Conor Trainor - Rugby 7’s Olympian

This is episode 143 of the Empowered Team podcast. Today in the Empowered Team Podcast, we kick off a special four part series featuring the Olympics. And up first, Connor Traynor from the men's Sevens rugby team. He's currently competing in Tokyo and Curry speaks with him next. Welcome to the Empowered Team podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now your host, vitality and peak performance coach, Kari Schneider.

Hi Connor. Welcome to the Empowered Team podcast. And I tend to think that you need no introduction because you're this superstar in the world of rugby, but if you had to say your own introduction right now for who you are, how would you describe that?

Well, yeah, thanks. Thanks a lot for having me on. I guess in the context of being on this show, I'm a professional rugby player. I've been to three World Cups with Canada playing Rugby 15 and then with Rugby Sevens, been to two Pan Am Games, two Commonwealth Games, tons of tournaments around the world and am now currently preparing for the Tokyo Olympics. Actually I've been doing that for the past 18 months, as I'm sure all Olympic athletes have been doing.

How many times have you been able to introduce yourself as preparing to head to the Olympics?

Yeah, I guess this is one of the first times. Yeah, the team, team only got selected a couple weeks ago, so I was very careful with, with how I phrased what I was doing at that point. I was, I was preparing to get selected for a team going to the Olympics. Yeah. So now, now that I'm selected on the team, there's still another step of actually getting there in this Covid environment. But yeah, it's very cool.

How does that feel to be able to say, hey, I'm, I'm on the Olympic Rugby 7 team heading to Tokyo 2020 in 21. But how does that feel?

Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah, I just want to get there and actually play. So yeah, that first second of my first game will be very cool actually becoming an Olympian. But then, yeah, that'll kind of be gone from my mind right away and it's, it's next job of getting a gold medal and I'm sure I'm sure it'll sink in a bit more in August and as the months go by and I think this will actually be my last time playing rugby, I'll move on to something else in my life. So I think this will be such a cool way to cap things off.

This is, that's amazing. It's almost like this, this is almost like A video diary or an audio diary, because, you know, you're. You're voicing out loud something that I've known about you for a long time. A. That you. You are born to play. You love to play. That's. You know, you will train, you will push hard, you'll do whatever it takes, but where your heart is, what you love, is to play. And putting to words what you've been gearing all of this for is, yeah, you want to get on that field, but then you're going for a medal, not just any medal. So what's it like to see years of preparation starting to come together in a way that something that seemed like maybe a fuzzy vision way far in front of you now is starting to get closer and. And starting to get clearer? Is that kind of surreal at this point, or what is it like for you?

Yeah, that's the exact word I thought of as you're asking that. It's just surreal. I started playing for the Canadian team in 2010, and there were rumors that rugby might be in the 2012 Olympics. So that's when I knew that I might be able to go for rugby. And then now, full decade later, full decade and a year later, to actually have it happening is crazy. And, yeah, it doesn't seem real, but at the same time, my Competition starts in 10 days, but if I could fly there today and have it start tomorrow, I would, as you said. Yeah, like, I've done the decade of training, my teammates all know what we're doing. We just want to play now. We just want to get it going.

So in this stage right now, where you're just hungry, you're chomping at the bit to get there and do the things how, you know, some of the people that we coach, we talk about, sometimes when we're too attached to the outcome, it feels like a need to get to the outcome, but then that impairs the process. So when you're still hungry to get there and play, how does. Is it tough to focus on the process right now, or are you right in it? Like, what's it like for you right now? Because you got so many things that are really specific to preparing right now.

Yeah, I think our process right now is just so specific to Tokyo that it's hard. It's so different from normal training. Just we're doing heat training to prepare for the humidity and heat in Japan. We're preparing for the jet lag here in Canada. So we're pushing our sleep time, our bedtime to 6am and our wake time to 2pm so we're up all night when everyone else is asleep but we're all together. So it's pretty tough not to be constantly reminded why we're doing this and what it's for. So yeah, definitely can't wait for that first whistle to go. But yeah, we're definitely very focused on the process now and just preparing to be the best we can when we get there.

