Episode 15
“What I prefer to do is just do my own thing and I guess, work quietly and let my results speak because that’s ultimately what it’s about.”
This week on Talk of the TTown, Andy sits down with Maddie Godby, longtime friend and 4 time World Cup medalist, and they discuss what got Maddie into cycling, training during COVID, her 200m TT from this past summer, and why the color purple is her thing.
Maddie Godby on Instagram: @maddiegodby
Thanks to B Braun Medical Inc. for sponsoring the Talk of the T-Town Podcast. BBraun is a global leader in infusion therapy and pain management, B Braun develops, manufactures and markets innovative medical products to the healthcare community. They are also strong believers in supporting the quality of life in the communities where their employees work and live.
Transcript
Joan Hanscom:
Welcome to the Talk of the T-Town Podcast, where we discuss all things track cycling. Broadcasting from the Valley Preferred Cycling Center, I’m your host and Executive Director, Joan Hanscom along with my co-host, Athletic Director, Andy Lakatosh.
Andy Lakatosh:
Welcome to the Talk of the T-Town Podcast. I’m your host, Andy Lakatosh here with our guests this week four time World Cup medalist, 17 time national champion, three time national record holder and as of 2020, T-Town track record holder, the first American woman to get invited to the Japanese Keirin and one of our Olympic long team members, bad-ass sprinter chick, Maddie Godby. Thank you for joining us, Maddie. How are you today?
Maddie Godby:
Thank you for having me. I’m good. How are you guys?
Andy Lakatosh:
I’m doing all right. It’s become cold in California. I’ve realized for you when you get here, it’s still going to be very warm by one standards, but we actually saw… So they just referred to any type of wet. It’s not raining, it’s not cloudy, it’s just weather because that’s the only two differentiations they have. It’s either sunny or there’s weather. So we’ve been having weather recently and nobody knows how to drive on the roads when it gets wet, which is really funny. So anyway, I’m sure you’re excited to be here soon. So just a little bit of background. So most of our listeners are going to know you as Maddie, the bad-ass with two World Cup wins, one of which was even… And I was there personally to witness this, you stepping around Steph Morton who recently retired. But Steph Morton, the other bad-ass stacked keirin like it was no big deal.
Andy Lakatosh:
That’s how most of our listeners will know you. But I remember an 18 year old Maddie at Junior Nationals in Trexlertown on some aluminum Trek track bike because Trek makes great track bikes, riding team sprint with Shelbe Eck for more of a throwback at Junior Nationals here. So needless to say, you’ve been at this for quite some time. I know your whole family loves bikes. I’m sure that’s part of what brought you into cycling. But I honestly don’t even know and I’m sure our listeners would like to know if you don’t mind, could you tell us about how you got started in cycling and then how you wound up finding Track and deciding you were a sprinter?
Maddie Godby:
I am the national, but my first or second year, I didn’t know what I was doing. So-
Andy Lakatosh:
Did you go to Junior Worlds after that nationals too?
Maddie Godby:
Yeah, I had been on the track for-
Andy Lakatosh:
Yes, you can’t really say you didn’t know what you were doing.
Maddie Godby:
I’d been the track for three months. I didn’t even know how to do a proper 200 wide up. So yeah, that takes me back. But my family always rode bikes when we were little. We would go for family rides. They found out that really the only way to get my brother and I was ice cream. But they liked it-
Andy Lakatosh:
I’m working with two junior athletes that are currently very motivated by food and they’re almost adults. So I understand how that works.
Maddie Godby:
And they wanted to push cycling just because it’s a healthy lifestyle. Anyone can do it, you can do it when you’re old just to maintain some sort of health because we did team sports and obviously, you can’t do that your whole life. And so we didn’t really enjoy it, but my dad raced, everyone rode. So then I just when the teams went route. And then after a while, I found my way back to cycling as a form of cross training. And then it was my high school varsity lacrosse coach. She’s like, “You either have to do lacrosse or you can do cycling.”
Maddie Godby:
And I chose cycling and I was 17 at the time. I raced for a junior team out of Boulder with Cari Higgins and Missy Thompson. And so obviously, they’re two extracts runners who are prolific in the American track cycling scene. And so luckily I didn’t have to climb hill, do very much endurance for very long. And they brought me down to the tracking car springs and then I was like, “Oh yes, short, fast stuff. Please sign me up.” And then yeah. And then that nationals in T-Town, that was my first race I think.
