Two of the brightest, and most promising stars in elite pole vaulting, Bridget Williams and Julia Fixsen, offer the OMJ listeners an interview jam packed with tips, tricks, and incredible stories of their path to a NCAA National Championship and Pan American Gold, respectively. These ladies are so well spoken and an absolute blast to talk with. We could have continued talking all day about the trials and triumphs of their pole vaulting careers thus far! Thank you Julia and Bridget for such an amazing conversation!
Thank you so much to our sponsors!!!
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Visit RISEPolevault.com for all things pole vault!!! Whether you are looking to take a vaulting class or compete in a competition at our the state of the art RISE Pole Vault Training Center located in Joliet, IL, or wanting to use one of our many services ranging from pole vault business consulting to virtual coaching in the vault, risepolevault.com has got your covered!
RISE Pole Vault is now selling all three major pole brands including UCS Spirit, Essx, and Pacer. Email in to support@risepolevault.com and let us get you set up with some new poles!
Two of the brightest, and most promising stars in elite pole vaulting, Bridget Williams and Julia Fixsen, offer the OMJ listeners an interview jam packed with tips, tricks, and incredible stories of their path to a NCAA National Championship and Pan American Gold, respectively. These ladies are so well spoken and an absolute blast to talk with. We could have continued talking all day about the trials and triumphs of their pole vaulting careers thus far! Thank you Julia and Bridget for such an amazing conversation!
Thank you so much to our sponsors!!!
PVR App - The future of pole rentals: If you are in the business of renting pole vaulting poles, you need to see what PVR can do for you! Check out the links below for more info and to see PVR in action.
PVR Website
PVR Instagram
PVR Youtube
Want to help support the One More Jump Podcast? Click the link below to become an episode sponsor!
https://www.risepolevault.com/omj-episode-sponsorship/
Visit RISEPolevault.com for all things pole vault!!! Whether you are looking to take a vaulting class or compete in a competition at our the state of the art RISE Pole Vault Training Center located in Joliet, IL, or wanting to use one of our many services ranging from pole vault business consulting to virtual coaching in the vault, risepolevault.com has got your covered!
RISE Pole Vault is now selling all three major pole brands including UCS Spirit, Essx, and Pacer. Email in to support@risepolevault.com and let us get you set up with some new poles!
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the one more jump podcast by Rise Pole Vault. Today's episode is with Julia Fixen, the senior at Virginia Tech, national Champion last year, and Bridget Williams, the most recent Team USA Pan American Games champion, and this episode was outstanding. I know I say that a lot but you never know whenever you get guessed how they're going to kind of relate to the podcast and how they're going to interview and talk. And these two young ladies did an incredible job. They were amazing, just packed full of incredible, just ideas and motivation, and it was so much fun to have them on the podcast and I say it in this episode. But, man, hearing the stories behind these athletes is extremely powerful because I think sometimes we think to ourselves that they just skate their way all the way to national championships and Pan American glory. But man, the hardships that these ladies have faced and they've overcome is absolutely incredible. So I hope you guys enjoy this episode with Julia Fixen and Bridget Williams Girls. I'm recording. I'm recording.
Bridget Williams:Okay, okay, I'm recording. Yeah, we are.
Jake Winder:Did you hear about the one time that I was doing very similar situations? So we had Katie Moon and Holly Bradshaw on at the same time and we got like 45 minutes in and I wasn't recording.
Julia Fixsen:I remember listening to that.
Jake Winder:I didn't watch that yeah it was so bad, I was so embarrassed and I just felt so, so bad. So, like it's, I'm getting a little bit of like PTSD, like seeing two like elite, like female pole vaulters. It's like a very similar situation, you know. So it's yeah, so I'm recording anyway. But how are you guys doing? How is your training and everything going?
Bridget Williams:It's going. Yeah, it's good. I'm, we're in full swing. I think the group is looking really good this year. We've got a good, good vibe going for us. So I think, yeah, we're excited for the season to start off.
Julia Fixsen:Yeah, On the Virginia Tech side we have five new newcomers to the team and so we're just building. I mean, we had a phenomenal year last year with not on the team journey, girly. Even after losing Rachel because she's now out of college, We've just been growing and growing, and that's kind of thanks to Rachel and Deacon Vols They've kind of brought in and of course, Bob, yeah sure.
Jake Winder:Yeah, I mean Virginia Tech has just been. I was thinking about it this morning and I was just like that school has really been insane in the pole vault.
Jake Winder:You know, like and like. What about this? Are you guys both from Virginia? No, ok, all right, where are you guys from? Let's, let's do that. Let's, let's just start fresh, because I don't, I know a lot about not a lot, but, like, I know that you guys are really incredible pole vaulters and NCAA champion and world team member last year, but I don't know much about your like background. So let's start Julia, just give us a quick synopsis of kind of like, your background, where you're from and the pole vaulting history, I guess.
Julia Fixsen:OK, just a little story of like where it came from and how I started vaulting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, little something for the people OK so I'm from Minnesota and grew up there, stayed, stayed there up until college. I was born, I was raised right outside of Minneapolis, ok, most of the city.
Jake Winder:My brother lives in Hugo.
Julia Fixsen:OK, yeah, I'm terrible, I'm not sure.
Jake Winder:I did not expect Minnesota that. That threw me for a loop actually. All right, keep going. Sorry.
Julia Fixsen:Yeah, and then I was a gymnast for a long time and that was kind of my thing. That was really the only thing that I did. You know, I dabbled with soccer and like other sports, but gymnastics was something that really stuck for me. And then once I got to be a little bit too tall and had a lot of injuries, I gymnastics was done and I had to find a new sport and I did not want to pull ball. That was the one thing I knew I did not want to do. So why? Because I didn't want to go from one dangerous sport to another. I was just like I got so many injuries from gymnastics, like why would I go to another event or another thing that I could land on my head again? Like that sounds like the worst thing possible.
Julia Fixsen:But yeah, it was actually really stubborn. Like my parents and my family. They were all like you got to try, like your buddy, you got to do it. And I was like the most stubborn cat, like I just did not want to do it at all. But what got me to do it actually was my friend who was my neighbor at the time. She did gymnastics with me and she was joining track and she was like on our first day she told me let's do pull ball, like I don't care what you think, let's do pull ball. And I was like, fine, I'll be one day, like I'll just give it one day.
Jake Winder:What year was this? Was this your freshman year?
Julia Fixsen:Was it my eighth grade year?
Jake Winder:Eighth grade year OK, gotcha.
Julia Fixsen:And so, yeah, I was like 14 or something.
Jake Winder:Yeah.
Julia Fixsen:And then day one, I fell in love, and it's really been ever since then that I can't stop.
Jake Winder:That's awesome.
Julia Fixsen:It's addicting.
Jake Winder:It is addicting yeah like I tell the kids that we work with all the time is like Though I go through, like really it's. It's difficult at the beginning, you know, but once you start to get that, pull to flex a little bit and then you get like upside down for your first time, like you, you're upside down on a flex pole the way, the proper way that you should do it. I always tell the kid I'm they're like so excited and I'm just like that was a really big moment for you. It was a really, really exciting moment. But now you're fully addicted now, yeah, and it's about to get a lot more fun and a lot more frustrating at the same time. That's true.
Julia Fixsen:Exactly, and I think for a lot of former gymnasts it feels like home, like that's for me. It felt like home because a lot of the drills that we did day one, like I never really knew how to do, like I already knew, like hang on a rope and swing on it or you know, like I've already done that before, and so it just felt like home for me.
Jake Winder:Right, right, right For sure. So, bridget, what about you?
Bridget Williams:So I grew up in Pennsylvania and started jumping in the sixth grade I believe sixth or seventh grade, middle school and, similar to Julia, I was a gymnast and there were a few girls ahead of me in school that were also gymnasts, who then took up pole vaulting and were having some success in it, and so I just kind of followed in their footsteps and it's been, you know, a slow burn ever since, you know, slowly progressing, and so that's how I got into it too and went to UVA and then got married in 2020. And now I'm here with Bob training in Blacksburg.
Jake Winder:So that's awesome. So did you guys like how was your high school like career? Did you guys have a lot of success in high school?
Bridget Williams:Did you just kind of like average or For me, I think it was more so average, like I only jumped maybe nine feet in the eighth grade and then I graduated high school only having jumped 12, 6, 1 time at the state meet, very last meet in the season, wow. So yeah, I feel like for me, like I, I never jumped well at nationals, you know, in high school and it was just like a slow, like I said, a slow burn. Just, I think, for me I'm, I'm, I'm learning now under Bob, you know, how to be more of a technician and make my jump pretty. You know, I told him this year I was like my goal, one of my goals, is like I want to have a more cosmetic jump Because it's, I think, my whole career. I've just been really, you know, fast and strong and just kind of muscled in, wasn't afraid to get on a big stick, and that has brought me a lot of success. But as we've, you know, as we've gotten more into this post collegiate journey, yeah, the technique is mattering a lot more. Yeah.
Julia Fixsen:So you think your jump isn't pretty, but I think it is. You are powerful, but you have a nice jump.
Jake Winder:Thanks, you're being hard on yourself. It's style. It's your style. It's your style.
Bridget Williams:Yeah, but I would like you know, I think, yeah, it's just, I don't want to always be raw, I want to, I want it to be like a polish, yeah, yeah.
Jake Winder:No, I understand that I had this thing where whenever I would rock back like I would always hang my right leg way back behind like my right hand.
Julia Fixsen:Yeah.
Jake Winder:And it drove me so crazy. It was like it was my body's natural way of like counter balancing myself up top and it would drive me crazy. And then one year I just because I kept constantly like dad, we got to fit. My dad was my coach. I was like dad, we got to fix this, we got to fix this. And and one year I just was like dude, I'm so sick and tired of like not believing in my jump. I was like I'm just going to believe in my jump and just send it, like get as strong as fast I can and send it on every pole that I have. And ironically, I didn't think about it one time that year and I didn't split my legs that year. It was so crazy, it's hard, it's really hard. I definitely am envious of like people who have like pretty jumps, though Really nice.
Julia Fixsen:It's satisfying watch yeah.
Jake Winder:Yeah, yeah, I mean I've been set about just like rough, tough people who just blast poles. There's something to be said about that too. You know? And, bridget, did I miss where you were from?
Bridget Williams:Pennsylvania.
Jake Winder:Pennsylvania, pennsylvania, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Bridget Williams:I grew up right outside of Pittsburgh area, Went to high school at yeah, right up about 40. So how?
Jake Winder:did you guys, you guys both probably maybe Julia a little bit more than you Bridget I'm trying to think of the geography here how did you deal with outdoor seasons in? I don't talk to a lot of people that are like in the northern part of the United States about like the outdoor season in high school, because that's a super difficult thing. Did you guys compete well outside in high school?
Julia Fixsen:Yeah, I mean. For me, some of the first meets I would have snow on the track. Yeah, I mean you know. So the first meets and we in Minnesota we don't have indoor, we don't have an indoor high school season. I know, what Stinson does, and I don't think Iowa even has pole vault. I think they don't.
Jake Winder:No, they don't. They canceled the pole vault in Iowa whenever I was, I think, a freshman in high school and they were going to axe the pole vault. This is actually kind of a cool story. They were going to axe the pole vault in Illinois. There were, unfortunately, there were like some fatalities, like kind of a few, like kind of clumped together and they were going to axe it in Illinois and my dad ended up talking with a lawyer and other people kind of banded together.
Jake Winder:It was just I was a freshman in high school in 2002, so they had just started like the women's pole vault in the Olympics in 2000. There was this fire lit for women to pole vault and everyone was like dude, like this is awesome. Now, like these, these ex gymnasts can like actually do another thing and they can actually excel at this next thing if they, you know, get out of gymnastics. And so we had a bunch of people interested in pole vaulting and the women in Illinois are what saved the pole vault in Illinois. They like banded together and just were like no, you just gave us this. This is not, you're not taking this away. Yes, yeah, it was crazy, but they, they still don't have it in high school in Iowa, but do they have indoor? They have an indoor season in Pennsylvania, right?
Bridget Williams:Yeah, we had an indoor season, but we were just talking about this yesterday. We would travel, like where I grew up there wasn't a lot of indoor facilities. So we would travel a lot to Ohio or other parts of the state in Pennsylvania where there were either small colleges or just you know standalone facilities like Spire, which was well, that's, that's in Ohio, but you know a standalone facility like that to compete. But in terms of practice, yeah, we were jumping, we were lucky, though I guess I will say in our we had an auxiliary gym in the high school that we would pull out the pole vault pits and put them, assemble them together, you know, and roll out the black runway.
