Sue Reynolds: Elite Fitness and Overtraining

Summary

In this episode of the Ginger and Chocolate podcast, hosts Mike Ergo and Lindsay Hiken welcome back Sue Reynolds, an inspiring triathlete and author. They discuss Sue's incredible journey of losing over 200 pounds, her transition into triathlon, and the mental and physical challenges she faced along the way. The conversation delves into the importance of values in balancing life and sport, the realities of overtraining syndrome, and the significance of asking for help in the athletic community. Sue shares her experiences training with Olympic coaches and the lessons learned about mental resilience and commitment. The episode concludes with reflections on the importance of intentions and values in pursuing athletic goals.

Takeaways

• Sue Reynolds lost over 200 pounds and became a triathlete.
• The importance of asking for help in sports.
• Overtraining syndrome can have serious consequences.
• Balancing family values with athletic ambitions is crucial.
• Mental resilience is key to overcoming challenges.
• Training like an Olympian requires dedication and commitment.
• Intentions can guide athletic pursuits more effectively than rigid goals.
• The triathlon community is supportive and encouraging.
• Understanding your 'why' can enhance motivation.
• Values should lead the way in balancing life and sport.

Sound Bites

• "I was terrified, but I did it."
• "I felt like such a failure."
• "I could talk all day about this."

Chapters

00:00
Introduction and Personal Updates

02:39
Sue Reynolds: An Inspiring Journey

05:28
The Athlete Inside: Overcoming Obstacles

08:15
The Role of Support in Weight Loss

11:05
Discovering Triathlon: A New Passion

13:37
Mental Strength and the Olympian Mindset

16:28
Intentions vs. Goals: A New Approach

19:15
Training with Olympic Coaches

21:58
Mental Coaching: Building Confidence

24:51
Pushing Through Pain: Mental Tricks

27:37
Finding Joy in the Journey

31:15
Mental Techniques for Endurance Training

34:41
Understanding Overtraining Syndrome

42:48
The Importance of Values in Athletic Pursuits

Keywords

triathlon, overtraining, mental health, athlete journey, inspiration, fitness, coaching, values, endurance sports, personal growth

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Transcript

Mike Ergo (00:01.749)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Ginger and Chocolate podcast. I'm your co-host Mike with my co-host Lindsay and we have a special guest today which we'll get to her in a second. But Lindsay, how are you this morning?

Lindsay Hiken (00:14.166)
I'm doing pretty well. actually have been complaining about sleep on this podcast for a while now. And I went to my doctor and I'm like, I can't sleep and blah, blah, blah. And he said, cause I had switched to a dental appliance for my, my sleep apnea. And he said, did you try it going back to the CPAP? Cause it's probably not, you know, the dental appliances isn't it's for people with really light sleep apnea. And I was like, no.

And so then he said, we'll try it. And I did, I'm sleeping. So I had a good night's sleep. I'm so excited. I feel refreshed and ready to start the day.

Mike Ergo (00:47.317)
Hooray, what a miracle. That's great.

Mike Ergo (00:54.271)
Yeah, there's nothing like going from bad sleep to good sleep to really change your life. I've, I didn't get the best night's sleep as long as we're on the topic. I got a little one with a fever. So then up and up and at it, but you know what? He's sleeping now. So we're happy about that. And

As far as updates from me, I've got the Marine Corps Marathon coming up. So by the time people start listening to this, I'll probably either be in DC by then or have just finished. So yeah, it's gonna be good weekend. So I'm looking forward to that too.

Lindsay Hiken (01:16.962)
Yay.

Lindsay Hiken (01:27.736)
I'm excited for you. Our friend Amy, who was just on the show this next episode after Shay is Amy, and she was saying that she used to live in DC and she would stand on the corner. And when the Marine Corps Marathon people would run by, she would just cry. She said it was very inspiring and she would just stand on the corner and cry about it and loved it. So she says good luck and she's very proud of you.

Mike Ergo (01:29.865)
Thank you.

Sue Reynolds (01:46.033)
.

Mike Ergo (01:46.164)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (01:55.423)
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (01:55.694)
I will give a quick running update. So I've been run walking because of my injury that I had so long ago that broken ankle and it's been hard for me to come back to running because my body's been very unbalanced. And so it's like my ankle won't hurt, but then my hip hurts and my knee hurts or whatever, because I've just been overcompensating.

Mike Ergo (02:00.372)
Yes.

Lindsay Hiken (02:18.034)
And it's not very long, but I ran three miles on Sunday with no, no walking, no run walking, just three miles straight. And I had a negative split was still slow, but I'm very excited to run that. And I feel fine afterwards. So I think that strength training, no pain. Nope. Nope. Super, super excited about that. was like longest short.

Mike Ergo (02:28.157)
Right.

Mike Ergo (02:37.513)
No pain. Excellent.

Lindsay Hiken (02:46.912)
like slowest three miles of my life, but the best three miles.

Mike Ergo (02:51.123)
That's awesome. Congrats on that. That is such a good feeling coming back from injury. yes, the strength training sounds like it's definitely worth working because I'm big fan of doing both the strength and the endurance. I think I personally need both, so I'm glad it's working.

Lindsay Hiken (03:10.092)
Yeah, thanks. Excited.

Mike Ergo (03:12.661)
Yeah, well, we have a special guest today who we've had on the show before. Her name is Sue Reynolds and she is one of the most inspiring people. I think I've had the pleasure of interviewing. She's a triathlete. She's an author. She has an incredible weight loss journey, losing over 200 pounds to

become an age group champion twice in the world and representing Team USA. And we're just so happy to have her and talk about her new book, Across the Line. And welcome Sue, how are you?

Sue Reynolds (03:51.415)
Hi, I'm doing great. So it's a pleasure to be here. You know, thinking back to the first book, The Athlete Inside came out five years ago, and your podcast was like the second one I think I did. And I must have done 20 after that, as we were promoting the book and yours was my favorite. Yeah, warm and it was just so easy to talk with you. I just felt like I was chatting with friends rather than

Mike Ergo (04:14.526)
Thank you so much.

Sue Reynolds (04:21.243)
doing an interview. it was really, I really loved the format of your show. Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (04:25.39)
That's nice to hear. Yeah. Love it.

Mike Ergo (04:28.264)
Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah. And I mean, we are, we are, we're all athletes. We're all amateurs. We're people from different backgrounds who just love hearing what brings people to the sport and hearing inspiring stories. So I'm so glad to have you back Sue. for the listeners who haven't heard our last episode together, could you give her just a brief recap on the athlete inside and what you talked about?

Sue Reynolds (04:47.697)
Thank you.

Sue Reynolds (04:58.577)
Sure. So, The Athlete Inside is a book about the first half of my triathlon journey when I started out, as you said, I was morbidly obese. I weighed 335 pounds and I couldn't even tie my own shoes. My first exercise was to walk to the neighbor's meal box and back, which was like maybe a hundred meters.

And I was so excited after walking 100 meters, because it was more than I had done in a decade. yeah, one thing led to another. And I kept walking to one more mailbox and one more mailbox. And then I could do my first 5K, which, Lindsay, when you talk about doing your three miles, I was like, yeah, go girl. so there's something about when you hit that three mile mark that you just feel really good about your progress.

Lindsay Hiken (05:43.468)
you

Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (05:48.5)
Mmm.

Sue Reynolds (05:50.65)
So then added a little bit of water aerobics, which turned into trying to swim a few lengths and added spin bike, which then turned into riding a real bike on the roads. And before I knew it, I could do all the distances of a triathlon. So I tried my first one and I made it. And like everybody else that does triathlon, I just fell in love with it. And as soon as I got home, I signed up for my second one and

Mike Ergo (06:15.4)
Yes.

