Mental Health Trends In Ultra Endurance Athletes With Jill Colangelo, ALM
Topics Covered In This Episode:
- Mental health trends in ultra endurance athletes
- Jill Colangelo’s thesis: Prevalence and Type of Psychopathology in Ultra Endurance Athletes
- The glamorization of high-volume training
- Understanding your motivation to train and pursue longer and harder challenges
- Where to turn to for mental health support
Guest Bio:
Jill Colangelo is a writer and researcher who studies the relationship between mental health and ultra endurance sport.
Guest Links:
- Website: https://www.jillcolangelo.com/
- Triathlete.com articles: https://www.triathlete.com/byline/jill-colangelo/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/acaseofthejills/
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or on your favorite podcast platform
Episode Transcription:
Please note that this is an automated transcription and may contain errors. Please refer to the episode audio for clarification.
Corrine Malcolm (00:00:07):
Today’s guest is the insanely bright Jillo. Jill is a former triathlete and ultra runner who went back to university at the age of 41 to gain a better understanding of their relationship between mental health and our participation in ultra in sports steered and inspired by her own personal experience. She’s a recent graduate of the Harvard extension school with a masters of liberal arts in psychology, whose thesis that will be discussing today was published this past spring.
Corrine Malcolm (00:00:34):
Jill, welcome to the show.
Jill Colangelo (00:00:36):
Hi there, Karen. Thanks for having me.
Corrine Malcolm (00:00:39):
We’re so excited to have you, for those of you who don’t I had originally recorded an interview with you. Um, and then our sound was all sorts of just whackadoodle screwed up and, uh, we couldn’t use it. And so we wanted to have you back though, kind of reset rerecord, um, and give it another go because the work that you have done and the writing that you have done, I think is really, really important for our community. Um, I think I said this last time we spoke as well. Like Megan Hicks is who, you know, my editor at over at iron far found your, found your thesis and was like, or maybe it was, you had reached out to them to collect, to kind of help collect, um, participants for the study. And so like we were getting follow information from the study and she’s like, you need to see the final, the final bit, the final results of this, this master’s thesis.
Corrine Malcolm (00:01:29):
It’s really, really cool. And that graduate thesis is titled the prevalence and type of psychopathology and ultra endurance athletes. And it made me perk up right away. It’s an area of research near and dear to my heart. Um, and it’s fair. Fascinating. I think it’s a really fascinating topic that hits really close to home for many of us either personally or in our peer group or in the people that we surround ourselves with. Um, so I’m wondering if you can give us just a little background kind of on who you are and what made you wanna take on this specific research project?
Jill Colangelo (00:02:01):
Yes, I would love to, first of all, thank you again for having me in a, I’m sorry that the audio didn’t work on the first one, but it gives me a chance to talk to you again, which I love. Um, so yes, and I’m super grateful to the folks over at, I run far for giving me the opportunity to not only reach out to, um, the community there, but also to talk more about the research when it was done. And I’m the more people that get to know about this, the better. So, um, my story is that I was a triathlete in ultra marathoner who loved all of it so much that I did too much of it and kind of broke myself in the process to be blunt and I, in the process of, of learning what was happening, um, physically I became very intrigued by sort of what the mental process was behind such a thing.
Jill Colangelo (00:02:51):
And for any of us who have loved our sport so much that we just couldn’t stop doing it, just wanted to do it all the time. And it’s kind of like your scruples go completely out the window. And of course there’s more to it than that. And that’s why I became really curious. And, um, the more I started to look into it, uh, the more I realized that there was something there. So I became so obsessed with this concept and to try to really understand what was happening. And also obviously with the idea that I didn’t want other people to go through what I went through. I actually went back to graduate school and was like, I need to go this out. To be honest, I, I originally was like medical school. I’m not sure my whole family’s doctors. And I was like, maybe I’ll try to do that.
Jill Colangelo (00:03:35):
But, uh, to be honest, I realized very quickly that it wasn’t necessarily medical issue that I was looking at here. I really needed to understand the psychology behind sort of the decision making process that would lead someone to do what I did, which is again, um, run two damn and much so <laugh> um, and, um, so, so I went into graduate school with this great big question in my mind, and I have to say that every class I took, every paper I wrote, every professor I worked with, every bit of research I did was really all centered around this particular topic from day one. I really was trying to, um, chip away at it at the beginning. It was trying to piece together the different parts of, of what this could be. Um, and then finally culminating and, and doing the research for the thesis, but all the way through, I had very clear in my mind that I needed to understand what was going on behind all of this. So again, like they always say, research is me search right. Starts with your, your own kind of <laugh> pathology. And that, that was definitely the case for me. So that’s kind of how it started.
Corrine Malcolm (00:04:40):
And yeah, it’s like how orthopedic surgeons were generally athletes and how physical therapists were generally, um, you know, they almost always come from a background of athletics or being injured themselves. So I think that’s, you know, we, we, we go with what we know that’s true in a lot of ways. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I guess your, this article or your, your thesis was published in may of 2021 mm-hmm <affirmative> um, we got to write about it at iron far in August, 2021. Obviously we had gone through the whole summer of, of 2021, which meant we witnessed the summer Olympics and we had a lot of high profile athletes, I think, during the Olympic games or around the Olympic games, talk about the difference between physical health and mental health and that we conflate those as the same thing. I’m an athlete I’m healthy and it’s not necessarily always the case.
Corrine Malcolm (00:05:36):
And I’m wondering as this writing, as you’re writing has come out as you’re doing more of this writing, and I think kind of touching touch, hopefully like also working with athletes that are kind of in this, in this area are kind of working through this area. What does it mean to the community to, to be having these conversations and kind of like normalizing this topic or, or be, or being able to talk about this topic? Like have you see, have you seen how that’s changed or shifted since you started your master’s thesis all the way up till now?
Jill Colangelo (00:06:04):
I definitely see a shift, um, between, um, what we used to think of as sort of health, like health was just sort of a general term. And most of the time people be talking about physical health. People would be thinking injuries. If you’re an athlete, they would be thinking, breaking a bone or spraining some muscle or doing something that was, um, preachable by, you know, going to, like you said, like an orthopedic or going to a doctor and realizing, oh, I’ve broken this or I’ve torn that. And it was considered to be, uh, the most important part of health, you know, aside from let’s say getting the flu or getting, you know, some kind of cold or something. So the fact that we’re now trying, we’re now understanding that physical health and mental health are not separate they’re one in the same, they are related to each other.
