Business of Endurance

Gold Medal Mental Resilience: The Andrea Henkel Burke Story

• Charlie Reading • Season 7 • Episode 8

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Welcome to The Business of Endurance Podcast! In today’s episode, we are thrilled to have Olympic gold medalist and Biathlon World Cup champion, Andrea Henkel Burke, join us. Andrea's remarkable journey from the challenges of growing up in a divided Germany to the pinnacle of athletic achievement offers a wealth of inspiring stories and invaluable lessons. She will share the pivotal moments that defined her career, insights into her rigorous training regimen, and the mental resilience that propelled her to success. Additionally, Andrea will provide practical advice on fitness, health, and nutrition, including her innovative approach to supporting recovery from Long Covid. Whether you're an aspiring athlete, a seasoned competitor, or simply someone looking to be inspired, Andrea's experiences and wisdom will offer actionable insights and motivation to help you achieve your own goals. Don’t miss this captivating episode!

Highlights:

  • Andrea's Athletic Journey
  • Doping in Sports
  • Training and Competing in Biathlon
  • Mental Resilience and Recovery
  • Impact of the Berlin Wall
  • Andrea's Long COVID Program

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Connect with Anthea Henkel Burke on Instagram & Web.

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Speaker 1:

I'm Charlie Redding and I'm Claire Fudge.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the business of endurance.

Speaker 3:

Everything we do what we don't do is based on what the brain decides for us. If you want to be confident about something, you just need to be physically able to do what you need to do. You just need to be physically able to do what you need to do.

Speaker 2:

Welcome back to the Business of Endurance podcast. In today's episode, we are thrilled to have Olympic gold medalist and biathlon World Cup champion Andrea Burke, or Nie Henkel Andrea Henkel as she was. So Andrea's remarkable journey from the challenges of growing up in a divided Germany to the pinnacle of athletic achievement offers a wealth of inspiring stories and invaluable lessons. She'll share the pivotal moments that defined her career, insights into her rigorous training regime and the mental resilience that propelled her to success. Additionally, andrea will provide practical advice on fitness, health and nutrition, including her innovative approach to supporting recovery from long COVID. In fact, this is the person that Matt Fitzgerald, previous guest, thanked and credited recovering from long COVID too, so he worked with Andrea and she helped him get back to running whilst suffering with long COVID. So, whether you're an inspiring athlete, a seasoned competitor or simply someone looking to be inspired, andrea's experiences and wisdom will offer actionable insights and motivation to help you achieve your own goals. Don't miss this captivating episode, and one of the things that Andrea talks about, particularly with regards to long COVID, is this balance of different aspects of our lives to overcome the difficult challenges. And if you hang around right till the end of this episode, I'll give you a tool that can help you assess whether you're getting the balance in your business life, whether you're ticking off the areas that can help you generate more business as well as working less and as well as enjoying more. So I'll share with that with you at the end of the podcast, but for now, let's dive into the episode with Andrea Burt.

Speaker 2:

So, andrea, welcome to the Business of Endurance podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. I am really excited about chatting to you. I think this is going to be a really interesting episode. I always like to start off with that inspirational story and, as an Olympic gold medalist, there can't be any better place to start. So how did you find your way into the Olympics? By the way, we haven't ever had a biathlete on the podcast, so we're going to a little bit of background about that how you got into it, but then tell us that gold medals winning story.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, hello, dan, thanks for having me on the show. So I'm from Germany. I grew up in the old Eastern part of Germany and their sports, of course, was very from the government. Every kid had to be in some activity, some outdoor activity, and so I chose to be in a cross-country skiing. I also was in gymnastics and in a choir. The gymnastics was very interesting for me too.

Speaker 3:

But then I followed my older sister's path. She is three years older than I and she was doing cross-country skiing and then over her bed was hanging like a ski pole with a lot of medals on it, and I thought this is the coolest decoration ever. I need this too. What do I need to do for getting it? And so it was cross-country skiing. That's why I went to cross-country skiing training and since she's older than I, she was delegated to the sports school as a cross-country skier when she was 12 years and we brought her, her to this school and I thought this is the coolest place ever. I want to be here, I want to go to this school, but I want every time so little. So I'm five foot two or one meter eight centimeters, so I'm pretty short, and it always was as a kid, I could not tell my parents that this is my goal. I just thought, okay, what do I need to do to get to this school? And I had to be good in school that my parents allowed me to go there. And I had to be good in sport to actually be able to go there. So I was nine years old, made this decision I want to be in this school and this was my inspiration, not like Olympics or something. I crossed my mind that, like, what I did is the same thing than an Olympic sport. But then I was 12 years old enough to get to the school. The wall came down and everything changed and it just it bought me another year. I got one more year time to figure everything out, get named to the highest level of school in Germany, because there's three levels of school and my parents only would accept it like the highest level and I can do whatever I want. And so I got to the school and then from there on it was like a journey.

