Liv Dietzel is a professional triathlete, engineer, and coach who races in places most people can't find on a map — the Himalayas, Patagonia, Norway, Brazil. She's won four extreme triathlons and is chasing every one of the fifteen that exist. But underneath all of that is a story that starts somewhere much quieter — a small Catholic farming town in Wisconsin, a dad who ran all over cross country courses just to cheer her on, and a brain cancer diagnosis in 2014 that changed the trajectory of everything.

Liv sits down with me to talk about losing her father to glioblastoma during COVID, why she started doing Ironmans in the first place, and what it felt like to cross that first finish line with him standing at the end of it. We get into her faith, the grief stages she did and didn't go through, and why suffering alone in silence on a mountain in the middle of nowhere is where she feels closest to God.

We also dig into what makes extreme triathlon so different from the standard Ironman circuit, why she pulled out of Dallas 70.3 because she felt absolutely nothing standing at the start line, and the coaching philosophy she built around the coach she never had growing up.

This one goes deep. Bring a coffee.

Liv’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/olivia.dietzel/
Tussle Endurance Coaching: www.tussleendurance.com

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