She Ran in 3 Olympics. Now She May Never Run Again

Key Takeaway

Learn hands-only CPR and locate the nearest AED at your gym, workplace, or race venue this week. Jenny Simpson survived sudden cardiac arrest because bystanders acted immediately, used an AED, and sustained CPR before EMS arrived. You do not need to predict every health risk to be useful in an emergency; prepare to move through fear, take the first helpful action, and preserve someone’s chance of survival and recovery.

Episode Overview

Olympic medalist and former professional runner Jenny Simpson recounts collapsing from sudden cardiac arrest after a community mile race and the rare inherited heart condition, ARVC, discovered afterward. She reflects on survival, receiving help, losing a runner identity, and rebuilding a meaningful life through community, courage, self-knowledge, and patience.

Full Transcript

Transcript of She Ran in 3 Olympics. Now She May Never Run Again from Rich Roll Podcast. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

I pushed myself to the limit with no fear that my body wasn't capable of it and couldn't handle it and it was capable it did handle it until it didn't. Jenny Simpson considered the most accomplished women's 1,500 meter runner in history. In the hospital after collapsing at a track event my heart just completely stopped. Chest compressions and the ED they saved my life. Like I had a one in ten chance of surviving period. It was so dark and it was so violent and it lasted for so long.

Like I was so determined. I was not gonna slip away. It is unlikely I'll ever be able to return to running. I really want to encourage people to resist the temptation to adopt fear. Like fear is just not the answer. After you regained consciousness one of the first things you said was like did I win the race and what was my time? Yeah. You being this longtime elite champion in track and field so decorated you have retired from professional running. You took this job as chief running officer at Fleet Feet.

You temporarily relocated to North Carolina. I guess that's where their headquarters is. Right. And in an effort to stay plugged into the running community which is kind of your job right? Yeah. Chief running so it's like you have to show up at the community runs and all of this stuff. As far as I understand it you showed up at a local kind of like mile race to pace the amateurs and this was two months ago. This was in June and you collapsed. You had no pulse.

You were resuscitated with CPR and rushed to the hospital. This was big news in the running world. There was a lot of press about that incident the next day and the day after and maybe a couple days after that about like how your recovery was going and of course like lots of outpouring of support from the running community etc. But then the press stops. I searched today. I was like after about June 18th there really isn't anything that has been written about what happened or how you're doing and I know that you really haven't spoken publicly about what has happened.

So I'm really honored that you've given me this opportunity to kind of share from your perspective what went down and how you're doing and you know what happened. So what did happen? Yeah June 16th just like you said I went to a mile a community mile race and I finished the race and paced some girls around the track in a mile and I finished. There's pictures from the day which is like actually really wonderful for me. I'll get to this in a minute but I don't remember anything from that Tuesday.

So it's helpful for me to have these pictures but there's pictures of me. The whole day? You don't remember the entire day? Totally lost the whole day. Yeah and I'm chatting with people after the race is over so I was I was fine but I'm on the infield and what's been told to me is that I was chatting with somebody and said hey I need a minute like I don't feel very well and then I collapsed and so I went into sudden cardiac arrest. 39 years of being healthy and active and like not just healthy like I've pushed my body to the most extreme limit I'm capable of but on June 16th my the electricity in my heart got interrupted and my heart just completely stopped and I mean thank these people and thank God that they were there bystanders at the race including my boss who hired me at Fleet Feet Joey Pointer and his wife Ivy who end up being really critical in this story but them along with several others just identified right away they knew what was going on and so they started chest compressions and it's just amazing so I'll pause for a moment my my boss and his wife they have a son his name is Liam and he has a heart condition he was born with a congenital heart condition and so years ago they bought an AED for his track team to carry around wherever Liam is going or the team is going just in case and the off chance that something happened to his heart they've known his whole life he'll have to have heart surgery at some point so Joey ran to the car because they had an AED a portable AED and ran back and chest compressions and the AED they saved my life.

Wow. So Liam was there. Short of that it could have been a very different situation. One in ten cardiac arrests that happen outside of a hospital do not survive I mean if you take away any other variable like I had a one in ten chance of surviving period and then what what continued to happen was my heart continued to go into these really dangerous arrhythmias so I was shocked several times on the field I had CPR for over 20 minutes they loaded me up into the ambulance and I was shocked at least three more times in the ambulance just to like get a pulse back because my heart just kept kept stopping the electricity in my heart kept stopping they take me to the hospital I went into cardiac arrest again at the hospital so I my heart just I mean I don't really know exactly how to explain it except that it was just kind of a runaway train right like you you have the sudden cardiac arrest they get us pulse back but as a result I had such an incredible shock to my heart the rest of my heart was also like not coming back online and and so those repeated injuries to my heart just made the circumstances like spiral worse and worse so they get a pulse back I was on life support I was at Rex Hospital and in the night the right ventricle of my heart is and I can explain like has a disease but the left ventricle of my heart was also just not pumping hard enough and I was going into advanced heart failure and this was you know early early mornings then or hours the next morning so they got me packed up in life flighted me to Duke and Duke is just an incredible place just totally you know specializes in hearts and I was so lucky that I was that if this was gonna happen first of all all the chain of events all the dominoes of like the people doing the right thing at the right time I had incredibly high quality CPR EMS arrived you know shortly there was an 80 all those factors but then also the fact that I was in the research triangle and so close to a hospital like Duke that could respond to such an extreme circumstance yeah I mean it was several days I didn't know if I was gonna survive and then I'm in the ICU for several for several days there at Duke and when I'm in like an induced coma during this period of time like like was there any were you conscious at all or no so I don't remember anything from that whole Tuesday until June 21st so I go into the ICU and I wasn't in an idea yeah five days so I wasn't in an induced coma but I was I'm laughing and there's a reason I was heavily sedated and and you know how to breathing to was on life support the whole time I was in the ICU had a balloon pump pumping my heart for me but I'm laughing because like everyone around was like you were so animated like I was I was awake I was communicating like I was very insistent that I wanted to be involved in the process of saving saving my own life to the point that one of the ICU nurses finally went and got a whiteboard she I mean this is not I've been told this is not typical but she went and got a whiteboard and I my husband said 22 out of 24 hours a day I was like writing and and and being involved like telling them you know why am I here how can I help these are my doctors I mean and I don't remember any of this because you know I'm heavily sedated I'm on all these drugs that don't allow me to retain memories and so I would go through this loop of not understanding where I was trying to understand but then immediately jumping in and trying to help and then also I just I just love this because I just kept telling him they were doing an amazing job like and I kept telling him you know we have pictures but you're resetting and I would reset about every 30 yeah like a temporary dementia or something exactly and I memory isn't isn't locked in and my husband was funny he's like you were surprisingly consistent like you just go through the same the same rhythm every 30 minutes every 40 minutes or so and they would tell me they're like you're an athlete you have to understand like rest is good for you you have to rest but I just man the fight was so intense in me that I I wanted to be in it with everybody from what I understand also I read that after you regain consciousness one of the first things you said was like did I win the race and what was my time yeah I also went into this with a bit of like a trash-talk rivalry with my boss Joey and so I knew he and I like he kept saying he was gonna beat me in this race and I wanted to be sure that that didn't happen despite my my condition did you beat him heck yeah okay of course right all right Wow okay so pulse stops you're going in and out of you know all of these sort of cardiovascular events yeah the doctors are trying to figure it out was there a moment where I mean if your pulse is stopped like is there a did you have like a near-death experience like was there an interior experience of like I'm headed out or is it all just a blank slate it's been one of the trickiest things for me to navigate in these early weeks I know from the account that's told to me of like what I was saying and what I was doing and that I was I was technically awake and in interacting with people but I don't remember any of it but those five days I absolutely had my own experience that has some overlap to what's been told to me but it was it was a singular one person kind of in body experience in body out of body I don't know what's actually accurate or right but one of the reasons it's been really challenging is because I mean up to this moment I hope what I've shared with you is reflected like I love being in things with people and in that experience I I wasn't alone but no one can no one cannot like I can't share it with anyone in the sense that like everybody else had this five days and I had a very very dark and hard and violent fight that everyone else in the room can't say like oh yeah we we remember that too and that's been really hard yeah I it's funny cuz like it was so dark and it was so violent it and it lasted for so long like rich that's the thing that like in my body I feel I still feel it's like it just I just kept thinking like how much longer I mean I'm glad I spent years as a marathon even though I wasn't very good at it because like the marathon is also that way I just kept thinking like this is so long and I kept waiting for it to like dial down and it's tough because it's kind of like a dream right it's like a dream where you you can kind of explain it but there's no way I could put in words that like makes total sense but I knew I wasn't alone like that was like a really strong feeling it's like I knew I wasn't alone I knew that something else was happening to help me kind of navigate through the darkness and I kept thinking like I have it felt like a puzzle it felt like I was in this like really really dark blacked-out room and I had to solve to get out of this space and in time I think I really intend to to spend some some intentional time really reflecting and try to understand what I experienced better and understand it more I think there's more for me to remember and go back to return to and with that it's it's yeah it's just it was it was really awful a knowingness like not a concrete visual you hear these accounts of you know I could see myself in the surgical theater I was hovering above and I could tell you exactly what the surgeons were saying when I was filleted open and all of that so it wasn't it wasn't that wasn't the white light at the end of the tunnel but it was a sense of being held that you weren't alone the struggle part is interesting like this idea that it was on you to solve it yeah yeah I I think what I have a hard time with now is if I was to imagine what like a near-death experience would be and especially as a person of faith and and and someone that has been really thoughtful and reflective on my own life and my own work I could come up with an idea of what I think it should be like and it was very inconsistent with what I would think fighting for my life would look like and feel like and be like and in a way I'm grateful because I feel like it is then it's it feels very real to me like this is a very real experience because it's outside of what my expectation would have been but you also feel like your understanding of the world has betrayed you now too because now I have something very new and and really dissonant to sit with and figure out in terms of how you thought about like the nature of reality versus what you experienced is that what you mean by that for today I think so yeah you know I mean I'm still figuring out and it was only like eight weeks ago I know I know I think just in culture we all have this idea that there's like there's this piece when you struggle to a certain degree, you reach peace.

