When Kate Veronneau started cycling, she was at a low point. Having to stop playing basketball because of one-too-many injuries, she never anticipated that this rolling coping mechanism would change the trajectory of her life. Now working as Zwift's Director of Women's Strategy, she's embracing the pivot to the fullest.
In this week's episode, she talks about the power of alignment and following her passions, what it was like to build community during a global pandemic, and how she feels about the company stepping in as the title sponsor of Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. Plus: What she's learned along the way, how she anticipates the sport to grow in the future, and how it feels to be a vocal leader (especially on the days she's not feeling so shiny).
SOCIAL
@emilyabbate
@hurdlepodcast
AG1 | Head to DrinkAG1.com/Hurdle to get a flavor sampler and year's supply of D3/K2 with your purchase of AG1 next gen.
JOIN: The Daily Hurdle IG Channel
ASK ME A QUESTION: Email hello@hurdle.us to ask me a question!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We're all figuring it out, and sports shows you that
you know that there's no end, there's no like, Oh,
that's it, you know, throw the towel, there's just pivots.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Hey everyone, Emily here you are listening to episode three
seventy eight of Hurdle Wele this focus podcast where I
talk to inspirational people about everything from their highest ties
and toughest moments to essential tips on how to live happier, healthier,
more motivated lives. We all go through our fair share
of hurdles. My goal through these conversations is to empower
(00:45):
you to better navigate yours and move with intention so
that you can stride towards your own big potential and
have some fun along the way. For today's episode, I
am sitting down with Kate Vernu. She's the director of
Woman's Strategy over at Swift And for those that may
not be in the loop on what Swift is, don't worry,
(01:07):
I've got you. Swift is an online game for cyclists, runners, triathletes,
a training platform that enables users to ride and train
completely in a virtual world. For those of you that
like to gamify your fitness, Swift is basically your b
f f now. Of course, Kate gives us the rundown
(01:30):
on all things Swift in today's episode, but she also
talks to me about how she got into this position
to be the person that is advocating for women in
cycling at one of the biggest brands in the space.
Kate talks about her background as a basketball player and
the devastating injury that led her to cycling in the
(01:51):
first place. She also talks about the different jobs she's
had that led her to where she is now and
what it's been like for her to lead this charge
as more and more eyes get on women's cycling. We
rap about what she sees for the future of the sport,
what it was like for Swift to take a gamble
becoming the title sponsor of the Tour de France Femme
(02:15):
now called the Tour Difference Feen Avic Swift, you don't
need to tell me twice. I know my French is superior,
and yeah, so much more so tune indicate, appreciate as
I did, her mentality around taking big risks and going
for things that excite you, and as always, tag the
show as you listen over on social at Hurdle Podcast
(02:38):
and I am over at Emily Abadi. I want to
give some love to the Weekly Hurdle newsletter. It's a
substack that I write that comes out every single Friday.
It is absolutely free unless you would like to give,
totally optional, and it gives you so much of the
same inspiration, motivation, things that you love about the show
(02:58):
directly to your inbox every single Friday. Also, can't forget
gear picks, what I'm reading, what I'm listening to. I'm
also talking about that new thing I'm doing every single week.
I'm getting really back into the swing of things with
that now that it is fall and there's so much
fun stuff to do around New York. So if you
have suggestions for me, I am all ears. Also, last
(03:21):
little bit of housekeeping, I have some fun events happening
in the New York area next week. I will be
announcing those throughout this week. So, like I said, make
sure you're following me over on Instagram over at Emily
Body so that you can be kept in the loop
to come hang out. You know the hurdlers vibe, you
know the deal Again, follow me over at Emily A
(03:43):
Body and at Hurdle Podcast. With that, enjoy my conversation
with Kate. Let's get to it. Let's get to hurdling today.
I am sitting down with Kate Vernu. She is the
(04:05):
director of Woman's Strategy at Zwift. Welcome to Hurtle, Kate.
How are we doing.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
I'm great, great to see you. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Oh my god, your energy is great right now. You're
bringing in this like ray of sunshine on this dreary
New York day. But a fun day for you because
you're not typically in New York.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
No, I am West Coast these days, but I'm a
Jersey girl. I get back here and it feels like home.
My heart is full, like my I'm just overstimulated. I
absolutely love it stimility.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I love being overstay doo. I. You know what, It's
so funny. When I was younger, I thrived in this
place of overstimulation, and now the way that I crave
a refuge after I have to be on for like
even two hours, I'm like, Okay, it's time to go
back into my bubble. I think that's I think that's
(04:54):
what the pandemic did to me.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Oh yeah, I actually I completely identify with that. I
literally am I'm high energy and I like it. I'm
an extrovert. I like a lot of people's their social
battery when they go drains and me going out, I
feel like it charges me. But I've learned as I've
gotten older that I need to make sure that I
take that time to tone it down a bit, take
(05:18):
a deep breath, you know, because you can get caught
in sort of like you know, up up, up, up up,
and yeah, get a center yourself from time to time,
get to clear head, clear deep breaths, and then go
for it. But it's fun, It's like you know, it's
it's fun kind of living on those edges a little.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Bit, oh one hundred percent. And those edges are edges
that you are wildly familiar with. Considering that you yourself have
been a very active individual since you've been quite young, yep.
For you. Now, how do you think that your background
as an athlete has played into the way that you
(05:55):
are today? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Well, at first I thought it was, you know, the
ability to set a goal and work towards it and
be able to practice every day and to be able
to show up on game day to you know, to
for all the pieces to fit in. But I think
what actually is the most valuable thing is learning how
(06:18):
to get over injuries, to get over disappointment, to work
through team or coach drama, to learn how to navigate
the hardest situations. The training actually was the easiest part
for me. That comes naturally. I get up and I
just want to run, walk, bike, like get out there.
That's the easy part for me. But the head game
(06:40):
of you know, overcoming those obstacles, overcoming you know, like
questioning if I can do it, and you know what's
next if I can't, and things like that is where
I've really seen the most growth.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Do you remember the first time in your athleticism, and
I'm assuming it's you know, if not in college playing
basketball before that, that you had to face an adversity
moment that really taught you the importance of picking yourself
back up.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Oh yeah, oh yeah. So my life, like, I come
from a full on basketball family. My dad was a
Hall of Fame Wheret Boston College. Two older brothers played.
All we did was played basketball, and I loved every second.
But it was my full identity and I played all
through I just had, you know, wonderful I played all
through high school. It was just glorious. It was fun.
It was like everything was so positive. And I got
(07:28):
to college and I'm playing Actually even got like Ivy
League Rookie of the Year my first year. Everything was
just going swimmingly, and then it all came crashing down. Yeah,
and it was knee surgeries. It was you know, tormniscuses.
It was missing one season, then getting right back at
it and then getting the next knee went and it
was just all of a sudden, I felt so lost.
(07:48):
I felt so lost. I didn't know who I was.
I literally had to give up basketball. It was pretty
much done, and that was all I was. You know,
that I was completely wrapped up in it so much
that I didn't know who I was outside of it.
And that was the biggest growth of my life those
couple of years. And honestly, it started with like truly
depression and really, you know, feeling very alienated from myself,
(08:13):
feeling a bit lost, and slowly building up and learning
that I was so much bigger than just a basketball
player or just a student or you know, and just
learning how to rethink about myself. Was that. It was
a tough process, but I look back now and I'm like, wow,
(08:33):
I'm so glad I went through that VT because some
people don't go through that until you know, midlife. And
so I feel like those lessons that I learned early on,
and it was sport that brought me back. It was
I started to bike and it just started as like
a fun hobby and I guess kept going.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
So before I hear more about the biking, thank you
for sharing that. I can't even at that time when
you were going through that, mental health wasn't really something
that anybody talked about. How did that make you feel?
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Like?
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Did you feel like something was genuinely wrong with you?
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Oh? Yeah, I absolutely did, you know. And it's funny
because we didn't have like a sports psychologist, you know.
I remember I had a wonderful like trainer, our trainer
that like worked on our you know, like taped our
ankles and things like that, and she would have the
deep talks with me and I, you know, I had
great friends to rely on. Actually, one of my best friends,
my teammate, Julia Motto, is now like the psychologist for
(09:23):
the LPGA, and she was my psychologist through college. And
if it weren't for all that kind of help outside
of it, I'm not sure I would have gotten past it. Yeah,
but yeah, it's yeah, it's uh, definitely. I look back
and I'm just like, yeah, I almost don't recognize that person.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
M And that's such a beautiful thing, as you mentioned,
getting the opportunity to have that adversity so early on,
but when you're in a you don't think of it
like that.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah, definitely not. I had no idea how strong I
was then. I thought, you know, I had in my head,
you know that it was failure. It wasn't like, you know,
anything beyond that was sort of like, yeah, I wasn't
where I needed to be. And yeah, but that that's
a good place to start.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
That's a good place to start. Well because at that time,
I'm sure you imagined going on to play in Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Thought I was gonna play in Europe. I thought, you know,
I didn't know where it was gonna end. You know.
That was the cool thing too, is that, you know,
when I was in high school, I was in high school,
the WNBA started, so there was no end to our
basketball dreams. Like it really felt like it's funny when
I we'll talk about it when we get into cycling,
but basketball to me, I always felt like pretty equal
opportunity at that time. I mean we now know that
(10:37):
they were paid nothing and you know all the you
know the challenges of the w early WNBA, But at
the time, it just felt like there was no end
to my sport dreams. And I had the same opportunity
as my brothers playing college, play after college. So that
and I took a lot of that into the next.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Sport, into the next sport. So how do you first
come into psych lane. You're dealing with this injury, you're frustrated,
you're feeling a little bit beside yourself, and somehow you
find your way onto a bike.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah. And I always had a bike growing up, but
like I never you know, identified as a cyclist. I
mean I just much different class on your bike, Like
you know, you train on your bike a little bit.
Like for basketball when I was hurt, I'd wheel an
exercise bike into the gym and I'd ride the bike
while they played. It was always just like a like
a tool a vehicle. And I met my husband in Providence,
(11:30):
Rhode Island, and he was a skateboarder and I was
a basketball player, and we somehow got on bikes together.
We went for like a bike ride on this beautiful
bike path in Providence, the East Bay Bike Path, And
next thing you know, we got fixie bikes, like you know,
the city bikes that you rip around the city on.
And then we just kept going for longer and longer rides.
(11:51):
I think it was like my inner athlete was coming
out again, and I just wanted more out of it.
So I just kind of kept stepping it up until
I was actually working in Pennsylvania at like I think
I was at GSI Commerce, like a small startup, and
one of my friends invited me to a bike race.
They knew we rode bikes, and they invited me to
(12:12):
this Philly bike race and it was a huge deal.
I didn't know it at the time. And I went
to this bike race and I see like a pack
of guys go by. I'm like, this is so cool,
And then like ten minutes later, a pack of women
went by. And I literally did not know women really
race bikes. I had no I mean I maybe saw
it in the Olympics, but we didn't really there was
no like cycling bike racing on TV or anything. So uh,
(12:34):
I was like, wow, I want to do that. I
really want to do that. Because I had been just
going harder and harder on the bike, and I kind
of had a natural gift for it. Yeah, I liked it.
I enjoyed it. It was like that dopamine was coming
back and that energy was coming back. And so three
years later I was in that race.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
It was in that race I said there one day,
what was the You said you had a natural gift
for it, But did you find anything about it quite
challenging at first?
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Yeah? Oh, absolutely. There's a very steep, like learning curve
totor cycling. You know, the getting comfortable riding handlebar and
handlebar next to people diving into corners and you know,
leaning your bike over going at you know, speeds up
to fifty sixty miles an hour downhill. Things like that
were incredibly intimidating. But honestly, I do need like a
(13:24):
lot of simulation, and I think that that side of it,
the risk taking and the speed, fed me and I
really did enjoy it. And I have a good engine.
I didn't realize that I have a pretty strong like
VO two system, and that I am actually an endurance athlete.
I think it actually made me good in basketball that
in the fourth quarter I was pretty fresh and I always.
I loved practice. They used to run back and forth
(13:47):
to practice, so it was a great place to channel
that energy I had. And while it was incredibly challenging
early on because also just knowing what to do and
how to do it you have to completely self fund yourself.
My husband was very much supportive at the time because
he saw he knew that I had talent, and he
(14:07):
was like, I just have to see what you can
do with this.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Yeah, And so for you it wasn't it started to
not just be a hobby. Oh no, It started to
be like, no, like I want to see how far
I can take this. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Think about it too. At the time, like I was,
I had like kind of pro numbers. I was like,
I want to be a pro cyclist because my pro
basketball dreams got shattered and I was like, here's my
my next chance. I can be a pro cyclist. So
within a couple of years I was a pro cyclist,
like quote unquote on a professional team, racing at that level,
(14:41):
but not making it.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
I was gonna say, so are the air quotes? Basically
because there were no dollars to go along with the title.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
No dollars. I know you recently talked to Kristin Faukner,
one of my idols. She's absolutely incredible and and you know,
just a couple of years ago she's like, you know,
one of the tops in the game, and she was
made seven grand. This is just a couple of years ago.
