Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 0:00

Done. Don,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 0:01

don,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 0:02

legend, just a legend. He’s a legend,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 0:06

that’s what he said about you.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 0:08

No, there’s no way. He’s like, she’s

Lisa Smith-Batchen 0:10

in the background. He

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 0:12

said he doesn’t believe that. He does not believe that. Matt, can I lounge? But I don’t know if I’m in the shot. Are you going to tell me? Are you going to tell me to move? Okay, because you can also show that to me if you want. So we had moved these to the table, had gone. Now the tables back,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 0:42

I can tell you still get a little nervous.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 0:44

I don’t,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 0:45

not at all.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 0:45

No, not about the table. I mean, I just don’t want it adorable. I just don’t want it to be. I don’t want it to be banging. I don’t get nervous, but I don’t like the visuals should be really professional, and so if it’s off center, it’s then I see it, and then I’m just pissed off.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:08

Yeah,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:08

and so I’d rather get,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:09

of course,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:10

be a

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:10

little more OCD right in the beginning, because I can’t see – there’s no screen for me to see – than see it after, and go, why the fuck is this off center, Matt?

Speaker 1 1:21

We’re dialed in, yeah. which

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:23

is what happened last week. I was like, why is this?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:26

Thank you. So,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:27

why is this here?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:28

Oh my gosh,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:29

thank you.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:30

You deserve to be here, really.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:32

Wow, such a compliment. I’ll take it. Thank

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:35

you. Yeah, you deserve to be here.

Speaker 1 1:37

Yeah, I would say for the just for the wide shot,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:40

yeah, don’t

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:40

lounge too far back

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:45

if you could show me my hamstring is a little messed up, which is why I’m trying

Speaker 2 1:54

to back here

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:55

to figure this out without, so if I say back here. Okay, let me just see. Also, let me try one more thing. That’s helpful, that I can sit on. I have one. So, I’ve had these just like really bad hamstring injuries. Okay, so is it better if I’m not sitting on this, so now it makes me shorter.

Speaker 1 2:23

No, you’re fine like that.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:25

Do you have a preference?

Speaker 2 2:27

If you sit up straight and you just remove, yeah,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:31

so my.. let’s see, let me try this. Yeah, I tore.. so I tore both of them.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 2:38

Oh my god, that hurts. What were you doing

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:40

sprinting, and then the injuries always been really difficult. Can I put my foot up, or does that look like I’ve lost a leg? No, perfect.

Speaker 1 2:50

You are good, everything is good.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 2:56

One last question, do you like it if I’m sitting on the pillow? It makes me a little taller,

Speaker 1 3:01

yeah.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 3:02

Okay, so I’m not on the pill now. I moved

Speaker 1 3:05

it,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 3:08

or

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 3:16

this. Okay,

Speaker 1 3:27

anything more complicated by that?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 3:28

I mean, my hamstrings, I took some Tylenol, so geez, it should be

Speaker 1 3:32

like that.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 3:33

Okay, golden, it’ll be, it’ll be okay either way,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 3:39

okay, yeah.

Speaker 1 3:42

all right, we are recording, ready to go whenever you are.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 3:50

All right, are you going to show me time check because we don’t have the clock up, or just, just if you just put, so what’s the start time?

Speaker 1 4:02

Start time right now is 1105

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 4:04

Okay, that way, if I could just see it, I know, because what’s going to happen is I’m going to want to keep going and going, because that’s the way that I am.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 4:14

I get to ask you questions,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 4:15

you maybe I’m

Lisa Smith-Batchen 4:16

kidding,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 4:17

maybe. Okay, okay, ready. Lisa Smith Batchin. Welcome to the show.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 4:29

Thank you for having me.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 4:31

I’m going to read your bio, and it is one that I have never read before. Are you ready? Lisa Smith Batchin, one of the most decorated ultra endurance athletes in American history, first American female to win the marathon Des Sables, which is 150 mile stage race through the Sahara, two time winner. Year and 10 time finisher of the Badwater Ultra Marathon, and this I think has become very famous. It’s 135 miles through Death Valley. This is the one that Goggins talks about, first female to complete the Badwater Quad, which is 584 miles, first and only person to run 50 miles in all 52 in all 50, there’s not 5250 states, first and only person to run 50 miles in all 50 states in 62 days, you raised over a million dollars for orphans and clean water projects. You’ve been featured in Born to Run, which myself and my team were just talking about that book. And as a coach, you’ve trained athletes from first timers, which, by the way, you did give me a little pep talk about how I should begin to think and set my sights to an ultra race and also elite ultra competitors, and you’ve been doing this for 40 plus years.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 6:06

Yes,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 6:06

one last thing, you’re known for your fusion of physical discipline, spiritual grounding, and a fearless pursuit of purpose.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 6:17

Wow, thank you.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 6:19

You know, you and I were talking about being able to express the things that you’ve done, and by nature you are a very humble human, and as we sit here in this conversation, you aren’t just any ultra runner, you are a first American female runner in multiple races, and in fact, your 66th birthday is approaching, which you may or may not be excited about, but you know, when I asked you when your last ultra race was, it was February. That makes you incredibly unusual.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 7:01

I didn’t realize it.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 7:03

Well, I don’t know anyone else that is. Is it motivated? Is it the idea and the challenge of doing something hard? And I would even say, at the time that you started this, there you couldn’t go on the internet and look up Badwater, who was running it, female training of female other female nerds athletes. I mean, you were doing it before it was really being thought about.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 7:33

Very true, there weren’t many of us, you know. There weren’t many of us, and it really just sort of fell into my lap. So, when you know, you think about trailblazing, you know, I have to look back and think, yeah, maybe I did, I guess I did, you know, myself and a few others, there are some others, and some are still doing it, and others aren’t, and mine really just comes because I still love to do it, I don’t love to race anymore, like I’ve taken the word race out of, like, I want to beat you, I want to win. I’ve taken that out of my, you know, line of vocabulary, or my feelings of purpose has just turned into I still love to participate, you know, and I don’t care if I’m last, because man, you learn either way.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 8:23

I love that you don’t care if you’re first or last, but it’s really about the learning,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 8:27

the learning, continual learning, always gaining wisdom.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 8:33

How did you decide to start running ultras?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 8:36

I decided to start. I got invited to do the first eco challenge, which was in Utah, that’s a multi-day adventure race.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 8:46

And when was that?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 8:47

That was in 1995 And before that, I was doing Ironman races, and you know, marathons, and all kinds of

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 8:55

also equally crazy.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 8:57

Equally crazy, I mean, my first race started with a 5k and I just kind of went on and on and on, and you know, there’s more that you can do, and I met a good friend of mine, Marshall Ulrich, who really is one of the legendary ultra-marathoners, and has done the seven summits and all that. Met him at the first eco challenge, we ended up on a team together called Team Stray Dogs, and he said to me, after you really need to do Bad Water, and I said, What is a Bad Water? And he told me it was 135 mile foot race through Death Valley in July.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 9:38

How hot is that?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 9:41

The hottest I believe I’ve been out there was maybe 125 125 but at that time in 1995 I’d never heard of anybody running anything over a marathon, that was in April, July, I found myself at the starting line of the Badwater 135 I, you know, asking Marshall, like, how do you train for this? What kind of food do you eat? What do you.. you know, I’ll just wear a few extra clothes to get used to the heat, and you know, jelly beans and red Gatorade, like there was not everything that we have today as far as nutrition and shoes, and.. and I really learned that I was ready to kill my friend Marshall Alworth, and I got out there and felt that heat, because there was nothing to prepare you for it, besides somebody else who’d already done it.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 10:31

You’re at the starting line, you’re thinking, okay, I’ve done, how many? What was the longest race you had done in mileage prior?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 10:40

The longest race I’d done was that eco challenge. It was over 300 miles, but that was being in a canoe and climbing and mountain biking and all kinds of stuff. The longest I’d done as a runner at the time was a marathon.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 10:56

A marathon is 26 miles,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 10:58

correct?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 10:59

26 so you went from 26 miles to 130 miles, 135 miles. Yeah, that seems like a big jump.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 11:09

It was a big jump. It was.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 11:12

It

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 11:12

seems like a big jump when you were doing the marathon, 26 miles. You know, my husband is really into marathons, and he was supposed to be studying for his board, so he ran a 5050 doesn’t compare to 135 but he did tell me something interesting, he said the reason he chose to do it is he gets to tap on that pain cave, and that by entering this pain cave there is a moment or a period of time where there is nothing else