And I didn't reach that. I mean, I struggled the whole way and it was really hard the whole way. And I just kept recommitting to it. I was not gonna slip away. Like I was so determined. Like I was not gonna just let go. And I'm like, I'm proud of that, but I'm also, and I also didn't have complete control over it too. I mean, that's frightening, right? It's like, I collapsed at a track meet and my incredible strength had to be met with mercy. I mean, the strength of other people was my unconditional mercy.

I mean, you can't, I'm an athlete. I always think like I can be the tough one. Like I can survive it. I can be hard to beat. I can be the one. But that's also like something I'm wrestling with. It's like I had to have other people step in, otherwise I wouldn't be here. My own fight would not have been enough. I mean, it took me to a limit I never knew before June 16th. So it took 100% of me, but it had to also be met with the mercy of other people.

It's not dissimilar to the experience of an individual athlete. Like there is like, it's on you when you toe the line and you're in the race, but you don't get there without all of the people that made that happen for you. But this is a deeper level of recognizing that or vulnerability that you're literally, your life is in the hands of other people and a surrender of control. Like you trying to assert control, like I'm directing this. I am not, I'm not gonna live in this dark box.

Like I'm finding the trap door out of this or whatever. Yes, yes. But you can't do it alone and it's kind of up to these other people and how well they're doing their job. Something that I don't have an answer for. And it's really up to God, you know, basically. Yeah. And that's a confrontation with surrender also. Like how deep is your surrender? How convicted are you in your faith and in your belief? Exactly. And in that, one of the things that has been confusing to me.

And like I said, you know, you have this like idea of what something like this might be like and then it's shattered. You know, I had people who really love me and have loved me a long time in that room and coaching me through, you know, every 30 minutes, you know, my loops of where am I? What happened to me? How can I help? You guys are doing a great job. You know, I had my husband, I had my family, I had colleagues that love me and care about me.

There's only two voices that I remember while I was in those five days in the ICU. And so I'm gonna jump forward. When I was in the step-down, which is just, I was recovering, I was doing better, so they'd take me to a different room in the hospital out of the ICU. And while I was in the step-down, a couple of different people that had been at the ICU came down and visited me. And there were two of them. One was one of my nurses, her name is Claire, and the other one was a male nurse, his name is Dwight.

And when they walked in the room and started speaking, I mean, it was, Rich, it was amazing. I was like, I know you, like we were together. I mean, I know your voice, I know who you are. And it was, I said to Claire, I said, you made me feel so safe. And she started crying and she said, that's what you wrote on the whiteboard to me when we were together. I kept going through saying, but their voices, those were the two people that broke through that I heard.

And I mean, I'll be, they will be part of my spiritual belief and life forever because their voices met me in a really, really dark place. But I don't know why it was them. And not my parents or my husband or like another doctor or something. It wasn't a voice that I knew and I recognized, but it's now a voice that is intimately attached to my sense of having survived that darkness. It'll be with me forever. You use the word shattered. I think maybe you even said it twice, I'm not sure.

What was shattered specifically though? I just have, I have a journey ahead of me to reconstruct. And we'll get to this too, like what is my work and what is my purpose? But also just like, I don't know, I'm not gonna have a perfect answer for this, but like the way that people show up for you in your life and being available to receive, what breaks through and what's there for you? It just was in a way that was so unexpected to me. And my understanding of like what a near death struggle is like was, it was just so different from what I might have expected or what culture has taught us to expect.

Yeah, I'm back, I feel like there's some sense of how my faith and my belief has been built that is still incredibly relevant. I mean, I have accumulated life experience to reach the point I'm at that is not invalidated by what I've been through. But now I have this like really big like cornerstone to add. I don't know, it just feels like, if I've been building an understanding of why we're here and what I need to accomplish while I'm here, it's like a really, really, really big heavy block got laid between June 16th and June 21st.

And I'm still kind of figuring it out. You're trying to understand what that is. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Birch. Ah, I can just feel it. Here's an honest question for you. When did you last upgrade your mattress? We replace our phones every couple of years, our running shoes every few hundred miles. But the thing we spend a third of our lives on, a decade, 15 years, given how essential sleep is to wellbeing, that math strikes me as backwards. I've been sleeping on a Birch mattress for about five years now.

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Or is it too soon? I do think this will continue to reveal and continue to unfold and I'll continue to understand. There's a couple of things. First of all, I'm sure you've talked about it. I've learned about it and thought about it in my life returning to the beginner mindset, right? It's like beginning anew can be a really powerful thing. But you don't return to an immature child. You begin again with the experiences and the maturation and the emotional intelligence of a person that has a history.

And so that's one thing is it's like, when I say shattered and rebuilding and all of those things, it's like, I want to be thoughtful about the precious time where you have the different constituent pieces and you build it back up, but with the understanding and the knowledge of a person that's 39 and has had lots of life experience and not starting from zero. But then also on just like a really practical level, if there's one thing I hope to project into the world as a result of this experience, and I told you about like kind of that shock of, and I don't even know that humble is the right word.

It's not humble, but like the shock of reality of like you can't save yourself. I was diagnosed with a rare heart disease. I have, it's called ARVC, arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy. We didn't know that I had this disease. It's an inherited disease. It progresses over a long period of time. And at 39, it progressed long enough that interrupted the electrical pulse in my heart and I had a cardiac arrest. It is very unlikely anyone listening to this. It is very unlikely that you have this disease.

Like it is not my mission moving forward to help people understand how to know if they have this disease. It's very unlikely and it's hard to know, it's hard to catch. But it is more likely that you will find yourself in a situation to help somebody that can't help themselves. And part of my chosen responsibility moving forward, I believe will be empowering people to step into courage and out of fear and help people when they need it. One of the reasons that one in 10 people with cardiac arrest outside of a hospital don't survive is because people are afraid to step in and deliver CPR.

And delivering CPR, having AEDs, like I don't know that, like we know the solution on how to save many of these lives. The biggest barrier is fear. And people thinking, well, I'm not trained or I don't know. And instead of stepping into a scary situation with courage, they lean back and wait for somebody else. And for me, I wouldn't have made it if there weren't people of just incredible courage that stepped in. And it's not about like, oh, am I a person that has a disease that could be vulnerable to a cardiac arrest or whatever, whatever other fears you dream up.

