No American skier has rewritten the record books like Jessie Diggins. She’s figured out how to take down the Norwegians at their strongest sport—and she shares how she did it.
Episode Transcript
Trevor Connor 00:04
hello and welcome to fast talk. Your source for the science of endurance performance. I’m your host. Trevor Connor, here with Coach Julie Young. For decades, the science of endurance sports focus on Nordic skiers and Norway, a country that has been considered a powerhouse in endurance sports, both because of the success of their athletes, and because of the influence of their scientists, has produced many of the best Nordic skiers of all time. These skiers are frequently considered the purest examples of endurance athletes. Indeed, the highest vo two max values ever recorded are held by athletes in this sport. And perhaps there’s no Nordic skier alive right now who is more accomplished than Jessie Diggins. She has won 10 Olympic medals and garnered Seven World Championship podium spots, 2024 she was awarded Norway’s highest skiing honor, the Holman colon medal. Yet she doesn’t hail from Scandinavia. She comes from Minnesota. Diggins has done a lot right in one of the most researched and respected endurance sports, setting aside her enormous genetic predisposition, understanding her training approach unlocks a host of secrets for every endurance athlete. And if you think she must have been a no fooling around type athlete who was brought into a highly structured program from a young age, you might be surprised. Her story is much more nuanced and in many ways more inspiring. On today’s show, we’ll talk with Diggins about how she got into Nordic skiing, what her formative years were like, and what she believes are the secrets to her success. We’ll also dive into some of the struggles she has faced and how she overcame them. Diggins has learned a lot over her illustrious career, and now as the self described Mother of the team, she hopes to share her knowledge with up and coming us skiers joining Diggins, we’ll hear from elite cyclocross coach and owner of cycle smart coaching Adam Meyerson, on the importance of enjoyment, Article letter for Outside Magazine. Fred Dreyer will also talk with us about the impact that Diggins has had on American nordic ski. So strap on your skis and let’s make you fast. Fast talk listeners, we have exciting news. The fast talk podcast is now available on YouTube. Subscribe now for our 100 best episodes plus upcoming video summaries of new episodes and featured content. Our episodes on YouTube have closed captioning and transcripts, all made convenient by the familiar YouTube platform. Listen and subscribe on YouTube, just search for fast talk labs and hit subscribe.Well, Jesse, welcome to the show. It’s the first time having you with us. And really appreciate you said you’ve listened to the show in the past.
Jessie Diggins 02:31
Yeah, thanks for having me on. It’s an honor to be here, even though I’m not a cyclist.
Trevor Connor 02:35
That is fair, but the sport you do, a lot of the science we read really comes from that sport. A lot of the advancements that you have seen in exercise physiology come out of those winter endurance sports. So even though it’s not cycling, it’s not triathlon, I think we’re going to learn a lot from you. I’m really excited to hear about your journey and how you’ve trained.
Jessie Diggins 02:57
I think there’s incredible crossover between the two sports, which is why I love listening to the podcast, because I find myself listening to it and the message may be specific to cyclists in that message, but I’m like, Oh, this makes so much sense, like this really is applicable across sports.
Trevor Connor 03:13
So let’s start there, because a lot of our listeners know more that cycling and triathlon world not as familiar with your world. So just give us a little bit of your background, your accomplishments, what you’ve done in your sport.
Jessie Diggins 03:26
So my name is Jesse Diggins. I was born and raised in Afton, Minnesota. I’m a cross country skier. People will often refer to my sport also as Nordic skiing, although technically Fun fact, Nordic encompasses three different sports, cross country ski jumping and Nordic combined. So I just do the cross country skiing. It’s not the really sexy one, where we ski with a gun on our back and shoot at targets. I wish, but I love what I do, and I’ve been doing it my whole life. And so when I was 18, after graduating high school, I joined a pro team, and when I was 19, I got on the national team, and I have been racing with the US National Team and on the World Cup circuit pretty much ever since. So I kind of grew up on the road, and it was a wonderful, really cool, fun way to get to grow up and spend your life and get to travel, but mostly just learning how to compete and be a good teammate and learn how to basically be a good human through sports.
Trevor Connor 04:26
Thank you. I was tongue tie myself introducing you. I was about to say cross country ski. And I’m like, should I say cross country skiing or Nordic? I don’t know. So I was avoided saying that all of it works.
Jessie Diggins 04:39
We answer to all of it.
Trevor Connor 04:40
So you have a very big list of accomplishments. So tell us, what are some of the highlights of your career.
Jessie Diggins 04:47
I really get embarrassed talking about myself sometimes, but I guess the highlight would be that I have an Olympic medal in every color, and this cyclist will understand I’ve been in our sports equivalent of the yellow. Jersey for the last two seasons running. So for us, it’s called the World Cup overall, and the prize at the end of the season is a literal it’s a giant Crystal Globe, and that signifies basically being the overall best in the sport across an entire season. And so I was the first American in like 40 something years since Bill coke to bring that home. And so that’s been really fun. And it also earns us another start spot for women in our country, which is really exciting because it means we get more girls on the circuit. And racing world cup fantastic. With the overall World Cup are those points accrued across every single race, like the sprints, the long distance all of the events, yes, only the individual events. We had a year or two where we dabbled and gave points for team events, although that didn’t really work, because not every country has enough people to field a four person team. So we said that wasn’t quite fair, and now it’s just individual events. But yeah, it’s across different techniques. So we have skate and classic as two different techniques within the sport. And then sprint distance, we race everything from a 1.2 to 1.7 kilometer sprint, all the way up to a 50 kilometer race. And those are done in two different techniques. So you kind of have to wrap your head around a lot of different races, and it’s probably around 30 to 35 races a season if you end up doing everything. So it’s pretty intense. It goes pretty quick.
