31 | Olympian Mechelle Lewis Freeman: Finding the Opportunity
Release Date: 07/23/2020
176 | Coach Carrie Answers a Question on Embracing Change as a Masters Athlete
The Injured Athletes Club
“How do I adjust my training mindset now that I'm a masters athlete? I have a hard time accepting that my body is no longer 20. I'm 35, about to turn 36.” —Kelly Society often tells us that getting older is something to be feared and refused—think about the concept of anti-aging. For athletes, there’s an added layer of performance changes as we move into the masters categories. The problem, Coach Carrie says in this week’s Q&A episode, is that aging isn’t an optional activity. By fighting against its reality, we often keep ourselves miserable and stuck. If...
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175 | Elite Bench Presser Tony Carlino on Resilience, Recovery, and Raising the Bar
The Injured Athletes Club
“One thing that helped me—and I don't know if I really thought about doing this, I think I just did it when I was in the hospital—was just taking it a day at a time. Taking the day for what it is, not trying to look too far ahead. Obviously, you want to hit that goal of getting better, but take the day for what it is and what you can do that day.” As one of the world’s most accomplished equipped lifters, Tony Carlino is used to hoisting huge weights over his chest and on his back. But in 2019, he faced a challenge no gym session could have prepared him for: A bout...
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174 | Coach Carrie Answers a Question on Coping with Feeling Left Out
The Injured Athletes Club
“I’m feeling left out, although I know it’s not intentional. I joined a racing team this year, but have had to withdraw from several races already due to recovering from a bone stress injury. I did too much, too soon last year, and it finally caught me right after team training started—go figure! There’s another race this weekend that most of the team is running, and I’m always happy to support them, but it also sucks feeling like a wasted spot on the roster and not being able to attend any group runs or races while I’m recovering. Do you have any advice on handling...
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173 | Swimmer Lyn Jutronich on Surviving a Shark Attack and Moving Forward
The Injured Athletes Club
“ It's not going to be a linear journey, which is something that's been hard for me to wrap my head around. I have bad days and I have good days … I've had to learn that sometimes it's two steps forward, one step back.” Lyn Jutronich has been swimming since she was a child in the Chicago suburbs, and as an adult living near San Diego, she fell in love with the open water. But in November 2022, she experienced every swimmer’s worst nightmare when a juvenile great white shark attacked her. With help from her swimming partner, Lyn returned to shore. Her wounds healed in...
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172 | Coach Carrie Answers a Question on Pain Management and Recovery
The Injured Athletes Club
“I am nearly 8 months post-op after a femoral osteotomy to correct my knee. One of my biggest challenges is trying to figure out if my knee hurts because it ‘should’ as part of my recovery—or if it hurts because my body isn’t used to this level of training after 7 months of not doing much. Can you help?”—Aaron Sometimes, pain sends a clear signal to your brain that there’s tissue damage or danger. But when you’re recovering from an injury, those messages can get muddled, with an overactivated central nervous system firing off warnings even though there’s nothing...
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171 | Author and Athlete Dimity McDowell on the 27th Mile and Charting a New Path Forward
The Injured Athletes Club
“ You don't want to think about a friend dying or going through a divorce or anything like that—you kind of don't want to even put that energy in the world. Same thing with running. You don't want to think about what it looks like, but the reality is, most of us are going to have to think about that. Not everyone can stand on the podium at age 70.” Dimity McDowell was first on our back in 2022, when she’d just written a series of for (the late, great) Women’s Running magazine about what happens when you can’t run anymore. As she describes in her return...
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170 | Coach Carrie Answers a Question on When Grief and Gratitude Collide
The Injured Athletes Club
“ How do I cope with knowing that I may never get back to where I was—that this might be a permanent change for me?” —Emily Many athletes—whether they’re professionals or amateurs—have a strong athletic identity. When that’s threatened by injury, especially if it’s a permanent shift, it’s normal to feel frightened and unmoored, Coach Carrie shares in this week’s listener Q&A episode. Whether you have to give up your sport altogether or must adjust the way you participate, you should allow yourself to feel grief at the path you’re no longer taking....
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169 | Triathlete and Coach Angela Naeth on Creativity, Curiosity, and Compassion
The Injured Athletes Club
“If I had to choose one injury or obstacle as the most difficult, it's really hard for me to do that because each one was very different in and of itself. I look back at them, and I'm honestly quite grateful I've been through it all, because it's changed who I am and it's made me who I am. You learn a lot when you're down and out.” Angela Naeth has been racing as a pro triathlete since 2008, and added gravel racing in 2022. In that time, she’s had plenty of success, reaching the podium more than 40 times in 70.3 and Ironman events and placing in the top 8 at Ironman World...
