Half the kids lining up for high school cross-country are girls, yet only a fraction of youth and high school coaches are women. That mismatch is not just a staffing problem. It shapes who feels welcomed, who feels seen, and who stays in sport when the pressure spikes in the teen years. We sit down with Coach Shari, the head of the Vintage High School cross-country program in Napa, to talk about what it looks like when a female coach is both leading the team and living the sport herself. 

Shari takes us inside her recent Sydney Marathon experience, from effort-based hill running to the emotional jolt of community on the course, including the kind of crowd support that makes you forget you are deep into mile 20. From there we rewind to her origin story: she did not grow up as a runner, started moving to be a better role model for her daughters, coached Girls on the Run, then built from a first 5K to marathons, a Boston qualifier, and a coaching career that is now well over a decade. Along the way we dig into the mindset shift that matters for every athlete, especially in endurance sports: stop chasing only outcomes and start owning the process. 

We also break down what makes cross-country such a powerful high school sport: no cuts, no bench, and scoring that turns every place into a team point. Shari explains how she coaches a large roster with very different ability levels using pace groups, individualized progress markers, and smart season planning. She shares how she sells running to teenagers who think it is punishment, why “try it for two weeks” works, and her rapid-fire tips on race prep, early pacing, carbs, protein, calming nerves, and why athletes waste too much energy obsessing over watch times. 

If you care about girls in sport, high school coaching, cross-country training, or marathon mindset, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a coach or parent who needs it, and leave a review if it helps. What would change in your community if more women felt supported to coach?

This Podcast is your Podcast, text us if you're an Athlete with a story to share...

The only podcast that is all about Athletes Supporting Athletes!

Support the show

To see more pictures, footage and out takes, bloopers and more follow us @PlanB.By Coach B on Instagram and or contact Coach B directly at www.coachbperformance.com to be part of the show.

*Athletes must be 18 years or older or in the company of their legal guardian to participate in the show. Participants can remain anonymous with no visual footage for marketing and names can be changed to protect identity.

A viral moment can make it look like an athlete made a simple choice, but racing at the limit isn’t lived in slow motion. We talk about what happened at the HYROX Championship in Beijing with Australian world champion Joanna Wiertrzyk, the backlash that followed, and the part most hot takes skip: sometimes the body fails without warning, and the brain you’re demanding “better judgment” from may not be fully online.

We break down the sports physiology behind sudden gut distress in high-intensity endurance racing: why blood gets pulled from the digestive system, how absorption can stop, and how concentrated sugar from energy gels can trigger an osmosis effect that hits fast. From there, we connect the dots to performance and safety: falling glucose, heat stress, inflammation, and adrenaline can narrow attention and measurably impair decision making. That changes how we should think about blame, personal responsibility, and what fair expectations look like mid-race.

We also talk about the role of race organizers and rulebooks when there’s a contamination risk, and why online humiliation can be a real psychological injury that deserves early support, not public shaming. You’ll leave with clear, practical race nutrition tips (water with gels, practice fueling in training, start early, nothing new on race day) and one bigger planning question to answer before you ever pin on a bib: what would make you stop?

If this made you rethink how we treat athletes under pressure, subscribe, share this with a training partner, and leave a review with your take: where should the line be between athlete grit and organizer responsibility?

This Podcast is your Podcast, text us if you're an Athlete with a story to share...

The only podcast that is all about Athletes Supporting Athletes!

Support the show

To see more pictures, footage and out takes, bloopers and more follow us @PlanB.By Coach B on Instagram and or contact Coach B directly at www.coachbperformance.com to be part of the show.

*Athletes must be 18 years or older or in the company of their legal guardian to participate in the show. Participants can remain anonymous with no visual footage for marketing and names can be changed to protect identity.

Softball can disappear from the Olympics on a tie vote, get blamed for decisions it didn’t make, then fight its way back years later. That roller coaster is the backdrop for a conversation that’s much more personal: what it actually feels like to grow up inside youth softball right now, when travel ball is busy, seasons run year-round, and the pressure to “get better” never really turns off.

