Coming in 5th
In 2021 I competed in the Olympic Games in Tokyo and came in 5th place. In this episode, I talk about what that was like. I talk about what failure does and doesn’t look like and how to deal with “great expectations." but, before we get into that I'll share an update with you on my current stage in training as I vie for a spot on the 2024 Olympic Team.
*This is an automatically generated transcript*
Kristi Wagner 0:04
It felt amazing. And I was so happy and my teammates were also happy. And then other people started to say you were so close to winning, like, oh, that race was heartbreaking to watch like, you guys almost won. Now, I'm frustrated that we didn't win. I'm happy that I could have come so close. But in so but now in so many ways, I'm like, Oh, we were so close to being a national champion. Welcome to the other three years, a show for anyone who has an Olympic sized dream, they want to turn into a reality. On this week's upload, I'm going to talk more about what it was like for me to come in fifth at the Olympics. We'll talk about what failure doesn't doesn't look like and how to deal with great expectations. But before we get into that, I'll share an update on my current stage in training as I Gear Up first spot on the summer's national team and hopefully the 2024 Olympic team. Here's a special thank you to our sponsor pallet pallet is a co working space and community that celebrates culture shared ideas and connections with offices in Saratoga and Schenectady, New York. palette is a comfortable place to get work done, escape from the challenges of home, or connect and meet with a group of friends. And they have great snacks, visit pallet community.com. To learn more and joined today. Welcome to episode two of the other three years. I'm Kristi Wagner. I am currently training for the 2024 Paris Olympics. While I'm training to qualify for them, I live and train primarily in upstate New York and Saratoga Springs, which is where I am right now I train with a team called Arion, which stands for Advanced rowing initiative of the Northeast and is kind of a cumbersome name. It's also a mythological horse, which is important because Saratoga is known for a really famous horse racing track. And it's just kind of a horse town. health history. And horses is our town slogan motto, not 100% Sure, Saratoga is an awesome town. And I moved here for rowing and to be part of this team. So it's, it's been a really, it's a really great place to train. We row on Saratoga lake on a little kind of inlet of it called Fish Creek, which is awesome. It's kind of a natural made, like perfect place for rowing. It's almost perfectly fits a rowing course. Right now I it is very early April. And I am currently preparing for the our first national selection regatta we call them for us rowing. So it's a domestic race, which is going to happen in the end of April in Chula Vista, California, where there's an Olympic Training Center and another beautiful rowing course. And I'm going to be racing in a double with one of my Arion teammates, her name is Lauren. And she's a lot younger than I am. She just graduated from college a couple years ago, she went to the University of Wisconsin and we've been rowing together for, I don't know, two or three weeks at this point. And it's been really fun. It's been really fun to row with another person on my team, the past couple of years, I've rode with people that weren't kind of primarily part of my team. So there was like a bit of a GET TO KNOW YOU phase. And we had different coaches, which can always be a bit of a challenge, like blending kind of different coaching opinions and different rowing styles and that kind of thing, which there has been a little bit of that. But for the most part, like we row more similarly because we have the same coach. So it's been really fun. We get to live at home and live in our normal routines, but train together. It's definitely been very cold in Saratoga. We were kind of skirting around the ice for the first couple of weeks of training here. And the ice has only recently kind of all gone away, which is great. But it's still been like pretty chilly in the mornings and the water is cold, which makes it a bit heavier. So it's it's rowing in the Northeast kind of toughens you up a bit in early spring because it's always really cold and the wind is usually pretty bad and the waters a bit gnarly, but it's a it's character building. So I've actually always kind of loved this time of year I've always wrote on the in the Northeast like high school college elite rowing, so it's a part of the year that I actually like really like but it is a no A fun or glamorous you're wearing like a lot of clothes. We have these kind of glove things we were called pogies. Which kind of go around your hand and around the or, as people always ask me about that, are your hands cold? My answer is always yes, my hands are always very cold. There's all sorts of crazy things that we do. I put like plastic bags over my socks inside my rowing shoes because my feet because you don't. So we don't go in the water. In rowing, we'd stay above the water, but there is a fair bit of splashing that