Extraordinary Strides

Embracing Obstacles: Gwendolyn Bounds' Midlife Transformation to Spartan Racer

• Season 3 • Episode 14

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In this episode of Extraordinary Strides, we sit down with Gwendolyn Bounds, an award-winning journalist and author of Not Too Late: The Power of Pushing Limits At Any Age. Gwendolyn shares her inspiring journey from a successful career and fulfilling life to taking on the unexpected challenge of obstacle course racing in her mid-40s. We dive into the pivotal moments that led her to this path, the life lessons she’s learned along the way, and how she continues to push her own limits.

Key Discussion Points:

  • Catalyst for Change: How a simple question at a dinner party set Gwendolyn on a path to explore the hardest physical challenges she could take on.
  • Overcoming Impostor Syndrome: Gwendolyn's strategies for overcoming self-doubt and impostor syndrome as she began training and competing in Spartan Races.
  • The Role of Age in Pushing Limits: The advantages that come with age, including patience, wisdom, and the concept of being "Seasoned, Savvy, and Unstoppable."
  • Obstacles as Life Lessons: Gwendolyn shares how the physical challenges of obstacle course racing mirror the obstacles we face in life and how they can teach us resilience and commitment.
  • Body Image and Athleticism: A candid discussion about how Gwendolyn's perception of her own body evolved as she pushed her physical limits and what she learned about overcoming body image issues.
  • Learning from All Ages: The importance of staying open to learning from those younger than us and how that has shaped Gwendolyn's journey.
  • Coping with Mortality: Gwendolyn reflects on how facing her own mortality after a melanoma diagnosis reshaped her perspective on life, aging, and the role of physical activity.

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Christine Hetzel:

Hi, friends, I am so excited to have you here with us. Welcome to Extraordinary Strides. I am Coach Christine, and we have a very special podcast episode for you today. So, without further ado, I want to go ahead and let you know that this is a peek into our Get Literati Book Club discussion with the author, gwendolyn Bounds, of Not Too Late the Power of Pushing Limits at Any Age. My friend, if you have let age be any kind of an excuse or defining characteristic for not pursuing those big, audacious goals, let me tell you that, after reading this book and hearing from Gwendolyn, that will no longer be the case.

Christine Hetzel:

Gwendolyn Bounds, also known as Wendy, is an award-winning journalist and absolutely helping us to see how there is a tale of perseverance, discovery and pushing boundaries no matter where we're at in our lives, and her life story is letting you know that it's not too late.

Christine Hetzel:

I can't wait to dive deep into her journey, exploring the inspiration behind her book and the powerful lessons that she's learned along the way. Again, gwendolyn's, though, just not an author, but a true testament to the idea that it's never too late to pursue those big, bold, audacious goals, because, at 45, despite an incredibly successful career and a fulfilling life. She felt the urge to push herself a little further. She heard that call and she heeded, because it led her down a path that some may find surprising. She dived into the world of obstacle course racing, also known as OCR. So, with determination and a desire to redefine who she thought she was, wendy transformed from someone who was never picked for dodgeball, or any sport for that matter, to a podium finisher in her age at Spartan races. Okay, you've heard me chat enough. Let's go ahead and welcome Wendy on in. Welcome, wendy, glad to have you here with us. Thank you so much for having me.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

What a lovely introduction. I appreciate it.

Christine Hetzel:

Oh, my goodness, we're so excited to chat with you, but I will say I literally was laughing out loud in quite a few of the different spots. You did such a great job in narrating the audio book as well. So on my reds I probably look like a little bit of a lunatic. But what's not crazy is the fact that you really did such a great job of weaving your personal memoir with so much great research. But before we get into that, we want to know a little bit about that dinner party. That was that really big catalyst for change that led you down to asking what are the hardest things a person can do. So can you tell us a little bit about that?

Gwendolyn Bounds:

I can. And I will first say that I appreciate you listening to the audio book recording that that was my first time recording a full book and that's an endurance race in itself, I'll tell you that. So I appreciate the shout out on that front. So the dinner party, as you know, I was around 45 at the time and I was at, as you said, at a dinner party and overheard a man who was pretty well into his cups of gin at that point ask a little girl, very innocent question, a question you'd ask any kid what do you want to be when you grow up? And she just rattled off all of these incredible things, ranging from a veterinarian to a computer programmer, to a graphic designer, and I think he was sorry. He asked and his eyes glazed over, but it really stuck with me that entire night, that whole exchange, and I couldn't quite figure out why, until really it resonated with me that I understood no one was ever going to ask me that question again what do you want to be when you grow up?

Gwendolyn Bounds:

And, more importantly, I think I had really stopped asking myself and that chewed at me, I chewed on it. That phrase was like a hanging chat in my brain until I woke up the next morning and that chewed at me. I chewed on it. That phrase was like a hanging chat in my brain until I woke up the next morning, and without really understanding what I was doing, as you so wisely pointed out. I just jumped on the computer and I Googled what are the hardest things you can do, and among that, what are the hardest physical things you can do? Popped up in the algorithm and I clicked on something called obstacle course racing, spartan racing, and the journey began.

Christine Hetzel:

I mean, and quite the journey, because now you've gone on to race even internationally. But you yourself described your childhood as not quite athletic.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

Generous, that's a generous term.

Christine Hetzel:

Here you are what we would all intents and purposes consider you a revered athlete at this juncture in your life. However, to get here, you had to be willing, as you told us in the book, to look a little foolish, and I'm going to liken that to imposter syndrome, because I think every single individual has discovered that they are gnawed by that little feeling of insecurity and imposter syndrome. Discovered that they are gnawed by that little feeling of insecurity and imposter syndrome. So how did you go from hanging with the cool kids at the gym to where you're at now and overcome that imposter syndrome aspect?