Lisa Smith-Batchen 11:45

very true.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 11:47

How has that? Do you experience that in the same way?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 11:53

I believe it’s different for everybody, and it shows up differently for everybody. I never quite felt that pain cave in a marathon, like I think it’s in a marathon, there’s so many people, you know, and there’s aid stations every mile, where there it’s just so much shorter and more focused. In altar running, you’re going a whole lot further, where you’re really tapping into the spiritual side of yourself, the physical and the mental side of yourself that really gets put into question of how you’re going to handle what you do. Sure, many people can experience that in a marathon, but that didn’t really ever happen to me. The longer I went, the more the pain cave, and it wasn’t so much the pain cave, it’s more you’re in pain or you’re hurting. People always use the word suffering, which I don’t use the word I’m not suffering because it’s by choice. People who really suffer don’t choose to suffer. I think that you’re in pain, your feet hurt, your, you know, something hurts, and it shifts around that pain, but the learning, the growth, the wisdom that comes with all of that. The further you go, the longer you go, the more you learn. Is

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 13:21

there a cadence for what one could expect, and I know that it’s different for everybody, but I imagine there’s similar experiences, you know? I don’t, yeah, I just imagine that potentially for you it might be mile 100 for I don’t know, Goggins, it might be mile 75 but there’s probably phases to the human response and challenges,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 13:53

right? I think you know, like you said, your husband, why, at you know, he wanted to do a 50 was to get into that pain cave, so we actually probably found where he got comfortable with that pain cave, and it kept its shifts, and I think for some people it might be mile 60, mile 70, you know, 100 but I feel like those of us who do these endurance events know we’re going to get there, we look forward to getting there, which is a little kooky, right? We look forward to getting there. Yeah, and you can maybe bring it on, like you can bring on this mental, spiritual part of yourself, and it feels like it’s a really good place to be. It’s like being in this box of like just repetitive motion, where your mind is somewhere else.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 14:50

What that first race? Do you remember the first one?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 14:53

I do really well.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 14:55

Do you remember what you learned,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 14:59

boy? I learned that first of all, you probably shouldn’t jump from a marathon to 135 miles.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 15:06

That seems reasonable,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 15:07

Coach. I would not recommend

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 15:09

that.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 15:09

That seems very reasonable.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 15:11

Yeah, reasonable. And now you know things have changed. You can’t just enter the Badwater 135 You have to qualify to get in this year. You have to have run 400 mile races beforehand to get in, so I would say back in the day when I first started, that wasn’t the case.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 15:28

And was that, is that for a safety perspective, that you have to run because the bad waters only won 135 miles, correct? But you have to run 400 in totality, or

Lisa Smith-Batchen 15:39

in totality within a certain period of time, and I’m sure every year it’ll keep getting, you know, you’ll, your qualifications have to be more and more to get in, because it’s become that popular. Ultra running, like most running events, are exploding, so more and more people are doing the event in the Badwater race. Officially, only 100 people can be chosen.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 16:07

Still, still now

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 16:08

to this day,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 16:09

to the day

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 16:10

when you were at that starting line, there were 100 people.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 16:14

No, when I was at that starting line, I would say there was 5050.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 16:17

how many women?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 16:19

Two,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 16:20

two women,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 16:21

two women,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 16:22

two, including you, or just one more,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 16:24

two, including me.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 16:26

Do you, did you know the other woman?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 16:28

I didn’t know them, but I did later, of course. What was that like? Exciting, you know. Honestly, I had no idea what I was truly getting myself into when you think like I didn’t drive the course, when you think of 135 miles, it’s inconceivable to think of when you’ve only gone 26.2 miles. So there was a lot of unknown, and it was the unknown that I was drawn to. I was drawn to the unknown of climbing the first climb, which is, you know, 10 miles uphill, then downhill, and then back uphill, and then downhill, and literally the finish is 13 miles uphill, so you’re going from minus 282 feet below sea level to over 8000 feet up and down, up and down, so the challenge of the altitude, the change of weather, the heat, all of that was so unknown to me, because I only knew what somebody told me their experience was.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 17:38

Did you set a goal for yourself to finish in a certain time,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 17:43

I did not. I set a goal to finish.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 17:47

How long did it take you

Lisa Smith-Batchen 17:49

to be honest with you? I’m not quite sure I’m correct on this. I don’t really remember, but I think it was 42 hours.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 17:56

42 hours, because you did actually, you did it 10 times.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 18:01

I did

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 18:04

after the first one. You know, you said that you were looking forward to the unknown. You know, as I think about that right now in society, what I see is that people actually shy away from challenge, but for some reason, you were drawn

Lisa Smith-Batchen 18:23

to it. I think challenge is such a huge part of life, whether it’s physical challenge, spiritual, mental challenging yourself to improve, you know. For myself, I did it 10 times because I yearned to go back to the challenge to challenge myself differently to see if I could do it differently or to go back to experience the way I was feeling at that time because it’s such a journey into the unknown I mean the desert doesn’t you’re not going to beat the desert, the elements of the desert, but there is a way to move through it differently.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 19:09

Were you ever disappointed in how you did it?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 19:13

Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, you just don’t know. There’s more known now because of the evolution of nutrition, hydration, shoes, clothing, salt, sodium, all of those things that were so unknown, we’ll say back in the day, in 1995 the first time I did it to this year, people stepping up to the starting line in July, there’s a whole different level of known that we didn’t, that I didn’t know, so I was stepping into the unknown of hydrate, you know, all of those things that are put out there now, which is great. This is why people are going fast. Store further, you know, so met there’s so much more information out there,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 20:06

and would you say that that lack of information when you started created more suffering?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 20:13

Yeah, and again, I don’t like the word suffering, because it’s that’s right, yeah, no, that’s okay, because suffering, yeah, suffering, it’s just different, I think, of people suffering that are really sick, or so suffering. I think that it brought a lot more lack of knowledge, you know, just lack of being able to feel great, like, you know, they’ll say to get ready in a marathon at mile 22 or mile 20, you’re gonna hit the wall, you know. We mean, there is no wall. There’s not a wall in a marathon. You’re not hitting a wall. What happens, the same thing is in an ultra, is that your nutrition, in your hydration, in your training is not up to speed for you. So, they’re like people aren’t bonking as much anymore, as far as, yeah,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 21:06

okay. Explain to me that. Explain to me what the idea of bonking is, or how people experience it.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 21:16

And I do, well, I do feel like people are experiencing it because they’re the races are filling up super, super fast, right, and there’s a lot of people doing these things without knowledge, maybe back like I was back in the day when I first started, because there is, and they’re not looking for the knowledge, they’re just signing up because it’s exploding and everybody else is doing it. I see more people getting hurt, more people doing way too much and not recovering, which is a big deal, you know. As we age, yeah, sure.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 21:54

I mean,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 21:54

but the blogging is like you’ve either not trained, you started the race out too fast, you’re not staying hydrated, you’re not getting the sodium that you need or the calories, all of that is very known now. Of how can you take care of yourself?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 22:13

It’s physical. What I’m hearing you say is that there’s a physical limitation versus a mental limitation.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 22:19

Yes,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 22:21

when you were at that first race, it didn’t matter. You didn’t really think about the idea that you were one of only two women doing it. Is that correct? It was just I’m here to, I’m here to run.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 22:34

Exactly. Yes, I didn’t even think that I was one of the few, like it didn’t cross my mind,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 22:41

and at the time, this sport, ultra endurance, wasn’t it wasn’t popular at all in the 90s.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 22:49

No,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 22:50

from from what I understand, how did you even think to train for something like that? Meaning, I mean, what I’m also hearing you say is that you weren’t totally prepared, that you had trained the way that you did as a marathon runner, and then stepped on the starting line of probably it’s from what I understand one of the hardest races,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 23:14

it’s that exists, the hardest races

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 23:16

that exists,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 23:17

yes, for sure, foot race, you know, and

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 23:21

what does that mean?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 23:22

On road, so you know there’s races that are really hard that are like I would think I’ve been on a crew riding your bike across America, or there’s things that last 10 days, 20 days that I would put in a harder division, but as far as like a road race, 135 mile road race for an ultra bad water is definitely at the top of the list as far as difficult.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 23:49

When did you prepare yourself before, meaning you knew things were going to get really hard? Did you prepare yourself for the moments that you were to, we’re going to try to talk yourself out of