Julie Young 06:27
I love that tour to ski. I think that’s such a cool addition to your calendar.
Jessie Diggins 06:32
It’s fun. Also, again, a nod to cycling, modeled after the Tour de France, although it is only seven stages, roughly, it changes every year, but it’s a little bit crazy because it ends with this final climb. So we go up in Alpine mountain, and you actually go around the gates, just to make us weave around and make it take longer, and you finish up there, and it is really hard to do at the end of a tour. But I think that’s the cool part of the challenge, right? Like, if it was easy, it wouldn’t be so satisfying.
Julie Young 07:04
That looks agonizing.
Jessie Diggins 07:05
Yeah, it hurts.
Trevor Connor 07:06
So something I would ask you about, because this really impressed me. You have been awarded as an American Norway’s top honors. What to ask you about that?
Jessie Diggins 07:16
So there is a medal called the Holman Cole medal, and it was very humbling to receive this. You get to meet some members of Norway’s royal family, and they’re the ones who present it to you. And they choose people to receive this every year, and it is sometimes awarded to people who are not Norwegian. So that was a really big, cool surprise and an honor for me. And they pick you, not only because of your results in sport, but how you race, racing with integrity, what you do outside of the sport. And so that’s why I think it was so meaningful to me to be recognized in that way that really caught my attention, because I know cross country skiing, that’s Norway sport, and here you are getting that. It’s great to hear. It’s not just the results, but you as a person, that’s quite the honor. Thank you. So I guess that kind of leads to the next question, which is, tell us a little bit about your background. How you got to where you’re at. Go back to your study as a junior. Yeah. Well, as you said, like Norway invented the sport, and growing up in Minnesota, we have a lot of Scandinavian heritage there, right? So there’s tons of cross country ski teams on high schools. I mean, high school cross country skiing in the Midwest is huge. It’s flourishing, which is very cool. So growing up, my parents got really into the sport, and so when I was a baby, they were just putting their backpack and go out on the trails. And so I grew up out on the trails, just loving being outside in all seasons, really. And I think it’s also important for me to say I grew up loving a lot of different sports. I did not specialize early. In fact, my only regret is I wish I had done track and field through my senior year, because it was so much fun, and I love doing all the field events. It was a great time, and I wish I’d carried that on even longer than I did. But through doing all these different sports growing up, I kept coming back to cross country skiing. I’d done it a lot with my family, and loved it, but didn’t necessarily love the racing side, but when I joined my high school team, I really got into the idea of trying to score points for the team. And I always was intrigued by, how can you take an individual sport and then turn it into a team sport? You know? How can you make this something that you do with your friends and this community is also just, I just sucked me in in the best way possible. Everyone was so warm and welcoming and accepting. And it’s a sport where everyone got to race every race, right? You don’t have bench time and playing time. Everyone gets to be out there doing the entire practice together. And there’s something about the humility that you gain when you’re just out sweating in the woods together. You know, you’re like, okay, no one’s too cool for this. You know, we’re all dying. The end of this workout, everyone’s learning and growing together, and you really just developed these really strong bonds. And I adored my high school coaches and volunteer coaches and all of my older teammates. They were like my siblings, and I just I would do anything for them. So that’s where I really grew to love the racing side of things as well, so much so that I started racing internationally and started being like, oh, like, there’s this thing called Junior nationals. Like, I guess I’ll go to that, and then I’ll try to go to senior nationals, and then I’ll try to qualify for international trips, like World Juniors. And it just sort of kept escalating. And every time I found myself at another level of the sport, I was curious and excited and like, oh, I want to see how far I can take it. This is so cool, because people are so great. Like, I got to travel to a new country. Like, when else would I have ever been to the Czech Republic or Estonia? Like, this is amazing. And so it would take me to the next level, and then basically it was this amazing positive feedback loop of like, I would train harder and get to meet more cool people, and then fall in love with sport a little bit more, which made me want to train harder, and I just kind of kept going and going.
