Heather Jackson: Gravel & Ultra Trail Running Pro - Positive Risks, Growth & the Power of Starting Something New

Christopher Blevins is a mindfulness practitioner who builds community and a more inclusive and healthy world through bikes. He’s one of the best professional mountain bikers America has ever produced and one of the best in the world. He has won the Cape Epic and taken gold in the mountain bike world championships in the short track and cross-country mixed relay disciplines. He has also won UCI World Cups in the short track and cross country disciplines. Outside of bike racing, Christopher has a wide range of interests. He started his own production company, produces and performs music and is an active member in a sangha, a Buddhist community. You can find him on social @christopherblevs. Choose the Hard Way is brought to you by Palm Tree Pod Co. If you’re ready to start a podcast or want to take your existing podcast to the next level, the team at Palm Tree Pod Co. is your ace. They’re the team behind some of the best podcasts on the planet and they’re ready to help you make your podcast all that it can be. Find them today at www.palmtreepodco.com and on social @palmtreepodco. I helped start The Better Lab because I found that there are many people out there like me who know a lot about sleep and track their sleep and recovery but still struggle to do the things that actually improve sleep. Get the Better Lab app now in the Apple App Store and be more rested, happy and present for the moments that matter most to you in life. Learn more at www.thebetterlab.io and DM @thebetterlabhq and let me know what you think. Watch on YouTube Sign up for the Hard Way Newsletter- - - - - - - - - -  Choose The Hard Way Website | Instagram Andrew Vontz LinkedIn

Kristen Faulkner is an American pro cyclist who won the gold medal in the women’s cycling road race at the Paris Olympics in truly stunning fashion, surpassing two of the most dominant racers in the sport with a bold attack that left them looking at each other while she drilled it to victory. It’s one of my favorite bike races I’ve ever watched. If you want to know what it took for Kristen to get to her gold medal moment, this episode is for you. Remember in life and sport, everything changes. No risks, no champagne. This episode is a replay of my 2023 conversation with Kristen and Spencer Martin, my co-host on Beyond the Peloton, America’s fastest growing independent pro cycling analysis podcast. My whole family loves watching Kristen race and my daughter is one of her biggest fans. After this episode originally aired, Kristen took time to send my daughter a video encouraging her to keep riding and to keep doing the art projects she loves. Trust me when I tell you that’s not something that many world-class athletes would take the time to do. Kristen did, because that’s the kind of human she is. When you reach out and lift people up, it makes a difference. This episode is brought to you by The Better Lab. I’ve found that when I get bad sleep, everything in my life is worse and when I get good sleep, everything in my life gets better--I’m a better parent, I’m a better partner to my wife, I’m more creative, I think more clearly, I’m more effective at work and I enjoy riding my bike more. The science to get great sleep is straightforward. But putting it into practice can be really hard. That’s why we built The Better Lab, the app that guides you to mindfully build science-backed practices to sleep better that stick. What works is what you get done consistently and The Better Lab helps you take simple steps every day to be more present, aware and conscious as you build one practice at a time to sleep better. Get the Better Lab app now for free in the Apple App Store and learn more at www.thebetterlab.io. Give it a try and DM me @hardwaypod and tell me what you think. I’d love to hear your feedback. Choose the Hard Way is the podcast about how hard things build stronger humans who have more fun. Humans like you. Please take a moment to rate this show five stars wherever you listen to podcasts and share this episode with a pal. In This Episode: Kristen Faulkner Instagram, Twitter - - - - - - - - - -  Andrew Vontz LinkedIn Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher Sign up for the Hard Way Newsletter Choose The Hard Way is a Palm Tree Pod Co. production 

