The Resident Table

S1 E2: Trust: The Foundation of High Performance

• The Resident Table • Season 1 • Episode 2

Share episode

In this episode of The Resident Table, our team of elite para-athletes and their coach dive deep into one of the most powerful forces in sport—and in life: trust. From overcoming self-doubt to building belief through failure and shared struggle, this raw, honest conversation explores what it takes to truly trust yourself, your teammates, and the process.

Hear behind-the-scenes stories from the journey to gold in Paris, how vulnerability and psychological safety shaped their team culture, and what it means to support one another in the face of pressure, setbacks, and uncertainty. Whether you're an athlete, coach, or leader in any high-performance space, this episode is a masterclass in cultivating resilience and real, earned confidence.

Thanks for pulling up a chair at The Resident Table.
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to follow, rate, and review the show wherever you get your podcasts. You can also watch full video episodes on our YouTube channel and follow us on Instagram at @theresidenttable for behind-the-scenes content, athlete spotlights, and more.

Big thanks to our sponsors and partners:
Durata Training, Giddy Goat Coffee Roasters, and Tolsma/Stockwell Prosthetics.
Your support helps us keep these conversations going.

GIve them a follow on Instagram too! Durata Training, Giddy Goat Coffee Roasters, Tolsma/Stockwell Prosthetics

Want to support the show or become a sponsor?
Email us at theresidenttable@gmail.com.

Until next time—thanks for being part of the team.

SPEAKER_00:

We're a decorated team of athletes

SPEAKER_06:

and their coach. And we are here to have meaningful conversations around high performance, disability, and the power of culture.

SPEAKER_02:

We're here to share our journeys as elite athletes

SPEAKER_04:

to inspire,

SPEAKER_03:

motivate, and teach you

SPEAKER_02:

to build strong, diverse, and inclusive cultures

SPEAKER_03:

that break barriers, embrace resilience, and unlock potential

SPEAKER_02:

in sports,

SPEAKER_04:

business, and life. Through stories and impactful discussions,

SPEAKER_02:

you're going to learn how to create a world where diverse perspectives fuel high performance, include Welcome

SPEAKER_00:

back to the resident table. So one thing that I'm hoping that we can discuss today is just this idea of trust. I think for me, when I reflect back on, you know, the last decade of my career, that's really something that I come back to a lot. So, you know, I, as you guys all know, I got the silver medal in Rio, repeated the silver medal again in Tokyo. And then, you know, in Paris, I was finally able to turn it into gold. And, you know, people... Thanks, Melissa.

SPEAKER_04:

You still owe me. You still owe us a dinner.

SPEAKER_00:

I know. I do owe them dinner because two years prior, I said that I was going to quit, and they were like, you have to stay because you're so close. I'm

SPEAKER_03:

pretty sure I put one-to-one odds on you winning gold in Paris.

SPEAKER_00:

But were you in on the 20% cut? No, that

SPEAKER_03:

was

SPEAKER_04:

just me and Mo. I know. I still owe them money. There were some tears flowing, and someone promised us 20% of their winnings.

SPEAKER_03:

I prefer 20%. I should have gotten in on that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, well.

SPEAKER_00:

I know. How many just get on Venmo?

SPEAKER_07:

He's on Venmo now.

SPEAKER_00:

Anyway, yeah, I think people ask me a lot, like, what was the difference in Paris? And I think that this idea of trust is something that I come back to a lot. And I think that I view it through multiple lenses, right? Like, there's the idea of trusting the process and trusting my coach and trusting, you know, the people around me that all, you know, were working so hard to get me to where I needed to be. And I had to just kind of, you know, in a sense, let go of any preconceived notion that I had and just trust them to do that. Can we pause just for a second?

SPEAKER_05:

I don't know if our camera's working.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_05:

It's working. It's working. Sure?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, red light's good. I

SPEAKER_05:

just didn't see the screen, so that's why I was... There's a

SPEAKER_06:

screen over there?

SPEAKER_05:

Okay, sorry, Haley. Keep going.

SPEAKER_00:

But then there's also the idea of trusting the self, right? And I think that a lot of times it can be really easy to just kind of get lost in... in the noise around us in high-level sport. And at the end of the day, one thing that I really needed to do was just learn how to trust my body, trust my instincts, trust all of the experience that I had built up throughout my time training and racing. And when the doubt really started to set in, just kind of leaning on that self-trust and that belief. So yeah, I kind of wanted to just... you know, have that be the thing that we talk about a little bit today. Um, you know, I guess when I think about the trust, one of the first things I think about is, you know, the start of Derek, our relationship and how, you know, you didn't have any experience coaching para athletes. Um, and so you really leaned on me and trusted me to kind of, you know, educate you about, you know, all of the different nuances that exist in para, um, But I also put a tremendous amount of trust in you. You know, I trusted you with this goal that I had that I was so scared to admit out loud because it was so big. And, you know, I just kind of I put all my trust in you and then we were able to do it. But I kind of want to just talk about how how we did that.

