448: Why Lindsey Vonn’s Comeback Wasn’t a Failure

The winter olympics have returned, and if you’ve been listening to our podcast for awhile, you know we love the Olympics!

The grit. The perseverance. The stories. 

Unless you’ve been living under a rock this week, you’ve probably heard of Lindsey Vonn’s comeback.

After devastating injuries and stepping away from professional skiing for several years (her last Olympics was 8 years ago), she chose to come back…at the age of 41.

And not because it was guaranteed to end with a podium.

But because she still had something inside her that wanted to try again.

That’s what this episode is really about.

We talk about:

• What resilience actually looks like (hint: it’s not pretty or linear)
• Why a comeback doesn’t have to mean “winning”
• The courage it takes to return after injury, burnout, or disappointment
• How redefining failure can completely change your fitness journey
• Why the process is always more powerful than the outcome

As runners, athletes, and humans, we all face seasons where things don’t go the way we planned. Injuries happen. Motivation dips. Life gets messy. And sometimes we start to question whether it’s even worth trying again.

Lindsey’s story reminds us: showing up again is brave. Trying again is powerful. And your comeback doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s.

If you’ve ever felt behind, stuck, or unsure whether you still “have it” — this conversation is for you.

Because resilience isn’t about never falling.

It’s about deciding you’re not done yet.

