July 22, 2024 • 37 mins
Join us as we dive into an eye-opening conversation with journalist and author Christine Yu, discussing her latest book, "Up to Speed: The Groundbreaking Science of Women in Sport." This essential read is exactly what the world of girls' sports needs today. Christine shares her journey of discovering the lack of education and accurate information regarding the menstrual cycle and how it impacts women in sports.
Menstrual Cycle and Sports: Christine explores the emerging science on periods, hormones, breasts, and body shame, and how these factors affect female athletes.
Normalizing Conversations: The importance of breaking the taboo, stigma, and shame around women's health and performance in sports.
Long-Term Health: How understanding these aspects is crucial for keeping sports safe, helping girls thrive, and reducing the dropout rate in sports.
Statistics: The Women's Sports Foundation reports that 40% of teen girls are not actively participating in a sport, and boys have 1.3 million more sport opportunities than girls.
Christine’s personal story and curiosity about women's health in sports.
The necessity of educating athletes, coaches, and parents about the menstrual cycle and its effects on performance.
Strategies for creating a supportive environment for female athletes.
Stay tuned until the end when Christine shares the five people she would invite to her dream dinner party, including Simone Biles, Kara Goucher, and Allyson Felix.
Don’t miss this insightful episode that’s set to revolutionize how we understand and support women in sports. Subscribe now, and let’s normalize these crucial conversations together!
LINKS:
Christine Yu https://www.instagram.com/cyu888/
Kara Goucher https://www.instagram.com/karagoucher/
PEAC-train like a girl https://www.instagram.com/peac_train_like_a_girl/
Alison Felix https://www.instagram.com/felix_alison/
Simone Biles https://www.instagram.com/simonebiles/?hl=en
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
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Welcome to PEAK, Train to Girl, a podcast by girls in sport for girls and coaches in sport.
We're here to amplify your voice. It deserves to be heard.
At PEAK, we are a safe place for girls to hang out, learn, grow, and build community.
We empower girls in sport and coaches with knowledge, resources,
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and support we think is necessary in today's athletic environments to with Thrive.
Join us for bold conversations about the experiences of girls in sport.
Our discussions will make you laugh, cry, cheer, get frustrated,
and hopefully rethink the future of girls in sport for generations to come.
So whether you're walking, commuting, or cleaning your bedroom, take us with you.
(00:56):
Follow us. It helps more than you can imagine. Check out our website and share
with a female athlete or coach you love.
Now, I want to give a brief introduction to our next guest.
I am so over the moon, thrilled and delighted to introduce you all to author Christine Yu.
(01:16):
Christine published a book, Up to Speed. I think it's been about a year,
the beginning of May in 2023.
And I have literally been through this book 17 times.
It's on our website as a trusted
resource and anytime somebody tells me what's
the next best read for girls in sport I absolutely point them to this book Christine
(01:40):
is an incredible author she is passionate about sport she has a way of communicating
complex issues and details in a way that's super digestible,
which is what I really appreciate about it.
But I think the thing that I like best about Christine is her willingness and
(02:01):
openness to share her wisdom, knowledge, and insight with anybody.
When I reached out to Christine to be on our podcast, she did not hesitate.
She absolutely said that she'd be happy to share her wisdom and her information.
And I am telling you, I have not stopped talking about that.
You can ask my interns, since she agreed to be on our podcast.
(02:23):
So I don't want to waste any more time. I want to go ahead and get warmed up.
Christine, are you ready?
I am. Thank you so much for having me on this podcast.
Absolutely. All right. Cat or dog? Dog.
Winter or summer oh gosh
we're in the middle of like a terrible heat wave on the east
(02:44):
coast i have to say winter right now i'm i'm shown the same way i'm a i'm a
winter person summer or winter olympics oh it's hard summer olympics all right
i know i ask hard questions i mean Do you think you do the hard work? I do really hard work.
(03:04):
Podcast or Netflix? Right now, Netflix.
Awesome. What are you currently watching? Can you tell us? I just started watching
Sprint, the new documentary about the sprinters.
I am so excited about that. So I can't wait to trade notes with you about that.
(03:25):
That's on my bucket list of things to watch next.
So thanks for giving it the thumbs. Awesome. Well, what I would love to do is
let people know a little bit about you.
Maybe talk about your connection to girls in sport and what led you to write Up to Speed. Sure.
So, I mean, I grew up playing sports, a whole variety of sports back when you
(03:50):
could play a whole variety of sports and didn't have to specialize when you
were like eight years old.
But I mean, I also preface this by saying I wasn't a great athlete.
I was just loved being active.
I loved being out in the field, the time with my friends, mostly hanging out
(04:11):
with them. And so like sports and philosophy were always a big part of my life and lifestyle.
And as I got into journalism, I was trying to figure out different topics I could write on.
And people always say, write what you know.
(04:32):
So that kind of led me to writing more of these like health and fitness type articles,
people's very interested in health and and the
human body and you know thinking about different ways
that we can make ourselves healthier right but as
i was kind of doing a lot of this research and kind of diving into
this a little bit more i came to realize how little i actually knew about my
(04:55):
own body in relation to all of this so i distinctly remember going to it was
some sort of conference or event for journalists in new york city and they had
you know a whole bunch of panels and one of these panels,
they have a doctor talking about the female athlete triad, right?
So talking about this condition or condition.
(05:15):
Condition of like three interconnected things. So looking at nutrition and energy
availability and looking at bone health and looking at menstrual health.
And she was talking about, you know, the fact that, you know,
sometimes when we're really active, you know, we can lose our periods.
And I remember hearing all about this when I went down and it was positioned as a good thing, right?
(05:40):
Like it was positioned as a sign that you were really fit and a really good
athlete, that there was nothing wrong with this.
But when this physician was talking, she's like, no, no, no, that's not the case.
It can really have a lot of like really big effects kind of downstream, right?
And it can, and most importantly, it can really affect your bone health. and
(06:02):
she went on to talk about bone health and how adolescence is
the most important period of time in which you are really laying
down bone and i just sat there and was
really kind of like a flabbergasted because i didn't know
this information about my own body but i
was also really angry because i felt like this is
information that i don't know like would
(06:23):
have been helpful to know when i was actually in
middle school and high school right like when i could actually have
something with disinformation and pay attention to it because right
now i can't remember how old i was at
that time it must have been in my 30s but at that point there's
nothing you can do about right right it's kind
of it is what it is at that point so that kind of like kind of started steering
(06:47):
me down a little bit of a rabbit hole one in the sense that i knew i wanted
to you know i've always written mostly about women's health but like i knew
that that was specifically what
I wanted to focus on and really illuminating a lot of the things that we don't
tend to talk about a lot and really trying to bring those into the mainstream a little bit more.
