It’s Labor Day weekend here in the U.S., which means it’s time for another Lightning Round episode with some of our TKFLASTANIs – and this time, we’re keeping it in the world of athletics. Runner Madeline Manninng Mims talks with us about being a Tigerbelle and just how hard training could be. Race walker Evan Dunfee shares where you can get the best doughnuts in Canada. And marathoner Abdi Abdirahman shares the secret to getting good pins for his Olympic pin collection.
Thanks so much for listening, and until next time, keep the flame alive!
TRANSCRIPT
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Jill: [00:00:00] Hello, fans of TKFLASTAN, and welcome to another episode of Keep the Flame Alive, the podcast for fans of the Olympics and Paralympics. I am your host. Jill Jaracz joined as always by my lovely co-host Alison Brown, Alison. Hello, how are you?
Alison: I got my sneakers double noted. I’m doing my stretches. I am ready to go.
Jill: it is a Labor Day weekend here in the US. So we are having a lightning round episode. This time, we are focusing solely on athletes who have competed in athletics,
Alison: Run, run away, run far away or walk. very quickly.
Jill: First up, we have Madeline Manning Mims. Madeline was the first African American woman to compete in the 800 meters when she did so at Mexico City in 1968, she was then the first American woman to win the gold medal in the 800 meters.
And that record held until Tokyo 2020 when Athing Mu won golden 800 meters. Madeline also competed at Munich 1972, where she won a silver medal as a member of the four by 400 meter relay team. And she competed at Montreal 1976. The US boycott of Moscow 1980 kept her from competing at a fourth games.
After her competitive career, Madeline founded the United States Council for Sports Chaplaincy, and she has served as a chaplain at most summer games since 1988. We talked with Madeline in the fall of 2020 about her Olympic experiences and her work as a sports chaplain, take a listen to her lightning round.
Where is your Olympic medal?
Madeline Manning Mims: In my drawer in my bedroom. reason I, cause I have a gold and a silver and the reason I keep them there is, when I go out to places especially with kids and everything, I’ll take ’em with me so that they can put ’em on.
And I didn’t, you know what the thing is, I’m still shocked at what it does to the emotions of people. You. That have never seen a gold medal or never seen an Olympic medal at all, you know and to put something around the people have caught their breath. I had, I , this is funny because let’s see 2017, I went over to Berlin and I was doing some ministry over there as as concert artists, artists, and, and.
Conference that was being put on for business people who were wanting to get involved in sports. And I will never forget. I had the medals with me, I had ’em on me and they would come up to me and they would go, could I, could I touch them? I was like, yeah. , would you like to put ’em on?
And, and, and, and some people would, oh, no, no, no, no. They were so reverence. I was like, it’s just the thing, it’s just, it’s okay. You can look at it, you can touch it, oh, okay. And then, or I’ll put it around their neck and they would lose their breath. This one lady
she’s fainted in my arms. I was. Oh, my gosh. wow. I was like, is she okay? And they had to pan her and go on, I said that takes the cake I had no idea that would do that, but I have to recognize what it means to people who have never paid that price. To receive that type of accolade at that highest of level.
I think I still don’t really understand it yet, but I appreciate it. I really have an appreciation to the award of seeing it and watching others On the TV on the Olympic channel, you know as they receive. And I, I look, I look at them looking down at their medal and turning it over and look, cuz it is a spectacle that you wanna like, let me see what this looked like, what this feel like, you know all this work that brought me up to get this, but the, it it’s a short lived experience. You may go back home and the Olympics medal is there for you and whatever, but it’s a short lived experience. And unfortunately, [00:05:00] a lot of times you’re looking for more, that wasn’t enough. I, I, I want more one, maybe one more, and, and then you get to be like with Carl Lewis or Michael Phelps, and you’ve got all, all these medals, and, and I remember Carl, I think it was his, yeah, his father that he put one of his gold medals in his coffin and I’m thinking
He can’t see it. He can’t feel it. There’s nothing that his dad could do with that, Mel. But I knew, I understood that his dad and mom started him in high school, and so it’s sort of like, we did it type of expression, but it showed the, this is not an idle God that I worship and. The Bible talks about heaven and the streets of gold.
