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Oct. 29, 2024
#14: Josiah Middaugh (Professional Triathlete) - The path to going pro and parenting athletes
Josiah Middaugh (@josiahmiddaugh) is a multi-sport athlete of all seasons, though primarily an extremely accomplished professional triathlete competing in Xterra triathlons (off-road triathlons).
You'll discover Josiah's thoughtful strategies for integrating rigorous training schedules with his roles as a husband and father, all while maintaining peak performance.
Josiah opens up about his unique upbringing in a northern Michigan commune, where a close-knit community and outdoor adventures laid the foundation for his love of sports. He shares personal stories of growing up with athletic parents and the significant impact of his wife's unwavering support as we journey through Josiah’s path from amateur enthusiast to professional athlete.
Discover why he champions the benefits of sport sampling over early specialization, encouraging children to explore diverse athletic opportunities. Josiah’s experiences as both a coach and father shed light on the joy of shared athletic adventures, emphasizing the importance of raising well-rounded individuals who find their passion organically. Tune in for an inspiring discussion filled with actionable insights for balancing ambitious pursuits in both sports and parenting.
Episode Resources:
The Athlete Dad Resources:
Chapters
00:00 - Balancing Athletic Pursuits and Fatherhood
04:39 - Multi-Sport Athlete Balancing Family Life
18:09 - Community Influence on Athletic Development
25:08 - Juggling Fatherhood and Professional Athletics
30:57 - Parenting Elite Athletes
41:10 - Parental Influence on Athlete Development
45:38 - Balancing Coaching and Family Athletics
Transcript
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I think it's okay to strive for balance, but I think that the truth for an elite athlete or somebody who's trying to reach 100% of their potential in a given domain, I think that balance has to be redefined a little bit and I think it's okay to not be perfectly balanced, as long as your priorities are in line and, like I said, having priority one as family and then for me.
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A lot of times that performance did have to play second fiddle a little bit, but I tried to do everything possible that I could with that time, the time that I was allotted, tried to do everything possible that I could with that time, the time that I was allotted.
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Welcome to the Athlete Dad Podcast, where we explore the intersection of physical pursuits and fatherhood.
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I'm your host, ben Gibson, and each episode we'll dive deep into topics like modeling, ambition, achieving balance and intentional integration around athletic passions and parenting.
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If you're seeking to accomplish your goals as an athlete while crushing it as a parent, then you've come to the right place.
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What's up everybody?
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It's great to be back, took a bit of a break to focus on my work, got to pay the bills, my family playing outdoors, all kinds of things.
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I think really, what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to focus on creating some space so I can figure out what kinds of things I want to do next in many aspects of my life.
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And one thing for sure is a focus of mine is growing this amazing show and this amazing community that is the Athlete Dad.
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I am excited more excited than I probably ever have about what we're working on in the podcast and committed to this mission to help ambitious dads pursue their passions in a healthy way, by finding a balance between their pursuits and their families and uncovering ways to integrate the people that they love into the things that they love.
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And I've been spending a lot of time writing and thinking and planning and as I'm doing this, one word kept coming to mind, and that word is intentional.
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And as I'm doing this, one word kept coming to mind and that word is intentional.
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You know, really, this overarching theme about why I'm doing what I'm doing is that I want to squeeze every ounce of goodness out of my life experiences.
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So I have to be really intentional about how I first prioritize the things in my life what are the most important things to me and then to how I approach those things in my life so that I can create the life, the experience that I want for myself and for my family.
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And that is why I'm so excited about my next guest on the show, because intentional is also a word that kept coming up during our conversation is also a word that kept coming up during our conversation, and it is his level of thoughtfulness and intentionality that has shaped him into the amazing human that he is today.
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Today, I have the pleasure of speaking with legendary multi-sport athlete Josiah Middaw.
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Now I will say this before I get into his accomplishments it is not often that you are so good at your sport, that you are in the Hall of Fame for your sport while you are still competing, but that is the case for Josiah.
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Josiah is a multi-sport athlete of all seasons, but he's primarily an extremely accomplished professional triathlete competing in the XTERRA triathlon series.
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So these are off-road triathlons and if you haven't heard of this, I hadn't heard of this until I met with Josiah and they are awesome.
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So an off-road triathlon.
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Basically, what it does is, instead of a road bike, it's a mountain bike, so it's more extreme terrain.
