Listen to how Ator's run at Kona concluded and where this author, editor and IRONMAN is setting her sights next. And if you like what you hear, be sure to rate and review #WeGotGoals on iTunes and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

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JAC:Welcome to #WeGotGoals, a podcast by aSweatLife.com on which we talked to high achievers about their goals. I'm Jeana Anderson Cohen; with me, I have Kristin Geil and Maggie Umberger.

KG: Good morning Jeana.

JAC: Good morning.

MU: Good morning. Jeana,  you spoke with Jen Ator, who is the fitness director of Women's Health this week.

JAC:I sure did. And what an inspiration Jen is. Throughout our talk I think I gasped, I had a smile across my face and I definitely cried.

MU:Good summary. And she is also an Ironman Kona finisher which I didn't know what that was prior to hearing this interview.

JAC: So what’s actually really interesting about this is the campaign that Jen was a part of with chocolate milk is actually something I worked on in my past life the year before she was on it. So in 2013 I was a part of that campaign working on chocolate milk. And I got to see sort of the journey that she went through and I just missed her by a year. So throughout her explanation of sort of what she went through and how she was trained by Paula Newby-Fraser and how she had these incredible teammates like Apolo Ohno I could identify with that journey so deeply because I'd seen it once before. But her sort of personal take on it was so interesting to hear, one because she had been an athlete before and two because she had this sort of wavering journey of self-doubt accomplishment and in believing in herself just as I feel anyone does. The first time they do anything.

KG: While she was training with chocolate milk team she had some sort of realization that she mentioned during the podcast. Can you speak to that and describe what her big epiphany was?

JAC:She realized that she was the thing standing in her way which was incredible to hear her say because I believe that was the moment I cried. So Jen realized at the end of her half Ironman which is a 1.2 mile swim of 56 mile bike ride and a thirteen point one mile run she realized that she blew her own projected time out of the water because she wasn't running with a watch and there was a malfunction with it in her actual swim. She saw that she actually could accomplish so much more than she was giving herself credit for when she just sort of let go and was in the moment as an athlete and trusted her training.

MU: And her training really is pretty simple she talks about loving just straight strength and running amidst being the fitness director of Women's Health.

JAC: Yes. So her preferred training normally is not Ironman training. Ironman training is really involved. Oftentimes athletes will have to do two disciplines in one day sometimes morning sometimes evening or sometimes they'll have to stack them in a brick workout. But she is generally a big fan of just down and dirty strength training program sort of similar to what you'll see on the pages of Women's Health and also in the pages of her new and second book Fitness Fix. They have a mix of a lot of different things but they'll always have the sort of tried and true, pick up some dumbbells and do this workout kind of routine. And that's her preference and it works for her. But when she was training for Ironman she was doing these long workouts these distance workouts. She was running more than five or six miles because she had to finish a day of fitness with a marathon.

JACShe'd never run a marathon before doing Ironman Kona which is sort of nuts to think about but she did it. She got through it and she was able to hug her dad at the finish line.

MU: We can't wait to hear your interview with Jen here.

JAC:I’m Jeana Anderson Cohen and I'm here with Jen Ator, who is the fitness director at Women's Health. Jen, thank you for joining me.

JA: Thank you so much for having me.

JAC: So Jen you have a really cool job and we're so excited to have you but you're also an accomplished athlete and a writer and a published author. Can you tell me a little bit about how you spend your days?

JA:Yeah you know the kind of beauty and madness of my job and my career is that no two days are ever the same in fact rarely are two days ever even remotely the same. As the fitness director here at Women's Health, I balance a lot of different responsibilities. First and foremost I'm responsible for the stories and the editing of the fitness content inside our magazine. So that involves a lot of working back and forth with writers getting stories approved. Coming up with the monthly lineups that I pitch to our editor in chief and writing a lot of the stories myself and kind of managing our internal team and all the goals and deadlines that we have here. I also work on our online content. I do a lot of our videos so there'll be days where I might take a two hour break in the middle of the day to change into some workout clothes and go record some videos for our social team and our online team. And then there's other days where I'm doing I do a lot of press and interviews with the different objectives and things that we're working on for the brand. So yesterday I was in Atlanta doing a bunch of press at the CNN headquarters there. So you know that's kind of one of the more glorious looking days where you know you're getting hair and makeup and you're running on and off set and trying to catch up frantically with your e-mails as you're in between everything. But a lot of the days are just plugging behind a desk and you know working very long hours. I always joke that there's rarely days where I don't have a second job, where I don't go home at the end of the night and and have another big chunk of assignments or things that I need to work on.