Jake Winder:Oh yeah.
Bridget Williams:And jump inside that way. But yeah, I think I don't know. I mean, I think I think growing up in the North, like with cold and elements and stuff, kind of makes you gritty, right. Like you're inside in the cold, you're, you know you've got to. Really it makes you. It makes you really want it, you know.
Julia Fixsen:And then when it's nice out, like for outdoor season, you really appreciate the warm weather and I always think that was warm because Iowa's like thank God it's actually warm outside and I can act.
Bridget Williams:I don't have to like constantly be like trying to stay, yeah, stay bundle or stay warm.
Julia Fixsen:So I think you just appreciate the better days and the good days are probably, like you know 50 degrees.
Jake Winder:Oh my gosh, it's 50 degrees today.
Julia Fixsen:This is crazy.
Jake Winder:And then you go to, and then you go to Texas relays and it's just a piping tailwind and 80 degrees. And it's like, oh my gosh. And it's like right at the time in in our season, cause we're we're in like the Chicago land area, and it's right during the time where it's just like everybody just hates their life, like it's so cold and it's not snowing, but it's just cold, rain and sleet and they're like, all right, guys, we got an outdoor meet in two weeks. And it's like, okay, that's why, like Luke, my brother Luke, I trained my brother Luke and he I told him about two years ago so he had he, whenever I took over his training, he had like a kind of a resurgence. You know, in the event started to just kind of get better over these last couple of years.
Jake Winder:And one of the big things that we changed was I said, dude, you're not competing up here in the in the spring, like I don't even think you're going to compete around here at all. And so he flies to every single one of his meets. Now, like I'm like you're going to Olympic training center, you're going to Texas, you're going to Arizona, you're going to these places that we know there's a 80, maybe not 80, like 75% chance that you're going to get pretty decent weather, yeah, and as like a post-collegiate athlete, outdoors, it's really difficult because, first of all, the funding of that, the funding of that is really tough. I mean, I asked him the other day I was like so how much like is a meat like total, like rental car, flight, hotel, like all those things Like if you fly out to Chula Vista for just a couple of days and just jump? He was like dude, it's like getting now to where. It's like almost two Gs, like almost two Gs to go and jump and attract me and have some decent weather. Yeah, it's crazy.
Julia Fixsen:Yeah, yeah, I mean, you have experience with that because I've been in the college circuit, you know, and everything's kind of paid for us. Yeah so don't have to worry about that. But I that's the one thing that, because I want to go pro, that's like my dream and my goal, but that's kind of the anxiety or that's just that fear of you know, it's going to cost money, like, and I don't know if I'm going to have that money, you know.
Jake Winder:Yeah.
Julia Fixsen:Yeah, you have experience with that because you've, the past couple of years, have been traveling on your own.
Bridget Williams:you know, yeah, you just had to be. You know, choosy, I mean at the beginning, especially like my first year out of college. I competed in indoor season under my college coach at UVA, and then COVID hit and came to Blacksburg later that fall in 2020. And so the 2021 season was my first year competing a full year indoor outdoor season with Bob and I didn't have any funding, like zero, and I wasn't at the point yet in my career where I was getting invited to several meets. But I think we traveled, you know, obviously it was an Olympic trial year and thankfully, you know, as a volunteer assistant coach under Virginia Tech, like they were able to help support me financially through the Olympic trials. But I think we went to Drake Relays and that was the only meet I traveled to and I was like, oh gosh.
Bridget Williams:You know, like I need to either step it up, I need to figure out how am I going to, you know, be able to afford this in future years? You know, and every year since has gotten better and more opportunities have, you know, have come about, and you know USA, USA TF, with their tier funding and they have other funding opportunities. Those are definitely helpful, but it's, you know, if you don't have a shoe contract or something like that that's giving you, or if you don't work a full time job or whatever, If you don't have another income source. You know, that's that those funding opportunities that USA TF provides and the foundation provides are vital. How?
Julia Fixsen:do you get?
Bridget Williams:those. Yeah, they're vital.
Julia Fixsen:How do you get the tier funding?
Bridget Williams:Tier funding is based on your world ranking, so that's complicated in itself.
Julia Fixsen:World ranking yeah.
Jake Winder:Yeah, that's the thing that that like brings up like such a great point, because that, so Luke made the world team. Luke did not make the standard but made the world team. So, so, like that perfectly proves like another benefit to you know, trying to scrounge together money to be able to travel to good meets. The only reason he made that team was because, well, he competed that day and got second, number one, but then number two is he jumped well, in a couple like B rank meets, and if you do, and then all of a sudden it's like, oh well, like whenever I was standing in the, I was in the stands coaching him and I was like, ah man, this thing's like dude got second but you know it didn't make standard.
Jake Winder:And then Jeff, the hardware, comes up and was like, hey, man, I, yeah, he's, he should be good. And he was like, wow, you know. And he was like, well, he, you know, his world ranking is going to be sufficient to to get him through. I was like, dude, that's crazy. So then that's even more pressure for people who want to compete after school, because it's like, all right, well, if you're in the U S, you don't have very many options for ranked meets.
Julia Fixsen:And even in college too, like I think, what are most college meets like F yeah.
Jake Winder:They're like F ranks. I think isn't the NCAA meet like ranked, like an F or something like that? It's like a C or is it a C?
Bridget Williams:Yeah, it's higher, I don't know exactly what it is.
Jake Winder:I swear I thought it was an F like the first year, or something.
Julia Fixsen:Yeah, I don't know. So even if you're, you know if you jump high you place well and you're jumping at the NCAA, so you only get so many points. So for college kids like you don't, world ranking isn't really. You're not going to get many points there, but you have to jump high, yeah.
Bridget Williams:It's definitely. There's a strategy to it, For sure.
Jake Winder:Right, right.
Julia Fixsen:To chase the points you know, I think like what Texas realizes a little bit better than like a whole meet or something, no idea.
Jake Winder:Maybe. I think I think Drake is good. So there's like different. I think there's like just different things that you have to build, you have to do as a promoter to have like a good ranking. Like it's got to be like a certain amount of money has to be allocated to the event, and then I'm probably messing all of this up. So if anybody's listening to this.
Julia Fixsen:Don't listen to me. Do your research.
Jake Winder:I think it's like a certain amount of funding has to be going to that event and then there has to be a certain number of countries represented at that meet. You know.
Bridget Williams:I think prize money too is a is a player Right.
Jake Winder:Yeah, that's what I mean. So money, like prize money, allocated to that, to that event, or or maybe I think it's to that specific event and not just to the entire meet. But gosh man, talk about a really difficult task If you're a meat promoter in the United States. I, I, yeah, it's really really crazy. But so what brought you guys to Virginia Tech? Like what, like was it? Just like this was for sure, like where? So, bridget, you went to what was your? You went to UVA, and then you came over here when In 2020,.
Bridget Williams:I came in the fall late fall of 2020. So my husband actually grew up close to Blacksburg and so this is kind of his like home hometown area, Okay. So we were both at UVA. He had graduated a year earlier than I did because I had a red shirt, a red shirt year that I was finishing out, and so when COVID hit, you know, we kind of just made the decision to get married earlier and do the opposite of what everybody else was doing, which was postponing their weddings.
Bridget Williams:We had ours earlier married and then we bought a house in April of 2020. And that that that was like the jumpstart for me to come train at Virginia Tech, because that was my best, that was my best option really. And I remember emailing Bob and I was like gosh, I'm coming from UVA, like I don't even know if he wants to post collegiate group, but like this is my only shot to keep doing this, you know, because I really I mean never say never, but I really did not want to do long distance relationship thing. That was like something that was non-negotiable for me.
Jake Winder:Yeah, you mean like a long distance. Oh, you mean long distance relationship with your husband. Yeah Well either way it's difficult Long distance relationship with your husband or long distance relationship with your coach.
Bridget Williams:Yeah, for sure which are both really difficult. Yeah, and neither were. I didn't want to do either of those things, so yeah.
Bridget Williams:Yeah. So I reached out to Bob shortly after we had gotten married and you know we had a few meetings and it was smooth sailing from there and I'm really glad because I feel like Virginia Tech, their whole program, you know, coach Chanel has been super grateful. I'm super grateful for him and he's been super gracious with everything. You know he supports the post-quadget group like better than I've ever seen anywhere. You know, he's just really awesome guy. Our head coach yeah, he's the head coach at Virginia Tech. But and then Bob too, of course.
Bridget Williams:you know, I feel like the two of them really have taken my career to the next level just based on, you know, their knowledge and willingness to take me in and you know, I feel like, you know, when I got to college, I remember thinking, oh yeah, I'm learning so much, like I'm learning all this stuff about poleball and stuff. And then I come here and I'm like, wow, I'm still learning, like all of this stuff. You know, there's so much to learn and there's so much I don't know and don't understand and whatever. And so it's just been yeah, it's been really great, that's how I ended up here.
Julia Fixsen:You always learn something new from different coaches too.
Bridget Williams:Yeah, I mean different perspectives.
Julia Fixsen:I mean, that's what I on my side, my story and how I made it to Virginia Tech. I actually went to Georgia my first two years.
Jake Winder:Yeah, that was on my thing. You had an interesting trip through college.
Julia Fixsen:Yeah, so I went from Minnesota to Georgia complete opposite. The reason why I ended up going there first was because, well, I made the U20 World Team to Finland in 2018. And you know the big names like Anahal, kyle, garland, Jasmine Moore we were all part of the same team and we had gone to worlds together, as well as Rachel.
Julia Fixsen:But you know, so I knew about Virginia Tech at the time, but my eyes were kind of on Georgia because I wanted to be a part of an elite group, not just with Poval I actually I liked Georgia because of Russ Johnson was the Poval coach at the time and he was really wanting Georgia to become the next Poval school and that really I was really attracted to that because I didn't want to go to a school like Arkansas that already had, you know, a stable program. I kind of wanted to build a program and, like you know, build something from the ground up and be a part of the foundation. That was really attractive to me. And so, plus being a part of a team that has, like you know, anahal and Jasmine Moore, like just to be around environment of like elite people and not just Poval.
Julia Fixsen:So I was there for freshman sophomore year. It was intense but I loved it. I mean, I absolutely loved everything I loved the coach.
Jake Winder:Did you have success? I'm not familiar. Did you have like pretty good success your freshman and sophomore year? I?
Julia Fixsen:did. You know, actually my freshman year. She crushed it yeah, hey I didn't crush it from the beginning I started. It was rough at the beginning because for every freshman, I mean, I don't care who you are, You're going to struggle, You're going to have a hard transition.
Julia Fixsen:You know, especially if you're going out of state, it's extremely. That's even more difficult. So it was hard for me to make the adjustment of being on my own and trying to make my own community, and I actually know how I did my very first meet, you know and I tell this to every freshman that's nervous. I was like I know how I did my first meet and we were fine. We ended up being okay.
Jake Winder:Yeah, yeah.
Julia Fixsen:You don't want to be in the picture right away, it's about building about you know, starting, starting, you know and start building.
Julia Fixsen:But then, yeah, so I was struggling a little bit at the beginning but I was working really hard and I was really working really closely with Russ Johnson to figure out my vault. And I've always had a pretty solid foundation because my high school coach, matt Flagle, I mean, and his wife Esther Flagle, were really critical in my development because they won, they loved the vault and supported everything and they gave me a good foundation, you know.
Jake Winder:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I just I just met them. I just met them a couple of months ago at the Essex dealer summit that we did here.
Julia Fixsen:Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah, I saw them.
Jake Winder:Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's awesome. So how did you? Why did you? Well, I kind of familiar a little bit with because didn't the head coach at Georgia leave and then Russ was no longer.
Julia Fixsen:So that was the reason why I ended up transferring. We call it the great exodus.
Jake Winder:Oh man.
Julia Fixsen:One, petros left. I mean, all helicopter broke loose a little bit because and it was also when he, when he, officially decided to not be part of the team anymore and leave us. That was like during in seat of lights, you know, in like was that June or something.
Jake Winder:And.
Julia Fixsen:I had no idea, and so that news broke out, but we didn't know if Russ was going to stay or go. It was just kind of dependent on Carol, the coach that came in after. I forget her last name, but she came for you, let's see. But and then I think it was like mid late June I was told that Russ was no longer going to be my coach, and I was like shoot yeah.
