The Rich Roll Podcast - Lindsay Crouse Is Changing The Game For Women's Sports

Episode Date: January 23, 2020

A perfect companion piece to my recent conversation with Lauren Fleshman -- and in furtherance of better understanding the issues that swirl around gender, sport and fairness -- today I sit down with an investigative journalist breaking some of the biggest stories in women's sports. Meet Lindsay Crouse. A graduate of Harvard University, where she competed in both cross country and track and field, Lindsay is a senior staff editor and senior OpDocs producer at The New York Times. If you’ve been paying any attention to running news (or just big headlines in general) then you are already familiar with Lindsay’s work. At the epicenter of the conversation that surrounds sports and power, Lindsay is behind some of the biggest sports stories and opinion pieces in recent memory, with a particular focus on the role and state of women's distance running. Some of Lindsay's most popular pieces include How The 'Shalane Flanagan Effect' Works, which examined the former podcast guest and New York City Marathon victor's elevating impact on other women; she broke the story on Nike's refusal to guarantee female athletes' salaries during or immediately post-pregnancy; and she produced the piece in which Allyson Felix told her story around Nike and pregnancy. Lindsay also worked with last week’s guest Lauren Fleshman on her powerful November Op-Ed, I Changed My Body For My Sport. No Girl Should and is responsible for the bombshell opinion piece about the emotional abuse suffered by Mary Cain under her former coach, Alberto Salazar. I Was The Fastest Girl in America, Until I Joined Nike created such a stir, it went on to become the 42nd most read New York Times piece for all of 2019. I first came across Lindsay by way of her recurring cameos in my friend (and RRP guest from episodes 73, 144, & 174) Casey Neistat's wildly popular vlog. So in 2015, I began following Lindsay's career. As I watched her work mature and profile grow, I eagerly awaited each new article -- and anticipated an opportunity to share her experience and insight on the podcast. Today is that day. And it's everything I hoped it would be.  The ongoing impact of Lindsay's journalism is immeasurable. So it was an absolute honor and a delight to sit down with her. Note: Because this conversation transpired at the New York Times offices (as opposed to my studio), we did not film the conversation. In addition, it was recorded in mid-October and thus not current with the immediate news cycle. I can't say enough good things about Lindsay and the work she is doing to advance the role and voice of women in sports. I love this conversation. I sincerely hope you do as well. Peace + Plants, Rich

If we want to think about girls' sports, we need to invest in the girls that are actually playing these sports. You know, the Mary Kanes, but also the girls behind Mary Kane in the race. We need to make sure that we're protecting all of them. And I think that's going to involve, first of all, investing in science. A lot of the science that we do have is based on a boy's trajectory. It's different than a girl's trajectory. And then really educating coaches to understand how to nurture specifically a girl's athletic trajectory. And then finally helping girls understand what's good and what's bad.

A lot of this pressure from girls comes from themselves. Like these are really good girls. These are high-achieving girls. They know how to do what it takes. What they don't understand necessarily is what the stakes of that are. And that if they just ride out some of these challenges that are different than the boys or even some of the girls that they're competing against at any given time, they can come out the other side and maybe be one of those, you know, women in their late 20s or early 30s that are setting the national records, that are on the medal podiums, that are, you know, going to the Olympics and the longer distance races. But I think so much of that talent is actually getting to extinguish far earlier than it should be. is actually getting to extinguish far earlier than it should be.

If anything that's come out of this conversation, you know, around this stuff in recent days, if anything comes out of that, I hope it's that. That, like, you can excel without hurting yourself. That's Lindsey Krauss, and this is The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, people, how's it going? How you doing? We're all alive and breathing, so that's good, I suppose, right?

All I know is that every day presents opportunity. And when I can step into that mindset, I get a tiny chance of dealing with whatever obstacles are in front of me. Life, man, we're all living it, right? Did I introduce myself? My name is Rich Roll. This is indeed my podcast. So settle in and let's get things rolling.

Today's episode is, I think, the perfect extrapolation on the important themes that we explored in my last conversation with Lauren Fleshman, the advancement of women in sport, fairness, athletic parity, and straight-up girl power advocacy. Our cipher for today's masterclass is Lindsay Krauss. Lindsay is a producer, editor, and writer at the New York Times. If you've been paying any attention to running news the past couple of years or just

big headlines in general, then I would imagine you're definitely already familiar with Lindsay's work as she has broken some of the biggest stories in recent memory. Some of her most popular pieces include the Shalane effect, which she wrote about Shalane Flanagan and the elevating effect that she has had on other women. Lindsay broke the piece about how Nike does not guarantee female athletes a salary during their pregnancies or immediately after giving birth. She produced the piece in which Alison Felix told her story around Nike and pregnancy. And she was responsible for the bombshell Mary Kane op-ed entitled, I was the fastest girl in America until I joined Nike, which is all about the abuse Mary

suffered under her former coach, Alberto Salazar. And that piece landed as the 42nd most read piece on the entire New York Times for 2019. In addition, I'd like to add that Lindsay also worked with last week's guest, Lauren Fleshman, on Lauren's November New York Times op-ed entitled, I Changed My Body for Sport, No Girl Should. And that is a must read for everyone, especially any and all female athletes out there. I'm super excited about this. I've really wanted to talk with Lindsay for a long time this. I've really wanted to talk with Lindsay for a long time, and I can't wait to share this conversation with all of you. But first, let's acknowledge the awesome organizations that make this show possible.

We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment.

And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem, a problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety,

eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself. I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. We're brought to you today by

recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care

tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral health providers to cover the full spectrum of behavioral health disorders, including substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do.

And they have treatment options for you. Life and recovery is wonderful, and recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay, Lindsey Krauss. A couple other really interesting things about her. In addition to breaking these gigantic stories, she's also a super fast runner. She recently clocked a blazing 253 marathon, which she was preparing for when we did the podcast, which was back in mid-October amidst all of these crazy stories that she was breaking. It's an unbelievable feat.

Another part of the job at The New York Times that Lindsay is involved in is producing op docs, including the fabulous one on New York City Runner Memo, which you guys should check out. We talk about that today. one on New York City Runner Memo, which you guys should check out. We talk about that today. And Walk, Run, Cha-Cha, which just received an Oscar nomination last week in the documentary short subject category. So, Lindsay first came across my radar several years ago when she popped up in my friend Casey Neistat's vlog. And I thought, who is this really fast runner that writes for the New York Times? So I started following her way back then before a lot of this amazing work on female athletes has come out. And I'm just delighted to have the opportunity to sit down with her. So today we dive deeper into many of the issues discussed with Lauren around women in sport. with Lauren around women in sport.

We go behind the scenes on the Mary Kane, Alicia Montano, and Alison Felix stories, Nike and its relationship with pregnant athletes, the controversies swirling around Alberto Salazar and the Nike Oregon project, why almost all current sports science is based on men and harmful coaching approaches to girls and women in sports. And of course, we go into Lindsay's personal story, what makes for a great journalist,

great journalism, what it's like to work at the New York Times in our post-truth fake news culture, and how she manages to absolutely kick ass and running while also being at the vortex of breaking these huge stories. I can't say enough good things about Lindsay and the amazing work that she has been doing. So again, it was an absolute honor and pleasure to sit down with her at the New York Times during a visit to New York City last fall. So this is me and Lindsay Krauss. Well, pleasure to finally meet you. Absolutely. Great to meet you, Tim.

I've been really inspired by the work that you've been doing for a long time. So, this is delightful. I'm in the New York Times for the first time, which is very exciting for me. Yeah, thanks for coming back. I don't know about for you, but it's cool to be here. And I've been spending a lot of time trying to wrap my head around like what you do and, and what it means. And I think what's so compelling about the work that you've been doing, particularly recently, is that you're not only breaking these really important stories, these stories then go on to have this life of life of their own. There's been some really viral moments, which has to be very gratifying for you as a journalist, but also beyond that, it's not just, oh, we caught lightning in a bottle. These are important pieces that are creating conversations. And then even beyond that, I think it's fair to say,

are really creating a power shift, like a shift in the power dynamic of sport that is empowering women to not just reevaluate and rethink their relationship to sport, but to seize the reins of control and power. And you're seeing this community kind of congeal and coagulate around these ideas, at least online, and I know in real life and in the real world. And it's kind of an

incredible thing. Yeah, I think it's been really, it's been surprising, frankly, to see just how much traction these stories are getting, not only among the athletic community, but kind of in the broader public discourse. I don't remember the last time that, you know, a politician was tweeting about a track and field athlete or a marathon runner and like really wanting her to get, you know, maternity coverage or to have a coach be nice to her. I think like, you know, decrying abuse that in so many ways, so many of these stories are, they're so tolerated. They're so almost normalized that they do just feel common. And it's amazing to kind of see, to kind of give the opportunity to some of these women or young women the chance to say, this happened to me. This is my story. What do you think about it? And the rest of the, this happened to me, this is my story, what do you think about it? And the rest of the public is saying, actually, this is awful,

this is wrong, we don't want this to happen to you. And I think that's been really important. I mean, people say all the time that athletes, you know, need to use their voice. But I think the first step is kind of recognizing that these rules weren't made for you. And you've been following the rules, and you've even been thriving in these, you know, in this paradigm that has certain rules, but ultimately they weren't made for you and you want to rewrite those rules. And that's what these women are doing. And I think it's been amazing to see all the public support they're getting for that. Yeah. I mean, it's one thing to say you have a voice, use it. And it's another thing for that voice to show up on the pages of

the New York Times. It really validates that that voice has merit and should be heard. But I can't imagine that you, even in your wildest imagination, that a story about Mary Kane, who's somebody that unless you're immersed in track and field, you have no idea who this person is, would connect so profoundly with a mainstream audience. Yeah, and I think that's really where I felt a lot of responsibility with her story. I work with a bunch of men here in my department, and they didn't know who she was. I was old enough to be her older sister, I think. Definitely knew who she was as she was coming up in high school. I was already working, but I'd already kind of gone through the NCAA.

