Real Life Runners with Angie and Kevin Brown

372: Put Yourself In A Position to Succeed: Takeaways From The Paris Olympics

August 15, 2024 • Angie Brown

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In episode 372 of the Real Life Runners podcast, we dive into our favorite stories and lessons from the recent Olympics. We discuss inspiring performances from various athletes, particularly in running events, and what runners of all levels can learn from these elite competitors. The conversation spans topics such as overcoming challenges, the importance of fueling and cooling during races, and the power of mindset and self-belief. We also share practical tips for recreational runners, emphasizing the significance of training, preparation, and celebrating achievements. From marathon strategies to individual race tactics, this episode offers valuable insights for enhancing both running and personal growth.


01:00 Olympic Excitement and Personal Reflections

05:24 Body Positivity and Athleticism

10:46 Sifan Hassan's Incredible Feats

17:50 Kenneth Rooks' Steeplechase Journey

26:49 Embracing Excellence: The Power of Preparation

28:34 The Resilience of Jakob Ingebrigtsen

31:39 The Unique Personalities of the U.S. Sprint Squad

35:14 Marathon Strategies: Cooling and Fueling

43:05 The Impact of Course and Technology on Marathon Performance

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Angie:

Welcome to the Real Life Runners podcast, episode number 372. Today, we're talking about stories from the Olympics. There were so many good things that have happened in the past couple of weeks, and we here had the Olympics on. All the time. So like so many people, um, around the world. And so today we're going to talk about some of our favorite stories from the Olympics, um, including the runners and the non runners and what that those people and those stories and all of the events can help to teach us about ourselves, our running and help to make us better runners and better humans in the process. So stay tuned. What's up runners. Welcome to the show today. The Olympics, unfortunately is officially over and it's such a sad time because we have had the Olympics on pretty much nonstop for the past couple of weeks.

Kevin:

Oh no, completely nonstop. Like there's, even as we're sleeping, we just let them run in the other room. Just that it's a 24 seven just Olympics coming at us. Yeah,

Angie:

we definitely don't do that, but it has been so much fun watching all of the amazing coverage and all of the different sports. I think that that's one of the cool things that we actually didn't put in our outline today of just the different the exposure to all of the different sports that were in the Olympics that we don't normally watch.

Kevin:

I love everything about the Olympics, every single sport, and I really do. I'm biased towards the summer Olympics. Yes, it has the track in it, but it has things that I'm like, I could see myself do that, or I've done that. Not at like, clearly not an Olympic level, but like, like, look at those people run. I've run like, could I go sub 10 in the a hundred? No, I could go sub 10 and like a 50, but I, I can run. Other people can run. I've swam across the pool. Look at how absurdly fast those people are swimming. Like it seems like things that I've done. I've never skied down a mountain.

Angie:

Right. It's funny that you said that because I feel like that was my MO. Pretty much the first weekend that I was sitting on the couch watching the Olympics. It's everybody's. I'm like, Oh, this, this looks really fun. I think I could do this. Like I would totally love to play women's rugby sevens. Like that sounds like a great idea. I wish I would have found out about this sport 20 years ago.

Kevin:

Yes, 20 years ago. Maybe not take up Rugby 7s right now. Eh, I mean I know, you were fully prepared to like, just strap on and go, like, let's do this thing. Can I, like, searching to see if we have a league nearby us. Handball

Angie:

looked fun. I'm like, I could, I would definitely be good at that game. Like, that's combining Multiple sports that I used to play as a, as a kid, as a young athlete growing up. Like why, why was I never introduced to handball? I could've been on the Olympic team.

Kevin:

Obviously. Obviously. The only thing out of the summer Olympics that I have like zero connection to, like none, is gymnastics. I've got nothing. Like I used to watch my sister do gymnastics.

Angie:

I was a tumble bug when I was. Three or four years old.

Kevin:

Right. So you could do a somersault like, which is not even what they call it in the Olympics. I forget what it is, but it's not even a somersault that's, but all of these things, I'm like, I, at some point I've seen that I've had some interaction wrestling was really big at my school. So it's not all the different martial arts, but it was really big thing in my high school. So like, I feel connected to some of these things.

Angie:

Weightlifting. We talk about it all the time on the podcast.

Kevin:

You, you can see me as a professional weightlifter. I physically resemble some of those guys. Especially the upper weights where they're the bar bends because there's so much weight on it.

Angie:

Those are wild. Those

Kevin:

are nuts But no, I love the Olympics. Like this is like my my three week favorite part of every four years. It's phenomenal

Angie:

Yeah, and I also am biased towards the Summer Olympics I love the Winter Olympics, especially the stuff like speed skating and figure skating that but The summer Olympics, I think, definitely has my heart for a lot of the reasons that you mentioned and just, you know, also, it's nice because we have the summer off. I think that's a big part of it, too, is we get to actually have the time to just sit down and watch some of these things. And in the winter, like the winter Olympics are usually in February. So that's in the middle of the school year. You're like trying to catch it. You kind of forget that it's on. But in the summer, it's more relaxed. We have more time to just sit down sit and watch and absorb all of the greatness on the tv in front of us.

Kevin:

I was sick for like the first four days. Like what is the best thing to handle sickness? Chicken soup and olympics.