So fifteen years ago nothing like nothing. Only the top
top riders were making you know, ten to twenty grand maybe,
(15:10):
like the top riders in the world. So like domestic
US riders like, yeah, if you're not literally winning the
national championship, you're not making a dime, so you're paying
for everything out of your own pocket and you're risking
your life your body every race. It's really hard. You
crash a lot, Like in one season, you'll crash, you know,
three or five times, you know, going down with you know,
(15:33):
hitting the pavement hard, sometimes getting run over by other bikes,
falling with a machine.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
It's gnarly what happened to you the first time of
that happened to you?
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Ooh, yeah, you always have to get over your first crash.
It's like you're up and then all of a sudden
you're down and you're on the ground and you're you
have this moment where you're like okay, am I okay,
you know, it's like my head okay, like is everything moving,
like you kind of do a quick self check, and
then the bike check is a bike okay, the bikes
are but you know my bikes were more expensive than
my car. Yeah, so yeah, and then you get back
(16:03):
on the bike and it's literally getting back on the horse.
And depending on the severity of the crash, is like
the recovery between your body and your mind. And sometimes
it takes a little bit to get up to that
confidence again, get up to that speed again, get up
to that closeness that you know, handlebar at handlebar, But
you do, and you learned real quick, like how resilient
(16:26):
you are. Yeah, And it's amazing in bike races to
see people go crashing down at like you know, forty
k an hour or twenty five thirty miles an hour
and get right back up on their bike and go yeah,
you know, and they're like, you know, sometimes like they're
missing skin all the way down their leg or shoulder,
you know.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Like I'm trumped running but I'm like even thinking about
like my like desire to avoid all confrontation, like if
I know, like something's on my phone that I don't
want to see, Like I'll just like leave my phone
in the other room for twenty minutes. Like so the
idea of crashing at twenty five thirty miles and then
being like nope, like you have to get immediately back
on the bike. Talk about an apple lesson from the right.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Biking is like just cycling, and like racing and training
and stuff is like the best metaphor for life, you know,
because like the harder you work, the higher you go.
You know, when you you know, you have to work
really hard to get to the top of the mountain
to enjoy the view. There's a million things that cycling
can teach you in life. And one of the best
quotes is like Greg Lemon quote that says, like it
you know, it doesn't get easier, you just get faster.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Yeah, And so for you, you put your all into
this sport and you get to a place where you realize, like,
I can only take it so far, yep, talk to
me about that.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Yeah, I recognize that I was I was close to
thirty years old, I think maybe maybe just around thirty,
and that was a bit too old honestly to get
into it. If I was like the absolute best. I
might have had a chance, but I was very good,
but not quite good enough to get on a European
team and have that opportunity. And I read organized. I
(18:00):
just had to get back to work, Like I couldn't
keep doing this. I had a couple of concussions. It
was taking a toll on my body, and I realized
that it just was not a sustainable career.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
How did the concussion How did the concussions like manifest
for you? Like, how did that play out for you?
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Oh? It was tough. I had one where I was
completely blacked out and woke up in the hospital and
had no idea what happened. Things like that. It was
hard because you have to really take your time getting back.
Concussion protocol at the time is not where is that
today too? So I mean I don't even know if
I just had, you know, three concussions right totally. So yeah,
(18:40):
you have to really be careful with that. And it
was hard, you know, like just the coming back from
it and then also, like I said, building that confidence up again,
do it again. And I think as a thirty year
old person that you know, wanted a career ahead of me,
I also recognized that that was not a risk. I
was going to be continued really willing to take them
(19:02):
because it is like in the sport, you better. You
got to be comfortable with crashing and you know, and
that's I think I got to a point where I
was like, yeah, I gotta I gotta move on.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Yeah, And so did moving on from cycling feel like
moving on from basketball.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
No. This is the cool thing is that in cycling
I started out, as you know, going after competition and
wanting to be the best and race, and in that
process I discovered the cycling community and all the other
things you can do on bikes, travel with bikes and
(19:38):
go on adventures and just general fitness. And it's just
enjoying like a three hour ride with friends on a
Saturday and stopping for coffee. It was transformative like those
you know, like it was exercise like I never knew
that was. It fed my soul, you know, as well
as you know my heart legs. And I absolutely fell
(19:59):
in love with that side of the sport because it
kept introducing me to new people, places and then jobs.
And I started out, I started working in cycling just
as a natural thing. I was sort of I was
training at racing at a belodrome and they needed a
marketing director and I started there.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
I needed a front and director and I said, sure,
why not. Now, obviously your interest for the sport makes
you a good candidate to work within the sport. But
talk about the other fundamentals that were necessary for that job.
Did you walk in and you said, I might not
know this, but I will figure it.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Out absolutely, Because I did not study marketing. I studied
modern culture and media. It was essentially like film studies.
But I'm a people person and I love to learn,
and I saw this opportunity of this beautiful belodrome in
Pennsylvania that had Friday night racing that was super family
friendly and enjoyable and had world class athletes coming like
(20:57):
from all over the globe. Athletes were coming to race
at Teatown on Friday nights under the lights, and it
was a beautiful thing. And cycling is can be a
tricky spectator sport, you know, because you think about the
Tour de France and you know you're standing outside of
the road and they go buy and that's okay, you know,
and watching it on TV, there's a lot of nuance
(21:18):
to learning how to watch cycling. But I felt like
at a velodrome, you have this container, you know, you
have an amazing way to see the whole race and
to get to know the athletes, and it's a great
introduction to watching bike racing. And I really enjoyed it.
So I enjoyed promoting it. I was a natural promoter.
Even in college. I did, like I promoted fashion shows
(21:38):
and I did pop up stores, and you know, I
like producing, like putting things together, I like showcasing talent,
and so this was a wonderful opportunity to do that
and it came very naturally. And I like people. I
like to write, I like to communicate, So I enjoyed
writing the weekly newsletters and the press releases and getting
the storytelling behind the athlete. You know, these athletes coming
(22:01):
all the way from New Zealand to race in a
tiny in the cows and cornfields of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
The cows and corn fields. But so, what I'm hearing
you say is that you learned a lot, so much.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Yeah, so much, And yeah, and I kept meeting people
because I'm just a natural connector, you know, in situations,
I'm the one that kind of walks over and introduces
myself and I want to hear your story right, yeah,
And that you know, led to then my next job
working in bike tours. I had an opportunity to work
in bike tours and the same thing, I was marketing
(22:35):
director for the bike tours. This is basically bringing people
mostly from the US to Europe to ride the classic
climbs of the Tour de France, the Alps and the
Pyrenees and the Italian Dolomites, the people that wanted to
go conquer an epic adventure for a week. And because
I had just come from racing as well, it was
really fit. So I also would like help lead the
(22:55):
tours and guide and I enjoyed that so much too,
because you know, there's is there something about going on
a bike ride with somebody, a really hard, like one
hundred mile bike ride. You go through so many emotions, moments,
somebody breaks down at some point and the other person
has to kind of lift them up.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Oh totally.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
It's like you it's therapy. It's like by the end
of it, you know each other so much better. You
grow together, you celebrate together, you suffer together, and that
shared suffering that a lot of us know and endurance
sports is really bonding and it became one of my
really favorite things working in bike tours. Every job I
kind of picked up new skills. And my skill in
bike tours was like when you get like you have
(23:37):
a guy that like got really grumpy on a climb
and he just wants, like a hurt animal, wants to
be left alone, Like don't stop talking to me as
I'm like, you know, cheery, like you know, really super fit,
like climbing next to him and like hey, so like
you know, what do you think of this view? And
he just wants to be left alone and you have
to kind of figure out a way to crack that
egg and get him out of his own head. And
(23:58):
I really enjoyed that. You know, to usually ask them
about their kids, ask them about their pets, asking about
something outside themselves, and then all of a sudden, you
know they can you know, rise above the immediate pain,
see like the bigger picture, settle in, you know, and
just refhraate.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
It's such a valuable skill I'll never forget. I think
I was working at self, So this must be like
twenty sixteen, and that's like when the term like sweat
working was really big. Everyone needed to like go to
a workout class with their colleagues, and it was because
there's so much research around exactly what you're talking about about,
this idea that when you do hard things with other people,
(24:38):
it opens you up beyond maybe your typical boundaries to
try something new, say something different, new connections, etc. And
so for you learning how to help people get outside
of their shell, what a special gift opportunity? Do you
recall maybe someone that's done that for you?
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Absolutely so many times. Honestly, a lot of times it's
my husband. He is like, I'm the fiery one, you know,
I swing a little bit more up and down, and
he is solid and sweet, and sometimes he just can
say something very simple that just immediately takes me out
of that you know kind of fight.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Or flight, the fighter flight. We know the fighter flight, well,
I want to talk about the fighter flight. That's so
interesting and I feel like, especially as an endurance athlete,
it's like you know how to live in that place
of discomfort quite well, but we also learn over time
that living in that place isn't the healthiest thing. So
(25:43):
you are leaving these bike chores, you are writing often,
you're getting to live your passion and also learn all
these new things. When do you learn or when do
you start to come to this place where like, okay,
maybe it's time to graduate from here.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yeah. I think it was actually more about what was
the next opportunity going to be? Yeah, you know, instead
of sort of saying I'm done with this, something else
came up that was really exciting. And it came up
because I was going after some good business. I was
working for these bike tours. We are the vip tour
(26:18):
operator to the Men's Tour de France, like, you know,
the biggest bike race, one of the biggest of sports
events in the world, and I'm taking people for their
dream trips to the tour. And I started to notice
as the marketing director that a lot of my clients
on Strava, they were doing this thing called zwift. So Strava,
you know, is how we track our cycling and running
(26:40):
and hiking. And I saw that a lot of my
clients were doing indoor training cycling training using like a
video game. I was like, what is this and this
is like ten years ago and I look it up
and it's this company called Swift and it you know,
their goal was to make indoor cycling fun. And they
literally built a video game where you put your bike
on a trainer inside and you're riding in a virtual
(27:02):
world with other people. And a lot of people were
doing it. Caught on like fire back in like twenty fifteen,
and I sent them an email. I had just moved
to La. I saw that they were in La. I
sent them an email to Partnerships at Swift and I said, Hey,
I'm Kate. I worked for this amazing bike tour company.
Why don't we do like a challenge together on Strava
where you have to ride x amount in Swift for
(27:26):
a chance to win the Dream Trip, the IP trip
to the Tour de France. And they wrote me right
back and they're like, we love it. Why don't you
come down the office? And so I did and I got,
you know, and I met the guys there. It was
great because a couple of them knew the same people
that I knew from back in the cows and cornfields
(27:46):
of Pennsylvania, and all those connections that I had been
making came to Fruition and created this other opportunity just
to really connect with those guys. Yeah, and they had
just started this company. It was probably like thirty people
and we got to know each other, started riding bikes together,
and then a couple months later they had an opportunity
that they then approached me about, and that was to
(28:08):
help them launch the Swift Academy, which was this groundbreaking
program to It was a global talent ID competition in
the video game, So from the comfort of your home,
you got to try out to win a professional cycling
contract with a pro women's team. And that program was,
(28:29):
you know, sort of like you know the onset of
HOUSEWIF got really into women's cycling, and they brought me
on to run the program because I had raced that
I knew the cycling world really well, that I had
the right kind of energy to tackle something like that,
And for me, it was so exciting that a company
was looking at things differently that my failed ambition in cycling.
(28:51):
I was like, Oh, maybe I can make it better
for somebody else. There's a tryout, Like if I could
try out from my house ten years before that, I
might have made a pro team. And I love the
idea that somebody was creating new pathways that we were
rethinking how to get into the sport and how you know,
you don't have to exactly live in the right place
in the world to make it into this sport that
(29:11):
you could potentially, you know, do it from you know talent,
get talent id'ed from.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Indeed, there is so much alignment here, oh Ma, it's crazy.
And as you speak about this, your energy is contagious
and it is such a holistic example of energy attracts.
Like energy. You were excited about the opportunity to take
(29:37):
what you were doing and offer that to others, and
you found people that liked what you were doing and
it worked. And it's not surprising that it worked because
you all had a common mutual goal, which was we
want to get as many people as we can involved
in this.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Absolutely, I love the sport. It had given me so much,
and this company was trying to make it more accessible,
more inclusive. They were breaking down some of the barriers
that so many people and especially so many women faced.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Taking a break from today's episode to give some love
to my friends at AG one. It's daily immune support
that helps you stay at your best this season. It's
powered by antioxidants, probiotics, and functional mushrooms and it's been
a part of my regular routine for at least gosh,
six or seven years now. Now, the end of the
(30:36):
year could bring stress and disrupted habits. And the good
news is that AG One's got the prebiotics, probiotics and
enzymes to help support regularity and gut resilience amidst the chaos.
