Coach Tom (00:01.068)
We are live. Hey Kenny, how are you?

Sara (00:02.589)
you

Kenny Bailey (00:03.334)
I am Fantastic Tom, how are you?

Coach Tom (00:05.458)
I'm fantastic as well. We have Sarah Malam joining us today. We're very welcome, very happy to have you here. Sarah is, she's based in Chattanooga and she is a licensed mental health professional. Steadfast Living Therapy is her company. And as we joke that this is, this show is really Kenny's therapy session on all levels, we decided to really want to dive into the mental health side of it.

Sara (00:13.255)
Thanks.

Kenny Bailey (00:27.344)
It's my therapy session, yeah, 100%.

Ugh.

Sara (00:33.607)
There you go.

Coach Tom (00:33.876)
and really analyze Kennedy as best as we possibly can, if that's even possible. All joking aside though, we're, yeah, the mental health side of it is always important. It's something that we're very focused on, I think, as a team here. And we're very happy, Sarah, to have you join us. We're gonna talk about some anxiety issues and...

Kenny Bailey (00:36.508)
There you go.

Kenny Bailey (00:41.766)
Lot of onions.

Coach Tom (01:00.718)
identity crises and things like that. But you're originally from Montana. You're settled here in middle Tennessee. You've got a background in a whole lot of fun stuff. Plus you're a triathlete. So you're one of us, one of the family. Tell us a little bit more about yourself. Bring us on. What brought you to middle Tennessee? What's your story? What's your background?

Sara (01:14.173)
Mm-hmm.

Sara (01:21.116)
Yeah.

Sara (01:25.997)
Yeah, so I moved from Montana to Tennessee in 2021 because my husband is from Nashville and so I moved here and started working with a group mental health therapy practice based in Nashville and then about a year after I moved Ventured out on my own and started my own private practice. So I started that in

Coach Tom (01:33.646)
Aha.

Sara (01:55.358)
Nashville in 2023. And I specialize in working with adults, both men and women who are kind of anxious, high stress, high achievers. So people who are generally pretty self motivated, driven, maybe tend to be on the perfectionist kind of side of things. And you also have a lot of stress and anxiety along with that. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. The type A kind of people.

Coach Tom (02:18.093)
triathletes. They call them triathletes.

Kenny Bailey (02:19.333)
Yeah, triathlete, yeah, just the whole genre. yes, yes, yeah.

Coach Tom (02:24.171)
I'm like, I'm going, yes, yes, yes, yes, okay, yeah. You have my attention now.

Sara (02:24.739)
Uh-huh, uh-huh. Yeah, yep, totally. And yeah, so I love the intersection of mental health and endurance sports because I'm a therapist and I like to do endurance sports for fun. And because I think triathletes often do kind of fall into that category of being like very driven, high achieving, goal oriented, and also stressed out, anxious, perfectionistic, so.

Kenny Bailey (02:51.953)
There you go. So, there you go. Yeah, my license plate doesn't read that at all.

Coach Tom (02:53.138)
Yes, and then we wrap our identity into that.

Sara (02:57.12)
Exactly. Uh huh. Yeah. Even, um...

Coach Tom (03:02.183)
Yeah, yeah

Sara (03:03.261)
Yeah, yeah, even recreational triathletes, I think really connect their identity very strongly to being a triathlete.

Kenny Bailey (03:05.223)
It's funny.

Kenny Bailey (03:11.281)
So is there a, this is gonna be a fun one for me, not for the personal thing, but just because it's an interesting topic in the fact that how would you characterize somebody that's sort of high achiever, high stress versus your average stressed person or anxiety person? Do they exhibit different traits or is it the same trait but in a different way that you speak to them, for example?

Sara (03:27.8)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Sara (03:36.478)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, that's a good question. So I noticed that sometimes when I'm working with somebody, they don't have a problem at all with initiating like tasks and activities. They're go-getters, right? They are doing a lot of things. They're really busy. But they also are connecting their achievements to their self-worth and to their identity. As opposed to maybe somebody who

kind of is experiencing their mental health in a different way where they have a hard time getting active, initiating activities, if that makes sense. So.

Kenny Bailey (04:14.331)
Yeah, so is self-worth, like it's good to have self-worth, right? But at what point does it spill over into something that is it because your highs and your lows are completely now tied to that self-worth or what's the diagnosis for that? So.

Sara (04:18.481)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (04:29.793)
Yeah.

Sara (04:29.981)
Yeah, so we see this in like perfectionism once. So perfectionism, you can think about a perfectionist as somebody who is really attuned to the gap between the ideal and the reality and who compulsively is trying to strive to close that gap. And perfectionism gets a bad rap. Like I think people often are told like just stopping a perfectionist, just stop caring so much. Right. But it's

Kenny Bailey (04:34.79)
Okay.

Sara (04:58.701)
it's generally considered kind of a personality trait. And so it's really hard to just stop doing that, right? To just like change your personality is hard to do. And it's also pretty shaming if you're telling somebody, stop being a perfectionist, but that's just kind of part of who they are. And so it can be helpful to think about perfectionism as being either like adaptive or maladaptive kind of two different forms, depending on your mindset and what's driving it, as opposed to it being like all bad.

Coach Tom (05:07.543)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (05:29.121)
Yeah, and I think when it gets you to stop caring, that's the problem. think the switch or the perfectionism is that you're on or you're off, right? So you either care about it or you don't care about it. And I think finding that sweet spot of like being able to kind of maneuver through a little bit better without just turning the switch off and just not caring. And that becomes a very negative reaction to things.

Sara (05:35.782)
Mm-hmm.

Sara (05:51.102)
Yeah, yeah, think, know, Tom, what you're kind of getting at there is perfectionism can lead to burnout too. And burnout is part of burnout is that like complete disengagement or lack of interest in the sport. And so yeah, that's something that that perfectionism can lead to if you're in more of that like maladaptive perfectionist mindset.

Coach Tom (06:02.049)
Yeah. Yep. Yep.

Coach Tom (06:14.241)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (06:15.025)
So how does that manifest itself in relationships with other people professionally or relationships with coaches? So if you're a perfectionist or you're dealing as a coach, like Tom has to deal with a perfectionist, how does that work or what do you see that manifesting?

Sara (06:33.691)
That would be maybe a great Tom question actually, since you are a coach. love to hear your perspective on that. I see more from like the therapist side, but what do you see from the coach side?

Kenny Bailey (06:37.093)
Yeah

Coach Tom (06:37.907)
Hahaha!

Kenny Bailey (06:41.723)
Yeah, yeah.

Coach Tom (06:43.597)
Oh my God. It's interesting because it's a lot of, there's a couple types of athletes that are on that where they're so driven that they're either on or they fall off, right? So they either want to do it 100 % right or they don't want to do it at all. And it's almost like you've got to rein them in just a little bit, pull them off the edge, but don't pull them back into the room. They need to feel that.

Sara (06:58.813)
Mm-hmm.

Sara (07:08.029)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (07:11.585)
they need to feel that pressure, they kind of thrive off a little bit of that. It's hard to throttle them just right. It really is. And it just ends up being a lot more communication. Athletes like that, I tend to have to talk a lot more with. And that just keeps everybody on the straight and narrow.