Gwendolyn Bounds:

You know we have a list of descriptors when you reach midlife that we are very comfortable with, that people attach to us, right, and you know people would have referred to me as writer and spouse and friend and volunteer and many things like that. But they competitive athlete was nowhere on that list, right, of things that people used to describe me, nor of the things that I used to describe myself. And when I first got started going down this rabbit hole to become an athlete, I mean I was really just a middle-aged office executive doing a lot of sitting and staring at screens and, as you noted, I was a gangly, scrawny kid growing up. My nickname was Bones on the basketball court, right. So I think I'd always craved something I thought competitive sports could bring me, particularly as a female the sort of notion of how do you feel strong in your own physical body, like that urge had always stuck with me.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

But it wasn't until I really clicked on this Spartan racing, you know link and started learning about it Did I go on the path to figure out what that might be and, as you have just suggested, getting really comfortable, being uncomfortable and being okay, looking foolish was part of the journey and in the beginning, it was me just waking up 45 minutes earlier trying to do these Spartan workouts of the day that were arriving in my email inbox, not knowing any of these moves, being out in my own yard Googling things like bear crawl and trying to do it on my frozen grass while my neighbors drove by like gawking at me as they were going to work.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

So I had to be okay, looking foolish at home. And then when I started truly training and went to an obstacle course racing gym, in the beginning I felt like and probably was one of the weakest people there and one of the oldest people there, and so I had to get really okay with sort of not knowing how to do something which, when you're in middle age, it's kind of tricky because you've gotten used to thinking you have your hand on the master control switch and we want to look dignified and we don't want to look dumb. So that was a really important piece of my even getting started and continuing on this journey, so I'm glad you brought it up.

Christine Hetzel:

And when you're saying this, it sounds so easy in practice, but I'm guessing when you were actually going through it it wasn't quite that easy. Did you have role models at this point in your life, or are you just deciding this is just? This means so much to me, I have to be willing to suck at it.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

essentially, that's exactly the right word. No, I mean, it's not easy. Like, look at our culture on social media we post photos, that where we look good and our families look good and like we're having our best, living our best life, and so you know, it's putting yourself in a situation over and over again where you're the weak link. It feels awful, but what you said about was this something I had decided was so important to me. I don't know if it had clicked in that profound of a way, but I instinctively knew that there was something for me in this journey, something that was going to heal what I think of, as I wasn't unhappy, but I felt unsettled and I felt like I was waking up with something still left in my tank, something I hadn't tapped, and I didn't want to feel that anymore. And this is dumb.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

As I looked and felt, I did start to see progress and I held on more to the little baby steps of progress and just sort of parked the looking dumb in the back of my head and now I kind of don't care at all anymore. Right, I got over that. It was a really incredible hump. Like I feel like I could go do anything and be okay, looking foolish at this point, but just keeping going and, as I said, latching on to the small steps where I could see that incremental improvement. That was a really important tactic.

Christine Hetzel:

I'm almost kind of hearing a little bit of a chicken and the egg, because I hear a lot. As we get older we start to not care quite as much as about what people think about us. But what I'm hearing you say is that it was because of this directed, purposeful, intentional, continually trying to put yourself out there that helped you develop that. I'm going to say a callous, essentially about worrying about what other people thought. Did it help that your gym owner was, it sounds like of, was running circles around the young kids there and he was twice the age of a lot of individuals, or was that something that kind of? Did you see them and you think this is what I want for myself as well?

Gwendolyn Bounds:

I think 100% Pete Jones who you are referring to. We called him Podium Pete, who, again, he was at that point inching towards 60, if not really Pete who, again he was at that point inching towards 60, if not really, I think he was at 60. And he was one of the fittest people I knew. He had as much energy as anyone I knew and he was consistently meddling in his age group and I think Pete saw something in me that I didn't and you're probably quite right that having him as a role model really set me up to just kind of stick it out, because if Pete could do it and I was younger than Pete, then there was. I kind of thought, well, then I can do it. And he really encouraged me in ways that I don't think I would have encouraged myself, at least in the beginning.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

And I like that you use the word callous, because callouses little tiny baby calluses were one of the first things I noticed about the improvement and people might think, well, why do you want calluses on your hands? But the calluses on my hands were coming from my getting stronger, from my grip strength and my hanging from bars, and I would go to work, I'd go to the office and I'd be sitting in the same conference rooms with the same people, listening to the same 83 page PowerPoint presentations, feeling the same sense of like oh, when is this going to be over? But under the table, I'd be like touching these little baby calluses and it was like a secret identity that was developing and I didn't want to lose that. And so you know, when little life obstacles started to get in the way these metaphorical walls and things of that nature, I didn't want to lose those calluses, right, I wanted to keep going and I wanted those little baby calluses to become grownup calluses. So that's both a truth, literally, and it's also a metaphor.

