Kara Goucher: Inside the Secret World of Elite Sport Doping, Abuse & Deception

This week, I am joined by Kara Goucher. She bravely shares her experiences as an athlete, including injuries, financial struggles, and her time with the Nike Oregon Project. We delve into the weight management pressures and ethical dilemmas she faced regarding doping practices. Kara also opens up about the emotional impact of being assaulted by her coach and the struggle to speak out about it. We also discuss the mistreatment of pregnant athletes by sponsors like Nike and the importance of advocating for clean sport and athlete welfare. Throughout our conversation, Kara emphasizes the importance of standing up for what’s right, even if it comes at a personal cost. Her story is inspiring and highlights the need for change in the sports industry and beyond. This is a powerful discussion. I encourage everyone to listen to this discussion and join Kara in speaking up against abuse and wrongdoing in sports. Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: Inside Tracker: Use code RICHROLL to save 25% OFF all Inside Tracker tests 👉insidetracker.com/richroll On: Get 10% OFF high-performance shoes and apparel 👉on.com/RICHROLL Eight Sleep: Get $200 OFF the Pod 3 Cover 👉EightSleep.com/RICHROLL AG1: Get a FREE 1-year supply of Vitamin D3+K2 AND 5 free AG1 Travel Packs 👉drinkAG1.com/RICHROLL Bon Charge: Use code RICHROLL to save 15% OFF 👉 boncharge.com/RICHROLL Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 1:06Speaker 01

  I think we have intuition for a reason. I stopped listening to mine.

• 1:11Speaker 02

  More track and field athletes are speaking about Nike's Oregon project and its coach, Alberto Salazar.

• 1:17Speaker 01

  Signing with Nike in 2001, this is every runner's dream.

• 1:29Speaker 01

  It's just telling the truth. This is what happened.

• 1:32Rich Roll?

  Today, we're gonna explore the clandestine intricacies of elite sport. A world that is rife with deception, with manipulation, with abuse, with impropriety. And we're gonna do it through the lived experience of two-time Olympian Kara Goucher. A vanguard of professional track and field, as well as marathon running, with podiums at both Boston and New York City. Which are accomplishments that Kara earned, despite contending with a predatory coach as a member of Nike's controversial, elite running team.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  There was one story being fed to the world and marketed, and there was another story that I was actually living.

• 2:11Rich Roll?

  Along the path of Cara's many extensive victories, what's interesting is that her journey is often punctured by setbacks, by near misses, by injuries. And it provides this really compelling lesson to anybody out there who is chasing an audacious goal. Because Cara has this unbelievable ability to compartmentalize and thrive amidst what I really can only characterize as a quite tumultuous milieu that showcases her unique mental dexterity, her level of mastery as she navigated through doping rumors, the horrors of sexual abuse, as well as grappling with the arduous role of a whistleblower. In her transformative New York Times bestseller, The Longest Race,

• 2:56Rich Roll?

  Cara provides this really raw and transparent account of the abuse, the doping, and the deception, encapsulating the omerta that perfumed the sportswear titan. Today, Cara shares her story. She does it with courageous sincerity, with openness. It's powerful. So, sit back and please enjoy my conversation with Kara Goucher.

• 3:24Rich Roll?

  We're finally doing it.

• 3:25Speaker 01

  Yay.

• 3:26Rich Roll?

  So happy to finally meet you, finally get you in here. I know that we went back and forth around trying to figure out how to get you in here when the book came out, which is almost a year ago at this point. But now the paperback is on the horizon. So the opportunity arose again, and I'm delighted and honored that you would come down here and share thoughts from your career and from this stunning and quite revealing book that you put out, The Longest Race, which has made quite the impact in the running world, in the apparel world, and beyond. It must have been a pretty wild and disorienting ride

• 4:08Rich Roll?

  when the book finally hit bookstores and all this stuff was made public. How has that been for you the last 11 months?

• 4:16Speaker 01

  You know, I was so nervous about it, just thinking people would look at me differently or judge me differently. And I was really concerned with the people who are already in my life and what they would think. But I just, like, the morning that it came out, I didn't, you know, it was on TV and I didn't watch it. I went for a run. I came back and I just felt this sense of peace. I think like when you've been holding things in for so many years and been ashamed to share, and then it was just out there. And so, sure, there's been moments where people are negative about it, or, you know, it's funny when you meet people and like, they know this about you, but they don't want to admit that they know this about you or whatever. So there's been like some quirky moments, but in general, it's been really freeing.

• 4:59Rich Roll?

  Often, when a tell-all type book comes out, it's well after the chronicled events, and many of those events and the details of them have already been made public. It's just, okay, now here it all is in a book. But you were coming out with all sorts of stuff for the very first time, like revealing things that only you knew, that you were kind of disclosing publicly. And that, you know, that definitely caused some tremors in the running world, right? So, yes, a sense of peace, of course, but also, I would imagine, a sense of responsibility to then kind of, you know, steward this message into the world, which I know you've taken seriously and is kind of a big part of your whole world these days.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, without sharing it all, nothing can change. And I think there's so much fear of like retribution, or the industry shutting you out, or whatever it is. But then, things will just stay the same. So it's like, if I'm gonna do this, and I'm gonna talk about all the things that happened, then I have to, like, really do it, and then be honest about it, and be willing to answer the hard questions, and be willing to meet with people, and otherwise, what's the point?

• 6:10Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:11Rich Roll?

  It's scary, though.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean-

• 6:13Rich Roll?

  You know, going up against Nike and these powerful figures, and, you know, you're like, naming names, and you've got all the receipts, and there are CEOs involved, and high-profile coaches, and other athletes, and, you know, these people are not anonymized in the story.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  No. I mean, nothing, there wasn't a single story told that there wasn't a receipt for, right? I mean, the first version had a lot more stories, but it couldn't get through legal, because people understandably were like, if they sue you, I can't say that I told you this, or I can't affirm. But-

• 6:50Speaker 01

  The thing is, like, it's not meant to tear any one person down or anything like that. It's just telling the truth. Like, this is what happened. These are the people that were involved. These are the choices they made. These are the choices I made. And that's just factual. This is what happened.

• 7:05Rich Roll?

  Have you bumped into any of the Nike executives that you knew back during that time? Or, you know, since the book has come out, have you had some awkward encounters?

• 7:16Speaker 01

  Um, well, no one speaks to me, right? So I've seen people, like, bumped into people at the world championships or the US championships. And it's just, we just, they pretend like they don't see me, which is fine. You know, I don't want to fight what the, the only thing I really, truly want, which I know I'm never going to get, is an acknowledgement that there was wrongdoing and that they held some responsibility. We can't go back in time.

• 7:39Rich Roll?

  Meaning Nike.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, just admitting, like, hey, this was an unhealthy situation, and we weren't looking out for you. And we apologize, like.

• 7:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you're going to be waiting a while for that, I think.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  I faced that, you know, I know that's not going to happen. But like, that's the only thing I really would, like, appreciate. But I have to, I don't want to give up my love of running and my love of the sport. So I have to just coexist with these people that are still there. And that's fine. I'm not out to, like, start chaos everywhere I go. I want to be able to exist in this, in this world.

• 8:10Rich Roll?

  We should clarify, for purposes of context, that we're talking about your time at the Nike Oregon Project, where you were training and competing under Coach Alberto Salazar. We're going to get into all of that. And this is not a new subject matter for this podcast. I've hosted lots of other people who are in the book, you know, on the show. I've had Steve Magnus, David Epstein, Matt Futterman, Mary Kane, Lindsey Krauss, even, way back. But, you know, you're, you're the kind of focal point of this whole thing. And we're going to get into the details of all of that. But, but I think before we do that, there was one thing that really struck me about your book and your career.

• 8:54Rich Roll?

  Which is that there are so many ups and downs and your trajectory is anything but you know, linear or skyward. For every victory, there's a million setbacks, there's financial hardship, there's injuries, there's near misses, there's lots of losses and second places and fourth places. And I think that's, that's instructive for anybody who's watching or listening to this, that that is the blueprint upon which most champions are made. Like, it's mostly failures and misses and setbacks with the occasional victory. So, talk a little bit about like how

• 9:35Rich Roll?

  you, when you look back upon your career, how that kind of forms, how you talk to young athletes or other athletes about how to think about their own progress or lack thereof.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  I'm like, I'm sure you've experienced it. You have like that one great moment and then that's what feeds you to continue. But most of it is unglamorous. Most of it is actually failure or not getting what you hoped. But that's sort of the beauty of it, is that it's this like never-ending pursuit. I, I was so up and down, you know, I'm like, winning a state championship, have a stress fracture. Winning a national title, another stress fracture, or whatever it might be.

• 10:13Rich Roll?

  The number of injuries that you had is insane.

• 10:15Speaker 01

  And there were times where I would be like, what am I doing? Like, I remember graduating from college. I got a postgraduate scholarship. I turned it down to sign with Nike. And my day was literally spent sleeping in as late as I could, doing the elliptical for two hours and waiting for Adam to come home. I was like, what am I doing? Like, I used to be somebody, you know? I used to like, be smart and have like, things I wanted to do. And instead, I'm just a shell of a human. But then, every time I thought about moving on from it, I would just get this feeling like, you're not done. And as long as that feeling existed for me, I could, I would just endure and keep trying. But that's not to say it wasn't like... Always easy. You know, there was plenty of times where it was like, what am I doing with

• 11:00Speaker 01

  my life? And why is this so hard? You know, you look at everyone else, it seems like everyone else is just making the transition from high school to college, college to pro, pro to Olympian so easily. And that just wasn't my experience. It was roadblocks and like having to overcome the whole time.

• 11:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it felt like you were kind of sliding in the, you know, through the door that was closing quickly at the last minute every time. And I don't think it's fair to characterize you as a, as a late bloomer necessarily, but there are some kind of late bloomer aspects of your career. It wasn't like you were the fastest kid out of high school like Mary Kane. You had all this hustle to try to, you know, find the college that was going to work for you, like writing letters and all that kind of stuff.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  Or just tape beat.

• 11:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And then you had, you had, you had success, you know, at Boulder and college. But even then, it wasn't clear that a professional career was in the making for you and you had some highlights in that professional career, but maybe not, you didn't reach the, the sort of heights that maybe you thought you were capable of. And it wasn't until you start embracing the longer distances where you have some breakout moments. And, you know, you're, you're well along, like your, your shining moments come so late in the arc of your career.

• 12:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I made my first Olympic team at 29 and just a couple of days before I turned 30. So, yeah, I mean, I think it's fair to say a late bloomer. I think figuring out my body and what worked for me and the way my body changed throughout the course of especially like high school through college, my body really changed a lot and like figuring out what that meant and what works for me. And also learning that I needed to lean into really doing the work. Like, I think in high school and even a little bit in college, I could get away with just showing up on that day and doing the workout. But as you get further down, like that doesn't work anymore. You're running against people who are super talented. And so being a well, a more well-rounded athlete, but the thing that's a little bit

• 12:59Speaker 01

  crazy is I never stopped thinking I could make it, you know?

• 13:03Rich Roll?

  So what is that? Like, where did that kernel of belief come, come from?

• 13:07Speaker 01

  I just always felt like, no, if I could just, if I can just overcome this or overcome that, like, one of my favorite things I used to say to myself is like, be patient, little lion, you'll roar. And I know that's so cheesy, but I really, really felt that way. Like, I will have my moment. Like, it'll come if I just, if I sit through this and I sit through this and I take this. And I don't, I just kind of always believed that. You know, I didn't reach, it's funny when you talk to athletes because you'll talk to someone who won an Olympic gold medal and they're like, but I didn't get the world record. Or you talk to this person and they say, but I didn't win this and I didn't achieve all the things that I had hoped to achieve, but I just kept believing like, you know, if I put in the time, I'll have that opportunity. And then if I'm ready, that's when the magic happens.

• 13:48Rich Roll?

  Do you think that you had teammates who, who had the same capabilities, but didn't have that same level of self-belief, who retired too early or didn't stay? Like, a lot of it is just persistence. Like, you know, the book is called The Longest Race, but it's really the long game that you're playing. Like, it's all about playing this long game and being ready when that moment arises.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  Totally. And I was married to Adam, who was a professional runner himself. So even if like, it was just still in my life, even when I was injured, right? Like, he was still going to Europe and he was racing. And so I think maybe if I wasn't married to him or whatever, maybe I would have stepped away. But everything was set up for me to continue, even though at points it seemed worthless. But yeah, I do think, I think of a lot of athletes that I've trained with over the years that are, were more talented than me. Maybe they didn't, I hate to say they don't want it as much as me, but they weren't willing to like, give up everything else like maybe I was. But I do think, that's one of the things, like, for me that gets complicated is Nike stood by me through all of those years, all of those injury years.

• 14:53Speaker 01

  And without that, I probably would have moved on. And so when I see athletes, especially in their like, late twenties, struggling, I just think, oh man, just stay the course. Like, if you can just stay the course and keep believing, you never know it could be on that other side. But a lot of times for financial reasons or just real life, they have to move on.

• 15:11Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. Do you think it's something that's trainable, that, that sense of self-belief and that level of persistence to stay in it? Or do you think that you're just born with that? Like, this is bred out of whatever happened in your childhood?