Sue Reynolds (06:19.695)
Yeah, just one thing led to another and the weight started dropping off. in the beginning, the weight loss was about just, it wasn't that I was concerned about how I looked or that society said that I should be thinner. It was really just a matter of function. You know, I got really tired of not being able to tie my shoes and having to ask my husband every morning, would you please tie my shoes?

I can't reach my feet. And so I just wanted to be able to do things I hadn't done before. But then as I started in triathlon, I wanted to be faster. plus I knew would be a whole lot easier if I didn't weigh 300 pounds. So yeah, so I started taking off more weight. And then one thing led to another. Fast forward, I lost 200 pounds and ended up at the end of the first book,

Lindsay Hiken (06:58.542)
Mm.

Mike Ergo (06:59.646)
Mm-hmm.

Sue Reynolds (07:17.669)
the athlete inside, had finished my second world championship. came in sixth and was first American. just that whole journey, I was on fast track. That whole journey was in four years of losing 200 pounds. I didn't know I was an athlete. I never played sports in school. So discovering I was an athlete and then discovering I liked to compete.

Mike Ergo (07:32.925)
Wow.

Sue Reynolds (07:44.281)
you know, moving from there to the world championship was just, I mean, it was mind blowing. Even today, I look back and think, how in the world did that happen? So, but yeah, it was quite a journey.

Lindsay Hiken (07:55.865)
Talent and hard work is my guess, is how it happened. Yes, exactly. I have a couple of questions. Was your husband also in a heavier weight and did he go on the journey with you or was he just more of a normal size dude?

Sue Reynolds (07:58.674)
and a little bit of faith.

Mike Ergo (08:02.546)
Yes.

Sue Reynolds (08:17.937)
My husband is very, very thin. And when I was putting the weight on, part of that was because when we first got married, I was going to be a good wife and put some meat on my husband's bones. And so I did a lot of cooking for him and ended up that I, he gained like three pounds, I think I gained 30. So now the weight loss journey he was not on, but he was very supportive of it.

Lindsay Hiken (08:37.486)
Ha ha.

Sue Reynolds (08:44.175)
One of the things people, people always tell me, you must have a lot of self-discipline, but I really don't. But at all, if there's food around, I will eat it. But I've learned to control my environment and to not have food in what I call fun food, fun food in the house. But, Brian, my husband was very instrumental in helping to, know, being cooperative and controlling my environment in that. So, I mean, even today we have a

Mike Ergo (09:01.15)
Mm-hmm.

Sue Reynolds (09:14.085)
Like right now we have a jar of peanut butter hidden somewhere in this house that he knows where it is, but I don't. So yeah, so he's very happy with that.

Mike Ergo (09:18.44)
Hehehehe

Lindsay Hiken (09:22.126)
I a friend that calls that recreational eating or recreational foods. There's no nutritional value and you just tend to eat them between meals and just whenever sad, happy or.

Sue Reynolds (09:29.105)
it is!

Mike Ergo (09:31.015)
Yeah.

Sue Reynolds (09:37.297)
Yeah, or social eating is, yeah, because it's what we do, you yeah.

Mike Ergo (09:40.713)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (09:45.325)
It's like sobriety if I don't have booze in my house because I am sober and I don't drink and I've been around alcohol. I go out to dinner like you're saying. It's like I go to social events and there's food there, there's drink there, but to have it in the house, it's sort of like.

Mike Ergo (09:46.184)
Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (10:05.292)
You never know, you know, one day might something might happen and I don't want to have that peanut butter in arms length or that, you know, the Chardonnay in arms length. So I think what you're doing makes makes sense to me. Yeah.

Mike Ergo (10:07.198)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (10:18.824)
Yeah. Well, before we get to your newest book that's coming out, Sue, I wanted to ask you one thing that's been on my mind and, and people draw inspiration from a lot of different sources. And what was it that brought you to the sport of triathlon as opposed to maybe running or swimming or, or something else?

Sue Reynolds (10:43.333)
Yeah, so when I started this journey, it was 10 years ago. And at that point in time, triathlon was just coming to be a popular sport. mean, really, it was something that a lot of people didn't know about back then. And I didn't really know anything. didn't know anybody who did triathlon. I didn't know anything about it. But in the back of my memory, I remember like years prior,

Mike Ergo (10:55.091)
Mm-hmm.

Sue Reynolds (11:11.331)
someone talking about their husband doing this event in Hawaii where they had to swim, bike and run. I had no idea what it was called. But in a, and I really, I hated exercising. I mean, I really hate exercise. But you know, when, when something that you don't like has to do has purpose, it becomes a lot easier to do.

Mike Ergo (11:29.702)
Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (11:31.149)
Yeah.

Sue Reynolds (11:40.208)
And so in my mind, I pretended that I was that guy doing this crazy event in Hawaii. And I pretended that I was training. I learned it was called triathlon. I pretended I was training for a triathlon. yeah, so I didn't, I wasn't inspired by a person. I was just inspired by the idea of doing this really hard thing. Never thought I would do one, but it was just fun. mean, I'd be

You know, I was morbidly obese, so I'd be waddling down the street. But in my mind, I was an athlete preparing for, you know, Kona. So, yeah. And then I learned that there were shorter events and I thought, maybe this isn't just a daydream. you know, found out that once I could do all the distances, I thought, well, could I just put them together? So I went to my first triathlon never having seen one, never having talked to someone who had done one. I was totally, I think I read a book.

Mike Ergo (12:16.916)
Mm-hmm

Lindsay Hiken (12:35.374)
Mm.

Mike Ergo (12:36.136)
Wow.

Sue Reynolds (12:40.241)
maybe, I think it was called When Fat Boys Try, I think was the name of it. And so I know. And I learned a little bit about it, but I was clueless. And that's one thing I love about the triathlon community is that just everyone is so helpful. I went to, yeah, went at my first triathlon, I saw this guy that had a disc wheel and I didn't know what that was, but it looked.

Lindsay Hiken (12:45.93)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (12:59.154)
Yes.

Sue Reynolds (13:08.401)
you know, like it looked fancy. So I figured he knew what he was doing. So I just went up to him and this has been kind of one of my modes of operation throughout my life is that whenever I don't know how to do something, I try to find the smartest person in the room. And then I just go up and say, I'm clueless. Will you help me? And so that's what I did. And he showed me like how to set everything up. So, you know, and then I went, I made sure I went dead last in the lineup, one, because I'm so slow.

Mike Ergo (13:10.814)
Mm-hmm.

Sue Reynolds (13:36.369)
but also I had to learn as I went. by the time I, there were maybe 200 people there, by the time I started the swim, I had watched 199 other people start the swim and kind of knew what they were doing. so I just kind of did whatever the person in front of me did. And yeah, so.

Lindsay Hiken (13:53.144)
Had you done open water at that point? Any open water swimming prior to the?

Sue Reynolds (13:57.618)
No, that was a, you know, as you can imagine, it was a huge shock to not have a line on the bottom of the lake that I was following. So, but, but, you know, it worked out. mean, I did a lot of breast stroking and dog paddling at that first triathlon. So, you know, I just, I'd stop and look around and then figure out what I was doing.

Mike Ergo (14:05.31)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (14:05.708)
Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (14:12.672)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (14:19.496)
Mm hmm. Same, same, same.

