EP72 Lanni Marchant - Marathon Olympian

This is episode 72, the Empowered Athlete Podcast. In October of 2013, Lanny Marchand set the Canadian women's marathon record, running it in exactly 2 hours and 28 minutes. Following that event, she had incredible run up to the Olympic Games in Rio where she ran the 10,000 meter for Canada as well as the marathon. But over the course of a year, in prepping for the Olympic Games to one year later, she found herself struggling to make it down a hallway, barely able to walk. What led to this crazy turn of events and the incredible pain and injuries that she suffered, we find out on today's show. Lani opens up and tells us amazing stories of what she's gone through as a long distance runner, representing Canada and competing around the world. Don't miss this episode. And if you have women athletes that train with you for you, or you have a daughter in sport, you don't want to miss this one. You want to share it with everyone who works with women as well. Lanny gives us the goods and gives us insight that every female athlete needs to hear. Are you 6, 5, 2, 25 and male or maybe 5' 4, 1, 10 and female? Are you a swimmer, runner, gymnast or hockey player? Have you had three knee surgeries like me or a shoulder that tends to get sore? We all have different bodies and it makes sense that we require specific training and adjustment for best results. Are you self motivated, ready for consistency and want to follow a training plan customized for your needs? Maybe you are ready to be coached.

Being trained typically means you rely on someone to take you through each workout. Being coached means you are ready to do it on your own, but want the guidance from an expert to efficiently get to your best results while staying accountable. If you're ready to be coached, then contact us for an assessment in person or online and we will make a customized training program for you to get to your goals. Welcome to the the Empowered Athlete Podcast. Created to support athletes in their pursuit of excellence and inspire others toward their best lives. Hosted by Kari Schneider, coach to top performers in sport and life, and Paul Durden, former national and professional volleyball player.

Hello everyone.

Welcome to the Empowered Athlete Podcast and it is a fitting, fitting time for our guest today. As in the world of marathon, in the last month there's been some big events. We've had the first human ever run under two hours, which is crazy.

Which is crazy for people who don't marathon.

You don't understand how fast that is.

Yeah, and also we had the women's world record destroyed by about a minute within a Day or two of the men breaking that record in an exhibition event, it wasn't a true marathon race. And so we are thrilled this time to have Lenny MarchAnd join us, McKenna's greatest ever incredible talent. And welcome to the Empowered Athlete podcast.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

So you are. You know, you've been in the sport for a really long time, but that's not. You didn't start in running. You didn't start in cross country. You started with a different sport.

Tell us about that. Yeah. So I'm from a family of seven, and my mom's a figure skating coach. So we grew up on the ice, and that was kind of my first story.

Did everybody have.

Yeah, like, we all. It was cheaper than babysitting, I guess, was just to throw some skates on us and stick us in the corner. So the first five of us at least all skated. Then my brothers and stuff kind of got into hockey or left the sport. But the three older sisters, my older sister Samantha, myself and the sister right after me, Randy, all skated competitively. And then Shannon and MacKenzie, baby number six and seven, would come up to the ice as well. But by the time I was a teenager then it was just easier to leave the younger kids at home with me to babysit them. So they didn't necessarily get as involved in skating as the rest of us did. Yeah, I was like, you know what? This is just easier to leave you guys at home. Yeah.

Did you ever get new skates? Were they always hand me downs?

No, I got new skates mainly because of the way my foot was built. So my older sister would do hand me downs to my younger sister. But I, after a certain age, started getting my own boots because my feet were shaped differently and sized differently than theirs.

This is like, are there twins somewhere along the way?

Like, no, my sister Randy and I are technically Irish twins. I guess we're born within a year of each other, so I think we're. I don't even think we're 11 months apart. I think we're like 10 and a half. So I'm early April and she's late March. So it's been the same age for a few weeks of every year.

A lot of kids.

Yeah, it is.

Are you close with all your family? Like, there must just be so many to keep track of or keep in touch with.

Yeah. Growing up being like, the first five of us are fairly close in age altogether. So being teenagers all at the same time was a little bit rough then. Now that the younger ones are a Bit older too. It's a lot more fun. And there's nieces and nephews running around. And also with social media and cell phone technology, it's become a lot easier. When I moved away at 18 to go to university, I could send a hotmail email to people, and that was kind of the only way I could keep in touch with her baby.

There's like phone cards to try, and.

It was just too expensive. Whereas by the time baby number six just Shannon was going away for undergrad to Detroit Mercy, she cell phones were a normal thing. Like people could have a group chat. Like, it was just amazing, the technology change in that seven to eight years between us.

That's crazy.

Were you guys competitive?

Randy and I were incredibly competitive, I think because we were so close in age and we were basically treated as one entity. Even when people would name off the siblings, they'd go Samantha, Daniel, Lanny, Randy, Shane, Mackenzie. So I just kind of wanted the twins just kind of bred this competitive environment between us. And she ran for a little bit in high school too, and she was more dominant in the shorter events than I was. So when we overlapped in the 1500 and in cross country events, it was, you know, any given day could be a different one of us in front of the other. So kind of. I remember walking home from the bus stop even, and we wouldn't ever acknowledge it, but we would both be trying to out walk the other one to the sprint walk.

Fast walkers, fast walker.

So it's every day it was just like this unspoken competition of who could get to the door first.

I don't know what surprising you didn't end up marathoning in the Olympic event of speed walking.

Yeah, race walking. I definitely would have had more practice at it.

Yeah, that's great. So you, you were a figure skater and then you got into running just by accident a little bit.

We always had to run to stay in shape for skating. Skating's one of the. I'd say a lot of female sports result in body image issues, but figure skating was one that was, you know, they put a high priority on being tiny and petite, and it wasn't always the most healthy ways that we got there. The benefit is that I did learn endurance running, and I learned that I loved it. Partly, though, running laps around the parking lot was punishment when we misbehaved. And my sisters were very, very accomplished skaters. I was an opposite foot jumper, which meant I rotated the opposite direction, meant I couldn't necessarily do pair skating. I questioned authority a little bit too much. At times. So I was constantly just misfit. Marchant was my nickname. And I ended up having to run a lot of laps. Yeah, I was just. My sisters were perfect and I wasn't. And the result was me running laps around the parking lot for punishment. And I think it was grade 10. I finally told my mom. I was like, I would much rather run the laps of the parking lot. I don't want to skate anymore.

Yeah. Well, it's almost true to form because that's the. Well, I'll show you. I like this better.

Yeah. Like, the true brat in me was like, fine, I'll take your punishment and turn it into a career. See you later. Yeah, you keep skating. No, there's just something about running, too. Like, as much. Not that running necessarily helps with body image issues. There's still a lot of that in endurance sports. But in terms of being less judged. Like, it didn't matter how pretty I was or if my dress matched my music and if my, at that time, really unruly curly hair didn't matter if it came out of its ponytail mid race. Like, you crossed the finish line and you knew where you stood. There was. You weren't waiting for someone else. Yeah. To validate your existence, really. And that was even in grade 10. What are you, like, 15 or 16? That already spoke to me. It's like, okay, I want to be in something where I'm in control of how I finish, not someone else's opinion of me.