00:15 Lindsey Vonn's Comeback Story

03:37 Lindsey Vonn's Olympic Journey

07:03 Public Reaction and Resilience

19:50 The Relentless Pursuit of Excellence

20:58 Facing the Fear of Failure

22:22 The Journey Over the Outcome

26:42 Embracing the Process

31:39 The Courage to Continue

40:01 Adjusting Goals and Embracing Change

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Transcript

0:00

The Olympics are here. Woo. And you guys know if you've been listening for any amount of time that we love the Olympics, we love looking at the stories and re relating them and taking lessons away that we can use as real life runners. And the big story of the week so far is Lindsay Vaughn. So today we're talking about Lindsay Vaughn resilience and why her comeback was definitely not a failure. So stay tuned. What's up runners? Welcome back to the podcast. We're happy to be here with you today as always, because it's, it's the Olympics as you pointed out. We love the Olympics, we love the Olympics, and while the Winter Olympics is definitely different than the Summer Olympics because there's no running in the Winter Olympics, there's still some amazing things happening in the Winter Olympics, and we're excited to talk to you guys about that today. Yeah, let's not go on the side tangent of CrossCountry should definitely be a Winter Olympic sport. Oh, or cross country skiing. There's definitely that. No straight cross country through the snow. Look at World, world Cross Country Championships very often have snow on the ground. Perfect. Not this year when they put'em in Florida, but often. Mm-hmm. Definitely not. Yeah. They were in Tallahassee to this year. The World CrossCountry Championships. Were at the same course where our state cross country championships are held every year. So that was pretty cool. Yes. Kinda weird. So, Kev, tell us before we jump into this week's topic, how are you feeling? We're now basically, well not quite a month out, but several weeks removed from your race. How are you feeling? Have you started running? What's, what's been going on? Uh, yeah. No, I'm doing the running. I'm doing the lifting. I actually doing the running. I'm doing the running and the lifting. Mm-hmm. And sometimes when I want to go for a run, I. I actually did a lift instead. What? I know. That's the weird, who are you? What'd you do with my husband? That is the weird one. Um, it's the jacked version of my husband sitting next to me right now. Well, no, I mean, we're, we're just a couple of weeks in, but we getting there. You have you, but you still have to take on the identity of the Jacked husband right before you become it, like we've talk about all the time. Yes. And then eventually I will look like Wolverine. Wolverine is what we're going for. That's what we're going for. All right. I'm not, are you gonna sing like Q Jackman also? God, I wish The Greatest Showman put some stuff in here. Now we're talking that, that is on my ultra running playlist. Mm-hmm. But I just, I don't have that voice. I, but I am running, I uh, I actually ran today with, with some speed. I have got, oh, you just put some speed back in? Put some speed back into it. Oh. And what did that look like? Um, it looked like me attempting to figure out what L five is. Okay. When I haven't done L five for like a month. Mm-hmm. So that was something. Okay. So what did you do? Like, did you do like tempo repeats or What? I did. I did three minutes on, three minutes off. Okay. Trying to find like a, well, I love three threes. Yeah. Normally I like to come back with two twos'cause I find it less intimidating. I love two twos also, but I thought this time the way my brain happened to be when I was, you know, on my warmup mile,'cause I was gonna do something like this on my warm mile. I was like, if I go three minutes, I won't accidentally go too hard. Hmm. And with two minutes I might push too hard'cause it's only two minutes. Okay. So I went for three and it was fine. It was fine, it was fine. Felt pretty good. Uh, my feet are, are doing fine. They're slowly peeling into pieces, but they're, they're doing fine. Are you still peeling? Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Like it takes a, because if you don't keep running, then all the like little blisters that have formed, I'll just start. Not being there. It's, it's gross. And we're too early in the episode to talk about what my feet look like. So let's talk about Lindsay Vaughn instead. Great. Perfect. Alright, so. Yeah, we're guessing if you have been paying attention to the Olympics or really the news at all, unless you've been trapped under an igloo. Yes. You have probably heard about Lindsay Vaughn and her comeback, so in case you haven't, basically, Lindsay Vaughn is a world class skier. She has been for decades now, and she has been retired for eight years. Six years. Six, six years, and she's now. She's been on this comeback run, um, for the last, like when did she get back into it?'cause there's a whole lead up coming into the Olympics where she had to like, qualify and do all these things ahead of time, like a year. That's okay. So at least a year that we know of. Um, and she's 41 years old, which is super cool. So this is her what? Fourth Olympics. Um, I was gonna say that she was 60, and this is like her 20th Olympics. She's 41, but 41 is still freaking amazing for downhill skiing. Like it's downhill skiing. That's the bonker. Downhill Skiing is such a crazy sport. It's like, here, we're gonna strap these two like. Luges like ice, as fast as you could go skis on the bottom of your feet and we're gonna shoot you down this mountain at the fastest speeds that people ski. That's just insane. Mm-hmm. And she's the best in the world at it was the best in the world at it for such a long period of time, and then retired. On top. Yeah. She retired as like the best. Yeah. So she's actually been in five winter Olympic games starting in 2002, so 2000 2, 0 6, 2010, 18, and then 26, so it's been eight years since her last Olympics. She did not compete in 22. Yeah. So she had to make the comeback. In enough time, right. That she could then do all the qualifying stuff. Mm-hmm. Which is beyond what we need to get into on this. Right. But there's a whole qualifying process. Right. So there's this whole qualifying process and basically she has been retired for six years and decided to make this comeback. Which the internet loves. Internet loves a comeback story. Mm-hmm. Like the improbable comeback. She's been retired for so long, what's gonna happen? And she came back and was looking phenomenal. Yeah. She qualified for the Olympics. And you know that there are like people at NBC ready to broadcast this. They're like, this