143. Lauren Fleshman Interview! Best-Selling Author, Great Athlete/Coach, Best Human!

Welcome to some Work All Play podcast. We are so happy to do with you today. Happy Tuesday. It's Tuesday. And I'm feeling so ready to hustle on this Tuesday day because I just finished Lauren Fleischman's book, Good for Girl on the treadmill. And after finishing it, I was like, I wanna work. I wanna support female athletes. I'm so excited and I was like a warm hug at the same time. Yeah, I've had some great runs to this audio book, but like you, given your unique experiences you've had as you know, world class athlete, world class coach, world class researcher in this exact field, what is good for a girl Lauren Fleischman's book bring up for you? I think for me, it's both that warm hug that I was talking about, but also a sense of like, holy crap, the time is now to make a difference in this field and in this sport. And it's something that should have happened so many years ago, but that's not a reason that we shouldn't do this now. And I think it's almost like a balecry that these are important topics and women are important to fight for. Yeah, Lauren Fleischman is leading us into the fight. And thankfully, this book is in York Times Best Sellers. There are gonna be hundreds of thousands of people on this fight too, because I think the world is seeing just how important her message is, not just for young athletes and women, but for everyone who values their body and values their health. I told Lauren at the end of this interview, I said, Lauren, this book is going to transcend running. It's gonna be about sport, it's gonna be about life. And I've been recommending it to people outside of the running universe, because it's like, read this book, it's going to change life. You also told her that you've seen her dance on the table, which I thought was a good part of the interview. I really appreciated that. It was important, that was the first, actually was the only time I met Lauren Fleischman. And it was a very important narrative for me that this was when she was six months postpartum. You can be a mom and you can dance on tables. I like it. You've experienced her dancing on the table literally. And now through the book, you're experiencing dancing on the table intellectually, which is perfect. So a little primer on Lauren, she's a 15 time All-American when she was at Stanford, a five time NCAA national champion. And she had three consecutive NCAA 5K titles. That is wild. And it was just the start of her accomplishments. So that was collegately. And then after college, she went on, she ran for Nike. She went to the World Championships and she had an amazing career. And she was really honest about some of the struggles in trials that she had in her career. While she was doing that, so she found a lot of solace in building this life outside of the track. And I think she had this great example of the fact that when she felt most fulfilled in her life, she was running her best. And so in this process of being a runner, she started a blog, Asla and Fleishman. She started working with Wassell, a company surrounding female empowerment feminism. And then she also launched Picky Bars and she wasn't busy enough, a company that we didn't even get into this on the podcast. But it's a company that makes nutrition, energy bars and they're delicious. And I think it sold for eight figures at some point in the long this journey to Laird Superfoods. And we are a business obsessed. And somehow we didn't get into that. Just shows how much we wanted to delve into the nooks and crannies of her life with her. So the conversation itself focuses mostly on the book process and having a bestseller, her experience as a youth runner and her recommendations for coaches and the collegiate system, primarily to get away from results and focus on the process and some mechanics of how we do that. And then we talk about personal identity and exploration of gender and sexuality and topics like that that aren't often talked about. And she has lived publicly in a way that lifts up so many people. I tell David after we recorded that podcast that I just wanted to ask her, like I could ask her questions for eight hours. She was captivating and she was honest and real and funny. And I just wanted to go back and forth with her forever. Yeah, she named her website the right thing when she said, ask Lauren Fleischman because we're like, we have a thousand more questions we want to ask you, but we're gonna have to leave it here. And I did waste a lot of time telling her just how much I appreciate her validation of baby Leo, our kid in my dream that I had last night. So perhaps that was a little bit of wasted time. But otherwise I think we asked some good questions. You know, she's done a lot of podcasts. And I'm sure this was the first time she's talked about someone's dreams in her podcast. So we had to spice it up for her. We also spice it up because David, you carefully constructed a fort, a sound fort. So we have been on a mission to improve our sound and this podcast, I hope you enjoy it. But in this process, David, it looks like we're on like the discovery channel doing a survivalist take. You have constructed, you have, what are these? These are coat racks from Amazon that I spent $15 a piece on. So there's four coat racks that are holding up a sheet. And the sheet is tied to the coat racks with KT tape. Which is a fantastic advertisement for KT tape. Yeah. If it can hold together coat racks, it can certainly hold together tendons, right? Yeah. Most definitely. So we're currently sitting with the sheet draped over top of our heads, very, very close to each other. Like three inches apart. It is incredibly intimate. You might be able to sense that in how we talked on this podcast. But I think the sound's gonna be better. I think we might be bringing the NPR quality sound on this podcast. I love how you jumped to intimate. And when Lauren signed on, so we could see Lauren on video. And I'm sure when she looked at it as first, she was like, this is creepy. We have this sheet hanging down back beneath us. And because of that, you can kind of see the bags underneath our eyes because of the way the lighting is. So yeah, we looked real creepy when we came on screen. Yeah. We only do audio recordings, but we can see video with the guests. And the whole time, I'm like, Lauren's gonna tell me I need more iron because I look very iron deficient right now. I look like a raccoon that hasn't had its pills. It was pretty bad. Gosh, we don't do video recording. It's really nice just to be able to look in whatever direction you want to make weird faces. And yeah, to have bags under your eyes too. Yeah. And it was just so fun to get to reflect with Lauren on this whole journey and honestly getting to see her face after she's been through so much that she described so courageously in the book. And then also is described on social media. It has given us courage. Their podcast was a huge inspiration to us starting our podcast. And we got to reflect on all of that. It was just a joyous time and we can't wait for you to hear it. We were so excited. I barely slept last night. Oh, this is gonna be so great. So that's why I didn't have dreams. That's why you had the dreams. Well, yeah, right after this podcast, I'm gonna need to get myself athletic greens because I'm a little bit high strung right now. I feel some stress going and that's gonna bring me down and make me feel great. I'm so excited. Well, we should really bring athletic greens into the fort. I think that would enhance the magical properties of athletic greens. We got to eat it inside here. I feel like it'd be a little too aromatic without the drafty that we usually have. Like we usually have a big ceiling over us that gets the smells down, which I think would help. Maybe that's what we need though, is it would suit the bags under our eyes. Perhaps, yeah. But so many people write us and say that when they take athletic greens, they feel better. We're fans of it because of its multivitamin properties, some of the adaptogens. But you should try it if you just wanna feel a little better. And where you do that is athletic greens.com slash swap SWAP. S-W-A-P. Get it there, you also get vitamin D. As we talked about last week, my blood work looks outstanding in the things that athletic greens gives me and less good in the things it doesn't, which is iron and vitamin D. So it shows just how much it works, solierly. Do you think Lauren takes athletic greens? You look like Splendid. You look vibrant. I feel like she does. We're gonna take credit for it. We're gonna say she uses our code just to get a few more people to support the podcast. Also, Patreon is where we do so much fun with our listeners. We got a lot of questions you heard today, and including the ones that you'll hear at the end that are a little bit more, you know, types of things people don't always talk about publicly. Those came from Patreon listeners who gave us the courage to talk about this, which is so on Patreon, we do a bonus podcast every week. We do a science corner post, and you can find that at patreon.com slash swap SWAP SWAP. When we opened up the