AJ Hurt's passion for skiing and ski racing began at a very early age. Growing up in North Lake Tahoe, Palisades Tahoe was her winter playground. At four years old, she entered the Team Palisades Tahoe and fell in love with the sport. With a father who has been a member of the Squaw Valley Ski Patrol for the past 30 years, Hurt was raised a true member of the Palisades Tahoe (formerly Squaw Valley) family.

At 14, Hurt was invited to be a part of the National Training Group. As a first-year FIS racer in the 2016-17 season, she was the top junior for birth year 2000 in NorAm qualifying race points—not only in the speed disciplines but also the technical disciplines. Hurt scored her first World Cup points in 2020 placing 18th in the Courchevel giant slalom.

The 2023-24 season was a major breakout year for Hurt. Each World Cup race she improved upon the last scoring person best after person best. In Kranjska Gora, Slovenia, Hurt had a major slalom result scoring third place, her first ever World Cup podium. Then later in the season she did it again! This time in giant slalom, a third place in Soldeu, Andorra.

AJ and I discuss injury, going fast, control and lack of control, the recent NCAA women’s final four, and what aggression in women’s sports looks like now. And she talks about the not-glamourous, living-out-of-a-bag-for-6-months World Cup tour.

This episode is a perfect follow up to last week’s episode with rock climber Beth Rodden because AJ too likes being in the mode of figuring things out, which she was happy to share with us. I like that mode as well! Always looking for a little bit of improvement or some greater understanding of how things work.

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Beth Rodden is one of the best female rock climbers of all time, and a globally recognized ambassador for the outdoor community. She has achieved a number of notable free climbs on El Capitan, the 3,000-foot monolith in Yosemite National Park, and has also established the hardest first ascent of a crack climb ever done by a woman. She has been climbing for thirty years, and she hopes to be climbing for thirty more. She lives with her family in California. For more information, visit: bethrodden.com.

In our conversation, Beth speaks to me about the book, climbing, of seeing strength in young female rock climbers, REDs, the beauty of sports, and she compares climbing to golf and writing.

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Find A Light through the Cracks at https://bookshop.org/a/16267/9781503903791

Sydney Palmer-Leger is one of the young cross country ski racers on the US National B team. She made a quick trip to Falun, Sweden for the season finale, where she skied to her best-ever World Cup result -- a 23rd place. Right before Falun, Sydney capped off a stellar collegiate career with a victory at the NCAA National Championships in Steamboat, Springs Colorado.

Sydney is a three-time NCAA National Champion, was a member of the 2020 Junior World Championship Silver Medal Relay Team and is a 40k classic U.S. National Champion. In 2023, she represented the USA at the 2023 World Championships in Planica, Slovenia, placing 20th in the skiathlon. Sydney is part of an exciting-to-follow, strong class of skiers climbing up the ranks and representing her nation at the top level.

Before she decided to focus exclusively on ski racing (which we talk about in the episode), Sydney also raced mountain bikes. In fact, she is a five-time US Mountain Bike National Champion.

In the episode Sydney discusses some tactics in the 20-kilometer Freestyle race in Falun, starting in the back, the US National Team camp in Bend Oregon, and traveling as a vegan. On the academic side, Sydney is set to graduate from the University of Utah in May of 2024. She also shares what’s next for her post college and about her goals for the 2024-25 season.

Outside of skiing, she enjoys acrylic painting, baking, rock climbing, and finding the best vegan recipes, as she has been a vegetarian her entire life and a vegan for 12 years. 

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Kendra Coleman is a professional track and field athlete sponsored by Oiselle. She is currently focused on the Olympic Track & Field Trials in Eugen, Oregon June 21-30, 2024, where she will compete in the 800. Her top accomplishments include her Highschool UIL State Championship in the 400 meters and a 9th place finish at 2016 Olympic Trials in the 800 meters.

Kendra is also the Senior Administrative Coordinator at The University of Texas where she producers Blackademics TV airing on PBS and facilitates grants for education under the black studies department. She has a Bachelor of Science degree in Corporate Communications from The University of Texas and a master’s degree in Sports Management from Northcentral University. She has been involved in community relations and community service for over six years.

In addition to these activities, her other interests include advocacy for women in sports, sitting as an officer on the USATF Athletes Advisory’s Committee as the Director of Athlete Services and working with community organizations that serve student athletes. Her next goals are to find a career that allows me to use my passions and talents and also help others live better lives through my work with athletes, women in sports and athletes of color.

In the episode Kendra speaks with Elizabeth about her training in spectacular detail, visualizing big races, being competitive and friendly with her adversaries, preferring female coaches, her support team, and racing from a positive mindset.

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Ski Coach, Julia Hayes grew up skiing, running, cycling, climbing, and hiking in Frisco, Colorado. She attended and cross country ski raced for Montana State University, graduating with a degree in exercise physiology. She has been coaching with Bridger Ski Foundation for five years, where she works with high school/early college age skiers. In 2023, she earned the opportunity to coach at the Junior World Championships in Canada. For the 2024 season, Julia is one of 8 coaches named as Trail to Gold Coaching Fellows. Julia loves to mountain bike in the summers and spend all her free time with my husband and dogs outside.