Kenny Bailey (07:28.475)
Yeah, but we celebrate, you know, what's funny about it is we celebrate that, right? Like Steph Curry, OCD like crazy, right? He has to, the net has to make the right sound before he stops doing three point shots, right? Before he's done with practice. If it doesn't, so we celebrate that. We pay him an obscene amount of money and we put them on jerseys. We celebrate those people. You know, you look at Lionel Sanders who turns himself inside out to the point where, you know, he has stress factors and those things and he's a hero to some, right? So is there this kind of weird

Sara (07:55.261)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (07:59.156)
Also, to one hand, we don't like people at perfectionist, but when they succeed at perfectionism, we hold them to a high standard. Am I out of turn on this?

Sara (08:07.741)
You're absolutely correct. mean, sport, think really incentivizes perfectionism. It's celebrated, especially if you look at judged sports like gymnastics, figure skating, right? Like that's what you're aiming for. If you look at, let's say like a sprinter, you don't really have much room for error in a 50 free, right? You mess one thing up and that could cost you the rice. Fortunately with triathlon, you have sometimes a little bit more room to like...

Kenny Bailey (08:14.086)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (08:34.949)
Yeah. So, yeah.

Sara (08:35.717)
screw some stuff up here and there and be fine. You've earned your cover from that. But yeah, I mean, I think it can be helpful for people to kind of reflect on what's driving their perfectionism to see if it's adaptive or maladaptive. So maladaptive perfectionists are starting from a place of not really feeling good enough, not feeling adequate. And so they're using achievement to try and help themselves feel better about themselves.

Coach Tom (08:37.311)
yeah. Yeah.

Sara (09:05.465)
And so they're really driven to achieve because they have a fear of failure. And we know at the end of the day that like, no matter how many gold stars we get or things that we achieve, if we're starting from that place of already not feeling good enough, no amount of achievement is ever gonna fix that. Like we're still not gonna feel good enough. Whereas people with more of an adaptive perfectionism mindset.

are starting from that place of already feeling good enough. And they're just excited to see like what they can achieve, what they can accomplish. They like to challenge themselves. They also recognize that failure is part of the process. They're gonna make mistakes and that's okay. And so they don't connect their self-worth to their success or their failure, but they're still striving to achieve. So that's really where...

where kind of the difference lies. Like, are you connecting your self-worth to the outcome of what you're doing or not?

Coach Tom (10:02.357)
And that would be like a healthy version. you can be a perfectionist and be healthy and because I think Kobe Bryant had used to say that any new thing he would immediately implement into his game, even if it failed and it looked terrible or didn't work or whatever, because he tried it because he wanted to be on that edge over there. He was comfortable with it not working and having a bad night based on the fact that he was trying something new and constantly pushing himself on that sense. And I think

Kenny Bailey (10:02.47)
I see.

Sara (10:04.977)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (10:07.643)
I get it.

Sara (10:08.7)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (10:32.525)
from what you're saying, it's like, yes, you can be a perfectionist to be at the top end of your sport, but also have healthy relationships with people and everything else and kind of be just that knowing that you want to do that work. It's where it comes from. What's driving that, I think, is where we go to the fear and anger and self-worth part of it is the key of making that go away.

Kenny Bailey (10:41.177)
Yep.

Kenny Bailey (10:53.255)
Mm-hmm.

Sara (10:59.195)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think one thing we need to be careful of too is also not kind of internalize the achievements too much either, because you can just unhook your self worth from the failures and from the mistakes. You kind of have to unhook it from all of it in order to really kind of disconnect your self worth from the outcome.

Kenny Bailey (11:12.999)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (11:15.303)
Mm, OK.

Kenny Bailey (11:16.409)
Interesting. Yeah.

Coach Tom (11:22.837)
Interesting.

Kenny Bailey (11:23.025)
Do you find age group athletes, I don't know who your clientele is, maybe I'm, but I would like just in general age group athletes when they look at the professionals and they look at those times, especially in triathlon, like, you these guys are crushing these times or somebody that should be similar to me, you know, is crushing the times. How come I'm not doing that? Is that one of the byproduct of seeing, you know, a non-perfectionist looking at a perfectionist that way?

Sara (11:49.278)
I think, know, with age group athletes, with recreational athletes who, you know, this isn't their job, I think that one of the challenges is you have to be able to balance those other areas of your life really well. And you have those other obligations like work and family and those kinds of things. And so you're going to bump up against perfectionism a lot if you're a recreational triathlete, because you're not

Kenny Bailey (12:15.911)
Mm-hmm.

Sara (12:18.085)
realistically gonna be able to perfectly adhere to your training plan. you, know, things are gonna come up in life and you're gonna have to make adjustments. And so I think for like age groupers and recreational athletes, it can be particularly hard because they're just realistically, you're not really gonna be able to execute it perfectly.

Coach Tom (12:40.029)
Yeah, when I'm coaching an athlete that's doing their first Ironman distance race, or even they've done a couple, I end up having these long conversations with them about how they can adapt their training so that they're just not so focused on their training. It was just like, have this, you want to spend some time with your family. You need to, I actually coach them to spend some time with their family. I set up some walks and some things and they're like trying to figure out how they do it. I said, we'll get your ride in in the morning. I said, and then you still feel good and then go.

for a ride with your wife or your significant other afterwards. And they're just kind of like, oh, I can do that. And like, yeah, then you can go at their pace and enjoy some time with them. was just kind of like, you need to maneuver through that. I warned, I actually joke when I talk to a potential new athlete and they say they want to do an Ironman, I ask them two questions. Did you lose a bet? That's the first thing I ask them. And the second thing I tell them, tell them more is like, you know,

Kenny Bailey (13:16.423)
But it's not on the list.

Kenny Bailey (13:22.3)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (13:37.762)
getting therapy is way cheaper. So if you're using this as therapy, go see a certified therapist because that's way cheaper than what you're about to put yourself through plus the stress on your relationships and the fact that you need to, like the first one is so overwhelming that you're so driven on it that you're like this, you're zoned in, that you don't see the effect it's having on your friends, your family and your loved ones. like, it's basically trying to put onto their plan things of like, hey,

Sara (13:40.548)
Hehehehe!

Kenny Bailey (13:40.903)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (14:07.135)
Spend time with your family. This is a weekend with your family.

Kenny Bailey (14:11.623)
Is that when you speak to someone, is that the trigger? if they're starting to prioritize, like I gotta get this done, I gotta get this done over family or over work or other things, that's when you're like, hey, you need some help versus that healthy balance. So where's that tripping point at that you go, okay, maybe we just need to sit down and have a chat. What does that look like?

Coach Tom (14:40.343)
Yeah, it's when the anxiety level hits max 10, like where the workouts are struggling. And then the conversation I'm having with the athlete where they're off on this. And I could tell, like the thing I try to modulate is if the life stress goes up, then the training stress needs to come down. So I make sure that I'm getting feedback on the workouts saying like how things good, how you felt, whatever. And I'm watching that and the conversations I'm having. And then it's when like, you know what?

We're gonna back you off this week. We're gonna give you much, much more relaxed training. We're gonna take this thing down, way down so that it's all here. And then I will tell them, like, you need to spend some time with your family. You need to chill out. You need to relax. You need to, you know, kind of bring it back. And I don't, because we have lots of conversations through the process, I really never get to that point where somebody's about to pop, like, and go to that point.

