Marjaana Rakai (00:00)

I'm, sitting there in between, do I make my dreams come true? Or do I am I being responsible? Right? So I think that was my my chance. Kona. Gone. But the point is

that my youngest still asked me I'm gonna start crying because it's so sweet. he still asked me, Mom, why did you say no to your dream? They are watching.

Paul Warloski (00:46)

Hello and welcome to the Athletes Compass Podcast, where we navigate training, fitness, and health for everyday athletes. Iris Nafshi is a PhD who actually studied what it takes to be an iron mom. Her dissertation, Beyond Grit and Guilt, surveyed over 300 moms, including our own Marjaana who trained for Ironman to answer one question. How do they push through and get it done?

She's also a former VP of talent and learning at Campbell Soup, global head of leadership development at Microsoft, and a former captain in the Israeli army. She found something powerful in her research. Athletic identity doesn't compete with maternal identity, it expands it. Welcome to the Athletes Compass podcast, Iris. We are honored you could join us today.

Iris Nafshi (01:37)

I'm so thrilled and and honored as well to be part of this show today.

Paul Warloski (01:42)

Iris, you have quite the resume. You know, you're working as a consultant. What kind of work are you doing with that?

Iris Nafshi (01:49)

So for over thirty years, I was in human resources and my specialty is in leadership and executive development. so any of the listeners who is usually part of ⁓ a corporation has probably attended hopefully a successful leadership development course or a series of sessions, that's usually what I do.

At Microsoft, I was the global head of leadership and executive development where I was responsible basically on the develop putting the strategy of over 16,000 leaders, director level and above. So you need to think about what are the capabilities that the company is looking to build in the future, and then you track back and start building those capabilities within leaders. about eight years ago, I decided to open my own business.

And so within the space of leadership development, you can do multiple things. You can be a consultant to companies on what capabilities the organization needs and wants to build. You can be a designer of the experiences and write what the workshop is gonna look like, or you can be a facilitator. And my I call it my superpower, and the place I get the most joys actually in facilitating. I just

own the room when I when I'm in it and I don't mean it in a way of I'm the alpha. I just know how to build rapport with the participants, create trust and joy and laughter, but also seriousness of studying and being vulnerable and and learning together. So that's that's what I do.

Marjaana Rakai (03:19)

That's that's amazing. Like it sounds like you had your own challenge with getting it done. Tell us about your your triathlon history, like and running because I know you're an athlete as well.

Iris Nafshi (03:32)

Yeah.

Yeah. So in my podcast that I interview ironman Moms, I some somehow along the way of the storyline, I try to understand where their athletic identity began. Were they ath athletes before they started Ironman or were they f always athletes? And I find that there's almost two distinct cases, if you will. Some that were have been athletes before.

And somehow got disrupted through motherhood, and then they're returning to athleticism and finding themselves and finding, you know, if not their old body and their old mindset, but some kind of a new capacity as mother athletes, or those who actually have not done anything, and through motherhood they found that they wanted a space for themselves. In fact, yesterday I interviewed Jennifer Silva, she just won.

Last week at ironman and Jacksonville. and I think it's a phenomenal story, and then I'll talk about myself, but it's a phenomenal story of what I'm trying to illustrate here. You would think that someone at the age group of 40 to 44, winning the overall race, has been an athlete, went at least D1, you know, to college. None of that. None of that. She started training after she had her kids. She's in triathlon only for eight years. So it's an incredible.

Incredible story of a woman who's finding her own voice through endurance sport. As for me, I'm one of those who was an athlete actually when I was younger. I was a swimmer until the age of 18, where I went to the army. And from 18 till 48, I actually disappeared. And I didn't even realize it until I found my way back.

I was so busy with pursuing degrees and pursuing career. I am married and I have four boys. And I was so busy with life that for me, coming back home at 5:30 or 6 every day, I just felt I couldn't. I think the narrative was different when I was younger. I'm 56 now.

The narrative was a little bit different than what my feed on Instagram today is, but it's mom can do it all, you should take your time for yourself, being strong is important, it's role modeling for the kids. I heard none of that. And so for me to come home at six after a full day of work and then say to my husband, Bye, I'm going to Spinning in class, felt like it I I can't do that. not because he imposed on me, I have the most amazing husband and supportive husband.

But I felt that I should be cooking healthy meal, I should be bathing them, I should be reading books to them, and shouldn't be going to a spinning class. And it's not that I lived those 30 years in a split identity and wanting but not feeling the permission. It was just it wasn't there. It was almost like under the radar and and and asleep. When I decided to leave my job in corporate America.

Paul Warloski (06:14)

Okay.

Iris Nafshi (06:37)

And there's a whole there's a whole story to that as well why I did that. I remember my husband asking me, Well why you're so smart and talented. What are you gonna do with yourself? And I was like, hold on, hold on. I have some dreams. And there were two things I wanted to do. I wanted to do a PhD. That was a dream of mine for a long, long time. And I wanted to do a triathlon. I didn't know back then about ironman , but I saw it on TV. I'm pretty sure that I saw an Ironman because I remember the view.

And I think it was Kona. And it seems so cool to me to be able to do three sports. And but I was terrified. I just didn't know like what do you do in trend transition and what if people will swim over me, even though I'm a swimmer. That's my sport. I just d didn't understand how to do it. And finally at 48, when I was able to put aside the almost the identity of a vice president, you know.

I found that space for myself to start with Triathlon . And ⁓ like probably every person you interview, it I got infected very quickly. I did a sprint. The following weekend, I did another sprint, and then I asked my coach, I literally trained five weeks. I said, Do you think I can do an Olympic? And she said, Sure, let's train for it. So a few weeks later, I did Olympic. And then I got the bug of the Ironman because I started seeing people, you know, with the dot. And so I volunteered that.

same end of summer in a half iron man, which I highly recommend to people who are considering can they do it? Go volunteer. You'll see you'll be able to do it. I remember looking around and see if they can do it, I can do it. And I'm not fast at all. and then the following year was the full Ironman, you know, and that that's how you get into into the bug of of triathlon. Now I will say not all of this is not just a linear line of progression.