Julia Fixsen:I do now like you know I have dreams of being an Olympian and a national champion. Like I want to do all these things and if I don't have the coach that I came here for, you know, came here with, like I don't know, like I just don't see a future here, even though I absolutely love Georgia. Everything was perfect about it, Right, and so I knew I had to go. I knew I like I couldn't stay there. So how many times have you heard?
Jake Winder:of Russ. How many times have you heard that? How many times do you hear that, though, like somebody goes to a division one school and then has the coach for like a year, maybe two, and then it's like so good, did you have any coaching changes, bridget?
Bridget Williams:Nope.
Jake Winder:That's awesome.
Bridget Williams:Yeah, I was lucky. Yeah, I had Wilson, mary Wilson, for all five years.
Jake Winder:That's awesome. Finish, yeah, but I think that's the good thing about whenever you you know Julia, you went and picked a school like Virginia Tech, cause Bob has just been there for a minute Never.
Bridget Williams:Yeah, I mean since the beginning. Yeah, he's the only public coach there's been.
Julia Fixsen:And you know what that's crazy. When I was looking to transfer and looking for schools, he had said that. You know, julia, I would trust Bob with my life. You know, if you were to go anywhere, I'd say you go to Virginia Tech because Bob is a solid, solid one and they're I mean they're good friends and they were. You know, they had similar techniques and stuff like that in their coaching style.
Jake Winder:But yeah, from what I understand, bob is just a poleball coach, is that true? Yeah, that's kind of rare too.
Julia Fixsen:And Russ was a good coach too. That was another reason why I wanted to go there is because it's so rare to have a poleball coach that only coaches poleball.
Jake Winder:Right, right. So now is that changing with that new like rule, like those new rules that? You have to pay volunteers or something like that.
Julia Fixsen:Yeah, cause I think Brooke I mean I don't know Brooke Rosnick, she's now back at poleball. I think she, I think she's the only coaching poleball now.
Jake Winder:Yeah, yeah, yeah, she is. So she, I did a podcast with her too and she, she was the reason that I found out that Bob was just a coach, cause she went on like this huge rant on the podcast about like, well then I would go to Virginia Tech and Bob would just be coaching the poleball and I would be running all around the track trying to coach everybody, and and she was like, and you know, it would just be nice to be able to focus on one thing and he's very, very lucky. But I think you know now it's different. But prior to that, you know, I'm sure he probably, you know, you kind of just got to prove, prove yourself, and I mean he's just such like he's so battle tested and just like he's been, you know, so solid, like you couldn't imagine a head coach going up to him and being like hey, bob, you're going to be coaching the high jump and the long jump and the triple jump and the pole ball.
Jake Winder:This year he would probably be like no, no, I'm not, and a lot of people won't know this about Bob either, as he was a professor.
Julia Fixsen:Like while he was coaching he was basically volunteering, like he didn't get paid until I think.
Jake Winder:Wow.
Julia Fixsen:He just retired for two years ago.
Bridget Williams:He just retired recently from his professor job. Yeah, so I think he deserves it. He's a man of all trades. He knows a lot of stuff.
Jake Winder:Yeah, yeah. I would like to have him on sometime. Do you think he has a personality? Do you think he has a personality that he would want to do that?
Julia Fixsen:Oh, he's a teacher, yeah, so he loves to talk, and you know he loves to talk, but he loves to, you know, but he's smart, but he's smart for him, like he would definitely.
Jake Winder:Yeah.
Bridget Williams:Anybody that comes in contact with him will get smarter just by being around him.
Jake Winder:That's awesome I think so.
Bridget Williams:Yeah, we were joking with him yesterday when we were jumping. We were like you're going to come to our podcast tomorrow?
Jake Winder:Yeah, yeah, I think it would be good. I think we'd have a good conversation, and I'm always, you know, all ears trying to learn as much as I can learn to you know. Yeah.
Bridget Williams:He's a good friend to learn from.
Jake Winder:I am interested to see, like, the differences in your training because you know, obviously, julia, you're a senior this year, you're a senior this year. Okay, so you guys have two kind of different goals almost, and then like two different portions of the season you guys are training for, like, because Bridget, your season kind of doesn't. You know it can go out for a long time, you know well, into the summer and even the fall sometimes. So how does your training set up? Do you guys do similar stuff? Do you train as a group? Do you guys kind of all do the same thing? Is it like personalized at all? Or you don't have to give me all the secrets? Yes, no all the love.
Bridget Williams:It's just different. We have such a huge group this year like Collegiate. And well, the Collegiate what's a huge group?
Jake Winder:What's the total number?
Julia Fixsen:I think it's 15 guys.
Jake Winder:Holy 15, Walter.
Bridget Williams:Plus Deke and Rachel and I and Haley Horvath, that's another four.
Julia Fixsen:So it's like 19, 20, something like that Somewhere in there.
Jake Winder:Yeah, wow, yeah, that's a good amount. I mean, that's a whole vault team right there like straight up.
Bridget Williams:Yeah, we have a huge group. We have a huge group.
Jake Winder:So so how does this work? Yeah, break it down. I'm very interested in this. Now, 15 people, how does it work?
Julia Fixsen:Yeah, well, okay. So it's kind of been we do work out separately up until recently this past week. This week we've linked up a bit, which is nice, Because Christmas break and no one's here and I'm the only I think I'm the only Walter here. Yeah, I think you know You're the only one left here, so we're training together as of right now and I kind of want to continue that. But and also I've been dealing with a back injury this past ever since I saw that on Instagram.
Julia Fixsen:Yeah, yeah, I mean it's been and we could talk about that like because Paul Walters and back injuries, they kind of go together. Yeah, Unfortunately, yeah.
Jake Winder:Yeah, let, I do want to talk about that. I want to. I want to hear more about, like how this training, how you're training, like just because I find it interesting, two different like periods in life or in their career, you know.
Julia Fixsen:Okay, so for the college side, I mean, we lift twice, two to three times a week. This year we've been lifting three times a week. We run twice a week, we do gymnastics twice a week and then we vault twice a week. That's kind of the way that we do it. With one off day in there, usually one off day. So some people take Sundays, I take Sundays off. Most people vault on Sunday. We, I mean I go to church and I want Sunday to kind of be my off day.
Jake Winder:Right.
Julia Fixsen:Other people vault. So, and it's because we have our own indoor track and because Bob is our only coach, there is a lot of wiggle room and we do have a lot of freedom to kind of set our own schedules, especially with classes. I think that is the big thing, and if you're a senior and you have to take certain classes and it's during practice time, you know we have the luxury and this is I think this is super unique to Virginia Tech is we can.
Julia Fixsen:we can change our schedule Like I could text Bob and say hey, you know, this semester I have class during a practice time.
Julia Fixsen:Can I come early and do my vault session, or do a lift early or whatever, and we have the freedom to do that, and I think that's super unique to us. But sometimes we can kind of fall into like we take advantage of that sometimes, like, oh, I have a test or I want to study, and some people, will you know, go earlier or later, especially for when we do gymnastics, you know, that's a little bit more. It's more free for us to do it whenever we want to.
Bridget Williams:It's more of like an active recovery day. You know we'll do like some high bar work, rings rope, and then couple that with some med ball her to mobility, maybe a bike, you know high speed bike workout or something like that. You know what I mean? Just something, not high intensity, but you're still getting a good workout. Yeah, so there is more liberty to come, come and go whenever suits your schedule for that, for those types of workouts. Yeah, Is.
Jake Winder:that is, the are all of the workouts. So, like the way that I'm hearing it is that it can vary quite a bit and, like whenever you mentioned vaulting on Sundays, I was like hold on, is Bob going over there on Sundays?
Bridget Williams:He's there Wednesday, sunday. He's there all day, every day.
Jake Winder:I mean all day.
Bridget Williams:On those two days Wednesday and Sunday normally for his collegiate group those are their two jump days he's. He's got sessions correct me if I'm wrong from like 10 am to 5 pm. Yeah, I think.
Julia Fixsen:Gosh dang and he only puts two max three. It's normally two falters on the runway, yeah.
Bridget Williams:Like wow.
Bridget Williams:So you get a lot of like, and that's for me too, or I'll jump this year. I've been jumping normally with somebody in previous years. I've had a lot of solo sessions with him, which was super helpful, being new to his group and getting used to his coaching style and him getting used to me, you know. So there was. You get a lot of individual. Even if you have another girl or guy, whoever another body on the runway with you, you still have a lot of one on one, individual, individualized coaching. I guess you could call it.
Bridget Williams:On your technical days, which is, I think you know, very crucial and important. You know, I think I've done. I've done it both ways. I've jumped in college, you know, alone. You know, towards the end of my career there would be only a few girls on the runway. But then, early on in my career in college, you know, there would be four, five, six girls, you know, or jumping with the decks or whatever. Just because that's just how, that's just how it was, yeah.
Bridget Williams:It's a little more tight, yeah, and I see benefits to both, you know like there's no one way is wrong, yeah or right, because I do think like I'm going to bring it up like yesterday, like yesterday, no Monday, sorry, today's Wednesday. So Monday Julie and I jumped together and I had, like I added a jump session on Saturday just because I'll miss, because of Christmas this week I'll miss one jump session. So we put it Saturday and so I had jumped. Normally I jump also twice a week Monday, thursday, or my jump days. So I jumped Thursday, saturday, monday, and that was kind of like a lot of jump sessions in the room yeah.
Julia Fixsen:My.
Bridget Williams:Monday came in, came around, I got to practice and I was like oh, I got a pole ball again today, you know, like crap, you know, and I just was feeling a bit sluggish and I was tired.
Bridget Williams:I mean, I'm not going to lie, we just came out of a strength phase. So we've been training hard. The volume has been hard, the are heavy, I should say. The running volume has been, you know, more than what it normally is throughout other parts of the season, and rightfully so. I believe strongly in building a strong foundation. I respond really well to that.
Bridget Williams:But you know, when you have another body on the runway, like we were jumping three laps, right.
Bridget Williams:So not super long runs by any means, but you know we're jumping bars and we're having like a little competition to see where we can go, and Julia goes over 405 and I'm like dammit, I'm going to go over 405. And my point being is that if you don't have somebody on the runway to push you, like I could have very well seen that, seen, I could have seen myself saying, well, maybe we'll just do drills today, or maybe we won't push poles today, or maybe we won't. You know, like I don't know, and that sounds bad, because normally, you know, you ask anybody, I'm like no, it's going to grab, we're going to grind this out, and like I don't pull back. But Saturday would have been a day where I might have said okay, I'm not going to fight. You know I'm not going to fight this because I'm tired and it's been a lot. You know, we've had a lot of training and I don't want to reinforce bad habits or whatever. You know.
Bridget Williams:But you have somebody on the runway was really cool, because then we both ended up jumping 405 from three and that was like okay, you know, like you can't pull 405 from three when you feel like crap, you know or whatever, and it's yeah, it pulls out that healthy level of competition just to see exactly what you know, what you have in the tank and for you, correct me if I'm wrong, like she didn't want to put the bar at 405.
Julia Fixsen:At first, you know, and I'm like, my PR at the time was 397.
Bridget Williams:Yeah, I was like 405, come on, you know like, and I'm dropping he jumps like 477, 480,.
Julia Fixsen:You know like I'm not going to be able to keep up with her.
Bridget Williams:But you did, you know, and you was yeah, and to see her clear the bar in her first attempt. She looks over at us like you know my feet, you know. So I think my point all that to say, my point is is that when you're training with somebody else, you know, when you have somebody on that runway it pull, you know you kind of surprise, you can surprise yourself because you know it pulls out.
Jake Winder:The energy is different. For sure, the energy is different and the thing is is like the energy can go both ways. Like so we added Trevor to our training group this year and he's been a blessing like so much fun and it's been a lot of fun having him there. But Luke and I are used to just me and Luke, so it was. But now since he's here, like I think back to myself like how the energy was just a little different when it was just me and Luke, because sometimes it can get a little dead and like we do private I don't do them anymore but like the other coaches here do private like lessons and sometimes, man, if you get like somebody who doesn't have like kind of a exciting like personality, like it can get really quiet and really dead in there and it's tough to get the energy up. But then there's also the other thing too, which is that the energy having you guys working together and like really kind of friendly competition together the energy was high that day and it could be really good. But then, like sometimes one of the athletes comes in and is just dragging and like not having a good day, attitude's bad, and sometimes I feel like that can bleed into the other athlete as well.