Christine Hetzel:

I love that because I'm hearing I'm thinking of the book the Alter Ego Effect, where they talk about having a superhero identity and one of it's having like a physical token. So I'm hearing that your calluses became almost that physical token of this superhero that lived within, which brings us to the next part of your book, where you talked about how we can start flipping the script on our age, becoming and seeing it mainly as our own secret superhero identity, because we have advantages and attributes that play into our age in terms of you called out, patience, but I'm curious if you feel like there's a few other attributes or advantages of being an older athlete or individual trying to tackle these new challenges.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

Patience is certainly one, and we have it more because we have been through tough things, we have been tested and we know what it takes to stick with something. I also think in general crystallized intelligence, which is kind of a fancy word for wisdom, is one of the most important things anybody can harness when they're older to try something new right. This is the cumulative effect of all of our learned experiences and I certainly put that into play myself on the race course. I mean, one examples was I got badly stung by wasps once when I was racing in a very important race and I'm allergic to them, not to the point of like my throat closing up an EpiPen, but bad enough that I always need an Inbenadryl and I'm going to need a steroid and I didn't want to quit this race, but I remembered I had the crystallized intelligence to know if I packed wet mud in my racing tights over the stings, it would at least take the pain away enough for me to finish, to get there and get to the medical tent and to complete the race and get some Benadryl and help. And that's an extreme example people like. But I think all along the way every experience we've had adds up to give us an edge, and I think looking for those edges and equalizers is really important.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

When you're older, I also think quite frankly and this I don't want this to sound morbid at all, but I think it's reality when you look at the finite amount of time we have on this earth and you think about the fact that your hourglass might be, you know, there might be more sand in the bottom than potentially at the top. I mean, we never know what any day is going to bring. But in midlife you're getting closer. There's a clarity of that. There's a clarity of purpose, where it makes you organize your time and think about what's essential and carve out space and you don't feel like you have to dabble in so many other things. You can be more focused when you're older. So those are a few of the things I would say people can think about.

Christine Hetzel:

I love that. I'm going to always want to use crystallized intelligence from this point forward because it sounds sparkly and who doesn't want a little bit of that with their wisdom? Absolutely Sparkly it is. Yeah. So, my friend, you drew the parallel so beautifully in your books. Obviously, you're a lifelong learner. It's just part of who you are, as to your part of your makeup and your DNA, because it feels like in a lot of different aspects of what you encounter in life, you always kind of draw really great metaphors or learning life learning lessons for that crystallized intelligence. But what you did in the book was that you drew powerful parallels from the obstacles that we would face if we were to tackle an obstacle course race to maybe what they would actually be like in terms of metaphors for true life situations. So, from walls with commitment, which I think is really powerful, right out of the gate to, of course, the fire jump. What obstacle would you say would make the biggest impact on you personally, or did make the biggest impact on you personally? It's one.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

I mentioned in the book, but I don't call it out as a separate chapter, but I'm going to talk to you about it, and it's one called the eight foot box and it is what it sounds like. It's a box that's eight feet tall but very slippery. The top of it is rounded at the corner so you can't just grab the ledge and you have to get up that box with a thin rope and then grab a bar that's way back at the top and hoist yourself over it and it takes upper body strength. And it took me a couple of years to learn to master this obstacle. I mean, I failed it over and over and over, to the point where it became my nemesis. And often this joke between my coaches and I about the eight foot box foiling me again, and it was partly mentally, you know, you start to think I'm never going to be able to do this.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

And I remember going to a training session, an obstacle course training session, and doing this with a bunch of other people, and I remember, I still remember what her voice sounded like.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

I remember a woman just looking at me there saying you're just not strong enough, she's just not strong enough, she's not strong enough, and it just felt like I don't know I mean, I'm still thinking about it because I'm telling it to you like and I can still hear her voice how much that stuck with me. And when I finally did become strong enough, through literally just a pull-up bar in my garage that I forced myself to, every time I walked by it, do a pull-up like, I literally was not allowed to pass it without doing it. The day I first finally cracked the code and I got up that I screamed so loud You'd have thought I'd like won the lottery of all lotteries and that I was going to be rich beyond belief. And people were like, why is this lady screaming? It just showed me that I got out of that mental blocker. I got past the physical blocker. It took a long time and what you just said about patience right, that required a lot of patience. So I think about that one a lot, christine.

Christine Hetzel:

Oh, and tenacity, and for me it would be a fear of getting over heights, because I can't even imagine being on top of this eight foot box and having to figure out how to finagle all of that. You called out the pull-up bar. Can we talk about this pull-up bar? Because it was delivered to the house without your wife's being aware and there was a little bit of that internal fear from what you talked about in the book. Can we talk about how you did start to bridge, as you beautifully discussed that Wendy who was before and all of those parts of your life to who Wendy is now? And I think that that pull-up bar was pretty pivotal as to that significant of an event for you.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

It was. Unfortunately, I'm still married, even after the pull-up bar incident, as we might think of it. When I went down this rabbit hole of racing, I mean I'm not sure I fully understood exactly what I needed out of it. I'm not even totally convinced I knew until I really sat down and put my thoughts into the book right, and I had to analyze all of it. But part of what happens when you're in midlife and you have other people in your life whether it's a spouse or close friends, your parents, your children you know you're kind of rocking the boat. If you're going down something new, you're doing something new that wasn't a part of the pattern of the life you shared with these people and they may look at it and think why are you doing this? Is there something missing in your life and does that missing thing have something to do with our relationship? Are you trying to change so much? You won't be the person that I know and love and care about and who has cared about me, and if you don't talk about it and you don't really explain to people why you're doing this and communicate, you can really kind of mess up the existing course of your life in some pretty profound ways.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

And I came close because I wasn't talking to anyone about why I was doing this. I was just like I have to do this, I'm doing it, I have to do this. And that pull-up bar as you mentioned. I had just ordered this massive pull-up bar to put in our garage because I thought, oh, this will be how I'll get better and how I'll crack the eight foot box. But I didn't tell, like the most important person in my life, that I had ordered this monstrosity until the truck pulled up and delivered it.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

And she was getting in the car to go to work and she's just looking at me like did you order new living room furniture which would have been preferable, probably, to the pull up bar? And you know, I was just like I forgot I don't. And we never really talked about it again, to be honest with you, until I wrote that chapter in the book about it. And then we had a really good conversation about it and she was just like you were doing this and I didn't know why you were going down this path. And I've talked to you know, for the book I talked to some people who are really smart about relationships and management and you know, one of them said like you've got to over communicate, and that's what I would tell people to do, better than I did. Even if you don't really understand why you're doing something, if it's not about running away from other people, make sure they know that. So there's my. That's my one therapist lesson I'll give, and then I'm done.