Paul Warloski (08:24)

Yeah.

Iris Nafshi (08:25)

For me, there was also some struggle because I was doing both the Ironman and the PD at the same time.

I do not recommend that. And I literally remember the night before checking in the bags and everything. I'm in the hotel in Maryland, the bike next to me, all the bags on the floor, and I'm on a Zoom call with the the classroom, right? You still have to submit your homework. So it was a lot of w one thing I learned is that stress is stress. It doesn't matter if it's physical or

emotional or you know cognitive stress and all of it together was just too much and I I physically broke at some point after training so much b for fools and halves and I had to completely back off I think somewhat the story of of Marjaana where the body just said I I I'm not I'm not in this game anymore. Stop it just announced stop.

Marjaana Rakai (09:25)

Yeah. I can relate to it. That that was there's also much to to double tap in your story. I wanna go to your experience doing iroman training and PhD a little bit because I think that's highlights what a lot of women who are in work life and trying to also

find out what they can be as an athlete. there are so many things that are pulling their attention everywhere. How did you actually make that happen? And what did you learn from from your studies? Because you were right in this, you know, studying while you were doing it. So were you able to kind of like take those

advice and experiences from your interviews and apply them to you to what were you were you were doing at the moment.

Iris Nafshi (10:18)

100%. There's so many lessons learned. None of them is an Einstein, you know, discovery that will change the world and rock your world right now. But all of them are nano mindset changes that really helped me. a couple of things that come to mind. I obviously I I finished my first Ironman before I finished the PhD. PhD takes about

Marjaana Rakai (10:26)

Mm-hmm.

Iris Nafshi (10:43)

Four, five, six years depends on how fast you are. I remember when I crossed the finish line, I felt nothing. I thought I would cry. I thought I will be I yeah, emotional. I was completely numb for two days. And I thought a lot about that. And I don't think it was post race blues, which also comes as as many of us know.

I think I was so focused on the finish line, finishing the Ironman and imagining it through the training that I forgot all about the becoming, the process. And so I took that lesson wholeheartedly into the process of becoming a PhD, becoming a scholar practitioner. And I reminded myself and I journaled it every time I'd be like, I can't.

Paul Warloski (11:19)

Mm-hmm.

Iris Nafshi (11:32)

Well, first of all, is was the mindset of I can't do it anymore. There would be days that I was just like, I my my brain would hurt. I can't do this anymore. And I would be the other brain, the iron mom brain would be like, Yes, you can. Go make yourself a coffee, sit your ass down and do it. So I just like I finished, you know, training with hard hinter intervals and run the next day for long mileage, I can do this. That mindset of an iron mom transferred into the scholar work.

Paul Laursen (11:48)

Hmm.

Iris Nafshi (12:00)

And then the other way that I just described, I made sure to remind myself to enjoy the journey and not just f think about the finish line when I'm gonna wear the robe and give my speech and walk away. And as much as I wanted it to end, even now I miss some parts of studying and kind of wish there there were moments I said, maybe I should do another PhD. I won't, don't worry. I won't. But there are some moments it's it's a little bit like Ironman where you like you love it.

Marjaana Rakai (12:22)

Mm.

Paul Warloski (12:23)

Yeah.

Iris Nafshi (12:28)

You love the pain so much that you wanna get back to it because it brings you joy It's it joy. It's that really interesting.

exchange between joy and and and discomfort. another thing that I took away, Marjaana heard me saying it probably quite a bit, is this idea of something is better than nothing. When I decide that I want to do something, there's no stopping me. And I want it to do be done the best possible that it can. Now don't think I'm this, you know, woman that is like

once everything organized and have OCD, trust me, you'll see it in my surrounding. It's not. But when I want something, it will be perfection. And so my mindset when it came to training, and I think it also has to do with maturity as an athlete, which I probably wouldn't call myself mature from the perspective of, let's say I had work, I facilitated

I don't know, life was in the way and I had to do a couple of other things. And now it's three to four and I can fit in my running. But I know that at 4 15 I already have to be in the car, drive my kid to drums. The brain of Iris, not understanding this and learning from ironman , will say no, because my workout is I have to shower and I have to change and I won't have enough time. And by the time I'll warm up, it will be only 45 minutes, and then I'll have the yellow dot instead of the green dot, which you become addicted to.

Right? So I'm not gonna do it. I'm gonna do it perfect at night. So either I'll do it that night, I will, because I was dedicated, or I will come back exhausted and the next day I will pile up two trainings. I'll do a swim in a run, which is fine if you do it every once in a while. But if you start doing it all the time, it's a cognitive load and an emotional load. It adds more guilt to yourself because now the coach sees that you're not doing the workout, what's going on, everything is fine, but it's not fine, right?

Marjaana Rakai (13:59)

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Iris Nafshi (14:23)

So, this idea that I'd like to leave with the listeners today, it's okay to skip. First of all, nothing will happen. You will still complete your Ironman. Second, it's okay to shave some of the warm-up and some of the cooldown. Not completely, but you can shave the 10-20 minutes before and after and just focus on the intervals or do even less intervals. But do something. And that mindset of something is better than nothing really.

Transformed me and

⁓ it gave me courage to do things that I don't think I would have done before, including launching my own podcast, including trying to write a a book, because you know, even a sentence a day, even an idea on a paper, it's something then nothing. So these are two examples that I wanted to give on how my motherhood, you know, bleeded into sport and how sport into kind of my role as a as a scholar.

Paul Warloski (15:07)

Mm-hmm.

