Jud Heugel MD is a pediatrician, father, endurance athlete, health tech startup leader, and mental health advocate blending clinical expertise with lived experience. He’s based in Seattle—though feels most alive on the trails around Bend, Oregon. Currently pursuing a Master’s in Applied Sports Psychology and writing on Substack, Jud brings a unique focus on using performance coaching strategies to help athletes—and really, all of us—overcome mental health challenges and thrive. He has s...

Neal Palles is a Psychotherapist (LCSW), Certified Mental Performance Coach (CPMC), and an endurance coach and athlete himself. In this episode, Neal and I get into some of the myths or misunderstandings surrounding mental health and mental strength in sport. In particular, we talk about: letting curiosity guide you when you have uncomfortable thoughts and emotionsaligning your goals with your valuesembracing the uncertainty in racinghow to build confidenceNeal has a plethora of knowledge and...

Welcome back to the Forging Iron Podcast, where we connect with people like endurance athletes, authors, sports nutritionists and mental performance coaches to share the science and stories of sport and performance. As iron sharpens iron, people sharpen people! My guests today are the co-founders of Liberty Track Club, an inspiring post-collegiate women’s running club that’s currently sponsored by Oiselle. Carey Gosselin and Veronica Eder are Nurse Practitioner and Data Analytics Manage...

My guest today is Anderson Bobo, the creative director for Oregon Track and Field. In this episode, Anderson shares the thoughts and insights he has from behind the lens of high performance programs and athletes that are competing for NCAA and Olympic titles. Anderson views his role as one of a story teller, which lines up really well with sport psychology: as we train and compete in races, we inevitably tell ourselves a story about our performances. Anderson give us some pretty powerfu...

What do 3rd graders, the FBI, and the university of Wisconsin athletic department have in common? They’ve all been taught mediation from my guest today, Chad McGehee. Chad is the Director of Meditation Training at the University of Wisconsin athletic department, which is a first of it’s kind position in major sports. Throughout this conversation, I think you’ll see why Chad is able to be at the forefront of this work, as he blends cutting-edge research and neuroscience with traditional medita...

What do you wish you could tell your coach, but for whatever reason never did? That is the fundamental question Dr. Sara Erdner and I explore, as well as the theme for her book: Dear Coach, What I Wish I Could Have Told You. If there’s one thing that’s clear about sport (especially at the collegiate and youth levels) it’s that coaches don’t just impact an athletes current physical skills, they also have a massive influence on their long term psychological well being, confidence, and mot...

Max Stoneking is an accomplished triathlete, former collegiate swimmer, as well as a triathlon coach and physical therapist (DPT). This episode is all about navigating the physical and mental challenges of sport and how to integrate it into your schedule alongside the demands and stresses of our work and social calendar. We talk about relative energy deficiency syndrome and the red flags to look out for in your own training. I really appreciated Max’s honesty in handling RED-S, which is somet...

Gordo Byrn is the former Ultraman World Champion, which is a 3 day stage race covering 320 miles with a 6.2 mile swim followed by a 90 mile bike ride on day one, a 171 mile ride on day 2, and after all that, just your standard, run of the mill double marathon, 52.4 miles of running on the islands of Hawaii. At the time of this recording, Gordo was dealing with an injury, but a few months later he’s winning the 55-59 age group at Ironman 70.3 oceanside, with a blazing time of 4:38 and a sub 1:...

In this episode, Jackson Heidesch joins us to talk about the highs and lows of running and the mental skills, or toolbox as he calls it, he's working on to help navigate that journey. Jackson was the 20th high schooler to break 4 minutes in the mile, running a 3:59.08. He also ran 8:42 in the 2 mile indoors his senior year, which at the time was #4 on the all time indoor list, and was 5th at nike cross country nationals. He currently runs for Duke University. Unfortunately, 4 minutes is...

Dr. Zuleger is a Certified Mental Performance Coach, P.H.D. in Sport Psychology, and the Coordinator of the Applied Sport Psychology master's program that I'm in at Adams State University. Dr. Zuleger has worked with a wide range of athletes and teams, including NCAA champions and olympians but he's also passionate about educating coaches, both in how to they can help their athletes with the psychological side of sport but also in how coaches can view what they do as a performance. It's so fa...

This is a continuation of my conversation from Part 1 with Dr. Zuleger, but we focus more on the coaching aspect of things. The thing is, most coaches aren't taught leadership skills, they're simply picked because they were a good athlete or have been around the sport for a long time. But experience doesn't necessarily mean you know how to lead and create positive team cultures... We talk about developing coaches as leaders, how they can better utilize captains, and see their own actions and ...

Ellen Davis is a CSSD (Certified Specialist in Sports Dietetics), entrepreneur, former division one athlete for the University of Missouri, and a proud boy mom. One of the things I really appreciate about Ellen is her practical advice, being able to distill the science of nutrition and fueling into something we can actually use in our daily lives. In this episode, Ellen and I talk a lot about: Relative Energy Deficiency Syndrome, aka RED-Sfueling for performance in real lifethe impact of mind...

Today's episode is a real treat. Brady Holmer, or Brady from X, as he's referred to in the streets, drops by to give us a glimpse of his unorthodox marathon approach. Spoiler alert, he used it to crush a sub 2:28 marathon...only running 4 days per week! We talk about what he enjoys about the approach and why he thinks it's working, as well as why he started it in the first place. We recorded this a week out from his race, so it was great to see his confidence in the plan even before kno...

My guest today is none other than Craig Alexander, aka Crowie, who likely doesn't need an introduction for triathletes, but for those who might not know him, Crowie is a legend in sport. Not only is he a 5x Triathlon world champion, including three victories at Ironman World Championship in Kona, he also had an incredibly long career at 25 years, racing well into his 40s which his just a testament to the sustainability of his approach. In this episode, we talk about what separates the best of...

Austin O'Brien is a CMPC (Certified Mental Performance Coach) and 2020 Olympic Trials Marathon qualifier and competitor. In this episode, we dive into the difference between outcome and process goals, the benefits and challenges of shifting to a mastery orientation, how to conceptualize race strategy, and more. Austin shares a ton of great nuggets of wisdom, whether you're an athlete, coach, parent or human being. Let us know what resonates with you, and share it with a friend! Austin has ...

We hope you enjoy this conversation with Robby Wade! Let us know in the comments what stands out or resonates with you. Better still, share it with a friend who might find it interesting! Some of my favorite highlights: the game changing way Robby and Rythm are doing blood testinghow to think about blood work for athletic performance AND long term healththe crazy way Robby overcame fearhis mindset on training and entrepreneurshipIf you have a specific question for Coach Griffin or want to get...