0:00

Welcome to a special episode of the Asper

0:02

Cycling Coach podcast presented by trainer road today.

0:04

We are joined by Haley Smith She's from

0:06

she's a professional mountain biker and gravel racer

0:08

really an off-road cyclist I guess is how

0:10

we'd phrase it these days from Ontario, Canada

0:13

And Haley is riding for the newly formed Trek

0:15

bikes driftless team Which also has like, you know

0:17

friend of the podcast Russell Finsterwald on it really

0:20

exciting good to see a new team formed there

0:23

If you don't know who Haley is gonna run through

0:25

a quick intro and then we'll get things going here

0:28

Last year Haley placed third in the lifetime

0:30

Grand Prix She is an Olympian as

0:32

she raced for Canada at the Tokyo

0:35

Olympics in the XCO discipline she's

0:37

also been to the Commonwealth Games and

0:39

received a World Cup bronze medal as

0:41

well and Represented Canada

0:43

many different times at international competitions, which

0:46

is a really exciting thing Haley's

0:48

also a mental health advocate and has

0:50

openly shared a journey about managing orthorexia

0:53

and anxiety as a professional endurance athlete

0:55

And she's a kidney kinesiology, which is

0:57

I'm probably said that wrong. I apologize

0:59

on the Haley I can never say that one, right? Graduate

1:02

and also you're currently pursuing your master's

1:05

degree in sports psychology at Cleans University

1:07

focusing on healthy childhood development Within

1:10

the sporting environment. It's really cool to have you on.

1:12

Yeah, right. I know Yeah,

1:16

it's really cool to have you on Haley. Thanks for

1:18

coming on. Appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks

1:20

for having me I was thrilled to be asked.

1:22

It's I listened to this podcast a lot. So

1:24

it's exciting That's cool. And you're being

1:26

from Canada. You mentioned that you listen to us

1:28

while you're on the trainer very often, right? Yes,

1:31

I do Generous Haley

1:34

orthorexia some people might not know that term.

1:36

Can you explain it? Yeah,

1:38

so orthorexia is actually a relatively

1:40

new category of

1:43

eating disorder I'll

1:45

have to give you a little bit of a backstory, but when I

1:47

was 13 I went

1:50

through A pretty rough time

1:52

and I was diagnosed with anorexia Undefined

1:55

as opposed to anorexia nervosa

1:58

because I exhibited a lot of the symptoms of anorexia

2:00

but it didn't quite fit the bill. And

2:02

since that time when I was diagnosed, which was 12

2:08

years ago now, somewhere between 12

2:10

and 15 years ago, orthorexia has

2:12

since been recognized by the powers

2:15

that be and has been added to

2:17

the diagnostic and statistical manual that lists

2:21

and explains all of the various

2:23

mental disorders out

2:26

there. And basically what

2:28

orthorexia is is an

2:31

obsession with healthiness, with

2:34

like healthification. So it's

2:36

characterized by similar

2:38

habits to anorexia such as extreme

2:40

food restriction, but

2:43

it's coupled with other habits

2:45

like extreme over-exercising

2:48

and something that we might get into which is

2:50

the healthification of food or the vilification

2:53

of certain foods and a refusal

2:56

to eat certain foods that

2:59

are deemed to be

3:02

unhealthy for whatever reason.

3:06

How does one know if they're... So I've

3:08

definitely been in the situation where I'm training

3:10

and I really want to focus on the

3:12

outcome. And I am so preoccupied

3:14

on everything I eat, the planning, I'm weighing

3:17

stuff. And it's

3:19

stressful. It's some part and it's

3:22

fun, but it's fun to get it right. But I

3:24

could probably also... I don't know if I'm

3:26

doing damage or not. How would one know if

3:28

they fall in that category or not? I mean, it gets

3:30

to talk to somebody, but I bet there's a lot of

3:32

people here go, I weigh my food sometimes, I keep track

3:34

of my carbs or something like that. Should

3:38

I be concerned about this? First

3:42

of all, I will preface this with

3:44

I don't... I never have

3:46

and I don't weigh any of my food.

3:48

I don't count calories. I don't even count

3:51

my macros. I pay literally no

3:53

attention to the actual numerical side

3:55

of eating and that's because I have obviously

3:57

a huge... The

4:00

Curb. It abides by the risk factor for me to do

4:02

the things, so it's just not on the table for me.

4:05

But the distinction is usually.

4:08

If. We look at eating disorders in a

4:10

broad sense. There can be disordered eating and

4:12

there can be an eating disorder. And disordered

4:15

eating would be habits that are like. A

4:18

As an outsider you might look

4:20

at and be like I'm not

4:22

sure that that's in old, totally

4:24

healthy or good for that person

4:26

but the person can still be

4:28

functional. An eating disorder is a

4:30

at like a presentation of these

4:32

habits in a chronic and or

4:34

am. Like. Long term way.

4:37

it seriously impacts quality of

4:39

life and ability to function

4:41

so. You won't he?

4:43

I'm. An. Eating Disorder or something

4:45

that needs to be diagnosed is it said.

4:48

It's a an illness. It is diagnosed. By

4:50

a mental health or a professional aura.

4:52

Ah is a sin. Or someone like

4:55

that. But I would say

4:57

that if you're. If you're

4:59

wondering if it's. If

5:02

you're wondering if you have this,

5:04

if you are experiencing this than

5:07

that. Maybe a red flag to

5:09

me because I'm that indicates that

5:11

it is on some level impacting.

5:13

Your enjoyment or your quality of

5:16

life or something to that effect.

5:19

Of really good advice. Yeah yeah, that's

5:21

great contacts around the two terms that

5:24

see my kids and often times we

5:26

might use them interchangeably In unintentionally not

5:28

mean to confuse them right, but just

5:30

in conversation the you're having with somebody.

5:33

It's common sense to hear disordered eating

5:35

or eating disorders and perhaps he's that

5:37

way said they square find that is

5:39

awesome and and. Is one more thing

5:42

to add their to it. So it does.

5:44

With disordered eating it's often something that is

5:46

someone points out to. You can recognize that

5:48

as habits that you can change but with

5:51

an eating disorder it's it's. It's

5:53

so deep, it's so ingrained,

5:55

it's so damn it. so

5:57

difficult. To lead at night and.

6:00

setting changing it aside, it is

6:02

incredibly difficult to even acknowledge

6:04

that you have an issue. Denial is

6:06

actually one of the diagnostic

6:10

criteria for many eating disorders.

6:14

Anyways, I digress. Which makes

6:16

it so hard to get help, right? Because you think there's no issue.

6:18

Exactly. Yeah, I like being this way. This is perfect.

6:21

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A

6:24

great insight. Thank you, Hailey. Hailey,

6:27

it's funny because when I asked you to

6:29

come on, I looked

6:31

back through the questions thereafter once you accepted

6:33

and I found a handful of questions that

6:35

I thought would be great to be able

6:37

to discuss with you considering your specific expertise.

6:39

But also, one of them asked specifically if

6:41

we would ever have you on the podcast.

6:43

So I'm really glad that we are having

6:46

you on. It comes from Alyssa. And Alyssa

6:48

says, would you ever consider having Hailey Smith

6:50

on the podcast? Like her. Yes.

