EP 94 Chasing an Olympic dream with Kristen Faulkner

These are the things that made the olympic gold medal like it wasn't you know like it wasn't the vc job it wasn't you know all these these things that people see it was like the everyday grinding sacrificing yeah not having to care what other people think of me when i leave my lucrative job you know and and um there were so many naysayers along the way, it's you know crashing a race is getting back up and keep going and um like that's

that's what was behind the fairy tale like there's every fairy tale has like the the dark side to it you know that people don't see and so that was kristen faulkner she's a professional cyclist and she recently won gold in two events at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Women's Individual Road Race and Women's Track Cycling Team Pursuit.

It was a dream come true. Ever since she was a kid, growing up in Homer, Alaska, she wanted to compete in the Olympics. As a young girl, she'd watch it on TV, and it was the only time she saw women competing in professional sports. But it takes more than just a dream and a positive attitude to make it to the level that Kristen's at now. She says there's a process. You have to be humble and analytical and constantly learning. You also have to be willing to take risks.

In 2016, Kristen graduated from Harvard and then took a job in New York and then in San Francisco. as an investment associate. She was in her mid-twenties when she quit that job and started pursuing a career in cycling. It was a decision that she agonized over to leave a lucrative job for an uncertain one. But she eventually determined that the pros outweigh the cons, that she would rather live with no regrets.

Her approach to cycling, like everything in her life, is about assessing what you're good at and what you're bad at. And then, when you've identified what you're bad at, you focus on it until it's a strength. This is one of the big reasons she excelled in cycling so quickly. She made her weaknesses her strengths. She approached it with the mentality of, It's not that I'm bad at it. It's that I'm just not good at it, yet. So here she is, Kristen Faulkner.

Welcome to Chatter Marks, a podcast of the Anchorage Museum, dedicated to exploring Alaska and the circumpolar north through the creative and critical thinking of ideas, past, present, and future. Music. My name is Cody Liska, and I'll be your host. One of the things that I appreciate about you is that you're a reader. And from what I've seen, you like memoirs and books on self-help and mental health. How often, if at all, do you pick up a book to better understand what you're going through?

All the time, absolutely. I think for me, reading is, it's a pastime and it relaxes me. but it's also for me a way to find people who maybe have experiences I can relate to and learn from. So, you know, there's a book, Bravey by Alexi Pappas. And, you know, I, when I was going through some mental health struggles as an athlete, I found a lot of solace in her book.

And it was really great to feel like, oh, this is one of my peers who has been through something similar and I can learn something from her experience and not only learn, but be inspired by it. And so that was one good example. I think another one is Good for a Girl by Lauren Fleshman. she talks about what it's like being a female athlete in a kind of sports world dominated by men.

And I looked at that for inspiration, you know, when I was kind of struggling in the cycling world, you know, looking with men's salaries and television coverage and all that. So I think it's for me, I love reading about other athletes. I love reading about other women, other people, you know, people who are always trying to better themselves or learn something new. So reading is a big part of my life. Yeah.

Yeah. In that book, Good for a Girl, a woman running in a man's world by Lauren Fleshman, it is at least in part, you know, about women participating in sports that are dominated by men. How often do you encounter or think about the sexism that exists within sports like cycling? All the time. I think, you know, actually, since joining EFO League Cannondale, it's been a lot better. I think the team treats its women's team very, very well, and I think they've done a great job.

But that wasn't always the experience in cycling. You know, there's a lot of teams who are very explicit about treating the women and men differently. You know, I've had teammates who've been on teams where they were at a race and they shared a dining room with the men and the woman had one table that had one set of food and the men's team had another table right next to them, which had private chef cooking them all different meals, organic ingredients.

Everything was, you know, plated out for them and totally different food, different ingredients, different everything. And they were two teams next to each other, you know, in the same room. And so that type of explicit sexism is something I haven't personally witnessed, but a lot of my teammates have on other teams.

And, you know, things like mechanic support and nutrition and a lot of resources going to the men's team internally within teams that, you know, that's not even considering the prize money, the salary difference, the television coverage, you know. And so it's really from the top down and it's both inside and outside of teams. And so I think it's changing rapidly, but it's still quite hard to feel for a lot of women, like you're a second class citizen in your professional job.

I mean, if you were at Google and you got paid a different salary for doing the same work, it would be a totally different environment. And so I think for female athletes, it's challenging at times because we feel like, you know, we're living in 2024 and this is still happening. And it's not just implicit, it's very explicit as well.

And so I think one of the things that I think, you know, it challenges me and it saddens me, but it also motivates me is, you know, before the end of my career to really have an impact on that and hopefully make some change and, you know, make women cycling more progressive in that way. What kind of change would you like to see by the end of your career? I'd like to see women's salaries increase to be, you know, comparable to men's. You know, they're nowhere near what the men are making.

I'd like to be able to log in to some of these streaming networks and see women on the front page instead of men. You know, a lot of times you can click and find the women's races, but they're not highlighted. They're not on the front page. You have to kind of dig through to find them. I would like to see, you know, sponsorship dollars treating the men's and women's team equally when they give money to the teams.

I'd like to see equal prize money at races. You know, if a woman's doing Flanders and a man's doing Flanders, the prize money should be equal for both of them. They're doing this exact same race. And, you know, I'd like to make sure that within teams, the resources are equal between the men and women. So if the men, you know, can bring their bike in to get tuned up, the woman can too. And if the men are getting ride food and nutrition from their team, the women are too.