Angie:

Yeah, and I was, we traveled for a lot of the end of the summer, you know, we were in California for a couple of weeks and then I went off to Nebraska, me and our youngest daughter, um, and when I got back, so we were, Super late on Friday night. I basically sat on the couch the next day because I was so tired. I woke up at 11 AM, which is insane for me and basically sat on the couch for hours, just watching the Olympics. Cause I was wiped out. I had already

Kevin:

watched four hours of Olympics by that point in time. By the

Angie:

time I woke up. Yes. Yeah. So today we want to kind of go over, and there's actually some things that I'm thinking about right now. So I may go off script a bit here. Um, uh, About some of the amazing things that the Olympics brought forth for us to see. Oh, I

Kevin:

already have a couple of things that are not on the outline that I'm like, Oh, we should mention that.

Angie:

So since we just brought up rugby sevens, I'm just going to start there because I just think that, you know, Alona Mayer has been one of the. Absolute stars of the Olympics. And I just want to say that I love what I've seen from her as far as what she stands for as far as really being a champion for body positivity and helping people understand that strong. Is really, you know, being strong is what we want to shoot for and it's okay to be strong. It's okay to see what your body can do. It's not just about looks. It's not just about being skinny. It's not just about your body shape or your body size. It's about appreciating yourself as an individual, your uniqueness and all of the amazing things that your body is able to do. And she has said that it. I mean, she's got a crazy social media following now. I feel like she's been one of the breakout stars, um, in the social media world from these Olympics. And I just love that she is champion, champion, championing, championing championing that cause, thank you. Um, especially for all the young girls out there, you know, I just think it's so powerful for, Young girls and, and young boys for that matter to see so many different shapes and sizes and body types doing all of these different sports. And they're all Olympians. That's one thing that they all share.

Kevin:

Yes. Like it's the, we're not in the middle of the NFL and the straight arm that she gave to somebody trying to tackle her. Like it wasn't in the late, it was like in the opening rounds and she just like, just trucks the girl with a straight arm to her face and drops her. It was, it was phenomenal. And she was a huge. Social media star before, and now she's walking away with an Olympic medal. Like her, her, you know, her stardom just like skyrocketed. For sure.

Angie:

And I just, you know, I just want to give her a shout out because I just think it's so powerful what she's putting out there on social media. And I love the message that she's sending to all the young girls specifically out there.

Kevin:

Be strong, like pick whatever your sport is, and then find the body that's working for that in the strongest way possible. Like she is. very, very strong. She could totally benchpress me repeatedly without breaking sweat.

Angie:

Yeah. And one of the cool things that I saw to kind of tie this into running was I saw a video of some guy on YouTube or something that took The split screens or like basically took a time lapse video or some sort of video on when she did that, that sprint that you're talking about where she stiff arms the girl and runs it in for a try. I, I, it's a try, not a touchdown. Thank you. Perfect. Thank you. Um, so, He analyzed like how fast is she actually right like in kind of Came to this conclusion that she is really fast Like I forget the exact numbers, but she is really fast and here's this girl who is a bigger body size She's tall She's got broad shoulders, you know and she is very very fast and I think that that's really important for us as runners because As runners, we come in all shapes and sizes and we come in all distances. And I think that watching running in the Olympics, you can see it also when you look at the difference between the sprinters and the distance runners. But for the most part, if you're looking at distance runners, if you're looking at the people that, you know, if you're listening to this podcast, in all likelihood, You probably run somewhere between 5k and ultra marathons the people that are in the 5, 000 the 10, 000 the marathon in the Olympics all have very similar body types, right? They tend to be more slender. They're obviously very muscular They have low levels of body fat on visible body fat on them And I just think that it's important for us to also see, you know, there's a lot of other sports where the women and the men are running that have different body types. And so I think that that's important to kind of point out as well. Like we're not all trying to be elite marathoners, but we can still go out and run and do something that's really good for us.

Kevin:

Yeah, I mean, it's why I like the middle distance races, um, not to personally do them myself because they are very painful, but watching things like the 800 and the mile, you get a variety of body types in there because you get the people who were like sprinters that stretch their distance out and you get the people that are like, five K runners that are bringing their distance down and trying to hit the mile. So you do get a variety of sizes on that. And you can see that some athletes just they physically carry muscle more than other athletes. And it's just part of that is more just genetics rather than specifically how their training. Some people just put on more muscle mass than others.

Angie:

Yeah. And body fat for that matter, too, right? I think that's important for us to to notice as real life runners. Not that We should be looking at the body types that part of me now is like, why did I start out talking about body types? Because, but at the point is everyone is included in, you know, not, not that the Olympics is necessarily an inclusive thing because you have to be an extremely elite athlete to be in the Olympics, but it is pretty cool to see how there are all body types and all shapes and sizes in the Olympics, even at that level. Yeah. Which I think

Kevin:

is the point you were going for. That

Angie:

is the point. So let's go to some of our favorite stories from the track. Okay. So since this is a running podcast, let's start with the track because you all know, we watched pretty much all of the track events. Um, don't think there's any that I missed. Um, so I have to start out talking about Safan Hassan because what she did in these Olympics is absolutely incredible. So Safan Hassan is a runner from the Netherlands. If you sorry if this is a spoiler alert, but I'm sure like

Kevin:

this whole podcast is a spoiler. Well, Olympics are done

Angie:

The Olympics are done and opening social media any day of the week. You are gonna have lots of spoiler alert So I tried to really avoid social media. So if you guys are following us on Instagram, you'll probably notice I Posted a lot less the past couple of weeks. That was, um, a variety of reasons. One is travel and two is I just didn't want to be on social media because I was afraid that as soon as I opened the app, I was going to see a result that I didn't want to see because I wanted to watch it myself. Um, but. Sifan Hassan won. The bronze medal in the 5, 000 meter, the bronze medal in the 10, 000 meter, the 10 K and then came back on the last day and won the gold medal in the marathon. That is just absolutely insanely incredible. To my mind like I like let's talk about that.