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168 | Coach Carrie Answers a Question: Tell Yourself Something Worth Believing
The Injured Athletes Club
“ My surgery was a success, and my doctors have given me the go-ahead to play again next season, but it's been over a decade since my initial injury, and I needed to hang up my skates. I've been sidelined for about 11 years. I was always a really aggressive player, and I've never been one to shy away from a confrontational situation on the ice. But after my injury, I'm worried that I'll be too nervous to really dig in and go full throttle when it comes to checking or anything that brings me too close to the boards. I DESPERATELY want to play again, but I know myself well enough to...
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167 | Coach Carrie and Cindy Label Your Emotions
The Injured Athletes Club
“ When you take a moment to pause and label the emotion you're feeling, you're asking your prefrontal cortex to get involved, which pulls the activation out of the amygdala where your brain is processing threat or no threat. Instead of being overwhelmed by the physiological experience of the emotion. It creates psychological distance so you can experience it from a less threatening vantage point.” Here at the Injured Athletes Club, we talk a lot about the roller coaster of emotions. Today, on this host-ful episode, Coach Carrie guides us through some of the ups and downs you’re...
info_outlineMechelle Lewis Freeman had put everything on the line to achieve her Olympic dream. She’d walked away from a successful career in advertising, moved to a full-time training facility, and calculated everything from the hours of sleep she needed to the grams of protein she ingested to the positive mantras running through her head. (The impossible is nothing. I can do all things. No weapon formed against me shall prosper.)
Injury threatened to derail her progress, keeping her away from the track for four months in the leadup to the 2008 Olympic Trials. But because she’d already invested so much in training not only her body but also her mind, Mechelle was able to see the opportunity in the obstacle. She took her training to the pool and returned months later to make the team in dramatic fashion, as she explains in this episode.
This optimistic, ambitious mindset not only took Mechelle to the Games in Beijing later that summer, it now informs her work as a relays coach for Team U.S.A. and fuels her mission to mentor the next generation of athletes through her non-profit, TrackGirlz.
A huge thank you to Fluid Running H2GO, the only app-based deep-water running system in the world, for sponsoring this season of the Injured Athletes Club. CLICK HERE and use code IAC 30 to take $30 off the full system or the digital bundle.
In this episode, we discuss:
- How injuries are viewed in sprinting (6:11)
- Her earliest memories of injury, and how they led her away from sport (9:09)
- What drew her back to it years later (13:49)
- How she has been able to use comparison as motivation, rather than a reason to doubt herself (18:19)
- The steps she took to fully commit to her new goal (20:00)
- The injury that kept her away from the track for four months during an Olympic year, and how she stayed dedicated and focused while dealing with it (22:22)
- The big secret she kept from her family about her selection for the team, and why (32:16)
- What actually happened during the Games that summer—and one of the hardest moments of her entire journey (44:04)
- How she moved on from that experience and translated her gifts into the next phase of her career (55:44)
- The ideas she has for instilling resilience in young athletes—and for further integrating and diversifying the running community (1:01:23)
You can subscribe to The Injured Athletes Club on Spotify, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts, and if you like what you hear, please leave us a rating or a review in Apple podcasts. That helps other injured athletes find the show.
Resources/links we mention:
- Mechelle’s Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook page
- The TrackGirlz website and Instagram (go there to register for the last in the RefresHER series, July 28!)
- Her AirBnb Online Experience (and the article Cindy wrote about it for Runner’s World)
To access more resources for injured athletes:
- Join The Injured Athletes Club mailing list, for weekly news and updates
- Join The Injured Athletes Club Facebook group, for support and camaraderie
- Email us at hello@injuredathletesclub.com with questions, guest suggestions, or other feedback
DISCLAIMER: This content is for educational & informational use only and & does not constitute medical advice. Do not disregard, avoid or delay obtaining medical or health related advice from your health-care professional because of something you may have heard in an episode of this podcast. You should not rely on this information as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Please consult with a qualified medical professional for proper evaluation & treatment. Guests who speak on this podcast express their own opinions, experiences, and conclusions, and The Injured Athletes Club podcast hosts nor any company providing financial support endorses or opposes any particular treatment option discussed in the episodes of this podcast and are not responsible for any actions or inactions of listeners based on the information presented. The use of any information provided is solely at your own risk.