Speaker 1 0:19

Welcome to the Toilet Paper Salesman Podcast. My name is Mike Berarki and I have a very special guest today. Her name is Abby Peck. Abby is an American rower. She went to school at Gidmore College with an art degree in 1978. During her rowing career she won 12 gold medals, 3 silver medals and a bronze medal at the United States National Championship. She's also won 5 medals at the international level. After Abby had a back injury, she returned to school for her master's degree in exercise and sports science from Smith College and she worked with breast cancer survivors, teaching them to row, and brought together teams of cancer survivors to row in the head of the Charles Regatta in Cambridge. He started an organization called Pays Back in 2010, which stands for Physical Activity Intervention Surviving Beyond Cancer. Spoken passionately about her rowing career and how much it's taught her. Abby. Welcome to the Toilet Paper Salesman podcast. Hi, mike, so you're at Skidmore College and how do you get into rowing?

Speaker 2 1:24

I had a very good friend who had transferred to Skidmore from Connecticut College where she had rowed and loved it, and my sister was at Connecticut College rowing and so I thought it sounded like a great idea. And there was a dean at the college who had rowed and so we sort of got rounded up, a bunch of folks, and put together a team and we had ended up with four people who stuck with it and the coxswain well, five including the coxswain and his dad donated an eight. So we had four people rowing an eight. And it was an old boat, like a 1918 boat, and so pieces would break and if they broke we had some spare seats, so we just got to switch to a different seat and we rowed for three weeks and then raced at the head of the Charles and the lake never thawed in time in the spring. So that was it.

Speaker 1 2:26

So how do you go from that to the Olympics? How does that happen?

From College Rowing to Olympic Dreams

Speaker 2 2:32

Well, it was really serendipitous. I ended up four years out of college meeting a woman at a sort of a convention type thing and she had on sweats that were similar to the sweats that my sister had and she had competed at like a pre Olympics. And I went over to this woman and asked her if she knew my sister and she said yes. And we talked about rowing and I said how I'd rowed for three weeks in college and always wanted to do it again and she said well, we have practice tomorrow morning at six o'clock. And I'm looking at my watch and it's like I don't know two o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 2 3:15

And I kind of cleared my throat and she threw down a gauntlet which I have used on myself since then. She said are you going to talk about wanting to do this? Are you going to do it? So I showed up the next morning at six o'clock, totally fell in love with the sport. You know I was out of college for four years. I was working construction. I had worked at the New Balance running shoe factory stamping out running shoe stoles and I was so hungry for something to be passionate about and this checked all the boxes Eight months later ended up, making my first national team.

Speaker 1 3:56

That's amazing Eight months. So you went from three weeks of rowing to eight months worth of work, and then you make the national team.

Speaker 2 4:04

Yeah.

Speaker 1 4:05

Was that typical?

Speaker 2 4:06

No, no, no, I think you know. Almost everybody I knew had rowed in college and many in high school. I think the one advantage that I had is that I didn't have any bad habits yet. Add is that I didn't have any bad habits yet, so I had three different coaches the first year I was rowing, and they all coach different styles, so I had to be fairly versatile.

Speaker 1 4:32

We've all watched the Olympics growing up and I think we've all dreamed at some point in our lives maybe not all of this, but many of us about being in the Olympics. You make the Olympic team and now, all of a sudden, where were the Olympic Games held and what was it like walking through at the opening ceremonies, being at the Olympics as an athlete participating?

Speaker 2 4:55

Well, you're right, I was one of those kids who dreamed about being in the Olympics and I thought, well, maybe I'll do track and field in the summer and skiing in the winter, you know, never thinking what it really entailed and not really being familiar with rowing. But to make that team and have a dream like that that I had as a child and then, you know, slowly faded as I got older. But to have that dream resuscitated and become a reality was, I mean, even talking to you I've got the hair on my arm and walking into the opening ceremonies was really interesting because, first of all, I'd never seen that many people live and were, you know, in the Coliseum in Los Angeles. I'm walking in next to Joan Benoit because Joan was coaching track and field at Boston University. She was friends with one of the women who was coaching, who was my coach, and so she came back and she was quite small and so you're supposed to march in by height and she didn't want to hang out with all of the teenage gymnastics.