(07:08):
But as part of that, really kind of starting to realize how little we actually
do know and do understand about women's bodies because we don't study them to
the same degree that we study men.
Long story short was, you know, it's this
confluence of different things and interests of
mine that that really laid the groundwork for
(07:31):
this book and i was lucky to have an editor
at outside magazine at this point who gave
me a lot of opportunities to kind of explore this intersection between women
athletes and sports science research and really try to understand that that
that field a little bit more and yeah and that kind of just led to this book
(07:53):
that i I ended up writing,
because again, I felt like in part, there was a lot of one-off articles that
would talk about whether it's female athlete triad or relative energy deficiency in this floor,
or we would talk about, oh,
ACDL in recent women or body image issues.
But again, there were these one-off articles.
(08:15):
And that would seem to be cyclical. But we would now move the conversation forward.
And so that was probably the frustrating thing for me is I wanted to figure
out a way that we could move that conversation forward, as well as really figuring
out how we can bring together all those topics under like one umbrella.
Because I kept thinking that there has to be something that connects all these different issues. use.
(08:40):
And so, you know, what is that? And, you know, what are the questions there
that I would be interested in exploring?
Yeah, that was, that's incredible.
And I love that you took your, I'm glad you used the word angry,
first of all, because I was angry also.
I'm significantly older than you and was diagnosed with osteosporosis probably 10 years ago.
(09:03):
And, you know, I'm not We don't have family history.
I'm not small stature. I lift weights. I'm super active. I run.
I eat a well-rounded nutrition program.
And I kept wanting to know the why. I'm a big, like I wanted to know why.
And the answer, and listen, I'm a big fan of Western medicine,
(09:24):
but the answer from Western medicine was it just sometimes happens.
But when I really took a pause and took a, you know, a peek back,
I definitely struggled with ED and body image growing up at a formative age
through high school and college.
I was an athlete at the time, was plagued with ED, malnourishment,
(09:48):
underfed, underfueled.
And while I could get away with it, I could perform,
I wasn't certainly performing optimally, which which obviously we know now,
but more important, it's led to a host of issues down the line,
not just infertility issues, but bone loss, including missing teeth and some other things.
(10:09):
And I did the same thing you did. I became angry, not just because there was
a lack of information back then,
but there was a lack of acknowledgement now that those
two things correlated that you could put those two
things together so because I do have the benefit of coaching high school athletes
(10:30):
and I do happen to coach a sport where you do see a much higher incidence of
low energy availability relative energy deficiency syndrome etc etc in cross-country running.
I've really had my eyes kind of wide open. And one of the things I am on a mission
to do is to take periods out of the dark and put them into conversations that are out in the open.
(10:55):
So can you kind of circle around that?
And because you talked about that, like you and I were led to believe that if
we didn't have a period, we were quote unquote fit, you know,
not healthy, but fit, right?
Or healthy, whatever word people were putting in there. but let's
talk about the science and what you've learned and how
(11:16):
that is a fallacy can you kind of fill us in
there yeah i mean i think so
you know thinking about how this myth
kind of took hold the way i i have
come to think about it really is um really
just looking at the system of sports in general right that
(11:36):
it has by and large been created
for men and it's you know by men
for men right and the idea that the ideal athlete is is a boy or a man so you
know when we in in my head when i when i think about the fact that girls and
women have been you know excluded from the playing field for a very long time
(11:59):
right it wasn't considered.
Appropriate it wasn't the right thing you know
your it could damage your reproductive system all of these things i
feel like once once women and
girls started to have more access to these realms
that it's almost led to
this this feeling of well you can't you you have to be equal right you can't
(12:23):
show any difference and i feel like that that that i ethos was definitely more
i think more prevalent probably you know in the 80s to 90s when i was growing
up uh sure you know this whole idea
that like i can i can do this as good as any boy and you
know all this stuff but you didn't want to show any sort of
any differences right and and your period one
(12:45):
of those things so it's almost this idea that if you lose your
period you're almost like in a way like quote
unquote becoming more like you know we're a man right and therefore fit and
therefore acceptable to play sports that's the reason my kind of hypothesis
and thinking on this but the reality is is when When we learn about menstrual cycles,
(13:09):
often you just think about in terms of reproductive health or the reproductive system.
It controls our fertility because it produces estrogen, progesterone,
and all these other hormones, and it synchronizes them and coordinates them
so that you could potentially get pregnant at some point.
And while hormones like estrogen, I'll talk specifically about estrogen because
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that's the most important in this context,
while a hormone like estrogen does play its primary role is with regard to your
reproductive system, all these hormones, which are really just chemical messengers
in the body, they have secondary jobs throughout the body.
Pretty much every tissue in your body has estrogen receptors on it.
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So it's not just like your estrogen, like estrogen hormone is solely confined
to, you know, your ovaries and your uterus and, you know, your breasts and all that stuff.
It has these effects across your whole body.
And so one of the things that happens is, I'm trying to figure out the best way to tell you.
(14:22):
One of the things that happens is when you don't eat enough,
when you're not getting enough energy or all the activity that your body is doing.
That kind of sends your body into a tailspin in the way that it thinks that it might be starving.
So it starts to shut down, you know, seemingly non-essential systems in the
(14:43):
body. And one of those is the reproductive system.
And that's why, you know, we do have low energy availability when you're not eating enough.
That's why your menstrual cycle can be a little wonky, right?
Or it can even happen unintentionally when you increase your exercise load or
the volume that you're doing, but you're not eating, you know,
(15:04):
increasing your nutrition to the same extent. set.
So when that happens, your cycles
become up irregular and that's when your hormones can become irregular.
And so we see all these downstream consequences because estrogen plays a huge
role, like we talked about in bone health, right?
So this is very important in terms of laying down bone and protecting that bone.
(15:27):
It plays a really important role in muscle mass.
So again, building muscle, protecting that muscle.
An important role in recovery yeah you
know helping our bodies recover after we train
and after we exercise as well as adapting to that exercise as well and you know
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i could go on in terms of like all the different right areas in which in which
ashton really does play their role um but that's why you know when we think
about losing the menstrual cycle and well you know, on the one hand,
like, hey, it's great because, like, you know, to be completely honest, how do you feel?
It's a pain in the neck, right? We talk about that all the time.
(16:11):
Yeah, you know, it's a big hassle. So who would you want to,
like, not have their period for a little while?
But, you know, again, it's these other consequences, like these longer-term
health consequences that really matter.
And that's why your cycle is really important because it almost acts like a
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vital sign for your body.