So there's plenty of days where it's just kind of grinding through a very very big long to do list and then you know I get to mix in some opportunities to have some fun and go check out new brands and new workouts and talk to experts and just kind of experience a lot of the cool stuff happening inside the fitness scene.

JAC:So before I asked you our two big questions I need to know what is your favorite workout right now?

JA: You know I I probably buck the trend of most fitness centers. I'm not I'm I'm I'm a pretty traditionalist. I am not somebody who—you know I check out a lot of the new workouts. I love them for what they give to different people and I love them for first and foremost being vessels to bring more people into fitness. I'm somebody who's lived my life with sport and fitness as a huge centerpiece of it. So for me anything that brings more people into it I'm I'm so jazzed about but I think just with my schedule and you know the different fitness goals that I tend to be working towards I tend to be a pretty straightforward, a pretty basic fundamental—I like a good run good solo run, a good long swim by myself and some pretty basic strength training. Some simple circuits and pair dumbbells or resistance band and a good playlist and I'm good to go.

JAC: Gets the job done.

JA:It does.

JAC:Yeah I get it the same way and this is not about me but I'm kind of the same way or I will a couple days a week opt to work out alone because it just clears your head.

JA:Yeah and I think you know especially in the field that I’m in we have access to so much so it's such an amazing thing to be able to go check out the latest spin studio and you know go to the latest yoga class or the latest fusion class and sometimes it can get murky of, is this my job or am I doing this for my fitness? You know and so I kind of tend to keep the two pretty separate and my workouts are my workouts and like I said you know it gives me so much and I have my own goals and objectives of why I have my own why of why I workout. So for me that just tends to be easier to do in my own kind of bubble rather than going to all the different classes. But certainly like Tone House is a great one, that's always a lot of fun to go with a group. And Swerve is a cycling studio here in New York that I've really been liking so there's there's definitely ones that you know I always have a great time whenever I get an opportunity to check them out. But I tend to be a go at my own speed type person.

JAC:I love it. Know who you are. So can you tell me about a big goal that you accomplished and how you got there.

JA:Yeah probably the biggest goal I've accomplished is I completed the Ironman, the World Championship Ironman in Kona and that was back in 2014. And it was by far, the process of it was by far the most transformative thing I've ever done. And like I said I've been an athlete my whole life. I played D1 lacrosse I have fitness in my job title but this was really pushing it for me. I had never done any type of endurance efforts before and for anyone listening that that isn't familiar with Ironman. It's a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike and then a full marathon at the end just in case you felt like you hadn't done enough. And I had done one sprint triathlon. I had done maybe two half marathons prior to tearing my ACL and having ACL and meniscus reconstruction. So I had been approached by chocolate milk, who we had worked with a bunch with work stuff and they were putting together a program and wanted one female everyday athlete and then they had a male pro athlete who was Apolo Ohno the speed skater.

And they said, hey, like we would love for you to join him and we want to kind of document the two of you trying to reach this big goal that neither of you have any experience to be able to do.

And it took me probably three weeks to answer you know there was there was a lot of gut check soul searching because it was so far outside my comfort zone. It was something that I truly did not know if I could do. I had never clipped into a road bike before. I was terrified of swimming in the open water. I don't particularly love ocean swimming. So while I grew up a competitive swimmer I I was not experienced in open water swimming. And I never run a marathon before and at that point I was only running about three miles a few times a week. I was about 13 months postop so I had a lot of doubts. A lot of insecurity about doing it because not only was I going to try to do it I was going to try to do it in six months and I was also going to do it while sharing our experience with a large audience. And it was really intimidating.

But you know I think at the end of the day it was an opportunity to do a arguably one of the most famed and historic and legendary races that I've watched you know year after year those NBC broadcast. I mean I watch them I cry to them it's always so moving. You know it is an opportunity to do something that I had so much respect and reverence for. And also it was an opportunity to really see what I was made of. And you know I realized at that point in my life, I admit I had built a career out of trying to encourage women and people to chase their big goals and I'd spent my career interviewing athletes and then you know putting those into stories that people could read and be inspired by. And yet I was kind of sitting on the sideline a little bit and I was intimidated by the challenge of it for myself.