Lisa Smith-Batchen 24:06

100. That’s such a great question. I don’t think you ever prepare yourself to talk yourself out of it, or you can prepare yourself for when the bad moments are going to arrive, because you prepare yourself for the best, you know, you prepare for, like, this is my A game, my A race, and you prepare, and you prepare, knowing that the wheels could fall off, and however, if the wheels fall off, what are you going to do about it? You know, a big sand storm shows up, or lightning storm, and it’s pouring rain, or something like that, which does happen. Did it happen to you? Oh, yeah, it’s happened in Death Valley. And I asked my friend Marshall, what do you do, because he’s, you know, done this a few times before I did. What do you do if this happens? He goes, you keep going, you keep going, because. Everybody else will get in their van and hunker down, you keep going, and I took that with me as you keep going, and that’s where the adversity of the real you comes out, going through the tough parts of it when the wind is blowing and knocking you over, or the sandstorm is approaching. Those are the elements that Death Valley will throw at you. So, you, it’s unknown, like you can’t say, “Mile 100. I know I’m going to feel terrible. You hope that you feel great,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 25:38

and you coach other people,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 25:40

I do

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 25:41

to do this.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 25:42

Yes,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 25:43

can you tell who’s going to make it versus who’s not? Are there core attributes that exist within people? Because also, before the camera turned on, you said everybody has an ability.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 26:00

I think that for bad water, in particular, it’s you really have to want to do it, and you, and I’m glad that they have qualifying standards now that you have to do 100 miles, you know, four times in order to qualify to run the race, because it’s gotten really competitive, and the faster you go, the harder it gets, as well. So, I do feel like there are, if you’ve run a 400 milers, you’ve proven that you’re capable. If you’ve only run one, I need to see you do a little bit more, only because all of the qualifications have changed, I mean, it used to be you had 60 hours to finish, now it’s moved to 48 hours, so you have to go faster. It’s not about just, you can’t just go there and say I’m just coming here to finish, you really have to go there to push yourself.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 27:00

It sounds simple, right? It sounds like, okay. Well, I’m gonna go, I’m gonna do this thing, and I’m gonna push myself, but there are probably really dark moments I’m assuming where one has to anchor deeply into the why. Why am I choosing this thing to put myself through, like you said, it’s not a sacrifice, it’s now a choice. How well thought out does someone need to be, or how do you encourage people? Because my sense is that you coach people physically, but you and I both know that a coach isn’t someone who is just teaching someone how to hydrate, teaching someone how to carb load, but they’re teaching someone how to think and have a framework for thinking, or at least leading them into that.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 27:54

Correct, there’s a lot more pieces to it, you know, than coaching, and you know, my way of coaching is very old school, and I love to take the person through it, you know, to get there, and it all is so much about the training and heat training. It’s not just about showing up like I did, just showing up and doing it, and it was not easy to just show up and do it,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 28:21

but how did you finish

Lisa Smith-Batchen 28:23

by sheer grit, by sheer grit, like you know it was unbelievable what I learned.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 28:32

Tell me, what did you learn? One thing,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 28:34

the spiritual side, like really, I mean, I know people think it was crazy, but like connected to the other side of, you know, people who’ve passed on, or just the beauty of the desert, the mountains, the heat, every bit of it just brings you to not only your lowest of lows but the highest of highs.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 28:58

Was there something, and I don’t think anyone’s going to think it’s weird or woo woo, because you’re not, you’re not the only person that has experienced that, I think, connection to that spiritual side, and that’s exactly why it drives people to do this type of thing, to put oneself, and there’s probably not that many moments that we can find to put, you know, to push a limit. So, you said, for example, you’re not really entering the pain cave if you’re doing a marathon. I mean, I don’t know, because I’m

Lisa Smith-Batchen 29:31

not for myself,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 29:32

because you know I haven’t done that, but I would, I would say that when you’re there and you say it opens kind of this spiritual connection. Do you think it’s because everything else has to be so silent, or is there, is there a reason that it’s that position that one finds themselves in?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 29:57

Boy, that’s a great question again. I think that for myself personally, it’s because I yearn for it. I’m looking for it, and I’m seeking it. And I think for many people, whether you’re seeking it or not, it appears – it appears when you’re exhausted, you’re sleep deprived, and you’re, you know, in a place of being very vulnerable, that that it shows up whether you want it to or not, and I think a lot of that is why people go back. I know it’s part of why I go back, because I cannot wait to experience that.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 30:38

It’s such a, it’s such an interesting mindset, and I just, I wonder, is part of that a genetic capacity to be able to experience pain and discomfort and find something positive, or just be open to the connections, versus the other way, which is pain, and more pain, and this sucks, and I’m ready to quit. And then, of course, there are many people that quit.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 31:08

Yeah, for sure.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 31:10

Can what you were talking about be trained in an individual?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 31:15

I believe it can be taught. It can be taught, but you have to be willing, you have to be willing to want to go there, like teaching somebody how to meditate, teaching somebody right, or teaching somebody to sit still when they have so much energy, it’s you become still, you become still with movement, you become in a meditative state, for myself, it’s like where all the worries of the world are gone, or where you write your book, you know, because you’ve, you’re this meditative state of mind, and I think that you can explain it to people, your experience, and I hear so many other people’s experience at the same time, but I think we’re, we can be taught because we’re all students. I can explain it to my students, and they can look out for it, and then they could come back and share their experience with me.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 32:17

What are some of the biggest lessons that you have taken forward in your life.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 32:25

I’ve taken forward that when we are in pain, when we do want to quit or stop something, that you take a time out, take a time out, and go back to your why, go back to your purpose, like I believe that purpose and passion and passion and purpose all bring us to our why. Why do I want to do this? And I ask my students that all the time. Why do you want to run the Badwater 135 Why do you want to run whatever it might be, because I think when you have your why, it helps your passion and your purpose move forward.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 33:09

Have you heard? Have you heard why’s where you’re like, no, that’s not gonna..

Lisa Smith-Batchen 33:14

I have absolutely.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 33:16

Can you give me an example,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 33:18

a reason why? Well, because you did it. You know, you did it well. Just because I’ve done it doesn’t mean that you should do it. You know, you need to figure out why you want to do it. That has nothing to do with me. That your, your why is all about you finding your sense of person, purpose with that passion, meaning raise money for something,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 33:41

which you did, you ran all through 50 states.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 33:48

It’s called Run Hope Through America.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 33:52

Did that push you?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 33:54

Absolutely.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 33:56

Was that easier because you were running for someone else and something else?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 34:00

It’s always easier for me personally when I’m doing it for something greater than myself, because it brings me back to my why. My why is to use my gifts and talents, like you do, to help other people, and that it isn’t all about me, and that I feel really good about what I’m doing, and the time I’m spending to do it, knowing I’m helping other people, and for me that’s love, that’s just love of life, and what my why.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 34:36

You were what I would consider, obviously, an early adopter in the 90s, again. First of all, ultra wasn’t a thing, and also women weren’t really running this. Was there something that drew you to it, where you said, okay, I’m gonna do this because this is what I. Need to do to come out on the other side, meaning where you work, you know, you hear Goggins talk about how he was working through so much, and I know that your friends, that you, he was working through something, or perhaps trying to solve something.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 35:16

Absolutely, I think there’s such a similar trait there. I definitely got into the world of endurance. I was running away, you know? I would say I was running away from childhood issues or things that had happened. We all have passed in our lives, and I used running to cope. It was my coping mechanism. And then I actually found out that I was good at it, you know, good for then. Back then, I was winning races all the time. I’d run one on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and I’d win them, but it never made me happy. Winning never made me happy. That wasn’t what I was really yearning for. What made me happy was when I met my good friend, Sister Mary Beth Lloyd, who said, What are you running from? And I said, That’s a good question that I never really looked at. And she goes, Why didn’t you help me? And I said, Well, how am I going to help you? And she was the mission director for, and she still is a mission director who lives, she lives in Rome, and she’s 75 and she still runs.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 36:25

And what is it? What does a mission director do?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 36:28

Oh, well, she’s the one who started all of the water projects, homes for children in Ethiopia, Eritrea, Brazil, India. So, my helping her meant raising money,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 36:42

I see

Lisa Smith-Batchen 36:43

helping to raise money, which I did, and we did, and that brought my why into such passion and purpose.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 36:54

The idea that it wasn’t about winning, I didn’t even consider that, because most people are entering. I mean, that’s probably why they call it a race. Yeah, I’m sure there’s some Latin definition for race, but people go for this competitive spirit. I’m, I’m guessing again, I’m only speaking from what I’ve seen other patients experience, and and what I’ve seen people orient themselves to, but the idea that winning didn’t make you happy, I think, is unusual.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 37:29