Andy Lakatosh:
That’s interesting, Maddie because I didn’t know that you ever played lacrosse. However, now I would definitely stay out of your way if anyone puts lacrosse stick and a ball in your hand because I don’t want that getting chucked at me. And I know that there’s been times I’ve told you efforts to go do and things have potentially wound up being chucked at me. So we’re going to avoid that. So your underlying love of cycling has always been very, very strong seeing, as you said that you had to be forced and drag out to ride.
Andy Lakatosh:
But I mean, my parents definitely did that to me. Not like dragging me out to ride with them, but just you have to go do this and you have to go do that and it was definitely not always my favorite thing. But for me it was when I didn’t like it, I think I did it because I just wanted to win, the competitiveness to me. Was it the same for you? Did just wanting to compete and win drive you when you didn’t really want to do it or your parents literally just were like, you don’t get any food tonight when you get home if you don’t go without a bike?
Maddie Godby:
I think when we were little, that was a different story. They just wanted us to be active. But once I found track cycling and actually started racing, I think that competitiveness in me started to come out. Part of the reason I chose cycling over lacrosse because I just didn’t see much of a future past maybe college in the lacrosse, whereas cycling was like, oh, there’s a possibility to go to the Olympics. So I think that competitiveness started coming out later. And then now, obviously the adrenaline and the thrill of competing is really motivating. But it’s really just seeing how far I can go putting in the work and part of that’s tactical execution and stuff. So certainly it’s all intertwined.
Andy Lakatosh:
Yeah, I mean, as I’ve gotten older for me, it’s become about the process and the challenge. How far, where can I find another bump in performance because there is no magic silver bullet with this. And I mean, you talk to other international coaches and teams and riders and stuff and they’ll tell you straight out, there’s no silver bullet. Everyone’s got to find what works best for them unless you of course are talking to an Australian then, we can’t tell you our secrets there. We have too many secrets, I can’t share this with you. But that is a lot of years in the sport for you now. What’s this hold on? How many years have you been, let’s say ridding on the Track?
Maddie Godby:
Yeah, it’s probably… So if I started in 2010, this would be 11 years.
Andy Lakatosh:
11 years, wow. Yeah, so-
Maddie Godby:
It doesn’t seem like that much.
Andy Lakatosh:
That’s right. If I think about it, I’ve been, what is this, my 21st, 2… I’m in the number of 20s for years that I have been competing. So yeah, that really helps when I’m working with junior girls, they’re like, “Oh, I’ve been doing this two, three years.” Perfect. Perfect, so yeah, that’s a good amount of time in the sport now and I know this because we are friends and I’ve lived that up and down US track sprinter life. But I was wondering if you look back at your career so far, what are some of the absolute highlights that you remember across all your years of riding? I mean, obviously World Cup wins, women’s keirin, but I was wondering if there’s anything that really stands out as, oh, that was the most memorable thing that I did.
Maddie Godby:
Certainly, the results are nice. When I won the World-
Andy Lakatosh:
And you have a lot of them.
Maddie Godby:
When I won the World Cup, it had been over 10 years since the last American had won. Jonny Reid in 2008. So just to bring American sprinting back. That was really exciting. But I think probably the moment I’m most proud of is qualifying the keirin spot for Tokyo because going into it, we didn’t have it qualified in. So it was truly just based on that final worlds result that qualified it. And I ended up crashing out in the minor. A rider went down right in front of me and I knew I had to finish. And so the sports med person was checking me for a concussion, broken collarbone. I was like, “No, I have to finish.” And they thought I was crazy. But then just knowing that that had qualified the spot, even though I like track burn everywhere, I was just so excited that finally I’d achieved this dream.
Andy Lakatosh:
And that’s all… I had planned to ask you or we’ll talk about selection in a little bit in that qualifying process. But I remember texting with you because I was keeping track of all the points and calculating and figuring out who goes where because it is confusing as hell. But I remember us talking about where you had to be and what you had to do, not because that was the target. I mean, if you made the final, we were going for a medal, come hell or high water. But it is an underlying thing that drives so much competition. And I remember when it was by continental groupings, I remember people blatantly racing, mass start races, just marking the one person in their continental grouping that they had to place above.
