2021 lessons podcast episode

Top Lessons From 2021


Topics covered in this episode:

  • Developing patience in pursuing goals
  • Balancing short term and long term changes
  • Mastering skills through teaching
  • Tackling taboo topics in endurance sports
  • The importance of community

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Episode Transcription:

Please note that this is an automated transcription and may contain errors. Please refer to the episode audio for clarification.

Adam Pulford (00:00:07):

With 2021 coming to a close Karen and I thought had only fitting to come together for one of the final episodes of the year or collab as a cool kid say. And we wanted to share our top three things that we learned in 2021 from coaching podcasting in our own training journeys. On my side of things, top learnings were a mix of reminders and hard lessons to rethink what you may already know as well as learning or leaning into those around me in order to go to the next level, instead of thinking that I could do it all my own Sorin high level for you, give us a sneak peek of

Corrine Malcolm (00:00:44):

What you were learning. Yeah, I think it was, there’s a lot of reflection in this year and I think it, a lot of my learnings reflect back over almost a two year period and then from like overarching topics and then also hones in on things that I discovered primary really through just conversations I had this year with both athletes and podcast, guests and articles I’ve written to, to be really these tangible things that I think have a lot of societal implications that we can bring into our own coaching, our own athletic journeys, more than anything that there’s these through lines that tie everything together more than anything

Adam Pulford (00:01:22):

That’s much more articulate than, than I think mine was. And I always appreciate, uh, getting Corrine on here because I think her, her brain and her reflection on, on coaching as well as the intellect really shines through. So, uh, Korean, it’s a pleasure to, uh, to get on here again on, on the mics, um, with both here and it does sound like we’re just kind of like chalk full of, of lessons from the both of us. So what I’d like to do is break down our top three that we learned and then teach that to our listeners today and see, um, if we can kind of showcase why they’re so important and then see if we can make it applicable to our listeners as well. So are you ready

Corrine Malcolm (00:02:06):

To go? Yeah. I mean, how did you choose Jess three?

Adam Pulford (00:02:11):

Well, I had four because what I learned just before this was Karin figured out Zencaster the podcast operating platform that we used to do this and she blew my mind on a few things. So that’s my fourth. Okay.

Corrine Malcolm (00:02:24):

Secret fourth. Okay. But you’re gonna kick us off because I think that well for the listening audience, um, I cheated, I made Adam do all the homework and then he sent me his homework and then I said, Ooh, I can build off these things. So we’re gonna let Adam kick it off so that I can come in and hopefully build off of these lessons to make them hopefully broader and even more applicable if, if possible,

Adam Pulford (00:02:47):

I think it’s possible. And in cycling, we call that drafting room. So it’s very advantageous <laugh> all right. So I’ll get, I’ll get the, uh, party started here with, with mine and the number one thing, I think that was a, a reminder slash uh, lesson was results and, or success take longer than you want to admit. And I think it, it has like, it, it branches out into many aspects for me and that the premise says lasting change takes longer than most of us want to admit whether we’re do you know, doing a training or, or learning a thing for the first time. And like I said, it can apply anywhere. It can apply to your career, your relationships, your own athletic pursuits. And for most of us working with athletes or training, um, a long time to build a performance that, that, that we want as, as a goal.

Adam Pulford (00:03:42):

And that applicable piece, I think is if a listener is listening now and they say, well, what do you really mean, Adams? What I want you to learn is take a longer term view of where your training is going mean, mean, um, look beyond the, the big gravel grinder of 2021. Um, and look to where you could take that even three, four years from, from now doing multiple events or, um, really challenging yourself in, in different ways. Because I think many people right now are looking at like a, uh, like a new year’s resolution type view, new year, new me, everyone wants quick change. And that typically does not last okay. And to get good at something. And actually it takes deliberate practice and it takes a long time in doing that. And this is a nod to Andrew Erickson who is a huge hero of mine and his, his, his book, um, called peak is one of my favorites.

Adam Pulford (00:04:46):

And I think that it was a little bit blown out proportion by Malcolm Gladwell with this whole 10,000 hour principle. And I’ve talked about this on podcast, but to be clear, he, he didn’t say that it’s 10,000 hours of a thing, and then you become an expert. Okay. What he said is it takes the deliberate practice and you can read what that means more, but it takes intention and, and review. And a lot of things go into be in a deliberate practice and it takes a lot of hours and it’s varied for many people and different disciplines and all this kind of stuff, but the main effect is be deliberate with what you do and do it for a very long period of time. And then you’ll have success to that point with endurance training and endurance athletes. The way I look at it is there’s really kind of two things that are happening over time.

Adam Pulford (00:05:30):

Acute and chronic changes in an athlete. Chronic changes are more like the longer lasting and generally kinda like what you want the bedrock of your training to beat, think of a real OIC base building aerobic capacity or increased mitochondrial density, aerobic, um, uh, caring capacity by increasing rib blood cell count. And all these things, acute changes are more short lived, and they’re usually brought out by, um, intensity or intensive training. And that’s more of what I’ve talked about in previous episodes with, uh, building anaerobic capacity or anaerobic threshold training. And, and really those are the quick changes when you do the bedrock, right? When you do the chronic cha or the chronic development, right. You’ll be able to then dial up the acute changes when you want them or the performance aspect. And for me, as I was kind of like thinking about all this, the, probably the number one episode that stood out to me with a podcast was with Dr. Steven Siler, which is episode number 48. We talked about training, stress, training, load, and strain, and also this longer term approach of, of coaching and training. So I’ve said a lot of what this longer term aspect means to me. Karen, does anything kind of pop out to you as I’m just like ranting about this take a long term per

Corrine Malcolm (00:06:58):

Yeah, well, no. I think about like junior athlete development, I think about, you know, if you want, if you want overnight results, endurance sports, probably not for you, right? Like there’s, there’s no quick fix. And to me it also like highlights the importance of goals. And by, by goals, I also mean like those short, those like really like day to day also think athletes get hung up on that, like that big gravel ride or that big ultra instead of, and it’s because development of these things are so slow over time that it’s really important to be like, okay, well, what’s the goal for today? What’s my win today. What’s the change I’m making today. And those things I think, make, make this long-term approach, cuz you’re right. It’s a slow sport in that sense, those things make this long-term approach just easier to maybe like PA like more palatable, right. Cuz you get a little bit of that dessert every single day <laugh> so that you’re not, you know, binging at the end of the season or something. So I think, I think, yeah, making those little white size goals every single day, um, makes these, the fact that the sport is slow and takes years to develop all these things potentially, um, makes it, you can find reward in that I think is the big thing.