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Instead of road running, it's trail running and, of course, an open water swim.
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Now Josiah has competed 21 times in the XTERRA World Championships, winning the World Championship in 2015.
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And he has been a top 10 finisher 16 times.
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He's a 15-time XTERRA US National Champion, a four-time Fat Bike World Champion, a six-time national snowshoe champion, and he's competed in the Eco Challenge in Fiji.
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Basically, if there's a common version of a sport, josiah seeks out the version that's way harder and then does that instead.
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Most importantly, josiah is a husband.
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He is a father of three.
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He is a family man.
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His sons, porter and Sullivan, are also, by the way, very talented and successful athletes, and we'll talk about how he thinks about raising successful humans, not just raising successful athletes.
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Josiah also runs a coaching business, midog Coaching, where they deliver personalized, scientifically based, results-driven programs for endurance athletes of every level, and we'll make sure to include how you can get connected to his coaching business after the show and in the show notes.
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But in this conversation with Josiah, we talk about his journey to becoming a professional athlete, which is, I think, a really cool part of an athlete's life is how did they go from amateur to pro?
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We talk about his approach to coaching or not coaching his own kids and how he's balancing being a family man and an athlete, especially and I thought this was interesting while competing against many other athletes who were themselves single with no kids, and we get into so many other great perspectives on life and fatherhood and pursuing your goals.
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You're going to love this one.
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So please enjoy listening to my conversation with the amazing Josiah Mida.
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Josiah, thanks so much for taking time out of your very busy week as an athlete and as a dad to chat about the Athlete Dad today.
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I know we've been trying to chat for a while, but you know you you're an athlete that has your hands in a lot of different sports and three kids and you know, full-time coaching company and husband.
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So unsurprisingly you're you're a very busy guy, so really just want to say thanks for for taking time to chat today.
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You betcha?
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Yeah, thanks for having me on, looking forward to it.
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Awesome.
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I think you know, as I mentioned, you're a multi-sport athlete.
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I think it'd be really helpful to set the context for a little bit more about your life, and so I'm curious what does life as dad, husband look like for you?
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And then, if you could help us understand, when we say multi-sport athlete, what does that mean for you?
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multi-sport athlete.
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Like what does that mean for you?
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Yeah, so I have been a professional track for over 20 years now.
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I think I got my my pro card in 2003, so yeah 2024, um and I, so I have three kids.
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When I graduated college met, my wife moved out to Colorado all in the course of a week and we just we started this life here and I really got into the mountain lifestyle, got into the endurance sports, and my rule at first was I could only pick up one sport per year, but pretty soon I found myself really gravitating towards off-road triathlons.
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So XTERRA triathlon has been my big focus throughout my career and my kids kind of grew up alongside that.
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I said I got my pro card in 2003.
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My first child was born in 2004.
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So that's Sullivan, and he is now 19.
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Then I have a son, porter, 18, and a daughter, larson, who's 13.
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So they've kind of grown up alongside everything that I've done and it's just been part of their lifestyle.
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Luckily I have a very understanding wife.
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She was a collegiate runner as well.
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We both graduated from Central Michigan as collegiate runners and so she kind of understands my tics and quirks and puts up with it a lot and also understands a lot of my identity, is kind of wrapped up in these endurance sports that I do, and so she's always supported me through that, which has been 100% the key.
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I definitely hear you on the supportive spouse side, especially for endurance athletes.
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Just the amount of time that it takes.
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You know there's no like shortcut to being a great endurance runner.
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It really just takes hours on the road.
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So, yeah, that's, that's such an important part of even just having the capacity to be able to go and do these things.
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And man, what a whirlwind.
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Move to Colorado.
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What was it for you?
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Why the decision to move to the mountain town?
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Were you already interested in mountain sports or was that something that really blossomed after you moved there?
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I would just say I was curious, but I had never even been to Colorado.
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So I had an internship lined up and back in 1999, there was probably 15 postings of internships on the internet and I applied to like one in Santa Cruz, one in Arizona, one in Colorado and just so happened to be in Vail.
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I remember looking at a map and being like, oh wow, vail Pass, like someday I'm going to try to ride my bike up Vail Pass, you know, just like really funny, funny things.
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But I always had that attraction to the mountains and Ingrid, my wife, was on board and we moved out to Vail and we were just going to stay for the summer.
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Try to make it work.
