Duke Athlete & HS Sub 4-Miler Jackson Heidesch Opens Up On His Battles With Mental Health, Almost Quitting The Sport, And His Future Within Track & Field

THE RUNNING EFFECT PODCAST

Dominic Schlueter

Running, Sports

4.8 • 686 Ratings

🗓️ 22 April 2025

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The journey of Jackson Heidesch is one of unbridled honesty and crushing heartbreak.

From high school standout to oft-injured Duke student-athlete, Jackson Heidesch has been forced to deal with more than just physical maladies.

It's been 18 months of toil, rehab and bouts of depression for the Iowa native, who is now opening up about his mental health struggles. Jackson will be taking a designated pause from the NCAA to redshirt the entire indoor and outdoor season.

Although he's been through ringer in his short running career, he seems to be setting the stage for a resurgence on and off the track and grass.

Jackson's hardships since agreeing to run for Duke include a couple of grade 4 stress fractures; mono, and the aforementioned depression. With a combination of family support and talk therapy, in addition to physical therapy work–Jackson has come out the other side of this dark tunnel ready to get back to logging miles and competing with the best in the country.

Jackson was the 2022-23 Gatorade Boys Cross Country Player of the Year for Iowa, where he broke the 4 minute mile barrier to break the state record, running a 3:59.08 at the HOKA Festival of Miles. That year he also swept the 1600m and 3200m titles at the state meet, running a 4:07.28 and a 9:08.86, respectively.

In today's conversation, Jackson takes me through his past two years of ups and downs, how he became aware of his mental health, his plans going into the future, and so much more.

This one is deep, raw, emotional, take the time to be blessed by Jackson's vulnerability and share with someone you know.

Tap into the Jackson Heidesch Special.

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	But for me, it felt like there was months where there was no light at the end of the tunnel.
0:04.4	But there always is. There's always a light at the end of the tunnel.
0:06.9	There's no matter how dark or how deep of a place you're in. There's always a light.
0:12.5	Ladies and gentlemen, that is my good friend, Jackson Hidesh, also known as the King of Iowa,
0:17.9	back on the podcast. And Jackson has had a really hard last two years,
0:23.5	a year ago on the podcast.
0:24.7	She shared some of those difficulties.
0:26.7	And today he's back on the podcast to recap
0:29.0	a recent social media post of his detailing the hardships
0:32.7	and the journey that he's gone through,
0:34.8	both from a physical perspective,
0:37.2	the amount of stress fractures he's had
0:38.8	to endure. But more specifically, and honestly, I would say more importantly, the mental
0:43.1	struggles that Jackson has had to endure as he showcases in this conversation and talks about
0:48.3	the mental is just important as the physical. And a lot of times the physical injuries get put
0:53.4	on a pedestal and the
0:54.6	mental side gets brushed away and swept underneath the rug. But that is not what Jackson does
1:00.1	in today's conversation because he pulls back the curtain on his mental health and how he has
1:05.7	overcome some of these struggles, how he's working through some of these struggles presently.
1:09.6	I love Jackson. He's like a brother to me, a brother from another mother. And I was really blessed by his words and him
1:15.4	trusting me in this platform to share his story and some of the hardships. I know it's going to
1:20.2	comfort a lot of you out there. And I'm so excited to see the impact that this one has. I would
	...

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