is gonna be our highlight story. Yeah. The the most crazy comeback ever. And we're gonna shoot her down a mountain at 70 miles an hour. It's gonna be bonkers. Oh yeah. I mean, the reel on the Instagram of the NBC Olympics that. Announced Her comeback was so good because it was set to Alicia Keys. This girl is on fire. Of course it was. And it was just the coolest. I mean, it started, there was this adorable video of her as, as a little kid skiing and then her, that was actually her first Olympics. Yeah. Yeah. Her like just little kid Lindsay. And then like her crash and being airli. Lifted off the course, and then now it's like now she's back and there's all these amazing scenes of her going flying down the hill because she's had like numerous, like with a downhill skier, right? There's numerous crashes throughout your career and she just keeps coming back. Mm-hmm. That's part of why she retired, is like, this is such a dangerous sport. So she went into retirement mm-hmm. And then came back and was like, I'm doing this thing again and. Every, the internet was stoked over it. Like this is gonna be phenomenal. But then a week out from the Olympics, she crashes and just, well, from my non-doctor perspective, blows her knee up. Right. So this was like her last run before heading to the Olympics, right? Yeah. So she crashes and there's this huge question mark of what's gonna happen, and then it comes out, she comes to and holds a press conference and basically says. Tells everyone that she has ruptured her ACL in this knee. There's meniscal injuries, there's a bone bruise, so she did some pretty significant damage to this knee in that crash a week before the Olympic started. But then in consulting with her therapist and her doctors and her medical team, she has decided that she is still going to compete because her niece still feels strong and stable and she still believes that she's able to compete in the Olympics. But the internet disagreed. Yeah, because everybody on the internet has an opinion now and is. A medical professional, and yes, not only has an opinion, but most of the internet, from what I could tell, after she held this press conference, most people on Twitter actually are orthopedic surgeons. Mm-hmm. Um, because they all thought that she should not compete and she should give up her spot. Yeah. Which one is not even a process like she qualified for the Olympics. So either there was no backup, but either she goes and competes, or, or no one goes and competes. That's, that's how it was. Right. So she was not taking the spot away from anybody else, but everyone loved that narrative. Oh, everybody loved that one. How selfish she is. Or, or how could she do this? She already crashed. Is she capable? Mm-hmm. This just seems silly at this point. Yeah. Like she's so locked into her identity that she can't see the danger in this. Mm-hmm. I think she knew full well what she was doing. Yeah. Yeah. This is not the first time she's gone down a mountain. So that was her plan, despite the fact that, you know, there were a few opinions on the internet that disagreed with it. Right. And she went and raced. So then she went and raced. So then she, there's a, they have to do another run before the competition. So they actually have to do a run on the Olympic track, not track course, course, the Olympic course, to make sure like that they're able to compete. In the competition. So she completed that training, runs on her busted up knee. She competed that, I think she had like the 11th, fastest time. Third, she had the third fastest time. The third fastest time, third fastest. Okay. Nevermind. I, I saw the wrong headline. So she had the third fastest time on this essentially kind of qualifying test run. It wasn't a qualifying run, but it was a test run. It's the day before you had to, that they had to compete. Yeah, it's the day before you do the thing. Yeah. And it, I think it helps set your order on the, the day of the race. Okay, that makes sense. So she did the trial test run Totally. Was fine. Killed. It was awesome. Then the day of the competition, which was yesterday, Sunday at the Olympics, and she ended up clipping one of the gates with her shoulder. It wasn't even knee related. She clipped a gate. And ended up crashing again, broke her leg and had to be, well, we didn't know that at the time, obviously, but she crashed and tumbled down the mountain, had to be airlifted away. And then it came out that she fractured her leg and had to have surgery that day. And oh boy. Did the internet have some more opinions? Of course it did. Most of which. Justified their opinions from a week before because the internet loves to be, haha, I told you so. Mm-hmm. You shouldn't have done this if it, and I think we as humans just like it, like to be that way, and then the internet just gives us an anonymous place to do so. Right. And then you get the group think of the internet. Mm-hmm. So if one person has that opinion, could be like, yes, I will jump behind that opinion. Mm-hmm. Which is, you know, where a lot of people didn't get the follow up and they're like, oh, she should have given up her spot without looking into that. That she couldn't, yeah. Give up her spot. That's not even a process. Mm-hmm. Could you get internet group think? But that sounded good. It did sound good. Yeah, that sounded good. So we're just gonna jump on that bandwagon, but that's where we want to take this away from her story. Yeah. And more into like, what's the bigger picture out of this? Because, well it, because we believe that Lindsay Vaughn is amazing, and this whole story is amazing and there are so many different takeaways that we can gain from this, but a lot of people are looking at it and they're saying, well, the comeback was just a giant failure. Yeah. Because that's all they've got. There's a, there's a black and white to this. She didn't leave the Olympics with a gold medal. Mm-hmm. Therefore, all of this was just wasted. And, and why did she do it in the first place? Disagree. I disagree. Dear Internet, the dear internet, Andy, Angie disagrees with you. You are wrong. Um, so. I, I agree with you that this is one of the things that we like to do as humans is we like to label things as a success or as a failure, but we truly believe that this was not a failure. And if that's all we see, if all we do is look at this outcome and we see, oh, she failed because she didn't meddle, or she didn't hit the podium, or she didn't even complete the run. If we're gonna be quite honest, then that was a failure then that's. It's totally missing so many valuable lessons. And the first lesson is that like, why are we so obsessed with outcomes? All of us humans, we are so obsessed