Christine Hetzel:

I think that sounds perfect. I do love how you tried to sell her on that. Maybe if she hung from it it would help her with her back. It was like a last ditch effort of like I know I didn't really talk about this, we've all done it.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

Yeah, you are shaming me in a way I really deserve. I did. I said that I was like, yeah, we've all been there, We've all it might be you, she's like no.

Christine Hetzel:

So, with the obstacles you talked about specifically the eight foot box, for how that kind of really resonated for you. What would you say of some of the parallels that you drew from the obstacles in OCR and the lessons you learned from them that you feel like the reader or the listener would maybe walk away with? Who's potentially considering their own big change?

Gwendolyn Bounds:

First thing for anyone I'm going to say the walls. Right, you have to climb walls. In obstacle course racing and Spartan racing they even have a four foot wall, which isn't a very big wall, right before you can even get to the starting line. Which is to say, if you can't get over this one wall, like maybe you should rethink this how committed are you? Because it won't be the last wall, You're going to get a six foot wall and sometimes you're going to get an eight foot wall.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

And I think it's metaphorically symbolic of the fact that any time when you're starting something new, there's never going to be just a clear path to it. You are going to hit walls. You are going to hit, something's going to happen A health diagnosis could happen, you could have a death in your family, you could lose a job A million things can happen that can derail you at any time. And so how do you learn to get over those and keep going if you want to pursue something new and hard? So that, to me, is just a very clear lesson that the walls offer.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

And the other one, I'd say quickly, are heavy carries and sometimes an obstacle not sometimes almost every race. You have to carry heavy things you carry for the women's case, you carry a 40 pound bucket of rocks it's 60 plus for the men or heavy sandbags of that nature up and down and around mountains and you will see people of all body shapes, sizes, fitness levels just plowing through these heavy carries step by step. Just a determined look on their face and the reason I think these are so, encouraging each other. I mean saying you got this, you got this. And I find so much community in the heavy carries because I think we all know what it's like sometimes to shoulder something more than we thought we could bear and to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and to me those have always been quite a metaphor for just existence. So those are the two I'd call out.

Christine Hetzel:

Poetic and I want to touch a little bit on the community, because you do discuss it in the book. I know you also, on other interviews, have discussed like this became a third space for you, bridging the community that maybe we tend to lose as we get older. That is just. We know that for a fact that those friendships that we formed early on maybe don't have the superhero glue. Life gets busy. So how did this is that part, I should ask, of what made this really resonate so deeply with you? Was that third space community that you really created a family around obstacle course racing?

Gwendolyn Bounds:

I like that. You asked this my friend who's a fellow author, michael Easter. He wrote a great, two great books one, the Comfort Crisis, another called Scarcity Brain. He and I have been emailing a lot about this exact topic recently. We may do some collaborate on something about it, but I think you know you mentioned the third space, the third place which is not home, not work, but a place where you go and you find these other people, these other like and common souls. Sometimes they may not have your politics, sometimes their lives are very different, but there was something, there is something about having a physical space and being together like that. That is really something we're losing in today's society. Now we've replaced it to some degree with these digital moments like you and I are having right now and we'll have with the book club.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

But for me, racing was really. I was brought together with people I never would have met from so many different walks of life, all across the country and, to some cases, across the world, as you mentioned. And no matter again what lever we pulled we don't pull levers anymore when we vote but no matter what box we checked when we voted, or where we came from or our backgrounds, we had a common shared experience on that race course and we were kind of one being in a sense as we move through that race course and I am so glad I found that because again we get kind of caught in a cycle of sameness with the people that are in our lives and the things that we do in the restaurants that we go to, and shaking this up and adding this to my life was very enriching and I know other people feel that in their own way when they find their third place.

Christine Hetzel:

I think that's incredibly powerful and I think what it touches on is again a central theme of your book is that there aren't any shortcuts through these really important parts of our lives, be it creating community or finding our way back to health and fitness. It really is truly about doing the hard work, even when it doesn't feel so easily done as like that quick dopamine hits that we're used to getting from our screen. But I do want to touch a little bit on mortality and aging, because you had some really big life experiences between 9-11. Of course you're seeing your parents aging, your wife's father, just so many different aspects and then your own diagnosis. So you discussed how it was almost difficult for you to get through that process of having the melanoma diagnosis and it wasn't until you got back to the space of racing. It feels like that connected. What about the physicality of it is what helps you kind of get through it, would you say.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

You know, we're all one phone call away from somebody telling us something that shakes the foundation of what we think about our own mortality. Right, and it could be a doctor delivering you news about your own biopsy. It could be a call about someone you love having been in an accident. I mean, we are human and this is a common thread for all of us. And for me that moment came, as you noted, when a doctor called and told me that the spreckle I thought was nothing on my leg was a malignant melanoma, which is one of you know, a very highly aggressive form of skin cancer. But I was incredibly lucky, they called it super early, I went into surgery and they cut it out and I had clear margins, and so I consider myself like again, I'm very, very fortunate on that front.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

That moment really just drove home for me how little control we have over this ultimate moment of when we're going to leave the earth and how and who's going to tell us that news. And for me that was very difficult, and maybe it's I know it's difficult for everybody. I'm a type A personality, so it particularly was tough for me to think I have no, I began to think I have no control over my body and what will happen to it. And it was racing that really brought me back and made me realize, while I don't have ultimate control, I have some control right, I have control over what I eat and drink and what sunscreen I wear and what protective clothing I wear when I go outside and race, and whether I smoke and how much alcohol I drink. That's not ultimate control, but it's some control.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

And putting my body on the race course and depending on it to fly down hills and navigate sharp turns in rocky terrain and to lift myself over walls. That gave me back a sense of control over my body to some degree. And it's not perfect and, like I said, it is, I'm not fooling myself. There's no escaping mortality. There's no escaping, you know, mortality. But I wonder I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't had that in my life to sort of latch on to and to pull me through. I'd like to think something else would have, but I'm pretty grateful that I did have it.