Marjaana Rakai (15:09)

Yeah.

Iris Nafshi (15:21)

it wasn't kind of separated separated identities, definitely integrated kilt. ⁓

Marjaana Rakai (15:29)

Yeah.

I wanna talk more about guilt and I I wanna ask both Pauls for their opinions here as well. But I hear moms talking about guilt a lot. before you answer Iris, I wanna hear from Paul's. do you ever feel guilty of taking time for yourself and going for a bike ride?

Paul Laursen (15:52)

Nope.

Paul Warloski (15:53)

Yeah. No.

I do sometimes when I when I know there's a lot to be done around the house, and I know that Kate, my wife, is doing things around the house and there's work to be done. I do feel a little guilt, but it's not really guilt. It's more like I'm gonna get to it eventually. But you know, you know, I'm gone for five or six hours on the bike sometimes, and it's like that's a lot of that's a lot of family time away from the from the house.

Paul Laursen (16:10)

Yeah.

For sure. And I I I would say s say similar. I I I don't do my, you know, f five to seven hour rides like I like I used to. But when I was doing that and Allison, you know, was was raising Kaya the I definitely definitely felt guilty being out there, you know, f fulfilling my Ironman dreams, with with the big training volume and stuff. but now my you know, my rides are a lot shorter and

the mindset that I take now is that any time that I take for myself, whatever it might be, it's going to come back to my family and to my work. And ⁓ so of but in like the prior it was a bit of an e extreme obsession. So it it it's the my context has changed.

Paul Warloski (16:53)

Mm-hmm.

Marjaana Rakai (17:03)

Yeah. So going back to the early days when you were still training for Ironman and felt guilty, what did you in that moment what did you tell yourself? Do you remember?

Paul Laursen (17:15)

I would talk to Dan Plews and and he'd say, D don't worry about it, prof, just keep going. He I think he did, yeah. He he he might have had one at in those days and and certainly certainly has two now. So ⁓ but but yeah, I was I was fortunately I had a partner in crime and we kept we kept supporting one another. yeah. So so yeah.

Marjaana Rakai (17:20)

Did he have kids back then?

Okay.

Yeah.

Paul Laursen (17:40)

That was that was that. Fort fortunately I have a a very forg very forgiving wife, who was who is amazing. So but but yeah.

Marjaana Rakai (17:41)

So I respect you.

Well, I

ha I have to throw in that I started thinking about long distance Triathlon as my husband golfs. And that's a whole whole day yeah, whole day sport. So I needed to balance that out somehow. Anyways, back to you, Iris. what did you learn from your PhD studies and and Ironmoms and Guilt?

Paul Laursen (17:55)

There you go.

Iris Nafshi (18:08)

Okay, this is going to be a multi layered answer. So stop me and ask questions if I'm if you feel that I'm confusing you or the audience. I'm going to start by a statement to say I'm not in the business of comparing men versus women who got it harder, moms in Ironman versus women who don't have kids, who's got it harder. Life is complicated and we all carry a lot. So I'll start by saying that. I'll also say that there's no book.

about iron moms. But there is a book about ironman dads And in that book, written by Diana Cohen who who is an Ironman herself, but she's not a mom. So it's put her in a really good distinction as a researcher because she's not, she kind of she's not a man, first of all, and she's not a mom or right. So she can look at the phenomena from that perspective. and then I'm gonna combine

On add to that, that research is saying it's not that men don't have any feelings or regrets or guilt, right? In fact, there's a lot of research that says that there's a lot of expectations from the modern dad to give their time, especially over the weekend, to be with the kids. So they do try. You will see dad biking and the kids is behind or running with a stroller. However, and that's the layer I will add.

The societal expectations for years for many, many decades, including up to now, is more of the mom to give of her time to the family, to be selfless versus selfish and take time for herself. Right? And so what we're dealing with is a narrative, and that's where shame and guilt are a little bit different. Guilt is usually something that is imposed on you.

By external resources. Shame is against your own value that you have. So guilt is a lot of time imposed on women because of the expectation that they will be more with the kids, that they will give out of themselves and not take too much time away to take care of themselves. What I found, so now I will add another layer. In my study,

I had 350 women in general that it did at least one Ironman in the past two years and currently training for another one. So I didn't want to look after women who did it one and done, check check the the box kind of a thing. and I wanted to understand what helped them persist. So I have the qual quantitative data on that that we can talk about. A lot of things surprised me there. And then I did what's called mixed method. I went after the women who self-rated themselves.

High on guilt. There's a specific questionnaire on that. The way you do it for those who are like numbers here in the audience, which I'm sure a lot of people like numbers, you do a standard deviation and mean, and then the standard deviation above the mean, one standard deviation, we're high on guilt, one standard deviation below the mean were low on guilt. Why did I go after high on guilt? Not because all moms feel guilt. That is not true, and that's not what I want anyone to.

To walk away with. I said if these women who are self-rated high on guilt are able to persist in training, what is it that we can learn from them in their internal psychological mechanism and behavioral adaptation that they're doing and thinking in order to persist in the sport? And I can talk a little bit about this in a second. However, I have a podcast right now about.

ironmoms and here there's no selectivity. I just find amazing women out there on the internet that are doing amazing things, you know, as as endurance athlete, and I asked them to interview. And there you won't hear so much guilt because I'm not self- I'm not selecting for guilt. So, what I want you to take away from here is two things. Guilt is a universal feeling with moms, it's documented.

By meta-analysis time after time. However, not every mom feels guilt. So it's two separate things. And it doesn't mean that if you feel guilty, you're a better mom. It just means that you're wired differently. and so I am one of those that belongs to the camp of feeling guilty. It could be, you know, how I'm wired, it could be my my background.