with outcomes. We are conditioned to judge worth by results. The podiums, the prs. The wins, the rankings, these things we label as success and anything else people like to tell you. Well, that's just a wasted effort and so many people were saying that about Lindsay. Right. Well also, especially when it's about somebody else. Mm-hmm. What we really love to do with someone who is as amazing at what they do as Lindsay is skiing Yeah. Is we like to raise them up as high as we possibly can so that we can then push them off of the pedestal. Yeah. Like Taylor Swift too. Well, like anybody, like anybody, like people just are built up, built up, put on pedestals just so that we can see them fall. Right. Like how many people love the, the biopic on, like the background story of the, the bulls that you got, like the dark side of Michael Jordan. Oh, Chicago Bulls. Yeah. Like people love that because they're like, oh, gimme more like Michael Jordan's one of the greatest to ever do it. But what about the other side? Well, that's what, and that's what they did to him a hundred percent too. You know, like when there was that human side of him, that lack of perfection. People just chomped on it. Yeah. Because they loved to push people as high as they possibly can. Mm-hmm. And then knocked them down and they'd be like, well, yeah, but that's, that's my thought on somebody else. But as soon as you start judging other people by. They're succeeding or they're failing. This is good. This is bad. The more you judge other people, the more you are intrinsically going to be conditioned to judge yourself. Mm-hmm. And that's not ideal. Like that's really not gonna set you, set you up for happiness. Mm-hmm. I saw a thing the other day, I can't remember where I saw it, if it was like on Instagram or if it was an article or where it was, but I saw a thing that said, your kids. The voice that your kids hear you using to talk about other people is the voice that they believe you're using to talk about them. So if you are sitting at the kitchen table and you are talking about other people in your life, like the mom at the school or the other kid, and you're saying negative things about them, they're assuming that you're also thinking those things about them and saying them behind their back when they're not there. Yeah.'cause you're saying it behind those other peoples. Mm-hmm. And that's how they. Start to think about themselves. That's the voice. So no matter what you're actually saying to them, that's usually not what they're internalizing. They're internalizing the voice that you're using to talk about other people. I mean, I've taught high school kids for almost 20 years. Yeah. So I'm quite confident that they rarely actually hear the words that I'm saying directly to them. So that makes perfect sense. Right. But like, if we kind of tie this back to running, there's so many runners out there. That think, oh, well, if I didn't pr, the race was pointless, or if I didn't hit my goal, I just wasted. Not only did I waste that race, I raced wasted this whole training cycle and none of it worked. Or if I had to walk more than I wanted to, then I failed. Or if I didn't hit my goal pace, then clearly the training didn't work. But we like to look instead of using that outcome as. The definition or the the determination if the thing did or didn't work, whether or not that thing was a success, what if we just saw outcomes as information? This is just more information, it's more data. Okay, I did this training plan. I went through this process, and here were the results. Did I get my goal? Did I not get my goal? Either way, it doesn't have to be a success or failure. It can just be information. Yeah, and it's not that the training didn't work, it's that. You didn't necessarily get the result that you wanted? Was it directly from the training? Mm-hmm. Were there other things that went in? Right. It could have been part of the training. It may be in fact that part of that training was not what needed to happen for the race. Totally, totally. But that doesn't mean that all of that training was wasted. Mm-hmm. Like if you're putting in. A three, six month training block and you don't get the result at the end. It's possible that you just need the smallest of tweak to that training block. Mm-hmm. It's not wasted. You're still in really good shape. Yeah. You just have to kind of maybe tweak some small thing and so many people are like, I didn't get the result. Throw the training plan out the window, and it's like, no, no, no, no. Hold on to almost all of it. Right. Maybe just that one. Maybe what you do on Tuesday afternoons. Yeah, so Lindsay obviously didn't get the result that she wanted because I am sure. No part of her, there was no part of her that wanted to crash on the mountain and end up with a broken leg in surgery. Yeah, no, that, that was definitely the last result that she could have probably wanted, other than dying on the mountain. I'm sure it would be a even worse result. Yes, that would be worse. So thank God, you know, there wasn't a more serious injury here. I mean, you just went through this too, Kev, like you went through an entire training block of like a year and a half. You felt so good before your race, and then you didn't get the results that you wanted in the a hundred mile. That's very, very true. So did you think to yourself that this race wasn't a success? And be honest. Like right away? Yes. You know? Yeah, a hundred percent. Right, because I want people to hear that from you because yes, we can sit back here behind these microphones and be like, your outcome does not determine. Whether or not this thing is a success or a failure, but also realize that we're humans and that's one of the first things that our brain's gonna offer us is like, well, shit, that didn't work. Not even at like the finish line. Yeah. At hours 16 is I'm just walking through the, through the dark woods I've got And you still have hours left. I. Hours to go, and I've already determined that this is a failure because you didn't hit that goal. Right? Yeah. So then you have to like rebound while still doing the thing. Mm-hmm. So that you can even get across the finish line. Yeah. Yeah. No, I've, yeah, it, it was, it was a failure and then it was a thing that I'm still doing Right. And then I made it to the finish. I've had all sorts of stages around this, but you've gotta be able to spring back relatively quickly. Mm-hmm. From like, you can say that. Objectively, this didn't go the way that I wanted it to. Right. But the faster you can take the word failure off of it mm-hmm. The more you have a chance of actually learning, I think. Yeah. Because failure is a judgment. Like