A student struggling with his practice once asked the zen master Shunryu Suzuki to boil down Buddhism into a single phrase. Suzuki thought for a moment, then he responded: everything changes.  This is part two of my conversation with Cory Richards about his memoir, The Color of Everything. Cory is bipolar and at different moments in his life he has been famous, homeless, institutionalized and an addict. He has climbed Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen, he won the National Geographic Adventurer of the Year award and he has traveled the planet adventuring and shooting for Nat Geo. Then he started over as a writer.  Healthy, sick, good, bad, rich, poor, famous, homeless. Everything changes.  A great book is one you can’t put down that you miss when it’s over. The Color of Everything is such a book and I highly recommend reading it.  This episode is brought to you by The Better Lab. Good sleep amplifies health, wellness and performance. Getting good sleep can be hard and many people struggle to consistently take the actions that support solid sleep.  That’s why I co-founded The Better Lab, the app that helps active people like you to mindfully build conscious, science-backed practices to sleep better that stick. It’s just what works to help you get great sleep and you can get started today at www.thebetterlab.io and the app is live in the Apple App Store. Check it out and send a DM to @hardwaypod to let me know what you think.  Choose the Hard Way is the podcast about how hard things build stronger humans who have more fun. The purpose of this podcast is not for you to envy, admire or imitate the stories people like Cory share here. This podcast is here to hopefully inspire and empower you to fully embrace being the writer of your own story. It’s a great one, you’re the author and you bring it into being every moment. Find Cory @coryrichards on Instagram and pre-order The Color of Everything here. Watch on YouTube Sign up for the Hard Way Newsletter- - - - - - - - - -  Choose The Hard Way Website | Instagram Andrew Vontz LinkedIn

Doing hard things with friends is fun and even when you lose, you win. In 2014 I took second at Unbound 100 and superstar creator and now BJJ black belt @blakeoftoday took third. This episode originally dropped in 2019. I skipped the weddings of several close friends and trained 20+ hours many weeks for months to prepare for this event.  When we did the race and when we originally recorded this episode it kind bummed me out that I didn’t win the race in 2014 or in 2015 when I went back and got second again with a side of food poisoning that left me unable to hold down food for a week after the race. Now I’m just grateful for the memories I have of training for and competing in this brutal event with Blake and for everything that happened along the way. With Unbound coming up this weekend, I wanted to drop this episode again for anyone who is new to the show and anyone has an interest in Unbound. This may be difficult to imagine, but 2014 was a time when there were zero tubeless gravel tires on the market and I ran 50 psi in tubed Clement MSOs and lived. A lot has changed since then and a lot has changed since I created Choose the Hard Way. When I started this project in 2017, I thought the point was to share lessons learned at the limits of human experience. Over time I’ve realized people, including me, forget most of the specific details that they hear on podcasts--but they almost always remember how podcasts make them feel. And at their best, the stories we hear on great podcasts motivate and inspire us to take action and be more present in other areas of our lives. This episode is brought to you by The Better Lab. Sleep is the greatest performance enhancer on the planet and the science to improve sleep is straightforward. Putting it into action on your own can be challenging. That’s why I co-founded The Better Lab to help guide active people like you to mindfully build conscious, science-backed practices to sleep better that stick. We’re an early stage startup and right now the Better Lab app is free in the Apple App store. You can find the link in the show notes. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/better-lab/id6479452885 Check it out and as an early user, we want to hear your feedback to help us continually improve the product. Shoutout to Hard Way listeners Chris Scott, Jeffrey Nebolini, Shannon Jones and many others who have been using the app to get better sleep and sharing their feedback with us. Thank you! You can learn more at www.thebetterlab.io.

Joe Petrowski landed a great job as an aerospace engineer right out of college. Then he got the bike racing bug. People told him to stick with his demonstrably awesome, impressive and very high paying gig. Instead, he quit to go live in at times dismal conditions to be a pro cyclist, first in the UK then in France. And if you’re not familiar with domestic pro cycling in France, teams there are known for their extremely old school, hardcore and at times totalitarian approaches.  Joe had some great times and also often wondered if he had made a huge mistake and what the hell he was doing. He never stepped up to the World Tour, the highest level of the sport.  And years later, he thinks going for it as a pro cyclist is one of the best and most important decisions he ever made.  Eventually he left pro cycling and went into computer science, high frequency trading and to what he does now, working on the decentralized web at polkadot.  People who stop doing the thing people who are not them tell them they should do to go do the thing they know they have to do intrigue me. That’s Joe. Don’t forget, you’re the hero in your story, you are writing it every day, and when you hear the call to adventure, listen. It is after all, your story. Choose the Hard Way is the podcast about how hard things build stronger humans who have more fun.  This episode is brought to you by The Better Lab. Sleep is the greatest performance enhancer on the planet and the science to improve sleep is straightforward. Putting it into action on your own can be challenging. That’s why I co-founded The Better Lab to help active people like you mindfully build conscious, science-backed practices to sleep better that stick. It’s just what works to help you get great sleep and you can get started today at www.thebetterlab.io.  I make this podcast available for free and all I ask is that you go to the show page for Choose the Hard Way on iTunes and Spotify and hit 5 stars. To be in touch, DM me @hardwaypod on Instagram or email [email protected]. Find Joe at https://petrow.ski/.  Thanks to our sponsor The Better Lab Watch on YouTube Sign up for the Hard Way Newsletter- - - - - - - - - -  Choose The Hard Way Website | Instagram Andrew Vontz LinkedIn