You mentioned just for our listeners to really get this, you're going day by day adjusting your bedtime and day by day adjusting your wake time so that you are on Tokyo time instead of getting there and being ridiculously jet lagged and having to deal with that there. And a lot of teams don't have that buffer time or those cushions of time that they would ordinarily have because of COVID You know, teams used to other Olympics they might show up for a training camp on the Olympic site if they've got the funds to do so. This year doesn't matter how much money you've got as a country or as a team, you can't show up on site and have a training camp or get there way early and acclimatize. It's not going to happen. So what's this been like? You woke up today at 11am Pacific but you're shifting that to keep later and later and later every day. Is it, is it an hour a day? Is it half an hour a day? What do you, how is the shift going for that, that jet lag shift?

Yeah, we, we have our goal times which, which are the ones I stated and how we, we get there has been kind of left up to us. Our strength coach knows we don't really need any motivation to prepare for the Olympics so, so he's, he's kind of let us deal with it on our own. Um, usually we train in the morning when we're on a normal schedule. So now we're training at night. Uh, and that's helped a lot just to stay awake longer. You just get the body burning uh, and you have the adrenaline from training so that, that, that keeps you up longer. Um, but yeah, I just started this weekend and yeah on Friday morning I got up at 5:50 for training so trying to push and then I was falling asleep at 9pm So I was trying to push back from pretty far as I guess a couple of my older teammates were as well. Yeah and we just did. I did two hours one day, I pushed it the next day, went a couple more then, then felt a bit off Needed more sleep. So, so pulled back. So, yeah, it's great. We started so far before we need to leave. It's given us a chance to adapt and then I guess a big one. A lot of my teammates and I have noticed it's the sleeping part is fine. It's just kind of figuring out the bodily functions, like when we're eating, when we're going to the washroom, like that. That part of your body takes, takes a while to change and it's such a huge part of it. So trying to eat dinner at, I don't know, three, three in the morning is tough, but I guess it helps. And then also a big one. I love coffee, as I'm sure a lot of people in the world do, and a lot of athletes do. So having to wait for my first coffee till 3pm or something is tough.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's amazing because you're doing all these things that are so against what your body cues, body triggers are looking for. But your brain gets stronger, your mindset gets stronger because it's like, yeah, sorry, but this is what we're doing. I don't care what you think about this right now, so get on board kind of thing. And that's. It's this mental strength that even even though you're intentionally training the jet lag and intentionally training the heat, you're actually strengthening your mind because you've decided you're going to do it, it's worth it. And then it's like, yeah, body, let's go get on board. Because this is already said and done. It's just a matter of.

Yeah, yeah, I guess indirectly it is strengthening your mind, but like you said, it's. This is happening, it's happening. There's no, it's, it's like a switch. It's either on or off. There's no, there's no gray area. So it's, it's pretty easy, I guess, because it is happening. So, yeah, get on board.

What, what do you have to do for the heat?

Yeah, so we started two weeks ago with the heat training. Uh, and I'm not sure how it was in Ontario, but we had a huge heat wave in bc. Uh, and that coincided with the start. Um, so it got pretty close to 40 degrees. It's not above 40 degrees in, in Victoria. Other parts of B.C. got up crazy close to 50.

We had a record.