6:53

Like her. Like here, I've grown up racing

6:55

XCO and that's cross-country Olympics. So typically those

6:58

90 minute races that are done on shorter

7:00

laps courses. But

7:02

Alyssa says, but I think I might be

7:04

getting burned out and I want to try

7:06

something different. If you do, can you ask

7:08

her how training for gravel is different and

7:11

what she misses about cross-country Olympic? This

7:14

is funny because I remember the first time

7:16

I actually found out who you were, Hailey,

7:18

I was racing, I think at Benelli or

7:20

Fontana. It was one of the Southern

7:22

California races. I remember seeing you

7:24

there and I can't remember if you race for

7:27

Rocky Mountain or something like that. What

7:29

about Norco? Norco. That

7:31

was it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

7:35

You're racing for Norco. And I remember the talk was like

7:37

these really fast Canadian riders and Hailey Smith is here. And

7:39

cross-country Olympic was like who you, it was like

7:41

your identity in terms of your racing identity. But

7:45

you went to Tokyo, you've done all that.

7:47

You've done all these things. Was it hard

7:50

to just pull up and change completely over

7:52

to gravel? Well, yes. And

7:55

I would say that it was, you can tell it was

7:57

hard because I didn't do it cold

7:59

turkey. I didn't commit to it

8:01

fully. After

8:05

Tokyo, I was completely burned out.

8:08

I actually woke up the morning of

8:10

the mountain bike race in Tokyo knowing in

8:13

my gut that it was the last bike race I would ever

8:15

do in my life. I

8:17

went through a brief period, a two-week period where I was

8:19

convinced after the Olympics that I was going to become a

8:21

triathlete. And then I

8:24

went for like four runs and I was like, oh, maybe

8:26

not. Wait till you swim. I

8:32

tried swimming too. And anyways,

8:34

that's another, a whole other

8:37

tangent. But it

8:39

was, it was such a huge part of my

8:41

identity and it is still to some degree. Tokyo

8:45

was in 2021 and in 2022, I still did quite a bit of XCO. I

8:50

was kind of dipping my toes in gravel

8:52

and this marathon mountain bike stuff. And

8:55

then the same, the same story last year actually. So in 2023,

8:57

I think I had 25 races, 25 race weekends,

8:59

and at least a third of those were

9:07

XCO. So

9:09

this year, 2024 is actually going to be

9:11

the first year that I will not do

9:13

any XCO at all,

9:15

which is a huge change for me. But

9:19

in retrospect, that is a decision I should have

9:21

had the courage to make fully heading into

9:24

2022 because trying to do both is

9:27

quite difficult. And especially

9:29

if you have a schedule with

9:32

a lot of volume in it, a lot of races, it

9:34

is a very different type of fitness and

9:37

different type of racing. And it's really difficult

9:39

to be good at both within the

9:41

same year, I would say. Yeah.

9:44

And thinking about it from your perspective, like me

9:47

listening to this, I go to a race and

9:49

I'm hoping to just like do well. But

9:51

you're racing at the pointy end. You need to be

9:54

competitive at the front of the race. So

9:56

when, and that's the case, it's really difficult to

9:58

just like show up with. mediocre fitness and

10:00

that serves both equally you have to you

10:03

have to switch it up and really focus

10:05

things what do you miss about cross-country Olympic

10:07

racing and Yeah,

10:09

I guess we'll start with that. Yeah, I

10:11

miss the the energy

10:14

the intensity it doesn't relent

10:16

and Certainly gravel has

10:18

elements of that and marathon mountain bike does

10:20

as well, but you

10:23

can't keep that level of Going

10:26

for 12 hours, it's just not possible. So

10:28

I miss that I miss

10:30

that intensity of a short track race or

10:34

a cross-country race I mean, they're basically short

10:36

tracks now in how short they are

10:38

in the World Cup But yeah,

10:40

I'd have to say it's just the intensity.

10:42

Yeah, how's the pain different between

10:44

the two? Like what's more painful? Do you think

10:47

another sharp sharper pain, but what is more painful

10:49

overall? I've

10:51

had this debate with a few people including

10:53

myself. I've debated this with myself on many

10:55

solo bike rides, but I'd

10:58

say that they're They're

11:01

equally painful if you're going for the win If

11:06

you're really Really contesting

11:08

that front end of the race

11:10

in in gravel or in

11:12

marathon mountain bike You

11:15

certainly have Large

11:17

periods of time where you're in

11:19

the absolute red zone My

11:22

strongest race from last year was the BWR

11:26

Canada stop on Vancouver Island and

11:28

I think I spent something like

11:30

an hour in VO two

11:33

and an hour in anaerobic like

11:38

They're just obviously spread out over a very long period of

11:40

time so long answer I think

11:43

that they can both be equally painful

11:45

but To just you

11:48

can't just finish an XCO race because you'll

11:50

get pulled but you can you know Yeah,

11:54

do 80% of your potential at a gravel race

11:56

and still finish. So there's There's

11:59

more. And were there, there's

12:01

a greater spectrum of the effort that

12:03

it's possible to give forth and still

12:05

be. I'm. Not. Like achieving

12:07

a goal is that makes sense. Yeah.

12:10

Has your pre race nutrition

12:12

changed between. Axxeo. Are

12:15

like the days leading up vs. gravel. It

12:18

hasn't changed and now see

12:20

at am I really struggle

12:22

with. Am.

12:25

I this is something that I still

12:27

really struggle with. It's it's a difficult

12:30

for me to eat a lot, am

12:32

a mentally emotionally it's a difficult thing

12:34

for me and Nfc. oh that's less

12:37

of an issue obviously that you know.

12:39

the races early ninety minutes and. With

12:42

unbound for example, as you have not.

12:45

In. A loaded up a. Little bit, you're

12:47

not going to get through it.

12:49

So my nutrition should have changed

12:51

more than it has. But like

12:53

I said earlier, it in this

12:55

chat I: i don't measure macro.

12:57

they don't count them am I

12:59

it? So I don't A It's

13:01

just not something that I have

13:04

the emotional capacity to. Be

13:06

super analytical about because

13:08

I will go. I

13:10

am. Very tight a with it

13:12

and it's not conducive to health for

13:14

me am. That

13:17

being said, I probably I definitely

13:19

eat more Now I have. To eat

13:21

more in order to survive what I'm doing. And

13:23

but I couldn't share numbers with you or anything

13:25

like that because I don't know them. Produces

13:28

the idea that it's. Ok,

13:30

I'm a to be gone or he says you

13:32

should be more adding so many people listening habits.

13:35

same thing I've done of the day before. You're

13:37

like Bermuda, you might some weight by somebody in

13:39

a pound or two and you know that's like

13:41

three thousand dollars of equipment right there. And why

13:43

would I want to start the race? Three thousand

13:45

dollars in the whole ah by the you know

13:47

drink some water and and you know this is

13:49

carpenter and glycogen and there's always like be When

13:51

I'm with focus on on lifting weights I go

13:54

book and my three days in a life touch

13:56

my stomach. I'm like I'm running like a great

13:58

that you know and it's it's. It's this

14:00

cycle that you can get into where you've

14:02

never fully commit and

14:04

then it's hard. You're

14:07

neither making the body comp changes you want to

14:09

or really fueling your training. And I think we've always just said,

14:11

fuel your training and the body comp will come. But

14:14

it's hard. I think we'll

14:17

see all go in the comments and stuff, but message

14:19

right down below if you've had this, because

14:21

this experience ever before and it might not

14:23

be orthorexia, but these are disordered eating kind

14:25

of things that we do where we feel

14:27

guilty for eating. And we know we need

14:30

to eat more for a 200 mile

14:32

gravel race. Like that's pretty sure

14:34

you can use as much as you can. It's hard though too.