It's more, I think it's more important to say, am I a person that would step in with courage if somebody else needed me? Yeah. So it seemed like it's rearranged your sense of priorities. Like, you know, you just, you basically like, you know, ran into a brick wall and all your plans for the future now have to be, you know, recalibrated. Like, you know, this is the identity confronting piece. Like you thought you were this person and we're living a certain life. This thing happens. You're reassembling the pieces.

You are appropriately, and I think, you know, in a very healthy way, like not looking at how quickly can I go back and be that person I was before, but perhaps this is an opportunity for growth and evolution and transformation. Like, who can I become? Who is the better person that I can become because of this in a very service oriented way? Like I can be this source of education and information around this condition. And, you know, you're only two months after that. I think it's, you know, you're correct.

Like this will evolve over time because right now you're still very much, I'm sure, like sitting in the trauma of the whole thing. Like it's completely rearranged your life. Can I tell you one of the most traumatizing things about the whole event was in my career, I have brought, I mean, my racing has brought so many people, so much joy. And that has been one of the huge rewards for me. I love that people collectively celebrate because of the work that I put out into the world.

And now, because we can watch it on YouTube and we can watch replays, my dad still sits at his computer and watches my races. Well, on YouTube, there's race highlights. You can watch videos, and it's like somebody has cut together all of your races from all the way back. It looks like you're in junior high school or something. Yeah. And before June 16, I don't even know that I understood or appreciated how much I got from that, how much I enjoyed that my work made other people happy.

One of the ways that I was really consistent in the hospital was I would wake up, and one of the things that I would ask over and over is, why is everyone so sad? Why is everyone so upset? And I'm in a hospital. I'm in an ICU. I have a breathing tube in. But man, it's been really, really, really hard for me to see in my family and my boss and in people that care about me see how traumatized and how hurt and how hard this has been for them.

Yeah, that's been really hard for me. I don't want to be at the center of their pain. Yeah. There's another layer on top of all of this that perhaps complicates everything, because there's a certain punditry out there around endurance athletes and runners and cardiovascular risk. This is part of a larger discourse that's been going on for a very long time. It began when Jim Fix, who wrote the primer about running in 1972, dropped dead of a heart attack when he was out on a run. And I think he was 52 years old.

And that became kind of an alarm signal, like maybe all this running isn't so good. And there's been examples over the years of athletes dying prematurely due to a variety of conditions. I think there's a reductive kind of perspective on this that it's always one certain thing, an enlarged heart, and you really shouldn't run that much, and all that kind of thing. But there's a variety of things that can happen. I mean, you may have just accumulated a certain amount of plaque over the years. And because you're super fit and lean and all of that, you're under the assumption that you're a healthy person and not aware.

Cardiovascular disease takes place over decades before you reach that point where some piece of plaque breaks loose and causes a blockage, right? But even within that, there is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. And that is less rare than what you experienced. I think there's something like a 25% risk where there's a genetic thickening of the heart muscle. I'm looking at my notes because I wrote this down. I wanted to get it right. And this is usually what is the kind of cause of sudden cardiac arrest in younger athletes when you see somebody who prematurely has an event like this.

I had Timothy O'Donnell in here, Ironman triathlete. He suffered a widow maker out on the course. I think that was probably a traditional kind of cardiac event of accumulated plaque. The HCM is what you see in very young people where it's very shocking that suddenly something like this could happen to this very fit person. How does that make sense? But ARVC, arrhythmic right ventricular cardiomyopathy, this is what this is called, is very rare. And it's a condition in which healthy heart muscle is gradually replaced by scar-like fatty and fibrous tissue.

And there's no symptoms to any of these things. They call it a widow maker. People are walking around thinking they're fine. And you talked about the importance of CPR and proximity to care and all of that, the timing of all of this, how quickly can you get treated. But I think the real work is in early screening. Nobody's going in for their calcium score test until they're in their mid to late 40s or whatever. And now with all of the advances in technology, a big exciting piece of that is early testing and early screening.

Because cardiac issues take so long to develop, we can identify these things sooner and develop protocols to prevent these kinds of things from happening. I mean, cardiovascular disease is the number one killer in America and very much driven by lifestyle decisions. I wanna correct one thing you said. I mean, because it takes so long to develop is actually why it's so difficult to screen at a younger age. Because they have to be able to see some of the damage in your heart to identify, at least with ARVC, in order to identify that this is a condition that you have.

This is the rare genetic condition. This is the rare, exactly. You know what I mean? Like Jim Fix, I would imagine that he dropped dead prematurely because prior to being this running lunatic, he weighed 210 pounds and smoked two packs of cigarettes a day. Like I'm sure he was accumulating plaque for many years. And then you get fit and you think it's not an issue anymore that you've overcome any kind of risk. And that's just not necessarily true. Right. Screening is part of the answer, for sure.

And emergency preparedness is part of the issue or is part of the solution. I mean, one of the things about emergency preparedness is like we know what to do. It's just a matter of like people being present to be there, first of all. Right. I mean, when you have a cardiac event and you're alone, that's the most dangerous situation. And so someone else being there and having the resources and the understanding and knowing what to do. ARVC in particular, I'm so glad you brought this up because one of my immediate like concerns when I was in, I mean, I was still in a hospital bed when I was starting to worry about this was like, I don't want kids to think that running is dangerous.

Like there's gonna be a narrative around this, like, oh, well, you know, this is what happens if you're runners and like all the, you know, kind of like gym rat people are gonna be like, this is why you shouldn't run, you know. Running did not cause my disease. It's inherited. I have a genetic, so I'll speak specifically to my condition of ARVC. I inherited it. I've had it my whole life. Running didn't cause it, but it revealed it. How ARVC works is that as your heart has kind of two major functions.

One is as a muscle and as it pumps as a muscle and the other is the electrical part of it, the electricity. So as my heart would work out, work hard, dilate and break down like any muscle, right? You break down muscle and then you rebuild. When it rebuilds, I have a genetic mutation that specifically in the right ventricle of my heart, it rebuilds with a tissue that doesn't properly conduct electricity. So I don't know that like medically, it's actually technically scar tissue, but essentially for the sake of explaining, you know, the electrical pulse goes through your heart and you have these lines of scar tissue over time that your muscle breaks down, it rebuilds with the wrong material, it breaks down, it rebuilds with the wrong material and eventually that electrical current hit a spot in my heart that didn't properly conduct electricity and that's why my heart stopped.

Now, as a result of my heart stopping, then I had a traumatic injury that actually hurt the muscle. So I had a combined problem of, you know, the muscle and the electricity, both kind of like that was the runaway train, right? And that injury prevented the electrical circuit to like properly fire? It's more about like the strength and again, I want to be very clear, like I'm not a cardiologist, but I've learned a lot, but the strength and the ability of my heart to pump, right?

So your heart is really stunned, but you got to pump blood strong enough to reach into your lungs, oxygenate, come out of your lungs, go back into your heart and pump out into the rest of your body. So that pump being strong is one part of the miracle of our heart and then the electrical pulse is another component of the miracle of our heart. And so those two things working together, ARVC messes up the electrical part and this is what I want to share. My foundational health and the fact that I had such a strong heart and had such a strong fighting spirit, like all of my years in sport, I love how my cardiologist put it.

The doctor's son told me in like a moment of like real truth because I said to him, you know, I thought I was such a healthy person and then I wake up in the hospital and I realized like, what happened? Like what, you know? And he said, oh my gosh, like you are healthy. Like you're healthier than the doctors that are working on you. He said- I would hope so. He said, you thought your whole life that you were training for the Olympic games, but you've been training your whole life for June 16th.

He said, your body and your fighting spirit, you needed every bit of it to survive. So I understand the confusion and how there can be fear and like, oh my goodness, how can you have these healthy people that have these heart incidents? We don't always know like perfectly what curve balls are in our life's path or just like how we're constructed imperfectly. But foundational health and running and exercising and eating well will always give you a better fighting chance when you do have a medical event that occurs.