Andy Lakatosh:
And that really ruins it. But it’s just so tight the way they run the Olympics in bed spaces and stuff. But the one thing I wanted to point out right there is that you qualified the sprint and keirin spot through the keirin event. And so that’s a little bit confusing. It’s not like you qualified only a keirin spot. Your results combined with the other US riders results gave us that one bed space at the games. And yeah, I’m like I would not have wanted them to be the medic or someone trying to say, “Oh, we think you bumped your head. You really can’t get back on the bike.” Bullshit. I also remember you crashed at PanAms when you’re in and we’re watching the video and your brother, Zane goes as the mechanic a lot and old school, keirin people know get up and get across the line so you get your place and don’t DNF because you don’t get points.
Andy Lakatosh:
I remember I text Zane and I think Mark Tyson texts Zane, Missy texts Zane. Everyone’s like get her up and get her… They rode past your bike over the wall. It’s like none of… I saw on the video, you see the bike come back over the wall to you. And we’re like, “Okay, good, good, good, good.” I could see Zane check his phone in his pocket. That was really funny.
Andy Lakatosh:
But so often as athletes, we frame it as, well, I need help to get XYZ part of the job done. And then once you kind of get to that level where you’ve met a couple of World Cups and you’re going, hey, I can make the final at the games. And then if I make the final, it’s a 50/50 shot at a medal in the keirin. It really changes your perspective. But I think it’s good to be realistic with people of how much we as athletes take on ourselves. Like you said, I need to have my equipment. I need to have my coaching things set up. I need to not rely on anyone. But it makes you stronger for it, doesn’t it?
Maddie Godby:
Yeah, certainly teaches you how to be confident in your own execution and preparation and just knowing what you need to do on race taken because no one’s going to hold your hand. And then obviously, once you learn that, once you’re successful with that, having the coach to debrief tactics with you after, definitely helpful, but certainly you become more self… You’re just able to do it by yourself. And that’s a huge relief because being in the pits, I get the world champs or Olympics, it’s chaos. And so just knowing what you need to do and then being able to do it yourself and not rely on others, that’s also a really helpful skill.
Andy Lakatosh:
Well, yeah. And I think it’s really great. I know because we work with a number of young female athletes in the track world that there are a lot of them that look up to you and your results and the things you’ve done and the way that you carry yourself. And they’re always like, “I’m so intimidated by Maddie because she’s so quiet. She doesn’t say anything to anyone. She doesn’t post on social media.” I’m like, “Well, that’s just Maddie style.” I know how the harder I work, the more I shut all that stuff out.
Maddie Godby:
Yeah, I think that that’s just it. Just making sure to put in the hard work. I’m not one of those people who naturally am drawn to social media. I know that there’s others who are better at interacting with others and promoting their own personal brand. I am not one of them. I don’t know how to do it very well. So I actually have one person running my Facebook just because she got so tired of me not posting. But that just leaves more energy for me to focus on what my job is and that’s to get results and to qualify for it. And I’m just going to make sure I’m prepared for the Olympics. And so that’s what I prefer to do is just do my own thing and I guess, work quietly and let my results speak because that’s ultimately what it’s about.
Andy Lakatosh:
Oh, 100% right. The results get written down and kept somewhere forever. Your Instagram or Twitter account could be deleted at any time if you cause enough trouble. So anyway. But actually speaking about Tokyo and qualifying for the Olympics and stuff and the cluster that has become the 2020 Olympics. Now I know this because we’re friends and work together for coaching and stuff. You know that you are one on one hell of a trajectory to this upcoming July. I think we saw some cool stuff last summer because we keep in touch and work together. You’re definitely hitting some new PRs and some new strength things that are pretty awesome. But what really kick-started this shifting kind of mentality and the way that you’re approaching things and how you’re making gains, I saw it that it really kicked off when you went to Australia for the winter to train, which is basically a little over a year ago.
Andy Lakatosh:
And that’s when I noticed a huge change in your mental game and your confidence and we can see it in your racing and we see it in the results. But I was wondering if you could share, first of all, what motivated you to go there? Because that’s no small jump. Coming out here to train in a couple of weeks is familiar. You going to be staying with family, riding on tracks that you know, be around people you know, but that was literally bye Felicia, I’m going to Australia and going to just completely change it up. What made you do that and what were the biggest changes or what was so different because you came back a different person. I wonder if you could share some of that big leap you took?
