Gold Medal Mental Resilience: The Andrea Henkel Burke Story

Foreign.

I'm charlie redding.

And I'm claire fudge.

Welcome to the business of endurance.

Everything we do or we don't do is based on what the brain decides for us. If you want to be confident about something, you just need to be physically able to do what you need to do.

Welcome back to the Business of Endurance podcast. In today's episode, we are thrilled to have Olympic gold medalist and biathlon World cup champion Andrea Bourke or Nie Henkel. Andrea Henkel as she was. So Andrea's remarkable journey from the challenges of growing up in a divided Germany to the pinnacle of athletic achievement offers a wealth of inspiring stories and invaluable lessons. She'll share the pivotal moments that defined her career, insights into her rigorous training regime, and the mental resilience that propelled her to success. Additionally, Andrea will provide practical advice on fitness, health and nutrition, including her innovative approach to supporting recovery from Long Covid. In fact, this is the person that Matt Fitzgerald previous guest thanked and accredited recovering from Long Covid too. So he worked with Andrea and she helped him get back to running whilst suffering with Long Covid. So whether you're an inspiring athlete, a seasoned competitor, or simply someone looking to be inspired, Andrea's experiences and wisdom will offer actionable insights and motivation to help you achie your own goals. Don't miss this captivating episode. And one of the things that Andrea talks about, particularly with regards to Long Covid, is this balance of different aspects of our lives to overcome the difficult challenges. And if you hang around right till the end of this episode, I'll give you a tool that can help you assess whether you're getting the balance in your business life, whether you're ticking off the areas that can help you generate more business, as well as working less and as well as enjoying more. So I'll share with that with you at the end of the podcast, but for now, let's dive into the episode with Andrea Burke. So, Andrea, welcome to the Business of Endurance podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. I am really excited about chatting to you. I think this is going to be a really interesting episode. I always like to start off with that inspirational story and as an Olympic gold medalist, there can't be any better place to start. So how did you find your way into the Olympics, by the way? We haven't ever had a biathlete on the podcast, so we're going to a little bit of background about that, how you got into it, but then tell us that gold medal winning story.

Yeah. Hello, Dan. Thanks for Having me on the show. So I'm from Germany. I grew up in the old eastern part of Germany. And their sports of course was very from the government. Every kick had to be in some activity, some outdoor activity. And so I choose to be in a cross country skiing. I also was in gymnastics and in a choir. The gymnastics was very interesting for me too. But then I followed my older sister's path. She is three years older than I and she was doing cross country skiing. And then over her bed was hanging like a ski pole with a lot of metals on it. And I thought, this is the coolest decoration ever. I need this too. What I need to do for getting it. And so it was cross country skiing. That's why I went to cross country skiing training. And since she's older than I, she was dedicated to the sports school as a cross country skier when she was 12 years. And we brought her to the school and I thought, this is the coolest place ever. I want to be here, I want to go to this school. But I want every time so little. So I'm 5 foot 2 or 1 meter 8 centimeters. So I'm pretty short. And I always was as a kid already, zoom. I could not tell my parents that this is my goal. I just thought, okay, what do I need to do to get to this school? And I had to be good in school. My parents allow me to go there and I had to be good in sport to actually be able to go there. So I was nine years old, made this decision, I want to be in the school. And this was my inspiration. Not like Olympics or something. I crossed my mind that what I did is the same thing in an Olympic sport. But then I was 12 years old enough to get to the school, the wall came down and everything changed. And it just. It brought me another year, like one more year. Time to figure everything out. Get named to the highest level of school in Germany. Because there's three levels of school and my parents only would accept it. Like the highest level. And I can do whatever I want. And so I got to the school and then from there on it was like a journey. But in 1980, 80 Palestine, like it's cross country skiing and shooting women became Olympic sport like the guys did. It already was a misprot, but the Olympics added this into the program. And then the government back in East Germany decided all the girls who train at a facility where the boys do bioslan the girls now are bias leads too. And I was one of them. I said, I don't care I want to go to the school. Whatever I do it. At that time I became a biasfield. Going to the school when I was 13 as Biasfield. And then from there on it was like a journey because I wasn't an Olympic champion until I was 24. And it took me, I think, two more years to figure out that what I'm doing is actually an Olympic sport. And I just had fun doing it. And then I was doing the junior years, the senior years. And then when it came to these Olympics, because you wanted to know the story, I basically missed my first Olympics in Nagenon in 1998 because I didn't qualify for it in my team then wanted, of course go to the next one four years later. But I qualified for the team the year after. Because every year the World Championships, this whole World cup circuit, it's just like the highlight is named differently. Instead of the World Championships is any Olympic Games. It turned out I weighed my way up into the World cup team and was named for it. And it's the basic to actually qualify for the Olympics. And how my sister sent. She was at the same Olympics too as a cross country skier. So it's harder for Antwer to qualify to actually get a spots like a start, like a spot at a start to be able to compete than actually to get a medal. Because the team was such incredibly strong German battlefield team, we had to fight harder for the spot. You still have to fight hard for the medal. But to get to this chance not really given in the team. So then I made my spot. I actually had to disguise myself into it because I qualified very regularly that the long distance is my distance. 4 times shooting. I was second in overall before New Year and then got sick. Coaches were unsure and said maybe you should skip this race and race the sprint and pursuit because then we need you in the relay again. We had four different events. No, I do not skip this event. I will go for it. Maybe this was the right position to get in my first Olympic race because then I won and then I did not have to discuss anything else anymore. At this Olympics, I could face all four races. Yeah.