Jake Winder:We were talking about last night. We have like certain classes that rise that have like I'm just gonna be honest like run through issues and there's like a certain number of people that have run through issues and it's weird because they're kind of like segregated into certain classes. And I started like going through my head last night I was laying in bed and I was just like I wonder if that's contagious. Like I wonder, I wonder if, like what would happen if we like tracked all the metrics and it was like all right, this class does this many run throughs every workout, this class does this many run throughs every workout, and then you put a couple of those kids in different classes, if that like is contagious to other people and if it affects other people. And I definitely have been in workouts before where I came into the workout and was like I am ready to rock.
Jake Winder:Then this other dude shows up. He's not ready to rock and he makes me feel like I don't even wanna be here. So it's like, really it's, there's a responsibility in being a training partner, in coming to the workout and realizing that this person that you're training next to is trying to accomplish real things that really mean a lot to them and you, whether you have a good day or a bad day, you have to be able to give them the respect of at least fake it. At least fake it because you don't wanna drag them down with you. You know what I'm saying.
Julia Fixsen:So it's a great way to put it yeah, it's a great way to put it, and I think with our team, every single Valter that we have wants it, Everyone. I mean. I've trained with boys, girls, all of them. I've jumped with every single one of them, except for the newbies. I haven't trained with them yet, but I think the energy at Tech, and especially with you everyone wants it. Even if they're having a bad day, like everyone wants it, and I haven't really had, you know, negative practice where somebody's tearing me down.
Jake Winder:That's awesome.
Julia Fixsen:And be like no, I 100% can see that happening.
Jake Winder:Do you think that that group? The other thing, too, that we've noticed is there are some places that just naturally weed those people out, like without you even trying. Like some schools and some you know gyms and clubs, they're able, they have such a strong program and such a strong like their ethos is the same and whenever a person comes in that could affect that, they just naturally, just they just go away, like because they naturally get weeded out and it's like, yeah, maybe the bad apples just don't fit in into that place, and I think maybe Virginia Tech's one of those places that is just it, like there's like a magnet pulling good people into that place and the bad people. It just repels the negative attitude and the bad apples. You know, it's one of those things that I've thought about too is if you got a good culture, it kind of takes care of the bad apples on its own.
Julia Fixsen:It just yeah, I don't think we've really had many bad apples. I'm gonna be honest, you know.
Bridget Williams:And I think it's like iron sharpens iron. You know, like you know someone. I'm not I'm not saying this is true at Virginia Tech, but just in general. I mean, I can have bad attitude sometimes too, when I come into practice and I don't wanna Everybody, yeah, yeah.
Bridget Williams:No, and so but I will say, you know, like you get there and if you're the only one acting sour or you're the only one like, oh, I don't wanna do this running workout or I don't wanna do this whatever, and you're watching everybody else like eagerly doing it, or like you know, maybe they don't wanna do it but they're not complaining or they're not whatever, then it kind of like holds you accountable and it shuts you up, you know. And then you just are like okay, you know, we're in this together, we're gonna do this and we're gonna get it done. We're gonna do it well.
Bridget Williams:You know, I think I don't know. I mean we always just saying college, like what this is, I mean it sounds funny, but like ride someone else's wave, almost you know. Like if someone else even in a competition right, like if someone else's jumping PRs or doing really well, like let them propel you to that next level, let them and. I think, you know, in smaller situations, you know, I mean, that can happen, just in practice, you know.
Jake Winder:Or what. That's a great point. Yeah, just grab onto it and be like I'll go for the ride. Yeah, come on, I don't feel very good today, so I'll just grab onto you, you know.
Bridget Williams:Yeah, exactly, and you know I think that's that's important to have in a training group and I think we do have that. You know like I can think of a ton of situations that that's been the case. You know we have a kid Jack. This is funny. Oh yeah, love him, he's a solid kid Jack. This is he's also from Minnesota, by the way. So the Minnesota Solid people yeah, okay.
Jake Winder:Yeah, solid people out there.
Bridget Williams:And he's had I mean talk about somebody who's you know come in with like a humble beginning, I guess, to a collegiate career and we need one state in Minnesota.
Julia Fixsen:You know we had success in high school but then coming from high school to you know a huge D1 school, especially as a guy you know, there's extra pressure on guys in college because I mean the bar is so high for guys Right right now.
Jake Winder:It's crazy, yeah.
Julia Fixsen:A lot of scholarships too, for guys.
Bridget Williams:Yeah yeah, but-.
Jake Winder:For sure.
Bridget Williams:You know he and you know he knew what he had to do to come back. You know last summer what he knew, what he had to do over the summer to come back this year stronger and he did just that. You know he succeeded pretty much everyone's expectations by a bunch. But you know, every once in a while we'll link up for a running workout and he was with me early on in my fall training when my training my because of Pan Am's, the schedule was my training schedule was just kind of jacked up because the meet was in November.
Jake Winder:So I did Congratulations on that, by the way. Thank you, thanks. Pretty cool.
Bridget Williams:I did like a prep. I took my three weeks off. Whatever did a prep, went to the meet and then really started base training.
Jake Winder:Yeah.
Bridget Williams:And I was not in any kind of endurance shape. You know, like I was dying, heart rate was high the whole way through the workout and but Jack is like you know, bridget, let's go. You know, like four minutes is up, like we've got to be on the line, like you need to get on with this workout because you've already taken enough rest. You know, and I think you know, I'm almost a decade old A decade old.
Julia Fixsen:I'm like let's go.
Bridget Williams:You know, like no time to be wasted here, like get on it. You know so. But my point, being too here, is that, you know, I just think that speaks to the culture that is on our team. You know, like we all look out for each other, even if it's not necessarily what we wanted to hear. I surely didn't want him. I don't want to be corrected by, you know, a younger person on the team, but it keeps you. It keeps you on, you know it keeps you working hard and keeps you, you know, on target. I guess you know like.
Jake Winder:I think that's something that I wish I would have had after school. I think about that a lot because it was just me like, and I I thankfully grew up. I got out of college at a time where you didn't have to jump like extraordinarily high to be to like do that post-collegiate stuff and you know 18 feet at that time, during that, you know, specific time was very competitive at any meet that you would go to. And so I got out of school and I was just like it was just me, man. It was just me and I knew I wanted to get a full-time job because I wanted to take care of my wife. I wanted like it was so hard, because it was like I wanted to.
Jake Winder:I wanted two things I wanted my wife, who had stuck around with me through some really tough times, like I wanted her to be able to like have a decent car and like have a house to live in like that was decent. So I knew that I had to make some money doing that. So I worked full-time as a teacher and I just remember just being all by myself all the time, like I'd wake up and I'd do like a little workout and go to school, teach all day and then drive to go work out by myself, and it did get pretty lonely. I learned a lot about myself and a lot, a lot about how I can count on myself even when nobody else is around. So I'm very thankful for those lessons, but I do kind of wish that I had other people around me that I could vault with and train with and who could maybe lift me up a little bit more on a day where I was beat down and things like that.
Jake Winder:So good for Jack. Nice job, jack. Yeah, yeah, way to lift her up. Get her on the line, man, come on, come on.
Bridget Williams:My heart rate was like I swear. I put Kenneth's Apple Watch on. My heart rate early on was like 155 after like five minutes of rest, after only a few 150s or whatever, I was running 135s and I was like come on Bridget, like get with it, but I was just struggling. I was struggling, man, early on I was struggling Really quick.
Jake Winder:Bridget, I am curious about this. And then, Julie, I have something to ask you what went into that decision Because to do Pan Am's, because Luke and I were talking, we were like man, that's a tough one, that's a really tough one training-wise. So what went into that decision to like, I'm gonna do this and I know my training is going to be very odd the first part of the year?
Bridget Williams:Yeah, so I think a few things. So first, having made my first world team, I was proud of how I competed in the prelim, but the final I was just, I mean, unacceptable, right, unacceptable performance for what I'm capable of. And so after the final in Budapest, I was just like crap, that's not how that should have went out. And I'm not gonna get so far into it, but I think it left a fire in my stomach.
Bridget Williams:And Pan Am's had always been on the schedule, like Bob and I will say at the beginning of every year, we find math out okay, these are all of the meets possible for this year, or these are all the meets available, and then which ones do we get invited to, which ones are feasible, which ones make sense, which ones are worth points, whatever, and kind of prioritize and build the season around that. And so Pan Am's was always that last, was the last to meet on the schedule. So it was always there. It was always there, you know, on the calendar. But I think, especially after the world final, it was just like, okay, you have some proving to do, like not necessarily to everyone else, but to yourself right.
Bridget Williams:Like to me because I was jumping great. I came into world championships in some of the best, you know best shape that I had been in all year last year and it just kind of I didn't ride that wave right Like I didn't rise to the occasion in the final.
Jake Winder:What do you think happened in the final?
Bridget Williams:A couple of things. Not a lot of people know this. I've said it in a few other podcasts. I had some vertigo going on and I hesitate to even say it out loud because people were like, oh, she's making an excuse, that's why she didn't do well, but I had some intense vertigo happening all year, last year.
Jake Winder:Really, that's interesting.
Bridget Williams:Yeah, like it started last November in 2022. I had COVID for the first time pretty bad and after I had COVID I was just feeling like my ears are really clogged. After having COVID. I don't know if I had an ear infection, just didn't know, but somewhere along the lines my vestibular nerve in my ear got disrupted and just screwed up. It just wasn't working properly and so I was diagnosed with something called vestibular hypofunction, but not until I got home from the world championships. What was that? In September, I think I got home early.
Jake Winder:September Right.
Bridget Williams:I was diagnosed. So I went almost a full year, like nine months. I went feeling just on and off intense vertigo and I had gone to this is probably the most in depth that I've shared on a podcast but in case someone else is going through this, like I had unexplained dizziness right and I went to PCP. I went to the ENT, I went to the heart doctor because they thought maybe I had POTS after I had COVID or whatever. Didn't have that Went to.
Bridget Williams:I was working with our sports psychologist Virginia Tech, who has been a godsend to me, just really, really helpful and talked to family friends that were doctors or whatever. And everyone's like oh, you just have really bad anxiety. You know you should think about anti-depressant, you should whatever. And I'm like no, like I have never struggled with anxiety that was so debilitating. Like I mean whatever, I'm just going to be a transparent. Like I, my husband thought I was depressed. Like people thought my parents thought something was wrong with me. Like I only had enough energy to get to practice and to get home. Like it took everything in my being to just make it through the day because I was feeling so like. The only way I can describe it is if you spend a long time on a cruise ship or boat and you get off and you just feel like you're like you know you feel drunk almost, and that's yeah, it was just awful.
Bridget Williams:And so I think in Budapest, the catalyst in the final was like big flashing lights. It was hot, I was overwhelmed, I was under stress, you know, like I couldn't see straight. You know I was like running over to Bob, I ran through a lot of my jumps in the warmup and he's like what's going on, you know, and I was like I'm so freaking dizzy, like I'm just trying to compose myself, and I am not doing a good job. And so and I was the only girl to miss at 450, right, so that put me back. I was number two in the lineup and so I was jumping back to back and you know I went out on a run through. You know I had two run throughs and a blow through at the next bar, I think whatever, 61 was it or 65, I can't remember what the bar went to after 50.
Bridget Williams:And so I think, you know I just I was too intact with all the noise surrounding me, not literal noise, but just like I wasn't feeling good, and I was like, oh crap, I'm not feeling good. This is the world final. I need to be feeling good. And then I missed and I was like crap. I was the only one that I met, you know, I was the only one to miss, and so I just kind of was derailing in my head, where, as in the pre-lim, it was the same conditions, but I just did a much better job of blocking all that other nonsense out of my brain and just focusing on the job that needed to be done, and I just failed to do so in the final. I mean, that's just point blank, I didn't.
Jake Winder:I didn't accomplish it To validate your, your situation there. My brother was severely impact, not my brother Luke, my other brother, josh, in Hugo Minnesota. He had, he still is dealing with extreme issues like long COVID issues and his were more heart related and just overall general fatigue. He's been like in and out of Mayo Clinic like a bunch of times. In and out of the hospital like a bunch of times.