Trevor Connor 11:14
That kind of raises a really interesting question for me, because this is kind of a theme that I’m hearing that in some ways goes against what a lot of people are starting to believe in the sports meaning right now, you look at cycling, your top cyclists in the world, they’re all young, and so there’s this big belief that you need to start really young and you need to specialize young. And you just said, No, you really didn’t specialize. You tried a lot of different sports. And more importantly, I’m hearing from you that you wanted teammates, you wanted that social aspect, that there was a cultural aspect to this, that it wasn’t from an early age. I have to go to junior worlds, and I have to go to this, and that it was more a discovery thing. So how much do you feel that exploration, that culture, that either you created or was created around you, really played into your success and your development. How important
Jessie Diggins 12:04
was? It was incredibly important. I mean, I took dance lessons for 10 years, so I had to learn how to be coordinated and move my body in different ways, which, honestly, I think my strength coach is thrilled by because she’ll give me different running drills and different movements, and she’s like, all right, you’re picking it up. You’re getting it and I credit that to 10 years of dance class, right? You had to watch a movement pattern and copy it and get it down. And, like I said, I did track and field, but I also did swimming, I played soccer, and, yeah, I think it was really important for me to learn how to just be generally athletic, and also how to work with others and navigate different sports and different team systems and figure out which one worked for me and where I fit in, and also that sense of fun and levity and really being part of a team, like I remember taking that high school spirit onto the World Cup, and when I first got there, people were Not smiling in the start gate. Like it was very Scandinavian stoicism, right? Like it was quite serious. That’s just a World Cup. And I understand, like, hey, everyone just put a lot of their life into this. You training, you train and you sacrifice. And so it can feel quite serious in the moment, right? Like you put everything you have towards this. You want this race to go well, but I show up and I’ve got glitter on my face, not smiling. I’m sure people were like, Who is this? Get her out of here. But I remember, like, getting to put face paint on my teammates for the world championship relay in 2011 for the first time, and I was 19, and they all were like, Yeah, we’re gonna let her do this. Clearly, this helps her with her pre race nerves. And I just, I think it was a really cool moment for me, finding my place on the team and figuring out, like, my specialties, bringing energy and excitement and helping pump people up, and that’s what I can do as the baby of the team. Like, that’s how I can contribute and bring something to the team. And I think it’s kind of been fun, because for me, watching the World Cup in general shift, people smile a lot more, and I’ve seen a lot of other people wearing face paint and ribbons in their hair on relay days at World Champs that did not used to happen. And I think it’s cool that people can embrace, that you can show your personality and have fun with it, while at the same time recognizing like, this is for all the marbles. It is high stakes. I have worked for this like, I want this very badly, and I can still say this is something that brings me joy at the same time,
Trevor Connor 14:37
enjoyment is a key part of training. Here’s Adam Myers and talking about the importance of enjoying your training, even if it means putting aside your primary sport for something that’s going to keep you motivated.
Adam Meyerson 14:49
I actually have a handful of articles on the cycle smart website about how to translate nordic ski training for bike racers for exactly that reason, if you’re from. Murray sport is cycling, but the snow is really good in the winter, and you don’t want to spend all your time training indoors. Nordic skiing is a great option. And a handful of the juniors that I coach in Massachusetts also race Nordic in January, February, March. So I hand them over to another coach after the last cross race of the season in December, and I get them back after the last Nordic race, usually sometime in March. So I think understanding that they’re both endurance sports, and while you’re not necessarily measuring power on the ski is you know you can measure heart rate and you can understand perceived exertion. Heart rate zones aren’t going to match up perfectly. You’re waving your arms around as well as using your legs to power what you do. So I don’t recommend thinking that your cycling zones are going to apply to Nordic skiing as well, but perceived exertion certainly will. And so just understanding training zones is helpful, but it’s a great way to take advantage of the weather that you have rather than fighting it. Certainly training indoors as a cyclist has gotten more enjoyable. I don’t know if it’s enjoyable quite yet, but it’s certainly more enjoyable and easier to do than it used to be. But if you live in a place where there’s snow, I think it’s important to be excited when it snows, when it snows, you want to look forward to that. And Nordic skiing is part of that.
Trevor Connor 16:18
That reminds me of this story that Simon whitfold told me that I absolutely love the year he got the gold and the triathlon at the Olympics. And if you know Simon, he kind of likes to joke around and have fun. He’s the same as you and when he lined up, there was no pressure on him. And he lined up beside a German triathlete who was the heavy favorite for the Olympics. And Simon said, just being himself. He just looked at the guy and goes, boy, I hope there’s no sharks in the water. And this German athlete looks at him, sounds like I could see the fear and the nervousness on his face. And then Simon ended up winning the gold, and he said it was completely because I was just having fun out there. Yeah, that he said, four years later he was the guy that was nervous and flipping out because he was a heavy favorite, and he finished like 20th, yeah. But then four years after that, he lined up, and that same German athlete lined up beside him and looked at him and said, think there’s any sharks here. No way. And Simon said that change of form that reminded him, this is about having fun, and he got the silver that year. I love that.
Jessie Diggins 17:26
I think it’d be hard to prove scientifically right, but there is such an important link between loving what you are doing and having fun and then being able to go out there, especially in these extreme endurance sports, and suffer like I really think I’ve found in my career, like the more happy I am, the more loose relaxed, the more I’m having fun, the more I go out there and just lock in in the moment, and also have a greater capacity to suffer, because in my everyday life, I am not suffering. It’s like the balance can be achieved. But I think it is interesting, because it is one thing to come out of nowhere and get the win and rise to the top of the sport, but then staying there, the pressure shifts. It is different. It does feel different, and it becomes harder and harder to still have a fun, joyful spirit about it. And I think that’s where the challenge lies. I can really relate to that story, because when I got to have my breakthrough moment, I remember thinking, this is so cool, and at the same time realizing, like, I will never get to fly under the radar again. Yes, you only get one breakthrough moment. You know? You only get to just slip in as was nobody like, guess what? Turns out, I had this great thing in me all along, and now everyone’s like, Oh yeah, we know you have it in you. We want to see it again. And I think it makes it harder to keep the fun and the joy centered at the forefront of what you’re
Julie Young 18:51
doing. So Jesse, how do you do that now that you are where you are? How do you maintain that sense of fun always feeling like you can continue to learn and improve. I guess it’s kind of like quieting the noise around you a little bit, and then I would imagine too, just constantly tapping into why you do
Jessie Diggins 19:09
- Yeah, well, I would say my first answer is an outstanding sports psychologist. I think everyone should have one, and I love mine, and I’ve worked with her since I was 19, so we have a very long history together and and she has seen me change and grow and learn, and she’s also seen how my career has grown with me, and so we’ve been able to tackle these challenges. But I also think, like you said, really tapping into your Why? Why am I here? And I think part of it is simply remembering. And she’ll say this to me, like, you have a choice. You don’t have to do this. You get to do this, but if you ever just want to walk away, put your skis down and be done, you don’t have to be here. I’m like, Well, I would never do that. Like I want to be here. And she’s like, Yeah, right. So why? Why do you want to be here? And I’m like, Oh, well. Because I love the feeling of challenging myself and pushing myself and just trying to seek that perfect race. And I’m using air quotes because you’re never going to have the perfect race, and that’s what’s so wonderful and elusive. You’re just seeking the feeling of when the puzzle pieces click together. But there’s always going to be something to learn, and even within the most horrible race, there’s always going to be something you’ve done right and I think that it’s highly addictive. And so I love going down into the pain cave and seeing who I am and how tough I can be and how gritty I can get. So that’s really what keeps me coming back over and setting new goals and getting excited and motivated. But I think the part in keeping it fun is also remembering I do love this. Like, I love getting out to go ski and, like, right now, because of my sport, like, my job is to go outside and train to be one of the fittest athletes in the world. How incredibly lucky is that? Like, that is fun, the process of learning is fun, and so I think as soon as we close the door to curiosity, I think we’re closing the door to fun as well. Those two are linked.
