Interview with Lexi Reed
LEXI REED ran track at Oregon State University. She has two bachelor degrees: Exercise Sport Science with a minor in Nutrition (2020) and Psychology (2021).
She hosts a podcast called After The Athlete which is about the transition out of competitive sports.
She is the Director of Branch Development for Dam Worth It, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with the goal of raising mental health awareness among athletes.
She is currently a certified personal trainer and a coach at F45, a high-intensity team training gym.
Lexi has a passion for holistic health and fitness and finding new ways to stay active after retiring from competitive sports.
In her free time she loves to go hiking, paddleboarding, play tennis and pickleball, and all things outdoors.
She and her sister have a schnoodle named Jeremy which is a schnauzer and poodle mix.
In this episode, we discussed her involvement with mental health as an athlete and how she found her passion for F45 and personal training.
Below I have written most of what we talked about but you can listen to the full podcast on Anchor / Spotify or on Apple Podcasts.
Q: What was your inspiration to start your podcast After The Athlete?
A: I met two girls at F45 that were members working out there and they were both former athletes.
One played basketball and one was a cheerleader.
We started having conversations about how a lot of the things we struggled with or experienced in that transition from college sports to going into the real world were so similar.
We realized that not a lot of people have talked about those experiences before.
We wanted to share our experiences and bring more awareness to those things.
If someone listening is going through something similar, it’s for them to know that they’re not alone.
Q: What are some things you do in Dam Worth It?
A: It started as a mental health awareness campaign at Oregon State.
Two other former athletes were going through some things and wanted to open up a conversation among athletes about mental health.
The mission is to end the stigma around mental health through the power of sport, storytelling and community.
I was the Vice President of the branch my junior year.
In 2020, they became a 501(C)3 nonprofit and now I am the Director of Branch Development.
We are basically trying to help other universities across the country create their own branches of Dam Worth It.
My job is to help guide them through the process of creating their own Dam Worth It leadership team among student-athletes in their athletic departments.
I help them set up the different mental health first aids, suicide prevention trainings that we require each member to take, and plan their events that they’ll have throughout the year.
I’m a mentor and guide for them as they start up their own branches.
For events, the biggest pillar event is the Dam Worth It games.
The goal is for each sport to have a home game once during their season designated as a Dam Worth It Game.
The Dam Worth It team will set up tables around the venue and hand out resource cards and wrist bands.
They will talk and engage with the community to spread the word on the mission.
A lot of times at Oregon State we would have cards that say “I am worth it because…” and people will fill them in.
At some point in the game there will be a video displayed about what Dam Worth It is and people will hold up their signs.
The goal is just trying to spread awareness through sporting events to raise mental health awareness.
Q: Do you feel like you would have done a different degree if you weren’t a student-athlete?
A: I don’t think so. I was always pretty interested in how the body moves and works.
I originally went into school wanting to do physical therapy, then nutrition and then psychology. I kind of did all three.
I don’t think going in as a student-athlete affected that decision. Definitely a lot of what I learned in those programs applied to sport and vice versa.
Even though I bounced around niches within that general area I would have ended up within the same subject if I wasn’t an athlete.
Q: How did playing competitive sports shape who you are today?
A: My parents put me and my sister in sports as soon as we could walk so I grew up playing lots of sports.
Sports have taught me a lot about myself and who I am as a person.
It’s taught me how to face adversity, go through tough situations, and learn how to work with others toward a common goal.
I ran in college which is an individual sport in some ways but it definitely is a team sport.
There is a lot of blood, sweat and tears you go through together as a team that creates special relationships and friendships that will last a life time.
Sports teach you a lot and I’m grateful that I got to experience everything.
Q: What was your injury with the achilles like and how did it affect you?
A: It was definitely one of hardest things I had to deal with as an athlete. I had really bad achilles tendonitis and heel inflammation my sophomore through senior years on and off.
Sometimes it would be better than worse. My sophomore year was the first time I was significantly injured running.
It took a toll on my mental health along with being in Oregon where there’s no sun.
With those things combined, I wasn’t in a great place mentally or physically.
Unfortunately, it became a chronic thing which contributed to my burnout at the end and my decision not to participate my fifth year.
It taught me mental toughness because it’s hard to expect pain when you go for a run every day.
It also taught me how to manage my emotions because there were times I would be upset about my heel hurting that it would seep into other places in my life.
I would snap at people or I was not able to focus on school.