I’m like, Hey, this is something they walk on up there. This is not something to be worshiped and idolized, but I do understand what it means to a person who has not received anything of that type or of that. Experience what it may emotionally do, even though I don’t understand the whole thing because I have one, I have two in fact, so, interesting.
I’m thankful. Yeah. And I didn’t mean for that to be that long.
Jill: Oh, that’s okay. We love it. When. We love the stories.
Madeline Manning Mims: I know, I’m sorry. I was trying to be quick with this and a story came to my mind that, okay, I’m gonna try to pull this in. So
Jill: what is your first memory of the Olympics from when you were a kid?
When, when did you first know they were a.
Madeline Manning Mims: I was 12 and I heard about Wilma Rudolph. And I heard about the Olympics and I didn’t know anything about the Olympics. I was like, what is that? And it said, it’s then my, my stepfather at that time said, it’s sport where you go and the best in the world come and they compete against each.
and only thing I thought about is after you told me about Wil Wilmar, Rudolph was a black lady that was the fastest in the world among other women. All I thought about, well, I’m in the projects and I’m running around beating the, the boys around here. Maybe one day I can do that. That’s about it. I didn’t know anything until I was discovered in high school by my And he started me on track cuz he was an Olympic coach.
Mr. Alex forensic. And he was, he saw me running, asked my mother if he could work with me. And then the next year I was first girl in the world to break 55 seconds in the four 40 yard dash. and then it, it just went on from there and went to Tennessee State University. And he and that coach there, coach, Coach Temple, Ed Temple was also an Olympic coach and they got together and began to work together on my workouts.
And then all of a sudden it happened. There, I was watching the world go by me at the, in the Olympic village. It’s amazing. but I wasn’t like, like, yeah, I wasn’t like the kids are today. You know Our kids are so knowledgeable about the Olympics and they see it on TV and that type of thing.
and you hear the kids, kids will run up to me and say, I wanna be an Olympic champion, just like you. And my, my response is really, are you ready to crawl in your vomit? And they’ll go. Oh, . I was like, yeah. It’s so
Jill: wait, so how many times did, how often did you crawl in your own vomit?
Madeline Manning Mims: Every time it was hot oh,
Alison: I was gonna say once would’ve been enough for me,
Madeline Manning Mims: I, I know, I know.
There were times that I, it was so hot girl. I would actually faint on the track after getting finished with one of the things that I had to do uh a repeat this or a repeat that, and, and it would be so exhausted and needing water that I actually would faint. And, and I would. And end up crawling in my vomit.
So thank God. It wasn’t a whole lot of times, but it was enough.
Jill: Wow. Another side question. Cause gotta ask. When you got to be a Tigerbelle, what was the legacy of the women before you, by the time you got to
Madeline Manning Mims: CC? No. Wow. Well remember at 12 I told you that that’s when I heard of Wilma Rudolph mm-hmm well, Found out that Wilma Rudolph went to Tennessee State University and was a Tigerbelle in Rome in 1960.
And she actually in 56, she [00:10:00] was at Tennessee State University too. And she would come back while I was there to just encourage us and talk with us and a, a lot of the older Tigerbelles who set precedence in the. They, I mean, Coach Temple had a barn full of sprinters. And they were top in the world.
And so we had to leave live up to that legacy. They did not play. When they would come back, they would wanna know what we were doing and why we were doing it. And don’t be embarrassing me out there, you know and they didn’t talk they would talk. And when they would get together, Oh, my gosh.
It was like they were still on the. They would be wolfing at each other. Yeah. You know I beat your so and so out there, well that’s, because that day I was sick, but you, you know I was 15 when I beat you, I mean, this they’re going back and forth. Like it’s just happening. And I’m like, oh my gosh, these, I think they gonna kill us if we don’t do so good being a Tigerbelle.