there's an inherent judgment that comes along with that word, success or failure. When if you look at the results of any race, you can probably find both. Yes. No matter if you actually got the result that you wanted or not. There's going to be pieces of that. Outcome that were successful. And there's probably gonna be some pieces that might have been that you could possibly label as failures, because it's always both. There's always a spectrum. Life is 50 50, there's gonna be good and bad successes and failures, and we have to watch the way that we look at these things. And I think that some. That was so apparent in what happened with Lindsay Vaughn is how many people jumped in to like slap a label on this and, and say what they thought about this result. Right.'cause they're immediately put, this was a bad thing. She never should have done this in the first place. Mm-hmm. Whereas I'm looking at the result and thinking this is still something to look at as a, an amazing performance. So amazing because she was, she got there. Right. Like if we really look at this, and this is kind of jumping ahead, but like she got to that place. Like she, that was a celebration of the journey that she's been on since 2000, well since before 2002, since she was a child. Really like this is just the continuation of it all. But I think that instead of labeling this as a, a success or a failure, kind of what you said Kev, is how quickly can you bounce back from that? And that's really. The second thing that we took away from this is what resilience actually looks like because Lindsay, her whole story, if you actually go back and look at her story, she has been injured so many times. She's had to bounce back so many times, and this final comeback that she just, you know, is on right now. She's returned after injury, after age, after public scrutiny, after crashing and rupturing her ACL just a week before the race. She is still continuing to get up and choosing to step back into the arena knowing that there is a high chance, that there is a risk of not getting the result that she wants, but also knowing that she's willing. To put in the effort and to try. Right. Like, it, it's far more than the, the last week of comeback. It's far more than Oh yeah. The, she crashed a week out and then still decided to compete at the Olympics. Mm-hmm. It's when she decided to come out of retirement knowing Yes. That this could be, instead of going out on top, that this could be six years removed, trying to hit the mountain again and, and just honestly being kind of embarrassing, being mm-hmm. Subpar from what she was. Right. Here's the thing, she's still. Even if she didn't perform up to what she wanted to, when she stepped out of retirement, she still would've been one of the most amazing skiers in the world ever. But she wouldn't be able to compete at the same level that she was aiming for. Right. So for her, that could have been like, well, this is, this is a disappointing result. Mm-hmm. But I, I gotta believe the resiliency was simply, what if I gave it a shot? Yeah. What if everybody, all the critics out there that say, you're too old to do this. You shouldn't even give this a try. What if I just. Didn't listen to them and I tried, and that to me, the resilience is just even starting. Mm-hmm. Let alone that she then put, you know, made enough points and all like, I don't know, the qualifying process. Yeah. I really don't, I shouldn't, we don't really know skiing. I could've done a deep dive on the qualifying process. Mm-hmm. But I'm pretty sure that you've gotta win a whole bunch of races on like the. You know, European ski circuit or international ski circuit. Yeah. But That'ss not the point of the episode. Right. Like yeah, we could talk, sit here talking about skiing and what was required, but there's a lot required to get to the Olympics. And she did all of that. Yeah. And she could have failed at objectively failed at any step along the way. And she was willing to to do that. Yeah. She was willing to be like, I'm coming outta retirement and my goal mm-hmm is the Olympics and I may fall flat on my face. You know, figuratively. Mm-hmm. Unfortunately. Literally. But that's the thing. It's downhill skiing, right? So you could literally crash on any of these things. Right? So it, it happened at the Olympics, but it happened at the Olympics because at the end of the day, she didn't show up to be like, at my age, I could still participate in the Olympics. That's not what she went for. No. She came to compete. She came to compete. She came to compete because she's a champion. She like, just like the champion that she is, and I think that she also showed us that. Resilience is also not, does not mean that you're bouncing back to the same version of yourself like she knew at 41. She's not the same person. She's not in the same body as she was when she. Did her first Olympics in 2002, 24 years ago. Like that is wild. 24 years. She was 17 at her first Olympics. Yeah. So she's been competing in the Olympics for more than half of her life. Right. So for multiple decades, like, and she knows, and she's evolved as a person and as a skier. So. Resilience is really that willingness to evolve and still show up and still be able to risk all of this risk. Public embarrassment and public judgment and scrutiny and all the things I was loving for answers to people on the internet, people that were. Tweeting out things on X or whatever platforms they were on, and her coming back with her responses, like she was just showing up unapologetically. And I've loved that so much and that's why a lot of people like her, but that's also why it made it really nice to be against her. Mm-hmm. Anonymously on the internet from your couch. Yeah. Because she was coming back swinging. People were making their own commentary and she was like, thanks, I don't care. Yeah. And surprise, surprise. I love that. Yes. Shockingly shocking, but like it's so much more than again, the result in going back to her journey. Like she's been on this journey, this Olympic journey for 24 years. She's been on this skiing journey of becoming a champion her entire life. You know, like I said, in that one reel that I saw on Instagram. It was probably a video home video of her when she was maybe five or six years old. I mean, probably younger on the slopes. Yeah. And so she's, this is what she knows. This is what she's been doing her whole life. And this results unfortunately, did not. Work out the way that she, I am sure, hoped for. But this out, the outcome, that's just a snapshot of her entire journey. And unfortunately it's, I mean, who knows what's gonna happen. It's most likely her last attempt was, you know, especially