Amy Hunt EXCLUSIVE: "Track Goddess, Academic Badass" - The Viral Star Taking Over Athletics

0:00I'm Spencer Matthews and you're listening to Untapped, where elite athletes and inspirational people show us how we can all untap our true potential. This week, we're joined by breakout star in British athletics, Amy Hunt, for her first ever podcast interview. After going viral for calling herself an academic badass and a track goddess, Amy burst onto the scene with world record speed and the confidence to match to take over the world. But behind the headlines is a story of resilience, the injuries that tested her, the pressure of being labelled the future of the sport, and the decision to set an example by earning a degree from Cambridge while chasing greatness on the track.

0:35Amy's journey is about more than speed. It's about redefining what success looks like and proving that ambition can thrive in every arena. Let's get untapped with Amy Hunt. Amy Hunt. Hi. Welcome to your first ever podcast recording. World premiere. Isn't that good? Yeah, that's kind of sick. Isn't that nice? No, because, I mean, you're pretty famous now. That literally, I think we can jump straight in with the academic badass and track goddess comment has done some traveling. A little bit, yeah. I think it's such a weird thing, right? Because when you finish these races, you get funneled up the stairs to speak to the BBC.

1:21And then there's all these lights and all these cameras and they're just suddenly shoving a microphone in your face. And your brain, you're not really thinking. You're just kind of so high on adrenaline and everything. You're not really realizing what you're saying. So I said that, but I kind of forgot about it for the rest of the day. And obviously, like so many things are happening, like drug testing, press conference, even down to like just having a massage at like 2am that night. And then the next morning I saw it in all the headlines and I thought, I actually said that? That's such a cocky thing, but it's not, but it is.

1:52You said in an interview that your go-to karaoke song is Man Eater by Nelly Furtado. Is it really? Or is that just the first song you thought of? That's literally the first song I thought of. They're like shoving a camera in a microphone in your face. And that's what I've been listening to a lot in warm-ups. So I was like, also, I know all the words to that. So I was like, okay. But I was trying to find like a safe enough song to say like on the BBC and nothing too crazy. I don't know what's... But then they let me change my mind the next day and I said something from High School Musical. Very nice.

2:22Zac Efron fan? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, who isn't? Yeah, we all should be. Can you take me through the race? Like step by step? Coming into that, I'd set probably one of the quicker times in the semis, but I wasn't really in contention as a medal kind of hope. A lot of the attention was on the other girls. But I had a very central lane. So we come out. It's my fifth time being in that stadium in the course of a week. So very used to it by now. But the crowd is unreal, right? It's the Tokyo Olympic Stadium. They hadn't been able to have fans in for the Tokyo Olympics because of COVID. So then when we came to the World Champs this year, they packed it out because they'd had they missed out five four years before um so the the noise was crazy um especially because we had some really big icons in the race um so we had people like Sharika Jackson and then we have a whole load of Jamaican fans who are very very very very noisy um and very visual kind of they're sat there all in yellow um so it's it's a crazy atmosphere it's one of my biggest races in my life.

3:30And we come out. I'm in lane five. We do the crowd introduction. I wait to the crowd, but I'm very, very serious. And I'm thinking about our plan. Which was what? Which was, we wanted to make sure I really got out hard. So the girl who was on my insides, who I'm really good friends with, her name's Mary Josie Tullew. She's one of the best female sprints of all time. But I didn't want to see her, right? I was like, I love you girl, but I didn't want to see your face. So we're coming around the turn and I'm thinking, as long as she doesn't go past me, I know I've had a quick enough first 50. So that's what I was thinking about.

4:03And I knew my strength would carry me through at the end because I knew I'd be stronger than most of the girls. So we get into the blocks, we get into set. And then out of the corner of my eye, I see someone go. And I was like, why did he do that? So that was a false start. So we got called back. But I'd seen her do it because I'm in lane five and I think she was in lane one. so I could just about like it was a very obvious false start um so then we stand there while she like talks to the officials and so you've just had to reset and you just have to completely forget about what just happens um and not think about her like taking this time and you just have to yeah get back to back to zero and just re-go again hey it's tony from tony told me on iyanla the inside fix a podcast from own iyanla vanzan revisits the stories teachings and insights that made her show fix my life a must watch for millions with fresh eyes she re-examines those lessons with greater clarity and shares new wisdom for the challenges we face today personal growth evolves over time and there's always room to find new meaning in old lessons.

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7:38we can keep bringing you incredible guests now back to our show with amy can you can you try and explain the feeling of just being in the blocks ready to go biggest race of your life loads of famous competitors on either side is anything going through your mind at all other than get out hard and and hit a great start are you are you thinking about a person or a song or like or anything? What is in your head? So we have a lot of time before the race, especially at these champs that the core room period was very, very long. So throughout that kind of like 50 minutes, I'm playing songs in my head.

8:20And the one I was really listening to was Alter Ego by JT and Dochi. So that was like a big one for me in the core room. But then by the time we're on the track, I'm just thinking about the plan as such. And I'm just trying to get in the most aggressive mindset. So there's a lot of swearing going on in my head. I'm kind of speaking out loud. Because obviously, because I wasn't one of the medal contenders maybe at that point, the cameras weren't really on me. So I'm just stood there mouthing like, go and effing kill them to myself all the time. And I'm thinking, thank God the cameras aren't on me.