Kenny Bailey (15:11.984)
Mm.

Kenny Bailey (15:21.927)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Coach Tom (15:35.767)
but I can start to see where it is. like, I need to do, I've got some family stuff. It's like, good, you got family stuff, great. Like, let's just wipe the slate clean. The weekend is free. Like, do whatever. Just do an activity. Do something with the family. Do whatever. The training will pick up on Tuesday when you're back in town. Don't worry about it, so.

Kenny Bailey (15:52.84)
Yeah. But I think, you know, for me and my wife is the same way, right? If you put something on a piece of paper and I don't do it, then I failed. Right? If you're like, Hey, if it calls for 3,500 swim that day and I do a really solid two and that's all I have time for and I don't do 35, then I failed. It's a fail. Right? It's that's it.

Sara (15:53.874)
Yeah.

Sara (16:01.425)
Mm-hmm.

Sara (16:10.525)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that all or nothing thought pattern is really common with perfectionism. Listen, Kenny, I'm the same way. But one of the reasons I like to talk about perfectionism and focus on it is because I can relate personally. So, yeah.

Kenny Bailey (16:15.441)
Now, hypothetically, I'm just saying hypothetically, if someone should say that, right, and sometimes.

Coach Tom (16:18.093)
Someone shoots it.

Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (16:29.639)
Yeah, and the other thing is like, or you're just like, there's no way I'm going to achieve it, so I'm never going to do it, right? I'm just, okay, that's so beyond like 65 miles a day, not going to happen. So not like, I got a solid 30 in and at least I got something. It's like, well, if I can't do the 65, I'm not doing it at all. And Tom's smiling because that's exactly the way I do it, which is like, I look at him like, yep, not going to do that. So that's not going to happen today. And then he's like, well, did you do some of it? I'm like, well, no, because I'm not, you know, I'm already failing before I start.

Sara (16:37.895)
Mm-hmm.

Sara (16:48.828)
You

Coach Tom (16:51.509)
Yeah, not doing that. Yeah, yeah.

Sara (16:52.091)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (16:58.939)
And that's a difficult thing to get past, Is that fear of like, I'm already not gonna live up to the expectation, so why am I putting myself through that training day? I'm gonna go live to fight another day, right? And I don't know, it's a weird, I know it's a weird sort of nonsensical thing, right? Because you're, at least something's better than nothing, but if I can't hit the number, then why am I here? So.

Coach Tom (16:59.158)
Yeah.

Sara (17:22.365)
Mm hmm. Yeah. And so when you find yourself in that mindset, it can be helpful to think about your values and what I mean by that is kind of like your why. Like, am I even participating in triathlon? What's the point of this? And for, you know, those of us who are not professional, it's a good thing to really reflect on and figure out. And if it's, you know, beyond just doing trying to execute training plan perfectly or trying to PR like why else are you doing it?

Coach Tom (17:22.914)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (17:31.568)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (17:41.318)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (17:46.855)
Mm-hmm.

Sara (17:50.555)
And sometimes that connecting to that can help you get through those moments where you're in that all or nothing thought pattern and it can help you find that gray area.

Coach Tom (17:59.374)
That makes me feel good because that's when I'm interviewing a potential athlete to coach, I need to know what their why is. If they don't have a why, I'll have them go think about it and come back because it's not, I don't think I want to work with an athlete that doesn't have a why that's significant that will help them get through a lot of this, especially the longer distance races. So you don't necessarily need a why for a sprint, but it helps getting through the training.

Kenny Bailey (17:59.41)
Well, I think, yeah.

Sara (18:07.953)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (18:21.766)
So.

Kenny Bailey (18:27.141)
Yeah, I'm gonna, I mean, that's, I'm gonna dare be, I'm gonna piss both of you off, right? I feel like that's overly, well, I think that's overly simplistic to a certain extent, right? And I'm gonna be contrarian on this one. Like I have a why, but it's still the day-to-day stuff. Like your long-term why, like I wanna do this because this is what I wanna do and I wanna do that, right? Sometimes the why gets in the way because I wanna PR this one, right? That's my why. I've done this course before. I know I can do this course. I know I can nail it this time. And so now I'm gonna go nail it.

Coach Tom (18:35.371)
It is, yeah. Good.

Sara (18:50.333)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (18:56.943)
Right? And so the why is there, but then you're frustrated because you're not doing the progression you need to hit, or you're frustrated because, so I'm not saying that there shouldn't be a why, that's not what I'm suggesting, but I think just saying, well, what's your why in the middle of 92 degrees when it's 45 miles left to go on your ride sometimes doesn't cut it, right? It's the, I just gotta get through the damn thing, then, or live to fight another day kind of stuff, but I'm still, at least personally, I'm pretty frustrated when I get home.

Well crap, you I was supposed to do 45 today. I can't get it done. It's either too hot or too crazy or I got a flat tire or whatever else. And then I'm pissed for the rest of the day, right? It's like, great, failed that one. Now how am going go make up for that? You know, how am I going to go, you know, and then, you know, how was your riot? it's like, it sucks. You know, and then I got to spend an hour brooding and you know, she, you know, pulls the dogs away so they don't get kicked. I'm not that bad, but you know, it's exactly. We're going to give you some you time now.

Coach Tom (19:44.055)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Sara (19:44.295)
Yeah

Coach Tom (19:52.085)
Everyone leaves the house. We're going.

Sara (19:54.158)
You

Kenny Bailey (19:56.008)
So take a bath. So anyway. Yeah. Yes.

Sara (19:57.666)
Yeah, I mean, so you mentioned your why is like a PR, right? Like that's very outcome focused, which is good to have some of those too, but you also want to have like more of a process kind of focus reason, right?

Coach Tom (20:09.047)
which she said.

Kenny Bailey (20:09.145)
Ex- Yeah!

Coach Tom (20:12.065)
which he said. Yeah. So, it to Sarah's point and, and what I usually say is that it's there's superficial not to not to belay the why the superficial wise and deeper meaning wise, the deeper the meaning of that why to you, like is it in memory of a loved one that you lost? Is it you know,

Kenny Bailey (20:12.795)
Yeah, I don't care how I get it, I'm just gonna get the PR. So, you know, it's like hell or high water.

That's a good point though.

Kenny Bailey (20:26.204)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (20:31.845)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (20:38.579)
there's a bunch of different reasons that are more deeper soul that touch your soul more. You need a deeper why than just hitting a PR. I think that's a great like that's what I'd like to do. Like your objectives for the race are to finish, hit a PR, go faster on this, go on that. I don't see that as a why. Hitting a PR is not a why. For me, a why is that, yeah, well, and everybody's different on this, but the...

Kenny Bailey (20:54.503)
Hmm.

Kenny Bailey (20:58.503)
That's a good point. It feels like a walk. Yeah, I know. That's a good point.

Coach Tom (21:05.549)
The longer the distance, deeper the why. Like I'm gonna honor the memory of my grandfather who struggled with whatever disease and blah, blah, coming through. That's a deep why. That's something you can pull on to go through those days that kind of get there, that you struggle with. I would have hard time with just something that was like, even sometimes just finished the race is like, that's not enough of a why. Like who cares?