Christine Hetzel:

We are, too, because we were able to get this incredible book out of it, which brings me to the amount of research that you dove into for this book to bring us so many really incredible information and findings. What would you say if you could even choose maybe some of your key takeaway, the research that you found that really inspired you or helped you to continue to feel like these are the things I can control, or this is what I can do to help myself to live healthy, happy as long as I possibly can.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

Yeah, I talked to some a lot of really smart people who are top of their fields and there's two things I want to call out. One is physical and one is mental. I'm going to start with the physical front. I talked to Steven Allstad, who's one of the country's leading authorities on aging, and he told me that the research now really shows like that it is not too late to borrow the title of the book to start on a physical routine that can have a dramatic impact on your overall mortality and physical health. Like we used to think, the science used to suggest that you had to start young to get those benefits, and they don't. The researchers the top researchers don't think that anymore and I find that really heartening. Not just for myself but for anyone. I mean, I am right now talking to you on the coast of North Carolina where I'm visiting with my family and I've had my 80 year old parents in the gym two, three times a week on a program. I've worked for them and in two to three weeks they've made substantial improvements on their balance and their strength, like even in that small amount of time, and the other research that's in the book really backs that up in a profound way. So I won't go down a rabbit hole with the data on that, but I think for anybody out there thinking, oh you know, I can't do it now, like the time has passed, that is not true and the science bears that out.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

The other thing I thought was really interesting came from a philosopher named Kiran Setia who works at MIT, and he talked about something called the. It's a framework called atelic versus atelic, and atelic activity is one that is finite, right, that you get enjoyment out of just by doing it and completing it. You go to a restaurant, you eat a good meal, you go on vacation and then it's over. It's great in the moment, but then it's done, it's finite, it's telec. An atelec activity is something that really doesn't have an end. It's something like learning to sing.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

You will always be improving. In my case, I will always be learning something new in this sport that I love. I think if you take up fly fishing, you will work toward mastery your entire life. There will always be something new to learn and that really profoundly drives will to live, and will to live has been shown to add seven point five years onto people's life. This comes from a researcher at Yale University named Becca Levy, and you hit on this, christine, just a minute ago, where you were hinting around the topic of mastery and what it takes to master something. I'll never be a master in obstacle course racing and I'm okay with that, and in fact that's one of the things that gets me out of bed every morning, because I know I've always got something else that's on the other side, something to look forward to. So those are some things I dive into again with these experts in the book, and I think others will benefit from them, no matter what their, their passion is.

Christine Hetzel:

I think that those were very powerful as well, and I think that's why most of us are here, because we absolutely love the fact that we will probably never be. I always say I want to be, or I am, more of like a jack of all trades or Jackie of all trades and queen of none, so that's a okay with me. Let's talk about body image, because I think that, realistically, there's no way that we could get into any kind of physical conversation about fitness or any aspect of our life, especially as women, without discussing body image. You talked about the fact that your nickname was Bones by your coach. I don't know how we feel about that now. How does that impact you? As your body started to change with all of this continual work Now has your body image shifted a little bit? Do you now recognize yourself as being athletic?

Gwendolyn Bounds:

So it's funny because you see me hesitate, so I want to say yes and then I pull back a little bit. I'm like, can I say yes? But I'm going to say yes, but I'm still wrestling right with that identity shift, as you can see. Again, I was that kid who changed in a bathroom stall during gym because, like I just didn't want to be teased by my classmates for being just again, like I was just kind of bony, gangly kid and I was underdeveloped. Until, you know, finally things sorted themselves out.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

But now, you know, I was just at the gym near my folks and they live near Camp Lejeune, which is a military base. So there are a lot of military families that come in there and they're strong and fit and I'm working out in my shorts and my sports bra and I don't have any like I am happy with how I look now shorts and my sports bra and I don't have any like I am happy with how I look now. And in fact there was a guy trying to show his son how to climb a rope in the gym and he couldn't quite get it and I walked over there and gave them he's this big Marine. I gave them both a lesson, like in how to climb up a rope, you know. So it's just so funny to me Like I think about doing that and how far I have come to be able to just have the confidence to even think I could go into a gym and one know what I'm doing.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

Two, to even to have to teach somebody else. And three, to even think I'm going to work out and just work out in a sports bra and be okay with that. I still don't think like if somebody says something about my calf muscle like I had a doctor's assistant once say, oh, you must be a runner and I'm like, he's like your calves, I'm like, oh, he's like my calf, a calf muscle kind of thing. And it's never going to feel like the best fitting suit for me, right, it's still a little bit like I'm wearing somebody else's clothes, but I'm getting better at it. And so I think we all have a path forward to shake ourselves out of these conceptions or preconceptions we have or misconceptions we have about ourselves.

Christine Hetzel:

That's why I think that when you say that I'm so sorry the epic gym owner's name again, I forgot his name, pete.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

Yeah, cody, and.

Christine Hetzel:

Pete, when he saw something in you that you didn't see. It makes sense. Sometimes it does take that external individual to kind of recognize that in us, because of course we look at you, we see a Spartan. So I'm hopefully you have that same title. You just touched on what I was going to ask.