We’re joined by Chloe, a 12-year-old softball player from Texas, and she’s refreshingly clear about what keeps her playing: the people, the culture, and the feeling she gets on the field. We talk about how she started at eight, when she decided to take practice seriously, and what her weekly schedule looks like with tournaments around the Dallas area. She also breaks down positions, why she avoids catcher, and how speed and a strong arm land her in the outfield.

If you love the chess match of softball pitching, Chloe delivers. She explains the difference between a fastball-focused pitcher and a changeup pitcher, how changing speeds creates real “unexpected” movement for hitters, and how pitch calls happen through number signals and coach input. Then we get into the part every athlete needs: what to do when the game gets messy. Her reset is simple and powerful, step off, breathe, slow the pace, and take control back.

We also cover arm care and athlete recovery: bands for shoulders and elbows, learning the difference between tired and “something’s wrong,” hydration during two-hour games in the heat, and why rest days matter for long-term health. To keep balance, Chloe talks art, reading, and even wanting to learn crocheting, plus a thoughtful take on parents cheering versus coaching from the stands. If you like real youth sports insight with practical mental toughness tools, hit play, subscribe, share this with a softball family, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

This Podcast is your Podcast, text us if you're an Athlete with a story to share...

The only podcast that is all about Athletes Supporting Athletes!

Support the show

To see more pictures, footage and out takes, bloopers and more follow us @PlanB.By Coach B on Instagram and or contact Coach B directly at www.coachbperformance.com to be part of the show.

*Athletes must be 18 years or older or in the company of their legal guardian to participate in the show. Participants can remain anonymous with no visual footage for marketing and names can be changed to protect identity.

Your athlete looks unstoppable in training, then shows up on game day and can’t hit the same skills they’ve done for years. Before we blame mindset, we take a hard look at what performance research actually says about why trained athletes underperform when it matters most, and what coaches can change starting this week.

We unpack de-automization, the hidden mechanism behind “choking,” where pressure and self-monitoring drag an automatic skill back under conscious control. Then we zoom out to the coaching environment: athletes don’t only create their own pressure. Studies on coach athlete emotion congruence suggest they track our emotional state closely, even affecting stress biology like cortisol. If we’re anxious, they absorb it, whether we speak it or not.

The biggest missing piece is cognitive fatigue. Physical tapering and supercompensation are familiar parts of periodization, but the brain also carries load. Research shows mentally demanding tasks can cut endurance and degrade technical execution without obvious changes in heart rate, lactate, or VO2. That means an athlete can look “rested” on paper and still arrive with a tired brain that can’t keep skills automatic. We close with practical coaching takeaways: protect the adaptation window, reduce cognitive load in pre-competition week, and treat mental rest like a non-negotiable part of the plan.

Subscribe for more sports psychology and performance planning, share this with a coach who needs it, and leave a review so more athletes stop getting blamed for problems the plan can fix.

This Podcast is your Podcast, text us if you're an Athlete with a story to share...

The only podcast that is all about Athletes Supporting Athletes!

Support the show

To see more pictures, footage and out takes, bloopers and more follow us @PlanB.By Coach B on Instagram and or contact Coach B directly at www.coachbperformance.com to be part of the show.

*Athletes must be 18 years or older or in the company of their legal guardian to participate in the show. Participants can remain anonymous with no visual footage for marketing and names can be changed to protect identity.

“Starting over” sounds tough and inspiring, but for most athletes it quietly poisons confidence. We get honest about why that phrase can feel like your years of work got wiped to zero, especially during a career transition like a new team, new league, or new country. Then we introduce a simple mental performance framework Coach B has been building in doctoral research: recursive familiarity, the idea that your next season is not a replay but a revision.