questions for this podcast on Patreon, it was clear that Lauren has touched so many different people in terms of her wisdom, her advice, the love that she gives out into the world, and it was fun to see that reflected on Patreon. So we got to be a part of that today, David, and it was great. It was so good. And finally, just like and subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen, it means the world to us. And without further ado, this is one of our favorite people in the world who's written one of the best books ever. Lauren freaking Fleishman. Lauren Fleishman, it's so good to have you on the Some Work All Play podcast. This is so amazing. We've conducted a sound fort in our bedroom interview, and it's kind of fitting because there's no one I'd rather be in a fort with, but Lauren Fleishman. I feel like Lauren would be like a fort extraordinaire, and I'm just so excited to talk with you today. I do like forks, actually. So, you know, your intuition is correct. Well, maybe we can decorate this fort with whatever you get for being a New York Times bestseller. And so your book Good for a Girl for the listeners that don't know is taking the world by storm, not just the running world. How does it feel? Is this anything you ever let yourself anticipate when you were writing the book when it was coming out? It feels very good to use very, like I'm a writer. I use good words. Yeah, so good. Yeah, I think that when I was first starting the process of writing the book, I had this vision of something like this happening that I would be able to somehow get the thoughts down in a way that I hoped I could or that could relate to the people I wanted it to relate to. But then there was like a good three-year pause between when I first felt that way, and when the book came out and the messy, long middle was full of so many more negative feelings than that. So it feels so nice that I'd be like, oh, good. It happened. It's happening. People are reading it, and it's touching people, and it's changing people's minds about things and about themselves. So this feels really rewarding. Well, I knew it was a great book because I was out running. Megan's like, David, you have to do this. It was my first ever audio book. Hearing you read it, Simon's going to say it. Chills, I was crying. And it was as much about the writing quality as the story. I've never been exposed to quite a writer like you. It's amazing. I've been listening to it on 1.2 speed, which I listen to all my audio books on 1.8 speed. And I'm like, I must marinate in life. She's got the furthest words. And today on the treadmill, I finished it. I've been saving it very carefully for specific workout sessions. And even I listened to the acknowledgments. I was just so there for it. And it's been really fun. You described the acknowledgments that the book kicked your ass. How are you feeling? Are you decompressing from the ass kicking of writing? I'm still recovering from it, honestly. I feel like the combination of the book, depression, pandemic, pandemic with kids, the sensitivity that I have to just all the things in the world. And then all the anxiety about what would happen once the book came out. Would I be misinterpreted? Will I be called a fraud for daring to talk about science as a woman that's not an official scientist? Will I hurt the trans community? Will there be just all these fears? Did I imagine at all? Am I actually completely nuts? And so now that the longer time goes by, the more I can slowly decompress from carrying all of that for so long? Yeah, so when you were deciding to do this book, and then you're in the middle of it, what does that feel like when you are going through the shit? Is that walls are closing in on you? I don't want to do this book anymore. Did that part of it waiver? Or is this, I'm going to do this no matter what. How does that unfold from idea, book deal? Yeah. Actually getting this out into the world. Well, I've never done an ultramarathon, but I feel like when you were just saying those sentences, it sounds like what I've heard people who have done them or when I've crude for people the way they talk about it. I've got going to the dark place about really needing to mine your soul for why you were there in the first place and how it gets a lot harder and harder to find your why when fatigue and the pain, it's like very much the way people have described that to me. And I know a marathon doesn't actually compare it to the experience of writing this book. But it's probably the closest thing is being in the hurt cave and like, yeah, it's very uncomfortable. I'm not in a hurry to do it again. Is it uncomfortable now or has this reception at least given you some release and catharsis in that process? Yeah, I think the biggest release initially came from once there were no edits allowed anymore. I think that a lot of the anxiety just kept pointing it toward perfectionism. Like, well, maybe there's like one sentence I can fix that will make this anxiety go away. There must be some typo still hiding in the book. And then there probably is. But like I just said, at some point, they're just like, no, no more changes. It's gone now. Like it's in the world. And then I was like, OK, now I have to spend my energy preparing for just like the things I can't control anymore. And it was very fun. Yeah. Was there a particular part of the book? So you wove together research and memoir so beautifully. You're going back and forth from high level research and the female athletes face to your memoir. Was that challenging to weave that together in the context of telling a story? And I was really impressed with how you did that. Yeah, I needed help with that, honestly. Like Dr. Sarah Lesko was a huge help for me. And she's a family practice doctor background and just like so smart and so into the science. And we've nerded out on those things together. But for sure, she has more access to online publications than me. And so she came down for a few days. And we spent like two or three days straight going through my first draft, going through my editor's notes and finding out better ways to integrate the research with the story. And those three days then set me up for my revisions. And if we hadn't had that time, it wouldn't have become the book that it became. Yeah, so the only reason that I suggest like being with someone with a dot Stanford dot EDU right now. Is he only? Excuse me? The only. No, everything else is unique to Megan. OK, I see. Exactly. Yeah, we'll need to edit that much like you had to edit the book to make sure that it's clear. It's clear. It's a good job. It's my main reason to stay in academia long term is to pull manuscript articles for us and get the full journal article. I was actually wondering about that. I was like, Lauren, if you ever need someone to pull journal articles for you in the future on paper. We could do that. Yeah. Yeah. I did hire two research assistants early in the process who were grad students that helped pull together things. Like the history of Title IX and the liberal feminist movement and how those two worlds were interacting. So I got a lot of stuff from that pulled together by a researcher. And then similarly for body image and the aesthetics of women in sports media, I have another kind of lit review that I hired somebody to make for me. It was really helpful. So zooming back to when you were in the thick of the book writing and edits and it just feels insurmountable. I think a lot of listeners can identify with that because whenever you undertake a big thing, sometimes you hit those big nasty walls. Are there any tips you have of working through that shit? Because it seems like when you're in it, it's so dark and so deep. Yeah. How did you work through it? Well, you just reminded me of something Devin Yanko told me when she was doing Western States. When I crude for her and she was talking, that's when I learned her slogan that she uses a lot, which is just like have a day. Where she just really cuts a lot of the other crap out and just focuses on what's going to happen on that day. Like it's your adventure. And it's really just yours. And sure, you want to place a certain way. You were hoping it goes a certain way. But in the end, you're just having the day. And so go have it. And that's a way to stay present. And I think that that was something that I kind of adopted a similar mindset in the muck of like, this is something like really like only I can do this particular way. And I can't control how it'll turn out. But if I just narrowed it to that, then it felt very controllable and like unattached to result. And very process oriented. And that helped me just keep take a few more steps. Like just a little bit more on this, definitely just. And I had faith because I had writer friends that were like, hey, this is normal. You know, you're not doing anything wrong. I promise there will be a better stage of this process down the road. So you just need to like, whatever you do, just try to keep taking steps forward. But it's very unmotivating to keep taking steps forward when it's just absolute shit. Like you just feel like nothing you're doing sounds good. You can't pin down the idea. And you're