[00:00:00] I mean, maybe I was insane beforehand and it just, you know, it was all the same. But truthfully, that was one of my biggest concerns because before spending 70 days alone and there was no follow boat, there was no helicopter, so it was legitimately alone. The longest I had spent alone was probably a weekend. Maybe if it was snowy and you got snowed in, couldn’t drive, and to go from two, two days to two and a half months was quite a jump. So for me, one of the tools, mental tools that I use is meditation.
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Jesse: [00:01:21] Welcome to the Smart Athlete Podcast. I’m your host Jesse Funk. My guest today is the youngest person to ever row solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She’s the first person to have swum the entire length of the Alligator River. Also, the first person in, as far as we can tell, only person to have run nonstop 138 miles across Maine, which she did in 33 hours. You can find her on Instagram @katiespotz that Spotz with a Z. Welcome to the show, Katie Spotz.
Katie: [00:01:49] Hey, thanks for having me.
Jesse: [00:01:51] Yeah, thanks for joining me. So the viewers don’t know. We were talking about viewers, listeners, whichever platform you’re on, if you want to view YouTube.com/Solpri, you can view it on there. Don’t know as we were talking about before. We are only two degrees of separation apart, even though I didn’t know that when my assistant booked you. So shout out to Aira, my assistant, for knowing cool people before I knew that I knew cool people. Our mutual friend Kevin.
He had recommended you to come on. It was like really talking you up. And then I looked on the calendar and you were already on there. So Aira was, like, way ahead of her job or psychic or I don’t know what she did, but it was this really nice, like, synchronous moment.
Katie: [00:02:35] Meant to be, yup, for sure.
Jesse: [00:02:37] So I have to ask a little bit about what all imagine is like sea madness. How do you not go just insane with all the time by yourself just rowing across Atlantic?
Katie: [00:02:52] I mean, maybe I was insane beforehand and it just, you know, it was all the same. But truthfully, that was one of my biggest concerns because before spending 70 days alone and there was no follow boat, there was no helicopter, so it was legitimately alone.
[00:03:09] The longest I had spent alone was probably a weekend. Maybe if it was snowy and you got snowed in, couldn’t drive, and to go from two, two days to two and a half months was quite a jump. So for me, one of the tools, mental tools that I use is meditation. So I did some extensive ten, 10-day retreats where there was no reading, no writing, no speaking.
Although it was a group environment, you couldn’t even have eye contact because that’s a form of communication. So I mean, it may seem like meditating and doing this feat are very different, but I think whatever you experience in meditation is the same thing you experience while doing hard things and it’s intense emotions.
[00:03:56] I was witnessing intense emotion… having to. I need to do anything so sure that my head was on straight for as much as it as I could possibly be. But truthfully, if I had gone with a friend, a teammate, I probably wouldn’t have wanted that. Because it brings out the worst of you. Because I was sleep-deprived, I was cranky, I was fatigued. And so I think a lot of people who do these types of events as teammates don’t necessarily end as best friends. And so I’m glad for those reasons that I didn’t have to worry about another person adding to that mix. Yeah.
Jesse: [00:05:01] So for you, the listener, and maybe you, Katie, you did freeze there for a second and part of your conversation, part of your story. So we missed a little bit of it, but we got part of it as well. So thinking about the use of meditation, like I, I would agree with you, even though I’ve not done any like intensive meditation retreats, it’s I mean, it seems like it’s in part like a mental skill, right? Just being able to live with yourself.
Katie: [00:05:28] Yes.
Jesse: [00:05:29] Because we all we all spend so much time either loosely or not, so loosely connected to everybody else, that we can kind of bounce our own thoughts off of other people or at least have that stimulation versus, you know, I think when people meditate for the first time, they don’t always realize beforehand, like how much chatter is going on in your brain, like all the time.
Katie: [00:06:03] I don’t know, regain control of that a little bit and not just kind of hop on and and go wherever the mind and have a little bit more to redirect it. And so that was yeah, that was definitely the biggest tool for me. And I mean, I think what was also important is that I, I had a lot of friends, I had good relationships. And so even though I was alone, I never necessarily felt alone because I knew no matter how many miles away, I still had those relationships. And so having strong relationships really helped to ease my mind. So I wasn’t feeling that distance, even though there definitely was some distance. Yeah.