SPEAKER_05:

It's humbling, right? When all of you, you put your lives on hold, you put careers on hold, families on hold and such, and that responsibility was always something that I carried with me. And I probably didn't demonstrate it at the time, but it was like, there's a tremendous responsibility here. And I think early on, there was a... And again, like so many of these things that kind of happened organically, but like there was some vulnerability back and forth. And that vulnerability demonstrated authenticity too. And acknowledging like, hey, we don't have all the answers right now, but we're going to figure them out together. And I think that was powerful. And I think too, Haley, though, like the trust was built between your teammates too. And I mean, I'd love to hear y'all's thoughts as you started to trust the process, as you came in to trust an environment that was new, it was different. But yeah, I mean, like Howie, what do you...

SPEAKER_04:

I mean, you said trust the process. And I remember early on getting into sport after I left the military and that tagline floats around constantly and in a lot of endurance sports where just trust the process, trust the process. And I think it's easy to say and way to make it easy to do, I started to view it more as I need to be able to trust the people around me, trust the coach, trust my teammates, trust myself, like Haley said. And when you can do those, it's less about trusting the process and more about enjoying the process. And that makes what we did so special, right? It's because we were able to enjoy the process, but only because we learned to trust in each other and trust ourselves. And it takes time and Yeah, practice.

SPEAKER_05:

I think that speaks volume, though, to like if you're an aspiring elite athlete or anything, it could be anything, business or otherwise, like who you surround yourself with matters, right? It changes who you are. It changes who you are. And it can go either way. Oh,

SPEAKER_06:

definitely. Go ahead. I mean, I think for trust is like setting the expectation, like having the coach and the athlete are on the same page with the same goals that... this if you want to reach this point it's going to take this much time at least with a lot of unpredictable things can happen and you'll be able to pivot and change uh and from the athlete perspective uh also like there is that all those outside elements for us as a para triathlete like we have all the equipment that sometimes set us back uh we have this rush wanna make the national team or all this uh factors that can affect that. I want the results faster and trying to match the expectation with the coach is the key to that trust over time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I would say coming from like how he made a great, like from a military background, like we, there's very much like a structure in the military and you, whether you have to have trust in those that are the leader and coming into this environment, like Derek, whether you realize or like you're easy to trust and whether you're And it's the way that you talk to the athletes. It's a way that you present yourself. It's a way that if we have a workout, like it's very much like your ability to ingrain that in all of us is it's a, it's a skill. I think that's something that, um, I think we would all agree with. Like we trusted you cause you were easy to trust because I mean, there was, it was just trust the process. I don't know. There was like no other way around it. It was just, okay. Derek says we're going to trust the process. So we're going to do it.

SPEAKER_00:

I think that was really intentional though. Like looking back now, I feel like you were really intentional about creating that environment of psychological safety. You know, I think back to the early days of our relationship and there, you know, you showed me your more vulnerable side, which then kind of gave me permission to be vulnerable. You know, we had really hard conversations and I'm someone who, hates conflict, you know, there can be something that like is objectively, is

SPEAKER_07:

objectively. So self-aware. Let's go.

SPEAKER_00:

Like, yeah, I will imagine like the smallest, the smallest little bit of conflict is being like this huge, yeah, altercation. And so, but you are someone that I was able to engage with that conflict and without it feeling threatening. And I feel like, you know, in the past, I think that I did have experiences where, you know, I would bring up a conflict and it would be met with a lot of resistance or anger. And, you know, with you, it was a really corrective experience of like, no, we can have this healthy dialogue and we can, you know, disagree and then kind of like, you know, reach a middle point. And that really helped me just build my trust in you. And I think that it really carried over into the whole team.

SPEAKER_05:

And to be clear, we did not get it right all the time. There are plenty of instances where it didn't go right, but we learned a lot from it, right? And Something that strikes me when I think about that is, like, disagreement does not mean disrespect. And just understanding that, like, okay, we're seeing this differently, but there's going to be some overlap somewhere, and let's figure out, because we both have the same goal ahead of us. We're still trying to accomplish the same thing. Like, Kyle, what's trust like for you? You know, like, you're getting dropped off at the training center, and foreign environment, and... Yeah.