So by that age, what were you getting in terms of success or what was. What were your first kind of real milestones when it came to your running?

I was really good, I guess. Good. Yeah. At the high school level, the club level, because you were competing with people outside of your district that you would only necessarily see at offset or provincial championships or, you know, there'd be more opportunity to raise people from other provinces. On the club level, I regularly had my butt handed to me. But within the high school level, I was. I was pretty decent. I was pretty good. Made ofsa every year. Choked at AFSA every year until my senior year. Pardon?

Which events in cross country?

Tracking. Yeah, in cross country and cross country, I only got to do offs across country twice because of teacher strikes. So I only got to do it in grade 10. I think I finished somewhere middle of the path, like top 40, maybe. And then in grade 12, and I finished top 10. Somewhere in the top 10. I remember that. But for track, I made it. I made of the regionals in grade nine, but then grade 10, 11 and 12, I made OFSA. But I'd go in ranked third or fourth because our region was so tough with the girls at A Sarnia. And I choked. The great 10 and 11, I choked hard. Then grade 12, I finally walked away with an officer bronze.

When you say choked, because every athlete has their own version of that or their own definition of it or what it means to them. What was it for you that. What's your definition of choking in that scenario?

I just. I didn't understand racing tactics at all, I think because I'd been fairly dominant in our local area in London and in Wausau area, that I didn't really ever have to learn tactics of racing.

Or pacing.

Yeah, pacing, yeah. And especially in the 1500, you need that. The 3000 now, as an adult, is a very. Is a very short distance for me. By the time the 3000 was as far as you could go, that one, there was a little bit more room where you could see my engine would at least let me hold on. But the 1500, I just didn't know what I was doing. And I was racing against some really, really talented high schoolers. But the 3000 is the one that I felt I always should have shined in. And same thing like grade 10 and grade 11, it just didn't go well at all. Grade 10 was an inexperience. I would say grade 11 was a pretty raging eating disorder catching up with me. And then grade 12 was. I kind of had my head on straight a bit better about flying, and I knew, like, I'd already signed my scholarship papers to go down to UT Chattanooga, so the pressure was off of me that when I lined up to race, I think because I. My time was so slow at regionals, I wasn't ranked high going into afsa, so not going in with that top four ranking took a lot of pressure off as well. And that's something I've kind of realized as an adult and through my collegiate career and professional career, is the less pressure I have on myself or usually when you see me run some special races. So I tried to kind of keep that mindset as much as possible.

What was. You know, we've interviewed a number of different types of athletes and ones who have been in aesthetic types of sports as well. What do you think was the catalyst for the eating disorder at that age, and how did you make progress with it or overcome it?

I think for me, it was still like, a lot of what was ingrained in me as a figure skater was still taking hold at that point. So I don't think it was necessarily the eating issues I struggled with later in my running career where I was, you know, had the mindset that a skinnier runner is a better runner. It was more the control aspect that I picked up in skating because we were keeping food journals when I was in grade three and grade four for our skating coaches. And we were fat tested monthly. We were weighed in weekly and it was put up on the board outside the dressing rooms for everybody to see. And we shared that arena with speed skaters and hockey players. So it wasn't just like figure skaters were seeing it. Everybody was seeing it. And you'd get a little star beside your name if you were under 9.5% body fat. So it was. Yeah. So it's not like I grew up with the best mindset around food or behaviors with food.

It's a tough, it's a tough time too, because that age is your mental development, your emotional development is too young to be able to distinguish what's going on, what's really going on there. So it's the kind of thing that you can't, you can't help but kind of succumb to thinking good or bad when it comes to a body composition or right or wrong with it. Like with, with the Sport Institute, we weren't, we. There came a point within, within my career, within the national level teams, that we weren't taking body comp until the female athletes, or the male athletes for that matter, were 18 years old. And then I adopted that with my gym. Just not, you know, didn't matter what the sport was. I wasn't going to put that kind of emphasis on an athlete, even if they had an aesthetic sport, until after they were old enough to really absorb whether this was important to them or not important to them and understand that it wasn't a good or bad thing. It was just a measurement. And there were plenty of times where it just wasn't the right thing for that person. And we just didn't do it because there was too much of a, too much of a hyper focus on it. And if there was a hyper focus on it, we just kind of said, okay, this isn't gonna be a focus right now, so let's just, let's just focus on some other things.

Yeah, like I look back and I was like, what, what business did they have? I'm 13 years old. I should be wanting my body to go through puberty. And I, I said in an interview recently that it's, and I've been vocal about this That I remember all through my teenage years thinking if I got my period, even if I started my period, I was already a failure. That, like, oh, my gosh, I have enough body fat to go through puberty. And it was like taking health classes in school. Almost made it worse because it made me aware of what it meant if I got my period. It meant my body was developing. It meant I was gonna have hips and tits and an ass, which, let's be honest, I'm never gonna have those things. I'm tiny. But. But that meant I couldn't, you know, these body types. Yeah, but I never thought about body types. I just thought puberty meant your body changing. Getting a period meant you were fat. And that mindset stayed with me well into my 20s of one period meant I was slipping. Two periods in a row meant I was fat. And I had. I did everything I could through my early 20s to try and make sure that didn't happen. And it's pretty common, at least in the endurance running world, where girls talk about missing their period or not having their period. And I feel like I pick up on a tone that. That's almost a badge of honor that, like, they know they're really lean and that means they're going to race well if they're not having their period. And I at least know now, after all my bone issues and bone fractures, that that's not. There's a. There's a healthier way to get to a quote, unquote, race weight. And it doesn't. Like having your period is a measure of a healthy body, not a. And healthy is synonymous with fit. It's not a measure to be used against it.

Can you explain in your words to the audience what the term reds is, which formerly was the female athlete triad, but now it's more inclusive for male and female athletes because of what it causes in hormonal imbalance, which then leads to what you're inferring, which is the bone density issues. Do you want to explain a little bit of that for the audience? Because even now, when I'm talking to some parents or I'm talking to different athletes, most people. I know that when you're immersed in it or I'm in the field, I'm in. I'm sure Paul doesn't know what we're talking about. Exactly. You've heard of the female athlete triad. Okay, so there you go. So most people have no idea what reds is, and they may not have heard of the female athlete triad, especially if they're male. But do you want to give your take on it because you've had a fair bit of experience with it, with your sport and your personal journey.