Speaker 3:

But in 1980, boston, like it's cross-country skiing and shooting Women, became an Olympic sport, like the guys did it already. It was a mid-sport, but the Olympics added this into the program. And then the government back in East Germany decided all the girls would train at a facility where the boys do biathlon. The girls now were biathletes too, and I was one of them. I said I don't care, I want to go to the school whatever, I'll do it.

Speaker 3:

At that time I became a biathlete going to the school and I was 13 as a biathlete and then from there on it was a journey because I wasn't an Olympic champion until I was 24. And it took me, I think, two more years to figure out that what I'm doing is actually an Olympic sport and I just had fun doing it. And then I was doing the junior years, the senior years, and then, when it came to these Olympics because I wanted to know the story, I basically missed my first Olympics in Nagano in 1998 because I didn't qualify for it in my team. Then I wanted, of course, to go to the next one four years later, but I qualified for the team the year after because every year there were championships. There's a whole World Cup circuit. It's just that the highlight is named differently instead of the World Championships it's in the Olympic Games.

Speaker 3:

It turned out I made my way up into the World Cup team and was named for it and it's the basic to actually qualify for the Olympics and how my sister's end. She was at the same Olympics too as a cross-country skier. So it's harder for Andrea to qualify to actually get a spot like a start, like a spot at the start to be able to compete, than actually to get a medal. Because the team was such incredibly strong German basketball team we had to fight harder for the spot. You still have to fight hard for the medal, but to get to this chance not really given in the team.

Speaker 3:

So then I made my spot. I actually had to discuss myself into it because I qualified very regularly that the long distance is my distance, four-touch shooting. I was second in overall before New Year's and then got sick. Coaches were ensuring that maybe you should skip this race and race the sprint in pursuit, because then we need you in the relay again. We had four different events and said, no, I do not skip this event, I will go for it. Maybe it was the right position to get in my first Olympic race because then I won and then I did not have to discuss anything else anymore.

Speaker 2:

At this Olympics I could face all four races, yeah and just for those people that, like me, that are beginners in this sort of sport, can you describe what that Olympics sport looks like in terms of distance? You said four times shooting, but just explain what that sport, how that format is.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, back in the days, 2002 was in four different formats, mean by the M1, like six. So there's a long distance for the woman it's 15K and for the 20km, with four times shooting, and for each miss you have one extra penalty minute, like you don't have to go loops but you get a minute. And then there's the sprint, which is 7.5 kilometers for the woman and 10 for the mid, and there you shoot twice, one time prone, one time standing, and then you have to go in a penalty loop for each miss and then, based on this result in the sprint, you start the pursuit race. Now, I didn't have a good sprint there, but then I had to start there for the pursuit, one through one, started earlier, and then it was like 10k, with four times shooting, prone, standing, and again you had to go to the penalty loop and whoever crosses the finish line first is the winner. But this is like the format. And then there's the relay, then four athletes compete. We have three extra spare rounds to avoid the penalty.

Speaker 2:

Based on the fact that your coaches were discouraging you from competing, I suspect to protect you, so that you could be a part of the team and that you didn't if you'd been ill, which was the reason they were trying to persuade you. So how did it feel to win that gold medal?

Speaker 3:

First of all, the coaches had this problem that they had so many good athletes and now they wanted to give everyone a chance. But I thought I deserve this chance and I take it. And it sounds like a really interesting sport.

Speaker 2:

I'm just trying to imagine what it would be like if somebody had asked me to do some accurate target shooting after I'd done that. It would have been all over the place. So it must be a real fine balance between putting every bit of energy in that you possibly can and still having the accuracy of shooting. How do you balance that in the sport?

Speaker 3:

at first. It's a practice and you want to be able to shoot with a high heart rate and with some exertion, and that that would make the advice read, because often I hear when do you slow down and how much do you need to slow down? And slowing down is taking time. So I don't have time. So you basically have to learn how to train hard for it, also in combination with just shooting, to get the fundamentals right. But then also it's a learning mindset. You can struggle.

Speaker 1:

Just because of your head it should emerge because everyone can shoot, shoot and just thinking about that training, and also you mentioned mindset, which I think we're going to go into in a bit more detail later on. But what does training look like? Thinking about you, the amount of hours that you have to spend, because, again, charlie and I don't really have an understanding of what this biathlon really looks like what does training look like? Training for the olympics, training for the world cup? What does training look like? Training for the Olympics, training for the World Cup? What does that look like in terms of hours? And also, do you do that kind of mindset training to do the shooting part? So what do you have to go through from a training perspective, from a cross-country ski, but then also that mindset practice for targets and things.