Christine Hetzel:

Next, in your book you have the really great chapter probably one of my favorite chapters actually, because also made me giggle several times throughout it on the learn and unlearn and relearn where you had I would call them unlikely coaches, if we will. They may not have been on payroll, but they did teach you a couple of different things, especially the young girl at the playground who helped with the monkey bars and, of course, the tire flip. So afterwards you also had, I think, your first DNF. You reached out for empathy, got some advice there from somebody that was younger. I think you described her as young enough to be potentially your daughter. How do you feel that there is that willingness and how does that play into that willingness to learn from people that might be our juniors or somebody that we would maybe potentially not see on equal footing as ourselves?

Gwendolyn Bounds:

I recently I wrote a newsletter for my sub stack, not too late, all about this topic, about why it's so important to cultivate younger mentors in our lives, and I certainly had them, from the little redheaded girl who taught me how to do the monkey bars on the playground, to the high school boys who helped me learn how to flip a tire, to the woman you're mentioning who is an elite racer in her twenties, who picked me up after I failed out of a race, did not finish that's what DNF means for anybody who might not know In New Jersey, in a cold race, she just basically when I say, picked me up. She mentally picked me up and gave me the information I needed to actually be smarter about the gear that I wore and temperatures and thermoregulation At every turn. Though if I had thought, oh, I've got my hand on the master control switch, I'm old enough to be these people's parents or, I don't know, grandparents, I might be stretching it there. But if I thought that, if I thought I could only learn from people my age or older, I'd have been missing out on so much, because not only did they have technical things to teach me and again we had to go I have to go back to not worrying about looking, being looking foolish.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

But they had a mentality that I think was just like this young woman who was in her twenties the elite racer. She's so brave about what she talks about on social media, about the demons she's wrestled with the way about her body image, issues, about eating disorders she's had, about injury, and I'm just kind of I mean, I grew up in the South, you don't talk about things like that and I think her openness. Honestly, christine, I don't even know if I'd have been able to be as open as I am in my book had I not met her and had some of these experiences and drawn some of that juice into my own body to be able to be that forthcoming. So I think it's really important to have reverse mentorship.

Christine Hetzel:

Oh, absolutely I agree. I think that we, generationally, we now see that the younger generations are much more willing to be open and honest and transparent in a way that I don't even know that we grew up with that value of transparency, so I love that. I want to be able to get to everybody's questions, so I'm going to try to wrap up my questions very quickly. What advice would you give to someone who feels like it's too late to start anew?

Gwendolyn Bounds:

First thing I would say is get out of what you think you might be stuck in, which could be like a competency trap. Are you just trapped in sticking with the things that you're good at and that's easy to fall into? So I would say, first of all, like what is something you always wanted to do since you were a kid, or even in recent decades, that you haven't tried, and what is going to make you excited enough to turn off Netflix an hour early so you can get some sleep and then get up an hour early to pursue it? What is intrinsically going to motivate you to do that? And don't overload yourself with thinking you have to do it perfectly in the beginning or that you have to buy every piece of fancy gear to get it right. Just do what I the version of what I did, which was crawling around in my backyard. Just start trying some things, not things, if it's physical, that are going to hurt yourself, but things that just make you feel like you're doing it. And that fumbling around will eventually give way to process.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

And the last thing I'll say is that in any in any attempt to get good or to master something we know rises, where you're getting better. You're going to have dips, like I did, profound dips where you fail, but you're gonna spend a lot of time on a plateau and that plateau is the hardest thing for people to stick with because they think, well, nothing's happening. But that plateau is where you're eventually gonna get to your next rise. And so don't feel like if things are just kind of going along and you're not seeing a huge rise again, stick it out. That's how you get to the next level. A bunch more things in the book. I do want to make time for your other folks, but I love that you asked that and I hope those are just a few tidbits for people.

Christine Hetzel:

Ah, I love that plateau and actually I wanted to discuss that, so I'm glad that you brought it up. My last question that you said nobody was ever going to ask you, so now we're going to ask you, wendy, at this juncture in your life, what do you want to be when you grow up?

Gwendolyn Bounds:

That's a good one. I hope this answer is not a letdown. But the thing is I want to be right now what I am, because I didn't write this book to say, oh, we all have to push all the time and more and more, and more and more and more and never be content or be satisfied, like I just was at a point eight years ago where I wasn't a hundred percent, I didn't feel that I had something left right, like as I said to you before, and I don't feel that right now. I feel really pretty complete and surely something may change and there will be, there could be something new, but I'm okay where I am and it took eight years to get there, but I know that now, and so I want people to also know that that's a good place to be right. And this isn't just about always wanting more. This is about thinking that if you do want more, it isn't too late and it is likely within your reach in some capacity.

Christine Hetzel:

I think that's incredibly powerful. With that, friends, we're going to officially open this up to you guys. I do know that some folks sent me their questions ahead of time so I can get started on those. But you're here, live, so feel free to come off the mic or raise your hand or drop into the chat if you'd like to ask Wendy a very special question. And I don't know if we have Vicky with us, but I want to thank Vicky, because it was actually a call with Vicky where she's like you need to read this and the book club does too. So, vicky, we appreciate that recommendation.