And if the men get strengths coach and nutrition coaches and all that, the women are too. And I think right now that doesn't happen on most teams. And so, you know, the first step is increasing our salaries and increasing resources. And then I think that'll trickle down to also more media coverage and more sponsorship dollars as well. What do you think has been the most significant or maybe one of the most significant things to happen to women's cycling in maybe the last 10 years?

I think having full coverage of the races. So when I started, my parents were not able to watch us on TV. You know, there was no TV coverage of my races. And now for the World Tour races, we do have TV coverage. And I think that's made a really big difference because more people are able to tune in. They know the riders, they know the races, they know the names.

And suddenly, when you have viewers and audiences who are following women's sports now, okay, you've opened up the door for sponsorship dollars to come in because now there's an audience for the sponsorship money. And I think also when people watch women's racing, they can see like, oh, it's really exciting and it's fun. And so I think the TV coverage has really opened up a lot of doors.

And I think it's put more media and interest into women's cycling, which has in turn raised awareness about some of these disparities that exist in the sport. Something that I'm noticing already is your answers are so quick to these questions. And the first thing that came to my mind was that was a marketing question that I just asked. And I didn't think maybe I didn't think it was a marketing question, but your answer kind of dictated what the question meant.

And I'm like, you know, you have a really solid mind for this understanding of marketing. You know like what how can or the question was um the most significant thing to happen in women's sports in the last 10 years and your mind went to okay um you know coverage right coverage equals marketing equals viewership equals uh more viewers right and that is just that train of thought yeah and more money as well yeah and to me that's that's uh that's a very multi-faceted way of thinking about it.

Yeah, I mean, it's a whole industry, you know, and I think, you know, when you when I entered the sport, the first thing on my mind was like, oh, the prize money is different. And the salaries are different. And I actually spent a lot of time researching this space, like where, where is the root of the problem? And I think, you know, we can fix prize money, we can fix, you know, salaries, but then it's like, well, where does the money come from?

It comes from sponsors. And why are sponsors interested? Well, because of viewership. And how do we get viewership? Well, we have, you know, coverage. And so I think it's come through talking with a lot of stakeholders in the industry and other riders who've been around for over a decade, you know, and really trying my best to learn what is the systemic root of the problem.

And I think, you know, 10 years ago or even five years ago, a lot of these people, media companies, like they wouldn't even film women's races because they said there was no audience. And so it was this chicken and egg problem where, you know, they wouldn't film the women's race because they said there was no audience, but then there's no audience because they didn't film it.

And so, you know, I came from this kind of VC background. Well, it's like, you know, you can have a startup that needs funding. And so like, which one kind of comes first? And I think when I entered the sport, I was like, well, how can we ever prove that there's an audience for us if there's no coverage?

And I think there were a lot of sexist views that you know prevented women's coverage for a long time because there was this idea that oh no one's going to watch women's racing and i think when we finally had coverage we were able to you know dispel those myths and so like actually there's quite a big audience for women's cycling and people are interested in watching the sport and i think because of that and because we've proven that that's why we see more sponsorship dollars more team starting

you know women's teams and and the sport is growing and it's because we were able to disprove this myth that no one's interested And I'm hoping that that will transcend to other sports as well. I wonder if you think that there is less of a difference in women's cycling and men's cycling versus other sports. Well, it's interesting. Yes and no. I think the racing style is actually very different from men and women's cycling. I mean, the races are longer.

There's usually less happening at any given moment. There's kind of, you know, a pretty standard script that a lot of men's races follow for the most part compared to women's racing. And I think women's racing tends to be a lot less predictable. It's a lot more fast paced because the races are shorter. And so I think from a viewer standpoint, the experience can be a little bit different.

And I actually don't know for other sports if they have that kind of similar dynamic where it's actually like the competition is actually experienced differently. But I think, you know, the other thing about cycling is you have this really international audience because you have people from so many different countries. That race and they race all over Europe. They race all over the world.

Um, whereas for something, you know, like basketball in the U S like, I don't know how much of an international audience there is for say women's basketball, you know, college basketball or something, things like that. So I'd be curious also the cultural dynamics at play when you have an international audience versus a more national audience as well. So I think like all those factors need to be considered, but, um, to be honest, I haven't done as much of a deep dive into that question.

Um, so I actually don't know kind of the dynamics of viewership for, say, the WNBA versus the NBA and things like that. Yeah. In the book Bravey by Alexi Pappas, the one you brought up earlier, she talks about the post-Olympic depression that she went through. Have you given any thought to that post-Olympic depression? You know, in some ways, but I haven't experienced it at all. And I think for me.

I, I always wanted to go to the Olympics since I was a little girl, but it was always something I, I wanted for myself. Like I, I wanted it long before I knew that it was cool to go to the Olympics or that other people would find it cool, you know? And I grew up in a world where I didn't know any Olympians, um, in my, you know, close circle. I didn't have any family members that have been Olympians and, um, it had, it was a relatively foreign concept, I guess.

Um, but it's something I watched on TV and I was always interested in. And my entire Olympic journey, I feel like was always something I did for myself. Like it was my biggest life goal, but there was no external influence. There was no external pressure. There was no one, you know, pushing me to do the Olympics. And so I think that for me, like I never, there was never like this lack of purpose. Like I always felt like a deep personal desire to do it.

And then after the Olympics, maybe, maybe because I had success at the Olympics, but I feel like it's actually been the foundation to do even greater things after. And so, you know, maybe if the Olympics had been the greatest event of my life, then it would feel like this little, this little slump after, but instead I've been like, wow, I, I want to go write a book about my experience.