Yeah, yeah, but we, but we, we train on turf. Uh, so although the field looks green, it's got all the black turf pellets and they're rubber, so they really hold heat. Um, so. So training that weekend was. Was heat training in itself, which was actually a great way to start. Um, and yeah, so our normal protocol is we, we train on the field now that we're close to the Olympics. It's, it's less volume, but much higher intensity. So we'll train for maybe an hour and a half, two hours, but a lot of that being warm up. And then from the field session, we go into the gym and we started with doing our heavy main lift outside of the heat tent. So we do a clean pole or a back squat just so we could actually get the. Get the strength and not be exhausted. And then we'd go into a tent which would be. It kind of varied. It was, it was tough because it was in the sun, but it would vary between 40 to 50 degrees and then high humidity. And we'd have six, six players in there, for the most part, doing. We do a circuit of five or six exercises, and it'd be every minute on the minute. You do six reps, and you'd be in there for 20 minutes working all the way up to 40 minutes. And yeah, it's, it's hot. It's. Yeah, it's literally like a sauna, steam room. And then you're trying to work out. So once you. The weights are pretty light, but then once, once you slowly build up, it's just. You can't get out of there. So you're, you're almost trying to, like, stay low where it's cooler, but then being like, I'm not gonna be able to stay low in Japan, so you try to just buy into it. And then right from there, we move into the hot tub for just that passive acclimatization. And that's anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes. And it definitely builds up. It's very hard by the end. Uh, and then in an hour and little over an hour, I've. I've lost over 3kg even while trying to drink water and electrolytes. So, yeah, it's definitely getting the body working.

And I imagine you guys are weighing in and weighing out every, every time and then weighing in the next morning to make sure you're rehydrating from the previous day's session. Like, how, how many days? Like, are they consecutive days that you're doing the heat sessions or are they every other day? Or how many days are you. Have you built up to?

Yeah, so our schedule, we train Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. So Tuesday and Friday we'll have that exact plan that I just detailed. And then Saturday is just in the heat tent, so we're pretty tired after the two full training days. And yet it's just getting through the heat. So, yeah, for the most part, not consecutive except there. But it's, it's a bit easier. And we know we have, we have a break after that mentally.

And is it. Does it feel like getting easier physically? Like, are you feeling like you're adapting to it?

Yeah, we always think our strength coach is just kind of turning the temperature down, but he promises he's not. It's just as hot, so it definitely gets easier. And then, yeah, the hot tub gets easier as well, but we keep pushing more time. So those last five minutes are always very tough. And then, yeah, another tough part of it is just not being able to cool down after. I would love to just go hot jump in the cold tub after, go jump in the ocean for an ocean dip, but you just have to not have the discipline to not cool down right away and just have your body learn to deal with expelling the heat.

Yeah. Now that brings me to another question and this, you know, some of the, some of the people who listen are doing their own training, whether it's cycling, whether it's running, whether it's sport, but you're on turf, you're also dealing with the heat. But we typically use cold or cold tubs or cold baths or whatever to help with the inflammation. And in training, we want some level of inflammation but not too much inflammation. So what, what, what are you doing? Because the turf is so high on that the impact overall, you know, your ankles, your shins, your knees, your hips, all of the above. But what are you doing to deal with the inflammation that's coming from all the training overall? And, and the turf?

Yeah. So, yeah, the turf, as you said, for all the joints and then for all the ligaments is pretty tough. Like patella tendon and Achilles tendon. Yeah, I've ruptured my Achilles, which I pretty much directly attribute to just years on, on a turf field. But days off is a huge one. So days off I'll be in the ocean swimming and getting, getting that cold, getting that, that flush, I guess. And it's just dialing up everything else. So diet, nutrition is a huge one. Just making sure your body has everything it can. Yeah. Sleep, just anything other recovery modality. I have my hypervault there, the massage gun, physio. And yet it's. Yeah, it maybe hurts sometimes. It's maybe not the best thing you could be doing for your body. But it's, it's an Olympic sport if you're not right on the edge between injury and I don't know what would be on the other side. But yeah, you should, you should almost be on the verge of injury a lot of the time because you're trying to be the best in the world. Um, and yes, it's pretty delicate balance, but we, I guess we have so many people to help us along in.

That you're always pushing those boundaries. I asked this question of another individual sport athlete, Selena Toth, heading to the Olympics. What her number one recovery. If there's one thing that she would make sure she never went without for recovery, that was the question. What's yours? Your one thing. Is it the nutrition or the sleep or the ocean? If you had to pick one that you knew that you couldn't give up and knowing that the others might get taken away, but one you had to have, what would it be?