Jake Winder:Then my coworker I stopped teaching like almost two years ago and I'm doing this full time now and it my coworker that I taught with for 11 years, super stable, awesome dude got COVID and he has those exact same symptoms Like he was. He told me he was like dude, I can't even stand up. He was like I can't even stand up, I can't even like I. He'd use the exact same analogy. He was like I feel like I'm drunk, like I feel like I shouldn't drive right now, like I feel like I shouldn't drive, and he's going through a whole bunch of battery of tests and things like that, like a whole bunch of stuff, to try to figure that out. So anybody else out there that's going to like say that that's bullshit, like it's not, it's not it's really not.
Bridget Williams:And so, and it was Bob's daughter. You know she's a physical therapist in Northern well, yeah, northern Virginia, I guess. And after Budapest I was like listen, like something I got. We've got to figure this out. You know like we have to get to the bottom of this. This has gone way too long. It's sucking my life out of me. You know like it's disrupting what I love to do, like I. When you don't feel well I think I'm going on a little bit of a tangent, but I'm sure we've all been there Like when you don't feel well, when you're injured or whatever, and you can't get to the bottom of whatever is happening to you, it literally sucks you so dry that you just have, like I was just dead. You know, like I didn't have the motivation. I was trying to fake it and I think I did a good job of faking it, but like it was so exhausting and it was so miserable, like by the time you know it. Just, I don't know but by the time the season ended like after Worlds.
Bridget Williams:I was like I just need to go home, like we just need to figure out what the heck is wrong with me, and then so fast forward. I was talking to Bob's daughter on the way home from Budapest. She picked us up from the airport and she was talking to a PT friend that went to school with her, who works in a neurology's office. She does a lot of work with stroke patients and she's like, yeah, I'm not seeing any neurological like concerns, but like she needs to go see vestibular therapist. I went to see vestibular therapist two times a week for like seven weeks or so gone nothing.
Jake Winder:No way.
Bridget Williams:Yeah, I had vestibular hypo function. Basically the vestibular nerve gets screwed up and she thinks from COVID or ear infection that I didn't know about, or whatever.
Jake Winder:Right.
Bridget Williams:And stress makes it worse. It makes you feel drunk, Like I felt claustrophobic in the shower. You know, like those are all really common signs. Grocery stores screwed me up really badly Flashing lights, swirling banners, like in a big stadium, all of that stuff that was not the world championships, yeah like all of that stuff. That was just key.
Bridget Williams:Extreme like extreme cold, extreme hot, all of that are like classic textbook symptoms of like vestibular hypo function, when your vestibular system is just not working. So I went and it was hell at the beginning. But I tell you what I have not been dizzy since I have no issues. And I'm like why did it take me nine months to figure this out? But so I mean.
Jake Winder:At least you're there. At least you're there now.
Bridget Williams:And so, hopefully, if anybody else is feeling weird after illness or whatever and nothing else is coming up in your test results, like go see a vestibular therapist, because I mean, the therapy is potent, it's short, but it's potent and it works, so I swear by it. I literally told my therapist, shout out to her like you have given me my life back. You have no idea.
Bridget Williams:You know everybody, everybody that was alongside me throughout all of that last year, and if there's and most of them are still around now, they know they're like you're different, you're way different.
Jake Winder:I say this a million times on the podcast, but I gotta just say it again so awesome to be able to do a podcast and to see backstory, like because everyone is just like, oh, why'd Bridget mess up at the world final? But it's like, well, there's always, like generally, a reason for like four things, like if it's like somebody's acting out of their character, it's like man that just doesn't look like the same person. You know, a lot of times there's something behind it and it's so cool that you shared that story because there's so many people that deal with those feelings of just like. Well, I guess I'm just not meant to be at that level, or I'm not, you know, whatever this, that and the other, and it's like everybody's dealing with stuff behind the scenes that you have nothing, nobody knows about.
Bridget Williams:And I think, yeah, go ahead sorry.
Jake Winder:Yeah, no, go ahead, you go ahead. And then I was gonna talk to Julia about the thing that she's been dealing with. Yeah, yeah, it's the same way.
Bridget Williams:What I was gonna say is like, as an athlete, you hesitate to even share it because you don't wanna ever come across as like oh, this is my excuse. Right exactly when it is actually a true reality for you. Like I'm not saying I didn't perform well because of the vestibular whatever, I'm just saying that that was going on and I myself didn't do a good job blocking that out, like I did in the pre-lame or any other meat that I competed in leading up to the World Final right.
Jake Winder:Right, well, I mean, it didn't help.
Bridget Williams:No, it didn't help. But and I guess the second component, which leads well into Julia's situation I always tell her this too, with her back, like as an athlete or any, just as a human being, advocate for yourself when it comes to your medical needs. Like, do not let any other doctor I don't care who they are tell you, oh, this is what it is. If you and your gut believe it is not right for you or it is not, what's going on, like, yes, I have anxiety, but I did not have such bad anxiety that I needed to medicate or whatever, you know, like something else was going on.
Bridget Williams:But if I wouldn't have advocated, then who knows where you know, who knows what I would be like now?
Jake Winder:right, Right, right, exactly. And tell me show me one person in that world final that didn't have anxiety Like everybody, like on that stage, like everybody is feeling really a lot of pressure and it's really, really difficult. But to blame it on that is kind of like I don't know if I buy that.
Bridget Williams:It didn't add up. That's what I tell Julia. All the time with her back, I was like, if it's not, whatever you're doing is not helping, go find somebody that's going to help you.
Jake Winder:You know, yeah, you know your body the best. Go ahead, julia.
Julia Fixsen:That's the biggest thing that I've learned in college me and my family and you know, just going through injuries, because injuries are going to happen, you're going to go through you know hard times medically and this I mean the vault, is an intense sport.
Julia Fixsen:You know you're doing the same thing over and over and over again and you know you got other external factors like getting sick and getting COVID and all those things. But the whole situation with the doctors, especially in college, is you have your collegiate doctors that are designated for your sport or for whatever, and they're great and you never want to discredit them. You know they put in the hard work to know all that they know but they're not necessarily the expert in the problem that you have. And I had problems my first two years of college and even in high school with my foot. I just kept breaking my foot. You know my right foot for some reason, yeah.
Julia Fixsen:And it was like two, three times that it happened in the same spot.
Jake Winder:You're a right handed Volta, right yeah, and I was like, oh, I'm not sure.
Julia Fixsen:So it was weird, that's my right foot because I take off my left.
Julia Fixsen:But yeah problems with my right and you know, the first time that it happened, or no, the second time that I had broken it, no one knew. You know I had the X-rays, I had the MRIs, they did. You know I did everything. And every single doctor, especially the college doctors that we had, they're like no, you look good, it's probably some like ligament, tendon something situation. But I knew like and this is another point, you know your body, like you, if something's off and you don't feel like it's right, you're probably right because the doctors don't know what you're feeling. And I knew I had broken it. You know, I knew it was broken, but you know the X-ray wasn't showing it. And so when was that? Secs at Georgia? Yeah, I think it was indoor SECs. I actually ended up winning. I had a broken foot, Wow, and no one knew and I didn't even know. But that's why I ended up red-shirting my outdoor season, because it got so bad that I could barely walk.
Julia Fixsen:Like I literally couldn't walk, and that whole time like we went to a couple of doctors but all of them said that I was fine. It wasn't until the summer when I went home to Minnesota and I was fed up. So I was like I'm literally walking in pain, I can't, I can't do anything. I went to a foot specialist that I had seen in high school and he looked at the images and immediately he was like, yeah, my foot's broken. It's been broken since February or whatever.
Jake Winder:And I was like Like how does that slip by?
Julia Fixsen:Yes, you know, and that's not to just credit doctors, but you know they're busy and they, you know, I don't know what it is.
Jake Winder:Well, here's something really quick to think about. This is what I always think about. All right, so in every profession it's like there's a, it's on a spectrum of like you got really good doctors and you got not so good doctors, you know. And sometimes, if you're just like going to a random person that you don't really know, it's like where are they on that spectrum, Like how do you know? And then the other thing that I always think about that's kind of scary to think about is when you're you guys are in right around college age, so you go and you get your degree and you go to med school and like there are people who get their medical degree that just barely got it.
Jake Winder:Yeah, just barely got it. Their professors were like hey, I like this person.
Jake Winder:Let's just let's just get this guy through, let's just get this girl through and you could be showing up to that doctor. You know what I'm saying and it's like and Cetus, and again, doctors are incredible, Like I mean, I hope that you guys have seen incredible doctors, because I've seen incredible doctors and they're like magicians, man, Like they're so good. But I've also been to bad doctors and when people come to me and they say like hey, I got to take six weeks off, the doctor told me I got to take six weeks and take ibuprofen. I'm like bad doctor. Okay, that's not the one man. You got to go find a different one. And you got to find one.
Jake Winder:And if you're lucky, sometime throughout your career you can find a doctor that you can trust your body with and I was lucky enough to find that and that is like an invaluable thing. But I just wanted to put that out there that you never know where your doctor that you just found on Google. You never know where they line up on that spectrum. You know so getting personal recommendations talking to other elite Vaulters there's so many good resources. You talk to a guy like Jeff Hartwig or like Brad Walker or somebody like that that it's like they're going to have really good recommendations. So if you're struggling out there and you, I think it would be just be good just to try to get in contact with somebody who would have a good reference for you, and then you can like get past all the BS stuff and get right to the good one. Julia, I'm sorry I interrupted you on that.
Jake Winder:I just got that my mom.
Julia Fixsen:I can have a whole podcast with my mom. Seriously, she's the one. She's kind of my mom-a-jure Like she, especially medically. She's always been the one If I have some problems. She's kind of the one trying to find people. And one thing that she would always say to any high school college Vaulter is you know, post something on Facebook like ask your friends, ask you know whatever Beautiful.
Julia Fixsen:You know, ask people because you never know when someone will read your story or your symptoms and something and know the person that can help you and that's how.
Julia Fixsen:I grew a lot of my injuries, and even the back injury that I have right now is through word of mouth or just reaching out, putting the word out there, because if you're just by yourself trying to figure out on your by yourself, trying to find the doctors, or even just sticking to the doctors that you get at college, you're not going to get exactly the tailored person or people or resources that you need. You just have to get the word out.
Jake Winder:Yeah, and you guys are elite athletes. You're not like just playing. You know soccer on Saturdays. You know, like you guys, you guys are elite athletes. And that's another thing that I think we could do a better job of. One of the things is finances. Like you know, bridget, you need to be able to go and compete in meets that are going to give you the best opportunity to be able to succeed. So you need funding to be able to do that. But another thing is treatment. Like we should have some sort of resource that is like a list of like these are the people you got to go see. Like, if you have a foot injury, like there's been this many post-collegiate pole vaulters that have seen this person and this many people have had it resolved. You know that. How valuable would something like that be? You know, to just be like, yeah, this is a resource and we can get it, you know, funded or whatever.
Bridget Williams:We'll say I've never taken advantage of it. But with the tier funding package you do have like as a tier, or TPP, which is the talent protection program for people fresh out of college, you do have access to, you know, a resource of medical professionals.
Jake Winder:That's good.
Bridget Williams:Because your health insurance is linked, can be linked to your tier funding, and I believe it's the same for TPP, TPP whatever it's called TPP, whatever you know, whatever it's called, it's linked to the health insurance and I don't take it because my husband has good. I mean, it's basically the equivalent coverage and I don't want to pay twice. You know, pay tax sometimes, Anyways, but I will say, yeah, I think I can't really speak to it, but I know that it is available for people to take advantage of.
Jake Winder:So maybe that's something that I could look into and other people could look into and see like, okay, maybe that resource does exist and people don't know about it.
Bridget Williams:With our tier package. I don't know how it works for other people, but yeah, because I mean even when I was having vestibular things, way back at the Birmingham final, I had texted one of the USATF PTs and I was like, okay, this is getting old. You know, this was back in March or February whenever I was, and she's like well, we got people in Houston or whatever. You know, we can just set it up. So I know there is medical out there Sweet.
Bridget Williams:I just don't know. Again, I haven't taken advantage of it, so not as familiar with it.
Jake Winder:Right, right, so Julia, you had. So you finally find this guy who's like yeah, your foot is fractured, where do you go from there?
Julia Fixsen:Got surgery, got surgery. Well, I think for him he also had the connections to the surgeons and the people to help me out, but he got to the root cause. Him and the surgeon that he works really close with got to the root cause. And it's kind of weird, but basically with my foot problem is my foot pronates, so my foot goes inwards naturally and that foot is super flat.