Yeah. So the female athlete triad syndrome was what they would always kind of measure and it was hard because it didn't catch men. Or if a male was told he had it, then there's like a huge ego hit for him. Right. Typically it was shown like if you as a female, if you were losing your period or didn't have your period and you had bone health issues and weight loss, then you fell into this category of female triad syndrome. What they've now discovered with Reds Relative Energy Deficiency syndrome is you could have those elements or you could have others, or you could have them all. And it doesn't necessarily present the same way in every person and it doesn't mean that you're doing what I did all through high school where I was only eating half a cup of rice a day. Like you could still be eating a fair amount, you're just not eating enough relative to the amount of energy output your body's requiring, your sports requiring. The best way it's been put to me is if you think about having a container filled with spoons, some metal, some wooden, and the act of brushing your teeth is going to use up a wooden spoon and the act of going for a 10 mile run is going to take two silver spoons and at the end of the day, even if I eat a big huge dinner, I still not going to have enough spoons left in that container to have enough energy to brush my teeth before bed. In terms of my body, I'll wake up the next day because I've eaten that big dinner and I'll have a replenishment of some spoons. But in terms of after that 10 mile run, I now have to go lift weights and there's not a silver spoon left in the cup for me, in the container for me to use. So then I'm going to pull three wooden spoons out of there and it just kind of, it throws your body, it throws your hormones out of whack, it throws your mental health out of whack. For me, as much as I was so fearful about my period in my twenties, by the time I got into quote, unquote professional running, by the time I made my way onto the international stage in 2012, 2013, I had a better handle on it. So I was healthy enough that I was getting a regular period. But in terms of other symptoms, I hit all of the marks for rett. I still was Getting bone fractures, losing my eyebrows. I was losing my hair. My PMS symptoms that were part of my period were way worse. So I'd still get a monthly cycle. But it was torture for my body to make it happen. Which should have set some alarm bells off that, you know, I wasn't as healthy as we thought and they weren't.

Being caught by some of the professionals.

No. Cause almost the worst thing that I could have done was I kept performing well. Like, I set a national record.

Say 2013 was the year you set the women.

It was 2.28 flat.

And then you were in Worlds that year, you had Commonwealth. The next year, Pan Am, the following.

You're being rewarded for what you're doing as well. It's this cognitive dissonance where you're being rewarded for all the actions that you're taking.

Exactly. And I am, because of my build, I don't. When I'm. When I'm too small, I don't necessarily look as sickly as some girls that are a foot taller than me and skinny. For me, I'm shorter and I have thicker quads and I am more muscular. So I didn't always look like there was necessarily an issue going on. And if you had asked me, comparative to my 20s, I was eating plenty. I was eating three meals a day. I was doing everything that I knew to do. But in terms of what my body output was, I wasn't hitting anywhere near what I needed. Especially when you looked at carbs versus proteins versus fats. And, you know, now, like, I have such a better understanding of just how much rice and sweet potato and carbs I have to take in, even if it's a light day of training. And right now, I'm not training a ton as I'm building back up from hip surgery, and I'm eating more now than I did when I was building to do the double at the Olympics in 2016. And that I kind of am shaking my head at myself, wishing that I had known then what I know now. But.

Just a couple things here. Number one, to give people perspective. A lot of people have heard of over training syndrome, and coaches are concerned about it. Athletes have heard of overtraining syndrome. But over training syndrome is like reds is everything that over training syndrome is, all of what it includes. Plus the person is malnourished, basically. So it's basically that double whammy that is just not. People aren't seeing what's going on. So I just wanted to highlight the emphasis or the importance on the audience understanding what to look for. Because personally, like I see young athletes who are in their swimmers, plus they play soccer, plus they're doing, you know, maybe a third sport as well. And they're right at that age of say 14, 15, 16. And because they're growing and they're in so many sports, a lot of sports that are running intensive or jumping intensive, the athlete can't stand feeling full when they come into practice because they're going to be nauseous. So then they eat less, but they, they may not have eaten enough throughout the. And if it was a hard training session, well, then you're not hungry after. No athlete is. It's so hard you're forcing yourself to eat when you're already like low calorie going in. But the training session is so hard you're nauseous and then you're supposed to be eating to replenish, but you're so exhausted you want to go to bed. So it's like this, this kind of thing where for some, especially young athletes who don't know how much they're supposed to be getting and they're still growing, the coaches need to know, the parents need to know, the people who are adults around them need to see the things that are going on so that they can draw attention to it or educate them. And as a coach, being around some of these athletes, I'm not their mom and I'm not their day to day coach, I'm their strength coach. So I'm trying to interject here and there without being inappropriate because I'm asking them about some personal questions.

Right.

And want to overstep boundaries at the same time. So it's something that more people, I think, need to be aware of. But I want to also highlight something that you just said because you said double Olympics. And what's so remarkable about this is that you were, I think, the first woman to compete in the Olympics in the 10,000 and the marathon, which is insane. And now in hindsight, looking back, you know where you were from a health standpoint. Tell us about that and what it was like. You know, I mean, is that not where you had to kind of fight for your place in the Olympics as well?

Yeah. So in 2012, I didn't make the team because Athletics Canada had a standard that surpassed the IOC and IAAF standards. So I appealed to get on that team. Didn't make it.

Can I pause for just one second? I'm sorry, but listeners sometimes don't realize that the country's standard is higher than the Olympic standard. And Canada does this with so many sports, not just running, not just track. Canada does this with a lot of sports where the Olympic standard is blank. But the Canadian standard to go to the Olympics is so much harder. And what it does is it prevents our athletes who are qualified for the Olympics and to be sent by Canada to go. And I just want to put that out there so that the listeners understand that people. There's so many people in Canada who've qualified for the Olympics or made a standard, and then they're not getting to go or they're not supported by their own country or their own sport body to be able to get to that amazing event they've worked their whole life for. Typically, I just had to throw that in.

My 2012 story might be unique to some people, but it's not. There's plenty of could be Canadian Olympians that aren't because of a harder standard that kept them off. So then by 2016, I'd qualified in two events, and I qualified well. Like, early in the qualifying window, I ticked all of the boxes to prove fitness over and over and over again. And then it still became a big political nightmare. Six or seven weeks before the team was made was named where I wasn't certain if I was going to be named in the marathon or the 10,000 or both, like I qualified to do. And then finally in July, like, started July after our national championships, they named me in both events, which was fantastic. But looking back at everything I was dealing with and what I know from my high school running of I do better with less pressure, it just kind of created a huge pressure cooker situation for me. And I was. By 2017, we realized I'd had an issue. I was having issues with my kidney. But looking back, I was on antibiotics all through 2016 because of them. So my body was malnourished. I was sick. I had this political battle to do the events that I qualified to do at the Olympics. But when I got to the Games, you know, you get tunnel vision and you forget all of the hardships that it was to get there. And I just knew it was my dream to be there. And I did the 10,000 and raced as hard as I could. A girl tripped behind me and pulled down my bottoms partway through. So I ran with my butt exposed for a moment there, and then normal. Yeah, yeah. I'm just trying to fit in with the girls on the beach. And then I had 46 hours from when the tent when I finished the 10,000 to then prep and line up for the Marathon. And so I'd worked with our sports physiologist to do like plan out ice baths and massage. I have pictures of my left leg completely taped up with K tape in between the events. And most importantly was the carb loading, which now I know that I took in as much as I could at the time, but now having a better understanding of what my body needs, I would do it a lot differently. In terms of what you were saying about, you know, kids and not wanting to be full and going from training session to training session and their bodies changing and developing. The biggest thing that we've added back in is I constantly have gummy bears or Swedish fish or wine gums in a sandwich baggie in my gym bag because it's just something that I can quickly throw in my mouth. And even if I'm in the middle of a run, I can stop by the car and throw some in and get a bit of a carb rush from them. But, yeah, so that 46 hours between was just incredibly uncomfortable to try. And like, typically with my carb loading, we would be looking for about a 4 pound weight gain because you're just like retaining fluids and, you know, saturating your body.