Speaker 3:

First, you need to be a really good skier, because just being a good shooter wouldn't bring you very far. So the most hours and just like the normal cross-pandemic skiers train too is in skiing. But then we add, I would say, an hour five times a week for shooting and the physical hours. It changes In the summer and spring. It's like a lot of hours, sometimes six a day day, sometimes four a day, and then when it comes closer to racing course it goes down to sometimes only one hour a day for, like, basically, recovery training and activation training.

Speaker 3:

So this variates and usually six, six days a week and twice a day shooting. Not as much as skiing time variance, but then also you combine it and then you do it like a bias run, like you ski, you shoot, you ski, you shoot, just do it more often than you would do it in a race. And the mental part I think I mean I stopped competing 10 years ago there's way more knowledge about it, how to do things like this. I like the challenge, so it put me on last in a way, and that's where I was striving most. If you want to be confident about something, you just need to be physically able to do what you need to do.

Speaker 2:

And do you think the fact that your coaches were trying to talk you out of doing that Olympic race actually helped you win the gold medal?

Speaker 3:

I'm not sure if this said, but it didn't disturb me. There was not the pressure, there was kind of pressure I had to know, proof that I was worth this spot, because I took it from someone else who was maybe also going to win a medal.

Speaker 2:

And we're obviously recording this at the point where the Olympics is on. It's the Summer Olympics, not the Winter Olympics, but what emotions do you go through when you watch other people winning Olympic gold medals?

Speaker 3:

So I have way more emotions for others than for myself. When you do something, that's maybe scary for someone who's watching from the outside, for you not at all. It's kind of the emotions are differently and sometimes gets emotions out of me which I did not have when I actually was racing, which is really nice. Then I feel what I had, or what I should have felt, back in the days. It's just special and not just like this moment to see someone winning, but also there's every time a story behind it and a pathway, and it's a long one, such as it started a year before it started in the past.

Speaker 1:

Moving on from the Olympics as well. Obviously you mentioned right at the beginning about the Biathlon World Cup, so tell us a little bit about what's the most challenges that you have when you're training coming up to the World Cup but also that long training season and competing season. So what are the major challenges that you have in terms of competing and training and keeping fit and keeping well throughout that time?

Speaker 3:

I. I did have after these Olympics like two years which didn't went so well, because I was sometimes just ignoring the recovery part at heart, I would say, and then was sick every once in a while, but maybe also because of that, and then you cannot train hard in what is really necessary and that World Cup is a much longer season, isn't it, whereas the Olympic event is one race, isn't it?

Speaker 3:

Which meant the most to you at the time, and also with the benefit of now, many years later, Thanks for asking this, because most people think that the Olympic champion title is like the one, but like winning the overall World Cup means that you had a whole season like the best one of everyone and like you can put it together for more than just one race, even when it sounds maybe not right. But you also need to put it together for just this one race at the end when you want to be an Olympic medal winner. But having it for a whole season together and I was even like sick this season it sounds like I was sick one of the time, but I wasn't this season I won actually the overall. I was again January, february, but I had a bronchitis and I was like pushing it a little bit too long, so I had to take a little bit more recovery time, which is something. Yeah, at least it happens to them when they want to push too hard.

Speaker 2:

I think when you win something and you feel like it's only one race, you feel like other people could have gotten there, and it becomes really apparent, like at the moment. I was watching the bike time trialing in the Olympics and the British guy had puncture. He actually came back to fourth, nearly got a medal, but that's one incident and yet. So the guy that then wins that is going. Would I have won the goal if the brit, if the team gb guy hadn't had the puncture?

Speaker 3:

so it's interesting, isn't it, that the world cup is more important to you it's all important to me and I sometimes feel lucky that I can say that the olympic medal is maybe not at the same level than a total world cup, because I had both. But the other thing is like putting it together. When the whole work is looking at you and like when it counts, it's totally not a mistake, which then comes through. I was even in these two races or in this one season. There is no room.

Speaker 3:

When you start your Olympic race with the Olympic grip around your chest, it's maybe also something different in the head and it's like putting it all together. If someone gets lucky and winning a medal this person wasn't far away from winning a medal before because you have to be at a certain level to be able to use your luck that you actually can win a medal. If you're racing around 30th place and then lucky, then you may be 25th. So even for the world to win the medal, they are up there. Maybe this day was something special and they were putting it together, but you also need to be able, even if someone else has this struggle, to still put it together for yourself.