with everything on an Olympic stage. On an Olympic stage. Right. But it seems, and obviously we can't put words in her mouth, but it seems like her journey, when we're looking at it from the outside. Really exemplifies that it is about the journey and not just the outcome. Because she loves skiing so much and loved competing at that level so much. I can only assume that she was willing to risk all of those things, knowing that the outcome, like hitting the podium in that, like right now in these Olympics, was very much. You know, a possibility or not a possibility. Yeah. Like I'm very curious when she came outta retirement, what kind of odds she was giving herself. Mm-hmm. On meddling. Yeah. Or like, what kind of odds was she giving herself on even being able to get back to the Olympics? Like that's the crazy part. Before she officially said, Hey, I'm out of retirement. I'm gonna go for this thing. There was probably work she's doing behind the scenes that no one's seeing. Oh, yeah. Where she knows she's coming outta retirement. Mm-hmm. That, that was the goal. That there's, there's a few people on her team that are like. Boy, she's really kind of changing the way she's working out lately. Yeah, and And people are starting to think, and so eventually she had to make a public statement, Hey, I'm doing this thing. But I mean, that's well in advance of even going for the Olympic qualifying runs and all the things that she has to do. It's. Knowing that the amount of work she was going to have to put in before she even got to the Olympics, I've gotta believe, and obviously I don't have her, I'm not gonna speak for her. Mm-hmm. But I gotta feel like there was a lot more than one race that she was doing this for. Yeah. Like she was doing it from a place of. What if I just try And that's amazing because then you get this journey where you're like, what is the possibility? What if I took down all the barriers, all the thoughts in my own head of this is dumb, this is stupid. I shouldn't do this. This is way beyond possible. And I just gave it a shot and I put in the work to see what could happen. Mm-hmm. And I also have to believe that so much of this relates to. Loving the process over the outcome as well. She has to love the process so much. She probably missed it in so many ways. She probably missed the training and the process and her identity of skier and. Everything that that meant of how she lived her daily life. Because especially when you were at that level, when you were at the Olympic level, you, your entire identity is, is essentially wrapped up in that sport because it has to be to compete at that level. And of course you guys know, we always talk about how we need to have. Other identities outside of our sport. And, and I'm sure she did, you know, I'm sure she obviously has other relationships in her life. I don't know if she's married or has kids or has any sort of relationship status in those ways, but even if she's not, she still has parents or friends or siblings or like she's got other relationships and, and things in identities in her life. And obviously it's very important for her to nurture those. But so much of your identity as an Olympic athlete is being an Olympic athlete or is being a skier. And so. I'm guessing that she just loves that process. So much of the training that the journey is so much more important than just the result. And I think that this is so important for us to remember as runners too, because even though the majority of you listening to this episode are, are likely not Olympic athletes, nor will you ever be. It's so important for us to still remember that the value is in the journey. The value is in the process, not just the result, not just the outcome. Because we all have had those training cycles that didn't lead to a pr. We've all probably experienced some sort of setback in our training, whether it's from injury or life getting in the way, or something going on where. We kind of go backwards in our fitness and have to come back and rebuild something, or we've experienced those slower seasons where we're just kind of out there putting in the work and maybe we're not doing a lot of racing, but there we're still building it and we're still enjoying the journey and the process. Because if you think about it, if the only thing that mattered was the finish line, most of your life wouldn't count. Most of your life, not just your training most of your life, because most of our life is the journey, is the process of being the mom. It's not just like winning the award or watching your kids win the awards or do the things. It's the process and the daily. Making the lunches and all the things and having the conversations with my kids and being a runner is putting in the miles and putting in the strength work. It's not crossing finish lines all the time. No, there's, there's a lot of mundane activities to it. Right? And you have to kind of enjoy the mundane, you have to enjoy, you have to. Otherwise, why are you doing it? Like there's so many other things you can be doing with your time. There's so many other things that you could be doing for fitness. Mm-hmm. I truly enjoy heading out. Like sometimes I'm like, oh man, I really wish that I had brought my headphones on a particular run, just because there are certain runs that I prefer with headphones, but there's so many times lately,'cause I've not been doing a ton of running post a hundred miles. So when I get out there, I'm like. I just need some time that can be quiet because I enjoy just being out there without anything else going on. Just being able to go out and, and run. Yeah. Being able to get into a weight room and lift things without the music having to come at me, like just doing the work. Mm-hmm. It, it's enjoyable. I find it enjoyable. That's why I do it. Yeah, and I'm sure Lindsay is the same way. To an extent, right? Like there's always going to be those things. I'm gonna say maybe I am that way to the smallest of extent that she is.'cause you know, she may be maybe up a level in, in athletic ability, but I'm, but there's always gonna be those parts of training that we don't enjoy. I think no matter who you are and what you're doing, there's probably pieces of it that are not your favorite things to do. Maybe it's waking up at 5:00 AM or 4:00 AM or whatever it might be. Yeah, yeah. You know, like, like there are those tiny pieces, or definitely, maybe not even all the days, but some days you're gonna wake up and be tired and not wanna go do the thing. But you go do the thing. Because not only do you want a certain outcome or a certain result, which is helpful for us to have sometimes, but it's also about the process of becoming the person that