Jill Colangelo (00:06:52):
And we can really see that, um, through the research, we can really E that through the dis different systems of the body, as we understand how, um, stress physical and mental affect the body altogether, because really your brain is really very good at deciding, which is, which is which, you know, physical stress or mental stress, it kind of sees it all the same. And it is your brain is designed to protect you from both or either. And, um, we end up dealing with that physically or mentally as it, um, as it depends on sort of our current situation. So I think now we’re starting to see that, um, if your mental health is off, your physical health is gonna suffer and vice versa. And it definitely is a slightly different conversation when we start to look at what happened in, you know, during the Olympics, or certainly what’s happened in the last even few months, you know, tennis and other, other sports that are kind of experiencing, well, I would say there’s sort of like a Renaissance happening of people feeling a little more, uh, capable and, and courageous to talk about their mental health and have that be heard.
Jill Colangelo (00:07:59):
<affirmative>, um, there’s definitely difference between that and sort of glamorizing physicality or glamorizing high volume training, glamorizing particular aspects, and sort of not looking at the physi the psychological implications of that type of training. So it’s, it’s a slightly different thing. Of course, there’s, you know, there’s overlap there, but I’m happy to hear the conversation amplify in all directions. If we’re gonna be talking more about physical health or mental health, you know, we can’t go wrong when it comes to athletes, we need, we need to discuss, we need to discuss more of in anyway.
Corrine Malcolm (00:08:38):
Yeah, I, we’re gonna talk more about the, the glamorization or the, the need or the drive within trail and ultra to, to maybe really kind of shine, shine, a light in Hawaii on, on, uh, you know, the toughness and the, and the, the struggle. Um, and, and we’ll talk about that more in a second. We’re gonna, we’ll dive, we’ll definitely be diving into that, but before we get too far away from it, um, just because I’m an ultra nerd and it’s really cool to see ultra specific research being done, cuz oftentimes we’re extrapolating from road cycling or road marathons or iron on studies or basic physiology studies when it comes to this, particularly in psychology, I think oftentimes we fall back on, uh, studies that might involve athletes or even just like more kind of like bread and butter, psychological studies. And so I would love if you could just share a little bit about, um, kinda like the behind the scenes, look at the setup for the study a little, um, I know that, you know, you were trying to glean some kind of specific information from the participants and I’m wondering if you can give us a little bit about how you set up the study, why you set up the way you did and kind of what that looked like as far as getting, getting that information from the participants that you were able to, to gather and collect, um, via so many great sources.
Corrine Malcolm (00:09:56):
I feel like,
Jill Colangelo (00:09:58):
Yes. Um, I’m I I’m really happy that you asked this question because, um, one of the things that was happening is that when I was trying to research different aspects of, of, of this larger question about the endurance athlete community, it was very clear to me that there was very little information about a very specific group of P people. The ultra community is unique because it’s not an elite athlete community necessarily. It is also not, um, an amateur athlete, uh, athlete community necessarily. It’s not a collegiate athlete community. It’s, it’s really it’s own kind of thing. There’s very specific demographics that we’re about. We’re talking about, um, someone who’s older, you know, the average age of the participants, particularly in my study, we’re 42, you know, uh, we’re talking about, um, somebody who has, um, you know, a certain amount of, um, time on their hand, someone who has a certain amount of income, they can spend a lot of time training.
Jill Colangelo (00:10:55):
This is someone who, um, it is very different than someone who’s in college or a younger person, just everything about it is different. And, and we’re also talking about people who may not be winning races, but they are training as much or more as the people who are in a lot of cases, it’s this weird thing. And anyone who’s ever done an ultra knows this it’s that the person who is the least prepared. And when I say least prepared, I mean to say to the least prepared, to win, not least prepared for the race, the person who is less likely to actually win the race is going to be the one that’s out on the course, the longest. And so by default, that person is training longer hours than the person who is actually winning the race. So this is a unique community of people.
Jill Colangelo (00:11:39):
This is something different is happening here. There’s more training hours, more stuff is happening. There was none of that out there. So I really wanted to make sure that I was capturing the people most important to this. It’s not a university athlete necessarily was not gonna be found in the university community. So this research was designed actually before the pandemic. I can’t remember anything before, before the pandemic, but it was actually designed before the pandemic. And I was always going to be looking online, you know, into some of the runner communities online, either through websites, pod casts, Facebook groups, and things like that, because I really wanted to get a, a pretty big cross section of folks from the us that, um, I knew were really only gonna be accessible that way. So the idea was to reach out to the different, um, you know, different podcasts, different people and ask if I could, uh, invite other, uh, endurance athlete it’s in general.
Jill Colangelo (00:12:33):
And by the way, that’s the other thing is that yes, I always talk about ultra runners. Certainly I figured they would be the core of the respondents, the participants, but it was also, we also had, I also had, uh, triathletes and people who were, you know, endurance, ocean kayakers and people who did mountaineering and, um, you know, straight up cyclists and all kinds of folks that were out there just doing what they’re doing for hours and hours every week. So it was really kind of cool to see, um, a wide variety of people. So the study involved, uh, some demographic questions at the beginning, just to get a, an idea of, of who we’re dealing with age and, um, uh, race, um, gender and those types of things. Also a couple of questions about whether or not they had, uh, ever been diagnosed with any type of mental disorder.
Jill Colangelo (00:13:20):
And I just wanna point out that as I’m talking about this, the APA and American psychological association really likes the term mental disorder. The paper is written with that terminology. You know, I think in our normal kind of Colwell convers, we don’t use the word disorder. It feels a little heavy, but I I’m, I’m just gonna use what’s in the paper. So, um, you know, not, not to be too heavy, but that’s just how it goes. So, um, whether or not folks had been diagnosed with mental disorder before participating, uh, in ultra endurance sport, or if they had been diagnosed after or during their time, uh, for, again, for those who had, uh, did have a diagnosis of, of some mental disorder, I asked some questions about alcohol use. Um, and then we, it dove right into two, um, instruments or, you know, already verified, um, uh, and validated psychological questionnaires one, um, is, uh, a PHQ patient health questionnaire, which almost anybody listening to this is probably answered at a normal, let’s say general practitioner doctor’s office visit ask some general questions about, um, your overall health, um, specifically mental health.