You no joke. Hey, it is no. In, in fact, this is off the curve. I’m tell, tell this is sidebar. Cheeseborough is the head coach now at Tennessee State University it’s and it doesn’t have the same type of quality of athletes that came up during the time we came up. And one time I came, I went there and she had about a hundred hundred athletes.
And I think 75 were there at the time practicing and she called them all over and they sat down and I said, I see that you have, she introduced me and said, I see that you have the Tigerbelle shirt on. And I said, how many of you are Tigerbelles? And they all raised the hands. I said like, all of you are Tigerbelles.
They were, yes ma’am. So I said, okay, so how, how many nationals have you been. And they looked at , they looked at each other and they looked nationals. We’re just trying to make our conference. And so I said, in other words, you haven’t even qualified for nationals. No, that is hard to do. I was like, yeah,
but the Tigerbelles are the best in the. . And so it baffles me that you have not even made a national team or gone to the nationals to even participate, to try to make a no ma’am. And I said, okay, then if you haven’t, that is not a Tigerbelle. So take those shirts off. And I was teasing. But they didn’t know it
And so they looked at each other and like, okay. And they started coming outta
Alison: bells. Don’t why would think you were not serious? I would’ve been scared.
Madeline Manning Mims: Exactly. They were frightened. And so I started laughing. You take my shirt off. I know. And Cheese, Cheese was cracking up, but she was like, cuz she knew I was teasing, but they didn’t. And so they, they started coming out and I said, wait, wait, wait, wait, no, no, I’m just teasing you.
I’m just teasing you. I said, I, I just didn’t realize that that was the level that we’re at now. And he said dog, you mean to tell me that your. All of y’all made the NA, I said, every last one of it, I said on during the 68 Olympic games, there were eight of us and all eight of us made the team. I said there were two girls who were from a different country, but they made their team.
I said, we didn’t play and you shouldn’t be playing. If you’re gonna represent us. I said, now I’m telling you something, I was teasing with you. But if some of those mamas that came back to us and asked us, okay, you wearing that Tigerbelle, what had you done? They would not have been teasing and, and no telling what they would’ve said to you.
And they were like, oh wow, we got a long way to go. I said, yeah, but you, you can get. and I mean, it’s a large team, so all of you aren’t gonna get there, but you know, I think that you can go higher than you’re going now because the stakes are too low. You need to put your stakes up higher and expect yourself to do better than what you’re doing.
Now. I said, coach, I know Coach Cheese didn’t choose you here because you didn’t have any type of talent. [00:15:00] You’re not gifted. It’s the fact that you haven’t set the goal, the bar high enough to reach your ultimate. That even if you miss the bar, you still are up there. They were like, yes. Ma’am. so that’s my sidebar.
Anyway. Next.
Jill: All right. What was your favorite training exercise?
Madeline Manning Mims: Oh,
Alison: Besides crawling through your own vomit.
Madeline Manning Mims: Yeah. That wasn’t a training exercise. That was the result of hard training. Oh my, my I worked extremely hard and I was very hard on myself. So there wasn’t a favorite exercise or training that I did. What was. What, what I loved and coveted the most is winning.
Now, all that hard work that I would do would pay off on the track. So what I share with kids today, I said you know you, you can work hard in your training sessions so that you can enjoy your competition. When competition came one, you can’t rub a SAB on yourself and, and say, I. When, or I wanna be in the top three or whatever, there’s nothing, it’s your confidence of knowing what you can do out there.
So that was where my favor would come into contact with. The element of training was that I would put all that training together. And one thing I would think about is, oh, I only have to do this one. In training, I might have 20 of these toughies to do or I may have 10 of these toughies to kill me, and when I think about, Hmm, I only have just, just this one time to do this, it would make a difference. It would confidence.
Jill: What sport would you do or coach, if you, if you could be an Olympian in any sport, other than athletics. What
Madeline Manning Mims: would you do other than athletic? Yep. No, no running. Hm.
I think that ice skating is beautiful. although I hate cold weather so I don’t know how you gonna get me out there, but I love to watch . I love to watch the ice skating in the movement. It’s probably because I, I really love the dance. I do worship dance. I not as much as I did before, but ever so often.