I knew what all those systems were like. And she was an exciting person to watch. But I think a lot of athletes, you know, faster athletes than me. But then also someone like me is like, oh, we know how this story tends to go. We don't always know the details of why, but we've lived our own lives. And, you know, we all have kind of very few athletes. You're lucky if you've just had, if you're a female athlete and you've just had kind of like a straight shot and been successful the whole time.

I think that can happen for men more, but it rarely happens for girls. And I think when we did see Mary, you know, leave Nike, I'd always wondered what happened to her and not in like a, oh, I forgot about her. I think I actively wondered about that a lot. But when she told me her story, I wasn't surprised because it tracks so closely with stories that a lot of female athletes and, you know, women, whether you're an athlete or not, have experienced on some level. But I did feel a lot of responsibility of taking the details of her story, many of which were not that surprising, and kind of translating them to the general audience and saying, look, you need to care about this. And we're going to show you this, and then you can

be the court of public opinion. And it was amazing to see that people cared about that. Her story is outrageous, but it's also representative of a story that so many women have lived. Yeah, undoubtedly. Well, for people that are listening who perhaps might not have read the story, it probably would be wise to kind of set the stage or contextualize this a little bit. Sure. So Mary Kane was the fastest girl in America, which is how we had her open the piece. This was back in sort of the early aughts. And so she was the fastest girl in America.

She was setting so many national records. And she was sort of like the darling of the track scene. She was supposed to be our next Olympian. Alberto Salazar, the best coach in the world on the best team in the world by the best company in track and field in the world.berto salazar the coach at nike of nikki oregon project he called her up when she was 16 and was like i want to coach you and it was a dream come true and i think that's what's so important to remember she was living the dream that every every high schooler athlete wants to have that every parent wants for their daughters and that's why we had to kind of get people really excited about her rise. So then they could understand why her descent is so

striking and so important. She went out to Nike and she was 118 pounds, kind of varying between 118 and 121. This is at an age when girls are, you know, are flush with estrogen, which is a performance – it's not a performance-enhancing hormone by any stretch. It's having girls gain a little weight. They're getting their periods, et cetera. And meanwhile, boys are getting – they're kind of oozing testosterone, which is a total performance-enhancing hormone. And her coaches are telling her, you need to lose weight. She's 118 pounds. She needs to be 114 pounds. And they're not telling her how. They're not telling her how to do this safely. And so she starts trying to lose weight,

however she can think of. And she loses her period. And that's when the injury set in. This is what happens to girls when you diet too much. You lose your period, your bones start to break, your body starts to break down. And ultimately, she started engaging in self-harm, suicidal thoughts, and she had to leave. And she has spent the past few years with dealing with that injury cycle of broken bones. And it's awful. And what's particularly awful to me is that, you know, there are other athletes in the past, like Melody Fairchild, for example, these are all like the best girls in the country. And we just assume that they burn out. And we don't think about the idea of what certain coaching approaches are doing that actually cause that burnout instead. Right. And this is in plain sight. Absolutely. It's different than doping scandals because there isn't even an effort to obscure it because it's sort of systemically accepted as protocol. Yeah. And I think that's what's so important about her story broadly is that it really

shows that we need to start thinking more about if we care about girls' sports, which so many conversations right now are establishing that apparently we really care about the future of girls' sports. I do. It seems like a lot of people do. It's not about necessarily some of the other conversations that I think are distracting from that, like, for example, transgender athletes. Like, those are very separate conversations.

If we want to think about girls' sports, we need to invest in the girls that are actually playing these sports. You know, the girls that – the Mary Kanes, but also the girls behind Mary Kane in the race. We need to make sure that we're protecting all of them. And I think that's going to involve, first of all, investing in science. There's not – a lot of the science that we do have is based on a boy's trajectory. It's different than a girl's trajectory. And then really educating coaches to understand how to nurture specifically a girl's athletic trajectory. And then finally helping girls understand what's good and what's bad.

A lot of this pressure from girls comes from themselves. These are really good girls. These are high-achieving girls. They know how to do what it takes. What they don't understand necessarily is what the stakes of that are. And that if they just ride out some of these challenges that are different than the boys, or even some of the girls that they're competing against at any given time, they can come out the other side and maybe be one of those, you know, women in their late 20s or early 30s that are setting the national records, that are on the medal podiums, that are, you know, going to the Olympics and the longer distance races. But I

think so much of that talent is actually getting to extinguish far earlier than it should be. I mean, the changes need to be systemic top to bottom, but there also has to be this perspective shift in that we need to pivot away from this idea of,-term gains and kind of operating like a publicly traded company operates, which is on quarterly profits. That's as far as your vision extends. And look at the long term. What's in the best interest of that athlete over the course of an entire career? And look, as somebody who, I'm older, I'm from a different generation,

but I've been around sport my whole life. And it wasn't until kind of sitting down, I had Lauren Fleshman on the podcast recently, and then reading her op-ed piece that I know you were instrumental in helping put together, am I starting to realize the vast differences biologically with women with respect to this estrogen cycle? With men, it's a linear progression of getting better and better and faster and faster, right? That's kind of like the paradigm.

And with women, once you reach your late teens and your early 20s, you have these body changes and then changes later in your 20s that, you know, put you in a very different place. And better understanding that is what's required in order to really, you know, have that best interest at heart for these girls. Yeah. I mean, I think, I mean, there has been a lot of scrutiny on Nike after the Mary Kane story. on Nike after the Mary Kane story. And in some ways, the response has been a little disappointing because it's like, I don't think it's all about just having an investigation into the abusive practices of Coach Alberto Salazar.

I think this is, again, he was just doing what a lot of men do, what a lot of women do, because a lot of the women that, you know, make it to the point where they're a coach have come up through this system as well and had to endorse it or at least survive in it to the point where they don't necessarily see anything wrong with it. If they see something wrong with it, they would leave probably. And I think it's kind of perhaps studying some of this stuff and actually saying like, you know, for Nike, a multi-billion dollar company, to actually say, we're going to be a leadership force in this.

We were a big backer of the girl effect back in the day. We were marketing our shoes off that and really inspiring girls. What if we follow through and actually fund some research? How much money would that cost? Not that much. And the optics, but also the outcomes, I think, would be really powerful. And I'd love to see that. It seems like such an easy leap. Like, I don't understand why that's so difficult for them to wrap their heads around. Like, when I look at the pregnancy leave issue, which we can get into in more detail, on a revenue, you know, on the revenue tip, like, it's nothing for them to support these women throughout their pregnancy. And when I first came across the story, I thought, well, this must just

be an antiquated clause that's just been in a contract forever and nobody, you know, took the opportunity to go, hey, maybe we should change that. Versus, you know, like just that kind of support would pay dividends a hundredfold because of just the storytelling potential alone about that support. Yeah. I mean, I think especially when what really struck me about that is that you do have athletes and you have had athletes like Kara Goucher, Alicia Montano, who would always struck me about what they managed to do was that they came back better. They still came back and won medals. And I think that was amazing. And what always bothered me was that, you know, I'd kind of known what they were going through a little bit back at the time that they were doing it.

And it was, you know, I hadn't fully investigated it, but it always bothered me that it was like the hardest part should be winning. The hardest part should not be fighting your sponsors for the chance to do that or feeling like you belong in the arena at all. Like those should be the things that we are – we should be paving the way for women to try this. We should not be punishing them for trying. I think that's why, you know, Alison Felix was a big source on that story. Obviously didn't feel comfortable necessarily sharing her story in the vulnerable position of having just had a newborn and being in the middle of a contract negotiation. But I think that really resonated with a lot of people that, you know, I'd reached out to her because I thought she was going to be the person that said, as you did, that it was probably an antiquated clause and that I was like, surely Allison is getting whatever she wants. And the idea that she, too, was having to fight and feel like the hardest part, in addition

to, of course, the coming back from an emergency C-section, it was fighting her sponsor for the chance to do that. And I thought that was so sad. It is. I mean, what's even more kind of like amazing and courageous and powerful are the current athletes who are now speaking out. There's this woman, Tiana B, who wrote a blog post. She's currently sponsored by Nike.

Right. And spoke out against her sponsor. I can't imagine. That's a very ballsy thing to do. Yeah. One thing that was really amazing about the maternity coverage in general, and that's been great about seeing kind of the dialogue around, you know, abusive tactics, because again, the idea of abuse is subjective, like the idea of rights are subjective. And when the story around, so we did two pieces around what we called Dream Maternity, and it was sort of an answer to the Dream Crazy campaign, which, again, it was just calling out contradictions between marketing and reality in video form and through the voices of athletes themselves who were, you know, unfettered by – they were breaking their NDAs basically to talk about it.

