TEAM USA SPEED SKATER - PAIGE SCHWARTZBURG

"I push myself to the limits every single day and you know just see if I can just keep raising the bar cause in this sport I don't think you ever perfect skating." Paige Schwartzburg, Team USA Speed Skating

PREVIEW:

ON EPISODE 35:

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ABOUT PAIGE SCHWARTZBURG:

Paige Schwartzburg is a professional speed skater and competes in long track with Team USA. She joins the show to talk about her career and how she is always striving to get better. Plus she is currently training for the upcoming World Championships and then the Olympic trials with hopes of competing in the 2018 Winter Games.

TRANSCRIPT:

Dustin: And so how was it transitioning from a Floridian inline skater to a speed ice skater in Utah?

Paige: Oh it's kind of an interesting story to start off. I did inlines when I was about 8 until 14 and then kind of got in some trouble, my parents took skating away from me, blah blah. And then I went through high school, was making a ton of bad choices, probably wasn't the best kid family wise and then about 8 years later my grandma was asking me about if I still wanted to skate and I was like "Well yeah. That's the only thing I wanted to do until I had it taken away from me." And so she's like "Would you give up your friends and all this stuff that you're doing even though you've never skated ice? Would you move out to Salt Lake and try it?" And I was like "Well yeah."
And I didn't really think it was gonna happen cause you know I had been out of sports for like 8 years and obviously wasn't taking care of my body. I was smoking cigarettes, doing a bunch of stuff like that. And so yeah I got out here and I couldn't even stand on my feet so I was just like "Oh I made the wrong decision. Like this is bad. I need to go back to Florida." But then I sucked it up and you know I applied myself every single day cause I knew I was always athletic so it's not hard for me to figure things out, but yeah so a couple years down the road I started getting better times, I eventually made the national team, which I've been on for this is starting my third year on it and I've been skating World Cups for two years now and then I'm gonna be going after my first Olympic team this year.
But the transition was hard and very difficult so it definitely took a lot of persistence and patience.

Dustin: Yeah so what do you think ... What was the driving factor to like keep you with it? And not running back to Florida and actually "I'm gonna get good at this?" What was the thing that drove you to that?

Paige: I had always loved skating so when I got it taken away from me when I was 14 it was like the end of my life. I remember it. I was so dramatic and I was really good for my age and that's really the only thing I wanted to do so you know how it's like "Oh if you're gonna take me out of skating I'm just going to be a bad kid." Blah blah blah. And yeah I just knew that with my ability and you know I was always really good at skating and I saw a lot of the skaters that I used to actually skate inlines with, they were going to the Olympics so I knew like if they could do it so could I. It was just gonna take a lot more work for me since I had been out of it for so long.
So I just worked extra hard. You know I'd come and do stuff on my own like at night or early in the morning and eventually it started working out for me.

Dustin: So you just put in the extra work and that makes sense.

Paige: Oh yes. Definitely.

Dustin: I feel like if you have a troubled kid you'd want to give 'em something to do instead of getting in trouble.

Paige: Exactly. Exactly. They didn't really know what to do. They kind of like ... I was a shit head so after a while they kind of gave up and my grandma was the one who was just like "I'm moving you away if you're willing." She knew I always wanted to skate so it was just like a dream come true, but I knew it was gonna be just a tremendous amount of hard work. Literally starting from the bottom and working my way to the top where I am now. So it's been an awesome transition. There's been a lot of hard work, a lot of downs, but then you know you always learn from your failures and what not so you need those.

Dustin: Yeah. There's not much trouble to be had in Salt Lake City. Do you think that helps?

Paige: No I mean I just needed to grow up. I was a young kid and you know granted like I'm still young. I'm 26, but being 20 and 26 there's so much that you can learn and grow up from so.

Dustin: Yeah. Totally.

Jeff: So you are a long track speed skater and I mean other than the obvious connotation what is the difference between long track and short track?

Paige: So short track is a 100 meter track and the long track is a 400 meter track. And in short track you actually race against each other so there could be up to 6 to 8 people in a race. And then on long track it's basically a time trial. It's you and one other person that race each other and then you know they go in pairs of two. So in short track someone has the ability to take away your race. Like you could crash, take that other person out, which is why I'm not really a fan of that so I'll stay on the long track.
But yeah on the long track it's more for like power skaters, more power output and it's just a lot safer cause you know you don't have anyone taking away your race. It's all dependent upon you.