Speaker 2 6:11

So she came back and it with the eye of the marathoner who's going to come in, the first women's marathoner, and come down that ramp at the end of a marathon and so she was like that might be kind of hard, but for me to walk around and see all those people and if you sounds strange, but if you caught somebody's eye and they were looking at you and you smiled and waved at them, they went crazy. It was really this sort of wonderful I don't know affirmation of all my hard work that a dream come true. Part of me not believing it, thinking somebody is going to come in with one of those big hooks and pull me out because I don't really deserve to be there. But it was. It was an amazing thing. And to see the athletes from all the different countries, it just really took my breath away. It was amazing.

Speaker 1 7:18

Do you think it's a typical feeling for first time Olympic athletes to feel like they don't belong?

The Olympic Experience in Los Angeles

Speaker 2 7:26

I do. I mean, well, obviously it depends Not everybody, but I think many of the folks who are in the Olympics have grown up idolizing the athletes and aspiring to the games and then to, like me, to have that dream come true is even though you put in the hard work. It's a weird sort of bipolar sense of you know, I put in a lot of work and so I earned my place here, but, wow, this is fantasy becoming reality my place here.

Speaker 1 8:07

But wow, this is fantasy becoming reality. When you hit a certain level, whether it's in business or whether it's in sports, I think there's always a little bit of that feeling of do I really belong here, do I really belong in this position, do I really belong in the Olympics? I think it's a typical feeling and I think that's the same feeling that holds some people back of not achieving it. They really don't believe they deserve it. They don't push that extra effort to get it.

Speaker 2 8:32

I think certainly that can be true. You know, I rode with some people who were very talented and could have made the Olympic team, probably. But they had parents who said you know, you've got to stop pretending and playing games, you've got to get out into the real world and get a job and not waste your education. But also people who sabotage themselves in ways that had them or their performances falling short, and maybe because they didn't believe that they belonged there.

Speaker 1 9:08

Yeah, I think that the influence of parents is a huge deal and I think that a lot of parents especially when it comes to the arts as you know, because you're an artist as well when it comes to the arts, parents dissuade their kids from pursuing careers in the arts because they don't feel like you can make any money or whatever the sense is, and that it's not a legitimate career or somehow it's devalued. And it's devalued also in our school systems as well. The first programs that get cut are the arts. There's no question about it, and we raised our kids sons of musicians, my daughters and artists. We allowed them to pursue their passion because they should, because they're designed and built that way to do those things right.

Speaker 2 9:55

Yep, as a studio art major. I think my parents. They were very supportive. They were supportive of me my whole life. But they were very supportive of my art degree and when I got out I was, I moved to Boston and I was sleeping on my sister's dormitory floor, which, you know, security would never allow that to happen now. But I couldn't get an apartment until I had a job.

Speaker 2 10:19

Back in those days you actually looked for jobs in the newspaper and I saw one for New Balance Running Shoe Company. They were hiring shippers and I thought I can move boxes in and out of a truck. So I went down to apply for the job. We have an opening in the cutting room which you would be cutting out running shoe soles and we've never had a woman in the cutting room and you don't have any experience and that's that you know. Usually we wouldn't hire you. But I see that you were a studio art major, so you must have a good eye. So I actually got my first job out of college because of my art degree. After I left the interview and had the job, I ran out to find a pay phone and call my mom and dad and say guess what? I got a job because of my art degree.

Barriers for Women in Sports

Speaker 1 11:16

That's incredible. Now women rowing. You wouldn't necessarily have barriers, but growing up when you did, I'm sure you faced plenty of barriers being a woman. Any thoughts about that?

Speaker 2 11:29

Oh, I could talk long about that. But yes, I actually had the honor of rowing with a woman named Ernestine Bear who was in her 80s, and we raced together in a double at the Head of the Charles for two years, raced together in a double at the head of the Charles for two years and she really helped to break down the barriers for women in rowing because her husband was a rower and she sort of got to sneak in because of him and she used her influence to really start to get women's rowing going in this country. She tried hard with a number of women's colleges that had rowing to get them to compete intercollegiately but you know they didn't think that that was ladylike. But she ended up getting women on the national team.