Jill Colangelo (00:14:31):
And then, um, because this community, uh, the end’s athlete community, it very much is, um, there’s a, there’s a real need to talk about nutrition and eating attitudes in these sports in a very particular way, because of the way we need to fuel ourselves because of the way our races are structured because of the fact that we take in nutrition that, you know, one would argue that eating and taking in nutrition is just as important as, you know, putting the miles in. Um, it was important for me to get a better understanding of what was happening in that way. So I also had folks do something called an eat 26. So eating attitudes tests is 26 questions. Um, they are designed to understand things like, um, potential for undereating overeating, binge eating, um, and also so eating disorders and also disordered eating patterns, which are slightly different, but, but no less important. Um, the PHQ had like a couple questions on eating disorder, but I felt like we really had to include it. So those two, um, instruments and then really it was, um, it was, again, it was folks could enter into the survey from anywhere and answer it and send it off, um, and send it back to me and, um, collect it, all the data and, and that how we started,
Corrine Malcolm (00:15:53):
I love these like survey studies in part, because you get them into the right hands. And all of a sudden your like pool of participants can just explode and you can really get some, a really interesting population like into the survey and completing the survey. Like it just needs to get out to the right sometimes surprising people. And then all of all of a sudden, like your population is like, oh, we got, you know, we got quadruple the response we were hoping for. Yeah. Which is really cool. Cuz you had what? Over 500 participants
Jill Colangelo (00:16:25):
I had, um, I had over five, I had 523 in the final. Um, in the, in the final survey, uh, compiled data, there were over 600 people over 700 people. I think that actually responded when you clean up the data, you always have to throw some stuff out. Some people don’t finish. There’s a whole bunch of other things. Some people were too young or, you know, they just, um, you know, I don’t, they answered yes to the 18 and over question, but then didn’t, you know, didn’t meet the age cutoff. There’s a, you know, data cleaning has to be done. So five and hundred 23 people. And the cool thing was, and I’ll just say this, like, you know, I can’t say who, but on Twitter <laugh> there were a lot of people’s names that you would recognize that were like, I just did this survey. And I was like, yeah, you know, I can’t say who you are. I, I know you’re in here somewhere. And of course I can, by the data who it is, no, no names are associated, you know? Um, everything’s completely anonymous and I have no idea, but it’s just exciting to know that some people that I truly admire as athletes had participated in this study and it was, that was exciting.
Corrine Malcolm (00:17:28):
That’s really cool. I also find with these studies too, that you always, at the end of it, you’re like, oh, we could have asked that or we could have asked why. Yes. So before we dive into the results, is there anything now looking back at the study that you’re like, if we had only collected this bit of data, cuz you’re tr you were collecting like training volume, for example. Yeah. Or like average training volume. Is there anything that you wish that you had, if you, if you had all the resources available, um, like something else you would’ve liked to collect from this like subset of humans? Oh
Jill Colangelo (00:18:00):
My God. Do you have another hour? <laugh> I mean, I need to go back and get a PhD. Talk about all the things I would ask people about. I mean, it’s really, it’s, it’s en it’s almost endless. Um, I’ll tell you what the, the, the spoiler alert is that <laugh>, I didn’t know, obviously going into this, I did not realize that there was gonna be trend data. Um, there was not, I did not realize that it was, we were going to be able to see a trend emerge by the number of hours at people, um, were training per week. And if I had known that, you know, I would’ve asked more questions about their individual weeks of training. I would’ve tried to get a little more granular as to like what kind of training people were doing. And, um, you know, so many other things I would’ve asked more questions about substance abuse. I would’ve asked more question about, um, oh God, I, I honestly, it’s endless, there’s so many things that I would, I would really like to know. I would ask questions about more questions about neuro divergence, which, um, recently has, you know, become, um, a, a place where I’m seeing more. Um, I have a lot more interest in studying people who are neuro neuro divergent and their relationship to alter endurance sport, um, for, for many, many reasons. So I would’ve asked more questions about that. I mean, it’s, it’s really endless, but yeah. <laugh>
Corrine Malcolm (00:19:18):
Yeah. A PhD definitely seems like, okay, we just have to keep, keep digging down into this question. So hope, I mean, my big thing with this research too, is like, I hope that it inspires other young researcher was other people, maybe people who are, are in a graduate program right now who were looking for their question, or hadn’t quite figured out their question. And then this becomes, you know, a backbone study or like a launching point study to, to be able to dive into a subset of that question specifically like substance abuse or, uh, exercise addiction, or, you know, one of those, one of those like smaller tracks, all of a sudden becomes like a whole area of study for someone that like, in my mind, the inspiration and the more questions you get out of a study is what, like a good research project does. People are like, what are the results? And I’m like, well, what questions did it elicit? Yeah, that’s what I wanna know. Yeah.
Jill Colangelo (00:20:09):
I, that’s such a great point. And it’s it’s so it is so hard when you’re first starting something like this. And, um, especially, you know, there was really no one had done research like this, uh, up to this point. And so I had so many things I wanted to talk about and I touched on a few of them through the discussion of the study, but truly, um, as it was described to me by my professors and people that I worked with at school, it was like, you know, when you’re starting research like this, you have to ask the most broad question possible because you really just have to open it up for people to get excited about. And I wanted to go in so many different directions, but really the topic and science itself is served by being more general at the beginning. So that hopefully the door opens for more research.
Jill Colangelo (00:20:53):
And I’m so excited that in the process, since the resources published, I’ve talked to several students who are in graduate programs that have, yeah. That have talked to me about how I kind of, you know, know, went through my process and some of the resources that I used. And I’m, I’m really excited for that because I have to say part of my discovery process when I was doing a literature review was uncovering even language differences in the way we talk about things like overtraining syndrome. Um, and the way we talk about exercise addiction, the way we talk about or what, what the history of even the DSM is with regard to some of these things. And so being able to pass on some of that, to, to some of the newer researchers, being able to point them in the direction of, Hey, look for this, or you wanna be talking about that, you know, that is really exciting. And it makes me feel, uh, it just makes me feel so, so good to pass some of that stuff on. And I really hope that people do continue to be interested in this because honestly, the, the, the results here are really the tip of the iceberg and there’s so much more work to do for our community, um, to keep them safe and healthy and informed and participating for as long as they possibly can, knowing, you know, what they, what, what they can do to improve all aspects of their participating. So,
Corrine Malcolm (00:22:10):
Yeah, I think we have that same, that same thought and feeling of like, this is what I did to myself and I would like to avoid have everyone else avoid that thing. So if I can distill it and bottle it up and then give it to someone, cuz they can like understand like what could lay down the road like allows, allows for correction about having to fully experience, you know, being completely burnt out or overtraining syndrome or whatever it might be. So I think that’s a really, I, I am hopeful that, you know, it’ll inspire other researchers, but it’ll also hopefully inspire and keep other athletes, you know, safer kind of like a little cushion. Um, so I guess what I would love to know is what did, what did the results show like? Was there anything that surprised you with the data? Obviously there were lots of things that you’re like, oh, we could look at this or this or this, but like what stood out to you in, in the like kind of the summary of the
Jill Colangelo (00:22:57):
Data? Yeah. So I mean the, the data was pretty amazing just right off the bat. Um, you know, their, if we looked at the prior diagnosis, so anyone coming into the study, did they come in with mental disorder? So overall you had 37% of the participants were diagnosed or had been diagnosed with mental disorder coming into ultra endurance participation. Now the regular population of the United States has about 20%. So we’re, we’re talking about a really significant, um, percentage of that population showing mental order coming into it. Then once they took the risk assessments in my research. So whether or not they had been diagnosed with mental disorder previously, we gave them those assessments that would, that remember those assessments are not diagnostic. They’re telling us about risk. 47% of the total population was at risk for mental disorder by virtue of the assessments in my research.