Kevin:

I mean, it's when you look at the Olympics and you're like Well, the Olympics are three weeks. So if she stretched those out that could work. No, no That's not what her schedule was the 5k has prelims So she had to run an opening 5k round and finish far enough that she made it into the finals and she Floats in the back and you're like, Ooh, maybe she's not feeling great, but she just puts out as little effort as she can, especially in the opening rounds. And then when it's time to make a move, she goes and makes a move. So she had to run an opening round 5k and then the finals of the 5k. Then she had to race a 10 K and then two days after the 10 K that she pulled the bronze medal, she had to go run a full marathon. That is not usually how we suggest tapering for a marathon is Olympic caliber 10 K. Like it's just not usually how that goes.

Angie:

Right. And it's really interesting and. I think about, you know, the way that we often coach our runners where we talk about, you know, going hard and then making sure that there's enough recovery. Like she just didn't have that available to her, like to do what she did. She had. A very, very limited window of recovery, which is just showing how elite of an athlete and of a runner she is, how she is just really head and shoulders about above all of the competition. I mean, that was obvious when she won the gold medal, but also doing it in the way that she did was. to me. I

Kevin:

mean, she actually pulled back because she was originally signed up to also race in the 1500 and just prior to the start of the Olympics, she pulled out of the 1500, which would have been insane because that would have added three extra races because there's opening rounds, then semifinals and then finals. And people had put her race schedule up on, on social media. And she had like a 1500 and 5k on the same day. And so her recovery really was. I'm sure that there were ice baths on a regular basis for pure recovery purposes. I mean, she raced 38 miles within like a week, raced it. That doesn't include the warmup and the cool down and anything that she was doing on like the recovery days where I'm sure that she was actually out and running, but that's the mileage that that particular athlete is at. Tripled in the last olympics in the 1500 and the 5k and the 10k She's won so many olympic and world titles. She's won all of these things I think she has the second fastest marathon ever and it was sort of like what what could I do? That would be a challenge to me Oh, here's a thing that hasn't been done since 1952 I'm going to sign up and see if I can give it a shot.

Angie:

And in 1952, it was done by a man. So it had never been done by a woman before.

Kevin:

Right. Emile Zatopek showed up and ran the five and the 10, won gold in both of them and was not even supposed to run the marathon, but he was still around hanging out with his countrymen who he trained with, who were in the marathon and entered the race. It's not really how qualifying for the Olympics works anymore. Not anymore.

Angie:

Well, but her marathon debut was last year in 2023 also.

Kevin:

When she set the world record, I believe.

Angie:

At Chicago. Yeah.

Kevin:

I

Angie:

don't think she's. No, no, no,

Kevin:

that wasn't Chicago. She was, I think in Europe on hers and did not, I think we're in the second fastest time.

Angie:

I'm pretty sure it was Chicago when they put it up the other day on the screen. I think they said 2023 Chicago was her debut marathon. Okay. Yeah. And so. She's new to this too. Like that's the other thing, right? Like, it's not like she's some seasoned marathoner that understands this distance better than other people. Like she is new to this distance. So what she did was just incredible, but I think it was really cool. You know, her mindset around this, at least from what we heard, which was what's possible for me, like going into it again with that sense of curiosity that you all know, I love so much of, can this be done? How is this going to work out this? I want to find something that's going to challenge me and I don't really care that other people are telling me that this is crazy. I think I can do it and I want to give it a shot.

Kevin:

Yeah. I mean, that's, That was certainly the story that they were putting out there there weren't a ton of interviews with her but that was the story that was coming out is What's possible? What is a personal challenge for me? And that's the thing is the personal challenge for each of us does not need to be Let's see if I can go win three gold medals and three distant distance events at the Olympics next time It's what is it that's going to be a personal challenge for you? Because what she was doing and what other people were doing were very, very different. There was somebody who was trying to come back and what triple the five K the 10 K for three Olympics in a row. That was her challenge. So she wasn't doing a five K and a marathon afterwards because she was trying to win the 10 K for the third straight Olympics, which hadn't been done. Everybody's got their own personal challenges. Maybe your personal challenge is completing a half marathon. It's, it's a different challenge than the Olympics, but it's still going to be a big challenge for you. And that's really what we're all searching for is what can you find that it's like, Oh, that's the thing that other people might say is a little bit.

Angie:

Yeah. And I think that the people around her, like, and this is what I think is cool real life runners and running. As a way to connect all of us, because there were probably plenty of people in her circle. I don't know if it's about her inner circle, but definitely the expanded circle that thought she was crazy for trying this and in your circle, either your inner circle or your expanded circle, there's probably people that think you're crazy for going out and. Well, just being a runner in general, or for doing that 10 K or that half marathon or that marathon, that thing that you have on your heart of a way that you are going to challenge yourself and the thing that you want to see what you are capable of. Like she had those same things just at a different level.