Charisma, fame, good looks, superhuman physical and artistic achievement. Some people seem to have done everything and to be everything you dream of becoming. And as Cory Richards shares in this interview, everything can be nothing and anything can be the opportunity for presence, mindfulness and connection to who and what matters most.    Cory climbed Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen in 2016 and was the first and only American to climb one of the world’s 8,000 meter peaks in winter, where he almost died in an avalanche and took one of the most famous photos of his career that became the cover of the 125th anniversary issue of National Geographic. Cory has been a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year and National Geographic Photographer fellow.    His memoir, The Color of Everything, out July 9th, tells the story of his journey with mental health and how it has shaped his life, his path as an adventurer and artist and his decision to walk away from climbing, photography and shed his former identities to move to LA and be a writer.    Once I started reading The Color of Everything, I couldn’t put it down and since I finished it, I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s a profound, must-read book and I’m sure you’ll see it on many best of the year lists come December. (Pre-)order it now here.    I worked with Cory in support of his Everest expeditions in 2016 and 2017 and since I started this podcast in 2018, I’ve wanted to have him on the show. I’m glad it took six years of exchanging messages for this interview to happen, because now is the right time and I’m excited to share it with you. Find Cory on Instagram @coryrichards and at www.coryrichards.com. Thanks to our sponsor The Better Lab Watch on YouTube Sign up for the Hard Way Newsletter- - - - - - - - - -  Choose The Hard Way Website | Instagram Andrew Vontz LinkedIn

Heather Jackson has won six full Ironman triathlons, 16 Ironman 70.3 races, the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon and she also won the Wildflower triathlon four times. She played D1 hockey at Princeton where she was a two-time captain and was on the US National team for cycling track racing. In 2023, she left triathlon to be a pro gravel racer AND a pro ultra trail runner. In her first season she won the Belgian Waffle Ride San Diego and the Javelina 100 foot race. I mean, damn.  Heather has an awesome YouTube channel and if you’re a fan, you know she has done a lot of media and podcast appearances. In this interview, we get into new material and talk about Heather’s mind game, why she continues to take positive risks and try new things and much more. Find Heather on YouTube and Instagram @hjacksonracing, find those links in the show notes. A big thank you to Michael Marckx and Heather’s husband Wattie for helping make this interview happen and to Heather for everything she graciously shares in this conversation.  Choose the Hard Way is a podcast about how doing hard things is fun and builds stronger humans. If you haven’t done this already, now would be a great time to help me help you. To do that, just hit subscribe and rate the show five stars on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and share this episode with someone you care about. To be in touch, DM me @hardwaypod on Instagram. This episode is brought to you by Movemint. If you’ve ever registered for a bike ride, run or charity event like a walk-a-thon, you know the experience usually sucks. Movemint is a new events registration platform that makes event discovery, registration and management a better, more cost effective and delightful experience for event promoters and customers. It’s making a broken and bad experience so much better that I knew I had to get involved and that’s why I’m an advisor to the company. If you’re an event promoter, go to www.movemint.cc to learn more. Thanks to our sponsors:  The Better Lab Movemint  