8:55Because I was just trying... Imagine if it did just pan on you. And I'm just going, that's what I look like. I looked so intense. I knew the cameras weren't going to be on me, so it was fine. But I was just thinking, oh my God, I look like a right, like crazy girl right now. Because I'm just trying to get myself in the mindset as possible to just think pure aggression. Like no, absolutely no fear, no fear. Just get out and be as powerful and as aggressive as you possibly can. Do you make noise when you run? I don't think so, but some of the other girls do. Do you grunt or anything? No, but some of the other girls do a lot.

9:32Like they'll be coming out of the block and it's like, like, it's too, it's a lot. And they know who they are. I can imagine like, I can imagine like a good grunt. Like a, like a kind of bully kind of grunt. Some people, some people do. I don't think I do. No? Because I've never done it in practice before. But maybe, maybe something I need to start. I'd be a noise, I think. I'd make noise. Yeah, like tennis player kind of like, it's more annoying. Like, if someone does it, I'm like, the tennis player noises are annoying. They're like kind of, ah, Yeah. They're weird. No, no, I'm talking about like kind of animal, like, because you're just...

10:07I know what you mean. You're just trying to rip through the ground, essentially, right? It's like, it must be so exciting. It is. I think it's one of the most fun things. Like every time I went away after a heat or a semi and then came back the next day to the final or something, I just wanted to get back out on the track so much. It's just such a fun experience, even though my face didn't look like that. It's such a fun experience. but it's weird in the two because you're obviously starting on the turn so you're all a bit separated. Whereas in the hundred, you're all in the line. So you can hear and see what everyone else is doing.

10:41And I'm not the only one that talks to themselves on the start line. There's a lot of other girls that like will say stuff and little kind of quirks that people have. And some people try to be annoying on purpose. Really? Yeah. But like, and there's some things that I do that I know is annoying to other people. Like I really take my time. I really want to be one of the last people getting into the blocks because I don't like sitting there. Because some people get settled really quickly. So when they sell new marks, you get in the blocks and some people are then on their kind of hands for ages.

11:12But I don't want to be in that position where I'm having to think like, when's the set going to come? When's the set going to come? Like, I want to be like the last one and it's like set. And then I raise, this is giving away my secrets. I raise really slow because then some people when they hear set, they immediately go up. Now that I know your secrets, when we race, I'm going to be evil. You're going to do, you can think that do you ever look around when you're in like an Olympic stadium and pinch yourself a bit or do you feel like you belong there do you ever feel like a bit of an imposter are there any other famous athletes from Newark that I should be aware of I don't know I don't think so I feel like you're the only person to have come out of Newark and done something on like a world athletic stage.

12:02You could be wrong, obviously. Yeah, no, I think so. I think so. I think it's something that I definitely used to think about a lot more. But I think now that I'm coming into my own and I'm a lot more confident, when I get out onto these kind of stages and into these stadiums, I just feel so excited to be there. Like, I really love racing. I really can't overstate how much I enjoy just the act of going out in front of the biggest crowd and running it's so it's almost so primal that I'm just I'm just there and I'm about to run as fast as I possibly can like that's it like when you really think about it it's very um it's very simple and all these people have come here to watch you and they're all inspired by you they're all like happy to see you win and that everyone's cheering for different people so I think I just yeah it's just an enjoyable thing I never feel like I don't belong there.

12:56Especially because by the time we get to World Champs, you've proven that you belong there. You kind of, you make your own luck as you move through the round. So however fast you did the round before determines what lane you get for the next round. So I always feel like I've definitely earned my place here. I belong here. But I do sometimes like feeling like the underdog, like I really want to pull an upset. And like, obviously like at the World Champs, I really wanted to be like, yeah, no one's talking about me. Like, let me show why you should be talking about me kind of thing. let's chat about your career you're obviously very young you've achieved a huge amount already um in your fifth ever competitive 200 meter race you ran a 22 42 when did you realize that you were blisteringly fast i think um kind of when i was a kid right in primary school i was always um always racing the boys like every kind of playground time like every lunch break.

13:53I was in every single sports team when I was in primary school. And I think it probably annoyed some of the other kids' parents because I was just in every team, football, rugby, hockey, like everything. So I just always knew that I was kind of like naturally talented, but more that I kind of enjoyed it. And I was so unbelievably competitive was probably the overriding thing. I just wanted to beat these, beat the boys and like do well for the school. And then as I kind of grew up, my parents started taking me to like different sports clubs. So I actually, I used to do triathlon when I was a lot younger, which I hear is something you're potentially about to get into.

14:30It was really, really fun. But then I found I was like, not so strong than swimming, and I was cashing everyone up on the running parts. I was like, oh, maybe I should just stick to the running. Went to an athletics club and just like, the first year being at a track club I ended up top of the UK rankings for my age group and I was like I think I'm gonna go do this 200 thing now so yeah and then that race came along and we weren't even really targeting it because we went to this place called Mannheim and the GB kind of set up we always do relays there so we were doing the relays part of the under 20s then they let you do an individual event just to kind of have a bit of fun so the whole premise was I'm just going to go in, haven't done many 200s.