To be super clear about this, you were born with ARVC. Running didn't cause you to have it, you already have it. Is it true or not true that all the running helped bring expression to it? Like if somebody wasn't a runner or super fit or pushing their body so hard, would they live their lives asymptomatic? Or how does that work? So this is part of kind of the mystery of it. A part of it is because it's rare and another part of it is because most people, like the vast majority of people that we can study and see that have this, we know because they had a cardiac arrest event.

And most of the people that have that don't survive for us to then watch how they do in life. So it's a difficult thing to know and- And how many of those people that don't survive were athletes? Exactly, exactly. That staff must be sitting around somewhere. Yeah, and so what is important about all of this, what was told to me by this incredible team of cardiologists is like they're shocked that I didn't have a cardiac arrest earlier in life. Like they're amazed that I was pushing my body as hard as I was and that I only had a, you know, it expressed itself to this degree at 39.

Like there, so there's so much we don't know and the progression of the disease doesn't have, like we don't have dialed in like a perfect idea of, this might not be like the perfect analogy. Again, I'm not a cardiologist, but when I was an athlete, I always thought about like, if you have a bone injury, there's kind of a schedule it heals on, right? Like we understand like so many weeks, you know, you have a grade run stress reaction or you have a broken bone, like these things more or less with some margin of error, heal on a schedule.

Oh, you have Achilles tendonitis and who knows? I mean, three years later, you could still be doing all the right treatments and all this stuff and still have this nagging tendonitis with the condition I have. We just don't, it doesn't progress on a schedule that we have dialed in and we know. And so, yeah, there's more to understand and more to learn. And me having survived will be an opportunity for my cardiology team to track me and learn. Because it's genetically linked, is there not some kind of genetic marker that you can test for?

There is. The genetic marker that shows up in people, my understanding is it's like 40 to 60% of people that are identified with ARVC, they can find the genetic marker. And I was genetically tested as well as my parents and they didn't find the genetic marker that they're aware of. Oh, interesting. Really good point. So had you, like, if part of your message is like, okay, everyone, go get tested. Like, if you were one of those people hearing yourself, you would go get tested and it would be like, I'm good.

Exactly. Which is why, I mean, first of all, there's so much still for us to learn and that's a good thing, that's exciting. There's really, really smart people working on this stuff. And every year, more people with huge health risks are surviving for us to study and understand. And I'm one of them now. So there's so much more for us to learn. But yes, you're understanding now what is informing my plea for people to still care a lot about emergency response because you can do all the right things.

I mean, I was an Olympic athlete for decades and I had incredible access to healthcare and took advantage of it. I mean, I had an incredible medical team and I'm grateful for all of them. And they did wonderful work to help me optimize in my career. And this was still waiting for me in my future. And what saved me was having an incredibly healthy and strong body and spirit and first responders. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Here's a question we're sitting with. If you could wake up tomorrow better at one single thing, what would that thing be?

For me, it's kind of an easy question because I've been working on it for years and that's conflict. As every psychologist who has treated me over the last 30 years or so will attest, I have what is called an avoidant attachment disorder, which basically means that while I court physical discomfort, I have this tendency to avoid certain emotional discomforts, especially conflict. But retreating, obviously this is never the answer to healthy relationships, a healthy dynamic. And it's a pattern that can invisibly erode those relationships and degrade the quality of your life.

Naming that pattern, understanding where it comes from, actually practicing something different, contrary action, that's therapy work. And it's work that I'm currently doubling down on because no matter how much you grow, you change and you evolve. There's always growth work to do and for better help. It's a therapist who really gets you it's a focus on emotional well-being at a global scale Thousands of therapists available to you millions of members in over 100 countries. It's progress What is your one thing sign up and get 10% off at better help comm slash ritual?

That's better HLP comm slash ritual. I I Love the outdoors, but I'll admit ever since I started driving my Rivian I find myself making even more time to just hop in and take it to places where I can live real experiences I was recently able to drive an r2 with RJ Scringe the founder and CEO of Rivian and we talked about how this is No accident How does that how does that idea of like, how are we creating this, you know, completely seamless? Connection with the outdoors through a car that you know By definition sort of has to seal you off from the outdoors like and how do the design decisions inform?

You know that perspective if you're in this car You should feel like if you want to go somewhere and explore a hike or stay a little later. It's there It's just again a little nudge to say it's okay to explore Yeah Seek out the unknown the front trunk has a drain plug in it and the rear the glass dropping in this car is a really nice feature because I'll Actually throw a surfboard in the back or you can easily put your gear in the back So it's just all these little things that are you know that yes, they're features and they're on their own They're maybe not the whole story, but you put them all together as a meal that should feel like a product It's just built for someone that wants to go live You know full adventurous life To watch the rest of our conversation and learn all about the r2 and the places it can take you go to stories Rivian comm slash rich roll I Think this does put you in a really interesting and potentially powerful Position To do some real education around this.

I think there is a lot of confused. I'm confused. It's like I'm old enough I remember when Len Len bias the basketball player like, you know died in the middle of the game and you know There's cocaine involved and like these all these things are you know, like they're not it's they're all unique, you know experiences, but when you kind of collectively like think about athletes that are like dying in the midst of you know, Participating in their sport. It does raise alarm bells and it's like what you know like what are we doing that's causing that and how can we avoid that and it does get kind of In the running and endurance context it gets done.

It gets translated into like don't push yourself so hard You know or this could happen to you and I think that's wrong But there is you know appropriate Cautions also and like what are those and what does that mean? And if you're a young person, you know Who is worried about this? Like how should you be thinking about it? Yeah, I Really want to encourage people to resist the temptation to adopt fear Like fear is just not the answer to be afraid that I have something that I don't know about Honestly rich for 39 years.

The ignorance was bliss. It was beautiful I got an incredible career and and I I pushed myself to the limit with no fear that my body wasn't capable of it and couldn't handle it and it did Handle it. It was capable. It did handle it until it didn't and and but you just don't know who and when our bodies are imperfect and That's often. I mean, that's what makes us each individual isn't really special and if we love each other It's like that emergency response piece.

It's just always going to be relevant and always is going to be important I want to be somebody that can help They can step in and that knows if somebody goes down. I know how to start and that's that's another thing. It's like Especially in a public setting like help is more advanced more expert Help is probably on its way very likely, especially in like a race or a sports setting But man those few critical minutes between me hitting the ground and EMS arriving you those people they saved my life I want to be very clear.

They saved my life, but they also Preserve my quality of life You know, the the emergency response is not just about like having somebody live on to have another birthday But it's also like my brain had oxygen to it and my liver and my kidneys and my organs and my lungs I mean, there's so many other pieces that become Incredibly vulnerable just minutes after your heart stops And and so preserve just stepping in and doing anything hands-only Chest compressions can preserve somebody's somebody's brain and organs Yeah, the crisis response Aspect of it is super important, but I think for the average person the real kind of Public service announcement or like the more, you know, you know thing is you probably don't have what Jenny has And and energy like, you know, like being anxious about that is probably wasted energy Hopefully screening and testing will improve like this is one area where like I actually could you know, really wonders totally And also the really public You know the the sports it's it's a it's a public emergency event and it's really confusing for every one of those that Because these are the people and like these are the people who aren't this isn't supposed to happen Yeah, you know like at any time let alone when they're super young but my but my point would be like they're in a field of hundreds and hundreds of athletes that are also Totally well pushing their bodies super hard, you know We're highlighting something that is very unlikely and very unusual and in the case that it does have like shark attacks or something Yeah, yeah, and so that's why I want people to resist right here that this is gonna happen to them, but the real issue to kind of double down on this point is that again Heart disease is the number one killer.

Yes, you know, this is how most people die it starts early in life with your dietary habits and your relationship with physical fitness and movement and You know again being an older person I grew up in a time where it was just you know my grandfather who was captain of the University of Michigan swim team in like 1929 and like was you know, he got fourth at Olympic trials and didn't make it but you know he was competing against Johnny Weissmuller like like in that like but he He was an outstanding athlete in his day and dropped dead from a Widowmaker when he was like 54, right?

and this was very traumatic for my mother and that got translated to me as Heart disease runs in our family Wow, like there is a genetic piece to that I don't know whether that's evidence-based or not, but that's how I you know, I internalized this Narrative and I like most young people dismissed it and yeah, whatever I wanted and You know got into swimming and because I was training four or five hours a day Like does it really matter what you eat? Like I'm burning so many calories You know with a lack of understanding that it actually does matter what you eat and you know went into a phase of my life where I was very unhealthy and had a reckoning and changed these lifestyle habits and learned a Lot more about heart health.