Yeah, that's a great, great question. Yeah, I think it would be kind of cheating to say like sleep or nutrition because those, those are pretty much your basic pillars. Yeah, if you took sleep away from me, we'd have problems. But yeah, right. Right now I've definitely really got into ocean swimming. There's a pretty good community in Victoria, so we'll go to a nice sandy beach. We'll be carrying rocks underwater just to get the full body immersion and stay in there pretty long, like 10, 15, 20 minutes. And for body recovery, I'm sure it's good or maybe even, I'm not even sure what the science is on that, but just, just mentally in terms of the stress, in terms of feeling great after, I think that's been a huge, it's made a huge impact on my training, but then just my, my happiness and personal life, which it's pretty easy to train hard when, when you feel good all the time. So I think that that would be my answer.

Yeah, love it. I love the, like I am a big nature lover and I love that connection with ocean or water or other people with you with ocean and water and all of that. So that's incredible. I didn't mean to skip over this in the beginning, but for the sake of our listeners, you've got such a history with rugby on the 15's team, but the Olympics, it's the Sevens team. Can you explain to people just what to expect when they're going to tune into the Olympics and they're going to see what's going on with rugby Sevens and how exciting it is just explain the difference between the two and you know what to really be excited for in watching for the Sevens events.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Rugby 15s is the main version and the 15 just literally means 15 players on the field and it's a pretty skill based, tactical knowledge based game. You pretty much have to play since you were young to to be good. You just need such deep experience in the game. And Canada has had trouble competing with, with the big nations just because we don't have a huge rugby background. But Sevens is the same size field with only seven players. So as you can tell it's, there's a lot more room. People need to be way fitter and it's more based around athleticism, speed, power. Still, still some skills involved of course, but it really levels the playing field if you haven't been playing rugby your whole life. So a lot of my teammates maybe came later to the sport and just fell into it. But yeah, we've beaten every team, every top team in Rugby Sevens, but on the same side of that, we've been beaten by every team in Rugby Sevens. So going into this tournament, it's almost equal odds for us winning a medal as the coming last place, which for a lot of the teams can feel that way. It's such on the day, any team can be better. And yeah, just so fast paced, a ton of tries scored. You literally don't need to know a thing about rugby to have a good time watching Rugby Sevens.

Amazing. And with what you've just described, a listener and a viewer can only imagine how tight the team needs to be in order for that all to come together. So is, you know, is part of your experience just the fact that you guys have been together, most of the squad's been together for quite some time and this is going to be an experience that, you know, it's like none other. You'll never, you'll never, you may never be able to recreate something like this in a lifetime. And what's that chemistry like for the team or that bond that you guys have?

Yeah, even, yeah, we're all such good buddies and for probably two thirds of the team we've played together for seven, eight years and then we've got some younger guys who have come in and really injected their play, which, it just brings a whole new dimension. But yeah, being such good friends, we can all take and give criticism without fear of how that seems. And then also on the field we can just get on with what's happening. So we know everyone's trying their best we know how badly our teammates want this. So when someone throws a bad pass or makes a crazy decision, it's immediately into, okay, what's next? It's not, what are you doing?

Yeah, yeah.

Why would you think that's a good idea? And then after the game, you can, you can go talk to them. Be like, look like, what are you doing? That's. That's not what we do. We're doing these things, like figure it out. The person's like, yeah, 100%, it's my bad. There's. There's no egos, which. Which is huge for, For a team. I feel like a lot of teams maybe think they have that, say they have that, but, yeah, our team definitely has that in spades.

Yeah, that's incredible to hear because it takes so long to develop that. And what you're speaking to is the trust because you trust that that other teammate is simply putting everything they have out there. And we're human. They're going to make a mistake to make a mistake. And it's just a waste of time to belabor that whole point over and over again. So that's, that's amazing because ultimately that's, you know, if I talk to individual sport athletes versus team sport athletes, individual sport athletes have to rely on themselves so much and the support team around them. But that team sport athlete for yourself, you rely on yourself, but you have to depend on your team and you've got the team support team around you as well. And so there's so many moving parts. I know for some team sport athletes, especially for Paul, sometimes it can feel challenging when he can't do it all for everyone else. And a team sport never works when you're trying to do it all for everyone else. So it's amazing that you've really got that bond that you know you can rely on everyone else mentally and physically and know they've got your back.