Jesse: [00:06:48] Yeah. Did you, I mean, was it better like if they just in your mind, are you bringing like photos along or –.
Katie: [00:06:55] Oh, yeah. So I did. This was because it was a fundraiser for clean water. I mean, I did have if you donated $30, that was enough to help one person gain access to clean water so you could get your picture on the boat. And so I had pictures all in the cabin. And then my mom, she actually wrote a 100 letters.
So I anticipated the journey would take between 70 and 100 days. And so every day I had a kind of like a letter from home that I would be able to open. And I didn’t have Internet, but I did have an ability to do emails. So I was still in touch with some people and trying to do that as much as I could. I mean, most of the time I was just rowing, but I was able to do that before bed or something like that. So yeah.
Jesse: [00:07:43] So you had like I guess logistically speaking, dedicated rowing hours during the day and then from there you’re just like, I’m just you’re just chilling the rest of the day. Like, what is the typical day look like on that adventure?
Katie: [00:07:58] So the, the reason why I didn’t think it took much like motivation is because there’s nothing else you can possibly do on a rowboat than row. Like if I wasn’t rowing, I’d be staring at a wall. I’d rather be rowing. So I would be rowing 10 to 12 hours a day. I would sleep, yeah, maybe 6 to 8 hours. The sleeping was the hardest part, either because of the waves just waking me up or flying fish hitting the cabin.
But I would row maybe 2 hours, take a snack break, and the only thing other at night I would also sometimes row if the moon was bright enough because I could see. You actually did need to see where you put your oar in because if you don’t time it just right, you could bruise your knees or break your ribs because it’s very — you have to. Yeah, you just kind of have to read the waves.
[00:08:55] And so a lot of rowing, a lot of eating, not much sleeping and a little bit of snorkeling to get the barnacles off the side of the boat. Cooking meals took a little bit of time and then blogging. But yeah, I did spend one of the 70 days just as a mental health day where I watched Harry Potter movies on my iPod Touch and ate chocolate bars. But aside from that, it was just, yeah, rowing all day and just yeah. Eat, sleep, row, repeat.
Jesse: [00:09:30] I guess we have to back up. I think you touched on this a little bit and we talked about this a little beforehand. The motivation maybe to do this or do any of these things like what is it? I guess I’ll ask the egotistical question is it a matter of like one to be like Katie Spotz I’m awesome. Like, look at me, do all these things or like, what’s the motivation behind all of the adventures?
Katie: [00:09:55] Yeah. So my journey in endurance started by avoiding it. I was a senior in high school. I needed to take one more gym class to get my high school diploma. And as a kid, I definitely did team sports. Basically anything with a ball and a court and a field. I tried basketball, baseball, soccer, tennis, and so I was physically there.
But mentally I just I mean, as a kid, if I was playing baseball, I would be picking dandelions. I just didn’t I was happy to be there with my friends. I was happy to be running around, but I didn’t really have that competitiveness. And if you aren’t that way by middle school and high school, you’re just not even playing anymore. You’re just a benchwarmer. So I was like, Oh, I’m just not athletic.
[00:10:46] So when I had to take this gym class, I had a goal which was, I’m going to try to find the easiest class and put the least amount of effort in. And that was when I saw Walk, Run, Jog, I was like, Oh, I see the word walk. I know I could do that. And so I that’s what I did. I just walked and put in that bare minimum effort and then I just got so bored. I mean, going circle after circle around this lap, the eight, eight times to do a mile, it was so boring.
[00:11:17] And so that’s the time where I was like, you know, if I if I really did try, could I run one mile? And that’s something I never had done before. And so I set that target, had no idea what I was doing. My approach was to go as fast as possible just to get it over with. And because I didn’t know I would make it eight laps, so I was just like by by half the halfway mark, I was just barely holding on and my lungs were burning, didn’t know how to pace myself. But that was kind of a really awakening moment for me because I never thought I could do it, and I did.