Yeah, and this appreciation for the fact that like plaque buildup You know takes place over decades and you can have like a an epiphany moment like me But it doesn't make all that plaque that you accumulated all over all those years go away Yeah, and our lifestyle habits do matter So the idea that you're just genetically wired to like succumb to this Really isn't true. Like people have much more agency over whether or not they're gonna suffer from You know one of these types of events and to take your lifestyle habits Seriously because you can sidestep This if you act appropriately and a big piece in that is the early detection like getting the calcium score the full body scan or whatever the tests are now that are Accurate in terms of like really assessing where you're at and fear comes into play like people don't want to do that Like I don't I'm young like I don't need to do that If I find out like I don't want to know if like something's bad I just because I want to continue to eat the way that I want to eat like I'm fine and People are for the most part asymptomatic until suddenly they're not and then they're in a situation like you and there's an emergency response involved and getting Regular blood work done now.

It's not just about like LDL and total cholesterol but like know what your apop is like this is the marker that is gonna really Be the truth teller and where you're at and knowledge is power if you know what that is Then you know what steps to take appropriately to get it in range if it happens to not be in range I want to completely agree with you and also build on Maybe correct something I said earlier. So I said earlier, you know, the the ignorance was bliss, right?

I got to be 39 years and push my body and have no idea that this this Quiet worry was was there the whole time or this risk was there the whole time? My cardiologist said this and I love it. I wrote it down I have it next to my computer at home. The intervention is more powerful than the ignorance Now that we know that I have this I'm on medication. I had a surgery and I have a pacemaker and a defibrillator now So you see this there's this scar?

Yeah, and the lifestyle I chose for myself a life incredibly healthy clean eating and and exercise and and also just like being a joyful happy person walking in the sunshine and and and doing all those things to build a Really healthy and wholesome life. That's part of the intervention right is making those choices throughout your life Knowing what you're facing and and knowing and then choosing along the way a lifestyle that supports health It's critical I mean is that is the ballgame right is is is making those choices and then along the way as medicine and science Helps us to do that more and more The interventions are going to make us better and better and better and again like not so that I can live to be 120 But so that the quality of my life, you know is is as robust and as life-giving as possible Like that's what I really hope for myself and for people is is abundant life and What?

Do you? Expect in terms of your future relationship with running. Is it too early to say what are the doctors telling you? What does that look like? Yeah, this is a really important and really tough part of what is coming for me Right Now the the cardiologist have one picture of my heart so I went in I get a cardiac MRI It's kind of a long and uncomfortable process to have this image taken and they they have one a few weeks after After my cardiac arrest and so they can look at that and say okay This is where your disease is today.

And this is the condition of your heart today in six months I'll have another one and they'll start to build a trend of like this is how your heart is and and how the disease of your heart is is either progressing or regressing or or Or whatever the case may be so We have a lot to learn. I want that to be the first thing It's like we don't know everything now and and I'm so grateful. I'm at Duke because these are people on the cutting-edge You know using the latest understanding of heart health to guide my path forward But Because of the disease that I have and because it's progressed to the point that it did cause a cardiac arrest When your heart rate goes up Your heart dilates and it gets bigger in order to pump more blood volume That happening exposes more of that dysfunctional tissue For for me and as a result of that It's it's it's dangerous for me to elevate my heart to get my heart rate up above I mean, there's no hard line, right?

But like the higher my heart rate goes I'm just making myself more vulnerable to what would be like a heart arrhythmia. Yeah, and so It is unlikely. I'll ever be able to return to running Wow That's heavy. That's that's heavy. I mean your whole life has been about elevating your heart rate. I Mean, honestly rich. There's a part of me that's like who cares about running? I mean Just not being able to like be the first one up the stairs So be the one of them all for you to be able to say that I mean, I can't I'm sure it's hard for you to say that but also that's remarkable you know that that gets at the heart of like the identity piece like if your identity you have a healthy relationship with Your attachment to this person who is a runner.

It's the craft and I got to choose it which was just so amazing Like I got to choose it and it's been such a teacher. It's been the place that I've struggled It's been the place that I've succeeded it's When I'm working on my craft, I'm working on myself and I Just I just don't want to I don't want to choose another craft. Yeah Well, I look at it like this running has been a very good teacher But there are other teachers out there in the world and I think you've learned what you needed to learn from running and God the universe, you know your higher power however, you know an individual kind of qualifies their relationship with the ineffable has Decided that you need to accelerate your growth curve and in order to do that We need to give you another teacher, you know Like you've you've you graduated from that class and now you're in a different school and you're being given new lessons for life that are intended to Accelerate like your growth in your evolution like you have now entered a new realm where you know As Alexi would say you're in a glop state, you know Like you're in the in-between you're like being dissolved and prepared for something new and you don't quite know what that is yet And it's uncomfortable and confusing and you're trying to make sense of what happened to you and why and all that stuff but I'm confident because you're so mentally tough and you're so grounded in your You know kind of relationship with what happened, that you're going to emerge from this, really powerful in a new way that you probably can't predict or imagine right now.

It is an enormous amount of uncertainty, for sure. And yeah, I think about some of the things that I've said in the past and how perfect they are for now. I think it's so important to learn from other people, but you also can learn from your younger self. One of those things is when I was getting ready to retire, I kept saying, I want to exhaust every ounce of talent. I want no talent left when I run that last mile. And I kind of, in a funny way, felt like I achieved it, because I did all the things that I could.

You kind of did that, yeah. Yeah, I did everything that I could accomplish. In fact, I even said when I finished on the track in the mile, I said, I've learned everything there is for me to learn here. And I moved on to the marathon. And then I was good at it, but not good enough to stay a pro. And I knew what it would take if I stayed five more years and developed. It just, like, my will and my talent was, like, in the most beautiful way, it was exhausted.

And I was ready to be done. And now I look back on that, and I think, oh my gosh, what incredible peace I have that this didn't happen in 2021 or it didn't happen when I was young. I don't know, just that I even articulated, like, I got everything out of this. I could have, and I'm ready to step away. But back to knowing yourself and learning from your younger self. Like, I don't know, we're such complicated and interesting as individuals, each person. And as much as it's good to have, I think it's amazing to have role models.

I've had incredible role models. But I've always tried to be careful to not confuse a role model with a template. Like, that's not the version of who I'm supposed to be. You can pick and learn and see what's right for you and for your path. And I think the same is true when you reflect on your own learnings and your own past. So I have this, I was actually talking to Alexi about this, I have this notes section in my phone where it's titled, How to Live with Yourself.

And it's like a message to me. Like, the only way I'm going to survive living with me all the time is if I really get to know her, if I really know her and care about her and am interested in her thoughts and who she is. And so when I have, sometimes it's dumb stuff, but sometimes it's actually meaningful, insightful things. But I just keep this running notes of things that are interesting about myself. And it sounds really kind of self-centered, but my interest in my own self and my own journey and what my inner thoughts are that I don't necessarily share out to my partner or the world or whatever, it helps me know me.

I spent a lot of time in those notes recently because I feel kind of lost. I feel like I'm in a place to kind of reconstruct. But it's not starting from zero. Like I have this beautiful document that I accidentally started like 10 years ago that reminds me of like how careful and thoughtful and maybe not careful, but like how thoughtful and how much I've learned along the way. And I go back and I revisit stuff and I think, oh, that's like a nugget of gold for me from me that I had forgotten about or it had been buried or it needs to resurface again.

I don't think that you should be in a hurry. I think it's about getting comfortable in the murkiness of the whole thing and not being in a hurry to know what your next thing is or what that trajectory is gonna look like and just allow yourself to be present and marinate in this glop like chrysalis that you're in right now. But I think your intuition to turn to that notes app, like the idea of like I need to get, I wanna get to know myself is a beautiful instinct.

