Des Linden, 2018 Boston Marathon Winner
Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais
Dr. Michael Gervais
4.7 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 27 June 2018
⏱️ 84 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week’s podcast is with Des Linden, a 2x Olympian, running the marathon for the U.S. in both the 2012 London Olympics and 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
Her most significant achievement to date happened this year (2018) when she became the first American woman in 33 years to win the Boston Marathon.
Prior to winning, she came in 4th last year (2017) and finished second by only two seconds in 2011 (a personal record at the time).
Two seconds!
Think about how crushing that could be. Everything you’ve worked so hard for is in striking distance only to miss by two seconds—if external outcomes are the primary measurement of success.
Imagine the persistence and the mental fortitude required just to complete a marathon, then on top of that fight back and win the Boston Marathon seven years after having a PR but coming up just short of first place…
That right there sets the tone for what this conversation is all about.
We discuss everything from being comfortable with getting vulnerable, why she doesn’t get nervous before races, and how she manages her internal dialog.
If there’s one thing I hope you take away from this conversation, it’s that Des is comfortable with who she is.
In her words: “The thing I understand most is … myself”
And having that understanding, that confidence is a very powerful thing.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Remember your why. You know, when things get hard, you have the decision to bail or you can tap into your why and it could be a million different things. Maybe it's your family, you know, maybe it's the time you spent training and you skipped out on a birthday or whatever. |
| 0:18.5 | But think about the things you've sacrificed to get there and remember why you signed up. Why did I sign up for this and use that to |
| 0:24.8 | fuel you? All right, |
| 0:35.0 | welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery Podcast. |
| 0:38.0 | I'm Michael Jervay, and by Trade in Training, |
| 0:40.6 | I'm a sport and performance psychologist and the co-founder of |
| 0:43.9 | compete to create and that's a partnership a joint venture that |
| 0:47.3 | Coach Carroll had coached the Seattle Seahawks and I fired up to amplify |
| 0:52.3 | basically what we've come to learn and understand about |
| 0:55.0 | training the mind and impacting cultures to do hopefully extraordinary things. |
| 1:00.0 | And so the idea behind this podcast and these conversations is to learn from people who are on the path of mastery. |
| 1:05.0 | And we want to understand what they're searching for, what they're hungry for, what they're driven by. |
| 1:11.0 | We want to know as best as we can their psychological framework, |
| 1:14.6 | which is not easy to do. |
| 1:16.8 | And we want to understand the mental skills |
| 1:18.4 | that they've used to build and refine their craft. |
| 1:22.0 | Finding Mastery is brought to you by Vitruvian. |
| 1:24.7 | Vitruvian is on a mission to help people live longer, stronger lives. |
| 1:29.1 | And their marquee product, the trainer plus, is at the forefront of that revolution. |
| 1:34.8 | So Vitruvians trainer plus is the ultimate all in one home gym solution and it's brought |
| 1:41.1 | to you on a single compact platform. |
| 1:44.6 | It's really unique. |
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