Jessie Diggins

Outside of skiing, I love reading, cooking/baking, gardening, watching TV shows (The Great British Baking Show, Vampire Diaries, and Outlander), and hanging out with friends.
 
Transcript: "So outside of skiing, I love reading. I also love cooking and baking, I'm our team. Birthday cake baker. So that's a really fun thing that I do. I also love gardening. I have this tiny little garden and Stratton Vermont where this summer I grew ton of things, a ton of Swiss chard zucchini that were like a foot and a half long. It was weird and I also love watching The Great British baking show and Vampire Diaries. And Outlander. And honestly, I just love having dinner with friends and just hanging out and enjoying the conversation."

I would suggest playing around with different tactics, like following someone or doing sprint intervals with your team. Also practice starts with your team to get comfortable reacting to the start gun and being surrounded by other people.
 
Transcript: "Hey Chrissy, this is a great question. So one of the things I really didn't understand much when I was younger is that you don't always have to lead in order to win the race or win the Heat. And so, I think I would definitely suggest like play around in intervals, with your team, with different tactics. Try following someone notice, maybe if it's a windy day or slight downhill, notice how it might be easier. If I tuck in behind someone slot in right behind them. And then that might be a little bit easier for me and so I can Save up my energy for a finishing Sprint and so I think it's a cool idea like play with tactics and you know grab a teammate and say hey let's practice this. Maybe today we're doing some some some little Sprint's all lead one and then you lead the other one and trade off with each other and then yeah, try that out because I think a lot of the best friend racers in the world. They don't always necessarily have to go from the front. There are some courses where it does of behoove you to get out there. R really fast. And so the other tip that I would have is practice starts just practice reacting to the start gun, getting off the line really quickly, feeling comfortable, doing it, with other people around you too. Because sometimes it's easy to do on our own and then we get in a, you know, a start line with a lot of other people and it's really distracting and that's really hard. And so I'd say again, grab your teammates and practice doing this with them, right? All around you."

My passion is cross-country skiing, but my purpose in life is to open up the conversation about mental health and specifically Eating Disorders and empower people to feel safe and okay with asking for help.
 
Transcript: "Hi Suzanne. I love this question. I've actually thought a lot about the difference between passion and purpose because my passion is cross-country skiing. I love what I do, I love my job, I love getting to race but my actual purpose in life, thankfully isn't just to ski in circles really fast. That's not my purpose. That's not why I'm here. My purpose is to help open up the conversation about mental health and specifically Eating Disorders because I had one When I was 18 19 years old. I've been in recovery ever since and I think it's so important for people to know that if it's okay to not be perfect and it's okay if you need to ask for help with something, we all need help in our lives. With lots of things. That's okay. That's why we have medical professionals. That's why we have family and friends and people who have our backs. So I think my purpose in life is to open up that conversation and Empower people to feel safe and and okay with asking for the help that they need. So that's that's basically my biggest goal."

For a beginner, the best way to get into cross country skiing is to sign up for a one-hour lesson. This will help you get the fundamentals down and give you an idea of what kind of equipment you need. Additionally, it's important to dress in layers so you don't get too sweaty and bring snacks to make sure you have enough energy.
 
Transcript: "Hi Ed, I love this question. What's the best way for a beginner to get into cross country? Skiing because this is such a fun sport, it's lifelong. It has a really low injury risk. It's a full body workout. It's really it's a really great workout and it can be really social, right? You can go out in the woods and enjoy a really peaceful time by yourself. Or you can get out there with your friends and just bobbing up and down the hills. And so, I think there's just there's so many ways to make this sport. Your own And but I would definitely recommend that people sign up for one hour lesson because I think the the learning curve is really steep. You can pick it up really, really quickly, but it's so helpful to start out with that lesson, just to get the fundamentals down and then the more you get out there and ski, you'll pick it up really pretty quickly on. It's really fun. So, I also recommend, you know, if you're not really sure what kind of equipment you want, if you go to a Nordic Center, you may be able to just rent skis and boots and poles for your lesson. And then kind of decide, all right, then you can buy different packages from Sporting Goods companies where you can get skis, boots, pulls bindings the whole thing, all at once, and then you're set and you're good to go. Okay, wait, I forgot. There's one other thing definitely dress in layers because this is kind of a sweaty Sport and you're working so hard that even when it's cold, you want to be able to strip down layers that you don't get super sweaty and then have this wet fries, especially if it's a windy day. And the other thing is bring snacks because it's an energy expensive sport. If you're going out there for a couple hours you definitely want to bring some crackers or some gummies or a banana or something to make sure that you don't get angry. Because that's the biggest, I think, reason that people get frustrated with the sport is like now, I'm now I'm cold and I'm hungry. And so, snacks in the layers are huge."

I admire leaders who are vulnerable and willing to lift up those around them. They show that mistakes are okay, and it's important to be encouraging and supportive of those around you in order to be a great leader.
 
Transcript: "One of the things I find most admirable in leaders is people who are able to be vulnerable. Sometimes I think of you know, we think of our athletes who are leaders as you know these super human figures and nothing ever goes wrong and everything is always perfect. And I think that makes them unreachable, I think some of the best examples of leadership. I've seen our athletes and people who are like, hey, I've struggled with this. Here's what I'm working on, you know, they allow themselves to be human and imperfect and say, hey, I Acknowledge that I might make mistakes and I'm working towards these things. Here are my goals. So I think being allowed to make mistakes and and showing that in yourself allows the people around you to feel like they're able to dare greatly and try things and they might make mistakes too and that's okay because you shown it's okay as long as you're trying the other thing I really love in some of the people I've seen be really great leaders, is they really lift up the people around them. It's sort of a more encouragement is more attitude. Instead of like, hey, if I encourage you it doesn't mean I'm any less. It just means that I can give you this piece of cheerleading this piece of encouragement, I can help lift you up and it doesn't cost me anything. And so the willingness to lift other people up and really encourage them, I find that very admirable."

I bring my own pillow, peanut butter or almond butter, Aeropress coffee, and American gum on the road with me for cross-country trips.
 
Transcript: "Okay, so I actually meant to ask this question for everyone in the cross-country team, but I realized I should probably answer to because there are a couple things that I bring that are really important. I actually bring my own pillow on the road because we change beds basically every week and I want one consistent thing so that I can sleep really well. No matter what kind of bed I'm on where I am in the world that really helps me. I also bring my own peanut butter or almond butter because that is a Race morning food that I really really like and I know sits well and we don't usually find really great options in Europe for peanut butter. The other thing is I bring coffee at Aeropress and I also bring gum from the US because for whatever reason I don't like the chewing gum in Europe very much and I really like to have it and so I bring my own"