I want to go do some speaking gigs about my experience. I want to talk with some brands and have potential sponsorships after the experience. And so I've really looked at it, not necessarily as like the pinnacle of my life, but as the foundation for something that can grow even bigger. And maybe that's prevented the post-Olympic slump because I feel like I'm at a launching board right now as opposed to coming down from a big high.

So maybe that's played a big role in it as well. And I guess the final thing I would say is, You know, I'm not new to cycling. I've been professional for four years. I've been riding for seven years, but I still have a lot more I can do in the sport. And so for me, the Olympics wasn't, you know, it was my biggest goal, but it wasn't my be all end all goal in the sense that I still have way more goals I want to pursue.

So I want to do all the Tour de France. I want to win a stage at every Grand Tour. I want to win a big classics race. And so I think for me, like my goals don't end just because the Olympics end. And I still have many things I'm working towards in many ways in my cycling career and skill set that I can improve. And so I think of the Olympics not as the end of my journey, but really as kind of like the middle of my journey in my cycling career. And so I think that also plays a role as well.

But I have heard many people talk about the Olympics lump. And I'm fortunate that as of now, I haven't experienced it yet. And I imagine those factors all play a role. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad to hear that you haven't experienced it. I watched this interview back in 2018 with snowboarder Red Gerard, who won an Olympic gold. And he was asked, you know, how he thought about the Olympics, because at the time he was, he was pretty young. I think he was about 17.

And he said, you know, his grandparents loved the Olympics. He referred, you know, to them as like his excitement is almost contingent on their excitement and that his Olympics was the X Games. You know, that was the thing that he grew up with and that he was excited about. I wonder, is the cycling Olympics maybe growing up, is that the Tour de France?

You know, is the Olympics kind of old school or is it still, you know, there's still some life in it it's still exciting yeah i think for me it was the biggest race of my life you know it wasn't the tour de france it was the olympics and maybe that's because i'm american you know i think the american um you know maybe the the people in in the netherlands who are like pure cyclists and cycling is the biggest sport there maybe and maybe in countries where cycling is the

biggest sport maybe they prioritize the tour de france um but for me like i had always said i'd rather win a gold medal than win the tour de france i got always rather go to the olympics and go to the Tour de France. And I think for me, it was the biggest race that I could possibly participate in. And it was the biggest race that I could win. And that's the mindset that maybe isn't shared by every cyclist.

It's definitely my mindset. It has been my whole life. And I think it stemmed from this kind of 10-year-old girl that when I was a kid and watched the Olympics on TV. And that's what really inspired me for sports. It was like, I want to do that one day. And when I was a kid, there weren't... There weren't many female athletes on TV. Like there weren't female baseball players or basketball players, you know, at the time when I was a kid.

And, and so the only time I really saw role models and female role models on TV was at the Olympics. And so for me, as a young girl, like the Olympics were the first time I looked at the TV and I said, wow, I can be that one day. And that just became my life, my life dream and my life goal.

And so I think there's been this thread of the Olympics my whole life that extends way beyond just, oh, it's the pinnacle sport or it's this big international competition for me it's like this childhood dream that i had and so of course that transcends any other cycling race you know because my dream for the olympics, started long before i ever became a cyclist and so um yeah for me the olympics is is huge um but i think maybe for someone who's a grand tour rider who you know doesn't enjoy one

day races who comes from a country where you know cycling is the biggest sport in the tour de france is the biggest event like maybe they would prioritize the tour de france so i think it's a personal preference and value system yeah you know that's a very unique thing for a kid to think to be watching the olympics and you know your immediate thought is i could do that i wonder where does that where does that come from um well you

know i i grew up in alaska it's a it's a very different place from from other parts of the world. You know, my hometown, it's a lot of people who run their own businesses, a lot of entrepreneurs. My parents moved to Alaska in their early 20s and kind of built a life for themselves. And they were entrepreneurs as well. They run their own hotel restaurant. And I think from a really young age, it was always just instilled in me that I could become anything I wanted. I could be a fireman.

I could be a firewoman. I could be president of the United States. I could be a doctor or a lawyer. I could be an architect. I I could, you know, work at the zoo, you know, anything. And I remember this exercise in third grade where my teacher said, you know, what do you want to be when you grow up? And even in kindergarten, you know, they were asking us, what do you want to be when you grow up? And we would draw little pictures of what we wanted to be.

And I remember kids being like, well, could I be an astronaut? And the teacher was like, you could be anything. And she's like, can I be a police officer? And the teacher was like, you could be anything. And so I think from a young age, it just, you know, I was raised to believe anything was possible, you know.

And I think there was a level of imagination and confidence that was instilled from a really young age that if you want to become something and you're willing to work hard and, you know, that at least as a kid, like, you needed to believe anything was possible. So I think that was ingrained in me from a really young age. And, you know, maybe the difference is like that.

That part of me never went away you know i think sometimes as people get older maybe they think like oh i can only be an astronaut if i studied physics in college or i could only be you know doctor if i just pre-med or i could only um you know be an athlete if i started the sport when i was 10 and i think maybe because i didn't have that mindset that's why i was able to leave my job and and go start something completely new in my 20s yeah um but yeah it's an interesting question.

It's hard for me to compare because I wasn't raised in another environment, you know, so I don't know exactly what it would have been like for a kid growing up somewhere else to think about what, you know, what did they think about when they saw the Olympics? Yeah. I'm sure you have friends or you have encountered people who didn't grow up with, you know, this group of cheerleaders, you know, people that are on your side and telling you, you can do things.

I wonder how do you react to those people? Are you, you know, is your immediate thought to, uh, to cheerlead them or are you like, you know, that, that mentality is so alien to you that maybe a response is tough. No, I think for sure. Like I would love to inspire as many people as I can to really believe that because I believe it's true, you know, and, and I think not everyone and was sent that message when they were a kid.