just coming face to face with the inner critic for such long periods of time. It almost feels like abusive. Like it's like, I can't believe I'm sitting down and subjecting myself to this over and over and over again. It takes a few seconds. And then you do. It takes so much courage. One thing that I thought about too is that as you're writing your memoir, you're telling your story, but you're also telling stories of other people that have been there along with you. And I would really, I think I would really struggle with that because you have to paint picture, paint people in an honest light. And at times, you know, perhaps that doesn't look good for someone, but it's authentic to your journey. It's authentic to like bettering sport for girls and women. How is that processing? I mean, that takes a fuck ton of courage. How was that for you? Were that process of telling other people's stories? That was a huge part of the weight of it all. And like I've read enough memoir and I've read enough writing about good memoir. Like Mary Carr has a book, The Art of Memoir, where she talks a lot about this. And like how difficult it is to write honestly about the people in your life that impacted your life. Like you're not doing it to just be gratuitous or, you know, get a laugh out of the audience at someone's expense or a cringe out of someone's expense. Like there needs to be a real reason why the story has to be in there. If it's not your story or if it is tangentially your story. But yeah, people lose friends. Like you lose relationships when you write honest memoir. And so you have to kind of like, you have to weigh those costs and you have to make sure that the stories are worth it. And you have to prepare yourself for that, I guess. Like I've had a friend tell me that she lost job opportunity because of her telling a certain thing in your story. And it's, you can't guarantee your books even in that like be read by people. Yeah. So it's like, it is a very, it's, it is courageous work for anyone, I think writing memoir honestly. But a reader can tell if you're not being honest and you lose the reader. And so if you like for me with this book, like it had a point, a purpose that was so important to me that the risk of losing the reader because I was gonna be like overly soft on certain stories or too afraid to tell the truth. Like it just like the thought of that was worse than the fear of upsetting somebody. Yeah. Yeah, the book is fearless. And like for our listeners, I often envisioned reading, hearing you read the story, you also kicking down the back stretch with 600 meters to go. It felt very similar to me. And maybe that's what sets it apart. And like the experiences I've had reading books in the past much like this. It's that I just like, damn, that is kicking early. You get it. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, hell yeah. It's so important. And I think that that gets back to, we're gonna weave in I think a little bit about book writing and your future dreams and stuff throughout. But I think it's back to the importance of the subject matter too. So a lot of what you touch on is really the running that has broader principles. And I mean, the first question that we talk about now that we have our own little kid is, is youth running like middle school, high school, is the way it's structured in the United States that healthy? If an endpoint is a college scholarship that incentivizes training approaches, not even to mention body approaches that might be so short term? Yeah, I think that's got a lot of landmines, absolutely. But I think that I'm reading Take Back the Game by Linda Flanagan. And it's really about youth sports as a whole. And reading that, I'm like, wow, running has it so much better than a lot of these other sports because of the whole like not having cuts thing. And the size of your team can be enormous. And what that does is it eliminates a lot of the pressures that other sports face of like professionalizing and specialized them very young. Because if you, like right now I have a nine year old in soccer and I am facing this stress of like, my kid loves soccer, but he doesn't exactly want to practice that hard. Like he doesn't want to practice in his off season by himself. And I'm not going to, like what other parents do because they have legitimate worries that at certain point it's being professionalized so young that if your kid isn't on the travel team and they're not doing this, then they're probably not going to have any chance of making their high school team. And so you're like, well, shoot, should I be hiring a private coach? Like these are what parents are thinking. Like they're making all these decisions to make sure their kid has even just a chance to play high school sports at all. And I'm like, we don't have to worry about that with running. So we do have these pressures for the elite side. And we have to be really aware of them as parents. But there definitely are things that we can do as parents that help provide that buffer of protection. And at least they'll get to play. And do you think there's a better way for colleges to think about changing this paradigm or changing this process? Like for me, I was recruited as a sophomore for Field Hockey, which is so young and it's well- Wow. The fact that I was deciding about college and my future at that age when I was still developing. And I think it's even scarier in track when runners' bodies are going through puberty and the adolescent development. But is there a way that you think college programs can kind of incentivize healthier change for new sports with scholarships on the line? Yeah, I think that we have to reevaluate the way we reward coaches. Like our incentives for coaches are based on winning and rankings and stuff like that. And they don't have to be. Like they aren't technically professional leagues. Like this is supposed to be student athletes, right? And so we could be rewarding coaches based on retention, health, mental health, like whatever, self-reported enjoyment, exit interviews of athletes of like, how much do you still love the sport versus how much you love the sport when you came in? Things like that. We could rank colleges based on that. And that would create enormous pressure for colleges to rise to those occasions. And then we could put pressure on administrations to provide financial rewards. Like imagine if you got no reward, no bonus for your team winning conference. But you got a bonus for having your injury rates below 10% or like for menstrual function to be like at some percent rate or like mental health rates, you know? Or like speed at which you intervened with a mental health problem. So you can't control whether all the athletes are gonna have a mental health problem. But you can control how quickly you intervene and provide resources. And so like there's just different things we could do, I think we just have to be more creative. Yeah, I mean it's just so hard to escape. He's like, we coach adults and you. Also thank gosh, we coach adults. It's so hard, right? It's really hard to coach kids. Even coaching adults as you saw coaching professionals too, if you're thinking six months down the line or even three years down the line, you're incentivized to make decisions that are going to like totally accelerate that athletes burn out in the sport of running in particular. And I don't know, it's just such a mind fuck to think about how we can change that in a way that is just counterintuitive to like how sports are viewed in the United States so often. Especially the college level. Yeah, just like how much we are obsessed with winning and like what we choose to celebrate. Like even like I think about this with the Olympics, we start at the top, right? The Olympic creed is not about winning. Like if you read the Olympic creed, it's not about that. It's not about medals and world records. But it's because of the way we have produced sport for a television audience, that now that is what the Olympics means to people, is medals and medal counts and records. But it's like we've made a choice to package and produce something a certain way. And the fact that we're doing that in a professional way for 18 to 22 year old people who are like in school, like they are in a university. It's like we forget this, but they are or they're in a high school. Like we just like we should be, I think shaming people honestly. I'm not like big fan of shaming so I'm kind of hyperbole here. But for taking it too seriously, like just chill out. Like there is like something to be said about social pressure of like, hey, you need to, that coach needs to calm the F down. And there's still gonna be people who are gonna wanna go to that program because they're also wired similarly and that's fine. But we'll reduce the number of programs that are that intense about it. And like the idea of like winning at any cost should just be unacceptable. The idea of like body fat testing and caliper pinching developing female body should be just like unacceptable. It's like amazing to me that it's even allowed anywhere. Yeah. Reading your book was like a warm hug from a body image standpoint. It's, I mean, I think I'm giving