Julia Fixsen:And the doctor said that you know most of your weight should be going to your big toe. You know that's where all the force you know 50, 75%, whatever the number is most of it should be going on that big toe. But for me it was going on my second toe, my second metatarsal, and for some reason it was something to do with the angle of it, the length of it of that toe was and the structure of my foot was putting so much force on that toe and they were able to get to the root cause of, like, what was my issue. And so him and the surgeon, like they talked and I ended up getting surgery. And then that's actually when I went to Virginia Tech right after my surgery.
Julia Fixsen:Yeah, so that was talk about a crazy transition into Virginia Tech, like I lost my coach, I had to transfer, I had surgery. You know there was a lot of kind of going against me, but I remember meeting you for the first time, do you remember?
Bridget Williams:Yeah, outside of the track and she was like. We were like scared for a little bit and I remember she was like, can I hook you?
Julia Fixsen:I was like sure, I don't know, what to do with this really good doctor, so I'm just going to hook her.
Jake Winder:Yeah, that's awesome.
Bridget Williams:I don't think you were going to like keep here or something, yeah, yeah. And I was like, okay, this is cool.
Jake Winder:I remember that that's hilarious. So, julia, when did your back stuff start?
Julia Fixsen:I've always had back stuff, I mean ever since high school. I'm a tall, I'm 5'11 actually, and so I've always been really tall and I've had, you know, back stuff, a lot of back stuff in gymnastics and then here and there, as I've been a Walter, but it's always been like, you know, after a lot of practice, for the first time in like a few months or something, you know, I might just need to get going to the chiropractor and get adjusted and like three days later I'd be good to go. But this time around it was different, because over the summer I actually got a full-time internship, yeah, and it was an office job, so I was sitting a lot and I was standing a lot and I also coached on the side and then I had a class.
Bridget Williams:You stayed busy yeah.
Jake Winder:Yeah, sounds like it, geez.
Julia Fixsen:You know, and I made, this was a decision I made for myself because, you know, a lot of people were asking me why am I not? You know, right after nationals I am doing super well. I just won. Why don't I go to USA's? And for me, I knew I wanted to get an internship and I wanted to get that. You know experience internship.
Jake Winder:For what?
Julia Fixsen:A wedding card company actually.
Jake Winder:Okay, cool, very cool.
Julia Fixsen:So I became a blog editor for them. Wow, that's what I was doing. I was doing a bunch of stuff, but I was there in turn and I knew I wanted to invest my time into that because, you know, pull-up's not guaranteed. I want to pull-up for the rest of my life, for as long as I can, but I know I need to you know, invest time in other things as well. And so I really wanted to do this internship. I wanted to do full-time because I wanted to set the tone to the company that I, you know I'm going to be here, I'm going to be the first one here and the last one out and gain their respect and I, for me, I really value that is like setting the tone really early and letting them know that, yeah, I'm a poll-volter but I can work too, and I think that was really good for me. But it was a lot of sitting and I, yeah, that'll get you.
Jake Winder:Luke, I think, struggles with that. Sometimes his back is it your lower left, I'm assuming Lower left Like sometimes that'll mess with him too. And he lives in Chicago and it's not that far of a drive. It's like maybe like 40 minutes to rise, but with traffic sometimes it can just be really gnarly. And that's something that we've noticed is like all right, dude, like if you're sitting down in the car, like before a vault workout, for however long, you need to get here way earlier than your vault workout and you need to move around and you need to walk. You can't just go from just like sitting in that car. Your SOAS is just contracted up and your hip flexors are just yanking on your back. You can't do that. And then just like hop into rise and just start warming up. You know you gotta actually do that Sitting down. And then the other thing too, bridget, you probably I don't know if you've dealt with back issues but like traveling man, like being on a plane, holy cow, especially going to. You know where you went to.
Bridget Williams:Yeah, I had a back injury my junior year of college. It took me out 10 months. I redshirted my whole junior year that gave me 10 months, that's one disc bulge and again like same thing.
Bridget Williams:you know like we looked at all kind of different options and the one thing that I didn't I was really against getting an epidural steroid injection, I think is what it was. I am like ultra conservative when it comes to medical intervention, try to do the least invasive. So I took 10 months off. The spine surgeon, you know, called our talk to my parents and said yeah, she will. You know, she will recover if she.
Bridget Williams:I had really really weak glutes and really weak lower abdominal muscles. Like could not push my spine to the ground and hold it there, you know it would shake, just yeah. Like I remember thinking I have muscles, you know, like my core is strong, and they're like no, no, no, we're not talking about like the ones you see, it's like the deep, these deep abdominal muscles that are not functioning properly and so my, my, I guess hamstrings were taking a lot of the load and anyways. But and I have my, just anatomically, is that the right word Just my, my spine is pretty curved.
Bridget Williams:I have a lot of. Which way is it Posture anterior tilt? Yeah.
Julia Fixsen:Right.
Bridget Williams:All of my hips, all of my stomach sag when I run. You know my hips are always.
Jake Winder:You know my legs turn forward, whatever that is oh, yeah, yeah, so that would be anterior.
Bridget Williams:So that's a long question. On anterior tilt yeah, it puts a lot of pressure on the on the lower back.
Jake Winder:Yeah, for sure.
Bridget Williams:Once I once I did a bunch of PT. Dry needling is what I was getting at helped me a ton.
Jake Winder:Yeah, that's funny. Luke did dry needling last year and that really helped him out a lot too. I've never had it done. I always wanted to do it. He said it's crazy. He said it's like like they'll get into a spot and like your stuff will just start twitching and going crazy. I find that very interesting. I would love to do that, yeah.
Bridget Williams:I highly recommend. It is awesome, like that was the only thing that helped me, the only thing, well, in addition to, like you know, rest or whatever, letting inflammation come down and strengthening everything, but I would do it every other week for the whole season.
Jake Winder:Wow, that's awesome. So, Julia, you're, you're coming off of, so where how do you? Is it just overuse? That's kind of what happened with your back.
Julia Fixsen:I think it was a combination of things and this is the past week. I've learned a lot ever since school has stopped and I actually I decided to put my two weeks in at my job because I've actually been working since the summer and I think, to be honest, after thinking and going to many doctors and stuff like that, I think it was my schedule. I think it was. I mean, if you saw my calendars, I mean.
Julia Fixsen:I just like one thing after another, after another and you know a full load of classes and working on top of that and then trying to train on top of that. I mean it was kind of an echo of my summer and I didn't really have. I mean, I had even worked on the weekends Like I really didn't.
Jake Winder:I didn't have, you don't have to do that.
Julia Fixsen:Like, do that when you're my age, yeah, she's learning, don't do that now she's learning she's learning, and I want other people to know too is like, yeah, you want to do all of these things and you want to, you know, invest in a career and you want to vault and you want to graduate and all that, but you really need to prioritize what you want to do. Yeah, really, narrow your focus and, yes, get into, you know, do other things to balance, balance of you know writing your life, but you know, don't try to do everything.
Julia Fixsen:Have time for yourself to rest and recover. Because you know I wrote this on the board. We have a little whiteboard that I always do like motivation, or I write little quotes.
Bridget Williams:Yeah, she does.
Julia Fixsen:It's good, though, but I wrote work hard, recover harder.
Julia Fixsen:And that's what I'm learning is like you can work hard. I mean, for me, I'm always going to work hard. I feel like it's in my nature. I think it's in your nature too. But we have to be extremely intentional about our recovery and also like our schedule. You can't have things back to back to back, otherwise things will just build up and manifest in stress and pain in your body, and for me, I think that's what my back issue was. It was literally just stress and not recovering. You know, just working hard, yeah.
Jake Winder:Coming from a guy who's 36, has two little girls and runs three businesses it is. You can do that all through the rest of your life. You can have back to back schedule whenever you're my age. You really just don't have. You don't have to do that right now. There's a very small, small, small window of time that you get to be as fit as you guys are and as strong as you guys are and as fast as you guys are, and you don't have to. It's a very limited amount of time in. It's like. So it's so crazy, looking back on it, how small of a amount of time it was and it's just like. You know. I'm not saying like all you should just pull off and that's all you should do, because if you pull out all day and all you do is think about pull, vaulting, you're going to wreck yourself too. But you know, working crazy schedules is pretty tough. But I think, julia, you hit the nail on the head.
Jake Winder:I would probably say every single person that I've ever had on this podcast has never had the issue of not working enough, you know, or not trying enough. You guys, you guys both like if you got to the level that you're at right now, you guys both have the issue of working too much. You'll always deal with that, probably for the rest of your life. Probably for the rest of your life, you will be always having to pull the reins back on yourself and like just chill, chill, chill, chill, stop, stop, stop. You know, and it's a really incredible attribute because it'll take you so far in whole vaulting, but it will also take you far in whatever it is you decided to do after that.
Jake Winder:But then it also it's a double-edged sword, because then all of a sudden it's like well, I got this idea, like. Then you end up, like me, where it's like you got this idea, oh, let's do that. Oh, I got this idea, let's do that one too. And then all of a sudden you sit down one day and you're like dude, I'm doing like 50 things like all at the same time. What did I do to myself? You know? And that's when you got to re-correct, like what you said you did, julia, is you got to like sit down and be like all right, I did it again, I overextended myself, dang it, and then you just correct, you just correct it, and then you just move forward from there.
Julia Fixsen:You know, also knowing why you're doing some things. I think for me, the internship, and I think the internship was good, but then to continue working on, you know, through this last semester, I was doing it because it was rid of fear. To be honest and to be completely transparent, I was, I'm scared to not have money to pull vault after college. You know, because I know like- that's valid.
Julia Fixsen:You know. And so I had this like financial security in the back of my head, like if I keep this job, then I can continue vaulting, you know, after college. But then I realized, you know, all the stuff that I'm doing is prohibiting me from pull vaulting, from doing what's manifesting and paying for me. And so I mean literally just this last week, I mean I've really come to terms of. You know, I need to cut back in order to, in order to have that dream, and I need to have faith that, no matter what happens if I continue vaulting or not after college, like I'm gonna be okay.
Jake Winder:Yeah.
Julia Fixsen:Yeah, and having faith over fear with finances. You know that's a real struggle to have that.
Bridget Williams:Yeah, I think it's just a natural struggle. But I mean, I don't know. I think we're both pretty strong in our faith and I think you know, if it's the path that you're meant to go down, god will provide. So I mean, yeah, I do too. I mean I've lived it, you know, in Charlottesville.
Bridget Williams:Yeah, you're a test student and I never thought, and I kept telling myself because I mean, I wasn't, I didn't know right, like I didn't know if this would work out or if I would get better or whatever. I wanted to get better. I was gonna try my hardest but I didn't really know exactly how it was gonna go. I only jumped 446 in college and wasn't sure. But I kept telling myself, okay, if this is where I'm meant to be, like God will show up and things will, opportunities will arise, right. And like right before COVID, I jumped 461. And I was like, okay, there we go. You know, like that's the next, that was the next little tick, that's all I needed to just get to the next thing. And then you know, just builds and then money. If you jump, well, if you make teams, whatever money will follow and you can't.
Bridget Williams:I think Brad actually had talked to us, talked to me. I had dinner with him and Katie and Gabby and Sage back at the annual meeting last year and I think that's the first time I really got to know them on that kind of casual level and we were just talking very like just being vulnerable with each other and I was asking questions just out of ignorance because I didn't know exactly how this worked or whatever post collegiate and whatever, with the funding and opportunities and making teams and sponsorships and agents and all you know. Like I just didn't know, and kudos to them because they were really just. You know, straight shooters just said, hey, this is what it is, this is what it's gonna be like, whatever.
Bridget Williams:This is my advice and something that Brad said really stuck with me. He's like if you try, or if you fix it on the money or you fix it on the sponsorship or you fix it on all this crap, he's like it'll kill your dream. You know like I'm paraphrasing, but he was like it will drive you up a wall, you know. So like, stay healthy, keep getting better, jump high, believe in yourself, things will take care of it. You know things will take care of itself. And they do. They really, really do.
Bridget Williams:But it is hard to not get caught up in that stuff, you know. But yeah, I think that was great advice for and you know, I try to say that to everyone else in our group too like do it your way. You know what I mean. Like, stay true to yourself and not don't get caught up in oh yeah, I don't have a sponsorship, or oh, I didn't get into this meet, or I didn't get invited, or whatever.