And just for those people that like me, that are beginners in this sort of sport, can you describe what that Olympics sport looks like in terms of distance? You said four times shooting. But just explain what that sport, how that format is.

Yeah. Back in the day, it's like 2002 horses in four different formats. Meanwhile, there are more. So there's a long distance for the woman, it's 15K and for the bendy kilometers with four times shooting. And for each miss, you have one extra penalty minute. Like you don't have to go loops, but you get a minute. And then there's the sprint, which is 7.5 km for the woman and 10 for the mid. And there you shoot twice, One time prone, one time standing, and then you have to go in a penalty loop for each miss. And then based on this result in the sprint, you start the pursuit race. I didn't have a good sprint there, but then I had to start there for the pursuit. Once one started earlier and then it was like 10k with 4 times shooting, prone, standing, and again you had to go to the penalty loop. And whoever causes the finish line first is the winner. But this is like the format. And then there's the relay. When four athletes compete, you have three extra spare rounds to avoid the penalty.

Based on the fact that your coaches were discouraging you from competing, I suspect to protect you, so that you could be a part of the team and that you didn't if you'd been ill, which was the reason they were trying to persuade you. So how did it feel to win that gold medal?

First of all, the coaches had this pocket that they had so many good athletes, and now they wanted to give everyone a chance. But I thought, I deserve this chance and I take it.

It sounds like a really interesting sport. I'm just trying to imagine what it would be like if somebody had asked me to do some accurate target shooting. After I'd done that. It would have been all over the place. So it must be a real fine balance between putting every bit of energy in that you possibly can and still having the accuracy of shooting. How do you balance that in the sport?

At first it's a practice and you want to be able to shoot with a high heart rate and with some exertion. And that that would make the bias lead. Because often I hear like, when do you slow down and how much do you need to slow down? And slowing down is taking time, so we don't have time. So you basically have to learn how to train, not for it. Also in combination with just shooting to get the fundamentals right, but then also it's a length mindset. You can struggle just because if you had a digital image, because everyone can shoot.

And just thinking about that training. And also you mentioned mindset, which I think we're going to go into in a bit more detail later on. But what does training look like, thinking about you, the amount of hours that you have to Spend because again, Charlie and I don't really have an understanding of what this by triathlon really looks like. What does training look like? Training for the Olympics, training for the World Cup. What does that look like in terms of hours? And also do you do that kind of mindset training to do the shooting part? So what do you have to go through from a training perspective from a cross country ski, but then also that mindset practice for targets and things first.

You need to be a really good skier because just being a good shooter wouldn't bring you very far. So the most hours and just like the normal cross Panel Skiers Train 2 is in skiing. But then we add, I would say an hour, five times a week for shooting. And the physical hours, it changes in the summer or in the spring. It's like a lot of hours and sometimes six a day, sometimes four a day. And then when it comes closer to racing, of course it goes down to sometimes only one hour a day for like basically recovery training and activation training to this variation. And usually six, six days a week and twice a day shooting, not as much as skiing time variance. But then also you combine it and then you do it like bias run. Like you ski, you shoot, you ski, you shoot. Just do it more often than you would do it in ways. And the mental part, I think, I mean, I stopped competing 10 years ago. There's way more knowledge about it, how to do things like this. I like the challenge put me on last in a wheel and that's where I was striving most. If you want to be confident about something, you just need to be physically able to do what you need to do.