Trevor Connor 21:09
So I want to flip this around, because I really do see, but you are somebody who really races and trains with joy, and you just love being out there. But the other side of that, what are the greatest adversities that you have faced?
Jessie Diggins 21:23
Oh, well, I think injury is one of the biggest whether that is physical or mental, and I’ve had both. So I think when we get hurt, that can take away the thing that we love to do, which can also take away the fun and the joy, right? Like, if you can’t go out there and ski on a beautiful, sunny day in the mountains, then, oh, you’re like, Ah, this sucks. And I think part of it is in those kind of adversities. What I’ve learned is helpful for me is one acknowledging it, like, yes, this sucks. I’m not gonna pretend it doesn’t, not gonna sugar coat it. I’m in pain, whether it’s physical or mental, this is not great right now and then saying, Okay, how do I get out of this? I probably need to lean on experts. You know, if I’m hurt, I’m not going to try to stitch my own leg back together. I’m going to go to a doctor, right? And so if I’m hurt mentally, I’m going to go to an expert in that field. And I think recognizing that it’s okay to ask for help is a big thing for me and huge learning point in my career. But then I’d say the other adversity to racing with joy, assuming you have no injury, is simply pressure and expectation. And I think it’s fun to talk about right now, because we’re headed into a Winter Olympic year, and there’s a lot of pressure and a lot of expectation, and I found at different points in my life, there’s been different waves of that pressure that have in times like I’ve let it steal away my joy, and I let it steal away this I get to do it, and it becomes like, oh my gosh, I have to. I feel like I have to produce these metals for my country. I have to come up with these results for the team, and in reality, everyone who matters to me, they don’t care. They just want me to be happy and healthy and go out there and race with joy and do my best. They do not care if at first, if at last. However, it turns out, they just care if I go out there and I give my best because they can see it. They know what it looks like when I’m going out there and giving her so I think I just had to keep reminding myself of that focusing on these external pressures and expectations has never been helpful for me. So I had to employ a couple different strategies, like, I don’t read sports media about me. Good idea. Yeah, not reading the comments, even though, like, 99% of them are beautiful and wonderful, like, there’s a point around the Olympics where I shut it down and I won’t read things coming in, because I just need to protect this happy bubble for the time being so I can focus in and get the job done. And then really leaning into my team, I found that the more that I invest in and care about and look out for the people around me that that also comes back to you, and it brings me a lot of joy being the team mom. Like I’m 33 now, and so I had my years as the baby of the team, but now I’m kind of more the team mom, and I love that being there for them, and it really has brought me a lot of joy. And so I think when I get nervous and I’m feeling a lot of pressure and eyes on me, I try to turn that around and go, Well, how can I keep an eye out for the team? Because that makes me feel like I’m part of something that is really meaningful and that’s going to matter 10 years from now, like 10 years from now, whether or not I get another medal at the Olympics, that really won’t matter. But if I was a good teammate and I helped all these amazing young athletes have a really good experience that they’ll remember forever, like that’s going to matter 50 years from now. And so I guess just like boiling it down to like, what is ultimately going to matter from this experience,
Trevor Connor 24:55
imagine that also has to help you, because if you’re focused on them and helping them perform. Perform at their best. You’re not worrying about yourself.
Jessie Diggins 25:03
Yeah, you can’t overthink it, right? And that’s not to say, I mean, I still have to take care of myself, right? Like, I still have to, I still have to do my warm up, my cool down, I have to take good care of my body. But those things become automatic at this point in someone’s career. You’re not worrying about, oh, how do I foam roll? Am I doing all the right things? Like, I know I’m doing the right things. And so I’m starting to come up with different strategies of trying to not overthink all the little things.
Julie Young 25:30
I just want to circle back, if you guys don’t mind, to your childhood, and I know you’d said the variety of sports you did, and I think it’s just so happy to hear that, as Trevor had said, It’s hard right now. It seems like kids are specializing so early. But the other thing that struck me in reading your book is just your childhood and upbringing. I think a lot of kids that I work with, it seems very calculated in terms of these paths forward as young athletes and yours just seemed like such a natural product of your lifestyle with your parents and your upbringing, like just playing around, scratching your knees up, just, I don’t know to me, I just I loved that, and I saw so much of who you are as a person, I would think that was creating a good foundation for you moving forward.