14:36

And too, even if you know, uh, I'm

14:39

for Leadville, even if you know that you need to eat a lot, it's

14:41

still hard, right? Just

14:43

physically hard to eat all that food. I

14:46

think also we don't have a

14:49

full understanding of how this all

14:51

works. And it's not, it's

14:53

not as simple as calories in must

14:56

equal calories out because like

14:58

our bodies as athletes are, they're very

15:01

good at prioritizing how we

15:03

use fuel and how we process

15:05

it. And we're not really primed

15:07

to just convert intake into

15:10

fat right away. Like we are very

15:12

good at storing it as glycogen and,

15:15

um, and also

15:17

just balancing. Like, you know, when you're

15:19

full, you know, when you've like your

15:21

body knows what, when is enough, I

15:23

guess. And anyways, I'm talking in circles,

15:26

but it's just, it's not as simple

15:28

as I ate more today. I

15:30

will gain weight. That's not actually how it works in

15:32

practice. And these,

15:35

the hole that you get into in these

15:37

races would take you, it would take you

15:39

a lot to, um, to

15:42

balance it back out. And there's a

15:44

huge hangover. Like the, the, the hangover

15:46

from unbound is like easily a week

15:49

where your metabolism is just absolutely revved.

15:52

Um, anyways, I have fallen prey to

15:54

this too. And my husband will tell you

15:56

the day before a race,

15:58

especially if I'm particularly nervous. which

16:00

means that I'm in a vulnerable state, I

16:02

will be like, I don't want

16:04

to eat too much, but I know I need to

16:06

eat more or whatever. And it's

16:09

a tough thing. It is a challenging

16:11

thing. But one thing I'll tell you

16:14

is that I have

16:16

not weighed myself since 2021. I

16:18

literally don't know what I weigh. I

16:21

don't count any of the calories or macros

16:23

that I take in. And somehow

16:26

it works out and I perform okay.

16:28

So I don't think we need to focus

16:30

on it as much as we tell ourselves we

16:32

do. That's a great, great point.

16:34

I think we're going to talk about with power

16:36

meters too. For some people, they're not healthy and

16:39

you can chase those numbers. And we just saw

16:41

we're doing this red light green light products

16:44

to try to predict when someone's

16:46

going to be overly fatigued and to

16:48

prevent that from happening. And we have

16:51

people submitting times they burned out and why

16:54

that happened. We put it in chat,

16:57

chbT, I put in jackpot to see what are the

16:59

top reasons people burn out. We got to publish this

17:01

thing because there's like 15. It's amazing of all the

17:03

ways that we mess things up. We've talked about every

17:05

single one, but we're gonna put in one video. But

17:09

being obsessed with power numbers were too high. My

17:11

their ego, my FTP is too high. So some

17:13

of these threshold is now VO two

17:16

max, you know, 105% of you to max and

17:18

you chase that number and you get focused on

17:20

it when you know the feeling is wrong. That

17:22

I think that's it's like Michael Scott in the

17:24

office when it's like turn right and he's like,

17:26

Dwight, we have to turn right. And he turned

17:28

up to a lake and it crashed.

17:31

The machine tells us to do this. It was train road

17:33

to if you're feeling bad on a day, please rest like

17:35

skip that day. Even if we told you to do a

17:37

hard workout, you need to listen to your body. And

17:42

know yourself to I think Haley, what you're saying is,

17:44

you know yourself so well that some things aren't going

17:46

to be good for you to see all the time.

17:48

And it wouldn't be good to check your weight, you might check

17:50

it three, four times a day. And then impacts your eating and

17:53

I know people have done I know I've done that too. I

17:55

haven't weighed myself. And I haven't been for like a year

17:57

without weigh myself. John, you've had this issue too before Oh

18:00

yeah, totally. Does it go step and wait? Yeah,

18:02

in fact, it was Pete's

18:05

idea. Originally he said that he wanted

18:07

to make a scale that's a blind scale, that you

18:09

step on it and then you never see it, but

18:11

it just logs something in the background. And

18:14

then if you really needed to, you could see

18:16

it, but just having that display in front of

18:18

you can be so damaging. If

18:25

I easily walk into micromanaging every aspect

18:27

of my body and start to think

18:29

that I can do that, which in

18:31

reality I can't, and it

18:33

can spiral me pretty quickly, something you mentioned,

18:35

Ailey, that I really like is that you

18:37

said that you don't do this enough. And

18:41

that shows that you're like okay with the current state

18:43

that you're in, and you know

18:45

that over time this is all I can

18:47

room for improvement, but it's okay that you're

18:49

not there right now. A lot of the

18:51

time on this podcast or from many other

18:53

people in this world, you'll hear us talking

18:55

about different situations and different suggestions, and you

18:57

may not be living

19:00

up to whatever the standard is, but

19:02

that is okay. And I think

19:04

that was really cool and powerful for me to

19:07

hear a pro athlete at the top of your

19:09

game say, you know what, I can

19:11

do better on this and that's okay. That was

19:13

just really powerful, so I'm quite grateful that you

19:15

had the courage to say that. So thank you.

19:18

This is a really hard thing with these longer

19:20

events that I feel like a lot of people

19:22

don't understand. These days,

19:25

there's so many big races like

19:27

Leadville, like Unbound, everything else. And

19:29

when you do this in order to,

19:31

it's different. You

19:33

do have to feel differently, and you do have to do

19:35

a lot of these different things. And you can't just roll

19:38

into it expecting it to be the same thing as when

19:40

you go out and you do a weeknight criterium or something

19:42

else like that. It's a

19:44

very different game, and it requires even professionals

19:46

to change up a whole lot like this.

19:48

Plus what Hailey said, eating when you're nervous is

19:50

so hard. And

19:53

then those big races like Leadville, scared

19:55

out your mind right before, just performing, but

19:57

then for me, it's like crashing. Probably

20:00

not for you too. But it just

20:02

adds a whole, it's crazy how much

20:04

the mental side impacts,

20:07

but we really focus on so many, I mean, saying

20:09

this with PowerBeaner company, Power

20:11

Tree, we focus on the power, right? Some of the

20:13

things that we can control, that we can really see

20:16

and touch. But

20:18

then the mental side, maybe we could spend more time

20:20

on that, and then I would actually have a better outcome,

20:22

more enjoyable life, which is the

20:25

important part. I bet you, this

20:27

is crazy. Does a lot of people

20:29

link winning to enjoyment? Like I won't enjoy until

20:32

I win. But if

20:34

you could choose a cycling career where you just loved it the

20:36

whole time, or a cycling career where you hated it

20:38

the whole time, you'd probably

20:40

choose the one you loved, no matter what the outcome was. Yeah.

20:43

You know what I mean? As long as you could pay the

20:45

bills, but the one that you hated, but

20:48

you got paid a million dollars a year, I

20:50

bet you would, when you're 67, you're gonna be like,

20:52

yeah, I wasted my life. Yeah, I

20:54

hate that, right? You'd wanna redo it

20:56

and have that wonderful career. And that's why you guys

20:58

do gravel. Just kidding. Yeah.

21:00

Yeah. Yeah. Oh,

21:03

dear. Yeah, I think, I mean,

21:05

to get back to Alyssa's question a little bit,

21:07

I think that

21:09

is one of the things why gravel is

21:12

exciting is because it is different, it's so

21:14

different from XCO. And there

21:16

are some aspects of the training that

21:18

are remarkably similar. I

21:21

would say that the biggest thing with gravel

21:23

and endurance mountain biking is the respect that's

21:25

needed for how long it takes to recover

21:27

from these events. And I'm

21:29

at a level of like fitness and

21:32

training age or athlete age now where

21:34

I can recover from an XCO in

21:36

like a day or two days and

21:38

be okay. But to

21:40

recover from these long events

21:42

takes a week. And

21:45

that means that you also need

21:47

to have maybe a higher

21:49

priority of rest leading into these

21:51

events as well, just

21:54

to make sure that you're not carrying chronic fatigue,

21:57

which has been my issue the last couple of

21:59

years is I've struggled. struggle to balance the

22:01

extra rest that is required to

22:03

support this calendar,

22:05

these style of events. So the biggest change,

22:08

I suppose, in how you train is I

22:10

need to be more diligent about my recovery.