And do you think the fact that your coaches were trying to talk you out of doing that Olympic race actually helped you win the gold medal?

I'm not sure if this helped, but it didn't disturb me. There was not a pressure, there was kind of pleasure. I do like no proof that I was mostly spared because I took it from someone else who was maybe also to win a medal.

And we're obviously recording this at the point where the Olympics is on, albeit it's the Summer Olympics, not the Winter Olympics. But what emotions do you go through when you watch other people winning Olympic gold medals?

So I have way more emotions for others than for myself. When you do something which may be scary for someone who is watching from the outset for you, not at all. It's kind of the emotions are differently and sometimes gets emotions out of me, which I did not have when I actually was racing, which is really nice. Then I feel what I had over what I should have felt back in the days. It's just special. And not just like this moment to see someone winning, but also there's every time a story behind it and a pathway and it's a long one, such as it started here before it started way in the past.

Moving on from the Olympics as well. Obviously you mentioned right at the beginning about the Biathlon World Cup. So tell us a little bit about what's the most challenges that you have when you're training coming up to the World cup. But also that long training season and competing season. So what are the major challenges that you have in terms of competing and training and keeping fit and keeping well throughout that time?

No, I did have after these Olympics like two years which didn't went too bad because I was sometimes just ignoring the recovery part a lot I would say. And then was sick. Everyone's a while maybe also because of that. And then you cannot train hard in what is really necessary.

And that World cup is much longer season, isn't it? Whereas the Olympic event is one race, isn't it? Which meant the most to you at the time. And also with the benefit of now many years later.

Thanks for asking this because most people think like the Olympic champion title is like the one. But like winning the overall World cup means like you had a whole season like the best one of everyone. And like you can put it together for more than just one race even to sounds maybe not the right but you also need to put it together for just this one race at the end when you want to be an Olympic medal winner. But having it for a whole season together. And I was even like stick the season. It sounds like I was sick all of the time, but I wasn't this season I won't actually the overall I was again January, February and then then. But I had a ponchiitis and I was like pushing it a little bit too long. So I had to take a little bit more recovery time. Which is something. Yeah. At least just happens to them when they want to push too hard.

I think when you win something and you feel like it's only one race you feel like other people could have gotten. And it becomes really apparent. Like at the moment I was watching the bike time trialling in the Olympics and the British guy had puncture. He actually came back to fourth, nearly got a medal. But that's one one incident. And yet. So the guy that then wins that is going would I have won the goal if the Brit if The Team GB guy hadn't had the puncture. So it's interesting, isn't it, that the World Cup's more important to you.

It's all important to me. And I sometimes feel lucky that I can say that the Olympic medal is maybe not at the same level in a total World cup, because I have both. But the other thing is, like putting it together when the whole ramp is looking at you, like when it counts, it's totally nothing aspect which then comes through. I was even in these two races or in this one season, there is no room when you start your Olympic race with your Olympic grip around your chest. It's maybe also something different in the head and like putting it all together. If someone gets lucky and winning a medal, this person wasn't far away from winning a medal before. Because you have to be at a certain level to be able to use your luck that you actually can win a medal. If you're raising a 1 30th place and then lucky, then you may be 25th. So even for the ones who win the medal, they are up there. Maybe this day was something special and they were putting it together. But you also need to be able to. Even someone else has a struggle to still put it together for yourself.

It's amazing to hear about the World cup as well and the journey that you went on. And I guess there's a story there around consistency, isn't there, that you really showed as an athlete how consistent you could be despite sometimes being unwell. And I guess that brings me on to the next point of what do you think now, like, sport and training has changed so much. You mentioned about being unwell. And obviously, you know, high levels of training and being in cold increase our chances and risks of being unwell. But do you see anything now that has changed in the world of training, competing in biathlon, that really is helping athletes to be more healthy for longer periods of time during training. So has anything really changed compared to when you were training and competing?