I think it’s unusual too. I mean, I wouldn’t say didn’t make me happy, it wasn’t fulfilling. Okay, it was really like, you know, I remember what the first marathon I did. I qualified for Boston Marathon, and as I’m running across the finish line, people are yelling, “You’re going to Boston, you’re going to Boston, and I was like, “What’s a Boston? The same thing as I said, like, “What’s Badwater? I had no idea about Boston Marathon, but then I found myself in the Boston Marathon, you know, I was. it was.. I don’t know. It was humbling to realize that I had a gift. I had a gift, and I was told by somebody else, ‘You have a gift, my friend, Sister Mary Beth Lloyd. Why don’t you use these gifts to help other people? That’s what made me so happy and ecstatic to see a clean water well get built, to see children eating food who were starving to death, like that brings me joy and brought me happy, and it still does, and that’s, you know, I try to get the athletes I coach to think outside of the box of your why, like you can use this to help other people, and it doesn’t have to be running, it can be if you play the piano, or if you, whatever your gifts and talents are, you can use them to better, you know, life for others,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 38:59

same way

Lisa Smith-Batchen 39:00

you do

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 39:00

that is what drives us as a team. It’s a group effort. I mean, frankly, I love this. Is my favorite part of the job is sitting down with people like you that do have so many gifts and are just so humble because there is a plethora to learn. I learn every single time, and I think that as you’re talking about your experience, which the way that I view it, it actually wasn’t about you. You didn’t think whether you were male or female, you didn’t think, “Well, I’m going in to win it. You went in to think, “What do I learn from this, and then subsequently, how do I give back? What is what I’m doing contributing, and that is extraordinary and meaningful. And again, you’re still running, you’re 65 you’re still running. So that gift, that ability to run. Do you think that that gift is a mental gift or a physical gift?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 40:08

Both very equal, and I can tell you why. I still, my friend, Sister Mary Beth Lloyd told me one time, she said, “Lisa, I hope God lets those legs of yours keep working to your 100, because we have a lot of work to do, meaning a lot of people to help.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 40:26

I really is

Lisa Smith-Batchen 40:27

that awesome.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 40:28

I think it’s awesome, and I also think that because you’re such an early adopter, you find that other things are important from a physical perspective. So, I’ve met many of your friends, your female friends, and there are more mature women closer to your age, and you’ve watched these women really focus on cardio, and you’ve said, ladies, listen, if you want to do what you’re doing till you’re nine, I think that the oldest person that you train is what, 90, she just

Lisa Smith-Batchen 40:59

turned 94 this week,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 41:01

94 and I’ve heard you say and teach your students that they have to lift weights and they have to do resistance training, and I’m sure that that has evolved as you’ve been in this sport, and I think part of probably that evolution has come from your own experience.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 41:16

Absolutely, yeah, I mean it’s been a huge part of my life, I have three older brothers. I watch them with football and hockey, and lifting weights, and you know it’s been something that I’ve done probably my whole life, and it’s something that I promote and preach, and I feel like being.. I would rather be strong than fast. I would rather you know being strong helps me be able to go 100 miles. It’s not running that helps me run 100 miles, it’s being strong. I’m huge in the cross training.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 41:54

Being strong is what you would choose over being fast.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 41:58

Absolutely,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 41:59

because being strong helps you run fast.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 42:03

Yes,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 42:03

and just helps you run, as opposed to the idea of running, simply helps you run,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 42:08

right? It’s not the running that helps me run, it’s the being strong that helps me run.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 42:14

Was there a moment where you had just an aha moment, because again, probably you’ve been exposed to training, like you said, resistance training your whole life, but in the running space people are running, they’re not lifting weights, because everything that I’ve heard over the years has been like, well, that’s going to slow you down if you have too much muscle, it’s going to slow you down, obviously things are evolving now, but when you started coaching people, did you get a ton of pushback, especially from the women,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 42:47

both, both, oh yeah, men and women. Okay, with lifting weights, yeah. I mean, being thin, you know, I’ll do push-ups or I’ll do pull-ups, and I’ll do some upper body weights, but I never want my legs tired, you know, and I’d be like, no, you have to do wall sits and squats and lunges in order to help your running, you know, the longevity of running, the longevity meaning 6070, 80, you have to start when you’re young, or by the time you are my age, it’s hard to catch up, you know, your bone density, you like the growth of it, you know. I try to get my daughters, who are in their 20s, they both are strong, they both lift weights, because I have, they’ve watched, you know, and they’ve learned, and I think that it’s, it’s been tough to get both men and women, believe it or not.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 43:44

Yeah, it’s surprising. What, what are some of the myths that you heard, or reasons as to why? So, I heard you say that those that were running specific didn’t want to put on mass because they didn’t want their legs to feel fatigued,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 43:57

correct?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 43:58

But I know that you coach a lot of people outside of endurance, but also just coach them. What, what are some of the myths that you hear? The reasons why

Lisa Smith-Batchen 44:10

they’re going to get hurt, you know, the weights are too heavy, they’ll do very light weights, high reps, you know, one pound, two pound, three pound, four pound, but they’re not going to lift heavy, because mostly they’re going to get hurt, and they don’t want to get big.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 44:26

They don’t want to get big.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 44:27

They don’t want

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 44:28

to get

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 44:28

big. You know, I don’t know about you, but I’ve been trying to get big for the last 20 years,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 44:31

right? I’ve been trying to get me to.. it’s just not going to happen. I’m big, but I’m strong, but I’m also not big. You know what I mean, what’s define big, define big.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 44:43

I one of the things you know, as I look back on your history, I just think as we’re talking about resistance training and lifting as an early adopter, because you were, do you think that. There’s a moment, and I’m gonna.. I don’t know exactly how to ask this, that the body just doesn’t respond, because everything that I’m seeing and everything that you’ve done means that the body could push itself beyond what you think is possible. I mean, the idea that you’re going bad water.. this was 130 degrees Fahrenheit, that means that if that was on asphalt, it would be hot enough to melt shoes.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 45:27

My shoes never melted, but some people say.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 45:30

I mean, you’re running in 103 I can’t even be.. I live in Texas. I’m complaining when I walked on the block 135 miles on a surface that could melt the soles of my shoes, you know, and I just think over multiple days, I mean, you’re 40 plus hours, that is, there a point at which the body just is, I’m good, I can’t do any more, or have we not even found that point?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 46:05

We have not found that point. We have not found I.. we have nowhere near come to find what we’re capable of, and I think that that’s what I love the most about coaching, for sure, or even myself. Like, I don’t know what I’m capable of, even at almost 66 I know I’m not going to go run a 35 minute 10k but I can still do a 10k you know. But I don’t know how far I can go. I believe I can run further, but not as fast with age. Okay, as fast.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 46:42

What are some of this, the things that you have seen slow down, or I don’t even want to enter it in that way. What are some of the things that you’ve seen change with age? Because I’m sure some things get better. For example, I’m assuming we all get wiser. Yeah, right. We have more experience. I mean, the 10th time you’re doing bad water, you’re a little bit older, and you’re, you’re more experienced, which means you’re smarter,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 47:04

correct? All of that changing with age, I think that it really is, you do slow down, like I, it’s you slow down, but then some people aren’t slowing down. I think there’s such a mindset of just how hard do I want to work? Do I want to work hard enough to win that race, or do I want to work hard enough to participate in that race? You know, going fast, you have to do a lot of hard, fast work to get there. So I feel for myself personally, and many other people, we slow down because the desire to train to go fast kind of diminishes. Been there, done that, been there, done that. But I can still challenge myself, and I can still participate and be there, you know, in winning age groups, or whatever it might be. But I think staying strong is the key to even being able to continue the sport,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 48:08

and when you are training older women in their 60s, let’s say 50s, 60s, and they’ve never trained before, do you ever think, man, they are, they’re missing this, this piece that they have the opportunity, because you started, I think you won one of your first races at 35

Lisa Smith-Batchen 48:29

Yes,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 48:29

so you started earlier, and that was in the 90s.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 48:33