Jill Colangelo (00:23:55):
Um, aside from that, I think the, one of the most compelling things was to discover that there was this dose response, so that in the three groups of participants, which I grouped by number of hours per week of participation. So, or I should say number of hours per week of training. So it was under 10 hours per week, 10 to 20 hours per week and anything. And then the third group was over 20 hours per week. Um, and when we talk about mental disorder, we have 28% in that group. That’s the first group of under 10 hours per week, 39% in the 10 to 20 and then 57% in the over 20 hours per week crew. So, um, it’s and I could go on from this. Some, there are so many things about, uh, the research that surprised me. One of them was the fact that there’s a non zero suicide, um, risk in this population.
Jill Colangelo (00:24:48):
It’s pretty significant. And when we talk about suicide risk, we say anything, anything that is a question, mark is a, is a non zero and a non zero is, is, is unacceptable. So we’re talking about a significant amount of people in this population, population of my study that indicated a non-zero, um, risk for suicide, meaning that they had considered or thought about or ruminated on suicide at some point. Um, and through this risk assessment, I, I, I hate that. I really do. It’s it’s, it’s so terrible. Um, I don’t, I get very like, uh, I don’t know how to talk about it because it’s very upsetting. Um, and so 12% of the total study population could be at risk for suicide or self harm. And the worst thing about this is that 37% of those people, um, are undiagnosed not in mental healthcare, not, not receiving any type of mental health care support.
Jill Colangelo (00:25:46):
Um, and then finally, the one thing I will say that, uh, also was not shocking to me really, but, but it’s nice to see the numbers show that the group that had the most undiagnosed, um, and, and highest risk for disordered eating and eating disorder was met. Um, because personally, and this is not me as a researcher talking, this is just me as, um, a person who reads research and, you know, has any kind of experience in the athletic world. Like I am dog tired of hearing about women and eating disorders in sport. Like I’m tired of it, you know, and the problem is, is that clearly, according to my research, men are out there, they’re suffering, they’re undiagnosed and we all kind of have a little bit of responsibility for that. Why? Because the media only talks about women. They don’t discuss it with men. Um, science right now is only interested in looking at women. They’re not talking about it with men. The doctors are not talking to men about their symptoms. Men don’t know what their symptoms are. It’s just a whole, um, lack of information and real, just, um, keeping, keeping men in the dark. And I, I truly hope that this research helps to inform more of that discussion that is incredibly important and, and really needs to be addressed. <affirmative>
Corrine Malcolm (00:27:03):
Yeah, I mean, that jumped out to me in a major way. Was this kind of gendered difference in the, in your study, which, which honestly tracks with what we’re seeing in the broader population, um, right. Like more women are diagnosed with depression, but men commit suicide far more often. Um, and it’s really scary to see these results of not only are men at risk, but they’re, they’re underdiagnosed. They’re not in med, they’re not in treatment or have never received treatment. And so it, that’s a very scary, um, proposition to look at. Right. And I do think having talked about this on some other podcasts, um, was that when we talk about women in this realm, we, we, you get reached out to, by male athletes, male athletes who have struggled with disordered eating male athletes who have struggled with body image issues, male athletes who, um, have, you know, have struggled with mental health.
Corrine Malcolm (00:27:53):
And it’s really, really sad because, um, you know, while, while generally speaking research is skewed towards men, like in the broader context, right? Like bio ethical research, um, all that kind of stuff. This is an area that’s probably more skewed towards women. And it’s like, you know, it’s, we fought for a long time to be, you know, biologically di like considered biologically diverse and for our own research pool. And it’s like, okay, well, this is an area where we really need to look at it in both genders. And we only really focus on women in this regard. Um, and we do need to make sure that the conversation is geared towards male athletes as well, because there’s clearly a population here who’s underrepresented, undertreated, um, and potentially at really high risk for self harm or, you know, being injured or whatever it might be because they’re outta touch with this topic
Jill Colangelo (00:28:46):
The a hundred percent. And it is also, there’s, there’s a lot going on here. The elephant in the room is that there’s a lot of cultural stuff about the ultra community that, uh, foment this type of, um, attitude toward well, many aspects of, of mental health, but particularly around eating, you know, elephant in the room here. Sorry, but like there is, there, there is, there are certain protocols and certain conversations around eating in the ultra community that are not necessarily healthy. I mean, you know, this is my opinion, again, this is not my research. This is my, my opinion is that when you have a sport that requires a certain way of eating in order to keep you going and also encourages and requires a certain amount of refueling or refueling in order to support that outsized expenditure of energy, you are going to veer into weird territory.
Jill Colangelo (00:29:50):
You’re just gonna, and if you don’t talk about it, you know, if we think that we don’t wanna talk about this, we are doing ourselves as a community, a grave disservice because the physical output is not normal and the eating habits are not gonna be normal either. Like, let’s talk about it instead of being like, oh, it’s great. I’m just, you know, I’m just doing my pasta car load breakfast or whatever, you know, it’s like, no, we gotta, we gotta talk about where the gray area is here. There’s some gray area there. We really have to talk about it. And it’s not just food, it’s alcohol too. And that’s a whole other podcast, but, you know, it’s, we gotta, it’s like, we can all just pretend that this stuff is normal or we can recognize the fact that it’s not, and then do better by acknowledging it and helping each other through it.
Corrine Malcolm (00:30:38):
Yeah. I’ve had a great conversation with, uh, a male athlete kind of who’s, who’s an elite sponsored male athlete talking about diet as guys that he’s struggled personally with, you know, with fasting, with keto, with all these other things, using diet as guys for his disorder, eating that, you know, saying, oh, I’m doing, I’m doing this because it’s low inflammatory, and it’s better for blah, blah, blah, or I’m doing this because I need to be fat adapted and it’s better, better for this, but really it was always this. It was actually always a thing about control and always a thing of using this, this, you know, thing for the sport I’m using air quotes that no one can see cause it’s a podcast or for his health. That was just, it was guys for needing control over his disordered eating, um, which I think I, we do, we, we think it, we just accept it as normal.