Things change all of the time. I think we have to go with the time. But at the end, it's a sport. Probably like the rifle is changing a little bit or like the technical part, but at the end, the athletes still need to work with this tool and the ski technique changes. Or like also now we had a floor band. Like the wax technicians couldn't use certain material anymore to prepare the skis. And so the ski companies produce different skis and the ski technicians have to work with different environments. So this is a constant change. And. But for the training itself, I think it comes back to the basic we need to have. We need to work on our strengths and in our endurance and our ability to recover and to use recovery tools. The recovery tool is maybe getting like new, a new level than when I stopped competing. There's too much out. It's almost like overwhelming, but it's always good. And that's what also athletes need. They need to recover well between training sessions, between races. But at the end, the athletes need to train sometimes like kids or young athletes. Tell me what I need to do. Tell me this one thing which makes the difference. The one thing is like, just do it and do it again to your.

10,000 hours as quickly as possible. You mentioned that you were 12, I think, when the Berlin Wall came down. How big an impact did you perceive that had at the time? And obviously with the benefit of hindsight, how much influence did that have on your sporting career as well as obviously the rest of your life?

I mean, what we heard now later on about the system in East Germany, I'm very happy that everyone part of the system and I don't know really how it worked with all these gyms and spying and all the things, but for me, basically it opened the whole world by bringing down this wall. It gave me another idea to get my school and sporting activities together. My parents actually were tied with me going to the school, going away from home, boarding school. And yeah, I just think also, like, it's way nicer to probably ways now you just like B than just having all the time like a government in your bag. But again, I don't know the other side really. I just know my own version of it. And I wouldn't be living in America if there would be a wall thinking.

About kind of Germany and listening to your stories around the wall as well. Obviously the use of doping in sports has been something that's been going on for the history really of from a sporting and competition perspective, I guess it would be really interesting to know your thoughts around clean and fair sport, but also during your time of competing, did you see any of the remnants of doping within sports? Because I know there were a number of controversies, I think it was in athletics actually, around sort of doping. So I just wonder what your thoughts are and what you saw potentially, if anything, when you were competing.

So I luckily never got in contact with any weird situation because when I came to this Ford School, it was already like Ballenho, Germany. I don't know. Just like hearing the investment was more in like the higher international athletes because it wouldn't matter on like the lower level at all. So I lucky I'm in the age that I didn't get really into contact with them. What the contact I had is like athletes who were doping when we were competing. I personally every time like to be naive in this way because if I can stand at the starting line and think about who else was cheating here, it wouldn't help myself. So I had to do my own thing and do my best. But later on when you hear that this person was positive, now it makes sense. He was so strong or something. And I feel very lucky that I wasn't asked to do anything or triggered to do anything. I'm all for a clean sport and I don't think that at that point there was a discussion about making things illegal as a no, you cannot do this because it's like when you don't know what it does to this person. I think it's not fair that you would push someone into something they don't really want to do for like health reasons. Because I want to be living a life and when I 90, I still want to be able to ski. So I don't want to risk anything of that.

You got mentioned in the interview we did with Matt Fitzgerald and that was because he's been suffering and it only came out randomly right at the end of the interview. We hadn't gone in expecting to ask about that. It came out on the through the question of the previous guest. So explain what's going on with Long Covid. What do we know about Long Covid? Because my understanding of it is fairly limited at the moment. And how are you helping people like Matt?

I every time wanted to be healthy for myself, but then I when I stopped competing, I wanted to have something of course in another career and I started personal training. So I did a bunch of different certifications and somewhere also like how the body works with a brain and connection. Anybody plan connection. And then I went even to psychoneoimmunology, how all the systems in the body working together because it's fascinating to me. And then Covid hit and actually started psychoneuroimmunology when Covid hit because now I could do it at 3am in the morning on my computer. And for my personal training part I did a Monday morning class. Now my friend came and after a while she mentioned to me that she has Long Covid. She feels now better. But all the things I'm doing or like some things I'm doing implementing in those classes helped her a lot and it was like basically tools she read about she should use. But now she had like more tangible things too to use. And she came from an economic background and worked for the National Health Service in England for a long time to improve health care in the healthcare system for people with like systemic, multi systemic conditions. So she used her background to research and then came to my class and found tools. And so we connected and then we created this program for people with long Covid based on the research, but also what I learned in my certification. And when we reached out to Matt because we read about his story in New York Times, he was very open to it. He also told me he doesn't open all the emails anymore because some were also not helpful. And I was, I feel very happy that he gave it a chance. And it was wonderful to see that he could run again and stick with us for the whole program.

