6 | Elite Marathoner Kaitlin Goodman: A Return to Running Joyfully
Release Date: 04/25/2019
The Injured Athletes Club
“ When you're injured and beginning to rejoin group rides/workouts, how do you let other riders know you're not at 100%? I'm thinking specifically of gravel and mountain biking. I have trouble clipping out quickly, and am currently overly cautious. I want to ride in the very back, but sometimes there are other people ALSO trying to ride in the back. I know people don't want/need to hear my ‘woe is me' injury story, but I also don't want to be a hazard!” —Whitney In season 8 of The Injured Athletes Club podcast, mental skills coach Carrie Jackson answers a question every other...
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“ When you give yourself permission to explore your identity, you will start to realize that being an athlete is an important part of who you are, but it is not all that you are. When you develop other areas of your identity, it can sometimes open up your performance in ways that were never available to you before.” As we discuss frequently in The Injured Athletes Club, injury brings a rollercoaster of emotions. But often, one of the most destabilizing feelings is the question of identity: Who am I without my sport? In this host-ful episode, Coach Carrie explains how common...
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“Besides feed the athlete/feed the monster, are there other ways to reframe and build confidence with that day-to-day overwhelm in month 3 and beyond?” Allison In season 8 of The Injured Athletes Club podcast, mental skills coach Carrie Jackson answers a question every other week about the mental side of overcoming injuries. This week, listener Allison wants advice on self-talk and other confidence-builders as she moves into the long-term stretch of her rehab—and Coach Carrie delivers advice that will help any athlete riding the emotional rollercoaster of a lengthy recovery....
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“ I woke up in the hospital and told everybody that this isn't gonna define me. I'm going to be playing lacrosse again. But there was always that what-if in the back of my head; I didn't really know if it would be possible. Having amputees sit across from me and hearing everything that they've been through … they were telling me that I'd be able to live an active lifestyle. I would be able to do whatever I wanted to with my life. And if I really wanted to, that I would be able to play lacrosse again.” Noelle Lambert was a collegiate lacrosse player at UMass Lowell when she...
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“ Just after recovering from being hit by a truck over the summer and breaking a bunch of bones, I got to start running again only to slam my ankle into a table and now I can’t even walk. It’s possibly just a bone bruise but the pain is radiating through my entire leg and I’m so angry this happened to me just after I got better. Everything is just fifty thousand times worse. I don’t get along with those closest to me, I have so much more conflict with family and friends because nobody understands what I’m going through and nobody is even that nice. Does anyone else feel...
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“ The biggest change that I've had to make in myself is, you don't always have to be progressing. I feel like there's this huge push to be able to run faster, run farther, lift heavier, just do more all the time. But it doesn't necessarily have to be that way to reap all the benefits of health and fitness that come along with cardio and with strength training.” Physical therapist and strength coach has always been a healthy, active person. But after she got sick with COVID in the fall of 2020, everything changed; her resting heart rate soared, she lost fitness and muscle mass,...
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“How can I cope with treadmill anxiety? Coming off of a mild ankle fracture, my first few weeks I was back up to speed. Lately, as soon as I go anywhere over a jog, I feel panicky, like I'm going to fall and have to slow down. I feel relatively sure it is all mental—but I’m wondering if you have any tips.” —Jennifer In season 8 of The Injured Athletes Club podcast, mental skills coach Carrie Jackson answers a question every other week about the mental side of overcoming injuries. This week, Coach Carrie addresses Jennifer’s question about coping with treadmill...
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"Actionable goals build. It's a mountain—recovery is a mountain. Think about the stops on that mountain that you need to make to get to the top.” Millie Paladino had a successful, relatively injury-free collegiate career in running at West Virginia University and then Providence College, where she ran distances from 800 meters to 3,000 meters and was an all-American in the mile. She turned pro and joined Team New Balance, and in 2021, made the final in the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials in the 5,000 meters. But in the lead-up, a slowly developing injury began...
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“ I tore my ACL last April; it’s been very challenging. Do you have any ideas on how to make the recovery process fun? Also, why do I feel so lost and confused without my sport—what should I do with this feeling? —Ava In season 8 of The Injured Athletes Club podcast, mental skills coach Carrie Jackson answers a question every other week about the mental side of overcoming injuries. This week, in response to Ava, she reiterates one of the key messages of The Injured Athletes Club: That you are still an athlete, and recovery is now your sport. And the first part of that recovery...
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“ I don't really want to be who I was before I was injured. In a lot of ways, I'm thankful to a place that just completely broke me, just brought me to some really low points. That's when I was able to grasp my faith or what it was, which is my personal worth. It has absolutely nothing to do with a soccer field or anything of the sort. Just learning that my worth and my fulfillment comes solely through my faith has been something that will go so much farther through life than soccer ever could.” Civana Kuhlmann started playing soccer at a young age and quickly excelled,...
info_outlineIn the summer of 2018, pro runner Kaitlin Goodman—known for her positive personality, as well as times fast enough to qualify her for the Olympic Trials in multiple events—had just signed a new contract with the Boston Athletic Association High Performance Team and Adidas. She was training for the TCS New York City Marathon that fall. By her account, she was in “the shape of her life.”
Then, on a training run in August, she dove to avoid a car that nearly hit her. In the process, she partially tore her hamstring tendon. The diagnosis—and the subsequent slow recovery—ranks as one of the biggest challenges she’s faced in her life. But in her journey back to running, she gained newfound perspective (and even a new family member).
Kaitlin joined us today to discuss:
- How the injury took her from the “highest of highs” to the “lowest of lows”
- Why her dog Moose was so critical to her psychological and physical recovery—and how his running ramp-up mirrored her return to the sport
- The extremely difficult decision not to line up at the NYC Marathon, and why she kept her injury quiet for a time
- How she handled the day of the race itself; why she couldn’t go to NYC but did watch the competition from afar
- Why coaching was another saving grace during this time: “When all your eggs are in the running basket and running is not going well, it's really challenging. You feel like you're like failing at all areas of your life.”
- Why she thinks it’s so important to allow yourself time to feel negative emotions—but to put a timeframe on them
- One big piece of support she wishes she would’ve asked for in the depths of her injury process, and what she recommends to other athletes
- The anger she felt at the driver, how she worked a day at a time to control it, and the productive project into which she’s now channeling it
- The loss of identity that comes with injury, how deeply it affected her, and what she did to move through it
- When she started to feel like “Kaitlin the runner” was reborn, and how gratitude for that influences her experience now
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