Kenny Bailey (21:09.179)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (21:32.069)
Yeah, exactly.

Sara (21:32.358)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of making that differentiation between goals and like values, right? Like a PR, that's like a goal. You accomplish it, you hit it, you're done. A value is like something that you can align with whether the outcome goes in your favor or not. So like if you, for example, value like adventure, you can do that race and it's going to be an adventure whether you hit your goal of PRing or not. Like it can still...

Coach Tom (21:33.737)
I could get pancakes right now. I don't need to do this.

Kenny Bailey (21:40.314)
Yeah.

Sara (22:01.893)
align with that value. So having some of both can be helpful, both like the goals and then also being aware of like the values that can guide you no matter what the outcome is.

Kenny Bailey (22:12.711)
Do you think, you you guys talked earlier about burnout, right? I think at the top of the show, we talked about that. Do you think that is the thing that sort of leads to burnout? Is it if your why is always a PR or it's always something where it's not more of a deeper, like I'm enjoying the process and I'm just glad I'm out here, you know, that kind of thing. Is that kind of one of the causes of burnout? you know, I can't just, I just can't hit the PR anymore, right?

Sara (22:32.263)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (22:38.155)
certainly can help. mean, it certainly is one of the pieces that sits there that will build to burnout. I don't know if that's your total burnout, like Sarah, like that's a pile of things. Usually burnout is multiple things, right? It's they finally get to too much. And then it's like, I just can't handle this anymore. I think I try to talk people out of what failure is. We try to have conversations of what does failure look like to you in a race? You know, if you're coming up to a race, what does failure look like?

Kenny Bailey (22:45.383)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (22:50.183)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (23:08.065)
And I've always, I'm more in the stoicism side of like addressing your feelings and just being present in the day. And failure to me is if you just don't learn anything from what you did. If I go to a race and I DNF the race, I didn't finish it, but I learned something. I try to pull those pieces out and then go back and make the attempt again, because that to me is part of the journey.

and that experimentation to see if I can get better to prove something is usually what keeps me kind of moving along. And then if I fail, like I don't know what failure is because it's not tied to my paycheck. It's not tied to a living. It's just like, I got hurt or injured or I didn't eat right. And like, wow, that wasn't my best performance, but.

Sara (23:50.141)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (24:00.941)
Okay, you know, I live the fight another day, let's go back and do that again. And I usually look to try to improve something to go back and do it better and then come out and go, well, that was about as good as I could do today, right now. So.

Kenny Bailey (24:13.233)
Yeah. Well, I'm kind of reflecting when you show up to like these races, right? And you see people that been there for 15 and 20 years. And on the surface, you think, well, they're not they're not nervous because, you know, they've they've seen their share of mistakes. We're back to your guys's point. It could just be that they're pretty comfortable in their why. Right. And like the reason why they've been there for 15, 20 years, because they didn't tie the objective of winning or finishing as the

Sara (24:14.013)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (24:42.309)
The outcome wasn't there only why, right? I they're having a good time. They seem to be super chill. They're waving at people. You know, I've already started a race like I already peed. Do I need to pee again? I'm doing, you know, checkpoints on, you know, is the wetsuit on right? Did I do this right? Okay, remember this, remember that. And these guys would seem super casual. You look around, they're like, yeah, let's go for a swim. And I'm just like, how are you not, you know, but it could just mean that they've accepted the process as they're, you know, we enjoy the process of triathlon, not.

Sara (25:02.141)
You

Coach Tom (25:03.181)
Ha

Kenny Bailey (25:12.355)
I enjoy where I'm at on the leaderboard. Crazy people.

Coach Tom (25:15.757)
Yeah, you wanna crush some people. You wanna go out and beat some other people. I I like racing some of the guys, especially the sprints. My age group, Jeff Fausseup and some of the others, we're trying to beat each other, right? We're old guys, just we're barely moving and we're getting out there and we're just going after it, having some fun, good natured, ribbing and everything like that. And if he beats me this time, it's like, he got me. I'm gonna go back and get him next time. And it doesn't matter either way, so.

Sara (25:16.061)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (25:20.891)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (25:28.475)
Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (25:34.683)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sara (25:37.277)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. It's fun. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (25:43.56)
Yeah, but yeah, I guess my point is, you you look at these people and go, why are they so calm? Like, how can I, when am I going to get there? Right? And you think, oh, well, they've done enough of these where they, you know, they're ready for, you know, whatever is getting thrown at them and they're super chill because, you know, it's experience. It's not necessarily experience of the race itself. It's the experience of knowing that, hey, if I have a good day, I have a good day. If I don't have a good day, you know, I'm still, you know, tomorrow's still going to go there. I still got to go to work and, yeah, exactly. Right?

Sara (25:48.816)
Yeah

Coach Tom (26:06.989)
Yeah, we go have brunch and some coffee and we go off and do it again.

Sara (26:08.497)
Hmm? Yeah. Exactly.

Kenny Bailey (26:12.727)
Yeah, it's either pancakes early or cold pizza at night. Either way, I'm getting food, right? So, huh. Sorry, I had an epiphany just now. That was fun. not yet. No, there's a lot here.

Sara (26:15.239)
Yeah. Yeah.

Coach Tom (26:16.801)
That's it, either way we're doing it, yeah. So Sarah, us that we made progress with Kenny today. So Sarah, you're high achieving athlete as well. You went through, we mentioned briefly in our emails about your race that didn't happen.

Sara (26:26.096)
You

Sara (26:39.581)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Coach Tom (26:43.489)
Tell us that story because this is I mean, we all we all relate to this. So what's this is this is a good story. I think I don't know. I don't know the story. So I'm assuming it's a good story for us.

Sara (26:47.515)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think it.

Sara (26:55.197)
Yeah, it relates to a lot of things we talked about. So, um, I'll lead into a little bit. So I did the Chad Nuga 70.3 in 2023. That's the first and only 70.3 I've done. Um, it was a great experience. I really enjoyed the race. Um, but the training for it was, you know, when you were talking earlier, talking about like the kind of the blinders you get when you're really nervous about something, that's where I was at. Like for my whole training.

plan that I was following. was very motivated by the anxiety. and wonder, especially the bike portion. love swimming and running. That's fine. But the bike always freaks me out. So I was like, I've never invite 56 miles before. Like, I don't know if I can do this. if I get a flat, am I going to make the cutoff? Like those are kind of the thoughts going through my head. So I was like very zoned into trying to align to my training plan as much as possible. And

Well, the race itself was super fun. The training experience, I was so grumpy the whole like five months I was training for that. My husband can attest to that. I was grumpy. I was like at the same time as I was training for this, I was working full time and I was also doing the stuff to get my private practice up and running on the side. So I just too much going on. Yeah, too much all at once. And like

Kenny Bailey (28:04.379)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (28:15.361)
You were starting a small business on top of, yeah, wow, yee.

Sara (28:23.579)
We have to sacrifice a decent amount just to make the training possible, right? Because a lot of the, if you're working full time, you do your long workouts on the weekends, that's the time when, you know, we'd like to go camping or do little weekend trips and those kinds of things. So it wasn't just the training was affecting me. It was also affecting like my husband too, cause he's also like sacrificing that time that we could be doing other things with.