Maddie Godby:
Yeah, oh, there’s so much to talk about on assignment. So as I mentioned earlier, the second year of Olympic qualifying, I had just come back from Japanese Keirin which was an amazing experience. And then jumped straight into UCI racing. So there was just a lot of travel and not a lot of dedicated training time. So then PanAms, the first couple of European World Cups, I was not prepared for. And just because we don’t have a coach or that dedicated sprint infrastructure, it was really hard to come back from when I’m going to track sessions, literally just by myself, it’s just me in the velodrome. There’s only so much you can do.
Maddie Godby:
And so I knew my environment needed to change in order for me to turn my season around and get back into the Olympic qualifying picture. And so I was just looking for anything. And one of our teams, won years, connected me to the Australian coach and I typed up this email like, please help me. And he really is in it for the development. He doesn’t want to do all the elite sport, all the politics, he just wants to genuinely help people because he cares about his writers. And so he took a chance on me. And so I went over there and I had not met him before in-person. I just knew of him. And so it was kind of a leap of faith on both of our parts.
Andy Lakatosh:
He is quite the presence Mr. Sean maybe. I remember watching him. Now you know him as this big kind of goofy teddy bear. But I was like 12, 13, 14 years old watching him just line up with me one, Darren Hill against Marty and the other guys here. And we’re talking like mid ’90s, early 2000 style racing. It was not friendly at all.
Maddie Godby:
No.
Andy Lakatosh:
And they walked in the track. They walked, even the parking lot ready to kill each other before they even pin numbers on. So to know Sean as we know him now. So yeah, no, it definitely is because the man is a presence, right?
Maddie Godby:
Yeah.
Andy Lakatosh:
You know when he’s inside the track. But yeah, so you took that leap of faith and just showed up with a guy, known to be aggressive and you’re like, “Hey, let’s train.”
Maddie Godby:
And I don’t think he knew what he was getting into. And so he saw me the first couple of training sessions and he’s like, oh my God, I need to completely remake this athlete. So it was just a really great experience learning from him. And he’s like, “Ask me questions. I want you to understand what I’m doing. So then you can go, be self-sufficient when you go home or whatever.” And I think that’s in contrast to a lot of coaches where they’re like, don’t ask me questions. You can’t question my ego. And so that was just really refreshing to get out of all the politics, just out of this environment where the selection is so contested here. And when I was over there, I could have my freedom to do whatever, to learn, to make mistakes. All the writers over there, they’re significantly more skilled than I am.
Maddie Godby:
And so just them taking the time to teach me about just skills to spar with me after, that helped me kind of mentally just get back into it like why I love cycling. It was just so fun. I don’t think there was a training day where I didn’t want to be there just because mentally I was like, oh, I’m really excited to ride a bike again. And so I mean, we didn’t do anything crazy. It was just finally I had time to train and it was training that I really needed motor accel. So I wasn’t doing because I couldn’t do just me in the velodrome by myself. So it wasn’t anything crazy. But I think the mental shift of just having fun again and learning and just having a supportive environment, that was really the biggest difference.
Andy Lakatosh:
Environment and culture make any high-performance program hands down. And there’s definitely a beauty of operating like Sean does in a low pressure type of system. You look at how Sean operates in Sydney and then think about the pressure cooker in Adelaide that we hear about from athletes and coaches and you’re like, “Wow, we’re in the same country producing athletes for the same objective into wildly different ways.” The objectives are the same, but just the way that you handle getting there, it can be so different. I’m glad that that was a big game changer for you. And yes, everybody, Maddie Godby loves motor accel. It’s the only thing she wants to do actually. When she got the T-Town, it was like, “Can we do those motor accel where…” I’m like, “Yes, yes, yes, yes. Fine, we will do the motor accel.”
Maddie Godby:
Well, the OTC had been closed all spring. And so I was just doing fitness efforts on my trainers. So all of a sudden, I get to this track, come on, let’s do the fun stuff now.
Andy Lakatosh:
Well, we’ll do some of that when you get here. But let me tell you Encino is a character of a track. I wish you the best of luck when you try to do the ones where you step around me. I’m not going to hook you, the track will hook for you. But still on the topic of Tokyo, I wanted to ask how you have handled the pushback of the games and all the unknown around it. I know as you know, stressful or selection can be incredibly stressful. Plus selection last qualifying for this games was really confusing as hell. And I don’t think much of the public, like I said, realizes that we only have one… So everything’s by bed space. And this is what people don’t understand. It’s all about the number of bed spaces you get relative to how you qualify your spot.