Adam Pulford (00:08:13):

Yeah, yeah. No, totally. And, and I think in coaching too, it’s like when I’m working with an athletes, it, it is in part giving the athlete a little bit of that reward every day, as well as keeping them focused on, on the long haul because it’s not just looking at the long term and it’s not just looking at today. It’s always looking ahead looking at here and now looking ahead, looking here and now, and, and developing a strategy that develops success over the long run while key being you focused and motivated in the short term. And I think 1, 1, 1 good example of this too, when I was just reflecting on why this is is, is one athlete that I started working with earlier this season, but I’ve worked with her before in the past, she’s an elite athlete and she, and she’s actually worked with, um, another CTS coach as well, kind of in that intern, she’s been on high level teams and she did a really good job of this aerobic based training.

Adam Pulford (00:09:10):

And when she came to me, she was having some performance issues and things and she was like, Hey, let’s start doing this. And it was just before it was before the Olympics. And I was like, all right, let let’s do this. And then, so I, when I looked at the data, it’s like the chronic was taken care of the chronic training load. The chronic, the aerobic base was there and all we needed was some intentional deliberate intensity to bring it out. And in short, like we did the right things that right time, she had a tremendous season, uh, performed well at the Olympics, won both of her national championships in her country. And now we’re gearing up for a very good, you know, 20, 22. However, it was nothing really that, that I did. I mean, she did the work, but it was this, this opportunity in here and now where those three years were built and the opportunity was to do here now. And that’s where I think say many, many athletes or some coaches, you know, if you don’t bring that out right. When they should, that you miss the opportunity, you miss the window. But it was also pretty easy on my end because it was like, well, it’s already built. So here we go.

Corrine Malcolm (00:10:15):

I think that’s really interest because elite cyclists, right. You’re working on that Olympic cycle, you’ve got a four year vision mm-hmm <affirmative>. And I think that that’s something that, that elites and nont alike can take that into their, their approach and practice of sport. Right? Like what’s your four year vision. Yeah. You’ve got a big 20, 22 goal, but how is 2020 setting you up for 20, 23 is kind of how I think that we could take that Allison Jackson example and bring that forward to, to anyone. Right. And ultra ultra is a really great example of this. Cause we don’t have an Olympics. We don’t, you know, right. Like we’ve got these, you know, you’ve got UT B every year, Western states every year. Um, yeah, but I think if you’re looking at long term development B be a 24 year old or a 64 year old, right?

Corrine Malcolm (00:11:01):

Like what, what are you doing this year that you’re gonna re you’re gonna reap those rewards next year or the year after? I think it’s really easy to be like, oh, this coach helped me for six months and I did this thing. And it’s like, well, you probably did years of work ahead of that as well. And I think it’s really easy to, to forget that these really successful athletes have had not just six good months of training or 12 good months of training, they’ve had potentially years or decades of training under their belts to get to that one moment. So, um, I don’t know if that’s inspiring or the opposite, but I think that we could take that kind of Olympic four year or five year cycle model and apply that to your own, your own way of visualizing success and training and building towards a big goal.

Adam Pulford (00:11:45):

Absolutely. And I think just to close this one out is it’s made me realize that I need to communicate those aspects to the athletes that I coach, um, either start working with or have been working with for quite some time is to remind them of everything that they’ve done leading up to the here and now and where we’re going, because you know, you can’t overlook what you’ve done. Um, you know, in the past, and also to motivate for that time forward, you have to kind of inspire to be like, look this year, we’re just learning. We’re just learning the races. We’re learning how to, how to pace. We’re learning, we’re learning. Meanwhile, we’re building capacity and all builds on itself. So, you know, and, and I think it’ll take some, uh, some pressure off too for, for some, uh, younger athletes. Yeah.

Corrine Malcolm (00:12:30):

It’s not, it’s not about one training session or one long run or one long ride or one perfect workout. It’s this accumulation, this summation of, of all the work that you’ve done good and bad. And so I think it’s, it takes the pressure off of like one performance or one workout even of being like, oh, this is gonna tell me if I’m gonna win Leadville or not. And it’s like, no, no, no, this is, or that I’m gonna break this, you know, this time it’s like, no, no, no. Like all the work you’ve done builds on itself. It’s not, it’s not, you didn’t have to nail that one workout. Yeah. I wanna set you up for success, but you know, step away from thinking that you have to, if you can’t do X, Y, or Z on one day that you can’t take the summation of the work you’ve done and apply it, apply it forward.

Adam Pulford (00:13:11):

Totally, totally. So that’s, that’s my number one. And it was a big number one for me, Kurt. So, so thank you for kind of listening, building off there. I, I want to now hear your number

Corrine Malcolm (00:13:21):

One. Yeah. So my number one kind of builds off this idea and it’s, don’t forget to do the little things. And what I mean by that is that during the initial year of the pandemic, our lives changed, right? We, many of us stopped commuting. We got a lot of time back. If I look at the athletes that I coach, we got time back in their day, right? Because they weren’t commuting an hour, two hours, three hours every single day. They weren’t traveling, you know, every week for work getting on planes. Um, we had more time and instead of training more, instead of being like, oh, this is an opportunity to double our training volume. We did the little things. We slept more. We spent more time with our family. We refueled properly after a long effort or a hard workout because you weren rushing to the next thing we stretched.

Corrine Malcolm (00:14:17):

Or some people stretched. I didn’t stretch. I’m still bad at stretching, but you did the little things because you had time to do the little things, right. And it wasn’t like a, oh this two hour ride can now be a three hour ride. It was a, I got eight hours of sleep instead of six hours of sleep. And the, those rewards made us better. It wasn’t that we doubled down on training and made our training volume bigger, or we did more intensity than we ever had before we did our training better. And we got better because we did the little things. And so we fast forwarded right from 2020. And that initial year, the pandemic to 2021. And we pretended that life was normal and life got more normal, right? Some people started commuting again, part-time or some travel came back here and there it’s not fully back.

Corrine Malcolm (00:15:11):

And so, but in that, we also stopped doing some of those things. We maybe we sacrificed sleep to get that run in, or that ride in before work, or we’re not seeing our kids as much, or we’re forgetting to pack that, you know, that snack that you can have at your desk at 3:00 PM so that you can get on the trainer when you get home at the end of the day, we’ve stopped doing the little things because we’ve kind of slipped back into old habits. And what I’ve found in athletes is that yes, like it’s not completely back to normal. We’re kind of in this, in between phase, this limbo phase, that’s just another opportunity for us to get creative with that time. I E I’ve got athletes, for example, who they’re in the office three days a week, or their work from home one week and they’re in the office the next week.

Corrine Malcolm (00:16:00):

And so instead of throwing out everything we did in 2020 and go, going back to what we did in 2019 or 2018, we’ve kind of had taken it as an opportunity to a adapt to say, okay, like, we’re gonna try a, an unusual, you know, block because you can’t do intensity on these days anymore. So let’s like, let’s be creative. Let’s figure out how to use this time, how to use what we’ve learned in 2020 of that, of that taking the time and doing the little things wall readjusting to maybe it’s that commute back to work. Maybe it’s that those international flights that are coming back onto people’s work schedules. So I think that that’s been a big, a big take home is that we can’t stop doing the little things that we, that we gained during that year of the pandemic.