Their next Gen formula delivers five new strains of clinically
studied probiotics that have been shown to play a role
supporting digestion, immune function, and alleviate occasional blow These probiotics
(31:01):
increase the number of beneficial bacteria, which helps support a
healthy gut microbiome. I don't know anyone that's not interested
in that. Plus, it's really great for energy production, which
starts at the cellular level and influences the ability to
physically and mentally perform. AG one next Gen supports and
enhanced b complex to support energy without that annoying afternoon crash.
(31:27):
We've got too much going on. We don't have time
for that. With seventy five plus ingredients, including five probiotic strains,
AG one next Gen replaces the need for a multivitamin,
probiotics and more. Now, of course, I have an offer
for you if you head on over to drink ag one.
That's drinkag number one dot com slash hurdle. You can
(31:50):
get a free welcome kit with an AG one flavor
sampler and a bottle of Vitamin D three K two
when you first subscribe again that I offer for you.
Visit my link at drinkag one dot com slash hurdle
to get a free welcome get with an AG one
flavor sampler plus a bottle of Vitamin D three K
two when you first subscribe today? Would you say that
(32:21):
you're good at celebrating yourself.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
I probably could be a little bit better. I'm always
kind of I move fast and I'm onto the next thing.
I'm hard on myself. I do, though, I do. I
do celebrate moments. I do. Like you know, we'll probably
talk about the Twitter France from a vig Swift, but
that is something I celebrated.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
I'll tell you that much. Yeah. Do you remember celebrating
when you got offered this in house opportunity with Zwiff.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
It was actually very scary because I love the bike tours. Yeah,
and I love the people I worked with. They had
become family and it was a big risk. I'm like, wait,
I'm gonna leave riding in the Alps and the purities,
going to Spain in France every summer to go work
for an indoor cycling company. But there's this moment that
you just know. You're like, you can feel the energy
(33:10):
that there's something behind that door and you want it.
And I knew the bike tours it was great, but
it was I knew what my next two, three or
five years looked like. Yeah, and I am an ambitious
person and I wanted something next and it was so exciting.
It was you know, that that nervous energy of like, well,
this is really risky, but you know I could be
(33:33):
a part of something game changing.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
How do you talk yourself into the risk? A lot
of people hear this and they're like, I have so
been there. There has been something that you know so
much of it feels right, but I'm so nervous. What
would you tell that person?
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Yeah, So it's like it's kind of like buying a house.
You know, you can't just like walk in and go,
oh my god, it like look at that shower, look
at the bathroo, look at that kitchen. It's beautiful. I
want it, Like, you really have to dig deeper. You
got to open all the closets. You got to do
the due diligence to under fully understand the opportunity. So
I had to really think about, you know what the
(34:08):
career path and that could look like. I had to
really get to know the guys that I would be
working with. It was it was boys club too at
the beginning of ed Swift, and I was like, is
that something I'm ready for? I had to really get
in there and understand fully the risk I was taking
and the elements to that. And at the end of
the day, the fact that it was in tech, the
(34:30):
fact that it was in sports, so much of it
felt right. There's a lot of gut that went into
saying yes mm.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
A lot of gut, a lot of trusting yourself, which
comes from repetition. Absolutely, we get to a place when
we are dealing with the unknown that you have to
trust yourself, and you can only trust yourself when you
can put into practice the lessons that you've learned previously.
So you talked so beautifully about so many difficult moments
(34:58):
where you had to trust yourself. You had to trust
yourself to move on from basketball. You had to trust
yourself after you crash the first time on your bike.
To get back on and keep competing, you had to
trust yourself to go as far as you could with cycling.
And so now here you are again in this next
exciting chapter, leaning into that self trust and it's so special.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Yeah, yeah, it's really fun. And you know, like, I
know I have the work ethics, so I know I'm
going to give it my all. Right, I can't control
all the factors, but I know I can control the
effort I'm going to put into it. So also, I
take that mentality into each new opportunity.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
And that in itself is such a beautiful skill saying
I might not have all of the answers, but I'm
going to do the best I can with what i
have right here. And that in itself is a hurdle
for many people. Oh absolutely, And that's the thing.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
None of us have it all. We're all figuring it
out once you realize that. Like, I love my CEO
so much now he's the best, and I love that
He's incredibly real and I see his flaws clearly, I
see his successes clearly, but what I always see is
his optimism and his belief in himself, and his belief
in his team, and we've made mistakes as a company,
(36:08):
and I love that how we've recovered from them. Have
we pivoted? You can always do that. And sports shows
you that you know that there's no end. You know,
there's no like, oh, that's it, you know, throw the towel.
There's just pivots.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
This is exactly what you were saying before about the
importance of learning how to pick yourself back up, because
it's not the fact that you quote unquote fail, it's
what you do after that failure that empowers you to
show up and do it again. Absolutely, and so having
the tenacity to pick yourself up. And it's say, this
didn't go hard I had hoped, but I'm willing to
(36:44):
keep going and give it another try, or I'm willing
to pivot. Ye, that is such a win. It's such
a win. So you join this WHIF team. Yeah, and
you and you go through these evolutions, right because you
joined to do one thing, you get the opportunity then
to you continue on your path there and then another
opportunity presents itself.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
This is so cool. So yeah, we started that Swift
Academy program started as a women's program. And the cool
thing is we set out to like find that diamond
in the rough, find that like talent in the middle
of nowhere that you know, had been undiscovered. But in
the meantime, we built the largest women's global cycling community.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
So the ROI on that must have been pretty great.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
That's incredible, right, not only like the press and media
around this groundbreaking you know, talent id competency, but we
had so many women coming to the platform just to
to try, like to test themselves, to join a community
that was all training together. Because the Zwift Academy was
a program in the game that you had to like
kind of go through this series of workouts like this
(37:49):
this full program, you know, to to identify how good
are you? How good you know? Are you as good
as you think you are? You better? And it was
beautiful because so many of the women actually weren't going
for the pro contract. They were just going to see
what they could do. And and in the meantime, we
had we had a Facebook page that kind of supplemented
(38:10):
the academy where the women could connect, I could create
like announcements and stuff, okay, like tomorrow's workouts live, you know,
things like that, And you saw the connections start to
be made. You saw women celebrating each other, encouraging each other,
answering each other's questions, they built their own resource. It
was It was incredible. And that's one of the biggest
(38:31):
barriers in cycling for women especially is that you walk
into the bike shop and you don't nobody gives you
the time of day, or you're afraid to ask the
questions that you have. You don't you know, you don't
know how to just get into get stuck into it,
and it's an intimidating sport. It's it's dangerous, and it's expensive,
and there's a lot of things you need. And we
(38:53):
saw that in this Facebook group that the women were
just naturally supporting each other and commiserating and celebrating and
it was just beautiful. And that's what actually got me
really into taking that the next level on the platform
and seeing like what else can we do if we've
done this, Like what else can we do to you know,
(39:15):
grow and elevate women cycling, Because Wow, we have an
opportunity to connect women in the ways that they haven't
been able to. Because if you don't live in a
place that's like great to ride and you don't have
local community. It's really hard, you know, it's hard to
feel safe, it's hard to feel supported. And so to
know that any woman around the world, you know, could
log on and join like a group ride and make
(39:35):
friends and you know, ask questions was really exciting and
we kind of kept taking that to the next level.
And then when we started racing in Swift, because it's
a virtual world, when we started racing, we did it
with complete parody.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Okay, pause, there's people listening to us that are like,
I totally don't understand what's going on. Yep, So can
we just like break down the virtual world for Hot Sock? Sure, Okay,
let's do it.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yeah. So it's essentially a video game. When you put
your bike on a trainer inside, it measures your power,
how fast you're going, like, you know, based on your
body weight, your size, and the power that you're putting out.
It literally powers your avatar in the game. So you're
riding in the video game is mimicking, you know, your
(40:19):
exact effort that you're doing on this indoor bike, and
so you can do like group rides. You're literally riding
like simultaneously with other people around.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
The world, right, So you can hit me up and
be like, yo, tomorrow at seven, do you want to
go ride yep on the swift.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Exactly, And you can just free ride in the world.
You can join events, you could do workouts, there's all
sorts of things you could do. And then when we
introduce racing, you know, similar to just racing in the outside,
you have long road races, you have like you know,
shorter kind of races. And we did it with complete parody,
which is not a thing in cycling. At the time.
(40:53):
Cycling it was incredibly male dominated and there's quite a
lot of disparity in terms of opportunity, visibility, salaries. You
rarely had a race that would have the same distance
in the same prize person. It's not like triathlon or something.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
It's very different.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
So it was it was groundbreaking that we were just
doing that in swift, just creating the same opportunities you
know from the.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Gun right, and so helpful that explanation. Also, I would
imagine as a connector to see that Facebook group taking
off and to see these women come together, you're like,
we are doing something that's so much more special than
just like encouraging women to ride yep and.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
The cool thing was. It wasn't just like you know,
Fred and his basement riding. It was like pros started
to train on Swift because it's incredibly efficient to train inside.
You can control the environment and control the factors, you
can get your intervals in. It's incredibly efficient. So we
saw a lot of pros training on Swift as well.
And then COVID hit and we blew up.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Yeah, talk to me about that, because we're.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Home fitness and literally people could not ride bikes, you know,
very far outside, like everything was locked down. You couldn't
go on group rides. All the group rides shut down.
Racing was even paused like that. Whole season in twenty
twenty was on pause. Yeah, and Swift blew up.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
Twenty twenty is the year that I got into cyclic.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Yes, so many people this is a very common story.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
Yeah, because also you could like you could go out
and just ride by yourself, you know. But for the
people that were looking for that community, they came to
Swift and the and the challenges and the different kinds
of workouts and racing and Swift, and at that moment
in the spring of twenty twenty, the Tour de France
was actually put on pause and they like, you know,
(42:44):
for the first time in like forever, they weren't sure
if it was going to go that year, and we
got together with the organizers of the tour and said,
why don't we do something on Swift because somebody of
the pros were already on Swift right. Yeah. So yeah,
So we did a virtual Tour de France in the
summer of twenty twenty where pro men and pro women
(43:07):
lined up from you know, their you know home set
up in Drona or Columbia and raced against each other
in real time. And it was broadcast around the world
because there was no cycling racing on at the time,
so there, you know, the media and the broadcasters picked
it up because it was you know, we got to
(43:27):
watch something everybody's.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Hungry, hungry for it. Yeah, what a special moment for
the company.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
It was really exciting, and it took a monumental effort
because we literally built a French world. So this is
a video game, so you literally built worlds, and we
built a French world in a couple months that mimicked
part of the actual Tour de France.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
Course.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Wow, And at this time, there was no women's tourter France.
This is twenty twenty, yep. And there was a one
day women's event that was owned by the Tourter France
called Lacres that was meant to expand at some point,
but it hadn't in about eight years. And so doing
(44:09):
it on Swift and having that parody was eye opening yep.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
And everybody watched, and everybody watched.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
And the women were phenomenal.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
They were phenomenal, which arguably was a major catalyst for
what happened next for women's cycling exactly.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Yeah, because then that's what kicked off A conversation was
Withift and ASO, the organizers of the Tort France, to say, like,
it's time, there needs to be a proper women's Twartter
Friends stage race. It's the biggest race in the world
by far right, and women weren't there.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
Yeah, And it's so interesting because there is both this
recognition that it's time and also still a lack of
available funding to support this creation of an outlet avenue
equal opportunity for women yep.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Yeah. And the organizer of the tour they clearly hadn't
done it yet because they didn't believe it was going
to be sustainable, Like they didn't believe that the audiences,
audiences would come, that the investors would come. And so
we took a big step and we said, we'll come
on board as a title sponsor for four years, right,
and we will do this together and you'll co promote it,
(45:24):
and we'll bring the giant global community of cyclists that
we have, you know, the energy of that community, those fans,
you know, to the race and to our campaign around
the race, our promotion of the race. And we did.
And so in twenty twenty we announced that in twenty
twenty two, a Tour de France fem A x WHIFT
(45:45):
would be.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
Introduced the inaugural everything you just described, it's such a
big risk. It is a very big decision, one that
you were obviously so passionate and excited about. But I
would imagine that there had to be many conversations also
about are we sure this is what we want to do?
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Oh, absolutely huge risk. It was a massive risk. It
was a huge commitment we were making and it was
unproven beyond you know, the virtual Tour de France that
you know did get you know, hundreds of thousands of
people watching around the world, but it's still we you know,
didn't know if the fans would truly come and if
they would accept this as that incredible audience that the
(46:28):
tour gets, if that would transfer.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
To the women's side, right.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
So, and there was you know, there was previous editions
of a women's sort of France in the fifties and
the eighties, but it wasn't given the same visibility in broadcasts.
So they they floundered after a couple of years and
they gave up on them. And those are some heartbreaking stories,
incredible stories, but this was something but that we felt
(46:54):
the timing was right and we had that proof of concept. Okay,
you know, there is definitely an appetite there, but we
had to truly believe. We had to believe before anybody believed.