Anyway, so I wasn't planning on doing the 70.3 again this year until one of my friends, my old like training partner, texted me. She's like, I signed up and I got FOMO. So then I signed up and that wasn't a strong enough lie. I realized. So as yeah. So as it got closer,

Kenny Bailey (29:02.171)
That's

Kenny Bailey (29:05.647)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (29:05.803)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sara (29:13.017)
In a nutshell, I started to realize that there were going to be a lot of hurdles I was going to have to overcome to make it happen this year. And I did not have the motivation or like the interest or the desire to really overcome those. So like I've had this chronic knee pain for on and off for like six years and the past year and a half, like I haven't been able to run more than three miles consistently without it cropping up. And I think if I got a coach and I did some PT, it'd probably be like doable.

But I thought, that's like, you know, another time investment, financial investment. And I just moved to Chattanooga in November. So I didn't know where to train, who to train with. So that was kind of another hurdle to just figure out like, where do I even ride? I have no idea. And I just was like really noticing this pull to kind of just invest in some other areas of my life too. That's not a triathlon. So.

I ultimately decided to drop out and I've shifted my goals for this summer. And my goals now are just to kind of invest in these other areas. So my husband and I are taking several trips this summer. I'm volunteering at the Humane Society. My goal, like triathlon wise, is just to meet some people to train with and find places to train here at Chattanooga. And then...

Kenny Bailey (30:26.46)
Nice.

Coach Tom (30:38.423)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (30:39.291)
You picked a good city, yeah. One of the best in the United States, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Sara (30:40.785)
Yeah, yeah. I joined the track club like a week ago. So yeah, so I think it'll be good. I've started texting with a few girls who I think are about like the same speed that we can plan some rides together. So I'm just kind of focusing on that. And then we'll probably do a sprint either Music City or Chattanooga Waterfront, because sprints are really fun and not stressful at all.

Coach Tom (30:41.76)
It's a great city for a try. Nice. Nice.

Sara (31:08.753)
with all this transition in my life. Like, yeah, exactly. Totally. Exactly. And like with this kind of transition period of like moving to Chattanooga, buying our first house, moving my business down here. Like I want triathlon right now to be like a fun thing, like an outlet, not a stressful, challenging thing. Because there's already enough other challenging things I've got going on right now. So.

Kenny Bailey (31:09.639)
You could go do brunch, right? You're done at 10, you go have brunch, you call it a day. So, yeah.

Coach Tom (31:11.903)
And then there's brunch. Yeah, yeah.

Coach Tom (31:32.386)
Yeah, yeah.

Sara (31:37.713)
Yeah, I just realized like at this point, I want it to just be fun, easy outlet. Now I'm sure like down the road in a few years that'll switch again and I'll want like the challenge and to go for something really difficult and that's on my comfort zone. But right now I'm good. Just like, you know, training just for fun and.

Coach Tom (31:54.542)
Perfect example, perfect example of life stress being up here and training stress needs to be down here. Body doesn't know the difference between the two stresses. So you're in a whole new environment. You're there. So did you like have this epiphany like one day you just went, screw it, I'm not doing it, right? Or did you walk through and kind of use yourself as a client and go, okay, what would I, did you go through a worksheet?

Sara (32:00.282)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (32:21.831)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (32:22.829)
How did you come to that decision? And what would we do in the same mode? What's the thought process?

Sara (32:27.481)
Yeah.

Sara (32:32.189)
Yeah, you know, it was kind of interesting because I was taking a sports psychology class on the side this semester and I was kind of like applying everything I was learning to myself through this decision making process. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Coach Tom (32:43.031)
Perfect.

Kenny Bailey (32:45.159)
You're like, know what? Don't want to do this. You're supposed to help to do this. And then you found out like, you know what? I don't want to do this. So that's what I...

Coach Tom (32:47.334)
my god. I don't want to do it.

Sara (32:53.405)
huh, yeah. I need to work on adjusting my athletic identity. That was the topic we talked about. But I totally just forgot your question, Tom. Can you ask me again?

Kenny Bailey (32:58.501)
Yeah, that's right.

Coach Tom (33:04.617)
What was the process that you went through to come to that conclusion to that decision? Or did your husband tell you? I'm out of here.

Sara (33:08.311)
yeah. So it really was like, yeah, it was really like the knee pain. That was the first thing that kind of clued me in. So I had been like gradually just trying to build up my running a little bit, my running volume to get to like the where the training plan says you should be at at the beginning. And it was so frustrating because I would get up to like

four to six miles and then be okay for like a week and then it would hurt again and then I'd have to go back down. And I just got to this point where, and I felt like I was being really careful about it. I had restarted like the home PT exercises I'd gotten before and it just wasn't working. And I was just so frustrated and like not having any fun with it at all. And so I got to this point where I was like, well, I'm either gonna have to decide to invest a lot of time and energy in trying to like,

Probably go to PT, go to a doctor, figure this out. Or I can just pivot and change my goals and stop feeling like I'm just running into this brick wall. And so I chose the latter. Yeah, so.

Kenny Bailey (34:17.435)
The letter, yeah.

What's kind of fun is, because I remember back to your point, the why is like, do I want to do an Ironman again? I Ironman Arizona. I tried to fake a training program one year thinking I don't have to do a whole lot, show up to Arizona, find out you actually do. You can't fake an Ironman. Newsflash. So I was like, I wasn't going do an Ironman. But then I spent 20 years in Sacramento. And then all of a sudden, they just announced Ironman Sacramento. And I got the buzz back. I got the juice back.

Coach Tom (34:35.149)
New slash.

Sara (34:35.965)
you

Sara (34:48.604)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (34:49.511)
Like, imagine being able go back to my hometown. So, I guess my point is, is like, right now, there may not be that trigger thing, right? Where you're just gonna go have fun, but it doesn't mean two years from now, something pops up where like, oh, that's fun. Like, that'll be, you know, so that's what's nice about it. It's, you know, you have 78 year olds that are still, you know, doing Iron Man, so you don't need, or any triathlon, right? don't, know, age doesn't have a limit on this thing. If it takes a couple years to get the mojo back, you know?

Coach Tom (35:13.9)
Yeah.

Sara (35:15.003)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Totally. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (35:18.449)
Give it a couple years. So, and I had a fun time and yeah. Yeah.

Coach Tom (35:18.957)
Yeah, it should come and go and there's tons of other, yeah. There's a ton of other endurance sports you can do. Just be active. Like really, that's what we talk about. What's an athlete? Everyone's an athlete. Just be active and do that. If you're a triathlete, you talk to people who are like, well, I try it, but I don't do those anymore. Like you're still a triathlete, right? You've checked the boxes, you did the race. It doesn't matter the distance. You come back to it, you know? And you're yeah, you're, yeah, yeah, you're on.

Kenny Bailey (35:25.446)
Yeah.

Sara (35:25.467)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (35:28.444)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (35:36.155)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sara (35:37.986)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (35:43.066)
And I got the tattoo, so it's not going away. So what do you think about athletes that get tattoos of their... Is that obsessive? Is that a bad sign? I was gonna put it right here on my neck, but I just thought it'd be a bit much. Is that a trigger? that a like, okay. So, yeah, yeah.