[00:11:58] So then I was like, Well, what are all the other things? It was a reframing moment. What are all the other things that I’m telling myself that I can’t do that maybe in fact I can. And with no pressure of letting down your coach or your teammates, it was just this really, I have nothing to lose.
So yeah, I think for me, not having that external pressure was really liberating. And, and so it started with one mile and I celebrated that one mile as if I ran a marathon. I mean, that was the high I was the rocky moment. What? I didn’t know you — I mean, it wasn’t fast, but it was still, some people say, just one mile as to describe one mile. But just one mile is just enough for you to reframe what is possible.
[00:12:46] And you could do team sports and you win, you lose, you tie, you could do endurance and you discover what is humanly possible, what is the limit. And to me, I’m very curious. And so you will see that a lot of events I do once and then I’m done because I want to know what’s possible and I want to know.
And I mean, doing the row was so liberating as well because a lot of people do a lot of things and they have opinions. And I don’t really I want pure experiences. And adventure is so pure because sometimes you don’t need to ask people how to do it. You could just explore and and learn and see it as, you know, no preconceived notions, no stories about what I should be feeling like.
[00:13:41] And so I love that kind of guinea pig testing it out. And so it started as that, you know, and once I found out about the water crisis, it became more than just my own personal curiosity, my own personal goals and, you know. Yeah, and so water because water, I mean, because there are almost 800 million people without clean water that don’t need to be without clean water, that we do have the solutions, that there are possibilities. And knowing the potential is there.
[00:14:20] I mean, when you see a problem that has a solution and it has that big of an effect. So I think it definitely helped to be able to do things that did I mean. Yeah. I mean did bring in attention for to be redirected for the cause. And so because of adventures because of these events right now it’s about 45,000 people have gained access to clean water across 15 countries and 95 projects.
[00:14:52] So I definitely see the value of doing things off the beaten path. But yeah, my personal thing is I don’t think if if you were purely doing it for ego and look at me, I really don’t think I would have made it across. I mean, that is not deep enough. That’s not enough to make you want to row a million or strokes. That’s not enough to keep running even though your toenails are falling off. I mean, I just I love challenges, and I’ve been that way since I was a kid. And just yeah. Through that gym class realized that there was a lot more in me than I had ever imagined.
Jesse: [00:15:35] Obviously, there’s a lot to unpack there. I don’t know how often I say that with guests. So the listener is probably like, you always say that that’s like your catchphrase. Just thinking about like. I mean, the focus on clean water, like like I mentioned, that’s kind of an initiative for one of my new products as well. It made sense for me thematically. But like where, like where does that come from? From you? I mean, there’s so many different like non-profits and initiatives that we could focus on. Why do you land there?
Katie: [00:16:14] Yeah. So I mean, that that to your point, there are so many causes that water supports. If you care about women empowerment, go for water. If you care about health, you could spend lots of money on medicines for issues that could be resolved if they simply have clean water to drink. And so if you care about health, if you care about education, kids aren’t going to school, you could build a fancy school. But if they’re fetching water all day, that doesn’t matter. You need clean water for them to be able to even be in school.
[00:16:48] And so really, water is the first step out of poverty. Water. Every $1 invested in water brings $12 back to the local economy. I just think when I first heard about and learned about the water crisis, aside from air, what else do we need? I mean, it is the most basic and fundamental need. And so I just couldn’t imagine what what life would be without it. And I think it’s a huge justice issue.
I mean, we do have enough water to help everyone. We do have the means to do it. And there was Matt Damon is very involved with water as well. And in a documentary, he recently said something about like, imagine right now we have the cure for all childhood cancers and yet in 50 years, kids are still dying of this cancer.
[00:17:45] And that’s exactly what’s happening with water, that we do have a way to solve it. And some of these solutions are cheap. They’re effective there. I mean, rainwater harvesting is it’s a very simple thing, but it has such a huge impact. And so, you know, we don’t agree on everything in this world, but everyone can agree that we should all be able to drink clean water. We should all be able to drink water where we don’t worry. Will this be the water that that I you know, that could kill me? I mean, that’s that’s how pretty stark this issue is. And so I just yeah, it makes me at first it made me angry and now it makes me hopeful and excited because there are ways to to solve it.