Adam Pulford (00:16:51):

Yeah. That’s, that’s a, that’s a really good less. And I remember, uh, talking a, a few different episodes about this concept, and I think it’s really unique because, and I, and I’ll say this, some people were able to, to do the details a lot better because of their, you know, work from home situation and the, the way the pandemic kind of like shaped up some of their habits, some people didn’t. Right. So I’ll acknowledge too that like some people’s life changed, not for the better in that realm. And that is a own, you know, subset of, of challenges to overcome. And I, you know, and that’s super hard as well. Right?

Corrine Malcolm (00:17:29):

Yeah. Kids were home from, from school. Like there, there was a lot of craziness that happened as well. And it’s your right. It’s not fair to say that everyone’s life got better during that time. There’s a lot of, we all struggled as

Adam Pulford (00:17:40):

Well. Yeah, for sure. So there’s a lot of struggle, but there’s also a lot of opportunity. And we’ll talk about that adapt piece, um, here in a minute, because that’s super important as well. But to tho like, to your first example of the, the athlete that stopped commuting and maybe had more simplicity or more time, right. Um, they were able to do the recovery and the, and the, the training better and all this kinda stuff. I’m guessing that they probably probably didn’t increase or probably did not increase training hours.

Corrine Malcolm (00:18:11):

Yeah. For the most part across the board instead, instead of building training or using the extra three hours a day as an opportunity to train more volume, instead, it was an opportunity mostly to like stop shorting themselves on sleep more than anything. Yeah. Right. And having that extra 30 minutes to make sure you had had food, instead of, if you forgot your protein shake for the day, you were kind of Sol that those were kind of like the, the big, I think the critical pieces, they didn’t, we didn’t like make ARA a dramatic jump in people’s training volumes to, to meet that suddenly new time available to them.

Adam Pulford (00:18:46):

Yeah. So one thing I’ve said, and it can be a career decision and you can argue with me too, but I, I often tell people it’s like, well, it’s not the training getting in your way. Like, it’s not the training, that’s the problem.

Corrine Malcolm (00:18:58):

It’s almost, it’s all the other stuff. It’s almost never the training. It’s almost never that the training is too much or too little. It’s the, yeah. Like why, why spend money on X, Y, or Z, if you can’t get sleep or you can’t, you can’t feed yourself or you can’t, you know, do the little things that are gonna allow you to show up and be the best version of your, of yourself most days.

Adam Pulford (00:19:22):

For sure. And perhaps some listeners are, are listening to us, have this philosophical argument. It’s like, no, it’s really hard to get my training in. And, and my point is, is like, yeah, that’s the other part, that’s the other stuff, right? Because when, when you simplify your life, say you quit your job. You, uh, I don’t know, made the choice of not having kids put it that way, not having a pet, not having, uh, a bunch of bills and all this kind of stuff to pay. All you can do is run. You’re living in a van. All you do is run, sleep, recover. You can do a lot more training and you are going to probably adapt and, and, and, and do the sport a lot better. However, most people make the choices to not do that because they have associated a value with other things in life.

Adam Pulford (00:20:07):

So therefore you put these other things in your life, kids, job, dog, cat, whatever, um, family and relationships and all this kinda stuff to increase the quality of life. And so, but then it’s not to say that those things need to go away to be an awesome athlete. What you’re really honing in on is like this idea, like some people had the opportunity of simplicity and that can really, really deepen your athletic ability and the quality say of your training and recovery and the sleep needs to be first and foremost. And, and like you said, like we didn’t train change, training that much. We were just able to, to do it better and recover better. And I think that’s, that’s

Corrine Malcolm (00:20:49):

Huge to realize. Yeah. And I work with, like, I work with a slew of single parents, um, or single parents with, with shared custody of children. And like, I, I, yeah, like having dependence is, is a de you know, is, is a variable in training, but that is also off for a chance to break the mold and to be creative with the weekends away versus weekends with kids or weekdays with kids versus weekdays, without kids and, and use non-traditional models to, to meet those needs and to be really successful. So I think that akin to going back to work in the office part-time or to childcare such like there are ways to be, be your best and hold value in those things with some ingenuity, with some creativity, um, don’t, you know, don’t get bogged down in the cookie cutter way of doing things. And I think that transition point of 2020 into 2021 really highlighted that, that we’re in this time of flux and things are changing around us rapidly in both directions. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. And so use this as a time to be, to be creative and to break the mold in order to continue to do those, to do those little things and do the best in the days that you can do can do them really well.

Adam Pulford (00:22:06):

Yeah. And I think the other aspect of what you just said, and that’s really important is, um, this idea of adaptation and I, I think that first, like go from the athletic aspect, it’s like, what’s, what’s one of the main differences that, um, separates an elite athlete from an amateur. My argument would be the elite athlete can adapt quicker and better, right. And this for various reasons. But when you think about that, and then you say, well, it’s not the train, right? So take training and out of it, if you can adapt quicker and better, you become more successful. And then you say, then you can apply that to other aspects of life. So you will have more success. If you can adapt more quickly. You think about that in a, is a setting you think about that in single parenting, you think about that in ultra running or cycle, whatever.

Adam Pulford (00:22:56):

And this adaptation piece is actually really important. So whatever. So some of the stuff that you alluded to in what you changed that allowed your athletes to adapt either more quickly or, uh, more efficiently to the change. I think that by getting creative and doing things in a different way, that’s super valuable and, and that’s, or I think, you know, the value of a coach, an unbiased, you know, approach coming into someone’s life to change a few things here and there in order to improve your life. Like that’s what the coach is doing. I’m sure it has training implications, but there’s other stuff too. And, but that adaptation piece is super critical of what you just said.

Corrine Malcolm (00:23:35):

I don’t think I could have summed it up better myself.

Adam Pulford (00:23:41):

Uh, that was, that was super fun though. I really, that man, these lessons are valuable, correct? Yeah. These

Corrine Malcolm (00:23:46):

Are great. We’re gonna write a book. It’s gonna be great. Stand, stand by. There we go. We have enough things on our plate, right?

Adam Pulford (00:23:52):

<laugh> this is true. This is true. Uh, including number twos. So I’ll go with, I’ll go with my number two here. Um, and I tried to get fancy with this title. Um, I’ll probably butcher it, but, uh, let’s just, let’s just, let’s you got this. My number two is learn better pedagogy to improve your own pedagogical methods. And what I’m really talking about here is learning how to teach something of the art and the art along with the science of teaching and teaching others. And one thing that I did this year that was really valuable was I took a skills, uh, teaching clinic with the professional mountain bike instructor association and CTS coach. Josh Whitmore was the instructor for that and is one of the highest levels certified mountain bike instructors in the United States, Canada, and several other countries. And he’s actually, you know, teaching, um, instructors now.