Jessie Diggins 26:16
Yeah, I think so. You know, I think my parents definitely saw that I had quite a high aptitude for skiing, but it all had to be led by me wanting to do it. And so they’re like, hey, like, there are these races. If you want, you can’t drive yourself. We’ll drive you to the start line, but you have to want to be there. You have to want to sign up. It has to be, you know, everything had to be driven by my internal desire to do it, and if I was ever like, Nope, I really want to race. I just want to, you know, run around in the woods and make snow angels. They’re like, that’s great. Go get them. That’s fine, too. And so I think that was really important for me, because as an athlete who has been doing this a really long time, I worry that I would have burned out if I had ever been pushed into it or felt like I was getting too competitive too early. It all just sort of one thing led into another, and it just sort of flowed.
Jared Berg 27:11
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Trevor Connor 27:34
Would love to shift gears here and talk a little bit about how you train, and I get to start with part of the reason I brought up the medal that you were awarded from Norway is, I’m sure you’ve heard all about this. Now what’s become really popular is what they’re calling the Norwegian training method, yeah, which some people consider unbeatable. And here you are participating in what Norway would probably consider their sport. And forgive me for saying this, but I’ll be arrogant for you, you’re beating them at their own game. So are you training the way Norwegians train? Do you have your own training approach? Are you polarized? Are you pyramidal? What is your overall training philosophy? What’s your overall approach?
Jessie Diggins 28:18
Well, it probably depends on which Norwegians training plan you’re comparing me to, because I have friends with quite a few of the girls on the team, specifically. And back when I was younger, I went over there and did a couple training camps with them. It was really fun. First of all, just getting to know them, and a lot of them are my age, and realizing, wow, fundamentally, we all kind of are doing the same stuff, you know, and it’s the recipe is kind of like your basic, like, Toll House cookie recipe. It’s like, there’s a million variations of it, but at the end of the day, like, you kind of got the same basic ingredients going on here to make a really good cookie. And I think there’s ways that you can get a little maybe, like, too cute with it, and, like, try to really, like, dissect and, I mean, you could go in circles forever thinking about the different theories behind how we train. But I would say the way I train is probably pretty simple. It’s a lot of long, slow, easy volume to build that base. I admit I don’t totally understand the whole zone two training, because I work off of a five zone model. So I’m like, we don’t really do zone two, and I’m not sure if my zone two is zone two that everyone’s really talking about right now. But for me, we do a lot more, like threshold intensity and then level four, which is like your VO two Max building intervals. And really, throughout the summer, you start with longer, bigger chunks of zone three threshold intervals where you know your lactate millimoles around,
Trevor Connor 29:50
like four, yep. So you’re right at that lactate threshold, right
Jessie Diggins 29:55
at it. And so maybe, for example, around this time of year, I might be doing. Like the other day, I did five by 12 minutes and lactate. It’s right around four, and you’re feeling really well. You’re hydrating really well, but you can keep going like your last interval is the same quality and intensity as the first. And then as we get in towards the fall, think we start to sharpen things up. And so you’re starting to do five minute, four minute hard interval pieces that are, like, at your race pace or slightly higher. And then as we get really close to the season, you’re starting to do like the two minute intervals. So things get shorter, harder, you get a little sharper, quicker, faster. The strength program that we do I live twice a week with an additional core and posture strength session because I want to take care of my quality of life, so I do that as well. And the strength blocks will change as well, and we’ll get more and more explosive as we get closer to the winter, and that’s because we also have that sprinting side in us, right? It’s not just 50 kilometer races. We also have to be pretty sharp for the sprints and try to win a sprint out at the end of those 50k races. So it really all comes together. But I’d say a typical training week, you know, the amount that we train in a week will flow up and down, right? You have some bigger weeks, some easier weeks. You want to absorb that training. If you don’t absorb it, and if you’re not recovering, then what are you getting? You’re just tearing yourself apart and not being able to come back stronger. And so, yeah, we’ve definitely got a nice flow going on. But yes, generally, two strengths a week, two interval sessions a week, a speed session, and a lot of long, easy volume in between.
Julie Young 31:34
On those 12 minute intervals, are you monitoring the intensity with lactate? Yeah.
Jessie Diggins 31:39
So we do, our coaches will usually bike alongside us while we’re roller skiing. Oh, and I should explain, one of the biggest ways that we train is called roller skiing. And if anyone’s seen this, you won’t forget it. It’s pretty hard to miss it’s you’ve got your long poles with special tips that stick in the asphalt, and the skis are maybe a foot and a half long with one wheel at each end and no brakes. So you have to be pretty certain about your route that you’re taking and know where you can stop and where you can’t. But yeah, so our coaches will be on bikes with us, and they will have lactate kits. But actually, this is something that is maybe a little different than a lot of the athletes I know I don’t train with a heart rate monitor anymore, and I haven’t for years, and that’s partly because I know myself, and I know that if I let myself, I could become way too data driven, and I could forget about how to feel. And I don’t want to ever get to the point where in a race, I’m looking at my watch going I don’t know, should I go harder, like I have to know in here, like in in my soul, I have to know exactly how hard I can push and when’s the right moment to go. And I have to know where that line is, and I have to feel that out. But I also just stopped using it, because I was like, man, like, I’ve been doing this for a long time. If I don’t know what threshold is, then what am I doing? I should know this, and I do, we do something now where my coach chasing cork. He’ll draw my lactate, and while we’re waiting for the little monitor to process it and spit out the number, I’ll tell him what I think it is. Sometimes I’m right in there. I’m like, on it within point one, and that’s important, if I’m guessing, oh, it’s four and it’s eight, and I can’t feel that like we have to work on my internal feeling and processing of you know, how am I judging my own effort out there? Because that’s going to be really important on race day.