[00:18:36] And, I mean, I do think there is a parallel between the cause and the events because, you know, the water crisis is this big, massive number, this big issue, and these challenges are these big, massive numbers of miles. And truthfully, the way you approach the water crisis and the way you approach these challenges is very similar. You just take it one step at a time, one person at a time.
[00:19:01] And so, yeah, I, I do care about a lot of other causes, but that one is the one that makes me the most, it drives me. It definitely drives me. And it’s very cool. I mean, when I first started getting into endurance events, there really wasn’t as clear of a, I’m doing this now, donate that, and now it’s so mainstream that marathons you could sign up and join a team. And so I think it’s very cool how you can do something you love and also help help a cause that that, you know, that means something to you. So I just love how this is kind of the way and people are more used to that kind of model.
Jesse: [00:19:51] So I have to ask and for you, the listener, Katie knows this because I told her before, like I put on my, like, cynical marketer hat where people are concerned about me. What’s in it for me? And that’s why I like, as I mentioned, with the new sports drink that we’re doing, we’re donating. But like it’s kind of a footnote because I don’t like philosophically, I feel like most people don’t really care. It’s just something that I want to do. So it’s kind of my pet project and I’m taking it on.
[00:20:24] So the question is for you, I guess. Am I wrong? If I’m not wrong or somewhere in between, how do we get people to care? Because I mean, it’s so easy to take it for granted. I mean, I can I can walk ten feet away to the bathroom and turn on water on tap, you know what I mean? And I’ve got I’ve got a fridge that filters water and then an additional pitcher that filters it again. Like I have a ridiculous, you know, globally speaking or ridiculous set up to get very clean water in my house with super ease. And I don’t think about it. I don’t think about it from day to day. So like, I’m hoping you can prove me wrong. And just how do we get people to even acknowledge and then want to take action towards bringing about solutions since we have the solutions.
Katie: [00:21:19] Yeah. So no one like about — Yeah like in the last ten years, charity has come a long way and there almost were like, you know, you know, the commercials with Sarah McLachlan and like no one likes seeing that. And guilt is not the most powerful emotion. I mean, it’s love. And so I never want to make anyone feel guilty. Your guilt does not help anyone get clean water. So this is definitely not a matter of feeling, guilt or shame. And I also believe that everyone is has a call on their life. Everyone has a purpose, and some people will be drawn towards other causes and other issues. And that’s great because it’s all hands on deck for whatever you want to do.
[00:22:15] So I guess for me, my message is maybe you don’t know about water. Now that you do, now that you know you can do something. Now you know that $50 can help one person get clean water. And and I mean, I think it’s innate in us to want to make a difference. And so it’s an invitation to if you want to make a huge difference, you can. And also, if there’s another cause that you care about, it’s really more about making actions and taking steps to do what you feel called to do.
[00:22:48] I mean, even with like ultramarathons and all these events, I’m not trying. The world doesn’t need more people running ultramarathons. It just needs people to live the call in their lives, live out their the passions, and live out the lives that they were meant to. So I, I, I think of it more as an invitation to be a part of something bigger.
And if that’s not where you feel called, that would be a disservice for me to try to push someone to do something that’s not really what they’re about. And so finding out what what matters to you and then pursuing it is more important than being like, you know, water is the most important. Everything else doesn’t matter. And there’s a lot of other causes that matter too.
Jesse: [00:23:40] I think those are very political answers. Not quite right. But just —
Katie: [00:23:46] That wasn’t trying. That was like legit.
Jesse: [00:23:48] No, no, no. I know. But it’s very like, very, very measured, very well thought out, I guess. Maybe it’s like it’s it’s not political. Like you’re not like dodging the question, but it is very like. You know it’s obviously from the heart was just like find the thing that you care about right?
Katie: [00:24:05] Yeah. Well —
Jesse: [00:24:05] But I guess that’s the question is like, how do I find the thing that I care? Like if I just care about me, do I just go like. Well, like, I mean, how many people and culturally are we focused on like the, the hedonist treadmill of like I need more stuff I need a bigger house. I need like and people focus on that and believe that to be the purpose and that I think is. I think it’s okay to have to reward yourself for working hard. But I also think if that’s purely a focus, you probably end up empty at the end of the day.