Speaker 2 12:19

When I was a kid I played sports in school and when I was in high school I was on the field hockey team, the basketball team, the track team and the softball team and we had the same pleated navy blue skirt for all of those, all of those teams, and finally for softball and track we convinced the school to let us wear our own navy blue shorts. But yes, there have been and continue to be a lot of barriers for women when Title IX came in. I remember speaking with a woman who was the athletic director at the University of Iowa and she'd just been back from an NCAA conference on how do you know that a school is compliant with Title IX, and she said they were arguing about square footage for gym space and locker rooms and weight rooms and money and she said it's very simple. She said when the men would be happy to have what the women have, you have equity. And I thought that was just such a beautiful sort of simple litmus test that sort of says it all.

Speaker 1 13:30

Yeah, right now. I wrestled in high school and college, and women's wrestling is now just becoming a sport that is gaining national recognition. Many college programs are starting to put in D1 women's wrestling programs. The Olympics now. Women's wrestling it's on fire.

Speaker 2 13:50

It is on fire. I saw a wonderful special on it on the public television and the kids and the coaches you know, and even coaches who are like you know they started out being grumpy old men who didn't want their territory being polluted by women and girls and they have turned around and are the most ardent supporters and enthusiastic coaches and teachers and coaches I mean everybody I know who wrestled in high school. I mean they were all guys when I was going. They really loved it and looked back on their wrestling careers as something really special in their lives. That taught them a lot and I think that sports do that of experiential learning that helps us grapple with teamwork, with effort, with winning and losing and how to be graceful in the face of both winning and losing.

Speaker 2 14:57

Confidence persistence, all those things, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 1 15:00

To participate in sports in general. I highly recommend it. Men, women, absolutely.

Speaker 2 15:03

To participate in sports in general. I highly recommend it. Men, women and, if you look at the way it's transformed, folks who are in the Special Olympics, paralympics. The opportunity to compete is. I think we have an innate desire to compete and it doesn't have to be intense, but just to get out and interact physically. I think is inborn. You look at little kids and that's all they do. They're charging around and making up all kinds of games.

Speaker 1 15:34

You accomplish a lot in rowing, but then you have a back injury. So talk a little bit about that, and then talk a little bit about the transition from rowing back to college. How did that all happen and what did that look like for you?

Transition After Back Injury

Speaker 2 15:48

Once it was confirmed the diagnosis was confirmed that I had a herniated disc I ended up having surgery and before I went for surgery, I applied to Smith College to their coaching program, which is really it's just a spectacular program. I had three people in my class and four people in the class ahead of me and they alternated years for the different classes, so everybody got really great personal attention and it was just a spectacular program that helped me learn a lot about coaching, about psychology, physiology, how to read studies and find out if they actually have any meaning or not. And I went primarily because I wanted to know the why behind what I was doing in coaching. I wanted to know why I would do different types of training. You know, why are we lifting heavy weights? Or why are we doing long, steady state pieces and you know? Or short, you know, sprint pieces, why are we doing that At what time of year?

Speaker 2 17:03

Because, although I had some wonderful coaches, I also had some coaches who were I don't think they really knew what they were doing and they were just coached either the way they were or the way that they thought that they should coach, but without the understanding of the physiology and the psychology of what goes into coaching. So I really wanted to be a well-trained coach and so I went. I got lots of great information. I was able to coach. I still coach. I just in fact got back from a camp in California.

Speaker 1 17:38

Now what do you coach?

Speaker 2 17:39

So I coach at rowing camps that have generally older folks there, you know, people who don't have to work, who can take time out to travel and to be coached. So I usually do two of those camps a year. But when I started to get into coaching coaching at the college level but I had a friend who was a teammate of mine when we were on the national Olympic teams and she started summer camps coaching older women who were mostly pre-Title IX but who had gotten involved with rowing because their kids had gotten involved with rowing. And over the course of coaching at these camps we found out that there were a number of cancer survivors, most particularly breast cancer survivors, and we were able to put together a boat of breast cancer survivors eight rowers and a coxswain and row at the head of the Charles which happens in October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month Holly, who was my teammate, really delved into the whole cancer and rowing arena and I helped her out and we coached a lot of cancer survivors.