15:12We're just going to see how it goes. The whole idea is to just take in the moment, relax and enjoy it. And then I crossed the line and I saw the time. And I just thought, oh my gosh. And literally from that moment, it's very cringe to say, but my life very much changed as soon as I crossed the line for that race, because I became suddenly this under 18 world record holder across all the papers. And that was my big kind of first taste of of fame and like that's unbelievable though so hang on so what time were you expecting to set so i think the race before that i'd run maybe 23 one right but that was a long time that was in maybe like may and this was end of july kind of vibe um which is a massive jump like if I don't know how people can conceptualize that maybe, but like 0.7 is ridiculously large.

16:07Well, particularly as it puts you as a world record holding athlete. Yeah, but I didn't even know what the world record time was. That's how little we were targeting it. Because someone had to tell me like, oh, by the way, you just... I knew I'd done the junior records. I knew I'd done the British record and stuff like that. But someone said, oh, by the way, did you know you just broke the world record? And then it was just crazy. It was my first time getting drug tested. It was my first time like doing, which is weird anyway. Like that's a weird process, but nevermind coming off the back of doing something so kind of insane.

16:36And you were kind of, you know, for lack of a better expression, the talk of the town in 200 meters aged, you know, under 20, just generally. You were, you set the world under 18 record for women's 200. And that year you also won the gold in both 200 and the 4x100 meter relay at the Euros, the European Championships under 20s. At that stage in your, at that early stage in your career, are you feeling like you're going to be the fastest woman on earth? I was like, life is great. I think I was kind of a smart-ish kid. So I remember saying to people at the time, like, I understand this was a massive, massive PB and I might not be able to get close to it for maybe like one or two more years.

17:21So I did have that kind of maturity to say, you know what, this was a big thing. I understand that like it might then take a few years to like catch back up to this level. That is a very mature view. But why is that? So when people generally in sports, and even amateur athletes like myself, say, for example, do something that is unusual, right? So like you go out and you run a much faster 5k than you've ever ran before. And you can't really put a finger on why that is and then you struggle to replicate it. In your particular case, it's even more impressive shaving nearly a full second off, you know, your previous time.

18:03What is that? Is it just perfect conditions? Is it your mental health is in phenomenal order and you're feeling fit and it's the right crowd and the right conditions? Or what are the factors that lead to a truly phenomenal experience on the track? I think it's a lot of what you've just brought up. So some of it was the conditions for that race were almost as perfect as you can make them. So we have limits on how much tailwind you can have and it's up to 2.0 meters per second. We had a 1.8 meters per second tailwind. So I had a nice little bit of push down the straight. It was ridiculously hot that day, but it was in Germany.

18:44So it wasn't too humid, the air wasn't too heavy. So for us sprinters, we kind of like it to be as hot as possible. And then, yeah, I went into that race kind of feeling like I was just there to enjoy. I was just there to have fun. There was no pressure on me. So I think I kind of understood that things just aligned very much in that one moment for me to be able to take that step up and produce something my body had never kind of seen before. So I understood that, yeah, like that's things just aligned so perfectly in that moment. But even I'm capable of doing that. So I will then do it again. But it might just not be like the next race.

19:19I then shave another like 0.7 off. Did you know it was happening as you came out the blocks? I think it was such a weird one because like I'd lost a race to the girl on the outside of me like a year before. So I was just like, I just want to beat her to 50. Like as long as I'm beating her to 50, like the race will be fine. So I got out and like got rid of her really quick. And I thought, oh, this is going pretty well. and then I remember coming off the curve and the track was so hot that the bottom of my spikes was melting. I didn't realize that until the end of the race but I remember thinking, my feet are really hot, like really, really hot and then I just had no reference.

19:57As soon as I came off the turn, I obviously couldn't see any of the other girls and then I just kept going and going and going. I could hear that there was not a massive crowd, quite a small crowd but I could hear them getting really excited but I had no, again, I probably thought it was going to say like a high 22 so then when I saw 22 fall that's why there's all these pictures of me like like this and I was just so yeah so shocked and I think I didn't really know how to like process or handle that. Between your career as a junior and becoming just a senior athlete competing with you know incredibly famous faces from all around the world that transition was disrupted by COVID.

20:35Yes. And an injury? And an injury and a big fat uni degree. So I did this. This is where the academic rock star comes in. This is where the academic badass comes in. So I did all these crazy under 18 performances in 2019. So obviously I thought, yeah, life is going to be great. I'm going to go off to uni. So then I started my degree. I was planning to start my degree in 2020. But then COVID happens. So obviously COVID wasn't super conducive to like athletic performance in terms of all the tracks shut, all the gyms shut um and me being very young at that time and not necessarily entirely elite I didn't have the same resources that everyone had so I was kind of jogging around well not jogging around I was like doing trying to do sessions in the park but then people's dogs would be like running after me um which was terrifying um I was trying to just like keep things going as much as possible and then I did manage to have a tiny little like my first taste of an international season.

21:30I flew to Doha. I flew to like Poland. I did a couple races on the circuit, as we called it kind of that year, which was nice because I got a taste of what like proper professional athletics is like. And then in kind of October 2020, I started my English degree at Cambridge. With the premise that I'd had conversations with the academic staff then, they were going to be flexible and we were going to make everything work. It was very not flexible. It was very stressful. And then kind of the on and off situation with lockdowns made it increasingly difficult to navigate because I was already doing something somewhat unprecedented by just doing this very heavily academic degree alongside a track.