you wanna be. Yeah. And like that person is more than just like, it's not that you go out and run on days that you don't feel like running and that makes you a better runner. You go out and do do the run on days you don't wanna run, and that makes you a better person. Mm-hmm. Because it shows that even when you don't want to necessarily do whatever the thing is Yeah. You can still go do the thing. It shows your overall resiliency. Mm-hmm. It shows your commitment to doing the thing, even when it's not like, oh man, this is gonna be amazing. It's, it's a thing that has to get done and therefore you're gonna go do it. Yeah, so Lindsay Vaughn's comeback for us was not a failure, and I hope that she sees it that way. I am curious and to hear her thoughts when she's out of surgery and has time to kind of process all of this. But for us, this was definitely not a failure. This was a masterclass in resilience and the journey and identity and so many other amazing things because she honored her body and her desire. She wanted this and she did not let anything hold her back. She chose courage over comfort, courage to put in the training without guarantee of the result. Courage to overcome some of the scrutiny or the public opinions and just go out there and do the thing. Courage to. Ski on a busted up knee, a you know, busted up her knee a week before the Olympics and she still chose to compete. And there's gonna be plenty of people out there that have an opinion of whether or not that was a good choice or a bad choice. And she's the only one that can. Make that decision for herself. Yeah. And that's the thing is it's it's inspirational. Yeah. That she did it. And a lot of people are like, well, it's not inspirational'cause it didn't have the right ending. Well, and some people say it's, it was just stupidity. Right. They're like, that wasn't inspirational. That was just stupid. I think it's still inspirational. Yeah. Because she. At at the best. She said, this is my dream goal. This is what I'm going for. Knowing that there were absolutely no guarantees on it. Yeah. Knowing that she could work as hard as she possibly could, and that does not guarantee anywhere near what, what possible result, whether it's a medal finishing the raise and not even qualifying like. She could work as hard as she could and the result had she did not have full control of the result. Mm-hmm. That's why I think it's inspirational. Yeah. So she modeled what it looks like to try to just put it all out there without guarantees. And that is something that all of us can take away from like, I think that so many of us. Hold ourselves back and we don't do the thing because we're afraid to fail. We don't sign up for the race. We don't try to train for a half marathon, a marathon. We don't try to get a faster 5K. Whatever that goal might be for you, whatever that looks like, we are afraid that we're not good enough. We have these old stories about ourself that either we've told to ourself or we've heard from other people. Maybe other people in your life are telling you, oh, aren't you too old for that? Like, shouldn't, hasn't that already passed you and. It's courageous to not listen to that and to follow your own desire and to honor your body and to, and by doing that, you can also expand what's possible for others that are watching you. And I think that's one of the things that Lindsay did, people that. Are looking at her saying, holy moly, this woman is 41 years old, has been in multiple crashes, has had multiple surgeries. I think she has had like nine knee surgeries in her career. Well, that's the funny part about like. Her knee exploded, uh, on like a week ago. Yeah. And they're like, well, you've got multiple tears of the meniscus. Right. And it's like, it's unclear whether those happened from this crash mm-hmm. Or the one before or the one before. The one before or the one before. Well, she had a partial knee replacement, I think a year or so ago. Like I, I don't remember when, but like she recently has had a par, a partial knee replacement as well. Yeah. I don't remember. We were talking about it at dinner. We had the timeline on that. Yeah. Like two days ago we had this. Right. So she has all of these things that are stacked against her. And she still did it. And she said, well, but, but what if I give it a, a genuine shot? And so who else, who's out there, who has she inspired that might be seeing things stacked against them and saying, you know what? Okay, I understand that this might not look like a great idea on paper and I'm gonna try anyway. Right. And that's, that's where the fun of the huge dream comes from. Mm-hmm. What if you took away the, oh, this is really unlikely to happen? Mm-hmm. What if you let that un unlikeliness stop determining that you shouldn't give it a shot? Because how much joy would you miss out on by just refusing to try and isn't the joy and the journey? The goal, like, isn't that why we set big goals? We set big goals so that we can do the things that are going to expand us as human beings. It's going, they're going to help us grow. They're going to challenge us. We're gonna become and evolve into the next version of ourself. So failure isn't trying and coming up short, like what happened here with Lindsay, failure is never. Choosing to start, it's letting fear decide to keep you back and to never even give it a, give it a shot. Yeah. Like to me that's, that's the definition of failure is when you just decide not to even try. Yeah. No. Step in the arena and see what happens. Mm-hmm. Like that's, uh, I mean, it's. Brene Brown's book, but I wouldn't say it's right if it's Teddy Roosevelt. Thank you. It's R. Yeah. Teddy Roosevelt. I couldn't tell which Roosevelt. I'm like, it's one of the Roosevelts. Yeah, it's the man in the arena there. There you go. His speech about, you know, the only person that you can should really listen to are the people that are getting in the arena with you. Not anonymous, behind a keyboard. Right. The people. People that get knocked down and get back up, but. Feel like maybe if we just listen to everybody on the internet, then we will get some phenomenal advice. I think that might be where sometimes the goals just disappear because it's like, oh shoot. Like they, there's so many people anonymously saying we that I shouldn't do this thing, that it seems too hard. Here's some examples of this is too much. Mm-hmm. And if we just ignore those, and we said, what if I gave it a shot anyway? Yeah. What if I just really went for it? Then it's phenomenal. Mm-hmm. You could succeed or you could just see what happens if you tried. And objectively you might not get the goal, but if the goal sounds awesome enough, then