Sara (35:43.773)
Mm-hmm. This is permanent now. Yeah.

Coach Tom (35:54.197)
Is it where they get the tattoo?

Sara (35:54.727)
Yeah, I mean...

Coach Tom (35:59.022)
Yes.

Coach Tom (36:05.665)
That's definitely an identity thing, Wouldn't you say, Sarah?

Sara (36:07.897)
huh, huh. Yeah, I can see that, yeah.

Coach Tom (36:11.757)
If you're gonna brand yourself, you're gonna definitely brand yourself an Iron Man.

Sara (36:15.965)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (36:16.967)
Well, it's an interesting dilemma because I think, Sarah, I'm kind of halfway there with what you're doing right now because I've got 70.3 Louisville and I'm having a hard time cranking it. But I identify myself as a triathlete. I literally do have a, it says swim, bike, run on my license plate. I have the Ironman sticker on my car. I have a tattoo for God's sakes. how do you...

Sara (36:26.545)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (36:45.721)
manage people that are trying to figure out how to go through that transition of identity? Like, how do you uncouple that, I guess would be the question.

Sara (36:52.955)
Yeah. Yeah. So athletic identity is really interesting because it's often considered a double edged sword. So if you have a really strong like salient athlete identity, you're likely to be more engaged in your training. So you're probably going to perform better. It can be like helpful for just like you're building your sense of self. But on the flip side, if something goes wrong,

Kenny Bailey (37:01.009)
Mm-hmm.

Sara (37:21.021)
Like you have an injury, you retire, you have to take a season off. Then you're likely going to have a much harder time coping with it than someone who has more of a complex identity where they're feeling like they place like equal value into multiple life areas and not just into the athlete identity part. So I think a big part of it is just taking some time. Each person just kind of taking some time to reflect and think about like how much value am I placing?

Kenny Bailey (37:24.23)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (37:36.88)
Sure.

Sara (37:50.948)
in my identity as an athlete, how is that working for me right now? How might it work for me in the future? And is that something that I wanna continue to do or do I want to start investing in some of these other life areas too as a protective factor so that if something, not really if, but when something goes wrong or when I can't engage in my sport because other life stuff is coming up and I don't have time or I don't have the money to do it, that's gonna protect me if I have...

Kenny Bailey (38:10.353)
Yeah.

Sara (38:20.381)
kind of more complexity to my identity. So I think it's really just about awareness. So you can kind of make a conscious choice as far as like how much you want to keep investing in that or not. I think a lot of people don't really think about it consciously and just kind of on autopilot align with their athlete identity. And then they get hit pretty hard when something happens.

Coach Tom (38:47.723)
I see a lot of people tie themselves in that way. get into a group, whether it's a run group, so the runners, cyclists, they're cyclists, triathletes, triathletes, they don't know what they are. You've got endurance runners, you've got trail runners and road runners, they're all different, right? They're all in this thing and you can extrapolate this out to political groups and churches and.

everything else in your life. Like we jump into this identity and we hold on to that piece. I find it really interesting because some of them, most of them don't work across. Like the road runners can't fathom running on a trail and even there's memes and things on social media. was just kind of like we've lost him. He's a cyclist now and the runner's trying to wave his friend down. He's like, no, did you see the look in his eyes? He's out, he's gone.

Kenny Bailey (39:33.926)
Mm-hmm.

Sara (39:35.505)
Hahaha

Sara (39:41.565)
You

Coach Tom (39:42.198)
And you know, what is the road person that finds the trail for the first time and they head off into the woods and you never see them again type of, and it's just really funny to see how everyone gets in their little cliques and groups. And I don't think they're aware of it. I think they tie to something they like and they just hold onto that. I find that very fascinating because I get bored so easily. I like to do everything. And I just like,

Kenny Bailey (40:03.025)
Well, I think it's a, yeah. But I think there's a sense of community in it though, right? And I think that's what people gravitate towards. Matter of fact, my wife, know, and I don't think I'm speaking out of turn, like we belong to like the Fleet V Roadrunners in Sacramento. We'd show up three days a week, minimum, right? And our friends are tied to that. We're still friends for people from there. And when we left and moved to Tennessee, the hardest thing we had was we had a social group of people that was tied to our physicality, I guess.

Sara (40:05.597)
Yeah.

Sara (40:11.677)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (40:12.042)
It is huge. Yeah, yeah.

Kenny Bailey (40:32.495)
Right? Because we were a run group. And trying to mimic that was difficult. our social, sort of our socialism on our social, you know, social go out and try to talk to folks. You know, the the run groups here weren't filling the bill. Right. And I think there was a and then you had covid to the mix, which didn't help. But the whole point was just, you know, your our social structure was wrapped around it. Right. And you talked about running and you're excited for your friends and they are doing travel running. They come back and talk about the Disney, you know, the

Sara (40:32.861)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (40:50.658)
Yeah, that blew everything up,

Kenny Bailey (41:02.043)
the Dopey Challenge and that sounds fun, right? You get eight medals. How fun is that, right? But yeah, we'd have dinner with them and you have a common bond and I think that common bond's a really tough thing to, know, Tom's just an aloof creature, right? He floats between groups but I think there's some groups that you feel like a sense of home in that community and that's a difficult thing if you're no longer identifying yourself as that. It's not just as an individual, you're saying my social group now.

Sara (41:06.501)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (41:08.193)
More is better.

Sara (41:09.629)
You

Sara (41:16.007)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (41:18.157)
I'm just weird.

Sara (41:22.738)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (41:26.765)
I

Coach Tom (41:30.626)
Yeah, but are you aware of that? Are you aware of that, that you're in that little group? I mean, I'm not looking at it as bad thing, it's just when we talk about Sarah, as you point out your self-awareness on stuff like that and being able to adapt to not do a race and focus on other things in your life, are you aware that you're so pulled into a group or not? And what's the process for someone who's not?

Kenny Bailey (41:30.667)
Is, you know, are they still gonna like me because I'm not a triathlete? No, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sara (41:30.877)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (41:59.138)
to figure that out, is that an epiphany where they just go like, huh, this is all I have. And it's not a bad thing. I mean, if that's what works for you, great. I mean, if you're happy and that's fantastic. I mean, I'm not digging that at all. mean, it's just interesting to see self-awareness is something that, would you talk to someone Sarah and get them to be more self-aware?

Sara (42:03.325)
Hmm.

Sara (42:07.837)
Bye.

Sara (42:27.793)
You know, I think... Yeah.

Coach Tom (42:28.545)
to come and talk to you and they sit down and they have all these problems and they expect you to solve them. What do you do to go like, look in the mirror?

Sara (42:33.437)
You know, like, psychological education, I think is just really important because like, I think most of us aren't just sitting around thinking about our identity, right? It's just, we just kind of align ourselves to these different things. We prioritize different aspects of our life and we don't really consciously take a look at it and see like, where am I spending my time? What am I prioritizing? And so I often

Kenny Bailey (42:46.503)
Mm.

Sara (43:02.941)
talk with people about values quite a lot. And we'll even like pull up a values list and be like, let's kind of narrow this down right now. What are the three things that are most important to you? And then asking them like, is what you're doing right now in your day-to-day life aligned with that or not? Do you want to shift anything? And the values that you want to prioritize are going to change at different points in your life too. And so I think also accepting that, giving yourself permission to pivot.