22:13But then this other kind of unprecedented thing of COVID, it became very hard to grapple with kind of making these systems and making these different lives mesh together in a way that was non-stressful. so um I found myself moving back home um and I found myself like I really burnt out that first year I remember waking up one day with my eye was like I had this massive eye infection because I was just so burnt out and and ill and I just was working so hard I made myself so incredibly poorly and stressed um but then we regrouped to the end of the year we were like it wasn't a great season I had a lot of injuries just from the inflammation like I had a really inflamed Achilles I just couldn't get rid of because there was so much stress happening and I was under eating and all these different things and but then we managed to regroup and get things really back on track um so the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022 things were starting to go really well again I was being really on it with my nutrition um I was being really disciplined we were doing a lot of driving back and forth but it was okay and then I did I did one race indoors um ran really fast did a couple more like flew to New York and then we got to the Birmingham Grand Prix that year and I was racing Elaine Thompson who's one of the the biggest stars of our sport um and I was in really really great shape really great shape I think I was must have been 80 no 19 at times something like that and I was just like yeah I'm gonna stick with these girls like I feel really good I'm ready to drop a PB it's a home crowd and then I got to about 20-30 meters in I thought my quad really really hurts.

23:51Like it's almost like cramping, but it's only 60 meters, right? Something in like, I can just push the end. It's fine. And then I got to 13. I was like, wait, I can't, I can't actually run. Like this is, this is really, really bad cramp. Got to the finish line. And then I was like, oh no, like I jogged across the line. So I'd kind of like given up on the race. I thought, oh no, it's actually, it's painful, but I can walk. And then as soon as I got off the track, it was like, I really can't walk. Like I can't put any weight through this. This is really horrible. So I had to be wheelchaired off.

24:23And they're trying to strap my legs in because of the safety things. But I'm like, I can't bend my leg. Like, that's way too painful. So there's this whole crowd watching me getting wheelchaired off. So I'm just going like this. I don't want anyone to see me crying. And then we find out kind of two days later after an MRI that I'd fully ruptured my rectus femoris tendon. So it attaches to your quad to your hip. And that had to fully come off the bone so it's very dramatic and very painful is that from coming out of the blocks um it's more like upright running so it's actually not an injury that many people in athletics get it's an injury that a lot of people in rugby and football get because it's sort of from that kicking motion so it's from having your quads so far back and then bringing it with a lot of force kind of through so there was only like two or three different sprinters who'd had it, but it was mostly from other sports.

25:15So we had some sort of blueprint with how to do the recovery and the rehab, but it was also a somewhat unprecedented thing, especially in someone so young. And then, as I've said, I'm really not a fan of needles or medical stuff. And then I had to do this big operation, which was, yeah, I think it's probably one of the hardest things I've ever done because I'm so afraid of anything to do, anything medical, anything kind of scary, injection, whatnot, never mind being put to sleep. So the whole concept of being put to sleep was very terrifying for me. But I remember thinking, if I don't get this surgery, then my career is fairly not over because you can rehab it without having the surgery, but it becomes, there's a lot more risk because you don't know how the tendon is going to reattach and where it's going to reattach and how strong the reattachment will be.

26:11So it was pretty much the only option I had to further my career. Might always be in the back of your mind otherwise. Yeah, I think I'd always be scared of doing it again. And doing it again would have meant like it's kind of very over. So I took the big leap. I went and had surgery the week after. So it was a very quick turnaround. It didn't give me too much time to think about the stress of it. And then, yeah, and then I ended up back at home, back in Newark with my family. Good old Newark. Good old Newark. And my poor dog had had, he'd had the snip like a week after I'd had this surgery. So I'm crutching around the house and he's in this ginormous cone and he just wants attention.

26:53So he's like running into my, like ramming my crutches with his cone, bless him. And like, obviously I'm getting really looked after him and he's feeling really like hard done by. but yeah I was like this this um 19 year old girl and I couldn't bend my leg and I couldn't our shower has like a step up so I said to people even in the last few months like one of the big things I remember from that was my mum was having to lift me physically lift me into the shower as I could grown kind of nearly 20 year old girl and just just to be able to have a shower after that surgery so it was a big kind of collective family effort for us to to come back from that.

27:27And it was, and then it was, obviously, this entire time, my degrees happening alongside of it. And they basically said, we had many fraught telephone conversations, where I was saying, look, I just had the surgery, can I just postpone my exams a little bit? Because this happened in kind of March, and obviously exams were coming up April, May, and I'd had a few weeks off and stuff. And they said, oh, you can only restart the year completely, or you can just carry on and do it as normal. I was like, wow, is there not? I remember saying on the phone, this university has been going on for a thousand years.