This is another podcast probably on that, but I was one of those moms that definitely when I went on long rides, I felt guilty. Even though my husband was, go do it, I support you. I I felt guilty. I felt guilty when the kids said, Can we go tomorrow to the ocean? I said, No, I have a long bike ride. And so, maybe on Sunday. I said, No, I have a long run. And it was I chose a race that was in September. So the whole summer is basically gone, because that's the the chunk of training.

I learned not to do it for the next one to choose an early summer. So you do the majority in the winter, right? But what I learned from those moms, what I'm still learning in the interviews, this is into interesting to learn. They don't let the societal expectations and then social narrative of moms are supposed to be selfless and give themselves to the kids to dictate their needs.

Don't separate motherhood and athleticism, they integrate them. I'm not using the word balance because it's too clean. They don't balance. There's some seasons during the year that they're heavy into Ironman training and they feel less that they're investing in maybe work. And there's some seasons, you know, right after an Ironman, where all they'll do is just go eat ice cream with the kids and go to, you know, swim to the swim pool to play together and just do family trips, right?

Paul Warloski (23:21)

Mm.

Iris Nafshi (23:46)

And and they know how to to integrate those seasons in life. What they're saying to themselves, this is really important, is they're changing the narrative. Instead of saying, I should feel guilty that I'm taking time for this self, they're reconstructing the story and saying, I am showing my kids that be putting myself first is important. It's that's good for them to learn and know that and see that.

Paul Warloski (24:13)

Yeah.

Iris Nafshi (24:13)

Right.

It's not being selfish, to do that. It's being a good mom. I'm I'm role modeling. So I hope I answered with a lot of I know layers here the the answer.

Marjaana Rakai (24:17)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I I wrote a blog a few years ago when I was in in preparation for the worlds and I I wrote about, you know, balancing. Like I don't believe that you can have everything at the like every moment of your life. You have to balance things out. Like some things need to go on the back burner, while you're cooking something in the front. And it's just a a stage of life. I remember when when I first started

training for ironman 'cause it just takes so much time and effort, right? And then you're tired and all that. I felt I felt definitely guilty of taking like going for a four, five hour bike ride while I knew that there's the punch of laundry to do or whatever in needed to get done. And sometimes like I I tried not to miss my kids baseball games or whatever, but some days I would

Go and watch their games and go straight from there to writing and all that, like the organizing and like time slotting things. Sometimes it it felt a little excessive to me, but I told I told exactly that, like they learn watching me, like they are watching, like they are learning how to organize things and prioritize and that they learn that mom is not here just for them. Mom also has things important to her.

And it's a it's a you know, face of life will

Iris Nafshi (25:50)

Yeah. I see it mostly when women talk about their daughter. Many of them have sons and daughters, but it's especially vivid for women showing their daughters that they should not put themselves last. ⁓ that is something that I'm seeing clear coming in in the interviews. And guilt is sneaky. Guilt is not just about, I it came up in the interviews.

Marjaana Rakai (26:02)

Mm-hmm.

Iris Nafshi (26:12)

I need to choose between literally almost I almost said to the per in the interview my answer, but I couldn't as a researcher. She said I had to choose between Kona or buying a new bike. Mm my husband gave me those options, right? And I was like, Mmm. But she had to make that choice, because sometimes you the family priorities are different and you can't ha have it all. so she chose bike because she said I can train more and maybe

Marjaana Rakai (26:23)

Mm.

Paul Warloski (26:27)

Yeah.

Iris Nafshi (26:37)

qualify the following year. But I but guilt, so guilt is not just about the time with the kids. Guilt could be about family resources in terms of money. Do we go on family vacation or do I buy a new bike? And family, I'm sorry, and guilt could also look ugly like one of my interviewees at the podcast said, Friday is my free day when I don't train. It's my rest day. And so I play, I dedicate it to my kid, and I know he's young and he's gonna grow so fast, and we're together. But after like three hours together, I'm like,

Really want to go ride my bike. And I feel guilty that I want to go ride my bike instead of spending my time with him, right? And so it's not that someone told her she has the time, the days with for her to be with the kid, but she wants to do something else. And by wanting, this is the social narrative that I'm talking about. It's ingrained in many, many women and moms that we should want to love and be with our kids all the time. And when we don't, we feel guilty.

Marjaana Rakai (27:06)

Yeah.

Paul Warloski (27:07)

Mm-hmm.

Iris Nafshi (27:33)

So it's not I I'm mentioning this example so you don't just think that guilt arises when I'm away from the kids. Guilt could be actually when you're with the kids and you want to be away.

Marjaana Rakai (27:41)

yeah, yeah. I felt that many times. But I I'm sneaky then then I used to like when I felt like okay, well this is a family day, I'm like, what can we do? Like let's go the playground and I would like run around the playground or do for push ups. Like do something for me. And then I would feel guilty. Like you can't like spend a little bit of time and just, you know, play or watch them play. You have to move your body, but

Paul Laursen (27:44)

Yeah.

Marjaana Rakai (28:08)

I mean, I'm a little hyper, so what can I do?

Iris Nafshi (28:11)

And that that's the core of it. If you take nothing else out of this discussion today, for those who are listening, spouses who want to support their spouse, fathers who want to support their daughters who are training for an Ironman or moms themselves listening right now, it's really making that mental shift instead of I should feel guilty to I I get I gave I give myself the permission because I'm I'm creating something here for the family legacy.

in terms of what I'm teaching my kids. Which I think men do very well. d you know, you will hear men saying things like, I teach my kids that I finish what I started.

Marjaana Rakai (28:49)

Yeah. Yeah. I I wanna I wanna sh tell the audience one example how guilt can show up. twenty twenty was it twenty two or twenty-three? I had already qualified for seventy point three worlds.

And then I did a full Ironman in Finland and I qualified for Kona, which was my dream for a long time, and I had to say no.

Iris Nafshi (29:18)

Remember.