it as recommended reading to all the athletes. Actually required reading to all my athletes. That's so important from the body image front. One thing that I think David and I struggle with as coaches is we are, we come at the idea like food is fun, food is fuel, very accepting of all body types. But occasionally we get asked questions about weight as coaches and our honest, our often answer is, C&R, D work with a specialist, but people can't always access RDs and specialists. It's sometimes hard to get in. It's kind of how do you, how as a coach have you talked to athletes about body weight openly or have you? And particularly professional athletes like that you were a athlete in the country and like it's such a tough area, I think. Well, I'd like to focus on the idea of like your body's inner wisdom and kind of all things. Like the more external crap you can remove from yourself of like what someone else thinks successes, what someone else thinks the best strategy is. If you can remove a lot of that stuff and get back in touch with what your body already knows, like you're the expert on you, then you're gonna do your best. Like you're gonna get your best results. And you take advice from people, but you don't like make it yours, if that makes sense. Otherwise you're outsourcing too much of your power. And so with food is another example that I don't think a lot of people actually know that their body is brilliantly intuitive and is designed over millions of years to have systems of being hungry, being full, even like craving lots of carbs and sugar. Like if you just can kind of understand the evolutionary biology of that, then it's not a matter of like shaming those foods and cutting them out. It's just like, hey, yeah, that's gonna taste like really, really good and let me tell you why, because when there's a famine, this is what the body wants to do. Like, and so it's like, or, and so I talk a lot about just getting people to understand how to tap back into the wisdom of their body and that if they learn some basics about sports nutrition, so I like, I just use the old standard Nancy Clark Sports Nutrition guidebook. There's no perfect resource out there. That plus research on intuitive eating. So read something about intuitive eating. Combine those two, and that's at least a good starting point for understanding that, yeah, there are some specific needs for sports and the way you move your body, and there's things to learn about nutrition in a world where like, you have a bazillion choices and it's easy to overdo stuff, and we have cultural norms around like, binging in certain environments. Like we have a lot of unhealthy stuff around food and culture that takes us away from our body. So there's like a mixture of those things and getting people to truly believe and trust that they can find a homeostasis for themselves, where they're not needing to think about it all the time. And that's the motivation for getting there because it can take work to get there to unlearn things that have taken you away from that, is that you will be more confident, more powerful and more free in your racing by doing that work. That's so cool. I mean, one of the things that came to mind when I was reading the book, it's like a subversive cultural manifesto. Like you just talked about culture and food, but I think culture comes in in so many different parts here and how we internalize that without necessarily realizing it. So you never hit the reader over the head with that idea, but it's always something that's there and felt. And for me, one of the most powerful scenes in the book was relatively early when you're at Full Ocker Nationals and you're describing the buffet they had there and how different people approached it differently. And in particular, some athletes, it was almost like you could feel their shame and the way they approached it and the competitiveness almost at that place. And meanwhile, you had this approach back when you were in high school of, okay, I'm gonna show them that you can eat this and perform at the top level. What gave you that when you were in high school? Since the culture was clearly pushing at least some people in another direction, how did you have that perspective when you were so young? Well, Full Ocker, in the year that you're mentioning happened after I'd read about Kim Mortensen and what had happened to her in college, at least as it was reported in the LA Times. And that really shook me that the person that I shared a track with who broke this national record that had stood for almost two decades or whatever and then lasted for almost two decades. Like that that person then had, underneath the skin, had this whole other thing going on that nobody could see and that the consequences of that for her and not just for her, her teammates, like everybody lost out when Kim was no longer able to do the things she loved at the level she wanted to. And so then it felt like I was suddenly transported back, I'm at the buffet table and I'm looking and I'm seeing, there's a lot of people here making similar quote decisions, whether their decisions or not is up for debate, but like they are having behaviors that could lead them to the same place as Kim and I didn't want that. And so I guess maybe the thing that is unusual, because a lot of people bring this scene up, it's interesting because I can't imagine being any other way, like once I know that that thing can harm a person and I'm seeing all these people like potentially harming themselves, it's hard for me not to intervene. Like I like, it makes me deeply uncomfortable to just be a bystander in it. And so the only tool I had at the time was like, well, I can show that I can do it differently because I was 17 or whatever. But as you get older, you learn you have more tools, like writing a book about it. Like coaching people, like whatever it is. So versus cultural manifestos. Yes, so versus, yeah, exactly, that one. Did you ever feel like an outsider in that process? Because, I mean, I know for me, so I play field hockey in college and then I took a fifth year to run track. And it was like going from two totally different cultures within the span of two weeks. And honestly, I felt like an outsider in both places. I felt like I was kind of straddling this like subliminal space where I was just this weird person in both teams. And did that feeling, I think sometimes when you throw a bunch of young athletes onto a team and you have this really evolved perspective on nutrition, it's easy to feel like an outsider. How is that? Did you ever encounter that in your process? Yeah, I doubt it would make me doubt myself. You're like, okay, well, this feels like the healthy way to do it. And I've been told by people, this is a healthy way to do it. But it doesn't seem like many other people are doing it. So is there a different correct answer in the elite world? And I'm actually the one adopting this like every man idea that is, it doesn't really apply to greatness. And is that going to end up holding me back in the end? Or is holding onto this idea actually the evergreen truth and it's going to be help me win at that next level where a lot of people are taking this divergent path that's going to hurt them. It's just like hard to know. It was really hard to know. And that was a big motivator for writing the book because I think when you are able, when you have a gift of time and you can see what plays out over a few decades, it becomes very clear what the right choice is. But there's no athlete that in the moment can ever really know on their own. Yeah, I mean, one of the things that I sometimes sense from athletes is they're like, okay, yeah, I get that that's what you guys talk about. But what's the real answer? Yes, yes, yes. And what do you tell the really fast people? Exactly, yeah, exactly. And I think one of the things that really, I love that you started the book talking about coaching your own professional team because it gave this wonderful context. Like what did you say to those athletes as they're navigating this on the track? And they're probably asking you too, it's like, hang on, like seriously, but how did you become one of the very best in the world in the US history? It's like, are you sure that that narrative's right? Like what did you, how did you approach that with them? I mean, I just would tell them, like I mostly focused on them. Like very, to be honest, very few of them really asked me about how I did it. Maybe I was just always talking about how I did it. I was like, I don't actually know. I should ask one of them why they didn't ask me very much. But I think, like I really treated them like they were case study of one. And that the most important thing was, was unlearning all the things that were keeping them away from that inner powerful person. Like that was a lot of my job. I was like, all right, how have you been misled? Okay, let's like, remove that, let's remove that, let's remove that, let's remove that. And then I think that that was like, probably didn't leave much room for them to ask me. Yeah. No, it's incredible. I, so let's say there's someone listening right now who's, and I mean, there's a ton of early 20s