28:03Is there no one ever in the course of that thousand years that's had a situation similar to what I'm going through? And they were like, well, they just restart the year. And I was like, well, I can't afford to restart the year because then my final year would be when it's Paris Olympics. And that just sounds like a recipe for disaster. so I decided to do it as normal but it was it was so horrible and very very stressful just trying to and I was like as long as I as long as I pass I really don't care I just want to be done with second year and then that made me have a lot of thoughts about do I drop out like this has been really really stressful this has been horrible I felt really unsupported it's been very difficult to manage and juggle do I want to do one more year of it but then it was like well I've only got one more year left you've already done two years you might as well carry on and then I was like I also don't want to quit um I want to be able to do this so that other people can see you can do this but it was very it involved a lot of really hard conversations at that time of whether we stay or whether whether I went and what do you think the defining factor of that was I mean it strikes me that it was certainly in your mind to want to set an example for other people.

29:13They can, in fact, do two things at once in, you know, by giving yourself fully to two different things. It's often the case in interviews in here when I'm interviewing elite athletes that something had to suffer for them to get to where they were, whether that be family, friendships, education, you know, whatever that might be. And it seems that you're really trying to break the mold of that. Do you think if you hadn't been injured and that COVID hadn't happened, that you would have stayed in school? Yeah, I think the whole thing would have been so much smoother had we not had COVID and I hadn't been injured.

29:55I think it probably would have been a bit less stressful. But then I think the nature of the degree and what it requires from you is always going to be so, so heavy because there's almost no end to the amount of work that you can do. And that was one of the biggest issues I found was you, especially in terms of an English degree and you're producing kind of one or two essays every week, there's no end to the amount of work you can do. You can go on and on and on and on forever. So something would have eventually filled that stressful gap that COVID's provided. And I think it would have been equally as stressful.

30:28But you're right in the sense that I, I wanted to do it for myself and I wanted to be someone that was able to do kind of two crazy world beating things at once but I also wanted to do it because it hadn't been done really before I think only by like one other person um and I wanted to show that people didn't have to kind of sacrifice I think sacrifice is a word that gets thrown around a lot but I don't think I don't know people talk about oh you're sacrificing parties or sacrificing food I just don't that doesn't feel like a sacrifice to me because it's something I want to do what makes you as an athlete kind of stay in that lane if you know what i mean i'm always interested when i see um really fast people choose a specific event obviously i understand the kind of the difference in the events but you know would you be a really effective 400 meter runner or or a 100 meter runner i do understand that it is slightly different but at such a young age when you set such a remarkable time did your mind ever wonder well how fast could I go for 400 or you know do you do you splinter out a bit or do you just stick to that then I think everyone wonders what I'm gonna do over 400 it's something that people are very keen for me to to get going at um but I think it's something we will eventually get to but we want to try and squeeze as much out of the 200 160 before we then step up to the longer distance like the 400 will always be there but I want to get as much out of my like pure speed where I can and I'm still young um so I do also do the the hundreds and the the 60 which is an indoor event so that only happens like January February um but yeah even at the most recent world champs we were doing the 100 and the 200 so that comes with kind of like six rounds of racing across like six days maybe so it's a lot um but we kind of use the 100 as a way right now to prime me for the 200 so it always comes first in the schedule and then you've kind of like you've experienced going out and like seeing the crowd hearing the gun and the 100 for us is we're still very competitive at it but it's almost like a free event like if i can make the final at world champs in the hundreds which i was like 300 soft doing um it's like a big a big big deal because i'm not necessarily a pure hundred sprinter in the same way that some of the other girls are um but then each discipline so the 60 100 and 200 has its own little quirks like the 60 the 60 is fun it sounds like it should be the most fun event but it's also kind of the most frustrating because if you happen to not get a start you don't react as well to the gun like it's game over like you can step out of blocks and be like oh like it's there's no there's nothing i can do here like especially me with having slightly longer legs like there's there's only so much ground i can make up whereas in the two not at a world champs final kind of level but at other races you can afford to make mistakes and then you have time to rectify them during the race and there's kind of different especially in the 200 one of the things i like about it so much is that you can run different race models all the time so i can kind of wait and balance the race in different ways depending on maybe who my competitors are or what we're trying to achieve from the race um one of the big things i did this year was race a lot on the circuits where by the time we got to that final at world champs i'd race every single other girl so i kind of knew what tactics they usually use and and what tactics i should then use against them in a way so that's interesting i knew that race strategy was important in a 400 or obviously in an 800 or anything longer I did not realise that the 200 was anything but just going 100 % flat out Yeah, I think it's definitely different men and women I think the men tend to go a lot more like pure flat out but for me especially me and my coach come up with different race models kind of all the time depending where we want to push I think for me it suits as long as I'm kind of in their back pocket when we get to like 50 metres in and then once I come off the turn is my really big opportunity to make a big push.

34:39And then I'm probably one of the strongest slash fittest. So my last 50 is probably one of the strongest of the whole field. So that's where we tend to make up a lot of ground. But then other runners front load it a lot more. So they have a really fast first 50. And then I'm trying to then like catch them up and pull myself back in. I imagine it helps having targets to chase. You know, obviously, if the targets are really far ahead, then it would work in the opposite way. I've done that sometimes. I've come off the curb and been like, I've given myself way too much work to do now. Yeah. You were featured in Vogue magazine, Faces to Watch in the next decade in 2020.