[00:24:41] So I guess that’s my maybe my question is like, how do we show people the light if we want to take like a holier than thou approach, but just get them to think about the idea that there may be a purpose that maybe bring some more fulfillment or make some bigger impact or an ability to join something greater than themselves. I think that you mentioned.
Katie: [00:25:04] Yeah. I mean, one other thing I will say before I answer that is like some people do. I said everyone agrees about clean water, but some people also say to me like, well, why aren’t you helping here? Why aren’t you helping? And there are projects that have been supported in the Navajo Nation I have been involved with that. And so my, my, my, my answer to that is always, well, why don’t you. You know, so I think yeah. So so I just want to put that out there because I think that people forget their own power and these these with these issues or with with what they’re capable of. But yeah. So you were asking about how do you get people to —
Jesse: [00:25:48] Transforming from a place of entirely equal fulfillment to maybe at least maybe it’s 90% equal fulfillment in 10%, like I’ll call it altruism, even if I don’t truly believe altruism really exists. But just like how do we shift the balance a little bit?
Katie: [00:26:04] Okay so check out this TED talk about how — I mean, there is legit science and legit research about how giving back is something that selfishly like, I don’t think you can give back without feeling that. And if you keep chasing that more and more and more, you know what you’re going to end up?
You’re going to end up wanting more and more and more. I mean, that’s the end result. You’re going to continue the habit of wanting more and realizing that nothing is enough. And so, I mean, I think the biggest thing is like, okay, we’ll check in with how is that working for you to want more and more and more? Because I don’t think we were meant for that. And that’s why there will be feelings of dissatisfaction. There will be feelings of because it was never meant to be all about yourself.
[00:26:55] I think we’re here to to help and to serve and to give back. And so I, I think your own personal experiences can teach you about that if you’re not feeling what what it feels like. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Jesse: [00:27:16] Yeah.
Katie: [00:27:19] So I’m just like, so how’s that working for you? It’s not working. Well, think about that, then. That’s pretty much it.
Jesse: [00:27:26] Right. Go ahead.
Katie: [00:27:30] Yeah, no, that’s pretty much it. I mean, everyone has to arrive to these wherever they’re meant to be in their own way. And so I feel like experience can sometimes be your greatest teacher and just reflecting on those experiences. But yeah, in high school I had to volunteer. It was a mandatory thing and that helped me get out of my head a little bit. So even just volunteering a few times can kind of awaken that, I think.
Jesse: [00:27:59] Just the exposure. That’s sometimes it’s just this is somewhat related, but a little tangential where I wonder about sometimes to think about motivation. I ask guest about motivation and like I’m very self-motivated and I used to naively think that I had enough motivation for everybody and I could like inject that in people and. I don’t think that’s actually the case. I think it has to come in relief from somewhere. But like you mentioned, just like taking a small step, not not going, okay, let’s be like Katie and roll across the Atlantic, but just be like, maybe I go in, volunteer for like Habitat for Humanity for a day or I go to a soup kitchen or.
[00:28:47] Or maybe you’ve got I know there are like churches around here that have — gosh! What are they called, like they’re like the little libraries but for food where you can take and leave food.
Katie: [00:29:00] Yeah.
Jesse: [00:29:01] And that’s like grab a couple of cans at the grocery store and then leave them in the box. Like you don’t even take 10 minutes. Like there’s a small step, right? Not trying to take on an entire 70-day trek all at once and then figuring out from there where it goes. And I think. You know, I wish I could figure out how to start that motivation for people, whatever it is. But maybe that’s maybe that’s the thing is if they already have that motivation, just taking the smallest small step forward.
Katie: [00:29:38] Yeah. I mean, it’s almost like I think people are motivated. They’re just something covering it. Like there’s just something blocking it, there’s something luring us away from it. So sometimes, you know, I do speak and I don’t think I’m giving anyone any motivation. I’m just helping them move away. The things that are preventing them from doing the things that they already want to do. So you can’t you know, you can’t give someone that, but you can help them move the things out of the way so that they can actually do something with that. So yeah.