It tells you that your hormones are in check and they're clicking along and
they're doing the things that they need to do.
And so when you experience some irregularities, it's a bit of a red flag to
be like, wait, something's a little off here.
Something might be going on a little deeper down.
(16:52):
It's interesting because there's a couple of things I want to pull out of there.
So that was really, really well explained.
You and I, I think, are passionate about having the conversation about long-term well-being.
But also, there are consequences to short-term athletic performance.
(17:12):
Without having estrogen, performance does start to either plateau or deplete.
And I think that's one of the things I wish I could get across is that if you
just kind of hang on and get through the rough patches, having your period will
help you perform better.
Is that the evidence that you're also finding?
(17:35):
Yeah, definitely. And you know, no,
there's no denying that puberty and adolescence is like, hard, chaotic.
There's so many changes going on. It's really hard. There's so many fluctuations.
But like you said, if you can kind of ride that out and yes,
(17:55):
you know, you may be some people might be kind of a different performance kind
of as your body, your body is literally changing because of these hormones,
because of other things that are happening.
But once you get to the other side, you know, things do start to ramp up more.
And I can't remember who said this. It might have been Lori Fletcher,
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you know, who had said that, you know, when you are young and you're thinking
and you are athletic and you're thinking about your IELTS, right,
and the athletes that you have got to.
So if you're a runner, you might be thinking, you know, have been looking up to...
I don't even know, like, who are the folks that the young girls are looking up to now?
(18:41):
Yeah, like a Parker Valby. Yeah, like a Parker Valby. Yeah, exactly.
Someone like that. Yeah, yeah.
Or even older than that, right? Like, even if, you know, I mean, Desmond is too.
Sure, yeah. Yeah, but someone who has been through it, who is,
you know, firmly in their, you know, mid to late 20s or so, I may or may not
(19:03):
be old, is really competing at an incredible level.
But those women have all come through the states of life, right? Yeah.
They are all in, you know, for lack of a better way of saying it,
It's like they're in their adult form, if you will.
(19:25):
But as an adolescent, you're still growing and developing and transforming.
And the way that I like to think about it or explain it sometimes is it's almost like,
you know, when you're blowing glass and you have this really kind of molten
form and you can shape it and you can poke it and you can dent it and you can make it into this thing.
(19:46):
But, you know, it still has to crystallize at the end into the final product.
Right. So that's a great analogy. Since puberty has that like molten form.
Yes, you can you can shape you should can shape yourself into this like incredible athlete.
But you're also really vulnerable for those pokes and dents and,
(20:08):
you know, things in your in your physical form.
Right. And it can introduce some vulnerabilities there.
So, yes, I mean, it's something that you do kind of go through.
And, you know, again, like it stinks.
It's terrible in a lot of ways. But I think being patient and understanding
(20:28):
that in the longer term, you will end up, you know, stronger because,
again, your body needs these hormones.
It needs the things that are going on right now in order to develop into a really
strong body. Yeah, I agree with that.
I know this isn't your area of expertise, the question I'm going to ask,
but I'm curious about how you would respond.
(20:51):
One of the things, we have a survey out there for any former girl in sport,
whether you're 16 or whether you're 66.
And what was remarkable as
we went through this and it was answered by everybody from swimmers to
softball players to runners it was a super wide variety of
people but one of the things they all were
(21:12):
consistent on was the lack of information out there on menstrual health which
is different than reproductive health right we're not talking about what to
do to produce a baby we're talking about how to be healthy and that involves hormonal health.
But one of the things that was consistent was the lack of access.
(21:35):
So we talk about, you know, the ideal athlete is a boy or a man.
I think the ideal coach is also a man. So I am, I think, I am one of three head female coaches.
My high school, you rarely see a female head coach, even in the high school level.
And then you move into the pros and it's even less and less.
One of the things that girls were
(21:56):
saying quite a bit was they didn't feel
comfortable having these conversations because these are again 15 16 17 year
old girls with men and you know kind of do you have a thought or a feeling there
well like what we could do or what high school athletics could look like that
would be different that would make the girls feel safer to have these conversations.
(22:18):
Yeah. I mean, I think that that is definitely true across the board.
My, again, kind of my hypothesis around this is really because for so long, the only,
the only context in which we've talked about periods and menstrual cycles has
been around reproduction.
(22:40):
It takes on this tint and this taboo, you know, feeling because it is,
you know, associated with sex, right?
As it's associated with fertility and, you know, God forbid we talk about that stuff.
So, you know, I think there's a couple of things that, you know,
I would advocate for is incorporating menstrual health education into the school
(23:04):
curriculum as part of the health curriculum.
So when you're talking about like reproduction or, you know,
whatever it is, you're not just only talking about fertility,
but you're also talking about how this important system really relates to overall
health, because it is just a part of our physiology.
(23:26):
You know, there's just like our heart, just like our muscles,
just like our lungs and all of this other stuff so it
is you know i feel like important for for
folks to learn about it as such
and not just like you know it's over here in this corner because it has to do
(23:47):
with fertility and sex and reproduction yeah that i feel like would would go
a long way in terms of hopefully you know normalizing some of at least at least
educating and hopefully normalizing some of those conversations.
But then I think, you know, from from a coach's perspective.
That it is also the coaches kind of normalizing conversations about these topics as well.
(24:15):
Agreed. And, you know, it's everything from not making a girl feel guilty or
shaming her when she might come to you and say,
Hey, coach, I can't work out today because I got my period and I don't have
any tampons or other period. Yeah.
Right. or per se, in case of a boat stretch, I'm really not feeling that great.
(24:41):
I really don't feel great.
So I'm just taking it easy during this workout today.
So, you know, making it such that your athletes can actually come and tell you
these things without you being like, oh, you know, like, A,
like getting embarrassed and like just turning away, way, but also doing things
(25:02):
that would then make them feel badly about their bodies when their body is just
doing what their bodies do.
And I think it also goes a long way to bring in outside experts or,
you know, someone to, you know, even like during preseason or something like
that to talk about nutrition,
to talk about like menstrual health and how that relates to performance and
(25:24):
making those conversations.
Again, like you are an athlete.
You care about your sport. or you care about your performance,
this is how your menstrual health relates to performance.
So again, it's not something that makes them embarrassed or makes them wonder,
like, why the heck is coach bringing this up?
It has nothing to do with anything. I don't want to talk about this.
(25:47):
But making it relevant to their goals, right?
In terms of, like, if you do well.
You compete well, rather than be healthy and be active over the long term,
these are just some things to know about and keep in mind.
(26:07):
Yeah. So I think, you know, again, it's, I think it is incumbent on the coach
to create that culture where their athletes can come to them and talk about these things.