I remember after we put out the piece with Alicia Montano and Kara Goucher who were kind of older, they were no longer sponsored by Nike when they talked about this, although the NDAs still applied. I had a few women who were more recently sponsored by Nike that called me and they were like, you know, actually I didn't have a bad experience with Nike. I was fine. So I just really want to tell you that even though maybe the company isn't binding itself to support me, they supported me. And I'm very grateful. And I was like, well, thank you for your feedback. And then, Allison, Felix, we shared her story a week later.

And I got so many calls back being like, wait a second. I didn't know I had rights. Like, I didn't know I could get this and that I didn't have to be like grateful for it. And I thought that was what was so important that it really is women almost like realizing that what they feel lucky to get is actually maybe something that they should get. And again, then maybe they can just focus on winning instead of fighting for the chance to do that. Yeah. In the process of putting these stories together, like the research and the kind of legwork that goes into it, how difficult, like what was the process, the journey of getting these women comfortable to talk about their NDAs? I mean,

that's a very dicey thing. Yeah, it was really hard. I think in retrospect, it looks like it all Yeah, it was really hard. I think in retrospect, it looks like it all was exactly the way we premeditated it for or that we planned for it to be. It was a lot of work. I mean, if you talk to Alicia, who was kind of the first person to say, I'll do this. It's a really emotional thing for her to talk about. And there's a risk. So, yeah, I basically like wrote. I had to.

And the challenge for me is that, you know, i'm taking all these emotions and all these feelings and that's not what we're doing what we're actually doing is showing some facts um and showing the audience like this is what happened this is what the current situation is so you have to sort through a lot of this really dense like this is someone's entire life and their family. And that's really hard, but you can't overwhelm the audience with too much. You really need to kind of signpost for them. Like, this is the story. This is what happened. And so, I think we were really sorting through a lot of that emotion to try to tell as objective story as possible with a little bit of opinion mixed in um so that

was hard and then with mary it was sort of the same thing it was like okay so here's your experience um we need to catch an audience up who doesn't care about track who has no idea who you are um uh and help them understand all of these different things um in a very quick way that kind of gets straight to the emotion. But the emotion only matters if you understand the facts. And so, that's what we were trying to do. Right. So, on the pregnancy maternity story, did that come to you or is that something that you were tracking down or paying attention to? Like, how did that originate? Yeah. I wouldn't say that anyone that participated in that was particularly excited about doing it. Yeah, I mean, I can imagine. Yeah, it was a lot of trust. And I was really grateful that the women did wind up trusting me, because I did feel like

I was trying to get them, I was stirring up something for them that they really didn't want to think about. And, you know, trying to ensure them that I could get people here to invest in it to the point where it would be worth it because they're taking on a huge risk. And I didn't know if people were going to necessarily care about this or not. So that was a story that originated probably back in 2014 when I just wrote a story for our sports desk here. I've always been a producer and opinion, but since I'm a big distance runner, I've always, you know, I see what's around me and I always wanted to kind of write the stories that I wanted to read. And so a lot of my friends, maybe like four or five or six years ago, were starting to have kids,

sort of like the first wave of that. And a lot of them are really good runners. And maybe like four or five or six years ago were starting to have kids, sort of like the first wave of that, and a lot of them were really good runners. And I was watching everyone do this, and I was noticing that they were coming back and sometimes being faster afterwards, and I was really excited about that. And it kind of mirrored what we were seeing certain elite athletes do. Like Kara Goucher, for example, was following in the footsteps of Paula Radcliffe. And everyone was kind of touting like, oh, this is so amazing. And so I wanted to write a story where I was like kind of showing the trickle down that continues to really excite me about American women distance runners, where you see you see like Kara doing this in the New York City Marathon. And then you see all these other women doing this as well, even though they don't have sponsors. And so, I interviewed Kara and Alicia at that time.

And I was like, so, like, what's the hardest part? And they're like, well, the physical part is hard. And then they were like, well, off the record, like, we don't get paid for this at all. Don't print that. So, I think I printed a really broad sentence about it, you know, with no attribution. And no one cared about it. So, everyone was like, wow, this is amazing. These women are doing great. No one was worrying about the other part. It's not interesting to anyone. And then, as I got older here, and I'm kind of watching other stuff here, I have this Boston Opinion, Adam Alec, who was like, okay, you do all this stuff in sports. You know this really well like good things come from things that people

are passionate about so why don't you move the needle on some issue here in sports like in a way that you care about and i just remembered kind of that line from kara goucher and her agent shanna burnett and i was like i'm gonna see if that's still true which wound up being a lot harder than um well i knew it was going to be hard and it was really hard. You can't just be like, hey, send me that NDA. No, not at all. Is it some kind of like all the president's men situation where you're in a parking garage and somebody hands you a manila envelope? Like, how did that work? had some agents show me emails like in front of me um and i could take a picture with them like

with my camera phone and um so that it wasn't it wasn't traceable to anyone else um because i mean again i'm totally sympathetic to the idea that um this may not be the biggest political issue to people in the entire world but these are people's lives and people's families. And Nike is a very litigious, multibillion-dollar corporation. Like, people, I was extremely sensitive to the idea that people were scared of that company. And it sounded like they had every reason to be, which made me need to be even more diligent to back them up. And so by the time I actually had emails from people, from sports marketing executives at Nike declining to, um, put paternity maternity protections in writing, um, into a contract, I was like, well, this was sent three weeks ago.

So, um, so we have this still happening. Yeah. Um, but that, that was a really long kind of connect the dots of how do I figure this out? How do I figure this out? Who do I talk to who won't go back to the sports marketing executives and tell how do I figure this out? How do I figure this out? Who do I talk to who won't go back to the sports marketing executives and tell them that I'm doing this? And then they somehow undermine the story or gag everyone from talking to me. You just don't know. And I'm doing it all here from New York. So it was like kind of all like

late night conversations with people. But given the fact that you'd slipped it into that earlier story, and no one seemed to comment on that, must have thought that you know you're rolling the dice with this larger story about it like is anyone going to care yeah and i mean carrie goucher was like fine you can quote me but could your lawyers also please defend me if i get sued by this company um and we can't do that here at the times um all we can tell all we can tell an athlete like that, a fairly vulnerable person up against a company like Nike, all we can say is that if Nike sues you for exposing that they didn't pay you for however many months while you were working for them because you had a baby, we can put that on the front page of the New York Times. That I can do. It's a bad look. Yeah, but I can't tell you that they won't do it.

Technically, they're within the rights to do that. She breached the NDA. Yeah, of course, yeah. And I was worried about that. I really didn't want these women to get sued or suffer at all for kind of exposing their truth. And ultimately, and it was hard too because they kept being like,

you know, we might do this but nothing will ever change. And I don't, I didn't know if anything was going to change. All I could do was get the story out there

and see what happened. But then in August, John Slusher, an executive vice president of marketing there, did send out a memo to all athletes saying immediately,

you were covered for 18 months. No performance-related reductions. I mean, as a journalist, it doesn't get better than that. Yeah, that was tremendously satisfying. immediately, you were covered for 18 months, no performance-related productions. As a journalist, it doesn't get better than that. Yeah, that was tremendously satisfying. Real world change as a direct result of your reporting. Yeah. And I think what was even most important to me was the symbolism of it. It's this idea that

all the ways that women are struggling or kind of know that they can or can't do something, and they're almost like changing their behavior around these rules. It's like, instead, why don't we change these rules? And I love that the Times can be a part of that in terms of being the force that might, you know, get Ivanka Trump and liberal senators to both call out on Nike and say, you can do better than this. I mean, the next best step would be to maybe change some actual laws because all of this is totally legal. And I'm not sure that it should be up to an individual company to decide whether women should be able to have children and still support themselves. But failing that,

it's really exciting to see that the Times can be a part of actually getting people excited about these issues that A, no one wanted to talk about in the first place or didn't feel comfortable about and B, that people weren't necessarily going to care about unless we kind of told it to them in the way that was really going to resonate. Yeah. I think, you know, the fact that Nike and Salazar are woven into all of this kind of makes it sexy for a lot of people, but it's myopic to just perceive this through that lens. Like it is a bigger, it's a systemic thing, right? Yeah. Like, you know, I came up in swimming.

My high school girlfriend was being sexually molested by my swim coach since she was 13 years old. was being sexually molested by my swim coach since she was 13 years old. And she was like number two in the world at 200 butterfly, was meant to make the Olympic team in 88, and fell on her face at trials because she was emotionally traumatized by this. And it kind of came to light what was happening. By that time, I was already in college. And this was like 1986? No, 1987, 1988.