Corrine Malcolm (00:31:26):
And we’ve had this conversation on air. We’ve had this conversation off air. Um, you have a line, a sentence in your thesis that I will not be able to quote verbatim by any means, but essentially it’s this idea of, there are many traits and attributes within the ultra and trail community that are, are not held healthy, that we, that we put on a pedestal that we, um, that you know, that we kind of give kudos to, that we accept as normal. And I think that’s really risky, right? Like we we’ve, you know, chuckled about David Goggins off air and we can chuckle about him on air here as like, there are some things about that at attitude or about specific characteristics, or I don’t know, and it’s not personality types. It’s like the things that we maybe make into our personality types more than anything that, that we, that we, that we applaud, that we celebrate, that we accept as normal. And in fact, those things are not normal and are not healthy. And I’m wondering, you know, what your, what your thoughts are on that. And then how, like how do we as a, a society and as a culture that’s, you know, in this booming sport, change the narrative around those things. Yeah.
Jill Colangelo (00:32:34):
I, I, this is something that I talk about all the time. It’s very distressing to me. I say, you know, if someone, someone has alcohol addiction, we, you know, we get them to a rehab, we get them to a hospital. If someone, um, can’t stop running, we pay them money to teach us how to do it too. You know? And cuz culturally we love it. We’re like, oh, you know, we’re, we’re all bought and sold by that beautiful poetry of, you know, like I said, I said, said this before. It’s like, I read all the same books. All of you have read, you know, I was excited about it too. Like running through the night with the pizza in the hand, I know I’ve been there. I loved all, I bought it all. I wanted it too. I just thought it was the most romantic thing ever.
Jill Colangelo (00:33:12):
And I just wanted a piece of it. You know? Um, my, my first days of falling in love with ultras were like, you know, why Scott with the long hair come on. It was like a thing, right? <laugh>, we’re all into it. And I get that. And I know that it’s very compelling to hear that we have no limits. It’s very compelling to think that there’s some kind of extra gear that the human body has and that all you have to do is just like I Zen out on the, on, on a trail and you’ll get there. I’m not saying it’s not possible. I’m not saying that there isn’t some real beautiful magic in the human body. That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is is that you cannot say you have no limits because it is physically impossible. It is psychologically impossible that you have no limits.
Jill Colangelo (00:34:01):
There is a curved relationship between you and this sport. And if you understand where those limits are, you will help yourself by not slamming into them. <laugh>, you know, it’s like, everybody’s, limit’s gonna be different by the way, it’s gonna be different for you, for me for ready. But, um, the way we change the narrative about that is to embrace limits, like learn how to embrace limits versus keep telling each other this same ridiculous poetry about how we don’t have any it’s your, again, yours is gonna be different than mine, but we all have them. And I feel as though that’s the, the first up, I feel as though the media has a responsibility to, you know, consider how much they glamorize certain runners for their abilities. Um, certain ways of training certain, um, certain aspects of the sport in instead of really giving an, an even handed opinion of what is happening or an even handed discussion of, of what potential concerns could be.
Jill Colangelo (00:35:08):
It’s just, it’s just not the right thing to do to just keep telling everyone that it’s, it’s just this like magical thing. And I, if we can come back down to reality and realize that we, we are, we are hurting ourselves by perpetuating narrative. It would be, it would be, I think, very helpful for the community to, to realize that where there is reality, that’s not a limit to you. That is that’s knowledge and power. That’s a way for you to avoid those limits. It’s a way for you to really embrace well, it’s a way for you to do this longer than the heck I did. Okay. And that’s really what I, I, I did this for, it’s like, don’t do what I did cause I blew myself up in a way that was really just really, I did a very good job, you know, I did a very good job blowing myself up. So all I’m saying is that, um, we all have a tiny bit of responsibility here as, as scientists, as researchers, as media, um, as folks who want to talk about ultra running or, or, or ultra Endur sports, like the more realistic we can be, the better we, the better we help ourselves.
Corrine Malcolm (00:36:13):
Yeah. As soon as you said limits, I’m like, oh, why do I run ultras? And I think the common response is also, is often to like to find my limits. I wanna find my limits. I wanna understand my limits. And it’s like, maybe I, maybe I don’t actually, maybe I, I don’t need to need to fully slam into my limits in order to explore them or find them or understand what they might be. But I, I can see how we glamorize certain aspects and our sport. I’ve had a lot of conversations with people over the past year about this idea that we kind of fetishize going longer that longer is better. That, that you have to run a hundred to be an ultra-marathoner that you have to run a 200 to be an ultra-marathoner that you have to run many hundreds a year to be an ultra-marathoner. And it’s like, you know, there’s this whole other side of the sport too. That’s called trail. That’s really exciting and fun. That’s like a half marathon or a 30 K. And it’s, it’s not to say that that is any less valuable, but I think we are a, a, we have been, or at least in the us in particular have been a culture that fetishizes long, hard suffering over, like maybe I don’t know, per growth and development and having a good time. Well,
Jill Colangelo (00:37:22):
It’s, it’s interesting that you say that it’s extremely important that we understand this because now we go back to my research again, why is there more mental disorder in this population? Okay. And there there’s, there’s the chicken and the egg thing, like, is it because they come to this sport for mental health, immune amelioration of mental health symptoms, do they do this because it makes them feel better? Or D do these symptoms develop, uh, during and after their participation? The fact is, is that anytime we are doing things without, um, like as you said, um, you know, you do this to look for your limits, but more is more, is more there’s something going on there. Like the sport is answering a question for you that you have about yourself. That’s really what’s happening here. And so anytime we use, because remember we’re in my research is suggesting that people are using their sport as a maladaptive coping mechanism for something else.
Jill Colangelo (00:38:16):
Okay. And so if we keep this in our minds, we say, well, what are we coping for more and more and more why? So if you don’t address that problem, if you and I, I, I use the word problem again, this is, you know, talking like we’re talking to friends, you know, if, if we don’t address that question, mark, that central issue within ourselves that keeps pushing us, we will never find relief. We will constantly be looking to add and add and add and add. And by the way, it could be running. It could be alcohol, it could be drugs or sex or gambling, or really anything it, anything, but we’re in, you’re using something else to tell you who you are. It means you don’t wanna look inside and see what’s really there. And, um, not everyone is using running that way. I wanna make that clear. I’m just saying that, as you said, instead of doing, you know, certain things, how about we take a look inside and see what’s really happening because we have motivation to train. Um, it doesn’t come from nowhere.