22:13

And I do also do a few more

22:15

hours per year, and I would say that

22:17

I do more threshold

22:19

now. But other than that, it's

22:21

a relatively similar training process as

22:24

it was for XCO. Haley,

22:26

what has changed in your recovery for gravel? You

22:29

mentioned you had to do something differently. And also,

22:31

when you had the chronic fatigue, what symptoms were

22:33

coming up that made you think or like now

22:35

looking back, what are the warning signs that you

22:38

saw? So

22:41

what's different about recovery is that

22:43

I just have to prioritize it

22:45

more. I have to actually, I

22:47

have to rest. And

22:49

there are lots of different types of recovery, active

22:52

recovery activities. But the biggest one for me is

22:54

actually just resting. So

22:58

when I'm not on the bike, I have

23:01

to be very zen. I

23:03

have to make sure that my sympathetic

23:05

system is down regulated. I have to

23:08

be diligent about my mindfulness

23:10

practice so that I'm up regulating

23:13

the parasympathetic system. Yeah,

23:17

I think it's just trying to breathe

23:19

more and have more space when I'm

23:21

not on the bike.

23:26

I'm noticing that that impacts

23:28

all things, improves

23:30

my sleep, improves my adaptation,

23:32

all that kind of stuff. And

23:37

I forget what the second part of your question is. On

23:39

chronic fatigue. Yeah, go ahead. Before you

23:41

go into the chronic fatigue, because you're

23:44

a student currently, you

23:47

also as an athlete have the responsibilities

23:49

that are inherent with a professional athlete

23:51

these days that pertain to social media

23:53

and everything else. When

23:56

you talk about getting more space, down

23:59

regulating. that sympathetic side

24:01

of things and up regulating the parasympathetic side

24:03

of things. How do you

24:06

balance all of that? Because that might be relevant

24:08

for people listening to this that are students, are

24:10

parents, are career professionals, and one way or another

24:12

are athletes. Do you find

24:14

that those things stand at odds with your ability to recover?

24:16

And if so, how do you balance it? So

24:19

yes and no. I think

24:22

you have to be very mentally disciplined

24:24

with when you're on the bike, that's what

24:27

you're doing. Your mental energy

24:29

is just to turning

24:31

the pedals, doing the workout. And

24:33

similarly, you have to be

24:35

off the bike when you're off the bike mentally.

24:39

I'm lucky that my school is mostly

24:41

reading and writing about things that I'm

24:43

interested in. So it's almost,

24:45

in a way, leisure time. There

24:48

are certainly days and weeks where it's quite

24:50

stressful. And

24:52

I think in those periods of time, I

24:54

have to respect that load is load. And

24:57

I've made the choice to be a student and to

24:59

pursue graduate studies. And

25:04

so it is a priority for me. And

25:06

that means that sometimes my training load has

25:08

to come down a bit to balance the

25:10

school and the life load. And that's just

25:12

the way it is. I'm still performing. I'm

25:14

still achieving and chasing the goals that I

25:16

want to achieve on the bike. So, so

25:19

far, it's not harming things as long as

25:21

I respect that balance. But

25:24

to bring it back to the food thing, I

25:28

am learning that if

25:31

I'm adequately fueled, all of this

25:33

is easier. I sleep

25:35

better. My moods are

25:37

way better. I have

25:40

way less anxiety. Like, anxiety for

25:42

me is definitely related to low

25:44

energy availability. So

25:47

I guess for me, the foundation actually is

25:50

adequate and supportive nutrition, which

25:52

allows me to have adequate and supportive

25:54

sleep, which just makes all of

25:56

this easier, balancing

25:59

the stress. and keeping the stress

26:01

low way easier. So

26:05

when you look back, Hailey, and you saw, well, you're

26:08

chronically fatigued, what were the

26:10

warning signs that, you know,

26:12

maybe you could have changed things earlier that you knew that

26:14

you were getting fatigued now looking in hindsight? So

26:18

a drop in power, a drop in

26:20

peak power and ability to really hit

26:23

it in those anaerobic zones and

26:25

to do so repeatedly. That's

26:27

a big one. So

26:31

higher irritability and just

26:34

like lower ability to cope with

26:36

small stressors. So for example, this

26:38

morning I was rushing to get

26:40

out the door because I'm trying to beat this big

26:42

storm that's coming to California and get my solid

26:44

workout in. I had

26:46

a VO2 workout today. So get that in before the

26:49

storm hit. And as I was walking out the door,

26:51

I felt, I heard a rattle in my rear wheel

26:53

and I was like, Oh no. And I had broken

26:55

a spoke and there was a nipple loose in the

26:57

wheel. And anyways, long story short,

26:59

I had to fix that all in a very rushed

27:01

way before I got out to do VO2 intervals, which

27:03

are kind of stressful. And

27:05

if I were in

27:08

a period where I was carrying too much

27:10

fatigue or I was under fueled or under

27:12

rested, I would not have been able to

27:14

deal with that. I would have been angry

27:16

and irritated and like really frazzled. And

27:18

instead I was kind of just able to deal with

27:20

it. So I guess that anecdote just to say that

27:23

resilience and mood trends are a

27:25

huge, uh, red flag for me

27:27

or, or can canary in the

27:29

coal mine, if you will. Um,

27:32

and then sleep, my sleep definitely

27:34

suffers and I do use a, like

27:36

a, a wearable tracker

27:39

that will, you know, show me deep sleep and

27:41

run sleep and sleep latency. And the

27:44

latency for me is the biggest one. So when I'm

27:46

carrying too much fatigue, it's pretty difficult for me to

27:48

fall asleep and it takes a long time for me

27:51

to enter a deep sleep stage. But

27:53

in the last like six months, since I

27:55

would say that I've been coming

27:57

out of this fatigue hole, those metrics. tricks

27:59

are greatly improved. So that's, I think, something

28:02

for me to watch as well. Have

28:05

you guys ever noticed that when you try

28:07

to lose weight, that your

28:09

partner just becomes a jerk? Like crazy. At

28:12

the same time? Everything around you.

28:15

I know, everyone's annoying. Like, it's just crazy how

28:17

that happens. I'm

28:20

morbid, but I spent so much of my life.

28:22

Like, the only way for me to get through

28:25

this stuff is to laugh about it, because there

28:27

are some things in life that are so serious,

28:29

you just have to laugh. I spent so much

28:31

of my life, my entire adolescence, most of my

28:33

adult life thus far in

28:35

a state of semi-starvation. And

28:38

I was so

28:40

angry all the time. So

28:42

angry. And it's only

28:44

recently that I have learned that there's actually

28:46

stuff that I like, and I like to

28:49

have fun, and I actually can have fun.

28:53

And it's just such a freeing thing to

28:55

know that all

28:57

I took was just eating a little bit

28:59

more, and life was a whole lot better.

29:03

Yeah, there's that. What's that acronym where if you

29:05

get distressing emotions, you say like, it's HALT, right?

29:08

Are you tired, hungry? What

29:11

are the other ones? Ellen A.

29:14

But angry, I forget what it is. But it's probably

29:16

not that. But it's something that you should check, because

29:18

so many times, like you said, things that wouldn't regularly

29:21

bother you, the way that

29:23

somebody's eating, right? Suddenly

29:25

becomes really annoying, because you're one of

29:28

those things, which is, like,

29:30

to your point, if you're chronically fatigued, that's going to

29:32

come up way more often. One

29:35

other thing I forgot to mention as well that's

29:38

applicable for the women

29:41

is just your cycle. And my

29:43

cycle's still not back online perfectly.