Yeah, the absorbing the water. For every gram of glycogen, you're getting about 4 grams of water.

Yeah. So we try, like, that's typical. But I usually, if a marathon's on Sunday, I start carb loading on Wednesday. But this time I had, you know, less than two days to do it. So I managed, I think I managed to put on about two, two to three pounds of weight, but not certainly what the standard four that we would go for. And I felt fine in the race. And of the two races I did at the Olympics, the marathon was probably the one I, I remember more of and I cherish more because for me, that was coming full circle from 2012, being left off the marathon team. And I had for four years envisioned running under that Olympic banner to finish the marathon. So getting to do that was probably like, worth all of the malnourishment and injuries I caused myself over the years.

Yeah, yeah. And that's something that no one can take away.

No, exactly.

You got there. You, you know, the things that you've accomplished, that's yours. That's, you know, never changing. Right. But you've now had to since then. What happened after those, after that Olympics?

Oh, man. So I've had three surgeries in three years. So the spring after the Olympics, so May 2017, I went in for what should have been a simple kidney procedure. There was complications, and I went septic. So I was stuck in the hospital for eight days. For people who don't know what sepsis is, it's just, you know, like poison flooding through your body. At the time, I didn't really realize how serious it was. Like, I knew it wasn't great because I wasn't going home each day, but it wasn't until, like, talking to some nurse friends and medical specialists after that, I recognized, like, a lot of people don't walk away from sepsis. So it took a lot for me to kind of process that, because instead I realized, yeah, gotten out of the hospital close to the end of May, had to withdraw from Nationals 10k champs, but I had a world mark. I had already qualified for Worlds. So in my brain, I was trying to get ready for 2017 Worlds, and there wasn't really anybody there telling me, like, you almost, like, died. Your body's incredibly malnourished at this point. You barely weigh 95 pounds. Like, you're. You're not well enough. Like, don't go to Worlds. But my.

In your life. Who, like, who. Whose role would that have been at that stage, do you think?

I think it could have fallen to a lot of people. I would say my coach, except for I don't ever live in the same city as my coach, so it wasn't like he necessarily had eyes on me. My mom had come up to the hospital, but then she was back in London and I was living in Toronto. I think when I saw some of our Team Canada staff at the 10K championships, because though I wasn't racing, I was still there. I think someone, you know, might. Might have. Should have looked at me and been like, okay, like, you know, we need to talk about Worlds or talk. You know, you need to go see our nutritionist or somebody. So I think, like, I should have known better, but as the dumb athlete that we all are, like. And I say that all the time, like, an athlete needs a coach because we're inherently stupid and we need other people to guide us. I just think I didn't. I was new to living in Canada. I'd always lived. I've lived in the US since undergrad, essentially, and especially through my start of my pro career. I've always been on my own. I just. I was down in Tennessee working as a lawyer, doing my own thing and running. So it didn't occur to me in 2017 that now my body's severely failed me. I should have people to help me navigate through it, I just, it was such a foreign concept to me because I'd never had any help previous. Like, I have a great relationship with my coach, but it's. We see. We would see each other a handful of times through the year. It was just kind of understood I get the work done. So the bottom really fell out in 2017.

And is your experience in that regard of not really having true oversight on you, eyes on you all the time, remote coaching, this feeling being on your own, is that the rule or the exception? If you look at your sport, yeah.

Running in general, I feel like I'm. I feel like I was more the exception because the more I, you know, kind of grown into the sport and especially the last couple years seeing like some of my teammates who train in Toronto, they have like a club and they see their coach regularly. It's almost more like a university system. And my teammates out in Vancouver, they might each have an individual coach, but they see their coach regularly. They go. And I would say since the Olympics and since there has been an overhaul with Athletics Canada, they're doing a lot better and they are more hands on and there is more oversight with their athletes. I think, unfortunately, I just kind of fell into a crack that wasn't being monitored and I think they've since filled it because. Yeah, and I've not been on a national team since the Olympics, but from what I see from my teammates and kind of the discussions I've had with them, it seems that there's a lot more oversight, a lot more investment going in to athletes and a lot more awareness of your fringe athletes like me that don't necessarily train at the training centers or aren't necessarily regulars at the training camps because of whatever other aspects of their life. It appears anyways that they, they're doing a lot better. And I just, I was on the tail end of a bad regime with.

With all the, with all the costs that comes with surgery and rehab and because you're just talking one surgery, but with all that comes with that, like, you know, is, is your sport body covering that? Do you know?

No. So I lost my funding after the Olympics, so partly because of the political nightmare. And just kind of, like I said, there was a regime change and there was an overhaul of the higher members of Athletics Canada. And I think I was kind of the last person, I was, you know, one of the last people to kind of be ousted by the former head coach. It was kind of one of his dying declarations, so to speak. So then last year in 2018, when I was bouncing around to God knows how many specialists and doctors trying to figure out what was wrong with my left leg, and finally ended up at the Mayo Clinic down in the US paying out of pocket for tests there, and then ended up paying out of pocket for hip surgery in Michigan. Because the surgeons I saw in Canada didn't want to do a full repair. They wanted to just remove the torn piece of my labrum and not touch the hip impingement or bone spur. Because at that point I'm over 30 and I've already gone to an Olympics, so why fix it? So it was my own decision. I could have waited and played the game and tried to find a surgeon in Canada that would repair it the way I wanted to. But looking at the timeline to try and give myself the best bet of making the 2020 team, I found out, I think right before my birthday in April. So right around April 11, I found out I needed hip surgery. And by May 10 I was having the surgery and I had it down in Michigan, so. And then all of the rehab, it.

Wouldn'T have in Canada.

No, that, that quick I wouldn't have gotten in Canada.

Unless you were being really, really heavily supported by your national body and getting in to some connection.

Yeah. And I tried to call in a few, and I did have a few. I did meet with a few, like specialists, not necessarily surgeons, but people like gatekeepers to other surgeons, other specialists and surgeons. And I think by the time they gave me a call for an appointment, I was already six weeks post op. And I get it. Like I, I'm not an Olympic medalist, so my priority ranking is, is a little bit less, but. And it was my choice. Like I, I was gonna, I was saving up to buy a condo and instead I bought a hip. Um.

But be with you forever.

Yeah, always. I, like, I don't think I would have been okay making any other decision. I think it would have kind of eaten me alive not knowing what I was capable of doing if I just left it as was. Or if you didn't. Yeah. And like. But yeah, the costs and then the, it's not like you have the surgery and that's the only expense. Like I still have regular rehab and physio and work that I do and I fly to Phoenix to see a specialist and I'm here in Toronto seeing a specialist. So dealing with all that, like the expenses are high and that's kind of the game when you, when you get sick and injured. I guess it's a game anyways, but it's especially so when you're, when you're not in a sport that earns a ton of money anyways. When you're not in with your federation. Yeah, it's a lot out of pocket.