And it's almost like what in mindfulness they would call like loving kindness. You know what I mean? Like you're honoring yourself. Like, oh, like I'm this person. Let me get to know myself. Like there's something nourishing about that that doesn't necessarily have an endpoint. It's a cultivation of a more intimacy with who you are. And then ultimately that will translate into something, but it doesn't have to be today or tomorrow. What you were saying about the uncertainty, I mean, it's the obstacle is the journey, right?

The work never ends because your life, for me, it is the work. Okay, I'm working towards this destination where now I know who I am and I know what I'm doing and I'm this person and like I do this. There is no, I mean, for me anyway so far, no true enlightenment yet. I mean, it's all kind of a journey. But there's, yeah, there's- But something happened in that intensive care situation that is worthy of continuing to investigate. Yeah, and I appreciate you encouraging me to take time because you're totally right.

I'm sensing that you can see how I struggle and wrestle with myself, both this understanding on one end of like win slowly, do it over a long period of time. And I really struggle with gentleness with myself because I'm an A student, right? Like I wanna get it right every time and I don't wanna learn a lot. You're a striver. Striver, exactly. Yeah, and you've always had a blueprint for your life and you always woke up in the morning kind of like knowing what you were gonna do, you know?

And like now it's like, I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing now, you know? But like what an amazing opportunity you've been given. Like appreciate the expansiveness of that. I don't think I would have ever put down running. I would have never let it go. I mean, I took a job as chief running officer. The universe did you a favor. They did it for you, yeah. In a lot of ways, it cleared my desk. Like I have a lot of space and I think I will get to, I know, I know I will get to a place where I'm eager about that opportunity and like, and I am.

I mean, I have moments where I think, oh gosh, there's so much space now on my desk to see like what other things are gonna captivate my energy and my time and that inner fire. But it's also right now tangled with grief. Yeah, and that's appropriate and beautifully human. Of course, how could there not be, you know? But allowing yourself to feel that, you know, and not being in a hurry to, you know, like be done with it. Oh, I also wanna say, like I've been talking to a psychologist and I'm just a real big proponent of having help.

Mental toughness isn't just something that like you figure out, there's things that you practice that you relearn every single day in doing it. And having a sense of self and security and who you are stepping out of bed and launching into that day, I think that's a practice. Yeah, there's these videos on your Instagram of you like on podcasts, like you're calling races and commenting like Diamond League stuff and all. Like, does that feel like weird? Like, that has to be like different now if you watch those or you step into like that role as like this authority on running when you're talking about elite track and field in the aftermath of what just happened.

Being the, first of all, I haven't done any of that since. But the most fun part is to be the athlete. Like I got to do the best job for as many years possible. And I was already a little bit in that transition fog space like figuring out what comes next. And so some race commentating was a part of that. But that actually makes me think, you made me think of something else. Like watching people run or have my husband go out on a run since June 16th, it's not because I'm a saint.

I'm just being totally honest. It doesn't upset me. It doesn't, because I know how great running is. Like I know what it gave to me. And so to, that joy hasn't been, hasn't, doesn't feel mixed with the grief at least up to this point. It hasn't felt mixed with the grief. That when my husband went, my husband was training for Leadville. So he was gonna run Leadville. And then I had my sensational, crazy event. And he's now deferred to next year. But I want him to go run.

I want him to have adventures. I want him, you know, it's one of. Yeah, for those that don't know, your husband is very accomplished runner. He's like a 218 marathoner. 218 marathoner, yep, yeah. He's a really good runner. And, oh man, not being able to run with him will be really hard. We've been married for almost 16 years. And for us, the run is like, there's no phones. You don't have to look at each other. You can talk the whole way. You can be quiet the whole way.

Like that was just like a really precious way for us to relate to each other. So we'll have to find that new, isn't it amazing? I think it's amazing like having deep conversations with somebody when your heart is pumping, when you feel like you're in movement, your brain can kind of sort things out and you don't have to look at the person. Like it's so nice. You can be so much more honest. You can be intimate and avoidant at the same time. Exactly, it's a perfect combination.

And there's no distractions and you're in God's creation and beauty is around you. And like, I just feel so open when my body is moving and I'm in a place that is bigger and more wonderful than my little tiny little point on the universe. And so I will find a way to have that experience without running. But man, running was such a good way to have that experience. Yeah, you'll find different ways to do that. And for him to launch out and do it and to drive down Boulder and see people running on the creek path and stuff.

Like I just think. And not feel a twinge of resentment or regret. I don't, I really don't. I mean, part of it is I packed so much into 39 years. I mean, I've had, honestly, I think any weather and any hungry or fed or tired or not or bad weather or good weather, I've been through it all. I mean, here I've run on every single continent. I mean, I've gotten to do so much. Yeah, you did the 7-7-7. Yeah, so I've gotten to do so much.

So I do feel like I packed in multiple lifetimes in 39 years. You did it all. But here's, like, you're gonna have to, attention C-suite at Fleet Feet. Yeah. I think your title, you know, CRO, Chief Running Officer, now it has to be C-N-R-O, like Chief Non-Running Officer or something. Like, how does that work? Yeah, but the rewards of having run and the lessons of having been a runner, right? Of course, I'm joking. I know you're joking. But like, here's maybe, I mean, we're unpacking some of this in real time.

I mean, maybe this is one of the big things is that I shift from being the experiencer and the learner to more of the teacher. I've coached before and I've, I mean, I love talking to people about running and I love getting people, like, energized about, like, it's terrible for the first month, but just do it and it'll be amazing. And there's so many other parts of your life that get better when you become a runner or become a cyclist or whatever, you know, kind of sport of choice.

I mean, I've never met anyone that started running and got into it and said, oh, my life fell apart. Like, their life always gets better. And so I love, I love encouraging people in that way. Unless they get so obsessed that they end up divorced and, you know, there's- Don't come to me with that story. No, it gets better, it gets better. But yeah, and so all of that is all still true and it's all still lessons I've learned over time and that purpose and that joy and that confidence that you get from being a runner, I still have to share.

You don't get to be as good as you are without being, like, obsessive. I, yeah, I feel like it's a lopsided life opposed to a balanced life. Like, you just, I've never had a balanced life and I don't want one. Like, at different times, there's different- We're sort of punished because there's this cultural imperative that we're supposed to be balanced, you know, and then we walk around feeling bad because we're obsessing about certain things and going all in. But there's no shortcut to greatness. Like, if you are striving for something, you know, really astonishing, like, your life is gonna be out of balance, I'm sorry.

It just is. 100%. That has just been the only experience I have had. I don't know another way up the mountain that doesn't require at least that element. So what is that process for you? Setting aside the physical training aspect of it from, like, a mindset, you know, mental game perspective. I learned through my process, like, it's so important to know who you are and, like, know how you're wired. I've seen so many different athletes over years, like, there's different paths to the mountaintop, right? And, like, you just have to know what drives you, what is gonna get you up every day.

I'm definitely, like, a list and check off type of person. I'm a routine, I'm a ritual, I'm a rhythm person. And so I used to say, I was, like, kind of jokingly, like, I'm going into my monk-like state. Like, I'm going into this, like, period of building up to a season of time that will probably be two or three months in the summer where everything else is second. And I have this criteria that I expect out of myself, you know, this, you know, it's pretty simple, right?

Like a checklist of, like, these are the things I'm gonna accomplish every single day. And I won't compromise. And that rigidity, I think, is really, like, difficult for some personalities, and it was right for me. As a sort of confidence-building exercise so that when you are lining up for the race, like, you know that you did everything that you promised yourself you would do to be prepared. Yeah, and I felt like I bring evidence to my confidence. Like, that's why, like, the checklist thing was important to me.

It was, like, I could reflect back and had, I literally had, like, stacks of paper of, like, the weightlifting sessions, the ancillary, you know, stretching, recovery, that kind of stuff, my workouts. Like, I like to keep things kind of analog on paper. Then I can like physically hold the work that I did and think, I don't, I am not coming to the trials or my, my, um, rust buster race, you know, first race of the season, I'm not coming with belief. I'm coming with evidence and the evidence informs the belief.