• 15:26Speaker 01

  I mean, I think a little bit is just the way I'm wired. But I do think you can believe in yourself and see your progress and, and, and give yourself a chance. I do think a little bit of it's just, just the way I'm wired. Like, when I want something, I'm gonna, I will wait until the very last moment when it opens up and I'll get it.

• 15:47Rich Roll?

  Did that make it? Challenging for you when you finally did make the decision to retire? Did you want to keep going? Because it's not like you had the, you know, the sort of career and that I'm sure you would have preferred.

• 16:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, retirement was terrible.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  It was horrible.

• 16:05Rich Roll?

  I was trying to put that delicately.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  It's OK. It was just terrible. Honestly, it was like I didn't make the Olympic team in 2016, but I was the happiest I'd ever been as far as being a professional athlete. So I think athletes make this mistake a lot. My initial like dream was to run in 2016 and retire. But then it was like, well, then I didn't get what I want. So now I have to rewrite the ending to this story. So I have to make a world championship team or I have to win a major. I have to do something. And that led to two or three years of just total banging my head against the wall. Like, the body was done, but I was just trying to make it happen because I was like, no, I didn't get the ending I wanted. And the reality is like, who really gets the ending they want? That's kind of life.

• 16:45Speaker 01

  But it was so difficult and there was so much, you know, talking, therapy and crying and being frustrated and thinking if, why can't I just have this one last moment? I just want one more moment, you know? And I just didn't get it.

• 17:00Rich Roll?

  So the 2016 U.S. Olympic Marathon trials, you got fourth, right? Three go. Missed it by one slot. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but, but two of the people that beat you were wearing Vaporflies, right?

• 17:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:17Rich Roll?

  And was that the first instance of the super shoes showing up on, on that kind of stage at that point?

• 17:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, nobody knew about it, right? It was, they were just prototypes and that was the first time they were used in competition. So nobody knew about it. And honestly, the athletes that beat me were tremendously talented athletes. So there was nothing to question. You know, I just stayed up for like two months at night.

• 17:43Rich Roll?

  Except questioning what, the what if, if you were wearing those shoes.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  Well, when I found out about the shoes, that of course reopened this huge wound because, you know, when you're, when something like that, that you want it so bad. Like I moved my family. We've been living in apartments. Like I asked my family to sacrifice for me and I just wanted it so bad and so many people were in on it. When you miss it and, and you know, if I had been 10th, it would have been like, okay, well, obviously the ship has sailed, but to be fourth just felt so cruel and so many nights thinking about the race and replaying it in my mind. And I had finally kind of started to move on from it when I found out about the shoes and it just kind of reopened everything.

• 18:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's, that's, that's why.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  It was, it was bad. It was really bad. It was very dark for me.

• 18:29Rich Roll?

  I would, I don't know that I'd want to be your therapist.

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, Claudia Murphy. She's a, she's a good woman.

• 18:35Rich Roll?

  God bless her. Can we talk about the Nike Oregon project a little bit? I don't even know what the best way to kind of get into this is. I mean, maybe, maybe, you know, I want, I can't assume that everyone listening or watching like knows the story. So I want to give you the opportunity to kind of share how you came to be part of that team and what that experience was like. And then we can kind of get into the details of it.

• 19:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. So in 2004, my husband, who's an Olympian, he's a 2000 Olympian, we, we just weren't running very well.

• 19:10Rich Roll?

  College sweetheart.

• 19:10Speaker 01

  My college sweetheart. Yeah. Adam Goucher, also a multi-time national champion, actually more accomplished than me in national championships by a lot.

• 19:18Rich Roll?

  And was way more successful than you in the early years of your relationship.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  Oh, I mean, not even a contest. Yeah. I would go to Europe with him. People would be like, well, what do you do? And I'd be like, well, I run. Oh, that's cute. But what do you do? I'd be like, I run. But so we, we were really struggling and we just thought, you know what? We're, we're young. We don't have kids. Like we should look around and see what else is out there. We never thought we'd leave Colorado or Mark Watmore. I mean, we love him, you know, but it just wasn't working. I was chronically injured. He wasn't running very well. And so we went and spoke to a few different coaches. And then the last thing we visited, Nike flew us out to visit Alberto Salazar and the Nike Oregon project. And it was just running professionalized in a way that we had never seen. I mean, we

• 20:06Speaker 01

  were blown away by, you know, the devices, the underwater treadmill and soon the ultra G treadmill, but the altitude house, you know, you're living at elevation, even though you're living in Portland, the facilities we worked, we were going to be working out at the Nike campus. So the facilities there were just amazing and. We kind of just said, this is every runner's dream. And I remember Alberto, you know, there were no women on the team. It was a men's team only. And he, he was like, he really saw himself in Adam and he believed he could bring Adam kind of back to his glory days. And it was kind of like, and I'll coach you, you know, like to get Adam. But I do, I know that Adam and I talked about it and it seemed like this is crazy. Alberto said, just give me six months.

• 20:51Speaker 01

  If you don't like, don't sell your house. If you don't like it, you can go back to Colorado. And we just kind of were like, well, who would say no to this? It's an opportunity of a lifetime.

• 20:59Rich Roll?

  Sure. And Alberto just being synonymous with excellence in American marathon running, like, you know, the biggest name now coaching at the highest level with the most toys and resources at your disposal.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. And you know, he, the Oregon Project had been around for about four years, but he had never gotten like a collegiate national champion. He had gotten very good athletes and helped them. I mean, Dan Brown made the Olympic team in two events in 2004, the 10,000 and the marathon. So he had done very well, but he was very excited about the opportunity to work with someone who had been to the top, you know, with, with Adam. And I mean, I was an afterthought, but honestly, I didn't care. I was like, yeah, I get to be here.

• 21:40Rich Roll?

  And, and from a kind of business perspective, there's, there's the opportunity to join this team. And then there's also representing Nike as an athlete, right? Are those negotiated separately? Like, how does that work? Like, your first Nike contract, I think, was like 35 grand or something.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  It was $35,000 a year, which I thought was amazing at the time. I'm not going to lie. Adam had signed with Fila first. And so he actually changed to be a Nike athlete, I want to say in 2003. So he already had Nike contracts at the time. And so, but you go to the Oregon Project, all your medical is covered, all your massages, all your PT. If you have any sort of injury, like, I mean, I was injured all the time, MRIs, surgeries, all that's covered. And you're having the best of the best check in with you all the time, help you prevent injury. I mean, that alone is worth way more than any amount of money, you know, having that team.

• 22:38Rich Roll?

  So it all looks great. When does it start to appear that things might not be as they, as they seem?

• 22:48Speaker 01

  There were little signs early on of things that were just a little off. The way people were talked about or certain rules that were sort of laughed off. But honestly, the first couple of years, we believed in what we were doing. We believed in Alberta. I mean, it wasn't like we got there and we thought, what are we doing here? It was weird. You know, we were sleeping with a tent over our bed and Alberta was so involved in our lives in a way that we weren't used to, you know, talking, seeing us every day, calling us a lot, constantly checking in. It was just different. But, you know, it was a couple of years in before anything came up that felt uncomfortable. I think that's why I stayed for so long because it was sort of like this slow burn

• 23:32Speaker 01

  of me sort of compromising my values as we went along.

• 23:36Rich Roll?

  I think what gets missed, and I have some experience with this type of coach. It gets missed in people understanding the dynamic is, is kind of what you're referring to, which is you're in this unbelievable situation and here's this person with, that you vested, you know, your trust with, who's telling you, just follow my lead and I'm going to take you all the way to the gold. Right?

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 24:03Rich Roll?

  And this person has the credibility to do it, the expertise, and they're showing such tremendous interest in you.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 24:11Rich Roll?

  And they're saying, do this, don't do that.

• 24:12Speaker 01

  It feels good.

• 24:13Rich Roll?

  And yeah, exactly. So that, over time, with the right personality type, becomes controlling in the not so good way. But because it's so slow moving and imperceptible, you're more willing to dismiss what you only see later as, as kind of transgressions that maybe you should have taken note of at the time.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  That's a, that's a perfectly explained, right? It's just little things and I, you know, we're constantly reminded of how lucky we were. We heard from other athletes how lucky we were. So why would I, sure, some of the comments make me uncomfortable, so what? There's things in life that make people uncomfortable. There's nothing that's perfect and I could really explain away. I think. My childhood made me really good at compartmentalizing feelings and things that felt off. My dad died when I was little. My mom got remarried. It wasn't a very healthy relationship. And I got really good at, I'm gonna put that away because I actually can't feel that. And so, you know, that doesn't, that doesn't serve me well. So then when I was with the Organ Project, if anything made me uncomfortable or seemed out of the

• 25:21Speaker 01

  blue, I'd be like, well, that doesn't serve me getting to my goal, which is to become an Olympic gold medalist. I'm just gonna put that here and put it over here. And I think that really helped me as an athlete. But in the end, as a human, it wasn't great.

• 25:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, a couple of observations on that. I mean, first, what's your therapist's name again?

• 25:39Speaker 01

  Oh, I have two. One passed away, Dr. Stephen Walker, and then Claudia Murphy.

• 25:42Rich Roll?

  All right, well, I'll pretend to be Claudia for a minute. Your dad dies tragically in a drunk driving accident. He was hit by a drunk driver when you were very young. So you grew up without a father, essentially. And then a stepfather enters the picture. And seems like not, some not so great things about him as well, little, some anger issues, stuff like that. So you're entering this dynamic with Alberto without a strong kind of older male figure in your, I mean, you had coaches along the way, et cetera, but perhaps not, not somebody as kind of domineering and, and, and present in your life as Alberto

• 26:22Rich Roll?

  was. So you can't help but wonder, like, to what extent, like, the, the kind of trauma or wounding that you had as a young person plays into how you're gonna interface with Alberto and the, you know, kind of, like, larger bandwidth that you're gonna give him that maybe somebody else wouldn't.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  Yes, Claudia. It's true.

• 26:43Rich Roll?

  I'm sure you've talked about this at length.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  I mean, but it's true. I, I think that's one of my weaknesses, is searching for this figure. And I, you know, this will make me emotional, but like, I realize now I had it the whole time, my grandpa. But, you know, I want, I worshipped my high school coach. It was a male. I worshiped my college coach. But with Alberto, he brought me into his home. He had me eat meals with him. He, I was at his house all the time. It was, you know, Mark Wetmore. I've never been to his house. I've known the guy since 1996, you know? Same with my high school coach. I have no idea where he lives. It was just different. It was so much more invested in, and what felt like so much more invested in me. And so it was very easy for me. And looking back, this was a huge mistake I made, but to allow

• 27:30Speaker 01

  him to be more than a coach and to be that person. And he, I know that he enjoyed that. He actually would say, like, I feel like I'm a father. He would call my mother and say that I was brought into his life for a reason. And that, looking back, was extremely unhealthy, but at the time, it felt almost like God had intervened and I was brought into his life and he's there for me.

• 27:53Rich Roll?

  Which makes it so confusing, you know, but also makes the transgressions all the more egregious when the deception and the abuse, emotional and physical, you know, starts to enter the picture. The other piece to that is this compartmentalization ability that you have. I reached out to Steve Magnus. I was like, hey, Cara's coming in, you know, what should I talk to her about? And he's like, I've never seen anybody better at, at compartmentalizing so that they could perform. So amidst the chaos and the swirl of all the kind of weird stuff that was going on around you, your ability to kind of have this on off switch and like focus on what was most important and just dismiss the noise

• 28:34Rich Roll?

  or, you know, no matter what that unhealthy behavior was over there and just, you know, keep your eye on the prize and show up and like do your thing.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think that is a product of my childhood because my house was very chaotic. Lots of yelling and shouting and at times fear. And so I couldn't, I had to just.

• 28:55Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. It's like a survival.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. Now I'm with my friends. I'm funny. Cara's a funny one. She's a fun one. I have to, I can't, yeah, and again, then I just took that to running, especially as things with Alberto got more and more difficult for me and complicated and confusing in my mind to be like, I, I actually can't deal with that because if I open up to the thought that he's inappropriate, or that this isn't pure love, or whatever, this is going to cost me everything. So I can't do that.

• 29:24Rich Roll?

  Put it over there.

• 29:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:25Rich Roll?

  But of course, it doesn't go away.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  No, as it turns out.

• 29:28Rich Roll?

  It all comes out in, in words on a page at some point, right? And in the therapist's office.

• 29:34Speaker 01

  Yes, lots in the therapist's office.

• 29:36Rich Roll?

  But it seems like, you know, Adam, Adam got wise to this earlier than you, or maybe just didn't have the compartmentalization strategy that you had, and his tolerance level for what was happening waned, which then creates additional issues for you at home, being in a relationship and trying to compartmentalize and do your job and keep everybody happy.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, be at practice, I'm there for Alberto, I'm listening to everything he says. When I go home, I know, I mean, Adam saw the light way before I did, but I am a lot more trusting than him and a lot, I don't want to say naive, but maybe that's a good word. You know, Adam is a little bit more from the school of hard knocks, and he doesn't really trust you. What are your motives? I'm not like that. I'm like, everybody loves everybody. So he was sort of, and there were things that bothered him more than it bothered me. For instance, NCAA violations. I'm like, who cares? He's like, I care, because I worked my ass off to get to where I got to be, and no one gave me a handout, and there were rules that I followed the whole way. Not that I'm not a rule follower, I'm a total rule follower,

• 30:43Speaker 01

  but things stuck with him more than with me. And he just reached a point earlier on where he was like, I can't, I mean, where he and Alberto are like coming to blows at practice and yelling at each other. So then I'm trying to live this whole dance of my home life with my husband, who I love dearly, and my career with this coach who I love dearly. And I'm trying to like, live in both worlds.