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I had a 12-week internship and we stayed for the summer and we said, oh man, well, we have to experience winter, because that's what Vail, colorado, was all about the snow sports and we fell in love with the summer, which is kind of opposite of most people.
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They move there for the winter and fall in love with the summer.
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But we experienced summer first and then had to experience winter and it just kind of all I don't know if I'd say fell in place, but it was just too much fun to leave.
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Yeah, I hear that, and it is an interesting thing about mountain towns specifically is the amount of stuff you can get into.
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Like, in realizing, in moving to bend, I realized it's going to take me like four years just to acquire all the toys that I need to like hang out with everybody, because as soon as one season's, you know the people do things in the shoulder season and then it's like a new main season and so, um, yeah, I, I absolutely love that aspect of it to where.
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You know, I lived in San Diego for a bit and I hated surfing in the winter time.
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It was just such a bummer and so cold and uh, so I was just always waiting for summer.
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And then mountain towns, yeah, to your point it's.
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You know, every, every season has a thing and you can get into a lot of different things and I think that leads to a really exciting lifestyle.
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And so when you think about multi-sport, like you know, you are uh, you're, you're running, you're snowshoeing, you're biking, but even within these disciplines there are like specificities.
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Like you do the fat bike racing, so, like, what are all the uh sports or endeavors that you do or have done?
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Um, and and then I also love too.
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Uh, I was just watching you do.
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You did a a quadathlon, am I saying that right?
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quadrathlon, quadrathlon, there you go there's a right way to say it.
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Yeah, so it's not even just that you're doing all these great sports, but I love that there just seems to be every different combination of these types of sports.
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So can you help us understand, like, what are all the things that you do get into?
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Yeah, I would say that I would try anything related to endurance related to endurance.
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So when I, when I first moved here, my background was running, I picked up mountain biking.
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You know, bought a mountain bike from the pawn shop and immediately started racing it.
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You know, did a hundred mile mountain bike race a couple of weeks after buying a mountain bike with zero skills, didn't even know you had to put lube on the chain.
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So a lot of my experiences initially were very, very humbling.
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And then I just with the mountain lifestyle, like you said, you know, all of these fun recreational sports, well, they do require some skill, like the mountain biking.
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I even got into kayaking for a little while because we had the GoPro mountain games and I would do several events and it was your combined time.
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It'd be a road bike hill climb, a mountain bike, a trail run and a down river kayak.
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And then I also dabbled with adventure racing for a while.
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I raced the Eco Challenge just a couple of years ago, in 2019.
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And that years before that I would, I would go over to France, to China, new Zealand, do adventure racing there, and that was that combined a lot of sports, but usually it was trail running, it was something on the water, usually some type of kayaking, mountain biking, and then there was some always some rope.
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But again, I was always game for anything, endurance, and eventually I picked up things like Nordic skiing.
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This weekend I'm doing the USA Triathlon Winter National Championship, so that is running on snow, fat biking and cross-country skiing, so skate skiing.
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That's awesome so yeah, a lot of different things that I've done, but again, my main focus throughout my career was the XTERRA triathlon.
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So swimming, mountain biking, trail running and what I found for myself personally that the more sports that I can combine the better.
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So I was explaining to one of my kids actually that, like this quadathlon that I did, I'm not the very best uphill biker, but there's not very many bikers that can outclimb me but could also outrun me.
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Same thing with trail running.
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Like I can get in a race, you know, with guys that are on the, the national trail running team, and I can hold my own pretty well, but I'm not going to win, you know, a world caliber or national caliber event with trail runners, but I can't think of any of those trail runners ahead of me that could beat me in a mountain bike race.
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So when you combine some of these things, then I usually um come out on top in most things.
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Yeah, that's a great way to look at it.
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Yeah, where are your strengths?
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And you know, where do I, where do I need to make up some ground?
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And, um, I even love how you said a lot of your.
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Your first experiences in these sports was a very humbling one, and yet you really you kept going Like, do you do you feel like that has been something that has always been a part of how you have thought about these endeavors of like I might get rocked the first time, but like now I'm curious, okay, like what can I get good at this?
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Or like where, where do you feel like that started for you, and how do you keep that mentality top of mind when things are tough?
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Yeah, I definitely have had that mentality my whole life and I kind of attribute to not having a lot of really early success.