Marjaana Rakai (29:18)

And I

f I felt like all kinds of emotions. And Paul was saying, you have yeah, like you you might never get a chance like this again. Like you have to go. And but then, you know, like I had already committed to the World Champs in Saint George, and we used to live in Dubai. So the whole thing would meant that I was gone either two trips around the world or gone from the family over a month and there

financial resources and all that like just weighed so much guilt on me that I I could barely breathe. I'm like, I can't, I can't do that. Like, and then I'm, you know, sitting there in between, do I make my dreams come true? Or do I am I being responsible? Right? So I think that was my my chance. Kona. Gone. But the point is

that my youngest still asked me I'm gonna start crying because it's so sweet. he still asked me, Mom, why did you say no to your dream? They are watching.

Iris Nafshi (30:23)

They're absolutely watching. ⁓ and and and I think the the key is you're not doing it for them. You're not doing an iron man to prove the kids and teach them something. Most of all the people that I talk to are doing it because they do it for themselves, because it brings them joy, because it it's a release sometimes of like time alone. Some will say it's for my mental health. And through that,

Marjaana Rakai (30:25)

Yeah.

Iris Nafshi (30:50)

They also know they change the narrative to say instead of me taking away from the family, I'm actually adding to the family by role modeling. That's the mental shift that they're doing so beautifully. So they don't fall into that loop of guilt. They just reframed the story. I'm not taking away from the family, I'm giving to the family. so so that's really how they're able to maintain it. And the and the women I talk to are just

Marjaana Rakai (31:06)

Yeah.

Iris Nafshi (31:16)

are just incredible. one of the other women I interviewed

She had a long history of trying. Her husband is a triathlon coach, very competitive age group. She herself, competitive, finishes first. Long story of journey, I should say, not story, to get pregnant, many IVF. And finally they got pregnant. And she kept training gently through that. And three months after giving birth to twin boys, three months, she did Kona.

Breastfeeding the kids. And I remember those photos were everywhere. And I was so inspired. And when she finishes, Kona with three baby with two babies on the three months old, one on each side. I mean, what a triumph, right? And and I asked her about did doctors or families didn't try to guilt you? It took you so long to get that pregnancy. Why are you pushing it so hard? She said, some did. So I made sure to surround myself with a staff and and support that.

Paul Laursen (31:57)

Mm.

Iris Nafshi (32:16)

supported me to go through this journey because it was important to me. And I had a different goal obviously than winning Kona, but but I did it. And so this this is the type of women that that I interview, women who they enter the sport through different reasons. It's not that I think that there's a there are some research that's saying that endurance athletes are dealing with PTSD and there's studies that say it's not true.

so I guess it depends on the story, but many moms that I interview are entering the sports through some kind of a friction. It's a death of a husband. it could be postpartum depression, it could be feeling unsupported in the community where they live. it's gaining a lot of weight and not remembering who I am anymore. So those points kind of of friction brings them into I need to do something big for myself.

find the way to who I was or who I am now. And that's really the story, which I think is beautiful. It's not a story about sacrifice and pain. It's a story about finding myself, finding what my limits are, pushing myself to the to more limits and role modeling for the kids.

Marjaana Rakai (33:25)

So beautiful.

Paul Laursen (33:27)

Yeah, it's very cool. I've I was reflecting a lot, Iris, on your introduction and just kind of that maybe the evolution or you know pathway that we maybe women go through, right? Where they're athletes in the beginning when they're kids, and then they

Paul Warloski (33:27)

Mm.

Marjaana Rakai (33:27)

yeah,

y you're

Paul Laursen (33:47)

become mums and they feel almost like they lose their identity and then they're sort of lurch searching for for that return of the identity. And I certainly in many of the women that I have I've coached who are coming back. th I I I see that. I see that they're they're searching that. And it's it the experience of Ironman or whatever sport that they're they're in that I just see the joy that it that it brings them of you know,

embracing that that new identity. but it is a it is a balance. I think we've we've really established that here. And that's but it's and I I also just reflected on your your comment about, you know, just do something. And you know it's almost like perfection is the enemy of great. Just, you know, you can just go do something. And that's so yeah, no, there's just been some beautiful messages.

Iris Nafshi (34:36)

Yeah, it's little it's little it's

it's less it's little mindset tricks like this. One of the women I interviewed in the podcast, she's actually a triathlon coach, and she s I asked her about what does she do when she misses workouts? When she has two little ones under three. And she said, T this is so simple, it's almost stupid, but it's so good. She said, My rule is no more than two days off. So I don't let myself spiral because then coming back after a week of not training is much harder. You start asking yourself, you know.

Like your mind will start playing game with you. You're not really good, you're not really serious, you're not bad. Will I ever be able to even finish that race? You know, you s you that's what your brain does, right? It starts protecting you by saying, Yeah, you missed a week, you can't go back now. And so she's like, I'm not even letting that happen. My rule is two days. And then after that, I have to do something. And so again, that's it's a little shift that don't let yourself fall off the the path.

Marjaana Rakai (35:06)

Yeah.

Iris Nafshi (35:30)

And just remember it's it's temporary. It's a I love this idea of it's a line in a paragraph, it's a chapter in a book. You know, for me right now, I know Marjaana if if if you talked about it already, we're both struggling a little bit with health issues, but we both know that it's a chapter in a book, it's not the end. And there will be something else. If it's not a full Ironman, which I still hope it is, then there will be something else. We will find a trail run crazy place to do together.

Marjaana Rakai (35:57)

Yeah.

Yeah. I I think I think what you're saying, like and and what you're what you discovered from your your study with iron moms is there's so much gold and advice there that is, you know, applicable to any anyone, not just, you know, iron moms or mums in general. Like what would you say are so you've mentioned little bit is better than nothing.