can happen. So you do get wet because you're close to the water. So you want to make sure that you're wearing you know spandex or something like that, you know, we like to say that cotton kills because when cotton gets wet, it just gets cold and heavy and horrible and you just don't want to be in that situation. But I will say we do you have to be pretty careful rowing when the temperatures are so chilly. Our coaches you know, stay close by and we're we take a lot of precautions because it is dangerous. And you know, when the air and water temps are both low, it's it can be really dangerous if something were to happen and you were to go in so we do we are pretty careful about that. I am having a little bit of a lat muscle situation. I kept calling it a neck muscle spasm but I actually think I pulled my lat and it's manifesting as a neck spasm. Here's a special thank you to our sponsor the beauty bar. The beauty bar is your new glam destination for women on the go in Saratoga, New York. The beauty bar is amazing and can help you feel your best with many different services available, including monthly memberships for blowouts and makeup. The beauty bar also offers bridal makeup brow tinting one on one makeup lessons and group classes. I had an awesome time with my stylist fawn. And she was not at all intimidated. When I arrived still gross and sweaty from a workout. It was a pretty amazing transformation, all while she kept me feeling relaxed and comfortable. I can't recommend fawn and the beauty bar more. I was putting a boat away a pie and I kind of reached over my head, a movement I do all the time and just felt a little something. And then by the time I woke up the next morning, it was a lot of something old Kristie would have like really freaked out and probably would have like trained through it that day. And then it would have turned into a massive issue. And I would have handled everything really horribly. Instead, I just went to the chiropractor and he made it feel better. And it's still I still feel it. But I'm It's definitely like not anything horrible. And I am I'm on the road to recovery. I feel like this happens to everyone you like are walking and you kind of fall off like a sidewalk a little bit. And you twist your ankle and you're like, I've broken my ankle, it's broken, it will never be better. I probably need surgery. Like, I feel like your mind goes a million miles per hour like I have this horrible injury. And then you take like three more steps and you're like, oh, maybe I'm fine.
But stuff like that happens to me. Not all the time. But a lot of the time, I'll be doing something and I feel this new weird pain. And I'm like, oh, oh no, is this this strange injury like am I am I going to have to do this and this and this am I going to be out for a while and then like, three minutes later, it feels completely fine. I do a lot of preventative things, a lot of prehab I like to call it and lifting I think is really important because I do a sport, that's all muscle repetition. So it can be really easy to get an overuse injury. I just tried to take really good care of my body and you know, get massages when I need them go to physical therapy when I need it go to the chiropractor when I need it. Try not to be a hero, my coach likes to say a stitch in time saves nine, it's often true and as hard as it is to like, not do something or not go to a practice for a day, which it really like pains me to my core to do that. It can be the smart move sometimes especially you know, as an older athlete, like things don't just hop back into place the way they used to. And I feel things you know a lot more than I used to. So it's just being smart about everything, nutrition, bedtime, all those things. The thing that's so interesting about sports and being at this level is now I'm friends with everyone that I race, and I'm becoming friends with like international competitors too. And it's weird because well, obviously I want to win like I am really really happy for my friends When they do well, and it's a weird feeling to be both, like happy for someone else. And then also sad that you didn't do what you wanted to do, I think living your life beating yourself up isn't really healthy for anyone. So I've been reflecting a little bit on coming in fifth at the Olympics. And it made me think of a previous rowing result that I've that I had, which I just want to share, because I think it has some parallels, and it's was on a smaller stage. So maybe it's easier to digest or, for me, it was easier to digest. But I was recruited to row in college, and I really wanted to row on a really competitive team. I wanted to win big races, contests, national championships, I had really lofty goals. And my college team was good. But we were not fighting for a national championship while I was there, we finished around 10th place at NCAA is most of the time while I was there, and we were losing to big teams. My senior year, I rode in the four four person boat, we had a great year, we had a awesome run and at NCAA is we came in second place by point 013 seconds or something like that. In first, second. And third literally all across the finish