Andy Lakatosh:
And so even though we have one sprint and one keirin spot, we only have one bed space for a sprint athlete and alternates and backups and stuff are not options if you don’t qualify. The team sprint spot and all this other stuff. So that’s something that’s tough. And then now these selection dates are changing. There’s rumors that the games are going to be canceled, then they’re not. It’s quite the rollercoaster of the process. But I know from talking to you that you’re very confident and obviously your results for the last two seasons speak for themselves. But how have you been handling and working through the rollercoaster? Because this is unprecedented. No one’s been like, I know I’m racing on such and such state. Wait, no, no. No, I’m not. Do you realize it or are you just so hell bent on where you’re going that it’s like, no, just tell me when to show up and I’ll be ready?
Maddie Godby:
I think at first, once the pandemic started and started closing down everything, it took a while for me to process just because you go from a million miles an hour, finishing, qualifying to all of a sudden just nothing. So it took a while and then it’s just working through it. You have good days, you have bad days. But ultimately you have to be prepared. And so just sticking to that, appreciating the extra training time because that last year of qualifying was rough. And so I was just playing catch up. And so now to have all this unlimited training time just to be consistent. And I think that’s what made the biggest difference.
Maddie Godby:
When I went out to T-Town last year, all of a sudden I just had been training, no interruptions for racing. That allowed me to get stronger. So just appreciating that time that I still have to prepare to be a better athlete. And there’s nothing like having bike racing taken away from you to appreciate how much you actually like racing. So I’m really excited and it’s just you have to be prepared no matter what. So just keep your head down. And I’m lucky to work with a really good sports psychologist to kind of keep my head on straight when you have those bad days. But really I finally achieved this dream. I’m going to see it through. And so just to keep working on it.
Andy Lakatosh:
So speaking of your sports psychologist, I started working with one. It’s actually funny. I started working with one as I was retiring around 2013, 2014. And so I never actually got the benefit of racing from having worked with a sports psychologist. But I still work with him on a less frequent basis just because managing the mental side of things, honestly, I might rank it above training important some days. Just the same way we say that you can train as hard as you want, but if you’re not recovering, it doesn’t really matter. I think the same thing goes for if you’re super strong and training’s going great, but mentally, you’re just a mess on a training day or a racing day, it doesn’t really matter. When did you start working with yours? What type of things do you guys work on? If you don’t mind sharing, do you work on the most or what’s been the biggest change there? Because I think a lot of people are scared to say, “Oh, I need a psychologist help type of deal. But I think it’s super necessary.”
Maddie Godby:
Yeah, the last six years. It took me a while to find one that I really connected with and I think that’s a big part of it. It’s like you can’t just have any… You really need to connect with them. And so with her, I’ve worked for her for about almost two years now, a year and a half and it’s been really good. She just keeps it… She will… First of all, she’s just a person to talk to to get it out and then to kind of ground you after that. And so mostly, we talk about just keep focusing on the process, what you can do, how you can keep it fun because that’s certainly how you race better and just things like that. Yes, there’s politics and everything, but like what can you do?
Andy Lakatosh:
And the answer is usually not a lot of anything except grab and pedal because they have bike. For me, it wasn’t so much nerves around competition. Honestly, it was a life stress. And it wasn’t even cycling related life stress, it was stuff with my family or other relationships or financial stress because track cycling, track sprint cycling is such a lucrative, that’s such a lucrative sport and how to manage through those things because I always tried to be like, okay, I’m walking into the track now. So I’m going to leave all this stuff at the door, which of course means I’m winding up for my next effort thinking about my bank account or dispute I had with my dad as I’m winding up.
Andy Lakatosh:
And I’m like about to jump out of the saddle, my 300, I’m like, I should probably think about what I’m doing now because this is not good. And so that was the one where I was like, all right, I got to do something about it. But yeah, it’s just nice to have someone to talk to about it because I know when we talk to each other and people inside the sport, you can just go down the rabbit hole, getting wound up and pissed off about X, Y and Z and nobody cares. But no, I think it’s good. I think thank you for sharing that. But speaking of training blocks and camps and that ability to just knuckle down and train, train right through things, your visits to T-Town as most people’s are usually really hot because it’s boiling weather outside and fast because it’s just we got to get in, get out, got another race to prep too.