runners that wanna be the best they could be. If you could kind of button up your advice to them in just one little snippet, what would you say to that athlete that wants to be the best they can be? They have a fire burning within them much like you did. And that is like, I want to be the greatest that I can be. What do you say to them? I mean, the less time they could spend looking at what other people are doing, the better. But that's really what it, like, if you're mimicking somebody else, you're not gonna be the best you can be. You're trying to be the best they can be. And that you're really like, that's not how excellence works. And if you look at the best in the world at things, they tend to be like very much expressive of themselves. Like LeBron James is LeBron James. Usain Bolt was Usain Bolt. Allison Felix was very much Allison Felix. And Alicia Montano was very much, like they got there because they leaned more into who they are. And like Alicia Montano leading the women's 800 from the gun. Like over and over again. No matter how many people told her that maybe isn't the smartest way to do it or maybe you could actually break the American record. If you like held back the first lap, she was just like, no, this is how my body wants to do it. This is how I'm gonna do it. And I'm gonna do it this way. And that was her truth, right? And she like, did she lose some? Sure, but she won a lot of things. Mechanically, how do you go about doing this? So this conversation reminds me in the book you talked about having jealousy towards Cara Goucher when she got that Olympic 5K birth. And I think that's something that we see, you know, David and I, we coach a number of high level athletes. And sometimes there's even jealousy amongst athletes on our team and it's like, it's kind of inherent in the sport is running as can be 10 towards a comparison game. So how do you, how do you logistically avoid like that jealousy or work through this jealousy emotions towards competitors? And focus on the process when the results are so staring you in the face. And there's a million social media accounts that are ready to jump down your throat as soon as you have a bad day. And I mean, just everything that goes into being an athlete nowadays. Oh yeah, well again, it's like, it's that idea of staying with yourself. So the other thing when it relating these two questions was like, how are you spending your, the high of your like emotional bandwidth? Like how much time are you spending thinking about what you should eat or shouldn't eat? Right? So like you should have, I think to be your best, you should have a pretty free pie. Like you should have a huge slice that's like flex space. And then there's like maybe some slices of things you think about regularly, like getting my workout schedule organized, like arranging my life and work so that I can do the training that I need to do. And childcare and like shopping for food, food prep. But like calorie counting, what does my, what do my abs look like? What does my inner thighs look like? What does she look like? What does he look like? What does he run? Like those kinds of things should be taking up. There's very, very little space. It's normal to think about them. But if you catch yourself thinking about it, it's better to kind of like go, oh, this is not a helpful thought moving on, like redirect, to learn some redirecting tools. Back to jealousy. I think that jealousy, I used to not understand jealousy at all and it took me, I don't know, until probably like five years ago to fully understand jealousy after doing a fair bit of reading about it. But the thing that I learned about it was that jealousy is just telling you what you want for yourself. But because it's usually triggered by something that another person is doing, it's, you get the tendency is to direct the discomfort of the feeling of jealousy towards the person. But the person has nothing to do with it. The person is the vehicle that showed you what you want. The feeling to let go of is that the person, let the person go and take with you the information, which is like, oh, I'm having this crazy feeling, that's super uncomfortable because I just learned that there's something that I want. Someone else has it, now I can tell that I really want that too. Now what do I need to do in my life to give myself the best chance of having that thing, that I now know I really want? But I didn't do that for a long time. Like with Tera Gautier and the Olympic birth, like it was like, I had, instead I focused on the person for a really long time. How the person wronged me in my imagination at that time, which was incorrect. But like, that's how I viewed it or, you know, what, what I wish she would have done, what I would have done. Like I just got stuck in this whole swirl that I, instead I should have just gone, damn, Cara is killing it. She just made the Olympics in two events in one weekend. Like, I wanna be that consistent. I'm feeling this way because I wish I wasn't so injury prone. I wanna be healthy like that. I wanna be able to come back and be strong and like, also confidently just say what I'm gonna do and not worry about what somebody else wants and like own my decisions. And, and that, and then if I would have just done that, I wouldn't have wasted so much energy worrying about Cara Gautier. It would have been more possible to be friends sooner, like genuine friends sooner. And yeah, I just saved a lot of mental anguish, honestly. Yeah. We interviewed Cara the other week and I would like nothing more but a pizza party with Lauren and Cara. It would be so fun. I feel like talking, yeah. I also asked them how to raise a kid. Yeah, yeah. Actually has parenthood impacted any of this. So Lauren, you and I actually met, you probably don't remember this. This was in 2013. I was being coached by Dina Evans at the time. So I'm an incredible coach. It was fun to read about her and your memoir, but we came to bend for the cross country championships and you had just raced postpartum. I think you were like six months postpartum. We went to this after party in Bend at a bar and you were there with Jude, who I think is like six months at that time. And you were dancing on a table. And I was like, Lauren, this is like the coolest embodiment of parenthood and but it's like to be rocking it in the process. And every time I like, I think about that a lot actually. It's like, you know, Megan, you can still be a mom but it's also okay to dance on tables at the same time. So thank you for that. Yeah. Yeah. Has parenthood impacted any of these thoughts. I mean, I think for me, it's like, it gives, it provides a little bit of perspective. And how is that shaped kind of your thoughts on this whole process? Well, I think like kids, to me, really demonstrate our unsocialized lizard brain that we're all like built. We build this beautiful sculpture around in our adult human bodies and we think we should be above these base level things. Like jealousy and fear and all of these, all these things. But like, you raise a kid and you're like, I know this is hardwired into us. Like really deeply and for good reason. And then we have to do the hard work of learning how to tone certain reactions down and like redirect unhelpful thoughts. And all of that, or we'd be in kind of like a cave person chaotic situation with a life expectancy of 32 and we're not. So I think it just gave me more compassion for the parts of me that I didn't like that showed up. Like the jealousies and the insecurities and like just that hunger to be loved, to feel like you're important. Like those things are human. And I can have softness for my kids when they're doing that because my expectations of them is that they have these things. And so that, but then I need to also have the expectation that I still have those things and my partner still has those things and my friends still have those things and make space for them and like, yeah, that's it really. How has it been? So I think I actually did a deep dive on your podcast. It was really fun. I went back through many, many episodes. But one thing I love about you is that I think sometimes in parenting conversations, there's these really polarized directions of how we talk about parenting. There's like on one side, it's like, your life is gonna suck forever. You're never gonna sleep the rest of your life. And then another side is, oh, it's all rainbows and butterflies. And I think you take this helpful middle ground on parenting about, you know, it's hard. You embrace it, you love it for different reasons. What do you wish we had in terms of like, open, honest parenting advice to new parents out there in the world? I don't know if you've discovered Emily Oster yet. Oh, she's amazing. Yeah, beautiful. I wish I had discovered Emily earlier because that would have been super helpful. But I think having people like Emily who just like, her goal and all of it is to reduce parent anxiety and help direct, like you're gonna be anxious no matter what. So what should you be, what's worth your energy and what's not? And what can you just let go of and let nature take care of? Or just like, I found that she's very helpful. And then