So I love move. And if I would like to be involved in anything, I would like to learn more about ice skating. Interesting.
Jill: Interesting. And then finally, what is your favorite Olympic souvenir? My gold medal . Oh, well, how about other than the other than the medals?
Madeline Manning Mims: Oh, other than the medals souvenir.
Geez, I’ve been the fourth. So, well even, even the one that was boycotted still had its mascots. I really loved Beijing, even though I didn’t compete in that one in 2008. I really loved the, it’s different mascots that they had that they made available. That that was so colorful. I, in fact, I bought a lot of stuff and gave us a lot of stuff away in memory of that games.
And so I would, I would think the uh 2008 mascot from Beijing, China. Excellent choice.
Jill: All right, Madeline, thank you so much for your time.
Alison: I realize we have a direct line now to Wil ma Rudolph. Oh, through Madeline. Yes. Cause through Madeline we’re only two degrees separated, which is pretty fantastic.
Jill: I just I’d love talking with her so much. It’s worth checking out her old episodes again. We’d like to give a big shout out to our Patreon patrons who keep our flame alive.
You can find out more about patronage at patreon.com/flame alive pod. Now, if you are a patron who is a gold medalist and above you get the chance to ask us anything. So we’re, we’ll be looking for your questions this fall. If you want to get in on that action, head to patreon.com/flamealivepod.
Next up we have race Walker, Evan Dunfee.
Evan has competed at two Olympics at Rio 2016. He placed a 10th in the 20 K walk and got a controversial fourth place in the 50 K walk at Tokyo 2020. He got on the podium with a bronze in the 50 K walk. And recently he won the gold medal at the 10,000 meter race walk at the 2022 Commonwealth games. We last talked with Evan as he was preparing for Tokyo 2020.
Take a listen to his [00:20:00] lightning round.
All right. Lightning round. What is your first memory of watching the Olympics when you were a kid?
Evan Dunfee: I was 14. I was at my uncle’s place. We had a bowl of quarters on the table and we were betting, betting on the events. I knew nothing about it. But Perdita Felician was favored to win the hundred meter hurdles for Canada and my uncle bet on her to win.
So I just went while I got a, unfortunately I have to bet on her not to win and she hit the first hurdle and, and, and didn’t finish the race. And I still feel a little bit bad about that.
Alison: It was all your fault. Evan,
Jill: What year was that one?
Evan Dunfee: that was oh four in Athens.
Jill: Oh my okay. Yeah. Sorry, we, we learn our ages really quick on this question.
Evan Dunfee: yeah, my like, and which is funny, like my most people’s first sport memories are from, you know especially like when they grew up, I grew up wanting to go to the, my dad coached in Munich in 72. Oh,
Jill: great. It was on my list too. You have a big history here. Yeah. So I, your great uncle. Great, great
Evan Dunfee: uncle. Yeah. I grew up like hearing that the Olympics were this really cool thing and, so that’s all, it was, it was always this like background. I remember my friends and I sat down to watch Munich one time and, we’re too young to actually get into the nuances of that movie. And we’re bored halfway through and my dad just went, I’ll just turn that off. I’ll tell you what happened.
and, and we spent an hour and a half listening to him. Tell us, tell us about being there. But it is funny that like my, yeah, my first Olympic memory doesn’t come until, well, after my Olympic dream was kind of there it just was an Olympic dream that wasn. Wasn’t bred from, from watching, from, from some inspiring moment of, of, it, wasn’t watching Don and Bailey win, win in Atlanta, for example, which for a lot of Canadians, it is.
And it, for me, it was probably just hearing stories from my dad about how cool it was and then watching it when I was a teenager.
Jill: Do you hear stories about your great greatuncle? Who did the marathon in 1912?
Evan Dunfee: Not really. Like the only thing I really know about that is that, so he so the Cuban athlete who covered himself in beeswax to not get a sunburn and then couldn’t sweat and, and unfortunately became the first Olympian to, to die during competition.