• 31:05Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's stressful.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, it wasn't fun.

• 31:09Rich Roll?

  The NCAA violations were about Collegiate athletes who were also members of NOP or Nike supporting athletes who were still in college.

• 31:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, this is before NIL or anything like that. So you couldn't have something as a collegiate athlete that was like a gift or training camps, hotel rooms, equipment, all of that kind of stuff, which was happening.

• 31:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That stuff seems to be changing for the better right now.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. But I think, you know, again, those were the rules and really bothered Adam that they were broken.

• 32:02Rich Roll?

  When I think about Alberto's behavior, I mean, there's so many kind of categories here. There's just him being generally inappropriate. There's legit, straight up sexual assault. There's explicit conversations. There's inappropriate touching and massaging. There's intercontinental flights where he's drunk and taking Ambien and saying all kinds of crazy shit to you. There's pressure to use weight loss drugs. Seems like everybody had hypothyroidism on this team and was getting prescribed Levocel. The control, of course, the emotional abuse, the deception, the pitting people against each other,

• 32:47Rich Roll?

  pitting you against Adam, pitting you against Amy Begley. There's also, what I think falls into the more egregious kind of things that went down is the confidence violating conduct because there was this supposed therapist, Darren Treasure.

• 33:08Rich Roll?

  Performance coach slash sports psychologist, I guess, who you were meant to believe you could go and talk to, but this person would then share everything with Alberto and Alberto would weaponize that information to pit people against each other and manipulate and gaslight you and I assume the other athletes as well. And that just feels so violating.

• 33:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, when Darren was Darren was brought in in 2007 and we were told, you know, he, he Galen was struggling to win an NCAA title. He had come close many times.

• 33:44Rich Roll?

  Galen Robb.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  Yes, and when Darren came into the picture, he won, I think, a couple indoor titles. And then it was decided, everyone will see this sports psychologist. And I didn't really want to see him at first, but in my first meeting with him, you know, I, I carry a lot inside and it was really nice to just, I mean, the first session I had with him, I couldn't stop crying. I was like, why am I crying? But I felt pressure because I had run really well the year before. It was the first time I had really stepped up at a world level. I'm feeling all this pressure. My husband is not happy with the team. There was a lot of things I was carrying around inside. It was very, it was very great to relief, to have someone to talk to. That was in 07, but I would say pretty quickly I started to realize that I was being told things

• 34:30Speaker 01

  that other athletes said. I would say something to him in confidence and then Alberto would bring it up two days later in training.

• 34:38Speaker 01

  And it wasn't until 2009, that's when he was named performance director. And I was a psychology major, so I just said to him, Darren, this feels like a conflict of interest. So we went to lunch together and he said, no one else realizes this, you know, I'm not gonna screw anybody. I'm gonna be a, I'm gonna be a professional. And I, I knew better. You can't, you can't listen to everyone's biggest fears and decide who stays on the team. Right? But

• 35:03Rich Roll?

  Or decide which information you're gonna keep confidential and which information you're gonna share with the team director.

• 35:09Speaker 01

  Right, or other athletes. But I had, I just sort of took that answer. Yeah, now it's even more egregious because we have found out he isn't a psychologist. He's not a sports psychologist, he's not a psychologist. His PhD is actually in kinesiology. Which is not psychology. But I didn't know that at the time.

• 35:28Rich Roll?

  So when did you first start to get an inkling like that things weren't safe for you?

• 35:34Speaker 01

  You know, I think a lot of it I realized was my relationship with Amy Begley started to change, where I would be told in the sessions that she was bad mouthing me. And it really bothered me because I fought for her to be on that team. You know, I was the only woman. And when Alberto talked about her maybe coming, he said, I don't know, women are tricky. And I was like, please take her, like, bring someone on that I can run with. And so she came in, and I believe she came in in the end of '06. But towards the end of '07 into '08, we were training together, but we had lost our sort of our friendship. And it wasn't, it really wasn't until after the Olympics that we, where we didn't room together

• 36:18Speaker 01

  because they told us, they told me, do not room with her. I mean, we're at the Olympic Games, I'm away from everyone I care about. And this is the one person I know, do not room with her, she'll ruin your race. You know, and it wasn't until after that where we talked. And then she had been told stuff about me, that I bad mouthed her, I said she was my punching bag, she didn't deserve to be on the team, which I didn't say any of that. And I know now that she didn't say any of that. So, but that was in '08 and I stayed. That's the hard part. I stayed.

• 36:46Rich Roll?

  What, what is the argument that, that Salazar would have given for doing that? Like, he thought that if he pits you guys against each other, that that would make you more competitive and race better? Like, I'm trying to understand why even do this?

• 37:03Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 37:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, he, he, he would propose to me that Amy's a difficult athlete. You know, it's very publicized that he would weight shame her a lot, body shame her a lot. That she doesn't want it the way you want it. You know, she was the only woman I interacted with.

• 37:21Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 37:22Speaker 01

  Like, at all.

• 37:23Rich Roll?

  But at some point, didn't, didn't Alberto present her with a contract that said that she wasn't allowed to be friends with anybody on the team?

• 37:30Speaker 01

  Well, I didn't know about it.

• 37:31Rich Roll?

  That's so fucking crazy.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  But he did. He made her sign a contract that said-

• 37:34Rich Roll?

  When she joined the team?

• 37:35Speaker 01

  No. This was, would have been in about oh eight.

• 37:37Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 37:38Speaker 01

  You are not friends with Cara. She is your training partner. I didn't know. I didn't know that was happening. I mean, like, that's the thing, is years stepping back and really trying to remove my emotion of still weirdly trying to protect him. I'm like, that is fucked up.

• 37:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  Like, what? That's crazy. Yeah.

• 37:56Rich Roll?

  Talk about the, the, the pressure to keep weight down and how that kind of came out in terms of how he coached.

• 38:04Speaker 01

  I mean, the, the, the thing is that leanness matters to a certain extent in sport, right? Everybody at the top is, they're trying to have the optimal body composition for that moment. I escaped a lot of the wrath, not all of it. I would get weighed and I would weigh myself at home so that I would know what the weight was going to be so it wouldn't catch me off guard if it was heavy. I would get weighed and Alberto would weigh me here and there. I remember leaning into the oh six national championship, weighing me. He would just bring a scale and plop it down and I'd just step on it and be like, oh God, please let it be something under one thirty, you know? But, but Amy took the brunt of that. She really took the brunt of that.

• 38:44Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, there is truth in that you gotta be lean if you want to perform, but you can be too lean and what is the long-term impact-

• 38:52Speaker 01

  And then you lose all your power.

• 38:53Rich Roll?

  -of a coach that's constantly telling you to lose weight and then you, yeah, you're, you compromise your immune system and you end up with all kinds of, you know, downstream issues.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  Another thing is that we were on supposedly the best program in the world. We didn't have a nutritionist. We didn't have anyone telling us like, this is your body composition. Let's try to get it to here. It was just like, I want you to weigh this.

• 39:13Rich Roll?

  And what's the hypothyroidism thing all about? Like, walk me through that whole world with this doctor who is handing out scripts for Levaxal. And what is Levaxal? And what was that supposed to do? And why did everybody have hypothyroidism?

• 39:28Speaker 01

  That's a great question. So, full disclosure, we introduced Dr. Brown to Alberto. Adam was struggling.

• 39:34Rich Roll?

  This is Jeffrey Brown.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  Dr. Jeffrey Brown. Adam was struggling in 2003, before we went to Salazar. And our coach said, there's this guy associated with USA TF, who's supposed to be the greatest endocrinologist for athletes. And so, Adam emails him. Within minutes, he responds, I went with him to Houston. Adam's mother has hypothyroidism and he ran all these tests. He's a doctor. Remember, he's a doctor. He's not like some herbalist telling, you know what I mean? This is a doctor. And he's showing us that Adam has hypothyroidism. Adam goes on the medicine. About a year later, my mother and my older sister at that point, my mom has always had it and my grandma has too. And my older sister was diagnosed. I was like, I should go see.

• 40:20Speaker 01

  Lo and behold, I also have it. So, when we moved at the end of 2004 to Oregon, we told Alberto about this because he wanted to know, who do you see? What is your routine like? We're like, we see this doctor in Houston. He goes to see him. He comes back, he has hypothyroidism. And then in February or March, he takes our teammate Galen. Galen comes back with hypothyroidism. So, at this point, we're a little bit confused. But again, it's a doctor. It's not some guy at Nike telling us this. It's a doctor. So, even though it felt a little uncomfortable.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  I mean, Adam and I said that this feels a little weird, but what were we gonna do? There were other medicines that Dr. Brown was also prescribing to other athletes. I wasn't one of them.

• 41:13Speaker 01

  Cytomil specifically, which, you know, I don't know, that could be considered a performance enhancer or not, but everyone that came into the team then went to see Dr. Brown. And Dr. Brown became part of the Oregon Project staff. He went to the Olympics with us. He was around.

• 41:30Rich Roll?

  And what does Levaxal do?

• 41:33Speaker 01

  Well, if you have a thyroid issue, if you don't have a thyroid issue and you take Levaxal, it actually can hurt you because it's too much for your body and you can get really tense and tight and lose your hair and things like that. If you don't, it just helps aid your thyroid to produce properly, if it's not producing properly. You know, in my instance, when I went through all of this, I met, I started seeing Dr. Brown as a patient in '04, and my medical records were obtained. It took, it took a couple of years for USADA to get my medical records.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  By the time they got them, I want to say it was 2016 when they finally got them and had their doctor look at it, and I didn't have it. I never had it.

• 42:16Rich Roll?

  You never had it?

• 42:17Speaker 01

  No.

• 42:17Rich Roll?

  So was there some performance enhancing aspect to this medication that was motivating all these prescriptions?

• 42:24Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't know. I think a lot of athletes are thyroid, their thyroid's depleted just because of how hard you're working. And it is so common in endurance athletes, but I hate that I ever took it. And I tried to get off of it in 2017, and I couldn't. My body like tanked out. My doc, my new doctor said, I'm sorry, you have to take this.

• 42:47Rich Roll?

  The interesting thing about how this unfolds and ultimately leads to you blowing the whistle is that There isn't some huge smoking gun that you can point to. So when Travis Tiger is like, we want you to come and talk to us, or you make the decision that you're going to do that, there's a lot of trepidation on your part because you sort of see things here and there, and you're doing the math and trying to put disparate little events together and try to frame, you know, some kind of sense out of it. But it's murky at best. And when it comes to the doping aspect of what was happening at NOP, perhaps even more so from your perspective, you're seeing things that don't look quite right

• 43:32Rich Roll?

  in terms of how Alberto is interfacing with Mofera and Galen Rupp. You're seeing IVs and you're seeing, you know, like needles here, androgen gel and things like that here and there and around. But you're not actually a direct witness to anything happening. And you're not in a direct conversation with Alberto, where he's saying, I need you to take this. And he's telling you what it is and why.

• 43:54Speaker 01

  That's true. That's what made it hard because as I looked back, there were things that just didn't add up. But I didn't have a smoking gun. I didn't see him rub the testosterone gel on anyone. There were syringes in the refrigerator, but I never saw them injected into anyone. The IV thing was a little bit more clear, honestly, like when you're faking it for IV.

• 44:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah, talk about that. Like, I actually didn't know about all that, like how a saline drip can mask a performance-enhancing drug.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, so you're not allowed to take a saline drip without a doctor, like a therapeutic use exemption, because it can hydrate you to a level that it dilutes a drug test.

• 44:35Rich Roll?

  So if you're on EPO or whatever.

• 44:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, then it would be such, it would make the amount, the concentration appear smaller, right? And so people, I mean, I learned this from Tyler Hamilton, honestly, is that if you're glowing, you need to get hooked up to an IV. My teammates did IVs before big competitions, and it made me very uncomfortable.

• 44:57Rich Roll?

  Right, on its face, there's nothing inherently wrong with that, but it makes it suspect as to whether something else is actually going on.

• 45:04Speaker 01

  Well, and also when your coach tells you, we have it down to a science now. We know exactly what to say to get it. That feels... Bad.

• 45:12Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. Tyler Hamilton plays a big role in your decision to come forward.

• 45:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I remember the whole Tyler Hamilton thing. I would bug Shalane because they were from the same hometown and he, you know, won the medal. I think the gold medal at the oh four Olympics, then of course had to give it back. And I would tease her about her, her homie from, from Marblehead. But I think his book, it really blew me away. And I, I remember seeing him on 60 Minutes. We were up in Park City as a team. We were going to go out to dinner after we watched it from our condo. And I remember thinking, somebody needs to check on him. Like, he, his soul is just annihilated. And he's sharing this and he doesn't want to, but he knows he has to.