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I always considered myself a late bloomer and so I knew that there was a lot of work that I had to put into something to get good at it, and sometimes my expectations would exceed reality.
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And that's when it would be very humbling, and usually it was when I was really proficient in one thing and thought I could just transfer over and be really good at another thing and then just get completely humbled by that.
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But for me it was always very motivating.
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And after I won the XTERRA World Championship I started to really look back and reflect.
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And you know why am I still in the sport, why did it take me so long to get to the top and why didn't I quit 15 years ago, 20 years ago?
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And part of it is that failure being a part of success, being along the same path of success and not something that's opposite of success.
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And I think way too many people they experience those failures and they immediately give up on something and they only want to do something that they have natural inclination for, something that they show early promise or talent in and they shy away from anything that they're not good at, not challenged.
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And whenever I've had those really humbling experiences, it's been very motivating for me because I said, oh wow, like I had no idea that I was going to be 15 minutes behind in this 50-mile bike race or whatever it is.
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Let me see, what are those guys doing?
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Why are they so much better than me?
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What could I do in training?
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What skills could I acquire to be better at this?
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It's been very motivating for me.
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I love that and I think this is one of the most important things that I hope to instill in my own kids.
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And I'm always so curious when somebody thinks this way of like how did that start for you?
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Like, where did that originate?
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Do you feel like it was innate?
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Was it something that was instilled by your parents, father figures?
00:17:42.635 --> 00:17:48.851
So I do want to take a step back because it sounds like you did have a very unique upbringing.
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So I'm curious tell us about your childhood in Michigan and really the unique circumstances around that.
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And then I'm curious how do you think your childhood and whether there were influences from parents or just sort of innately, the experiences you had shaped that mindset as you grew?
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Yeah, so I grew up in northern Michigan and the community that I was in was basically a hippie commune that I grew up in, and it was a bunch of like-minded people that all kind of went in and bought these plots of land in northern Michigan.
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It was part of the old Bohemian settlement, and so this farmer had divided up his land and so my parents I think they, you know bought 20 acres for ten thousand dollars.
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You know, wow, that's awesome, it sounds great and, you know, even had to take out a loan to do it, right, uh, which is the funny part, um, but I remember my whole childhood having work bees to work on somebody's house.
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We had a community building.
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We even tried our own school for a while.
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And.
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I mean I wouldn't say it was a failed project.
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But just as kids grew up and got older, the community wasn't as cohesive as it was when I was younger.
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But you know amazing memories Growing up with very little, a very simple lifestyle.
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We had a dirt floor for a while.
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We had outdoor plumbing for several years, an outdoor toilet for quite a while, probably until I was 11 or 12, something like that.
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So a very different upbringing, but it definitely shaped my work ethic because that was a big part of living.
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That simply was going out and chopping wood and hauling wood and doing a lot of things with wood.
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Yeah, especially the natural bohemian state that you found yourself wood.
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Yeah, yeah, especially the the, the natural bohemian state that you found yourself in.
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That's, that's great.
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And I, I also think, uh, you know, I love that.
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You know a lot of the hard work just became a standard expectation of like how we live.
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We we are all contributing to this community.
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If we need something, we've got to do it ourselves.
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All contributing to this community.
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If we need something, we've got to do it ourselves.
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Sounds like you were working quite a bit as a kid, Did you as a kid?
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What was your mindset when you were a kid?
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Did you hate it?
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Were you just like oh, it's just what it is?
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Did you see benefit in it?
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What was that like for you earlier on?
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I would say I didn't really know any differently.
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So my dad was a self-employed carpenter and always just worked for himself or partnered with one other person, so it wasn't like he was project manager managing a crew of people.
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It was very simple.
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I mean he did.
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I mean he this is going to sound like Amish or something but he didn't use air compressor.
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You know, he would roof houses by hand and I would.
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You know, the first work experience I had was, you know, working with him on roofs and I actually ended up building a house with him when I was in college, which was a really fun, rewarding experience.
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But step back with the like how it kind of related to athletics.
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My dad was a really good athlete and more team sports, amazing football player, wrestler, and it was kind of funny because on the when we'd have all these get togethers, they were trying to teach more.
00:21:31.438 --> 00:22:07.148
The new thing was these new games that were cooperative, you know, and you know it would take the competition part out of it, but my brothers and I were just like cutthroat competitive with everything and I think my dad did kind of realize, because that was his mentality too um that hey, you know, maybe we should nurture this competitiveness a little bit and eventually we end up going to a public school and, uh, got really into just you know, the the traditional school sports and really competitive with everything and it did help that I had a.
