“For me, the most important thing is practicing winning and practicing trying to win. Because at the end of the day, PRs are awesome and running super fast is great, but people aren’t going to say, ‘Oh, well, 9:03 is the third fastest time.’ They’re going to say ‘Val won,’ right? And so for me, I just want to try to win. That’s all I care about. I don’t even care if we run slow because I just want to win.”

Valerie Constien was on the show about two months ago so if you haven’t heard that episode, I think it sets thighs up perfectly for more context on her comeback from a torn ACL last year. I enjoyed hearing from the listeners that they felt more invested in Val’s comeback and were overjoyed to see her running well at the Prefontaine Classic and at the Trials knowing more about her.

At the Trials, Val put together one of the best races of the entire 10 days. She won the women’s steeplechase in 9:03 – which moved her to No. 3 on the all-time list behind Courtney Frerichs and Emma Coburn. The whole race was epic and I’d encourage people to watch it on YouTube. Val qualified for her second U.S. Olympic team. She will be joined in Paris by Courtney Wayment and Marisa Howard.

In this episode, we unpack that U.S. Olympic Trials final and then look ahead toward Paris, where Val is thinking that she has a shot at a medal.

Host: Chris Chavez | @chris_j_chavez on Instagram

Guest: Val Constien | @valerieconstien on Instagram

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