• 46:03Speaker 01

  And I just related to that so much. And then, you know, we went to dinner that night and it was brought up and Alberta's like, he's lying. You know, he's trying to make Lance look bad. He wants to sell books and, you know, but I eventually met with Tyler a couple of times. But the first time, and I remember we met at a restaurant in Boulder and I told him, if you were a track athlete, I wouldn't even come here. Cause I'm so opposed to all of that. But then in talking to him, he humanized it so much for me. And I don't think he should be able to race again. But what he's done as far as exposing it and being honest about it. And, I mean, I, there's forgiveness there for me. And I think he can help stop someone from doing it.

• 46:47Speaker 01

  No one was looking out for him. But he's really inspired me in a weird way to, to come forward and to share and to, I, I saw the difference he made and I was like, if he can do it and he survived it, I can do it.

• 47:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, he was really swinging in the wind because he was so early on all of this stuff. And I remember that 60 Minutes interview as well. And he just looked haunted, like he couldn't make eye contact, like he was in a really bad state, you could tell.

• 47:15Speaker 01

  You could tell. I mean, the one difference between Tyler and myself is that Tyler had the smoking gun because he had done it. He had done the infusions, he had blood doped and taken the EPO and the testosterone, where I just thought everyone was doing that, right?

• 47:30Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And if you're gonna come and talk about it publicly or share with Tiger, you're putting yourself in a position where people aren't gonna believe that if you're saying this was going on here, but I didn't do it, that becomes a very difficult argument to swallow.

• 47:48Speaker 01

  And it's a reason why a lot of clean athletes don't speak up when they see something, because exactly that. I know that there are people who think my career is tainted. I had a good friend who used to be so supportive, who wrote in his emailer that everybody ever associated with Salazar should give their medals back, and that hurt me so, so deeply. But again, if I worry about that, Alberto is still a coach right now, and this is all still continuing. So I have to be willing to say, there's gonna be a lot of people who think that my career was enhanced and isn't fair. I have to be able to deal with that. Otherwise, the alternative is this just continues, and there's another Kara down the line, which

• 48:31Speaker 01

  is Mary Kane or whoever, and this just keeps going on.

• 48:34Rich Roll?

  One of the things that you witnessed that feels really kind of salient to all of this is, suddenly Mo Farah has this huge kick at the end of races, which he had never had before. And he's maintained his innocence in all of this, and as far as I know, there hasn't been any, you know, he's never tested positive or anything like that. But you witnessed him go from somebody who wasn't exactly known for having kind of a kick at the end of his races to being, I wouldn't say superhuman, but like really having a different gear.

• 49:09Speaker 01

  The greatest kicker in the world, multiple years in a row.

• 49:11Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 49:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I remember I was at, this would have been 2011, and I was at the Prefontaine Classic. Adam had stayed in Utah at our training base with our son. And there's an immense 10,000, and it was hot, like the pace was hot. Mo had already run really well the year before, but he was a steady Eddie, right? And... Yeah, I saw him kick away and I called out, I was trembling and I called Adam and I said, I don't believe what I'm watching. And he just said, do you think they could be cheating? I was shocked at. My answer was like, so it just came out? Yes.

• 49:46Rich Roll?

  Which was the first time you had kind of admitted that out loud to anybody.

• 49:49Speaker 01

  I mean, I had been thinking about things and Alberto and I had met a couple of times in Utah because I wasn't understanding the men's progression compared to mine. I had been with Alberto for over six years at that point. I knew the program. I wasn't understanding what I was seeing. So I had met with him a couple of times without saying, I never said, like, I think something's going on here. I just said, I don't understand. But that was the first time I said anything out loud. And that was sort of, honestly, like, you know, you see in the movies like glass shatters where they're thinking. It really truly felt like that.

• 50:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Another piece being the, the back to back, like, super intense workouts that, that Galen and Mo were able to put in that, that you were like, there's no way you can go up the next day and do this thing that we just did the day before.

• 50:36Speaker 01

  We, there was a system that we had, that we had been doing since I got there in 2004. And every year, every year you were trying to do an extra repeat or go a little faster. These are like, big, big workouts, like mile repeats, Ks, things where they're on the calendar, circled in red, like, this is going to happen and it's going to tell us so much information. And those were the days where you went to the well and then you had to be, you had to recover. That doesn't mean you don't run, but you had to recover because you went so hard in those sessions. And we would do a session like that and I'd be trashed. And then I'd see them, they'd be driving to go do another workout. And I just, I mean, I asked Alberto, I said, I don't understand it. I don't understand. And he just said,

• 51:20Speaker 01

  you've had a baby, your body's in a different place. But I said, but we've never done this.

• 51:25Rich Roll?

  Like, that's just gaslighting.

• 51:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah. At the same time, there's this weird controlling behavior that he's exerting around you. And, and some of the most egregious things that he does that you talk about in the book, in terms of propositioning you and touching you inappropriately and all that kind of stuff, you don't even share with Adam.

• 51:46Speaker 01

  No.

• 51:46Rich Roll?

  And so.

• 51:49Rich Roll?

  I'm sure people have asked, or perhaps you had to think through what's going to happen when people ask me, "Well, you didn't even tell Adam these things, your husband, what was going on when they were going on. How do you expect us to believe what you're saying about how Alberto was behaving?"

• 52:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I've been asked that a lot, especially on Twitter. Thank you, social media.

• 52:09Rich Roll?

  Twitter's pretty reliable for that kind of thing.

• 52:12Speaker 01

  Look, it's a great question. As I've gone through this and I've met with other victims, it's actually very, very common. But I didn't know that. The first time that Alberto touched me inappropriately, I'm in a foreign country with him in 2006. It's the first trip we've ever taken together. It's the first trip where I am the focus. And I truly, I mean, in the moment, I was so frozen with fear. I couldn't believe this was happening. And I just convinced myself it was an accident. Because he's a dad, and he's a devout Catholic, and he loves me like a daughter. He tells me. And again, like with those boxes, if I think maybe he did that on purpose, it ruins everything that I'm living for and

• 52:56Speaker 01

  that I've built my life around. So the first time it happened, I really, truly just convinced myself that it was an accident. It wasn't until three years later that that happened again. And at this point...

• 53:10Rich Roll?

  And when it happens, it involves substances. This guy's like, you know, at least a couple glasses of wine in, and sometimes an Ambien, etc. Like, it feels like he has a substance issue.

• 53:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, yeah. But now I'm thinking, like, what am I going to tell Adam? Like, "He touched me inappropriately three years ago, and I didn't tell you?" It feels like I'm soiling our marriage, and I hid something. And I know that I just should have told him, but I just didn't. I came back from that trip. We were in Lisbon, Portugal, and came back, and I said, "I never want to travel without you again." And that was my way to solve it. "I'll never be alone with him again." And I wasn't until a plane ride two years later.

• 53:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah. You eventually do tell him.

• 53:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was really shitty.

• 53:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 53:59Rich Roll?

  At what point do you decide? Like, walk me through how you come to this decision that you're gonna speak publicly about this and testify and go on the record?

• 54:11Speaker 01

  Um, well, there's sort of two pieces. It's like the doping piece, but then the sexual assault was very different. The doping piece was that I, we went, Adam and I went together to USADA in 2013 and there was already a case open. You know, I thought, oh, I'm gonna shock them. There was already an open, open case going on.

• 54:33Rich Roll?

  Which should have been comforting to you to realize like, oh, I'm not the only one, like, people are looking into this?

• 54:39Speaker 01

  They don't know if they can trust me. That's what it felt like. You know, for the first two hours, they just let me blabber on about what I think happened. And then they're like, oh, go have some coffee and then let's go back in. And then the questions start. And, and I, I appreciate USADA so much and I understand all of it. But in the moment, it felt like, oh, they don't know if I engaged in this or not, which how would they know? So that was very uneasy, right? But then, so, you know, for years, people would say, we know why you left. We know why you left. And I'd be like, you have no idea why I left. But, okay. A lot of media from the UK constantly asking.

• 55:19Speaker 01

  And so there was this documentary in, in 2015 that, that they were doing, and it was BBC and ProPublica were doing a piece together. And I cried and when Adam told me he was gonna do it, I said, please don't do it. I'm still running. I wanna run for at least another year. Everyone's gonna ask me about this. I'm never gonna be able to escape it. Please don't do it. And he, he said, I have to do it. And I respect him so much and I respect his values that I knew it was the right thing to do, but I was too afraid. So they came over from the UK, they interviewed Adam for hours. The next day before they fly out, they wanna meet with me so that I feel better about the situation. I meet with them. They were very nice, well-intended, I believed.

• 56:02Speaker 01

  And then that night, I just started, started eating at me, like, why didn't I do it? Like, why was, why couldn't I be brave like Adam? Now, now I'm gonna have to answer questions that I could answer, I could be on the front end. And...

• 56:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, it just ate at me and a couple of the bigger decisions in my life, I've just really, really prayed upon it and I prayed upon that and I just said, I really regret not doing it. And so Adam reached out to them and they got another plane and came back.

• 56:31Rich Roll?

  Is that what led to you talking to David Epstein for ProPublica?

• 56:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, because they were in conjunction together.

• 56:38Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  So the crew came back from the UK and he came back from New York and we sat down and, I mean, I was just emotionally spent afterwards. I felt, I wanted what they were doing to end, but I also felt guilty because these are people that I loved. So it was not like a fun experience, but I didn't regret doing it in the moment. In the backlash afterwards, I did at times regret it.

• 57:08Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 57:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:09Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 57:10Speaker 01

  I ruined my perfect peaceful life.

• 57:11Rich Roll?

  Sure, yeah. You're exposing yourself on a whole different level and opening yourself up to, you know, everybody's opinion. I reached out also to Matt Futterman of the New York Times, I guess now The Athletic.

• 57:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:26Rich Roll?

  Got rid of their sports page and he said that he really wanted to be the one to write the story and that he met with you, spent a bunch of time with you. Ultimately, you decided to talk to David Epstein instead. But what struck him, he understood why you made that decision, but what struck him was that at the end of meeting him, and you didn't know him beforehand, that you said, "I'm a hugger, give me a hug." And you were like very warm. And he said, beneath the kind of hardness and the challenges that you were going through, that, you know, there is this kind of sweetness about you, this kindness

• 58:06Rich Roll?

  about you, that it felt like you were trying to make sure you were protecting in the middle of all of this.

• 58:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't, one of the things that has happened that I've been really working on the last couple of years is that I just...

• 58:21Speaker 01

  I think it's a Minnesotan thing, or I don't really know what it is. But I just assume the best. And I am very positive, annoyingly so to my husband at times. I got jaded from all of this. And I started to assume, oh, they're gonna dick me over. They're gonna try to screw me. They're gonna talk about me behind my back. And I became a little bit more closed off. And I've really worked hard the last few years to not to take that down because that's not who I am. But I think you go through so many things and so many people let you down that you're like, yeah, you just start to try to protect yourself.

• 58:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you still love running. And I've heard you say, or I saw it written, that you're very quick to say like, this isn't like my story in this book isn't really a book about abuse and a culture of doping and, you know, a bad coach. It's about my love affair with running. And how you kind of maintain that throughout this whole affair.

• 59:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, my co-author and I, Mary Plante, I said, yeah, we have to talk about all this difficult stuff, but it's a love story. It's a little bit like Little Women and Jo in her book, right? Like, I just love running so much. And I, it's more challenging for me now to run the way I used to, but I just appreciate it so much. It's given me so much. And even through all of that, like, I, I'm OK. I'm actually a better person from all of it. And I really got to live a dream. And now I get to run because I love it. I'd never lost the love of it. The few times I did, it was because it had become so business oriented and so results oriented, I lost my way. And I would have to step back and go visit my family

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  and take a deep breath, why am I doing this? But the core, the love was always there.

• 1:00:24Rich Roll?

  Are you happier with a legacy that involves this advocacy around clean sport and equity in sport? Or would you rather be remembered just for your athletic performances? Like, what is the balance between kind of how people, how you think about how you're kind of perceived?

• 1:00:42Speaker 01

  You know, I'm still, there's still a lot of people that don't like me.

• 1:00:45Rich Roll?

  Uh huh. Do you want them to, do you need them to like you?

• 1:00:49Speaker 01

  Well, I think that's a little bit of like a trait I have of trying to be like, no, get to know me, I'm fine. But, you know, my job isn't to convince people that I'm right, or to make them see that I did what I did to survive, and I did what I did that I thought was right. I think, you know, legacy is such a weird thing. Most of the people in the sport now, like, don't even remember that I used to be really good, you know? That I was stood on the podium.

• 1:01:15Rich Roll?

  You're just the person on NBC who talks about running.

• 1:01:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm just a person on NBC who, again, some people love me, some people hate me. Why are you so obnoxious? And then other people are like, we love your passion. So, again, it's just, it's tough. I think, I think, like, especially talking about more the safe sport issues and the assault stuff, that stuff really, to actually go and do those hearings and to, and to do that, it was for the younger generation. It was for my nieces specifically, because they're being raised how I was, which was like, you treat people with kindness, you love your family, you always do your best. And they could end up in a situation like that, just, they just could, even now.