Taking a season off where you're focusing on something else doesn't mean that you're quitting or that you're giving up or failing. It's just you're choosing intentionally to pivot and to focus on something else. And so I think framing it as like a choice is helpful. It's not my job to tell somebody, you you should or you shouldn't identify this strongly with sport or with your job. But I think it is my job to...

Kenny Bailey (43:52.059)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sara (43:57.392)
ask questions and educate people to prompt them to think about their identity more consciously so that they can make a choice. They kind of know the risks and benefits and then they can make a choice that works for them. Having that like singular athlete identity or you know, if you're really identified with your job, for example, it's simpler. It's a lot easier because you know, it's a way easier to perform well if you're only focusing on one thing than if you're also saying,

Kenny Bailey (44:18.214)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (44:24.787)
would be so much easier. I would love that.

Sara (44:26.821)
Yeah, I mean, when I was like in my early twenties and all I had to do was like go to work and then I could just like train for a path marathon, you know, it's really easy because no one else is affected by it. It's you can be kind of laser focused, but so it's harder to have kind of more of a complex identity where you're investing in other things. But

Kenny Bailey (44:27.164)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (44:49.925)
Okay, so the key message is divorce your husbands or wives. Focus on what you need. That's what I'm getting, right? Just remove everything else and you're gonna be fine. Got it. Wow, this is, you know what? This has been good, honey. So, I got it. I'm getting a one bedroom apartment with a beanbag chair and I'm gonna do nothing but go to work and train. God, Sarah, thank you. This has been a great.

Sara (44:52.271)
hahahaha

Coach Tom (44:53.899)
No, it's... I would all be singularly focused.

Sara (44:58.119)
Yeah, remove everything else, just like live in a vacuum. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, until you injure yourself and then...

Coach Tom (45:13.154)
Train that's it. That's what that's what the pros do

Sara (45:15.436)
huh. Yep.

Kenny Bailey (45:19.227)
Great episode, I appreciate it. Not the key message we're trying to get from this, yeah. Okay, she may want to skip this episode. Sorry, I may have taken the wrong answer to that one, I apologize. That was a pivot, all right, okay. Wrong message, got it, okay. That's funny.

Coach Tom (45:21.069)
We'll make sure Lori doesn't get your number. No. Yeah.

Sara (45:23.077)
Yeah, yeah, not really, yeah.

Coach Tom (45:33.026)
That was a pivot. That was a pivot. That was a pivot. Yeah. Yeah. It's fascinating that way, but I I remember going through that first Ironman training and being so, like I was working 60 hours a week, I was traveling and then I was training for races. So, but I was very aware that I wasn't very aware in the very beginning for the first Ironman distance.

Sara (45:35.121)
No, it's pivot. Yup, Yup.

Sara (45:53.032)
my god.

Coach Tom (46:03.085)
of how so siloed I was about it. But after that, as I tried to do more and other things, then I was very aware of it to the point where it was like, I would get up, I would do my training, I would knock it out at 3.30, four o'clock in the morning, I would get my training out at work, whatever. And I would get up super early on the weekends to get my long rides and runs and things in, and I would come back and I would eat. And then it was like, whatever my wife wanted to do, whatever Wendy wanted to do, we would go wherever, movies, shopping.

Sara (46:28.519)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (46:32.445)
See friends do it. We had to do all of that. The only thing she had to do was just keep feeding me And as long as I had feet food coming on a regular basis She had a sure purse was full of food and she was just as soon as I would start to get slightly irritated It was like here's your food. Here's your food. Here's your food and we'd go like what are we doing now? Well, it's been three hours We need to stop and get some food like and then we would just make a pivot over a good restaurant So I could scarf some food down and then we move on again

Sara (46:45.063)
You

Kenny Bailey (46:49.479)
It's funny.

Coach Tom (46:59.825)
And she, we talk about it now and she was just kind of like watching me burn the candle at both ends. She said was not fun to watch, but she did appreciate the fact that I went out of my way to go like, it's whatever we need to do because we need to do stuff together. Even if I'm like, you know, like blurry eyed and staring like, like, I don't know where I'm, you know, I can barely function, but we're going to get it done and you know, kind of go through that. So there was a lot of highs and lows along that way.

didn't, wasn't self-aware in the beginning, became self-aware and still didn't stop it. And then finally just put an end to it and figure out another way around. But you have to have that, you have to have that supportive partner. You have to, there's no other way that you can, you can kind of do it. I just don't see how people do it by themselves. And I've had friends that, or I've known people.

Sara (47:37.181)
Mm-hmm.

Kenny Bailey (47:37.521)
Yeah. There you go.

Sara (47:44.477)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (47:55.874)
that have had unsupportive partners. And I don't know how they do it because the stress level goes up even higher because now you're getting like anger at you and resentment and that's the worst. So, I don't know.

Sara (47:58.717)
Mm-hmm.

Sara (48:02.469)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sara (48:07.579)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. My husband was wonderful when I did the 70.3 before. I had a hard time linking up with my training partner for the rides and I don't like to ride by myself because it just doesn't feel that safe. And he would like drive behind me on the Natchez Trace Parkway while I'm riding my bike for like three hours.

Kenny Bailey (48:29.767)
That's neat.

Coach Tom (48:29.975)
Go!

Sara (48:32.177)
And going up the hills, he'd like open the sun roof and like blast some music while I'm like climbing the hills. And he was, he was awesome. It was awesome. And then during the race, he was like, he was there really supportive. And that's another reason too, I think like not doing it this year is a good choice because like he, again, like he sacrificed a lot to support me and allow me to do that and make it possible. And

Kenny Bailey (48:34.225)
That's hilarious.

Coach Tom (48:36.821)
Nice!

Kenny Bailey (48:39.579)
I get none of this. None. Yeah.

Sara (49:00.155)
You gotta have some balance there, because if you're always asking like your spouse to like give up what they want to do in order to support it, that's not going to end well. And so it's nice this year to be able to just like focus on other things and do some traveling, hopefully some camping and stuff like that. So it's not always like me prioritizing my hobby and him having to sacrifice to support that.

Coach Tom (49:22.977)
Yeah, and I think that's great that you made that decision because that's a decision that needs to be made sometime and that's A, not a failure, backing out of it. It's just, it's making an honest, adult decision. This adulting thing sucks. It's just, but that's, that's I think something that people need to be okay with, right? Looking at stuff that way and going like, okay, yeah, okay, we're not gonna do it. And it's cool. There's no bad.

Sara (49:30.715)
Yeah.

Sara (49:34.705)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (49:37.799)
So yeah.

Sara (49:45.5)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (49:52.398)
There's no bad decision, I think. We had some athletes on that we talked to and the same thing where they came up and they had to make this decision and they were kind of upset about it. It was like, no, it's not. You made the right decision, right? You have to put family first. You always have to put family first. So I think that's good. Help, yeah.

Sara (50:09.831)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (50:15.215)
or health first, right? Like you don't just power through, like, you know, if you need the surgery, get the surgery, right? The race is gonna be there next year. It's still gonna be there. So it's not going away.