Mike Ergo (14:21.232)
And that part to me is so inspiring, because so many people are limited in their beliefs of what they can do and wait for maybe some hypothetical time where conditions are perfect and they're perfect before they start that first thing. And there's some similarities to my journey, too, of I could run. I had a background in running from the military and before that.

Sue Reynolds (14:40.657)
Uh-huh.

Mike Ergo (14:49.8)
I had no background in swimming and none in cycling, but going to like my first master's, swim class with some other swimmers, I showed up and I just kind of asked, you know, people who look like they know what they're doing. Hey, do I need a swim cap or you know, should what's, is this the fast side or the slow side of the pool? And just, I think if you're willing to feel a little discomfort or even some embarrassment,

It takes away so many barriers and limitations that you otherwise might shy away from. I just it makes me so happy to hear stories like yours, Sue, where you went beyond your level of comfort and said, you know what, I'm going to ask someone for help. I'm going to ask someone who knows what they're doing, you know, how to do this. So it's I love this part of your story, too.

Sue Reynolds (15:43.27)
Yeah, a lot of times. So after the first book came out, I did a lot of public speaking and, you know, I talked with actually a lot of public speaking with college age kids, which was really fun. I think they like saw me as a grandma figure, so they kind of warmed up a little bit. But one of the things I talked to them about is that any change starts with one step. And often the first step is asking somebody

Lindsay Hiken (15:59.757)
Yeah.

Sue Reynolds (16:12.271)
what your first step should be. yeah, I mean, have to be able to ask or, you that's how you learn. So yeah, the title for the new book for the working title for a while was Why Not Me? And that was kind of, you know, the same idea that we all in our own minds, we come up with these reasons why we can't do something or somebody outside tells us we can't do this because we're

Mike Ergo (16:14.772)
Hmm

Sue Reynolds (16:41.689)
We weigh too much or, you know, we're not, you know, this or we're not that, or, you know, and then, or in my case with a new book, you know, you're just an age group or you can't train with an Olympic coach. Well, why not? You know, why not me? And if you can't come up with a logical reason, then go do it. You know, it's just, I don't know. That's just kind of been my approach.

Mike Ergo (16:55.732)
Hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (17:04.63)
I love that mentality. A girlfriend of mine likes to set an intention, not a resolution, but an intention at the beginning of the year. she uses a little phrase or something. And her phrase for this year is, what if it all works out? Which I like too, because it's sort of like, it's not going to work out. I can't do it. It's going to be bad. And it's sort of like, what if it all just works out?

Mike Ergo (17:05.31)
Yeah.

Sue Reynolds (17:20.337)
I love that!

Mike Ergo (17:22.354)
Yes.

Sue Reynolds (17:29.531)
writing it down. I love it.

Lindsay Hiken (17:31.949)
I think it's brilliant and I like what you're saying about why not me because it's the same. relate to that mentality of just not wanting to do something until I feel like it's perfect. it's sort of like, is, first of all, how is it going to get perfect without me trying? I don't know how that works, but that's kind of what I think.

Sue Reynolds (17:36.465)
you

Mike Ergo (17:53.588)
Yeah.

Sue Reynolds (17:53.873)
Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (17:54.989)
I want everything to be perfect. want the conditions to be perfect. I want my fitness to be perfect. And it's like, well, you're not trying. So fitness is not going to happen. And getting over that mentality, those phrases like, why not me can help me get over that mentality.

Sue Reynolds (18:09.969)
Well, and I love what you just said about intentions too. So that's kind of always been my framework as well that there's so many things that you can't control. so going into a New Year's resolution or a race or whatever, rather than having a goal, I think it's a lot better to have intentions. And I started working with a mental performance coach because why not me?

Why can't I have a mental performance coach? And that was one of his big things too, before every race, well, I still work with them, before every race, we would do not a list of goals, but a list of intentions. And he specifically chose that word because goals are black and white. You either do them or you don't do them. But intentions are things that you start, but then as the race unfolds or the workout unfolds,

your intentions may need to shift depending on the opportunities that the race gives you, the workout gives you or whatever. So I always like that because intentions were what you intend to do, but based on what happens, it may be smarter to do something else where a goal is just black and white, you know, either either goal or you don't do the goal. And sometimes the smarter route is to not do the goal if the

Mike Ergo (19:09.524)
Hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (19:22.328)
Mm.

Mike Ergo (19:25.437)
Yeah.

Sue Reynolds (19:35.129)
race gives you a different opportunity. I don't know if that makes sense, but yeah. Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (19:36.865)
Mm-hmm. It does. I like that thought. Last week, I got an email saying, it's almost race time for Ironman California. And I was not doing it. I just shared that I just ran three miles for the first time in years. And that was a goal. And

Mike Ergo (19:39.208)
Makes a lot of sense.

Lindsay Hiken (19:57.455)
You know, I didn't I knew that there was going to be some issues. And so I didn't have an intention to finish. I had a goal of doing it and I realized I wasn't going to be able to do it. So I just sort of like stopped everything. And when that email came through, I was like, oh, we're not loser. And but if I reframe it, it's sort of like the intention got me started again, swimming, biking, running when I hadn't been doing it. And it did put that intention of my mind of running again.

And so reframing it is really, I appreciate you doing that because I think I felt so just disheartened when I saw that email. You know, so far away from an Iron Man, it's crazy. But I had the intention and the intention got me started running again. So that's good. Yeah.

Mike Ergo (20:38.118)
Uh-uh.

Sue Reynolds (20:44.721)
Well, you know, cool. Very cool.

Mike Ergo (20:47.154)
Yeah. Well, I want to talk about your next chapter in triathlon Sue, which you go into and your newest book across the line. And so you alluded to it before training with Olympic coaches and training like Olympian. What, what made you want to make that shift from what you were doing to this new approach?

Sue Reynolds (20:56.369)
the

Sue Reynolds (21:09.295)
Yeah, just, I just, so much of my life when I've changed directions has been fueled by, I'm gonna, I'm losing my voice, hang on, I'm gonna mute myself and just cough.

Lindsay Hiken (21:22.744)
Sure. Yeah. I can relate to that too. I've been coughing all the recording, all recording. So awesome. Yay.

Mike Ergo (21:24.382)
Go for it.

Sue Reynolds (21:34.29)
So, yeah, so much of what I do is driven by curiosity. And I just became like really curious after I got to the point where I was performing in the top 10 at world championships. I just got really curious about, you know, what do Olympians do? What did the very top elite athletes do? And especially in terms of mental strength that I wasn't doing.

I wondered if there was a level of mental strength that was so far beyond me that I didn't even know it existed. And I didn't even know what questions to ask. I mean, it was just so far out there that maybe Olympians had that I didn't have. And I wanted to learn about that. And then my coach that I wrote about in the athlete inside who I'd been working with for eight years decided to go in a different direction. And that opened up the door then that I had

Mike Ergo (22:13.108)
Hmm.

Sue Reynolds (22:31.921)
and a new opportunity in front of me to do something different. And it was, you know, I started thinking, well, this is where the why not me jumped in. Why can't I work with an Olympic coach? Do you have to be an Olympian to work with an Olympic coach? I brought the dedication to the table I thought that Olympian had and the commitment and the perseverance and yes, I was.

approaching 70 years old, but why couldn't I train like an Olympian trains? In terms of mindset and meticulousness and mental strength and all of that. So I talked with Jim Vance who coached Ben Canute at the time. And I just sent him like a cold call, an email and introduced myself and asked if he would consider coaching me.