• 1:01:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:58Speaker 01

  And so that was my motivation there, was to really protect them and the other girls around them. And so I do care that, that that's changed, but I don't necessarily need...

• 1:02:10Speaker 01

  I don't know, it doesn't have to be about me. I just want it to change.

• 1:02:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah. And what is your sense of where we're at with that? Has it changed? How much still needs to change? My lens is through the sport of swimming and I've got all kinds of opinions about, you know, what's happening and what should be happening and what's not happening. But in your world, it feels like there's progress, but there's still a long way to go.

• 1:02:32Speaker 01

  There's a long way to go.

• 1:02:34Rich Roll?

  Plenty of coaches out there behaving badly.

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:36Rich Roll?

  People, you know, taking substances they shouldn't. And, you know, when you look at track and field, let's say, like, what is your sense of how clean it is right now?

• 1:02:46Speaker 01

  So this is, I'm gonna tell you the truth and then I'm gonna tell you what I do because I love my job. I don't think it's any better. I think it's the same. I think we talk a lot about shoe tech. Shoe tech only takes you so far. I think that people are cheating. But when I watch the sport, I don't think through the lens of someone who lived through all that stuff and witnessed what I witnessed. I view it through me in 92, watching Lingenins win a bronze medal at the Olympic Games. I go back to that person who sees how beautiful it can be and how empowering it can be and how inspiring it can be. Like, watching that race changed my life. And so when I, when I work for NBC, that's, that's the mindset I bring to it because that's,

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  I could be inspiring the next Lingenins or the next Faith Kipigon or whoever. But when, if I'm being really brutally honest, and Travis Tiger will argue me on this, I don't think there's been progress.

• 1:03:40Rich Roll?

  He thinks there has been.

• 1:03:41Speaker 01

  He does.

• 1:03:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, he has to believe that also because that's his job, right?

• 1:03:46Speaker 01

  That is his job.

• 1:03:47Rich Roll?

  If he's not cleaning things up and if it's not getting better.

• 1:03:49Speaker 01

  He's very passionate about protecting clean athletes. I consider him a friend. I look up to the things he's done. I just think when you're in the underbelly of it, you see things he'll never see. And I just don't think, also, you, you probably get this because you were a competitive swimmer and also an endurance athlete. You see things that, because you have done the training and you have been through that, you see things that just don't make sense. And if you talk to athletes and you take the mic away, they'll tell you, I don't believe that. It doesn't make sense. And sure, there are breakthrough performances all the time that are real. But I think I would be... I would be kicking myself later if I sat here and told you things are better.

• 1:04:29Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's hard when you see one of those breakthrough performances. It's harder and harder to have that kind of childlike enthusiasm for it. Because in the back of your mind, there's always a little tickle like hmm.

• 1:04:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I used to like every time someone did something amazing, put it on social media. I don't do that anymore.

• 1:04:48Speaker 01

  It's not because I don't believe, everything I see, I don't believe. That's not what it is, but it's just, you know, some things are too good to be true.

• 1:04:56Rich Roll?

  So if you had to say you, if, if your, if your perspective is not that much has changed,

• 1:05:04Rich Roll?

  how deep does it run like, is it like every medal, you know, like, and like, if you, I don't, my job, I'm not trying to make you uncomfortable.

• 1:05:11Speaker 01

  I know, I'm like, I'm sitting here.

• 1:05:13Rich Roll?

  I'm just trying to get a sense like, is it just a few bad actors? Or is this systemic in a way that maybe the average person wouldn't even realize?

• 1:05:20Speaker 01

  I think it's probably systemic. I, I don't, but like, I have friends, this like little anti-doping community that believe you cannot win a medal clean. I don't believe that. I really don't. Maybe it's because of my own personal experience. I believe there are opportunities and there are advancements in technology. And there's, there are people doing things that are truly incredible and they're clean. I, I think, so I don't believe that. I don't believe we're going to watch the Olympics this summer and every single medalist is a doper. I don't believe that, but I do think a lot of them will be.

• 1:05:54Speaker 01

  Is that good?

• 1:05:55Rich Roll?

  You're probably, yeah, you're saying that into a microphone, but it's not an NBC microphone.

• 1:05:59Speaker 01

  Right. Oh, I would, yeah, I would never be able to say that.

• 1:06:01Rich Roll?

  That'll be a different, you know.

• 1:06:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, and, and that's not the place for it.

• 1:06:04Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 1:06:05Speaker 01

  And I've had people come at me, you know, how could you take this job? But my, but I love this job because I get to go back to the beauty of it and what sold me on it in the first place and what excited me. And I want to, I, I don't know who might watch that, especially from, hearing it from a woman, that might become someone great and, and believe in themselves or give themselves another chance. So I love my job. That's not the place for talking about doping in sport. I'm happy to do it with Rich Roll. I'm happy to do it, you know, at a USADA meeting. But that's not the place for it.

• 1:06:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's so, it's so complicated and tricky because there's nothing like the Olympics. And watching the Olympics as a young person was, those were formative experiences in my life. And to be able to see people do incredible things and, you know, take, take that picture that ends up in Sports Illustrated and put it on your wall and like, you know, visualize yourself or dream, you know, there's, that's a really beautiful thing that is worthy of protecting.

• 1:07:04Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 1:07:05Rich Roll?

  And to the extent that it's been denigrated, that like really sucks. But knowing that perhaps not everything is as it appears, can we still have a relationship with, with those athletes and with the Olympics and with the competition and, and in the spirit in which it was, you know, birth to like, you know, connect with that like awe and wonder that makes it such a magical thing.

• 1:07:29Speaker 01

  Like, look, we know the industry behind the Olympics is just churning out money and pumping stuff, but the athletes for me always saved the Olympics. It's always beautiful. I'm always crying. There's someone who does something you didn't believe. There's someone who faltered and it's just painful to watch. I think there's a place to love it and embrace it. You know, for me, I can't, I get invested, but I, I'm at a point where I'll, no one will ever surprise me if they get popped. That's kind of the world I live in. I'm a super fan. I'm going to cheer you on. I want to see you do incredible things. If you get popped, it's not like, one of my childhood heroes, when I found out that he got popped, I cried. I'm not going to do that anymore, but I'm still going to allow myself to get on that

• 1:08:11Speaker 01

  hype train and enjoy the beauty of what could be from a person rising in that moment when everything matters and everyone's watching. I mean, there's something just absolutely amazing about that.

• 1:08:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's, that's very well said. We should point out that the, the, the testimony that you provided and others provided ultimately leads to Alberto getting a lifetime ban from coaching. Nike, however, avoids any kind of. penalization for this. And one of the really striking things that that came out in this investigation was the fact that that Parker, the CEO, was copied on emails about doping stuff. Like, he was apprised of what was going on. And he ultimately steps down. He'll say it was for unrelated reasons. Maybe that's true. Maybe it's not. I don't know. But that's pretty

• 1:09:06Rich Roll?

  indicting.

• 1:09:08Speaker 01

  That was hard for me to find out because I had a personal relationship with Mark Parker. I flew back from the New York City Marathon with him in 2007. I flew back from the Beijing Olympics with him. I took a

• 1:09:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, on the Nike jet.

• 1:09:21Speaker 01

  On the jet, the big one with the gold toilet.

• 1:09:23Rich Roll?

  Yeah, which is verified.

• 1:09:25Speaker 01

  Yes, it does exist. His family, they're amazing people. His wife's amazing, his kids. For me, I was a little crestfallen to read that because I, of course, I know he's a businessman, and I definitely learned that with the pregnancy stuff. He stood by the company. But yeah,

• 1:09:44Rich Roll?

  He has to, though.

• 1:09:45Speaker 01

  He has to. That's his job. But that part was a little hard for me to read.

• 1:09:49Rich Roll?

  So what do you make of Nike avoiding any kind of culpability in this scenario then?

• 1:09:55Speaker 01

  Well, I joke that Nike is, they're Teflon. I mean, anytime there's a scandal, people are like, I'm not wearing Nike anymore. I'm burning my Nikes. And then this amazing ad comes out. And everyone's like, oh, my God, they're the best marketers. I'm so inspired. I mean, people will send me Nike commercials. I'm like, yeah, okay.

• 1:10:15Rich Roll?

  It's powerful.

• 1:10:16Speaker 01

  It is powerful.

• 1:10:16Rich Roll?

  Because they are the best at that.

• 1:10:18Speaker 01

  They are the best at that. And they have great products.

• 1:10:20Rich Roll?

  Their marketing is unparalleled.

• 1:10:23Speaker 01

  100%.

• 1:10:24Rich Roll?

  And that creates a mind share and a relationship with a brand that, you know, every other brand is the envy of, you know, every other brand.

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  Everybody. And like most people, I grew up just worshiping the brand. I mean, signing with Nike in 2001, I thought life doesn't get better than this.

• 1:10:40Rich Roll?

  And being able to train on the campus with all those resources. It's like, yeah, it's a dream come true.

• 1:10:45Speaker 01

  And meet all the athletes and be involved and actually, you know, they, when you sign, they say, welcome to the family and feel like you are. You know, and that's what's hard. Like, we were joking earlier, but my son doesn't get any Nikes. You know, he's not allowed to have that stuff. And it wasn't really an issue until the last couple of years. Now he's in middle school. Things are cool now. I'm actually wearing his shoes right now. We let him buy a pair of kicks.

• 1:11:11Rich Roll?

  He's a big cross-country runner.

• 1:11:12Speaker 01

  He's a huge cross-country runner. But yeah, like, he wants to be like everyone else. But yeah, no, we don't.

• 1:11:19Rich Roll?

  He gets to a certain age.

• 1:11:20Speaker 01

  We'll never give them another dime. I know.

• 1:11:21Rich Roll?

  I'll buy Nikes.

• 1:11:22Speaker 01

  Someday he might. Or like, maybe he would marry someone who wears Nikes. And I'm like, I'm gonna have to deal with it.

• 1:11:28Rich Roll?

  Air Jordan drip. I just can't, you know, resist.

• 1:11:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:33Rich Roll?

  We'll see what happens with that.

• 1:11:34Speaker 01

  We'll see what happens.

• 1:11:36Rich Roll?

  Well, digging a little bit more into Nike, I want to talk a little bit about the kind of business of elite running, because one of the other fascinating things about the book was just the level of transparency that you brought to what these contracts actually say. When you sign with Nike, which, to your point, is the dream of, you know, many a young athlete, like, oh, my God, what would it be like to be, you know, to be sponsored by Nike? Whether those dollars are small or big, there's a lot more going on in the fine print of these agreements than one might realize. And I appreciate the fact that you were like, here's what it is. And you laid it all out. Like, when

• 1:12:18Rich Roll?

  you finally leveled up and you were doing well, and you signed a contract for 325, right? Like, that's a lot of money.

• 1:12:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. It was a lot more money than I thought I was ever gonna make. Yeah.

• 1:12:28Rich Roll?

  But then when you realize, like, okay, 10 appearances, 10 public appearances, like a certain number of races, and everything is scripted out, like, everything that you have to do. So the idea that you're gonna sign this contract, they're gonna pay you a lot of money, and your job is to just run? On some level, that's true. Your job is to run and to perform and to train and to compete. But there's a lot of other things that are happening where your time is being committed in ways that are at cross purposes with Trying to extract the best performances out of your running.

• 1:13:01Speaker 01

  And also, there's reductions based on your performances, too, once you get to those higher levels. So you have to be, I think I had to be ranked top two in the US or top five in the world. And if you don't, you're facing a permanent reduction that can only be undone by an Olympic medal or an American record. So it survives the life of your contract. So there's just a lot of pressures.

• 1:13:22Rich Roll?

  Bonuses and penalties, and then their ability to just suddenly stop paying you whenever they feel like it, if they feel like you're not performing. And the crazy thing in your case was, you get pregnant, you're on billboards and posters, they're marketing the shit out of you, they're kind of leveraging your name likeness and image for their own gain. And to some level, like celebrating your pregnancy, even though they Photoshop your belly and did all that kind of stuff, like they're kind of using your pregnancy to say, we're pro-women and all that kind of stuff. And then they surreptitiously, without any notice or advance warning, stop paying you.

• 1:14:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:01Rich Roll?

  So talk, explain this whole aspect.

• 1:14:04Speaker 01

  So the word pregnancy at the time was not in any Nike contract. And when I first signed with Nike, Adam came with me, we went to the Nike campus, and I was 23 at the time, or 22, I was 22, and he was saying, well, what happens if she gets pregnant? And I was like, what are you asking that for? You know, let me just sign this deal and live my dream. And they said, we don't really deal with that. You know, we deal with that on a case-by-case basis. Fast forward, that was in 2001. Fast forward to 2009, I knew I wanted to have a baby. I'd been very open about it. Alberto had helped me decide when to have this baby. And this was no secret. Everyone knew. He went to John Capriati, said, Kara wants to know. I just said, what's going to happen? Because I've heard different things. Some people got paid throughout their pregnancies, some people got suspended without pay. I'm

• 1:14:49Speaker 01

  doing it no matter what, but I want to know.

• 1:14:51Rich Roll?

  So you can plan.