SPEAKER_03:

Early on, first and foremost, I had to have trust in myself, in my abilities and my capabilities. I knew I had the skills. I had the skills to live at the training center, to navigate everything on my own. I had the skills to get to workouts. I had the skills, um, to execute the workouts. Um, but where, where I had to really learn, you know, to, to trust the process and, you know, and put trust in, um, my teammates, you know, I, I felt that I had to prove myself very early on. Um, because I, I was the one who came into the program who had zero elite triathlon experience. Um, I, I, I had nothing. Uh, I think I, you know, I, I did a, I did continental championships in 2018 and then a random world cup in 2018. Um, but it was like, I was brought in based on potential essentially. And like, I'm coming into this environment where, you know, you got, you know, Melissa, who was at the time two-time Paralympian, a bronze medalist, and Kendall, who had just won two gold medals in Pyeongchang and who was tearing it up at Nordic and was already a world champion at that point in triathlon, and Haley, multiple-time world champion and silver medalist. And then at the same time, I hadn't taken Mo's spot, but Moe, his spot had been kind of cut because his class was cut in Tokyo. That's what we told him. And so there was this... this apprehension, especially like when Mo rejoined the team after Tokyo, there was this apprehension that like, oh my gosh, is Mo going to resent me for taking his spot? That was a real fear of mine. That was a real fear of mine. But, but yeah, so, you know, and just so learning to, to trust people, you know, I felt that I had to, I had to, prove myself. And so I ground myself into the ground a lot. And finally, I think it was Kendall that just snapped me out of it eventually and was like, we're your teammates. Lean into us. Don't shut yourself off. And then Derek, you also were like, hey, this is not an environment where you have to kill yourself. Like if you're having a rough day, like lean on your teammates and like intuitively you, you know that. Um, but you know, I, I, I, that was a process for me. Um, and this, you know, this idea of doing, you know, doing things simple and doing those simple things really, really well. Um, you know, that really resonated with me and, you know, and, and, That helped me build trust in myself. And then interacting with people like Howie. Howie was the first one to roll up and say, hey, welcome to the team. And he was the one that was like, hey, we you know, we sit at the resident table, join us, like, please, like, please come in, like, hang out with us, and you'll get to know everybody. And, and I just sat back, and I listened, and I observed for a long time, and finally, eventually started to open up a little bit. But yeah, trust, trust is, especially for me, since I also, you know, when I race, I race with a guide, I have to trust that they're fit and healthy, and that they are going to you know, not run me off a cliff or make me trip over a curb or, uh, or something that, that, and that they, uh, you know, that they have the ability and the capabilities to, to execute, uh, on training days and, and race days and that, and that comes with practice. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_06:

Kendall, you juggling winter and summer sports, how you, what is trust for you?

SPEAKER_01:

Um, I think for me, yeah, the biggest piece is trusting myself. Because, yeah, I'm working with multiple teams of people throughout the entire year. And the one consistent thing there is myself. And I think I know myself the best. And so I have to kind of lean on that the most. And it's also recognizing what I don't know and what do I need help with. and where those experts kind of play into things. And yeah, so for me, that's a big piece of it is, yeah, kind of trusting that I'm going to be the best advocate for myself. And I need to be able to communicate those things effectively for all these people that are on my team in order for it to work.

SPEAKER_06:

But seriously. Which one is your favorite

SPEAKER_01:

team? No comment. Well, let's just see.

SPEAKER_04:

Has anyone on your Nordic team, when you've come back with gold medals, driven like an hour away to get kazoos so when you came into the cafeteria that we could sing that she's a Jolly Good Fellow? Has anyone ever done that for you on the Nordic team? Celebrated your wins. Or created... I founded and I'm the president of the McKenzie Fan Club.

SPEAKER_01:

Which is Kendall.

SPEAKER_04:

How did that come about?

SPEAKER_01:

I think they know I hate that.

SPEAKER_05:

What did you guys– I mean, I think self-doubt is real, right? And we don't talk about it enough. And even at the highest level of sport, the highest level of coaching, the highest– level of leadership, if those leaders are being honest, is like you're not 100% sure. Like, how did you guys overcome any self-doubt that you ever had? And how did you lean on each other for that? Well,

SPEAKER_00:

I feel like I had so much doubt going into Paris, you know? I mean, I've had doubt literally all my life, but like it, that recency bias, like I, yeah, going into Paris and it was kind of silly because I like, yeah, I had done so much work. I, you know, put together like a lot of really, really great performances. And yet in a couple of months before Paris, um, I just, I really started to doubt everything and things really started to fall apart for me. And I feel like the first place that I really looked was actually to all of you guys. I feel like every time I was at a workout at our training camp in France before the games, you guys would just be like, Haley, you are on it. You've got this. You look so good. You're going to be great. And it's one of those things where... You know, if you were anybody else, it probably wouldn't mean very much. Because it's really easy to just say, like, oh, yeah, like, I thought you were going to do great. Like, you know, everyone said that to me. But with you guys, it hit so differently. Because you have been there with me for every step of the way. You were in the trenches with me on the good days and the bad days. You saw all the work that I put in. You knew what the level of competition was like. And so when you said... I believe that you can do this. I fully trusted you. Um, you know, it wasn't blowing smoke. It, it was real. And I don't know, to me that just meant so much, it carried so much weight. And so that was really where it started for me. I leaned on you guys and the belief that you had in me. And that was really kind of what helped me start to eliminate some of that doubt.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah. I think, um, We've all known each other forever, but watching your growth as someone that's quite a bit older than you and seeing where you came from to Montreal, where I feel like some of the stuff that I said to you in Montreal after that race probably would not have taken as well or taken in early on. But in Montreal, I could see the switch kind of change where I'm like, knock it off.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Get your shit together.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Like you're going to go win Paris. Like stop. Stop crying. Like literally like stop crying right now. Montreal

SPEAKER_05:

was the last race leading into Paris and it went, um, I mean it went poorly, but not unexpectedly poorly because you were training at an incredibly high training load at that point. But, but no doubt that was tough.

SPEAKER_00:

And it was, and that was another time where I had to come back and kind of just, um, trust the process. Right. Because yeah, I knew that I went into that race with a lot of training fatigue and intellectually I understood that like, you know, you're not going to have a great race when you're going in with that much load, but emotionally it was still, you know, impossible. Um, and so, you know, I kind of just had to turned on the volume on that emotion and really just lean on the facts a little bit more and just okay yeah like this this result was to be expected I need to trust everything else that I've done for the last eight years and really lean on that

SPEAKER_02:

I think that's a big part of it the experience yeah it's like the more a new athlete comes in and it's it's harder to trust yourself when you're a new athlete or to trust the process because but the longer you go I mean we've all been doing sports for I mean how many years like years you can look back at all the years prior and be able to trust it a little bit more knowing that there are ups and downs and knowing what the outcomes can be. So I think having that veteran athlete mindset helps a lot with the trust.

SPEAKER_03:

And that's the difference between confidence and arrogance is that arrogance is I'm the best there is and I'm king of the world without the experience. Confidence is I got this. I got this because I've built up a body of evidence over the course of time and that was something that you know, that Derek kept hammering home to me because I doubted, you know, there were so often that I doubted my swim and my run ability. And then after, you know, and then after we did a big run block, you know, 2022, 2023, and, you know, coming back after my shoulder injury, my shoulder surgery in 2023, I was like, my gosh, I don't know if I can get back to the level of swimming that I was at. And then, am I going to be able to run as well as I can? Well, it turns out I did everything better because Derek was just like, look at what you did for all the years you were in pain. In four or five weeks of swimming, you just swam like your fastest 750 ever. It was constantly bringing it back to look at what you've done

SPEAKER_00:

And that's the thing with like belief, you know, we talk, people throw around belief all the time and it's like, Oh, you just have to believe in yourself. And you know, I think for a long time I thought that was really trite, right? Like, Oh, okay. Like just believe. But I think there's a difference between, you know, Oh, believing in yourself and like real true deep in your bones belief. Uh, the real stuff you have to earn. You can't just, you know, believe something, uh, without having the experience and earning the experience to be able to say like, yeah, no, I've proven to myself that I am capable of doing it. It is not just some abstract thought. It is evidence-based. I have proven that I can show up and deliver performance regardless of how I feel. Like that's real belief.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, I think you only get that belief too through sport is with failing. Yeah. We're constantly failing at workouts, and you build up a resiliency to where it's like, okay, I tried this workout last Saturday, and I failed. I have to do it again. And discipline says you're going to try it again, even though you might doubt. You're like, okay, I'm still going to do it, try it again, and then you hit it. And then suddenly you're like, okay, I can fail, but I can come back from it. And so then you start to build up the resiliency, which builds up the belief in yourself and the confidence in yourself to trust yourself.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06:

also like our sport is like swim, transition, bike, transition, run in an outdoor environment where it comes again back to experience, trusting your coach. Um, and knowing that I know for me, like back then it was like, um, I was result driven. Like, I don't care about the training that I did. The result would matter to me. And that it's, doesn't work with triathlon very well. And... Well, I think, yeah, I'm finished. So, yeah, so you have, like, so many times I was disappointed of my performance, of my result, and then, like, Derek will, like, break it down, like, the swim, the bike, the run, the transition, like, see what's good, what's not good, what are the condition of that day, all that together, like, impact. the result of performance.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah. Cause it's easy. It's easy for us to get caught up. And like, this is the, the, the outcome, like, all right, we're, we're, you know, we knew you were going into Paris with, with very, very specific metal goals, but, but we couldn't get so hung up on that, that we forgot about the process and forgot, you know, how, how, how are we going to get there? And if we, if we do what we've trained to, I mean, Kendall, I mean, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Cause you, you know, going into Paris, um, We had a conversation, I think, like December of 2023 that was, you know, we had to change our mindset and our thought process, or at least I had to change the way I was communicating about winning a gold medal and just ensuring, like, you wanted to make sure that you had done everything you could to be as good as you possibly could on the given day. And that entailed you taking some big risk.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think... I got into this mindset where I was so focused on the results and kind of lost sight of what was actually happening on a given race day. And the result was the only thing that mattered to me. And I was kind of just living and dying by that and putting so much into what the result actually was, regardless of... I would have races where I felt really great about a swim or... run or whatever component. And then, you know, as soon as I kind of like dove into the actual results of it, I was just crushed and like everything that I thought beforehand didn't actually matter. Um, and so, yeah, we, we were really intentional about that and changing the language of how, how we talked about races, how we talked about results and, and kind of how to reframe things. And, and yeah, at the end of the day, like, I just wanted to get the best out of myself. And yeah, the result was less important, but it was just like this feeling that I was searching for of knowing that I had kind of put everything that I could within reason into this goal, into getting the best out of myself. And yeah, it did involve time. taking a lot of risks with equipment. I think kind of we all did that, especially going into Paris. I think that was probably the biggest shift I saw between Tokyo and Paris was everyone really just had to take massive risks in their equipment changes and kind of trust that those were the changes that were going to give them a little bit of an edge. Yeah, I mean, I think Mo... how many trips to Iceland did you take before, which is crazy. Um, and yeah, we all, we all did things like that where we're just traveling around the world, traveling around the country just to get a tiny, tiny bit better.

SPEAKER_00:

But Kendall, there was a shift in you that I saw where you did become a little bit less consumed by the result and the outcome goal. Um, and really lean into this idea of getting more out of yourself. And I think for you, like having a sense of purpose was really important. And so, you know, we brought more wheelchair athletes onto the team, more female wheelchair athletes. So Emmy joined the team. Leanne started training with us. And suddenly, you know, you got to take on this role of being a mentor to them and being a carrot for them in workouts and really, you know, pushing them. And I feel like that just gave you, so much meaning and purpose beyond the result. And I kind of saw the joy start to come back into your training again, which was so cool to see. So, you know, I think it just like speaks to the power that, you know, being in that team environment can really have beyond just, you know, getting the most out of yourself. But, you know, when you push other people to get more out of themselves, that brings deep, deep fulfillment. That's really more important than any outcome.

SPEAKER_02:

I think, I mean, going, touching on that, like, I mean, Haley, you and I are, I mean, we're direct competitors and we train together every single day. And I had the trust in you that if we were doing a swim set. And we're both going as hard as we can, right? And I am trusting that you are putting as much into it as I am. If we're on the track doing mile repeats, and the first one, you start. The second one, I start. We trust each other knowing that we're going to do the best that we can do to maintain whatever pace it is. So I think me having that trust in you and just knowing that, it kind of adds that overall trust.

SPEAKER_00:

Totally. And I thought that was so cool because we would do that. And it weirdly didn't really feel competitive. It more just felt like accountability. Like this is the pace we're hitting today. Like, right. If we want to get better, this is what we're doing. And so like, we're, you know, and I don't know. I thought there was something really just special. And also

SPEAKER_02:

like, if you don't trust yourself, like honestly, what's like, what's the point? Like we spend so many hours. I mean, the amount of hours that we spent at the training center in the past four or five years is, I mean, you can't even count them. There's so many hours spent so much. Personally, time spent away from the family or missing things I would want to be there for with my kids. So if you don't trust yourself, why even do it? Because... Like you're spending so much of your life doing it. Like you have to have that trust or it's honestly pointless. It's not fair to yourself. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

But it has to be earned. I think that to Haley's comment about belief, you know, there's hollow superficial belief and then there's robust belief in yourself that's actually built on a foundation of successes and failures. And that belief, I think it's something that is... it's too easily built on sand these days. Like you can create whatever world that you want from things like social media or who you want to portray yourself and be in like that authenticity, that authentic belief and that foundational belief that's built on those sacrifices of being around and being in that environment and putting yourself in positions to take those risks and accepting that like, hey, there may be consequences, but there may be rewards to this too. I just... I think that's what's great about sport. And I think that's what's wonderful about sport. And I think that's one of the things that you guys did so well was to foster that real, true, robust belief, not just in yourselves, but in each other. I mean, I remember distinctly, I've got lots of memories, but one of my most distinct memories is a particularly hard track workout at the Colorado College track. I think, I don't know, it might have been 2013. three, late 22. But Mo, you were with us and Haley, you had finished the workout and it had been just an okay workout, but not a great workout. And I think you were a little upset at yourself about something. And like Mo, you came up and put your arm around Haley and just said, one day, wait, what exactly? I want to get this right.