just, I've had friends that maybe they were influenced by Emily Oster because now that I look back, I'm like, these are the friends I went back to over and over again which are like, hey, just relax. Like it doesn't matter if your kid can read and can occur and really, truly, it really doesn't matter. And I would like believe them, but like I wouldn't believe it from a Google article. But I believe the person who's telling me this. And then I think that also just like, I think unwinding perfectionism, if you're a person that tends to be an achiever with the idea that there's a right answer, I think unwinding that in yourself is really important. And then the other resource that's super good that I like is Dr. Becky who wrote Good Inside and she's on Instagram. I think she's just Dr. Becky, that's what I call her, but gosh, she's incredible for the, she's a psychologist and she's a parent and she's in the weeds right now with young kids. So I feel like she's never gonna be as powerful as she is right now. I mean, maybe she will be, but like when you're in it, you can provide so much true, lived, grounded experience in these things that are really hard. And then once it's in the rear view, it's like everything I found from parenting in my experience is once it's in the rear view and you're onto the next problem, it actually becomes kind of hard to go back to that place and remember what was truly helpful or not because you're in the new thing. But her stage of life that she, or a parenting that she focuses on, it was the hardest stage for me. And I'm now like emerging from that with a five year old and a nine year old, I'm like, oh, okay. Very manageable. Like I can do this, like I understand how these brains work now. And then there's one other book I really like called The Whole Brain Child. It's another one that I recommend for people for parents. Okay, we're gonna order these because we reached a point when Leo, Leo, our kid was about to come out. We're just like, you know what, no more reading. No, we're not doing it anymore. Yeah, take your time. You guys time. Really, it's once they start acting like real A-holes, that's the time to buy the books again. Like when you feel like you're frazzled, like fatigue is one thing in, you know, like feeling C as a parent, like those are very legit. But I think I found that at least once the kids start acting like irrational little monsters. And they can run, like they can like actually damage things in themselves. It's like that was like, okay, time for some books. I could use some guidance. Well, especially your kids, they have those running genetics. They're like, so frazzed. I know, David, I'm realizing our lives are about to change. We can do horizontal parenting at this point really well where we just like hang out on the ground post long run while Leo wiggles about, but it's gonna change when he looks. Yeah. If you play your cards right, Jesse still is a master at horizontal parenting. Is he, he had to like, he was so tired from iron man training for so many years. Like he has developed these like laying on the couch, wrestling with the kids stuff where he never has to leave the couch or get off his back. Like he just created all entire games. Yeah. Yeah. I've gotten so much stronger since he's just because I never lifted anything before. And now this 12 pound kettlebell is just, it's giving me everything I need. So basically what I'm saying, anyone considering having a kid, it's good for strength work. That's basically all you need to know. Well David, I love how you've worked in coaching into it too. So you'll, in the morning, David will sit there and you'll be coaching your athletes, but you'll just be telling Leo stories about your athletes. I feel like carving some of this mindset into him and a young age. Well, hopefully confidentiality applies to a normal format. But you know, on a serious note with pregnancy, like I think, and we've talked a lot about the narrative around pregnancy and athletics can sometimes be a little bit unhelpful in the sense that it's, I think the brainbows and unicorns part of it is often the part that's told. Like, you know, the moms can do anything and not the real physical changes that can happen that vary a lot by the person. What did you learn going through that process as one of the best athletes in the world? And like, what surprised you? Oh gosh, I think I was, I don't think I would have done the whole have a kid thing as a professional athlete if I hadn't signed with Wadzall. I mean, now a lot of companies have pregnancy protection clauses, which is great, but back then it just was like, and like I didn't wanna be rushed into coming back. I didn't wanna have the only reason it was okay for me to have a kid is because I was able to run at my pre-pregnancy speed six months later. Otherwise, if I wasn't able to do it within six months, it was a huge career mistake. I mean, that's like, that's still kind of how pregnancy is viewed in and out of sports. It's like this, in the book I call it like, no trace pregnancy, I think somewhere. Like that's the expectation. It's like it's fine treating a kid, but like it should leave no trace. Right? Right? Very, very little, like it barely happened. It was a little blip, it happened now. Back to our regularly scheduled programming. And that's just not the reality. I remember feeling this pressure like, my first pregnancy was relatively easy. My second one, I had the most intense brain fog. I was like grumpy all the time, very blue. My heart rate would be 140, just standing in the kitchen. Like it was like, and that's a very uncomfortable default state to be in day after day after day after day. You're just tired if your heart is working that hard just to live. And if I had had an office job, I would have been fired. Like 100%. I like, or I would have quit. Like I could not have done my job, but it didn't feel like it was culturally acceptable to say that because that's the reason pregnant women are discriminated against. That's why an employer, why women feel they have to hide their early pregnancies if they're interviewing for a job because an employer will look at them if they know they're pregnant and be like, this person's gonna miss some work and then they probably will wanna extend it. And then they'll probably, you know, and then, and so if I give voice to my real lived experience, I'm giving potential fuel to those people who want to further discriminate against pregnant people. So that's, I think that there's just like very real reasons why it's hard to talk about the truth as women in a lot of our experiences. Do you think it impacted your identity at all? I feel like oftentimes in Six-Sidy, there's these like gender expectations that as soon as you become a parent, it's like this core part of your identity. And I think that can, it can, whether it like takes over or rocks, other parts of your identity can be really challenging. Did you have any sort of identity shake or crisis in that process? I felt like a lot of it, I was very resentful of how much was coming from the outside world. Like, the only thing people would ask me about was my baby, the only, like, it just became this focal point of my entire identity for others, but it didn't for me. And at first what that made me do is resist any of the identity of for my own self. Like it took me a while to kind of go, oh, I actually am a mom and kind of like am okay with that being part of my own identity, but I wanted to feel you as my choice and at a level that I felt comfortable with, I felt like it would swallow me up if I wasn't careful. Do you have you experienced that at all? A little bit, I mean, I think I kind of pushed back against it because that's my like rebellious, individualistic nature, but there's also parts of me that wanna embrace it too. So it's almost this weird, like, I would call it like a mind fuck of existence where it's like I wanna hold on to that identity, but I also wanna push back against like the gender stereotypes associated with it. One thing in the book that really resonated with you was the body duality discussion. Yeah, you know, I think pregnancy is a fascinating time because like it was the first time in my life that I felt like I had like a truly like, what would be considered a quote unquote, like feminine, feminine looking body. It's like I had an accident and a bump and I would look at myself in the shower and see this like, shadow and I was like, what is going on? That's so good. But it's like within the span of a year, you go from that like, or at least this has been my experience as you go from that like feminine body type back to like your regular existence for me as an athlete. And it was very strange and walking through that duality. That was the second time in my life where I feel like I had any personal experience with body dysmorphia or even maybe gender dysmorphia because I feel like I'm a pretty gender queer person deep down and I don't, and I didn't know that until the idea of like boobs and hips came and I felt so conflicted. Whereas I had girlfriends who are like so excited about that change coming, like really embracing it, like waiting and waiting for it to happen. And