line. At the same time. We none of us knew who had won who had come in second and who had come in third, we basically all sat at the finish line, knowing that we had all tried as hard as we could, like, I knew that race was crazy and so fun. And I was proud of my myself and my teammates before we even knew how we had done. And, you know, eventually we found out that we came in second. And I was like elated. I mean, at the time I was it felt like such a victory and such a win. And based on how far we had come and what had happened. And you know, the the ups and the downs of being a college student athlete and everything that had gone on it just it felt amazing. And I was so happy and my teammates were also happy. And then other people started to say, you were so close to winning, like, ah, that race was, you know, heartbreaking to watch like you guys, almost one. And now in my brain. I'm frustrated that we didn't win. And it's, I'm happy that I could have come so close. But in so but now in so many ways. I'm like, Oh, we were so close. Like, I was so close to being a national champion inches inches from being a national champion. I really think that other people, I let other people kind of impact how I felt. Because, honestly, well, of course you want to win every race you enter. It really felt like a success. It felt like we had accomplished something more than what we thought we could. And you know that that is a victory in itself. And I think in some ways coming in fifth at the Olympics was kind of like that. I obviously, and I did believe that we could have meddled I, I really did believe that we could have I woke up that morning and, you know, thought that we could do it went through everything. Like even during the race, it was like, things are going good. You know, we had a good first half of our race. And then we just couldn't really keep the pace and other people were better on that day. And you race on a certain day. And it's what you can do on that day. And that's what sports are. You have to have a good day on the day that it matters that you can't have a redo the next day or the next week. That's It's not how it works. It's not how life works really. I'm not going to say, oh, everything went so amazing. And I'm, you know, unbelievably happy with every stroke. We took no, of course not. You know, I'd like to believe that we could have had a spectacular race and ended up on the podium. And that didn't happen. But we didn't have a bad race. And we had a race that you know, I think we were both proud of we, you know, took risks and and did what we wanted to do to an extent. It's hard to be so torn up about it. I'd say one of the hardest parts was that I really wanted to metal Like for Chevy for the girl that I rode with, and I knew it was her last Olympics, her last elite race, her last big race in general. And I really wanted her to have that, like, go out on top moment. And she's an amazing athlete and an exceptional rower. And, you know, our results didn't take away from that at all. But I really wanted that I wanted to be a part of her story in that way. I don't think that she's, you know, I think she's upset about it in ways that I'm upset about it. But to tie it back to my story about college, when you go to the Olympics, and you compete for the United States, the question that everyone asks you is if you meddled and I think in some ways, that's amazing. It's amazing that, you know, I live in a country where the expectation is that athletes perform, you know, at that high of a level at the Olympic Games, which is, you know, the pinnacle of sports, but in the same time, it's a little hard, because it's actually hard to go to the Olympics. It's hard to make it there. And then the competition is hard when you're there. And I think we watch on TV, you know, athletes make it look so easy, and it's not easy. It's supposed to look easy. I guess that means you're doing a good job. But it's hard when strangers, you know, say, oh, you know, say to you did, that's amazing. You went to the Olympics, did you medal and you say no, I came in fifth. And they say, oh, and you're like, What do you think you could have done better? Like, you know, it's just an interesting situation. And I'm, I'm not sure that happens in other countries. I feel it feels pretty American to me. And it's not a dig on America at all. I you know, think this country has a lot of amazing qualities. But it's, it's been something that feels pretty American to me, and, and has, in some ways kind of clouded the way that I think I feel about how I performed. And the other thing about it is that the US rowing team had our worst showing at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, like no boats, meddled, and that was seen by a lot of people as a failure. And there's been a lot of talk and articles and interviews and everything about it. And people don't seem to be blaming the athletes. But when, when you know, us senior team is a failure is a headline article. You can't help but take it a bit personally. If you're one of the athletes on the team, it's been an interesting, feeling happy but also feeling like there's still more I want to accomplish.