And it was settled out of court for a paltry sum. It was a different era. And then it didn't come to light until much, much later because the Washington Post cottoned on to the story and knew something had happened and wouldn't let it go and finally got Kelly to speak on the record about it right on the eve of like that Olympiad and then he went he went to jail but like this was like took like 20 years for this to get sorted out and so I guess my broader point is that I grew up around like we all we all knew who the swim coaches were, who were doing this kind of thing. So whatever Salazar did or didn't do, like, this is going on all over the place with all kinds of coaches in all different sports. Yeah. And again, I can't emphasize enough

that what's going on with Salazar there was totally legal. It's like, there's nothing, no one's ever said that there was actually something wrong with what he did. It's totally legal. It's like there's nothing – no one's ever said that there was actually something wrong with what he did. It's done by so many people. It's not sexual abuse. And I think it's really, really important that we expand our definition of what's right and what's wrong to kind of open it up to other things like this, like this emotional abuse, like almost forcing a girl to change her body to the point where she's breaking it. These things are also bad. And I think it's, I'm really heartened by the idea that people are finally starting to come around to that. Yeah. there was a very interesting tweet thread that I saw recently in the wake of your story by Stuart McMillan, who's a prominent track and field coach and strength coach. And he kind of just said, like, look, I'm saying this, you know, I want to ask this in good faith. Like, is there, this, you know, I want to ask this in good faith, like, is there, is it ever appropriate to talk to a female athlete about weight? And it kind of created this thread. And I think, you know,

I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt, like he's really, he wants to know, like, what is the answer to that question? Understanding that weight is a factor in performance. And the solution can't be that we can never even bring it up. We just have to find better ways and more educated ways of navigating the vicissitudes and the kind of emotional landmines that this creates for young women. Absolutely. I mean, I don't really have a strong answer for that either, aside from what you said. But I do think two things. One is that what you said about education for coaches

is really, really important. I think in the case of Salazar, it's pretty clear that what he was trying to do, this arbitrary 114 number, was kind of grounded in his own beliefs, not in any sort of science. Right. It wasn't rooted in anything tangible. Yeah. And I think that's a real trouble with what a win-at-all-costs culture sows with letting almost like megalomaniac cults of personality dictate what outcomes as opposed to science. So the first thing is education and making sure that coaches are making educated decisions

as opposed to just kind of like personal preference decisions and imposing those on their athletes. That's really harmful for athletes. But the second thing, again, is I think improving the science and really making sure that whatever science we're drawing upon, we're clearly just at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to a woman's athletic or biological development in terms of what we understand and how it relates to athletic outcomes and potential. So I think we really need to be studying that more if we're serious about the future of women's sports. Right. And more women coaches. Yeah. And more women-owned apparel company.

Like, who are the people who are in power who are making these purse-string decisions about the athletes that they're going to support? And what does that climate and dynamic look like? Yeah. I think if we're going to get actually serious about women's sports, we need to have more women. We can't just have women participating in those sports. We need to have women in. We can't just have women participating in those sports. We need to have women in positions of power in those sports. That connects to coaches,

that connects to administrators and officials, that also connects to women telling their stories. There are almost no female reporters in sports. I mean, we should really be thinking about that as well. I think, is it like 4% of sports stories are about women's sports? Yeah, and that has to be because of the reporters. Like, I mean, how many stories are there about baseball? It's baseball and football and basketball. Yeah, which is important. But I think, I think actually, I mean, my dream in terms of like what a great career legacy would be for this stage of my career is almost to go back, and people tell me this is unrealistic, but America was really captivated by track and field back in the Steve Prefontaine era.

That was kind of the dawn of the sponsored runner in the first place. And everyone was so excited about him and what he represented. And I'm wondering, at this stage, especially as we see, like with the series that we're doing at the Times Equal Play, people are really talking about the sport now, in part because of the women that they're listening to and how we're highlighting what the women are going through and accomplishing in this sport and disrupting in this sport, how that connects to the rest of our culture and our society. And I'm like, what if we actually put women front and center

in this coverage of the sport? Could we get Americans to care more about this sport, which I love, and that's really influenced my life drastically in ways that I could have never anticipated when I started doing it. I mean, if you look at how fast the American women are from the professionals on downward now, there absolutely has been a trickle-down effect in terms of women getting faster and faster. And I think Americans should be looking at this more and really getting fascinated by this. And I think, like, I am living and breathing this right now. Like, it's half of what I think about. I'm sure

my bosses are thrilled about that. And I just, I wish that we could be telling that story more and getting more Americans excited about that and then the sport. All right. Well, the wish is being fulfilled, Lindsay, because I got news for you. This is happening. And you're a big reason why it's happening. We're having this amazing moment in women's track and field and marathon running. I don't think there's ever been more mainstream interest in these incredible athletes than there is right now because of the performances with Des Linden and Shalane in these incredible athletes than there is right now because of the performances

you know with des linden and chelene and these incredible marathon performances and then all of the kind of social and cultural issues that swirl around this that is i think you know really um uh uh like gluing this community of women together, which makes them all the more powerful and interesting to the public as well. Yeah. I mean, I think that's also been a really cool opportunity here at the times is that I don't think all these people necessarily,

all these women necessarily knew each other ahead of time, like for dream eternity, they weren't connecting to each other about this. It was really just me kind of being like, I need a voice. I need a voice. I need a voice. Will you a voice. I need a voice. Will you talk about this?

And not everyone would, but some people would. And those were the women that we wound up being able to showcase to the Times audience as a chorus. And it was so much more powerful with all of them together. And then, you know, Alicia spoke. And then Kara spoke because Alicia was leading the story. So she felt secure in telling her story. Then Allison spoke because she saw the reaction to their story. And then when I was talking to Mary, she was like, I want to do what Allison Felix did. You know, Mary grew up worshiping Allison, obviously, like everyone,

everyone Mary's age, most decorated track athlete of all time, speaking out about something beyond the track that was actually influencing her and changing something. Mary was inspired by that. And I think that's been really amazing to see that we can do that here at the Times. We can be a forum for changing some of the stuff and bringing women together. And then seeing Shalane come out as this newly minted coach who's trying to shift this culture. And she didn't mince words. And she was very clear about the changes that need to be made and what her aspirations are. And then Lauren Fleshman's op-ed, like these are like, you know, these are like big moments.

Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I think, I think Chalene's reaction to the Mary story was really powerful. I've, I've always been really impressed as an athlete and a journalist, but particularly as an athlete, you know, I've watched Chalene and what she's done for her teammates in terms of, you know, almost being like a career catalyst for these teammates and making them really successful, like a 100% success rate of getting her, the athletes that she's trained with to the Olympics. You know, you could say that's their coach, Jerry, but they don't have

the same success rate for the men on that team. And so you could really attribute the success of that team to Shalane. And I think it's easy to cheer for the positives. And I thought that it was really, really strong of her, especially when she was just kind of anointed as their first female coach, which is really exciting for the industry. But it impressed me so much that she spoke up and said, I don't want this to happen anymore. And I think cultures evolve and cultures change. And it sounds like she's really trying to be someone that moves that culture in the positive direction. On the Mary Kane story, Mary approached you for this, right? Yeah.

As sort of on the heels of seeing your other reporting and feeling like this is the person that I need to go to to share this with. Yeah, so I didn't know her. So we had to kind of work together to think. It was hard. At first, she just kind of wanted to do it fast. I was like, no, I think we really want to spend some time on this. We don't want to bucket it with any other marathon coverage was hard for me, because I wasn't sure how much people were going to care. But I wanted to take the time and really invest the effort in figuring out how we could do it in the biggest way possible that would get the most eyeballs. I wanted to have it be her telling it in her words, ideally on screen, because I think

that's by far the most powerful way to tell that kind of a story. And that kind of thing just takes a little bit of time. So we were working on it for, I'd say, maybe like six weeks or something. I'm really glad that we waited and that we didn't do it along with other news. But I think it was psychologically difficult for her to wait, knowing that she wanted to. I think it's like as soon as you decide you want to get something off your chest, you want it gone. But I think in the end, the payoff was worth it. Oh, for sure. I think what's interesting is that I would imagine a lot of people are under the impression

that you're just a full-time writer on the sports desk covering track and field. And it's actually not your main gig. Like you're, you're at Op Docs, right? Like producing video is like kind of your main, that's your main gig, isn't it? Yeah. Part of your job. Yeah. I mean, I think my story tracks pretty closely with a lot of the women that I write about and that, you know, I came here as an assistant maybe like eight years ago. And I was told at the time that it was in a position where there was a path to promotion. But I'd been working for Jodi Kantor before that, just like helping her as a researcher on her book. She's the woman that wound up breaking the Weinstein story, kind of starting the Me Too movement. And she's a real feminist. And

I'd worked for other people before and no one had ever been like, here's how you can get a job, which is kind of what you obviously want when you do those kinds of things. And so she helped me get one of those jobs here. And I was just like, okay, so there's a two-year expiration date on how long I can be an assistant here. And I've got to start now. And so I just kind of started doing everything I could to get promoted. So OpDocs had just started. It was right when The Times was getting more experimental. Before that, the institution had really been sort of you are this and you can only write this way. And so I've always been kind of like scrappily trying to figure out how can I get the things that I care about into this paper in as visible a way as possible,

but without necessarily having like the full-time role there and doing that. And so I started freelancing for the sports desk um a lot but was kind of at the same time getting promoted in op docs this short documentary series it's very like kind of festival oriented like we have a lot of oscar films a lot of emmy films um so I'm doing that but then at the same time like building up this body of work about the sport that I really care about and also seeing that a there's an audience for it like people really care but b they're not really getting done and they're getting done but not necessarily in the way that I would do them because I've really lived these stories. I've lived Mary's story in a certain way.