And so you know I decided just to say OK I'll do it. I'll try and I'll try my best. And you know win lose or draw, I’ll put everything I can into it and then began some of the hardest months of my life. Thankfully my workplace was very understanding it's not like I could just be out of work for half the day to go train. But they were more understanding if you know if I squeeze in a swim in the morning and come in with a little bit wet hair you know they they kind of gave me some passes here and there. But you know I really I they teamed us up with some coaching staff and some nutrition staff members that really to just day after day give us the tools to be able to go out and do this. Because I certainly would not have been able to do it on my own. So I had a one on one coach, I used this great app called Training Peaks which you can use for free and just kind of log your workouts. It allows you to kind of like set your plan for the week and then as you complete them it syncs with your watches and it'll show you if you were like green and did an amazing job in your workout or yellow and you know kind of got there or like red you didn't do it. But I also had a coach that would then can go in and I would leave notes for him. He was really big on—he wanted me to leave emotional notes as well as performance notes so not only you know how did it go, how did it feel, how was your knee, how was you know this and that but how did you feel. So it was really an interesting process of watching how much your emotional state you know being stressed from work or you know coming back on a red eye from a business trip and you know feeling really exhausted and run down or having a lot of anxiety over a workout that felt kind of you know too much for me at that time. It showed in the performance you know it reflected in the workouts that maybe went really well or didn't go so well and he really took all that into account and would adjust my schedule and my workouts based on not just my physical progress but you know my emotional things that were going on too and my logistical things that were going on and so yeah, I basically just really committed to the plan and had a lot of doubts had no idea how all the pieces were going to fit together.

About three months in, we did a half Ironman. Apolo did Boise. Then three weeks later I did Muncie, Muncie, Indiana.

I found myself doing a half Ironman which is 70.3 so half the distance of the full Ironman and I was super intimidated and even going into that I didn't think I was going to able to do it. You know I was crying the night before I. I was I was certain that I had not done enough work to be able to do this. And kind of by a act of God or stroke of grace or something my watch kind of malfunctioned after the swim in the transition to the bike. So I was getting nothing—I had no idea where I was at. I think it was recording the whole time but it was showing me weird screens. So I had no perception of what I was doing. All I could do was be in the moment and do it. And I kind of just plugged along and I worked the plan that me and my coach had figured it out and really paid attention to my effort.

And I finished that had no idea about what my time was and I'll never forget the moment where you know I was I was with my dad and a couple of our other, you know, our team that was working on this project and they told me my time and it was easily like two hours faster than what I had projected for myself. Like. My really like self-deprecating goal just got blown out of the water. And I think that was probably the most eye opening moment. Obviously then three months later finishing the race in Kona was probably the most emotional moment—but that one in Muncie Indiana was was the most eye opening of wow. Like I can do so much more than I think I can. Like I I am the thing in my way.

I really grabbed onto that moment and really let it kind of fully you know affect me because I was so blown away that the whole time I mean my whole support staff, everybody else thought I could do this. You know everybody else was like hey your training's going really well you're doing the work outs. But me as the individual as the self doubting individual was so certain that I hadn't done enough that I wasn't measuring up that I wasn't going to be able to do it.

And then to exceed you know I hadn't even thought I would succeed. I definitely thought I was going to fail and then to not only succeed but to blow out any perception that I had of how I could do, it was really a turning point for me. And so from then I was able to kind of you know it didn't get mentally easier. There were plenty of really tough workouts and I did a lot of it on my own. And a lot of people said oh well you should join a running group here in the city or you should join a biking group here in the city because then you’ll have people to share these huge workouts with. And for me it was really important because I knew when I got to that Ironman I was going to be doing it alone. There wasn't going to be anybody running with me there wasn't going to be anybody biking with me.

And I was going to spend that time possibly up to 17 hours of my life alone. And so for me it was important to spend those months practicing that. And for me that meant having to do the workouts by myself. And so you know there were a lot of really towards the peak of that training cycle. And I was probably doing lower mileage than other people in Ironman training plans because we were trying to be really cautious of my knee to not you know get injured and to do just enough that I needed to to complete the race because I wasn't trying to race the race.

And so yeah I I remember I mean on a Friday I would do a 4-mile swim; on a  Saturday then I would wake up and do 110 miles on the bike and then get right off and run 7 to 9 miles.

JAC:Wow.

JA: And then the Sunday I would run 20 miles. So this was all so new to me and so so outside of what I'd ever done before. And so yeah there were a lot of very humbling moments during all that but I really you know after that half Ironman I was able to just say hey OK something's working I don't have to understand it but I'm going to respect what they're putting together for me and what they're telling me to do and I'm going to trust that I've got really smart people helping me do this and if I do what they tell me to do to my best to the best of my ability I'll be able to do this thing. And so yeah October rolled around race was here we went to Kona two weeks early to adjust to the heat and kind of get used to everything there and even still I really did not think I'd be able do it. It's just such a massive massive thing. And I remember the night before crying to my dad who was there with me.