SPEAKER_00:

I remember. Yeah, what did he say? He just said, all your work is going to be worth it one day. And it was one of those things where... like I said earlier, like I just believed you, you know? And I'm like, man, to be seen like that is just, I bawled, bawled.

SPEAKER_06:

But because you work so hard, like in the pool, in the track, on the bike, like you see that, like even good day or bad day, you're all out. And seeing that, like, especially for me in the pool, like I love that. The swim sessions, like are my best one between Hayley, Melissa and Hayley. And

SPEAKER_02:

Kendall.

SPEAKER_06:

One of my best sessions.

SPEAKER_02:

Whose feet can we

SPEAKER_00:

get

SPEAKER_02:

on? Who's going to get on Kendall's feet

SPEAKER_00:

first? I want to come back to something that Kendall said earlier, just the idea of trusting yourself. Because, yes, obviously it's important to trust the team around us, especially the experts who are telling us what to do. But there were a lot of times where we might have been getting conflicting information, especially as staff changes happened. Maybe we'd have one person that telling us that this is the best bike fit for us and someone else telling us that this bike fit is better. And I feel like a pivotal moment for me was when I realized like, I can't just rely on all of these quote unquote experts because I'm actually the expert in my own body. And that was a really hard thing for me to realize. I think just especially being a young female who's constantly told that my opinion isn't really weighted as heavily as others. I had to kind of just do a lot of unlearning and really lean into my own experience and just own the fact that, no, I know a lot more than I think I do, and I have to just trust that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06:

I think it's a very important point because we all have different disability, and that makes it more complex. It's not like standard information that we get from, I don't know, any other able-bodied. For example, the bike fitting. It's still one of the things that we don't have a clear, like... way of doing it for single leg cyclists.

SPEAKER_03:

It's so hard because especially when we try to get you guys in the wind tunnel and stuff, you try to collect that data but is that data relative? Does it work? You guys pushing yourselves to see and actually being willing to risk and trust yourselves outside um, actually trying those different positions out from the, you know, from the wind tunnel or, or, you know, trying to translate it from, you know, to the bike, you know, from the bike trainer to the, to the road and doing those sessions out at, uh, at PPIR, uh, or, or out on the, out on the road and, um, being willing to, to make those changes and all that is, is, is hard. But, you know, Derek, one of the things that you, you did to help develop the, you know, our trust in ourselves was certain types of workouts. Um, and, um, you would refer to those workouts when, when we did bring those, those doubts up. Uh, like I, I remember like for the longest time I could not break 19 minutes in a, in a 5k off the bike. And like, that was just, that was really, really hard for me. And one day I rolled into the, you know, I rolled into the, the hat seat and you're, you know, you're like, you have a, you have a 30 minute bike workout where you have to hold, you know, X amount of Watts for 30 minutes and you have a 5k time trial on the treadmill. And it's like, and you're, you're standing there just, you know, yelling encouragement at me the entire time. And I think Haley was on the other side of the hat scene. She had no idea what was going on.

SPEAKER_00:

It's like Kyle's dying.

SPEAKER_05:

Kyle's pretty

SPEAKER_03:

loud

SPEAKER_05:

on

SPEAKER_07:

your

SPEAKER_03:

own time. And I ran like a high 15-minute 5K on the treadmill. And every time after that, you're like, you're a 16-minute 5K runner. Fucking do it. And then you and I actually ran a 5K out at PPIR one time, and you were just yelling encouragement at me, and it finally cracked that 19-minute barrier in Colorado Springs at altitude. And then I don't think I've run over 19 minutes since then. And it's just like those workouts where it was like you don't know that you're doing this today, but you're doing it today. And it builds, it's like all of a sudden I've, I now trust that I like I can roll out of bed now and go run a sub 19 minute five K any day of the week, no matter how fit I am. Cause I trust that I've, I've built up that body of evidence over, over time. And when I've actually trained them, you know, sub 18 minute off the bike and Um, we still have to figure out how, how fast I can go over the course of five K open. And we actually need to try and get that 16 minute five K and the, in the books on the roads. So, but you know,

SPEAKER_06:

so there's like how, yeah, when you see the potential from your, from your side and the athlete don't see that, like, how do you try to bridge that?