Yeah,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 48:33

people weren’t even many people weren’t challenging themselves in that way, and there’s always a first person, right? There’s always a first woman or a first guy or the first, that’s decades of having the opportunity to have the experience, because you knew what was on the table. Someone comes to you and they’re in their 60s or late 50s and they say, you know, I’ve never done this,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 49:01

how can I find what’s on the table for me, guiding them through experience, you know, sharing my experience, but also showing them facts and showing them other people that have just begun. You’re not the only one who’s just beginning, and it’s becoming bigger and bigger and bigger, and showing them the difference between lifting weights or being strong compared to not doing it at all, you know. Bone density, there’s that’s one of them. In aging, looking at posture, and every bit of from the tip of your toe to the top of your head is one big connection, and I think that many people that know me, or that I met, or trained say, like, well, you’re just a freak of nature. I’m like, no, I work really hard at it, you know, three, four days a week, I’m in the gym, like, you have to do this. Is if you want to do what I do, you have

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 50:03

to do this. This is the cost of doing business, essentially.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 50:06

Exactly, if you want to do this, if you want to keep skiing until you’re 8090, if you want to keep riding your bike, or keep walking fast, or running, this is what you need to do. And it, I’m not a freak of nature, because I do it, and I think more and more now are coming along, and you know, and you’re helping that a lot, by the way, for sure. Of all ages, it needs to start when we’re young, you know. I started when I was young, because I had a good mentor watching my brothers, I had a good mentor. I started pulling tires and carrying backpacks and weights when I was young, like that was

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 50:51

all. What did people say? Were they like

Lisa Smith-Batchen 50:53

to me?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 50:53

They’re there, is that crazy?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 50:55

What do you do? Yeah, what are you doing? But more and more and more they’re doing it, so obviously somewhere down the road, somebody was watching, and you know, and to me, if you can help one person, you’ve made a huge difference, because then that one person will help another person, and another person, and

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 51:15

becomes a ripple effect,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 51:17

ripple effect,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 51:18

that 50 year old will just say that she’s 50s, coming in, never trained before. How do you begin to think about putting together both nutrition and training for them who’s just starting out?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 51:32

I think about asking, you know, sitting down, obviously, or having them keep a food journal to see what they do eat. I think when people write down, you know, this is what I’ve eaten for the last three days, and they’re like, whoa, you know, they can actually see that’s where changes can be made, because I think it takes a realization of this is where you can make changes, and small, you know, small ones, but somebody who’s never started lifting weights, start them light, so they’re not too sore, they don’t feel defeated that the weights are too heavy, but encouraging to keep building, you know, keep adding more weight and adding more weight, and that’s very difficult to get people over 50, I’m going to say 60, I mean, but I have 7080 you know, in there I’ve got an 85 year old who’s doing farmer carries with 230 pound kettlebells. We started with five pound weights,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 52:36

so that’s amazing.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 52:37

It is amazing, you know, but it’s really helping somebody believe that they can and believing that they are capable of so much more, and what do you have to lose by trying? You have, you’re losing by not trying.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 52:52

I absolutely agree with you. When you think about designing a program, because you do design programs for people, what does it look like from a movement perspective, and here’s what I mean. Oftentimes, if someone is starting out, we know that machines are safe, even if in the training and athletic world people say, ‘Oh, don’t use machines, you need to do functional movements again, whatever that means. How do you begin to think about, and let’s say, let’s assume this person has access to everything, so they have access to a gym, they have access to kettlebells. How do you start putting together patterns of movement for them? Well, it’s uniquely different for each person, obviously, we’re all uniquely different based on age, size, goals, but I try to get people to learn how to use the equipment. First of all, say I’m coaching somebody who lives in Houston, Texas, and I’m in Wyoming. There’s always somebody in the gym who can take you around and show you how to use the equipment. Most important, form

Lisa Smith-Batchen 54:00

– I’m a form fanatic, I think that form keeps you injury free and will help you move forward with getting stronger. So, always finding somebody who is willing to show you how to use the machines.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 54:14

Do you decide? Do you think that they do? You always have someone start with a squat or is it a leg extension? Are there particular movements or body parts that you want to have everyone be doing?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 54:26

What’s 100% sit to stand,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 54:30

sit to stand,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 54:30

sit to stand. You’ve got to, when I’m teaching classes, which I do, squats are so crucial to longevity of life, in my opinion, I just think you’re sitting in a car, you sit in the bathroom, you have to sit on a soft sofa, and you watch people get up, and they can’t,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 54:52

and so that is the non-negotiable first thing, you teach them the squat, so that they can sit to stand,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 54:58

absolutely, number one.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 55:00

Okay, what’s next?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 55:01

Wall sits, lunges, pushups, pushups, being able to get yourself off the ground, whether you’re 20 or 80. If you somehow land on the ground doing a push up to help get yourself up,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 55:18

and was there something that happened along your career that made you reorient yourself to this, because this is it’s really wise. Again, you know, I trained in geriatrics, and when people are young and healthy, they’re not thinking about pushing off the floor, they’re not thinking about sit to stand, they’re not thinking about how long it’s going to take them, because you and I have both seen people try to get up out of the chair, and you know it’s heartbreaking.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 55:46

It’s heartbreaking,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 55:47

but most people aren’t necessarily thinking about the end point and the movements at the end point that people need to get to.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 55:58

I think the end point should be taught at a young age, so that you’re not getting to the end point. Your end point is when you’re very, very old, you know, in that you’ve actually trained yourself your whole life, because it is about life, and longevity is life, and it starts young. We don’t, you don’t have to start when you’re 80, but if you’re starting when you’re 80, that’s where we start you.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 56:23

Even if someone is, would you say, even if someone is in their 20s, you want to see them squat well, wall sit well.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 56:30

Absolutely,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 56:31

these are okay. These are the foundations.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 56:34

These are the foundations, and you asked, and I’ll go back to what you asked. How my dad started shuffling his feet, and it drove me crazy, and I’d say, “Dad, pick your feet up, pick your feet up, you know you’re going to fall, and he was afraid he was going to fall. So, the reason he was shuffling his feet was because he was afraid he was going to fall. Well, he did fall, and he broke his hip, and that was the end of his life. He died because of that. So, this was 12 years ago. I have been on a mission with all of my aging athletes to pick your feet up, like the minute you start shuffling, that’s it. You fall, you’re going to break something, and you know you’re lucky if you don’t. So, if you do fall, you have to get yourself up off the ground. And these things need to be taught young, like if you’re running, you’re picking your feet up, and you watch people how they move and pick their feet up. But picking your feet up really stems from your core it stems from your upper body too, so you can’t just think picking my feet up requires picking my feet up. I have to be strong to be able to continue to pick my feet up, and that fear is so real with aging athletes, aging people, that I’m going to fall, so I’m going to shuffle my feet, but they do it without even thinking about it, and that’s when they do fall.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 58:10

Well, I’m, I’m sorry that that happened. It is, it’s heartbreaking. It

Lisa Smith-Batchen 58:13

was heartbreaking, was very tough,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 58:16

and it’s, it must be also tough for you to see. I don’t know if you’re really on social media looking at it, but you’ll hear all these things like, oh, falling is not that big of a deal, and people are falling, but they’re not really dying from fall, and you’re just thinking, what, what world are you in that you don’t think that that’s happening,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 58:38

they are dying from fall,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 58:39

and that,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 58:41

or they’re never getting up, and they’re going to get a new hip, or they’re, and their rehab, and they are never their quality of life is so diminished,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 58:50

it is such a different.. I again, I worked in geriatrics, and part of geriatrics is palliative care, and you know, from an epidemiology standpoint, we just see numbers, oh, 150,000 people will fall, and you know, and in my mind, and I’m sure in your mind, that means nothing. We don’t know how many are unreported people don’t know that what happens after the fall, and how devastating it is, and the time beforehand, the idea that we have to get strong and stay strong is everything.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 59:27

Absolutely, the

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 59:28

cardiovascular activity is important.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 59:31

It’s an addition,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 59:32

but the foundation is strength. So, I appreciate your mission, and I would encourage the all athletes, but I think you do a great job with also the mature athletes to begin to think what’s for me, because on social media a lot of the push is the younger individuals, it’s just who not, I mean, listen,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 59:56

yes,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 59:57

the reality is when you are more mature, you got a lot of things going on. Yeah, at least you know you’ve got two kids, I’ve got kids. There’s just 500 other things we might not spend our time on TikTok, or I just learned about Snapchat, or some of these other things, which means that I assume many other people don’t have that kind of time, and they’re not looking at these social media platforms to try to get information, and I would encourage everyone, we’ll link your website and how they can find you, but I would encourage them to reach out to you, because you’ve had such experience with, I think, a deeply underserved population. It’s very underserved, it’s underserved from an execution standpoint.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:00:41