And after two days you have to do something. So don't let let it spiral. Wha what else would you s yeah.

Iris Nafshi (36:29)

What else? So

this is this is where I'm going to bring something from my leadership development world into the sport. a lot of programs these days are asking me and other, I'm sure, leadership development experts to talk about leading in times of ambiguity, leading in complexity. Everything is so fast and furious and changing with especially with AI. and so we teach this mindset of it's not either or.

It's yes and both and right and this idea to hold two things at the same time and not choose, that is holding complexity. So same goes, I think, when it it it comes to to sport. You can be both a mother and an athlete. It's not either or. Either you're a serious Ironman tra person who trains, whether you're male or female, or you're a parent. You can do both.

It's just a matter of building. This is really important here. It's it's building a system, just like in leadership, right? It's about execution, having first the clarity of what is it that we're trying to achieve in leadership. So here in sport, what is my why? What is my number? Why am I doing this? What is my A race, my B race? Having the clarity and then creating a system in leadership, right? To execute, what is your system?

Marjaana Rakai (37:21)

Mm-hmm.

Iris Nafshi (37:46)

Execute. And for everyone, it looks differently. For some, it's support from the spouse. For some, it's support from the parents if they live by. For others, is paid support. So this woman that I mentioned, Jackie, who did Ironman Kona three months post postpartum, she would tell me. Now she has another child since I'll go to swim and I'll just put them at the daycare. or I pay during the summer one of the kids, you know.

to to come over and to be with the kids for two hours while I'll go downstairs and and train. So these are ways to she's like that my kids love the neighbor. They're playing with them, they're having a great time. I can hear what's going on, but I'm but I'm still training, right? And so building that support system is is super important to be able to execute with clarity and and consistency. And you didn't ask me about this, but I want to say something. We talked a lot about the we can talk more, but

Marjaana Rakai (38:31)

Mm-hmm.

Iris Nafshi (38:42)

I what I found is the psychological resources that those moms are using and the behavioral strategies they're using. And my punchline in my dissertation was grit is not enough. Grit for the listeners, just as a reminder, is coined by Angela Dackworth, and grit is passion and perseverance for long-term goals. And you would think that people who engage with endurance sport are gritty.

And that's probably that willpower what gets them through the training and the race, passion and perseverance. And my claim was that's not enough. It gets you in the door, but that doesn't what help you deal with everything that life throws you as an iron mom. And what surprised me in the data? Well, I'll take a step back and say there's absolutely no data on iron moms. There is on women in endurance sport.

But when you sign up for an Ironman, by the way, it's true for ironman Dads as well. It's male-female, right? No, nobody's asking are you a parent or not? Neither of the you should ask, but I'm just saying, right? And so already we know that there's about, depends on the race, between twenty to thirty percent female participation in an Ironman race, full Ironman. Imagine the lower percentage of ironman Moms. We know they're there because we see the signs.

But we don't know exactly how many. and then nothing has been written about it. So I went after that and tried to unveil what who are these women? What is the age group? And I wanna share this a couple of surprising things. First of all, they are highly educated. I'm gonna I'm gonna have the numbers here next to me in my book that I wrote in my dissertation. The the they're highly educated, which I think is amazing to know.

30, almost 40% have a master's degree, and 20% have PhD or doctoral degree. That is a highly educated. And then the other thing is that well, maybe they're stay-at-home moms or they have their own business. 67% of them are employed full-time. Right? And so this is highly educated working full-time and integrating Ironman training.

And and so that and and there's a lot more that obviously I found. I think an important thing that I found also is that there's no correlation between grit and guilt. So you could be guilt, feel guilty, and still get after it. And you can also be very gritty and also feel low on guilt.

Paul Warloski (41:04)

Yeah.

Marjaana Rakai (41:11)

Mm-hmm.

Iris Nafshi (41:18)

Or you can be low on greed and no low on guilt. We meaning greet the this is where I go back to what I said, great is not enough. And so what I used, and I think it's important here, it's it's a little nerdy what I'm going to say now, but I think listeners follow me for a second. I it's funny because I studied Ironman and the framework is hero. Hero is

A framework taken from what's called psychological capital, which is really kind of if you think about it, is the capital that you have in your mindset to be able to execute difficult things at work or in sport. Hero is built of four terms, four different streams of research that was well proven. H for the hero is hope. E is for efficacy. Self-efficacy is confidence in myself, R is for resilience, and O is for optimism.

And so I was checking if those hero elements are translating for the iron moms. And what I found and added to the framework is self-compassion. So now I call it Shiro. I made it a little bit more feminine. Sh and self-compassion looks like

It's okay that you did get the training today. You're not a bad athlete. You'll get it in tomorrow. It's okay that your pace wasn't good this week. There was a lot going on with end-of-year activities next week, right? And so this ability to talk to yourself in kindness and not be harsh and say you're a terrible mom, you're a terrible athlete, right? And put yourself down, which some people could. And that's maybe when they're unable to sustain and stay in the sport.

So these Shiro were the psychological mindset in addition to grit. Grit, I told gets you in the start line. But what I also found that was extremely important in addition to family support that they negotiate with, or support in general, which could be coach, triathlon team, partner to partner with. You just mentioned that the partner was in crime, is

the adaptability and flexibility. That behavioral adaptation that Marjaana just mentioned. She said to me in one of the interviews, Marjaana, I took my bike, set it in the middle of the kitchen and biked it for six hours, hours while giving orders to everyone in the kitchen.

Paul Laursen (43:30)

Can see it.

Iris Nafshi (43:30)

They

will, you know, they will go and in the ki while the kids are in track and field, they'll run with them in circles feeling like idiots, but they'll do it. you know, when the kids are taking swimming classes, they'll swim also. They'll they'll find ways to get it in between and and it's not a lot of times it's the early in the morning, but sometimes it doesn't work, because the kids are waking up early, you know, to nurse them or

You need to sleep because you went to bed late last night. So they do it in between. And that adaptability to move workouts, to shorten workouts, to you know, combine them in different ways in the kitchen, right? is what helps them sustain and keep being many of them, like I said, full time employees, married most of them. The majority had two to three kids.