But we also, you know, a bunch of years before
that we believe we could have a pro try out
in Swift and that program was going incredibly well. So
we're the risk takers in cycling. We had already demonstrated
(47:17):
that we're willing to think outside the box and put
our money where our mouth is and be leaders in
the sport and help build the future of cycling that
we want to be a.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
Part of So you've done it four times now, Yes,
looking back on the last four editions of this, what
would you say has been the biggest learning, the biggest win,
and the biggest challenge.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
The biggest learning is that visibility was truly the key
to unlock the unlimited potential of the sport. That first year,
we actually our campaign around the towrter Fronts Famavexwift was
watch the Fen. It was a simple like we put
it on cycling caps, we put it on like bags,
(48:02):
watched the Fen. Everybody watch this is happening. We took
out a huge ad in the New York Times that
had a beautiful picture of like Paris with the female side.
It's like, this is happening. And everything went into just
making sure that awareness was peak and that you know,
everybody knew it was going on. And it worked. Honestly,
(48:25):
it worked because audiences were truly ready. It felt like this,
you know, this was past due. So the energy brought
to that first edition, the numbers, the broadcast numbers, the millions,
hundreds of millions watching around the world was astounding.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
And the learning, it seems, is like the same learning
we've seen as more and more coverage of women's sports
comes into the picture here, which is that we don't
need we have fans. Yeah, and the fans want to
be served with this content, with the opportunity to be fans.
It's just a matter of getting all of these outlets,
(49:05):
et cetera on board to broadcast these special stories. The
biggest win from the last four years.
Speaker 1 (49:13):
Oh, the biggest win from the past four years, I
think there is. It's validation. It's sort of knowing how
we can even trust our instincts more, you know, because
we believed in this from the beginning and it has
(49:35):
surpassed everybody's expectations, even our own, which were very high.
And the biggest win though, is like this year at
the race, we saw crowds that were absolutely next level. Yeah,
just you know, for the whole course, nine days of racing,
(49:57):
you know, one thousand kilometers, the whole course was lined
with fans. And to see so many little girls and
little boys growing up seeing this as normal. This is
bike racing, and that's their view of bike racing and
they're gonna never think of it differently than that. I
think that's the biggest one.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
It's not just here are some women riding bikes. It's
this is bike racing.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
Yeah, this is here to stay. This is gonna inspire
that next generation. Nothing's ever going to be the.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
Same again, nothing ever. Yeah, biggest challenge.
Speaker 1 (50:30):
The biggest hurdle is not getting complacent. It's great, it's happening,
but there's still a lot of disparity in prize purses,
in coverage. They don't have full coverage of every stage
like the men do, and the men have twenty one stages, right,
So there's things that will continue to advocate and push
(50:54):
for and help influence. It's just making sure that we
don't like say, okay, we did it and just kind
of sit.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
Up and be like we're going going so many times,
even I just did a really big project in Tokyo
and I three weeks later yesterday, I sent a message
and I was like, we need to recap this, like
we need to revisit this, what worked, what didn't work,
what can we do better? These conversations sometimes it's easy,
(51:20):
as you said, like onto the next thing, Onto the
next thing. They're so important to that forward progress. Absolutely,
it's so important for you. Now you've done so much
in this role. But bigger than this specific event. What
else excites you in your current role as the director
(51:42):
of Women's Strategy and Swift.
Speaker 1 (51:44):
Definitely the opportunity of cycling to learn from other sports.
Cycling has always been it's such a unique sport. It's
so Euro based that it's just sort of survived in
its own kind of bubble. And in all of the
innovation and excitement investment we're seeing in women's soccer and
rugby and WNBA and March madness, like everything that we're
(52:09):
learning there bringing that to cycling and shaking it up
even more honestly like it needs it, it really does.
I think that one of my biggest superpowers coming into
the sport is that I'm not just from this sport
that I come from basketball that I you know, even
that that first campaign that we did where we put
you know, we had like a tagline on March like
(52:29):
merch is huge in women's sports. We know this, Like
the fans want March and they want to rep because
it stands for something. It's more than like I play
this sport, it's like I am I want to I
want to help build this bright future for you know,
women's sports. I want to be a part of the
solution like I'm team women, you know, yeah, and giving
(52:50):
fans the opportunity to do that and to really get
to know the characters and to enjoy all the unique
things that women athletes bring to sport, and that is
there's a relatability. They share a lot of different ways
than men do in terms of like how they're creating
content and you know behind the scenes that they're giving
(53:11):
us access to. There's such a wonderful opportunity for investors
to connect with audiences in new ways. And I love
seeing that. And I think we can do more of
that in cycling because sometimes we have a sport where
everybody wears helmets and sunglasses and it can look a
little bit uniform. Yeah, And so I want to help
bring out these incredible personalities. I want people to fall
in love with the writers and to get to know
(53:33):
you know. I want rivalries, and I want the drama
and the storytelling that we're seeing propel other sports.
Speaker 2 (53:41):
I hosted a dinner last year, and before the women
at the table left, I said, I want to open
up the opportunity right now for anyone in this room
if there is something that you need help with that
maybe you haven't vocalized, you have the floor, like there
are thirty leaders in this room from all different aspects.
What it is that we were there to gather on?
(54:02):
And I said, how can we show up for you?
So you say this, and you say, the fans want merch,
and the fans want media and the fans want access.
If I was to say right now, like what do
you need help with? Okay, what do you need help with?
Speaker 1 (54:17):
I need like storytelling. I want people to know that
there wasn't a women's towart of France. The men started
in nineteen oh three. Yeah, and now the women's is happening,
and you have these gorgeous characters like this incredible drama,
fabulous sport and it's I think that maybe a lot
of people don't really engage with cycling because they don't
get it. Yeah, when you watch it on it's on
(54:40):
Peacock in the summer next year, it's August first through ninth.
Commentators do a fabulous job of breaking it down and
kind of teaching you how to watch cycling and it's
not hard. And then all of a sudden you're a
super fan, Like I haven't watched basketball in a long time,
you know, I kind of honestly, it was a little
heartbroken for me. And now with everything it's been happening,
(55:01):
I'm so invested again in the stories.
Speaker 2 (55:03):
There's your team, Oh Aces all day, Okay, Vegas, Vegas.
We are three blocks from Barkleys.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
Oh my god. Yeah. Really excited.
Speaker 2 (55:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
Yeah, So I would say pay attention this, Like people
don't realize that the Tour de France is the most
watched annual sporting event in the world. Yeah, the Women's
Tour is probably behind, like the Rugby World Cup, the
most watched women's sporting event in the world. We had
one hundred million hours watched last year.
Speaker 2 (55:33):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (55:33):
In France alone, seven point seven million people watched the
final stage to watch the beautiful Pauline Pferan provo win
in like incredible fashion in France, and that was fifty
three percent of TVs that we're on we're watching it.
So it's huge and I want American audiences to to,
(55:54):
you know, to get involved and to get excited and
to catch the bug because it's exciting. It's beautiful too.
It's a spectacular spot to watch because it's literally a
Tour de Frase.
Speaker 2 (56:03):
Yeah, a little bit of a pivot but I'm just
like sitting here thinking about your energy and your vibe
and that I correct me if I'm wrong. Would assume
that oftentimes people kind of expect you to bring this
energy and this vibe to every room that you walk into. A.
How does that make you feel? And B what do
(56:24):
you do on the days that you don't feel so
shiny and energetic?
Speaker 1 (56:27):
That's a great question. Yeah, Like I've learned a lot
more about self care because I can't believe how much
more energy my job has taken in the last four years,
promoting this race, promoting this partnership, getting out there in
the media, being on the ground at the race. This
(56:50):
level is expected from me totally, but it also comes
very naturally. So I do what I can outside of
those moments to ensure that I'm ready for the So
just like good habits, ritual is really important, and having
a good regimen at home, like you know, trying to
get as much sleep as possible, taking good care of myself,
staying you know, working out regardless of all my travel,
(57:12):
you know, even if it's a quick gym workout, like
a quick hotel workout, you know, doing planks on the
on the floor of the hotel, but taking care of
myself as much as possible so that I'm ready to go,
you know, when the moment strikes. But but there's times
that I'm not quite there, and then I think it's
going back to like the basics of like, I love
(57:33):
to connect with people. So maybe it's a quieter conversation
this time. Maybe I'm not grabbing the stage or the mic,
and I'm I'm you know, finding somebody in the room
that I want to hear their story. So I think
there's different ways, different things I can do in the
moment to get outside of myself, you know, and and
kind of just take it in and just be more
(57:54):
of a receptor. Yeah, somebody that's kind of doling it out.
Speaker 2 (57:59):
It's so such a beautiful takeaway to say, just because
I'm tired doesn't mean I'm not who I am. Yeah,
And that is such an eloquent way to put it.
It's like, even though I'm tired, I am still a connector.
Even though I'm tired, I still want to learn about you.
My capacity for how I go about it just might
(58:19):
need to shift in that moment. What a really cool
way to think about it.
Speaker 1 (58:25):
Yeah, And I always say that there's an opportunity in
every room you just you don't you haven't found it yet,
and so just kind of it's a growth mentality, you know,
it's kind of always thinking that there's there's some door
that I don't even see yet that's going to open.
Speaker 2 (58:37):
There's some door that I don't even see yet that's
going to open. Right now, someone comes to maybe your
Instagram or your LinkedIn, they see your title and what
you do in Swift. They see a woman that's passionate
about cycling. But when you look in the mirror, Kate,
what is it that you see looking back at you?
Speaker 1 (58:53):
Oh, I see a fighter in a good way. I
see somebody that uh is ready for the next challenge. Yeah,
and that thrives on that energy. I feel so lucky
to have found Swift is it's a company that has
always been doing something that has never been done before,
and that takes a unique person to accept that challenge
(59:14):
and want to be there for that and want to
dive into the unknown. And I've learned to really embrace
that uncertainty and risk and those are now positive emotions
for me. You know, I remember, there's a wonderful athlete
Kristin Armstrong, who has won three Olympic gold medals in
the time trial race and she's now a phenomenal coach
(59:34):
and she has this sort of mentality of embracing the
pain and if you kind of switch your mind to
it's not pain, this is power and it's pushing me
forward and that and you reframe it to at you know,
to now it's it's something that is driving you instead
of holding you back. And so you know, we have
(59:58):
to kind of get out of kind binary thinking of
like good and bad and everything can you know, lead
to something positive but you haven't seen it yet, So
be patient, don't jump to conclusions, and you know, give
the world the opportunity to kind of show you what
that is.
Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
Turning your pain into power is again one of those
things that is repetition and repetition and repetition. There is
going to be that one day, that one difficult moment
that you first realize it's possible, and then there's going
to be that next difficult moment where you realize, Okay,
(01:00:36):
not only is it possible, but I can do something
about it. It's so challenging to get there, it is.
Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
I here's a fun one somebody told me once as
we were starting a freezing cold ride in like norcl
and I was like shivering, and I see this, this
this gentleman that's on the ride. He's Icelandic and he's
wearing just like short sleeves. I'm like, what is he doing, Like, Hilmar,
aren't you freezing?
Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
Of course his name is Kilmar.
Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
Hilmar, Hilmar.
Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
I'm like, this is like not your average Hilmar.
Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
Aren't you freezing? And he said cold is a state
of mind, And I went, I think, okay, whatever, Viking,
but then think of it. Try it sometime, all right,
I'm gonna try it sometimes. We all, like, you know,
the best, the best athletes in the world know that
the strongest muscle you have is your brain. And so yeah,
(01:01:32):
get out of thinking like that you know it all
like you don't know anything, and you can constantly retrain
your brain. Uh, and there's little things you could do
to take you out of that fight or flight moment
or that panic or uh, that discomfort, you know, to
turn it into something that actually might create, you know,
(01:01:53):
your next step, your next progress, your next awakening.
Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
So basically we're gonna leave here and we're gonna go
jump in a couple of ice backs.
Speaker 1 (01:01:59):
Yeah, just a state of mind, Just a state of mind.
Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
Well, Kate, I'm so happy that we're able to do
this today. Before I let you go right now, you
have the opportunity to offer yourself a piece of advice.
I'm going to bring you back to when you made
the difficult decision to walk away from basketball, being told
that you can't keep doing this thing that you love,
knowing what you know? Now, what would you tell yourself
(01:02:23):
during that hurdle moment?
Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
Oh, this is just the beginning, that there's no true endings,
that this is just.
Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
A pivot, just a pivot. Kate, so happy that you
were able to come to the studio. For those that
want to keep up with you, you want to keep up
with the Zwift, give me the details. Where do you
fend you?
Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
Okay, you can find me on Instagram at just my
full name. Kate Verno. Definitely follow goes witht on Instagram
as well to follow the excitement around our Towurter friends,
Femavi Swift partnership and everything we're doing to grow and
elevate women's cycling. And you know, if you have questions
about the actual app and want to get rolling with
(01:03:02):
an incredible women's community around the world. You know, feel
free to DM me anytime with questions about how to
get into it and what you need to join this
beautiful world of cycling.
Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
Amazing see one Swift I'm over at Emily a Body
and at Hurdle Podcasts Another Hurdle Conquered. Catch you guys
next time.