Agree,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:00:42

and it’s also underserved from a cognitive standpoint, and I’ll just tell you a quick story. So, when I finished fellowship, I did my fellowship at Wash U, and I had done a fellowship in nutritional sciences and geriatrics. I hadn’t really been on social media before. I mean, who’s got time, right? You’re working a lot of hours, and then with the hours that you’re not working, you’re studying, so that you can be a better doctor. Anyway, on social media, and there’s all this nonsense out there, people that are not, they don’t have the experience necessary to then inform the public in a, in a way that I think it’s some, you know, correct and honorable and right in many ways, you know what I mean, that it’s important if it’s your opinion and what experience an individual has versus what the science says and what we know from from good data, and where I’m going with this is that I realized that all this information that was being said, for example, reduce your protein intake, so you hear this information that may be okay if you’re younger and might not be important if you’re younger, but if a 60 year old is hearing reduce your protein intake, or if a 65 year old is hearing red meat is bad for you, or that strength training isn’t important, the magnitude of effect on those individuals, or that those people should be fasting, the negative effect, and the inability to then recover, say that muscle that will change the trajectory of their life

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:02:21

agree,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:02:22

and that’s why we need to have people like you talking, and that’s why we need to have the podcast, so that there is a form of education that has a conversation around it to really be able to experience what happens if the negative happens,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:02:43

true, and I’ve, you know, and I see it, I see it, you know, I’ve saw it in my own family, and it was devastating. Where, you know, I wish I hope everybody listens to your podcast and reads your books, and I’m so excited for what you are doing and your mission out there, because that’s how I’ve lived my life and that’s my philosophy, and I’m just me trying to get it out there, but I’m so grateful to you who is getting it out there, and kids are listening, my children are listening, they’re following you, and the ripple effect is what it’s all about, you know. When one person might hear what I have to say, I’ve mine comes from so much experience, trial and error, but I’m definitely here to tell you that protein is my main source, and I am concerned about youth with all carbs, all carbs, you know, back to running hundreds with only carbs, and you know that never worked for me, it just didn’t, and I’m a real food person, you know, in hundreds, I eat avocados, I eat string cheese, you know, like real food is the way to go,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:04:05

and I think

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:04:06

I think for most people, but there you have to try, you have to try to find out what’s going to work for you

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:04:14

when you are starting to work with someone, they do a food guide, or they do a start, a food guide, they write down their food. I’m sure in your mind you’re thinking, okay, this person needs to have at least 100 grams of protein, and, and how they’re going to do it. Do you have you seen changes over time, meaning what people come to you with, and then, and then the change that they get?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:04:38

Yes, I mean, a lot of people cookies and candy and chips, and you know, they don’t realize what they’re eating until they actually write it down, you know, you and then you see it like, well, can you replace those cookies with an apple or can you replace that with some cottage cheese or something like that, you know, there. There’s vegan and vegetarian, and there’s so many different ways of eating now, more than ever. You know, people who are in keto and only eating, you know, protein. I think that trying to get people into the mindset where you are leading, which is great, the more protein, but really just paying attention to yourself, you know. There has to be something with size of a person, the weight of a person, you know, all that. So, I do look at that with different people, but getting people to change is tough. Yeah, they have to want to. Yeah, they have to want to, and I always go back to, if you don’t try, you never know. So, why not try? Because this way you’ll find out,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:05:48

and hopefully try quickly, and then pivot. Yeah, what is necessary if you think about someone who is doing endurance, and I’m always curious, because that’s its own beast, right? You hear people fueling from jelly beans, like you said, in Gatorade, versus, you know, we had Zach Bitter on the show last year, and he was talking about how he was mostly, I mean, he’s a low-carb athlete, which is crazy. And then I see my husband’s cereal stash, yes, Shane, I found it, and yes, it’s now in the garbage. How do we formulate kind of a game plan as someone is listening to this, and they’re thinking, okay, well, you know, I’m not quite ready to run an ultra, but maybe I’ll start with a marathon, something to that nature,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:06:38

even a mile.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:06:39

Yeah,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:06:39

you know, you’ve got to start with something. Get off the couch. You’ve got to start with something

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:06:43

from

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:06:44

a nutrition standpoint,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:06:45

but even for a mile, your nutrition, it all goes hand in hand. Physical exercise, being strong, it all goes hand in hand. If you’re going to try to get strong, or you’re going to try to run a mile, or a 5k or a marathon, put it all together at once. Don’t, don’t wait. Like, what are you waiting for? You know, you can say, ‘Oh, next Monday I’m going to start, and then Monday comes, and you wait till next Monday. Well, soon it’s 20 years of Mondays, and you’ve been saying every Monday, every Monday. I mean, you have everything in your power to start today, like, quit postponing. I like that. Give it.. I mean, what are you waiting for? Find your why. I want to feel better. I want to be stronger. I want to live a long, healthy, thriving life. I don’t want to be sitting in the chair barely able to get up. These are personal choices, so why not take a choice?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:07:40

So, you’re saying strength is responsibility.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:07:42

Absolutely, and it’s

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:07:44

a choice.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:07:45

People take better care of their cars than they do their body. You can trade in your car, you get one body. It is up to you. It is so up to you. You could tell me, I can tell you, but you just have to make the choice and do it, what do you have to lose?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:08:03

You actually have a lot to lose. There’s a lot on the line, quite frankly.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:08:07

That’s so true. There’s a lot. There is a lot on the line. So I just think, give it a month. If you don’t like it, go back to what you were doing. Promise you won’t feel well going back to what you were doing

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:08:22

when you begin, I mean, they taught you coach people on nutrition when they’re doing the endurance or just

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:08:28

enjoying. I’m not a nutritionist, but I’ve learned a lot and studied a lot, and I work with people on their nutrition, you know, and mostly with my students that I coach. It’s finding out what works best for you,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:08:41

but is there a way? So, is there? Let me ask this a different way. It, do you find that there’s a formula, for example, we know, and this is just the numbers, that if someone is training at a certain heart rate, let’s say 120 beats per minute, that their carbohydrate use will be between 40 and 70 grams per hour. Are there calculations that you think about, or do you send that to someone else, or do you go, okay, so roughly that this hour this race is going to take 10 hours. Your target carbohydrate is around 500 Is are there formulas that

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:09:20

for each person, there is, I mean, I try to go more on calories, more

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:09:24

Zach said the same thing,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:09:25

you know, like 200 250 calories an hour, my calories 80% is protein,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:09:33

that’s amazing, and how many calories do you ingest in a day, roughly?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:09:38

Oh boy, I have never counted.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:09:39

Okay. Well,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:09:40

honestly, but say in training or in an event, I definitely,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:09:45

yes, during events,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:09:47

during events, I calculate, and I get 200 calories an hour, 250 at the most, which I’ve learned that’s all I can tolerate,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:09:58

because you’ll get GI. Side effects or bloating, or just not feel well, too full, but less than 200 I feel awful. And when you feel awful is when you really need to get the calories. Do you care where the calories come from? I care that they come for myself personally, more protein than carbohydrates, because that’s what I’ve learned works best for me. I wonder, it you know, I always think about the biochemistry of people, it sounds really nerdy, but your body generates its own carbohydrates from protein, and it just seems, for whatever reason, that you are someone who’s there, and typically that takes longer, but perhaps because it’s endurance, and I’m sure someone will send us the science. Perhaps because it’s endurance, there’s a length of time because you don’t do not do gels or any of that.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:10:52

I do, maybe every few hours I’ll do a gel. Do you

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:10:57

feel it when you

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:10:58

eat? I prefer applesauce. You prefer applesauce. We’ve

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:11:01

got some

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:11:01

90 calories, and the squeezies and applesauce, it’s easy, digestible, goes down quick, even in the heat, it’s still cold, feels cold, that’s when gels taste terrible, but yes, you can feel a gel, especially if it’s got caffeine and you’re tired,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:11:21

does it help you?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:11:22

It absolutely,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:11:23

and you use caffeine

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:11:25

if I’m tired,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:11:27

you know. Wow, you train without caffeine. I don’t actually. Yes, a true story. I did throw up this morning, I kid you not, because I had three cups of coffee, three cups of some kind of coffee. It was terrible. My coach, Carlos, over at Sigma said that it was because I was training so hard, and I’m like, no, dude, I over caffeinated, but he’ll, he’s gonna stick to his story, he

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:11:48

doesn’t see the over caffeinated,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:11:51

whatever you do, you don’t routinely use, we would consider caffeine an ergogenic aid, you don’t routinely use it unless you feel like you need it