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Wang Ping is a poet, writer, photographer, installation artist, founder and director of Kinship of Rivers project. Her multi-media exhibitions include “Kinship of Rivers: We Are Water,” “Behind the Gate: After the Flood of the Three Gorges,” and hundreds of other installation exhibitions at schools, colleges, galleries, museums, lock and dams, confluences around the world, including the interactive installations at the Everest (Tibet and Nepal sides) and Kilimanjaro.

Ping, Professor Emerita of English at Macalester College, has authored 15 award winning books of poetry, prose and translations. Her awards include Minnesota Book Award, Eugene Kagen, and Asian American Studies awards.

Ping is also a recipient of grants from the NEA, Bush Artist Fellowship for poetry, McKnight Fellowship and residencies through the Lannan Foundation Residency, Vermont Studio Center, and many others. She received Distinct Immigrant Award in 2014, Venezuela International Poet of Honor in 2015, and Minnesota Poet Laureate 2021-2023, appointed by International Beat Poetry Foundation.

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Leann Bentley is the Press Officer/Attaché for the Stifel U.S. Cross Country Ski Team and Communications Manager at U.S. Ski & Snowboard. Based in Park City, Utah, Leann has been with the team for almost two years and is inspired daily by the incredible athletes and staff, pushing her to keep raising the bar and doing what she can to elevate the sport and athletes to new levels. Originally from Wyoming, Leann finds happiness when outside in the mountains, whether it be skiing, running, biking, climbing, hiking – and loves a good, loud laugh.

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Kristen Bourne has coached cross country skiing at the collegiate and professional level for the past four years. She was the assistant coach at The College of Saint Scholastica for two years where she was a 2021 Women’s Sports Foundation Tara VanDerveer Fellow. During the summer, she was an assistant coach with the Craftsbury Green Racing Project professional team in Vermont.

Prior to coaching, she skied for Northern Michigan University for five years, qualifying for the NCAA Championships three-times and representing the United States at the World Junior Championships and U23 World Championships in 2015 and 2016. After college, she moved to Oslo, Norway where she skied full-time and was an intern at the Norwegian School of Sports Science.

Currently, Kristen is the US Ski Cross Country D-Team World Cup coach at US Ski and Snowboard. She oversees the top junior and U23 athletes in the US as well as travels full-time on the World Cup supporting all national team athletes. She is also a graduate student at the College of Saint Scholastica studying Exercise Physiology.

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Madeline Depman is early on in her career as a professional mountain biker. She completed her first bike race when she was 16, which was her first introduction to being part of any competitive sport. Since then, she has been working hard to gain fitness and technical skills with the goal of being one of the best in the country. In 2021 she raced her first Cross Country Mountain Bike World Cup in Snowshoe, WV. In 2022 her daughter Ruth was born. Madeline started racing again in 2023 with a lighter schedule to give ample time for recovery but a 3rd place in the Ring of Fire (part of the NUE series) in Bend, OR was a notable post-partum result.

Outside of racing, Madeline is busy with a mobile 1 year old but is still very involved in her local cycling community as a coach and board member for Duluth Devo. 

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Erin Bianco began skiing as a young kid in Ely, Minnesota, which is right on the Canadian border. Erin graduated with a sociology degree from Colby College in Maine. There, she was a leader on the Colby Mules cross country ski team under coach Tracey Cote. After college, Erin moved to Bozeman, Montana to train with the Bridger Ski Foundation (BSF) team under former U.S. Ski Team athlete and now coach, Andy Newell. 

Erin Bianco finished her first World Cup in Oberhof, Germany with an impressive 35th in the classic sprint in 2024.

Outside of skiing, Erin loves to spend time at coffee shops, play badminton, piano, among many other things. For summer training, her go-to cross training workouts are either strength or road biking.

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Dr. Margo Mountjoy received her medical education and her family medicine training at McMaster University, Canada and her sports medicine specialty degree in Ottawa, Canada. Margo received her PhD from the VU University in Amsterdam. Margo was the medical and scientific lead at the Health & Performance Centre at the University of Guelph where she focused her practice on promoting elite athlete care. In addition, Margo has acted as the national team physician for Synchro Canada for 20 years as well as for the National Endurance Training Centre Athletes (middle- and long-distance track athletes) and the National Triathlon & Wrestling team training centers. 

Margo is a Clinical Professor in the Faculty of Family Medicine in the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, McMaster University, Canada where she is the Dean of the Waterloo Regional Campus.

Margo is the Chair of the ASOIF Medical Consultative Group and a member of the IOC Medical Commission Games Group. She works with the following International Federations: FIFA, World Rugby, and the International Golf Federation. Margo’s areas of research focus on elite athlete health and well-being. She is the lead author of the IOC consensus statements on REDs.

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Find the IOC consensus statement on REDs at https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/57/17/1073

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