I was like, I just don't know, I don't know, if I'm down for this. Like, and then pregnancy was very dysmorphic for me that seeing that it's like body, these undeniably female, very far extent of the spectrum female experiences happening completely out of my control, like nursing, like making milk. I was like, what is happening? Like I am making milk. I don't know what I feel about it. And then wanting to embrace it, because I'm like, I wanna enjoy, like in all things in my life, I'd like to feel at home in my body, but undeniably there's certain things that your body can do that make that harder than others. So yeah, I wouldn't have gone through it a second time to be honest if Jesse and Jude weren't putting on the pressure so big time, like to have another kid, like they really wanted to do that. So like, okay, well, I'm the one that can carry a baby. So it's gonna be... Gosh. It's so challenging. David at times, David at times was like, I wish I could take this on. And then I was like, absolutely not. This is hard. Until actually I wish I could take it on physically. I do not wish I could. I wanna take the alarm for background. Megan really wanted a big hit. And I was like, I don't know about children. I'm kinda pushing for a second. So it's like... And I'm like, after what you went through, why would you ever be like that? But hearing the gender dysphoria part of it and how that related in your life, like this can be a subject that we just added out. But a number of people when we mentioned that we were gonna get to talk to you, were wanted just to have an idea of how you came into your current gender identity and sexual identity over the last five years was pregnancy a big part of that? Or was that something that had been brewing as you grew up? Like for context, like one of the athletes in particular that asked me as a professional that's like, this is giving me, you know, the way she's talked about it has given me courage to address some things that I was too scared to address. So... Like as far as gender or sexual orientation or what? Especially like your relationship with gender and like how the world perceives you and how you versus how you perceive yourself. Yeah, I think just like a, maybe it's addictive once you start undergoing work to know yourself better. And you see that start to pay off. Like I think unwinding a negative relationship with food was probably the first step I took towards that of like reclaiming peace for myself. And then and like, and getting a reward from that, like feeling so much more peace at every meal. And anytime I was in front of a mirror and just like never weighing myself anymore and just like not having that thing influence how my day goes was just so powerful. And then it kind of like put a light bulb of like, hey, like there's probably other parts of me that are truly authentically me. I was born this way with this wisdom or this characteristic. And I've internalized things from the outside world that have muted that or shifted that. And I'm not interested in living like that. I don't, I want the way I live to be true. And to die one day feeling like I know myself. And I get one shot at that. And so I just feel highly motivated to unwind and unlearn and get to the bottom of who I am. And every time I do it, I'm just like, I feel so much more powerful, like I feel so much more alive. So highly recommend. Yeah, logistically, you know, for people that have these feelings. And I mean, I guess all of us have things that we haven't explored. Was it something for you that unfolded in therapy or with friends or combination of those things? Yeah, well, therapy definitely helped. And then in like relationships, I mean, Jesse and I have had a non-monogamous relationship structure for over half our marriage. And so we've, I've been able to explore my queer identity as well, like over the last almost decade. And that has been huge. I mean, hugely important for knowing myself. And I think like there's probably a lot of people out there, honestly, who have an expanded gender identity or sexual identity and the structures of our, of our world of marriage of relationships, of whatever it is, kind of shut certain doors or closes off certain hallways to exploration and that make that harder. And there are obviously plenty of ways to explore your gender identity and sexual identity that don't involve changing your relationship structure. But that is just like one potential tool that a person could use to get to know who they are better. And like, yeah, what they, like how they identify, how they want to move through the world. And what has that process been like coming into that at a later age? I think society is hopefully structured and is becoming more structured in a way that like young adolescents and youth can hopefully experience this process of like doing the work sooner. Do you, what has it been like coming into that like in age outside of adolescents? Yeah, I think that that was a big barrier to me beginning the process at first. Like when I started to feel these things shifting inside of me and this like suspicion that maybe there was more to me, more to my identity than I ever let myself see. There was a period of time where I was like, very, I felt very depressed. Like almost like, oh, I'd missed my window. Well, too bad, too bad. This is just the way life is now. And these are the choices you made and everything's inflexible. And like that's for other people, for younger people. And I just like, I think it was like once I realized like, oh, that's not true. There are other ways of exploring like reading and living and whatever that you can, that you can open your mind to that was hugely important. And I've met many other people since who have, who have been late bloomers to their queer identity or their gender identity. And even like people whose stories don't mirror mine, like a lot of stories that people write about transgender identities. Like you discover these things about yourself when you're able and ready. When like, you know, it just, either certain parts of your life slow down enough to make space for it or you meet a person that helps open your eyes to something or whatever it is. And it happens when it happens. And I still have a huge amount of years left in life. So I think there are any late bloomers out there just keeping that in mind that it may feel late if you're looking at 20 year olds. And God, I hope like the future for our children is one where they feel they can explore the fullness of themselves at younger ages with less consequences. But whatever age you are, it's not too late to learn who you are. But was it like, that was Lauren, that's like so beautiful. I can, I can already sense like our podcast listeners are gonna learn that. I was getting chills. I know me too. I'm like, don't know. And I'm just so far outside that too. Like, I mean, literally anything that we're told doesn't necessarily be the way we have to live. So cool. It's so inspiring. What was it like? I mean, how did you have conversations with like Jesse or loved ones in your life? Were you talking about this coming into this queerness identity and you can also use another term if that's better for you? But did you talk about that as it was evolving? Or is it something that you kind of let evolve? And then once you were more certain or, you know, feeling strong or had this certain feeling on it that you said it all at once. Yeah, I think I was first very afraid, very afraid to share it. And like I shared it with Jesse first. Like I remember like being like, I think I'm bisexual. I think I was like 31 or something or 32. He was like, yeah, I think you are too. Oh. Oh. Oh. And it was just like so sweet that he just married it right back to me. Cause I remember the feeling of this feeling like boiling up inside me like, am I getting, I feel like I want to say this? And I'm like, am I actually going to say it? And kudos to Jesse for creating such a safe relationship and partnership where I actually could say it. And then, but then from there it took me a while. Like it's probably several months before I told anybody else. And there was also this thing like when you're in a straight, like a straight appearing or monogamous appearing relationship that there can be, it's like, you can tell yourself like, what's the point of telling anybody else? What's the point? Because there, like it doesn't change anything. It won't change anything anyway. So who cares? Or like, and then when you're a bisexual person, there's by invisibility is a very real phenomenon. And there's still people who don't think bisexuality is even real, people in the queer community even. Like you're discriminated against in the queer community by some people. And so like there was also that feeling like, well I'm safe as long as I'm invisible as well. Like being perceived as straight and monogamous is like safe. And so, but then eventually that same discomfort I was talking about earlier, like when who you are on the inside isn't matching, who you are on the outside, it can create like this inner conflict, this turmoil that just like festers. And it takes up space like vitality that could be used for other things. And