Adam Pulford (00:24:57):

And so I took this course and I to, to frame it up, I’ve been teaching skills on the mountain and road bike for over 15 years. So it was, it’s something that I love and I’ve been doing for a very long time. So I was like, oh, well, let’s, let’s do this. And the more I got into it, I was like, wow, this is really going to, uh, get me outside of my comfort zone. And initially I was like, man, I have to do these lesson plans. And then I have to like be in front of these people. And I’m like, oh, of course I do, because I have to like teaching get certified and hold myself to a higher level, but it was so rich. It was so valuable. And what I learned like through that teaching was finding a good method to identify, maybe like say you’re already successful in a thing, find a good method to explore why you’re successful so that you can then teach that success even more effectively.

Adam Pulford (00:25:56):

And what I found was I really needed to, again, like I said, get outside that comfort zone, do things in a different way, but it allowed me to then teach way more effectively with less words with better drills using, you know, better obstacles, say in trails or, or thinking things in a different way. And it just really, um, it elevated my skills teaching, but it also had this aspect of trickling over to, um, how I shape up, uh, say, well, things like this podcast shaping up, um, uh, outlines for curriculum that go into this podcast to other elements that go into content creation for CTS to how I even instruct my athletes when, or especially like a new athlete when I’m, um, onboarding, um, initially for that first three months to just expedite that, learning that much more. So it gave me a vehicle to really teach more effectively. And I thought that that was, that was huge

Corrine Malcolm (00:26:56):

For me. Yeah. I’d say being, we oftentimes confused being highly skilled with being with an ability to share that skill with others. And I don’t know if any of you have a significant other who is super skilled at something, try to try to teach you or not teach you how to do that. And Adam can kinda laugh at this cuz he knows my husband pretty well. And my husband was a very good mountain biker and I was trying to do some mountain bike racing and I’d be like, how do I do this? And he’d be like, oh no, you just ride it. Like that was his advice. I don’t know, cur you just write it and I’d be like, um, it’s a drop. And then there’s a switch back at the bottom of it and I’m gonna scorpion. And every single time I do this, if you don’t tell me how to do it.

Corrine Malcolm (00:27:32):

And that was outside of his skill, ha like he very skilled, but couldn’t figure out how to teach these skills and actually same sort of thing worked with the group in Bellingham to, I like had to go through some teacher training essentially to teach, to ride with young riders. And it made like his ability to teach skills now has gone way up because he’s had to like put in the practice of teaching. Like I think teaching itself is a skill. And I think I learn through teaching oftentimes, right? How many as if you had to teach a topic and been like going into the topic, you’re like, I don’t know if I understand this completely and then you have to learn it to teach it and then you teach it and you’re like, oh, I will never forget this information forever and ever and ever. So I think that there’s teaching is a skill and you get better at those skills by not by necessarily doing them, but figuring out how you get other people to also do them. So I think there’s probably realms of life that, that just like spills out into, in a big way.

Adam Pulford (00:28:35):

Yeah. Oh wildly. So, and I, and I think like, first of all, in, in the sport of cycling in mountain bike in particular, it’s so common for like someone to be a really good writer and be like, yeah, you just do it like this, you know? And then follow, just write. And then if you just write it, bro, um, and you know, if you survive, right, if you can keep up, if you can not crash and break your clavicles and then you keep on writing with that person. Sure. If you’ll improve, but are there better ways of doing it?

Corrine Malcolm (00:29:05):

You yeah. And there’s different ways to do it. Right. I think learning as like a ski instructor was the huge was the hugest thing of being like, okay, how do I, if I say it one way, you might not get it. But if I say it a different way, it might resonate with you. And I found the same thing in coaching. If I explain in intensity cuz in running, we’re not necessarily, we’re not, we don’t have some of the tools that mountain bikers and cyclists in general road cyclists use as far as like having a power meter and um, using kind of a lot of hard data. Um, some of my runners will run with a heart rate monitor. Um, but a lot of them have, you know, wrist worn heart rate monitors that aren’t super good. And you have to be able to talk about intensity with an athlete and explain intensity in a way that they can say, okay, like this intensity should feel like this. And sometimes that means explaining that intensity four or five different ways until there’s a way that resonates with that person, with that athlete, because what resonates for you for, you know, know a lactate threshold effort, which is a different, you know, a different terminology on the bike than on running or skiing, um, what resonates with you might not resonate with someone else. And so I think that that’s, you have to kinda get creative in that sense of being able to vocalize skills or feelings in many different ways in order to reach each individual.

Adam Pulford (00:30:22):

Yeah. And you only get that through teaching and I, and I think one thing that popped into my head as you were talking is this comment, this like quote that it’s like when you can no longer do teach. And I’ve always really not enjoyed that quote, cuz it really, it it’s like a, it’s like a dig on teachers first. Well it’s an uplifting of doers or uh, in our realm, elite athletes. Yeah. Um, not picking on Steven, but you know yeah. He could ride man and I could not like hold onto his wheel, but you know, at some point if you, if someone’s asking you to teach and, and all this kind of stuff and you can’t, then yeah. You gotta change and do something. Yeah. And a

Corrine Malcolm (00:31:03):

Good, and that’s like that idea of like a, a good athlete. Doesn’t always make a good coach, right? Like a good, like that’s, there’s importance there of like you have to be really into the coaching or you have to be really into the learning for sure. To be on the other side of that as well. That just by, because you’re really talented at the activity does not mean that you necessarily have the skillset to, or train or teach someone else to be, to be that, to do that.

Adam Pulford (00:31:27):

That’s exactly where I was going. And you said it way better than I could have. And, and, but that’s kind of the, uh, the kind of the golden curse of a coach is I, I tell people say, it’s like, yeah, I was the, like the faster, the slow I was the successful of the unaccesible like I was so medium. It forced me to think about how I do things and then teach it to others and then come on. Cause I was never as good to be an elite athlete. So it really forced me into effectively, you know, coaching cuz you’re always doing and teaching and learning and, and like the cycle goes round and round. And by after this Bimba course, um, it was a really cool, unique opportunity to, to do that on the mountain bike side of things. And I thought it would be more of a slam dunk and it stretched me and it was really good.

Adam Pulford (00:32:17):

And now it’s, it’s trickling over to many other aspects of my life. My main kind of take home message here is no matter how long you’ve been doing something or how, how good you think you are at something because you know, you had rewards here as success given here. There’s always, there’s always a way that you can improve and you can generally probably do it better. So you, you know, whatever that thing is for you and it could be, you know, an endurance sport, it could also be something outside of that, but start to look for mentors, methods and tools and opportunities for you to take it to that next level. And you’ll probably have to break old habits. You’ll probably have to get uncomfortable and you’ll probably like have to get some more failures before you start adding more successes. It that’s part of the journey and that’s all part of it to get to that next level.