Speaker 1:

It's amazing to hear about the World Cup as well and the journey that you went on, and I guess there's a story there around consistency isn't there that you really showed as an athlete how consistent you could be despite sometimes being unwell. And I guess that brings me on to the next point of what do you think now, like sport and training has changed so much? You mentioned about being unwell, and obviously you know high levels of training and being in cold increase our chances and risks of being unwell, but do you see anything now that has changed in the world of training, competing and biathlon? That really is helping athletes to be more healthy for longer periods of time during training. So has anything really changed compared to when you were training and competing.

Speaker 3:

Things change all of the time. I think you have to go with the time, but at the end it's a sport. Probably like the life is changing a little bit, or like the technical part, but at the end the athletes need to work with this tool and the ski technique changes. Or like also now we had a floor ban, like still wax technicians couldn't use certain material anymore to prepare the skis and so the ski companies produce different skis and the ski technicians have to work with different environments. So this is a constant change.

Speaker 3:

And but for the training itself, I think it comes back to the basic we need to have. We need to work on our strengths and in our endurance and our ability to recover and to use recovery tools. The recovery tools may be getting like a new level. Then when I stop competing, there's too much out, it's almost like overwhelming, but it's always good and that's what also athletes need. They need to recover well between training sessions, between races, but in the end the athletes need to train. Sometimes like kids or young athletes say tell me what I need to recover well, between training sessions, between races, but in the end the athletes need to train. Sometimes, like kids or young athletes. They should tell me what I need to do. Tell me this one thing which makes the difference. The one thing is like, just do it and do it again.

Speaker 2:

To your 10,000 hours as quickly as possible. You mentioned that you were 12, I think, when the Berlin Wall came down. How big an impact did you perceive that had at the time and, obviously, with the benefit of hindsight, how much influence did that have on your sporting career as well as, obviously, the rest of your life?

Speaker 3:

I mean what we heard now later on about the system in East Germany. I'm very happy that I've been part of the system and I don't know really how it worked with all these regimes and spying and all the things, but for me basically it opened the whole world by bringing down this wall. It gave me another idea to get my school and sporting activity together. My parents actually were behind with me going to the school, going away from home. It was a boarding school and yeah, I just think was like it's very nice to probably ways now be, just like be then just having all the time like a government in your bag. But again, I don't know the other sides really, I just know my own version of it and I wouldn't be living in America if there would be a war.

Speaker 1:

Thinking about kind of Germany and listening to your stories around the wall as well. Obviously, the use of doping in sports has been something that's been going on for the history really of from a sporting and competition perspective. I guess it would be really interesting to know your thoughts around clean and fair sport, but also during your time of competing, did you see any of the remnants of doping within sports? Because I know there were a number of controversies I think it was in athletics actually around sort of doping. So I just wonder what your thoughts are and what you saw potentially, if anything, when you were competing.

Speaker 3:

So I luckily never got in contact with any weird situation, because when I came to this foreign school it was already like born in whole Germany, I don't know, just hearing. The investment was more in the higher international athletes because it wouldn't matter on the lower level at all. So I'm lucky I'm in the age that I didn't get really in contact with them. What the contact I had is like athletes who were doping when we were competing. I personally every time like to be naive in this way, because if I can stand at the starting line and think about who else was like cheating here, it wouldn't help myself. So I had to do my own thing and do my best.

Speaker 3:

But later on, when you hear that this person was positive, it was well. No, it makes sense. Why was he so strong or something? And I feel very lucky that I wasn't asked to do anything or triggered to do anything. I'm all for a clean sport and I don't think that at that point there was a discussion about making things legal. I said no, you cannot do this, because it's like when you don't know what it does to this person, I think it's not fair that you would push someone into something they don't really want to do, for, like health reasons? Do they want to be living a life when they're 90 and still want to be able to ski? Do they want to risk anything of that?

Speaker 2:

You got mentioned in the interview we did with Matt Fitzgerald and that was because he's been suffering and it only came out randomly right at the end of the interview. We hadn't gone in expecting to ask about that. It came out through the question of the previous guest. So explain what's going on with Long COVID. What do we know about Long COVID, because my understanding of it is fairly limited at the moment, and how are you helping people like Matt?

Speaker 3:

I always wanted to be healthy for myself. But then when I stopped competing I wanted to have something, of course, another career, and I started personal training. So I did a bunch of different certifications and some were also like how the body works with the brain in connection and the body-brain connection, and then I went even to psychoneuroimmunology how all the systems in the body are working together, because it's fascinating to me. And then COVID hit and actually I started psychoneuroimmunology when COVID hit because now I could do it at 3 am in the morning on my computer and for my personal training part I did a Monday morning class.