And that, that was really powerful for me. What makes you so good? Why do you think that you had this, you know, insane professional, I mean, you were pro for like 14 years, right? Three Olympics, Olympic medalists, American record holder. I think you've won the, the, um, fifth Avenue mile like eight times or something like that. Uh, two 31 marathon or when you stepped into that world and then you've had some adventures, et cetera. I mean, your, your resume is insane. Uh, but I suspect that everybody at the elite level trains equally hard.

Like what is your strength or differentiator that, uh, you think allowed you to distinguish yourself in the way that you did? First of all, I don't totally know, but I'll give you the best answer that I know. The honesty of that, because this is a question I ask a lot of elite athletes and it's always interesting. I almost ask it because like, I want to gauge like how different athletes answer this question because athletes are doers. They're not always the best at understanding like how they do what they do.

Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. I, I reflect a lot on my work and, and care a lot about like, if this is the thing I'm going to put out into the world, what is it saying? So, so I do think a lot about it. Coach Popovich said years ago and I just heard it and it stuck with me forever is win slowly. And that like, I don't know the dissonance in that and how to understand that just like really stuck with me. And that, what does that mean?

So to me, win slowly. And I don't know if this is how he meant it, but to me it's like, you have to do a lot right over time and not a single race or like me being good at a championships has very little to do with that day. It has so much to do. The will to win exists in who you are and how you express that in your work for a thousand days, right? Leading into the one day. So I, I've heard my whole career and we all hear it, you know, I just wanted it more than someone else.

I, as an athlete, just wholly resisted that, that temptation to think that I would show up on one day and want it more than another person, especially because the more you get to know your competitors, the more you understand like what they are sacrificing to be here. And I just don't know that I wanted to rely on that math, that I would just want it more on one day. So I thought I'm going to want it more for a hundred days or 500 days or a thousand days.

And stacking that up just really mattered. And then over time, the reason I was better than another person was a thousand reasons, not one reason. Now, in addition to that, and in cooperation with that, um, I do think I'm a really mentally tough person, a mentally strong person. I don't know that it's that like, I'm more mentally tough. I think the challenges, I, I just have an ability to like turn that dial down. I never felt like I had to exist on the track without doubt.

Um, I just knew I have to carry it with me and the belief has to be way bigger, which is then what led me to like, okay, I want to have evidence, like I want to have evidence. So when I hold this stack of paper that says for a four year cycle, I did all the things I committed to not in full perfection, right? Like I miss things or stuff that you can't predict or that you let yourself down on a day or two, but there are a lot more days that I, I showed up and, and I hold that stack and I think this is a lot heavier than my fear.

Where does that mental toughness come from? Is it how you were raised or, you know, what was it like when you were younger? Like how did you cultivate that? Ah, that's such a good question. Um, I, I was raised really well. I have incredible parents. They don't know much about running. They don't, they don't, I mean, they care about me. Not an athletic family, right? Not at all. Right. Not at all. I'm a real dedicated athlete in my family, uh, of, of either side that I, that I'm aware of that I know of.

So I don't want to mischaracterize my home. Like I have two wonderful parents. They're still married. They raised three great kids. My sister went into the military. My brother's a pastor and I'm an Olympian. So they did something right. Um, what I look back on my childhood in particular and think they did right was two really major things. I didn't grow up in a happy home. My house wasn't particularly joyful or happy. There was a lot of stress, a lot of anger. Um, but my parents were committed.

They were committed to each other. They were committed to us. And so I was raised with a view of what it looks like to stay committed to something when it's miserable. And I've reflected on that at times in my life and thought, God, that is like so unfair to be a kid that has to, to live in four walls that are so unhappy and then project out into the world that things are fine. But this is not a unique story. This is not special or unique to me.

And in the midst of that, now I can look back and say, what an incredible example of commitment my parents showed me in the absence of like total, just blissful happiness and joy. That's super interesting to me. The idea that you would say on the one hand, like I was raised really well. And then a moment later say it was not a happy home, like reconciling those two truths. And then in the context of that, finding something to latch onto that you realized early you had potential and going all in on that, like, was that on some level, like a, a way to kind of protect yourself, like create a cocoon, uh, like a safe place outside of the unhappiness within the four walls of your home or like a way out or a different path for you.

That's that leads like beautifully into the second thing they did really well. They put other really good people in our lives. My parents didn't shelter us like this is the way the world should be and not have us out exposed to other homes and other people and other, this is, this is why living community is so powerful. I think particularly for kids, like the old adage, it takes a village, like give your kids a village because you won't get everything right, but someone around you will show your kid a different way.

And it's powerful to have options as a kid and, and to be able to look and say, well, not every home is like this and I can choose something different. And so my parents had really, really amazing people in our lives and then gave those people permission and freedom to help parent us. And so that was really powerful for me. Some of those people are still, oh, well, all of those people are still huge mentors in my life and very few of them have anything to do with running.

So I don't know that I had like a cocoon or a safe place, but I had safe people. And when you have safe people that you don't have to, I didn't want to project out into the world that my house was unhappy, but I had people that I could tell and could talk to and it wasn't like shocking or sensational, but it was like, yeah, I, I get it and I'm here with you and this isn't the only option forever. And that was a real lifeline for me.

Hmm. Florida, right? You grew up in Florida. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A village in Florida. Yeah. What part of Florida? Central Florida. Central Florida. I went to Oviedo High School. One of those people was my high school coach. And that's one of the powerful things about sport is like, it's good to teach character and values in school and all that kind of stuff. But like when kids show up and they want to be there, like that's when they're powerfully open to receive lessons about character and life and so forth.

And so that was, that was sports for me, um, what I didn't want to hear at home or wasn't, you know, totally open to in math class, um, I was open and, and wanted to learn. Like there's a reason kids will show up on time to a sports practice and you have to drag them and not every kid with sports, but you know what I mean? I mean the, the kids that choose into it and, and this is what draws them. They're just, they're just more willing to show up and get it right.

And that's where they learn. What is your relationship between being an internally motivated person, uh, with, uh, kind of external results, you know, outcomes versus process. Like are you somebody who is racing against other people and thinking about podiums? Are you just trying to extract the best performance out of yourself? Like what is the animating kind of energy behind your mindset with respect to running? I love this question because I project and the story that I tell myself, and this is also true because, you know, you reinforce within your own internal dialogue.

Like I want to bring out the best in myself. I want to bring out the best in myself when I'm working out, when I'm working on my craft. Like I think of running as like, this is, this is the great craft I've been given in my life. I'm working on myself. Like how am I going to be a better person having gone through the valleys and the mountain tops, right? Because this, this perseverance creates character and, and how is this going to make me better? But at the same time, then I get on the track and it doesn't even have to be a competition.

It can just be practice and all of that's like out the window. Like I just want to be the person next to me, your whole face just like lit up when you started talking about that. Like your entire disposition changed. Yeah. I love, I love making it so hard for someone else to keep up. And what does that do for you? Like, what are you getting out of that? I don't know. There's just, there's something in there that like, I, there's a fire, it's a yes.

And you know, it's not, it's not one or the other. Exactly. And that's, that's, I think the most intellectually honest way for me to tell you what motivates me because it is true. I do want to see the best in myself and you're not at your level unless you're, you know, a ferocious tiger. Exactly. I don't know that like that on its own can be enough. You also have to be a killer. Like you have to get on the track and be like, I, this is not about me not getting caught or me not getting, you know, killed by the saber tooth tiger.

It's about me being the tiger. How do you, uh, keep your identity in check? Like you talked about like the hundred, like for a hundred days on it and like, like not putting too much weight on any individual race or performance. But there is this sense like, okay, like I'm Jenny and I'm a runner and this is who I am. And every time you're at, like, you know, once a year when you're at that year's like biggest competition where the Klieg lights are on, et cetera, and it's being televised, there is a sense of your, and your identity is kind of on the chopping block, uh, and in order to have longevity in your career, you have to hold that loosely while also, you know, you're also buying into this in order to be able to perform.

This is not just a philosophy for me. This is something I have lived because in 2015 I was a world champion, a silver medalist. Um, I had, I was number one in the world in 2014 and I, there's just so many layers and so many levels that you have to get through, whether it's the U S trials. And then you go to the, to the diamond league races, and then you go to the world championships and there's a first round and then there's a second round and you survive, you survive in advance and you make it to the final.

