Kristin Armstrong: 'You have to have goals to succeed'
An edited transcript of Colleen LaMay's interview with the Olympian
Editor's Note: The below interview with Olympian Kristin Armstrong took place before Armstrong made the decision to compete in cycling for another year.
"What makes my goal any more important than anyone else’s goal? No matter what your goal is, it’s the commitment and sacrifice that you have to make as an individual, and one goal leads to the next to the next to the next." — Kristin Armstrong
Idaho Health writer Colleen LaMay sat with Kristin Armstrong on a curb near one of Armstrong’s favorite spots along the Greenbelt, by the bandshell at Julia Davis Park. Armstrong talked about her diet, her product endorsements, her speaking schedule, her desire to start a family and the art of bicycle navigation for commuters.
What do you eat?
I worked with a nutritionist for about a year and a half, and at first I just wanted her to write me meal plans, and I’d just cook exactly what she said, and after a few months of that you’re like, I get this. I understand. What she really taught me was balance — have a little balance in our meals. Don’t wake up and have cereal every morning. Don’t have the same turkey sandwich every day at noon. And we are all creatures of habit, right? She asked me, "What do you like to eat for breakfast?" I like cereal. I like Big City (Coffee and Cafe) muffins. And she didn’t take that stuff out of my diet. She said, "Have a muffin once a week, but at other times have cereal, another day have eggs, another day have oatmeal," and I was, Oh, yeah, OK. I have to break that. This is more of a problem with my head than it is a nutrition problem.
What kind of advice are you getting about product endorsements after your gold medal in Beijing?
Actually, I have a lot of advice. It’s been an interesting process so far, because it’s all new to me. What you think is going to happen is not totally what happens. What I thought would happen is I would cross the finish line and if I were to win a medal, that I would have a lot of opportunities come my way, and I’d get to sit back and kind of think for a couple months — what opportunity do I want? It’s actually not happening that way. You cross the finish line, and there are people knocking at your door with great opportunities, but they want it now, not tomorrow, not in a few weeks. Everyone needs it today, and that is just how our society is anyway. I don’t know why I thought it would happen the other way. It’s not necessarily professional job opportunities like, "Will you come work for my business and be this." It’s more like, "Hey, would you come be a keynote speaker at our annual meeting?" or "Hey, would you endorse this product," and it might be an endorsement for a year and it might be an endorsement for a day.
I saw you on the back page of the Idaho Statesman in a dairy advertisement. What kind of endorsements are you doing for the United Dairymen of Idaho?
The neat thing about the United Dairymen of Idaho is I partnered with them before I medaled. They believed in me before I won, and that is kind of neat to me. Their campaign just kicked off, so that’s where you saw the ad. There’s a Web site, thechocolategold.com. They set a whole campaign around it. Chocolate milk works as a recovery drink for me. It may be a little thick during a hot race, so afterward it does provide the same amount of protein, carbohydrate ratio provided in other products.
Will product endorsements go on indefinitely, or will you need a 9 to 5 job?
I hope indefinitely. What I’ve heard, and I’m kind of a rookie at all this, but what I’ve heard from my agent is opportunities definitely come knocking for the first three or four months, and they never last more than one or two years, because then they are on to the next Olympics. So when the doors open, you need to go right now. I’m testing things out a little bit. I have about a dozen speaking engagements this month, and I’m really excited about them. I’ve done a few already.
One of the big ones coming up is called Drug Free Idaho, and it’s for 1,000 kids. I’m really excited about that opportunity because I really like to be a role model for youth. I’ll talk about substance abuse, but also just talk to them about the pressure of sports and being involved. You may think the only substances out there are alcohol and smoking, but there’s also performance-enhancement drugs. If you are an active kid, and you are looking to go to college or even, for example, playing high school football, you may be confronted with all of these pressures. It’s really sad, at the high school level, isn’t it?
Veterinary supplies?
And I have a keynote speech for a company that sells veterinary products throughout the nation. What I’ve been told is people just want to hear your story and what I’ve done. You have to have goals to succeed, and these are a lot of sales people, so you have to have goals, and nobody else can set these for you. Your boss can’t set them. Your husband can’t set them. You have to set them to achieve the end result. Another one of the key things that I have to do in my event, which was time trials, was focus. So you have to focus, and it’s really easy to lose focus in this world.
Focus, focus, focus
For me, on the bike, I start off with five minutes, and I count how many times I started thinking about my day. One of the examples I give is, have you ever driven from one side of town to the other and when you’re home you don’t remember going through lights, you don’t remember the traffic flow, you just don’t remember how you got there? It happens to everybody, and it’s scary. You are thinking you got home fast. If you went back to every light, I guarantee you don’t remember if you stopped or went through them. It’s scary, and so the example I have is on the bike. The first time I did the five-minute drill where I tried to not think about dinner or other things, I caught myself about a dozen times in five minutes. In a 35-minute race, you have been distracted about 70 times. When you get in the car to go to work, instead of thinking of everything you have to do at work that day, try focusing, try and see how long until you get to work, how many times you get distracted and go back and say, OK, I went through five lights and stopped at three. Hey, I did a pretty good job. But they are drills. It’s just like anything in life, you have to try. Do you think it just comes easily? It doesn’t.
The next step
I’ll have a decision by the end of October, but I foresee myself racing for one more year. The age thing: I want to start a family. I have to say I really am at peace with what I’ve accomplished in this world. If I had won the silver or bronze, I would honestly ask myself, "Do I want to go to London to win the gold?" That’s how competitive I am. The Olympic gold, the Olympics, period, is the pinnacle. It is the best thing you can ever accomplish as an athlete. I wanted to stay involved in cycling and be a role model and help the next generation of cyclists.