You're really truly on your own and it's the labor of love to keep going. But you're, you know, you're working to subsidize your own sport or finding sponsors because you don't have the coverage from your own sport body.

Yeah, yeah, it's amazing the differences. I just think about my experience dealing with injury and as a professional, if something went wrong in practice, there'd be an MRI that night.

Yeah, yeah, it works.

It's, you know, you're a important commodity for the team. So they're not going to let their commodity sit for a couple weeks waiting for a report. And then, you know, with the national team it was not that fast, but it's definitely faster having the support of the organization things. But as an individual athlete without that connection, it's, you're more and more layers removed from that kind of support. And yet these are all the athletes that have the potential to do something incredible. But the breadth of the coverage isn't there to support those types of moves like the sports centers. That's, you know, why they were created and the medical support was to try to alleviate that. But it's still so far off the pace that it's incredibly frustrating to hear what you're dealing with.

Well, to have more service providers to help. But then at the same time you're looking at all these top end decisions being made around how much attention or how many medals is this one person or this team going to draw for the country. So all the financial decisions, what gets doled out to each sport body or each individual is being, those decisions are being made by the potential to medal or the potential for coverage or attention from the audience. So it's like, are we gonna spend all this money on this one team that's this many athletes, but there's only potential for one medal. Are we gonna spend this money on these athletes that could get more than one medal but they, they may not garner as much attention because it's not as fun to watch or you know what I mean? Like it's so. And meanwhile the athlete for the athlete, they're just going, okay, I've given my blood, sweat and tears, my light for this and I've made all the qualifications like somebody throw me a bone here. That's usually what the athletes are going through.

Yeah, it's a game. And like I said, running is not necessarily a sport that makes a ton of money unless you are winning medals, unless you're winning the Boston Marathon. Like I make or I made an okay living doing it, but I, you know, and I was fortunate that I'm a penny pincher and I still live like a college student and that's why I had my money set aside and I could get hip surgery because I think of if I'd been irresponsible with any of my money at any point, it would have been a very different decision in 2018. I just wouldn't have financially been able to do it other than I just, I was smart with my money. And for some athletes and some, even some runners, like we look at our sprinters and stuff, they do end up with bigger contracts. They do pull a hamstring and they get flown to Germany to see somebody. But that's because medals matter and they're metal contenders, medal winners, medal hopefuls, and I don't begrudge them for those opportunities that they have. But in marathoning especially, I think there's a level of discomfort people come to expect in marathoning. So even with me complaining of left sided pain for years, like we said, I was still performing well. So it didn't. Marathoning is hard. That was kind of the response I get from specialists was, yeah, well you're not. Yeah, marathoning, stupid. Marathoning is hard. Like running sucks and you're always going to be kind of beat up and sore. So I think the biggest lesson I've learned is I'm hardcore. Yes. And I can run through most every pain I've had. I can run through kidney stones, kidney infections, broken bones, torn ligaments, et cetera. Doesn't mean I should. And that if I complain about it and nobody listens, then just complain louder. So I'm more like that.

Now you mentioned before, and I'm coming from a place of looking at an overall healing here, but you mentioned before that your body failed you. And that kind of language implies that, you know, body, do what I want. Are you now?

Which is dammit, perform.

Athletes tend to think it's like, okay, you're my body, you're my bitch, do this. If that's the case, are you now of a mindset that's more honoring, nourishing, loving your body? Are you trying to, you know, is your mindset different now? Are you still kind of like go, go forth and win or what's different now in terms of how you think in this process? Process that you're in, which has to do with healing because you've had the kidney surgery, you've had a hip surgery.

You know, and then I had endometriosis surgery this spring. So the month of May is not my favorite month. At least the last three years, it hasn't been. But especially with that surgery, it was more. That one was more as my human health, they call it, like, it was affecting my athlete health, but it was more just as a human being, as a woman. I was just tired of dealing with these issues for almost a decade. And if I was, I'd learned to be vocal. Like, we never would have done the kidney surgery had I not, like, refused to leave doctor's offices saying, no, it's not normal to just keep giving me more antibiotics, like, you need to fix me. And now, in hindsight, had that cyst ruptured on an airplane, going to Kenya, on a flight, going somewhere, like, completely different outcome. So. And with the hip, I had to advocate, you know, I didn't have to spend all the money to go to the Mayo Clinic and chase down a diagnosis. But I was vocal. And for the. For the endometriosis, especially with it being a women's health issue, it was. Of all my issues, the longest standing one, almost, like I said, almost a decade. Like, I finally, by that third surgery, was like, you know what? Damn it. Like, I'm on this journey. I'm really trying hard to take, to fix my body, to take care of my body, because I've asked a lot of it and I haven't given enough back to it. They're like, no, like, screw you. Fix this. Don't just put me on birth control. Don't keep ripping out my IUD and then putting it back in and then taking it out and putting it back in.

And that's not bone health either. Staying on birth control when your hormones aren't regulating themselves.

Yeah.

People think that with the red syndrome, put someone on birth control and that's going to regulate the period and everything's going to be good, but it just ends up decreasing the bone density more anyway because the person's cycle is still going on, but the hormones have not gone to a healthy, balanced place.

Yeah. And that's kind of what I said when I finally found a surgeon. And I'd worked with a few good doctors, but a lot of them still were kind of of that mindset. Just, you know, a lot of women have endometriosis. It's no big deal. I'm like, yeah, but I have endometriosis complicated by reds and, like, getting one facet of medicine to understand another one. So getting a gynecologist to understand what reds is from, you know, and they don't.

They're specialists.

Yeah.

Legitimately don't know what that is. And it takes a bit for them to understand it because they are specialists in their field, not in exercise physiology.

Exactly. So it was just kind of a lot of advocating for myself. But, yeah, by the time I had that surgery this May, that's where my brain kind of fully came around to, like, all right, like, whether or not you get make the Olympic team in 2020, your only shot at actually doing that is if you stop just forcing your body to do things it clearly can't or won't do anymore. And I'm not 20. I'm not, you know, I'm not, like, able to do a hard workout and the next day go attack things again the same way. Like, I'm in my 30s, which means things do work a bit differently. But that doesn't mean I have to be feel as old and washed up as my body was starting to feel. And I do think, like, allowing more forgiveness too. Like I say, my body failed me. And that was the hardest part, was accepting that, like, I couldn't will myself out of that hospital bed as much as I wanted to. Like, in 2017. Like, it was a victory when I finally was able to walk to the end of the hallway and back. And, like, nothing's more humbling than that when you're like, I, a year ago, was prepping for the Olympic Games and two events, and now, like, we're celebrating that I, on my own, can walk 100 meters. Like, this is a bit ridiculous. And, like, even now, this fall, this winter, I had a really bad chest cold two or three weeks ago. Old Lanny would have gone to the doctor, gotten as many antibiotics as I could, choked them down, and gone and done whatever workouts were on tap. Whereas this time I was like, okay, if I feel good enough, I'll go for a light run. If I don't, then I won't. And I think I had, like, a 25k run on the calendar, and I think I went about 30 minutes at a crawl pace. I was like, you know what? I feel better moving my body, but glad I'm not old Lanny, who is an asshole and would have gone and done the 25k regardless of what was going on.