And just the last thing I would say is for schools, too, to make period products
available and lock them.
(26:28):
Yeah, that's a really simple thing. And again, it relieves so much anxiety around,
oh my gosh, am I going to get my period and I don't have anything.
I don't have anything to use. And horror, the embarrassment of having to ask
a teammate to borrow something.
I just feel like that's a really easy thing to do.
(26:48):
I could not agree more. It's so interesting because I don't remember but in
the beginning you were talking about you know these these forward moving conversations
and one of my frustrations is when.
Or program directors are talking about, quote, unquote, culture,
but that it is, you know, they're basically quoting, you know,
(27:11):
Krzyzewski, or I mean, I'm making this up.
So it's conversations where they're quoting, you know, the way,
you know, Duke basketball players, like, you know, create culture.
And really, the way we create culture is having open conversations around,
you know, menstrual health.
But, you know, so that I think we're a long way from that. I'm I'm just going to be honest with you.
(27:33):
I think we're more opened where we're at, but I think we're far from that.
But I know that with people like you out there and with programs like Peak out there,
I know that we can continue to move the conversation forward in a way that is
digestible and not awkward and not taboo and doesn't bring type of shame or stigma.
(27:57):
I know there's a way to do that, which is why I'm so glad there's people like you out there.
I do want to have one more question before we kind of start to cool it down.
And I know we were going to talk about some other things, but there's too much
information here. So I want to stick with what we're doing.
One of the things I think there's also confusing around when we're talking about
(28:19):
menstrual health and girls go on the birth control pill for whatever reason. They have acne.
They've got rough periods. Their cycles aren't, you know, regular.
And then they think that they are having a quote unquote period and their cycles are regulated.
And that's a super tricky conversation. Can you talk a little bit about the
(28:42):
science of what the bleed actually is on the birth control pill and how that
is different than what you get,
what your cycle would be like off the birth control pill?
Yeah, definitely. So, when you are taking hormonal contraceptives,
so something like the birth control pill, what it's doing is you're introducing
(29:03):
external hormones into your body.
And so what the pill essentially does is it sort of crosses your,
you know, your own hormones that your body produces, and it kind of keeps this,
like, relatively stable.
Of these external hormones in the body.
And so, you know, the typical cell is, you know, it's three weeks of hormone,
(29:30):
and then one week of the cells, right, and it's when, you know, you have this .
And so during that facility, what happens is, it's because you are no longer
feeding those external hormones during that period, and your body bleeds because
it's got, it's It's a response to that which you all upon.
It's not because, you know, you're ovulating and, you know, and your uterus is filling up.
(29:55):
So it's lining like it normally does if you weren't seeking over control.
And so it gives the perception that, you know, everything's fine.
Like I'm bleeding. Yeah. You know, every, every month or so.
So, the narrative that strictly is that sometimes that the former contraceptives
(30:17):
can kind of mask, if you will, and cover up some interest, you know,
some underlying health issues.
So, like we were talking about with low energy availability,
you know, when you're not eating enough, you're probably going to start to go
out of whack, and you might need your period.
But if you're taking birth control pills, you might not notice that,
because, again, you have this kind of More or less, then you've seen a problem
(30:40):
going on, and then you have this withdrawal bleed happening.
And so, you know, it's tricky because there are a lot of really good reasons
to go on hormone contraceptives.
You mentioned, like, whether it's acne, you know, preventing pregnancy,
because you have heavy menstrual bleeding, or what have you.
(31:01):
But I think it is really good to understand that,
you know, what might be happening in the background of that.
And it's obviously, it's something, you know, you need to talk with your doctor
about and if there are concerns around exercise and eating and everything else like that,
(31:22):
that's also a really good thing to just, you know, make sure your doctor knows
about so that you can be aware of any potential problems that might be underlying.
Yeah. Yeah, I think that's really, really good advice. And that was a great clarification.
So thank you for that. And yeah, in open conversations with caretakers and with
(31:46):
doctors and with coaches for sure makes a big, huge difference.
So, again, go ahead.
I was just going to say, can I just add one last thing? Yeah, absolutely. Please do.
Do um so this is
happening less now but you know
when i was younger doctors would often suggest
(32:09):
going on the birth control pill if you weren't getting your period you know
as a way to kind of judge start your life that will give you your period so
if that is that is the advice that your physician is giving you like that is
not a really good piece of medical advice again i'm not a doctor or medical professionals,
but this idea that going on your birth control in order to get your period is kind of flawed.
(32:36):
Yeah. And that's some of the conversations that I have athletes coming and talking
to me about or girls in sport coming to talk to me about.
It's super frustrating because I also am not a doctor. I don't play TV.
I don't have a degree, But, you know, I have dove deep enough into the science
(32:56):
and the research, and that, I agree, is a pretty flawed thing.
A flawed system. Unfortunately, I think OBGYNs are a little behind in some of the science.
And hopefully, there's time to catch up, right?
Because that has to change. I agree with you there. So thank you for sharing that.
(33:19):
Megan, I'm going to go ahead and go into some cool downs, but I do want to let
you unmute and see, do you have any questions for Christine?
Because I know that so much of this ring true to you?
Yes, this definitely has been a super interesting conversation because I've
been able to learn so much here.
But I just think a lot of this has directly related to me because a lot of the
(33:40):
things you talked about, I felt the same way or had experienced myself.
So I think just the initial level of frustration was definitely there for me.
Just with overall the lack of information that I had heading into my college
athletics experience versus what I've learned now, majority on my own,
or even through just Anne-Marie with me these last few months.
(34:03):
So I really appreciate everything that you've shared because you're teaching
me right now, right here.
And I know there's a bunch of younger listeners out there that would just love
to hear this too and how they can help themselves.
I agree. We're excited to share the information. All right, Christine,
we are going to get cooled down so what is
(34:24):
your favorite soothing smell oh i
don't know i'm not a huge smell person it kind of gives me a headache oh i love
that so nothing um but yeah kind of nothing but if i had to choose something
i mean it's probably cliche but you know probably something along the lines of lavender or vanilla.
(34:49):
I love that. Okay, if talent wasn't an issue, what sport would you love to excel in?
Surfing i love that how fun
can you get up on a surfboard yeah i
can surf a little bit i'm terrible but i do surf
a little bit um but yeah it would be amazing to be able to surf well i think
(35:13):
you're exactly right i think that would be so cool all right if you had five
people you can invite to a dinner
party who would they be some of those people i would probably invite,
allison felix on uh simone by miles whoa i'm sticking with apple i love this
(35:38):
that's what my brain can comprehend right now tara goucher love i love her.