We break down how athletic seasons move in cycles, how endings are rarely clean, and why the past still shows up through what we call memory seepage. If last season brought injury trauma, a broken routine, tension with a coach, or a story you keep telling yourself about “who you are,” that residue can leak into preseason and shape your next performances. The goal is not to delete the past or pretend it didn’t happen. The goal is to use it as material, keep what works, and rewrite what doesn’t, like an upgrade from version 1.0 to version 1.2.

To make it practical, we shrink the whole philosophy into a daily routine you can do in 30 seconds before your feet hit the floor. You’ll hear three questions that help you separate useful feedback from harsh verdicts and make one clear choice each morning: face forward. If you want better focus, stronger confidence, and a healthier athlete mindset this season, hit play, share this with a teammate, and subscribe and leave a review so more athletes can find it.

This Podcast is your Podcast, text us if you're an Athlete with a story to share...

The only podcast that is all about Athletes Supporting Athletes!

Support the show

To see more pictures, footage and out takes, bloopers and more follow us @PlanB.By Coach B on Instagram and or contact Coach B directly at www.coachbperformance.com to be part of the show.

*Athletes must be 18 years or older or in the company of their legal guardian to participate in the show. Participants can remain anonymous with no visual footage for marketing and names can be changed to protect identity.

We talk about why chasing constant happiness sets athletes up to feel broken on perfectly normal days. We connect authenticity, social media comparison, and sports culture to a practical mindset shift: “okay” is a valid place to live while you keep training. 

• Oliver Tree as a reminder that truth beats performance 
• the expectation of happiness as an impossible standard 
• the hedonic treadmill and why humans return to baseline 
• highlight reels and upward comparison on social media 
• emotional granularity and naming feelings precisely 
• athletes trapped by two scoreboards: results and mood 
• practical resets: drop the false bar, get specific, let okay be enough, audit inputs 
• resilience built by accepting the full emotional range 

If it did, share it with someone who you feel needs to hear it. 

This Podcast is your Podcast, text us if you're an Athlete with a story to share...

The only podcast that is all about Athletes Supporting Athletes!

Support the show

To see more pictures, footage and out takes, bloopers and more follow us @PlanB.By Coach B on Instagram and or contact Coach B directly at www.coachbperformance.com to be part of the show.

*Athletes must be 18 years or older or in the company of their legal guardian to participate in the show. Participants can remain anonymous with no visual footage for marketing and names can be changed to protect identity.

This Podcast is your Podcast, text us if you're an Athlete with a story to share...

The only podcast that is all about Athletes Supporting Athletes!

Support the show

To see more pictures, footage and out takes, bloopers and more follow us @PlanB.By Coach B on Instagram and or contact Coach B directly at www.coachbperformance.com to be part of the show.

*Athletes must be 18 years or older or in the company of their legal guardian to participate in the show. Participants can remain anonymous with no visual footage for marketing and names can be changed to protect identity.

If your sport vanished tomorrow, would you still know exactly who you are? That question sounds dramatic until you’ve lived it through an injury, a lost roster spot, or the quiet whiplash of an offseason when training finally stops. We talk honestly about the moment sport isn’t there to hold your routine together and why that can feel like losing a piece of your body, not just a hobby.

We unpack a key sports psychology concept called identity foreclosure and translate it into real athlete life: starting young, getting good, and slowly having your entire world shaped around performance. Then I share the idea at the center of my doctoral work, environmental identity conditioning, the way repeated feedback from your team, family, schedule, and culture can teach your brain that sport equals worth. If you’ve ever struggled to describe yourself without your position, felt anxious on rest days, or gone blank when asked what you like outside training, you’ll recognize the pattern fast.

Most importantly, we get proactive. I walk you through practical mental performance coaching tools to build a multidimensional identity on purpose, so pressure hits differently, setbacks don’t wreck you, and retirement doesn’t feel like falling off a cliff. You’ll get a simple two-week exercise, prompts you can use immediately, and a clear reason why being a whole person doesn’t dilute elite performance, it strengthens it.

If this hits home, subscribe to Plan B, share it with one athlete who needs it, and leave a review so more competitors can find the support they never got handed.