• 1:14:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And Alberto comes back, he said, don't even go there, as long as she does her appearances, as long as she shows up, it's fine. Great. I worked my ass off during that pregnancy. Did so many appearances and it was fun. It was fun to show people you could run and enjoy running and do that while you were pregnant. But I was due at the end of September and then I got paid quarterly. And in July, my financial advisor said, hey, your payment didn't come through. I said, what? Ah, they're in Europe. I'm sure it's just hung up. It's like European season. Asked my agent, he can't get a hold of cap. Finally, he does. And he comes back and he says, you've been suspended indefinitely. Like, they don't even know how long they're going to suspend you. Like, for what? Your medical condition.

• 1:15:35Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:15:36Speaker 01

  So, yeah. That was it. Stopped getting paid.

• 1:15:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah, then there's the crazy situation with John Slusher.

• 1:15:43Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:15:44Rich Roll?

  Where you go to him and bring this up. And what happens? Like, he says, oh, I'm going to get into it. While he's telling you that how much you've inspired his daughter.

• 1:15:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:57Rich Roll?

  But then nothing happens.

• 1:15:59Speaker 01

  No, I mean, he's like, I'm the guy that, you know, reduced Tiger Woods. Well, that's, I'm not Tiger Woods, you know? And then, you know, we met with him and he said, you know, I really, we don't, we don't pay you to do photo shoots and appearances. We pay you to run and you haven't been running. And then he follows up in an email saying like, oh, I was watching my daughter run. It's so impressive of what you do. I talked to her about it. She can't believe how much you run. We're sticking with the, with the suspension. And at that point, it was an 18-month suspension, which eventually they offered me a 12-month suspension. Which meant that for 12 months, you don't get paid and it, 12 months is added on to your contract length.

• 1:16:39Rich Roll?

  Right. And then at some point, there's like advances offered?

• 1:16:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, they offered me an advance and I take it. You know, I've talked to Alberto and he said, take it, you know? It's always better to have the money. And then the, the idea was I was going to be suspended for 12 months total. And I could take this advance now and then I could pay, I could pay them back essentially with, with holding a quarterly payment here or there, how I wanted. At the same time, I'm thinking like, am I crazy or is this wrong? You know, this feels really wrong. So Adam and I were trying to find a lawyer and I would speak to a lawyer. They get really riled up and then they call me back and say, we're on retainer with Nike. We can't help you. And so this happened multiple times. Finally, I find this other lawyer. In the meantime, I'm getting ready to run Boston. I have to run Boston.

• 1:17:26Speaker 01

  I've been told if you win Boston, you'll get paid and all of this will go away. Boston is six and a half months after I gave birth. So I'm nursing a newborn, training 120 miles a week. I'm not being paid. I'm trying to find a lawyer. It was just such a chaotic, horrible, horrible time, actually.

• 1:17:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, that's the idea that they would give you an advance that you have to pay back is crazy. And it's one thing to say, listen, our policy is when you're pregnant, like you take a leave or whatever. Like you can go into that contract deciding whether you want to sign that or not. But it's the, it's the, it's the lack of notice and the fact that they kind of sprung this on you without even giving you a chance to kind of financially plan around it when everybody knew that you were going to be pregnant.

• 1:18:10Speaker 01

  Right. And just to be clear, they eventually reduced it to a six month contract. But I had to add a year or a six month suspension, but I had to add a year, which was very bad. I mean, everyone was mad about it, but I had found a lawyer and Alberto told them I had found a lawyer. And

• 1:18:26Rich Roll?

  And that drove a settlement that you could have pursued like if you were, you were just, you just wanted to get on with things.

• 1:18:34Speaker 01

  I will say, I won't say her name, but one of their most famous athletes told me that is bullshit. You should fight.

• 1:18:41Speaker 01

  But I was exhausted. I was exhausted. I just wanted to move on. There's, it's an Olympic year coming up. I just want to, you know, it's, I think that's one thing people don't understand sometimes is they see someone like being successful or being out. But you never know what's going on behind closed doors. And I was so exhausted. The only other time I've ever felt that exhausted is, you know, trying to make an Olympic team in 2016 while I'm, you know, getting ready to testify and things like that. Like I, it was so exhausting. And I know that to this day, Adam's still a little disappointed that I said, I'll sign it. Just make this be over.

• 1:19:16Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:19:17Speaker 01

  I just want this to be over.

• 1:19:18Rich Roll?

  You had a pretty good case and the fact that they wanted to settle so quickly is indication that, you know, you could have gone further with that, I think. And just forgive me, but on the timeline. Where does this fall in terms of when like Lindsey Kraus's reporting and Alison Felix and all that other kind of stuff came out around contracts and female track and field athletes in pregnancy?

• 1:19:40Speaker 01

  So my son was born in September of 2010. And so this was all happening end of 2010 into 2011. And that came out in 2018. But there was so much fear. I mean, people would say, well, Nike paid you the whole time. And I'd say, no, they didn't. And they'd be shocked. But there was fear, like you don't talk about it. You don't talk about how you get treated. There were so, I am not the only one. I learned during that there were so many athletes that were suspended without pay during that time, just like I was. Maybe they weren't as public facing, but they, they got screwed too. And they felt like they couldn't do anything about it. I mean, I went all the way to Parker because I felt like we were friends.

• 1:20:24Speaker 01

  And I emailed him and I said, you're a father, your wife is a mother. Like, I feel like this is wrong. And he took a couple of days to get back to me. And in the end, he chose, you know, the company policy over what I think were his true ethical values, but he was a CEO, so.

• 1:20:40Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah. Do you think that that's changed? Like, has that aspect of this, because now there's so much spotlight on these contracts that, that brands, not just Nike, but other brands have kind of revamped how they approach their pregnant athletes?

• 1:20:57Speaker 01

  It's definitely changed. And Nike was the last one to change, right? Like, all these little brands in wake of the story in 2018 with Alicia Montano and I, but especially when Alison Felix used her voice, which by the way, you get the ball rolling, then you, you join forces, right? Like, that's how the real change happened. Alicia and I came forward and talked about our experiences. Half the people were like, that's crazy. Half the people were like, you think you should be paid for eating bonbons and sitting at home? But then Alison Felix, who doesn't have a single scandal surrounding her, comes and joins our side, and now the conversation moves. And, and it was so quick. It was so quick. I was, I was contracted by Wazelle.

• 1:21:38Speaker 01

  Skechers, I think at the time, knew everyone updated contracts, like immediately with pregnancy clauses. So I, I think, and then Nike eventually did. It was about six months later, but they also amended their contracts. So that's good. That's, so no one else has to go through that. I think there's still some, some room there. You know, I remember the first major race I did after I had Colt and I said, I need an extra plane ticket and an extra hotel room. They're like, for who? I was like, my mom. Well, why does your mom need to come?

• 1:22:06Rich Roll?

  Well, I have a baby.

• 1:22:08Speaker 01

  I need to sleep well the night before. Well, why would you bring your baby? And there was, there was, that actually shocked me. People who were so nice to me when I was running well and running fast, pushing back about a plane ticket or pushing back about a hotel room. I, I hear that there's still a little struggle there. There's a lot of people doing great work, specifically Alison Felix and Alicia Montano, like trying to get nursing stations or daycare at races. There's, there's people doing great work there. I'm not really involved in that, but I appreciate what they're doing. I think that space still could be better. But I think contracts have gotten a lot better.

• 1:22:45Rich Roll?

  It's in the brand's best interest to have their own kind of like long play, long, you know, tale version of their relationship with the athletes that they work with. It's a new world now. Podiums, winning competitions, those things are all important. And of course, the brand wants to associate with people who are, who are, you know, doing well on the biggest stages all across the world. But at the same time, the purpose and the reason why they're paying you is so that they can sell more shoes.

• 1:23:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:23:16Rich Roll?

  So how do you sell more shoes? Well, you win races. That's one way. But there are many ways to be a brand ambassador and further the kind of ethos and mission statement of a particular brand. And to me, it feels like the right thing to do and the better money is spent.

• 1:23:36Rich Roll?

  Being in association with a personality, a person who is a high performer, but also has way more going on. And often what's going on is complicated, right? It means like, oh, you know, I can't always race, or I get injured, or I have a baby, and there's other things in my life. But ultimately, because they wield influence in the public sphere, and people adore them or look up to them, that's a relationship that's worth investing in for the long haul. That shouldn't be, you know, transactional on, you know, the micro calendar of your race calendar, and should be like, let's look at this, you know, from a decade perspective, and there's going to be ebbs and flows, and we're just in with you for the whole time.

• 1:24:19Rich Roll?

  And of course, if it's not working, either party can get out. But in this world of social media, and the way in which people can represent a brand and its identity in such a diversity of ways, my sense is that contracts are going to have to reflect that if they don't already.

• 1:24:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think there's a couple of different types of ways. There's the athlete that is just the high performer that doesn't want to share a lot, and I don't think that's bad either.

• 1:24:47Rich Roll?

  Right, not everybody. Just because you're an athlete doesn't mean you also have to have a production company and be a broadcaster.

• 1:24:53Speaker 01

  Totally, exactly.

• 1:24:55Rich Roll?

  Very good point.

• 1:24:55Speaker 01

  It's good to still have those athletes. They're aspirational. You want to see them when they perform. They're high performers. I know a couple that I consider friends that really like hate social media.

• 1:25:07Rich Roll?

  And they shouldn't have to feel that pressure to have to do that too.

• 1:25:10Speaker 01

  And they don't want to share everything. But then there's also this other idea of people that are sharing the ups and downs in the long run, like not just what's going to happen at Boston and the Olympic trials, but hey, I'm going to be doing this for a decade, I hope, and it's not always going to be great. I do think that there's room for both. I do think that the athletes that share more, people want to hear from more. You know, they just released the most tracked athletes at C I M, this race, this marathon in December, and only one elite was in the top 10. C J Albertson, who won, he was tracked, he was eight. But everyone else was more influencer-y type, or people sharing their stories of why they were running. And I think

• 1:25:53Speaker 01

  You know, and then it becomes like this tough line of like, are you an influencer? Are you an athlete? Which is the world I live in a little bit, honestly.

• 1:25:59Rich Roll?

  Right, right. And, and a lot of like elite athlete, uh, opinionation around people who are too influencer.

• 1:26:06Speaker 01

  Right, right. Which, that gets tricky. Um, but I think there's, there's a lot of inspiration in, in both those types of athletes. The one that's more of an open book and the one that is just a high performer. And, and, and they, they have a lot going on, but they just don't want to share it. And that's okay, too.

• 1:26:23Rich Roll?

  It reminds me of, um, you know who Lachlan Morton is?

• 1:26:27Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:26:27Rich Roll?

  I think he was in Boulder.

• 1:26:29Speaker 01

  What?

• 1:26:30Rich Roll?

  Professional cyclist who rode for EF. Uh, and this was several years ago, pre pandemic, but he didn't make the Tour de France team. So he decided he was going to ride the Tour de France course himself, like alone, like self-supported. And he documented the whole thing on his Instagram and, and, you know, he went through a lot trying to do it. And it ultimately had all these foot problems. And so he kind of attached Birkenstocks to his, you know, road bike. And it's like this incredible story. And everyone fell in love with him and he got more engagement. He was wearing his EF kit and the whole thing, but he got more engagement than the EF team at the Tour de France.

• 1:27:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:27:08Rich Roll?

  For what he was doing.

• 1:27:09Speaker 01

  And I think.

• 1:27:10Rich Roll?

  And those, so what I'm saying is there's, one isn't better than the other, but they both have their place and their purpose. And both can be interesting.

• 1:27:17Speaker 01

  Right. And people can relate to him not getting his dream and still trying to go try, right? I think, I think sometimes we think we have to win everything to be important and to matter. But that's not really, I mean, people don't even remember I was a good runner, but they love that I talk about my son. Or they love that I'm talking about this or that. It's really, it's been really interesting. I used to think I would have no value. From the moment I can't make an Olympic team, I don't know what I'm going to do because I'm going to have no value. And I'm shocked that I'm 45 and doing fine, you know? And I'm still supported by the running industry. It's, it's for me been very eye-opening and it's really made me embrace who I am fully. And I think that's important for athletes to remember.

• 1:27:59Rich Roll?

  Speaking of Parker and the Nike jet and the gold toilet and all of that. Did you see the movie air?

• 1:28:07Speaker 01

  I did.

• 1:28:10Speaker 01

  I did.

• 1:28:10Rich Roll?

  Thoughts, please.

• 1:28:12Speaker 01

  Um, I thought it was really good. I thought it captured um a little bit of that Nike, like we're grinders, we're gonna get everything. I did think it was interesting that the star of the movie was the mother.

• 1:28:24Rich Roll?

  Right, Michael Jordan's mom.

• 1:28:25Speaker 01

  You didn't even see Michael Jordan, his face in the whole movie. The star was the mom. And of course, like my mind goes to like, isn't that interesting? The mom was the the force behind everything. She made the decision. She's the one that got him the royalty, which had never been done. So this movie is really, I mean, yeah, it's about how Nike got Jordan. It's very interesting, but it's really about this this woman who changed the sport industry. So that kind of stood out for me.

• 1:28:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:51Rich Roll?

  Didn't you like try to get Matt Damon's attention or something like that, like?

• 1:28:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I have a friend who her husband was-

• 1:28:57Rich Roll?