Corrine Malcolm (00:33:04):

I love that. And I think I can, I can jump off of that uncomfortable bit of getting uncomfortable. Um, my takeaway, my number two takeaway this year was, um, it was about being uncomfortable. It was that taboo topics are only taboo if you make them taboo that one for you. Right? And so I think that from, from the time I’ve spent this year on podcasts, um, in my community, um, writing articles, working as a coach, working with female athletes, working with male athletes, um, in an endurance sport, right, this, this, this speaks to both cycling and to the ultra endurance community is that there are a lot of taboo topics in our sport around body image about low energy availability about relative energy deficiency in sport and about disordered eating and society at large gives those taboo topics, power over us. And it’s not just a societal issue.

Corrine Malcolm (00:34:03):

Right? I see it neither have been so many stories this year about, you know, the U of Oregon story was heartbreaking of this U of Oregon coach who was only, um, doing Dexus scans on his female athletes, by the way, they were not doing this to the male track athletes. They were just doing this to the female track athletes, making them have multiple DXA scans a year to evaluate not their bone density, but their body composition. And then taking that number and putting it into a spreadsheet and then providing basically trying to make them lose weight by making them train more. And it’s all counterintuitive. And I feel so bad for these athletes, but the fact that that’s still happening at this head of a division one program can be like, well, a mathematician could coach runners. You just put this number in a spreadsheet and it tells you what to do.

Corrine Malcolm (00:34:48):

So misses the point of coaching. And so shines a light on the fact that we are still indoctrine in a society that has these issues. And doesn’t wanna talk about these issues that doesn’t wanna talk about menstruation. And doesn’t wanna talk about the fact that losing your menstrual, like losing the bleeding portion of your menstrual cycle, isn’t normal or mm-hmm <affirmative> that you might feel a certain way about your body and you might feel bad about your body, even if you’re in a small body and that’s okay. That’s, there’s validation in that we all, we all feel these things, um, about the fact that not only women, but men, male athletes also struggle with issues with body image issues in and around eating and their relationship to food. And I think we give these things power over us, over our teammates, over our peers, over our family members, over the athletes we coach, um, by allowing society to make us feel like we, we can’t talk about these things.

Corrine Malcolm (00:35:46):

And I think I’ve taken a kind of a side door approach to it by approaching it via the science more often than not by saying, okay, like we know bone stress injuries happen. Let’s talk about this. We know, you know, more and more, more and more research is coming out about female athletes in particular about birth control and about the menstrual cycle. Okay. So we’re taking a scientific slant, but if I think about my friends who are college coaches, like I, more than anything, I want their athletes to know that they can come to them when they have an issue and have a Frank and honest conversation with them. And for those coaches to also Institute, you know, a culture within their teams that say, Hey, like this isn’t normal. And if you’re feeling this way or experiencing these things, like I’m here to talk to you about them and we have these resources for you.

Corrine Malcolm (00:36:30):

And so I feel like by having these conversations, by opening it up to wider audiences via the via various forms of media, I think that we very, very slowly start to crack open these topics. And it allows people to have these conversations with their friends or with their family members. And so it’s been a year learning cuz I have sure as made dates during it, like I have, you know, used incorrect terminology. I have talked about things in a way where it’s like, oh, that’s probably disordered. I probably need to reflect on my own relationship with these things. Like I’ve learned a lot through that process. And I think that, I think that the pandemic and the in the year sense has given an opportunity to reflect more and have maybe more bandwidth and energy to, to spend time talking about these things that we might have brushed under a rug before.

Corrine Malcolm (00:37:29):

Um, and I think it’s only gonna make us better coaches. I think it’s only gonna make our athletes better. I think it’s gonna make their health and wellbeing better. It’s gonna make their performance. Um, so I think not being afraid to have these topics or have these conversations about these topics, um, I don’t know, opens a door for a lot of growth from a coaching standpoint, from an athletic standpoint, from a, a human you’re, a human, um, standpoint, I think is just like, it’s been a year of empowerment around these things. And I, I only hope that that continues from youth sports to college sports, to post collegiate sports, both at a professional and you know, recreational level that we continue to hold hold space for these topics around our friends and family and peers, et cetera.

Adam Pulford (00:38:15):

Yeah. Wow. That, you know, not having seen your top three surprise you. Yeah. You’re blowing, you’re blowing my mind here and then I have to come up with something in, in, in talk to this. Um, but what I think is, is amazing about that is you, so you’re absolutely right. And these taboo topics, I think historically, like where does it all come from, right. Like why do we have these taboo topics to begin with? And part of me, cuz I’m the same way where it’s like, I’m, I’m trying to have these conversations. I’m I’m sometimes I do it well other times I’m like just hack through that. I hope I didn’t offend anyone. Um, but, and I’m learning, you know, along the way to the point where I think that, you know, my female athletes, we can talk about their menstruation and we can change workouts as needed as we go and we can change the approach of what’s successful and what’s not successful, um, leading into, you know, major competitions or just different training cycles.

Adam Pulford (00:39:14):

Right. Um, additionally taking, say, you know, trying to identify maybe, you know, a disordered, uh, eating or like a body image issue, being able to take, I think like you taking a science approach helps to kind of like crack the ice, but I wanna get the conversation going. So is not a problem. Right. And we’re entering in this time period where I think most of us want to have that conversation and, and have it be open. But again, I back up to say, well, why, why, why did it get here in the first place? And sadly just off the cuff here and maybe I’ll botch it. But I think it has to do with like athleticism or athletics in competition being so like alpha dominated or like macho or, and alpha can be male or female, whatever. But it’s like only the strong survive type thing.

Adam Pulford (00:40:11):

It’s like, oh, I’m not gonna talk about my, my food issues, my disorder, even cuz I’m super light. Right. Know I’m going real fast. Right. And I don’t want anybody to see that that’s what I’m doing in order to do it. Or I don’t want people to think whatever of me because of that or uh, administration. Oh, we don’t our society. Doesn’t talk about having a period, you know, and no one wants to talk about that with me kind of thing. And I, and I think that because some of this can make us look weak. Right. And it could be super often that, but that’s like my initial kind of reaction to like, why the heck are these taboo topics taboo because no one wants to see your weakness. Yeah. And

Corrine Malcolm (00:40:52):

It, you don’t wanna share, share your weakness. Right. That was, I had a conversation with an athlete recently, not an athlete of mine, just a, kinda a friend in the community who he, we, he came on another podcast that I’m on and we discussed this, right. We discussed like his personal history with sorted eating and you know, he talks about having teammates who all had the same issues and no one talked about it or that, you know, if he talks to athletes now about his personal struggles about what he’s been through, what he’s currently going through, he they’ll nod along and they they’re like, oh yeah. Like I same here. And it’s like, okay, then why haven’t we had this conversation? And I think you’re right. I think it’s this idea of vulnerability, this idea of showing weakness, this idea of trying to present its perfect, right.