Right now I have to say I am in a period of my life — it is only the second time in my life I’ve been in this period, and it’s a period of unknowns. The only other time I’ve been in this was when I graduated college, because your life is sort of set for you. You go to kindergarten. You go through elementary school and you go to high school, and the way I was brought up, there wasn’t a choice of whether I went to college or not. My parents never said, "If you go to college." It was always, "Which college are you going to?" So after college was the first time in my life I had a choice. Oh, my goodness.
It’s about the next generation
I want to make sure that the pressures are taken off as many youth as possible. Let them (not their parents) choose what sport. Don’t start at age 5 and think they are going to have the best scholarship ever in 12 years or they need to be a gymnast for the rest of their lives.
I was not pushed into one sport. My sophomore year in college, after being the biggest tomboy ever, I told my parents I wanted to try out for cheerleading with my best friend, and Mom looked at me and said, "Sure honey, why don’t you do that." I practiced my dance routines and my cheers in front of them. I wish she had made a video because I was not a cheerleader, and I tried out and didn’t make it, and I was done with that, but the greatest thing was that they didn’t question me.
Sports teach kids life lessons
Yeah. I moved every three years of my life. (Kristin grew up in a military family). For me, sports was a way of meeting people, and it teaches you a lot, you know it teaches you sportsmanship and that can go a long way; it doesn’t just have to be applied in sports. There is not a lot of time at home to teach kids manners and the appropriate way to talk to people. I mean, I was fortunate growing up. I was still in that generation where my mom was a schoolteacher, but once I was born, she stopped and she was home, and it is different these days. The thing is that it is not going to change and that is why I am so affiliated with the YMCA, because it is the one organization in the community that can provide the opportunity for any kid, no matter what their parents’ income.
About those classes at the YMCA
Oh, the spin class. It’s one of the things that has to be decided. I’ve had a great time with that, and it’s funny because people would always make a big deal like, "Oh, it’s Kristin Armstrong teaching a spin class." And yoga, too. I was in yoga this morning. I am still taking yoga, for sure. That’s the best thing. It’s calming. I was intimidated by it at first. Because it’s just like somebody came out and joined my bike group. It would be like, I don’t have the right shorts, and I don’t have the right shoes. Well, the first time I walked into yoga class, I am not sure I quite fit in, and here I can’t touch my toes, and I kept telling myself if was OK. Just remember people in your bike group feel the same way. I am accepting of different people coming, so they are OK with me.
Riding bicycles around town can be a bit scary
Yes, the worst are the trucks that go downhill (on Hill Road) that have the extended mirrors or the trailers behind. Another thing is as a cyclist, I am very aware of them (bicyclists) when I take right-hand turns. It scares me to death. I know to look because I am one of the people in the bike lane. But there are so many cars that turn right in front of you, and it’s not that they are trying to be malicious. It’s that they don’t ride a bike, and there are more and more cyclists out there now, because of various reasons, and we have not only bicyclists, but can you believe how many scooters are on the road now? I don’t just use my rear view mirrors now. I am looking, I am double-taking. There have been so many cycling and motorcycle accidents that I don’t want to be one to not see somebody.
Take the back roads to ride from home to work
One thing I notice is you can tell these commuters are excited about getting out and riding their bikes to work, but they grab their bikes from their garages, and they aren’t wearing helmets. They’re trying to do something, and that is good. They are trying to save money and ride to work. It’s a great step, but now we have to get safety involved. I think one of the greatest things that we could do is for the bike shops around here to give brown-bag lunches to big companies and talk about hey, "Here’s what it takes to commute." There are so many ways I think we can get the correct information out. How many people do you think know the shortcuts to get to work? Let’s say you live in Eagle. I will show you how to get to Boise, Downtown Boise, without going on major roads. People don’t know that, but I can sit down with 15 people, and they can tell me where they live and I can tell them where to go.
A stay-at-home mom?
I don’t know if my personality would allow it. I hope that I can create a situation like I have right now, where I am going out and doing public speaking and then doing more contractual jobs, where it allows me the flexibility to be with my kids. That would be the dream. I like the mix of what I’m doing right now. It keeps me interested.
In demand as a speaker
I hope I have a couple opportunities. I just did one this past weekend, in Sausalito, Calif. It was for a cycling foundation raising money, and I have another speaking engagement in Chicago in two weeks. It’s all a mixed audience, and it keeps it interesting.
Living with osteoarthritis
The osteoarthritis thing can be very painful. And to continue to take all of those anti-inflammatories isn’t good for you. And that’s really why I go to yoga. It’s really changed my life because I don’t have to be on anti-inflammatories. It is truly about keeping my hip joints open and fluid, because arthritis is a disease that always is trying to protect your joints, and it doesn’t want them to move, and if it doesn’t move, it gets locked up and really tight and painful. If you keep your joints moving, at a moderate place, you are going to feel a lot better.
Everyone can take steps to stay fit
I think, and this is what I’ve always believed, I really respect everyone’s individual goals. Set long- term and short-term goals. Those goals are just as important as my Olympic medal. If you go out and be active for 20 minutes a day, and you accomplish that and you do that for a year, I mean, that to me can be harder than what I’ve done. It could be you want to quit smoking. I mean, how hard is that? That could be very difficult if you have smoked most of your life. What makes my goal any more important that anyone else’s goal? No matter what your goal is, it’s the commitment and sacrifice that you have to make as an individual, and one goal leads to the next to the next to the next.
The Cervélo bicycle goes back to the team
I get a new bike every year. A lot of teams keep them. It depends on the team and how much money they have. A lot of teams take them back, and they sell them and put that money back in the budget for next year.
I have to give mine back at the end of the year. When I retire, I can’t imagine going out to buy one myself.