Bridget Williams:Who cares? Take the opportunities that you have with the money that you have and do the best, jump your best. That's it. If you want to take it and love it yeah.
Jake Winder:That's 100%. My dad always used to call it the dark side of pole vaulting and he would tell me he would be like you're getting wrapped up in the dark side man. You're getting wrapped up in the dark side and you gotta stop that because that's not gonna do anything for you. Like stressing about you know well, these guys got into this meet and you know whatever it's like. That's the dark side man. You have to focus on what got you there, what got you there working hard, showing up and having faith, that you know, like you said, god's plan is gonna be revealed to you.
Jake Winder:And if you do those things and you just keep doing it consistently over time but I really like the term you use, bridget slow burn. I love that. I had never really heard that. That is a really good way of putting it. If you wanna do some sort of like smash and grab thing after college, it's probably not gonna happen, like it's gonna be a long, slow grind and only the fittest will survive it. You know, and you just have to show up and have faith and just be happy and try to enjoy what you're doing and those sorts of things. They generally produce fruit. You know whether it's in pole vaulting, or if it's in business or your family life or your personal life, like those things generally, you know, work themselves out, you know.
Julia Fixsen:I mean, what do you even think of for me, Like I think of, you know, the transfer that was one of the hardest things for me is transferring schools because I loved it and I was, you know, injured and all this, but I knew in my mind and in my heart I wanted to become a national champion. I knew that's what I wanted to do, in order to you know, it took sacrifice in order to get to that point.
Jake Winder:Right.
Julia Fixsen:You know, pulled you out of your comfort zone. It totally pulled me out of the comfort zone.
Julia Fixsen:Oh yeah, but I knew you know, that was what I wanted and it was a slow burn. I didn't win right away whatever I had success right away. But you know, and also like with national championships and world championships and all that, you know it can be you, it can be anyone. You know, I never thought I could be. You know me, a little girl from Minnesota, like traveling and going to D1 schools and then becoming national champion, like you can't count yourself out, you know. Yeah, slow burn it takes a while.
Jake Winder:Yeah, luke always says. Since we started training together, he was like why not me? Yeah, exactly, why couldn't I be that person? You know?
Julia Fixsen:Yeah, I was listening. Why can't it be you? Yeah, yeah, why not?
Jake Winder:Why not? You know You're never gonna get there if you don't. You know truly like, have faith that it could be you. You know Really quick, julia. So are you healthy now? Like are you on the tail end of that?
Julia Fixsen:I think I'm on the tail end.
Jake Winder:Okay, so you're getting there and you're gonna be out. You think you're gonna be able to be good this year, like health-wise, at least the beginning of the year.
Julia Fixsen:The indoor is a little questionable for me, which is, you know, it's not that big of a deal because I'll have a full year next year, Two outdoors and one indoor, and so I kind of get to choose what indoor, yeah, how I want to use it, and I think you know I could compete indoor. I literally just started vaulting like this last week.
Bridget Williams:And she already crushed it. She won't tell you this, but she had a solid week of training this week. Yeah.
Jake Winder:I saw the jump you posted, it looked good.
Julia Fixsen:I would say it's because of her, because, you know, like I don't know, Brigitte is the one person that will always motivate me, like even just her presence. I'm just like, okay, that's good. Yeah, well, I can say the same, that's awesome. The indoor is like we'll see with indoor. I'm not pressed or stressed about competing or not.
Julia Fixsen:You know, if I go unattached and I'm able to jump from five lefts, you know I will compete unattached and you know I'll keep going. You know my goal this year is I do want. I want to make it to the Olympic trials and compete at the Olympic trials. I wasn't able to do that in 2020 because of the foot. That's when I had the surgery and everything. So really get out there and compete over the summer. And also I mean I'd like to get in the 60s and the 70s.
Jake Winder:Yeah, for sure, for sure. So there was one question. We've already been going for a while now we can talk about this. Yeah, I know right.
Julia Fixsen:Conversations. That's why I think we've been wanting to start a podcast. We've been wanting to do a podcast because we can talk for hours, you should. Just like I can stop.
Bridget Williams:We really do like every time I do one I've done. Well, I mean, I think it comes with as you get better. But you know, like I've done so many podcasts this year and every time I finish like man, that's so fun, like why don't we start one? You know.
Jake Winder:You guys are really good at it. Like you're really good. Like you never know when you have a guest on, you never know Like it could flop. Like there's some people that I have to like I'm not gonna name any names, but there's some people that you really have to lead. You know, lead into questions and stuff like that. You guys really flow really really well, and we just took a video before this that we'll post up on the Rise Instagram of our setup.
Jake Winder:You guys should just get a setup and do it. It would be really, really cool. I mean, there's gotta be more stuff like this out there. Like there has to be more than one or two podcasts for pole vaulters to listen to man, like there's gotta be something. Or even if it's not even about pole vaulting, even if it's just about you guys and your life, like people really find a lot of value in you know, a lot of people look up to you guys and it would be cool just to hear something different that they're not used to hearing. You know. So what's holding you back? Why wouldn't you do it?
Julia Fixsen:Oh well, my job was coming in like a spack, not gonna lie, oh okay.
Jake Winder:Oh yeah, your schedule. Yeah, your crazy schedule. I was graduating already.
Julia Fixsen:I mean, I'm not cool. We're actually really serious about this now and I actually we have a place at Tech, they have like for students, they have like a studio and like a podcast setup that I can use for free.
Bridget Williams:So we, literally we tried to do it for this because, but because of winter break they didn't allow us. So now we're at my house, but Rich and I have been talking about this for two years. Yeah, we really have.
Julia Fixsen:Seriously, we have, and the reason why. You know, remember when I messaged you about whatever, I always listen to your podcast.
Bridget Williams:I always listen to your videos.
Julia Fixsen:I do too they're so helpful yeah.
Jake Winder:Thank you, thank you.
Julia Fixsen:I think that I really wanted to compliment you because what you are doing for the pole vault community is like nothing out there and I get so much value from what you're saying and the people that you're talking to and getting like what we talked about the back stories of Neitz and Katarina.
Jake Winder:I love that episode of her, that's a good one, yeah.
Julia Fixsen:It was so valuable for me and I would love to keep pouring into people you know.
Bridget Williams:It reminds me of what you said about the doctors. Right, like you ask you know the best of the best. Or ask Jeff or Brad, or people who've been there, who've done that, who've worked with so many athletes you know over so many years, who have done and accomplished whatever what you hope to or whatever the case. Yeah, and I think like yeah, like to what Julia was saying, like your podcast and some of the other ones that are out there, like it's almost where the, it's like the first place I go, if I'm like okay, I'm feeling this way, or whatever, like let me see if I can find, like I pull wisdom from podcasts from people who've been there, even if I'm not necessarily close enough to be. Like hey, I'm going through this problem, you know or whatever.
Bridget Williams:This is my situation, or I'm trying to make it here, or you know, this was my first world championship, whatever the thing you know, like. Granted, there's probably going to be a podcast out there, so pull wisdom from somebody who actually did it or went through it or whatever you know. So I think that's how?
Jake Winder:Absolutely yeah, you guys definitely should. And if you have any questions on, like, how to do it or set it up or whatever, like I'm totally open to helping you guys out with that Cause I think it would be really, really cool. And, like I said, one of our biggest missions at Rise is just to get more stuff that people Paul Walters can be like a fan of. Like there's just not it's getting better, but there's not a lot to choose from, you know, besides just like seeing people's pole vaults. You know, yeah, I think that.
Jake Winder:Yeah, I'm saying that in a past podcast, just like you go on Instagram and it's just like, oh, that person pulled off the today. That person pulled off the today, okay, it's like all right, I know you guys can pull off. Like I want to hear about some other stuff too, Like you think football is one of the most mental sports.
Julia Fixsen:You mean it is like it is not just physical, it's mostly mental and like I think there's so much value into getting inside the head of an elite pole vaulter and hearing and seeing what they think about. What do they think about on their mind? What do they see? What's their training? Mental training?
Bridget Williams:You know what do you do in adversity. What's their home life? How do?
Julia Fixsen:they deal with stress ups, and there's not a lot of that out there Cause, like what you said, you just see people vaulting, posting their vaults. And I do that too, cause it's nice to you know.
Bridget Williams:Well, that's what people want to see, right? Like your vault videos. Get the most feedback, the most comments, most shares, most likes. Then I post something about. You know whatever. My husband and I was like five likes, like okay nobody wants to get them on there.
Jake Winder:They do. They do. That's not the average, but they do want. They do want to see that and I think, yeah, that's an interesting one with the vault videos getting more views, but it's I don't know. I guess I'm just. I guess I'm just saying this because whenever I was younger, all I wanted to do was know, like, what are these people doing? Like, not even, not even in the sense of I want to know what they're doing, so then I can do it.
Jake Winder:I just was genuinely interested in those people Like, and I wanted to like see what they sounded like off the runway. Like what this is going to sound really stupid, but like, like, what do they look like off the runway? What do they sound like off the runway? Like, what do? What do they talk about whenever they're not in like a classic interview format? Like, what are they? Where are their personalities at?
Jake Winder:And then what happens is is, if we do this enough and we get more podcasts, like if you were to do one, and we have other people that do them, what happens is you create these characters Like it's like almost like a character in a movie, like that. You get to understand the backstory of them and then you can actually truly be a fan of these people, like like now somebody, some little girl out there, is going to listen to this podcast and be like man, julia and Bridget's podcast, like I really I love them. You know, like I love them so much and I care about them as poll vaulters, but I care about them as people and I want well, like I wish them well, and you don't get that if it's only like that guy just did a poll vault, you know it doesn't hit the same, and so I think that would be awesome. I think you guys definitely should do it. But what you will find is there is a reason why there's not a lot of podcasts out there. It's just tough, it's just hard.
Jake Winder:It's what happens is, is what you guys should do, like this is me just giving unsolicited advice. What you should do is you should just start with just you guys and like because when you add guests into it, it all it takes on another layer of difficulty because you got to worry about their technology. Like what technology are they dealing with? And do they know how to use Zoom? Do they know you know how to use a microphone or how to make the audio sound good, and are you going to be able to schedule at the same time?
Jake Winder:Like, one of the hardest things about some of my podcasts that I've done is that, like the one with Steve Hooker I did at two in the morning, my time, you know, like because he's in Australia and it was like dude, I just got to do it, man, I just got to do it. I got to wake up at two in the morning and do this podcast and because I knew people wanted to talk to him and I knew that I wanted to hear what he had to say. So when you add guests, it adds another layer to it. But, you know, set like a super modest goal, like all right, let's just do one a month and then knock it out and then next month do another one and then, if you want to bring someone in, bring someone in or just bring in the people from Virginia Tech, you know, or Bob, or yeah, yeah, like any of those people. I think that would be super, super cool.
Bridget Williams:So I think that's been on our hearts too. Yeah, I think I mean I've said this to you too and I'm sure you feel the same. Like one of my someone asked me like what's your biggest goal, like outside of you know whatever, making meddling at the Olympics, or maybe at the Olympics or whatever you know outside of football? And I think you know, I think we both feel pretty passionate about the importance of inspiring the generation to come like are the generation under us, and I think I could be totally wrong, but I think and people have said this to me a few times but not everyone is going to come out of college and make a world team, you know, Like not everyone's going to come out of college and make an Olympic team. Not everyone is going to, you know whatever, sign a big contract right away or jump 80 right away, or whatever.
Bridget Williams:And I think kind of us really, I feel like we represent like the, not the average in terms of like average athletic ability, but just like the regular athlete you know what I mean Like this slow burn type of thing, and it's okay, like it doesn't mean just because you didn't make a world team out of college or just because you didn't sign a big contract doesn't mean you're not able to have success. Or even, like I used to think, oh, I have to train with somebody, like I'm just going to say it like I have to train with the Derek Miles or Brad Walker or whatever, like Toby, I have to train with someone like that. No, you don't. You don't have to.
Bridget Williams:You know you just need success, just as successful or whatever, with a college coach or with your you know, whatever, you know like someone, like your dad or you, you know, like you don't have to do that. And I think maybe it was just my ignorance. But, like when I was first toying with this idea of whether or not I wanted to keep jumping, or if I was good enough to keep jumping, or if it would work, or whatever, I just had no idea, you know, because nobody talked about it. I'm like, how do people do this? Like the barrier to enter into this realm, if you will, was so vague and nobody wanted to say anything about it and nobody like I think the only advice we kept getting was like jump higher. And I'm like, what does that mean? You know?