And part of it too is I think gender norms were a little different in Alaska growing up. Like as a girl, you chop firewood, you go fishing, like even gender norms are a little different up there. I think for me, you know, it's also not just sending the message to young kids. It's also sending it to adults. It's saying like, hey, if you discover a passion in your 20s and you are willing to work hard and you want to pursue it, like, here's how you can make it happen, you know?

And I do want to emphasize, like, it takes more than just believing. Like, you know, there's a process, you know, and you have to think like, you have to be constantly learning and to be humble and you have to like be analytical about it because it's not just about wanting to pursue the dream. It's like, how do you pursue it? you know?

And, and so for me, um, one of my goals actually over the next 12 months is to write a book about my experience because I want to be able to share it with other people. I want people to see like, what was the journey actually like? And I think the media has kind of created this fairy tale of like, Oh, she quit her job.

And then it went, you know, one and one gold, two gold medals, but like there was a whole journey, you know, and there was like a lot of setbacks, a lot of people who didn't believe in me, a lot of people who told me it wasn't possible.

It And people, you know, kept saying, like, every time I won a race, like, oh, it was a fluke, she's new, or she doesn't know what she's doing. And then I kept winning races. And they would say that over and over. And then, you know, even before the Olympics, USA Cycling was like, there's less than a 6% chance you're going to get a medal, we don't think you should do the red race. And so I think my whole life, you know, I did have a lot of naysayers.

And that made me from maybe there was like a confidence inside me that had started when I was a kid that was like, you know, I needed to kind of prove people wrong and show them that actually they're not right. But I, you know, for me, yeah, part of the reason why I want to write a book is because I really want people to know that it's possible and I want people to really believe it.

And I also think there's a lot of lessons about how we raise children, you know, and what children are led to believe from a young age. I think when you tell children, you know, you're good at math and you're bad at math. You know, there's been research that shows it really impacts them and how they perform in school. And if you tell a kid they're good at math, they're going to perform better on a math test than if you tell them they're bad at math.

And, you know, and there's really studies behind that. And I think the way we speak to our younger generation and the way we raise children, I think we can learn a lot about, you know, our experiences to make sure that we're raising the next generation to achieve all that they can. You know, I was listening to this other interview with you and you talked about the concept of radical transparency, you know, assessing your weaknesses and then focusing on them until their strengths.

In a way, do you think you've hacked cycling? I think it's you know it's not just cycling i think it's everything in life and i don't i don't say i've hacked everything in life but i say like my approach to everything in life is the same as it is to cycling it's like you have to go in you have to be extremely humble like there's no ego about it it's just like here's what i'm good at here's what i'm bad at okay well let's look at the things i'm bad at how do i get good

at them and and it's like well you know and then and then And so, for example, I'll give an example. Like I was really bad at descending when I started cycling. I was terrible at descending. I was slow. I was scared. I would break all the time. And I was always off the back and have to chase back on. And so I started watching YouTube videos of people descending.

And when I would go around a corner in training, I would do the same corner 12 times, like over and over and over until I finally got it right. And in training, I would intentionally, you know, on my recovery rides, I would actually go on climbs because I would like go easy up the climb just so I had another chance to descend. And when I made my routes for training, I would always find routes that had the curviest descents and the most difficult descents because I knew I needed to practice that.

And for for years like my entire first you know four years of cycling professionally that was that was really what I focused on every day in training and then um you know at some point I took my entire paycheck and I hired a consultant and I said like I said like there's so many things I could do you know with this money but like my career is my priority and so I hired a consultant to come out with me for a day and teach me how to descend and and I think you know

you know, I wasn't buying nice clothes with that money. I wasn't buying a purse. Like I was investing in myself and I was investing in my weaknesses so I could be better at the things that I really valued. And that's like been an approach I've had to everything in my life, you know? And even right now, I want to write a book. I don't know anything about writing a book. I've never written a book before. So nearly half an hour ago, I was on the phone with an author that I really

respect being like, hey, can you walk me through the process? Can you talk to me? Any advice you have, you know, anything that I should know about and what are the timelines and what was the publishing process. And so I think when, you know, with everything in life, I kind of approach it with this attitude of, it's not that I'm bad at it. It's that I'm just not good at it yet.

And I think a lot of times we tell ourselves, oh, I'm bad at math or I'm bad at descending or I'm, you know, bad at writing or whatever. But I think if you instead just shift your mindset to, okay, I'm not good at it right now, but that doesn't mean I won't be good at it in five years or in three years if I want to be. And I think like shifting that mentality it really pushes us towards a growth mindset where we start focusing on not whether I'm good or not,

but just how do I get better? How do I get better? And I think for me, that's been my approach to cycling. That's been my approach to everything in life. And I think a lot of people look at my story and they're like, oh, she went from never touched a bike to gold medal in seven years. Like, you know, that's a fairytale. And it's like, well, maybe it's a fairytale, but like there was a lot of thoughtful, intentional work and processes that went into making that happen. And you can do that too.

If you just, you know, have this mindset of like, I'm always going to be learning, I'm always going to be humble, I'm always going to be asking questions, taking feedback, finding mentors, you know, putting myself in positions with people who are better than me and smarter than me so that I'm not the best one in the room. Because if you're the best one in the room, you're learning less, you know? And so anyway, that's a long way to answer your question.

But I think the answer to your question is like, maybe I've hacked a few things about the trajectory and learning process, but I don't think it's unique to cycling. I think it's something we can apply to any of our jobs. Music.