00:22:07.650 --> 00:22:10.204
Well, I was middle, so I had an older brother, younger brother.
00:22:10.204 --> 00:22:26.579
My older brother was less than two years older than me, one grade ahead, and he was the outstanding athlete good at everything, and I had just had to scrap and work for everything that I had yeah, that's amazing, and I I hear you on the the competitive boy side.
00:22:26.619 --> 00:22:37.405
I grew up with two brothers, I have two boys and I've I've really learned it's there's no like tamping stuff down, it's just can I channel this into something?
00:22:37.405 --> 00:22:40.551
Because there's just energy pouring out of them.
00:22:40.551 --> 00:23:00.613
And I'm sure it was the same when I was a kid and we were wreaking, wreaking havoc all over, all over the house and I I'd love to know, like what are the things that you feel like your dad did, whether again directly as an athlete, helping you be an athlete, or just generally, that really kind of like spurred that interest in athletics yourself?
00:23:02.079 --> 00:23:03.462
Yeah, I would say the biggest thing.
00:23:03.462 --> 00:23:11.566
When he I think he was 42 years old he started running to lose weight and I started running with him.
00:23:11.566 --> 00:23:24.279
Basically I think I was 10 or 11 years old and I would go, you know, not these big treks or jaunts, but I'd run two miles, three miles with him and he kind of realized I didn't have the same type of skills.
00:23:24.279 --> 00:23:27.529
My older brother was more strength, speed, power.
00:23:27.529 --> 00:23:34.222
You know he was the football player sprinter in track and I was very different.
00:23:34.222 --> 00:23:37.210
I was a lot slower.
00:23:37.210 --> 00:23:47.670
I think he scratched his head a little bit but he said well, maybe you might be good at this long distance running thing and so he started running with me and I think that was.
00:23:48.692 --> 00:23:49.634
That was kind of unique.
00:23:49.634 --> 00:23:55.941
I mean, if you weren't excelling in football, basketball or baseball then there wasn't.
00:23:55.941 --> 00:24:00.634
You know, in some of those small towns you're not even considered an athlete.
00:24:00.634 --> 00:24:03.201
So I ran cross country.
00:24:03.201 --> 00:24:08.232
We had kind of a ragtag team, so I didn't have a whole lot of early success.
00:24:08.232 --> 00:24:23.977
Like you can see, the theme here, but eventually just kept working really hard and went through a lot of growing pains as a kid and finally had some success, really by my junior senior year of high school.
00:24:24.880 --> 00:24:28.967
It's impressive to stick around and continue to do it for that long.
00:24:28.967 --> 00:24:45.009
I love the idea of hearing how athletes were influenced when they were growing up by their own fathers and then how that translates to their kids this sort of like multi-generational influence of positive traits that come from being an athlete.
00:24:45.009 --> 00:24:47.460
And so I don't think it's it's.
00:24:47.460 --> 00:24:52.492
I feel like it's uncommon for someone to not see that success and yet to keep going.
00:24:52.492 --> 00:24:53.561
You'd mentioned that it was.
00:24:53.561 --> 00:24:55.226
It's motivating for you.
00:24:55.226 --> 00:25:03.772
Now, had it always been motivating, or were there influences like your dad or coaches, or or just intrinsic motivation to just keep going?
00:25:05.579 --> 00:25:06.142
Yeah, I would.
00:25:06.142 --> 00:25:07.606
I would say all of the above.
00:25:07.606 --> 00:25:17.598
Um, I think I just started with really small goals and I I never had a goal of.
00:25:17.598 --> 00:25:24.569
You know, some of these kids think they're good, they want to be a professional athlete, they want to be in the Olympics.
00:25:24.569 --> 00:25:32.949
I just wanted to, you know, make the varsity team to then, okay, I want to be one of the best in the conference.
00:25:32.949 --> 00:25:34.271
I want them to be one of the best in the conference.
00:25:34.271 --> 00:25:44.685
I want to be one of the best in the region, one of the best in the state, and it just was really incremental goals all the way through that's awesome and makes a lot of sense.
00:25:44.787 --> 00:25:50.161
I think, uh, you know, I certainly felt it as a kid and I guess even as an adult too.