Corrine Malcolm (00:41:33):

Because that’s what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to, you know, climb up the stairs, the Elop or echelon at the top of the podium. And you’re kind of willing to make those, those sacrifices for your mental health and for your own physical wellbeing. And I think that we’ve, I think that this has been a year or two that where we’ve had really good examples in not necessarily maybe in running or in, in cycling per se, but in other sports that have been highlighted really well. Um, thinking about Simone Biles, like stepping away at the Olympics due to mental health, right. To, to not feeling safe in her sport and to making that decision and, and to highlight the fact that mental health is physical health. And I think that, you know, mm-hmm, <affirmative> you, I, I think that if you’re that most athletes who are struggled with who are struggling with disordered eating, you’re also struggling with mental health. And so I think having really high profile athletes talk about their anxiety, talk about their depression, talk about their disordered eating, um, give those things a, a space in the community, I think opens the door for, or for parents to have that conversation with their kids, for coaches to have that conversation with their athletes, for athletes to be like, Hey, I see myself in this person. Maybe I need to explore that. Maybe I need to talk about that with someone. So I think those have been opportunities for

Adam Pulford (00:42:48):

Everyone. So, you know, per this taboo topic thing to I social media, isn’t helping either, you know, in terms of like why we got here, because when we have now this kind of societal norm of, um, I’m gonna put the, my best version out there and that’s gonna be me as I present to the world. Of course I want, and then you can, you can manipulate it however you like in any possible way. And that’s how I present. Right. But then you come into reality with other human beings and you have all these shortcomings that you don’t wanna talk about because again, it’s seen as weak or unintelligent or not pretty or not handsome or all the, these things. And it’s so yeah, social media, isn’t helping with these, these, uh, taboo topics becoming on

Corrine Malcolm (00:43:41):

Taboo. Yeah. And at the same time, we all know that there’s like this very positive thing around social media. And I think this speaks to your kind of your third point, just gonna tee you up here, that social media is, is a form of community. And the, that thing, that community is really important to all of us.

Adam Pulford (00:44:00):

It really is. And thank you for that T-ball approach there because my third, uh, learnings here for 2021 is the aspect that humans and myself included here really do thrive in communities. And for me, this, this realization actually kind of spun out of the pandemic, which started a couple years ago. And it’s, it’s, you know, um, even truer now. And it’s the fact that, you know, humans historically, right, we’ve gathered together, say in, in tribes to help one another out and develop communities. And, uh, here we are now, uh, now it’s not really this introverted extroverted type of thing that I’m talking about that has an application, but it doesn’t matter. It it’s the fact that, uh, there’s benefit in living a society where people in certain areas where, you know, there’s grocery stores and there’s the there’s, I dunno, churches and there’s, um, businesses and all this kinda stuff.

Adam Pulford (00:44:59):

We, we thrive in a community as it pertains to this endurance world that, that we’re in. Um, you know, it’s, it’s kind of our own local communities, right. And it’s our, we’re both, we’re all all here, listening, endurance athletes, then there’s like team sport athletes, which, you know, in, in general, that’s like kind of two different communities, even though we’re all cons, we all identify as athletes. Right. But then you’ve got cycling and, and running and then you’ve got mountain bike and roadies. And, and so for, for me, the reason why this kind of like thriving in a community is such a huge learning aspect is, well, this may surprise some people, but I recharge best alone. Okay. And, and I associate more with being an introvert. And because of that, I, I think that oftentimes I thought that, oh, I didn’t, I didn’t like to be around people.

Adam Pulford (00:45:53):

I didn’t like communities and, and things like this, but, and I’ve often joked to my wife and people that are close to me. Uh, and some people were listening to this and they won’t believe it, but I, I, I always say, I just need to not be around people in order to like people again, it’s just, God, I, I need to get away for a while. But the pandemic for most of us had us rethink this. Right. And it had actually a lot of time away from people, um, in away from normality, what was normal to rethink. And re-angle some of this stuff, looking at relationships, looking at our communities and hopefully for the better, some relationships for me deepened quite a bit. And, and I’d say many of the majority have some, some fell away, but I was also, I’m also fine with that, but deeply appreciating these communities around me and in particular, it’s my community here in, in Washington, DC, the people I ride with, um, the people I associate with the people I’m doing group rides with on Saturdays or, or midday, um, the athletes I work with personally, um, and also the community that I developed being, um, a, a team director and being at all these big races over the years, staying in touch with them in multiple different ways, to your point, via social media, or, Hey, just picking up the phone, you know, and, and keeping in touch via, you know, uh, peripheral or, or not, but like realizing how, how much value like they actually add to my life.

Adam Pulford (00:47:17):

And I didn’t, I didn’t fully appreciate that before. And so I think for me, it’s like, um, maybe it took a pandemic in order to, to do that. Or maybe just like some self reflection of what was already there. Um, but it it’s, it’s these, this idea of we really do thrive when we get better with good people around us. That’s, that’s my number of three

Corrine Malcolm (00:47:43):

Takeaways. Yeah. And I think that a lot of us had to reevaluate our relationship with our sports during the, and you know, did, did we miss racing? Did we like racing? And I think what I discovered, and I think what a lot of my apps discovered is that yes, racing is important, but the community aspect in and around racing was so much more important. I E events that were able to go off, but basically you, you had at a rolling start, are you to leave as soon as you finished and you couldn’t hang out and, you know, get a beer with your other competitors or your other friends out there really changed the atmosphere at a lot of, a lot of races, particularly in ultra scene where we, we do like a good, a good hangout. We do like to camp camp out for the weekend.

Corrine Malcolm (00:48:27):

Um, we do like to walk the, the last finish finished 30 hours later or whatever it might be that racing didn’t feel like our community initially when we were kind of in this weird, you know, that’s, that’s why I think people didn’t gravitate necessarily towards like virtual racing, for example, in the running and ultra space, they definitely happened. They definitely were there, but we didn’t miss the racing. We missed the community. We, the hanging out, we missed the, the, all the fanfare that goes along with it and getting to return to some really big races this year, just to be a part of them. I was hurt. So I wasn’t personally racing. I was like, oh my goodness, like, I’m gonna hug so many people. And like, I identify the same as you. I think I’m a bit of a, a extroverted introvert. Like I thrive in those environments, I’m gregarious, but I do need my like alone time in order to, to kind of reset rebalance, recalibrate, but getting to be in those environments again, with our friends, with our peers, with our community, um, that to me was like, oh, it’s back, we’re back.

Corrine Malcolm (00:49:30):

Like our community is, is alive and well, and we are all here together. We’re, we’re not on the other side of a YouTube channel anymore. It’s it felt really good.

Adam Pulford (00:49:41):

Yeah. Yeah. Having a good hangout. I, I, I like that. Um, and very, very similar to Mount bikers. I mean, we’re, we’re like that. Um, and I, and I’d say for me, it’s like, do you miss racing? Do you not? I don’t know. Like I only kind of get motivated to race if I’m gonna be racing with another one of my athletes these days. Cool. Really? And it’s either like a, like a co I love, I love me some stage racing and I love like kind of that, uh, that duo format. And that’s, that’s really kind of my jam, uh, having done one done one of those since the pandemic just yet, but in mountain bike racing, you can also kind of gather your tribe and be like, let let’s go out there and just run these laps as ho as fast as we can.