And I thought he'd be a really good fit because, you know, he's written, he'd written some books about using data in triathlon running with power. was one of his books, triathlon 2.0. And so he wrote back and said, yes. And what, what happened? I kind of lucked out on all this because it was right in the middle of COVID. It was like early 2021. And

So many races had been canceled that a lot of the elite coaches had openings in their roster. And so I just, you know, was there when he needed to fill his roster and I was looking for a, you know, a top tier coach. And so he said, yes. So, and then he ended up co-coaching me with Bobby McGee, who is, you know, one of the

Foremost run coaches of triathletes. He's coached the run of every Olympic triathletes since the Olympics triathlon and Olympics began. It's just phenomenal. Yeah. So the two of them coach me, Jim did swim and bike. And then Bobby came in with the run. And I mean, it was phenomenal. It was such a learning curve. So yeah, so that was kind of how it started. It was just, you know, being curious and

Mike Ergo (24:35.603)
Wow.

Sue Reynolds (24:55.537)
And I was terrified. mean, I just, you know, once he said yes, I mean, my first thought was, have I done? Yes, yes.

Lindsay Hiken (24:57.548)
Mm.

Mike Ergo (24:58.535)
Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (25:03.182)
Ha ha ha.

Mike Ergo (25:03.924)
The scary part of taking that next step.

Lindsay Hiken (25:10.56)
And you had mentioned the mental component. did a lot of your coaching involve sort of that mental component? And did you learn something about it that you hadn't previously known or were even aware of?

Sue Reynolds (25:26.341)
Yeah, for sure. So after I worked with the two of them for a while, well, just for a matter of months, and just one step before the mental, one of the big differences between amateur age group triathlon and I was training like a pro and professional, one, were a couple of

differences between the two. One was that my workload like tripled. I had retired at the time also, because, I, for my career, so I could really commit myself like an Olympian would to triathlon. And one of the things that changed was that, you know, all of a sudden I had two and sometimes three workouts a day instead of just one. And I had to figure out like how to get them done and

Sometimes I would put them back to back and I was just getting exhausted, especially when there were three and I'm thinking, holy mackerel, how do I do three workouts in a day? so, and I was kind of dying at the beginning. I mean, I was getting so fatigued and Bobby McGee, he's wonderful. He does a lot of mental performance coaching also with Olympians. But he said, Sue, said, he said, I want you to think about those

two workouts or three workouts as two sessions. And so my morning session would be one workout and then I might do a swim and a strength as one session in the afternoon. And then Bobby also said, said there has to be four hours in between them and there has to be a nap in the middle. yeah, so I learned that it was, you one workout, come home, have a, you know, have a meal, take a nap.

Mike Ergo (27:04.372)
Hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (27:12.108)
Hmm.

Sue Reynolds (27:20.869)
and then go to the next one. So there was a lot of just trying to wrap my head around increasing the workload and then how do I balance the work with recovery? That was all just a huge learning curve. So then to answer your question then partway through that, like a few months into that, I thought...

Well, Olympians have, you know, mental coaches, you know, why not me? So I heard a mental coach on a podcast, Jeff Trosh, who I just, I just like everything he said was so in tune with, with me and my beliefs. And I just really liked him. So again, I just wrote him a letter out of the blue and said, you know, here I am.

Lindsay Hiken (27:50.444)
Mm.

Sue Reynolds (28:15.217)
approaching 70 years old, I'm an age group or I'm trying to train like an Olympian. I understand Olympians have mental coaches and they don't think I'm crazy, but I am sure I have room to improve. And would you work with me? And he said yes. And it was the same situation. COVID had lightened his roster and so he would take me in. And I've been working with him now for over four years.

Yeah, so a lot of the mental, for me, I think the biggest aha was that a lot of the mental skills I already had, that was huge. Just in confidence building that the Olympians in terms of their commitment and resilience and approach and there were already a ton of things that I was doing that was appropriate for me to be doing.

like one is mentally rehearsing races, like three weeks out of a big race. Every time I'm doing a bike ride in my mind, I'm on the course or every time I'm doing a swim, you know, when I get to 400 meters, I'm picturing myself going around the first buoy and I, know, I may be on the, you know, the 25th lap, but I'm in my head, I'm going around the first buoy. So I'm rehearsing everything. And then not only rehearsing what is going.

Mike Ergo (29:26.58)
Hmm.

Mike Ergo (29:33.278)
Hmm.

Sue Reynolds (29:43.59)
what I want to go well, but also rehearsing every catastrophe that I can think of. So on the bike, I would practice, I didn't clip in. I'm not able to clip in, what am I doing? And then quickly adjust and do that. So going into races, I had so much confidence, because I had already rehearsed the race in my head during workouts, maybe.

75 times and I had already rehearsed in my head everything that could go wrong. And so I had just lot of mental confidence going into races. yeah, so things like that, having confidence and how to push through. Another thing I just do naturally is I am able to push through discomfort. But I learned both from Bobby and Jeff. learned a lot of like trip.

Mike Ergo (30:15.134)
Mm-hmm.

Sue Reynolds (30:43.121)
tricks for that as well. yeah. communications is a trick.

Mike Ergo (30:47.348)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (30:48.258)
Give me a trick. Give me a trick for that because I hate pushing through pain.

Mike Ergo (30:54.032)
Haha

Sue Reynolds (30:54.211)
my gosh. Yeah. and, you know, I, so, so some of the tricks, so ones that I just did naturally, one of my favorite ones is that late in the run when I'm like dying and I'm just falling apart, I, I run this voice through my head that is of a, a radio or a TV announcer.

Mike Ergo (30:57.748)
you

Sue Reynolds (31:22.657)
and they're describing my run and I'm running along in my head, I'm going, there's Sue Reynolds, look at how fresh she looks. my gosh, she is so much fresh, is fresher than the rest of the field. So I'm just playing that. yeah, or another one is that, when it really starts to get uncomfortable, I'll just remind myself, it's just pain. mean, it's just pain. It's not pain that indicates that

Lindsay Hiken (31:33.032)
I don't

Lindsay Hiken (31:36.972)
Wow, that's very cool.

Mike Ergo (31:47.956)
Mm-hmm.

Sue Reynolds (31:52.718)
you know, there's something wrong or that I have to stop or whatever, and it's going to go away. really, I learned this from a book that, the speed skater, Ono, what's his name? Ono, Apollo Ono wrote, and he said, pain doesn't, you know, when you think about it, you can't see it, you can't hear it, you can't taste it. It's just this thing that doesn't really exist. It's just, you know, it's just pain. So,

Lindsay Hiken (32:04.501)
mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (32:06.398)
Paulo Ono?

Sue Reynolds (32:21.145)
So that's, yeah, a lot of times I'll remind myself it's just pain. It doesn't matter, you know, and that kind of takes the focus off of it. One that Jeff taught me was getting out of my senses, or I'm sorry, getting into my senses. So like in the pool, if I'm doing a really hard set, I'll start listening to the sounds of the water. And it's just fascinating that

You know, it's just, think it's the idea is that your brain can't handle two things at once. So if you give it something pleasant to think about, but in just senses. So, or something else to think about doesn't even have to be pleasant. So, you know, just, and I love listening to water, you know, it's just listening to the sounds when your arm goes in and, then how that's different than the sounds of the water when you exhale. And, you know, so it can be.

Mike Ergo (32:59.028)
Hmm.

Mike Ergo (33:04.595)
Mm-hmm.