Kevin:

Yeah. And I mean, we all do. I think the, do you have more on her story or was it slide in? Cause the next story has a similar. Basis of this of see what's possible and it is the story of u. s. Steeple chaser Kenneth rooks who? Based off of his qualifying time at the u. s. Trials. He qualified for the olympics because he won the u. s. Trials and then he made it through the opening rounds and into the finals of the olympics if he came from other countries Because he didn't meet the Olympic standard time, they would not have sent him. He met like a lower standard, but his world ranking qualified him to go to the Olympics. So I was, I was trying to figure out what was going on with him. And there are many, many other countries in the world that he never would have even showed up at the Olympics. He shows up, he knows how hard he's been training. He knows how hard he's been working and he didn't let the other big names standing on the line. Didn't let defending champion, the world hold world world champions. Anybody be like, well, I can't keep up with that guy. The race went out slower and tactical as so many distance races in the Olympics do, and he was able to stay with the front pack. And as it was coming up on the bell lap, one lap to go, he surged to the front. And then like the announcers were like, uh, that's. American Kenneth Rooks in the front, like with a question in their voice, like, what is he doing and why is everybody else not just passing him? And he just surged away from everybody else because he had this like huge belief, like I'm here, I've held on for six and a half laps. Why not me? Why not now? And he went for it and he did get passed by the defending Olympic champion at the end. And, and, but he held on for the S for the silver medal, where honestly, if he came from. other countries would not have been in the Olympics. He was in a position where he had a chance and he said, well, if this is my shot, I better shoot and he went for it so hard on the last lap that like we're screaming at the television for this guy. I couldn't pick him out of a lineup a week ago and now I'm like, yeah,

Angie:

I had no idea who he was. And all of a sudden that's what was, I mean, all four of us were watching this race and like. Come on, come on. And then literally we're jumping up and down when he got the silver.

Kevin:

Yeah. The four of us. Yeah. The all four of us are screaming at the television. The dog's going crazy because she can't stand when people clap. No, she

Angie:

barks because she, I think she's cheering along too.

Kevin:

I like that you tell yourself that she's cheering along, but his story I thought was a phenomenal story. Just such so inspiring of he had a shot and it was such a small shot, but it's like, well, if that's my shot, I'm going for it.

Angie:

And ultimately it came down to his belief in himself. Yes. Right? Like, I believe that I can do this. I believe that I'm going to take that shot. Like that's reminding me of Hamilton now. Right. Not giving away my shot. Like I've got this opportunity now, this, this race set me up perfectly. I'm going to go for it and see what I've got. And I think that so many of us, that's such a great mentality that we can also take with us when. You know, when we're racing or when we're not racing, like this can apply to running. This can apply to lots of other areas in your life. Like maybe it's something in your career professionally, maybe it's something with, you know, at home with your family, who knows what it could be, but like, are you willing to believe in yourself and put yourself. Out there, like really out there, like he took the lead over all of these world champions and he could have been swallowed up and spit out the back. And that, you know, He was willing to risk that quote unquote embarrassment to see if this was possible for him.

Kevin:

Yes, and that's the thing and I think that's why I got so excited is there was the chance that he made this move and Eight people covered it and shot him out the back and it's not what happened, but it very easily Could have been what happened. But in his head, he said, This is this is my only chance. So I'm going for it, which sidebar to the high jump, which I know we don't have written down here, but real quick on that one. Last Olympics, the one two in the high jump agreed to share the gold medal. There was a tie at the top this year when they made it to the end, and they talked to them and said, Do you want to share the medal? And the They agreed not to, and it looked kind of like the American said, no, we're, we're going to a jump off and then he lost. And so it didn't have the result that he wanted to, but he still was like, no, we're going to figure out today, which one of us is number one. And it was a beautiful story. Last Olympics that they shared the gold medal, but they both went into this thing with, we're going to figure out who's going to win. And it is. The results, 1 2, is exactly what happened at the World Championships last year. They came down to the end and the Australian beat the American and he's beat him like three consecutive big meets that they've gone to, but the American's like, well, let's give it a shot. Let's see how this goes.

Angie:

Wasn't there a guy from Qatar too?

Kevin:

He has calf issues and kind of, he wasn't one of the top two. He was not in this round.

Angie:

Oh, okay. Yeah. So I just think that that's super cool. Okay. Now we have to talk about the 1500. Because the 1500 is. so exciting to watch. It's just one of those races that goes really fast because it's I mean, the men's 1500 is about 3. 5 minutes long. The women's is just under four minutes, right? They break four minutes. Yeah, yeah. So it's just one of those, like, fast races that is Super exciting because you never know what's going to happen. And the men's 1500, there were two guys going in that were the clear favorites to win this thing. One of them was the world champ, the reigning world champion from last year. And the other was the reigning Olympic champion from three years ago. So it was like this huge showdown. They, I mean, built this thing up. So big before this race and it was a very interesting outcome

Kevin:

Well, because those two have raced each other so much because they race each other Not just like we see track every four years, but there's Diamond League races. These are professional athletes So they're racing through Europe. These guys go head to head against each other There's the European championships that happened where these two athletes went head to head and the British guy Kerr Past Jakob Ingebrigtsen down the final straightaway and everyone's like wait someone can out kick Jakob Ingebrigtsen and That's not how it's supposed to happen. That's not what we've seen before and Josh Kerr from Great Britain just Slides past him down the finish line and then it happened the next championship race He slid past him for I believe the back to back world championships And so they don't seem to like each other and it's like what's that just getting played up in social media But it doesn't look like it. It looks like there's Genuine animosity between these two guys that they really don't like each other and they kind of have like called each other out They don't seem to get along very well, and so Jakob Ingebrigtsen the younger guy kind of brash Big talking guy who has not raised very much From the gun just took the race out was like I'm gonna run as fast as I possibly can I'm gonna run on world record pace and I dare you to try and outkick me at the end That seems to be his strategy and the announcers are like well That's certainly one interesting strategy and it's what he went for and I don't know if If that was the best strategy, but that was his plan is I'm going to run the kick out of everybody.