Gevvie stone is the woman that I rode with in the Olympics, and she's sort of famous in the rowing world, she is very accomplished. She won a medal in the Rio Olympics and the women's single she came in second place. She's like, a rowing superstar. I've known who Gevvie was for a long time. And she just, she was seemed like, perfect to me. So accomplished, pretty smart. She's a doctor, she went to Princeton, she's comes from this rowing family, like she just seemed, it seemed like things were effortless for her, like, perfect, you know. And she seemed nice. Like, she really seemed to have it all. And she definitely was not somebody that I ever thought I would be in a boat with. But, you know, things happen, the way that they're gonna happen. And we ended up in a boat together. And we had not met before. So we spent a lot of time getting to know each other building a lot of trust. And now, I consider her to be one of my good friends. And I honestly miss her a lot. It was really, really fun to row with her. And I knew that she cared as much as I did. And I knew that she took things like as seriously as I did, but also wanted to have fun. So that was a big part of last year was kind of moving on from getting to row with her every day. Because I wasn't But I still get to talk to her all the time. And now she just likes to give me advice, which I appreciate. We were both I think what each other needed. She is very confident and has a lot of wisdom to share. And I was really willing to take it in and let her be, you know, that person that leader, but at the same time, like, I'm not a pushover, and I'm not afraid to say how I feel, if I don't agree. So it makes you appreciate, appreciated and respected that I stood up for myself and had my own opinions and didn't cry if we didn't have a good piece or something. I never thought that she was being mean, to me, I thought that any harshness that she had was, you know, because she wanted us to be fast. And she wanted us to get the most out of ourselves. I'm not sure how she feels about the podcast, I think she's probably excited, maybe a little nervous. I think that she sometimes when I do things that weren't the way that she did it, or after the Olympics, I decided to come back to Saratoga where I lived. And I'm not sure she really, I don't think she thought it was the wrong decision. But it wasn't the decision she would have made cuz she trained and lived in Boston. And I just think that sometimes, when I do something that's not like what she would have done, she has like a bit of a hard time. She's but she's been a guest on a lot of podcasts, and she's gonna be a guest on this podcast. And everyone's gonna get to hear her for themselves. I also came in fifth at the World Championships in 2022. And I'd say that felt like a very big disappointment. In no way did I feel like that was a success. That was also hard because I felt more responsible for that result, in some ways, because it was, I didn't think is good. It was just, it was hard to work through. Because in rowing, the top six boats make the final. And making the final is a big deal. But to come in second to last place, and the final feels bad. So it's hard to balance being happy that you made the final and that you're at that level because it is a level that people work towards. But at the same time, everyone is constantly wanting to improve individually and collectively. And so to have had the same result for two years in a row just felt like I didn't improve that much, which was just a tough, a tough kind of thing to navigate. 2021 and 2022 were very different years. For me, I was kind of a no name, person that sprung onto the scene in 2021. And everything was very new and exciting. And I had kind of No, I had nothing to compare anything to. So everything was new and fun. And I was hitting new standards all the time and rowing with people that I didn't think I'd ever row with and in big races. And it was just, it was all very kind of fresh. In 2022, I had bigger expectations of myself. And I don't think I performed badly. But I didn't make the same kind of jump that I had made in 2021. And that was a bit hard because I had I expected myself to just keep improving at the rate I had been improving. And I didn't. So then I felt like a failure. But in reality, I wasn't failing. I just wasn't improving by huge margins week by week, which is hard to do, especially when you're at that level. I was definitely all in. But I think there were some kind of mental challenges that I had to work through and 2022 more than I did in 2021. That and I it's so easy to be the underdog, right? I mean, March Madness just happened and everyone loves a Cinderella story. It's so fun to root for the person that nobody thinks is gonna win. And it's kind of easy to be that person. Like, if you lose, so what you were supposed to lose. But if you win, it's amazing and so exciting. But then when you're the person that's supposed to win, and you win, it's like, okay, you won. But if you lose, it's like, oh my god, you lost That's horrible. So, you know, that's kind of a Like, world's tiniest violin playing for, you know, poor winner, but it's just it was just a new situation for me to be in in 2022 that I hadn't previously been in. I think I said last in the first episode that, you know, I wasn't, I wasn't the best person on any team growing up. And then suddenly, I was one of the best people in the country at my sport. And it just felt like a new, a new place. And I, I wasn't sure how to work through those things. I wasn't sure how to act, I still felt like the little kid on the C soccer team. Not like an Olympic athlete. I think I knew when we were in Japan, that I was gonna keep rowing. I just didn't feel like I wanted to stop. Because I was finally getting better. And I did just say going to the Olympics is hard. But it was also a lot of fun. And I just knew I wanted to keep going. But there were a lot of life changes that I wanted to happen before I started the next three years, which actually, there are only two years between the diesel Olympics because COVID messed everything up.