29:48

After I kind of hit a low point at

29:50

Tokyo with a descent into reds or in the

29:52

lead up to Tokyo. Anyways,

29:55

having a regular cycle

29:57

is an indication are

30:00

good and if your cycle is

30:02

not there or if it's really,

30:04

really irregular, that can be a

30:06

sign of chronic fatigue, low energy

30:08

availability, like a hormonal imbalance

30:11

from overtraining. It can be, it's a

30:14

really easy thing for us to notice. It

30:16

may be a bit difficult for men when

30:18

they don't have a menstrual cycle, but it's

30:21

a really useful tool for assessing where you're

30:23

at. Yeah. John,

30:26

just real quick, I looked it up. My

30:29

adult is hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. And

30:32

John, you just did an epic trip where you ran

30:34

out of food and that worked out. Do

30:38

you notice any, I don't know if you want to talk a

30:40

little bit about it, but John almost died. Yeah,

30:43

it was crazy. Sorry. And

30:45

now you're sick. Yeah, I know. It's a rough week.

30:50

Do you notice mood stuff too at the same time? Oh,

30:53

100%. And I

30:55

think that this is, you've

30:57

said load is load, Haley, and

30:59

that's a really important thing to

31:02

not overlook because basically

31:04

like when we're talking about, when you

31:06

say load is load, you're talking about

31:08

all the different stressors in your life

31:10

all contribute to the same pot, so

31:12

to speak. And they're all different

31:14

forms of stress, but when they enter the pot,

31:16

it's stress. It is what it is. And

31:18

your body kind of has a certain

31:21

ability to tolerate that. And

31:23

one of the main, I guess, supports

31:25

for that tolerance is nourishment. And

31:27

if that nourishment is dropped down, you simply

31:30

can't handle as much load. So

31:32

this is a lesson that I think

31:35

I'll never learn. I

31:38

feel like I learn it and then I go

31:40

through, six months later, I find myself

31:42

in a situation where I think that

31:44

for some reason, I cannot nourish myself

31:46

adequately or I can tolerate insane

31:48

amounts of stress and still do the same

31:50

amount of training. And that's just not

31:52

how it goes. And it's funny, Haley,

31:54

you mentioned that you've listened to the podcast. You've probably

31:57

heard us a lot of the time. always talk. The

32:00

people to consider a lower volume training

32:02

options and said a really high ones

32:04

and the reason that we do that

32:06

is because of just like you said

32:08

load is load Like I don't know

32:10

what work and life will give me

32:12

in six months and so I need

32:14

to be open to be to adjust

32:16

my training volume appropriately so then that

32:18

way when I get to a difficult

32:20

time for you they can adjust itself

32:22

to super thin and I guess we're

32:24

talking about was bringing back to the

32:26

question for Melissa on talking about going

32:29

from a ninety minute. Race has a really

32:31

long ones That means you have more load.

32:34

I. Just is what it is. Like he

32:36

said he have to recover more and yet

32:38

you're going to have more tossed into that

32:40

pot. So it's super important that people have

32:43

that consideration and something you probably especially like

32:45

a teenager you really don't have to take

32:47

into consideration. To. The same degree when

32:49

you're doing something like axial, it isn't as

32:51

tough. I'm super get

32:53

inside their. Thinks. It's they

32:56

theory that I'm. Let's.

32:58

Get into. I want to go into the

33:00

next question here. This is from Chris. Thrill

33:02

your months Chris as they for the many

33:04

hours of keep me company a Longworth shovel

33:06

you've taught me a ton of se like

33:09

you're all part of my weekly grew ride

33:11

through and feels good Dress Thanks good here

33:13

that's Cook the Chris says Africa Jonathan mentioned

33:15

his struggles with air in this week's or

33:17

of were in this last week's episode. I

33:19

thought I'd reach out on how to help

33:21

my twelve year old son Carter stay motivated

33:23

and but not burn out. Over the past

33:26

six months, Carter's really started to enjoy mountain

33:28

biking. He rode bikes occasionally like any

33:30

kid would and he occasionally go out

33:32

with me. but recently he has gotten

33:34

into it with his friends and the

33:36

are really getting into Access. He has

33:38

seen me train for years and now

33:40

he wants to do interval workouts. I

33:42

feel like I should just encourage him

33:44

to ride but he really wants to

33:46

do workouts so what's suggestions you have

33:48

so how to not kill his enthusiasm

33:50

but still keep it fun. This is

33:52

like year intersection period as as messy

33:54

as is, like what you're studying right

33:56

now so I'm so. excited when i read

33:58

this question as i I've been training

34:01

for this. This is PK-ly

34:04

time. Can I

34:06

just dive in or did you want to add? Yes.

34:08

I'm going to have my ears attuned because

34:10

this is relevant for me. A

34:13

lot of the research in the lab that I am

34:15

in is on specialization

34:17

versus sampling and the age

34:19

at which it's optimal for

34:21

those things to occur. What

34:23

do those things mean? Yes.

34:26

Specializing in a specific one

34:29

sport. Choosing to invest

34:31

in one sport to the exclusion of others and

34:33

go down the road of not

34:36

necessarily elite performance but an

34:39

investment in a single sport. Whereas sampling

34:41

is a phase of life

34:43

where you're doing many different sports. You might

34:45

be serious about some but you're trying things

34:47

out and just

34:50

staying diversified, I suppose.

34:52

Right around 12

34:56

to 14 is when you see

34:59

kids start to specialize and have

35:01

it be okay. That being said,

35:06

there's a lot of nuance in there with

35:09

what is optimal. It's sports specific

35:12

and it's also kid dependent on

35:14

what is going to be optimal

35:16

for the kid. I

35:18

came up with three based on my

35:20

education and personal

35:22

experience. I came

35:24

up with three ideas

35:27

for you because first

35:29

of all, the fact that

35:31

it's coming from Chris's son

35:33

is key. If

35:35

the drive and the motivation is coming from the

35:37

kid, you pretty much can't go wrong.

35:39

It's when the drive and the motivation is

35:41

being forced on the kid by either parent

35:43

or coach or something

35:46

that you run into issues.

35:48

I give this advice with

35:50

the foundational understanding that this

35:52

is coming from Chris's son

35:54

Carter and that's just a huge

35:57

positive. So my three... pieces

36:00

of advice first would be to minimize the

36:02

data. I don't think a

36:04

12-year-old needs a power meter. I don't think a

36:06

12-year-old needs really any data at all. It should all

36:08

just be like... What about networks? Yeah,

36:12

exactly. That

36:14

is a whole other thing as well. Anyways,

36:19

yeah, I don't think there needs to be any data

36:21

at all, except if you want a stopwatch.

36:25

I think that that's a pretty key

36:27

aspect of keeping the motivation high and

36:30

the fun high. The

36:32

second would be to keep any intervals

36:34

game-oriented. Sorry,

36:37

do you want to add something in there, J Strava

36:48

technically? I'm not sure what the age cutoff is.