Speaker 3:

Now my friend came and after a while she mentioned to me that she has long COVID.

Speaker 3:

She feels now better but all the things I'm doing, like some things I'm doing implementing in those classes, helped her a lot and it was like basically tools she read about she should use. But now she had like more tangible things to use and she came from an economic background and worked for the National Health Service in England for a long time to improve healthcare in the healthcare system for people with systemic, multisystemic conditions. So she used her background to research and then came to my class and found tools and we connected and then we created this program for people with non-COVID, based on the research but also what I learned in my certification. And when we reached out to Matt because we read about his story in New York Times, he was very open to it. He also told me he doesn't open all the emails anymore because some were also not helpful, and I was, I feel, very happy that he gave it a chance and it was wonderful to see that he could run again then stick with us for the whole program.

Speaker 1:

I'm intrigued by what you talk about in terms of brain body connection, which seems really simplistic, and we should all know what that means.

Speaker 3:

right, but tell us a little bit more about what that actually means, okay we can use our body like a safety for the brain, because the brain is our government. Everything we do or we don't do is based on what the brain decides for us. So we want to, but we cannot sink our way out of pain, so we need to do something. So, using the body also to create new connections with the brain like having weird combinations of movements, for example we usually never do just to challenge the brain to create new connections between different neurons, it's one aspect. Or just like giving geosignals from the body into the brain so the brain feels safe and then we are able to do more. As long as it feels safe, it allows us to do more.

Speaker 2:

I am not as well educated in the world of science as you guys. Can you explain to me what long COVID is? What do we know about long COVID now?

Speaker 3:

Long COVID is a post-viral condition, so it's existing before, not because of COVID but because of other viruses, and the body basically gets in a state of fighting something.

Speaker 3:

So it's like over 200 symptoms are now linked to long COVID and like brain fog or post-exertional malaise, when people feel very bad after one or even just the activity of walking five minutes somewhere upstairs and then a day later they totally crash. It's a symptom. There's over 200 symptoms related to long COVID and it's basically triggered by the COVID virus or sometimes also vaccination, and it makes people feel like because it's such a wide spectrum of symptoms it's hard to tailor. Our approach is also getting back into aligning the nervous system, where the nervous system is constantly on the spot in a situation for the brain, and then using the body to give the brain safety, fear safety, to get more, to do more, and then also guides for what activities maybe not do, because it helps with other injuries or like past activities and everyone had a cold before and maybe people just think I work the same way out of this COVID infection that I do with the cold and flu. It just doesn't work anymore because the mechanisms are different and there's a lot of research still coming out.

Speaker 2:

So what specifically are you doing to help people overcome this? What does a session look like? What are you actually getting people to do?

Speaker 3:

We work people through at first understanding what's going on in their body, because just this understanding part is already very helpful.

Speaker 3:

We call it deep learning, which helps to already be also likely to do these little actions because they don't take forever and that's like by purpose, because, again, like some people with long COVID, they cannot do much and then it cannot take an hour a day to use some tool to do it.

Speaker 3:

So we do like nervous system alignment with like breath work, but also eye exercises, connected tissue stretches, like specific stretches to open up the body so that things can flow again and to give again the brain a safety that feels more, can more know what's going on in the environment, and then it feels safer. It's like people don't want to go out somewhere because it's like unsafe. And then it's like the fight-or-flight reaction and then it's like having tools like which calm the system or regulate the system, and that's always calming. And so we do also also like some mobility work and stretches and put it into a sequence like muscle relaxation, using your body basically to also calm your brain. And then also diet is a big aspect, like it's using extra stressors for the body and using like really helpful anti-inflammatory foods.

Speaker 2:

Can you give me some examples on the nutrition side? What sort of things are you advising people to do on the nutrition specifically to help them with long COVID?

Speaker 3:

We work with what to eat, so basically anti-inflammatory foods, a lot of vegetables and these things and like also wolf juice I sometimes call it vegan with chicken and fish and eggs. It's not specific, but it's very broad. But we also want to keep it simple and then when we have cravings because of lack of energy, like you usually grab something that's just around the corner heavy nuts or just taking half an avocado and we're going to this topic and hydrate.

Speaker 2:

And before we move on, what results have you seen from this work? How much success are you getting with this and helping people that have been suffering with long COVID?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so far we had good success. People feel better, like after 10 days. It's just like getting a little bit foundation in that they're capable of getting to the next step, Like just knowing also the self-assessment tools that people actually find, like what mobility exercise works better, like helps me the most, then can put together their own toolkit that can take anywhere, and that's for us important and we had for the ones who were the program. Then suddenly everyone got like somehow like out of the world. I was active again and it was really fun to see, and then everyone came back and came.