For people who haven't been competitive runners, per se, they don't really understand that missing A run like that is a big deal. It's a big deal mentally and physically. So to be able to now be more connected with your body so that you're kind of going, we're in this together. Instead of, hey, do what I'm doing, I say, yeah, it's a big deal. It's a big deal to be able to actually do what your body needs instead of making your body do what you keep telling it to do.

Yeah, like, and that's, there's always been a disconnect. Like I even in elementary school, high school, university, like I was always known, I do handstands against the wall to keep myself awake while I was pulling in all night or studying for something like I, I'm somebody that really just decided now do. Exactly. So then the last three years where I'm, I'm having to recognize that my body's not going to just do anymore and I, you know, I've probably, you know, some of the damage I caused was by me forcing things through 2013-2014-2015-2016. And like as much as I, I've had a very accomplished career, like I really was only on the top of the scene in Canada for 3ish years there. And now to claw my way back up to the top. We have so many good runners out there, so many good, talented female runners that it's, even if I'd stayed healthy, it wouldn't have been easy to stay at the top. And now I'm hopeful that I come back with a much bigger toolbox and a much healthier body that once I claw my way back up there, I can, I can have a little bit longer staying power and hopefully like encourage and talk about these things so that the girls that are up there right now also stay and don't kind of have a steep decline like I did.

And have a voice that people will hear. You know, hey, this is, this is what happens when these things are ignored because there's multiple things that were ignored and then you know, that's, that's what you end up suffering with. What a lot of people may not realize is that your age or your sport is kind of like the prime age right now. This is in the zone right now where women peak for endurance running events. Whereas if, you know, if you were a gymnast, you'd be way past your prime. There was one 40 year old Russian gymnast. Yeah, that was unusual, but, but it's like, oh fine, if none of you can do it, I'll come back. But yeah, just from a standpoint of your age overall. You're at this point where you have not only this neurological training that's gone on already, but you're at an age where this is a great age for your sport. It's just going to be a matter of, like you say, getting your best health to really discover what it's going to be like to run in your healthiest body, which you probably have never really experienced. Kind of an exciting thing to think of.

Yeah, it's kind of like what we were talking about before. Where do you know when the powers that be are determining funding or opportunities? Like, no, I wasn't ever a metal hopeful, but I was also running with like one. One leg tied behind my back. Like, I wasn't. Yeah, like, I, you know, I had a wheel popped off and my engine let me kind of steady the car and keep going as much as possible. So my coach and I recognize that, like, if I am fortunate enough to get my body back with my engine and my mental toughness, like, whoa, like, what can I accomplish then? And that's been the exciting part that's kept me in at these last three years is I actually just had a sit down with my coach last week where he was talking about, like, it's, you know, you've been down and out for a long time, but you, like, you're not actually out. Like. Well, I keep looking at each year with the three surgeries and then, you know, the different hiccups along the way. It's not like I've had three years of a steady decline. It's just I've had three years where I've not had enough time with a healthy body or even a halfway healthy body to put in a training block. Because as soon as I did, I was going under the knife again. And as soon as I recovered, back under the knife. Whereas we're still. We still would see these little blips of, you know, good, decent performances or decent workouts. But it was never more than four to five weeks of training before we had to kind of reset or I get sick again, or we'd get my labs back on my numbers and my iron's not non existent still. So old Lanny would chew down a bunch of iron pills and go run this. Lanny's like, okay, like, back off the pounding on my legs until those iron numbers come back up. So it's been three long, hard years, but I look at each of them as these tiny little segments that if we can start extending out that four or five weeks of healthy training and get eight to 10 weeks and then you get 12 to 14 weeks and then all of a sudden that's a marathon build. Then all of a sudden like you can actually race again. And so as we are getting closer to those numbers and those periods of training, then I'm like, okay, like the last three years have sucked. But I've put in the work to heal all the parts of my body that I can and now I can, I can be, I can train again. Now I can actually call myself a runner again.

Out of curiosity, from your, some of your blocks because you haven't been able to put in some of the longer build blocks that would build up your volume. Overall, are you keeping some of your fitness by doing some pretty intense shorter blocks or shorter workouts?

Yeah, so I don't cross train a ton anymore. I did like after the hip surgery because I couldn't run. So I had an elliptical, which is the elliptical machine you can take outside. I got a road bike. I was swimming a ton. But then now as we've added running back in, if I have a layoff for whatever reason, like after the endometriosis surgery, I just, I just don't have it in me to put four hours into the gym cross training anymore. I just don't care. I took my dog for long walks, so I did stuff like that in terms of like just for volume or time on my legs. I just found other things. I go for hikes, found other fun things to do, went took tennis lessons with my friends, like stupid stuff like that. And then yeah, like, because especially with the left leg, with the nerve issues we were still kind of having after the surgery, I couldn't do the longer tempo runs or the super long runs. I just started to kind of hit those at the end of the summer, early fall this year. So there was a lot of workouts where I would do 10 to 12 times a K with like a 3 minute walk in between. So I wouldn't even jog the walk the break in between, but I'd be putting in like a high volume workout and the paces were, you know, a ghost of the paces. I used to be able to run K repeats in, but I was at least getting some, some mileage in. And then we did a lot of workouts where they would, they'd be minute on minute off times 60. And the difference is that I walk the minute off instead of running it. But running that minute wasn't allowed to be slower than 5k or 10k pace. Like I had to run hard and that Was kind of like I was surprised because it's not really how I've ever trained before. I was surprised at how fit I got and how quickly I could get that fit. What we, what we would see then though, is I'd like line up and I did a few 5k races this summer and I couldn't get anything better than a 17, a low 17. So I didn't have the endurance side to maintain those paces because especially with my background and with my engine running a hard minute and then walking a minute like that, by the time I'm 10 to 15 seconds into that walk, my heart rates are like, my heart rate's already come down. So I was getting pretty fit. But that endurance side we just started to kind of see, come back around late fall, like October, November of this year, you'd have to cut that walk.

Time into like 20 seconds or 30 seconds or something like that in order to push the fitness endurance kind of thing.

Yeah. And that's what we did. We ended up. One of my last workouts in end of November was 60 times 40 seconds, all out, 22nd walk.

A fun workout.