Angie:

Well, it didn't work for him. We'll, we'll just put it that way. Right? Like, so you can say whatever you want, if it was the best strategy or not, but it didn't work for him because he ended up in fourth place.

Kevin:

This is true, but. What was the big shocker is that Josh Kerr didn't win the race. There was such a buildup between these two guys. Who's going to win. It's clearly one of these two guys, because they've been racing against each other and they hate each other and all this stuff. And the U. S. Athletes just sat and just waited and they

Angie:

just ran right along with them the whole time and again, waited for the opportunity,

Kevin:

waited for the opportunity to show up, which got me very nervous because the opportunity didn't show up until about 200 ish meters to go, maybe a hundred meters to go

Angie:

and one of the U. S. This guy is a Notre Dame alum as well, so we are huge fans of, of Nagoose. Screaming at

Kevin:

the television for him to try and make a move. The other American I thought cut him off with 200 meters to go, who's Cole Hawker.

Angie:

He had the rail.

Kevin:

And so I'm yelling at the TV. He cut him.

Angie:

Kevin's like, don't give him the rail. He gave him the rail. He gave him. Like, it was, you guys. What? To be a fly on the wall on, uh, as we watch the Olympics is probably pretty entertaining.

Kevin:

We are a little intense. So these two guys who are supposed to be sort of racing each other, and probably one of them is going to get the gold medal, what happens down the final straightaway is Jakob Ingebrigtsen. Is in lane one and Josh Kerr tries to pass him on the outside and Ingebrigtsen starts sliding out towards the outside of lane one and into lane two. And what it did was open up the inside rail and Cole Hawker from the U S just passes both of them on the inside and never glances over, never does anything. Just kind of his eyes got big. Like, um, that's the finish line in front of me and no one's blocking me. And he just ran his way right to first place, which was. Unbelievable is phenomenal and It was, it was again, it was his chance opened up. He put himself in a position, he ignored all of this like crazy noise around him going into the race and said, let, let social media cover all of that. I'm going to do what I do. And I know that I can win this race. And so when the opportunity shows up. I'm going to stay on the rail because I bet the rail opens and there I go.

Angie:

Yeah. I mean, isn't that like one of the definitions of excellence out there is essentially setting yourself up and putting yourself in the position so that if your opportunity does present itself, you have the ability to take it.

Kevin:

Yes. Is it excellence

Angie:

or it's something, it's something, but it's something that I think that's really important because people talk about excellence and people talk about these things and they talk about luck, right? And they talk about, um, oh, well, you're just, you're just blessed or you're just lucky, but that's what it is. It's luck, right? Luck is essentially preparing yourself well enough for the opportunity so that when that opportunity does get presented, you're ready to take it.

Kevin:

Yes. There's a, there's a saying about luck. It's something like lucking the, The people who prepare the most seem to get the most lucky bounces. Something to that effect is like, yeah, cause it's not exactly luck. Is it? It's that you're actually really prepared for the situation,

Angie:

right? Cause like you could say that he's lucky that that lane opened up and he was able to just take them on the inside. Was it luck? Was it just kind of the way that the race played out either way? He was there and he put himself in that position to Fully take advantage of that when that opportunity presented itself.

Kevin:

Right, which is phenomenal. And then. You know, dear to our heart, the Notre Dame guy pulled through for the bronze medal, which was awesome. Way

Angie:

to go

Kevin:

Nagoose! Which follows then, the next story is Jakob Inderbretsen, who was supposed to get gold, possibly dip all the way back to, whoa, silver, fell off the medal stand because Jardine Nagoose passed him with like, I don't know, 10 steps to go. And then he was able to regroup the same way that he's done at back to back world championships, where he has not gotten the gold medal in the mile, which he's support, like he should, you know, quote unquote should get it. And he's regrouped and won the 5k at back to back world championships. And now the Olympics, like he came back a few days later and didn't get down and didn't, wasn't like, Oh, well, I got it. I don't have the kick. I don't know. I'm going to have to completely rethink everything because you could have, he could have derailed off of this because he ran his strategy and it didn't work. And so to be able to come back just a few days later and run the five can be like, how am I going to do this? Everybody out kicked me in the last race. What do I do? I still have the confidence. He clearly still had the confidence to beat the rest of the field and take another gold medal.

Angie:

Yeah. And I think that that's a really big, you know, nod to knowing who you are. And that one race doesn't define you.

Kevin:

Yes.

Angie:

You know, we say that a lot here. It's easy for us to say as, you know, Just recreational runners that are kind of doing this for fun. You know, this is for most of us. This is a hobby for him. It's his life. He is a professional runner. So for him, I think that it's got to be so much harder when you have a race, especially on a stage, the size of the Olympics that doesn't go well, where you didn't perform the way that everyone said that you could. Or expected you to perform and to still be able to come back to have the mental strength and fortitude to come back a couple days later and Win the gold in the five K.

Kevin:

Yeah. I mean, it really, you have to know who you are in order to have that ability to flip it and be like, that race is done. Let's move on to the next one. You know, without getting into the details on anybody, like that's what happens with every athlete in the decathlon and the heptathlon. Like there are 10 events lined up. If the first one goes poorly, you can't be like, well, that one went poorly. I guess my competition's done. You have nine more events that you better step up and go.

Angie:

Yeah.

Kevin:

So that, that's Yeah,

Angie:

and I think that it's really one of those things that we can sometimes get so down on ourselves if things don't go the way we want, but Most of us are just doing this for fun. Most of us are just doing this for a hobby. Like, just get back out there and do it again. You know, sometimes the race, sometimes the workout doesn't go the way you want. It doesn't mean anything about you as a person. It doesn't mean anything about you as a runner. It doesn't mean anything about your abilities. It could have just been a bad race or a bad run. And you just gotta get back out there. Because that's the way to excellence. And that's what Jakob really showed us was he just got back out there. He did what he knew he could do, trusted himself, and then came out on top again.