Julie Young 33:33
I would imagine, in such a technique driven sport, your mind needs to be focused on actions more than chasing
Jessie Diggins 33:41
numbers. Yeah, a big thing for us is the technique. And that’s what’s so interesting, is that if you look at the pie chart of all the things that make up a really good race, the equipment is a big part of it. That will be familiar to cyclists, right? If you get a flat, it’s just like, well, bummer. Like, what are you gonna do? That’s part of it. And so for us, the right wax on the ski is having the right amount of grip wax that you actually can get up the hill on your skis. That’s a really large component. Your Fitness is a big component. Your mental strength is huge. You can have the world’s biggest VO, two Max. But if you don’t want it, and you’re not willing to dig for it, it doesn’t matter. And then technique, you can out ski your physiological limits with really beautiful technique and a really gritty mindset. And I think that’s what makes the sport so fascinating to watch, is you can see it when you watch a World Cup, you can see someone like out skiing their limitations by just figuring out how to get the glide out of the skis. And it is so cool. But like you said, that’s another reason I don’t want to get too attached to data, because I just have, I have bigger fish to fry on a race day.
Julie Young 34:49
Speaking of equipment, not to go off topic here, but it’s mind boggling to me in terms of like ski selection and flex grind wax I feel for your wax. Text. That’s a lot of pressure
Jessie Diggins 35:01
it is, and that’s the other thing people should know about our sport, is it may seem like an individual sport, but it is total bull that only one person goes out on the podium. Sorry, I don’t know if I’m allowed to swear on this podcast, but the thing is, it is there are so many people who are behind the scenes, who are out there hours and hours ahead of the race, testing every possible combination of wax, and then not just the actual waxes, but how do they apply them? How do they layer them? How do they stack them on the ski? Are you brushing it in? Are you roto brushing it in? Are you melting it in with an iron? Like it is wild to me, and it’s like this crazy mix of like alchemy and science going on in the wax truck, and the people behind the scenes, they’re like the heroes.
Trevor Connor 35:48
So you said that you’ve kind of become the mom. Now, are there things that you tell these younger athletes about their training, about what they’re doing, that you go, I wish I had known this at your
Jessie Diggins 36:01
age. Yes. And the first thing I tell people is, please ask questions, because you always want to feel like you can ask and I will always answer anything, and I will answer it honestly, to the best of my knowledge. But I don’t want to be that person who like pushes, you know, like the old, wise old crone being like, Now listen here, if you had only known this, you know. So I always want my teammates to first, so I’ll be curious and ask questions and be open to learning different things. And I learn from them too. And so I’m asking them all the time too. What are you thinking about in the start gate? Like, what are you thinking about when you’re trying to transition really quick from one technique to the next. But some of the things that I wish I had learned really young is that your easy sessions have to really be easy, so that your hard sessions can really be hard. And you know, when you’re 16, you don’t want to hear that. You want to just bomb around and feel like a rock star all the time. But it took me, like honestly, an embarrassing amount of time to really come around and believe, if I keep my easy sessions so nice and chill, I will recover from the hard days and I can come back and keep hitting these intensity sessions with really high quality and that’s how I’m gonna stack the bricks. So, yeah, I’d say that’s one of the biggest ones. And then I wish I had leaned into fueling myself better during training, and I have my own complicated history with an eating disorder past, and so there’s definitely that side of it. It isn’t simply not believing the science it’s having, I wouldn’t even say, the courage. It’s more like facing down those very specific fears that might seem silly on the outside, but when they’re real to you, they’re real. And so I think that was something that I really struggled with. But man, if I could go back and give 22 year old Jesse one of these high carb drink mixes, oh my gosh, that would be amazing. I think I would have recovered and been able to train harder, more often.
Julie Young 38:04
Jesse, considering all these components that contribute to your performance, what do you think has been most impactful on your training?
Jessie Diggins 38:12
Oh, gosh, you know. And I wish there was, like, this big, sexy answer, of like, I figured out the secret training, but I actually think it’s just doing the basics, doing them well, doing them consistently, and doing it over time, like I said earlier, like stacking breaks. I love to imagine myself like building this incredible wall of training. And it just is one day at a time, like every single time you get out there and you put down a good session, with quality, with intent, with integrity, you get to stack another brick, and that will add up over time, and it’s hard because it demands patience. It demands that you trust in the big picture and that this is going to work. But there really there aren’t shortcuts. There is no magic training solution. It’s like just got to do the really simple things really well, and they keep doing them for years and years, and it comes,
Julie Young 39:05
yeah, just having listened to you, you often say you love the process. And to me, it’s again, kind of going back to that love of it. And I know there’s days that are hard, but it doesn’t feel arduous. It doesn’t feel like heavy lifting. It’s like a love of it,
Jessie Diggins 39:17
yeah, I think that is maybe one of the other things that I didn’t necessarily realize wasn’t inherently there for everyone, but I love training like I love going out there and doing it. I love being outside. I love being in the woods. I love being on the trails. And if there’s ever a day when I’m like, Oh, I don’t really feel like it that I am calling on my coach and I’m like, I think I’m getting sick. And I usually I am. My biggest tell is, like, if I am kind of sad for no apparent reason, I’m usually getting too tired and I’m not recovering, we gotta dial it back. And if I don’t feel like going out there and doing intervals, then I’m always like, I gotta listen to that. That tells me something, because I always feel like going out there and doing intervals. And. So that’s, I think, one of the big things has been learning how to listen to my body and figure out what my specific tells are and what my signs are, and then figuring out when my body says this, like, I really have
Trevor Connor 40:12
to listen to it. Yeah, and it’s not trying to convince yourself you’re not hearing it
Jessie Diggins 40:16
exactly. I guess, going back to your earlier question about, what would I go back and tell younger Jesse it’s like, I don’t care how many hours you train, it’s about the quality and the way you absorb those hours.