My, my great-uncle apparently stopped and, and stayed by his side until, until paramedic showed up and. Continued on running which just shows one sort of how different the Olympics were back then, but um yeah, it was pretty cool sort of learning that story. And he’s also the only other, he’s the only ginger on that side of the family which is just kind of cool that like he also, and he also played professional hockey.
I played very low level hockey, but I, I, I really enjoyed hockey. And so just funny to see the sort of like the. Compare and contrast those, some of those things it’s, it’s, it’s fun.
Alison: Okay. Just on a side note, before we started the interview and we were going through our notes and Jill had put in that his nickname was Rover.
I said to her, I, I love him just for that nickname. And now finding out he was a ginger. I love him even more
Rover the ginger. I, oh.
Jill: All right. where do you keep your diploma from Rio?
Evan Dunfee: Oh, God, I have no idea. It’s my, my mom has a scrapbook that’s full of, of newspaper clips and all that stuff I have. It might be in there. It might be in my childhood bedroom somewhere. Yeah.
Jill: What is your favorite training?
Evan Dunfee: My favorite tr so my favorite day of training, when I’m really fit, we’ll go and do we’ll have, we’ll do a 40 K in the morning and we’ll do a 10 K tempo in the afternoon.
And when I nail that, it’s just a great day. Usually some donuts involved afterwards is celebration. That’s, that’s, that’s perfect. Although I don’t really need a, I don’t need anything to celebrate, to eat donuts, but it’s, it’s easier to justify when I’m celebrating something.
Jill: Tim Hortons or do you have a different donut
Evan Dunfee: chef?
Yeah, I’m I’m I’m this is Blay, but I don’t really like Tim Horton’s donuts.
Alison: You’re gonna lose your Canadian citizenship. They’re gonna kick you out.
Evan Dunfee: I’m gonna lose my Canadian citizenship because this, this thing that’s owned by a Brazilian company.
Alison: It’s still gonna kick you out. You can’t say anything abouts. All right. Well donuts
Evan Dunfee: then best donuts. I, I, I mean, I, this, this is gonna be ridiculous, like grocery, like the dollar grocery store donuts, like. They’re great. And they’re a dollar, so you can, you can get three of them. Whereas you go to like a fancy donut place and there’re four donuts of donut, $4 of donut.
And you’re like, well, I could, this is obscene. Yeah. I’m a, I’m a very simple person.
Jill: Well, I, I, when I’ve, I’ve thought this quite often over the last hour of, of how much money there is in race walking and this, this lets me it’s another insight. Yeah. The [00:25:00] sponsor knocking down your doors to give you six figure
Evan Dunfee: about, about half of my monthly credit card charges are $2 charges for subway cookies and $1 charges for donuts.
When I go to physio.
Alison: I’m sure your nutritionist is thrilled with that.
Evan Dunfee: Yeah, we won’t sound the link.
Jill: Another side question. When you say really fit, like what does that mean? How, how unfit do you get in an off season?
Evan Dunfee: Cert like there’s a really fit for me is when I can go and walk 40 K and then finish and be like, that was fun.
And that usually comes after like, So this summer, I did 12 straight weeks of doing 40 K plus training sessions on the weekend. And after like four or five of those, it got to the point where yeah, finished 40 K and you’re like, okay, sweet job done. Like, I just did a marathon. That’s cool. That for me is like, when I feel like invincible and like super fit is just like, yeah, let’s go onto a casual marathon.
No big deal.
Jill: What sport would you do or coach other than we’re taking a lot off the table, other than race walking. Uh We’ll take off running in general, cuz you have run and you do that stuff and we’ll take ice hockey off the table too. You can’t take ice hockey the table. Cause he played as a kid. Yeah. Canadian.
Alison: Come on. Really? Exactly.
Evan Dunfee: I do still. I will. I do still play. Do still play hockey, not ice hockey. I, I play like a co-ed co-ed ball hockey league or did pre pandemic.