At some point, I've watched my friends experience the maternity thing and listened keenly and think about how that might influence my own life as I move forward. I think you want women telling these stories about women. I mean, my sense is that you follow your curiosity. It's not like, oh, here's the story, like, go report on this. It's just, what are you interested in? And then continuing to pull on that thread until something is revealed. Yeah. I mean, I think I've often had a skill at translating very specific stories about something very niche, like running, for example, which I think people sometimes will say, oh, it's just running. And I'm like, well, you're only saying it's just running, first of all, because I'm writing about a woman usually. And you're not maybe seeing how I'm getting to like this bigger idea. But I always look at it as a challenge of like, how can I take something about running and make it something that,

you know, Kamala Harris is going to tweet about or that someone will find, you know, in inspirational and surprising and challenging. And I think that's what I tend to love about the sport. And it's actually, yeah, it's been an amazing creative challenge and a,

and a real pleasure to get to share it with others. But, but no, I'm not on the sports desk. So when a story comes to you or you're developing it, what is the decision tree in terms of like this would be good for an op doc or this is just going to be a long-form editorial piece? Like how do you decide like this is one we want to tell visually? Um, so none of the, none of the things that I've done for equal play have been op docs. Actually op docs is a series of short documentaries by independent filmmakers. And so I'm more the curator of that series. Um, and again, those are the kinds of films that we're sending to the Oscars or to the Emmy awards. Um, it's,

it's something different altogether. Um I've done in Equal Play is actually out of this new opinion video franchise at the Times in opinion. And that's started by Adam Ellick, who's like the executive producer. And then on these videos, I've worked with Tej Jensen, Alex Stockton, Naima Raza, just like really, really smart video producers here.

And for myself, I think what we're doing in opinion video is actually a fascinating new form of journalism that it's been a real pleasure to kind of help pioneer and spearhead. I think more stories should be told in video. It's only a matter of resources. And I think hearing something from someone, especially when they're breaking news, has been, you can't substitute for the written word. I'm not a writer here in opinion, but I do write from time to time. And I think those stories are more just the ones that like i come up with on my own and i'm just like this needs to happen now but when it's

someone else's story i i don't think there's any substitute for telling it in their own words yeah who is the what's the name of the guy uh that uh is the super fast amateur that memo yeah yeah memo that's right yeah like that was perfect for a video. I loved that. Because, like, you watch that video and you fall in love with this guy, right? It was and it wasn't perfect because we had to really script around him. Yeah. English is not his first language. And that was a fascinating creative challenge. a Mexican immigrant to America who came here undocumented, I think, like back in the 90s. He crossed the border and started to seek his fortune in New York and, you know, worked a bunch

of sort of working class blue collar jobs and always very scrappily and at the same time became a runner. He was a bad runner back in like Pueblo where he's from. He was not good on the track team at all. But somehow when he got here, he flipped a switch and, you know, never with any particular amount of resources. But he got really, really good. And he just ran a 228 at Boston this year, which is, I think it placed him like ninth in the world for the majors rankings. And so, you know, I found out who he was and I was like, OK, so I don't want to just do like the here's this guy story. out who he was and I was like, okay, so I don't want to just do like the, here's this guy story. Um, I want to, I want to see if we can almost like feature him, especially right now, because there's such a debate around immigration. I'm like, wouldn't it be funny to not funny. Wouldn't

it be important to, um, to have a formerly undocumented immigrant who makes almost no money teaching us, um, us being Americans who, you know, have relative privilege compared to him in many cases, times readers, times viewers. What if he taught us how to succeed? Because that's not the narrative that we're seeing all the time. Ours is more like a, should we let them in? Should we not? It's not like, oh, what can we learn from them? Why should we respect them? And how are they beating us? And I think those stories are hard to find, but when you do, they, I think they really surprise and delight people. Well, it's absolute gold.

I mean, he's just stripped down, like basically a menial laborer who has no resources whatsoever and just does it for the joy of it and is just about the basics, right? And it makes you realize like, oh, everyone's what watch should I get? And the new running shoe review and all of that is just nonsense. Yeah. Which I relate to. I mean, I don't have a ton of money to spend on tech either. But that's part of what I like about running. It's like you can be making, you know, like $30,000 like I was when I first graduated

from college and you can still run like no one's going to kick you off the roads or out of the park. It was great but yeah that was an example of a great collaboration here in the department where i just have this i have this guy and i have this idea and i want to somehow comment on like fitspo culture and about some of like the performative excesses of um of exercise and working out these days and about how like what i love about running which is like getting out there and run. So I have this guy and I'm like, he doesn't think any of this necessarily, like he does, but he's not going to like deliver an oral argument about it. So I'm like, how do we do this? And so again, my colleague Naima, who goes to a lot of boutique fitness classes and

is a genius, I got her to start thinking about this. And then Max Cantor, who also made the Dream Eternity video with Alicia, which, again, he conjured the emotional rhetoric of a Nike ad. That's really cool. And then Tej Jensen, another producer up here, he had a video reference for what could inspire the concept. And with all of our minds, it turned into that. And it was like the most popular item on the on the new york times for for forever and i was like it's such a pleasure to to again have a formerly undocumented immigrant um at the front like effectively on the front page of the new york times for a weekend um for something really great like something that he

accomplished as opposed to like a hardship that he's endured. I think it's also emblematic of the beautiful running culture of New York City. Like you go running in Central Park and there are people running in there that are for real. Like you're like, wow, those people are real runners. And it's incredibly ethnically and socioeconomically diverse. And there are these running clubs. Like, isn't that part of your story, too, when you came here and you kind of fell into one of these clubs? Like, it's very working class and egalitarian and, you know, bonded by just nothing more than, like, the shared love of running and performance and community. Yeah.

And I also love, I mean, there are all these races here and it's like, it is people from all over and like all different backgrounds who are doing really well in these races. And I think Memo and his team, the Westside Roadrunners, the Westside Runners, they are really representative of that. Like you don't hear from them very often, like partly because a lot of them, English is not their first language. And I don't think they're on Facebook and Instagram the same way that, you know, a different demographic might be. But they're doing so well.

And we need to hear those stories, too, because just like we can admire Des Linden or Shalane Flanagan, we can admire these people, too, for other reasons. Yeah, 228 is no joke. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's unbelievable. I found that really impressive. And I was like, more people need to hear about this, joke. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's unbelievable. I found that really impressive. And I was like, more people need to hear about this too. Yeah. How is Mary Kane doing now?

I would imagine like, you know, the spotlight on her has got to be super intense. And my sense just is that like, she's kind of not hiding, but just keeping a very low profile while this conversation is happening. Yeah, she's done a really great job. I've been really happy with how she's managed to conduct herself because there's so much stress there. And I don't think she's particularly media trained.

The night before we finally released it, I felt so bad because I was like, I don't want to tell you that this is going to be really widely read because it might not be. But if it is, you need to prepare yourself. Because I know when we did the Dream Eternity for, for example, with Alicia and with Allison, like, it was a lot, but they were older and they had, I'm not a team, but they had more people to help them, I think. And Mary didn't really have anyone. So she didn't tell her agent she was doing it. So yeah, it was like, it was pretty, I think she was just like getting forward at all of these things, but had no one to help her navigate any of the media requests. So I was trying to help her, but it's also not appropriate for me to be like, you know, actually telling her what she should or shouldn't, I shouldn't be advising her. I was just trying to help her navigate some of that stuff.

And she was keeping it together really well. Now she's got Alice. I have connected with Alice and Felix's brother. So now he's representing her and he's really savvy, Wes Felix. And so I'm actually going to talk to them in like an hour and I'll probably hear more. Yeah. So I first, I think you first came across my radar, it was several years ago.

And I think it was because you popped up in Casey's vlog. Oh yeah. Did you go running with Casey? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I've been friends with Casey for a long time. Oh, awesome. And I'm like, who is this really fast runner who works for the New York Times? So I like, I think I started following you on Twitter

a long time ago. So this is before all these big stories were happening. And so did you, like Casey did an op doc, right? Yeah, yeah. About bikes being stolen or something like that. So I was like, they must have met that way. Yeah, I met Casey, yeah, that would have been like seven years ago or something at this point, maybe eight years ago. He texted me for my birthday this year and Facebook had brought up a really old picture of us from like 2011 or something where he brought a birthday cake to an OpDocs event for me because it was on my birthday.

And I was like, oh, you're just such a loyal, kind friend, like thoughtful friend. He very much is that. Yeah. And he's moved to L.A. now and I really miss him because I really loved running with him. There would often be times where I'd be running on the west side and then like some guy, I'm oblivious when I run, and some guy would like turn around and start running with me. And I'd be like, oh, it's Casey. And now I'm going to be asphyxiated because he's so fast and I can't breathe. But yeah, he's an incredible runner and a wonderful friend.

I have this habit before he moved that every time I come to New York, you know, a couple times a year and I just, you know, I get up whenever I get up because of the time change and then I go run along the West side. And I would say like, maybe like seven out of 10 times I would run into him. Like, I don't plan to go running with him, but I'll just, I'm like, oh, I'll bump into him because he's running all the time or whatever. But now that he's in LA, I haven't run with him once because he broke his collarbone. So I still have yet to like hook up with him. Yeah. That's so sad. No, it's funny. It'd be funny to like turn up on his blog because I would not say that I'm camera ready. He'm not a happy person. But he's always like very complimentary about your running. Oh, totally.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, you merit that because you're super fast. You're getting ready to, well, the goal is to run an Olympic trials qualifier. Yeah. Time for the marathon. I'd always, I mean, so my best time is a 2.57 and that was a six minute PR that I ran last year. I also had the cycle of injuries or whatever came out of it.