Speaker 3:

We need to like still do this and it's in the part of the routine and that's the whole goal. And then the other things it needs use For. Even it doesn't have to do anything with long hair. They used to be able to perform better, Like these things doing weird eye, foot movements usually don't do just to trigger the brain and create more connection. So it's also not just okay. Now I'm good, Now I don't have a use for this anymore. Now there's a use for the next level, and the next level I'm just keeping up and that's why we also call it Spive 90.

Speaker 1:

You're welcome People spiving 90 and past, listening to that fantastic insight around nutrition and immune system and in relation to covid and athletes that I work with and the professionals that I work with we talk about how can you support your immune system?

Speaker 1:

And if you'd like to know a little bit more about supporting your immune system, if you click in the link below you, you can download the immune impact helping you to support your immune system. I love some of the simplistic part that you talked about, being simple, especially around nutrition, so that was really good to hear. And also love hearing you using that kind of world of sport into kind of health and vice versa, how we can use health into the world of sport. And I guess, just on that topic, you were mentioning a little bit earlier about mental training when you were competing in the World Cup and the Olympics and thinking about resilience here. So there's an element actually of what you were describing there in the long COVID around resilience as well. So could you tell us a little bit about when you were training and competing around, how you trained yourself for mental strategies and that resilience?

Speaker 3:

So I naturally like challenges a lot. So it's like being in the shooting range and having 30,000 people standing behind me. It's like I benefit from it more than it triggers me If I'm in a situation that I know I can hold on my ski. So that's why and again like I said in the beginning, I wanted to be very fit and very fast, to be fast, but also to have this mental capacity and shooting range, and so I didn't do much of it Like a mental training and visualizing. I was really bad with that In my last season. I thought I need to give this a try.

Speaker 3:

Not that I blame myself later on that I didn't do any mental training and maybe would have helped me a lot. I didn't want to blame myself. This was like my credo actually. Like after the three bad years I had after the Olympic champion title, I said I do not want to blame myself and I'm 65, so I didn't know what I knew I should have been done. Or when I'm 65, that I didn't know what I knew I should have been done, what I did do, what I shouldn't have done. But that's why I reached out to a mental trainer. It was almost too much, because I wanted to do it right away. It's like with everything training, it's building up on each other when starting, when I'm 35 to get something out at 36, it was just too short of a period of time to really accelerate and I'm not sure if it was actually a bit, hindering me almost. But I would recommend anyone because now it's out there and it's useful to take it step by step, everything, to not need to blame yourself that you didn't do it and you can find out if it's like helpful or not, or if one maybe what doesn't help, maybe something else can help. But again, it's like very individual. I guess some needed more, some less, but I think it's a big component, especially when one race counts, like at the Olympics. I actually because I didn't have the emotions we talked about earlier my goal was every time I want to win one more medal at the Olympics and I had like three more Olympics and it didn't happen.

Speaker 3:

My last Olympics I got sick again. It was a bummer. In my second Olympics actually, we were such a strong team just to get a little background behind the accounts from this team we had four spots, four starting spots and I was forced in the individual range like in a 15K with four times through the fourth in the Olympics. But it was also my qualification race for sprint and pursuit and since my teammate was second, I was not qualified for sprint or pursuit, even being fourth at the Olympics. So it's because the others they're already named for the other races. It was between two of us. When I won, she was seventh and she couldn't qualify for sprint and pursuit. I had to order relay. I at least had the relay in Torino and could win the medal with the relay. And then I was one more time sick. It was so close. But putting it together at this one day is awesome.

Speaker 2:

How did you frame competing as a team versus as an individual? Were you more motivated by one than the other? Were you more pleased with your success when you were performing in a team, as an individual? What are your thoughts on the two?

Speaker 3:

So I'm an individual athlete. Barcelona is mostly an individual sport, but as a team I enjoy them. For some it's like a pressure because we have to take care of three others, and for me it was like I do not have to compete against those three anymore. It even helped me to get on the podium or win a medal. For me it was like fun to be on this team, but when you win something by yourself, on your own, it has probably the higher value because you don't divide it. But I do not want to miss any team wins. We had a wonderful team competition in Vancouver. This was a very special relay, so the team is great, but winning this by yourself is even better, even better, brilliant.

Speaker 2:

Now we always ask on the podcast for books that have influenced you, books that you found yourself recommending to others. So are there any books that you found really helpful in your journey, whether that's your biathlon journey or whether that's more relating to the long COVID stuff that you've just talked about as well?