36:50

I don't know. But I

36:52

do know that just riding around local junior and

36:54

our D.Va organizations and stuff, I hear kids talk

36:56

about Strava all the time. So they might just

36:58

be talking about a cultural thing that they don't

37:01

take a part of, or they might be doing

37:03

it. But Strava is an

37:05

interesting one here because if

37:08

the kids are tracking them, that

37:10

opens up this weird and pretty

37:13

risky world for them to compare themselves

37:15

to. Would Strava fall into that what you're

37:17

talking about of trying to discourage them from

37:19

doing that? I

37:22

know some kids under the age of 13

37:24

that use Strava as probably

37:26

maybe their parents' name. Their

37:31

parents have set up the account. I don't

37:33

know if I'm going to be scared right now. I

37:39

do think that it sets the stage

37:41

for some negative comparison or

37:43

some toxic competition a little bit.

37:47

I'm going to go off on one tangent here. So

37:50

my thesis topic, the original research

37:52

that I'm in the process of writing

37:54

up that I will use to qualify

37:57

for my master's degree, is on

37:59

parent-child co-partition. participation in mountain biking.

38:01

So looking at this very specific thing that

38:03

seems to happen in mountain biking where parents

38:05

and kids are kind of cold like

38:09

teammates almost or the

38:11

most common at

38:13

least in Canada where we don't have NICA, it's like

38:17

kids start with their parents and they ride with their parents

38:19

and it's a really unique

38:21

and positive thing where the parents are

38:23

able to provide a benchmark for their

38:26

kids that's not loaded

38:28

with social comparison. So let's

38:31

picture 12 year old Hailey goes

38:33

out riding with her dad I can use

38:35

my dad as kind of like a stable

38:37

benchmark to assess my progress against and

38:40

it's totally voluntary it's like self-motivated, but

38:42

it doesn't come with that. Am I

38:44

better than Susie who

38:46

I line up with every weekend to race

38:48

against so that's just

38:50

a tangent. I guess that's it's not related

38:52

to one of my tips, but as

38:55

a dad in this scenario like

38:58

you do have an active role that you can

39:00

play to make sure that it's fun

39:02

and positive for your son, I guess. So

39:05

yes, the first one minimize the data

39:07

probably does include Strava, but I was

39:09

more thinking about power numbers I just

39:11

don't I see no purpose for them.

39:13

And I think that could be an

39:16

area that would lead

39:19

to problems for someone so young. Second

39:23

tip keep it game oriented so

39:26

devise interval sets where it's like

39:30

there's a loop it's like kind of like you're

39:32

racing against yourself you can have that stopwatch if

39:34

you want and you can try to get self

39:38

like assess against yourself and beat your own

39:40

personal best. Other

39:42

ways you can make it game oriented are to have like have

39:47

technical elements into it in it, which actually leads me to

39:49

my third point which would be to in

39:51

largely keep the intervals off-road.

39:56

For someone so young you're going to gain more by doing like

40:00

a mixed surface or a fully trail

40:02

interval where you have to integrate the

40:04

technical skills required of mountain biking. There's

40:08

a whole lot of things with mountain

40:10

biking intervals like the torque that's involved,

40:12

the ability to ride technical under extremely

40:14

fatigued conditions, a whole bunch of stuff.

40:17

But I think that keeping those off-road makes

40:20

those intervals feel like a game

40:23

and they're just a little bit more

40:25

engaging and less about only

40:27

physical suffering. I think the

40:30

desire for physical suffering is a very

40:32

type two type of fun and we

40:35

develop that as we get older but

40:38

kids are not necessarily going to

40:40

love that in the long run.

40:42

So yeah, I guess

40:44

those are my tips. Just keep the data at

40:46

a minimum, try to make it a game in

40:48

any way possible and

40:51

just mix up the intervals so that they're mostly off-road.

40:53

I have so many

40:55

questions. We could talk about this for hours and it

40:57

would be like my own personal podcast. I probably wouldn't

40:59

publish to the world. One

41:03

of the ways, you mentioned keeping intervals fun.

41:06

A really fun way that I've seen that

41:08

done is relays with kids too. They

41:11

have relay teams because if

41:13

you think about it, you set a relay up and

41:15

the kid's going to do a hard effort and boom,

41:17

interval done. Then you reset and redo

41:19

the relay game again and keep

41:21

it really fun. I remember seeing our local,

41:24

at one point I remember them handing off a CO2 but

41:26

then at other times it's like a teddy bear that doesn't

41:28

quite fit in your jersey pocket. So you have to smash

41:31

it in there and it makes it really fun for the

41:33

kids to do that way.

41:35

Or they'd stuff it down their jersey and they

41:37

have a teddy bear flapping around and they're turning

41:39

into this and it's kind of silly. But

41:42

that's a really fun way that I've seen

41:45

to make this happen. I have this question

41:47

though because my son, you mentioned

41:49

riding with your kids and that

41:51

benchmark thing. My son,

41:54

he's only seven and he's so discouraged

41:56

when he rides with me because he's

41:58

like, are you? I'm not as fast as

42:00

my dad. Of

42:03

course, us standing back as adults, we look at that, we're

42:05

like, well, that's so silly. You're seven

42:07

years old. You haven't had those years of training, that sort of

42:09

thing. Is there

42:11

a way that parents can help so

42:13

that when they are riding together, that

42:15

that point of comparison doesn't serve as

42:17

a discouragement to them, but instead it's

42:19

something that's more encouraging? Yeah. I

42:22

think, again, from personal experience

42:24

and from my studies, I

42:26

would say that there's a

42:29

couple things. One, when kids

42:31

are pretty young and they're

42:33

co-participating, most of the successful

42:35

dyads that I have spoken to, the

42:38

parent follows the

42:40

kid. Whenever they're

42:42

trail riding, it's the child that leads and

42:44

sets the pace and chooses the trails.

42:48

That just minimizes the competitiveness or

42:50

the comparison there because they can't actually

42:53

see you riding something better than they

42:55

might be able to ride it. Then

42:59

the second aspect of it would be just

43:04

trying to highlight any

43:06

improvement or direct focus

43:09

where you hope that it will go for

43:12

your kids. If

43:15

they do ride a rock feature better than they ever

43:17

have before, just making sure you point it out.

43:20

Pointing out these successes and helping them work

43:22

on that confidence muscle. You

43:26

can tell a kid till you're blue in the face

43:28

to just focus on yourself, but they're not going to

43:30

have us in. I

43:32

think, yeah, just trying to

43:35

draw attention to their

43:37

own successes and build the

43:40

habit of

43:42

being able to recognize your own improvement

43:44

because we're really bad. As a general

43:46

rule, people are really bad at recognizing

43:48

things they've improved on. Anyway,

43:52

so yeah, I guess that would

43:54

be my answer. Can

43:56

we apply any of this to

43:58

our adult social circles? We're

44:00

talking about the parent-child context here,

44:03

but what about just riding with

44:05

friends? Looking at this, is there

44:07

anything we can do to be a better friend to

44:10

a person that we're riding with or to help them?

44:12

Or how should we view this relationship when we're racing

44:14

and training with people that are faster than us? I'd

44:17

say it's the exact same. When

44:21

a parent and a child are out riding

44:23

together, you can't

44:25

shed all the elements of parenthood that

44:28

are required, like responsibility and making sure

44:30

your child is safe. But

44:32

ultimately, you are a peer when you're out

44:34

there. How you would encourage

44:36

your child to continue to enjoy mountain

44:38

biking or cycling and continue to look

44:41

for improvement or work towards improvement is

44:44

exactly how you would

44:46

do that for a friend, I would think. Yeah.

44:50

I guess if I imagine the rides where

44:52

I go with someone who is less skilled

44:55

or a beginner cyclist, I typically will let

44:57

them lead. I will

45:00

provide a little bit of feedback or tips,

45:03

but mostly just allow them to figure it

45:05

out organically and highlight and praise when they've

45:08

made those little breakthroughs on their own. Yeah.