And then it was almost like I had maybe four years where I kept trying to get faster and faster, and each time I'd get an injury and an injury, and it would be awful. And then suddenly I realized I wasn't even trying anymore. And I was really sad about that. And then it was almost like by letting go, I was like, why don't you just try to make a starting line? And that was maybe three years ago or something. And I did make the starting line, but I wasn't doing anything like fancy in terms of training. And I ran my best time ever.

And so I was like, oh, this is amazing. I can do this again. And so then I'd always wanted to break three hours. And last year I did break it at um, at, uh, at, at CIM, California international marathon. And which is almost like it's, it's such a runner's race. It's, it's very, um, there aren't a lot of professional runners. There's not a huge prize purse. It's just people that really love running and are trying to run as fast as they can. Yeah. It's, uh, it's amazing. And, um, and people are traveling from all over the country.

It's mostly Americans. It was a really, really positive feeling. So I did break three hours then. I ran a 2.57 last year. And that was a six-minute PR. So then I thought maybe I could run another six-minute PR this spring and then another six-minute PR this fall. Unfortunately, I got injured right away. this fall. Unfortunately, I got injured right away. And instead of forcing it, I was just like,

how about I do some of this work here? And actually like cover this, like this, this stuff that I wanted to cover right about running if I can't run. And then I finally started training in July. And I started to get faster and faster. And it's been amazing. But then, actually, it was around when I was doing the Mary Kane stuff, and covering the New York City Marathon, like the memo video. There was a week where I think I only ran like 40 miles or something and had to drop out of a workout. And I was going to just drop out of the whole thing. Oh, no. I missed one workout. Yeah, I definitely have that kind of personality.

I don't know if I can toe the line at the race. I missed that one workout. Yeah, this guy, I don't know if you know Mario Fraioli. I do. Yeah, he... You just did a podcast with him that he put up. So I texted him and I was like, I can't believe you beat me to Lindsay.

I'm going to see her this week. Oh, funny, funny. He's really great. But you can always tell what my state of mind is for better or for worse. I'm sorry for anyone who follows me on Strava, but how I post on Strava and just how existential it's getting. And there was some workout where I dropped out and I was like, I just really need a coach.

So I'm like trying to do my track team's workouts, but I'm also doing higher mileage because that's how I get faster. And he texted me. He was like, hey, I'll help you. And just like kind of advised me a little bit. And then when I had to drop out of these workouts, like more recently, I was like, maybe I'll just do Philly, or maybe I just won't do anything. He's like, how about you just relax? And just calm down. It's going to be okay.

Yeah, I was like, my poor fiance is like, he's so neurotic. So that race is in a couple weeks then, right? Yeah, so that's in two and a half weeks now. What is the trials qualifier time? It's 6.17, and that's going to be a stretch for me. So that is to, what does that come out to? Oh, sorry, 2.44.59. Yeah.

But it's amazing to see how many women are doing that. And I just thought, again, it's like you watch everyone doing these crazy things. A lot of us weren't that good in college, but we're getting better now. And it's like, why don't I just go for it? And what's the worst that can happen? I fail and either totally fail or run a PR. And so now I'm hoping I can break 250,

which would be just unbelievable. So I'm going to Philly this weekend and I'm going to try. My race pace has been all over the place. So I'm going to see if I can get some detail. So you ran in college. You ran at Harvard. Yeah. Yeah.

Cross-country and track? Yeah. You did. Yeah. And you were like, what was your relationship to running at that point? It was complicated. When I was in high school, getting into Harvard was hard for me. I really wanted to, in a real way.

Is it easy for anyone? The getting in, I think, so for other people, I was really amazed. I hadn't heard of Yale or Princeton. I'd heard of Stanford. But I was from that kind of a background where it's like you've heard of Harvard. Where did you grow up? In southern Rhode Island, which is the backwater that I'm portraying it as, at least where I'm from. Well, you heard of Brown, probably.

I'd heard of Brown, but I didn't know what the iGig was. No, seriously. I just didn't. And I think I'm just not from that kind of background, I guess, where, like, I didn't know anyone that went to Harvard and no one from my high school had gone to Harvard. So, I was just, I was a pretty competitive student, loved running, was always, like, all state-ish kind of for my final years in high school. And really wanted to run in high school i mean sorry in college um but wasn't recruited anywhere um and uh got into harvard and then i was like whoa i'm so scared about this uh which kind of makes sense if you think about it and i was like i'm not going

to be good enough like like oh this is really happening yeah well no just more like i've now i'm in the big leagues like you got to keep keep up. And I was like, okay, anything I lack in talent, I'm going to make up for with discipline. I've got to get ready for this. I was just so scared for it. Classic type A. Yeah, no, totally. And so, unfortunately, part of that was I was like,

I'm not pulling another all-nighter for math anymore. And just started putting all that effort into running. And again, it's like with the Mary Keane story, like girls, like I didn't have a coach that was telling me to lose weight, but I just always felt like there was a simplicit, like you're not skinny like the other girls. And it was like, again, yeah, what I don't have in talent, I can do with discipline. And I think I lost like 30 pounds in three months or something, 20 pounds in three months. Yeah, you posted that picture on Instagram.

It was awful. Before and after. Yeah, I've never been so miserable. And it was like what I thought was always so sad to me that it was a time when I should have been really excited and proud of myself, but instead just kind of turned it into like what else I have to do kind of. And I think that's something that a lot of girls face. And that's partly why Mary Kane's story is so important to me, that we need to kind of highlight some of the pressures that these girls face um but that was a short-lived episode for you yeah the difference being there wasn't a coach lording

over you like affirming that or telling you to you know go even deeper into that hole yeah I was very lucky that that didn't happen and I was really lucky, especially that when I did get to college, I was so excited that that was not the culture there and that the girls weren't like that. And they almost like were very anti that. And so I just very quickly changed. And I was like, I want to be like these girls. So I'll be like them. They're healthy.

They're happy, you know, to the extent that anyone at that school is. And yeah, it just changed. So, but I think it's, I think it's also, it was good to get that out of my system and not wonder, like, do I need to work harder? So then what was your career like in college? Athletically? Yeah. I just wasn't good. And I mean, the Ivy League is really competitive for distance running. I was varsity my freshman year. And after that, I just kind of went through the cycle of injuries.

I got a stress fracture on my back, like in my SI joint into sophomore year. Couldn't walk. It was just like, what is this sport that I thought was so great for me? Why is it hurting me now? Like, why is it ruining the rest of my life? And I was kind of going through that. I think a lot of people, you know, if you do come out the other end, you have a complicated relationship with running at some point. And I definitely did. And I think you probably lose a lot of the sport probably loses a lot of people in that period. And so I wasn't competitive then. But it was almost like the system was just so I think I

just needed to like be done with it and needed to do it on my own terms. And that's what moving to New York was for me. So, did you run all four years though? I ran until, so freshman year was the only year I ran seriously. Sophomore year, I was completely injured. Junior year, I ran. And then senior year, I ran cross country and then did my thesis for the rest of it. But then when you moved to new york you picked it right back up so it wasn't like i had to walk away from this for years and then like kind of rediscover it later yeah no i was i've always run um but definitely not not in the way that a lot of other women my at my level run which is much more consistently and uh rigorously

i think you're being hard that's that type a thing again like i think the reality of that might be a level run, which is much more consistently and rigorously. I think you're being hard. That's that type A thing again. Like, I think the reality of that might be a little bit different from your perception. Yeah. Can always be our biggest critics. But then you move to New York and you kind of discover this community, right? That like, you know, rejiggers your relationship to the sport. Yeah.

And I think for me, what I've also loved about running for me has always kind of been, at times it's been about control, but at other times it's been just totally about freedom and about being able to do whatever I want, however I want to do it. And I love that as opposed to, you know, the teams that I've been on where you're really supposed to do things a certain way here. And I think Casey's actually a lot like this. It's like, I can just do whatever I want, whenever I want from a running perspective. Which is why he keeps getting injured.

And I keep telling him he's got to change what he's doing. Yeah, I mean, that's also true. But I've always really liked that about him specifically with regard to how he approaches running in New York. And I sort of do, too, where it's like, I run with my team when I want to run with my team. I back off when I don't want to run. I run a lot when I really want to achieve something. Other than that, I'm just like generally running. And other times I'm not.

It's like I can just do whatever I want because I'm not a professional runner and literally no one cares. Right. Except right now when you miss one workout. Well, yeah. Right now I'm serious about it, right? But you can't be like that. I think that's also a really healthy thing that running teaches you is that I'm actually struggling with this at work right now because I feel like I'm just working all the time and running all the time. But it's that you go really hard and then you back off.

And I love that about distance running. I love being able to measure your life in those cycles and having these buildups and then a come down and then a break and then you build up again. And it's like what I don't like is when the buildups that I come up with are interrupted by other factors. But it's got to be cool now because of what you do professionally that you can like hang out with all these amazing women runners, right? Like you get to like run with your heroes and be part of that community. I try not to look at it like that. I think as soon as you become too much of a fan, you kind of lose track of what you're doing. But you did write an article called The Shalane Effect.