Speaker 3:

into my eyes to. I cannot play my coach or whatever it's like. Whatever happens, I have to be in the privacy because then I can make adjustments. And this was really powerful. I don't know when I read it, I just read it and it's with me forever.

Speaker 2:

That's a great principle, isn't it? It's a great principle to own it. A few of the people that we've interviewed have referred to that term controlling the controllables. You can't control what somebody else is doing, but you can control how you perceive it and what you do about it. So that's brilliant advice, and we also get the last guest of the podcast to answer the question of the next guest without knowing who that is. Our previous guest actually was a fellow German, rico Bogan, the 70.3 world champion, and I think, claire, you've got Rico's question, haven't?

Speaker 1:

you, Rico asks did you have a pre-competition routine and if yes, what was it and why did you do it?

Speaker 3:

So we had around 30 competitions one season World Cup and Olympics and Champions, depending on what was in the calendar. And, yes, the discipline got up and usually we were racing middle of the day. So I worked backwards like two hours before I'd be in the stadium for ski test. One hour before was steering the rifle, and then sometimes two and a half hours before I think you need to be ready. Maybe the chaperonis come and get you for nut test control before the race, because this happened a couple of times and it was like totally random, so you'd be ready for it and make a plan B If the setting that your schedule is not good up.

Speaker 3:

It just like works in a different way Eating three hours before and in the morning getting up and go out and move and do something light like jogging stretches. And then I had every time a huge backpack with me because I changed the form the actual way. So we see it, and sometimes it's really mad and you're lying in this mat and then shooting it, then it snows on it and then it's wet, and then I just had this habit to change everything, including shoe socks.

Speaker 2:

What's the right thing. You did. From a superstitious point of view, that was a bit quirky. That you did because, for whatever reason, it put you in the right place.

Speaker 3:

And very practical to have something like that. It was like my sister was like you need your socks and then these socks don't doesn't matter what kind of socks they wear Fantastic.

Speaker 2:

Andrea, this has been really interesting and I love the stories of your successes and your wins, but also what you're doing around long COVID and helping people recover from a multitude of illnesses is absolutely brilliant. If people are really struggling with this sort of stuff, where can they find out more about what you're doing and how they can get your help?

Speaker 3:

Yes, so our webpage is wife90.com, or we're also on Instagram or on Facebook. We are everywhere. We are Wife90.

Speaker 2:

I know Matt was singing your praises around how much it's helped him get back to running and everything else and get through what was a very challenging time. So, andrea, it's been really interesting. Thank you so much for this. Loads to take away from that, as well as inspirational stuff. Thank you very much.

Speaker 3:

Thanks for having me on the podcast. It was really nice.

Speaker 2:

So what did you make of that interview with andrea?

Speaker 1:

it sounds like a super exciting sport that she's been involved in. It's not one that I'm really aware of, and certainly haven't tried, so it was really interesting to hear about her actually how she really, I guess, got so much out of the world cup title and having the olymp as well. So, yeah, I thought that was super interesting to learn about her sport. How about for you?

Speaker 2:

I think it's a sport I've watched occasionally over the years at the Winter Olympics and I do find it fascinating that it is that combination of physical endurance and the delicacy and skill of shooting. But it must be a fine battle. I can't believe you can absolutely bury yourself and still be able to have any chance of hitting the target, so there must be a really interesting balance. So I thought that was really interesting. I really found the topic of long COVID really interesting as well, because obviously that's why Matt mentioned her and why we wanted to get her on. I just think there's obviously a lot more I know of people that have been suffering with long COVID and there's obviously a lot more of that out there than people realize and it's dragging on for longer than ever. So I thought it was really interesting that they'd come up with what seemed like a fairly rounded approach to alleviating symptoms and getting people back to exercise. What were your thoughts on that, because obviously you're from a more science background than me?

Speaker 1:

actually the way that she described it and again, I love, I love the simplistic.

Speaker 1:

I say simplistic in a term of practical solutions, so that for me really sat really well in terms of actually these are the practical steps that you can take. Kind of that brain body bit I wanted to delve a bit deeper into and essentially what I took from that is it's a little bit like how you look at chronic pain, so really re-engaging back with yourself and your senses, that kind of neurological loop. So that was really interesting. So I can certainly see how all those very practical elements, when you do all of those things together, could really help. And I think that kind of that marrying between her sort of sports, resilience, mindset and training was coming into what she is then doing with her business partner in this long COVID piece and their frameworks that they have. So I really like that kind of interplay between how, as an athlete, you can use your training and your resilience into something else and vice versa, how we use health into sports yeah, I, I agree, and I think what I took from it was okay.