Jeff: Yeah it sounds like--

Paige: It's you and the clock.

Jeff: Yeah it sounds like there'd be a lot of injuries with short track, but do you deal with any injuries with long track?

Paige: I actually came out here and wanted to do short track to start off with and then my first month out here I was actually skating behind somebody and they kicked back and sliced my face open.

Dustin: Oh my gosh.

Paige: So yeah and I wasn't wearing my neck guard or anything. I remember blood gushing from my face so I didn't know if my neck had been cut and I was just like "Okay no I'm gonna go to long track."

Jeff: Has anybody died from short track speed skating?

Paige: I don't believe so, but there has been some really, really bad injuries. There's actually one girl on long track who actually really injured herself. Her ankle was basically hanging off of her body so you just gotta place your feet properly when you fall down.

Dustin: So that kind of leads me into my next question. You were saying you know you're focused and you got your sights on the 2018 winter Olympics. What is your training regiment like? Like you're --

Paige: Hell.

Dustin: I bet. I bet. But especially ramping up towards something like that.

Paige: So we have different segments during the year. We have summer training, which is from about like March, excuse me, May and then it goes about until August and it's just a bunch of volume. So we train twice a day Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturdays. So it could be anywhere from you know being on the bike for 4 hours, like when we're cycling we do maybe like 60 to 80 miles or we could be doing like really intense [inaudible 00:07:03] and then in the afternoon we have weights. Or it could be explosive plyometrics or skating. We're actually on the long track right now. We have early ice so right now we're training twice a day and then we're going to you know we'll start practice races here in September. And then we'll have World Cup trials in October, which yeah we try out for those and then we travel to the first 4 World Cups for November and December. And then we'll keep training and we'll have our Olympic trials the first weekend of January.
So we train year round. We only have one month off [crosstalk 00:07:43].

Dustin: Wow. So does that mean that when World Cup trials start, is that still the road to the Olympics or is that a separate thing than the Olympic trials?

Paige: It's a separate thing so every year we have World Cup trials. We have two sets of World Cup trials, but this year there's only one because obviously the Olympics is the second. So yeah no we'll have World Cup trials and then we go to [inaudible 00:08:13] and then Norway and then to Calgary and then we actually have our fourth World Cup here in Salt Lake City. And then that's it for the World Cups and then we'll go to Milwaukee for our Olympic trials.

Dustin: Wow. What is team USA like? Is there a lot of comradery? Or is it a lot of competition?

Paige: I mean for the most part like it is a individual sport you know. Like we have our team and we're really good at working together. We all want each other to do really well, but you know at the end of the day you do want to be the best [inaudible 00:08:51], the best female. Like my teammates are my competition, but we all work together, but then you know race day it's all about you [crosstalk 00:09:02] you skate.

Dustin: Sounds kind of fun actually.

Paige: It is fun. It's a lot of fun. I couldn't imagine doing anything else.

Dustin: Is there a lot of shit talking?

Paige: Not really. Maybe with the guys a little bit, yes.

Dustin: We're the worst.

Paige: Yeah. You would think it'd be more dramatic with the girls, but it's actually the guys on our team who are always bickering about who went faster this day or you know it's like "Come on, boys." Yeah get it together.

Jeff: It was funny actually when we were talking about having you as a guest on this podcast we were just informed that one of your teammates is actually from our area, Petra.

Paige: Oh yeah, Petra Acker.

Jeff: Yeah she actually grew up--

Paige: She's out here right now.

Jeff: Yeah she actually grew up right around where we're based, which is [crosstalk 00:09:51].

Paige: Yeah she actually sent me a text about you guys maybe a couple months ago and sent me a picture of one of the shops I think.

Jeff: Oh awesome.

Paige: Yeah it was really cool.

Jeff: That's cool.

Paige: Yeah she's out here now training with the national team so.

Jeff: So you said World Cup trials, they start in October you said.

Paige: Yes. In the middle of October.

Jeff: That's exciting so I mean you know it's just the ball running all the way up until February at that point. How big is the US team? The speed skating team when you guys are all you know picked and ready to go kind of thing?

Paige: Like for the Olympics or just in general like [crosstalk 00:10:30]?