Yeah, but I don't think that was a fan article. I think that was a, I really respect what this woman is doing and what she means for the sport. It wasn't like a Shalane Flanagan, please be friends with me article. And I think that's, I think that's a really important distinction actually is to not, not want athletes to like you, but just to kind of pay attention and try to see them in a, in a way that is actually very serious and almost like critical in a positive way. But I,

I didn't look at it as a, I love this woman. It was more like, I look at this woman the way that I looked at the team captains in college and have deep, deep respect for what she's doing and almost treat her like a CEO. Yeah, I get it. I mean, that's the difference between journalism and being a podcaster because I can like fawn over whoever I want to I do try to kind of be as

as objective as possible and I did think that was an objective article of course I can't help like you know I'm here we're here in the New York Times I've never been in the New York Times. I've never been in the New York Times before. It's impossible for me to like walk these hallways and kind of look at what everyone's doing without thinking about the current climate of journalism in this era of, you know, quote unquote fake news and the New York Times is corrupt and like, you know, all of that kind

of stuff. So that is just percolating in our, you know, kind of political climate. What is the experience of actually working here? And what is the, you know, how do you, like you and your colleagues here kind of deal with all of that? You mean being a national pariah? Yeah, sort of being like the locus of that particular yeah um that's been an interesting evolution because when i started here in 2008 i was joining an institution that i had always wanted to be a part of and that in particular i really wanted to approach as a place that I could help change, like in whatever small ways that I could. And I think I've definitely accomplished that both through op docs, like now through the work that I've done in opinion journalism.

And in particular, at this point, like how I am approaching female athletes, I think that it's been a really astonishing transition professionally to suddenly working for, you know, an institution that I've always considered to do really, really honorable work that is sort of more, you know, viewed by some people now as an enemy of the state, which it's obviously not. I think it's really kind of redoubled my commitment to the mission. And in particular, I think it's helped me to kind of see more of a purpose and especially the work that I'm doing around female athletes. We're in the midst of a very, very important cultural conversation right now. And I think in some ways, my professional experience has mirrored some of the women that I write about in terms of, you know, not always feeling like I have the seat at the table that, you know, might go to someone who's a more like usual suspect.

Like in sports reporting, for example, I'm kind of showing like, again, like the rules that we thought were the rules or like the ways that we think things are, are actually different now. I think the Times is trying to help drive that conversation that the culture is having partly in response to the upheaval that we're in right now. I think the Times is trying to help drive that conversation that the culture is having, partly in response to the upheaval that we're in right now. Yeah. I mean, it's got to be annoying. What do you mean?

Just the idea that people are saying that, the fact that there's like arrows being slung at the New York Times, like the pinnacle, you know, the sort of the gold standard of journalism. I don't know. I mean, I've had some friends who, you know, the sort of the gold standard of journalism? I don't know. I mean, I've had some friends who, you know, I think that they are, they perhaps had more personal risk when during the election that they were taking on, you know, by having Trump

come to come to power. But I did have conversations with them at the time where I thought, if the election does go that way, we need to have that information. We need to know that this is where the country is right now. And perhaps during the years before that, we were, certain people, not every person, but certain people were able to overlook that. And I think these conversations are being forced now. And there is going to be some pain around that. And I think these conversations are being forced now. And there is going to be some pain around that. There is, like, do I like that our bathroom now is lockable for, in the case of an active shooter? No, I would hope that I'll make it in there first, you know, before someone locks the door.

Like, do I like that we're having active shooter drills now and, you know, that the security is where it is? No, of course not. But at the same time, I think that, you know, stability doesn't usually lead to change. Volatility does. Disruption does. And so I guess you can try to see it that way, right? Even though it's difficult and it's painful. And I know other people are having even more of a painful time than I am.

So I'm really thinking about them, not me. I would imagine you probably can't talk about stories that you're actively working on right now. But what are maybe some of the stories that you would like to see told that you're not working on or things that you're seeing out in the culture that are interesting and you feel like could use a little bit of a nudge or a brighter light? I mean, I have a never-ending cache of stories, particularly around women's sports right now. I'm dying to do more.

I just need the opportunity to do more. You should broaden it outside of running and track and field, though, because so many of these issues are so relevant in other sports. Well, I actually think it's actually going gonna be really good to go narrow at first um especially when you know something narrowly really really well because that's um that's creating this really broad conversation um that i think is extending outside of in a world that you really understand yeah i think but that being said the next thing that we are going to do is, I don't mind saying it, it's about coaching. And I am obsessed with the idea of the idea that Title IX led to it put more money in women's sports.

And so, ironically, men took all the jobs. Before Title IX, girls were coached by women because there wasn't any money. And then after Title IX, there was money. And so now it's like less than 50% of women's teams are coached by women. And I mean, obviously, men's teams are coached by men. Yeah. So I'm hoping that the amazing treatment that we're going to give this piece is going to really get people excited about that idea. And it's just so, it's such a paltry ask to change that. I mean, this is like just in the NCAA. So I just want to work on that. What's your perspective on the shifting landscape around compensation for NCAA amateur athletes? I think it's a positive thing. I mean,

you did that thing with the gymnast. Yeah. I think with all of these things, these systems are all built in a way that favors men. The only reason that people are even talking about that is because of football players and basketball players. But obviously that favors women. Women rarely have a lucrative professional league to go on to in the first place. So if they do manage to break through like Caitlin did in college, it's only fair that you let them make money off of that at the time. Yeah, so she did some crazy floor routine, right? And the video went crazy viral, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

She said like 100 million views or something like that? Yeah, it was really, really widely watched and she just looked so joyful. And I think that's what's so sad about it is that you're like, you're watching someone do something so great and they're not being paid for it. And I think that happens a lot lot i think it especially happens to women

and um i it's it's very it's i think women more often are told you know i i write stuff sometimes and people are like oh did you have fun and i'm like well i did have fun but i also didn't get paid for it and it's it's sad it's insane so now we have g Gavin Newsom with this new Fair Play to Pay to Play Act, which is lining up to now it's setting the stage for perhaps a battle with the NCAA. It's going to be interesting to see how this evolves. I everyone always says it's like Nike right everyone always says never underestimate their lack of willingness to be bossed around to change um uh I am inclined to think the public perception is so in favor of the athletes right now that it's um that it will be upheld but I I also do not underestimate the NCAA's eagerness to undermine it to the extent possible. But I think it's an inevitable eventuality, kind of like legalizing marijuana. Like the cultural tide has shifted on this one.

And whether it takes a year or five years to get that done, I see it happening no matter what. Yeah. I mean, I would have to blow out this analogy, but I think it's a little similar to before. Again, all of these systems were built for wealthy white men. And college sports existed because wealthy white men were going to them and they were amateurs, right? like a Harvard Crimson article from like back in the late 1800s. It's like that's what amateur athletics was. And that's also why the Olympics was why you couldn't make money if you were an Olympian for a really long time. Again, this was for like gentlemen athletes. This is not for poorer people who are using these sports to make money

and ideally to catalyze their lives through these sports and to economically catalyze their lives. And the reasons the systems are resisting that is because people don't like the idea of the sport itself changing, not because they're actually engaging with the fairness of what would be best for the athletes that are currently suffering from the ramifications of these decisions. What are some of the other big changes that you would like to see in women's sports? You have to think about that.

I mean, I think right now the biggest thing that I'm obsessed with is about the idea that everyone wants girls and women to participate, but when women really run into problems, and again, this is why I think you can talk about track, but this is everywhere. This is in soccer. This is in sports. This is in government. I like i'm thinking of government right now yeah um i think it's that um okay like i i was so upset watching the women's um women's national team in the world cup this year because i was in high school when brandy chastain had that amazing picture on time magazine and of course it was like on the cover of newsweek at my parents house it was like girls rule.

It's like, okay, we'll overlook that this is a 30-something-year-old woman and that you're calling her a girl on the cover of Newsweek. But it really kills me that I remember watching that. And this was when I was back in high school and I wasn't necessarily on a path where I was going to necessarily be successful just by default. Like I was needing to do that for myself. But people were saying, you can do whatever you want.

And what bothers me is that that was true until you become an adult and a woman and you're working and you want to be paid for it. Even now, in my case, yeah, I can still do whatever I want. I can do all these stories. It's when I want to be paid for it and actually, like, have this be my job. That's when you run into trouble. I think that's what bothers me so much about watching the women's national team is they are having to work twice as hard.