Christine Hetzel:

We've all had a lot of good, we've enjoyed it and actually in our long run, yesterday we had a chance to talk about it as well. So, friends, anybody want to come off the mic? I was prepared because I knew you guys were going to be a little quiet for a second or two. It's always like that. Cheryl wants to know. Cheryl, my friend, you're here. Cheryl wants to know what mantras or motivations kept you going or keep you going when you want to quit or slow down.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

Yeah, and then we got Carrie with a hand up. I love that, carrie. I would say. One was we talked about when I had the bout, the really sort of serious bout, with my mortality and fear and anxiety, and I had heard a phrase called. That went something like this there is no bravery without fear. And so every time I fear something now I think, hmm, well, I can be brave, this is how I get to bravery. Right, if you don't feel the angst of something, you cannot be brave, and for me, I find that to be quite calming. So I think that's one, and the other one is love the plateau. We were just talking about the plateau a minute ago, so I think of that again when I'm in the middle of a workout. It's not very special and I have a million things to do and I'm not like enjoying it, which happens I'm just like love the plateau, love the plateau. So those are two.

Christine Hetzel:

I think that's pretty powerful too, and, cheryl, I know that you're pursuing a big, audacious goal yourself, my friend. So I think that this is exactly what you needed to hear right here and now. So I'm happy to hear that, carrie, I'm going to ask you to come off mute so that you can jump on in and ask your question.

Speaker 4:

So my question is how do you deal with post-training cycles slash, post-race letdown? I race half marathons. I've paced races. Half marathons are like my jam. I had one cancel on me recently because of storms. It was crazy. So I had to run it by myself, virtually, with nobody. Well, I mean, I had friends running virtually, which was awesome, but nobody was there with me. And then I get this huge endorphin rush and then it's a huge letdown because I have a goal race in November, november 4th.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

Yeah, so that's fascinating.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

So one of the things I do, I always have a schedule of races and goals.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

So I actually because I have another one coming up, I don't know that I feel blue, unless, carrie, I feel like I haven't done, given it my all right, like if there's a race where I think, oh, you know, I left something out there, then I can feel blue about it. I'll tell you, when I actually feel the worst, I have pre-race anxiety. I actually feel really nervous still going into races and until I actually cross the starting line and I'm physically moving, you know, my stomach is just a mess of nerves and I always have to sort of psych myself to get up to the front of a starting line. So I kind of have pre-race blues slash anxiety. But the way I deal with the post-race is I start thinking about the next race and I also write down everything after my races, like I go back to the hotel room or wherever I am and I do a dump into a notebook about what went right, what went wrong, and I find that that analysis is very cathartic for me.

Christine Hetzel:

So I'm going to expand a little bit. How about during the pandemic, when races were pretty much at a standstill? How did you deal with that?

Gwendolyn Bounds:

Yeah, so you know it could have pretty much thrown me off the entire journey I was on. But what happened was I really doubled down by myself and I staged mock races along my road. Literally I would set up like a mock obstacle course and I would do it all through our dirt roads and through my yard and climb a rope and if I missed my spear throw I made myself do penalty burpees. I marked my time every weekend to see if I was getting faster, and you guys may laugh at this, but like I literally hung a finisher medal around my neck and drank a fit aid like they do at the Spartan races when it was done and sat outside and just it was me and the squirrels and the birds and I'd even do the starting line chant that they do at the Spartan races before I would take off on the race.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

And yeah, I was lonely but it kept me connected to something that was so powerful and important part of my identity. And when I came back, when racing finally started again, I was stronger and I think that was the first race back was one of the races, if not right after, where I got one of my first medals ever on the podium. So I don't know. I learned to just live with it alone because I loved the process, and that's what intrinsic motivation is. I love the process more than I just loved the actual like racing for a medal or a placement, and I think that's what kept me, as I say, on the straight and narrow.

Christine Hetzel:

And it goes back to what you said with the mindset, with italic activity, correct, or is it? Yes, yep Makes perfect sense. Yep, good usage. All right, my friend Lynn, I saw that you asked about raising your hand. Come on in.

Speaker 3:

Hello, hi, okay, hey, lynn. Wow, you've got some bling. Look at that, yeah.

Christine Hetzel:

That's some of it. She's our Ironman officially. She's our Ironman gal here, okay.

Speaker 3:

You win. I'm bowing to you right now. No, no, no. I have. My husband and I watched the elite Spartan race after I finished the book and my husband, like those people are crazier than you, I don't know like.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

I know right, I'm pretty impressed. I'm in all of it now. I'm scared of you, lynn. What are you going to ask me?

Speaker 3:

well as a fellow type a person who started I started around 40. So a little bit earlier than you. But so, with the type A kind of personality, what do you do to prioritize your rest? Because I know sometimes for us type A's getting a little obsessed about our you know, whatever all over the training and all of the things, and we, as we all know, rest is such a crucial part of recovery, how do you, as a type A, manage that piece?

Gwendolyn Bounds:

Yeah, my coaches who have been. I listen to them. They're both a lot younger than I am and fortunately they are. I'm so type A that if someone programs something for me, I'm going to follow it, and they program rest. And so I felt like I'm that simple. I'm that simple of a person, right? If it's in my calendar, I'm in my box checking, I'm going to follow that.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

I also have more and I'm about to turn 53 in a couple of days and I have really shifted into a mindset of I want to be able to move and do things like this for as long as I can.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

And if I get hurt right, you know at this age, like you do one bad fall, break, strain, tear that could be it for a long time, if not forever, and so I really think about that as much as I think about doing pull-ups, right. I think about that rest component as an equal part of the training, because without it I know I have more potential for injury and I also know I can tell the difference now in my body at 53 than 47. And so I kind of have come to think of it again. Just like I said, it's like doing squats. So rest is a part and I don't, I don't skip it and I've come to terms with that, with my type A personality and if I write it down and make it part of the program and it is part of the program with my coaches it's a lot easier.

Christine Hetzel:

Okay, that's wonderful to hear, which actually leads us. Lynn. If that's okay, I'm going to go into the next question, unless if you have any follow-up. No, you're fine. Okay, we had Kelly who couldn't join us. She was super sad, sent me about 45 messages. So, kelly, shout out we know that you wanted to be here, my friend, so she wanted to know if you would share more about your injury, specifically your tailbone and your comeback, because it kind of sounded to her like was it feel like you had to start from ground zero after your comeback?