Jeff: For the Olympics.

Paige: Okay. So we have, you get 3 people in each distance, so I skate the 500 meter, the 1000 meter and my best race is the 1500 meter so those are my 3 races. And then we also have the 3k so for the women it's 3 per distance. So top 3 in the 500, top 3 in the 1000, top 3 in the 15. And then we have the team pursuit, which will also be a pick 4.

Jeff: Now what is the team pursuit?

Paige: Team pursuit is where you have 3 girls and you ... Like somebody starts on one side of the track and then another team starts on the other and basically you just skate around a circle and so for me being the sprinter [inaudible 00:11:19] one or two of the six laps and then there'll be a distance girl in there who will be able to lead those stronger laps at the end. So normally I'll start and lead out the first lap and get in the pack, get us up to speed and then one of the distance girls will lead, drop back, I'll lead and that's about it for me. I have to sit in for the rest because I'm dead.

Jeff: Yeah. That sucked.

Paige: I don't have the distance levels so it's really fun cause you get to work as a team you know and get to push each other a little bit so it's ... I really love the fact that you get to you know work hard as a team and if you do win it's [inaudible 00:11:58] whole team.

Jeff: That's really cool. I also read that this year for the 2018 Olympics in South Korea that it's the first year that they're implementing something called the mass start speed skating. Is that a brand new thing or is that something that happens in World Cup or?

Paige: You know it definitely happens in World Cup. That's actually what I got sent to my first World Cup for. I didn't qualify in any of my distances two years ago, but I did qualify in the mass start and then I ended up qualifying for more World Cups during that part in my individual races, but the mass start's a lot of fun.

Jeff: So what does that entail?

Paige: [inaudible 00:12:41]. So it's 16 laps and it's about 24 girls that start on the line and you basically are all in the inner lane of the track and you can make passes. You can't really see what's going on in the pack from the [inaudible 00:12:58] point of view and there's a lot of cussing, a lot of pushing and blades everywhere. Especially for the women. When you watch the men go they actually stay in a line, they're making solid passes, they're not pushing each other, they're not like ... The girls are ruthless out there. It's incredible.

Jeff: Wow that's awesome. Now is that another thing like during the Olympic trials you'll have to try and qualify for that as well?

Paige: Yeah the only thing I don't like about what they're doing with it is normally the mass start is at the end of the competition so I get all my individual races out of the way and then I can worry about the mass start, but at this World Cup trials they're having a mass start the first day and then on the last day so for me 16 laps hard is really, it's not easy for me cause you know obviously I do shorter distances so I don't want to really risk that. So I'm still--

Jeff: And then have to do all of [crosstalk 00:13:53] distances. Yeah wow.

Paige: Yeah exactly. And they only take two so I'm still debating on whether I'm going to participate in that or not, but my coach thinks that I really should do it so we'll see. I just really don't want to risk my individual races.

Dustin: Yeah that seems like if the day starts out like that then you're going into your individual races your endurance might be a little tapped out for something like that.

Paige: Exactly. Yeah.

Dustin: Yeah that's crazy.

Paige: Yeah or at least my sprint. Yeah.

Jeff: It surprises me that you guys do so much cycling training. I didn't realize that was such a heavy crossover.

Paige: Yeah that's all we do during the summer. I'm pretty pumped about it the first month and a half and then I'm just over it. Cause it's just hours and hours on the bike. It's hot and then yeah we actually have a bike camp coming up in August. We're going to Montana for 5 days and just gonna cycle through there. Get off the ice for a week.

Dustin: That's all on the road, right? You don't get any woods time?

Paige: No. I wish. I think it'd be cool actually.

Dustin: Yeah. I love mountain biking.

Paige: Change our bikes up. I know, it seems like a lot of fun.

Dustin: It is a lot of fun.

Paige: Live in the perfect place for it, but.

Dustin: Yeah I actually spent a lot of time out in Crestview, Colorado doing a lot of mountain biking out there and it was just --

Paige: Oh nice.

Dustin: The views are incredible once you hit the trails.

Paige: It is. Hell yeah, it's insane.

Dustin: It's beautiful, especially out west. Especially in Salt Lake. It's beautiful out there.

Paige: I think it'd be really cool to go on a mountain bike trip out in [inaudible 00:15:23] southern Utah.