Something else I was thinking about as you're talking about this journey and this fairy tale that people have labeled it as, and you're thinking, meanwhile, about all the hard work and the dedication, and I'm sure the things that you have had to give up along the way. I wonder what those things might have been.

Yeah, I mean, I'll start from the very beginning. I was 24 in New York City and all my friends were out partying on Friday nights, going to bars, getting, you know, like having fun, going to birthday parties. And I was going to bed at 9 p.m. Every Friday and Saturday night, waking up at 4 a.m. to train every single weekday and waking up at 6 a.m. On Saturdays to go race in Central Park, coming back and taking a nap while

my friends were out at Boozy Brunch, you know. And that's not a values judgment.

Like, I'm not, there's nothing wrong with that. I'm just saying, like, I missed out on a lot of those fun exciting times you know and and people didn't see that work behind the scenes like they didn't see me waking up at 4 a.m and going to train for two hours they didn't see me reading investment memos on my stationary bike trying to fit everything in when i was you know, overworked they didn't see me um when i moved to california you know i wasn't

going and exploring yosemite and and and lake tahoe and sonoma wine tasting like i was waking up at 6 a.m on saturdays driving four hours to a race, spending the night in the motel, racing the next night, driving home on Sunday night, going to work Monday through Friday, you know, and that was my routine every single week. And, you know, I didn't have a ton of time for socializing. I wasn't, you know, staying up late because I had to wake up early for training.

You know, when I first moved to California, it rained, I think like 20 out of the 30 days in February of that year. And I was waking up at 6am in the dark, in the cold.

It was pouring rain outside and I would go out on our ride for two hours and this was before I had any professional contract like I was just trying to make it you know I was I was someone working in finance just trying to make it with a hobby that I had and trying to see how good I could be and um like every one of those days I could have I could have slept in and I didn't and um you know and then then when I moved to Europe and,

And started racing. I mean, when I left my job, you know, from the very beginning, I was supporting myself financially. Like, I never had any financial support. I had to save enough money over four years to even have the opportunity to go race in Europe. When I moved there, I had no apartment. I had no friends or family over there. No social connections over there.

I had really no idea what I was getting into. I remember moving to Girona with two bike bags and two large suitcases, like almost in tears because I was so jet lagged and couldn't even like carry my luggage with me. And getting an Airbnb for two weeks and then signing a two year lease because I had no other option for housing.

And then when I came back to the US to visit my friends that year, like I was sleeping on couches because I didn't even have an apartment in the US and I wasn't making enough money to afford an Airbnb for two weeks. And so I think, um, you know, these are the stories that people don't see. Um, and, and they don't see, you know, um.

Like, you know, when I was hit by a car last year, I spent three months on the indoor trainer, you know, and, um, and, and that was just for one race at the end of the season that I had, you know, and, and it was three months on doors just so I could do one race at the end.

And so I think like, these are the things, um, um that these are the things that made the olympic gold medal like it wasn't, you know like it wasn't the vc job it wasn't you know all these these things that people see it was like the everyday grinding sacrificing yeah not having to care what other people think of me when i leave my lucrative job you know and and um there were so many naysayers along the way it's you know crashing a race is getting back up and keep going and um like that's

that's what was behind the fairy tale like there's every fairy tale has like the the dark side to it you know that people don't see and so do you think your way of thinking has changed at all since you became a cyclist or do you think becoming a cyclist has just enhanced or reinforced your way of thinking um.

I'd say mostly enhanced and reinforced but there's always something we learn along the way i mean someone someone once said to me um if you're not embarrassed by who you were five years ago then it means you're not growing okay if you're if you're not embarrassed by something you did five years ago you know it's basically this quote that's like if you can't look back at yourself and be like oh like cringe or like i'm embarrassed by that or i could have done

that better then it means you're not growing and so um you know there's a few things i think i have become a lot better at since I've started cycling. For example, handling pressure. I think I've been able to deal with pressure and expectations a lot better since becoming a cyclist. I think dealing with the media and other people's opinions of me. I think before becoming a cyclist, I didn't really care that much about what other kids thought or my peers, as long as I had conviction.

But suddenly when you have thousands and thousands of people with an opinion about you who are fans, who are audiences, who are you know, reading news articles about you, a lot of it's true, some of it's not true. Suddenly you're dealing with that on a much bigger scale. And so it's like, can you really block that out? Can you do what feels right to you despite what everyone else in the world thinks? And so I would say being a cyclist, I don't know if it's like changed my views.

It's definitely changed some views, but I'd say most of what it's done is just taken the experiences I've had and challenged me by putting them in a much bigger, grander context. You know, it's like, rather than caring about what the, you know, the three teenagers in my classroom think, it's like, oh, now I have to care about, not care about what 3,000 fans think.

Yeah. Or, you know, and so it's kind of this, and the pressure of, you know, trying to win a local swim meet versus like the pressure of, you know, managing the Olympic road race. And so, you know, and I think as we get older, sometimes our experiences become a bit more exaggerated, a bit more pronounced, you know, they're on a bigger stage. And I think cycling has helped me manage some of the challenges I faced, like on a much bigger scale. It sounds like you're feeling more responsibility.

You know, you said before, maybe you weren't really caring about people's opinion. But now that there are thousands more of those opinions and considerations and people looking up to you, maybe you feel, you know, more of a weight of responsibility now. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think the biggest thing is...

You, you realize when you realize what an impact you can have on other people, you do feel a responsibility, you know, because, you know, when I see, when I see, when someone sends me a message and says, you know, my, my young daughter wants to start cycling because she watched your race. That's that's one of the most inspiring things I can hear you know or or someone says you know my.