Ages seven and and and to eleven. So not just babies. Like older kids is actually sometimes more complicated because you st you have to start driving them to classes and also older kids are able to tell you, Mom, why aren't you coming to my recital today? Mom, can you come to my dance tomorrow? Can you see me on the game? Right? They verbalize when you want to there, which is sometimes can add a little bit more to the guilt. and so all this is what helps them.

integrate instead of feeling that they have to s manage separate identities.

Marjaana Rakai (44:52)

It's almost like you have to have this almost like close to being an absolute idiot with your optimism.

of time use and how you just make it work. Like it sometimes it feels like you have no time where you're actually sitting down and not doing anything. It's just like, what are you doing? Why are you not ever sitting down? Like it's yeah, it gets crazy sometimes.

Iris Nafshi (45:23)

does.

It does. It is it is a maniacal focus on timeline and planning. One of the women, and this is how I created my model. I put actually a rubric cube in the middle because one of the participants in the study said, it's it's literally my husband and I sit every night, and it's like a rubric cube that we are, you know, turning and and trying to solve for the next day. And in my dissertation, when I presented it, it's called the defense. I after I went through all the data collection and and wanted to present the model, I just put a

image of a rubric cube. And I said, what word comes to mind when you see it? So I'll ask you, what word comes to mind when you see a rubric cube? I I have one here. What comes to your mind?

Paul Laursen (46:00)

Puzzle. Puzzle.

Puzzle.

Iris Nafshi (46:05)

What else?

Paul Warloski (46:07)

Very challenging.

Paul Laursen (46:08)

Complex.

Marjaana Rakai (46:10)

Life.

Paul Laursen (46:10)

Okay.

Iris Nafshi (46:11)

So yes, yes, yes, and also things like sophisticated, you know, ever, ever, you know, challenging all those things you said, and I said exactly. And that's what these moms and families are dealing with. They're being sophisticated, challenged. You know, they're handling this every day, they're solving it. It's not that they have one system that they put in place and it's and they figured it out. They figure it out every day.

Marjaana Rakai (46:37)

yeah, time and time again, a new new solution. So like you find new solutions all the time. One season ends and the new season begins and then it the new new solution needs to be found.

Iris Nafshi (46:43)

yes.

Yes. And

When I when you do a PhD, you need to choose a question that the literature didn't answer yet.

I there were many, many things I wanted to study and there were many questions I wanted to answer, but about iron moms, there was not much that was studied, especially not if they're amateurs.

And so I kept coming back to this topic of

How are they doing it? And I kept asking always the wrong question. It's not how they're doing it, how they're balancing it. It's what is the infrastructure that they create and the mindset that they're using to help them sustain. And it it does. It adds it they bring a lot of sophistication, adaptability, partnership, as I said, with the community. And community could be, as I mentioned, coach, triathlon club.

It doesn't have to be many, but it could be even one person. It could be the sister, but someone that is there to be supporting them. They're not afraid to ask for help. That is key. And so I think the key for coaches listening to here is I know that when you start discussion with athletes, is what's your why? Why are you doing this? What are you hoping to accomplish? It's also, I'm sure, I'm sure you're asking, but it's really important to ask.

Marjaana Rakai (47:50)

Mm-hmm. ⁓

Paul Laursen (47:53)

Yeah.

Iris Nafshi (48:08)

Who is there for you? Who else might be there for you? And how they will be supporting you. And how difficult it is for you to reach out and ask for help. This will help you gauge how much maybe you need to coach this women, woman, to be able to create that system around her.

Paul Warloski (48:09)

Mm.

Marjaana Rakai (48:26)

Paul, I wanna hear we'll ask you, I wanna hear how do you h have you noticed, you know, when you coach your female athletes,

What what what is what are they saying to themselves and how do you guide them to keep going and stay positive?

Paul Warloski (48:40)

Yeah, that's a I mean, it's a really interesting question and and you know, and I don't know that I've actually asked my female athletes about, you know, who else is there for you? What's your support system? And I think that's a really good question to ask. And I think that they most of the women that I coach are are older and have, you know, their kids are are out of the house at this point. but they're still working, they're still doing that.

that balance of work and family life and staying home with you know, and being you know, having that that relationship with their with their spouse.

But it's that it's that you know, one of the questions that I had for you, Iris, too, was, you know, what about the people who don't have that support? How do they manage that? You know, that's the part of the the question, I think in your s your research you had like eight percent didn't have any support and yet they still were able to manage the the Ironman training? You know, that yeah

Iris Nafshi (49:34)

Yeah. I think

I think again, if I were a coach, I would pay attention to this. That doesn't mean this person is not able to to train, but I would pay attention as this could be a just like in leadership leadership, when I teach leaders about, you know, creating strategy, we're looking for red, red, red alarms. Like what are some signs that maybe this will fail? And what are some signs, early signs that this will succeed? So same here. This could be a red flag that maybe there will something to pay attention to.

Paul Warloski (49:42)

Right.

Iris Nafshi (50:03)

I'm gonna take a step back and say something about the maybe older woman where the kids are out of the house. Still, it's really important to have that conversation to say, listen, you want to sit with your husband if it's your first Ironman. And let him know that between, I'm just making it up, let's say the race it is in September, between June and August, you will be very busy. Some Saturdays will look like seven and eight hours you'll be out of the house. And the next day you'll be again out of the house for, I don't know, four hours. You'll be tired.