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, it's, I mean, I think a lot about confidence, right? And, um, it's fickle sometimes, you know, you can be super, super confident and, and, and things are going really, really well. And then something can, can throw you off and, and, um, how you respond to that, how you manage that, like, like to the point where the number of times I would rewrite your guys' workouts, those last two or three weeks going into Paris. I mean, often I would do it very, very often because you're balancing this, um, I want to give them the workout that they need, but I also need it to build on that confidence, not undermine their confidence either. And so there's a time and a place to be doing that. And I think for me, if I see that, you know, potential is a double-edged sword, right? And if I see that potential in an athlete and what I think that they're capable of, I think I've gotten a lot better as I've matured as a coach of just jumping in and saying, Oh, Mo, you're going to win a world championship. You're going to be the best and bringing it back to like, Oh, Hey, I think if we, if we can hit this workout and then this workout, we're going to be, we're going to be demonstrating progress and we can reflect back on that progress. And so for me, I still have to make sure that I'm doing that and focusing on the progress and just one week at a time, one workout at a time. And, and I mean, Haley, I don't know when it was, but at some point in, in, I love how you still bring it up. Like we talk about the stone cutter, you know, and, and just trusting the process and that stone cutter cutting stone and doing thousands and thousands of hits on the hammer to the chisel. And it's the thousand thousand one. Too much giddy goat coffee. The caffeine. But you have to trust that process. Like it's eventually going

SPEAKER_06:

to crack. Yeah. The reason is like, From an athlete's perspective, is the coach just cheerleading me? All those words mean when the coach says, you can do that, he sees that, or he's just trying to motivate me to try to reach something.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, I think what was great about working with you guys is you could be genuine with all of those words. It wasn't cheerleading. It wasn't like, oh, I need to build this person up. And I think that's the difference in working with high-performance sports and high-performing teams is... you're going to be honest about the good and you're going to be honest about the bad. And if I'm telling Kyle that you're a sub, you know, 16 minute runner, I better believe that too. I better have evidence that I can lean on as well.

SPEAKER_02:

I think it's like being realistic also. And like trusting, like we, I think, I mean, we went from trying to, you know, be high on the podium to just wanting to be on the podium because that's, that was, that was like the realistic side of it. And you, us kind of deciding that together is just, is that trust, like the realistic, just being real with your belief in us, but also having that realistic expectation.

SPEAKER_03:

Having a high

SPEAKER_05:

bar, but a high floor as well.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

I think one thing too, that I realized after a couple of years in, I should have known it at the onset, but all of y'all, we're, the best in the world at what you were doing, right? You were, you were at the tip of the spear to, I mean, you developed over time, but we got to a place where you were setting the bar. And so we didn't have a paradigm or a model to reference. We were kind of figuring out, okay, how do we get a little bit better for Kendall? It was figuring out, okay, what do we do with the bike and how do we change this? And for Mo, you know, your prosthetic and Haley, you going through different bikes and different bike fits and different, you know, so we all had to work together and, and trust each other because it wasn't guaranteed. It wasn't really a reference point.

SPEAKER_03:

No, there was no reference point. Well, and then like, you know, Howie, you like... I feel like you were always in the tri-room tinkering with stuff, and you were the first to kind of, at least that I

SPEAKER_02:

noticed,

SPEAKER_03:

obsessing.

SPEAKER_02:

Always tinkering

SPEAKER_03:

with stuff.

SPEAKER_02:

Up until three minutes before the race. Stop tinkering, Howie. Stop

SPEAKER_03:

tinkering, stop tinkering.

SPEAKER_02:

Stop.

SPEAKER_03:

But you were trying to get that. It was like if I use a 48-tooth chainring versus a 42-tooth chainring versus this or that or this gear ratio. I only went

SPEAKER_04:

up to a 52 because Kendall told me to. She was on a 52.

SPEAKER_01:

I only did that because Derek

SPEAKER_04:

told me. See, there was no reference, so you had to kind of play with it. You had to play with it and figure it out. But I did have the fastest H1 bike in Paris. It took like eight years of a lot of missteps and learning, but now I feel like I'm... one of the people that a lot of hand cycle, new hand cycle athletes are coming to you to ask questions about equipment, but it is definitely a lot of trial and error with a lot of error.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, and that's where I feel like, cause we were all there, right? Tinkering with our prosthetics and our bikes and our everything. And I think we all had our own individual point where we just had to decide this is good enough. I have to put trust in this equipment and now I just need to train. Um, and I think that point was different for all of us. Um, But actually, Mo, I remember going, this was like, yeah, when you were out for the summer before Paris and we were still tinkering with like leg stuff and you were like making comments on things that I should do. And I was starting to get like really, really overwhelmed. And I just said to you, hey, man, I can't do this anymore. Like, I know this is coming from a good place, but like, you got to stop because it's stressing me out too much. And I thought that was a really beautiful moment of a time that... I trusted you that I could say that to you, and we'd be okay. I wasn't going to piss you off. I wasn't going to get on your bad side. I could set a boundary and tell you where I was coming from, and you would respect it. So I appreciate that we just had that trust in our relationship.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, you yelled at me like that one time in the team room too.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I did. I was

SPEAKER_04:

literally just, I had no idea what the difference was. I'm like, what's the difference between using a bike leg and just having a stump cup? Stop! Stop! That was a big transition for you. That was a big transition. I was like, I just asked you a question. I'm new here.