Adam Pulford (00:50:21):

Right. And push each other along the way. And for me start line to finish line and let’s, let’s go because I realize in so solar train’s important, but to go fast and get the most outta yourself, like I need, I need people around me. I’m not one of these that, you know, say I for a number necessarily push beyond. It’s like, I want true competition. Right. And then I want to get to the finish line stare at each other, wonder what happened? And then start, you know, sharing those stories, have the beer and, and, and get on with, with our endurance life. So, you know, those, uh, those communities that we’re talking about here, it’s super rich. And it takes a while. I think to develop that, I think for me, it takes it a while too. Like, especially like being a coach, coming into a new community, a lot of people, well, I’ll say this, my perception is that a lot of people look at a coach and they’re like, oh, he’s a coach.

Adam Pulford (00:51:19):

And he probably thinks he knows everything. And, and so this kind of thing, and it’s like, oh, he’s a coach kind of thing. And I’m thinking cycling. I don’t know what I’m maybe trying to pick up on there other than like my perceived identity when I come into a new community is one that I don’t want to come in and be perceived as a know-all. So I kind of like sit back and try to like, hang and, and do the normal thing to that. I don’t come across as like this pretentious note at all. Does that make sense?

Corrine Malcolm (00:51:51):

Yeah. Just lie. When they say, what do you do? You’ll be like, I, I work. I’m a gardener. I, yeah. I don’t know a, what you say I’m an actionized physiologist. I don’t know. Like, I don’t know what you say there I’m a, I’m an independent contractor. Like, yeah. I don’t know. Say you’re an accountant. No one has follow questions for an accountant. I great.

Adam Pulford (00:52:10):

That’s true. I’ll, I’ll use that next time. But then like five seconds later comes home, they’ll say, oh yeah. Some race. And they’ll be like, oh yeah. One of my athletes just to bed, then you’re like, you’re an accountant with athletes. Yeah. I see

Corrine Malcolm (00:52:21):

That. I mean, you’re working in spreadsheets, so maybe, maybe there’s some truth there. Um, there feels a little bit like accounting some days. Um, I think third thing kind of, I mean, I, I, when you sent me your list, when you sent me your homework, I said, oh, number three, community. We can wax poetic on that for forever. Cause I just think we feel really passionate about the communities that we get to, that we get to be a part of. Right. That tribe locally. Yeah. For sure. You know, with your, your normal ride crew or your normal work, maybe you’ve got like a Tuesday night track club or whatever it is. Like, I think that those things are really important. You show up for those people in your community. And I think the community is, is broad too. Right? It’s those, it’s those national level events that maybe you, you had to see people you haven’t seen in a while, um, or, or beyond international events getting to travel with, with one of your athletes type of thing.

Corrine Malcolm (00:53:07):

Like we’ve got these kind of micro to macro communi all within this ecosystem that is endurance sports and mm-hmm, <affirmative>, there’s overlap here and there. Um, and I think that’s kind of where mine goes is that community evolves and both as an observer of 2021 looking at 2022, there’s this really interesting thing happening alongside, we’ll say off road cycling. So we’ll say, we’ll say gravel and, and a form of mountain biking, and we’ll say trail and ultra there’s this really interesting thing happening in both of our sports where we’re, I think both sports are jockeying for professionalism a little bit, and this is not like, this is not a bad thing or a good thing. This is more of a, this is my observation and where I think the sports are going a little bit here is that community evolves and change and things evolving is not bad.

Corrine Malcolm (00:54:00):

Um, I’m actually really excited about some of the things that are happening in the trail and ultra community. That’s the U T M B series kind of trying to find their footing in the sport in, um, off road cycling. There’s the, you know, the insane lifetime grand PR coming out this next year. And I’m like abundantly excited to see some friends throw down in that and, and, and follow it. But my takeaway from that too, is that community decides what matters and what’s authentic to the community, even as it evolves, right? So races that are outside the U T M B series racers and races that are outside of just this one grand pre still matter, still are important. And the community decides what matters the community decides what is authentic to, to the community, to the brand of the sport. And so I think it’s really easy.

Corrine Malcolm (00:54:50):

There’s gonna be a lot of hype. There’s gonna be a lot of, you know, evolving of professions, evolving of the sport of series of, of, you know, what your race calendar might look like might be dictated in a certain way. But I think that even with all of that happening, even if they’re good ideas or bad ideas, right, cause we’re all just kinda trying to make it work. We’re trying to bring new and exciting and novel things into these sports as they grow. As we, as we try to garner an audience to build the sport, to build the community at the end of the day, the community decides what’s important. So it’s not, we, we can be skeptical, but I don’t think we can be afraid of change cause it’s gonna keep happening. It’s gonna always happen. And so embracing some of these changes and then figuring out what to you feels authentic, what to you feels, what you want to invest your emotional energy in as part of your community is going to, is going to set us up for so many more, more, more years to come.

Corrine Malcolm (00:55:49):

So I think that my third takeaway is that the communities that we love continue to evolve and change, and they’re gonna bring with them more people they’re gonna bring with them, excitement, potentially media, um, new, new events, new disciplines altogether, potentially. But at the end of the day, the community, the heart of these C gets to kind of put their money where their mouth is, right. And, or put their money where their hearts are maybe, and invest, invest in yourself, invest in the community. And then, um, we’ll see kind of where the growth equation goes from there.

Adam Pulford (00:56:24):

Yeah. Yeah. That’s a very, um, positive and democratic view of it also

Corrine Malcolm (00:56:32):

Nebulous and I like slightly nebulous as

Adam Pulford (00:56:34):

Well. Yeah. Slightly nebulous. Um, and, and I do like that and I, and I think, uh, the offroad, uh, endurance sports. So let’s just call it that. I think they are evolving like that. And I’m just joked about it. Yeah. Because, and that’s where like the ethos of offroad, I’ve always gravitated toward that a little bit more because it is more people based or people like driven, the people are driving, uh, what is, what is held as high value. And I really like that. And that’s, it’s kind of, you know, flows over into other aspects of life in terms of, um, you know, if we, if we, the people, uh, deem something worthy, okay. Let’s shape and, and, you know, uh, let it evolve into this direction and, and, and then change it as we go. And I think, as you say that though, also like if you’re gonna be part of that community and part of this evolutionary process and do these events and all this kinda stuff, I think there’s, there’s some responsibility that falls on your shoulders to help orchestrate that evolution in some regard, otherwise, if, if you don’t help shape it, then you can’t complain about it a hundred percent to do a hundred.

Adam Pulford (00:57:45):

Right. Cause if all you wanna do is show up and do the race and then go home and be an accountant, which there’s nothing wrong with being accountant, mind you. But since we talked about it, um, great, right? Like that’s it. But if, if, if you want to steer alter running in a, in a sort of way, or mountain biking and, or ultra mountain biking in a way it’s like, yeah, go grab a, go grab a shovel, go, you know, kind of go start that race and, and work with the race promoters and the trail builders and the, um, the people that are driving this evolutionary process and in myself included on this too. Right. Um, and I, I think that that’s where I think, um, road side of things have not made there’s more governance there.