Speaker 2:

So it's about improving the fundamentals, isn't it? It's about there was the mind stuff in there, so it's breathing exercises, there was body in there, there was in terms of stretching, there was nutrition in there, getting all of these different things, and if you improve all of them, you're bound to see improvements in in your health. And so I thought it was. I thought it was really fascinating and I also thought it was interesting talking about her, her childhood, growing up around when the berlin war came down, and obviously the we take it all for granted, don't we? And yet it's very easy to first say yeah, but actually I couldn't have even moved to the US in those times, so it really was a stark reminder of how much of an impact that would have made on her life.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, I think. Also, she was willing to talk about doping in sports and I know a lot of athletes don't want to speak about that. It was fantastic that she felt that she could do that and it was just. It was interesting her again, her mindset on it, as in. I don't actually want to know if the people I'm competing against are doping, and I can. You know, we talk about mindset the whole time, don't we? Like I can understand how that could actually derail you if you start thinking I'm maybe potentially not the best because other people are cheating. Yeah, that for me was really interesting. She didn't delve too much into the mindset behind it, but I can see where she was potentially coming from in that she also on that.

Speaker 2:

I agree. Really brilliant that she was willing to talk about it, because often people aren't. What I also thought was really interesting was she was very aware of the. If you do remove some of the barriers, then people end up getting forced to take stuff and the long-term implications. I remember reading a book I can't remember which one it was which talks about this whole argument of do you remove the barriers or don't you, and actually it's you think it's going to suggest that you should remove the barriers and just allow the drugs. And then it delves deeper into what were the long-term implications to some of those german and russian athletes that were doing having like serious state-sponsored doping programs. And of course, years later, like the suicide rate is off the charts, the number of sex changes that the female athletes were going through were off the charts. The health implications for those people that were put through that like massively had a huge impact. So I thought that was a really insightful comment that she just happened to throw in there about the long-term health of the athletes. It had a huge impact. So I thought that was a really insightful comment that she just happened to throw in there about the long-term health of the athletes. So, yeah, great interview. I really enjoyed chatting to her and something very different for us, both from a sport point of view, and also the long COVID conversations. So, yeah, really good and, yeah, I hope all the listeners out there took something from that.

Speaker 2:

If you know anyone that's struggling from long COVID, I suggest you tell them to check this episode out and we'll put the link in the show notes for you to find out more about Andrea's program. But in the meantime, keep on training. I mentioned right at the start. I've got a gift for you if you hung around till the end. If you're a business owner and you want to know how you could grow your business while working less and enjoying more, I've got a tool for you called the Entrepreneurial Happiness Scoreboard and it'll basically help you see the areas you're doing well and identify the areas that you aren't doing quite so well in, and then give you some ideas around how you can improve those areas within your business to help you grow your business while working less and enjoying more. We'll put the link in the show notes, but if you go to wwwthetrustedteam, you can find the Entrepreneurial Happiness Scoreboard and you can see how you're doing and whether you're winning at the game of business.

Speaker 2:

If you want us to keep getting amazing guests onto the Business of Endurance podcast, we don't ask for you to pay for us. We don't ask for patronage. All we ask for is that you subscribe to the podcast, ideally on Apple. Give us a five-star rating because it shows us you care and, if you've got time, leave us a comment. One word is fine, something like inspiring or amazing or something like that, but we really do appreciate it and it will help us to continue to deliver amazing guests on what we hope you find to be an amazing podcast. Thanks very much. Jeff and Chloe from Big Moose Charity, who we featured in episode one of season seven, made such a great impact on the both of us, we decided to make them our charity sponsor for season seven. Now, they really touched me in the sense that I lost my brother-in-law to suicide in Wales and these guys are working their socks off to help prevent situations like that. Claire, why did Jeff and Chloe really make an impact on you?

Speaker 1:

coming from a background in clinical nutrition and working in mental health, to me also it hit a spot in terms of the charity and how they are building therapy to help support people with mental health difficulties, and they've saved over 50 lives now and already met their first target of a million and their new target, 15 million, that they're trying to get to.

Speaker 2:

It's absolutely incredible and 15 million is a huge target they've set themselves, but they're speeding up help that people in desperately in need get, and this help is needed more than ever and I know how problematic mental health issues are in today's world. So if you think you can help Big Moose Charity and they're particularly looking for corporate partners to help them raise that £ million, if you think you can help them or link them into a company that can help them, the best place to go to is bigmoosecharityco, or you can find them on Instagram as bigmoosecharity, or you can even email Jeff at jeff at bigmooseco.