Trevor Connor 40:29
Dig his career has been groundbreaking for American Nordic scheme, but as you just heard, she is also helping the next generation. Let’s hear outsides Fred Dreyer give his hot take about the impact he thinks she will have on the sport in the future.
Fred Dreier 40:43
We have covered Jesse Diggins here at outside we put her on the cover of the magazine. We got a lot of positive feedback on that. She really has become the face of American cross country skiing, and to a certain degree, it’s familiar to American bike racers of a certain generation where you have this sport that is so dominated by European athletes, and finally, you have an American who’s able to win. It’s like back in the 80s, we had Greg Lamond, and what he represented to American cyclists. I feel it’s very similar to what Jesse Diggins represents to cross country skiers. You know, cross country skiing here in America is a niche sport. Yes, it’s very popular in places like, you know, the Midwest and Alaska and the Northeast and even parts of Colorado, but it’s not like a big, huge mainstream sport. And because of that, like, when we do have athletes who are very good, they’re very good regionally, or they’re very good nationally, but like, they go over and compete on the International Circuit and just get blown out of the water by people from Norway and Sweden, because those countries dominate the sport. So to see Jesse have that success and to rise the ranks and be able to compete on that level and be able to win, you know, win the World Cup overall, win these big races, win World Championships and Olympic medals, you can’t really place value on that for growing the sport and inspiring the next generation. And so it does a few things. It shines a big mainstream spotlight on the sport, so more people are gonna get involved with it brings more sponsorship to the sport, which helps fund it. And then, yeah, it gives inspiration to the next generation. Hopefully, if Jesse Diggins is to go over there, do I think Americans are all of a sudden gonna start dominating cross country skiing? No, you know, it’s culturally ingrained in people from Norway. It’s culturally ingrained in like Scandinavian countries, in a way that it probably won’t ever be here. But could we have two or three Jesse Diggins in 10 or 12 years, for sure?
Trevor Connor 42:42
So Jesse, the thing I wanted to ask you about is all the off the ski stuff that you do. You’ve already talked about the importance of the mental side and that you work with a sports psychologist, and that’s great to hear. What about strength work? What about flexibility? What about stability work? Is that an important part of your training
Jessie Diggins 43:00
that is huge. So my strength coach, tashauna Shiller, she’s wonderful. I adore her, and she is so cool, and so I’ve worked with her, Oh, eight years, or something like that now. So we have a lot of different people on my team.
Julie Young 43:16
Jesse, I was gonna say I love watching your Instagram posts your strength work. Oh, thanks. Yeah, I saw one recently. You’re on a slack line, I think flipping around like a weight plate. Oh, yeah. And I was thinking, you probably have a future with Cirque du Soleil when you’re done skiing.
Jessie Diggins 43:34
I was gonna say that was actually even technically part of my strength line. That was more of a stupid human trick. But that was a good one, yeah, but I do, like, I mean, this kind of been the theme of the podcast, right? But I like trying to keep it fun and keep it light, and at the same time, it is really quite important to have good balance. That’s a big part of our sport. You have to be quick on your feet, and it can help activate the core. So it’s a really fun way to end a strength session. Is just like, have the last thing that you do in the gym be something really fun that you
Trevor Connor 44:03
enjoy. What do you think are the biggest benefits of doing all that? Is it just building strength for the sport? Or you said balance? What are the other benefits?
Jessie Diggins 44:11
Well, I would say something like slackline. I think it’s honestly, again, it’s fun, it’s fun learning a new skill, and you can have a lot of fun with it, like I’ll play catch with my coach with a tennis ball while I’m walking across the slack line. And I think it helps you move in a different way. And I think a lot of the things that to Shawna builds into my strength plan is making sure that I don’t simply move in the way that my sport demands that I move, but making sure that I have functional strength like I’d mentioned earlier, we do a set that’s all about postural strength to make sure that I don’t become, you know, rounded forward in the shape of a little c, because that’s the way our sport starts to shape us. And so I think a lot of it is more making sure that, you know, you’re building really strong bones, you’re resilient, you’re learning how to move. Different patterns and that you have good like life strength, fantastic.
Trevor Connor 45:04
So I hate to shift gears quickly, because I know we’re running out of time here, but the thing that we did really want to ask you about if it’s okay, is on the nutrition side. And I know from your book that you had an eating disorder, and I’m very interested in how you recognize that and what you did to overcome that.