Corrine Malcolm (00:58:31):

Right? Yeah. And there’s gonna be a power struggle there, right? Like you’re so obviously trail and alter doesn’t have a national governing body or an international governing body. Like there’s a power, there’s, there’s a big power struggle there for who is the governing body of this thing. And cycling’s kind of in that, in between where road has like a very, and even, and mountain bike, certain disciplines have like these, this very specific kind of, uh, oversight, I would say. And then off the off road where all this kind of this, like, it shouldn’t be a stepchild. I don’t view it as a stepchild or a weird cousin or anything of the sport, but it, it you’re right. Like it, there’s more room for, I keep saying creativity, maybe my takeaway for the whole year is creativity. Um, there’s more room for creativity within the growth of that sport because it’s not as strictly governed, but there’s gonna be a power struggle there. Right. To try to try to figure out who, who are the overlords of the sport.

Adam Pulford (00:59:24):

Yeah. Yeah. And it’s already happening. Um, so we’ll see with, uh, gravel worlds being a UCI event, I think that’s, um, definitely I think that is happening for 2022. Yeah. I’m pretty sure I would need to get fact checked on that one, but I’m pretty sure. Um, and then, yeah, and then onward from there. So the, the power to this would be an interesting one too, but like just the, the struggle between a UCI gravel worlds versus the way it’s always been done, kind of this underground gravel worlds sort. That mean that’s, that’s prime example of that power

Corrine Malcolm (00:59:56):

Struggle. It’s like the OG, the single speed sec cross world champs. It’s definitely to ground, but you know, Hey, I’ll, I’ll see you in Durango in October. So it’s, uh, I think that part of the sport is really important. And I think ultra trail stuff embodies that as a whole. We are basically the whole, the whole stepchild, the whole, the whole weird cousin of, of the running scene. But I think that, yeah, our communities are gonna evolve, but like you said, like, yeah, grab a shovel man. Like get in line, grab a shovel. I think that I was listening to someone talk about, um, environmental action the other day. And they said, yeah, we are the outdoor state, right? Like all of us runners, skiers, cyclists, everything in between. Um, we are in a lot of ways, our own, our own state of people. And so our values, our, our thoughts and feelings can have major impacts beyond our sports. So grab a shovel call, call, call your, uh, local representatives, your state representatives. But I think that it’s like one of those things where it’s like, we, we, we do have a lot of, you have power in this evolving and ever changing world. And so there’s no, there’s no reason not to not to use it, I guess is how I, how I put it.

Adam Pulford (01:01:07):

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. That’s, that’s a really, that’s a really great way to put it. Um, and to that end, you know, I think, I think in summary, you know, this has been a, it’s been a big year for, for many people. Um, I know like reflecting back on it, when we kind of, we’re thinking of what this episode would look like, just trying to pick three topics. What was, was challenging for me. And, uh, but it also helped me realize, wow, like I’ve, I’ve also had a really good year in terms of like learning all of this. And, but it also wasn’t, it wasn’t like a, a normal year, right? 20, 21 probably wasn’t the glorious, like back to normal for many people out there. Um, was it for you?

Corrine Malcolm (01:01:50):

No. Has life ever been normal? Probably not.

Adam Pulford (01:01:53):

No. Well, we can have no, but

Corrine Malcolm (01:01:56):

You’re right. You’re right. Like what normal is my own personal life and watching it and my athletes, we all, so many athletes are tired right now because we pretended that 20, 21 was normal and they burning it at like more than both ends. And so it’s like, yeah, give yourself some grace, 2021 was, was not, we’ve learned a lot. And a lot of good has happened during this year, but it was by no means normal. And I think we’ve downplayed that in our lives, within our athletes lives. And it’s definitely like, I know a lot of tired humans right now who are just emotionally like, whew, they need an exhale. They need to like reset a little bit. So no, not normal. That’s my long answer.

Adam Pulford (01:02:31):

Okay. Not normal, but if, if it was like, say a normal or like a great new normal, cool, keep it going. Like that is what we want. Right. Uh, but if you’re like most of us still trying to figure out, you know, what is, what is the new normal we’re trying to adapt to how this landscape works. We’re trying to, to steer the evolution, if, if we can, of, of some of our sports, um, along with these ups and downs, along the way, the successes and failures, if you’re still are trying to figure that out, you’re not alone. You got two people talking on mics about, you know, how, how we’re trying to do it too. So my main message from my end is to keep learning, to keep growing, keep a critical eye on what you do, how you do it and look for ways to improve. Because then I think you’ll have success. I tell my athletes often that if you ain’t learning, you’re dying and there’s some comedy around that, but there’s also a lot of truth. And so if there’s anything that you put on your, um, new year, new me goal list is learn, learn in different ways and up the bar on yourself. Cuz you, you won’t, you won’t go wrong dude. About anything else you wanna

Corrine Malcolm (01:03:42):

Add to that? Yeah. Just, I mean, reflecting on our conversation, I think I said the word get creative or the phrase get creative about a dozen times. So you said it once I think get creative, right. Don’t be afraid to get creative, but also, I don’t know how many athletes I’ve had a text recently one day at a time, right? Like, yeah, we’ve got big goals, but we not, might not always be in the best head space and give yourself grace to not be in a good head space every single day. And we’re gonna take it one day at a time, one run at a time, one strength session at a time, one ride at a time like we can, we can be micro and micro little microsteps are gonna are going to add up. So I think that we need to give ourselves some grace as we head into 2022 so that we can be creative so that we can adapt. And so that we can hopefully put our best foot forward when races pick up in just a couple months.

Adam Pulford (01:04:33):

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Well special. Thank you to all of our listeners as well as we’re kind of routing off this year. It’s been another successful year on the train right podcast. And uh, with Karin being the new co-host, uh, couldn’t be more ecstatic to have her not only as a CTS colleague, but uh, um, a host here on, on the train right podcast. And I’m looking forward to some of the shows that are upcoming. Um, although I’ll just kind of leave it at that because, uh, Karen and I are gonna have some more or collaborative episodes as well as, um, lawyer guys’ minds in 2022. Let’s put that one. So thank you guys for, for listening and thank you everybody for subscribing and being part of the train right community and, uh, Karin, lastly, any, any big, uh, Christmas new year plans going on for you, Steven and Pete?

Corrine Malcolm (01:05:23):

Oh no. We’re just gonna go ski as much powder as we possibly can and hopefully bring in the new year in such fashion.

Adam Pulford (01:05:32):

Awesome. Well, everybody should take a, take an example from, from the Corrin family over there and probably do that too. Need some Christmas cookies along.

Corrine Malcolm (01:05:42):

Yeah, we’ll see. We’ll see you all back in 2022.

Adam Pulford (01:05:45):

There you go. Well, thanks Corin. And thank you all.

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