We're all figuring it out, and sports shows you that
you know that there's no end, there's no like, Oh,
that's it, you know, throw the towel, there's just pivots.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Hey everyone, Emily here you are listening to episode three
seventy eight of Hurdle Wele this focus podcast where I
talk to inspirational people about everything from their highest ties
and toughest moments to essential tips on how to live happier, healthier,
more motivated lives. We all go through our fair share
of hurdles. My goal through these conversations is to empower
(00:45):
you to better navigate yours and move with intention so
that you can stride towards your own big potential and
have some fun along the way. For today's episode, I
am sitting down with Kate Vernu. She's the director of
Woman's Strategy over at Swift And for those that may
not be in the loop on what Swift is, don't worry,
(01:07):
I've got you. Swift is an online game for cyclists, runners, triathletes,
a training platform that enables users to ride and train
completely in a virtual world. For those of you that
like to gamify your fitness, Swift is basically your b
f f now. Of course, Kate gives us the rundown
(01:30):
on all things Swift in today's episode, but she also
talks to me about how she got into this position
to be the person that is advocating for women in
cycling at one of the biggest brands in the space.
Kate talks about her background as a basketball player and
the devastating injury that led her to cycling in the
(01:51):
first place. She also talks about the different jobs she's
had that led her to where she is now and
what it's been like for her to lead this charge
as more and more eyes get on women's cycling. We
rap about what she sees for the future of the sport,
what it was like for Swift to take a gamble
becoming the title sponsor of the Tour de France Femme
(02:15):
now called the Tour Difference Feen Avic Swift, you don't
need to tell me twice. I know my French is superior,
and yeah, so much more so tune indicate, appreciate as
I did, her mentality around taking big risks and going
for things that excite you, and as always, tag the
show as you listen over on social at Hurdle Podcast
(02:38):
and I am over at Emily Abadi. I want to
give some love to the Weekly Hurdle newsletter. It's a
substack that I write that comes out every single Friday.
It is absolutely free unless you would like to give,
totally optional, and it gives you so much of the
same inspiration, motivation, things that you love about the show
(02:58):
directly to your inbox every single Friday. Also, can't forget
gear picks, what I'm reading, what I'm listening to. I'm
also talking about that new thing I'm doing every single week.
I'm getting really back into the swing of things with
that now that it is fall and there's so much
fun stuff to do around New York. So if you
have suggestions for me, I am all ears. Also, last
(03:21):
little bit of housekeeping, I have some fun events happening
in the New York area next week. I will be
announcing those throughout this week. So, like I said, make
sure you're following me over on Instagram over at Emily
Body so that you can be kept in the loop
to come hang out. You know the hurdlers vibe, you
know the deal Again, follow me over at Emily A
(03:43):
Body and at Hurdle Podcast. With that, enjoy my conversation
with Kate. Let's get to it. Let's get to hurdling today.
I am sitting down with Kate Vernu. She is the
(04:05):
director of Woman's Strategy at Zwift. Welcome to Hurtle, Kate.
How are we doing.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
I'm great, great to see you. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Oh my god, your energy is great right now. You're
bringing in this like ray of sunshine on this dreary
New York day. But a fun day for you because
you're not typically in New York.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
No, I am West Coast these days, but I'm a
Jersey girl. I get back here and it feels like home.
My heart is full, like my I'm just overstimulated. I
absolutely love it stimility.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I love being overstay doo. I. You know what, It's
so funny. When I was younger, I thrived in this
place of overstimulation, and now the way that I crave
a refuge after I have to be on for like
even two hours, I'm like, Okay, it's time to go
back into my bubble. I think that's I think that's
(04:54):
what the pandemic did to me.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Oh yeah, I actually I completely identify with that. I
literally am I'm high energy and I like it. I'm
an extrovert. I like a lot of people's their social
battery when they go drains and me going out, I
feel like it charges me. But I've learned as I've
gotten older that I need to make sure that I
take that time to tone it down a bit, take
(05:18):
a deep breath, you know, because you can get caught
in sort of like you know, up up, up, up up,
and yeah, get a center yourself from time to time,
get to clear head, clear deep breaths, and then go
for it. But it's fun, It's like you know, it's
it's fun kind of living on those edges a little.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Bit, oh one hundred percent. And those edges are edges
that you are wildly familiar with. Considering that you yourself have
been a very active individual since you've been quite young, yep.
For you. Now, how do you think that your background
as an athlete has played into the way that you
(05:55):
are today? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:57):
Well, at first I thought it was, you know, the
ability to set a goal and work towards it and
be able to practice every day and to be able
to show up on game day to you know, to
for all the pieces to fit in. But I think
what actually is the most valuable thing is learning how
(06:18):
to get over injuries, to get over disappointment, to work
through team or coach drama, to learn how to navigate
the hardest situations. The training actually was the easiest part
for me. That comes naturally. I get up and I
just want to run, walk, bike, like get out there.
That's the easy part for me. But the head game
(06:40):
of you know, overcoming those obstacles, overcoming you know, like
questioning if I can do it, and you know what's
next if I can't, and things like that is where
I've really seen the most growth.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Do you remember the first time in your athleticism, and
I'm assuming it's you know, if not in college playing
basketball before that, that you had to face an adversity
moment that really taught you the importance of picking yourself
back up.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Oh yeah, oh yeah. So my life, like, I come
from a full on basketball family. My dad was a
Hall of Fame Wheret Boston College. Two older brothers played.
All we did was played basketball, and I loved every second.
But it was my full identity and I played all
through I just had, you know, wonderful I played all
through high school. It was just glorious. It was fun.
It was like everything was so positive. And I got
(07:28):
to college and I'm playing Actually even got like Ivy
League Rookie of the Year my first year. Everything was
just going swimmingly, and then it all came crashing down. Yeah,
and it was knee surgeries. It was you know, tormniscuses.
It was missing one season, then getting right back at
it and then getting the next knee went and it
was just all of a sudden, I felt so lost.
(07:48):
I felt so lost. I didn't know who I was.
I literally had to give up basketball. It was pretty
much done, and that was all I was. You know,
that I was completely wrapped up in it so much
that I didn't know who I was outside of it.
And that was the biggest growth of my life those
couple of years. And honestly, it started with like truly
depression and really, you know, feeling very alienated from myself,
(08:13):
feeling a bit lost, and slowly building up and learning
that I was so much bigger than just a basketball
player or just a student or you know, and just
learning how to rethink about myself. Was that. It was
a tough process, but I look back now and I'm like, wow,
(08:33):
I'm so glad I went through that VT because some
people don't go through that until you know, midlife. And
so I feel like those lessons that I learned early on,
and it was sport that brought me back. It was
I started to bike and it just started as like
a fun hobby and I guess kept going.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
So before I hear more about the biking, thank you
for sharing that. I can't even at that time when
you were going through that, mental health wasn't really something
that anybody talked about. How did that make you feel?
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Like?
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Did you feel like something was genuinely wrong with you?
Speaker 1 (09:02):
Oh? Yeah, I absolutely did, you know. And it's funny
because we didn't have like a sports psychologist, you know.
I remember I had a wonderful like trainer, our trainer
that like worked on our you know, like taped our
ankles and things like that, and she would have the
deep talks with me and I, you know, I had
great friends to rely on. Actually, one of my best friends,
my teammate, Julia Motto, is now like the psychologist for
(09:23):
the LPGA, and she was my psychologist through college. And
if it weren't for all that kind of help outside
of it, I'm not sure I would have gotten past it. Yeah,
but yeah, it's yeah, it's uh, definitely. I look back
and I'm just like, yeah, I almost don't recognize that person.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
M And that's such a beautiful thing, as you mentioned,
getting the opportunity to have that adversity so early on,
but when you're in a you don't think of it
like that.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah, definitely not. I had no idea how strong I
was then. I thought, you know, I had in my head,
you know that it was failure. It wasn't like, you know,
anything beyond that was sort of like, yeah, I wasn't
where I needed to be. And yeah, but that that's
a good place to start.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
That's a good place to start. Well because at that time,
I'm sure you imagined going on to play in Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Thought I was gonna play in Europe. I thought, you know,
I didn't know where it was gonna end. You know.
That was the cool thing too, is that, you know,
when I was in high school, I was in high school,
the WNBA started, so there was no end to our
basketball dreams. Like it really felt like it's funny when
I we'll talk about it when we get into cycling,
but basketball to me, I always felt like pretty equal
opportunity at that time. I mean we now know that
(10:37):
they were paid nothing and you know all the you
know the challenges of the w early WNBA, But at
the time, it just felt like there was no end
to my sport dreams. And I had the same opportunity
as my brothers playing college, play after college. So that
and I took a lot of that into the next.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Sport, into the next sport. So how do you first
come into psych lane. You're dealing with this injury, you're frustrated,
you're feeling a little bit beside yourself, and somehow you
find your way onto a bike.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah. And I always had a bike growing up, but
like I never you know, identified as a cyclist. I
mean I just much different class on your bike, Like
you know, you train on your bike a little bit.
Like for basketball when I was hurt, I'd wheel an
exercise bike into the gym and I'd ride the bike
while they played. It was always just like a like
a tool a vehicle. And I met my husband in Providence,
(11:30):
Rhode Island, and he was a skateboarder and I was
a basketball player, and we somehow got on bikes together.
We went for like a bike ride on this beautiful
bike path in Providence, the East Bay Bike Path, And
next thing you know, we got fixie bikes, like you know,
the city bikes that you rip around the city on.
And then we just kept going for longer and longer rides.
(11:51):
I think it was like my inner athlete was coming
out again, and I just wanted more out of it.
So I just kind of kept stepping it up until
I was actually working in Pennsylvania at like I think
I was at GSI Commerce, like a small startup, and
one of my friends invited me to a bike race.
They knew we rode bikes, and they invited me to
(12:12):
this Philly bike race and it was a huge deal.
I didn't know it at the time. And I went
to this bike race and I see like a pack
of guys go by. I'm like, this is so cool,
And then like ten minutes later, a pack of women
went by. And I literally did not know women really
race bikes. I had no I mean I maybe saw
it in the Olympics, but we didn't really there was
no like cycling bike racing on TV or anything. So uh,
(12:34):
I was like, wow, I want to do that. I
really want to do that. Because I had been just
going harder and harder on the bike, and I kind
of had a natural gift for it. Yeah, I liked it.
I enjoyed it. It was like that dopamine was coming
back and that energy was coming back. And so three
years later I was in that race.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
It was in that race I said there one day,
what was the You said you had a natural gift
for it, But did you find anything about it quite
challenging at first?
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Yeah? Oh, absolutely. There's a very steep, like learning curve
totor cycling. You know, the getting comfortable riding handlebar and
handlebar next to people diving into corners and you know,
leaning your bike over going at you know, speeds up
to fifty sixty miles an hour downhill. Things like that
were incredibly intimidating. But honestly, I do need like a
(13:24):
lot of simulation, and I think that that side of it,
the risk taking and the speed, fed me and I
really did enjoy it. And I have a good engine.
I didn't realize that I have a pretty strong like
VO two system, and that I am actually an endurance athlete.
I think it actually made me good in basketball that
in the fourth quarter I was pretty fresh and I always.
I loved practice. They used to run back and forth
(13:47):
to practice, so it was a great place to channel
that energy I had. And while it was incredibly challenging
early on because also just knowing what to do and
how to do it you have to completely self fund yourself.
My husband was very much supportive at the time because
he saw he knew that I had talent, and he
(14:07):
was like, I just have to see what you can
do with this.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Yeah, And so for you it wasn't it started to
not just be a hobby. Oh no, It started to
be like, no, like I want to see how far
I can take this. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
Think about it too. At the time, like I was,
I had like kind of pro numbers. I was like,
I want to be a pro cyclist because my pro
basketball dreams got shattered and I was like, here's my
my next chance. I can be a pro cyclist. So
within a couple of years I was a pro cyclist,
like quote unquote on a professional team, racing at that level,
(14:41):
but not making it.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
I was gonna say, so are the air quotes? Basically
because there were no dollars to go along with the title.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
No dollars. I know you recently talked to Kristin Faukner,
one of my idols. She's absolutely incredible and and you know,
just a couple of years ago she's like, you know,
one of the tops in the game, and she was
made seven grand. This is just a couple of years ago.
So fifteen years ago nothing like nothing. Only the top
top riders were making you know, ten to twenty grand maybe,
(15:10):
like the top riders in the world. So like domestic
US riders like, yeah, if you're not literally winning the
national championship, you're not making a dime, so you're paying
for everything out of your own pocket and you're risking
your life your body every race. It's really hard. You
crash a lot, Like in one season, you'll crash, you know,
three or five times, you know, going down with you know,
(15:33):
hitting the pavement hard, sometimes getting run over by other bikes,
falling with a machine.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
It's gnarly what happened to you the first time of
that happened to you?
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Ooh, yeah, you always have to get over your first crash.
It's like you're up and then all of a sudden
you're down and you're on the ground and you're you
have this moment where you're like okay, am I okay,
you know, it's like my head okay, like is everything moving,
like you kind of do a quick self check, and
then the bike check is a bike okay, the bikes
are but you know my bikes were more expensive than
my car. Yeah, so yeah, and then you get back
(16:03):
on the bike and it's literally getting back on the horse.