45:11

What about helping them understand

45:13

when it's too much? Because

45:15

I've seen this sometimes with kids that at 12

45:17

years old, maybe Carter's like this that just wants

45:20

to pick it up and go. Is

45:22

there something like how do you establish the bump

45:24

or how do you put up bumpers in the

45:26

bowling alley for the kids to understand when they're

45:28

doing too much? On

45:33

the spot on this one, I think that

45:36

it is a lot easier to focus

45:39

on positive additions as

45:41

it is to focus

45:43

on limitations

45:45

or like

45:48

borders is the wrong word. Like

45:51

limits, I guess. I think it's a lot

45:53

easier to think about what things you can

45:55

add to make the experience more positive as

45:58

opposed to what rules you can make. need

46:00

to implement in order to make

46:02

it to limit the experience. So

46:08

if Carter's only 12 years old,

46:10

probably still encouraging other sport involvement,

46:13

encouraging him to make sure that he's still

46:15

hanging out with his friends and doing those

46:17

things. And before you know it,

46:19

if you've encouraged these other elements of his life

46:22

to grow, then it's hard

46:24

to overdo it because you're encouraging

46:27

balance in time

46:29

dispersal, if that makes sense. It's

46:34

a lot harder to just say, you can only ride

46:36

this much or you can only do these many intervals

46:38

because maybe that's all Carter is

46:40

focused on to the exclusion

46:42

of everything else. So yeah,

46:44

I think just expanding the

46:47

attention as opposed to limiting

46:49

the singular focus, anything

46:51

he's allowed to do in that. Cool,

46:54

great advice. Awesome. Thanks,

46:56

Haley. Okay, this next one is from

46:59

the day you're preferred to remain anonymous. So I

47:01

won't read off the name. Say, hey podcast crew,

47:03

I'm a new listener to the podcast. I'm making

47:06

my way back to previous episodes, particularly those that

47:08

focus on mental health. I'm struggling

47:10

with motivation for another season of racing.

47:12

I love training. And for me, tracking

47:15

my performance with numbers is highly motivating.

47:17

After my performance is going up or down, I just

47:20

like having a clear idea of where I am. And

47:23

having been a competitive cyclist for more than 25

47:25

years through previous phases of

47:27

life that were busy or easy. I've learned

47:29

to not beat myself up when my performance

47:31

drops due to life circumstances. But

47:34

I'm having a surprisingly difficult time getting

47:36

motivated for next year due to the

47:38

weight of external expectations. Last

47:41

year I had an incredible training year, resulting

47:43

in the best performances I've had in 10

47:45

years. As a result, I was on the

47:47

state championships podium in six disciplines. Holy cow.

47:51

Winning four of them. What

47:53

a year, right? In the

47:55

span of six months, I went from being just

47:57

a fast guy to being the fast guy. Now

48:00

thinking of doing all these races I've

48:02

done for years suddenly feels exasperating I

48:04

feel like I'll have failed if I

48:06

don't match or beat last year, even

48:09

though my training is going very well I know

48:11

that sometimes life has ups and downs. So my

48:13

actual performance may not match my fitness Have

48:16

any of you had a situation like this? And

48:18

how do you get excited to race again without

48:20

the weight of previous success holding you

48:22

down? And I I'm really

48:24

obviously interested in Haley

48:26

and your info on this but Nate

48:29

I feel like you just don't succeed

48:38

I'm like I write Nate you publicly

48:40

you made your journey from cat five

48:43

to cat to public like You

48:45

recorded all your races you shared everything that

48:47

you learned along the way So

48:50

you kind of did this too. So we'll get to

48:52

Nate's opinions on this too Because I don't know if

48:54

you you feel this but I certainly have experienced this

48:57

Haley How have you managed

48:59

it? Oh When

49:01

I read this I was like, yes, of course

49:03

like I identify with this like a

49:05

million percent I this

49:09

is something that I went through in the lead-up to

49:11

Tokyo, so I obviously

49:14

there was a pandemic in there, but I basically

49:16

qualified for the Olympics in May of 2019 when

49:19

I got on my first World Cup podium and That

49:23

was probably the worst thing that Could

49:25

have happened because I spent the

49:27

next it ended up being like 27

49:32

months because of the pandemic in there, but I spent the

49:34

next 27 months Trying

49:36

not to fail like trying not to

49:39

Trying to hold on to something that I felt

49:41

like I already had as opposed to chasing something

49:44

that I hadn't yet experienced and

49:47

it was incredibly draining and Demotivating

49:50

and just like exactly what this

49:52

person described it just it's there's

49:54

no joy there. There's no There's

49:57

no joy and you do need some joy or

50:00

some like motivation derived from

50:02

that in order to continue

50:04

to improve or to just be invested in what

50:06

you're doing. Um, anyways,

50:09

I will skate over most of my

50:11

sob story, but after the Olympics, I

50:14

got the rings tattooed right on my

50:16

back. Um, like

50:18

right where I, right where I felt

50:20

the weight of them. Um, it,

50:24

yeah, over the similar, I mean,

50:26

I'm trying to drop, I believe these are

50:28

parallel, so I'm just kind of explained or

50:30

sharing my own experience, but the,

50:33

the weight of success and the

50:35

weight, the weight of the need

50:37

to hold on to success, that's

50:39

probably more accurate can

50:42

be debilitating and absolutely

50:45

crushing. And that

50:47

is what the Olympics kind of became

50:49

for me. And so when I

50:51

got this tattoo, it was a choice. It

50:54

was a choice that I was going to

50:56

view that journey as something that

50:58

gave me wings, which is where my wings

51:00

would have sprouted from where I got my

51:02

tattoo as opposed to being this like

51:05

really heavyweight. And so that's

51:07

my, my first thing I think is that it's, you

51:10

kind of have to choose the paradigm

51:12

that you view it in and

51:14

it's a conscious choice and you have to kind of make

51:16

it every day and some days it won't feel like that.

51:18

That's, that is one, one

51:21

of the ways that I approach it. Um,

51:24

my second thing would actually be a question for

51:26

this person and it would be, why are you

51:28

racing? Do you know why you're

51:30

racing? What is, what's the

51:32

purpose of it for you? Is it to just

51:35

win because you've won before or is

51:37

there some, something that

51:39

you're chasing? Because once you know what

51:41

you're chasing it, the motivation kind of

51:43

takes care of itself. And

51:46

that's a difficult question or a difficult conversation that

51:48

I think you have to have with yourself to

51:50

understand your why. But that's

51:52

really where all the fuel comes

51:54

from. I think it's

51:57

the biggest thing. You

52:00

don't know why if you don't have

52:02

that curiosity left, which was a big

52:04

thing for me with my transition from

52:06

XCO to marathon and gravel. There just

52:08

wasn't room for curiosity there anymore. It was

52:10

just heavy. It's okay to

52:12

change it up. So I mean,

52:15

you're national champion across, or

52:18

state champion across six disciplines. So we

52:20

might have not, we might not have

52:22

the ability to go to, but I mean, it is

52:25

okay to look

52:28

for something where you do have curiosity.

52:31

And I think that's, it's really freeing when you

52:33

can be an athlete in an environment where

52:38

it's just about what if, what might happen?

52:40

And that's such a, that's what motivates me

52:42

is like, I don't know if it's possible.

52:44

Let's see. And so I think

52:46

it's okay to recognize that maybe you might

52:48

need a change and that's

52:50

not a failure at all. You

52:53

just, it's possible that you might have

52:55

exhausted what was available for you in

52:57

that area. That's

53:02

a cool perspective on that. Thank you, Haley,

53:04

for sharing that. Nate, how would you feel

53:06

about this? Like you aren't, you

53:08

aren't training. Let's just say that you like,

53:11

we're going to go back into racing and everything else.