SPEAKER_06:

So I just want to go back to trust. But the boundary was set. Yeah, self-trust for Howie. You didn't make, I mean, we can finish up with that. You didn't make... tokyo uh yeah and then came back to paris so how like yeah

SPEAKER_04:

yeah i mean and that comes back to what i talked about before about you know resiliency learning how to get back on the horse when you fall off um because it was a crushing blow like i can't tell you how bad i felt in the parking lot of the training centers you guys left to go to hawaii for the training camp for tokyo and i got a new hall to leave the training center permanently. I

SPEAKER_06:

think you should expand on that. That's a good moment.

SPEAKER_02:

I've

SPEAKER_04:

had some pretty cool high points in my life and some pretty crushing lows. And that was, that was a pretty low point for me, but it was also a point where, again, you have to make a decision. If you want to be a high performance athlete, you, and you want to be committed to it, you just literally, like I was off the team, I went and we worked with Ken several times and I just sat in his garage and was like, hey, I don't want to feel like this again in three years. What can I do right now to start working so I never feel like this again? And it does come down to a lot of you know, being willing to trust the press. Cause it's very easy. It would have been very easy for me to doubt that entire process leading up to Paris.

SPEAKER_05:

So in fairness to you too, Howie, I mean, I think that's, that might be a space where we as an organization portrayed your trust a little bit because we did not do a very good job of communicating what was going to happen afterwards. And then basically you got a 48 hour expulsion notice that you had to leave campus and go and COVID was going on and there was a bunch of weird stuff as well. But like, I also think it's important that people understand the, the health things that you were going through with the constant infections. And one of the things through all of that though, that really stands out to me is you continue to trust yourself. You're like, if I can get past this, if I can stay healthy, I know I can do it even in the face of a ton of of evidence otherwise that I think would have broken a lot of people. And so I think that's something that I always observed from you from a distance, especially on reflection of like, man, he continued to trust himself even in those instances where a lot of people would have said, no, it's never going to happen.

SPEAKER_06:

Yeah. I remember Abu Dhabi after the first world championship after Tokyo. Oh yeah.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06:

We were talking about Paris, like what, 21? Yeah, it was 21.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah, right after I left the team. And I was like, I'm going to make some changes and I'm going to make it. Yeah, I've always been a big fan of adversity. And I think most of us in the room, to get to this level, you have to be a fan of adversity. Like you have to be a fan of going up against things that are going to push you, change you, and like give you growth. And I've always been a big fan of those regardless of, you know, the potential of failing.

SPEAKER_05:

Well, it's that, that whole, you know, you only get better when you find, when you're working on the edge of your ability and you push over that from time to time. And I think that's so easy. It's so easy to get lulled into complacency.

SPEAKER_04:

I actually, uh, I met a hand cyclist. I was doing a speech in Florida and he, and, uh, he was kind of giving me some, some hard grief at the end with questions answered. And he said, have you ever crashed your bike? And I was like, Yeah, crashed a bunch of times. Did he say you're bad at biking? No, and he said, I've never crashed my bike. And I was like... you've never ridden it hard enough then. You know what I mean? Because that's how you find out how fast you can go around a corner, right? If you've never tipped over, you've never been on the edge. And if you want to get real good, you've got to be willing to take it to the edge. Trees. Yeah. Next time... I broke my back

SPEAKER_02:

good.

SPEAKER_04:

No, I broke my back

SPEAKER_02:

good. I

SPEAKER_03:

took mine. Derek and I figured out that I had to have strength as a regular part of my program after I... peeled over on the track with a herniated disc after a track workout. Like, you know, you, you figure this out and I'm a better runner because of that.

SPEAKER_05:

Well, I think what's really important to, to illustrate is, is you, you guys all started to trust yourself more and more throughout the process. Like Haley, I can look at the, the trust you had in yourself at Paris versus Tokyo and the trust in yourself to make these changes, to make these adjustments, to get new bikes for Kyle and Kendall, the trust in the process to go change up the leg. Because again, all of you were starting at a very, very high level. And I think that just speaks to, again, who each of you are and the expectation of trying to get just a little bit better every day as best you can. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_03:

Thank you to our sponsors and partners, Dorada Training, Giddy Goat Coffee Roasters, and Tolsma Stockwell Prosthetics. If you'd like to support the show, please email theresidenttable at gmail.com. Also, don't forget to follow us on Instagram at theresidenttable.