Yeah, it's great because I can literally just worry about myself. I don't need to worry. Does this person know this play? Is this person going to get to this man? Is this person going to help me here? I can just worry about myself and know everything else will be taken care of, which, yeah, it's a great, great place to be in.

That's huge. Huge. So you. I think, I mean, there's congratulations in order, obviously, because you're making your dream come true. I'm gonna put words to it. This is. You're making your dream come true. If people don't tell you that, then I'm happy to. And also you're engaged. And this, this is all culminating in. If you're, if you're going to retire after this, then it's a very big transition for you personally as well. So how, how are you seeing this all? Are you planning to, are you planning to do anything else within rugby after the Olympics? What's your, what's your personal plan?

Yeah, like you said, I'm engaged. I got engaged at the end of last year, so 2020, and my fiance Alyssa and I have literally haven't even talked about a wedding or anything, which is awesome. Just, we both know how important this is to me and just the future's out there. But in my life, I only have 10 days to think about. I'm not really thinking too far past. And I'm also going back to school. So I got into UBC for an mba, a Master's in Business Administration, and that starts in August. So I'm pumped for that because there's going to be no time to kind of think that, oh, I'm retired. What do I do now? I'm just straight into a full time program, have a hundred new friends, my classmates, and just onto something completely new, which I think will be great because there'll definitely be a lot of stress and anxiety going from being one of the top in the world at something to doing something I've never done before. But I'm excited for that. Yeah, I'm very excited for that. And I guess throughout my life it's been kind of trying to normalize anxiety. So going playing professionally in France in a whole different setup, trying to get used to that, going into new teams, going into new places. And to answer your, your first question, I definitely want to stay involved with rugby. Rugby is such a cool sport for the social aspect is, is huge. That's, that's what the game's built around you. You go out on the field, try to try to hurt each other, try to be competitive, and then after you're sharing a drink with each other, chatting about how life is. So I really want to stay involved in that. And then I also hope to coach, maybe just high school kids, some sort of skills coach. I don't want to get to a stage where I'm getting yelled at by parents or fans or anything. So stay out of the too competitive. But yeah, rugby's given me so much and I've met so many great people like yourself through rugby. Um, so it would be impossible for me not to stay involved in it.

Well, first of all, I want to acknowledge you, because it takes something to have the foresight to see that you want to try something that might be scary right after something you've been so bloody proficient at. A lot of athletes don't have that foresight. To head into something brand new like that, that's obviously an MBA is gonna be really challenging. So that's huge. Congratulations on getting into that program and yeah, thank you. It's like a big step into the next stage of your life in so many ways. I remember for the 2014 Olympics, the sports psychologist for the women's hockey team used to talk about triple vision. And we talk about this with our coaching group a fair bit. And it's that now vision, the next vision, and that far vision. You know, if World Championships was a qualifier for the Olympics and the now was like a training camp for the Olympics, and you've taken that concept and, you know, you look at it like this so you can see them all at once. You know what to focus on to get to your next thing. And the next thing is the prerequisite for the big vision. But now for many, many athletes, that Olympic vision, it's like there's this drop off this cliff at the end of it and this big unknown. And I think it's so not only brave, but proactive and healthy of you to be able to go, okay, now I've got a whole other thing there. And it looks like. It looks like a wedding, it looks like an mba, it looks like a new group of social friends that you're not going to be the top guy in. So that's really cool. And the reason I want to emphasize or acknowledge that is because of how many athletes transition from high performance sport and struggle with what life looks like after it. Because any human brain being in the spotlight like crazy for so many years, life looks pretty dull when you don't have a stadium, a stand screaming your name and or booing your name, whatever the case may be. Life can be pretty dull when facing that.