And depending on the severity of the crash, is like
the recovery between your body and your mind. And sometimes
it takes a little bit to get up to that
confidence again, get up to that speed again, get up
to that closeness that you know, handlebar at handlebar, But
you do, and you learned real quick, like how resilient
(16:26):
you are. Yeah, And it's amazing in bike races to
see people go crashing down at like you know, forty
k an hour or twenty five thirty miles an hour
and get right back up on their bike and go yeah,
you know, and they're like, you know, sometimes like they're
missing skin all the way down their leg or shoulder,
you know.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Like I'm trumped running but I'm like even thinking about
like my like desire to avoid all confrontation, like if
I know, like something's on my phone that I don't
want to see, Like I'll just like leave my phone
in the other room for twenty minutes. Like so the
idea of crashing at twenty five thirty miles and then
being like nope, like you have to get immediately back
on the bike. Talk about an apple lesson from the right.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Biking is like just cycling, and like racing and training
and stuff is like the best metaphor for life, you know,
because like the harder you work, the higher you go.
You know, when you you know, you have to work
really hard to get to the top of the mountain
to enjoy the view. There's a million things that cycling
can teach you in life. And one of the best
quotes is like Greg Lemon quote that says, like it
you know, it doesn't get easier, you just get faster.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Yeah, And so for you, you put your all into
this sport and you get to a place where you realize, like,
I can only take it so far, yep, talk to
me about that.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Yeah, I recognize that I was I was close to
thirty years old, I think maybe maybe just around thirty,
and that was a bit too old honestly to get
into it. If I was like the absolute best. I
might have had a chance, but I was very good,
but not quite good enough to get on a European
team and have that opportunity. And I read organized. I
(18:00):
just had to get back to work, Like I couldn't
keep doing this. I had a couple of concussions. It
was taking a toll on my body, and I realized
that it just was not a sustainable career.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
How did the concussion How did the concussions like manifest
for you? Like, how did that play out for you?
Speaker 1 (18:18):
Oh? It was tough. I had one where I was
completely blacked out and woke up in the hospital and
had no idea what happened. Things like that. It was
hard because you have to really take your time getting back.
Concussion protocol at the time is not where is that
today too? So I mean I don't even know if
I just had, you know, three concussions right totally. So yeah,
(18:40):
you have to really be careful with that. And it
was hard, you know, like just the coming back from
it and then also, like I said, building that confidence up again,
do it again. And I think as a thirty year
old person that you know, wanted a career ahead of me,
I also recognized that that was not a risk. I
was going to be continued really willing to take them
(19:02):
because it is like in the sport, you better. You
got to be comfortable with crashing and you know, and
that's I think I got to a point where I
was like, yeah, I gotta I gotta move on.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
Yeah, And so did moving on from cycling feel like
moving on from basketball.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
No. This is the cool thing is that in cycling
I started out, as you know, going after competition and
wanting to be the best and race, and in that
process I discovered the cycling community and all the other
things you can do on bikes, travel with bikes and
(19:38):
go on adventures and just general fitness. And it's just
enjoying like a three hour ride with friends on a
Saturday and stopping for coffee. It was transformative like those
you know, like it was exercise like I never knew
that was. It fed my soul, you know, as well
as you know my heart legs. And I absolutely fell
(19:59):
in love with that side of the sport because it
kept introducing me to new people, places and then jobs.
And I started out, I started working in cycling just
as a natural thing. I was sort of I was
training at racing at a belodrome and they needed a
marketing director and I started there.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
I needed a front and director and I said, sure,
why not. Now, obviously your interest for the sport makes
you a good candidate to work within the sport. But
talk about the other fundamentals that were necessary for that job.
Did you walk in and you said, I might not
know this, but I will figure it.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
Out absolutely, Because I did not study marketing. I studied
modern culture and media. It was essentially like film studies.
But I'm a people person and I love to learn,
and I saw this opportunity of this beautiful belodrome in
Pennsylvania that had Friday night racing that was super family
friendly and enjoyable and had world class athletes coming like
(20:57):
from all over the globe. Athletes were coming to race
at Teatown on Friday nights under the lights, and it
was a beautiful thing. And cycling is can be a
tricky spectator sport, you know, because you think about the
Tour de France and you know you're standing outside of
the road and they go buy and that's okay, you know,
and watching it on TV, there's a lot of nuance
(21:18):
to learning how to watch cycling. But I felt like
at a velodrome, you have this container, you know, you
have an amazing way to see the whole race and
to get to know the athletes, and it's a great
introduction to watching bike racing. And I really enjoyed it.
So I enjoyed promoting it. I was a natural promoter.
Even in college. I did, like I promoted fashion shows
(21:38):
and I did pop up stores, and you know, I
like producing, like putting things together, I like showcasing talent,
and so this was a wonderful opportunity to do that
and it came very naturally. And I like people. I
like to write, I like to communicate, So I enjoyed
writing the weekly newsletters and the press releases and getting
the storytelling behind the athlete. You know, these athletes coming
(22:01):
all the way from New Zealand to race in a
tiny in the cows and cornfields of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
The cows and corn fields. But so, what I'm hearing
you say is that you learned a lot, so much.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
Yeah, so much, And yeah, and I kept meeting people
because I'm just a natural connector, you know, in situations,
I'm the one that kind of walks over and introduces
myself and I want to hear your story right, yeah,
And that you know, led to then my next job
working in bike tours. I had an opportunity to work
in bike tours and the same thing, I was marketing
(22:35):
director for the bike tours. This is basically bringing people
mostly from the US to Europe to ride the classic
climbs of the Tour de France, the Alps and the
Pyrenees and the Italian Dolomites, the people that wanted to
go conquer an epic adventure for a week. And because
I had just come from racing as well, it was
really fit. So I also would like help lead the
(22:55):
tours and guide and I enjoyed that so much too,
because you know, there's is there something about going on
a bike ride with somebody, a really hard, like one
hundred mile bike ride. You go through so many emotions, moments,
somebody breaks down at some point and the other person
has to kind of lift them up.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Oh totally.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
It's like you it's therapy. It's like by the end
of it, you know each other so much better. You
grow together, you celebrate together, you suffer together, and that
shared suffering that a lot of us know and endurance
sports is really bonding and it became one of my
really favorite things working in bike tours. Every job I
kind of picked up new skills. And my skill in
bike tours was like when you get like you have
(23:37):
a guy that like got really grumpy on a climb
and he just wants, like a hurt animal, wants to
be left alone, Like don't stop talking to me as
I'm like, you know, cheery, like you know, really super fit,
like climbing next to him and like hey, so like
you know, what do you think of this view? And
he just wants to be left alone and you have
to kind of figure out a way to crack that
egg and get him out of his own head. And
(23:58):
I really enjoyed that. You know, to usually ask them
about their kids, ask them about their pets, asking about
something outside themselves, and then all of a sudden, you
know they can you know, rise above the immediate pain,
see like the bigger picture, settle in, you know, and
just refhraate.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
It's such a valuable skill I'll never forget. I think
I was working at self, So this must be like
twenty sixteen, and that's like when the term like sweat
working was really big. Everyone needed to like go to
a workout class with their colleagues, and it was because
there's so much research around exactly what you're talking about about,
this idea that when you do hard things with other people,
(24:38):
it opens you up beyond maybe your typical boundaries to
try something new, say something different, new connections, etc. And
so for you learning how to help people get outside
of their shell, what a special gift opportunity? Do you
recall maybe someone that's done that for you?
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Absolutely so many times. Honestly, a lot of times it's
my husband. He is like, I'm the fiery one, you know,
I swing a little bit more up and down, and
he is solid and sweet, and sometimes he just can
say something very simple that just immediately takes me out
of that you know kind of fight.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Or flight, the fighter flight. We know the fighter flight, well,
I want to talk about the fighter flight. That's so
interesting and I feel like, especially as an endurance athlete,
it's like you know how to live in that place
of discomfort quite well, but we also learn over time
that living in that place isn't the healthiest thing. So
(25:43):
you are leaving these bike chores, you are writing often,
you're getting to live your passion and also learn all
these new things. When do you learn or when do
you start to come to this place where like, okay,
maybe it's time to graduate from here.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yeah. I think it was actually more about what was
the next opportunity going to be? Yeah, you know, instead
of sort of saying I'm done with this, something else
came up that was really exciting. And it came up
because I was going after some good business. I was
working for these bike tours. We are the vip tour
(26:18):
operator to the Men's Tour de France, like, you know,
the biggest bike race, one of the biggest of sports
events in the world, and I'm taking people for their
dream trips to the tour. And I started to notice
as the marketing director that a lot of my clients
on Strava, they were doing this thing called zwift. So Strava,
you know, is how we track our cycling and running
(26:40):
and hiking. And I saw that a lot of my
clients were doing indoor training cycling training using like a
video game. I was like, what is this and this
is like ten years ago and I look it up
and it's this company called Swift and it you know,
their goal was to make indoor cycling fun. And they
literally built a video game where you put your bike
on a trainer inside and you're riding in a virtual
(27:02):
world with other people. And a lot of people were
doing it. Caught on like fire back in like twenty fifteen,
and I sent them an email. I had just moved
to La. I saw that they were in La. I
sent them an email to Partnerships at Swift and I said, Hey,
I'm Kate. I worked for this amazing bike tour company.
Why don't we do like a challenge together on Strava
where you have to ride x amount in Swift for
(27:26):
a chance to win the Dream Trip, the IP trip
to the Tour de France. And they wrote me right
back and they're like, we love it. Why don't you
come down the office? And so I did and I got,
you know, and I met the guys there. It was
great because a couple of them knew the same people
that I knew from back in the cows and cornfields
(27:46):
of Pennsylvania, and all those connections that I had been
making came to Fruition and created this other opportunity just
to really connect with those guys. Yeah, and they had
just started this company. It was probably like thirty people
and we got to know each other, started riding bikes together,
and then a couple months later they had an opportunity
that they then approached me about, and that was to
(28:08):
help them launch the Swift Academy, which was this groundbreaking
program to It was a global talent ID competition in
the video game, So from the comfort of your home,
you got to try out to win a professional cycling
contract with a pro women's team. And that program was,
(28:29):
you know, sort of like you know the onset of
HOUSEWIF got really into women's cycling, and they brought me
on to run the program because I had raced that
I knew the cycling world really well, that I had
the right kind of energy to tackle something like that,
And for me, it was so exciting that a company
was looking at things differently that my failed ambition in cycling.
(28:51):
I was like, Oh, maybe I can make it better
for somebody else. There's a tryout, Like if I could
try out from my house ten years before that, I
might have made a pro team. And I love the
idea that somebody was creating new pathways that we were
rethinking how to get into the sport and how you know,
you don't have to exactly live in the right place
in the world to make it into this sport that
(29:11):
you could potentially, you know, do it from you know talent,
get talent id'ed from.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Indeed, there is so much alignment here, oh Ma, it's crazy.
And as you speak about this, your energy is contagious
and it is such a holistic example of energy attracts.
Like energy. You were excited about the opportunity to take
(29:37):
what you were doing and offer that to others, and
you found people that liked what you were doing and
it worked. And it's not surprising that it worked because
you all had a common mutual goal, which was we
want to get as many people as we can involved
in this.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Absolutely, I love the sport. It had given me so much,
and this company was trying to make it more accessible,
more inclusive. They were breaking down some of the barriers
that so many people and especially so many women faced.
Speaker 2 (30:14):
Taking a break from today's episode to give some love
to my friends at AG one. It's daily immune support
that helps you stay at your best this season. It's
powered by antioxidants, probiotics, and functional mushrooms and it's been
a part of my regular routine for at least gosh,
six or seven years now. Now, the end of the
(30:36):
year could bring stress and disrupted habits. And the good
news is that AG One's got the prebiotics, probiotics and
enzymes to help support regularity and gut resilience amidst the chaos.
Their next Gen formula delivers five new strains of clinically
studied probiotics that have been shown to play a role
supporting digestion, immune function, and alleviate occasional blow These probiotics
(31:01):
increase the number of beneficial bacteria, which helps support a
healthy gut microbiome. I don't know anyone that's not interested
in that. Plus, it's really great for energy production, which
starts at the cellular level and influences the ability to
physically and mentally perform. AG one next Gen supports and
enhanced b complex to support energy without that annoying afternoon crash.
(31:27):
We've got too much going on. We don't have time
for that. With seventy five plus ingredients, including five probiotic strains,
AG one next Gen replaces the need for a multivitamin,
probiotics and more. Now, of course, I have an offer
for you if you head on over to drink ag one.
That's drinkag number one dot com slash hurdle. You can
(31:50):
get a free welcome kit with an AG one flavor
sampler and a bottle of Vitamin D three K two
when you first subscribe again that I offer for you.