35:19How did that feel? As a 17-year-old, it was very crazy. I remember we just, me and my mum got the train down to do this photo shoot. And then we rocked up and Jacob Elordi's there. And I'm trying to play it cool, but I'm thinking, oh my God, this guy's so attractive. This guy's crazy. and I'm there and there's all these gorgeous clothes and it was probably the first time I was getting my makeup done by a professional and getting my nails done and my hair um and I'd never done really a photo shoot before so I didn't know how to like pose or how to act but the photographer was so lovely bless him and he was really helping me through it and they made me sit down so I didn't have to do much general posing um but it was a moment to like stop and realize oh my my two little legs got me here that that's that's that's very cool and um any open places and buildings and situations that I never thought I'd be in but um it was very it was very surreal it's a very kind of fantastical kind of fairy-like world in a way um so getting whisked up into it for one day was was really really special um and then kind of being in sixth form and and going out at lunchtime to buy the actual copy and then bringing it back was was really really cool and And obviously, it's a big point for people maybe outside of track that don't necessarily conceptualize the times or the achievements.

36:38It's like, oh, that's actually a big, that's a big, big deal in real life. So it was Jacob Elordi, you, Austin Butler, anyone else who played Elvis? And Shuti Gatwa was there. Jacob Sartorius, who was big at that moment. Yeah, it was a bit crazy. It was a bit crazy because I was like, oh, I'm Amy, by the way. I do running. But then I was getting my makeup done with Jacob and he was so, so sweet because he'd just been like Paris Fashion Week. So I was like, oh my gosh, I was just in Newark on Trent. I got the train here, babe. Very different lives. But then he's a big reader and I was saying I was going to do an English degree and stuff.

37:16So we were really talking about that and it was like, oh, he's actually a nice, like normal person. And he brought his mom. So it was very, yeah, it was a big, I remember I was so giddy about it for days and days afterwards. And I'd actually always said I was going to buy, When I did something cool or even cooler, I was going to buy the jumper that I wore on that shoe. So maybe I need to track that down now.

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38:56Hey, it's Toni from Toni Told Me. On Iyanla, The Inside Fix, a podcast from OWN, Iyanla Vanzan revisits the stories, teachings, and insights that made her show, Fix My Life, a must-watch for millions. With fresh eyes, she re-examines those lessons with greater clarity and shares new wisdom for the challenges we face today. Personal growth evolves over time, and there's always room to find new meaning in old lessons. Listen to Iyanla, The Inside Fix, wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, it's Drew from the comment section. Some days my skin just needs a little coverage, and other days I want to go full glam.

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40:18As a sprinter, the feeling of plateauing must happen quite a lot. Like, you know, even as somebody that's nowhere near professional athlete level, like, you know, I would, you know, knocking any significant time off even longer distances is quite difficult. So do you ever feel like you've hit a bit of a sticking point? And if so, how do you get out of it? and you know when you get into these hundredth of a second where you you know you miss the finals by three hundredths of a second does your mind go to how can i get faster or is it about making everything else around you better like what what how do you how do you get faster basically as you guys because obviously because obviously you're you know you're currently not the fastest woman in the world but i imagine you would like to be the fastest woman in the world i imagine you probably have it in your locker to be the fastest woman in the world and i imagine that that's probably your goal is it yeah no for sure like i would um i've said in i've said in interviews in the past like i think i have some of the best top end speed in the world um and as we continue to like work and progress on the first half of my race um i'm world class at so much so many different parts of the race i am i'm one of the best in the world so as long as we can make the first part especially um get to that level then then things start getting like really tasty um but in terms of uh yeah missing out on by 300s was kind of a strange mix of emotions because 300s is so minimal.

42:08And you can look at certain things and be like, oh, well, I wish I had a faster reaction time. I wish I maybe dipped a bit more. I wish I maybe had a longer stride length. But in terms of when you're in the middle of a champs, you can't get too wrapped up in the ultra specifics of it. Because especially in terms of the 100, then I had to go to bed and we had the 200 starting two days later. So that all happened. But I had to deal with that emotion and that kind kind of, yeah, all the happy and sad emotions of coming ninth in the world, and then move on to a completely different race with different girls in two days time.

42:41The sense of, I definitely have experienced a sense of plateauing in the past, I think, coming out of the juniors and going through that transition, it was really rough, and I did definitely plateau, but the way I got out of it was making a really, really big leap and actually moving to Italy to be with my current coach. so I moved to a place called Padua two years ago which is near Venice completely new coach new setup new way of training a lot lot lot more intense a lot more mileage completely different language different food so I found that the way to break that cycle of feeling like I wasn't achieving what I had the potential to achieve was just by radically changing everything in my life I changed where I lived the people I trained with the coach my agents like I just completely reworked everything.

43:30So I was living a new life, essentially. I feel like that's good advice to get out of a plateau, just change the environment that you're in. Massively change the environment. That's interesting. I've never heard that before, but it makes a lot of sense. Like if you're doing the same stuff every day, if you're eating the same food, and if you're running the same sessions, why are you going to get me faster? I can expect anything to change. Yeah, you have to change. So in order to facilitate change, you have to enact the change yourself. you can't just expect it to happen without actually doing anything to work towards that.

44:03And at your age, I can't imagine you're going to get any slower. So all change is going to be good. Yeah. And it just, you need to find a way of like reinvigorating that passion. I definitely lost my passion for track along the way. So then going to a new environment really kind of relighted that flame for me in a way of, I really want to go to training every day because I enjoy it and I'm desperate to kind of get better. and I kind of take each day as an opportunity to be the greatest I can be at every single thing possible in a way. Like I'm always trying to like, each rep, each lift is trying to be as close to perfect or as perfect as possible.

