I'll Have Another with Lindsey Hein Podcast · SandyBoy Productions

Episode 656: Olympic Champion Gabby Thomas on Paris Gold, Purpose, and the Road to LA 2028

·58 min·3 clips

Gabby Thomas says one-third of training days are bad, one-third so-so, and one-third great.

1. I’ll Have Another with Lindsey Hein features Olympic champion Gabby Thomas and focuses on her path from Paris gold to LA 2028. 2. Lindsey Hein interviews Gabby Thomas, a 2024 Paris Olympic gold medalist, Harvard graduate, and New Balance sprinter, because Thomas connects elite performance with wearable tech and long-term planning. 3. The episode asks how Thomas trains, recovers, and stays grounded while chasing the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. 4. Thomas says Amazfit fits her because she actually uses sleep, recovery, heart-rate, and GPS data every day. 5. She describes data as a “silent coach” that helps her reflect without replacing how her body feels. 6. Thomas says she used to get stressed by exact sleep hours and REM totals in college. 7. She says that stress sometimes got in the way of the sleep and recovery she wanted. 8. Thomas explains that she now looks at recovery percentage, compares it with how she feels, and adjusts training through that lens. 9. She says heart-rate tracking helps her decide whether to start the next rep or tell her coach she needs more recovery time. 10. Thomas says every tenth of a second matters in sprinting, so the watch helps remove guesswork between intervals. 11. She says she chose coach Tonja immediately after graduating from Harvard in 2019. 12. Thomas went to Austin, Texas, saw a group with three Olympians, and decided she wanted that environment. 13. She says Tonja is the only female professional sprint coach she has worked with and that it made conversations about body and life outside sport easier. 14. Thomas says environment matters because motivation changes, but the people around her keep her disciplined. 15. She says she has stayed with the same group since the start of her pro career and plans to finish with them. 16. Thomas says her hard years taught her resilience, especially after pulling out of Worlds in 2022 and later having her best season. 17. She repeats her physical therapist’s rule of thirds: one-third bad days, one-third so-so days, and one-third great days. 18. Thomas says Paris felt like relief, Tokyo felt like excitement, and she used mindfulness and meditation to block out pressure from media and 80,000 people. 19. Listeners interested in elite sprint training, recovery data, and Olympic mindset will get the most from this conversation. 20. Listeners who want race analysis only and little training detail may skip it.

As heard by us

A gold medal conversation that treats relief, timing, and purpose as part of the win.

Gabby Thomas and Lindsay Hine frame the episode around the feeling of winning an Olympic gold, and the best stretch is the one that sits with the pressure before it and the relief after it.

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Why you'd press play

Hear Gabby Thomas reflect on the relief of winning gold and the clock already ticking toward LA 2028.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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