Yeah. Basically for me, like my all out, like, let's be honest, I'm a marathoner, so it's not like my all out is going to be like Andre de Grass's 200 times, but like, so for me, but ended up being roughly like six 60 times 200. Which, if you had told me to go to the track and do that, I would have told you to screw off. But for some reason putting it down as a fart lick, I would be there in Victoria Park. And I'm sure people are starting to recognize this weird girl doing loop after loop after loop. Yeah. It's a perfect, almost a perfect kilometer around Victoria Park. Yeah. So I do a lot of my workouts there. Yeah. Change direction sometimes. But what I like about it is especially with my, with the nerve stuff that was still going on with my leg, if it, if it flared up, I could walk back to the good life downtown. And it wasn't, wasn't like I was stuck somewhere on the bike paths and having to figure out how to get back to my car.

You're 10k out and you're like, okay, well somebody pick me up and stuff. I go through right now with my life.

Yeah. Because I've done that. And then old Lanny, like, then my habits of like, okay, just suck it up and jog. Like, whereas now, like, I've learned if something goes wrong, stop if you can't run the pace you're supposed to run stop. Eventually I'll get back to a point where you don't quit. You. You have to keep pushing through the workout. And I. It's.

No. You're able to tolerate that. Yeah. And that's what you're learning to discover what you're able to tolerate and get to that point.

Yeah. Because my engine, like, it lets me get away with a lot. It's my, my superpower and my kryptonite. Cause I do think it's what made me a great runner. And when I'm probably a little bit less talented than some of the girls I compete against and or was beating. But it also then meant like I was pushing through things like alarm bells are going off and my engines just roaring loud enough that I don't hear the alarms. So I'm having to really pay attention to any alarm bells that I hear.

So I'm dying to know because I run recreationally. I don't even know what you'd call me as a runner compared to you. But old Lanny versus New Lanny, extremely hard workout. Where is your mind going to get through it? What do you. I mean, and like you've described running through what must have been staggering pain.

Yeah.

Where is your mind going to do that? And probably looking back on it, it was a negative thing with old Lanny. I'm not sure you can answer, but where would it go? Where do you go now and just explain that to me because I mean, when I'm in a suffer fast workout of any type, you know, my mind can go all over the place. But your workouts are so long and I can't imagine so.

So with. With me, like for certain, with tough workouts in the past, I would, I would be fueled by whatever. Like I was fueled a lot by negative energy. So it would have been being, you know what some of the asinine trolls would say about me online would like fuel me to like go push through and be like, okay, like I'm gonna prove everybody wrong. Or like if I was having any issues in a personal relationship and I was hurt or upset by that, like, I learned to run. And if you. I have video now. It's disgusting when I look at it how hunched over and sunken in I was by the Olympics and by like running in 2017 of just forcing myself to run with all these hits I was taking and I was just absorbing them, whether they were mental or emotional. I just would absorb the hit and then like use that somehow to fuel me and push me to go forward. Whereas now when I have a hard workout, my mind, sometimes it's weird, my mind will still try to go to some, like find some negative thought to hold on to. And I have to actively like, remind myself that, no, you love doing this. And like, the assholes of the world that are out there, there are always going to be assholes. And the one thing you get to control is how you feel doing this and how you feel doing anything you want to do with your life. So now when I have a hard workout and when I'm. When it's hurting, I'm reminding myself I'm picturing that finish line at the Tokyo Olympics. I'm picturing and reliving the finish line of the Rio Olympics or setting the previous record or even like the local 5k I did in my hometown this summer, or like in London, or the Pride Run I did this summer in Toronto, where it was my first real race back post surgeries, multiples, and how excited everybody was that I was back. Nobody cared that I didn't win. Nobody cared that I didn't break 17 minutes and ran a time that law school Lani would have laughed at. Nobody cared. They just were excited that I was back out there. And so I try to make sure I think of those thoughts and those memories and hard workouts as opposed to reliving any of the hurts that people have kind of put me through.

I have to say and acknowledge both of you, because you both, I know, haven't necessarily acknowledged this in yourselves, in that I've seen for years how much of an inspiration he has been to other people. Like people started playing volleyball after watching him. People stayed in the sport or loved the sport because of him. And I know that the same is going to be true for you and has been true in that there are so many people who have been inspired by what you have done. And knowing the both of you to the extent and the smaller extent that I do for you, but knowing that that's not at all in your mind's when you're doing the things you're doing. You're both so competitive and so driven. And I have that in me too. It takes one to know one that you don't think of who you've positively affected and who you can really the people, the fans, the young ones that have looked at you and started running because they fell in love with watching something that you did and fell in love with the drive that you have shown. And that can be the fuel too. And it's something that what you've done and what you've done, there's so much to be proud of. And I'd like to acknowledge you both for that, because it can be some of the positive fuel to go for the people that you've affected positively. And good thing.

That's been the hardest thing, I think, because my. I always felt like my running, at least competing for Canada and in Canada was always had to be a political statement. It had to. My teammates got to kind of run free and compete free and enjoy it. Whereas because my birth onto that scene was 2012, arguing to make the Olympic team, it kind of felt like I was always the bad girl. I was misfit marchant all over again from my skating years all the way up against Athletics Canada. And it was hard. It was frustrating at times, too. And there was a big feeling of I'm not worthy. A big feeling of like, I don't get to be proud of anything I did. Like, my teammates have the Olympic rings on them, and I don't because I didn't walk away from my Olympic experience saying, I get to be proud of that. I was happy with it and I cherished it. Two of my sisters and my mom were there, and it was a great experience, but it was almost more seeing the pride in them that made me realize, like, oh, what I did was pretty cool. But based on my own competitive nature and the comparison I had for what I deemed would be successful in Athletics Canada's eyes, in the media's eyes, in the trolls online's eyes, and the friendships or the people that I thought cared about me but probably really didn't their. Their view of me. Like, that was the biggest thing after the Olympics that I had to come to terms with. And then especially these last three years, I've kind of gone back to my. I'm sorry, my phone did something stupid. Kind of come back to my, like, old Lanny mindset of, like, 2012, 2013, or it's like, I don't fucking care if you guys think what I did was cool or not. I think what I did was pretty freaking cool. And if it's. If I'm. If. If I'm a 17 minute 5K girl, I'm a 17 minute 5K Girl. Like, you go through three. Three surgeries in three years and you go run a 17 minute 5K, and then we can. Then you can shirk me and you can say what you want to say about me.

Honestly, like, from two people who have been in sport for a really long time and Seen so many different things. If you can take it from us, you deserve to be proud. You deserve to heal. This is you as an amazing, perfect entity. No matter how you are, deserve to be proud of everything you've done, and you're nurturing yourself in a way that's healing now, and only good things are going to come from that, that's for sure.

I've learned, like, even within the last year, I've had, like, certain people close to me go, you're the bulldog. Like, all you do is just cause problems and da, da, da, da. And I was like, you know what? I am a bulldog. I'm on the Sport Dispute Resolution center of Canada because I want to make sport better for our athletes. You know, I'm on the SafeSport Work Code Group to try and create a safe sport agency in Canada. You're, like, for years, at least, with my professional running career, when people were calling you a bulldog or, you know, saying horrible things about me, I would, like, I kind of fell into the trap of believing it. Whereas now I'm like, you know what? Like, calling me a bulldog actually isn't a bad thing. Like, I'm. I was always that kid. I was like, me, too. Yeah. I was the kid in high school when the. When I remember the vice principal getting mad because I was wearing a tank top. And, girl, it was against our school dress code because you could see our bra strap hanging out of our tank tops. And so my solution was, fine, I'll take off my bra. That was me in high school. And I'm sad to say that I kind of lost that little bit of me through a bit of my Olympic experience. But then, especially in the last 12 months, I've kind of become that person again where I'm just like, yeah. I was like, screw you. Like, I don't care. This is what needs to happen. This is what needs to be said or done. So we have a dog. Baby.