Or didn't mess everything up. COVID postponed things. But while I trained for the Tokyo Olympics, I worked kind of random part time jobs i i just didn't have as much structure in my life, I definitely didn't have, you know, any sort of savings fund in my bank account. I, I lived very, you know, day to day, week to week, month to month, not really, you know, thinking that far ahead. And I always kind of thought, Okay, well, I'll figure out the career stuff later. I'll do that after I row. But knowing that I wanted to row for another cycle and go for Paris, I knew that I wanted to have more of a job that I could, that I could work towards something in and that I found more fulfillment in one because I wanted to be able to start my career and have something that could help me, you know, on future resumes, but also, like, give me some sort of purpose and meaning other than just rowing in my life. And I also knew that I wanted to, I didn't want to say no to every, you know, friendship, family relationship thing, I, I knew that I needed to put a little bit more emphasis on those things. And my family and friends and stuff would probably say that those changes have been pretty minimal. But they have been there. And I think those things have led me to have a little bit more balance in, you know, the other three years of my life, which, as I've gotten older, have been really important for me to just feel like I am a person and not just sort of a machine that's only role in life is to exercise for excessive amounts of time every day. It's been it's been really good. But it has had challenges. I've, I've stayed home while the rest of my teammates are on training trips, and I've worked really, really long days and had to work out at really weird times and do more workouts on the weekends. And, you know, it's definitely been an adjustment. But one that I've been really happy to make, and I think has has helped me feel more, more confident in that I'm doing the right things. And more excited to go to practice every day when rowing isn't the only thing I'm doing. I'm so excited to get back to rowing every day, because I haven't spent the past, you know, four hours thinking about the next practice. So I'm like, Oh, this is so exciting. I don't have to think about work anymore. I get to think about rowing. I'm really unsure how other athletes feel. I feel like it's probably not hard to be making millions of dollars playing your sport. If somebody offered me a lot of money to row. I don't think I would turn them down. And I think it seems like in other sports and other professional athletes spend more time kind of doing film reviews and team meetings and all of those kinds of things, sports massage and physical therapy. Those are kind of things that we do behind the scenes and definitely like a background role. Because I think Most of the rowers I know have, you know, part time jobs and spend and we also spend so many hours exercising every day. Like our practices take up a lot of time, it's we don't have that there just aren't enough hours in the day to spend, you know, three hours doing video review, like I think other sports do. I usually work out from between like, three to four hours of actual like exercise, maybe a little bit more if we have a lift, or core. And then all of those workouts include like a warm up and a cool down and stretching and having a snack. And so I'd say I actually exercise for about 20 hours every week, it probably turns into more like a 30 hour endeavor if you include all of the other things. And in rowing, we have a lot of accessories. So it takes us a while to like, get our oars down to the dock, get our boat down to the dock, set our feet get everything situated. We're it's not like you can just you know put on a pair of shoes and head out the door on a run. It's a little bit more time consuming than that. I was talking about how the Olympics was really fun. And it was fun for a bunch of reasons. First of all, the US team does a really good job making you feel very special. And part of that was a lot of gear, like duffel bags of gear from Nike and Ralph Lauren. But one of the real highlights was we got like a whole little packages from skims Kim Kardashian is Company, which was so cool and amazing. And the stuff is also awesome. And yeah, we did a little photoshoot, which was really fun. I like love my skin stuff I've bought. It prompted me to buy other skims things, so I'm not sure if that's why she did it. But bonus points to Kim Kardashian for that one. The skins is so comfortable. This is not even an ad but skims if you want to sponsor this podcast, let us know. I'm just actually a fan. It's so comfortable. It's fits your body so well. You can wear it all day. You know, no like pinching or anything. Everything's