Sue Reynolds (33:17.157)
And then in that too, there tends to be a rhythm to it. So your RPMs don't slow down. So you can just keep that pace up because you're just into the sounds of the water. yeah, so water or sometimes I'll listen to think, what am I hearing? there's a lawnmower or here's a child giggling or whatever. And a big one too for me is sight. One of the things I like to do is

you know how there's oil splotches and you know, or little splotches on the road or, you know, maybe or here's a piece of gum or whatever, you know that. So I'll think, I think what is what state does that spot look like? Somehow they all look like West, they all look like West Virginia to me. Yeah, so I just start describing or, you know, what color is that spot, you know, or what, you know,

Mike Ergo (33:52.646)
huh.

Lindsay Hiken (34:02.594)
Ha ha!

Mike Ergo (34:03.188)
That's a good one.

that's such a good one.

Lindsay Hiken (34:08.302)
That's...

Lindsay Hiken (34:15.522)
Mm-hmm.

Sue Reynolds (34:17.329)
or whatever. So yeah, so that's a big one too. And I mean, I could go on and on counting. Sometimes I'll count to five over and over and over again, or I'll count backwards from five over and over, or just running to the next light pole. They're kind of, you know, especially thinking about technique, you know, can I keep this technique up to the next light pole? And then can I keep it up to the next light pole? So yeah, so Jeff, by the way, he's come out with a book called One Day Better. It was just published last week.

Mike Ergo (34:23.092)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (34:28.364)
Mm-hmm.

Sue Reynolds (34:46.267)
So it's called One Day Better by Jeff Troche. And in there, he has 150 of these little concepts or Jeffisms that he shares. Yeah. It's really good. Each concept is like a page and a half. So I just started working through three or four at a time. Yeah. It's a great book. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (35:02.574)
Mmm.

Mike Ergo (35:03.715)
wow.

Lindsay Hiken (35:05.952)
Okay.

Mike Ergo (35:07.252)
It's definitely on my list now. That's a, I saw you, I saw you post that on the socials and that seems like a great book and definitely going to pick it up now. As you're talking about that too, I was just thinking of the one that really helped me during it's a different type of endurance event. It was more of a military style carrying weight, walking a long distance. yeah, for 24 hours.

Lindsay Hiken (35:09.153)
Yeah.

Sue Reynolds (35:16.581)
Good.

Sue Reynolds (35:26.971)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (35:31.849)
But my friend who I was doing this with, said, you know, when, when things get painful, especially in the legs, if you think of a part of your body that doesn't hurt, it's usually the ears. And if you just put your focus on your earlobes and notice how comfortable they feel or wherever it is in your body, I guess, then it shifts that focus. And it seems like that's the common thread with a lot of this is shifting the focus from, no, I can't do this. Or this is too much to

Sue Reynolds (35:50.501)
Yeah.

Mike Ergo (36:00.633)
what's what's what state is that oil splotch or something like what feels okay? What's different? So I love those. Definitely need to check out that book.

Sue Reynolds (36:11.375)
Yeah, I love that one too. I'm going to think about my earlobes next time I do this. And the thing, another part of all this that both Jim and Bobby talked about a lot is rehearsing the mental stuff, just like you rehearse, you your run or your swim technique or whatever that in your harder workouts to practice the mental. And I feel very fortunate that I don't have to now.

Lindsay Hiken (36:11.714)
Definitely.

Yeah.

Mike Ergo (36:15.954)
Yeah, yeah.

Sue Reynolds (36:37.585)
think about it in a race, just the different techniques just float to the surface. And I may do one for 45 seconds and then another one will float to the surface. yeah, I'm lucky.

Mike Ergo (36:45.778)
Hmm, that's perfect

Lindsay Hiken (36:52.056)
Definitely. love the ones that you shared. I'm definitely going to get the book. I tend to just be like, you got this, girl. It's all good. You got this. You got this, which is fine. But I'm still focused on whatever thing is causing me pain or is a challenge at that time. It hadn't occurred to me to think, just let that go and think about something completely different. I think that that's a good tool.

Mike Ergo (36:52.679)
Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (37:20.952)
Gonna try it on my next three mile run.

Sue Reynolds (37:21.681)
Yeah, yeah. No, know, and you're three miles, yeah, me too. But I know what you're talking about because I did that for a long time too. Did you just keep going, just keep going. But when you just keep going, it almost makes you tense because you're thinking about, know, just tough it out instead of just letting it go and thinking about something else. Yeah. Cool.

Lindsay Hiken (37:39.372)
Right.

Mike Ergo (37:43.069)
Mm Yeah. So many techniques. I, I wanted to ask you about, you know, part of your journey and, in, your new book and you mentioned, I've seen it some of your stories on social media, just overtraining syndrome. And what, what is that and how did that come to be a part of your life and how did it affect everything?

Lindsay Hiken (38:00.431)
you

Sue Reynolds (38:08.785)
Yeah, I just to lead up to that, I discovered through this whole journey, I've discovered that within me, and I'm curious to see, you guys are the first ones I've tossed this out to, so I'm curious to see if you would find this to be true for you or other athletes as well. I started looking at different categories or developmental

calling them developmental domains that I had as an athlete. And it was causing me to, and this is a good thing, it was causing me to transition to different coaches. And I started looking and when I was working with Jeff, Jeff kept telling me, coach hopping is a good thing. I always thought coach hopping was a bad thing. And I thought, you know, what is wrong with me that after working with my first coach for eight years,

Mike Ergo (39:00.436)
Hmm.

Sue Reynolds (39:04.497)
I would work with a coach for a year and a half or two years and then I wanted to switch. And Jeff would say to me, you know, that's a good thing because you found something in another coach that can help you and it's good that you want to make the progression to another coach. He likened it to, he said, you you learn everything you can from your sixth grade math teacher and then you go on to your seventh grade math teacher and that doesn't make your sixth grade teacher a bad teacher.

Mike Ergo (39:32.36)
Hmm.

Sue Reynolds (39:33.382)
just that you're ready for whatever's next. So I started looking at, as I was making these coach changes, so I went from Jim and Bobby to Sarah McClarty, who's just an amazing swim coach. I started training in the winter in Florida and working with her. And then I went from her to the coach that I was over trained with, Darren Smith Daz. I'll talk about him in a minute. But I noticed that

I felt like I had these four developmental areas. One was just my physical development, which coaches addressed by writing my training plans and working on developing my fitness. Another was intellectual development, which was like teaching me how to make decisions and how to adjust a workout if it wasn't going really well, or especially technique.

Mike Ergo (40:29.138)
Mm-hmm.

Sue Reynolds (40:31.601)
You know how to place my arm in the in the swim to get the most you know resistance from the water So there's the intellectual side and then there's the emotional side of my development where I had to you know gain confidence and learn what to do with you know pre-race stress and all of that and then the fourth one I'm not sure what to call right now. I'm calling it conviction

Lindsay Hiken (40:36.078)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (40:50.248)
Mm-hmm.

Sue Reynolds (40:57.133)
is it's really like your values. It's like why it's your why like, why do you do this? How does this but it's, it's to me, it's deeper than why it's really about your values. You know, how does triathlon or your job or whatever you're doing, align with your core convictions and what you think is the purpose of life is and all that. So as I was just kind of switching from coach to coach, I realized that I was searching for

Mike Ergo (41:01.566)
Mm-hmm.

Sue Reynolds (41:23.733)
A lot of it for me was the intellectual side. love learning. so, but I don't know, does that kind of fit to those four areas for you guys too?

Mike Ergo (41:33.513)
Definitely. Cause I think for me, if I'm looking at my why I I've always needed a really strong why to get after it. Cause I can have the other three pillars and, they can be great, but I just don't have that motivation or that, that, get out and go do it attitude if I don't have a strong why. And so

Sue Reynolds (41:34.875)
Yeah?