I'm intrigued by what you talk about in terms of brain body connection, which seems really simplistic and we should all know what that means, right? But tell us a little bit more about what that actually means.

Okay. We can use our body like a safety for the brain because the brain is our government. Everything we do, we don't do is based on what brain decides for us. So we want to, but we cannot think our way out of pain. So we need to do something. So and like using the body also to create new connections with the brain. Like having weird combinations of movements for example, we usually never do just to challenge the brain to create new connections between different neurons. It's one aspect. Or just like giving fear sickness from the body into the brain so the brain feels safe and then we are able to do more. As long as it feels safe, it allows us to do more.

I am not as well educated in the world of science as you guys. Can you explain to me what long Covid is? What do we know about Long Covid now?

Long Covid is a post viral condition. So it existing before not because of COVID but because of other viruses. And that the body basically gets in a state of fighting something. There's like also like over 200 symptoms are now linked to long Covid and like brain fog or post exertion malaise when people feel very bad after run or even just the activity of walking five minutes somewhere upstairs and then a day later they totally crash. It's a symptom like over 200 symptoms related to long Covid and it's basically triggered by the COVID virus or sometimes also vaccination. And it makes People feel like because it's like such a wide spectrum of symptoms, like how to tailor. Our approach is also getting back into aligning the nervous system where the nervous system is constantly on this fight and flight situation for the brain and then using the body to give the brain safety, feel safety, to get more food, to do more. And then also guides for what activities maybe not do because it helped with other injuries or like past activities. Everyone had a cold before and maybe people just think I work the same way out of this COVID infection that I do with the middle Colton 4 it just doesn't work anymore because the mechanisms are a little different and there's a lot of research still coming out.

So what specifically are you doing to help people overcome this? What does a session look like? What are you actually getting people to do?

They work people through at first like understanding what's going on in their body because just this understanding part is already very helpful. We call it deep learning which helps to already be also likely to do this little actions because they don't take forever. And that's like by purpose because again like some people with long Covid they cannot do much and then it cannot take an hour a day to use some tool to do so. We do like nervous system alignment with breath work, but also eye exercises, connective tissue stretches like specific stretches to open up the body that things can flow again and to give again the brain like a safety. It feels more can more know what's going on in the environment and that it feels safer. It's like people don't want to go out somewhere because it's like unsafe. And then it's like the fight and flight reaction. And then it's like having tools like which calm the system or regulate the system. That's always calming. And so we do also like some mobility work and stretches and put it into a sequence like muscle relaxation. Using the body basically to also calm. Right. And then also diet is a big aspect like fit using extra stressors for the body and using helpful anti inflammatory foods.

Can you give me some examples on the nutrition side? What sort of things are you advising people to do on the nutrition specifically to help them with long Covid we.

Work with what to eat. So basically anti inflammatory foods, a lot of vegetables and these things and also more of those. I sometimes call it vegan, vet chicken and fish. An X is not specific. That's a great word. But we also want to keep it simple. And then when we have cravings because of lack of energy, like you usually grab something that's just around the corner having a nut. So I'm just taking half an avocado. And we go into this topic and.

I trained before we move on. What results have you seen from this work? How much success are you getting with this and helping people that have been suffering with long Covid?

Yeah so far we had good success. People feel better like after 10 days it's just like getting a little bit foundation in that they're capable of getting to the next step. Like just knowing also the self assessment tools like that people actually find like what mobility exercise works better like helps me the most. Then can put together their own little toolkit which I can take anywhere. And that's for us important. And we had for the ones who were the program then suddenly everyone got like somehow like out of the I was active again and it was really fun to see. And then everyone came back okay, we need to like still do this. And it's in the part of the routine and that's the whole goal. And then these other things density use for even it doesn't have to do anything with long Covid that they used to be able to perform better. Like these little things doing weird eye foot movements usually don't do just to trigger the brain and create more connection. So it's also not just okay, now I'm good now I don't have a use for this anymore. No, there's a use for the next level. And the next level I'm just like keeping up. And that's why we also call Thrive90 we work with people striving 90 and past.