My daughter was really overweight she you know was bullied in school for her weight and you know she was really sad about it and then we brought her to watch the tour de france and she just thought cycling was so cool and she got into cycling and she started being more active and you got her weight under control and you know she's so much more confident now and she's not bullied anymore and it just opened up her whole level of confidence in

other areas of her life and you hear stories like that and it's like how could I not feel a sense of responsibility you know to feel like there's people who who actually are impacted by the things we do on a daily basis you know and and then you start thinking well if if I can impact those young girls doing what I'm doing now like what more can I do to impact 10 times as many people you know and not just kids but adults.

And, and you start thinking like, what's the impact that I can have with my voice, with my actions, with my goals, with my lessons that I've learned in my life. And, and I think, you know, you suddenly realize that what you're doing is much greater than just yourself. And, and I think, you know, when I started cycling, I was cycling because I love cycling. Like that was it. It was a passion of mine. And I think now it's like, wow, there's something that's much greater than me and my passion.

There's something that involves a lot more people. And it's not just about being able to change my own life. It's about potentially being able to change other people's. And I think that's a really motivating thing to feel. When you're in the thick of it, training, interviews, preparing for upcoming races, is there anything you do that keeps you grounded? Oh, yeah. There's a lot of things. I think it's really important to stay grounded.

I mean, I think the mental preparation is as important as the physical. Yeah. So, I mean, first and foremost, I always stay in touch with the people that are really close to me. So, that's my best friends, my family, my mom, my dad, my boyfriend. I would say every day I FaceTime with two to three people. When I'm in Girona, you know, I call my mom almost every day.

I call my boyfriend every day. and then i'll call one friend from home and and to me um i think when i was younger i didn't fully, appreciate how important my community and my supporter like my supporters and like my my kind of five ten person support group um was to my life and i think as i've gotten older as i've been put in kind of bigger content you know bigger situations and put in the limelight a bit more i've realized how important they are for grounding me and just making me feel, um.

Like keeping me in touch with who I am, you know? And, um, so I really make a big effort to call and stay in touch with my close loved ones every day. Um, the second thing is I definitely make alone time every day just to be with myself. And that could be reading, that could be cleaning, but I'm quite introverted. And, um, I actually find like, I really enjoy being around other people. Like I love learning from other people. I love talking and having fun with other people.

But if I do it all day long, I get really tired. And it's not that I don't enjoy the socialization. It's just that it makes me really tired. And so in order to manage my energy levels, it's really important for me to have at least an hour, sometimes two, three hours every day where I'm just completely alone. And I'm in my thoughts. I'm in my books. I'm in whatever it is I'm in. But I can just really touch base with how do I feel? What am I thinking?

Do I have any anxiety? Do I have any fears? Am I lonely or do I feel really connected? And do I feel tired? Do I feel energized? And like really assessing those emotions helps keep me grounded and keep me aware of kind of where I'm at and what I need. And then I'm able to get what I need. You know, once you know what you need, then you can start the process of getting it. So if I feel a little lonely, then I'll go socialize. If I'm feeling a little tired, then I'll rest.

If I'm feeling energized, then, you know, I'll go to the gym or do something. So yeah, I think that's another one I do. So, yeah, those are the two biggest things. It's just time with the people I love and then time with myself. I heard this one thing about you that I really loved. And it is growing up at Homer, you and your siblings would have an annual camping trip where no adults came along. What did those look like?

Um it's so funny because when i was growing up this was so normal to me, and now that i live you know i don't live full-time in alaska and i hear stories of other people's childhoods i'm like huh that was kind of weird wasn't it like that was an odd way um. Uh, you know, I, we were, we, we were like free spirited. We were adventurous. We had fun. We had to learn to really trust each other.

Um, you know, the five of us would go hiking and, um, I remember, you know, we had limited food with us, you know, we had enough food for three days. And I remember one time I ate my brother's granola bar cause I was hungry and he was upset with me. And, and so we'd have these like, you know, like little fights over like real, real issues though.

Like he was really hungry by the end of the trip because I ate his granola bar, you know, and like there's lessons like that where it's like, oh, wow, you really need to like be really conscientious of your actions, you know, because they can have a pretty dire effect on other people when you're selfish, you know. And, you know, there are other situations where I got my foot stuck in the snow

and I was really young. So for some reason, I thought that like pouring water on my foot would like melt the snow around it and I could get my foot out. But instead, it just froze the water. So now my foot was in like a chunk of ice frozen in it.

And I was completely stuck and like I couldn't get out and I was like in my hiking boots and we were in the middle of this like in the middle of the woods and I my foot was completely stuck in this block of ice and I remember like we had to figure out a way out like we had to make sure that we got to the campsite by dark and we were we were kids like my sister was 18 maybe and the rest of us I think my brother was eight years old um and so like being in these situations I think,

it it gave me a lot of perspective you know I remember like when I went to Harvard and everyone was like, oh, I'm so stressed out. I have this problem set due tomorrow. And like, my life is going to be over if I don't get in in time. And I'm like, really? Are you really that stressed about that? Like, you know, I like ran into a bear last week and like, you know, he had two cubs and he was looking at me and sniffing me and things could have been a lot worse than missing a piece set, you know?

So I think, you know, I think it did a lot of things. The first is I think it made me really close with my siblings. Like we went through a lot of challenging situations together.