Yeah, I'd like to speak on that a bit actually, because I was definitely the person kind of without a plan. And Covid actually really helped me. So I was playing professionally in France at the end of 2019 and the Olympics, and that's Rugby 15. And I missed qualification for the 2016 Olympics with the Rugby Sevens team. And then I just knew I couldn't live with myself not making an attempt to make the team for the 2020 Olympics. So I broke my contract in France, just spoke to the president of my club and he Was pretty good about it. He could see how much this meant to me. So they let me go without any penalties. And I came back and I just had the one vision, going to the Olympics in July of 2020. And. And yeah, then Covid happened and I didn't have rugby training to do. The Olympics was maybe happening in a year. And I was just thinking, okay, like, what else do I have? What. What else can I do after this? So, yeah, funnily enough, Covid helped a lot. I just did a lot of courses, worked, worked with some friends, tried to figure out what I was good at, what I liked, and then, yeah, now being in the place that you said where I have something planned after the Olympics is great because it's already there. I don't have to stress about it. I don't have to think about it. I know that I can put everything I have into these Olympic Games. And when I come out the other side, there'll be stuff waiting for me. And it's great how quickly it's going to happen because in injury, when I've been injured breaking my legs or tearing my Achilles, got pretty depressed, just as you said, not not being able to get that high of competing, but then also just not being able to move around in that. So, yeah, it's going to be great to immediately change my focus and just dive in to something.

On that Covid topic. Covid did a solid for you and giving you time to reflect on what you really want. For a lot of other Olympians, this could be a really bizarre Olympics to watch, because most Olympics, if a spectator hasn't been involved with Olympic athletes, they don't realize that there's usually Olympic records, but not world records set in, say, individual sports or because they've had to peak for the qualification. Whereas this time there's this scenario of people being off, newcomers coming in, unlikely qualifiers. There's so many different things going on here. So I think from a spectator standpoint, that there may not be fans there, but it's probably gonna be a really interesting one to watch, to see how the athletes can really perform without the fans, without a normal quad, without the same things that they might expect. Do you have any thoughts on that, what you're thinking around the COVID Olympics?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think the. All the commentators for the sports are going to have a really tough time because all the athletes are going to have pretty uplifting or cool stories of all the things they've done to last another year for an Olympics and last through Covid and deal with all the negative things that have come with COVID living, living in countries where it's going rampant. Um, so yeah, I think the, the stories that will come out for this Olympics and what people have gone through just to get to the Olympics will, will be very cool and it'll be great to look back on and see all that. It'll definitely be in the Olympic spirit. So yeah, it's going to be way different as you said, not necessarily worse, just very different.

Yeah, yeah. And, and you know, maybe a, maybe a really cool example of human adaptability and perseverance in what sport really exemplifies as well. Which is cool.

Exactly. Yeah.

So in terms of your competition coming up, who are you looking forward to facing or who you might might be the most anxiety provoking team that you.

Yeah. So our pool is Great Britain, Fiji and Japan. So at the last Olympics Fiji won, Great Britain came second and Japan came fourth. So those rankings have changed a bit since then, but it's obviously a pretty strong pool and there's only 12 teams in the Olympics. Normally in a tournament there's 16. But having said that, the other two pools have four unreal teams as well. So we're pretty excited with our pool. The last tournament we played we came third. We, we beat Fiji to get there and I guess beat teams that had beat the Great Britain catchment of teams. Yeah, I don't think it matters who we have in our pool. Like we're, we're excited to play anyone and to win gold, we gotta be beat everyone. But yeah, that first game against Great Britain will, will be a big one and yeah, just, just excited to get there and play. And I guess another note, not, not having stands might be good for us when playing Japan because they, they won't have any momentum or anything. They have, they won't have home field advantage. So that's, that's one positive.

Yeah, that's awesome. And yeah, and what days for the spectators. You're in the, you're at the very end of June, July, aren't you? The 27th.

Yeah. So we're the 26th to the 28th. And yeah, we only get to the village on the 23rd. So it's pretty, pretty tight turnaround.

That's super tight. If you're thinking of, I don't know if you're able to, you're cooking your own meals right now and prepping, you're doing your own recovery, but you're near the team and all of that. But when you're there, have you what's the plan for taking care of nutrition, taking care of recovery. Do you have a sense for what the village will be like or what you. What your accommodations will be like? Have you. Have they prepped you on that?