44:43And then we reset and we go again the next day. So it's just trying to find that sense of love and discipline again. Who's helped you sharpen that mindset? So that's really interesting to me that somebody that ran a 22.4, right? Fastest time ever at that time at your age that you would ever lose your appetite for track, right? How do you keep your mind sharp? And how do you keep your focus? And who helps you with that? I think there was so many points along the way where I just didn't have that. So I ran that amazing time in 2019, but then I only moved to Italy in 2023. so I had kind of four years of ups and downs but mostly very very big downs kind of after hitting injury after injury and then having a major injury that required the surgery and then coming back from that but still struggling I was like I have to I have to change something I remember doing a race in in 2023 my dad had driven me down to London to do it it went terribly it was horrible it was one of my slowest times in years and I remember getting in the car on the way back and just like absolutely sobbing.

45:50And I just remember saying, I feel so lost. I just kept saying, I'm so lost right now. And then a few months later, I ended up making that big radical leap and moving to Italy. And then within six weeks of moving to Italy, I ran a massive, massive PB, which was about 0.6 quicker than what I'd run in that terrible race over 100 meters. So yeah, it was big for me having my family support around. you know they've always encouraged me to be to do anything that I set my mind to even though we knew going to Cambridge was going to be stressful or moving to Italy was going to provide stress along the way they've always made it a very supportive environment how long was it until you hit that time again so from running 22.4 to then running quicker than that it took six years I only ran quicker than this year yeah so it's big like that's insane that's yeah that's such an interesting take on success versus the pressure to continuously deliver and I think a big thing was that of that was just that I knew I knew I had something so even though I'd had so many ups and downs, I knew I had to keep going until I then re-found my love for it.

47:10So my discipline of track overrided my like passion for a while and it had to because that was the only way I was going to keep going. And then as the passion slowly came back and grew and I got more confident and I had more time with my coach. And then, yeah, six years later, it was amazing because I did it at London Diamond League. So it was in front of 60 ,000 home fans. My family was there. My coach's family was there. A lot of my best friends were there. So it was a really, really special moment. And there's a lot of videos of me like crying a lot. So I quite have quite a big crier. So that moment was really, really special for me.

47:42Because six years later, I'd finally done it. And there'd been a lot of people along the way saying, I don't think she's ever gonna break this PB. And there were probably a couple days where I didn't think I was gonna do it. But I knew I knew I had it in me. And I just needed everything to kind of come together. I can't imagine doing something that way around yeah like having yeah the kind of almost pinnacle of your achievements happen so fast so young and then chasing it for years with no like that that's that's a really interesting way to think about your career yeah and it really taught me a lot of patience in terms of some stuff is maybe meant to work out later on down the line it doesn't have to be working out for you right now.

48:28It might feel really horrible and really bumpy, but you don't know what's coming in like a year or two years or three years time. And it taught me to have such utterly radical faith in myself. I think I now have such a strong sense of belief in myself and my own abilities that is completely unshakable. No one can tell me that that's not true because I spent six years kind of like plugging away and plugging away and plugging away and finally getting there. It's like, if I can do that then I can kind of achieve anything and that took six years and it felt really long at times but then when I look back it's like it's long but six years is not that long in terms of a lifetime so did you ever question the time in the first instance so kind of when you were being disciplined and you'd moved to Italy and you were doing everything you could and really working towards your goals and by the way winning like lots of other stuff like did you ever think hang on a second that previous time that i said it's wild like you know is it real type thing i was saying to my coach marker i was like that kid was really quick like she was she was quick but that's crazy because like it must have been even when you were doing well you weren't hitting that it put it really into perspective i was like what i i appreciate it a lot of the time but in the last two years i've really come to appreciate how crazy that was i think that time would have got me fourth at this year's world championships and the year that i ran it would have got bronze at the world championships so i've really come to peace with with how crazy it was as a senior at yeah i would have come forth this year with that time like it's it's ridiculous um i appreciate it was good at the time but yeah only now i was like damn that girl she was she was crazy and then every single race where i'd be close i think i did one race this year where i was 300 outside that time and i was like i just got beaten by 17 year old me again um but it's also like having keeping that love for myself and and that appreciation of like yeah I was really good but I'm now better I just need to like bring it together but ever since I broke that time I've now done it I've now broken it like five or six times in one year so I just needed to get through that barrier and then everything was fine and what do you think that is is that is that a is that is that a boundary that you've just broken now so it's just achievable to you like what what does that say about your perception of what's possible?

50:44Some of it, a lot of it is mental, right? So it's like, I finally did it. And it proved to me what I already knew. So I knew I was quicker than it. But the results weren't necessarily showing it the times on the track weren't showing it. So finally doing it, and by quite a bit, so the PB was 22.42. And then I ran 22.31 at London. It was confirming, it was such relief to know that I wasn't like crazy. Like I did, I am quick now like I'm quicker than 17 year old me so it was a big moment to be like I've I my hard work is paying off and I'm things are starting to like coalesce and come together um but then some of it is is kind of like like in the sense that then that allowed me to get in better lanes so although I was quite quick last year I was always in the the worst lanes which didn't give me the opportunity to get a good time so there's there's there's the mental side but There's also the very practical side of that then put me in a group where I was one of the best 200 runners in the world.