Jesse: [00:30:18] I do want to ask you about what I think is like insider knowledge. So this last weekend, we talked about beforehand, before we got recording last this last week, and I spent time with our mutual friend Kevin and he showed me a photo, I think, of your leg, which like bruised and pretty gnarly looking.
Katie: [00:30:39] I think it was. “Do you think I’m pretty” that picture.
Jesse: [00:30:43] In my mind it was he was just like, look at Katie’s leg.
Katie: [00:30:48] I think it’s cool.
Jesse: [00:30:50] So. So, number one, what happened? And then where do you go from there? I mean, it seems like you’re probably not in any condition to go run across another state at the moment. I don’t know. I don’t know.
Katie: [00:31:08] So I thought it would be a good idea to rollerblade across Florida from all across the Florida Keys and Key Largo to Key West. I thought that would be so rad. I mean, it’s it’s pretty flat. Who wouldn’t want to go across 44 islands? And I’ve never been in a bet.
Jesse: [00:31:23] Who wouldn’t want to broke of my house party violence? Who would who would think maybe I shouldn’t do this?
Katie: [00:31:30] Well, I mean, I did practice. I rollerblade across Connecticut and I did some some test drives. And I, it was for a fundraiser, an escape for water, for a community in Haiti. And so my friend and I went down in February and we anticipated it would be a four-day journey doing like an ultramarathon every day. And day three, I just I ate it and I was going down a bridge. I mean, it is flat, but when you’re going up and down bridges, going down a bridge and then kind of the trail veered and then there was a patch of rocks right from one part of the trail to the next because it was over 100 miles of trail.
[00:32:16] Of course, there would be parts that would be interrupted with construction, that kind of thing. So I, I was going too fast to, to be able to slow down in that moment to, you know, yeah to be able to walk over it. And so I tried to catch my own fall instead. Did kind of like the splits kind of movement, tore my ACL, tore my MCL, sprained my wrist, went to the E.R. and they did the X-rays and they said, you know, nothing was broken and so pain is tolerated. And so we finished the finish the next day. So that is I mean, the good news is once it’s already broken, you can’t break it. So it was already I mean, there was there really wasn’t much I — yeah, it was, it was broken.
[00:33:07] So I even going further, it might have, yeah, it was going to aggravate it. So I did have a call and my, my, I have nurses in my life and of course now everyone’s going to be like, No, you shouldn’t do that. But the question is, will this make this worse? Will it cause permanent injury? What are the consequences? And I mean, yeah, it was it was when I told people being on this podcast, I was like, I don’t know if I’m the smartest athlete out there. I mean, you rollerblading with a torn ACL and MCL, probably not the smartest idea. But I mean, truthfully, that is my my biggest struggle as doing these endurance challenges is knowing when to stop rather than I don’t need someone being like, go do it.
[00:33:56] And I mean, Kevin and I did it. Another adventure race across America and join the team because I had a broken pelvis, but I was still on a hand bike. So I yeah, I mean, it, it makes me want to even try harder because it’s like, ooh, this is like something else to overcome. And I definitely had a strategy, right? Like I was, I had to use my friend as my break because I couldn’t aggressively lift my toes to be able to break.
And so I was taking much shorter strides. I was staying on the road instead of the trail because I could see more. I was staying on the the the line in the road where it was the smoothest. Like the road. The paint. Yeah. The paint skating on that paint. And that was, that was it. So I had that injury in February, I had surgery last week. And I mean I’ve — I can most I’m it’s very it’s been great.
[00:35:01] I mean I can walk I could — the six week mark is supposed to be when you go up and down stairs, I can already do that. I’m not on pain medicine. I, I mean, yeah, it’s, I feel like I’m surprised by how fast the recovery. I mean, it’s still going to take nine months to fully recover and it’s still going to take a lot of time. But it’s not really limiting me as much as. I mean, and I’ve switched to weights. So after I had the injury, I pretty much went from predominantly cardio to weights. And so I last month I did a ten minute plank challenge and tried that out. And I used to do pull ups more and for like Coast Guard training stuff.