Kevin:

Yeah, a hundred percent. That's, that's a good one. So that whole idea of recognize who you are, I think is very clearly shown in the next cluster of athletes. So I'm really

Angie:

good segues here. I

Kevin:

have, we're nailing this nicely here. So. The Men's U. S. Sprint Squad. Sorry, we're a little U. S. biased here on the podcast. Um, the, we opened out in the Netherlands, so we've at least got that going for us. Um, the Men's Sprint Squad of Noah Liles, Kenny Bednarik, and Fred Curley. Are three very different human beings. Oh, yeah. Like very That was

Angie:

very obvious.

Kevin:

But they each know who they are. And so they lean into who they are to get the best out of their performance. And when you're running a race where the distance between, the difference between winning and losing is hundredths and this year thousandths of seconds, Mm hmm. You better tap into everything of who you are to get the best out of yourself. Pretending looking at somebody else and be like, Oh, they look super, super focused and serious before the race. That's how I get really good. Not if you're like a playful person. There is no one more playful than Noah Lyles. When they announce his name and he comes like bouncing out from like, it's not backstage from the holding room from the call room He leaps out onto the track and is like trying to pump up the crowd as much as possible And he's grinning for the camera. He's just a goofball out there and Fred Curley not not so much.

Angie:

No, he just walks to his spot.

Kevin:

He literally just walks to his spot and and Kenny with his, with his Kung Fu headband. Like that's why he's got the Kung Fu Kenny nickname. Cause he wears this headband. You're like, Oh, well maybe he's got this like cool personality to it. It's he is all serious. Like he's got this super focus, but then as soon as the race is done, he seems to be able to switch it. And he's, you know, congratulating his teammates and he's congratulating everybody else in the race, but he brings this focus, but not quite the same serious that, that Fred brings. They all know who they are and they all know. What the best thing that they can bring personally, not physically, but personally and emotionally, what is the best version of themselves that goes to that starting line? You know, you, maybe you want to work on some weaknesses, but ultimately you got to figure out how do I want to show up mentally when they fire the gun?

Angie:

Yeah. And on race day, that's not the time to work on your weaknesses, right? Like you, they've been working on their weaknesses, like Noah Lyles. is not a great starter. You know, everybody knows that about him, but he's got a higher high end speed and he can hold that high end speed like he gets to it and he can hold it. He knows that that's one of his strength, but starting is not one of his strengths. I'm guessing that from the Tokyo Olympics to the Paris Olympics, he worked on starting a lot.

Kevin:

Yeah, he he ran indoor sixties way more than he's ever done it, because in a 60 m it's almost entirely the start,

Angie:

right? And so During practice during training, that is the time to find your weaknesses, not to ignore them and pretend that they're not there to be very honest with yourself to find, okay, where do I have these weaknesses? Maybe for you, it's fueling, you know, maybe you're not good at taking in fuel on the run. Maybe it messes up your stomach. Maybe you're not You think I can't really fuel or you're having issues with hydration. Those are weaknesses that you can work on during training. That's what training's for. And then when it gets to race day, it's time to forget about those weaknesses and focus on your strengths.

Kevin:

Yeah. And then really lean into those strengths and say, this is what I, this is what I do physically wise. You just go out and do what you've trained for. I mean, we talk about this all the time that the race is the celebration. You're not doing something new and crazy for the race. You're just leaning into what your training is. Mentally, you're leaning into your biggest strengths. What are my biggest attributes? Let's lean into those and drive me from the start to the finish line.

Angie:

Yeah, exactly. So let's talk a little bit about the marathon. I mean, we have like all, we are already 35 minutes into this podcast and we are not going to get to probably half of the things on this outline, um, because we're getting stuck with all the runners. So maybe we'll do a part two and give you some great lessons from the other sports that we got to, to watch, um, over the last couple of weeks as well. But let's talk about the marathon because I know that there's a lot of people that run half marathons and marathons that listen to this. Podcast. So what can we take away from the marathon to help us in our training?

Kevin:

There is so much, so much in that. One, they were all warm days. Like the men's marathon, women's marathon were on back to back days. The women's was even warmer than the men's. But both were fairly warm days.

Angie:

Yeah, and so if you were watching, you noticed that they all, there were so many, Ways that the athletes were cooling themselves. You know, a lot of them started, including Kipchoge with a headband, like a cooling headband around his forehead. A lot of the women had to Hassan had one at the start line as well. No,

Kevin:

through the whole race. Yeah.

Angie:

She never took it off, but they have these cooling headbands that they're starting. A lot of them were grabbing bags of ice at the aid stations because they were saying that, um, the palms of your hands. Since they have so many blood vessels in them, if you hold cold things in the palms of your hands, it helps to cool the blood as it goes through your hands, which can then bring cooler blood back through the core of your body and help to bring down or at least keep your core temperature from rising, at least maintain it.

Kevin:

Yeah, I mean, which is funny because I was just listening to a podcast just the other day on a doctor who was talking about cooling and that was one of the things that he said is he was looking at it more from like an ultramarathon perspective, but they were saying that the cooling there are spots on the palms of your hands, the soles of your feet and spots of your cheek that just don't really have hair like essentially the entire rest of your body does and that there are Cool receptors. There's so much blood that passes through that area that it is as good of a cooling mechanism to put cold things in your hand as it is in like the old school, more technique of like, Oh, this person's getting cold. Let's put ice bags into their armpits and into their groins. They're like, no, no, no. If you hold cold things, it is just as good. And well, it's quite frankly a heck of a lot easier to run a marathon without an ice bag in your groin. I would have to suggest.