then I found that with each person that I told, it was like very slow, it was like parents, siblings, close friends, whatever. Then it lightened the load a little bit each time. So what you said there of, you know, I'm safe if I'm invisible or at least that can be a temptation. I think that phrase, hearing you say that, I reflect back on your whole journey. And throughout the entire process, you decided to stand up and use your voice in ways that probably took away that feeling of safety. Everything from talking to Nike marketing, that you weren't okay with the way that they were gonna be selling your body and changing the entire structure of the way they did things to standing up to abusive coaching practices more generally and standing up to everything that has negative that's happened in the running world. And then more generally, standing up against sexism in this world, how do you practice that courage? Particularly when you're in the middle of it and you do have so much to lose, you know, like, or at least you could imagine that you do, you know, where I would be safe as one of the best athletes in the world if I don't say this or what gave you the courage to use your voice when, you know, you weren't, you didn't have a New York Times bestseller. I mean, the book is another manifestation of that. You didn't know this book was gonna be a bestseller. You didn't, anyway, it's like, how? How are and how? How are we doing that? Just to humanize this, there are many more times where I didn't have courage and I didn't speak up. I didn't do the brave thing and I stayed invisible and I stayed safe. Many, many, many more times and there still are, right? It's like, it's if you are just completely openhearted and courageous and brave at all times and made great, I'd love to be like 95 in that person, like maybe sooner, but there's a reason why we have fear. There's a reason why we try to protect ourselves, why we have armor and I'm not like advocating for it. I'm just humanizing it. And so, but then when there were times when the, when I couldn't ignore the harm that would be caused to others, if I remained invisible, if I didn't speak up, once my awareness grew about that group of people, enough, that would make it feel more imperative to say something. Like the first time I spoke up about anti-racism, it wasn't until I was able to like fully let myself see and feel what it would be like to be a different person than I am, to walk through the world as a different person than I am. And once I could, I did the work of allowing myself to get in there and feel that and connect and read other people's stories, then the fear of speaking up against racism isn't as small compared to the harm that you are now aware, you are causing by not speaking up. And so for people that are afraid of something, but they want to be more brave, my recommendation is to dive deeper into what happens when you don't say something. That is gonna be the thing that gives you the extra courage. It's so beautiful. How do you, so we actually had a Patreon listener, so we have a community of people on Patreon. And someone mentioned that in 2012, they sent, I think it was through your Ask Lauren Fushman blog, they sent you a letter and you responded with this whole email back to them. And it's like, Lauren, how do you find the time to do this, but how do you protect yourself in this process? Because I imagine you're giving so much of yourself to sport and to things that you're passionate about. How do you protect yourself in the process? Oh, well, I mean, I drop a lot of balls so far. For everyone who works in like that, there's probably like 150 people frustrated with me that I haven't responded to their email or their message because you can't do it all. You really can't. And there isn't like a fairness or rhyme or reason to the people or the stories that I respond to other than there's a fire hose coming at me. And every now and then, one of the things like hits me in the heart at a particular moment when I have time to say something back or do something back and then I do. And I try to do it when I have the time to do it because I know it makes a difference because it's made a difference for me when other people have done that. So, and God, I love it when people write to me, but I need to have like a message that's like, I'm so sorry in advance. I will not be able to reply to most things. It's draining. I'm tired right now, to be honest. Like this conversation is super invigorating, but like I woke up this morning and I had this schedule, this thing on my schedule right before this, like that said KQED interview and turns out it was not. Supposed to have like, I had it on last month and this month for some reason and already did it. But I woke up this morning just like, trained, just trying to imagine how I was going to get myself to do this KQED radio thing. And like, that's when I was like, man, I need to do some self care. And then when I found out that that wasn't happening, I just like, I just sat around listening to music folding laundry. I just didn't even, I didn't try to do anything productive other than laundry. You tell me about plans being canceled. It was like basically orgasmic for us. I was like, really. I love it. Cancel claims for us are like the highest form of a street drive. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But we should just like have stuff on our calendar mutually and then we can just cancel it. Yeah. Celebrate. Yeah, that's such a good idea. Yes. I actually had a dream last. I was so excited about this because, you know, we woke up to you so much. Not, I mean, obviously as an athlete, you're hugely inspirational. Also one thing we need to get into, you quickly became one of the best coaches in the world. I've heard from Collier about how amazing you are in every different way. And it's just very like we didn't really get into that. But then so in my dream last night, you looked at Baby Leo and you're like, I like that baby. Yes. That sounds like something I would say. Yeah, yeah. That's like the only baptism we need for Leo. It's so amazing. OK, so to finish out, because, you know, we don't want to we don't want to split over too long. What do you want your legacy to be in this world? Because like once we posted a, hey, we're going to talk to Lauren so much came in and it is clear you have touched so many different people in so many ways. So you got athlete, you got coach, you know, you've given birth to kids, you've done all these different things, what do you want your legacy to be? Oh, gosh. Well, I think it would probably be easy to focus on the professional legacy side. Like I'd like for the book that I wrote to be a legacy work. I want it to be powerful enough that in 10 or 15 years, someone picks it up and is like, this book doesn't even make any sense. Because so many of these things have shifted. And like kind of be like, why was this ever a big deal? Why was this book a big deal? Why was this a New York Times bestseller? Like I want my kid to be confused, very confused about that. And then I think for a personal level, just like that I'm I was an openhearted person that really that people felt seen by, that listened, you know, that actually like truly listened and wanted to understand the people that I love in my life. That's beautiful. Well, even in my dream land, you're very empathetic to understand. I needed you to compliment our baby. I like that baby. I like that baby. We're going to bring in here and have that. The former blessing. Yes. Yeah. You're welcome to. I don't think the biggest thank you for the book, like dear younger me, you know, which you wrote, which I imagine proceeded the idea for this book. I think has changed more lives than almost any pieces of running writing. And the book is essentially that essay, but refined obviously through a lot of shit that you had to go through to write it. And so we want to thank you for the shit because that part that we didn't see clearly comes through. But in this like you polished that shit into like the most beautiful binding. Oh, thank you. And it's going to it's going to transcend sports boundaries to you. So I've referred it to my mom who's not I've referred it to so many people who are not runners. And I'm like, this is just like read this in the context of life and it will make you a better person. Yeah, I think it's one person will tell five and not just runners. So I think that New York Times bestseller when it is released is just the start. So we thank you both. We're still pumped to hopefully give a little bit of a tailwind to that legacy that we can look back on as the cleaners. Thank you for all the amazing work you're doing in the sport and just like the content you're creating. And I hope you keep having feeling like energized and supported to keep doing the work that you're doing. And if you decide you don't, I have the hope you have the courage to change. Sometimes it feels like a grind, but reading your book, I'm like, I'm ready to hustle. Let's do this. And she likes our baby. Yeah, right. We're good. Go. All right, Lauren, we'll have the best day. Thanks for you. You too. Yep. You too. Woo! I'm sorry. I'm sorry.