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:12:00

in an event like I drink a cup of coffee every day, because I love the taste, but I wait till I need caffeine, because then it does really help. If I start with caffeine, I feel like I could seriously feel bombed, like if you start and use too much sugar, like you have a sugar crash if you’re not getting the sugar, you do. You have a sugar crash. I see in during the race, during the race. So that’s where I try to spread it out with a protein, so that there is no crash.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:12:34

What about supplements? Do you use any essential amino acids when you’re training, or branch chain, or creatine,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:12:42

I use creatine. I don’t use outsides right now.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:12:46

Outside of training, you use creatine.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:12:48

I do.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:12:48

Does that you find that that helps?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:12:50

Absolutely.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:12:53

When you see people go wrong, right? Because you think about your first race, the bath water, the asphalts melting, people’s shoes are melting, their face is melting off,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:13:02

and they say you can fry an egg on the road. I bet you could have seen it, but

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:13:05

I would totally eat that, you know, a little alcoholic cleanup, but I would totally eat that. Do you see common mistakes that are being made?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:13:16

I do. The common mistakes are going too fast in the beginning because you feel great, you feel like Seabiscuit, you know, you feel like the racehorse, not having a plan in place.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:13:30

Tell me, what do you mean by having a plan?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:13:32

You know, a plan for you, like,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:13:35

like during the race, meaning, okay,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:13:36

what’s

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:13:37

Dr. Lyons’s plan to go participate and run bad water,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:13:42

would the plan be

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:13:44

individual for

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:13:45

you? Meaning, here’s what my plan would be: don’t quit, don’t don’t wuss out, and don’t quit. Is that a good plan, or are you saying

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:13:54

no, that’s a terrible

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:13:55

plan? Okay, good.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:13:57

Because what if you did have to quit and wuss out,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:14:00

but I wouldn’t be an option, right? If you think about

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:14:02

always an option.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:14:04

Okay, give me a plan. I want

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:14:06

to hear. First of all, you have to have a nutrition strategy plan, like what are you going to eat the day before you’re going to go eat a bunch of bags of spinach and have gastriol, you know, distress? No, you know, so trying to get people to eat normal, and hopefully that normal comes up to like eating lean fish or chicken and rice and things that are going to be sustainable. What do you eat for breakfast that day? How soon before the race do you eat that breakfast? Do you have recommendations for, preferably, I like, like a bagel with almond butter, banana things of, you know, calories that are protein and carbs that are easily digestible and sustainable, and drinking your sports drink, whatever. There are millions of choices of drinks like the one that you have chosen that you’ve trained with, and that’s going to work with you, so that you actually start out hydrated and getting like 100 calories before the event starts. That’s when you start your I’m going to try to get 100 calories every 30 minutes, so that I sustain myself for the period of time, and constantly sipping fluids, like if you, if you wait an hour in 120 years, you’re done,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:15:33

you’re done,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:15:34

or if you, you know, your weight, so you’re constantly sipping, constantly, you know, I have my students do a sweat test. How much sodium?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:15:42

Oh, let’s talk about that. That is so cool.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:15:44

How much sodium do you need? Like, everyone’s different.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:15:46

Yeah, that’s very cool. Do you have a kit that you use or something like that?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:15:50

Well, you can buy kits, but there’s also a formula that you can use, you know, you, it’s a dry heat, but man, you are hot and you are sweaty. How much sodium people are afraid to take sodium when you’re in an environment of that kind of heat, you need sodium,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:16:09

and wouldn’t you say, or would you say it’s fair that when people are sweating, it’s not – I mean, it’s not just water, they’re sweating out electrolytes, they’re sweating out sodium, and that if you just replete with water, that’s probably not the most effective repletion strategy.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:16:26

No, I mean, water is water, but it’s not electrolytes, and it’s not.. I mean, you’re not going to make it on just water.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:16:33

No, I mean, and it’s a really good freak, unless you’re a freak,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:16:36

unless you’re a freak, that’s

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:16:37

yeah,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:16:38

sure, but it’s, you know, so you have a plan. You have a plan with, you know, how much sodium you need, the calories that you need. You know, you’re smaller than me, maybe you only need 150 calories an hour, but you’ve worked on that in your training, and that what is what fuels you to feel good. And if you stray off that, you’re gonna bonk,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:17:00

and you know, and by bonking you just mean like that’s

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:17:03

it, you can’t sit, but you can come back, but you might have to rest, you know, if you’re having to sit down and chug bottles of electrolytes, you’re way behind,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:17:12

yeah,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:17:12

like there is a way to stay on top of it.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:17:15

We recommend, so I still have a medical practice, and obviously I’m here in Texas, but we have athletes all over the country, and one of the things that we always have them do is, again, we always have them use electrolytes. One of the electrolytes that formulas that we have them use is it’s a company called Body Health, and it’s Body Health electrolytes, and these electrolytes also have some essential amino acids. Yeah, that’s great, because try those. I’ll give you some. Actually, I’ll give you a box. What we’re seeing is that it’s not just a utilization of carbohydrates, but they’re also using the body’s protein, and this, when you replete it, you replete the fluids, but you also replete some amino acids during training, and it seems to be able to help people go further,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:18:04

makes perfect. Yes,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:18:06

again, I don’t. I personally don’t recommend people just replacing water, especially if they are sweating or being super physically active. You had mentioned one of my favorite books, which I read many years ago was way of the peaceful warrior. This is Dan Millman. Did you read that book?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:18:27

Oh yeah,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:18:28

I’m assuming that you did, because you talk about a peaceful warrior approach. What do you mean by that? Boy, literally, I mean by that it’s.. it kind.. I mean, it came from the book, anyway, a lot years, years, and years ago of reading the book, but

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:18:47

alter running like brings such peace, and ultimately we are all warriors in some way of life, with your passion and your purpose and your why, a warrior mean not meaning, you know, going off to battle, but in a way you are a little bit going off to battle. So I choose to be peaceful in my way of movement, in my way of life, that it’s, you know, it comes with wisdom, and I think when I did the Badwater Quad,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:19:23

which has 480

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:19:25

584 it’s the Bad Water course four times, and find Mount Whitney twice, you would love

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:19:31

1. I love, yeah, I like other crazy things, but I probably, I probably would love the experience. Yeah, you did, you were the first person to ever complete the route from Las Vegas to the Mount Whitney Summit.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:19:48

Yeah, I think.. I mean,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:19:49

I mean, that’s what our.. that’s done it since, maybe

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:19:53

since,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:19:53

but not that I know of. But yeah, there’s such a sense of peace in. Competitive motion and moving through spaces on your feet, where it’s just the stars in you, it’s something else you know. Will you encourage, try to carry through my life?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:20:14

Will you encourage your kids to run this much?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:20:17

My kids, one is bodybuilding right now, she’s entered her first competition, and my youngest daughter has now entered her first half marathon. I have never pushed them to run; they, this is their, their chosen path. So, I think that they, you know, our kids are watching us. They watch what you do, they watch what you eat, and they, they learn.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:20:45

At least, I hope they learn. My kids don’t really listen that well,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:20:48

but believe me, they’re watching you, and they, they are listening at their best ability at this age.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:20:56

Well, my son is training for the SEAL teams,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:20:57

of course. He will, you know,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:21:01

and that had nothing to do with

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:21:03

1. Keep that dream alive.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:21:04

Hey, I mean, it’s all him.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:21:06

Yeah,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:21:07

yesterday you see him running in. I

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:21:08

remember meeting him. He told me himself he was training a SEAL team.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:21:13

That’s probably because we were cold plunging in Wyoming, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and there’s snow on the ground. He’s like, “Mom, let’s go swimming. Like, son, there’s ice on

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:21:24

the resilience

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:21:25

of pool. If you know, it makes me think, is there a difference between because you’ve watched people run 10 miles and then you watch them run 100 Is there an obvious mental toughness difference between those that are going to make it, those that are going to stay at the 10, assuming they all have a strong why. Is there something that you’re like that person, they got

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:21:55

it? It’s really watching the evolution of the person, the growth of the person and your why is forever changing. Sometimes you know your passion and your purpose, your purpose and your passion, they change and they evolve with growth. Some people decide that they don’t love it, you know that there’s something else out there for them. Maybe the 10 miles made them perfectly happy. Then there’s others who get to the 10 mile and they want to try something more and more and more, but some are quite satisfied. And to me, you can pick some of these people out, but you can also change your mind if you see potential in them in growth, and that they’re really capable, that we all get stuck, you know, sometimes. Or maybe they had a bad experience, and that, you know, we, they say, like, you didn’t finish something. There’s reasons why we don’t finish things. I mean, I have certainly not finished things, and I don’t call them DNF, you, you stink, you know, you’re no good, that’s basically what it says to people, DNF, I call it an MTRC,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:23:11

which

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:23:12

is made the right choice, or make the right choice, you know, live to race another day, sometimes the wheels fall off, and there are necessary reasons why you’re not going to be able to finish, but we shouldn’t be made to feel bad about it. Those are the best growth lessons, right there, is to learn from not finishing something. It’s not failure, it’s literally learning, and if you learn something, you’ve won.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:23:43

It’s sorry. Where’s my water? Do

Speaker 1 1:23:48

you want more? Before you say again,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:23:49

yeah. How far? How long? Here, let me grab it. How long are we?