amazing. Actually, I got a pair of leggings. And they are like, my favorite. Everything is amazing. It's just I can't the underwear, the leggings, the tank tops, the T shirts. The socks, I am a huge fan skims is 10 out of 10. And it's all cool, says Team USA, but like subtly, because some of this stuff is like tied I rainbow like Olympic team boom, you know, right out there. And I'm really proud of myself for going to the Olympics like I am, I'm really proud of myself. And it's a lifelong dream accomplished. But I don't really feel the need to have to talk about it. Every time I have a conversation with somebody. So I did get the Olympic rings tattoo, and I got it on my foot for two reasons. The first is that when I was 13 years old, I wanted to get my ears pierced. And my dad told me that I could only get my ears pierced if I promised that I would never get another piercing or a tattoo in my entire life. And I said to him, Well, what if I go to the Olympics, as when I was 13. And he said, If you go to the Olympics, you can get the Olympic rings tattooed on the bottom of your foot. And I was like deal. And so then I made the Olympic team. And so I had, it's not on the bottom of my foot, it's on the side of my foot. But the other reason that I got it on my foot is because I just didn't I didn't want to put it on my arm or somewhere where like, it would be the first thing that anybody asked me about, you know, like I'm I am proud of myself, but I plan to accomplish things in my life other than going to the Olympics. And I think I have accomplished things in my life other than going to the Olympics. And I just, I didn't want it to be you know, the first thing every single person knew about me for the rest of my life, but just not a dig at people that have it on their arm that's, you know, awesome and a great place to put it. I will say getting a tattoo on your foot hurts so much. I am so impressed with people that have tattoos all over their bodies like this foot tattoo hurt so much and the guy that did it was so like chatty and I'm like dying. I'm like Sir, I cannot talk to you because I am an extreme pain. And now it's time for a segment we're calling ask Kristi anything. This week's question is coming from the Drexel University women's rowing team.
Speaker 2 35:09
Hi, my name is ossia. And I am the Associate Head Coach at Drexel University. What's one thing you've learned about yourself training now that you wish you knew about yourself when you were training in college?
Kristi Wagner 35:22
It's a good question. One thing that is kind of insignificant, but I, I've coached a little bit for high school teams. And when I was in college, my coach would give these like, big talks to the whole team. And I would take everything he said, So personally, like he was talking directly to me. And when I started coaching, I realized that like, there's no way you can speak directly to like 40 or 50 people at one time. And I wish that I had taken things like less personally, because there's no, like, there's no way that he was just only talking to me about in every scenario. And I feel like kind of in that vein, like, I think things seemed like a really big deal sometimes, and they weren't that big of a deal. And I think sometimes I let losses feel really, really significant, or winds feel really significant. When at the end of the day, you don't want to lose and you want to win, but sometimes like, it carries you a little like, I think I let it carry me a little bit too far. Or, like, when I was in the one V I felt amazing. And when I was in the two v i didn't and I I just wish that I had been able to like, just kind of enjoy where I was a little bit more and realize that like, everyone is working really hard. And and if I can help the team the most and in whatever boat like then I should just help the team there instead of being caught up like, in where I'm sitting and what like somebody might think about that. Like, I spent a lot of time thinking like, people are gonna judge me because of this. And in reality, like, I don't think other people think about you that much. And I just my senior year, I actually wrote in the four and like, it was an awesome experience. Like, it was super fun. We had a great time. And I think it gave me it gave me an understanding that I wish I had had earlier in my college career of like, every seat is important. Every vote matters, like just the judgment was like not necessary. If you have a question you'd like to submit to ask Kristi anything, head to our website, the other three years.com You can find more information in the show notes. Here is a special thank you to our sponsor, the Saratoga today, newspaper, Saratoga today has been a staple in the Saratoga, New York community since 2006. Saratoga today, newspaper