Dustin: Yeah I have a lot of friends go out there that tell me to go out there. So I gotta make that [crosstalk 00:15:27].

Paige: Yeah we did a road bike trip through there and it was really hot and then we saw people you know like out through the canyon mountain biking and stuff and it looked really cool.

Dustin: Yeah I mean you're on the road, you're on that black pavement and the sun's slinging you all day. At least in the woods you get some shade and like it's so much nicer. I couldn't imagine spending ... A lot of my family is into road biking, but I was like "Nah that's not for me." It seems like it's not exciting enough--

Paige: It's [inaudible 00:15:53] to a point. No coming down the canyons is my favorite part. So I don't like going up. I like coming down.

Jeff: So you like going fast.

Paige: Yes I do.

Dustin: She is a speed skater.

Paige: There we go.

Dustin: He figured it out.

Paige: It's a little dangerous sometimes, especially with those S curves coming down. Braking hard though. Some of the guys go almost like over 50 down. Kind of scary.

Jeff: Is that something you'd ever be interested in competing in? Is road cycling at all?

Paige: I do. I would actually love to do that. Maybe when I'm done skating. I plan on going another 4 years after this Olympics so maybe play around on a bike a little bit cause I'm pretty decent at it. It's just after 3 hours of being in the saddle I want to be done.

Dustin: Totally. Yeah those 80 miles races, especially in those mountains can really suck.

Paige: Yeah, but I love traveling. That's like my favorite part of you know ... Besides the simple fact of like loving the sport, it's getting to travel, see new places, meet skaters from all over the world and it's just really cool.

Jeff: Yeah that is definitely neat because you do compete all over the world and what a way to see the world.

Dustin: Is there any particular place that stands out to you in your travels?

Paige: So my favorite place that we went to on this last circuit was Japan, granted my first stop was, excuse me, but it was a shit hole and I am not a fan of China. But when we left China it was just like Japan was the cleanest place. All these trees were so well taken care of. There wasn't even like a leaf in the street. They had temples everywhere and it was just a really peaceful place. It was really cool.

Dustin: That's so cool.

Jeff: Have you ever been--

Paige: Yeah Japan was awesome.

Jeff: Have you ever been to South Korea?

Paige: No I have not so it's a little sketchy. [crosstalk 00:17:57]

Dustin: I was wondering if you had any concerns with going out there.

Paige: Yeah I don't know. I think to me it's really sketchy, but you know it's ... We'll see what happens.

Jeff: You know I have faith that the world is coming together for an amazing thing, you know.

Dustin: That makes one of us.

Jeff: I mean --

Paige: We can only hope.

Jeff: Yeah. You know. So you were saying like now actually you have this moment of respite, but you're constantly training, you're constantly getting ready. When you do have downtime what do you enjoy? I read somewhere that you're an avid fan of rock 'n roll.

Paige: I am. I love, yes. That's like my main love.

Jeff: That's great. Us too.

Paige: Yeah yeah. There we go. Good choice. My off time, it could be anywhere from drinking coffee, coffee's life. I love reading. I actually like to go hiking by myself sometimes, you know clear my head cause we're always on it all the time. So I like being outdoors. There's a lot of things to do here. I like playing with my camera. I think the two things that I want to do are open up my own coffee shop and play around with photography, but yeah so [inaudible 00:19:21] I'll get in school, but right now it's really hard with my time and schedule. It's just it's literally an all day thing. I don't get home 'til about 7:00, wake up at 7:00 AM and then come home for two hours for lunch and that's basically my day. Even on my off days like I actually have to take care of my body and recover. You know recovery's pretty important so.

Dustin: Yeah you kind of have to get after it while you can you know while this time exists for you and this opportunity exists for you. You just --

Paige: And right now this year's crunch time and I'm a perfectionist so I'm making the most of it. I want to obviously be the best that I can be this season.

Dustin: How do you feel about your chances getting into the Olympics?