Something I really worked on was being more honest with others and myself on how I was feeling and recognizing why I was feeling that way so I wouldn’t take it out on other things.
It ended up being the right decision for me to not participate my fifth year even though it was hard.
Q: You chose not to use your covid year but you were still going to school while living with other athletes. What was the transition out of playing competitive sports like for you? What did you do in your newfound free time?
A: It was hard and super weird at first. I was doing my fifth year getting my second degree, still living with former teammates but not a student-athlete anymore.
I had a weird identity crisis. I didn’t know what to do, so I just kept running for awhile.
I ran with the team sometimes or I would run by myself trying to get the same mileage as when I was training.
You get so used to having that structured schedule and then I just didn’t have that anymore.
My body was telling me that I needed a break but I didn’t know what else to do.
I was not enjoying running anymore so when I went home for winter break, my achilles was not feeling good so I decided to take a break.
I decided I wanted to get more into lifting.
I always have enjoyed the strength training we did in college and I wanted to get stronger because maybe my injuries were from not doing enough strength building.
It was a fun new challenge and it was a new way for me to be competitive without having to compare myself to anything I’ve done in the past because it was new.
I began to enjoy that more and the HIIT style workouts which led me to trying out F45 and loving it.
The place that I was moving to this year had an F45 opening up so that led me to wanting to get my personal training certification and now I’m a trainer for F45.
It’s been kind of a crazy journey being a distance runner to lifting weights and becoming a personal trainer.
Q: What was one of your favorite moments while competing?
A: My junior year we made cross country nationals as a team for the first time ever in Oregon State history.
I will always remember the moment when we finished our regional race.
We had to make sixth as a team at regionals and we were wondering if we made it.
Our coach came running over yelling “we made it!!” I’m not a super emotional person but I was crying tears of joy.
It was a fun experience. We got to go to a banquet for all of the teams participating and it was fun being there with my teammates.
I don’t remember much from the race.
What I’ll remember most when I’m old is not about the times you run but the experiences and memories you make with the people you have with you is the best part of being a student-athlete.
Q: What advice would you give to someone who is recently done playing a sport?
A: I think I would say to give yourself time to process everything.
It’s a lot when you spend your whole life doing something and then it’s just over.
I think people think you need to immediately move on to the next chapter of your life and have everything planned out but that’s super unrealistic.
Realize that you don’t have to completely close that chapter of you life and move on.
You’ll still take everything that you’ve learned as a student-athlete into your life.
Give yourself time to look back on it, reflect on it, take what you learned and work on expanding your identity outside of your sport.
Don’t be afraid to try new things, I was terrified to go to the gym at first because I had no idea what I was doing.
Eventually, if you enjoy it, keep doing it.
It gets easier getting into a new routine. Find things you enjoy doing and you’ll find a new community or a new “team”.
I think surrounding yourself with people that enjoy things that you also do is important because that’s how it was as a college athlete as well.
Q: What advice would you give to someone who is currently playing a sport?
A: Always remember why you started. You don’t have to love your sport 100% of the time.
You’re gong to have days when you’re feeling off or you don’t want to go to practice.
I think it helps to remember why you began in the first place before you became a college athlete or whatever level you’re at now.
Find passions and friends outside of your sport actively while you’re still an athlete because that will help you when your time as an athlete is done.
It also helps make you more well-rounded and helps you define yourself outside of the athlete identity you’ve been building your whole life.
It’s hard because there’s not much time outside of being a college athlete but trying to dip your toes into the water of other interests you might have is a good thing to do.
If you missed the last podcast, our guest was softball player Madison Heide. She talked about facing scary things head on, choosing family over your sport, and performance anxiety. In the next podcast, we will have volleyball player and psychology student Madison Repak as our guest. In that episode, we will be discussing how she chose to become a sport performance consultant.
If you have any more questions for Lexi, please leave comments below or contact me. If you or someone you know is struggling, please call the Suicide Hotline. It’s toll free and available 24/7 at 800-273-8255.
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Are you or someone you know currently struggling with what happens in life after sports? Or did you already go through that transition to life after retiring competitive sports and wish you had more resources and support? Have you ever wondered, “what do athletes do after they are done playing sports? What’s next after sports?” Do you feel like you dedicated so much to your sport and you don’t know what to do now that you’re done competing? You’re not alone. Check out the site and join us in the journey. Once an athlete, always an athlete.
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