Carissa moore who is a super she won the gold medal at the last olympics and then the last one,
we classic gotta go with billy jean king i think oh i wish i then can i at least
(36:01):
be there to record the dinner party yes that is an awesome dinner party so thank
you again so much christine for being here.
Thank you for sharing your wisdom, your insight. Thank you for writing this book.
I am definitely going to keep it on our website as one of my favorites.
(36:22):
It is something I share with my student athletes at the beginning of every season,
and I'm going to continue doing that for a long time to come.
Don't forget to follow us on Instagram. Make sure you're sharing our episodes
and take a minute to explore our website.
We'll make sure we drop the links to everything Christine has talked about,
(36:43):
including her book, Laura Freshman's book, and her favorite five athletes to be following right now.
If you're feeling inspired, we would love for you to share the podcast with a.
Music.
Music.
(00:10):
Welcome to PEAK, Train to Girl, a podcast by girls in sport for girls and coaches in sport.
We're here to amplify your voice. It deserves to be heard.
At PEAK, we are a safe place for girls to hang out, learn, grow, and build community.
We empower girls in sport and coaches with knowledge, resources,
(00:31):
and support we think is necessary in today's athletic environments to with Thrive.
Join us for bold conversations about the experiences of girls in sport.
Our discussions will make you laugh, cry, cheer, get frustrated,
and hopefully rethink the future of girls in sport for generations to come.
So whether you're walking, commuting, or cleaning your bedroom, take us with you.
(00:56):
Follow us. It helps more than you can imagine. Check out our website and share
with a female athlete or coach you love.
Now, I want to give a brief introduction to our next guest.
I am so over the moon, thrilled and delighted to introduce you all to author Christine Yu.
(01:16):
Christine published a book, Up to Speed. I think it's been about a year,
the beginning of May in 2023.
And I have literally been through this book 17 times.
It's on our website as a trusted
resource and anytime somebody tells me what's
the next best read for girls in sport I absolutely point them to this book Christine
(01:40):
is an incredible author she is passionate about sport she has a way of communicating
complex issues and details in a way that's super digestible,
which is what I really appreciate about it.
But I think the thing that I like best about Christine is her willingness and
(02:01):
openness to share her wisdom, knowledge, and insight with anybody.
When I reached out to Christine to be on our podcast, she did not hesitate.
She absolutely said that she'd be happy to share her wisdom and her information.
And I am telling you, I have not stopped talking about that.
You can ask my interns, since she agreed to be on our podcast.
(02:23):
So I don't want to waste any more time. I want to go ahead and get warmed up.
Christine, are you ready?
I am. Thank you so much for having me on this podcast.
Absolutely. All right. Cat or dog? Dog.
Winter or summer oh gosh
we're in the middle of like a terrible heat wave on the east
(02:44):
coast i have to say winter right now i'm i'm shown the same way i'm a i'm a
winter person summer or winter olympics oh it's hard summer olympics all right
i know i ask hard questions i mean Do you think you do the hard work? I do really hard work.
(03:04):
Podcast or Netflix? Right now, Netflix.
Awesome. What are you currently watching? Can you tell us? I just started watching
Sprint, the new documentary about the sprinters.
I am so excited about that. So I can't wait to trade notes with you about that.
(03:25):
That's on my bucket list of things to watch next.
So thanks for giving it the thumbs. Awesome. Well, what I would love to do is
let people know a little bit about you.
Maybe talk about your connection to girls in sport and what led you to write Up to Speed. Sure.
So, I mean, I grew up playing sports, a whole variety of sports back when you
(03:50):
could play a whole variety of sports and didn't have to specialize when you
were like eight years old.
But I mean, I also preface this by saying I wasn't a great athlete.
I was just loved being active.
I loved being out in the field, the time with my friends, mostly hanging out
(04:11):
with them. And so like sports and philosophy were always a big part of my life and lifestyle.
And as I got into journalism, I was trying to figure out different topics I could write on.
And people always say, write what you know.
(04:32):
So that kind of led me to writing more of these like health and fitness type articles,
people's very interested in health and and the
human body and you know thinking about different ways
that we can make ourselves healthier right but as
i was kind of doing a lot of this research and kind of diving into
this a little bit more i came to realize how little i actually knew about my
(04:55):
own body in relation to all of this so i distinctly remember going to it was
some sort of conference or event for journalists in new york city and they had
you know a whole bunch of panels and one of these panels,
they have a doctor talking about the female athlete triad, right?
So talking about this condition or condition.
(05:15):
Condition of like three interconnected things. So looking at nutrition and energy
availability and looking at bone health and looking at menstrual health.
And she was talking about, you know, the fact that, you know,
sometimes when we're really active, you know, we can lose our periods.
And I remember hearing all about this when I went down and it was positioned as a good thing, right?
(05:40):
Like it was positioned as a sign that you were really fit and a really good
athlete, that there was nothing wrong with this.
But when this physician was talking, she's like, no, no, no, that's not the case.
It can really have a lot of like really big effects kind of downstream, right?
And it can, and most importantly, it can really affect your bone health. and
(06:02):
she went on to talk about bone health and how adolescence is
the most important period of time in which you are really laying
down bone and i just sat there and was
really kind of like a flabbergasted because i didn't know
this information about my own body but i
was also really angry because i felt like this is
information that i don't know like would
(06:23):
have been helpful to know when i was actually in
middle school and high school right like when i could actually have
something with disinformation and pay attention to it because right
now i can't remember how old i was at
that time it must have been in my 30s but at that point there's
nothing you can do about right right it's kind
of it is what it is at that point so that kind of like kind of started steering
(06:47):
me down a little bit of a rabbit hole one in the sense that i knew i wanted
to you know i've always written mostly about women's health but like i knew
that that was specifically what
I wanted to focus on and really illuminating a lot of the things that we don't
tend to talk about a lot and really trying to bring those into the mainstream a little bit more.
(07:08):
But as part of that, really kind of starting to realize how little we actually
do know and do understand about women's bodies because we don't study them to
the same degree that we study men.
Long story short was, you know, it's this
confluence of different things and interests of
mine that that really laid the groundwork for
(07:31):
this book and i was lucky to have an editor
at outside magazine at this point who gave
me a lot of opportunities to kind of explore this intersection between women
athletes and sports science research and really try to understand that that
that field a little bit more and yeah and that kind of just led to this book
(07:53):
that i I ended up writing,
because again, I felt like in part, there was a lot of one-off articles that
would talk about whether it's female athlete triad or relative energy deficiency in this floor,
or we would talk about, oh,
ACDL in recent women or body image issues.
But again, there were these one-off articles.