Andy Lakatosh:
We always have nationals coming up shortly after PanAms and other race. But in 2019 and 2020, you came out for just some extended training time. Just it’s not UCI racing. It’s not anything. I’m just coming out to train and keep working and race when we had racing in last year, do the time trials. But can you tell us a little bit more about what kind of made you want to come to T-Town aside for motor accel? We know motor accel is a big part of it. To be out there for longer, what is it about the track, the racing, the area, the training that you find so valuable?
Maddie Godby:
Part of being the only sprinter in Colorado is like you don’t really have training partners. So just to come out to T-Town, there’s always masters or other juniors or other elite riders to do training efforts with, to ride with. And then a lot of the fun Friday night racing is I don’t get to do elimination races all that much. And just to do it in a low key, no pressure environment. Not only does it practice tactics for seeing moves in keirin and kind of moving to the front or protecting your position, but it’s fun to race. And so just getting that in in the midst of the pressure racing for the Olympics and just it’s a reminder that have fun and then doing efforts with other people’s also just we’re all out here to achieve our goals no matter what those goals are.
Maddie Godby:
So let’s be supportive and just have fun. And so that environment is a lot better than just training by myself in Colorado Springs. And then for 2020, you guys were lucky and we’re one of the only tracks who are open. So of course, I’m going to utilize that facility. And then just the chance to do the time trials, when there is no racing. That was our big event. And just to practice that racing. I remember showing up for warmup on the morning of the **[inaudible 00:32:45]time Shauna, I’m like, I don’t even know what to do anymore. And so just to practice that and just keep that in your system, that was really helpful.
Andy Lakatosh:
Because I did a few TTs this summer and it’s been years since I’ve pinned on the number. And I was like, “I’m just doing this for fun. This is just stupid. It’s not a big deal, not a big deal.” I’m literally warming up. I’m so nervous. I got to go race. But if I do shit and it’s like, well, yeah, just relax. But no, it was definitely a nice game to do that. And it’s funny, we talked to Cari who also trains with Sean about her time in T-Town and how much she enjoyed doing the random bunch races. And she said the same thing. It’s just that the keirin is just positioning and getting around someone and when to make your move, the gears might be different and the speeds might be different.
Andy Lakatosh:
But as Joan and I say on a very regular basis, bike racers like to race bikes. People that only want to do their one little particular thing are a specialist and they don’t get to fall under the category of bike racers in our minds. They help fill out some of our UCI events and that’s very nice of them. But we like bike racers because that is what is fun. And I look forward to, we’re all looking forward to a 2021 when we’ll hopefully have full packs on the track and spectators in the stands because the energy… You’ve raced World Cups and World Cups with spectators and you’ve done women’s gear and which is huge. But I’ve always felt like the energy on a Friday night in T-Town is something that’s special and fun.
Maddie Godby:
Yeah, it’s kind of prolific in the US. When I first started, I would always hear T-Town, T-Town, T-Town and I didn’t know what it was until I got out there. And I was like, “Oh, racing in front of people in America. This is amazing.” And it does rival a lot of the other races like the four tracks UCI races in Germany when they get a payout to roast and the beer stand, they’re just punched drunk Germans cheering you on. Or the World Cups in GB, when they pack the stands and it’s full house. And of course, British cycling is a huge sport over there. And so to get that in America is really special.
Andy Lakatosh:
Yeah, because I went to the London Olympics which you are saying as part of his support crew and they did the test event… There they did a World Cup there beforehand. And I remember just saying some of the, Gideon and some of their guy, Jamie Staff come back and they were like, it was so loud inside that track. And I’m like, it was a full venue. So what, it was loud. And then I got there. Have you ever raced in London when it’s full?
Maddie Godby:
Yeah, I did that World Cup actually, when Chris Hoy was doing the keirin, you could not think it was so loud.
Andy Lakatosh:
Yeah, you can’t hear yourself think.
Maddie Godby:
No.
Andy Lakatosh:
It’s insane. And I’ll never forget his keirin at the games because Max Levy got… I thought Max was going to have it. I thought Max was Olympic gold medalist in the keirin because he hit it coming into one to go and got handlebars in front. And I was like, ooh, if that was me, Chris, you’d be riding the blue band down the backstretch. I would not let you back up on the track. And he just resurge… It was a whole half lap that Max was in front of him. I was like, oh, this is it. And then Chris started resurging and it was ungodly. And then he goes on to win. And it’s just 10 minutes of I can’t hear myself think because they’re all screaming so loud. But yeah, that is one hell of a venue for sure.