is the community's weekly source of local news and information. They have a strong local focus, making it a must have newspaper for homeowners and business people in the greater Saratoga Springs region, you can find the newspaper in print every Friday, and also online at Saratoga today newspaper.com. I hope that this episode has shown people that it's okay to have mixed feelings about things. I think a lot of times you're supposed to feel either happy or sad, good or bad about something. And I think it's okay to feel both things to be proud of yourself, but also feel like you can accomplish more. And I think the other thing that I've tried to realize is that all of my self worth is not tied to any specific thing. I am not a failure. If I fail at something, I am not a loser of a person, because I lost a race a couple of weeks ago, I lost that race. And that was upsetting. And I did have to grieve that loss. And I was a little bit moody for a while. But I am not a failure and I'm not a loser. It didn't take away my previous success, it doesn't mean that I'm gonna lose everything for the rest of my life like, and I think it can be hard to differentiate those things in our brains, especially when we've put everything into something. I I know for me, like it was hard to come back from the Olympics, because people kept saying good job and I didn't know if I had done a good job. So I didn't know how to respond to that. And I think that it should have I should have realized that it was okay to share more with people to say, you know, thank you for saying that. I've actually been not knowing how to process how I did you know, I think we could all be like more open with one another and more open about how things are actually going instead of trying to create, you know, the narrative of what we think we should feel about something. I really thought that, oh, I accomplished this thing. And so people expect me to be confident and happy and blah, blah, blah, like, I can't complain, because I made it to the Olympics, I went, but that that kind of feeling isn't going to help anybody. So I just hope that people realize like, it's okay to be happy. It's okay to be sad. It's okay to not know how you're gonna feel. But mostly feeling one way or the other doesn't mean that is you like you, you are not, you know, good or bad. I mean, it's the same. It's the same if you want, like, if I win a race, that doesn't mean that I'm a champion forever, you know, that I'm amazing in every area of my life that I can do no, wrong, like, no, no, no, that's also not true. You know, you can't let the highs get too high, or the lows get too low. And it's just like, Yeah, you should be happy, you should be happy or you should be sad, but it shouldn't last forever. And it shouldn't it doesn't. winning a race doesn't give you the the right to be mean to other people, nor does losing a race. So
coming up on the next episode, I interview three time Olympian and silver medalist from the 2016 Olympics, and my boat mate during the 2021 Tokyo Olympics Gevvie stone Gevvie is a three time Olympian and silver medalist in the women's single from the 2016 Olympics. She's also an emergency medicine resident having balanced both medical school and residency while training and competing at the Olympics. She's a graduate of both Princeton University where she did her undergrad and Tufts University where she went to medical school. In 2016. Debbie was the US rowing Female Athlete of the Year and has been a huge presence on and off the water in the US rowing and worldwide community for the past decade. I hope that you enjoy our conversation. And here's a little sneak peek of what we talked about. We went to the Olympics, which is very exciting. And we slept in a tiny room beds basically touched each other our cardboard cardboard beds. And then we in rowing the top six boats may make the final which is a big deal. And we made the final and then in the final we came in fifth place. And I I've talked on the podcast which you will hear everybody will hear about how that felt to me but I'm curious how that felt to you then and maybe now if it's the same if it's different.
Gevvie Stone 43:00
Yeah, I think it's hard in a way because the goal our goal and Kristi and I talked about this was always to go as fast as he could but also to be on the podium like that was something that we had discussed leading up like when we decided throw together like we're gonna give her all because the goal is the podium and when you make a final you have to bring your podium outfits down because the podium mislike within reach.
Kristi Wagner 43:27
I'd love to hear from you. So send us a topic suggestion or if you'd like to submit a question for our Ask Kristi anything segment, head to our website, theother3years.com