(08:15):
And that would seem to be cyclical. But we would now move the conversation forward.
And so that was probably the frustrating thing for me is I wanted to figure
out a way that we could move that conversation forward, as well as really figuring
out how we can bring together all those topics under like one umbrella.
Because I kept thinking that there has to be something that connects all these different issues. use.
(08:40):
And so, you know, what is that? And, you know, what are the questions there
that I would be interested in exploring?
Yeah, that was, that's incredible.
And I love that you took your, I'm glad you used the word angry,
first of all, because I was angry also.
I'm significantly older than you and was diagnosed with osteosporosis probably 10 years ago.
(09:03):
And, you know, I'm not We don't have family history.
I'm not small stature. I lift weights. I'm super active. I run.
I eat a well-rounded nutrition program.
And I kept wanting to know the why. I'm a big, like I wanted to know why.
And the answer, and listen, I'm a big fan of Western medicine,
(09:24):
but the answer from Western medicine was it just sometimes happens.
But when I really took a pause and took a, you know, a peek back,
I definitely struggled with ED and body image growing up at a formative age
through high school and college.
I was an athlete at the time, was plagued with ED, malnourishment,
(09:48):
underfed, underfueled.
And while I could get away with it, I could perform,
I wasn't certainly performing optimally, which which obviously we know now,
but more important, it's led to a host of issues down the line,
not just infertility issues, but bone loss, including missing teeth and some other things.
(10:09):
And I did the same thing you did. I became angry, not just because there was
a lack of information back then,
but there was a lack of acknowledgement now that those
two things correlated that you could put those two
things together so because I do have the benefit of coaching high school athletes
(10:30):
and I do happen to coach a sport where you do see a much higher incidence of
low energy availability relative energy deficiency syndrome etc etc in cross-country running.
I've really had my eyes kind of wide open. And one of the things I am on a mission
to do is to take periods out of the dark and put them into conversations that are out in the open.
(10:55):
So can you kind of circle around that?
And because you talked about that, like you and I were led to believe that if
we didn't have a period, we were quote unquote fit, you know,
not healthy, but fit, right?
Or healthy, whatever word people were putting in there. but let's
talk about the science and what you've learned and how
(11:16):
that is a fallacy can you kind of fill us in
there yeah i mean i think so
you know thinking about how this myth
kind of took hold the way i i have
come to think about it really is um really
just looking at the system of sports in general right that
(11:36):
it has by and large been created
for men and it's you know by men
for men right and the idea that the ideal athlete is is a boy or a man so you
know when we in in my head when i when i think about the fact that girls and
women have been you know excluded from the playing field for a very long time
(11:59):
right it wasn't considered.
Appropriate it wasn't the right thing you know
your it could damage your reproductive system all of these things i
feel like once once women and
girls started to have more access to these realms
that it's almost led to
this this feeling of well you can't you you have to be equal right you can't
(12:23):
show any difference and i feel like that that that i ethos was definitely more
i think more prevalent probably you know in the 80s to 90s when i was growing
up uh sure you know this whole idea
that like i can i can do this as good as any boy and you
know all this stuff but you didn't want to show any sort of
any differences right and and your period one
(12:45):
of those things so it's almost this idea that if you lose your
period you're almost like in a way like quote
unquote becoming more like you know we're a man right and therefore fit and
therefore acceptable to play sports that's the reason my kind of hypothesis
and thinking on this but the reality is is when When we learn about menstrual cycles,
(13:09):
often you just think about in terms of reproductive health or the reproductive system.
It controls our fertility because it produces estrogen, progesterone,
and all these other hormones, and it synchronizes them and coordinates them
so that you could potentially get pregnant at some point.
And while hormones like estrogen, I'll talk specifically about estrogen because
(13:34):
that's the most important in this context,
while a hormone like estrogen does play its primary role is with regard to your
reproductive system, all these hormones, which are really just chemical messengers
in the body, they have secondary jobs throughout the body.
Pretty much every tissue in your body has estrogen receptors on it.
(13:57):
So it's not just like your estrogen, like estrogen hormone is solely confined
to, you know, your ovaries and your uterus and, you know, your breasts and all that stuff.
It has these effects across your whole body.
And so one of the things that happens is, I'm trying to figure out the best way to tell you.
(14:22):
One of the things that happens is when you don't eat enough,
when you're not getting enough energy or all the activity that your body is doing.
That kind of sends your body into a tailspin in the way that it thinks that it might be starving.
So it starts to shut down, you know, seemingly non-essential systems in the
(14:43):
body. And one of those is the reproductive system.
And that's why, you know, we do have low energy availability when you're not eating enough.
That's why your menstrual cycle can be a little wonky, right?
Or it can even happen unintentionally when you increase your exercise load or
the volume that you're doing, but you're not eating, you know,
(15:04):
increasing your nutrition to the same extent. set.
So when that happens, your cycles
become up irregular and that's when your hormones can become irregular.
And so we see all these downstream consequences because estrogen plays a huge
role, like we talked about in bone health, right?
So this is very important in terms of laying down bone and protecting that bone.
(15:27):
It plays a really important role in muscle mass.
So again, building muscle, protecting that muscle.
An important role in recovery yeah you
know helping our bodies recover after we train
and after we exercise as well as adapting to that exercise as well and you know
(15:47):
i could go on in terms of like all the different right areas in which in which
ashton really does play their role um but that's why you know when we think
about losing the menstrual cycle and well you know, on the one hand,
like, hey, it's great because, like, you know, to be completely honest, how do you feel?
It's a pain in the neck, right? We talk about that all the time.
(16:11):
Yeah, you know, it's a big hassle. So who would you want to,
like, not have their period for a little while?
But, you know, again, it's these other consequences, like these longer-term
health consequences that really matter.
And that's why your cycle is really important because it almost acts like a
(16:31):
vital sign for your body.
It tells you that your hormones are in check and they're clicking along and
they're doing the things that they need to do.
And so when you experience some irregularities, it's a bit of a red flag to
be like, wait, something's a little off here.
Something might be going on a little deeper down.
(16:52):
It's interesting because there's a couple of things I want to pull out of there.
So that was really, really well explained.
You and I, I think, are passionate about having the conversation about long-term well-being.
But also, there are consequences to short-term athletic performance.
(17:12):
Without having estrogen, performance does start to either plateau or deplete.
And I think that's one of the things I wish I could get across is that if you
just kind of hang on and get through the rough patches, having your period will
help you perform better.
Is that the evidence that you're also finding?
(17:35):
Yeah, definitely. And you know, no,
there's no denying that puberty and adolescence is like, hard, chaotic.
There's so many changes going on. It's really hard. There's so many fluctuations.