And I said What are you know what are they going to do? We had been recording these you know little videos that ran on YouTube and we did eight of them to kind of show the journey and I said, What are they going to do if I don't finish? What are they going to—everybody is going to see that? How are they going to make the last … you know I was so nervous about letting other people down are so nervous about the external perception of taking on something like that that was so big and you know. At the end of the day I woke up this morning and said—I still have the alarm on my phone the alarm notification on my phone because I never want to forget it but I just set up the alarm to say, Cherish this day. And I really felt like at the end of those six months I had already gone so far outside of what I thought I could do for myself that you know no matter what happened—I feel like a lot of times when we get into races and we you know are chasing the big goals we immediately are focusing on the negative of it.

You know the performance or I want to reach this goal or I want to do this thing. I just said you know I've put in so much work like this has already been like the most transformative thing I've ever done in my life. I just want to go out and enjoy it and I don't want to waste this once in a lifetime opportunity that I'm being given on being caught up on the nerves or being caught up in the anxiety of what if I fail or anything like that.

And so I went out and I had a very thought through mental game plan because for me the the performance side was a little bit more straightforward. You know it's basically just figuring out that yellow type of effort that that feels comfortable to sustain. And you know I kind of broke up the race in three parts. The swim, my mantra was I can and I just kept repeating I can do this I can do this I can do this. And for me that was a huge part of reaching a level of deservedness to be there. Because these are the best athletes in the country. These these people have worked some of them their lives to be there. And you know I kind of got a fast pass to be able to enter this race through this opportunity that I was given. And I took it so seriously but I also felt so undeserving because of all these other amazing athletes that were around me and you know I really had to I had a talk with one of the pro Ironman athletes before and he said look Jen, maybe at the beginning of this you didn't deserve to be here. Sure maybe at the very beginning. But now you've done everything that all these other athletes have done to get here. Like you've put in the work. So you have to kind of remember that that you've put in the work. So that kind of attitude kind of helped carry me through the rest of the day. During the bike I said I am doing this am doing this I am doing this I am doing this because I needed to be present.

I needed to be focused on the mile I was and I needed to not be worried about the run that was coming up. I knew that I needed to be very very present because the bike to me was the way the most technical, the thing that I had to be the most you know concentrated on getting my nutrition at the right time getting my speed at the right time focusing on my pedal stroke all of those things. So, I am doing this. And then the run was, I will do this because you know I I knew it needed to be emotional for me. I knew I knew it was going to be emotional for me. And I remember talking to my dad at the very start of this and and we mapped out you know we broke down there's different cutoff points for this race.

And you have 17 hours to complete it. So we had figured out OK well you know even if you if you make it through the bike cut off then you have eight hours to do the marathon. So technically you could walk it. You could walk it. You could walk an entire marathon. And that was kind of one of the questions that I had to answer myself before I said Yes. I said, am I willing to walk an entire marathon depending on whatever happens that day, because I've no idea. Would I be willing to walk for 26.2 miles? And I said yeah you know? To be able to walk on historic ground like that to be able to follow through on something that I’m going to set out to do.

Yeah I would be willing to walk it even though I'd be a very long long part of a day. So thankfully I got there and I didn't have to walk. And I was able to to run the whole thing but I just kept saying, I will do this. And I I broke it down by thinking about one person every mile. Because you're also not allowed to use headphones so I'm a big music person when I run other races I listen to music and you couldn't have anything.

So there's there's a lot of thinking that goes on during that day and you’ve gotta manage your your headspace more so than your you know physical space. And so I said you know I'm going to I'm in a force myself to only think about one person for every mile. And I dedicated a mile to each, to 26 people that had really been the reason that I was there. You know from from my doctor who gave me the green light and then you know help monitor everything that was going on and making sure my knee was solid. To Apolo being such a great team mate and supportive friend. To you know my best friend in high school who I played lacrosse with and she's always been an inspiration to me. You know, just different people that along the way and I get choked up even just thinking about it now.

You know who have built me up and supported me and given me the confidence that I didn't have in order to do something like this because like I said I I did not believe I could do it. But they all did. And you know I think one of the greatest gifts you can give somebody is is your confidence in them and you know I'm kind of living proof of that. I know I have been the result of people giving me their confidence in me and that lifted me up enough to take on big goals and to chase things that seem intimidating and so that that run is probably one of the most memorable runs I've ever had. And you know I got I got back after and wrote a letter to each person and told them you know what I was thinking of, and what part of the race I was in and which mile I dedicated to them and it really just brought the whole thing full circle. And you know I got to cross that finish line 13 hours and 17 minutes after I started.

JAC: Wow.

