Lessons - The Olympian Who Took on Nike and Exposed Running's Biggest Scandal | Kara Goucher - 2x Olympian & NYT Bestselling Author of The Longest Race

In this lessons episode, discover how to rebuild identity when a defining chapter of life comes to an end. Understand why success must evolve over time. Explore how setbacks can reveal new strengths and opportunities. And uncover why redefining goals and staying open to change creates purpose beyond past achievements. So this is, you know, you speak on this now, you know, you're speaking to senators, you're, you haven't testified on this yet. Maybe, maybe one day, maybe someday. But talk to me about, because outside of athletes, I think all high performing people sort of succumb to this at some level. You exited your career in a relatively negative way. And even when people exit their career in a very positive way, so I'm thinking business person sells their company, they still have this identity crisis. What do I do now? So I can only imagine when you exit your career in a not so fun way, you must have some sort of identity crisis. And I want... I want you to help people who do have an identity crisis because, I mean, the level that, the shit that happened to you, I hope that no one else has to go through, even though I know someone else will. But the mental fortitude that you exhibit is phenomenal. And I just want people to understand, like, how did you transition into identity? a successful, happy, productive, sort of second win, second season to your life after going through all this shit, because I'm sure it wasn't easy. Yeah. I mean, look, no, I'm not like the poster child. I wanted to run at the 2016 Olympics. I thought that maybe to have another child after that would be like my glory. I'd, you know, run in a third Olympic Games and be done. The top three make it in the marathon. At the trials, I was fourth, which led to literally three years of like questioning my value. What can I do? You know, I was running, but really halfheartedly, I kept getting injured, which I think was my body saying, you know, we all agreed you were going to be done after the Olympics. And I really struggled with if I'm not making an Olympic team, what value do I have? And honestly, in a weird way, turning 40 helped a lot because I just realized I was on the second side of life and I couldn't be worried about that anymore. But I think I was open to, you know, I struggled for a couple of years trying to make something happen so that so that I would know I was done. And look, you're like, you're trying to like, like say like, I just want, I don't want my body to be able to compete anymore. One more, I want to have one more good race. And then I know, you know, and it just, it wouldn't happen every time I prepare, I'd get hurt or I'd run bad. But I understand it's so hard. And my husband went through this too. It's like you're, you've had this, this pursuit for so long with blinders on almost and. The thing is, in life, a lot of times things rarely end the way you want them to. And you have to be okay with that. But there is a whole nother life after that. And I basically struggled for a couple of years, really questioning who I was. And then I just sort of started paying attention to opportunities. And for me, I love running. So things in the running industry. I eventually got hired by NBC. I'm the distance analyst for NBC now for all the Olympic Games and the big track meets and stuff. And I love this side of my life. It's so fun. And I get to still be in the sport. And I get all of that knowledge that I learned along the way. I'm applying here on a totally different platform. But I get to apply that. And so I totally understand the feeling of like... I'm nothing now. The thing that made me important and the thing that made me special, I can't even do that anymore. But that's actually not true. That's one thing that made you special and made you feel important. There are other sides to you. So it's just, it's acknowledging that it's a loss and it's sad. And there's like a mourning period, I would say. But then realizing no one is one thing. That's just not like no one person is just one thing. And then really being open to what else do I have to offer and what else could I do and taking a risk. You know, I never, ever wanted to be on TV. That was nothing that ever, ever interested me. And when NBC first asked me to audition, I told them no. And my husband said, just do that. He was like, just do it. It's an experience and it's something on your resume, you know. It just ended up being a career that I have absolutely loved. So I think just being open to changing and knowing that you are more than that one thing that you shined at. You know, you went through so many tough periods, but when you fast forward, there's a lot of good lessons that you've learned from all the different things that you've gone through. And I would love to hear a lesson that you've learned for yourself, but also maybe just a lesson for a young athlete that you wish somebody would have told you when you were first starting out. I mean, I think one thing I wish I would have realized when I was younger is that success doesn't happen overnight. And I mean, you even mentioned that earlier, but it's it. And especially now this day and age with like social media and everything, you feel like everyone just is crushing it right away. But the reality is, if I was talking to a young athlete, I'd say. I hit my peak in my mid-30s, my early to mid-30s. And when I was 15, killing myself because I didn't PR, I couldn't have imagined that I'd be doing it for another 20 years, you know? And so just have... Pedagical. Yeah, and just know that life is a long journey. I know we all want success right away, but... good things take time and they and it takes practice and it takes loving and it takes working at it so i wish someone had told me that when i was younger because i felt like everything hinged on every race that i was running um i think one of the things i've learned about myself is and i think most people are because trust me i'm not that strong but i'm i'm just so much stronger than i thought i was you know i've been able to weather a lot of storms and i Yeah, some of them are really hard, but they've made me smarter and they've made me more complete and more sure of who I am. And I think most people are a lot stronger than they think. You hear people say, oh, if that happened to me, that would kill me. And it really doesn't. And as long as you can work your way through it, you're actually better on the other side. I know it sounds so cheesy, but it's true. It's so true. It's so, so true. I mean, you also, if I'm not mistaken, um, there was a neurological order, runners, dystonia. I have no idea what that means, by the way. So maybe explain, because all I understand is that it limits how you can run. Is this a physical or is it a... Neurological means it involves your mind, your brain to some capacity. Yeah, okay. So it's not just like a physical purely. So there's a brain condition of some sort that limits how