Andy Lakatosh:
I’m sure Tokyo will be pretty loud too if they put spectators in the stands and if not, I really laughed to see the Japanese people put a bunch of little cardboard cutouts in and have an applause button. I wonder, why do you do that? You just have blanket applause cheer button or do you have different levels of it? Will they have an excitement one like ooh or one for a crash? The things we’re going to add to T-Town for racing if we’re going to have a lot of spectators in the stands, what does that little audio clips? And we’ll have Mara sitting up there. Can you imagine if you played the wrong one though. If somebody’s doing one or something and you’re like, ooh.
Maddie Godby:
I don’t think so. No, no.
Andy Lakatosh:
All right, so now I got to talk about my favorite memory from 2020 and this exceeds by far, even me getting my own all-time best TT on T-Town. But my all-time favorite from 2020 was your insanely fast 200 meter time trial on a way less than ideal day conditions wise. It was breezy. It was warm, but it started out cool that morning. To rip off 11.1 on a flat concrete track in September on a windy, not ideal day is legitimately insane. And we offered you better wheels than your disc wheel and the other stuff you had and you refused. And we’re just standing there shaking our head at you. And I remember watching you wind up going, holy shit, that looks really good. Holy shit, that looks really, really good.
Andy Lakatosh:
And then you’re coming through into where the headwinds should be through three and four. And I’m like, “Oh man, she’s flying, she’s flying.” I know, of course I’m timing on my stopwatch. And as much as I pride myself on being dead-ass accurate with the stopwatch every now and then I botch it up and you crossed the line and I looked at the stopwatch and I was like, “Yeah, I got that wrong. I fudged that one up. I’d definitely fudge that one up.” And then we’re waiting and Tom Mains from MainSport, our timing provider says, 11.11 or something, I’m like, “What’d you say is like 11.11.” And Missy and I looked at each other, we’re like, “Holy shit. Holy shit.” Anyway, so that’s just my excitement.
Andy Lakatosh:
Obviously, I’m still very pumped about it. Can you tell us a little bit more about what that training block was like beforehand, what you were thinking. Obviously, you said you were a little bit like I don’t know what to do. And I remember doing that training block with you. We had some rough days in there and we even had the kind of strong arm you into staying like Maddie stay. Don’t go back yet, just ride the TTs. It’s going to be fine. And then we got a rain delay, which bumped it back another day. But just walk us through what that block was like and what that day was like and what you thought afterwards and if you’re still as excited about it as I am.
Maddie Godby:
Yeah, so that spring, I was just relegated to the trainer. So I was really excited to get out on track. And it was full gas. I didn’t want to take a recovery day. I was like, oh, just get me more speed. So we were doing really heavy eight week block. I think we’re doing double days almost every day. So the volume was quite high. But it was really nice that I had that strength, which had been a weakness of mine. And so to still see improvements carrying that volume was really exciting. And so I was like, oh, this could be good, but I just didn’t know what to expect because my previous PB on T-Town was like 11.50. So to go to 11.1, that was a huge chunk to take off.
Maddie Godby:
And I think that was just getting quality training time out there that summer and adding to the fitness that I had done earlier. So it was really exciting to see improvement in a year that you can’t take anything for granted and everything had been canceled. So to get a huge win out of the end of that summer was really exciting. But yeah, so the volume had been really high and I think I took two recovery days off before to do grad school orientation. So there was no taper or anything that was just my condition as is. And then to again, to set a huge PB, it was really exciting.
Andy Lakatosh:
Well, you definitely put in the work. I think it was a lot of volume. We were at 30 some hours a week of actual training volume. And I definitely questioned my own sanity at times. Well, I hope we all make it through this. I can’t forget the day we did the uphill 500 meters sprints the whole group of us in-
Maddie Godby:
In the rain.
Andy Lakatosh:
In the rain, in the pouring rain. And there was that stream of water that was flowing across the road that you… As if you’re not dying enough in the last 100 meters of an uphill sprint. There’s just this river of water that you have to sludge through, which just kills it. And I just remember, we were done, it’s pouring rain and you sit down on the ground and you’re just contemplating every life decision that’s led you to this point going, do I really want to do this anymore? This is horrible.