Jessie Diggins 45:21
Yeah, this is a cliff notes version, just so people know. So I mean, it’s not something I want to gloss over, but I think the biggest things that I learned from my eating disorder is that it’s okay to ask for help, and you need to ask for professional help. And my analogy that I use is like, if I go break my arm, I’m not gonna be like, You know what, if I really think about it, if I have enough willpower, I can heal this on my own. Like, no, I’m gonna go to the hospital. I’m gonna go to a doctor. I’m gonna go to someone who is trained medically for this specific issue, who can make sure that my bones are set right and help me on my path to healing. There’s no shame in that. That’s just the thing that you would do. And similarly, like, if I have something going on in my brain that needs healing, like an eating disorder, it’s a mental illness, I want to go to an expert who has trained in this who can help me get on a path to better health. And I would say the stereotype is that it’s all about food, but really, at the core of it, for most people, it’s not for me, my eating disorder was about perfectionism and dealing with the stress that I was putting on myself and trying to be perfect in everything that I did. And it was about trying to find a coping mechanism for that, and trying to feel like I was in control of something when my life was getting busier and feeling like it was starting to get out of my control. Well, what’s one thing that you can cling to and hold tightly and have control over? It seemed to be food in my body. But the irony is that your eating disorder will quickly control you and the way you live and the way you think and the way your relationships form. And I realized that I was not my full self. I really wasn’t myself at all. I was not this joyful, happy person. I was really close and withdrawn and anxious and stressed and frustrated, and I just I was not myself. And so this was happening when I was 1819, and luckily, at that point, I was living at home in between training camps, and my parents were the ones who basically had the intervention. They were like, we’re not sure what’s going on here, but we have to talk about it, because you’re not happy, like, what’s happening? And they figured out that it was, in fact, an eating disorder and and urged me to seek help. And I was 18, so they couldn’t make me go, but they were so kind and so patient, so loving, and they’re like, We will drive to the appointment, we’ll pick up the phone, we’ll make the phone call with you. And so they walked me through all the steps and made it really easy for me to get that help. And that’s how I ended up going to the Emily program to get professional treatment, and that’s where I learned so much about eating disorders and my own brain and what I needed in order to give myself compassion and empathy and kindness towards myself. And that was a really hard process for me. And I think it’s also important for me to say, like, it was also really hard for my parents and for all the parents out there with kids who are going through this, like your kid will probably push you away at least the first five times that you want to talk about this like you will have to keep having this conversation over and over, and at some point they will thank you for saving their life. But it’s going to be really hard in the short term. And I think that’s important for me to say, because in the short term, it is really hard on everyone, and nobody asks for an eating disorder. And I think hopefully societally, we’ve gotten to the point where people are starting to learn that like this isn’t like a behavioral choice that is only made by affluent white teenage women. Like this is something that can affect anyone at any stage in their life, eating disorders don’t discriminate, but that was the quick version of my story, but it’s been really important for me to talk about, because I think eating disorders have been so stigmatized as this behavioral choice, and so when I was starting to get really sick, I didn’t want to tell anyone, because I was like, oh, Like, but I’m a good kid. I can’t have an eating disorder, you know, like, I get straight A’s school. I try really hard. And I think people need to understand, like, you’re not a bad person if you need to ask for help with something, whatever it is, whether that is depression, anxiety, eating disorders, there’s a lot of different illnesses that aren’t visible on the outside, and those are the ones that are extra hard to ask for help for, but they deserve exactly the same amount of compassion as if you have a broken arm and then you have a cast that everyone can see.
Trevor Connor 49:53
I think that’s a great message. So Jesse, I hate to say it, we could go another two hours of this conversation. I wish we could. But I know you have to move on to another meeting, so we’ll jump over to our take homes. So Jesse, we’ll start with you. It’s your first time on the show. You have one minute, and I have no timers in front of me to make sure you are being true to your one minute. But tell the listeners what you think is the most important takeaway from this episode, all
Jessie Diggins 50:23
right, got a whole minute Well, I was gonna wrap this up in one sentence, which is, love what you do and do it with joy. But I think really, that is the core of any athletic pursuit or life hobbies, is find something that truly does light up your soul from within. And then don’t forget to keep the joy that it brings you at the front and center. And don’t forget to keep your team at the front and center. Even if you’re in an individual sport, you still have a team around you, whether that is technicians working on your skis or your bike, or coaches or people and the support staff behind the scenes, so don’t forget that you’re part of this amazing, big team. And also it’s okay if you’re not perfect and if you need to ask for help.
Trevor Connor 51:12
Great messages. Thank you. Well, I guess I’ll go next then I love Jesse’s take home. So I got to think of what’s the second best take home. But for me, it’s what she said earlier, about there are no big secrets. There’s no big trick that it really is about putting in the time. And I loved her analogy of just laying down bricks and building a really big building. And I love that message, and in some ways, it doesn’t help our show to reiterate that message, because I’d love to say, keep listening here. We’re going to have all these exciting tricks for you. They’re going to make you a superstar. But I think that’s really the most important message that we hear again and again and again. It’s about training Well, it’s about training smart, and it’s about putting in the time, and there’s just no tricks.
Julie Young 52:00
Okay, you and Jesse have taken the best thing, so I guess I’m going to have to kind of thread the needle, because the thing that really stands out for me about Jessie is her true love of it, and having read her book and kind of understanding her background, it really was very organic in terms of how she developed as an athlete, just the lifestyle that her parents led, and just following her parents around and enjoying that lifestyle, her athleticism seemed to grow out of that. And I think also, as she had mentioned, just as young athletes trying to maintain that variety in their life as long as possible, I think it’s super enticing now to try to get drawn into specializing early, but I think the more these young athletes can keep that variety in their life as long as they can, the better for their long term development and just success in sport.
Trevor Connor 52:54
Yeah, it’s a great message too. Thanks, Julie, thank you, Jesse. It was a pleasure. Thank you for having me. Thanks, Jesse, that was another episode of fast talk. The thoughts and opinions expressed on fast talk are those of the individual subscribe to fast talk wherever you prefer to find your favorite podcast. Don’t forget, we’re now on YouTube, as always. Be sure to leave us a radian review to learn more about this episode, from show notes to References, visit us at fast talk labs.com and join the conversation on our forums. Go to forums.fasttalklabs.com, for Jesse Diggins, Adam Meyerson, Fred Dreyer and Julie Young. I’m Trevor Connor. Thanks for listening. You.