Listening to that fantastic insight around nutrition and immune system. And in relation to Covid and athletes that I work with and the professionals that I work with. We talk about how can you support your immune system. And if you'd like to know a little bit more about supporting your immune system if you click in the link below you can download the immune impact helping you to support your immune system. Love some of the simplistic part that you talked about being simple especially around nutrition. So that was really good to hear and also love hearing you using that kind of world of sport into kind of health and vice versa how we can use health into the world of sport. And I guess just on that topic you were mentioning a little bit earlier about mental training when you were competing in the World cup and the Olympics and thinking about resilience here. So there's an element actually of what you were describing there in the long Covid around resilience as well. So could you tell us a little bit about when you were training and competing around how you trained yourself for mental strategies and that resilience.

So I luckily like challenges a lot. So it's like being at the shooting range and having 30,000 people standing behind me. It's like I benefit from it more then it triggers me if I'm in a situation that I know I can hold on my ski. So that's why. And again, like I said in the beginning, I wanted to be very fit and very fast. To be fast, but also to have this mental capacity at shooting range. And so I didn't do much of it. Like a mental training and visualizing. I was really bad with that in my last season. I thought, I need to give this a try. Not that I play myself later on. That I didn't do any mental training and maybe would have helped me a lot. I didn't want to play myself. This was like my credo, actually. Like after the bad years I have had after the Olympic champion title, I said I do not want to play myself and I'm 65. That I didn't know what I knew I should have been done what I did, do what I shouldn't have done. But that's why I reached out to mentor trainer. It was almost too much because I wanted to do it right away. With everything training, it's building up on each other when starting when I'm 35, till I get something out at 36, it was just too short of a period of time to really accelerate. And I'm not sure if it was actually a bit hindering me almost. But I would recommend anyone because now it's out there and it's useful. Just take it step by step, everything to not need to blame yourself that you didn't do it. And you can find out if it's helpful or not, or if one helps. Maybe what doesn't help, maybe something else can help. But again, it's very individual because some needed more, some less. But I think it's a big component, especially when one race counts. Like at the Olympics, I actually, because I didn't have the emotions we talked about earlier. My goal was every time I want to win one more medal at the Olympics and like three more Olympics and it didn't happen. My last Olympics, I got sick again. It was a bummer. In my. The second Olympics, actually, we were such a strong team. Just to put a little background behind, like I was from this team first we had four spots, four starting spots. And I was forced in the individual Race like in a 15K with four times shooting fourth in the Olympics. But it was also my qualification race for sprinter pursuit. And since my teammate was second, I was not qualified for sprinter pursuit, even being fourth at the Olympics. So it's because the assets, they're already like named for the other races. It was between two of us. When I won, she was seventh and she couldn't qualify for spinning pursuit. And to order relay, I at least said the relay in Torino and could win the medal with relay. And then there was a more time. Sick. So, so close. But putting it together at this one day is awesome skill.

How did you frame competing as a team versus as an individual? Were you more motivated by one than the other? Were you more pleased with your success when you were performing in a team as an individual or your thoughts on the two?

So I'm an individual athlete. Biased is mostly an individual sport. But as the relay and as a team, I enjoy them. For some it's like a pressure because we have to take care of three others. And for me, it was like, I do not have to compete against those three anymore. Even help me to get on the podium or win medal. For me, it was like fun to be on this team. But when you win something by yourself on your own, it has probably the higher value because you don't divide it. But I do not want to miss any teamworks. We had a wonderful team competition in Vancouver. This was a very special relay. So the team is great. But winning this by yourself is even better.

Even better. Brilliant. Now, we always ask on the podcast for books that have influenced you, books that you found yourself recommending to others. So are there any books that you found really helpful in your journey, whether that's your biathlon journey or whether that's more relating to the long Covid stuff that you've just talked about as well?

Every athlete has some couple times. But I read a book and it's a germ book. I'm not sure, maybe it's translated into English. It's basically a translation is the decision is on you. And like opened my eyes to I cannot play my coach or whoever. It's like, whatever happens, I have to be in the driver's aid because then I can make adjustments. And this was really powerful. I don't know. When I read it, I just read it and it stick with me forever.