much you can run. And I want you to also just speak about how that's impacted you, but also... You know, just thinking back of all the bullshit that you dealt with. Like, this is, yeah, difficult, but you've dealt with more difficult shit. You've dealt with harder situations that ultimately when you... Life is, again, you know, we just spoke about this at the beginning. Life is so strange how it works. Like, everything that happens in your life, as horrible as it can be, really does set you up for, like, the next chapter. And all the different things in your life that made you hard and made you able to persevere and endure. Then when something like this happens, all of a sudden it's like, you know what? I figured out how to deal with like... 200 other horrible things that have happened in my life and at the same time i've won 10 000 times so i'll figure this out as well and i'm sure this is probably what allowed you to sort of tackle this with grace and and not let it destroy you psychologically mentally physically um but as a runner you can't run as much anymore that's not easy so what happened Yeah, so I started falling when I was running and just having lack of sensation in my lower left leg. I started and I fell into traffic and I finally realized, like, I need to go to the doctor. And it took a year to get the diagnosis because I had had MRIs and I had MRIs vibrate and I had some lesions. They thought I had MS and then. Long story short, I was finally diagnosed with repetitive movement dystonia, which happens in musicians a lot or writers. It's a movement that you do again and again and again, and they don't know why it happens. A lot of people have a bad fall before it happens, and I did have a very bad fall, but I feel like the symptoms had started before that. Yeah. But basically, when my left leg swings through to land on the ground, instead of just the muscles needed to land on the ground and then push off firing, everything fires at once. And so I have no sensation that I've hit the ground, that I'm pushing off the ground. You'll get this analogy because you're a hockey player. This is what I said to my doctor the first time I went in. I said, it's like I'm on the most freshly Zamboni dice. And I have a slick shoe on and my foot comes down and I don't know that it's going to, like, it does not feel like. I know exactly. I know exactly. There's so many people and they just look at me with a blank face. And it's actually a horrifying feeling because you feel like you just don't have control of your body at that point because your foot is just not catching and it's doing whatever it wants. It is the. Worth feeling. Only person that I've ever told that like actually got it. So that's what it felt like. And and it's been really frustrating. And I went and got a second opinion at the Mayo Clinic and they confirmed the diagnosis. And the doctor there told me, you just have to stop running because it can get really bad. It can affect your walking, which had happened. That's what ended when I ended up going to this specialist because I was having a hard time walking. But. You know, my neurologist, she's amazing. And she's like, you used to run 135 miles a week. You used to run the Olympic marathon. Like, just don't listen to them when they say you can't do it. Let's figure out a way to find out what you can do. And I'm so grateful for her. Shout out to Dr. Jill Olson. So I started going to PT. I've started doing really intensive therapies. I... Just to figure out a way that I can still run a little bit. Basically, the things that work best for me is I do take a Parkinson's medication before I go run to help my muscles relax a little bit and not be so controlled by my brain and not my body. And then I also get Botox injections quarterly, so every three months in my lower leg, so that when my brain sends the signal for everything to fire, it just can't. It's been Botox, so it's dead. Yeah. And so I can't run the way I used to. I can't go run up in the mountains like I used to because I catch my foot really easily. I can't tell the clearance I'm making. But I'm still getting out there and setting goals that are different. Like I set a goal a couple of weeks ago to run under my son's fastest 5K time. And I did it. And you know what? It felt pretty damn good. I love that. Totally different. You know, four minutes slower than I used to run in the 5K, but it still felt pretty, pretty awesome. Yeah. I think that sad life is like you have to keep redefining your goals, right? And you have to keep redefining your goals and you're, and who you are as a person cannot be static. It has to be fluid and it has to be evolving. And I think that it's because, you know, A lot of people have trouble even accomplishing that first milestone in life, like that first major success. A lot of people try to accomplish their first major success their whole life and never even get there. But when you do accomplish something that, you know, 0.001% of the population accomplishes, um... And then you're like, OK, OK, what do I do next? Because there's no playbook. There's no playbook for life after the Olympics. Are you kidding me? Who's like it's it's it's the top one percent or point one percent for a reason because not a lot of people get there. But as a high performing person, like this is something that you will eventually hit because you'll perform at the top of whatever sport you're in. You will make more money than most of the people that you went to high school and university with. Like, it doesn't matter what the thing is. You'll build a business bigger than all your friends that are still W2. It doesn't really matter. It's like you still have to make sure that you like take care of yourself. and you take care of your future self. And I think that a lot of people lose their identity and they lose their purpose. And just because you're a high-performing person does not mean you kill it in all other areas of life. You see a lot of broken relationships, a lot of people, I mean, not from your world, from the business world, they lose their health and their wellness, both mental and physical, because they just don't have identity anymore. Or they sacrifice their identity for the one thing that they know how to do. So I think it's an even stronger person that can, Not pivot, but like adjust gracefully as life goes on to like a new version of themselves and be happy and proud of that. There's many seasons of life. Like, you don't, I don't want to be, I didn't want to be 40 and be dead and be like, well, I accomplished everything. There's no point in living. There's nothing that's going to bring me joy. It's like, no, I still have a lot. I still have more than half my life left. Like, I need to reassess what it is I want. Yeah. Yeah. Right. I'm like, I have a lot going on. And, um, but I understand that it's hard, but yes, like really redefining what success means and redefining what happiness means. It helps so much. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button. So you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.