We learned how to figure it out. I think it gave me confidence that i can find a way out of challenging situations you know i might not i might not know the answer right away but i can always figure it out um and because when you're in that that situation like you have to you have no other choice like you can't call your mom and say like fix this for me like there's no cell phone service you know so you had to figure it out and the stakes were high and so

this like this mentality of like no making excuses no stressing about it don't don't sit and cry about it like instead find a solution figure it out and move on you know and when you're put in the wilderness and hire it like that's your only option like you have to you have to like stop complaining put your head in the game figure it out and move forward and like you have to work with your teammates or your siblings and find a solution

because you all need to find a solution um so i'd say that's like the first one of the first few lessons i learned um another one was like this i would say a level of fearlessness and not recklessness but fearlessness. Like, I wasn't scared to be a little lost in the woods. I wasn't scared to run into a bear. Like, yes, I was a little scared, but like. The more you face those situations, the less scary they are.

And then when you're in a situation where maybe you're giving a speech in front of a lot of people, suddenly you're like, okay, this isn't actually as scary as like running into a bear. This isn't as scary as getting my foot stuck in the snow in the middle of nowhere with no cell phone service and it's getting dark. like this. And so suddenly other areas of my life didn't feel as intimidating. They didn't feel as scary.

And I think, I really think growing up in Alaska and having those experiences, you know, when I left my job, it's like, okay, well, what's the worst that could

happen? Like, I'm broke. Okay. Being broke is like, it's, it, it sucks, but like, it's not like I'm going to eat and buy bear, you know, like, like, okay, worst case scenario, I go and I, you know, I sleep in a hostel and i get a job at starbucks and i you know and like i can figure it out like i can survive you know and so i think this idea of like worst case scenario and like life not being as scary or as intimidating um is something i always felt like i always felt um when i

was among my peers in school or at work like i just felt like i had a greater perspective on on life um on like what was what was a real challenge and what was worth getting stressed about and what was worth making excuses for and and um you know i never like sat there in self-pity being like oh like life is hard or this is hard it's like okay well how do i fix it how do i move forward you know and and that's because like i had to yeah so i think as as as um as odd as

that experience was growing up and and the fact that my parents let us do that i i don't know you know but but really i think it was for the better like i'm a much better stronger more confident more um like wise person because of the experiences i had you know on those camping trips yeah yeah. I've heard you use this metaphor before. It's imagining that you're 80 years old and you regret not pursuing cycling.

And you use that fear of regret as a big motivator to pursue your dream of being in the Olympics. Have you thought about where that comes from? You know, your fear of regret. I think it's this idea that we only live once, you know. And I think when we're young, we think that like life lasts forever and we can do whatever we want. And I actually had, I don't know how many young people interact with old people.

And when I say that, I mean like, I think like a 10-year-old talking to an 80-year-old, like I think a 10-year-old should talk to an 80-year-old every now and then. Like they have so much wisdom and so much experience. And I think, you know, I remember I had this piano teacher and she was this older woman and she passed away a few years ago, but she was always kind of a mentor to me.

You know, she's my piano teacher. I saw her every week. And I feel like, you know, watching her get old and pass away or watching a grandmother get older, pass away or, you know, a family member, like in talking to them in their final years, like they have so much wisdom. And I think I'm really grateful that I spent time with older people when I was young, because I feel like I was able to apply their lessons early in life instead of waiting until I'm, say, 50 to learn these lessons.

Um and um so i think yeah spending spending time around um much like much much older people who are in the last years of their life and learning from them and hearing their perspectives their thoughts their reflections it made me live my life differently and it made me think about my life very differently and um, And it made me start to think like, wow, if I were in their shoes, like, what would I look back on and be most proud of my life?

Or like, what do I want to look back on when I'm their age? And I think when you witness an 80 year old reflecting on their own life, you kind of start thinking like, wow, like, I'm going to be in those shoes one day. And what do I want to reflect on? And so, I think maybe having that experience and that curiosity to like ask those questions when I was young to people who are much more wise than me taught me some of that.

And I think the second thing is like I've always been a very introspective person. Like I said, I'm pretty introverted. I've always kind of questioned my own life, my own decisions, my own thoughts. And I think like ask myself these deeper questions and like, why am I doing what I'm doing? Does it make me happy? Is it leading where I want to lead? Like what, what do I, where am I most happy? Like what in my life makes me the most happy and what do I not enjoy?

And who are the people who really add to my life and who are the people who I feel like just kind of drain me like when I hang out with them. And I think, no, those are like really, really important questions that I don't think we always ask ourselves enough and often enough. Mm-hmm so i heard that some of your happiest moments have been when you're on your bike, what do those look like yeah um when i'm on my bike um i feel so many things i feel.

Well on one hand i feel like the little girl inside me that's like running and playing outside side um just like carefree adventurous curious in the sunshine in the wind out to explore, um just kind of like me in the world me in nature and um and i'm just like out there to be a girl running free you know and i think maybe it's like the alaska side that i feel like is really channeled on the bike yeah but that's like the first thing it's kind of this sense of

like freedom adventure wonder curiosity youthfulness um activity you know all of that um and and i think it brings out that that youthful innocent curiosity kind of side of me um the second thing is i feel really creative when i'm on the bike i know um like all my creative ideas about yeah i. Not just on biking, especially biking, but actually with all sports.

I remember if I was running, I get like a really good idea for my paper, you know, in college, or if I was running, I'd get a really good idea for maybe like a song I wanted to write when I was, you know, learning piano or just all my most creative moments. And I think I really let my mind kind of run free and decompress when I was exercising. I think being in nature really helps with that.