00:25:50.161 --> 00:26:01.915
But, um, when my goals are too far out in front of me, and how that can definitely be a demotivator to just feel like defeated I'm so far, I don't belong.
00:26:01.915 --> 00:26:03.181
You know this isn't.
00:26:03.181 --> 00:26:08.353
These people are just way better than I am and I'm not playing in my level.
00:26:08.353 --> 00:26:15.483
And you mentioned, you know, okay, so transitioning to kind of moving into being a professional athlete.
00:26:15.483 --> 00:26:19.445
You know you mentioned these small goals trying to incrementally improve it.
00:26:19.445 --> 00:26:27.412
Like, when did the switch flip for you where you were like I'm good enough to be a professional athlete, I want to be a professional athlete?
00:26:27.412 --> 00:26:28.592
Like when did you make that shift?
00:26:30.153 --> 00:26:45.978
So the very first XTERRA race that I ever did was in Keystone, colorado, and it's all set above 9,000 feet, and in the swim I had a panic attack and a horrible experience.
00:26:45.998 --> 00:26:51.050
Way behind Again, new to the mountain bike jumped on my mountain bike from the pawn shop you know it's pretty horrible Technically crashed a bunch of times.
00:26:51.050 --> 00:27:08.366
The very next year I improved my time by about 45 minutes and I could see that I was kind of on that, that tail end of the pro field, and so I ended up getting my pro license the following year and then I think it was 2004 that I won the race.
00:27:08.366 --> 00:27:11.279
It was the mountain championship and it was a big international field.
00:27:11.279 --> 00:27:22.943
The prize money was pretty good next year at that time and so then I kind of started to believe, I guess, that I could compete with some of these guys that were the best in the world.
00:27:22.943 --> 00:27:39.174
Now it was a lot easier competing kind of my my home turf at high altitude in Colorado, so it took me a little bit longer to really excel on that world stage at the world championship, which was always in Maui, hawaii, for 20 some years.
00:27:39.835 --> 00:27:40.556
Yeah, the first race.
00:27:40.556 --> 00:27:47.374
I can't even imagine a panic attack in the water and maybe not having the bike that you wanted.
00:27:47.374 --> 00:27:50.000
But yeah, you kept going, you kept pressing.
00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:58.425
And it's interesting too because it sounds like you had a career outside of athletics at that point.
00:27:58.425 --> 00:28:10.112
Was there a point where you were able to kind of flip that switch and be like I'm going to basically focus exclusively on my, my athlete career, or have you always had kind of a career outside of athletics?
00:28:17.460 --> 00:28:17.861
outside of athletics.
00:28:17.861 --> 00:28:22.430
Yeah, so, interestingly, I never, in some ways I never went all in on being a professional athlete, because I always worked.
00:28:22.430 --> 00:28:28.748
So I worked as a personal trainer, worked as a coach, pretty much my entire professional career.
00:28:28.748 --> 00:28:55.498
And so I, you know, it wasn't that I wasn't 100% dedicated to it, but I just with the responsibilities of being a parent, the, you know, the prize money was such and the sponsorship was such that at different times in my career they might have made up a bigger percentage, but to live in Vail, Colorado, to pay the mortgage I was going to have to hustle in other ways.
00:28:55.498 --> 00:29:01.653
And so I pretty much, you know, worked pretty close to full time my entire racing career.
00:29:02.500 --> 00:29:03.301
And that's incredible.
00:29:03.301 --> 00:29:06.431
I think that just makes it, I mean that much more impressive.
00:29:06.431 --> 00:29:20.810
So you're, you know you're a new dad, you're working and you're trying to pursue being a professional athlete I'm sure that there was like a lot of like, much like the athletic side, a lot of humbling experiences.
00:29:20.810 --> 00:29:29.041
Can you paint a picture for us around maybe even those early years of being a dad, like how did you balance it all?
00:29:29.041 --> 00:29:32.872
And like maybe what were some of the more tougher lessons that you learned along the way?
00:29:34.720 --> 00:29:56.299
Well, I did have to approach it a lot differently than a lot of my competition because I was at the time on the circuit, I was the only father on the circuit and I just didn't have the luxury and most of my competition at least on the world stage they were 100% professional athletes.
00:29:56.641 --> 00:30:02.048
They approached it very professionally, some even had some government funding.
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