ICED - Athletes, injuries & mental health

Christin Cooper won the alpine skiing silver medal in Giant Slalom in the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. Twelve months earlier, she had fractured her tibial plateau in a downhill crash. She explains why she believes that the injury is one of the reasons she medaled.

Over her 10-year career on the US Ski Team, Christin competed in 2 Olympics, 2 World Championships, won five World Cup races and never suffered a knee ligament injury (very rare for skiers). She was also the first American skier, and is still the only female American skier, to win three medals in a single World Championships. She talks about how a healthy dose of fear helped her avoid career-ending injuries.

Full disclosure: Christin is also my Aunt! We talked about her growing up with a daredevil father on the beach in Malibu, falling in love with ski racing when the family moved to Idaho, transitioning from professional athlete to civilian, and the joys of puttering.

She and her husband, Mark, are quarantining in Mark’s native hometown of Aspen, Colorado, where they built a house twenty years ago, while running their restaurant, Montana Ale Works, in Bozeman, Montana, which is currently closed due to COVID-19, by telecommuting with their partners and staff. Towards the end of the episode we talk about how the skills she learned on the US Ski Team translate into being a successful business owner.

Dessie Weigel is a beast of an endurance athlete. She was a favorite to win the Idaho State XC meet her junior year of high school but suffered through excruciating calf pain the entire season. She finally found out that her muscles produce excess lactic acid, so much that her muscles were deteriorating. No cure, no treatment. No more running.
Dessie is a COMPETITOR. She started pole vaulting (from a 6-step approach) and then found cycling. She says, "I needed to be training and using my body. I needed to be able to compete." She found that these sports didn't put the same amount of strain on her muscles so she could do hard workouts, as long as she was careful.
She poured her competitive fuel into cycling, but she says it was biking was just a vehicle. She always knew she was going to be a speed skater. After college she moved to Salt Lake City, Utah and signed up for a "Learn to Speed Skate" class. Now she's one of the fastest amateur skaters in the nation, aiming for a spot on the 2022 Olympic Team.

I met Mattie on a group run in Santa Barbara back in January. That feels like forever ago now. So much has changed, even from the time we recorded this podcast (March 15) to now.
Mattie shares her collegiate running history (NC State and UNC) and how hard it was not being able to compete her first two years of college due to stress fractures. This episode is really fitting for this time, when it seems like the whole world is an injured runner... What do we do with all this time on our hands? Mattie has some good ideas.

Jesse Kurrasch first got involved in BMX racing at the age of 8, and has been passionate about bikes and off-road motorsports ever since. These sports carry a high risk of injury, which is often the price of participation and improvement - looking at injury and recovery through this lens, Jesse shares his perspective on the mental and physical toll that being injured can take, as well as his thoughts about ways to structure a successful recovery.