53:15

Would you feel weight of expectation or how would you

53:17

manage this? Would you feel frustrated that you're not where

53:19

you were? No, I

53:21

mean, my FTP right now is probably 180. Like

53:25

it is low and I'm like,

53:27

like 210 pounds. It's

53:29

pure muscle, of course. But

53:32

it is, I am, it would

53:35

be fun. I think for me, the fun part would be I

53:37

would go back pretty fast. So I

53:39

never see that kind of rate of, you

53:41

know, of, of increase that you would doing

53:43

that. And that would be fun. But

53:47

I, I don't really have, people don't really have expectations

53:49

on me for cycling. And even when I was winning

53:51

stuff, I remember my first cat three race, John was

53:53

there, one listener was giving me tips on how not

53:55

to get dropped on the crit. And then I won

53:57

the crit on my first race. So that's

53:59

like everyone. And then it was like, oh, but wait until

54:01

this, wait until this. And then I got

54:04

upgraded cat two and then I, um, I had big crashes

54:06

and I, on mountain biking and I, I stopped. I didn't

54:08

get to do a season, but you know,

54:10

everyone was like, well, wait until you get to the one, two, uh, masters.

54:13

And I, I, I

54:16

really wanted to win those. Um, but I only got to

54:18

do a couple, so it didn't happen. Um,

54:20

and I knew I wasn't going to do anything with P one,

54:22

two. Those people are insane. Okay. Yeah. I

54:24

mean, there's no chance. So there was no expectations on that

54:26

either. Um, so I guess

54:28

two for me level was, um, yeah,

54:31

I think it was the opposite. People thought they didn't believe

54:33

in me. So I was like, okay. I'll

54:36

just, that was like a motivation for you to

54:38

disprove them. I don't know about motivation, but it

54:40

truly didn't put any pressure on me. Right. Cause

54:42

if I didn't do well, everyone's like, Nate,

54:45

you're a nice guy. Like it's hard. Yeah. And I'm like, cool.

54:47

Everyone's nice about it. Right. No one's a jerk. Uh,

54:49

which was very nice. Um, yeah. Can

54:53

I, uh, I want to share a personal experience

54:55

of this one. Um, so pretty early

54:57

on in my mountain biking career, I got a podium

54:59

at national championships and I say career, I don't have

55:01

a career, but then early on in mountain bike racing,

55:04

I, I got a podium at

55:06

national championships. This is the next year afterward.

55:08

I completely felt what's being talked about here

55:10

in terms of like, I,

55:13

what do I do now, like I have to win and that's

55:15

like the only thing that I can do. And

55:17

it was really discouraging. So I can,

55:19

and I following the advice

55:21

of Haley here, uh, I, I absolutely went the

55:24

same route of finding out why I liked to

55:26

race and it took me a while to figure

55:28

that out. That meant I didn't race, uh,

55:30

nationals that next year. I didn't have the motivation

55:32

to go do it. And part of me was

55:34

worried about the stress of going back and, and,

55:37

and competing with the same level of

55:39

expectation. And I wasn't up to managing that in the,

55:41

in that environment. And I needed to kind of step

55:43

back. Um, but I found like a

55:45

different why for why I really loved to race mountain

55:47

bikes. And since then, um, it's,

55:50

I don't feel any burden to live up

55:52

to past results, um, or expectations and

55:54

it's nice, but I'll share this for

55:57

me is are not sure what your name is. You were super

55:59

rude one time. I remember

56:01

on the forum you said, you

56:03

were sharing feedback about the podcast. You said, I don't

56:05

listen anymore because none of them race. And

56:08

I remember that was like after I had

56:10

gone through the effort to record a podcast

56:12

about me racing a stage race every single

56:14

day of that stage race and sharing it.

56:17

I was like, and I raced a bunch and

56:19

I'd share all these things. And I remember somebody

56:22

said, they literally just did like six podcasts in

56:24

a row showing like that racing. And

56:26

I remember them saying like, yeah, but none of

56:28

it's impressive. And

56:32

Nate has mentioned this before and I have too, like

56:34

when you race and then it's out in front of

56:36

a lot of people, Haley experiences this

56:38

at a totally different scale. That

56:41

adds a lot. And I think that

56:43

from an outsider in perspective, if

56:46

you know somebody that has achieved like a

56:48

lot of success and maybe it was a

56:50

bit unexpected, maybe like in this case or

56:52

not unexpected, but unprecedented for this person, think

56:55

about the ways that we're saying things that

56:58

might add even more pressure and expectation onto

57:00

those people. We can probably phrase things

57:02

differently and it would really help. It

57:06

means that we don't have to, when somebody performs really

57:08

well, we don't have to ask them what's next. We

57:11

don't have to go into a situation when they perform really well

57:13

and say, where do you go from here or how

57:15

are you going to do this again? We don't have

57:17

to do those things. Those questions are probably already in

57:19

their heads. And when

57:21

we say it, we like validate those really

57:24

invalid questions that are going on. Just

57:27

from an outside in perspective, we can probably think

57:29

about how we're being considerate toward people that

57:31

have situations like this. And professional athletes, they

57:34

have to be public on social media and a

57:36

lot of people just share whatever their opinions are.

57:38

It's a good opportunity for us to think about

57:41

what they're going through before we just jump in

57:43

like that. You

57:45

just triggered one very quick thing that I

57:48

wanted to share. You brought up

57:50

this memory, but I have

57:52

always struggled with performance anxiety or I

57:54

guess personal expectations. And one thing that

57:56

my coach would always ask me when

57:58

he. could tell that I was

58:01

getting really stressed out about like the workouts because I

58:03

need to be perfect so that I can race well.

58:05

Um, he'd be like, Haley, who was, who was

58:07

third at world champs and elite men last year? And

58:10

I'd be like, I

58:12

don't know. And he's like, yeah, no

58:15

one cares. Like you are the

58:17

only one that cares. Like as much

58:19

as you think you might have expectations,

58:22

it doesn't factor into anyone else's life.

58:24

Really. So you got to figure out why you're

58:26

doing it for you and do it because you

58:28

enjoy it. Um, cause no one else

58:30

is, no one else is thinking about it.

58:33

That's great. Yeah. That's

58:35

great. Yeah. Great example. Um, well,

58:37

cool. Nate, I know that you're low on

58:39

time. Hey, uh, Haley, we're also taking up

58:42

the allotted time that we had with you.

58:44

Um, uh, we have one more

58:46

question that we'll just get to the next time we have

58:48

you on Haley, if you're willing to do that, it'd be

58:50

awesome. If you enjoyed having Haley on this podcast, let us

58:52

know. There are YouTube comments down below. You can tell us

58:55

on Spotify as well. If you're listening there, uh, you

58:58

can go follow Haley. Haley Hunter Smith, uh,

59:00

it's middle name, not last name, as we

59:02

discussed before we started recording, uh,

59:04

you can go follow Haley and I would

59:06

encourage you to do that. Haley. Um, I

59:08

appreciate how open you are on sharing your

59:10

journey through sport and all the things you

59:12

learned to that intersection of your studies in

59:14

sport. It's super great. Thanks for doing it.

59:16

I appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks

59:18

for having me on. Sorry. I was a little long

59:20

winded on the answer, but I appreciate it. If

59:24

we cover one question, that's great. That's all

59:26

that matters because it's quality here. Yeah. No,

59:28

not at all. No, it's informative. Yeah. Great.

59:31

Yeah, absolutely. All right, everybody. We'll talk to

59:33

you next week. Thanks a bunch, Haley. Take

59:35

care. Bye bye.