[00:35:49] And so now I’m getting back into pull ups and I think it’s cool. I mean, I, I’m being I have the opportunity to focus on areas that I wouldn’t normally and flexibility. You can always work on that without necessarily putting much strain and stress. And I do probably want to do triathlon again in the future. So this is a good excuse to get back on to the bike and swimming more since I’ve mainly just been doing ultramarathons for the last two years now. So silver lining all over the place. I mean, it’s it’s not too bad. Not too bad.
Jesse: [00:36:28] Yeah. You talking about, you didn’t know how smart you were. You know, that’s where sometimes. I think about you’re — I would say you to a stronger degree than me. But sometimes I think about just like. Like people like you are just built differently. You know what I mean? Like, I don’t know. Again. Maybe this is just the cynicism in me. I don’t know that you can take Average Joe and make them go, Yeah, well, I torn my ACL, MCL, but I mean, I can still skate, so I just decided to finish it up.
[00:37:04] Like, I think I think most people, number one, probably wouldn’t have started to begin with, but they’d also want to be like, no, I think I think God is telling me to stop now. Like, it’s it’s enough. And and you’re like, no, I think it’s fine. Like, is it good? Is it going to be permanently damaged? No. Like, I’ll just do it anyway. So I just sometimes I think. There’s something. You know, your parents gave you genetically that just not everybody has something inside or who knows, maybe that first mile was like flipped a switch in your genome or something and everything just has progressed from there. I have no idea.
Katie: [00:37:48] Yeah —
Jesse: [00:37:48] It’s in speculation on my part entirely.
Katie: [00:37:51] I mean, I definitely haven’t figured that out. I, I do have two older brothers. And so I think I was more of a tomboy and always having to catch up with them being. My oldest was four years older. And so when you’re a kid trying to keep up with someone four years older and so maybe that helped me be more like, you know, trying to keep up kind of mentality. But I don’t know. I just I think, you know, we can be driven by fears, right? And some people are afraid of failure. And I’m not as afraid of failure. I’m afraid of regret. I’m afraid like that was the thing. If I didn’t do the last day, I’d be afraid to be regretful.
[00:38:39] And it would have I would have always thought about, well, what if I tried? What if I did this? What if I did that? And so my fear of failure is much stronger, or my fear of regret is much stronger than my fear of failure. I would rather deal with that. I would I mean, the biggest fear for me is being an 80 year old woman looking back at my life saying, what if, if only what? And just that is such a heavy burden. And I, I just don’t do well with that kind of thinking because, I mean, we don’t really have a lot of time, like we only have this. And so I just, I just want to use it and see what we can do with it, you know.
Jesse: [00:39:21] I think you and I could probably parallel about death as motivation. Another time we’re running. We’re running because that’s a big motivator for me. We don’t have time to get into it now, unfortunately. So before we run out of time, I want to ask you the question I’m asking everybody this season. I’m hoping you have a good answer because you’ve certainly had some big ones. My season question this year is how do you celebrate your wins?
Katie: [00:39:46] Let’s see. I mean, I guess. Before I used to kind of jump from one to the other and what next? What next? And it’s exciting to get a win because it kind of it kind of keeps that ball rolling. So, I mean. I think it’s just like reflecting on it and seeing how far you’ve come. Right now, my win is my win of the day is bending my knee 110 degrees. And so just knowing that if you give that little bit every day, it’s going to it’s going to add up. So I think it’s just mindfulness, just like really taking that moment to appreciate where you’re at rather than continuing to think what’s what’s ahead. So, yeah.
Jesse: [00:40:44] It’s a good answer. Katie if people want to get in touch, see what you’re up to, see what your next project is, donate, any of that kind of stuff, where, where can they find you?
Katie: [00:40:54] So I’m on Instagram, katiespotz and Facebook hellokatiespotz. And then if you would be interested in donating and supporting cause, it’s just katiespotz.com And there’s a Donate Now button.
Jesse: [00:41:07] Awesome. Katie, thanks for hanging out with me today.
Katie: [00:41:10] Yeah, it was fun. Thank you.