Visit my link at drinkag one dot com slash hurdle
to get a free welcome get with an AG one
flavor sampler plus a bottle of Vitamin D three K
two when you first subscribe today? Would you say that
(32:21):
you're good at celebrating yourself.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
I probably could be a little bit better. I'm always
kind of I move fast and I'm onto the next thing.
I'm hard on myself. I do, though, I do. I
do celebrate moments. I do. Like you know, we'll probably
talk about the Twitter France from a vig Swift, but
that is something I celebrated.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
I'll tell you that much. Yeah. Do you remember celebrating
when you got offered this in house opportunity with Zwiff.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
It was actually very scary because I love the bike tours. Yeah,
and I love the people I worked with. They had
become family and it was a big risk. I'm like, wait,
I'm gonna leave riding in the Alps and the purities,
going to Spain in France every summer to go work
for an indoor cycling company. But there's this moment that
you just know. You're like, you can feel the energy
(33:10):
that there's something behind that door and you want it.
And I knew the bike tours it was great, but
it was I knew what my next two, three or
five years looked like. Yeah, and I am an ambitious
person and I wanted something next and it was so exciting.
It was you know, that that nervous energy of like, well,
this is really risky, but you know I could be
(33:33):
a part of something game changing.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
How do you talk yourself into the risk? A lot
of people hear this and they're like, I have so
been there. There has been something that you know so
much of it feels right, but I'm so nervous. What
would you tell that person?
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Yeah, So it's like it's kind of like buying a house.
You know, you can't just like walk in and go,
oh my god, it like look at that shower, look
at the bathroo, look at that kitchen. It's beautiful. I
want it, Like, you really have to dig deeper. You
got to open all the closets. You got to do
the due diligence to under fully understand the opportunity. So
I had to really think about, you know what the
(34:08):
career path and that could look like. I had to
really get to know the guys that I would be
working with. It was it was boys club too at
the beginning of ed Swift, and I was like, is
that something I'm ready for? I had to really get
in there and understand fully the risk I was taking
and the elements to that. And at the end of
the day, the fact that it was in tech, the
(34:30):
fact that it was in sports, so much of it
felt right. There's a lot of gut that went into
saying yes mm.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
A lot of gut, a lot of trusting yourself, which
comes from repetition. Absolutely, we get to a place when
we are dealing with the unknown that you have to
trust yourself, and you can only trust yourself when you
can put into practice the lessons that you've learned previously.
So you talked so beautifully about so many difficult moments
(34:58):
where you had to trust yourself. You had to trust
yourself to move on from basketball. You had to trust
yourself after you crash the first time on your bike.
To get back on and keep competing, you had to
trust yourself to go as far as you could with cycling.
And so now here you are again in this next
exciting chapter, leaning into that self trust and it's so special.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Yeah, yeah, it's really fun. And you know, like, I
know I have the work ethics, so I know I'm
going to give it my all. Right, I can't control
all the factors, but I know I can control the
effort I'm going to put into it. So also, I
take that mentality into each new opportunity.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
And that in itself is such a beautiful skill saying
I might not have all of the answers, but I'm
going to do the best I can with what i
have right here. And that in itself is a hurdle
for many people. Oh absolutely, And that's the thing.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
None of us have it all. We're all figuring it
out once you realize that. Like, I love my CEO
so much now he's the best, and I love that
He's incredibly real and I see his flaws clearly, I
see his successes clearly, but what I always see is
his optimism and his belief in himself, and his belief
in his team, and we've made mistakes as a company,
(36:08):
and I love that how we've recovered from them. Have
we pivoted? You can always do that. And sports shows
you that you know that there's no end. You know,
there's no like, oh, that's it, you know, throw the towel.
There's just pivots.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
This is exactly what you were saying before about the
importance of learning how to pick yourself back up, because
it's not the fact that you quote unquote fail, it's
what you do after that failure that empowers you to
show up and do it again. Absolutely, and so having
the tenacity to pick yourself up. And it's say, this
didn't go hard I had hoped, but I'm willing to
(36:44):
keep going and give it another try, or I'm willing
to pivot. Ye, that is such a win. It's such
a win. So you join this WHIF team. Yeah, and
you and you go through these evolutions, right because you
joined to do one thing, you get the opportunity then
to you continue on your path there and then another
opportunity presents itself.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
This is so cool. So yeah, we started that Swift
Academy program started as a women's program. And the cool
thing is we set out to like find that diamond
in the rough, find that like talent in the middle
of nowhere that you know, had been undiscovered. But in
the meantime, we built the largest women's global cycling community.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
So the ROI on that must have been pretty great.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
That's incredible, right, not only like the press and media
around this groundbreaking you know, talent id competency, but we
had so many women coming to the platform just to
to try, like to test themselves, to join a community
that was all training together. Because the Zwift Academy was
a program in the game that you had to like
kind of go through this series of workouts like this
(37:49):
this full program, you know, to to identify how good
are you? How good you know? Are you as good
as you think you are? You better? And it was
beautiful because so many of the women actually weren't going
for the pro contract. They were just going to see
what they could do. And and in the meantime, we
had we had a Facebook page that kind of supplemented
(38:10):
the academy where the women could connect, I could create
like announcements and stuff, okay, like tomorrow's workouts live, you know,
things like that, And you saw the connections start to
be made. You saw women celebrating each other, encouraging each other,
answering each other's questions, they built their own resource. It
was It was incredible. And that's one of the biggest
(38:31):
barriers in cycling for women especially is that you walk
into the bike shop and you don't nobody gives you
the time of day, or you're afraid to ask the
questions that you have. You don't you know, you don't
know how to just get into get stuck into it,
and it's an intimidating sport. It's it's dangerous, and it's expensive,
and there's a lot of things you need. And we
(38:53):
saw that in this Facebook group that the women were
just naturally supporting each other and commiserating and celebrating and
it was just beautiful. And that's what actually got me
really into taking that the next level on the platform
and seeing like what else can we do if we've
done this, Like what else can we do to you know,
(39:15):
grow and elevate women cycling, Because Wow, we have an
opportunity to connect women in the ways that they haven't
been able to. Because if you don't live in a
place that's like great to ride and you don't have
local community. It's really hard, you know, it's hard to
feel safe, it's hard to feel supported. And so to
know that any woman around the world, you know, could
log on and join like a group ride and make
(39:35):
friends and you know, ask questions was really exciting and
we kind of kept taking that to the next level.
And then when we started racing in Swift, because it's
a virtual world, when we started racing, we did it
with complete parody.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Okay, pause, there's people listening to us that are like,
I totally don't understand what's going on. Yep, So can
we just like break down the virtual world for Hot Sock? Sure, Okay,
let's do it.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
Yeah. So it's essentially a video game. When you put
your bike on a trainer inside, it measures your power,
how fast you're going, like, you know, based on your
body weight, your size, and the power that you're putting out.
It literally powers your avatar in the game. So you're
riding in the video game is mimicking, you know, your
(40:19):
exact effort that you're doing on this indoor bike, and
so you can do like group rides. You're literally riding
like simultaneously with other people around.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
The world, right, So you can hit me up and
be like, yo, tomorrow at seven, do you want to
go ride yep on the swift.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Exactly, And you can just free ride in the world.
You can join events, you could do workouts, there's all
sorts of things you could do. And then when we
introduce racing, you know, similar to just racing in the outside,
you have long road races, you have like you know,
shorter kind of races. And we did it with complete parody,
which is not a thing in cycling. At the time.
(40:53):
Cycling it was incredibly male dominated and there's quite a
lot of disparity in terms of opportunity, visibility, salaries. You
rarely had a race that would have the same distance
in the same prize person. It's not like triathlon or something.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
It's very different.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
So it was it was groundbreaking that we were just
doing that in swift, just creating the same opportunities you
know from the.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Gun right, and so helpful that explanation. Also, I would
imagine as a connector to see that Facebook group taking
off and to see these women come together, you're like,
we are doing something that's so much more special than
just like encouraging women to ride yep and.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
The cool thing was. It wasn't just like you know,
Fred and his basement riding. It was like pros started
to train on Swift because it's incredibly efficient to train inside.
You can control the environment and control the factors, you
can get your intervals in. It's incredibly efficient. So we
saw a lot of pros training on Swift as well.
And then COVID hit and we blew up.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Yeah, talk to me about that, because we're.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
Home fitness and literally people could not ride bikes, you know,
very far outside, like everything was locked down. You couldn't
go on group rides. All the group rides shut down.
Racing was even paused like that. Whole season in twenty
twenty was on pause. Yeah, and Swift blew up.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
Twenty twenty is the year that I got into cyclic.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Yes, so many people this is a very common story.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
Yeah, because also you could like you could go out
and just ride by yourself, you know. But for the
people that were looking for that community, they came to
Swift and the and the challenges and the different kinds
of workouts and racing and Swift, and at that moment
in the spring of twenty twenty, the Tour de France
was actually put on pause and they like, you know,
(42:44):
for the first time in like forever, they weren't sure
if it was going to go that year, and we
got together with the organizers of the tour and said,
why don't we do something on Swift because somebody of
the pros were already on Swift right. Yeah. So yeah,
So we did a virtual Tour de France in the
summer of twenty twenty where pro men and pro women
(43:07):
lined up from you know, their you know home set
up in Drona or Columbia and raced against each other
in real time. And it was broadcast around the world
because there was no cycling racing on at the time,
so there, you know, the media and the broadcasters picked
it up because it was you know, we got to
(43:27):
watch something everybody's.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
Hungry, hungry for it. Yeah, what a special moment for
the company.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
It was really exciting, and it took a monumental effort
because we literally built a French world. So this is
a video game, so you literally built worlds, and we
built a French world in a couple months that mimicked
part of the actual Tour de France.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
Course.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
Wow, And at this time, there was no women's tourter France.
This is twenty twenty, yep. And there was a one
day women's event that was owned by the Tourter France
called Lacres that was meant to expand at some point,
but it hadn't in about eight years. And so doing
(44:09):
it on Swift and having that parody was eye opening yep.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
And everybody watched, and everybody watched.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
And the women were phenomenal.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
They were phenomenal, which arguably was a major catalyst for
what happened next for women's cycling exactly.
Speaker 1 (44:27):
Yeah, because then that's what kicked off A conversation was
Withift and ASO, the organizers of the Tort France, to say, like,
it's time, there needs to be a proper women's Twartter
Friends stage race. It's the biggest race in the world
by far right, and women weren't there.
Speaker 2 (44:43):
Yeah, And it's so interesting because there is both this
recognition that it's time and also still a lack of
available funding to support this creation of an outlet avenue
equal opportunity for women yep.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
Yeah. And the organizer of the tour they clearly hadn't
done it yet because they didn't believe it was going
to be sustainable, Like they didn't believe that the audiences,
audiences would come, that the investors would come. And so
we took a big step and we said, we'll come
on board as a title sponsor for four years, right,
and we will do this together and you'll co promote it,
(45:24):
and we'll bring the giant global community of cyclists that
we have, you know, the energy of that community, those fans,
you know, to the race and to our campaign around
the race, our promotion of the race. And we did.
And so in twenty twenty we announced that in twenty
twenty two, a Tour de France fem A x WHIFT
(45:45):
would be.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
Introduced the inaugural everything you just described, it's such a
big risk. It is a very big decision, one that
you were obviously so passionate and excited about. But I
would imagine that there had to be many conversations also
about are we sure this is what we want to do?
Speaker 1 (46:04):
Oh, absolutely huge risk. It was a massive risk. It
was a huge commitment we were making and it was
unproven beyond you know, the virtual Tour de France that
you know did get you know, hundreds of thousands of
people watching around the world, but it's still we you know,
didn't know if the fans would truly come and if
they would accept this as that incredible audience that the
(46:28):
tour gets, if that would transfer.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
To the women's side, right.
Speaker 1 (46:33):
So, and there was you know, there was previous editions
of a women's sort of France in the fifties and
the eighties, but it wasn't given the same visibility in broadcasts.
So they they floundered after a couple of years and
they gave up on them. And those are some heartbreaking stories,
incredible stories, but this was something but that we felt
(46:54):
the timing was right and we had that proof of concept. Okay,
you know, there is definitely an appetite there, but we
had to truly believe. We had to believe before anybody believed.
But we also, you know, a bunch of years before
that we believe we could have a pro try out
in Swift and that program was going incredibly well. So
we're the risk takers in cycling. We had already demonstrated
(47:17):
that we're willing to think outside the box and put
our money where our mouth is and be leaders in
the sport and help build the future of cycling that
we want to be a.
Speaker 2 (47:26):
Part of So you've done it four times now, Yes,
looking back on the last four editions of this, what
would you say has been the biggest learning, the biggest win,
and the biggest challenge.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
The biggest learning is that visibility was truly the key
to unlock the unlimited potential of the sport. That first year,
we actually our campaign around the towrter Fronts Famavexwift was
watch the Fen. It was a simple like we put
it on cycling caps, we put it on like bags,
(48:02):
watched the Fen. Everybody watch this is happening. We took
out a huge ad in the New York Times that
had a beautiful picture of like Paris with the female side.