  Send him your book or something?

• 1:28:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I have a friend whose husband was in Matt Damon's wedding and Matt Damon was in her wedding and she's like, oh, I'm gonna give him this book and nothing really came from it. But it's not like I want people, this is the thing. There are good people at Nike. There are good things happening at Nike. What I want people to think about is do I want to purchase this knowing that this someone might be treated this way? And or that there's been no acknowledgement that this happened, not just to me, to many, many, many people. And I think if you can, like, and and I think we live in a society that's just spendy, spendy, spendy anyway, but like if you really think about when you're purchasing things, who is this affecting and who is it helping? I I wish Nike is the leader.

• 1:29:43Speaker 01

  They could come out and say, we wronged women, we have had a misogynistic culture, we're gonna change that and we're gonna be open about it and transparent about it. I mean, think of what could happen. It could change the entire industry. It could be so good. And I know it's not gonna happen.

• 1:30:01Rich Roll?

  I'm like trying to imagine a universe in which that would actually happen.

• 1:30:04Speaker 01

  I know, but it could be so great. So, yeah.

• 1:30:09Rich Roll?

  We'll see, I guess.

• 1:30:10Speaker 01

  We'll see.

• 1:30:10Rich Roll?

  Time will tell.

• 1:30:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:12Rich Roll?

  One of the other things that you're contending with, and I'd never heard of this, this is not in the book, but is something called runner's dystonia. What is this?

• 1:30:22Speaker 01

  It's the worst thing that I could ever have been diagnosed. I mean, it's not the worst thing. It's a really rare neural, it's a neurological movement disorder. It's rare. And what happens is I have repetitive movement dystonia. So it's a movement that you do a lot. So it happens to writers, it happens to musicians, happens to runners. And it's a, they don't know what happens. A lot of people had a really bad fall before it happened. I also took a very bad fall before it happened, but they don't know for sure. But essentially your brain wires get crossed. And so when you go to do that motion that you've done a million times, that's so natural to you, all, your brain sends a signal and all of the muscles fire at once.

• 1:31:06Speaker 01

  So you lose complete control over wherever you have it in your body. I have it in my knee down, in my left leg. So when, when it's bad, or before it was diagnosed, I'd be trying to run and I, everything fired. So when I actually made contact with the ground, I didn't even know if I was making contact with the ground. Like I would fall, I fell into traffic. It, it was so frustrating. And then one time I went running on a road and my husband filmed me and I, I was like, my foot's not landing, it's slipping out. And he's like, no, look at the video, it's nothing.

• 1:31:38Rich Roll?

  Because you don't have sensation?

• 1:31:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, you lose all the sensation.

• 1:31:40Rich Roll?

  What does that mean when everything's firing?

• 1:31:41Speaker 01

  It's like, I feel nothing. Like I, I feel my right leg coming and then I put my left leg forward and, and this is like the best way I can describe it. I'm on a freshly Zamboni ice rink. The, the ice is as smooth as it can be. I'm barefoot and I don't know what's going to happen with my foot. I don't know if it's going to land. I don't know if it's going to slip out. For me, I got this sensation of slipping and it was always slipping. And it wasn't, but that's what it felt like because I have no... Feedback that my foot is landing. I don't feel it.

• 1:32:16Rich Roll?

  Was this like a sudden thing or did it happen gradually? And then how do you even get diagnosed? I've like never even heard of this.

• 1:32:21Speaker 01

  Well, yeah. So it started, I'm trying to think. It started around 2020 where I would go out running and I would sit down on a curb and look at my shoe and say, like, do I have a leaf on here? Like, why am I slipping? It would often happen when I was taking a right hand turn. And it was, it was kind of just gradual. Like, I'd feel it, but it didn't stop me from running. I just thought, what the heck is going on with me? I remember Googling, it feels like I slip when I run. Brought me to Reddit, no answers really. And then, and I was also in a very stressful time. My grandpa was passing of COVID. You know, the Safe Sport thing was going on.

• 1:33:01Speaker 01

  And I thought, you know, I'm just so stressed out that this is in my head, you know?

• 1:33:09Speaker 01

  And then in December of 2020, I took a really bad fall on my treadmill where I don't remember anything. I just woke up dangling from it. And then after that.

• 1:33:17Rich Roll?

  Like you blacked out?

• 1:33:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't remember anything. I remember thinking, I'm gonna go another half mile. And then the next thing I know, my arm was kind of on it like this. Like, I actually thought I broke my arm. And like, my legs were, the, the skin on my legs was ripped off. And after that, it just proceeded to get worse. But I still didn't tell anyone because I'm like, what the heck is happening with me? I mean, that situation, everyone was scared. I got my heart checked. Everything was fine. But I was running one day and I was just trying to get to Wonderland, which is this lake in Boulder, and it's, it's crushed gravel there, which feels better than just pavement. And I was trying to get there and I fell into traffic and I called my husband. I was like, something's wrong with me. But this was February of 21 and I didn't get a diagnosis until the Mayo Clinic, February 22.

• 1:34:01Speaker 01

  So it was like a rabbit hole of seeing my doctor. Adam videoed me walking. You know, she got me into seeing a neurologist. He thought I had something pinched in my back. We did all these, you know, four hours in the MRI to find out my back is like amazing. It looks great. And then we thought this is probably then did a brain scan, found out I have lesions in my brain, which was really scary. Probably have MS, then had the lumbar punctures. No, you don't have, I mean, this is just like, and then it's kind of started to go away. And then I got back from the Tokyo Olympics and it got so bad I couldn't walk. And Adam videoed me trying to walk home after dropping our son off at school.

• 1:34:43Speaker 01

  And I'm like touching the cars and like walking really gingerly because I feel like I'm going to fall. He sent that back to my doctor and then I was seeing a specialist immediately. And they told me they tested everything under the sun. And then they told me to be ready that this could be something really scary.

• 1:35:00Rich Roll?

  Like ALS or Parkinson's or something like that?

• 1:35:02Speaker 01

  Both of those were brought up. Yeah. And I was just in disbelief. So then I finally see this specialist and he says, you have runners dystonia. And I didn't, I was like, what? What the hell is that?

• 1:35:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:13Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm relieved because I'm not going to die. But I didn't know what it was at all. I left the doctor's office and I Googled runners dystopia.

• 1:35:23Rich Roll?

  You're like, he misspoke.

• 1:35:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. I'm like, what, what is he talking about? But it's been, it's been a very frustrating.

• 1:35:29Rich Roll?

  Runners dystopia, when you can't run anymore.

• 1:35:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. I was like, what do I have? What is this? But finally I found an old Runners World article and I was like, oh, that does sound like me. And so I've just been working with doctors and I was doing really well. I was taking a Parkinson's medication three times a day. And physically I felt amazing, but I started mentally slipping quite a bit. Like having a hard time saying words and my, my husband and son would fill in the word for me. You know, I'm a broadcaster.

• 1:35:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:00Speaker 01

  And I need to be able to talk. Yeah. And so that was really hard because I had to back off of that. And now I just take it before I run and I get Botox in my leg, which sounds weird. But what the Botox does is when the brain sends a signal for everything to fire, it just can't.

• 1:36:15Rich Roll?

  Cuts it off.

• 1:36:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, so when I, when I run, I don't look like how I used to. I don't look like someone who went to the Olympics. I look like an old lady kind of limping around, but I still like it.

• 1:36:24Rich Roll?

  Well, it kind of lets you off the hook, though. There's no pressure anymore.

• 1:36:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's nothing I can do, yeah.

• 1:36:30Rich Roll?

  That's scary, though. So it's a neurological disorder that I presume they don't have any kind of cure for.

• 1:36:37Speaker 01

  No cure.

• 1:36:38Rich Roll?

  Is it progressive?

• 1:36:39Speaker 01

  It can be. And I, and I have found that if I push too much, sometimes my right foot can get affected, or I'll, I'll have a really hard time walking for a few days. And basically, that's where I've been trying to find this sweet spot of like, how much can I do so that I can do it every day versus, you know, last year.

• 1:36:58Rich Roll?

  How much is that?

• 1:37:00Speaker 01

  Sadly, it's about four to five miles a day.

• 1:37:02Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:03Rich Roll?

  It's not 130 miles a week.

• 1:37:05Speaker 01

  No, it's really sad. It's not even close. And it's hard because I, I miss it. I miss being able to just say, it's a beautiful Saturday, I'll be back in two hours. Like, I really miss that. And just being able to go and, you know, like, sometimes you have those days where you just get out there and you're like, I'm just gonna see what I have today and just have fun. Because I'm, I was already sort of past the competitive part when this all happened. I miss being able to go run adventures with my friends who like to drive up to the mountains and run these crazy loops up, up on the Continental Divide. Like, I miss that a lot.

• 1:37:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you seem happy.

• 1:37:41Speaker 01

  I am, yeah. I mean, look, I, sometimes I have dark moments where I think I'm 45 and this is as good as it's gonna be. Like, this is, this is not that good. Four miles a day is not that good, right? And I, and I get.

• 1:37:54Rich Roll?

  Can you ride a bike? Can you do other things?

• 1:37:56Speaker 01

  I can. I, I've tried to get back into Nordic skiing a little bit.

• 1:38:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah, we didn't even talk about, your, your, like, your sliding door biathlon career. You could have gone in the Olympics in biathlon.

• 1:38:08Speaker 01

  Well, maybe, yeah. But to skate ski is really hard for me with my legs, so then it really needs to just be classic. So, I don't know, I've tried some other things. I've loved the gym and become a little bit of a gym rat with trainers because I need to be told what to do, but. Yeah, I mean, I miss it, but I try to still do other things.

• 1:38:31Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, I think you have found in the broadcasting and the other things that you do, like a way, like you very kind of like gracefully segwayed it out of your competitive career and into something else that you enjoy, that you're good at. Like you found something and you have that, you know, the advocacy that you do and you have, you know, a level of, like you have a podium and a captive audience to talk about the things that you care about. But one of the things that you see, and I'm sure you've seen it a lot, is elite athletes who, you know, kind of have an existential crisis when they retire because it isn't ever going to be, they're never going to be that fit again. And there's probably never going to be anything that's that exciting again,

• 1:39:16Rich Roll?

  or a situation in which they're the best or nearly the best at something in the entire world. And it's really hard to replace that if you haven't sort of been doing something all along where they're overlapping as you retire. And I've often thought whether governing bodies, colleges, you know, brands, et cetera, could do a better job of preparing athletes for that new chapter that every athlete inevitably faces.

• 1:39:44Speaker 01

  I mean, yeah.

• 1:39:45Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:46Speaker 01

  I mean, I think there's, when you're at that level, there's a little bit of like, I don't want to think ahead to the future because I need to be.

• 1:39:51Rich Roll?

  You can't afford to. That's a weakness.

• 1:39:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I need to be right here, right in the moment. I don't want to admit that this is going to end or that. But it's really lonely. And I watched Adam go through it and there's not, the hard part is there, maybe for some very, very lucky people, but for most of us, there's no like obvious sign that it's done. You know, in 2016, I thought, I'm going to make this Olympic team, I'm going to run the Olympics and then I'm going to be a stay at home mom. And I didn't make the Olympic team. So then I'm like, well, I'm going to make the world championship team in 2017 and then I'm going to be a stay at home mom. Then that didn't happen. And there's no point where.

• 1:40:23Rich Roll?

  There's no bang. You just wake up one day and you're like, I guess I'm done.

• 1:40:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's just not how it works, right? Where you're trying to run out the end of your contract or whatever it is. And so it's really tough. And I watched Adam struggle with his identity and like, what am I now? And I thought, that's not going to happen to me. And it happened to me too. You know, I struggled with what is my value? You know, I used to host a women's retreat. Well, who's going to come if I'm not, I'm no longer the one they're watching out on the course. I'm just a person jogging at home. So I think there's a lot of that. You don't have, you're not getting work skills and life skills. You know, in your twenties and early thirties, late thirties, if you're lucky, you're focused on this singular pursuit and you're not learning how to do other things.

• 1:41:08Speaker 01

  So all of a sudden, you're, you know, I was like 38 and I'm like, hey, what am I good at? I don't know.

• 1:41:15Rich Roll?

  I never thought about it.

• 1:41:17Speaker 01

  Right. It's, it's tough.

• 1:41:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I can't remember who it was. Somebody was on this podcast. I think it was a psychologist who was saying that there was some study where they took elite athletes. I can't remember. I'm going to get, I'm going to botch this and get it totally wrong. But the upshot was that athletes who had something else in their life while they were competing at the highest level actually were happier and competed better than those who were like, I can't afford to do that. I'm only doing this one thing. Because it, and that kind of puts the lie to the idea that you have to have that level of tunnel focus in order to kind of reach your potential.

• 1:41:59Speaker 01

  Well, the lead up to 2016 was the happiest time of my career. I had my son. I had a new community in Boulder, old friends that I reconnected with. I had a little bit of a social life. It was the happiest time of my professional career. But I didn't make the team. So I don't know, you know? I think it's, I think it's like a fine line of being all in, but remembering that you are more than an athlete. And I think probably almost every athlete has lost themselves at some point just caring so much about the results. And yeah, I think there is a happy medium there where you can, I don't think that I missed the team because I had margaritas with my friends one night or that I went to a movie with my friend or my son or whatever.