Michael Marckx is the founder and CEO of the Belgian Waffle Ride, one of the biggest and most influential multi-surface, gravelish series in the world. He’s a prime mover behind what has become today’s booming gravel scene and wow, this guy has lived what would be 20 lives the average human.  We talk everything that went into the birth of the BWR including Michael’s time as CEO of a publicly traded company, his other career as a professional musician, his other other career as a professional triathlete during the golden age of the sport when Kenny Souza had unrivaled hair and Mark Allen and Dave Scott were battling it out for the Ironman and Michael’s childhood in an environment where running marathons when you were 12 was normal.  Most importantly, we talk about why you should pick something hard to do with friends and go do it. That’s what I did last fall when I did the BWR Kansas Wafer with the No Pressure No Diamonds crew and got a taste of the Belgian Waffle magic then swore I would never go back and am now going back.  Choose the Hard Way is the show about how hard things build stronger humans who have more fun. Please help more people find this podcast. To do that, just hit subscribe and rate the show five stars on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and share this episode with someone you care about.  We are in year six of Choose the Hard Way and it’s going to be a big one with some amazing guests and the chance for us to spend some time together as a community at a few gatherings and live events.  To make it all happen I’m open to mission-aligned sponsors I’d be proud to share with my audience directly supporting the show this season. If you or someone you know have a company that wants to reach the high-achieving, high-influence, highly networked people who listen to this show and do amazing things, then send a DM to @hardwaypod or email us at [email protected]. I’m also ready to retire the Giant TCX cyclocross bike I’ve been using to race gravel since 2015 and I’m ready for a new ride. If you’re in the industry and work for a company that makes an amazing bike you’d like me to race and talk about this year, holler at me and let’s make it happen.  Finally, I’m going to have big news to share some time in the next few episodes about the business I started that I’ve quietly been working on for the past 18 months. We are getting ready to publicly release our product and I want to give you all the opportunity to be among the first to get to try it. Go to choosethehardway.com to sign up for the newsletter and if there’s someone you think would make a great guest, DM @hardwaypod or send an email to [email protected]. To learn more about BWR go to @belgianwaffleride and you can find Michael gram’ing @ibemmx.   

Joe Goettl grew up working on a farm, almost made it as a pro snowboarder and went deep into competitive running--until he hit an endless string of injuries that doctors said would end his athletic career. Here we are in 2023 and Joe is a rising YouTuber & pro cyclist knocking on the door of gravel greatness.  During the week, Joe trains, coaches athletes and works a heavy schedule in retail to fund the costs of his gravel program that his sponsors don’t cover. On the weekends, Joe travels the nation to race and has come within spitting distance of podiums at gravel majors like the Belgian Waffle Ride Utah.  Hailing from the land of sky blue waters, Joe is a true privateer pursuing the American gravel dream, cool as a mountain stream. This is the story of gravel minus sprinter vans, $400,000 motor homes, World Tour pedigrees and a marketing team manufacturing a grassroots and raw approach to the sport. This is the gritty and raw approach to the sport. You can find Joe  @jgoettl2.0 on Instagram. Watch on YouTube Sign up for the Hard Way Newsletter - - - - - - - - - -  Choose The Hard Way Website | Instagram Andrew Vontz LinkedIn

One day you wake up and a thing called the Life Time Grand Prix exists and two years later it’s all anyone who follows pro cycling in America can talk about. How did we get here? And what’s next?  Today, we find out.  Kimo Seymour is  the Senior Vice President of Media and Events at Life Time and the creator of the Life Time Grand Prix. He’s also an endurance sports overachieve with 11 IRONMAN finishes and nine smoking fast times at the Leadville 100 mountain bike race to his credit. Life Time has transformed the level of competition in offroad racing, birthed an entirely new hybrid pro racing series that mixes disciplines in a way we’ve never seen before in pro cycling and has created a content and coverage flywheel that is turning heads.  The Grand Prix brings together an exclusive group of professional cyclists who compete in a series of legendary and soon to be legendary mountain bike and gravel races.  In the process, they’ve attracted top talent from across all cycling disciplines and created a vibe you won’t find anywhere else in pro cycling. Kimo and his team have been instrumental in making it happen and Alex Howes plays an unexpected and crucial role. We go deep. We go kiting. We talk sepsis, kiting and epic feats of endurance. It’s everything we’ve dreamed of and more.  Kimo has been one of my most requested guests and I’m excited to share this interview with you.  We’re getting close to 200 5-star ratings and whether you’re a long-time listener or a new one, please take a moment and help me bring you more awesome guests you want to hear. When you hit 5 stars, you help make it happen. Thank you.  Choose the Hard Way is the podcast about how hard things build stronger humans who have more fun. I love hearing from you so if you want to let me know what you think of this episode or who you’d like to hear from next, DM me @hardwaypod.  To learn more about the Life Time Grand Prix, go to @lifetimegrandprix.    Watch on YouTube Sign up for the Hard Way Newsletter - - - - - - - - - -  Choose The Hard Way Website | Instagram Andrew Vontz LinkedIn