Speaker 1 1:23:52

Hour 23

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:23:53

Okay, so I’ll wrap up. You’re doing great. I hope you’re having fun. I’m having so much so much, I I’m learning so much, Matt. That’s a really great clip. The idea that, because we always talk about failure, that it’s about learning.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:24:16

Sorry, your hamstring hurts.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:24:18

Actually, starting to feel better now that the Tylenol kicked in, you know, trying to move, not trying to move, was worth it. Talking about, do not finish, Matt, is there anything that you was on your mind? Because I wanted to talk to her more about that.

Speaker 1 1:24:37

No, go ahead. I just think it’s incredible. I think it’s,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:24:42

I mean,

Speaker 1 1:24:43

I think it’s awesome.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:24:46

Thank you.

Speaker 1 1:24:47

Really amazing. Yeah,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:24:48

yeah. Because Matt can’t run a block.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:24:50

No,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:24:51

I’m just kidding. He could totally run a block.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:24:53

Let’s go, Matt. He could hang around me long enough, I’ll get to believe, and you can do it. Yeah,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:25:01

I’m hearing this common theme through the conversation, and there’s a level of reframing to positivity. Did you, did, do you experience that the same way?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:25:13

Absolutely.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:25:14

Is that a conscious choice?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:25:15

It is

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:25:16

a conscious choice. I mean, you can either walk around and feel bad about something, or you can find the silver lining. I definitely believe that we have experiences, good, bad, and ugly, and hopefully more are good than anything, sort of like average good or great,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:25:35

average good or

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:25:36

good or great. I mean, you can be an average golfer. I’m an average golfer. I’m a good cook, but greatness. How do you hit greatness?

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:25:45

How do you hit greatness?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:25:46

It’s a lifetime of work. It’s a lifetime of work to hit greatness. I mean, you, you are hitting greatness, and you have

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:25:53

that’s arguable, but

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:25:54

no, I mean it for an outsider looking in, you have hit greatness, and it’s so amazing to watch, you know, and you have a lot more greatness in you because you’re still striving, you’re still moving forward, you know. For myself, I’m, I want to be a great mother, a great, you know, spouse, a great friend, a great daughter, and then a great coach, or a great mentor, or somebody who can influence even one person to really find what you’re capable of doing, and not just physically, emotionally, spiritually, and that comes with being peaceful. It comes with being peaceful and accepting not everything is going to turn out the way you trained for,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:26:39

and it doesn’t have to be this, our society part of what I think society does is they say, okay, well, this was a failure, you turn the failure into success and feel bad about it, because that feeling bad about it is going to move you to a place where you’re never going to do it again, but what you’re saying is definitely more of the way of this peaceful warrior, that okay, didn’t go as planned, but that doesn’t mean it was bad. Means whatever that decision you made at that time was the right decision for you, and that simple fact of being the decision that you made that was right for you at the right time can perpetuate into something even greater, is that, is

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:27:23

that

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:27:24

accurate? Yep. Make the right choice, or I made the right choice for me. I didn’t fail, you know. A DNF does not mean you fail, it means you actually learn, and you made a really good choice that I’m not able to finish today. Something I trained really, really hard for, or you know, in the Olympics, I trained to win, somebody trained to win, and they were 10th place because they got a flat tire during the triathlon, I mean, the wheels fell off, you had to make a choice, How does someone practice that by believing that anything is possible, good, bad, the ugly, average good, or great, like you can train for the best, the best of the best, and hope to have your best day, and it doesn’t turn out that way. Are you going to spend the rest of your days never doing it again, because you feel bad.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:28:23

Some people do,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:28:24

some people do, but you know, I heard your assistant this morning, she had a terrible experience in her first ultra, because it didn’t turn out the way she had thought the course would be. It was more rocky, so she’s never doing another

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:28:38

one. I mean, midway through 100 miles,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:28:41

right? Right. So I’m sad that she had an awful experience, and that it turned her into I don’t want to do that again, because there’s a lot to learn from that.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:28:54

Do we have to come to a place where this is an interesting, an interesting thought? So let’s say she had completed it, and it was a what she interpreted as a terrible experience. Is that enough to say, you know what, that’s not for me?

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:29:15

Yes,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:29:15

but the idea that there is something that is unfinished, do you believe that that should be finished, and then the decision should be made.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:29:25

I believe in seriously contemplating unfinished business, like why your why, why did you sign up in the first place? Okay, I didn’t finish this time, and I can give you a good example.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:29:40

I would love to hear a good, I would love an example of unfinished business.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:29:43

Give you an example, so 10 bad waters, right? 10 bad waters, but I had one unofficial finish, meaning I didn’t finish the official race course. I had landed in the hospital getting an IV. You’re disqualified from the race, but I left the hospital, and I went and finished the race. I went and finished, but it was unofficial. So, for years, that I was fine with it. Got 10 bad waters, got 10, even though one’s unofficial, but it never went away, like you know, reading she did nine bad waters and one unofficial, so she had 10, but it was one unofficial, so I really was eating at me that unofficial, so that’s when I went back and got the 10th official, so in my mind it was unfinished business, but that was me. I really wanted to have the official, so you got to decide what’s important to you. You know, was it so bad when you made the choice to not finish that you truly were not enjoying it at all? You never want to go back again. You found out that this isn’t for you. That’s okay, because there is something else for you,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:31:02

but there’s a danger in having unfinished business.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:31:05

There’s a danger in having it. You have to live with it. You have to be okay with it. You’re the one who has to say, ‘doesn’t matter to me, but does it really not matter? You know, I coach a lot of people that haven’t finished things. I mean, we hope that you’re going to finish, but if you don’t, there’s a conversation. Why did you not finish? What? How are you feeling about this? You know, you, you have to come to some peace with the decision that you made. You know, you broke your leg. You know, yeah, you can keep going on your broken leg, but I don’t recommend it, right? I mean,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:31:42

yeah, you can finish, but the consequences of that,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:31:46

consequences of that. So, you like, literally, when you’re in it, and you’re making that decision, is it because you’re tired, and you’re sore, and you’re, you know, feeling bad for yourself, and all your whys have gone out the door. It’s, you have to bring yourself back to why are you here. Why did you sign up for this? You signed up for this,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:32:07

and

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:32:08

if you decide to not finish, we need to figure out why. And if you want to go back again,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:32:17

would you say it’s more dangerous to start something and not finish it is to not start it at all.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:32:24

Oh boy, that is such a great question. I think if you can’t stop thinking about it, you really should sign up, like if you just can’t stop thinking about it, sign up. You have everything in your power to try your best to get to the starting line, you know, and getting to the starting line is half the battle, along with your nutrition and strength and everything else that goes with it. If you want to dedicate yourself to improving yourself, and if it doesn’t work out, you’ll be okay. You’ll be okay, because you’ll be better for it,

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:33:00

but then you better complete it the next time,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:33:02

and if it doesn’t work out the next time, I mean, I know people who’ve gone that 567, times to finish to like do something. Look at Diana Naird, like what it took her six tries to swim across the ocean. The first five she didn’t make it, but I have such respect that it was so important to her that she figured out how to finish, she figured it out, and but it’s that’s not for everybody, you know, but finishing and completing things are important.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:33:36

Lisa Smith Bachchan, thank you so much for coming on the show. I’m extremely inspired. I know that the listener is going to be, and the viewer is going to be inspired by your commitment to both excellence and living someone’s dream, living their dream, so that it’s not left on the table. And then finally, I know that you’re on a mission to make people stronger, and it means so much to you, and I know you personally, and I’ve seen it, and I am just really grateful. Thank you,

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:34:08

thank you. I’m grateful for you.

Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 1:34:14

You did great. I have some. We have more questions. You feel good about it? It was so good.

Lisa Smith-Batchen 1:34:18

Yeah.