Jake Winder:like yeah, I know that.
Bridget Williams:You know, like, I know I need to jump higher than 450, but like, what, what else? Like, how do you do that? How do you get there? How do you craft a team? You know, like, how do you craft your support system? Like, yeah, like, what does a training regimen look like? You know, what does what does a competition schedule look like? What does what does finding an agent? How does that work? You know, like all of that was so vague early, early, early on. You know, years ago, when I was just leaving college, I was just like I have no idea what to do.
Bridget Williams:Like you know, and so it was just trial and error, trial and error, trial and error. And then you know, and I'm we're still learning, but, and I think it's like that for everyone, but it's just such a gray space. I guess that I think we kind of I mean other girls too there are, there are several others that do the same but I think it's important to just kind of like normalize that, like you don't have to be a star right out of college, you know you don't have to. I was never NCAA champion, you know that was one goal I really wanted but never got to.
Bridget Williams:But I mean, you know, like it's okay, it's okay, you know you don't have to have it to be successful later on.
Julia Fixsen:And I think Bridget has been like, out of all the blessings I've had, I mean I could really I can go on and on about her because she's really done. I mean you've been paving your own path, like what you were saying is like that no one really talks about how to. There's no one right way to become a pro and right yeah you know, but you've been paving the way, you know, you've been kind of like any big and I'm like here just watching you. You know I'm in my bubble of college.
Bridget Williams:Yeah, but she's been paving the way too. She's not giving her stuff. Yeah, but I like to see her.
Jake Winder:She's doing alright, yeah.
Julia Fixsen:You know, while in amazing college, when everything is really given to me, I get to see you and how you use your faith and how you, you know she advocates for herself like no other, like she, you know getting into meets and like that's a whole other thing getting into meets and yeah.
Jake Winder:I mean, this is what you guys are explaining right here. Is what you're going to do, is you're going to take this once this is released and you need to play this section back and you just need to be like, okay, this is our podcast, like that's what the podcast is like, like straight up. I just thought about this. I like just this concept of how cool would it be to have a podcast with somebody who was, you know, scrapping after college, like trying to put it together and learning and trying to figure this thing out, and then also on that podcast is somebody who is about to enter into that Like that. That would be a really cool thing, a really cool dynamic that you know, I've never heard anything like that. So there you go. You guys are on to something. You guys are on to something. Next stop One million views. Next stop one million views.
Julia Fixsen:I think and I told Bridget, like with the podcast or whatever we do in the future, if we get one guest, or like get one person to listen to us, great, if we get to, even better. But I think for us, like we're in such a valuable, like we're never going to be in this spot in our lives again. Yeah, you know like free for us to be at this level. You know I want to, and every time we have a conversation I want to record it because it's just so good.
Julia Fixsen:There's so much wisdom and I feel like we barely touched the surface today of like what we've talked about. Yeah but we swear every conversation that we have. I'm like there's somebody that needs to hear this.
Jake Winder:Right. And yeah, the beautiful thing about podcasts and podcasts and YouTube, like for me in general I love those mediums because they are like a bank that that is always there, like Instagram is just different. So Instagram, like it's just when you create content for Instagram, which we do a lot of it's difficult for me because it just is there and then it just goes away and it's just like all right, it was there and then now we worked really hard and recorded this video and worked hard at it and then now, like name me one rise pole vault Instagram video from two months ago. It's like I couldn't. You know I could. I could name you, like the two in the last week, you know, but the problem is that it just it. You swipe it and then it goes and then that's it. Nobody can interact with it. Well, you can, but it's like hard to find and all that stuff.
Jake Winder:But with YouTube and and podcasting is it's just always there and you can search it and you can, you can. It's like a bank of information and there's there's times that I listened to podcasts two and three times, you know. And and I think that, julia, you're exactly right is is you should record it and you should have that like as a historical like. Okay, this is, we have all this stuff banked up now and all this information and people will 100% find value in it and I can just tell you right now that it would be really a good job. And then, julia, you have. You have a background in graphic design and stuff. Yeah, boom, you got it. I got to pay people to do that, so so you got it.
Julia Fixsen:Technology side of it. But yeah, I started out as like a studio artist drawing portraits and whatever. I have really good side of me that I absolutely am obsessed with, but I'm still trying to figure out what the heck to do with it.
Bridget Williams:Yeah, yeah, I guess, we ever need a designer. She's a good one, right up.
Jake Winder:I mean, good designers are hard to come by, that's for sure. All right, before we wrap up, I did have one question that I was looking forward to asking you guys about. It's a little bit more of a difficult question. So both of you guys are coming off of years that were really solid years. Like Julia, you won a national championship. That's incredible. Bridget, you made a world team. Like that that's really frickin cool. Both of those things are really really cool, and for you to experience them, it's probably just an amazing feeling. But I have to imagine that it also comes with a certain level of stress at the same time, like where it's like okay, now I've made it to this spot, and now the human instinct is to be like how do I get back to that spot and how do I maintain that? So, julia will start with you. So how have you been feeling about being NCAA champion and then going into the year after you were NCAA champion?
Julia Fixsen:I've actually been thinking about this a lot, because I think you can definitely fall into that trap of I have to always be national champion, now Like if I'm not national champion, I'm nothing, or whatever you know, whatever you say in your head, and I was, I mean, at the very beginning, when I came back to tech to start training again, that was kind of in the back of my mind like what are people going to think of me? Like what is what if I don't win again? Like what will? Am I like nothing? Am I like not a good pullback anymore? But I'm going to be completely honest.
Julia Fixsen:I think the back injury kind of humbled me and kind of made me think you know what. I'm just happy to be jumping, like seriously, like to be jumping. I am the happiest. I am truly myself, and I think that's a reason out of all the reasons why a full ball, I just love it and I I love the personal journey of just trying to be the best on that day and don't compare yourself to other people.
Julia Fixsen:You know that's a constant thing that I'm always thinking about. Like if you know someone, if someone, even someone younger like Kenna, who's on our team jumps higher than me, like you can't be comparing yourself to other people. You're on your own journey and you have to understand why you're doing it, and for me it's, you know, natural championships are plus. I just love doing it and I just love seeing myself get better and I think the back injury it's really put into perspective that I'm just glad to be malting again and you know my eyes, I think for this year, next year, obviously to win a national championship again is like the goal, but it's really not my primary goal anymore. I think that would kind of be a byproduct of my actual goal which is, you know, to be jumping in the 60s, the 70s and the to be able to keep jumping and get into other needs outside of college. I think that's I'm kind of looking beyond NC eyes now and so if I win again, two thumbs up. If I don't, you know like it's a great attitude.
Julia Fixsen:You know I'm going to be honest. The injury has kind of got me into that mindset and I want to hold on to that. But that's the truth and you know I think that's healthy for me and that's that feels right for me.
Jake Winder:That's awesome.
Julia Fixsen:So I get second at national championships Great. But if I'm jumping for 60 and I get second, that's great.
Jake Winder:Right right.
Bridget Williams:Yeah, that was great. That's the truth for me. Yeah, I would say yeah, kind of like building on that, I think what something that's really hard for high chairs or hard workers is that you can't derive your worth from the product like adults in the in track, right, like I think that I think that kind of eliminates the pressure going into a new year or whatever, like like kind of what you're saying if you get, if you don't want a national champion, then that's okay. You know, like whatever, if you've done your best and you've done everything you can and the card you know it wasn't in the cards or whatever then so be it.
Bridget Williams:But I'm not saying by any means be complacent, but I think just knowing that your worth comes out from outside you know, not from within, the sport is so important and it's so hard and so easy to just, you know, like, fall into that and be like, oh, this is, you know, I didn't, I failed right or whatever. And I think, I think for me that that's something that I've been working with our sports psychologist with. He's like I said earlier, he's just really great. He's put in perspective a lot like you are not the result of a competition or a medal or whatever, and that is something that you produced. But you are not that thing like you, you know you can't derive your words from that because, like you're saying, if you don't match up to it and you're after then then what you know, like then you failed or then you're not good enough, or whatever, like and another thing, too, is like a lot of people that don't know who you are, they'll think about oh, you're the world finalist or you're the national championship.
Julia Fixsen:Those are the people that don't know, that that's the thing that they're going to attribute to you.
Julia Fixsen:but the people that truly know you, I mean, sure, you're a national champion, you're world finalist, but you're Bridget, you know you have a solid heart here for teammates like you're my wife or you know whatever relationship have those people that you keep close to you. That's you know. That's where you should be and not be thinking about the people you don't even know or like, yeah, you know what I mean Awesome, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Jake Winder:And like how, how, just how much of a struggle is it if you're only as good as your last meet? Like, yeah, dang, terrible life, what a terrible life. It's just like every week it's just like all right, yeah, every week I'm just a different person. I had a good meet, I'm happy. I had a bad meet, I'm sad. Like it's just like gosh, man, that's just going to be. You're going to, you'll just fizzle out. You'll just end up fizzling out and you'll you'll the. The poleball will just eat you up and then spit you out, and that'll be that the dark side of the pole like that's, that's gotta stay away, gotta stay away from the dark side man, it's, it's, it's 100% the truth.
Jake Winder:Yeah, go ahead.
Bridget Williams:I was just going to say someone was just interesting. Someone once asked my husband, james, like how do you guys balance like? I mean, he was once an athlete, right, but in college, but is not anymore and he has a full time job and whatever, and I'm still doing this, this track stuff. And so someone asked us like how do we balance that? Or? Or how do we like to be out track at home, or or what is that? How do you know, how do you navigate that? And I thought his answer was really interesting because he was like, honestly, the poleball is like the most, is the least interesting thing about her. You know what I mean? Like just something that she does, and some people are like, oh, that's rude, you know and it's not rude, though, because he sees me more than just a jumper. You know, like, how many times have you been introduced to somebody like, oh yeah, she's a polevolter?
Bridget Williams:I'm like, yeah, but I'm also like wife and I do stuff and I work in my church, you know, like I'm not annoyed by it, but they're like I'm saying like to each athlete up care who you are. There are more layers and it's really easy to slap that oh she's an athlete, oh she's polebalter, oh she's world finalist, whatever that title on. And sure I mean, yeah, you should be recognized for your accomplishments. But I don't. I'm a firm believer and I'll go blue in the face saying I don't think that you're, I don't think all your worth should be canned in that manner. Yes, 100%.
Jake Winder:Well, ladies, it's oh, but we're almost at two hours, which is really crazy. That was a. That was a long time, you know. Yeah, no, no, it was honestly. I like I said when I get on with people, I never know, I never know it, like because I've never talked with you guys before this. I've talked with you over DMs and texts like that's, that's it, that's the extent, and so you just never know what's going to happen. And I was just blown away, really, to be honest, with you, like with just your guys wisdom, your just the way you carry yourselves, everything. It was just really really an enjoyable conversation and I really really appreciate you guys doing it.
Julia Fixsen:It was a lot of fun yeah, we had a lot of good news.
Jake Winder:Yeah, like how you yourself and how you I mean, I just yeah for sure everything that you're doing too, yeah, so thank you, thank you and then reach out if you want to help with that podcast. You said it now. You said it now. Bunch of people are going to hear it now. So really quick, really quick. Where can people follow you guys if they're interested?
Bridget Williams:I guess Instagram, yeah, yeah, instagram is fine my handle is B R I D G I with for ease bridge II.
Julia Fixsen:Yeah and then my Instagram is jewels underscore fixed in. And fixed in is called with an S, f, I, x, s E N. For those that awesome. Yeah, that got me a couple times when I was typing stuff out, I would get it all the time.
Bridget Williams:But I would think I would have put FIX, yeah, yeah.
Jake Winder:I know FIX, yeah, awesome. And then last thing, where are you guys opening up your seasons?
Bridget Williams:We're opening at home.
Jake Winder:Opening at home.
Bridget Williams:Yeah, january 12th, 530.
Julia Fixsen:Reckfield House 530. You're giving me all the time.
Bridget Williams:Yeah, it's going to be so good to stream it if you're not jumping.
Julia Fixsen:Yeah, I'm always the one streaming the poll about too.
Jake Winder:Yeah, let's get a crowd out there. That's awesome. Well, ladies, thank you so much. Really really appreciate it, and thank you to everybody listening. This is the One More Jump podcast. See you guys later.