the beginning to that, um everybody has some greatness inside of them and there's the potential always there to look for it and discover it and explore it. Thanks for listening to the run of the top podcast. I'm your host, Finn Melanson. As always, our mission here is to help you become a better runner with every episode. Please consider connecting with me on instagram at Wasatch, Finn and the rest of our team at Runners connect. Also consider supporting our show for free with a rating on the Spotify and Apple podcast players. And lastly, if you love the show and want bonus content behind the scenes experiences with our guests and premier access to contests and giveaways and subscribe to our newsletter by going to runners connect dot net back slash podcast. Until next time.

Happy training.

How Gwen Jorgensen became an Olympic Gold Medal Triathlete
How Gwen Jorgensen became an Olympic Gold Medal Triathlete
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