You’re doing
Alison: well. We’re still arguing about taking ice hockey off the table. we’ve already gotten you in trouble with your Canadian citizenship. So we really don’t wanna get you in trouble, but say anything bad about ice hockey.
Evan Dunfee: I mean, I, I, I think my opinions on Dick pound have also led to my Canadian citizenship being in jeopardy.
So,
Jill: oh, oh, Evan can go rogue on Dick pound. Cuz Dick pound we say Dick pound goes rogue a lot and just shoots off Anot. Okay. The sport that you would do or coach,
Evan Dunfee: I. I, I found it funny that you said I can’t choose race walking or running because I, why would these things are so like, why they’re not, they’re not that enjoyable.
They’re not that, that fun, like pole vault pole vault looks like the most fun thing in the world. Like you just propel yourself six feet in the air and fling yourself over this bar. Like, I don’t know. I think, I think that would be the coolest thing ever. Yeah. Pole vault would be, be awesome. I’d love to be.
The athlete and just be able to do like all those things and the camaraderie that they have, and like just the, that atmosphere that the athletes have around competition. I love that. So, Paul vault decathlon would be my choices within track and field. And if he made me choose a sport outside of athletics
Uh I really love the field hockey guys. I’ll I’ll, I’ll say field hockey. Okay.
Jill: That’s cool. And lastly, what is your favorite Olympic souvenir?
Evan Dunfee: Oh um I mean, my, my team Canada Olympic ring has gotten me a free drink once. So that’s probably been my most valuable Olympic souvenir. I don’t, I don’t know. I have, I have a stuffed Vimy from, from Rio on my very masculine display of all my mascots in my living room.
Jill: What other mascots do you have?
Evan Dunfee: Um I have patchy from Toronto that we got when we got our medal. I have a beanie baby Kiwi, cuz my grandma was from New Zealand. So we have a lot of Kiwi stuff. We have our Olympic, our team, Canada mascot. What’s his oh Commack, there we go. COMMAX his name?
And then we have the Lima mascot. We uh have a couple race walking mascots in the Doha mascot there as well. So this is my very, very. 30 year old male, no kids living room. That’s
Jill: fantastic. That’s horrible. okay. So you got to go through the flower ceremony for, for Rio. Did they
Evan Dunfee: take the part? No, we ended up postponing it.
We basically ended up saying, no, let’s not do this. Cause we don’t know what the results are. Um Okay. I felt so bad for Jared and, and matte in that moment. I pleaded with them to just do with the officials to just do one for first and second. And they, they said no. So I felt really bad that I, the, the, the one time Jared was standing in his rightful place on the podium.
and I, I took that away from him. But yeah.
Jill: oh, well, Evan, thank you so much. We really appreciate your time Thank you so much, Evan.
Alison: I don’t even like donuts and yet apparently I felt at the time, very strongly about donuts.
Jill: you know, when I listened to that again, I really wanted to donut and we don’t get donuts all that often either, because that is a very special treat in the house.
But boy could I, I could have [00:30:00] used a Timmy ho Ho’s crawler.
Alison: I do not like donuts box of Timbits. No,
Jill: finally we have long distance runner Abdi Abdurahman Abdi has competed at five Olympics. At Sydney, 2000 Athens, 2004 in Beijing, 2008, he competed in the 10,000 meters and then he switched to the marathon distance for London, 2012 and Tokyo 2020 Abdi is also author of the book Abdis world, the black cactus on life running and fun.
We talked with Abdi ahead of his journey, his marathon journey to Tokyo, or, you know, Sapporo as the case may be take a listen to his lightning.
Lightning round. What is your first memory of the Olympics from when you were a kid? When I
Abdi Abdirahman: was a kid, I don’t remember Olympics. I don’t know when I was a kid. Nah, I don’t, I didn’t have any memory at, I didn’t find out the Olympic until 19 nine. That’s the first time I watched Olympic was 1996 and 2000 hours in the Olympics competing.
Jill: So what do you remember from
Abdi Abdirahman: 96 96? I remember Bob Kennedy. taking the lead,
Jill: 5,000 meters. Where do you keep your participation medals?