Corrine Malcolm (00:39:22):
Yeah. I think that’s important. It does. It doesn’t come from nowhere. It’s, it’s there. There’s something about it. That’s that we’re engaging with. But I think what’s really, um, interesting there too, is that I’ve been talking a lot about like coping mechanisms. I, I just spoke with Daniel Snyder a week or so ago about coping mechanisms and how, you know, I was a person where running was a coping mechanism for me. I ran when I was angry. I ran when I was sad. I ran when I was frustrated. And when I added that on top of a training load that was already high because I was doing B Athlon and it’s, you know, a Nordic skiing sport and which you train 20 plus hours a week, it became too high. And all of a sudden you’re are overtrained or you’re injured. And your coping mechanism doesn’t work anymore because you can’t do it because you’re hurt or you’re broken, or, you know, your body’s given in on you because, or given up on you. And all of a sudden, if that’s your only coping mechanism, you know, if that’s your only form of self medication, you know, that’s a dangerous place to be in. And I, I see it in else. I see it in my, my peers and in people in our community like that to me is, is worrying. If, if running is your only coping mechanism, what happens when you can’t run?
Jill Colangelo (00:40:29):
I’m so glad you said that, um, two things people have heard me say a million times is that, you know, running is, is not therapy. <laugh> therapy is therapy running is, um, and again, we using running, but could be anything. It, it is an, it is an adjunct to a quality mental health care program. It is a wonderful way for you to feel good. But, um, you know, if we tell ourselves that we need running for therapy, we, we we’re lying to ourselves. That’s not really, we don’t, there’s no evidence to suggest asked that the more you run that more mentally healthy, you’re gonna be, in fact, my research tells us a completely opposite story. Uh, you know, in addition to that, if we look at the research on the ative effects of physical activity, on mental health, we are talking about a completely different category of exercise that brings about that result.
Jill Colangelo (00:41:22):
So we’re talking about, you know, 120 to 150 minutes of steady state, you know, zone two, cutey cardio, we’re talking the chat walk with our, our flip flop walk, you know, with our, with our best buddy. That’s the kind of stuff we’re talking about that is, uh, gives you mental health relief. Beyond that point. We don’t have research to suggest that what we do have is research to suggest is that when you push the volume and intensity, be on a certain point, you are going to make your mental health state worse. The, um, and that’s the John Ragland study specifically from, from in the, um, nineties and 2001 was, was the last one of the last papers to talk about that. Um, it is important that we, we recognize that it’s, it’s, um, we’re telling ourselves that we’re using it for one thing, but it’s just not, it’s just, again, it’s not reality. It’s not reality that it’s gonna work out that way.
Corrine Malcolm (00:42:15):
Yeah. It’s that dose, that dose response. It’s like every time I read an article about like cardiovascular health or mental health or the aging athlete, every article it’s like, Megan and I are going back and forth, like, okay, well, the recommendation is this, but we do two times that three times that four times that like, what does that actually mean for our population? And so that’s the interesting question here that you were able to kind of get at with your study is that yes, we do know that, you know, exercise is prescriptive for, for, you know, anxiety and for depression. But again, that prescription is like 30 minutes of exercise or 40 minutes of exercise, not, not your, you know, your act back long run weekend. And so trying to figure out, you know, you know, how, how do we thread that needle becomes more and more complicated and something that you kind of alluded to?
Corrine Malcolm (00:43:05):
I feel like you more than alluded to it. I feel like I only alluded to it when I wrote about your paper, because I didn’t, I, it was a can of worms and I wasn’t sure how to open it, and I wasn’t sure how to close it. And I wasn’t sure if I was ever gonna get it back in to the can if I opened it was this, you know, cuz cuz there have been people listening to this who are like, that’s not me. And that’s okay that that’s a totally rational response. This is not everyone. This is, you know, a subset of any of us potentially is the idea of like exercise addiction in, in our sport. And I know this is kind of tangential, but I do think it, it goes to that coping and as it goes to that disordered eating, it goes to that mental health state, um, is that we are a, a sport that I feel like is ripe for that for either orthorexia or for using exercise as kind of a, a means of control in our lives.
Corrine Malcolm (00:43:49):
And I’m wondering if you, if you, I, I think you have thought about this and I think it showed in the paper. Um, but I know personally writing about it. I wasn’t sure how to write about it cause I wasn’t sure how to, how to make it, uh, actionable. Like how can I present this information and then tell people, you know, what’s gonna be okay or, you know, how like what, what can they do to counter or to think about this. Um, and I’m wondering if you have any, any thought on, on is the prevalence of that in our sport, the risk that we’re put at, in our sport for kind of falling into those like terrain traps. Um, because I do think it’s a really interesting thing and I, I speculate about it amongst my peers and amongst and amongst kind of the cohort of ultra runners in the community.
Jill Colangelo (00:44:33):
Yeah. I can, again, this is, I can write a whole other paper on this. Um, and I, and I, I wanna make clear that, um, I understand exactly what, what you mean about, you know, it’s a, it’s a major can of worms. It’s a, it’s a big beast, this conversation. And the reason why it’s a beast is because it’s very emotional for people, particularly those who have used sport as a stepping stone out of addiction. Um, particularly for people who feel as though their participation in the sport has saved them. I mean, people like Charlie Engel and ritual and others have written books and documentaries and you know, somehow I up in jail, but that’s another story. Um, you,
Corrine Malcolm (00:45:13):
I mean, I, I coach a bunch of sober runners and they like, in a way it has like, it, you know, running, running has made their lives exponentially better, but like there’s always that fine line of yeah. How good is good.
Jill Colangelo (00:45:26):
Totally. Well, no, I mean maybe, I mean, I, again, I can’t put myself in their shoes. I can, I can think about the science. I can think about the science and I can think about what we know about exercise addiction. So first of all, we know that there is no current guideline for exercise addiction in the DSM five. There’s nothing in there. They made a statement about it in the previous addition. And then when it came time to put out the DSM five, they just jumped right over it. Um, and it’s a unfortunate because, um, there are so much overlap between what we would call a process addiction, which is the running okay. Or in our case running or whatever sport and a substance addiction. There’s a lot of overlap, a lot of overlap, some of which is physiological. So we know that things like B endorphins are released with both process and substance addictions.
Jill Colangelo (00:46:15):
Okay. So there is an addictive property. There, there, there is this, you know, neurotransmitter thing happening. We also know that some of the characteristics, uh, or some, all the characteristics of substance abuse, uh, substance addiction, you’re gonna find with exercise addiction, okay, we’re ready. S salience, you know, conflict, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, relapse, you know, salience is I can’t stop thinking about it. Um, I’m in conflict. I need to do it. Uh, it makes me I have to do it cuz it makes me feel better. I, now my tolerance is going up. I need to do more of it. If I don’t do what I feel a sense of withdrawal. Um, and then I’m telling myself I’m gonna take off and I just can’t do it. I relapse, you know? So these things are, we cannot pretend they’re not there. Anyone who has been in a ultra endurance community has felt these things, right?