There's that fur baby.

There she is. Okay, she's gone now. She just came to say hi, so.

Isn't that funny? Dogs are the best. She's like, okay. Are you okay? I can smell something changing in your chemistry.

Mommy's passionate.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a sliding door. So she lets you, like, poked her head in and then attacked, and then she went out and drank water. No big deal.

Yeah. If they. If my dog sends any change in emotion or anything like that, they're like, like, right.

Yeah.

Door has to be closed. Because if they sense that I'm getting either excited or Sad or something like that. They're going to be on my, like.

What'S going on over there? Yep.

Yeah, mom, what's happening?

Yeah, come on. So it's been a big. I guess I wouldn't wish the last three years on anybody but for like what I've learned about myself and what I've learned about reds especially. And looking back at some of the way I was processing things through 2015, 2016, 2017 that I was, I'm able to now forgive a bit more and go, like, you just, you did not have the capacity to handle anything at all. And I remember, especially in 2017, going, how did you get two law degrees? Like, you can't even like focus on something for five minutes right now. Like, what is wrong with you? And now I'm just like, oh, you are a dynamic person. You are intelligent. Like, who knew she was gone For.

A minute there, you were basically malnourished and surviving. Your body was trying to survive as life over limb at that point.

Yeah.

So for us to wrap up what. There's two main things. What's next for you? And then we want to hit you with a few kind of fun personal questions so people can get to know the behind the scenes a little more. What's next for you at this point?

Well, I'm going to go somewhere for the holidays that's warm. I'm going to peace out for a week or so as kind of a down week. Like, I'll bring some running shoes, but they'll be throwaway ones that I can leave behind because then when I get back, like, I kind of recognize if I'm going to put a push in to make the Tokyo team. Like, I have to kind of button everything up and, and probably be more serious about training without taking myself too seriously as best I can. So when I get back early January, then all, you know, it's full swing ahead to try and run a marathon early spring. And that will be my first marathon in three and a half years and just, you know, see what it gets me. If I run a healthy, happy race and I run 235, I run 235. If I get to make a little bit of magic happen and I run under the Olympic standard, great. And it's kind of a pressure free scenario right now just because, like I said, we have so much talent in Canada that I don't feel like heavy wears is the head that wears the crown. Like, everyone's not looking to me to lead the charge of Canadian women just running I felt like it was myself and Krissa Duchene, but because I was labeled the misfit, it was very much like me, like, everyone. Like, I had to make sure our Canadian women were respected and taken care of and had these spots on these teams. Whereas, like, if there's ever been a torch that's been passed and it gets been passed and it's been split up amongst, you know, four or five or six really talented women. So running the standard might not be enough to get me on the team. And I'm okay with that because I said in 2016 I wanted 2020 to be competitive and to be hard to make that team. I didn't necessarily want the three years of bullshit in between there. But. So, yeah, like, I just want to run a marathon in the spring and, like, have an eye towards Tokyo, but just kind of respect the process and be excited about it. And I would say this is probably the most excited I've been about the potential of running a marathon in years, because even in 2017, 2018, the thought of running one was daunting. It was just kind of like a. Oh, God. That's what people kind of think I need to do. Whereas now I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna do it. And it might be the ugliest thing I've ever done, but at least I know I've been able to get back. So that's the goal of the spring. And then we'll kind of be able to evaluate more after that if there's an eye towards Tokyo or an eye towards some bucket list race somewhere else that I want to go do.

That's amazing. What. What would you. What kind of words of wisdom or advice would you impart for young runners or young athletes or a young version of yourself? What kind of piece of advice would you give?

Oh, that's a good one. It's just running, like, at the end of the day, like, it's supposed to add to your life. It's not supposed to take away from it. And if you're fortunate enough that it gets to become your career or a big part of your life, remember that it's just a part of your life. Like, it shouldn't become everything. And that was kind of always the category I kept it in. And what's funny is leading to the Olympics. People started telling me I needed to be more emotionally connected to running, and I needed to connect more to it and make it more of my life. And I think what I've realized is that might work for some but for me, I'm better off lawyering, still being a sister, you know, having a relationship, having a healthy relationship with running, like making it a part of my life works better for me. And I think if I could tell anybody anything, it'd be like, make sure your plate is full with every other things that make you happy so that when your one passion, if it does fail you, you don't feel like a complete failure.

Speaking of making you happy, what kind of music and movies make you happy?

Oh, I'm big into like superhero movies.

We just got into some lately.

Yeah. So after my hip surgery, I watched all of them in order and leading up until the final Avengers movie that was out at that time. I think that was Infinity wars maybe. But yeah, so I watched them and that meant I had to watch some of the TV series and stuff. So when I was at the gym, like spinning my legs. Yeah, I just watched them on my little tablet or whatever. Read a lot. I tend to flip between, like, I'll read like a historical book, an autobiography, etc. And then I'll read fiction or some, you know, really mindless, like, book written by a comedian or something. So I flip back and forth and then music. It's kind of anything goes. I'm not too. As much time as I spent down in Tennessee and in Nashville and Chattanooga. I'm not all that big into country, but I can listen to pretty much anything else. And I don't mind a little bit of country, but I think I had my feel of it down in Nashville.

Yeah, we really appreciate you coming on. This has been, we're honored to have you. You're so talented as a human athlete. Like, we didn't even touch on your double law degree all that much, but you mentioned you're a practicing lawyer, so this isn't, you know, full time running in rehab. You've got a lot going on. So we're really thankful that you were able to take some time with us and share your story because I know that this will be impactful for a lot of people. There's a lot of people suffering with various things that you have and they need to hear to be able to honor their body, to be able to heal and go through that and understand, you know, we want to share just how incredible you are and what you've done in your career.

Yeah, I'm hoping that with everything that you shared that for a few athletes out there, you can be the coach or the voice of reason and that little bit of oversight because there's more falling through the cracks. They're out there.

Oh, yeah.

There's some big cracks out there.

Yeah. If they can just pull one or two things from what you've said and get a holistic view on their life, then what you've said today is going.

To make an impact.

So thank you for that.

Yeah. Thank you.

Hey everyone, thank you so much for listening. If you're wanting to connect with Kari and I for online training, public speaking events, or more, simply send your request to info powerconditioning.com and hey, we need your help to keep growing this show, so please share it with coaches, athletes, trainers, parents, anyone who you think might be interested. Get them to smash that subscribe button and follow the Empowered Athlete Podcast. We can't do it without you. Thanks again for listening.