• 1:42:42Speaker 01

  I don't think that's why I didn't make the team. But yeah, I didn't make the team.

• 1:42:51Rich Roll?

  What do you think is the biggest differentiator between the person who stands at the top of the podium and the also-ran? Everybody's super fit, everybody's talented, everybody presumably has access to great coaching, has the resources they need. Is it a mindset thing? And if so, what is that difference? Or have you noticed anything with the many athletes you've been around?

• 1:43:17Speaker 01

  I think it is a mindset to some extent. You can't be afraid to lose. You can't be in the moment worrying about what's going to happen. You have to just be like blinders on, just running as hard as you can, and you have to believe that it could be you. I think too, at those big, big levels, the window only opens up, it's not always open. Someone wins everything all the time. Unless you're like one of the most special athletes we've ever watched, you're probably cheating, right? Like, the window opens and you have to be brave enough to pounce, say, "This is my moment." There is so, those athletes are all so fit. And it's really who can control the controllables the most in the moment.

• 1:43:59Speaker 01

  Doesn't get distracted by this or that, really is just controlling what they can in the moment. And yeah, they're not worrying, they're just being.

• 1:44:10Rich Roll?

  Totally present.

• 1:44:12Speaker 01

  Totally, totally present. That's, when I think of an athlete like that, I think of Jenny Simpson in the 1500. And she would just be so calm, and she would just wait and just be so aware of what everyone was doing. And when she saw the window, it was like that. And it was such a joy to watch her because she wasn't worried about that mover, "This person might outkick me." She was so present in what she was doing. It was like fascinating to watch, and that's hard. That's hard to do, but to just be so in the moment. You're not thinking about the finish line, you're not thinking about anything else but like the stride I'm in right now.

• 1:44:49Rich Roll?

  That's powerful. I think that's applicable to anybody who's trying to be excellent in what they're doing. Like, how present are you with the thing that you're trying to master?

• 1:45:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, it takes patience and presence. You can't, you can't, my, my, one of my sports psychologists, Dr. Walker, so I say, you are really bad at future thinking. You need to shut down the future think. Stop thinking about, oh, I'm doing 10 by a mile and I'm only six in and it's tired. How am I going to do that 10th one? Be in the sixth one. Make the sixth one as excellent as it can be. And then you can worry about the seventh one. And then make that as excellent as it can be. And then you can be in eighth. And then before you know it, you got through all 10. But it's almost paralyzing to future think because it really affects you being in the moment and being present within yourself.

• 1:45:41Rich Roll?

  As an aging athlete, I would say, I would add to that by saying, living in the past is not doing you a service either. Because when you're training and looking at your watch or whatever, you know, I'm 57, it's like, I'm measuring myself against when I was at my fittest.

• 1:45:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:45:59Rich Roll?

  And just feeling bad all the time.

• 1:46:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:46:01Rich Roll?

  Because I'm not measuring up to the person who was able to do that thing whenever that was. Instead of just being like, here's where, train, you know, train where you're at, not where you used to be, or where you think you should be.

• 1:46:14Speaker 01

  I totally agree. I had a breakthrough.

• 1:46:16Rich Roll?

  And it's hard. That's really hard.

• 1:46:16Speaker 01

  It's so hard. I had a breakthrough from 2016 to 2018. I had multiple stress fractures. I was so frustrated. I just wanted this one last race. And I woke up on July 9th of 2018, and I was like, I'm a master. You know, like, I'm not supposed to do what the 24 year old women are doing. And it was the weirdest sensation because I feared turning 40. I remember when my mom turned 40. And it was so like, there's a reason there's this category. Like, it's okay. That's one thing I would just say. It's okay to age. It's okay to reset what your new gold standard is. You know, I'm never gonna, I'm probably never gonna run a marathon again. But you know what I would love to do? Run 10 miles. And I can't even believe that that's my gold star. But that's what I'm trying to do

• 1:47:00Speaker 01

  right now. I want to get strong enough, and good enough with my dystonia, and manage it enough that I can go for a 10 mile run. And that is my new gold medal. And it's ridiculous. It's a 10 mile run. But that is what I can do with what, where my body is at now. And that's okay.

• 1:47:17Rich Roll?

  I love it. What is your sense or your take on the state of? American women marathon runners right now, as somebody who kind of resurfaced the prominence of American women in that distance.

• 1:47:34Speaker 01

  We have such a good group right now. We're not necessarily seeing those podium finishes. I mean, we saw one in Tokyo, obviously, with Molly Seidel, but we're so close. And it's sort of like, the more you have, the more likely it is to happen. I mean, in 21, we saw some podium finishes in the majors, but they were all within like a five-week span. I'm very hopeful with the crop of women we have right now, that this could become a regular occurrence. There's just so many women, and they're learning how to be like full marathoners, not just time trialers, not just technical racers, everything, right? We've seen this new generation where, yeah, they want to go with the pacer and run as fast as they can. And then the next marathon they pick, it's a challenging one

• 1:48:18Speaker 01

  where you have to think and read each other. So I think the women's marathon in the United States is in a very, very good place. And I think for the foreseeable future, because they're inspiring girls that are in college right now, that are going to want to run the marathon. When I was in college, I was like, who'd want to run the marathon? You know, like, we had Dina. Dina was our gold star. But now, there's so many different personalities and multiple women. I mean, the Olympic trials are going to be crazy. It's not...

• 1:48:43Rich Roll?

  When is that happening?

• 1:48:44Speaker 01

  It's on February 3rd. And in the past, it was like, there's three or four, or maybe five women. I can't tell you who will make it. I have no idea it's going to be... But as an athlete, that's very nerve-wracking. But as a fan of the sport and wanting to see growth in the sport, it's amazing.

• 1:48:58Rich Roll?

  Are you going to be doing commentary at the trials also? Oh, you are? Oh, cool. And you'll be calling the marathon in Paris?

• 1:49:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:49:06Rich Roll?

  And track and field?

• 1:49:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, 1500 and up.

• 1:49:09Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm. That's so exciting.

• 1:49:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:49:11Rich Roll?

  I hope to be there.

• 1:49:12Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 1:49:13Rich Roll?

  I'm excited. I've never, I've never attended an Olympic, so...

• 1:49:16Speaker 01

  It's a spectacle.

• 1:49:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:18Speaker 01

  But it's so amazing. I mean, the last Olympics I was at was Tokyo, and the stadium was empty.

• 1:49:23Rich Roll?

  Right. That was a weird one.

• 1:49:25Speaker 01

  It was super weird. So I'm excited for, you know, I don't want to say a real Olympics.

• 1:49:29Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 1:49:30Speaker 01

  I feel bad because the Tokyo Olympians are real...

• 1:49:32Rich Roll?

  The full spectrum of the Olympic experience.

• 1:49:35Speaker 01

  The way the crowd reacts to what's happening, the way you can see the athletes actually taking that energy, some in a negative way. You know, letting it overwhelm them, but some using it as fuel. Like you can see it in the moment. It's amazing.

• 1:49:47Rich Roll?

  Cool. The final thing I wanted to ask you is pertains to the athlete who's listening to this or watching this, who is starting to realize that

• 1:50:00Rich Roll?

  the dynamic that they're in on the team that they're on or with the coach that's overseeing their progress might not be the healthiest. Maybe it's not terrible. If they told somebody, who knows what the reaction would be. What do you say to that person? How do you guide that person to address a situation that on some level is somewhat relatable or similar to what you endured?

• 1:50:27Speaker 01

  I think we have intuition for a reason. And I stopped listening to mine because I thought, I know this feels uncomfortable. I know this feels not good, but it's so small and the goal is right there. We have intuition for a reason and listen to it. And you know what? Maybe for other people, that is a great situation, but the same situation isn't good for everyone. You trust yourself. You have that ability to know what's right and what's wrong. And at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if someone else thinks it wasn't a big deal. If it's making you uncomfortable and your little bells are going off, that is not going to help you as an athlete.

• 1:51:11Speaker 01

  You're not going to run or perform the way you want when you have those constant questions in your mind. So listen to yourself and trust yourself. You will make the right decision.

• 1:51:23Rich Roll?

  And if that decision is to seek out help or additional guidance, what are the Safe Sport resources that you would recommend that person look into?

• 1:51:34Speaker 01

  That's a great question because there aren't a ton of good resources. There is a resource being built out right now by Katie Steele out of Bend, Oregon, which is a place for younger athletes, collegiates, and just post-collegiate athletes to reach out, get help, get mental health services, connect with other people. I think USATF is trying to do something in this vein of being athletes being able to reach out. But again, if you have to do it solo, hit me up. I'm serious. Like, if it feels wrong, you're not the only one, and people will believe you and will help you. There's gonna be another opportunity. This is not your opportunity. You know, it's like, we sometimes as athletes, we think this has to be it. So I can't leave, I can't do that

• 1:52:19Speaker 01

  because this is it. No, that's not the opportunity that you're looking for. It's not what's going to bring you true happiness and success.

• 1:52:27Rich Roll?

  It's hard to tell that person when they're in it, though.

• 1:52:29Speaker 01

  Super hard, super hard. And I get it. I stayed so much longer than I should have, so much longer than I should have. I wanted to leave so many times, and I convinced myself I had to stay over and over and over again. It took a horrific experience on an airplane for me to say, I can't do this anymore. So I get it. I get it. It's your family, it's your community, it's your whole life. But your life deserves to be better than that.

• 1:52:55Rich Roll?

  So if they're going to reach out to you, should they do that like through your website? How are they gonna do that? And I'm wondering if there's like some kind of SafeSport hotline number where-

• 1:53:07Speaker 01

  There is a SafeSport. Yeah, you can go to safesport.com, and they have, they have, they have like call lines, they have support there. SafeSport gets a bad rap, but I think it's because it's so overwhelmed. But they, my experience with SafeSport was very positive. They believed me, they listened to me, I never felt judged. But reach out to SafeSport. And, you know, there's, this is one of the things that I really would like to see, infrastructure of, when you're on these teams, there's no one checking in, ever. So I feel like that should fall on the governing body. I feel like that should fall on USATF to check in periodically. Someone who is completely- Unrelated to the team that can really talk to you.

• 1:53:50Speaker 01

  And I know that Yosef TF was talking about, or maybe has even started like a program where they're checking in with athletes. But what if you're not quote unquote, good enough to be checked in on? I think this is like a place that we need to close, close this loop so that people have a resource. When I was at the Oregon Project, where would I go? I'm not going to go to a sports psychologist, can't go to Alberto, not going to go to his boss. Where am I going to go? There's no one safe for me to talk to. And that was before Safe Sport. But I think this is a problem. So this is like not the happy response that probably everyone's looking for, but I would say, reach out to Safe Sport and find someone, if you can, that you can confide in and talk to. Here's the thing. This stuff is happening.

• 1:54:35Rich Roll?

  Oh, for sure.

• 1:54:36Speaker 01

  And people need to know that people are going to believe them. Like, I was so inspired by seeing the gymnastics team testify to Congress about Nassar. Like, that gave me resolve to go ahead and testify in the Safe Sport case. So I just want people to know, like, you exist, and if I can help you, I will. And Safe Sport will help you. If they, if they can, they will help you. But you're not, you're not alone. And you're not crazy. If you really feel like this is wrong, you need to, you need to talk to someone.

• 1:55:05Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. Well put. I think that's a good place to end it for today.

• 1:55:10Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:55:13Rich Roll?

  That was great. Thank you.

• 1:55:14Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:55:14Rich Roll?

  You're, you're so inspiring. Your strength and your courage to tell your story in the unvarnished way that you did requires a certain level of confidence and boldness, and it's made a huge impact. And it's inspiring millions of people. And I appreciate you stepping out and sharing your story in the way that you did. And hopefully I'll see you in Paris.

• 1:55:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, that would be awesome.

• 1:55:40Rich Roll?

  It'll be fun. In the meantime, The Longest Race out in paperback. Wherever you buy books, patronize your favorite independent bookseller or buy it online. And come back and talk to me some other time.

• 1:55:52Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:55:53Rich Roll?

  When, when Colt is making the Olympics and we can talk about his cross-country career.

• 1:55:57Speaker 01

  Yes, let's do it.

• 1:55:58Rich Roll?

  But I appreciate it. Thank you.

• 1:56:00Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:56:01Rich Roll?

  Thanks, Kara. Cheers. Peace.

• 1:56:13Rich Roll?

  That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guest, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com, where you can find the entire podcast archive, as well as podcast merch, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change, and The Plant Power Way, as well as the Plant Power Meal Planner at meals.richroll.com. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review and/or comment.

• 1:56:58Rich Roll?

  Supporting the sponsors who support the show is also important and appreciated, and sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is, of course, awesome and very helpful. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, the Meal Planner, and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo, with additional audio engineering by Cale Curtis. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis, with assistance by our creative director, Dan Drake. Portraits by Davy Greenberg. Graphic and social media assets courtesy of Daniel Salis.

• 1:57:41Rich Roll?

  Thank you Georgia Whaley for copywriting and website management. And of course, our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Tractor Pyatt, and Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love, love the support. See you back here soon. Peace. Plants.