Gwendolyn Bounds:

So I've had a couple of different. I mean, I had a rope burn early on, like from climbing a rope, stupidly barefooted, as you all know. That kept me out of some races I've had. Right before I went to Abu Dhabi, which is where I had the fracture of my tailbone falling off an obstacle. I had been struggling with hamstring issues and so I just laid off a couple of races. To the last question. I was really careful, I rested and I didn't feel bad about not doing. I mean no, no, no, I'm lying I felt bad about not racing but I still didn't race Right. So I just lay at home and felt bad about it, but I didn't do it. So I went to Abu Dhabi and the tailbone it took a while. I mean because I don't know if you've ever injured your tailbone, but it's a it. You know, I had just finished a world championship race and I was coming off of the season and it didn't wasn't in the middle of a major goal. So I was able to take the time that I needed to and I just started my season later the next year.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

I wrote recently about this again. I mentioned in my newsletter about goal mobility and I think it's really important to be able to move your goals if you need to, and be okay with that. And that happens, yes, when things go wrong and when you get injured, and that happened in that Abu Dhabi race. In the middle of the race I wanted to podium and then I had to, in the middle of the race, change my goal to be just finish the race and not be last. But I think when things are going right, you need to be able to move your goals. So, if you're getting stronger and doing better, set a more aggressive goal for yourself, and I've done that as well.

Christine Hetzel:

I want to definitely follow up with that, because Kelly also talked about when do you decide that this is time for, after a certain amount of fails, for you to pivot or alter your goal, as you're discussing goal mobility, so how do you know it's the right course for you, or when does it feel like it's time for you to evolve to other goals, was her question. I mean, I'm going to say we should probably all be signing up to the newsletter for the record. If you guys haven't, we're going to.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

Yeah, absolutely. But I mean, I think we often know, but we don't want to accept it, right? So I think it's listening to that voice inside your head that's telling you this is the wrong thing to do, or you need to shift. And look for sure, when I was in that Abu Dhabi race in the desert, I mean part of me just wanted to get in the ATV and go to the medical tent, right, because I was in a lot of pain. I wasn't going to hit the goal I set for myself. But then I was like, really, I've flown 7,000 miles across the globe to be here and that's. And so I shifted and I was, and I eventually was content and okay with that.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

And I've had, you know, I've been, I've gotten sick in the middle of a season and not, and I've thought I should just get on the plane and go to Utah and power through this and get through. But if I did, then I was likely to set myself back and I have a bigger life than just obstacle course racing, right, I have family and I have a big job and I have other things that are priorities and I think knowing that I need to be well for all of those helps me maintain sort of a better sensibility about and be realistic and not push myself to the limit where it's going to. I push myself, don't get me wrong. Like I push myself you know that from the book, but I don't want to push myself to a point where I'm never going to be able to do this again or I'm going to be set back for a year or two or right, like I don't want to lose something else that matters to me in my life and that's always kind of a juggling act, so striking that right balance.

Christine Hetzel:

It sounds like a little bit. Yeah, all right, friends, I want to thank you guys all for joining Wendy. Thank you so much for spending time with us and happy early birthday, for the record, since you mentioned, Thank you.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

I'm just noticing how dark it. Like you can see, it's eight like eight o'clock where I am.

Christine Hetzel:

I just got dark outside, the sun just set, so I can see how the I'm now in a dark room behind you it still looks fabulous, but I do want to remind everybody I dropped it in the link for those that are here live to sign up for the newsletter, for folks are going to be listening to the podcast. We will have it in episode notes so you guys can stay in touch and get these little glimmers of crystallized wisdom in your inbox. So you can definitely continue to stay in touch with Gwendolyn that way. Is there any other place that we should be following you besides making sure that we all pick up the book?

Christine Hetzel:

And if you did not listen to the audio book version, I am going to strongly suggest it because really it did literally make me laugh out loud from the very first chapter where you talked about the shared language of everybody at the race, to the little redheaded girl who became your coach with monkey bars it was just really in. The Virgo comment immediately made me giggle out loud. Yeah, are you a Virgo? My best friend is a Virgo.

Gwendolyn Bounds:

All right. So you know, yeah, I am 100% pure Virgo, which is the type A? No, I think. Look the Substack newsletters and it's got all the places you can contact me and also my website, and I'm mostly on Instagram. So if any of you guys are on Instagram, just reach out to me there. But it was really wonderful to join you. These are great questions. We could talk for hours about them and if anybody wants to chat further about anything, they can just reach out to me through email through my website.

Christine Hetzel:

All right, my friends, again a huge thank you to Wendy for spending her time with us, giving us that really deep insight. And again I cannot stress it enough You've heard me say it You're going to want this both in the hard book cover that you can get on her website, and she's got a little secret incentive there too. If you get it directly from her website, it will also come in with a Spartan race entry. Sign up for her newsletter and get the audio book. The audio book is such a great way to accompany you on your long miles or your long drives, for that extra inspiration.

Christine Hetzel:

Again, friends, we have a lot in store here at Extraordinary Strides, so I invite you to join our newsletter as well. Come on in into the Stride Collective Facebook community page if you have not joined us there yet already. And this is your last weekend to sign up for the Royal Rivalry a little opportunity to conquest and conquer our own consistency crowns with a little bit of a team face-off. So I invite you to join and learn all about that on the website extraordinarystridescom. I am so grateful to have you here. I'm gonna ask you guys to keep running, keep shining and, of course, keep pursuing the extraordinary.

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