That's a great principle, isn't it? It's a great principle to own it. A few of the people we've interviewed have referred to that term controlling the Controllables. You can't control what somebody else is doing, but you can control how you perceive it and what you do about it. So that's brilliant advice. And we also get the last guest of the podcast to ask the question of the next guest without knowing who that is. Our previous guest actually was a fellow German, rico Bogan, the 70.3 world champion. And I think, Claire, you've got Rico's.

Question, haven't you Rico, did you have a pre competition routine? And if yes, what was it and why did you do it?

So we had around 30 competitions one season, World cup and Olympics and champions depending on what was in the calendar. And yes, this upset. So I got up and usually we were racing middle of the day. So I worked backwards like two hours before at the Beatles Stadium for ski tests. One hour before was searing the rifle and then sometimes two and a half hours before you need to be ready. Maybe the chaperonis come and get you for blood test control before the race because this happened a couple of times and it was like totally random. So you be ready for it and make a plan B if this happens that your schedule is not cooled up. It just works indifferently. Eating three hours before and in the morning getting up and go out, move and do something light like jogging stretches. And then I had every time a huge backpack with me because I changed before the actual way. So we see a zero. Then sometimes it's really matte and you lie on this mat and then shooting mat. Then it snows on it and then it's wet. And then I just had this habit to change everything, including shoe socks.

Was there anything you did from a superstitious point of view that was a bit quirky that you did because for whatever reason it put you in the right place.

I'm very practical to have something like that. It was like my sister was like, you need your socks and these socks don't. Doesn't matter what kind of socks I wear.

Fantastic. Andrea, this has been really interesting and I love the stories of your successes and your wins, but also what you're doing around Long Covid and helping people recover from a multitude of illnesses is absolutely brilliant. If people are really struggling with this sort of stuff, where can they find out more about what you're doing and how they can get your help?

Webpage. It's wife90.com or we're also on Instagram or on Facebook. We are Everywhere we are swive90 I.

Know Matt was singing your praises around how much it's helped him get back to running and everything else and get through what was a very challenging time. So, Andrew, it's been really interesting. Thank you so much for. There's loads to take away from that as well as inspirational stuff. Thank you very much.

Thanks for having me on the podcast. It was really nice.

So what did you make of that interview with Andrea?

It sounds a super exciting sport that she's been involved in. It's not one that I'm really aware of and certainly haven't tried. So it was really interesting to hear about her actually, how she really, I guess, got so much out of the World cup title and having the Olympic title as well. So, yeah, I thought that was super interesting to learn about her sport. How about for you?

I think it's.

It's a sport I've watched occasionally over the years at the Winter Olympics, and I do find it fascinating that it is that combination of physical endurance and the delicacy and skill of shooting. But it must be a fine battle. I can't believe you can absolutely bury yourself and still be able to have any chance of hitting the target. So it must. There must be a really interesting balance. So I thought that was really interesting. I really found the interest, the topic of Long Covid really interesting as well, because obviously, obviously that's why Matt mentioned her and why we wanted to get her on. I just think there's obviously a lot more. I know of people that have been suffering with Long Covid and there's obviously a lot more of that out there than people realize and it's dragging on for longer than ever. So I thought it was really interesting that they'd come up with what seemed like a fairly rounded approach to alleviating symptoms and getting people back to exercise. What were your thoughts on that? Because we see your from a more science background than me, actually, the way.

That she described it. Again, I love, I love the simplistic. I say simplistic in a time of practical solutions. So that for me really sat really well in terms of actually these are the practical steps that you can take. Kind of that brain, body bit I wanted to delve a bit deeper into. And essentially what I took from that is it's a little bit like how you look at chronic pain. So really re. Engaging back with your self and your senses, that kind of neurological loop. So that was really interesting. So I can certainly see. See how all those very practical elements when you do all of those things together could really help. And I think that kind of. That marrying between her sort of sports resilience Mindset and training was coming into what she is then doing with her business partner in, in this long Covid piece and their framework that they have. So I really like that kind of interplay between how as an athlete you can use your training and your resilience into something else and vice versa, how we use health into sports.