Speaker 2 18:58

We ended up teaching cancer survivors how to row, not just working with athletes who already knew how to row and I helped a breast cancer doctor in Boston at Beth Israel, helped her develop an exercise program for her patients, and sadly, she actually ended up dying of breast cancer after that, and so it was something that really felt like I could get my teeth into, and once I left rowing at the collegiate level, I ended up doing more of that, but it was short lived, because I came home Pennsylvania to take care of my mom after she had a stroke in 03.

Speaker 2 19:40

Okay in 03.

Exercise Program for Cancer Patients

Speaker 2 19:47

And then my dad, who had metastasized prostate cancer and my mom died in 04, my dad in 06.

Speaker 2 19:49

And so I decided just to stay here in my hometown living in my house I grew up in, which I love, because the community was so loving and so supportive and as much as I loved and missed my friends up in the Boston area, I thought, you know, I could live 30 more years outside of Boston and not get this kind of, not have this kind of community.

Speaker 2 20:11

I puttered around and did some coaching and teaching at a local college and then I thought, you know, I so loved working with cancer patients in Boston and there was nothing like that around here. So I went to my dad's oncologist and I asked him if I could try out an exercise program for some of his patients, and he said yes and supported me in writing grants because it was important to me that the program be free for the participants, because I didn't want there to be any barriers between, or as few barriers as possible between them and participating, and the studies that I read really just showed how profoundly exercise can impact recovery from cancer, can impact the ability to have a higher quality of life when you're going through treatment. It reduces the likelihood of a recurrence and it reduces the likelihood of getting cancer in the first place, would you say.

Speaker 1 21:23

That's the physical part of it, the mental part of it, both. What is it about going through a program like that that helps cancer survivors survive and or prevent it from coming back?

Speaker 2 21:35

I think it's certainly psychological as well as physical. We're physical beings and we're meant to move. We're physical beings and we're meant to move. And especially when you're going through a stressful ordeal like cancer diagnosis and treatment, that's high stress and often you're looking at your own mortality and it's scary and fear, anxiety, all of those, if you want to call them negative emotions. When you experience them, your body generates hormones that are designed for fight or flight. So you're getting this high octane fuel to do something physical, like to get out of a dangerous situation. But most of us are sitting at desks. That high octane fuel, those hormones that are generated, become toxic when they're not burned up with exercise and they undermine our health and our immune system. And most people you know if you're in a stressful situation, you know often your digestive system doesn't feel really good. Your digestive system is a really important part of your immune system.

Speaker 2 22:46

If you're able to exercise through the diagnosis, through the treatment obviously in a way that is safe and that you're capable of participating in you get to burn off those toxins.

Speaker 2 23:01

It feels good physically. You know, when I had my program people would say you know it's so hard to get here, but I always feel so much better when I leave. One of the real key benefits to the program I had was that there were a number of people who came in and exercised at the same time, so they're sitting next to each other on the exercise bike or the treadmill or they're lifting weights together and they share their stories so they have an outlet. One of the things I learned is that people need to tell their stories so they can tell it to each other. They could tell it to me because I'm not family, I'm not part of their doctor's care team, I'm not friends, I'm not somebody that they need to make me feel good about how they're feeling. And that's often how patients feel that they have to keep convincing people that they're okay, and that's incredibly draining. But the sharing of the stories and the ability to be physical together, I think, combine to be really, really beneficial.

Speaker 1 24:13

How many years did you do the physical therapy with cancer patients? How long did you do that?

Speaker 2 24:18

Well, I started. The program started in 07, a year after my dad died, and it was shut down by COVID 2020. I guess it was heartbreaking for me to have to close that program down, but it took place in an oncology office and everybody that I work with, everybody all the patients coming into the oncology office everybody has had compromised immune system and I think it was wise and the smart and safe thing to do for the doctors to close it down and they don't feel like they're at a place now where they can restart it. But I did say that, if they ever want to, that I'd be happy to help them kickstart it.

Speaker 1 25:08

Hopefully you'll be able to do that.

Speaker 2 25:09

So when patients came in, I'm sure you could see tangible results, right? Oh yeah, I mean, we had people come in especially mostly breast cancer, but all kinds of cancer, but especially the breast cancer patients who had had mastectomies or double mastectomies. You know their surgeons told them oh, you can never lift more than five pounds. Well, that is complete misinformation because there were no studies done back then about it. You know there were studies that were just beginning to come out. You know some longitudinal studies based on exercise and cancer and in fact the more recent studies have shown that strength training is actually really good for lymphedema, which is a problem with if you've had a number of lymph nodes removed.