51:40So I was starting to get invited to better things in better positions. It's making me think of, you know, for so many years, tens of years, if not hundreds of years, nobody could break a four-minute mile at all. And, you know, Bannister comes along and does it. And then all of a sudden, loads of people. It's just kind of like, it just took that, oh, human beings can run this. And then, you know, all of a sudden... Because I wasn't doing anything different. Like I was doing what I've been doing for the past two years. And then this one race, I finally managed to do it. And I actually ran the race really stupidly as well, because I got so caught up in the crowd and like it being a home meet that I really gunned the first 150 way quicker than we'd ever done.

52:17So then the last 50, I was like, oh my God, this is horrible. So I ran it like a complete idiot. But that just even doing that, I was like, that just shows that I'm capable of even more because I just ran the most like unevenly balanced race. And yeah, then once I got past it, it was like, oh now now i've got a solid group of times below that time it's like okay i'm i can definitively say i'm faster than 17 year old amy so you have another world championships before the los angeles games but i mean the olympics is the olympics right are you going to win in los angeles yeah yeah yeah for sure the the aim is um the aim is to get three golds um that 100 200 relay that That would be really, really cool.

52:59Yeah. 100, 200 and 100 meter relay. Yes. Three goals. Very heavy neck. But that's the plan. Nobody wants that more. Well, I was about to say nobody wants that more few than us, but I'm sure your family probably do. Maybe. Maybe you want it for yourself more than we do. But we will absolutely. I can't wait for that. By the way, we've been so lucky with guests. We've got quite a few guests who are going to be in LA. Yeah, no, we'd love to go. I feel like it's going to be the most sick games ever like proper social media also it's funny because the Olympics is the only thing that people outside of track tend to care about it's the only thing that has social currency in the real world like the world champs not everyone in the UK is sitting down to watch the world champs then even the other day I was watching a TikTok that was like when the Olympic comes on all I care about is sitting down and watching the dressage and the shot put and I've never seen these people before but suddenly I'm rooting for them and it just shows that people really care about the Olympics it's a big it's a big deal so to do well there kind of means a lot I think it's it's it's a remarkable thought to to win gold at the Olympics um but I mean I can't even imagine what it's going to be like for you like lining up in LA it's so exciting like it's it's I'm excited for you we barely know each other I just think it's I think it's so cool I visualize it all the time already to be fair because like the stadium is is insane and we have all the visuals from from the last olympics there and um with the rocket man and everything so um i'm already like very much excited about it and sometimes i will like um make playlists based on like where i'm gonna race and it will have like a strong influence of that place so i'm already kind of starting to curate that la playlist for when i'm visualizing la and stuff so yeah it's definitely already on my mind a lot Well, good luck to you and we hope you do really well.

54:52We will be watching, if not from the stadium, from lowly London. But last question from me before you head off back to Newark. Yes. Say hello. Say hello to Caunton. Can you offer some advice to our listeners on how they can be untapping more of their potential? It's my personal opinion that I think that we all have lots of potential that we don't use. And it's my hope that by talking to incredibly inspiring people like you, that we can help people, even if it's just with little actionable tips, that people can untapped more of their potential. So what would your advice be to our listeners? I think I would say to always bet on yourself.

55:42There's been many points in my career where I've made decisions that people haven't necessarily agreed with. Or I've made life a lot, lot harder for myself, but I've bettered myself that I would come through the end of it. Or even in terms of like, yeah, I've made a massive purchase in terms of recovery because it's going to come into play and it's going to help me in the future. And then it will pay dividends later on. But right now it feels like a big kind of like outgoing. But you always have to better yourself and maintain that kind of radical optimism and that like crazy self-belief. just having that sense of like yeah I'm always going to win I'm always going to come out of this allows you to take more risks and then they're going to pay off in even bigger ways Academic Badass and Track Goddess thank you for joining us thank you thanks for listening don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already that way you're guaranteed to be the first to hear of our incredible upcoming guests and trust me you do not want to miss them thanks again and see you next week

56:50Hey, it's Tony from Tony Told Me. On Iyanla, The Inside Fix, a podcast from OWN, Iyanla Vanzan revisits the stories, teachings, and insights that made her show Fix My Life a must-watch for millions. With fresh eyes, she re-examines those lessons with greater clarity and shares new wisdom for the challenges we face today. Personal growth evolves over time and there's always room to find new meaning in old lessons. Listen to Iyanla, The Inside Fix, wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, it's Drew from the comment section. Some days my skin just needs a little coverage and other days I want to go full glam.

57:30For those everyday moments like running errands or grabbing coffee, I've been loving the Merit Minimalist Stick because it's a foundation and concealer in one that gives me a really natural skin-like finish. But when I want more coverage, I'm reaching for the Hourglass Vanish Concealer every time. I know I'm not the only one who struggled to find the right foundation or concealer shade, which is why I always shop at Sephora. They have the best brands all in one place with so many shades, coverage options, and finishes, plus expert beauty advisors, free samples, and shade matching tools both online and in-store.

58:03So whether you're looking for barely there coverage or full glam, Sephora can help you find your match.

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