Athlete Highlight - Part 1: Deciding to Compete…Again.
Amanda Kautzer grew up in Minnesota, and began skiing in middle school. It didn’t take long for her to become excellent in competition, qualifying for Junior Nationals and World Juniors within just a few years. While stacking up collegiate and Team USA accolades for biathlon, Amanda also got her Bachelor’s of Science in Biomedical Engineering and her Master’s of Science in Mechanical Engineering.
While competing, working or studying, finding time for loved ones, Amanda also prioritized thinking about her life after sports through Beyond Sports, a program hosted by Athletes Soul. This is where we met! I was shadowing the program, thanks to Quentin, and got a chance to meet Amanda and learn more about her story. I was lucky enough to stay connected to her and we have had some amazing conversations about her sports journey over the past year.
In Part 1 of this series, Amanda shares her story about the decision to continue competing -- a decision so many elite athletes wrestle with -- how she made it, what factors led to her decision and what her ‘why’ is now.
Winter 2022
The days were short, the sun seemed to be hibernating for the winter, Amanda had been traveling for months at a time - spending the majority of her time away from loved ones and she was feeling mentally exhausted from the rigors of training and living a life isolated from her support system. She could tell she was tired, but didn’t realize she was physically overdoing it until she found herself struggling to run a mile. A normal workout would be 10+ miles , but she hadn’t been sleeping well and her iron was low, causing her energy to dip to levels she wasn’t used to experiencing.
This combination created a mental fog where she was having a really hard time making even the smallest decisions, like what to do after work. Amanda had been competing at elite levels for over a decade, competing in her first Junior Nationals in 2013 and her first Junior Worlds in 2015, and was contemplating if she wanted to, or was even physically capable of training for another year amidst the emotional and physical stress her body was enduring.
Making the Decision
In conversations with loved ones and trying to better understand her own wants in the moment, she decided to create a chart to better understand what was pulling her towards and away from competing another year versus retiring now.
From this exercise, Amanda realized the key factors that mattered to her in the decision were:
Being able to compete in the Minneapolis World Cup. This would be the first time she could compete on her home track. And it reminded her about her fire to compete, even if it was just an ember at the moment.
Spending quality time with her family and friends
Making her mental and physical health more of a priority
This wasn’t a one and done 10-minute exercise to figure out her decision, but it was a start and a clear way of seeing what factors and influences were in play.
Over the next 3 months, Amanda focused on a few key areas:
Trying to remove expectations around results of her competition and considering how she actually wanted to spend her time
Separating her wants from her family’s excitement about her competing. Her Dad was the one who got her into shooting and it was something they bonded over. This was why she ultimately stuck with biathlon over skiing alone
Contemplating what life would be like if she worked at an office in a normal 9-5 environment
With these considerations and experiences, she realized she’d rather train for hours a day than sit in an office and give up on her passion. So she decided to keep competing!
What was her new ‘Why’?
While she knew she wanted to keep competing, Amanda decided to make the transition from biathlon back to Nordic skiing to compete in the Nordic World Cup on her home course to prove herself in her favorite discipline: sprinting! Something that she had paused for 3 years while racing biathlon internationally.
She always came back to what would make her feel good versus the results of competition (Take away metrics, Focus on feelings). This was most important to her because the commitment to competing can be daunting.
While she decided yes, her body was saying no…
Amanda’s emotional and physical exhaustion became more serious. She had episodes of full body chills and got sick 5 times within 8 summer months. Amanda and her coach finally realized what she was experiencing was overtraining syndrome. She had overworked herself physically to a point that now required her to take time away from her sport. So after all the deliberation of making the decision to compete again, she had no choice but to take time off.