Paige: I feel amazing right now. I'm skating ... I switched my equipment. I think for 3 years I'd been on [inaudible 00:20:12] and it was at the end. I didn't have a great season last year so I was pissed off about it and I was trying to be optimistic, but it wasn't happening so at the end of this season I was ... My coaches were telling me not to go shorter, but I had like this, I have a small foot, okay. And I thought all this time that my blades were too big for me so I went behind their backs and I got smaller blades and when I went to Calgary I didn't tell them and I set personal records in every single one of my races. So I was like "Bam! It was. It was my equipment." Like I knew something was wrong like cause it just didn't feel right. So now my skating's better than it's ever been. I just needed to --

Dustin: So do they know now that you went behind their back and changed --

Paige: They did and they were like "Okay well you know I guess sometimes things work" but cause they gave me the like speech about well the top girls are on 16 and a half inch blades, but also the top girls are like 5'11" and like 5'10" and I'm 5'4" and I'm a lot smaller than them so you know I think being on a smaller blade is kind of like having [inaudible 00:21:18] big for you. You can't really control them. So I have much more control with shorter blades so I'm glad I made that decision.

Jeff: And now you're back to kicking ass. Alright.

Paige: Yes exactly.

Dustin: That's awesome.

Paige: I got more confidence back so I'm really pumped for this year.

Dustin: So we know just even going to the Olympics as a spectator is ridiculously expensive, but it must be expensive to go as an athlete as well. I think you're in the wind a little bit. I'm not sure if that's wind I'm hearing. It's --

Paige: It is. Yeah let me move real quick. Yeah so going as an athlete well it's definitely very expensive, but luckily our US speed skating corporation, they take care of all the costs and put that all together so you never really know exactly how much the total is, but I couldn't imagine.

Dustin: Yeah. So you --

Paige: Thousands and thousands.

Dustin: You do have outside funding to be able to kind of help you get there at least.

Paige: Oh yeah if you make the team then you're all paid for. Same with World Cups.

Dustin: Oh that's good. That's good.

Jeff: Yeah cause it's just so much. You're constantly training, you're constantly traveling, you're constantly competing. It's like we were thinking like "Man that's gotta be quite the check that comes out at the time," but that's good that you know they take care of you guys.

Paige: Oh yeah.

Dustin: Yeah it makes sense that the team should take care of their athletes, but you know we've heard stories and we know wrestlers have a tough time. That can be a bit tricky being an Olympic athlete. It's not everything everybody makes it out to be sometimes.

Paige: Well so my first year ... So if you make you know a spot on the World Cup team you also have a certain time standard that you need to get for them to pay your way so you can make the spot, but not have the time standard and that's when you have to pay your way. And so my first year I was gonna have to do that and you know like a flight around the country is ... It was gonna be about 6 grand just for the flight and you know maybe 2 grand for the hotel stays and then you have food on top of that so it was just like "Okay no I'll wait until I get the time standard." So but that's when you know family comes in and they support you. You know and you find nice sponsors that help you, but luckily I've been making the teams back to back with my time standards so.

Dustin: That's excellent.

Paige: Yeah that's nice.

Jeff: So all of the training, all of the competing, you know everything that you're doing, what fuels you to keep doing it? Like is it just the love of the game or is there more of it?

Paige: The simple fact of how much I love this sport and I just like seeing how good I can be, you know. I push myself to the limits every single day and you know just see if I can just keep raising the bar cause in this sport I don't think you ever perfect skating so you know it's just kind of like a goal just to keep getting better and better and better.

Jeff: There's always that extra mile that you --

Paige: And I'm very competitive. Yeah. Like I'm nowhere near to being like the best that I can be yet, you know? It's a very technical sport and it takes time and a lot of patience. You can be the strongest person in the world and if you don't know how to you know skate correctly you're not going to go anywhere. And I've come to realize that. Like I can lift all the pounds in the weight room, you know, and then come out and skate and just not go anywhere. It's like finesse.

Jeff: Yeah that's so much that goes into a sport like you. You know and for a spectator like Dustin or myself like it is, it's like we're just seeing you be really fast you know going around in a circle. Like there's so much extra.

Paige: Yeah no there's ... Oh my god yeah so much. It's probably the most technical sport there is besides gymnastics. I'll give gymnastics that.

Dustin: Yeah gymnastics seems like next level crazy, right? Doesn't even seem like people should be able to do that.

Paige: Right? It's like how many times you have to break your neck to figure those things out.

Jeff: Right? Exactly.

Paige: Yeah.

Dustin: Where do you think you get your competitive nature from?