And you will be asking him to maybe order food, or maybe he can prepare something for you, right? Or you will be need to think about it and prepare the food in advance. But like giving them the flavor of what it would look like will help them source the right support that they need. support could look it doesn't have to be like

expensive and lavish, you know, by having more people around you. It could be little things like the week of a heavy mileage, I'll use Instacart and let go of the idea that I will be the one choosing the tomatoes. By the way, still cringe me because I will go and buy the tomatoes, right? Man will be like, I I let go of that. But that being able to to do that, it's a skill and it's important and

Paul Warloski (51:04)

Mm-hmm.

Ha ha ha.

Iris Nafshi (51:17)

so so that's that's something and now those without support, I will bring a story here from one of the women I interviewed in the study. she was a single mom divorced with two young kids, and she she met someone who was really fascinated by her Ironman training and started to you know get into it himself into bike and

Bought bike and started riding with her and it seemed like an amazing love story. And she would go to races and he would watch the kids or bring him with him. It it seemed like ideal. But then as you know, relationship settled, and she continued, but he probably didn't want to continue, didn't have the same goals. She said every morning when I would wake up at four to get the workout, he would, you know, wake up with me to make the coffee and start talking about the relationship.

and where we're going with it and what's not working. And I didn't want, I felt guilty, you know, saying, listen, I have two hours bike ride and I have to go. And so I would be in those conversations. And I really felt like it it was taking time away from me just instead of supporting me. So how do they do that? She got rid of him.

Paul Warloski (52:04)

⁓

Marjaana Rakai (52:20)

Yeah.

Iris Nafshi (52:24)

By the way, an amazing woman. She she she told me the story. I just couldn't believe it. But listen to this. She had a race, she was working full-time. She drove to a conference. I think it was like eight-hour drive. She didn't want to fly. She was at the conference. She drove back. She flew she she flew from there, I think, w with her bike that was with her to do the check-in. Flew back home to participate in Halloween party with her daughter.

So she wouldn't be just with her mom and then flew back immediately the night before into the Ironman. Who else does that, right? This these are stories of an unbelievable woman, you know, with no support that make it happen. Exhausted, underfueled, with multiple flights and drives to integrate work and life and Ironman.

Paul Laursen (53:00)

I mean

Iris Nafshi (53:15)

This is not the majority, so I haven't paid too much attention to how women without support doing it. I will say, I will state the opposite. My

Bold letters with a marker on it is nobody does it alone. Nobody. So even if you don't have a spouse or partner and you're a single mom, which I had, I had another interviewee that she's the first person on my podcast, and she was also in my study. She was the breadwinner, traveling a lot, and the husband was a stay-at-home dad. And unfortunately, in an accident in home, he he he passed away.

Paul Warloski (53:31)

Yeah, yeah.

Iris Nafshi (53:53)

And she had to reshift her priorities. She's still working, but she's now working in a demoted role, if you will, that she chose. And she this is how she entered into Ironman. She's doing really well. She's she went, made it to the world. She's she's an unbelievable woman. So she doesn't have the spas, but she relies on her parents to help and friends and community, right? And so my I will say this is why I'm mentioning it for coaches. Nobody does it alone. Not one of them that I interviewed. So

Ask them who is your support system. It doesn't have to be a long list. It it for me, it's one person only, my husband. I don't rely on triathlon Group, although I have an amazing shout out to Philadelphia Trathlon Club. I don't do it because I'm I'm actually afraid, feeling guilty. Here's the theme again, that I will say, let's ride on Saturday, and then last minute I can't do it because one of the kids needed a tournament shifted or the practice got longer and then I'm stuck.

Paul Warloski (54:23)

Mm-hmm.

Iris Nafshi (54:47)

So, and I'm getting someone else disappointed. So, I did all my Ironman training by myself. I want to say this trick to the listeners, the way I overcome guilt. Well, first of all, I became more mature and I studied and I understood how important it is to change the narrative. But the other thing, do it with your husband. So now we're doing relays together. I do the swim and the run, he does the bike, he became an amazing cyclist. It's a honeymoon. Every time we go on a race.

Marjaana Rakai (55:12)

Yeah.

Paul Laursen (55:13)

Yeah.

Iris Nafshi (55:15)

So he's he's he's amazing and you know, just an anecdote of support. I have like if I didn't buy for anybody, I did for some of my races the nice frame that you do at the end with the metal and the bib and whatever. And then we have two of our races that we did together in a separate place. And I said he he hang it hung it in a separate place in the room in the basement, in the paint cave. And I asked him, why why didn't you put it next to it? He's like, I'm saving it for you. I know you're not done.

which really was an aw moment. So he knows and he's supportive, but nobody does it alone. Even single moms. they find a way. the women I interviewed yesterday, Jennifer Silva, the episode will come in a few weeks, just won Ironman Jacksonville. She's a single mom right now.

You find a way. When you want it, you find a way. Just like finishing an Ironman, unless you're very injured, obviously. You find a way, you find it in you on why you want it so badly, what is it adding to you and your family, and you find a way to be flexible and and make it make it work.

Marjaana Rakai (56:19)

Beautiful.

Paul Warloski (56:20)

Wow. Iris, thank you.

Iris Nafshi (56:20)

Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you guys. It I enjoyed I enjoyed talking about ironmoms whenever I can.

Paul Laursen (56:27)

That's awesome. Thank you, Iris.

Iris Nafshi (56:28)

Awesome. Thank

Paul Warloski (56:29)

Thanks for listening today to the Athletes Compass Podcast. Take a moment now, subscribe, share, and let's keep navigating this endurance adventure together. Improve your training with the science based training platform Athletica and join the conversation at the Athletica Forum. For Dr. Iris Nafshi, Marjaana Rakai, and Dr. Paul Laursen I'm Paul Warloski and this has been the Athletes Compass Podcast. Thank you so much for listening.

Iris Nafshi (56:29)

Thank you.