Yeah, they're. They're pretty good at preparing you before you go. So we've watched all the videos, had all the webinars about what every step of the process is going to look like from getting on the plane in Victoria all the way until we get off the plane in Victoria a week later or however long. And, yeah, accommodations looks great. Food looks great. I'm sure there'll be probably a couple hiccups with COVID and it being such. Such a strange time. But, yeah, we've prepared as well as we can, and we're pretty used to things going wrong, so it's going to take a fair amount to throw us off.

It's funny you say that, because every athlete that I've talked to at this level who has gone through their sport for a long time has that. Well, one of the things that has allowed me to get here is I've been able to adapt or find flow or pivot through all the things that have gone wrong. So no matter what happens, you're like, oh, so what? You know, that's something always gone wrong before. So it doesn't matter because you're so focused on what you got going on and you can handle it. So that's pretty cool. What's your favorite meal? Pregame meal, Going into any. If you could make whatever you want or someone could make for you whatever you want, what would that favorite pregame meal be?

Hmm. I don't even know. My fiance is an unreal chef, so literally, whatever she feels like making that day, game day, I usually try to have pasta or something right before, like a chicken pesto pasta or something. That was my go to meal in France back when, when I was cooking.

Pesto is better there. Yeah, it's so much better.

Yeah, definitely. We're close enough to Italy that it's. Yeah, it just makes it seem. Yeah, whatever my fiance would make, I would eat. Doesn't matter.

That's awesome. What do you want to. This is, you know, this is a key time for you and a time where, you know, you're transitioning. But if there's a message to the ten years ago you or the younger version of you just getting into the interest of rugby, what do you want to say to the person back then who might be questioning or might be struggling or might not know what's the message you would say with what you know now.

Yeah, that's a great question. Tough question. I think, like we just talked about, like going through all those tough times really add to the adaptability now and the ability to like normalize anxiety and stress and all that. So I definitely wouldn't give give away any hints of it gets easier. All that I'd want past me to still be able to grow and go through those things. I think just maybe reminding myself, reminding him just how much other people do for me, like how important my parents are for me, how important people like you who like how much you've done for me throughout my career, and just remembering to try to thank those people every time. I guess athletes can be pretty selfish because it's about them a lot of the time, which is fine. Is fine. That happens. But just taking a second to step back and really thank everyone and show gratitude to everyone in my life that's helped me because, yeah, people like yourself who have done it just for the love of sport, for trying to help people, know no other reasons. Yeah, I think that would be a great one. And something I'm still trying to remember.

Today, that just gets me in the feels. Thank you for that because I think that will make a huge difference for people. It's a thing where for people like myself and I'm sure your parents and other people who believe in you, it's this belief that's so hard. That's a belief that it's. It's believing what's possible. Whether you believe you can do it or not doesn't matter. It's just believing so hard in what's possible and that it can happen. Whether you believe you can do it or not doesn't matter. But the other people around you or eventually yourself, believing that it's possible and it can happen and that rubs off. It rubs off on other people.

Yeah, 100%.

And that's the magic of the Olympics. And I am just so, so happy for you and what you've been able to accomplish and what you've gone through, because it's just forming, forging the human that you are and the fact that you're going into other things and however you give back to rugby or whatever you produce or create with your mba, it's all creating this amazing gift back to the world. So thank you for all the things you've shared and the courage you've shown to go through this. And is there any last messages that you want to send out before. Before you head on to your dream?

Yeah, I think I've already done it, but just to double down on it. Yeah, thanks to like, people like you, my parents, my fiance and yeah, actually the last time we were on together, I forgot to thank a friend, Frank Bradshaw Ryan, who, when I had my Achilles, he. When I was on crutches, he brought me food and everything. So I'm remembering to thank him now. But just. Yeah, just to everyone who's helped me, thank you.

Amazing. Well, big, huge congratulations. Kick some ass, represent, do all the things and know you're ready. And thank you so much for sharing what it's really like and sharing your time, especially with us.

Yeah, thanks a lot for having me on. This has been awesome.

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