But like you said, if you can kind of ride that out and yes,
(17:55):
you know, you may be some people might be kind of a different performance kind
of as your body, your body is literally changing because of these hormones,
because of other things that are happening.
But once you get to the other side, you know, things do start to ramp up more.
And I can't remember who said this. It might have been Lori Fletcher,
(18:18):
you know, who had said that, you know, when you are young and you're thinking
and you are athletic and you're thinking about your IELTS, right,
and the athletes that you have got to.
So if you're a runner, you might be thinking, you know, have been looking up to...
I don't even know, like, who are the folks that the young girls are looking up to now?
(18:41):
Yeah, like a Parker Valby. Yeah, like a Parker Valby. Yeah, exactly.
Someone like that. Yeah, yeah.
Or even older than that, right? Like, even if, you know, I mean, Desmond is too.
Sure, yeah. Yeah, but someone who has been through it, who is,
you know, firmly in their, you know, mid to late 20s or so, I may or may not
(19:03):
be old, is really competing at an incredible level.
But those women have all come through the states of life, right? Yeah.
They are all in, you know, for lack of a better way of saying it,
It's like they're in their adult form, if you will.
(19:25):
But as an adolescent, you're still growing and developing and transforming.
And the way that I like to think about it or explain it sometimes is it's almost like,
you know, when you're blowing glass and you have this really kind of molten
form and you can shape it and you can poke it and you can dent it and you can make it into this thing.
(19:46):
But, you know, it still has to crystallize at the end into the final product.
Right. So that's a great analogy. Since puberty has that like molten form.
Yes, you can you can shape you should can shape yourself into this like incredible athlete.
But you're also really vulnerable for those pokes and dents and,
(20:08):
you know, things in your in your physical form.
Right. And it can introduce some vulnerabilities there.
So, yes, I mean, it's something that you do kind of go through.
And, you know, again, like it stinks.
It's terrible in a lot of ways. But I think being patient and understanding
(20:28):
that in the longer term, you will end up, you know, stronger because,
again, your body needs these hormones.
It needs the things that are going on right now in order to develop into a really
strong body. Yeah, I agree with that.
I know this isn't your area of expertise, the question I'm going to ask,
but I'm curious about how you would respond.
(20:51):
One of the things, we have a survey out there for any former girl in sport,
whether you're 16 or whether you're 66.
And what was remarkable as
we went through this and it was answered by everybody from swimmers to
softball players to runners it was a super wide variety of
people but one of the things they all were
(21:12):
consistent on was the lack of information out there on menstrual health which
is different than reproductive health right we're not talking about what to
do to produce a baby we're talking about how to be healthy and that involves hormonal health.
But one of the things that was consistent was the lack of access.
(21:35):
So we talk about, you know, the ideal athlete is a boy or a man.
I think the ideal coach is also a man. So I am, I think, I am one of three head female coaches.
My high school, you rarely see a female head coach, even in the high school level.
And then you move into the pros and it's even less and less.
One of the things that girls were
(21:56):
saying quite a bit was they didn't feel
comfortable having these conversations because these are again 15 16 17 year
old girls with men and you know kind of do you have a thought or a feeling there
well like what we could do or what high school athletics could look like that
would be different that would make the girls feel safer to have these conversations.
(22:18):
Yeah. I mean, I think that that is definitely true across the board.
My, again, kind of my hypothesis around this is really because for so long, the only,
the only context in which we've talked about periods and menstrual cycles has
been around reproduction.
(22:40):
It takes on this tint and this taboo, you know, feeling because it is,
you know, associated with sex, right?
As it's associated with fertility and, you know, God forbid we talk about that stuff.
So, you know, I think there's a couple of things that, you know,
I would advocate for is incorporating menstrual health education into the school
(23:04):
curriculum as part of the health curriculum.
So when you're talking about like reproduction or, you know,
whatever it is, you're not just only talking about fertility,
but you're also talking about how this important system really relates to overall
health, because it is just a part of our physiology.
(23:26):
You know, there's just like our heart, just like our muscles,
just like our lungs and all of this other stuff so it
is you know i feel like important for for
folks to learn about it as such
and not just like you know it's over here in this corner because it has to do
(23:47):
with fertility and sex and reproduction yeah that i feel like would would go
a long way in terms of hopefully you know normalizing some of at least at least
educating and hopefully normalizing some of those conversations.
But then I think, you know, from from a coach's perspective.
That it is also the coaches kind of normalizing conversations about these topics as well.
(24:15):
Agreed. And, you know, it's everything from not making a girl feel guilty or
shaming her when she might come to you and say,
Hey, coach, I can't work out today because I got my period and I don't have
any tampons or other period. Yeah.
Right. or per se, in case of a boat stretch, I'm really not feeling that great.
(24:41):
I really don't feel great.
So I'm just taking it easy during this workout today.
So, you know, making it such that your athletes can actually come and tell you
these things without you being like, oh, you know, like, A,
like getting embarrassed and like just turning away, way, but also doing things
(25:02):
that would then make them feel badly about their bodies when their body is just
doing what their bodies do.
And I think it also goes a long way to bring in outside experts or,
you know, someone to, you know, even like during preseason or something like
that to talk about nutrition,
to talk about like menstrual health and how that relates to performance and
(25:24):
making those conversations.
Again, like you are an athlete.
You care about your sport. or you care about your performance,
this is how your menstrual health relates to performance.
So again, it's not something that makes them embarrassed or makes them wonder,
like, why the heck is coach bringing this up?
It has nothing to do with anything. I don't want to talk about this.
(25:47):
But making it relevant to their goals, right?
In terms of, like, if you do well.
You compete well, rather than be healthy and be active over the long term,
these are just some things to know about and keep in mind.
(26:07):
Yeah. So I think, you know, again, it's, I think it is incumbent on the coach
to create that culture where their athletes can come to them and talk about these things.
And just the last thing I would say is for schools, too, to make period products
available and lock them.
(26:28):
Yeah, that's a really simple thing. And again, it relieves so much anxiety around,
oh my gosh, am I going to get my period and I don't have anything.
I don't have anything to use. And horror, the embarrassment of having to ask
a teammate to borrow something.
I just feel like that's a really easy thing to do.
(26:48):
I could not agree more. It's so interesting because I don't remember but in
the beginning you were talking about you know these these forward moving conversations
and one of my frustrations is when.
Or program directors are talking about, quote, unquote, culture,
but that it is, you know, they're basically quoting, you know,
(27:11):
Krzyzewski, or I mean, I'm making this up.
So it's conversations where they're quoting, you know, the way,
you know, Duke basketball players, like, you know, create culture.