Abdi Abdirahman: They everywhere around the house.
Jill: what is your favorite training? Exercise,
Abdi Abdirahman: training, exercise, and running, or just, I like to do called blanks. What is. Is the one exercise.
You just like, it is a core workup. So you just, you you, are you holding your four
Jill: hands? Oh, oh yeah. Hold, hold like them. Okay. How long can you hold them? Or how long do you hold them?
Abdi Abdirahman: I do like a different position, but I do like a 10 minutes street, different each side, like a minute and a half.
Jill: Wow. Okay. So minute and a half. And then reps to about 10 minutes for all. All three sides, basically. Oh, my goodness. Okay. Something to work on. This is why he’s an Olympic marathon or, and we ask him questions. I’ll see you five hours later, Abdi, and that person in the back. Okay. If you could be an Olympian in any sport other than running, what would you choose?
Swimming. Yeah. Yeah. This is not, not relations, but it, it popped in my head. I, I didn’t realize your cousin also is an Olympian. Did you know him at all? Abdi belay, Abdi
Abdi Abdirahman: belay. I do know him. Yes.
Jill: Did, did was there anything like when you became an Olympian, he’s like, oh, Hey, we’re Olympic cousins.
I think just, just got frightened of us. Sorry.
Good thing. That this is the last question then. What is your favorite Olympic souvenir?
Abdi Abdirahman: My favorite it have to be my pin, my pins. Oh yeah. Oh,
Jill: you must have a pretty good collection for Olympics. Oh yeah. Oh man. Yeah. Pin collectors. Talk to you
Abdi Abdirahman: to hustle people too at the Olympics. So I know the pins to get the hard countries. They small kind small, small countries are the most. Those, those are the best ones.
I don’t go for the rice year. UK. No, you go like the small countries where the like, you barely have any Olympian. They have one person, so it’s hard to get their pants. They have like place like de yeah. Thailand
Alison: always has those beautiful elaborate ones. Oh yeah. Now we’ve heard that pin collecting will be difficult at Tokyo because some national Olympic committees aren’t going to make pins.
Jill: Are you still gonna try to swap pins with people?
Abdi Abdirahman: I think I’m, it, it is gonna be difficult. I know I won’t be even in Tokyo, so maybe along the marathon where we’re gonna be in Sapporo, so maybe the marathon people will gimme some, so maybe we’re gonna be in the same hotel. So that’s only a couple hundred people instead of like a couple 12,000 athletes gonna be only we’ll with 300, that would be much easier.
Okay.
Jill: Have they told you what your, travel plans are so far?
Abdi Abdirahman: Yes. I already know my I’m leaving here. July 30th. I get to July 31st. And then first of, first of August, I go to
Jill: support. Oh, wow. Wow. And then you have just a couple of days until you race, right? Yep, yep. Tight and then back, get you home, get out.
Yeah.
Abdi Abdirahman: Then get back home, back to normal life. Wait for another four
Jill: years or less. Now now it’s, you know
Abdi Abdirahman: less, less than four years. We have the trials maybe less than two years. So it’s
Jill: good. Excellent. Well, Abdi, thank you so much for your time.
Thank you so much. Abdi we’ll have a link to Udi’s books in the show [00:35:00] notes. Unfortunately, that one is not available@bookshopbookshop.org, where we have an affiliate store. So if you’re book shopping for other books from the show, check out our page at bookshop.org/shop/flamealivepod, all purchases made through that link support the.
And that will do it for this week. Let us know your thoughts about athletics and donuts.
Alison: You can get in touch with us by email flame, live pod, gmail.com. Call or text us at (208) 352-6348. That’s 2 0 8 flame. Our social handle is at flame alive pod, and be sure to join the, Keep the Flame Alive Podcast Group on Facebook.
Jill: Next week, Book Club, Claire is back. And guess what we’re talking about? Abdis world, the black cactus on life running and fun by our show Tani and lightning round participant Abdi aberaman. Spoiler alert. Good read. Thank you so much for listening.
And until next time, keep the flame.