Paige: I know it runs in my family somewhere. My grandma, her father was an Olympic runner so he yeah ... So that's where I get some of it from. My dad was a football player. He was a kicker. My dad's side, they were all into sports. So probably on that side. My mom was a cheerleader, but I don't really consider that competitive.

Jeff: I won't go there.

Paige: Yeah. We can just leave that there.

Dustin: So we've talked about this with people before, but I'm always curious. What do you think's more important if you were to pick one? Intelligence or confidence?

Paige: I mean just in general like in life?

Dustin: I would say competing or like ... You kind of get to refine the purest thing in life with competition so that is like the center of your life, which kind of gives you like a summary of everything. But when you approach competition --

Paige: I think it would be confidence because you can be super intelligent about the sport, but if you don't believe in yourself and the simple fact that you know you can kick everybody's ass then you're not gonna be able to do it cause if you have doubts in your mind you know that's definitely gonna bring you down. And then more likely of a chance that you're gonna get beat so I would say confidence because you know you can you know learn things with the confidence. Cause someone who's confident wants to know everything, but they have heart and you know that'll eventually get them to the top. Cause if you just have intelligence then I feel yeah ... No confidence you're just gonna stay. You're gonna plateau.

Dustin: I feel like with intelligence too you can sometimes end up too much in your head and kind of overthink competition.

Paige: Yeah. Come race day you don't need to be thinking. You just need to trust your training and let your body do what it knows how to do.

Dustin: How much do you deal with nerves on competition?

Paige: Well I've struggled a lot with the mental game. Like when I first started you know coming from not doing anything for a long time so it's been a lot of work cause you know your brain's a muscle and you need to train it too just like the rest of your body. But coming into races now I just you know I always have to have on music and I've tried to like teach myself you know if I forget my music like you know adversity's gonna happen. Is that gonna throw me off? So you just kinda have to like clear your head, breathe a little bit and then when you get to the line like it's literally for me it's just knowing that you've put in the work. And I don't really get too nervous. I mean it's more like excitement and I'm ready to go. So once I'm at the line though I try to just be thinking about nothing and then I'm just kind of like tunnel vision.

Dustin: Yeah so you're gearing up, getting ready to race, listening to your music. What are you listening to to get you pumped?

Jeff: What's your go to track?

Paige: Well I like Korn.

Jeff: Nice.

Paige: It could be anywhere from like Korn to Lindsey Sterling cause you know she's super good at the violin.

Jeff: She's very good at the violin.

Paige: Yeah. Little bit of EDM music there, little bit of hip hop, but for the most part it's more rock, you know. Gah there's so many bands I just love.

Jeff: That's good. Well there's a lot of stuff that gets you pumped. That's good. It's not just ... You're not just pigeon holing.

Paige: If I have my iPod in the weight room. It's just to random. The guys'll be like "Really? We just went from Breaking Benjamin to Carrie Underwood." Or like Madonna to ... So I'm like yeah you never know what's gonna pop up on here.

Jeff: That's awesome.

Dustin: I feel like with hip hop and EDM that's really good for like practicing stuff just cause you hit like this rhythm while listening to music sometimes. You find that nice rhythm in hip hop a lot.

Paige: Yeah exactly.

Dustin: Yeah.

Paige: I don't really know who my favorite hip hop artist would be nowadays cause some of the rap nowadays is just like "Uhhhh."

Jeff: I agree.

Paige: I don't even know if I would call it rap.

Dustin: I don't know what's happening to it. It's getting so weird.

Jeff: Yeah.

Paige: It is. It's just like a bunch of mumbling and like just trying to sound as ghetto as possible no matter what you say.

Dustin: Yeah that mumble rap is so weird. It's like how is this a thing now? I don't know. I feel like an old guy saying that, but it's a thing now.

Paige: Yeah. I don't know. It is.

Dustin: Cool so if anybody wants to follow your journey or follow you on your social media where should they be looking?

Paige: It would definitely be on my Instagram and under the name Schwartzburg. I'm not too big on Facebook. I've tried to be posting a little bit more on there. My mom's trying to force me to. "People want to see what you're doing." You know I'm not the big social media butterfly, but I try. She's like "You know [inaudible 00:30:23] see what's going on." So I'm like "Okay mom." But they need to go to Instagram cause you know I like to post pictures. I feel like that says more than you know writing a bunch of stuff at the end of the day.
So yeah probably on Instagram. I don't have Twitter or anything like that so I like to train [crosstalk 00:30:40]

Dustin: I feel like Instagram's perfect for being anti social on social media. See you can see what I'm doing. You don't have to hear me yap about it.