Andy Lakatosh:
But rocking up and dropping down 11.1, I’d say that was definitely, definitely worth it. And it was very exciting for me. I was stoked on that. But yeah, that’s by far my favorite memory from coaching in 2020. So second to last question because if nobody doesn’t know this, Maddie has a purple obsession. We’re on Zoom right now so we can all see each other while we do this. The walls behind her are purple. All the accent on her bike are purple. Her kit would be completely purple if she let her… Her old bike was purple. And there’s even a mythical bathroom in her house that is entirely purple, tile, tile toilet, tub, towels, top to bottom purple. I’ve never seen, I’ve just-
Maddie Godby:
No, just bathroom tile, just tile.
Andy Lakatosh:
Everything, I heard it was everything. And I won’t believe it until I see otherwise. But what is with the purple obsession?
Maddie Godby:
I don’t really even know when it started. It had always been like a family color. At one point, our house was purple.
Andy Lakatosh:
Like outside?
Maddie Godby:
Yeah.
Andy Lakatosh:
Fascinating, it all makes so much sense.
Maddie Godby:
So it had always just been a family thing and then I guess, I adopted it. And when we were getting the TMeyers made, they’re like, “Oh, you can choose any color now.” And I was like, “What!” So of course it was going to be purple. And then I think now it’s just to the point where it’s something that defines me and it’s this persona that I have and hashtag, purple what. So now it’s just fun to keep it going. That’s what people know me by. And just to have that stand out, I guess, that’s my social media thing is everyone knows me from purple.
Andy Lakatosh:
Yes, everyone does know you from purple. That is for sure. Yeah, I wasn’t sure if it was like, did you have an obsession with Barney? Did you just like everything that was great flavored? I don’t know. Maybe we’re addicted to Dimetapp as a kid. I don’t know. Hey, everyone has their thing. So that’s about wrapping it up. But we definitely need something in addition to all the other exclusive stuff because you don’t really share publicly. We need something exclusive to wrap this up with by the time you’re hopefully at the closing ceremonies in Tokyo, this upcoming OIC, this Stripe, the qualification process for Paris 2024 is probably going to be only six months away from starting. At least if they keep the same kind of confusing procedure that they always do. So tell us right now, exclusive on the Talk of the T-Town Podcast, are we going to see Maddie Godby would be more ass in Paris 2024, maybe even 2028? Got to tell us right now as Schuler would say, “Let’s go.”
Maddie Godby:
I definitely don’t feel ready to quit. I still love riding my bike. And I feel like all the things I learned in Australia, I’m just getting started. So I think that I will continue on, yes.
Andy Lakatosh:
Yes, now we are talking and that it could 2024. Let’s go. So one final thing to wrap up is that Maddie needs to be able to laugh because she will walk into training ready to rip somebody’s head off eight days a week and that can make training for everybody else interesting experience let’s say. So we had to find a way to get Maddie to really adjust laugh uncontrollably. And there is this guy who I grew up training and racing with, Bob Schuler, he was my coach for awhile and he used to race with us. And when he gets really excited, he has a bit of a Dutch accent and I completely embellish the crap out of it. And I’m sorry for that, Bob, please do not hate me.
Andy Lakatosh:
But I did it one day and Maddie, he just started laughing uncontrollably. And so now just to keep things interesting when we’re getting up to do her favorite motor accel and stuff, I’ll just turn and be like, “Catch me if you can, let’s go.” So if you ever hear me screaming in that random odd voice at the velodrome to Maddie, know I’m not going through puberty and my voice is just starting to crack. I’m just trying to make Maddie laugh. So there will be plenty of Schuler voice when you get out here in a couple of days and we will have a lot of fun riding a very bumpy track and doing motor accel and thinking about Tokyo as we prepare in these extremely odd kind of times. But if you have the right energy like you do and the right mindset, I think that it goes a lot easier and I think we’ll get there.
Maddie Godby:
Yeah. Well, thank you for having me.
Andy Lakatosh:
Of course, thank you for being on and thank you to our listeners for listening to this episode of Talk of the T-Towns Podcast. Please subscribe and we will see you next week.
Joan Hanscom:
This has been the Talk of the T-Town Podcast with host, Joan Hanscom and Andy Lakatosh. Thanks for joining us for this week’s episode brought to you by the Braun Medical Inc. Head on over to our website, thevelodrome.com where you can check out the show notes and subscribe so you’ll never miss an episode.