Podcast

We first spoke with this week’s guest, pro distance runner Alia Gray, in person during Olympic Marathon Trials weekend in February in Atlanta. She’d chosen not to run the race despite a qualifying time and an injury-free stretch—a choice made from joy rather than fear, she says, and one she describes at length in this…

In slalom water skiing, Matteo Luzzeri says, “you’re playing tug of war against a 6.2-liter engine boat.” Injury—both from overuse and from sudden, traumatic events—comes with the territory.   On this week’s episode, Matteo shares the story of his most serious injury, a ruptured Achilles in September 2014. The experience was all the more challenging…

Season 3, Episode 25 | Cindy and Carrie on the Rebound Lifestyle, mid-Pandemic This podcast—and our book Rebound: Train Your Mind to Bounce Back Stronger from Sports Injuries—exist primarily to teach mental skills to sidelined athletes. But we’ve always known these lessons and techniques can transcend injury, and even sports performance. It’s one of the…

Angie Fifer first enrolled at Penn State with a plan to become an athletic trainer. But during a class in sport psychology, she felt a tear roll down her cheek. Instantly, she knew she’d found her calling—to prevent other athletes from having the same experience she had. When she was 16 and an aspiring gymnast,…

After overcoming multiple injuries to qualify for the 2016 Olympics in the nick of time, 5,000-meter runner Jessica O’Connell faced another series of setbacks as she prepared for the Games.    When she arrived in Rio, she was tempted to view her situation as an anomaly. But the more she talked to other athletes, the…

Jen A. Miller has been writing about running for The New York Times since 2010. The first article on the sport she published there had to do with injury—”dead butt syndrome,” specifically. Last year, she sustained another serious setback, a stress fracture in her tibia. In the weekly running newsletter she now writes for the…

If you ask Joey Wagman to describe his baseball career, he’ll tell you—with a wink—it’s a bit unorthodox. Since his 2013 graduation from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where he earned All-American honors and served as team captain for two years, he’s played in both the minor leagues and several different independent leagues.   Since 2013,…

During her long career as a wheelchair racer, Amanda McGrory has accumulated seven Paralympic medals and more marathon finishes than she can count—including first-place and podium finishes at many of the sport’s prestigious Abbott World Marathon Majors.  Her half-decade’s worth of experience has also brought her something less tangible but incredibly useful: an ability to…

One of the biggest challenges of injury is seeing the goals and timelines you once had for your season or your career slip through your fingers. You may know, objectively, that these plans no longer make sense given your new situation.  Still, your brain often holds onto these previous targets. Each time you realize you’re…

After three years of racing Ironman triathlons as a pro, British athlete Fiona Ford was having the season of her life—she’d finished fourth in Ironman France and felt poised to push through to the next level, all the while building a thriving coaching business. Everything changed in an instant during a training ride on June…