JA: Yeah a very long day. I got to do that and I got to run to my dad and hug my dad who was standing at the finish line. But it was really such a beautiful race to remember that you know to be able to finish it remembering that I'm really here because of so many people and I got to share this with so many people. And for me that made it so much more meaningful than just if I had accomplished a singular goal on my own. So yeah that very long winded story is definitely my biggest goal that I've accomplished.

JAC: Jen. What an incredible saga is the best way. It was like Odyssean.

JA:It felt it, it felt it during the time.

JAC:So I have so many questions. First and foremost I think it's so interesting that you sort of felt the weight of your decision to say yes to this throughout. Just hearing you talk about it at different points: What if I don't succeed? What if I don't succeed?

And then just seeing yourself not only succeed finish crush it. You didn't walk a marathon you probably stopped a couple times if you had to eat something but like just hear you tell it, you killed it! Was there any point during the bike during the swim during the run when you didn't think you could do it?

JA:Yes. There was one specific point in the race where I did not think I could do it. And I was approaching the climb to Hawi so the road to Hawi is kind of a signature point of the Ironman World Championship bike course. And it's about a 7 mile climb, just a steady low grade inline but steady for I believe about 7 miles. And then when you get there that's the turnaround point of the bike race and I'm climbing and it had been a really tough—again, I'm not a strong cyclist but I was climbing and you know it's really hard and there weren’t a ton of women in the race. There's probably about I think 635 the year I did it and total about 1200 age group guys. So lot of guys, not that many women. As I'm climbing this woman and all hot pink hot pink like helmet, hot pink tri suit, hot pink bike, hot pink shoes, everything. Starts climbing past me. And she's like oh, man the heat and wind are brutal today. I was like oh yeah. You could tell this woman had done this. She just looked so pro like she was like just jacked and so impressive and a slightly older woman and just looked like, OK, she's been here before and so I was like I'm glad to hear you say that because this is my first time. And she's like just keep going just keep pedaling. You're almost there. Thank you. Thank you. And she's like keep it up. Great job. And you know it was so nice because throughout the entire race whenever a woman passed you or you passed a woman there was there was a real solidarity and there was a very, everybody cheered for each other, everybody is support each other. It was really nice. So she passed me up she went you know that was it. And I get to the turnaround point. I'm coming back. And now you're going down a downhill and throughout the race you're kind of going through these lava fields and some of them have these kind of like big rocks that you're going through. So you're facing a lot of headwind but then you're also because of how these rocks are you get these sudden bursts of sidewinds that kind of come out of nowhere and you know our coach coaching staff and team had told us about this so they had said you know you're going to feel you could feel the gusts coming from the side.

And it's it's a little bit shaky at times. I mean these bikes are super light. I feel like my bike weighed probably 12 pounds you know and you're coming downhill. And all of a sudden the the sidewinds are really starting to pick up and I'm looking down and I wasn't always super comfortable in that aero position where you’re leaned over the bars and you're really down low on your bike that that was intimidating to me to get used to, especially when going downhill. And one of our coaches was the legendary Paula Newby-Fraser. And she's the queen of Kona.

And I remember her saying to me there are going to be times where you get scared and where that wind comes out of nowhere and hits you on the side and you feel shaken. And she's like, you're going to be tempted to sit up on your bike. You're going to be tempted to sit up, sit back because that's the instinct that feels safer and she's like that is the time that you need to lean in and commit because the safest thing you can do practically speaking is lean over that front wheel because these bikes are so light that if you're sitting up and sitting back that front wheel can get picked up a lot easier from these gusts up side wind. So I'd remembered that she said that to me I was trying to stay down,  was trying to stay down. And all of a sudden I look up and I see all these people in front of me are swerving around something and I can't tell what's going on but they're clearly like really moving around something. And as I get closer I see the all pink everything. And the woman was being carried off in a stretcher.

JAC: Oh God.

JA: And I mean I was shaking. I was tearing up. I had to actively be like, oh my gosh calm down calm down because it was the only moment where—I had passed the point of thinking, oh my gosh can I do this. Once I got through the swim I was like oh man, all right. We'll figure this out. We're going to we're going to get through this.

It was the only point of the race where I thought maybe I won't be able to do this because there's somebody who is clearly more experienced than me clearly has done this before and she's not even able to finish because of freak—you know maybe she was reaching for her water or when when a gust of wind came in and wiped  her out. Or maybe—who knows? You know and anything like that could happen. And I I could just be I could be done. And again I found myself kind of sitting up and I was trying to get my composure and I heard Paula you know as I'm like shaking trying not to cry and trying to push through it and I just found myself saying commit commit