Angie:

Yes. Holding some cold bags of ice would probably be much more comfortable than that.

Kevin:

But the athletes were still at all of the water stops along the way. You could see them. They would get like their water bottle at the first tables and, and carry that for a while because they were taking in all of that. We'll get to that in a second. But then they would get to the later tables and grab, um, cups of water. They weren't drinking it. Cup of water over the head because the more wet they could be, the more if you aren't sweating enough, cover yourself in water. It'll help with the evaporation,

Angie:

right? And the evaporation is what helps cool you,

Kevin:

right? Because you're getting way more cooling from evaporating than from just sweating or from anything else because it turns liquid into gas,

Angie:

right? And sweating ultimately is dehydrating you, right? So if you can help cool your body down with Sweating less that's a good thing because you can keep more of the fluids inside your body So you don't get as dehydrated, but you're still getting the cooling effects of evaporation

Kevin:

Yeah, 100 and then the the last one they were taking these bags of ice They were putting them on top of their heads and then putting the hat back on top So the ice is like holding on to it because i'm looking at so many of the athletes wearing hats and you're like, well, so much of the cooling goes through your head. And one, they're super high techie fiber hats, but they were holding ice packs on top of their head. So the icy cold water continues to drip down their face. Like, I've never seen a marathon in the Olympics where people seem so focused on cooling themselves. Like Tokyo, there was a big focus on this and Paris had a huge focus on this of cooling themselves. So many athletes are grabbing bags of ice and shoving it down their shirts and shoving it down their shorts. It's like, well, that's going to cause some chafing. And they're like, yeah, but I have a potential for an Olympic marathon metal. So ice down the pants. That's what we're doing.

Angie:

Well, and I think that this is really, uh, uh, Hat not again to sport science, right? Because we keep learning more and more and we keep learning how much of an effect our core body temperature has on our performance. So these athletes, these very elite athletes were doing everything they could to try to keep their core body temperature as low as possible, especially in these types of conditions. And so I think that that again, it's a very obvious carry over. to us is we need to pay attention to this. Like, how can we keep ourselves cooler as well? You know, can you, you know, uh, when you're in a race, dump stuff on your head, get your body wet, um, if you can grab some ice or if you have family members or friends that can bring ice packs or cooling neck wraps, there's a lot of things you can order on Amazon now to help try to keep you cool. That is going to really affect your performance

Kevin:

or become a professional athlete. And every time you get to a water station, you could trade out your first hat for another hat, which is what Connor Mance was doing. I think every single aid station, he got a brand new cold water soaked hat and then tossed his to the stands, which funny enough, he signs all of his hats beforehand. So as he tosses them, they become a signed souvenir for somebody on the side. Yes, I like that. So kind of a nice little bonus thing in there. All right. Fueling, I think we got to cover fueling a little bit on this one is the first thing before they got the water and dump that in the ice and put that in all sorts of places. They grabbed their water bottles, their, their personalized drink containers that all the pros get it, you know, roughly every 5k through. Level of fueling at these elite races is through the roof. Like you used to see athletes, not even that long ago, like a decade ago, they'd grab their water bottle. They drink some of it and they toss the bottle off to the side. They'd grab a cup of water. They try and take a swig off of it. That's not how this is happening anymore. These athletes are carrying their bottle for a good half mile because there's more in it. And they've done so much training. Of this is how many calories you need to take in. Do not toss the water bottle until you've taken in all of the calories. It's got carbs in it. It's probably got some sodium inside of it also to make sure that their electrolytes are still in balance. Like it is customized for every single person. And there are companies out there that will work and try and customize for all of our listeners. Precision nutrition does this. You can go to their website. We're not connected to them, but they do it.

Angie:

Not precision nutrition. That's not. Precision

Kevin:

Nutrition and Hydration. It's full title.

Angie:

Okay. Because Precision Nutrition is like the certifying

Kevin:

Precision Hydration and Nutrition. Maybe I've got it backwards. PrecisionHydration. com. Um, they're great. We're not connected. We get no kickback from them, but I've played on their website. Yeah. Um But it's, it's dialed into how much are people sweating? What kind of salt intake do you need coming back off of that? How much carbohydrate can you take? And it turns out all these studies is athletes can safely take in way more carbohydrates than they were thinking. So they're taking in more. If you're. If the athletes at this level are taking in so many carbohydrates and they're out there running a marathon in two hours, two hours and 30 minutes, then athletes that are running it in three, four hours need to be taking in a large amount of carbohydrate to continue to successfully push themselves hour after hour.

Angie:

Yeah, I think that that's definitely A thing that we as real life runners need to take on is like we need to fuel that's it I mean you need to fuel your body for the activity that you are trying to accomplish and You need to practice that during your training You know a lot of times people think about training just as the miles or the weightlifting or the physical activities But part of your training is always Is also learning how to fuel yourself both before, during, and after your runs so that you can get the maximum benefit from those workouts.

Kevin:

Yeah. And then I think the last thing I want to cover on, on Olympic, on the marathon, if you want to cover anything great, you can add in here, but the last thing I want to cover is this course. At the start of the Olympics, they're like, this is a really hard course. Like expect very tactical races. It should be really interesting when they go up the very, very steep climbs. These times should be pretty slow. Nope. Olympic record in both the men's and women's marathon, because the athletes trained for the course, they knew what to expect. They knew how hilly it was going to be. They knew how steep the downhills were going to be. And so they trained for it. They prepared specifically for this course and then were able to still run very fast on this course, not world record times because it was still a very hilly course and those are running like pancakes, but they ran Olympic record times on a hot hilly course. Course that was not designed for fast times.