This Podcast is your Podcast, text us if you're an Athlete with a story to share...

The only podcast that is all about Athletes Supporting Athletes!

Support the show

To see more pictures, footage and out takes, bloopers and more follow us @PlanB.By Coach B on Instagram and or contact Coach B directly at www.coachbperformance.com to be part of the show.

*Athletes must be 18 years or older or in the company of their legal guardian to participate in the show. Participants can remain anonymous with no visual footage for marketing and names can be changed to protect identity.

He was written off early: school felt like a fight, his grades cratered, and trouble found him before football ever did. Then one coach took a chance and everything shifted. Coach Ryan Jensen joins us to tell the full story, from getting humbled in junior college football to earning Division I offers and making history as a founding player at Old Dominion. If you’re a high school athlete weighing JUCO, recruiting options, or a big move far from home, this conversation gives you a clear, real-world roadmap.

We get into what junior college is actually like when you’re an 18-year-old lineman lining up against grown men, and how a strength program plus the right mentors can transform your body, your mindset, and your future. Ryan shares what it felt like when colleges started showing up at his door, why he chose legacy over logos, and how the bonds from a brand-new program still show up in his life years later.

Then we go behind the curtain on the NFL pro day grind, the injury that changed his path, and the hard truth about arena football and “almost making it.” From there, we widen the lens to athlete mental health, sports retirement, identity foreclosure, and why finding your people matters as much after sport as it does during it. Ryan also explains why he became a San Francisco police officer, and how he now gives back through Own The Line Football, a Northern California nonprofit focused on linemen, mentorship, accountability, and building men of character.

If this helped you, subscribe, share it with an athlete who needs perspective, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

This Podcast is your Podcast, text us if you're an Athlete with a story to share...

The only podcast that is all about Athletes Supporting Athletes!

Support the show

To see more pictures, footage and out takes, bloopers and more follow us @PlanB.By Coach B on Instagram and or contact Coach B directly at www.coachbperformance.com to be part of the show.

*Athletes must be 18 years or older or in the company of their legal guardian to participate in the show. Participants can remain anonymous with no visual footage for marketing and names can be changed to protect identity.

A BMX gate drops and everything you’ve trained for shows up in 40 seconds or less. That’s why I brought the Priest Family Racing crew onto the Plan B Podcast: Lisa and David plus sisters Savannah and Alexa, a Montana family living the real day to day of youth BMX racing while also chasing big goals in ski racing.

We talk about what a normal race weekend actually feels like, from warmups and motos to the moment your legs go dead near the finish. Savannah shares the fun and the calculation behind big jumps, plus how coaching and confidence shape the choices you make at speed. Alexa gets honest about the mental side of performance, how fear can linger after injury, and why mindset work can matter as much as physical training. We also dig into how they train for explosive power with gates, track reps, plyometrics, and CrossFit style strength work, all while staying healthy with stretching and smart recovery.

Then we pull back the curtain on what parents carry: logistics, travel, expenses, and the constant risk management that comes with high speed sports. We cover sibling rivalry, the BMX crash rules and why most incidents are accidents, and how homeschooling can make training, sleep, and travel more realistic for driven young athletes. If you care about BMX racing, youth athlete development, sports parenting, mental toughness, and multi sport training, this one is packed with practical insight and real stories.

Subscribe, share this with a racing family, and leave a review if you want more conversations like this. What part of BMX feels most mental to you: the gate, the first straight, or coming back after a crash?

This Podcast is your Podcast, text us if you're an Athlete with a story to share...

The only podcast that is all about Athletes Supporting Athletes!

Support the show

To see more pictures, footage and out takes, bloopers and more follow us @PlanB.By Coach B on Instagram and or contact Coach B directly at www.coachbperformance.com to be part of the show.

*Athletes must be 18 years or older or in the company of their legal guardian to participate in the show. Participants can remain anonymous with no visual footage for marketing and names can be changed to protect identity.