Um so yeah my most creative um i'm very analytical on the bike if i want to be i mean sometimes i kind of turn my brain off but if i want to be analytical i can um actually it's funny like when i was working in vc i would sometimes go riding in the middle of the day and i'd come back and i'd have a super clear head and a super clear idea of the business whether i wanted to invest in it or not because i would kind of be able to assess it um with

a super clear head you know and whereas if i was in the office i'd be kind of a too bogged down in the numbers or i'd be back to back you know looking at deals and then i'd go on a bike ride and i would come back and i'd be like okay my head is fresh i thought about it i don't know exactly what i want to do um and so like it's kind of this like clear head this free head everything just seems a lot more clear i guess like um the answers seem clear the decisions i have

to make seem more clear um and then i guess the last thing is I feel really confident on the bike. Like, I think, um, I confident in myself, you know, I talk, we talk a lot about, um, being able to like visualize your goals or envision yourself achieving your goals. And I visualize so much on the bike and I visualize, you know, everything I want to achieve. I picture myself standing on the top step of the podium. I picture myself, um, you know, graduating from a, from an MBA program.

I remember when I was like an undergrad. And like, that was something I really wanted to do. Um, I pictured myself, um, like. You know, like if I want to have a family one day, like I'll picture myself with kids one day, you know, like there's everything that I could visualize for what I want in my life. I feel like the time for me to have that visualization is what I'm writing. And then the images just seem so clear in my head that they seem so possible.

And I think when it seems so possible, that's when I feel motivation to go back to work and to start working to make it happen. I was thinking about this the other day. Why do you think it is that people like me and listeners of a podcast, for example, want to hear from people like you, an Olympic athlete?

Well i think there's two things i think they're looking for a sense of relatability and a sense of inspiration it's it's i think you want you want someone you can relate to because you want to feel like oh i can like they've gone through something i'm going through or i can learn something from this shared experience um so you need to be able to they need to be able to feel like i could be that one day you know or we're similar we have a shared background shared interests,

shared experiences, shared personality traits. I mean, the second thing is like, how do I now go do with my life what I want to do? And I think there's a sense of inspiration. And I think, you know, gold medal is kind of like this pinnacle of athletic performance, and it requires this high level of kind of work ethic and sacrifice and. Kind of high level performance. But I think you can apply that to other areas of your life.

Like if you want to get promoted in your job, or if you want to be a great pianist, or if you want to go be a singer, a lot of them, even though they're different fields, a lot of it comes down to how do I achieve high performance? How do I become my best? And I think we can all learn from other people who are experts in their field. I mean, I have so much I learned from, you know, I read like Simone Biles's book, and I read, and I read Michael Phelps's book.

And, you know, I read biographies by like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. And like, there's so many people and anyone who's successful in any field, you can learn a lot from them and you can apply it to your own life. And so I think when people want to learn about, you know, what makes a gold medalist, I think they're looking for how do I become an expert in my life and what I'm doing, you know, and what lessons can I glean that I can apply for myself? Yeah. Yeah. I agree with that.

In a recent social media post you made, you said that when we love our jobs, the journey and experiences bring us more joy than the medals. Looking back on it now, your journey so far, how would you describe it? Yeah, I mean, it's been so fulfilling. If it was just about the gold medals, I would stop cycling today, but that was never the goal.

And I actually think you asked about the post-Olympic depression.

I think the reason I don't feel it is because the Olympics was never gonna it was never the highlight for me like it is a highlight but like the highlight for me is being able to do what i love every single day you know and and that's that's what brings me the most joy like the gold medals are great and and they're kind of validation that my hard work it's kind of like a reward for putting in the hard work you know or a reward for believing in myself and

it feels like in some ways a reward for everything that i put into it yeah but um. Like the, I mean, I'll admit when I started cycling, I wanted to go to the Olympics. That was my goal. And, um, I would say maybe I was a bit more focused on the destination than the journey. And then when I started cycling in Europe and I really loved it and I said, wow, I could make a career out of this. And, um, maybe I, maybe I want to do it longer than, you know, the Olympics last for.

And, um, and I'm so, I think, so I never made the Tokyo team for the olympics i was just like a year into riding and i actually tried making the team but i didn't um and i think it was one of the best things for me because i think maybe if i made the tokyo team i would have stopped afterwards because i think at the time okay i was still really like my goal was to go to the olympics you know that was my goal and i think in the years since i've just fallen in love with the sport even more and i

am you know now a woman can make enough money to live off of and um just i feel like i'm part of this like woman's movement and women's sports you know and it's something like so much greater than myself and even these young girls that reach out that are inspired by my journey or people who are switching careers and there's so much more to it than just i love cycling you know and um i think for me being able to do what i love and falling in love

with it even more every day is something that's really fulfilling and um and so yeah i mean that i would be lying if i said i wasn't stoked about the gold medals. I mean, I'm so happy about them. Like they're stoked. It's like my biggest life achievement to date, you know, arguably. Um, but, um, but I guess if I had to trade those gold medals for a life where I wasn't able to do what I love, um.

I wouldn't trade, like I would trade the gold medals in an instant, um, for the life that I have now, because if I were doing a job I didn't enjoy and had two gold medals versus doing a job I love and didn't have like, there's no question in my head which one I would choose. I would absolutely choose to do what I love. Well, Kristen, those are all the questions I have for you. I want to thank you for your time, your perspective, and congratulations on your Olympic golds.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Yeah, I get some really good questions. They're really thoughtful and it was fun for me to discuss it with you. Music. For more information about the Anchorage Museum, visit anchoragemuseum.org. This podcast was produced by me, Cody Liska, for the Anchorage Museum. With additional help from Julie Decker. Chatter Marks Music is produced by Keys. Music.