And really, the way we create culture is having open conversations around,
you know, menstrual health.
But, you know, so that I think we're a long way from that. I'm I'm just going to be honest with you.
(27:33):
I think we're more opened where we're at, but I think we're far from that.
But I know that with people like you out there and with programs like Peak out there,
I know that we can continue to move the conversation forward in a way that is
digestible and not awkward and not taboo and doesn't bring type of shame or stigma.
(27:57):
I know there's a way to do that, which is why I'm so glad there's people like you out there.
I do want to have one more question before we kind of start to cool it down.
And I know we were going to talk about some other things, but there's too much
information here. So I want to stick with what we're doing.
One of the things I think there's also confusing around when we're talking about
(28:19):
menstrual health and girls go on the birth control pill for whatever reason. They have acne.
They've got rough periods. Their cycles aren't, you know, regular.
And then they think that they are having a quote unquote period and their cycles are regulated.
And that's a super tricky conversation. Can you talk a little bit about the
(28:42):
science of what the bleed actually is on the birth control pill and how that
is different than what you get,
what your cycle would be like off the birth control pill?
Yeah, definitely. So, when you are taking hormonal contraceptives,
so something like the birth control pill, what it's doing is you're introducing
(29:03):
external hormones into your body.
And so what the pill essentially does is it sort of crosses your,
you know, your own hormones that your body produces, and it kind of keeps this,
like, relatively stable.
Of these external hormones in the body.
And so, you know, the typical cell is, you know, it's three weeks of hormone,
(29:30):
and then one week of the cells, right, and it's when, you know, you have this .
And so during that facility, what happens is, it's because you are no longer
feeding those external hormones during that period, and your body bleeds because
it's got, it's It's a response to that which you all upon.
It's not because, you know, you're ovulating and, you know, and your uterus is filling up.
(29:55):
So it's lining like it normally does if you weren't seeking over control.
And so it gives the perception that, you know, everything's fine.
Like I'm bleeding. Yeah. You know, every, every month or so.
So, the narrative that strictly is that sometimes that the former contraceptives
(30:17):
can kind of mask, if you will, and cover up some interest, you know,
some underlying health issues.
So, like we were talking about with low energy availability,
you know, when you're not eating enough, you're probably going to start to go
out of whack, and you might need your period.
But if you're taking birth control pills, you might not notice that,
because, again, you have this kind of More or less, then you've seen a problem
(30:40):
going on, and then you have this withdrawal bleed happening.
And so, you know, it's tricky because there are a lot of really good reasons
to go on hormone contraceptives.
You mentioned, like, whether it's acne, you know, preventing pregnancy,
because you have heavy menstrual bleeding, or what have you.
(31:01):
But I think it is really good to understand that,
you know, what might be happening in the background of that.
And it's obviously, it's something, you know, you need to talk with your doctor
about and if there are concerns around exercise and eating and everything else like that,
(31:22):
that's also a really good thing to just, you know, make sure your doctor knows
about so that you can be aware of any potential problems that might be underlying.
Yeah. Yeah, I think that's really, really good advice. And that was a great clarification.
So thank you for that. And yeah, in open conversations with caretakers and with
(31:46):
doctors and with coaches for sure makes a big, huge difference.
So, again, go ahead.
I was just going to say, can I just add one last thing? Yeah, absolutely. Please do.
Do um so this is
happening less now but you know
when i was younger doctors would often suggest
(32:09):
going on the birth control pill if you weren't getting your period you know
as a way to kind of judge start your life that will give you your period so
if that is that is the advice that your physician is giving you like that is
not a really good piece of medical advice again i'm not a doctor or medical professionals,
but this idea that going on your birth control in order to get your period is kind of flawed.
(32:36):
Yeah. And that's some of the conversations that I have athletes coming and talking
to me about or girls in sport coming to talk to me about.
It's super frustrating because I also am not a doctor. I don't play TV.
I don't have a degree, But, you know, I have dove deep enough into the science
(32:56):
and the research, and that, I agree, is a pretty flawed thing.
A flawed system. Unfortunately, I think OBGYNs are a little behind in some of the science.
And hopefully, there's time to catch up, right?
Because that has to change. I agree with you there. So thank you for sharing that.
(33:19):
Megan, I'm going to go ahead and go into some cool downs, but I do want to let
you unmute and see, do you have any questions for Christine?
Because I know that so much of this ring true to you?
Yes, this definitely has been a super interesting conversation because I've
been able to learn so much here.
But I just think a lot of this has directly related to me because a lot of the
(33:40):
things you talked about, I felt the same way or had experienced myself.
So I think just the initial level of frustration was definitely there for me.
Just with overall the lack of information that I had heading into my college
athletics experience versus what I've learned now, majority on my own,
or even through just Anne-Marie with me these last few months.
(34:03):
So I really appreciate everything that you've shared because you're teaching
me right now, right here.
And I know there's a bunch of younger listeners out there that would just love
to hear this too and how they can help themselves.
I agree. We're excited to share the information. All right, Christine,
we are going to get cooled down so what is
(34:24):
your favorite soothing smell oh i
don't know i'm not a huge smell person it kind of gives me a headache oh i love
that so nothing um but yeah kind of nothing but if i had to choose something
i mean it's probably cliche but you know probably something along the lines of lavender or vanilla.
(34:49):
I love that. Okay, if talent wasn't an issue, what sport would you love to excel in?
Surfing i love that how fun
can you get up on a surfboard yeah i
can surf a little bit i'm terrible but i do surf
a little bit um but yeah it would be amazing to be able to surf well i think
(35:13):
you're exactly right i think that would be so cool all right if you had five
people you can invite to a dinner
party who would they be some of those people i would probably invite,
allison felix on uh simone by miles whoa i'm sticking with apple i love this
(35:38):
that's what my brain can comprehend right now tara goucher love i love her.
Carissa moore who is a super she won the gold medal at the last olympics and then the last one,
we classic gotta go with billy jean king i think oh i wish i then can i at least
(36:01):
be there to record the dinner party yes that is an awesome dinner party so thank
you again so much christine for being here.
Thank you for sharing your wisdom, your insight. Thank you for writing this book.
I am definitely going to keep it on our website as one of my favorites.
(36:22):
It is something I share with my student athletes at the beginning of every season,
and I'm going to continue doing that for a long time to come.
Don't forget to follow us on Instagram. Make sure you're sharing our episodes
and take a minute to explore our website.
We'll make sure we drop the links to everything Christine has talked about,
(36:43):
including her book, Laura Freshman's book, and her favorite five athletes to be following right now.
If you're feeling inspired, we would love for you to share the podcast with a.
Music.
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