it doesn't really matter if you get there or not. Just trying, lets you know, like I don't think that it's possible for me to go get an Olympic trials qualifier in the marathon, but. It does sound intriguing. I'm not going to, but it sounds intriguing to quit my job and go all in on trying to hit an OTQ. Mm-hmm. Not at my age anymore.'cause I'm, I just don't have the, the leg to river. But like 10 years ago, that sounds like it would've been a whole heck of a lot of fun. Financially, remarkably dumb. Mm-hmm. But sounds like a whole heck of a lot of fun. Even if I didn't get there just to see what would've happened if I went absolutely all in. Mm-hmm. Yeah, because that's what life is about, right? Like the man in the arena speech, I just pulled it up here, says, the credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood. Who strives valiantly, who airs, who comes short again and again? Because there is no effort without error and shortcoming. But who does actually strive to do the deeds? Who knows? Great enthusiasms. Like that's what it's, that's what it's about. That's what it's like to live. It's the person that is in the arena doing the things that gets knocked down and gets back up time and time again. And that's really one of the biggest things that Lindsay has shown us throughout her entire career. Right. Which is possible why I'm already searching for my next race. Yes, exactly. So bringing this to you guys here on the listening end, where is there something in your life that you might be calling a failure? Where there's actually growth, what journey are you discounting because the outcome wasn't perfect and what would change? If you trusted the process and valued the process more than the result, I really love that second one. What journey have you gone through that you're like, that was not worth it? Yeah,'cause I didn't get the, the number, the numeric goal at the end. Mm-hmm. So you just blow off the journey instead of saying, look at how much change, how much growth took place over that time. Yeah. And it didn't necessarily get me the number that I wanted the. Place that I wanted, whatever the thing is that you're chasing. But man, look how much you grew during that process. Mm-hmm. And are you willing to show up? Even when the results aren't guaranteed, because I really think that that is the defining factor in our life for anything, because if we're being truly honest with ourselves, results are never guaranteed. It doesn't matter how much training you put in, your results are never actually guaranteed. And are you willing to show up and put in the work even though. Anything could happen on race day, anything can happen along your training cycle, like there's so many unknowns in the world, so our results are never guaranteed. But are you willing to show up and do the work anyway? And if you are in the middle of a journey right now that does not look the way you hoped, because we all have those times, and maybe you're in a cycle of it right now, maybe that cycle is lasting a lot longer than you would, than you would hope for. Maybe you're experiencing setbacks in your training. I really want you to hear me. Keep going if you want something. If you want it enough, if you have a goal or if you have a desire, I truly believe that that desire is possible for you because I don't think we would have a desire for something, a true desire if that outcome wasn't somewhat possible because it, when we want something, we have to know that. Okay. This is something that is possible if I'm willing to put in the work, if I'm willing to show up and if I'm willing to release the timeline.'cause sometimes we just get the timeline wrong too. Yeah. And sometimes as we, we go through and we put in all the work and we get closer to the goal, we realize that maybe that goal isn't something we should be chasing. Yeah. And we're like, actually this is how much work I am willing to put in. Mm-hmm. And this will get me here. Mm-hmm. Like if my goal is to get to, you know, step 10 on the, on the ladder. Yeah. But I'm willing to put in work to get to step seven. Mm-hmm. That's the, that's as much work as I'm willing to put in. Mm-hmm. And so it's a success to get to seven then. Like, rather than to just sit at three and be like, eh, it's, that's too far away. Yeah. Getting to seven is a heck of a more successful story. Yeah. But getting to seven, you're probably gonna learn a heck of a lot of things along the way and be a lot. Further along in your life and in your personal development and growth than you were when you were just sitting at level three? Yeah, a hundred percent. But sometimes seven is scary. Yeah, it definitely, it can be because, because 7, 8, 9, yeah. Oh, Uhhuh. Thank you. Oh God. You didn't even see it coming. I totally didn't see that coming. Oh, that's excellent. Excellent. Now I like totally had a little wrap up sentence here that I was going to say, and that sentence is gone right now. Oh man. That was beautiful. Now you have to wrap up the episode. Okay. You and your dad joke, that was phenomenal. It was phenomenal. It was worth it, even if it lost your train of thought. Okay, but what, what did you actually say before you put the punchline in there? Because it's scary. Oh, I, I was gonna talk about how it's okay to adjust the goal, and it's okay that once you get to level seven and decide, I'm not really willing to put in the work necessary to get to level 10, it's totally okay to let that goal go, because that means that you no longer desire it, and you're allowed to change your mind too. Yes, yes, you are. You're always allowed to change your mind. Yeah. But sometimes you have to, you have to go down the path far enough that you can decide. Mm-hmm. Legitimately decide if you wanna change your mind. Yeah. Not give up before you even head down the path. Yeah. So choose courage over comfort and know that you're capable of far more than you're probably giving yourself credit for. And if you want something, go after it. It doesn't matter how old you are, it doesn't matter what your past experience has told you. If you're willing to put in the work and be on the journey and let go of the timeline, your story isn't over. So go for it. And if you want support. Come find us real life runners. We would love to, to coach you and to support you along your journey and help you achieve whatever amazing things you want in your life. And if this episode was helpful, we would love for you to write a review, share it, share it on social media so that we can help inspire more runners to get out there and do amazing things in their life. This has been The Real Life Runners podcast, episode number 448. Now, get out there and run your life.