Jill Colangelo (00:47:04):
You felt, you know what that’s like. So I’m not saying that everyone who does ultras is addicted. I’m just saying that there is, there’s all this overlap. There are all these ways in which people sometimes potentially substitute one addiction for the other. And here’s the thing. I, I don’t care if none of that makes sense to anyone or if people want to say that, I don’t know what I’m talking about. Fine. You know, you wouldn’t be the first, but tell me what happens. <laugh> tell me what happens when a person who has used running to get over an addiction gets injured and can’t run. Tell me what happens. I don’t wanna be upset with that person. I want them to have help if they need it. So this is, is why we need to have this conversation because whatever you think running is doing for you, that’s fine. I accept it. I don’t change your, your story is your story. And you’re allowed to have your story and I believe in you, but if you get hurt and can’t keep doing it, if you don’t have that mechanism to, to deal with it, how can we send you, how can we help? How can we give you, like, you know, throw out the Ang, the, the, the life raft and, and, and get you on there and get you help that you need. Cause that’s the part that scares me.
Corrine Malcolm (00:48:22):
Yeah. A hundred percent. That’s gotta be the biggest test of sobriety, right. For an athlete who has, who has in a very positive way used running to, to get at their life back. Yeah. Um, like I think that’s a very admirable thing, but you’re right. Like it puts them at, at heightened risk for, for relapse, for, for dealing really like in a really hard way with their sobriety when that’s taken away. Um, I can even think back to like current, I, I was injured all last year, so I’ve talked a lot about like old Korean versus like the current of recent and years is, you know, be pre me being overtrained, but very much on the path to being super in a super bad spot was I was not a good person when I couldn’t get my workout in. I was not, I was not a good, significant other.
Corrine Malcolm (00:49:07):
I was not a good daughter. I was not a good friend. I was not a good teammate. Um, when, when something got in the way of me training that day or that week or whatever it was, and it was, you know, like part partly in part, because it was my coping mechanism, you know, in a big, in a big way. And I don’t know what changed between knowing that I think having exercise completely taken away must have mean must have meant that I had to like redevelop some coping skills during that time time, because what I went through last year of basically a year off from running in a big way, like I would not have handled well four years ago, five years ago, definitely not seven years ago. That was like the peak peak of my former over training. Like I, and so I could, I can look back at those two different experiences and, and see a huge difference in being able to cope with that loss of this thing.
Corrine Malcolm (00:49:56):
That makes me feel good. We love exercise. It makes, it does make us feel really good to move our bodies, but it’s still not therapy. It’s still not a good, maybe a, your only coping skill. Um, but I can see how it does put us at, at a huge risk for that to be all taken away. And so I’m wondering, you know, looking, having, having published this thesis, kind of looking at the other end of it while getting to work, you know, with, with other grad students now who are coming up through these programs while getting to work with athletes, while getting to write more about this topic, you know, what can our listening audience do for themselves for a significant other, for a peer, for a friend who maybe they’re, they’re worried about, or maybe they’re, they’re worried about themselves, right? Like it, this is a lot of information that someone listening to, you could be like, that sounds like me. I don’t know what to do now. Like what, what direction can we steer them so that they, you know, there’s not a sense of doom and gloom hanging over kind of is running, is running bad for me type of thing.
Jill Colangelo (00:50:57):
Yeah. Um, running is not bad for you. You are bad for you. <laugh> I’m kidding. No, but it’s the thing is that, um, first of all, I, that people, um, they’re still the, um, the, the virus of the, and I’m doing air quotes too now. See, it’s, uh, we’re both doing it. Um, just my mental health. There’s still this kind of stigma that if something, if I’m, if I’m thinking about something that makes me feel bad, or if my mental health is affected, that it’s just my mental health versus, you know, breaking a leg or getting a stress fracture or getting really sick in some other way. So I, I find that sometimes it’s important to let people know that there are physiological things happening here. There’s something called the allostatic load of stress, which is to say that the sum total of physical and mental stress is going to affect your endocrine system by way of HPA access dysfunction.
Jill Colangelo (00:51:52):
I know that’s a mouthful, but please know that what you’re experiencing is very, very, not just <laugh>, there’s more it’s happening, uh, physiologically there. Um, there’s tons of research to support this. So please understand that it’s not just, um, it is a real, it is a real thing that you’re experiencing it is a real thing that you’re feeling. And, um, it is important to know that you’re not alone. That’s, that’s like really also number two, with that, for every person that either reads my research or talks to me about this stuff. And I’ve counseled so many athletes on, on these things on, on a one-to-one level. And every single person thinks that they are doing something wrong. That somehow the sport is not having the desired effect on them. Like they must be doing something wrong because all they’re consuming on social media is evidence, uh, again, air quotes of other people’s success.
Jill Colangelo (00:52:44):
So they feel like, well, what am I doing wrong? I feel like the failure at this, you’re not, um, what you’re seeing, you know, on social media and online is not real. Um, the books that you’re consuming, if you’re reading the, again, I’m sorry to call him out. But if you’re reading the David Goggins of the world and you’re buying into all of this, um, you know, bro science of like, we don’t have limits and stuff. Um, also that’s not real. And, um, honestly, if people want to know what’s really happening, um, and why they’re maybe not feeling good, I know this is, you know, plug for my research, but either read my paper or if, if my paper doesn’t interest, you go to the references section of my paper and read what all those other people had to say about this topic. Um, because there’s plenty of, of folks out there that do realize that something is going on.
Jill Colangelo (00:53:32):
It just hasn’t been all put together yet. M my hope is that, um, there’ll be more steps taken in a more formal way to support athletes who need, um, assistance and who, who really do wanna talk about this, but it has to kind of start grassroots within all of us. So the more we talk about this, the more that we reach out for help and help each other, um, your crazy running friend who doesn’t, um, who, who can’t stop and doesn’t wanna stop, and always seems to be up pro run. Like next time you go out with that person, like ask them how they’re doing, ask them what’s going on in their life. Like stop running out there, just talking about training, like ask each other how you are doing, you know, ask each other what is going on in, in your lives, because sometimes all you need to do is just ask a question, you know? So anyway, I, I just feel like overall, everyone just needs to be kinder to each other and, and, and try to get closer and ask the super questions. I wish I could tell you that there was, like I said, more formal, um, more formal ways of dealing with this stuff there right now. There’s not, not a lot, but there’s a ton of mental healthcare out there. There’s a ton of people you can turn to for general mental healthcare and that, um, that’s really important. At least we know we have that.