Mike Ergo (41:59.273)
that is usually my starting point in which my foundation. So that definitely resonates with me.

Sue Reynolds (42:07.333)
Yeah, cool.

Lindsay Hiken (42:07.79)
I think the...

the emotional and intellectual parts really resonate with me. I'm to have a lot of intellectual curiosity and want to learn things. so especially when I first started with triathlon and I didn't know anything, you know, I love to learn from different people, not necessarily a coach. I didn't get a coach for a long time. I just was well, I did have it was like a group coaching situation. So it wasn't individualized. But I would learn from him and I would learn from other athletes.

some questions. have the slowest, I still am not very fast at transition, but you know, I did learn some techniques to do that because I was curious how, how someone got out of their wetsuit so quickly because I would, I would walk, I would walk up there and I would kind of take it off and the team manager for the team I was on is Australian and he leaned over the fence one time and said, are you going to have a fucking cup of tea too? And it was like,

Oh, okay, what are you talking about? Because I was getting my socks on and doing this whole thing. And so the intellectual side, you know, was like, Oh, I wonder what other people are doing if they're not having a cup of tea in here. So that and then the emotional piece of it, too, and sort of that why I definitely resonates resonates with me. I I

Mike Ergo (43:15.346)
Hehehehehe

Sue Reynolds (43:19.867)
Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (43:32.161)
will get involved emotionally and hyped up by other people doing something like so the team will be like, we're all doing Iron Man, California, for example. And I'm like, OK, I'm going to do that. Sounds fun. Sounds fun to be with my my people. And but if I don't have an actual why for doing it and it's just some sort of superficial emotion in the moment, I often I often don't make it to the event because there isn't anything really driving me. The the fun was signing up. But then

there's nothing behind that, you know what I mean? So I do need to have that emotional piece behind it. so, yeah, so those resonate. think I don't know about the conviction part. That's interesting to me. I'll have to think about that. Like does doing my sport that I'm doing, does it involve sort of my

my values. I'm not sure. know, I don't know. I, I, I'm interested in long distance running right now, partially because I haven't been able to run and I've missed trail running so much. And we've had several distance runners on here. And one thing I've noticed is a lot of them are sober, which I'm sober and the connection with sobriety and higher power and nature, whatever they call that universe or just connectivity with other people.

is a part of the run for them. So it's not just a run to finish a race. It's like this, this journey. And I'll just say really quickly, I just met a guy who's an ultra distance runner. He's going to come on the show. We're having work done on our house and this guy's working in this laundry room, mud room we're building. And he notices all the bikes. So he talks to my partner, Josh, and I hear them talking. working and I hear

Mike Ergo (44:58.961)
Mm-hmm.

Sue Reynolds (45:02.811)
Yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (45:22.52)
Josh say something about, know, ultra running. And I perked up. So I went out there and I said, are you an ultra runner? And he said, yes, I'm doing Rio del Lago in a couple of weeks. And we started chatting and he's got three years of sobriety. And I said, I have podcasts. Will you come on it? And he was like, OK.

Mike Ergo (45:27.217)
Ha

Sue Reynolds (45:39.124)
haha

Lindsay Hiken (45:41.869)
And he said something really interesting is that in the middle of his run, you he does a hundred miles. I just want to do, I have not just, but I have a 50 mile or I would love to do. I've always wanted to do the AR 50, which along the American river. but he said, you know, at some point all of the like superficial trappings of

that you have surrounding you are stripped away. You don't have, there's no, there's no time, there's no energy, there's no nothing for that. And he said, and everybody he meets on the trail who's in that situation, he said, it's just love and light at that point. It's just connectivity, love and light. And I think that's in line with my values, you know? so I think I'm going to think about that a little more, but I feel like that's why I'm being drawn towards this like long run is that that's, that is.

Mike Ergo (46:24.926)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (46:32.904)
Super inspirational. There's a why there. Like I'd love to strip away all this junk I'm carrying around for a bit. so we'll see. I'm at mile three. I'm doing mile three right now. So, you know, the ways to go. But when I think about that, I have that why there. I have the emotional connection. I have the the intellectual about running long. I don't know how to do that. I've never done it. So I'm going to need some people to show me.

Mike Ergo (46:40.862)
Mm-hmm.

Sue Reynolds (46:42.609)
That's cool.

We're done.

Lindsay Hiken (47:01.248)
So all of those four factors that you talked about, feel like right now for me are connected with the run.

Sue Reynolds (47:06.501)
Yeah, I just thought it was kind of an interesting way for me to organize it. then when I, this is kind of a whole different topic, but when I think about AI coaching, know, AI coaching can do the physical part. can tell you what your workouts are and all of that. But it really, I guess it maybe could teach you. So you've got a little bit of the intellectual, but I think, you know, AI can't see you smile. And, you know, and it doesn't, the values part,

Mike Ergo (47:07.422)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (47:16.248)
Ow.

Lindsay Hiken (47:31.203)
Mm.

Mike Ergo (47:31.976)
Mm-hmm.

Sue Reynolds (47:35.352)
are so personal to you that I don't know, I don't think AI can do those parts. And as I look at how AI might impact coaching, you know, I could see where leading Ed coaches, leading edge coaches will start to let AI do the physical part. But I think that both coaches are going to learn how to do the intellectual, emotional and spiritual part because that's the part that AI can't do.

Mike Ergo (47:54.43)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (48:01.577)
Yes.

Sue Reynolds (48:03.023)
So then I think that could be like a marriage made in heaven. mean, that would just be a great combination, I think. But I don't know, it'd be interesting to see where all the AI coaching goes. But your question was about overtraining. Sorry, I digress there. Yeah, so I started working with this coach, Daz Darren Smith. He is one of the winningest Olympic coaches in history.

Mike Ergo (48:09.106)
Yeah.

It really will.

Lindsay Hiken (48:16.076)
Ha ha ha ha

Sue Reynolds (48:31.505)
in the 2012 Olympics, had six athletes from six different countries, none of whom were supported by their country's federations. They were not identified into the Olympic pathway by their country and he qualified them all for the Olympics. They all, you know, yeah, he's just amazing. So, and again, he just, I wasn't looking for another coach at that point. I met him.

Lindsay Hiken (48:48.727)
Wow.

Sue Reynolds (49:01.591)
in a gym lobby by chance and told him a little bit about my story. And he said, would you like me to do a run session with you? And I'm like, yeah. So I am all terrified. mean, my gosh. So I mean, I'll never forget, you know, right at the first, the first thing he said to me, we're face to face in this park. And he said, OK, jump. And I'm like face to face with him. six feet apart from me and he says jump. And I'm like, OK, I'm like.

Lindsay Hiken (49:11.201)
Sue Reynolds (49:30.385)
I'm now 70 years old. Can I even get my feet off the ground? I was just like, I was so embarrassed. But then I thought, you know, do you want this or do you not? And if you want it, you're going to have to just, you know, toss your embarrassment aside and just do it. So I did it. yeah, so we had a great session with him. There's so many things he did so well as a coach and as a teacher.

Lindsay Hiken (49:35.138)
Ha ha ha.

Mike Ergo (49:47.465)
Mm-hmm.

Sue Reynolds (49:59.89)
My background is I taught community leaders and teachers about the process of improvement to improve academic achievement, which I am finding is very similar to athletic achievement. It's the same mental mindsets and all of that. but as a teacher, knowing what an excellent teacher looks like, oh my gosh, Daz was just an amazing teacher.

Mike Ergo (50:15.156)
Mm-hmm.