It's like, this is happening. And everything went into just
making sure that awareness was peak and that you know,
everybody knew it was going on. And it worked. Honestly,
(48:25):
it worked because audiences were truly ready. It felt like this,
you know, this was past due. So the energy brought
to that first edition, the numbers, the broadcast numbers, the millions,
hundreds of millions watching around the world was astounding.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
And the learning, it seems, is like the same learning
we've seen as more and more coverage of women's sports
comes into the picture here, which is that we don't
need we have fans. Yeah, and the fans want to
be served with this content, with the opportunity to be fans.
It's just a matter of getting all of these outlets,
(49:05):
et cetera on board to broadcast these special stories. The
biggest win from the last four years.
Speaker 1 (49:13):
Oh, the biggest win from the past four years, I
think there is. It's validation. It's sort of knowing how
we can even trust our instincts more, you know, because
we believed in this from the beginning and it has
(49:35):
surpassed everybody's expectations, even our own, which were very high.
And the biggest win though, is like this year at
the race, we saw crowds that were absolutely next level. Yeah,
just you know, for the whole course, nine days of racing,
(49:57):
you know, one thousand kilometers, the whole course was lined
with fans. And to see so many little girls and
little boys growing up seeing this as normal. This is
bike racing, and that's their view of bike racing and
they're gonna never think of it differently than that. I
think that's the biggest one.
Speaker 2 (50:15):
It's not just here are some women riding bikes. It's
this is bike racing.
Speaker 1 (50:19):
Yeah, this is here to stay. This is gonna inspire
that next generation. Nothing's ever going to be the.
Speaker 2 (50:25):
Same again, nothing ever. Yeah, biggest challenge.
Speaker 1 (50:30):
The biggest hurdle is not getting complacent. It's great, it's happening,
but there's still a lot of disparity in prize purses,
in coverage. They don't have full coverage of every stage
like the men do, and the men have twenty one stages, right,
So there's things that will continue to advocate and push
(50:54):
for and help influence. It's just making sure that we
don't like say, okay, we did it and just kind
of sit.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
Up and be like we're going going so many times,
even I just did a really big project in Tokyo
and I three weeks later yesterday, I sent a message
and I was like, we need to recap this, like
we need to revisit this, what worked, what didn't work,
what can we do better? These conversations sometimes it's easy,
(51:20):
as you said, like onto the next thing, Onto the
next thing. They're so important to that forward progress. Absolutely,
it's so important for you. Now you've done so much
in this role. But bigger than this specific event. What
else excites you in your current role as the director
(51:42):
of Women's Strategy and Swift.
Speaker 1 (51:44):
Definitely the opportunity of cycling to learn from other sports.
Cycling has always been it's such a unique sport. It's
so Euro based that it's just sort of survived in
its own kind of bubble. And in all of the
innovation and excitement investment we're seeing in women's soccer and
rugby and WNBA and March madness, like everything that we're
(52:09):
learning there bringing that to cycling and shaking it up
even more honestly like it needs it, it really does.
I think that one of my biggest superpowers coming into
the sport is that I'm not just from this sport
that I come from basketball that I you know, even
that that first campaign that we did where we put
you know, we had like a tagline on March like
(52:29):
merch is huge in women's sports. We know this, Like
the fans want March and they want to rep because
it stands for something. It's more than like I play
this sport, it's like I am I want to I
want to help build this bright future for you know,
women's sports. I want to be a part of the
solution like I'm team women, you know, yeah, and giving
(52:50):
fans the opportunity to do that and to really get
to know the characters and to enjoy all the unique
things that women athletes bring to sport, and that is
there's a relatability. They share a lot of different ways
than men do in terms of like how they're creating
content and you know behind the scenes that they're giving
(53:11):
us access to. There's such a wonderful opportunity for investors
to connect with audiences in new ways. And I love
seeing that. And I think we can do more of
that in cycling because sometimes we have a sport where
everybody wears helmets and sunglasses and it can look a
little bit uniform. Yeah, And so I want to help
bring out these incredible personalities. I want people to fall
in love with the writers and to get to know
(53:33):
you know. I want rivalries, and I want the drama
and the storytelling that we're seeing propel other sports.
Speaker 2 (53:41):
I hosted a dinner last year, and before the women
at the table left, I said, I want to open
up the opportunity right now for anyone in this room
if there is something that you need help with that
maybe you haven't vocalized, you have the floor, like there
are thirty leaders in this room from all different aspects.
What it is that we were there to gather on?
(54:02):
And I said, how can we show up for you?
So you say this, and you say, the fans want merch,
and the fans want media and the fans want access.
If I was to say right now, like what do
you need help with? Okay, what do you need help with?
Speaker 1 (54:17):
I need like storytelling. I want people to know that
there wasn't a women's towart of France. The men started
in nineteen oh three. Yeah, and now the women's is happening,
and you have these gorgeous characters like this incredible drama,
fabulous sport and it's I think that maybe a lot
of people don't really engage with cycling because they don't
get it. Yeah, when you watch it on it's on
(54:40):
Peacock in the summer next year, it's August first through ninth.
Commentators do a fabulous job of breaking it down and
kind of teaching you how to watch cycling and it's
not hard. And then all of a sudden you're a
super fan, Like I haven't watched basketball in a long time,
you know, I kind of honestly, it was a little
heartbroken for me. And now with everything it's been happening,
(55:01):
I'm so invested again in the stories.
Speaker 2 (55:03):
There's your team, Oh Aces all day, Okay, Vegas, Vegas.
We are three blocks from Barkleys.
Speaker 1 (55:11):
Oh my god. Yeah. Really excited.
Speaker 2 (55:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:14):
Yeah, So I would say pay attention this, Like people
don't realize that the Tour de France is the most
watched annual sporting event in the world. Yeah, the Women's
Tour is probably behind, like the Rugby World Cup, the
most watched women's sporting event in the world. We had
one hundred million hours watched last year.
Speaker 2 (55:33):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (55:33):
In France alone, seven point seven million people watched the
final stage to watch the beautiful Pauline Pferan provo win
in like incredible fashion in France, and that was fifty
three percent of TVs that we're on we're watching it.
So it's huge and I want American audiences to to,
(55:54):
you know, to get involved and to get excited and
to catch the bug because it's exciting. It's beautiful too.
It's a spectacular spot to watch because it's literally a
Tour de Frase.
Speaker 2 (56:03):
Yeah, a little bit of a pivot but I'm just
like sitting here thinking about your energy and your vibe
and that I correct me if I'm wrong. Would assume
that oftentimes people kind of expect you to bring this
energy and this vibe to every room that you walk into. A.
How does that make you feel? And B what do
(56:24):
you do on the days that you don't feel so
shiny and energetic?
Speaker 1 (56:27):
That's a great question. Yeah, Like I've learned a lot
more about self care because I can't believe how much
more energy my job has taken in the last four years,
promoting this race, promoting this partnership, getting out there in
the media, being on the ground at the race. This
(56:50):
level is expected from me totally, but it also comes
very naturally. So I do what I can outside of
those moments to ensure that I'm ready for the So
just like good habits, ritual is really important, and having
a good regimen at home, like you know, trying to
get as much sleep as possible, taking good care of myself,
staying you know, working out regardless of all my travel,
(57:12):
you know, even if it's a quick gym workout, like
a quick hotel workout, you know, doing planks on the
on the floor of the hotel, but taking care of
myself as much as possible so that I'm ready to go,
you know, when the moment strikes. But but there's times
that I'm not quite there, and then I think it's
going back to like the basics of like, I love
(57:33):
to connect with people. So maybe it's a quieter conversation
this time. Maybe I'm not grabbing the stage or the mic,
and I'm I'm you know, finding somebody in the room
that I want to hear their story. So I think
there's different ways, different things I can do in the
moment to get outside of myself, you know, and and
kind of just take it in and just be more
(57:54):
of a receptor. Yeah, somebody that's kind of doling it out.
Speaker 2 (57:59):
It's so such a beautiful takeaway to say, just because
I'm tired doesn't mean I'm not who I am. Yeah,
And that is such an eloquent way to put it.
It's like, even though I'm tired, I am still a connector.
Even though I'm tired, I still want to learn about you.
My capacity for how I go about it just might
(58:19):
need to shift in that moment. What a really cool
way to think about it.
Speaker 1 (58:25):
Yeah, And I always say that there's an opportunity in
every room you just you don't you haven't found it yet,
and so just kind of it's a growth mentality, you know,
it's kind of always thinking that there's there's some door
that I don't even see yet that's going to open.
Speaker 2 (58:37):
There's some door that I don't even see yet that's
going to open. Right now, someone comes to maybe your
Instagram or your LinkedIn, they see your title and what
you do in Swift. They see a woman that's passionate
about cycling. But when you look in the mirror, Kate,
what is it that you see looking back at you?
Speaker 1 (58:53):
Oh, I see a fighter in a good way. I
see somebody that uh is ready for the next challenge. Yeah,
and that thrives on that energy. I feel so lucky
to have found Swift is it's a company that has
always been doing something that has never been done before,
and that takes a unique person to accept that challenge
(59:14):
and want to be there for that and want to
dive into the unknown. And I've learned to really embrace
that uncertainty and risk and those are now positive emotions
for me. You know, I remember, there's a wonderful athlete
Kristin Armstrong, who has won three Olympic gold medals in
the time trial race and she's now a phenomenal coach
(59:34):
and she has this sort of mentality of embracing the
pain and if you kind of switch your mind to
it's not pain, this is power and it's pushing me
forward and that and you reframe it to at you know,
to now it's it's something that is driving you instead
of holding you back. And so you know, we have
(59:58):
to kind of get out of kind binary thinking of
like good and bad and everything can you know, lead
to something positive but you haven't seen it yet, So
be patient, don't jump to conclusions, and you know, give
the world the opportunity to kind of show you what
that is.
Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
Turning your pain into power is again one of those
things that is repetition and repetition and repetition. There is
going to be that one day, that one difficult moment
that you first realize it's possible, and then there's going
to be that next difficult moment where you realize, Okay,
(01:00:36):
not only is it possible, but I can do something
about it. It's so challenging to get there, it is.
Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
I here's a fun one somebody told me once as
we were starting a freezing cold ride in like norcl
and I was like shivering, and I see this, this
this gentleman that's on the ride. He's Icelandic and he's
wearing just like short sleeves. I'm like, what is he doing, Like, Hilmar,
aren't you freezing?
Speaker 2 (01:01:02):
Of course his name is Kilmar.
Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
Hilmar, Hilmar.
Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
I'm like, this is like not your average Hilmar.
Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
Aren't you freezing? And he said cold is a state
of mind, And I went, I think, okay, whatever, Viking,
but then think of it. Try it sometime, all right,
I'm gonna try it sometimes. We all, like, you know,
the best, the best athletes in the world know that
the strongest muscle you have is your brain. And so yeah,
(01:01:32):
get out of thinking like that you know it all
like you don't know anything, and you can constantly retrain
your brain. Uh, and there's little things you could do
to take you out of that fight or flight moment
or that panic or uh, that discomfort, you know, to
turn it into something that actually might create, you know,
(01:01:53):
your next step, your next progress, your next awakening.
Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
So basically we're gonna leave here and we're gonna go
jump in a couple of ice backs.
Speaker 1 (01:01:59):
Yeah, just a state of mind, Just a state of mind.
Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
Well, Kate, I'm so happy that we're able to do
this today. Before I let you go right now, you
have the opportunity to offer yourself a piece of advice.
I'm going to bring you back to when you made
the difficult decision to walk away from basketball, being told
that you can't keep doing this thing that you love,
knowing what you know? Now, what would you tell yourself
(01:02:23):
during that hurdle moment?
Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
Oh, this is just the beginning, that there's no true endings,
that this is just.
Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
A pivot, just a pivot. Kate, so happy that you
were able to come to the studio. For those that
want to keep up with you, you want to keep up
with the Zwift, give me the details. Where do you
fend you?
Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
Okay, you can find me on Instagram at just my
full name. Kate Verno. Definitely follow goes witht on Instagram
as well to follow the excitement around our Towurter friends,
Femavi Swift partnership and everything we're doing to grow and
elevate women's cycling. And you know, if you have questions
about the actual app and want to get rolling with
(01:03:02):
an incredible women's community around the world. You know, feel
free to DM me anytime with questions about how to
get into it and what you need to join this
beautiful world of cycling.
Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
Amazing see one Swift I'm over at Emily a Body
and at Hurdle Podcasts Another Hurdle Conquered. Catch you guys
next time.
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
The Brothers Ortiz
The Brothers Ortiz is the story of two brothers–both successful, but in very different ways. Gabe Ortiz becomes a third-highest ranking officer in all of Texas while his younger brother Larry climbs the ranks in Puro Tango Blast, a notorious Texas Prison gang. Gabe doesn’t know all the details of his brother’s nefarious dealings, and he’s made a point not to ask, to protect their relationship. But when Larry is murdered during a home invasion in a rented beach house, Gabe has no choice but to look into what happened that night. To solve Larry’s murder, Gabe, and the whole Ortiz family, must ask each other tough questions.