Paige: Exactly. And I can write a little something under it about my training and you know we're gonna start traveling and we go to camp soon so there'll be a lot of pictures you know being posted and updates and what not.

Dustin: Nice.

Jeff: Well we'll definitely be following. We'll have you know everybody listening too follow and be rooting for you in the World Cup and then eventually in the Olympics and you're gonna bring home all the gold medals. I just know it.

Dustin: And also we'll --

Paige: Hell yeah. That's the goal. You guys are fueling me every morning. That's how I get to practice so.

Jeff: That's great.

Dustin: That's what we're aiming for. We're trying to keep you over caffeinated through the whole thing.

Paige: Exactly. Well you guys are doing the best job at it. I get pumped every morning. I go straight to the coffee pot cause I'm old school and then I'll start my day.

Dustin: Nice.

Jeff: Did you get the nitro brew yet?

Paige: Not yet, but I also didn't check my mail today.

Jeff: It's on it's way to you.

Paige: But I am actually really excited to try that.

Dustin: That should be great for just taking with you and just slamming it right before your race and having a heart attack.

Paige: Yes. That'd be amazing. I'll need that to get me through the 1500 [crosstalk 00:31:49].

Jeff: Yes definitely.

Dustin: Yeah let us know how that goes. I'll send you more if you run out so you can stay fueled up and you can take whatever. Let us know before you leave for anything so we can send you out some extra coffee if you need it. You don't want to be drinking that hotel coffee.

Jeff: No.

Paige: No. Oh my god. That's what I was gonna tell you guys. I'm so spoiled with the Death Wish coffee that when I go travel to a hotel and it's just like dirt water in a cup. It's so bad. It's terrible. No flavor.

Dustin: Yeah Jeff and I were just complaining. We go out to all these events and we bring all this coffee to sell and give away and we never bring coffee with us --

Paige: But none for yourself?

Dustin: To drink at the hotel. No we--

Jeff: We just wake up the next morning and go "Darn it. Why didn't we bring coffee for ourselves?"

Dustin: We're drinking shit!

Paige: Yeah you guys are coffee distributors and you can't even bring your own coffee to a hotel room.

Dustin: We just have the eye on the prize too hard. We forget about ourselves. We're just that selfless.

Paige: There you go. There you go.

Dustin: Oh that's great.

Paige: Yeah hotel coffee is probably the worst there is.

Jeff: It really is.

Paige: Goodness.

Dustin: Yeah so just let us know if you run out of fuel. We can keep you going.

Paige: I appreciate what you guys are doing so much cause like I said you know, coffee's life and it's just the most amazing coffee I've ever had.

Jeff: Well thank you so much. And thanks again for taking time out of your day off to talk with us.

Paige: Yeah no problem. I was looking forward to it so you know any other time or you want to know anything else just give me a ring, you know.

Jeff: I will definitely be in touch.

Paige: Let you know about my upcoming competitions and what not so.

Dustin: Yeah we'll stay in touch. We're super psyched. We'll--

Paige: And I don't know how close you guys are to Milwaukee or if you guys would be interested in coming to the Olympic trials.

Jeff: I would love to talk more about this. I would love to come to something like that.

Dustin: Yeah maybe we could take a podcast on the road for that.

Paige: It should be a pretty big event.

Jeff: Yeah that would be a lot of fun.

Paige: It's supposed to be a pretty big event. It's gonna be cold as shit cause it's up north and [crosstalk 00:33:37].

Jeff: Yeah yeah Milwaukee. But that's okay. That keeps the ice cold.

Paige: I know, but I hate being cold so I think I picked the wrong sport.

Jeff: I was gonna say you're on the ice all the time. You're in definitely the wrong sport.

Paige: I know. I know. I'm a baby. It's ridiculous. I don't know how it happened. Florida to cold. I don't know.

Jeff: Well you're killing it and we can't wait to see what you're gonna do this year.

Paige: Thanks guys. Well I appreciate you calling so.

Dustin: Awesome.