Sue Reynolds (50:27.567)
I mean, all the right cues and all the right motivations. And he was just incredible. So I did one run session with him. I immediately texted and said, you know, before you go back to Australia, can we do another one? And he said, yes, I did that one. Then I immediately wrote him and said, would you coach my run? So, and then my, I was working with Sarah McGlarty at the time, Sarah would decide, we decided that Darren would teach my, would coach my run. And then Sarah would do bike and swim. So, and then one thing led to another, and I ended up with Darren for my.

for my coaching everything. And it was just, I mean, it was the most amazing experience in my life. mean, just his approach to coaching was, he was totally engaged. He was totally three steps ahead of me all of the time. I was shocked. The first bike workout that I did, he not only told me what to do, but he had opened up Google Maps and told me exactly what roads to do it on in Indiana. I mean, he was.

Mike Ergo (51:23.881)
Wow.

Sue Reynolds (51:24.751)
Yeah, just every little detail he covered. He was also a risk taker. And that's something I've learned in working with all these different coaches is that there are some coaches who are more risk takers than others. And Daz likes to push people right to the edge and he's willing to take the risk. I knew that going in, I went to my sports doctor before I went down this road and I said, this coach,

as a reputation of really pushing his athletes, what's the worst that could happen? And my doctor said, well, probably nothing that's going to kill you and probably nothing that's going to be life-changing for the rest of your life. You may end up having a six-month recovery from some injury or you may have to switch sports based on an injury. But he said, you know, nothing totally catastrophic. and I'm a risk taker too. So I said, fine, let's do that.

And Daz, my gosh, he just, he pushed so hard and I loved every minute of it. Every workout, every day was so hard that when I finished it, I felt like I had finished, you know, an Ironman. I mean, it was, I had that, you know, that feeling of accomplishment you get when you cross the finish line. I had that feeling after every workout. was like, my God, I survived another workout. So, and one of the,

Mike Ergo (52:39.526)
Wow, yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (52:46.177)
Wow.

Mike Ergo (52:46.364)
Right, when you give your all, right?

Sue Reynolds (52:53.261)
One of the problems then was that I was so happy when I survived the workout that in my feedback to Daz, I was like, know, woohoo, I finished this workout, I completed it. And so then he's thinking, well, that was easy. Now I need to give her something harder. And every time he did, I kept stepping up and stepping up and stepping up. And then we did a, wanted to do altitude training, which I thought

Mike Ergo (53:09.3)
Hmm.

Sue Reynolds (53:21.349)
that's cool, I mean, that's what Olympians did. And I was really trying to train like an Olympian. So I out to Colorado and did three weeks of altitude training out there, came back, then I hit the holidays. And during that time period, I wasn't getting my recovery as well as I should. So overtraining is a medical situation that happens when the stress that you put on your body is not

Lindsay Hiken (53:40.046)
you

Sue Reynolds (53:50.81)
met matched by the recovery that you do. And if that goes on for a long period of time, your body just kind of gets mixed up about when to send out hormones and like cortisol and when not, your hormones just become all messed up. And that ended up happening. it took us like, I've come to think of this in stages, the...

Mike Ergo (53:54.344)
Hmm.

Sue Reynolds (54:18.395)
The first stage of the overtraining was the mismatch where I wasn't recovering because of the holidays and because I wasn't sleeping well in Colorado. But Daz's workouts kept coming. And I would tell Daz, I'm tired. And I think it's really hard for a coach to know when an athlete's just being a weenie and when they really are tired. And he had never worked with an age grouper before, so I was a big experiment to him. Yeah, so.

Lindsay Hiken (54:37.109)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Ergo (54:45.598)
Mm-hmm.

Sue Reynolds (54:48.401)
We got into January and I'm I'm barely holding it together. I'm back in Florida now training in Florida. And I kept writing, I'm tired, I'm tired, but I just kept telling myself, I thought I was doing a three week block, turn into four weeks. So I thought it was okay. thought, okay, now we're doing a four week block. And I just kept telling myself, just hang in there, hang in there, hang in there. You're gonna have a rest in four weeks.

So the end of January comes and Dad says, we're to try something new here. We're not going to have any recovery. It's going to be recovery on demand. And you're not tired, are you Sue? I'm like, So I kept going and he kept telling me like, strong like the Kenyans. then he knew I wanted, and this was good. He knew I wanted to train like an Olympian.

Mike Ergo (55:29.054)
terrifying

Lindsay Hiken (55:38.338)
Hmm.

Sue Reynolds (55:45.522)
And one Olympian he had trained was Annie Haug, who is like, she's known for her work ethic. And so when I would tell him I was tired, he'd say, Annie Haug would never say that. And so he painted, like he used Annie to create this vision of what excellent commitment and performance looks like. And so was trying to match Annie, like always.

Mike Ergo (55:50.125)
Mm-hmm.

Sue Reynolds (56:13.081)
I didn't care about like being on the podium. just wanted to beat Annie Haag in her work ethic. That was my goal. But then, my gosh, like I knew something was going on because I was starting to do like easy workouts on the bike where normally easy watts for me would be like 120.

Lindsay Hiken (56:17.154)
Mm.

Sue Reynolds (56:39.873)
And I was doing 60 and it felt like threshold. I mean, it was just, I couldn't put anything out. But then I think the second part is like, at least for me, is I went into this denial stage. You know, I thought, well, the power meter's broken, you know? And I was feeding all that information to dads. know, I only have 60 watts today, but I think my power meter might be broken.

Mike Ergo (56:43.772)
Wow.

Sue Reynolds (57:06.051)
So Daz doesn't know exactly what's going on. I didn't know what was going on. We were just in this stage of confusion and denial. And he had me do some tests for overtraining that the results that we got is like where you exercise, you lay down and then you exercise and then you see how quickly what your heart rate, how far it goes up and then how quickly it comes down. And those were like way off, but then I'm thinking,

Mike Ergo (57:09.768)
Yeah.

Sue Reynolds (57:35.522)
I'm 70 years old. I'm not as fit as Olympians. So maybe this test that works on Olympians doesn't work on me. So we just kept denying it. And then finally, at the end of February, Daz just called me said, I'm pulling you from training. He said, you're overtrained. then it's important to, I think a lot of people don't understand overtraining is different from overreaching. So there's two stages of overreaching.

The first stage is actually what you want. It's the good stage where you push yourself, you get tired, you have a rest, and during that rest your body rebuilds it rebuilds stronger. So when a lot of athletes will go on a three week training block and then a one week recovery, that's what they're doing. It's functional overreaching. And then the next step is non-functional overreaching.

where you get tired, but you don't recover in three or four days. It takes you a little bit longer and that's kind of, you know, you're getting in a little bit of trouble there. And then finally, when it gets to overtraining syndrome, which is the medical situation, at that situation, your body does not recover with rest. You just don't recover. Your adrenal glands are just broken.

Lindsay Hiken (58:52.846)
Mm-mm.

Sue Reynolds (58:55.737)
And it takes, you know, months to years to never that you recover from that. So it's really, it's quite a serious condition. yeah, so I just, we put me on strict rest. wasn't doing anything and I just didn't recover. the symptoms are like extreme fatigue, crankiness, moodiness.

not being able to sleep, which Lindsay, when you said you weren't sleeping, my first thought was, So yeah, restless sleep. And then the other part that has to go with it is that you're not progressing. So instead of getting faster on the bike, I was getting slower. So yeah, so it's no fun. So yeah, so he pulled me from all my races. I missed all my races in 2024.

Lindsay Hiken (59:24.526)
.