Corrine Malcolm (00:54:46):
I think we’re gonna cut kind of slowly wrap up now with, um, three, like quick little follow up questions. Um, cause I think it’s a good place to, to leave, to leave that with everyone and people will, people will be able to reach out to you, which I think will be really huge for a lot of folks. So my first one, which I think just piggybacks off of what you just said was that I’ve been asking everyone this kind of in regards to their, their area of expertise, topic areas, you know, what do you wish you, you knew that what, what is something that you wish that when you were in that place of loving, maybe loving ultra too much that you know now, and like, if you could go back and tell, tell that Jill, you know, Hey, like, blah, blah, blah, what, what would that, what would that statement be to, to former Jill so that you, that you yeah. Are implementing now or that you recognize now?
Jill Colangelo (00:55:32):
Yeah, I mean, um, so first of all, more mental health care, um, because I know like you, like you said, you used training to take care of all of your mood states. And I did too. I used training to, to get through a lot of different, um, difficult moments in my life, different, very traumatic and, um, even not so traumatic situations. Um, I was able to kind of drown out a lot of thoughts on the trail for sure. And so I would tell myself mental health care, I, I really needed to go and, and, and talk to someone who would listen to me and help me guide through second thing is a very practical one, which is periodization of training and rest days. I mean, that would have really, even if I just had that, that would’ve helped me a lot. Um, everything I write about now, uh, for, I read for triathlete.com, everything I write is almost all of it has touches on the fact of the need for more rest and more recovery, because your body can only take so much.
Jill Colangelo (00:56:34):
You really have to have to do that. And third, I would say also just go nutrition. I mean, in my case is sort of specific. I was, um, I had celiac disease and, uh, wasn’t really replenishing foods in the way that I should have been. So that was kind of my bad, but, um, definitely seek, uh, you know, I I’ve talked to nutritionist, uh, dieticians before I wanna be clear registered dieticians, by the way, there’s websites, you can go to, to find real registered diet who are UN know how to fuel athletes eating is important. Don’t think that just cuz you know how to chew that, you know how to feed yourself. So find somebody who can help you with that. And honestly, I would just say like the last thing too, this is really important. Like get another hobby, like don’t just be a runner.
Jill Colangelo (00:57:19):
Like there are sweaters to be knit. There are puzzles to be done on. There are like, I don’t know, find something, join a book club, like please have outside interest because if your only interest is triathlon or ultra marathon or whatever, like it’s not gonna be healthy for you long term. It’s important that you connect with other people, not just in our community, but in others and find the other parts of yourself that are equally wonderful as the ones that their feet up and down the trail all day. Like you’re awesome all the way around. Not just, you’re not just a runner, you’re so many other things. So, you know, cultivate those things as well.
Corrine Malcolm (00:57:53):
That’s super, that’s super, super important. I’m always like, yeah, just take up. Kniting just add kniting to your life. Um, I’m total, I’m, I’m a terrible knitter. I can only knit in the round and I only knit cows <laugh> it’s not super, it’s not a super, uh, I don’t know. My, my, my family members are sick of getting cow as Christmas presents. Um, but I made it so it comes from the heart. Um, I love it. Two other things. The, the other one is people enjoyed this conversation and obviously yes, go read Jill’s thesis. It’s amazing. Um, but if people enjoy this conversation, is there a book or something that you’ve consumed recently? It could be a book, a documentary, a podcast, um, that you’d recommend for someone to go pick up. If they’re interested in this topic in like in particular,
Jill Colangelo (00:58:36):
In this particular topic, I would have a hard time, um, shooting you to, I know it’s terrible, but there’s not a lot out there that I really support. There are people that I think are saying good things about, uh, this topic. I think there are people are merging more and more. You guys are doing a great job about talking about a lot of these things. There are some other podcasts that are starting to come around to be willing to talk about these. There are a couple, and again, I’m not gonna name any names that have avoided talking to me and avoided talking even, and we’re friends and they have avoided talking to me and talking about this because I think it feels like it’s scary, but it’s not scary. I promise you that, um, anything that you do to answer your question, anything that you do to foment and to support who you are as a person deep inside UN if it’s meditation, if it is, um, through your religion, your so social circle, your family, your loved ones, anything that you can do, anything you can read or study that helps you cultivate that person who you are inside is going to help, help you with this.
Jill Colangelo (00:59:41):
Um, and of course, always, always, always mental health care, but people find solace in many different places. And unfortunately, like I said, until I write the book, um, there is no book <laugh> that is ready to talk about this. Um, so the, the, the time well spent is the, is the time spent on cultivating, who you are inside.
Corrine Malcolm (01:00:03):
So first off we’ve gotta get Jill a book deal and then second off, we’ll start a book club and it’ll be great. It’ll be, it’ll be fine. We’ll have a lot of fun, fun knitting
Jill Colangelo (01:00:10):
Circle. Um,
Corrine Malcolm (01:00:11):
Yeah, it’ll be a knitting circle. I’ve been parts of those too. They’re pretty fun. You, you do a little bit of stitching, mostly a lot, lot of chatting. Um, so final thing and we’ll link everything in the show notes. People wanna read more about your work specifically or the like, or the writing that you’re doing for triathlete, for example, where can people find that?
Jill Colangelo (01:00:28):
Yes. So, um, um, triathlete.com. I write stuff on there and by the way, it is written for the triathlete in mind, but it is universal for anyone who’s doing ultra endurance sport. Um, you know, all the stuff that I’m writing about, um, you can go to jillo.com and you can see there all the places I’ve been featured, you can read my research, you can be linked to, um, anything that I’m doing currently. Um, that’s kind of like the place where you’ll find everything that, and, and, and TBD on all the rest.
Corrine Malcolm (01:01:00):
Yeah. T T B D will, uh, will leave it at that. If, um, I think I encouraged this last time before our audio stuff gave out was young grad students or, or old grad students, grad students. If you are interested in this topic, if you’re interested in kind of going down these rabbit holes, um, Jill will be a wonderful person to reach out to. And I hope that we encourage many, many, many, um, future brilliant researcher to do to do just that. Jill, I wanna thank you so much for being so generous with your time today. Um, hopefully we can have you back on at some point to go down one of these more specific, uh, rabbit holes in the future.
Jill Colangelo (01:01:35):
It would be my pleasure. There’s so much to talk about. I feel like I’m I’m, I, we, we talked about a lot. There’s so much more to go. So anytime, thank you so much for having me
Corrine Malcolm (01:01:44):
Wonderful.