Sara (50:19.323)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (50:23.009)
Yeah. Yep. Yep. We had that conversation with Brandon who pushed through a broken, three broken spokes in his front wheel and the wheel was dragging and he pushed through and he blew himself up on the bike because it was like dragging the brakes the whole time. And it was on the front wheel. And we, had him on the podcast cause we were following his year. and, and I had this conversation with him sitting on the curb after the race was over. was like, that was really stupid. Okay. Let's just put it that way because he's, I didn't want my, my, my kids to see that I quit.

Kenny Bailey (50:30.801)
Yeah.

Sara (50:38.342)
Kenny Bailey (50:40.668)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (50:47.653)
Yeah.

Sara (50:48.573)
You

Coach Tom (50:52.085)
I didn't want anything and anyone who knows Brandon knows that Brandon does not quit. Brandon is definitely not a quitter. For those of you who don't know Brandon, you should go back and check a couple of the episodes that we've had him on. His story is fantastic, right? But in the same sense, we had to go Brandon, that was stupid because your front wheel of all things is going to collapse on you and cause you to face plant. And that could be death. That's so much worse than anything else. And it's not you quitting, you had a mechanical issue.

Sara (50:53.149)
Mm.

Kenny Bailey (51:18.225)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (51:21.713)
Yeah. So.

Coach Tom (51:22.957)
You, yeah, yes, you push through it. Yes, you finished the race, but ultimately that was a poor decision. I think he knows that now. Yeah, yes. We're gonna have, we've got a whole host of people that are gonna, we're gonna refer to you. You're gonna be so busy.

Kenny Bailey (51:29.351)
So we're gonna give him your card, Sarah, and he'll be contacting you.

Sara (51:30.449)
Yup.

Kenny Bailey (51:36.839)
Yeah, they're kidding.

There you go. speaking of which, type of, know, when, like in all honesty, like when we talk to people, what should be those things like, how do we introduce you? Like what would you recommend from us? Like, hey man, it sounds like you may want to go talk to somebody, you know. Yeah, when would be a good time for us to like, if we identify somebody or you know, somebody that's willing to listen.

Sara (51:54.813)
Mm.

Coach Tom (52:00.609)
When do we come talk to Sarah? Yeah.

Sara (52:02.301)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (52:08.079)
and say, maybe a good idea to have a conversation. What would that look like?

Sara (52:11.975)
Yeah, yeah. You know, I think, you know, if we circle back to perfectionism, for example, if you're working with someone and you notice that they are often that maladaptive perfectionist mindset and they're starting from that place of not feeling good enough, not feeling worthy, you know, usually that's a deeper rooted issue that might've started in, you know, childhood experiences or other previous, probably non-terathlon related experiences.

Something like that is an indication that they could benefit from therapy to work on shifting that core belief. Someone who has a lot of pretty high levels of anxiety and has difficulty managing that and could benefit from some strategies for managing the anxiety, that could be someone who would benefit from therapy too. And sometimes anxiety is also...

kind of deeply rooted in previous experiences too. And there are things that we can do in therapy to help with that. So for example, I'm EMDR certified. Are you guys familiar with EMDR? Stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. So it's a type of therapy that is used a lot for PTSD, anxiety. It can work wonders.

it does a really good job of shifting not only how people are thinking and their core beliefs, but also can help desensitize previous traumatic experiences. And so people don't get like the physiological activation and anxiety anymore. So for example, if you have somebody who is like highly anxious or they have those negative core beliefs about themselves, that's something that could...

Kenny Bailey (53:56.049)
Mm-hmm.

Sara (54:06.269)
potentially depending on the situation, be helpful for them in shifting that, reducing their anxiety. And then from there, often just building like skills that you can use, that they can use in like present and future life as well. Therapy is not all about like unearthing past stuff. It's also skill building for the present and future. But yeah, so yeah. Yeah. So I guess in a nutshell, I would say if, if you come across somebody who

Kenny Bailey (54:22.769)
Yeah. Thanks, Mom and Dad.

Coach Tom (54:25.673)
Yeah, yeah.

Sara (54:34.749)
seems to have those kind of deeply rooted negative beliefs about themselves, or seems to have anxiety that is pretty persistent and is starting to be limiting, that can be a good time to refer to a therapist.

Kenny Bailey (54:47.429)
Yeah, I think that's great.

Coach Tom (54:49.655)
Yeah, and I'm starting to think, and maybe this has been obvious to everybody else, but it almost seems to me like therapy's good for just about everybody. To some people, you just need a little less. It's good to have that. I think that builds that self-awareness that we've talked about, right, is being able to have someone ask the questions to get you to think about.

Sara (55:01.094)
Yeah.

Sara (55:09.873)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sara (55:17.511)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (55:18.093)
and process to set the right way because I think a lot of us will sit here and we're just like, well, I don't know how to be self aware. I don't know what to ask myself. I don't know what to be thinking about. And the fact that you can sit down with someone and have them ask some questions that aren't like, tell me about your childhood, know, tell me about it. It's not that stereotypical type thing that we think about therapy. It's about processing, about thinking about where you're at. And I really liked the idea of talking about values. Maybe we can do a whole episode.

Sara (55:33.149)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Coach Tom (55:47.342)
just talking about values and how to define values. That might be something fun that we do because I know we could spend a lot of time on that. And I think trying to get people to understand what values are would be huge and timely. Because we just, not to go off on anything else, let's just, let's think about our values. Yeah, can we think about that?

Sara (55:50.013)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sara (55:59.614)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (56:02.981)
I'll just say that. Just leave it at that.

Sara (56:10.685)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's not not always just diving into the past and focusing on the negative. It's also thinking about like what what's going to drive me forward, what's going to optimize my functioning right now and in the future too. So. Mm hmm. Yeah, absolutely. So. Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (56:12.377)
It'd be kind of good to have some values. Exactly.

Coach Tom (56:17.197)
That would be fun to do.

Coach Tom (56:30.305)
Yeah, and how do we appreciate where we're at today, right here, right now. So, wow, awesome. Sarah, thank you so much. This was fun having you on. This has been fantastic. We wanna thank everybody for listening. Give us five stars, thumbs up, all that thing. Share it with your neighbors and anyone else that you think might benefit from this. That helps us, gets the algorithm out there. Everyone.

Kenny Bailey (56:39.441)
Yeah, it was fun.

Sara (56:42.139)
Yeah.

Coach Tom (56:59.145)
and keep comments and things coming. If you've got questions, send us the questions, let us know. I know I've been really terrible about responding to people on Instagram and that. I'm sorry. Occasionally I see some stuff. All right. I have to fire our social media manager amongst everything else. So but we appreciate everybody listening and certainly send us your questions and all that stuff. And Sarah, thank you so much for joining us. It's great. I think we need to get more people aware

Sara (57:09.329)
You

Kenny Bailey (57:09.479)
his fault.

Kenny Bailey (57:13.467)
Yeah.

Kenny Bailey (57:25.201)
Yeah, thank you.

Sara (57:26.141)
Well, thanks for having me.

Coach Tom (57:29.005)
on the mental health side of things and really focus on that. think that's a, I think that's going to be a big push for us this year as well. So cool. Thank you, Kenny, as well. And for everyone, we'll catch you on the next one.