They're having to work two different jobs and be perfect at it in order to even make the case for equality in terms of wage. And even then it's only equality. And that's exactly the same thing that I've experienced in my life and in my career. And I can't stand that this is unfolding for all of these good girls. Again, we are telling this to girls all around the country, work really hard and then it'll all pay off for you. And that's not the truth. And that kills me. There's this crevasse between the marketing images or the marketing messages versus the

reality behind the scenes of what's actually going on. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, again, it's, you can tell girls that they can do anything. I mean, like even when I was in college, it was amazing. Harvard was not a resource constrained environment. And so they made sure everything was equal because we weren't fighting over resources. We weren't trying to get, I wasn't trying to get more of a wage than my male peers. It's only when you start to get into the workplace that girls start to experience this. And that's the same in professional sports. Girls do not,

women do not have the same resources and they have to make the case of, they have to be perfect in order to get what they deserve. It kills me. Yeah. We got to round this out in a few minutes, but I'm interested in your thoughts on what makes for a great journalist. Like, what do you think are the qualities that are most important in telling meaningful stories? I think a curiosity is really important. Being interested in figuring out that what someone tells you isn't the whole story, generally speaking. Kind of asking questions. you isn't the whole story generally speaking um kind of asking questions like i think that's where equal play has been really interesting is coming up with people what people don't know and what

they're not thinking of and telling that story um uh that's i think that's important from a journalist perspective it's almost like not being so it's almost like why your question about like do i want to be friends with these athletes like not really I want to know them and know what they're doing not not necessarily like like them so much that I can't you know be objective anymore um and I think that's a really important distinction for a journalist like figuring out what the questions that aren't being asked and getting to the bottom of those and then also being independent and kind of like self-driven enough that you're not changing the story to make other people happy. You're telling the truth.

Yeah. And I think in terms of your career trajectory, you just seem like somebody who worked really hard but was very intent on making sure that you seized on whatever small opportunities came your way to turn them into larger opportunities. Yeah. opportunities came your way to turn them into larger opportunities? Yeah. I mean, I think for myself, and this goes way beyond being a journalist, I've always benefited from kind of like being entrepreneurial about things and taking, you know, taking one thing and thinking like, okay, well, I have this one story. How can I make this like the most read story on the New York Times?

Even though like I did that with like a shot putter article. I asked Matt Futterman if I could write this article about like shot putters because i i'd always thought about how like when we were on the on the bus in college like the shot putters were in the back almost living like a totally different life from us like kind of like going crazy and they were so fun and we were like studying in the front like the distance runners and i was like who are these shot put people yeah and i was like but again like they were really smart too, like just in a different way. And I wanted, I was like,

I wanted to revisit that older, like in a different stage of life and see like, who are the ones that became the pros and what are they like? And it did not disappoint. But I was like,

I just want to, I want to see like, how can I get people excited about something that they would never think about otherwise? And I think that's always been, that's always been

my creative challenge as a, again, it's not like a job anyone told me to do, but I find it really, really fun and satisfying. Yeah, well, following your curiosity. I mean, I think what's been interesting for me, just sort of paying attention to sports coverage on the New York Times.

Like I was somebody, and I've heard you say this before, like even though I was an athlete, I don't really care that much about football, baseball and basketball. And so I just never read the sports page. Like, it just didn't interest me. Same, yeah. And it wasn't covering the sports that I cared about anyway. It never occurred to me to like, oh, we got to check the sports page. Yeah, I never read it. Which is why I don't care.

It was just bland. It was just bland, like, whatever. And that's why I don't care where my work shows up now. I'm like, it doesn't matter. Whether it's, what section it ends up in doesn't matter. Yeah, like the sports page can be the sports page and I can do what I'm doing. But I think what's cool is that there has been a really kind of unique, you know, original flair to what the New York Times has done with their sports coverage. And, you know, I'm sure Matt is in large part to be credited for this. you know, large part to be credited for this, like with really interesting long form stuff, like the way that, that, um, the times covered Colin O'Brady's Antarctica crossing, which was written by my friend, Adam Skolnick. Like I thought it was so compelling and interesting

and dynamic with, with, you know, just the, the visual layout of it and everything was just made it made, made, made like makes these stories come alive in a very human interest way that transcends just stats and scores and who won the game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean I think everyone here at the Times would agree that that's what the true A-plus sports stories are right now. They're hard to pull off. But when you do, it's like – it's amazing. And I think really at its core, sports is about limits, like human limits and really pursuing those, which is why I think there is this opportunity to refocus American interest on endurance sports in a way that it's sort of waned in recent years. It's not just about games all the time.

It's about, you know, like rigorous pursuit and pushing of limits, of human limits. And I think there's a – with that, you get this, like, a quickening of the emotional connection between the reader and the subject, right? Like, through, you can see some aspect of yourself and your potential through the experience of whatever this person is tackling. Yeah, absolutely. Which I think is cool. Yeah. All right. Well, the last thing I want to ask you about is, All right. Well, the last thing I want to ask you about has to do with resources available to somebody who's listening to this who finds themselves in that prec, the kind of coach that we've been talking about or finds themselves with a dysfunctional, you know, relationship with their, with their body or with food or what have you, um, what are some like resources or, or places that they can go for help? Um, I don't know. Uh, there's a safe sports initiative at sort of the higher levels of the sport um

in the nc in the ncaa i think um your college athletics administrator would have to care like i i would be astonished if especially after this recent this recent conversation that we've had that someone would turn a blind eye to you. If you're younger, your parents should care. And I, but I think just arming yourself with the medical science, which is just so readily available is your first line of defense. I think that's what's really helped me.

Like I knew something was wrong with myself and I like kind of reading about the science made me sure that it was true. Also just going to a doctor, if you're an athlete, like a doctor of reading about the science made me sure that it was true. Also, just going to a doctor if you're an athlete. Like, a doctor will always back you up. Yeah. Well, also just speaking your, you know, using your voice. Yeah.

Like, if something's not right, like, you know, I think you've given permission to a lot of people to use that voice. Yeah. And shifted culture such that that voice will be heard and taken seriously. Yeah. And to believe themselves if they think something's wrong. I think, again, I've fallen into this trap. I think a lot of really driven, especially girls who are obedient, they're really good. I think they fall into this trap.

You think that hurting yourself is part of what you have to do to be good. And that's not true. And I think if anything that's come out of this conversation around this stuff in recent days, if anything comes out of that, I hope it's that. But, like, that you can excel without hurting yourself. Yeah. Well, it's been a pleasure talking to you. No, thanks. Keep doing what you're doing, please.

Like, what you're doing is incredible. And your name comes up time and time again on the podcast. Like, I'm always, like, pointing to the work that you're doing. I think it's incredible. What you're doing is incredible. And your name comes up time and time again on the podcast. Like I'm always like pointing to the work that you're doing. I think it's really important and it's very impactful. And so I just wanted to like publicly acknowledge you for that. Like it's been super, I'm not a woman athlete and I'm like emotional about the work that you do. Like I really do think it's an amazing thing.

So thank you for that service and wind in your sa your sails. And 244, 244 in a couple of weeks. At least 249, right? Yeah. But thank you. I appreciate that. And I really appreciate you sharing it because I definitely wouldn't still be doing it if people weren't paying attention. So it's great. All right. Well, thanks so much. So if people want to connect with you, I mean, they can just, they can find all your articles on the New York Times and your Lindsey Krauss on Twitter and Instagram, right? Yeah. Anywhere else? Not that I know.

Hopefully not. When are you going to write a book? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. In my sleep. In your sleep, yeah. Yeah. After you qualify for Olympic trials.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I'll take a rest and then we'll do something else. All right. Well, thank you. All right. Thanks so much. And if you come to LA, I'll get Casey and we'll all go running together. That would be amazing.

I would love that. Let's do that. Yeah. Thanks. Okay. Next time. Peace. So that happened.

We did that. I think it was pretty powerful stuff. Hope you guys enjoyed it. Please be sure to check out the show notes on the episode page to learn more about Lindsay and the great work that she is doing and show her some love on the socials. You can find her on Twitter and Instagram at Lindsay Krause, L-I-N-D-S-A-Y Krause, C-R-O-U-S-E. Of course, you can find her work in the New York Times, and I'll put links to a lot of her pieces that we discussed today in the show notes. If you'd like to support the work we do here on the show, subscribe, rate, and comment on the show on Apple Podcasts. Share the show on social media.

Tell your friends about it. Subscribe to my YouTube channel, Spotify, Google Podcasts. And you can support us on Patreon at richroll.com forward slash donate. I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today. Jason Camiolo for audio engineering, production, show notes, and interstitial music. Blake Curtis and Margo Lubin for videoing and editing the video version of the podcast, although that did not happen today because I did this one in New York City without Blake and Margo. So no video today.

In any event, Jessica Miranda for graphics. Allie Rogers for portraits typically, but not today again because she wasn't with me in New York City. DK, David Kahn for advertiser relationships and theme music, as always, by Annalima. Appreciate the love, you guys. See you back here in a couple days with the phenomenal Ricky Gates. Ultra runner, artist, performance artist performance artist writer filmmaker photographer this guy does it all uh truly a beautiful human and uh here's a clip to take you out until then peace lads namaste i think the appalachian trail is awesome like there's no doubt about it but like

you're going to learn a lot about yourself and you're going to learn a lot about trail culture but how much are you really going to learn about the United States in this greater context? It's a form of escapism. And that's sometimes exactly what we need is to escape what's going on outside of our front door. But for me personally, like I needed to explore something a lot deeper than just myself and just the physical capabilities of something like that. So, I mean, I don't know what the benefit is, but I know that there is a benefit to stepping outside of our comfort zones and looking people in the eye. And I think it works both directions. I think that it makes those people feel more human. When you're sleeping on the street in the middle of downtown LA,

you can feel less and less like a human. And it makes you and me feel more human as well and tap into this empathy that I think can go a really long way in this time in our society. Something that perhaps we're losing a little bit and it's a good way to kind of gain it back a little. Thank you.