Angie:

Yeah. And a lot of that is because of the cooling measures that they were doing and because of the fueling measures that they were doing and because of the shoes that they're now wearing. Right. So we can't just ignore it and say, Oh, they just trained really well. Like, yes, for sure. They trained really well, but there are all of these other variables from sports science that are just allowing athletes to just elevate their performance in so many ways now that these. Records are falling despite these crazy conditions.

Kevin:

Yes, the ability for shoes. And the thing on shoes is it's not just these crazy super shoes for race day. Athletes are training them all the time. It's allowing them greater recovery. I don't think to go back to our first story. I don't think Hassan could do that. Train at the level that would give her a chance to metal in the three distance events if super shoes didn't exist because she just wouldn't be able to put in the miles to be able to race at a level that she needs to.

Angie:

Right. And that does not mean I'm going to put this caveat in really, really quick here. Don't go out and buy super shoes if you don't have them. Okay. So like, that's not, that's not what we want you to take away is like, Oh, like these elite athletes are running in these super shoes. Maybe I should get some too. That's not what we're saying. Okay. Because you know, You have to be careful with those, especially as a recreational runner. If you, um, are someone that has, is prone to injury, like super shoes can actually cause more problems in some people. So yes, that is the case for these elite athletes, but I would not say that that is a, um, something that we can just. Let filter down to the the general population just

Kevin:

blanket statement. Everybody go buy a super shoe.

Angie:

No

Kevin:

I mean, we're in like the later generations of super shoes. So they are becoming more stable.

Angie:

They are getting better Yeah, they

Kevin:

are definitely getting better and they they're not getting better incrementally They're getting better with large steps from one generation to the next the first generation

Angie:

unintended

Kevin:

Yes, actually I didn't. It just happened. It just dripped right in. Sometimes the puns come and I don't even try. It's just, it's this inherent dad quality that there's just punny jokes all the time. Um, but

Angie:

Our daughter can't wait to have you in class all year. I know, it's

Kevin:

gonna be amazing. Um, I can't remember what joke I dropped in class today when I had her. It was good. Um, but the, the super shoes are becoming more stable. The first generation, if anybody like got super excited about them and tried them on there and like broke an ankle. They are becoming more stable because the platform of foam underneath you is so high that they had to do something for stability so it didn't just feel like you're walking around on stilts and so unstable. That's one of the big moves forward that they've done.

Angie:

Yes, but there's also people are having issues with like plantar fasciitis and other things because of the carbon plating.

Kevin:

It's because they're super, super soft. So if you are like, Ooh, maybe I should try this. You should try this. This is something you could dabble in. For occasions, this is not an everyday trainer kind of thing.

Angie:

Exactly. So just be aware we'll have to do a whole episode on these super shoes, but just understand, like, just because the elites are using them, that's not something that you should just run out and buy. So like, also, do you really want to spend 250 or 300 on a pair of these shoes? I mean, you can get a lot of other shoes. I mean, who knows? Right. Depends on, depends on you. So anyway, well. We had intended to make this a, uh, an episode that included things about gymnastics and swimming and commercials and all sorts of stuff. Um, but we are already 47 minutes in here and, uh, we just love the

Kevin:

Olympics.

Angie:

I know. So we might, we might do a part two. We'll see how we feel about it next week because we do still have some really cool things that, um, and some really cool takeaways from some of the other sports as well. But, uh, we want to respect your time. And as always, we appreciate you guys being here with us. So we would love to also know some of your favorite moments from the Olympics. So reach out over on real life, uh, or over on Instagram at real life runners. Um, and what you might notice as well, um, those of you. That have reached out to me and, uh, have expressed interest in learning more about running during perimenopause and menopause. I've revived, um, my Dr. Angie Brown account over on Instagram. It's an account that I had, um, that kind of went dormant for a couple of years as I was working more on real life runners. Um, but I've decided to kind of, uh, Revive both right now, at least that's the decision that I'm making right now. We'll see how that goes. Um, so that I'll be posting more about running and fitness and health in perimenopause and menopause over on my doctor dot Angie Brown, um, account on Instagram. So if you feel like that's something that you're interested in, please follow that account as well. Right now I'm, I'm cross posting both on like Instagram or on real life runners and dr. Angie Brown. Um, but. We'll see what happens with that.

Kevin:

Excellent. I would like to say that I'm going to start posting things about my ultra marathon training, but I'm not promising anything to my Instagram account that hasn't been posted for a long time.

Angie:

Yeah, I think you should. I mean, I'm just going to put it out there. I think you should.

Kevin:

Yeah. And if I do, you'll be the first to hear about it on this podcast. And

Angie:

his personal, that, that account is Kevin brown. Dot RLR. Yes,

Kevin:

it is. I'm not sure the last time I posted.

Angie:

Yeah. So maybe, maybe you can revive it. Perfect. There we go. All right, you guys. If this episode was helpful, entertaining, you just enjoyed it. You want other people to be able to find the podcast. Can you share it with a friend? Can you leave us a review on Apple podcasts or on Spotify? That will help more people to find the show so that we can help more people with their running to live stronger and healthier lives. And as always, thanks for spending this time with us. This has been the Real Life Runners podcast, episode number 372. Now get out there and run your life.