Yeah, I, I agree and I think what I took from it was. Okay, so it's about improving the fundamentals, isn't it? It's about. There was the mind stuff in there, so it's breathing exercises, there was body in there in terms of stretching, there was nutrition in there and getting all of these different things. If you improve all of them, you're bound to see improvements in, in your health. And yeah, so I thought it was, I thought it was really fascinating and I also thought it was interesting talking about her childhood, growing up around when the Berlin Wall came down. And obviously the. We take it all for granted, don't we? And yet it's very easy to first say, yeah, but actually I couldn't have even moved to the US in those times. So it's, it really is. It was. That was a stark reminder of how much of an impact that would have made on her life.

Absolutely. I think also she was willing to talk about doping in sports and I know a lot of athletes don't want to speak about that. You know, it was fantastic that she felt that she could do that and it was just, it was interest. Interesting. Her again, her mindset on it, as in, I don't actually want to know if the people I'm competing against are doping. And I can, you know, we talk about mindset the whole time, don't we? Like, I can understand how that could actually derail you if you start thinking I'm maybe potentially not the best because other people are cheating. Yeah, that for me was really interesting. She didn't delve too much into the mindset behind it, but I can see where she was potentially coming from in that.

She also. On that I agree, really brilliant that she was willing to talk about it because often people aren't. What I also thought was really interesting was she was very aware of if you do remove some of the barriers, then people end up getting forced to take stuff and the long term implications. I remember reading a book, I can't remember which one it was, which talks about this whole argument of do you remove the barriers or don't you? And actually it's. You think it's going to suggest that you should remove the barriers and just allow the drugs and then it delves deeper into what were the long term implications to some of those German and Russian athletes that were doing having like serious state sponsored doping programs. And of course years later like the suicide rate is off the charts, the number of sex changes that the female athletes were going through were off the charts. The health implications for those people that were put through that like massively a huge impact. So I thought that was a really insightful comment that she just happened to throw in there about the long term health of the athletes. Yeah, great interview. I really enjoyed chatting to her and something very different for us both from a sport point of view and also the long Covid conversation. So yeah, really good. And yeah, I hope all the listeners out there took something from that. If you know anyone that's struggling from Long Covid, I suggest you tell them to to check this episode out and we'll put the link in the show notes for you to find out more about Andrea's program. But in the meantime, keep on training. I mentioned right at the start I'd got a gift for you if you hung around till the end. If you're a business owner and you want to know how you could grow your business while working less and enjoying more, I've got a tool for you called the Entrepreneurial Happiness Scoreboard and it'll basically help you see the areas you're doing well and identify the areas that you aren't doing quite so well in and then give you some ideas around how you can improve those areas within your business. To help you grow your business while working less and enjoying more, we'll put the link in the show notes. But if you go to www.thetrusted.team you can find the Entrepreneurial Happiness Scoreboard and you can see how you're doing and whether you're winning at the game of business. If you want us to keep getting amazing guests onto the Business of Endurance podcast, we don't ask for you to pay for us. We don't ask for patronage. All we ask for is that you subscribe to the podcast, ideally on Apple, give us a five star rating because it shows us you care and if you've got time, leave us a comment. One word is fine, something like inspiring or amazing or something like that, but we really do appreciate it and it will help us to continue to deliver amazing guests on what we hope you find to be an amazing podcast. Thanks very much. Jeff and Chloe from Big Moose Charity we featured in Episode 1 of Season 7 made such a great impact on the both of us, we decided to make them our charity sponsor for season seven. Now they really touched me in the sense that I lost my brother in law to suicide in Wales and these guys are working their socks off to help prevent situations like that. So Claire, why did Jeff and Chloe really make an impact on you?

Coming from a background in clinical nutrition and working in mental health, to me also it hit a spot in terms of the charity and how they are building therapy to help support people with mental health difficulties. And They've saved over 50 lives now and already met their first target of a million and their new target, 15 million that they're trying to get to.

It's absolutely incredible. And 15 million is a huge target they've set themselves. But they're speeding up help that people in desperately in need get and this help is needed more than ever. And I know how problematic mental health issues are in today's world. So if you think you can help Big Moose Charity and they're particularly looking for corporate partners to help them raise that 15 million, if you think you can help them or link them into a company that can help them, the best place to go to is Big Moose Charity Co. Or you can find them on Instagram as Big Moose Charity. Or you can even email jeff@jeffigmoose.co.