And then I'm in the final in China, 2015 and 800 meters in or 600 meters in somebody stepped on my shoe and my shoe comes off. And I was in like perfect position. I was incredible shape. Um, I mean, I still get chills thinking about that race because of what might have been. And it's like the people I wanted to be that day, like, that's what kills me. It's not necessarily that my work didn't get to be shown to the world. It's more like there are people I was ready to, to be, that I really wanted to be.

And so your question to me, like takes me immediately back to that moment because I finished the race. I was second to last. I had to be one person. Right. Um, but nobody's going to begrudge you. You didn't have a shoe. You know, it's like, it's not like, Oh, like, wow. She really flail. Yeah. My foot got totally eaten up because of the track, like they put down new surface. And so the track is like super, super grippy. The flash on the bottom of my foot was like totally torn apart because I did, I did finish.

I wanted to finish. It was an ego thing. Like I wanted to finish the race, um, but I finish and then, um, I'll never forget it of the good and the bad that I've had walked through my life. This is one of those moments that lives in me forever. I can like close my eyes and transport back to it, but I finished the race and then I walked, you know, 150 meters to the other side of the track to go pick up my shoe and my spike.

Um, and I knew like, this is my moment to figure out how I feel about this because in the next 60 seconds I go into a mixed zone with media people and this will be, you know, they're going to ask, they're going to ask. And this is, this is now like, I, I don't know, I'm not, I'm like more in the moment in my head and not explaining it well, but I just knew like, you have to decide how you feel about it in 60 seconds.

Like you got to go pick up your shoe and then you will have to react to this experience. And I think these are the powerful moments where you have for me, for me, this is my, this is how I walked through it. I was like, this is when it's so powerful to separate. Like my, my running is my work and it's the medium through which I become the person I am. It is not the person that I am, how I speak to these cameras in 60 seconds, like that's going to be the person that I am.

And I'm, I'm a person of faith, I believe in a God who loves us. And when you're in a moment like that, you think, Oh, what the hell, what, what the heck? Like, what am I supposed to do with this now? Um, but having an identity that you believe is meaningful and, and, and last beyond this life is I think what kept my two feet on the ground and helped me like calm down, gather myself and walk into the mixed zone and say, I'm still really grateful.

Like the work that I've done is all still worthy. It was all still worth it. And I'll be back in two weeks and race again. But man, that was a really tough moment. So who is the Jenny beyond race results? Who is the person outside of the job? Oh man, she's still becoming, I guess. I'm curious, I like to learn, and I just love loving people. That's something that's really core and central to who I am is, you know, when you're an athlete, you get so much individual like glory and praise.

And it's awesome. Like I wouldn't trade it. I'm not ashamed or shy about how fun it is to be in a stadium and like they're cheering for me. Yeah. Like I'm the one that runs today. You're like running with the flag. Yeah. Like that whole thing. Yeah. I mean, that's really fun. And I hope what I've shown in my career is that then the greater work is like, who can you reflect that on? Who can you spread that light onto? And who can you share it with?

And that makes my work feel so much more meaningful than like the singular moment of praise. It's like, oh, who can I bring in? You know, you cast this light into the world and who can you, who can you bring into that light? Maybe a nice way to kind of land this plane is to, I know it's so early, but if you could share some reflections from what you experienced that might be helpful to someone out there who's having a similar kind of setback or struggling in life or maybe is injured right now and is beating themselves up and you know, it's difficult when something derails your life or sidelines you in a way that you didn't expect and prevents you from operating as usual or being able to do the things that make you feel like you.

Yeah. If you haven't been there, it's coming. I mean, everyone will experience it in life. That's one thing. That's one reflection is that hardship, uncertainty, transition, confusion, and identity, like that's the human experience. And I don't know that there's anyone that I can think of that hasn't walked through a season of that. So the most important thing is you are not alone. You are not alone and in community with others. You can learn from others. I've been down into a dark hole and someone else has been down here and found the way out.

Find that person that can help you find the way out. I, you know, I described like being in this really dark place and you said beautifully, I haven't, I haven't used this word before, but I might adopt it now, like looking for the trap door. I mean, even in my circumstance, I didn't find it alone and, and now kind of navigating the future that informs moving forward, right, is like, I shouldn't do this alone. I know that I shouldn't just work on this problem alone and then emerge like fully enlightened and know exactly what the answer is, but instead to kind of stumble forward and, and meet people that love me along the way that are willing to take one step and then another step.

So that's, that's a big, that's a big part. And there are things that take a really long time and, and even if it takes too long, you're not too late. Too late just doesn't exist if you're still on this side of the grave and you're breathing and you're loving and you're in the world. I mean, one of the things that I think I've just, I think I've thought about a lot is like all the things that the people I love, the things that I love to do, I'm just so grateful it's not too late.

It might take me a long time to get to certain points or to get to certain realizations or certain forgiveness or those sorts of things, but I still have time to do it. And too long does not mean it's too late. The grief that you're experiencing can cohabitate with a deeper sense of gratitude. You know, like those, those two things are, are kind of existing in tandem within you. I'm just struck with how poised and mature you are about all of this because it happened so recently.

Like maybe I would have expected it in somebody who's, you know, a year or two, you know, down the road from having weathered this, but it was literally two months ago. And the fact that you're able to, you know, recognize this as, you know, something profound and as an opportunity tells me and like what I would like to express to the audience is that this is something my wife says all the time, like everything that happens to you is like neutral until you apply your perspective and you have agency over that perspective and no one would begrudge you for, you know, going through the, what is it, this, the, you know, the seven stages of, you know, like there's anger and there's denial and there's grief and all of that to finally arrive at some place of acceptance and you're in already this place of acceptance and you're flirting with gratitude as you, as you are kind of also experiencing grief that when these intervening events happen that, you know, kind of really upend your whole idea of like who you thought you were or what you were going to do, how you identify, et cetera, that, you know, as callous as it kind of might seem and insensitive, like they are opportunities and if you look at it like, well, this is, everything is designed for your growth, you know, and as uncomfortable or as confronting as it might be, like there always is that sliver of opportunity.

Like you can leverage this and use this to, you know, continue to evolve and it requires you to let go of all of these ideas that you have been harboring about who you think you are and all that kind of stuff and realize like, oh yeah, everything's way more uncertain and we're just operating like, well, the sun comes up in the morning and this is what I do and all of that and we're not appreciating the fragility of life and the unpredictability of, you know, kind of true reality.

When I was in the hospital that first night and I really didn't know if I was going to make it, um, my, my boss stayed with me overnight, which is like unbelievable, right? Like, I mean, I started working five months before, I mean, I knew him and his wife well, but not like sit by my bedside if I don't make it through the night. And right after you beat him. And right after, exactly, exactly. And he told me that I had told him before that, and this is true, our family, we have this mantra, my nieces, they know it, um, Beringers do hard things.

My maiden name is Beringer. Um, and you know, all the way back to what I was talking about, my house was a hard place to live in, but we have this mantra, like Beringers do hard things. And so that's what Joey told me. He was there in the hospital with me. I'm fighting for my life and I'm confused and I'm afraid and fighting the sedation. And he just kept reminding me like Beringers do hard things. When you do hard things, you get better at doing hard things.

It is that simple. If you make it through, if you do something hard, I look back and I think all the training, it was all a lesson in how to, how to keep fighting. I mean, when my cardiologist said to me, you thought you were training for the Olympics, but you were training for June 16th. It's, it's the fight and the spirit and the endurance as much as it was a healthy body. And if you're going through a hard time, it is worth the fight. It is hard, but it is worth it and you will get better at it.

That is part of the learning is like hard things built on hard things. You get better at getting through hard things. I think you stuck the landing. I think that's a beautiful and appropriate place to stop for today, but thank you. That was really amazing. And I appreciate your openness and sharing what I just, I can't even begin to fathom has been such a difficult experience for you and your family and the people that you care about. And I appreciate you trusting me with helping you tell it.

I'm alive and thank you. I really appreciate you having me here. Yeah. Awesome. Thanks, Jenny. Peace. Peace.