Lindsay Hiken (59:34.572)
Mm-hmm.

Sue Reynolds (59:50.226)
I missed half of my races in 2025 and then right before my comeback race, which was going to be nationals this past June in Omaha, the day before the race. And I was so excited. I'd been off racing for a year and a half and day before the race, I broke my toe. So I had to withdraw. I was heartbroken.

Lindsay Hiken (01:00:11.584)
Aww.

Mike Ergo (01:00:12.497)
no.

Sue Reynolds (01:00:15.939)
So yeah, so that took me out of both national championships over the summer. And then my first hard workout back, I miscalculated for how much heat would be radiating up from a black track that I was doing a hard run on. And I collapsed at the end of that workout and ended up with heat stroke. yeah, so I've done two races since. But yeah, but I'm going to.

Lindsay Hiken (01:00:31.275)
Sue Reynolds (01:00:44.145)
I'll pause here in case you want to talk and then I want to go back to values because that kind of tied in with this too. Okay. So, yeah, so the values part in all of this is that this was, I tell you, coming back from the overtraining that first month, it was, it's been hard to write about in the book because my mind was such a jumble that it's hard.

Mike Ergo (01:00:48.348)
Yeah, I want to hear about that. Yeah, yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (01:00:49.976)
Yeah, go for it.

Sue Reynolds (01:01:11.089)
it's hard to not make it sound chaotic in the book. And I know for readers, I can't make chaos. So having to like take this very chaotic moment in my head, all the mental, I mean, there's so many emotions in terms of, you know, I felt like such a failure. always felt like in terms of work ethic, I was second to none. And, you know, and I couldn't match Annie Haag. And that just, you know, I felt like such a failure. And then I was embarrassed because

I thought, you know, do I really have over training or am I just being a wimp? And I thought everybody would think I was being a wimp because, you know, I was tired, you know, I quit because I was tired. You know, I had always, that was always a bad thing. You don't quit when you're tired, you keep going. So that was really hard. I worked through all that mental stuff. But then the other part with the values was I, when

When I looked at how Annie Haag trained, I mean, she was all in. She did not take a vacation in like seven years. didn't, she, you know, didn't, didn't have a spouse or children. She, everything was triathlon. And that's what I was trying to match. And I did match her until I got pulled because of the overtraining. But, but then,

This is where I think values are so important because I found that I had conflicting values. Like there was one value that wanted to work hard and, you know, never say never and just keep going and push through the discomforts and the fatigue and all of that. I had that value. And then I also had this value in being a grandma. And I didn't want to put triathlon in front of my grandchildren.

You know, I wanted to be able, they're having grandparents day at school, I wanted to be able to go, you know, and do that. And I, you know, I just, had given up my social life. I had given up everything. And so then I really had to do some soul searching of, you know, this is feeling really uncomfortable to me. It became like, instead of, you know, healthy passion, it became toxic passion.

Sue Reynolds (01:03:31.781)
because I was in conflict with my values. And so, and to me, that's the definition of toxic passion is when you're doing something that conflicts with your values. So I had to make, I made the tough decision, but the right decision to prioritize my family and to just accept that I was never going to be an Annie Haag or I can't be an Annie Haag at this point in my life because I value my family and didn't want to make that kind of a commitment.

Mike Ergo (01:03:43.699)
Yeah.

Sue Reynolds (01:04:01.584)
So yeah, so that was really hard. Yeah, that was hard. But then on the plus side, there are women now like Gwen Jorgensen who has children and who is able to balance that. And then that light bulb went off and I thought, well, Gwen Jorgensen can have children. Why can't I have grandchildren? So why not me? Why can't I? If she can do it, I can do it. So I really started studying Gwen.

Mike Ergo (01:04:25.246)
Hmm.

Sue Reynolds (01:04:30.639)
and how they balanced out parenthood and family. And what I found was that most of the female athletes who are mothers, they will periodize their commitment. So in the build up to a race, their triathlon gets commitment. But in other parts of the year, they prioritize family. Or at times of the day, this is my family time.

Mike Ergo (01:04:58.269)
Yes.

Sue Reynolds (01:04:58.575)
So they take their time and they chunk it into committing to one thing or committing to the other thing. So yeah, so as I come back from the overtraining, right now I'm taking some time off to kind of regroup and figure out what's important in life. And then when I come back, I'm definitely going to periodize the commitment because I value being a grandma. So yeah.

Lindsay Hiken (01:05:23.224)
That's, I do too. think that's brilliant actually. And I'll have to consider that around my work. My kids are grown and I can spend time with them, but my work is something I almost get in the way. And if I periodized it, I could probably right size everything a little bit better. But.

Mike Ergo (01:05:23.539)
that approach.

Sue Reynolds (01:05:28.976)
you

Yeah, sure.

Sue Reynolds (01:05:44.594)
The other thing that that would do is that I think so many times we come up with shoulds, know, when you're doing triathlon, you're thinking, I should be at work, or when I'm doing work, I should be, you know, training. You know, this way, if you define ahead of time, okay, this chunk of time is for work, this chunk of time is for, you know, really get that concrete, then you're not feeling the gilds or the shoulds or, you know, that kind of stuff.

Mike Ergo (01:05:46.548)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (01:05:52.545)
Mm-hmm.

Lindsay Hiken (01:05:56.962)
Yeah, yeah.

Mike Ergo (01:06:07.892)
That's so important and I love the framework of values leading the way and values being the foundation for how you implement both triathlon and other parts of your life because it can seemingly get easy to have tunnel vision on just the sport that we're doing and then we lose focus of the why and it seems like it can be a common thing for

Anyone trying to pursue that elite level of fitness and racing and competition so we

Sue Reynolds (01:06:44.465)
Yeah, it's just like you both just said, like Mike, you talked about how your why is really, really important and it helps you to commit when you understand your why. And Lindsay said the same thing, that there's races that you don't show up to, that you sign up for, but you don't show up for. So I think when you're working from the heart, when you're working from the gut, it just makes everything so much easier because it has purpose.

Mike Ergo (01:07:12.69)
Yes. Yes.

Lindsay Hiken (01:07:14.264)
So I could talk to you all day, but the listeners probably can't listen all day. So I think we should. it's just been such a pleasure. I think we should have a second of part two with you, because I think we have more to talk about. But I think this is a good place to end it right here. And so what do you think, Mike? Does that sound like a plan?

Sue Reynolds (01:07:14.277)
Yeah.

Sue Reynolds (01:07:21.977)
Okay, I could probably talk all day.

Mike Ergo (01:07:31.112)
Yes.

Lindsay Hiken (01:07:41.26)
Have a part two. OK, cool. Are you willing to come back on soon? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. OK, cool.

Mike Ergo (01:07:41.78)
100 % plan. We were thinking on the same wavelengths.

Sue Reynolds (01:07:46.961)
I just enjoy talking with you guys. I think we're kindred spirits in many ways.

Mike Ergo (01:07:52.2)
I think so too.

Lindsay Hiken (01:07:53.108)
Agreed agreed. So listener, hope you enjoyed this episode. We will have Sue on for part two. And if you I got to head off to jury duty right now as well. So, yeah. But if you want to do if there's something you want to do to support the show, I would say go on to YouTube and

Mike Ergo (01:08:05.043)
Whoo.

Lindsay Hiken (01:08:16.192)
like and subscribe and watch an episode. Sue's episode will be up shortly. And yeah, that's just one thing you can do to support the show this week. So with that, I think we will see you guys or hear you guys next week. Bye.

Mike Ergo (01:08:32.789)
All right, thanks everybody.