Art, Passion and Upcoming Fundraiser

Speaker 2 25:56

The lymph system, which is an important part of the immune system, also doesn't have the ability to uptake the lymphatic fluid that is generated. But they found that exercise actually really helps with that. We had women who came in and couldn't play with their grandchildren, couldn't get up and down off of the floor. One woman told me that her goal was to be able to open a jar of ragu and I was away visiting my family and I got a call from her and guess what? I opened my jar of ragu. You know, being able to carry a case of water in from their car, going up and down the stairs, getting out for walks with friends, just being able to not only do things physically, but it was a process of helping people make friends with their body again after they felt betrayed by it.

Speaker 1 26:57

That's powerful. Do you think that that's the key ultimately?

Speaker 2 27:01

I think that's a really important part, because I know a number of folks who've had recurrences and folks who haven't. But I think once you've had that diagnosis, there's this fear that sits on your shoulder. If you can do something to help you not have a recurrence or to help you navigate through the experience of a recurrence or a first-time diagnosis, it's a really powerful thing because most folks are in a position where they feel completely powerless and their partners, their children, their parents feel powerless. That you know they want. What they want most is to be able to fix it, so to have something like exercise and it doesn't have to be heroic, it just needs to be getting out and walking, standing up from your computer and walking to the water cooler a couple of times before you sit back down again. You know moving. We have become pretty sluggish society.

Speaker 1 28:06

Yeah, I resemble that Advice for someone newly diagnosed. What would you suggest for them?

Speaker 2 28:17

I would say see if you can find a support group that is active, or talk to your oncologist and find out. You can put a message up on their board and say I'm newly diagnosed and I would really like fellow patients to walk with or ride bikes with something to get moving, and especially if you can do it with friends, and it doesn't have to be people who have also been diagnosed. But there's something very powerful about sharing stories with each other and knowing that the people that you're sharing them with have been through similar experience, so they get it.

Speaker 1 29:03

Let's talk a little bit about your art. It's brilliant, I might add.

Speaker 2 29:09

I was mostly sculpture and ceramics in college, so I did some drawing, but I never did any watercolor. And so one of my exercisers and her husband turned out to be not only artists but teachers, and so I've been able to take some watercolor classes and meet some really awesome people like your wife but other folks and I love it. It's hard. Having done the training I needed to do for rowing and that I'm doing now for my fundraising ride for cancer in Massachusetts, I know what it takes to get good, and I have been remiss in my training around my resuscitated art. I need to do more drawing. I need to do more basics and testing with what different colors do and how to mix them, and so I have a lot of rudimentary skills to practice and I'm loving it.

Speaker 1 30:19

Yeah, it was great to reconnect with everybody and see, obviously, renee's art and it's just a wonderful community that is there supporting each other with art. It's incredible and, abby, I will say that meeting you in Maine and getting to know you. You're a true inspiration and I think that came out today in our interview and I don't even know if I can describe for people because this is obviously an Audible podcast how much energy and how much life you truly have and that you exude to everybody. That you are just an incredible human being and person. You're a true inspiration and I just wanted to thank you very, very much for taking your time and coming on the podcast and look forward to getting this thing produced and out there and really appreciate the opportunity to get to spend some time with you.

Speaker 2 31:15

Well, mike, truly my pleasure, and thank you for those kind words. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 31:22

So with that, that's all we have for today. Who says selling toilet paper isn't glamorous? That's my tagline, Abby.

Speaker 2 31:33

Hey, you know, I learned about passion when I was rowing and then I learned that passion is portable and you can take it with you into anything you do, whether it's riding in the Pan Mass Challenge or selling toilet paper.

Speaker 1 31:53

I forgot about that. That's right we wanted to talk about. Thank you for reminding me. So you have a fundraising event coming up.

Pan Mass Challenge for Dana-Farber

Speaker 2 32:00

I do. Once my exercise program was shut down, I really felt like I wanted to still participate somehow. One of my exercisers and her husband rode in a fundraiser called the Pan Mass Challenge, which is about 200 miles in two days in Massachusetts, and every penny that the riders raise goes directly to Dana-Farber treatment and research. No money is spent on administration or any logistics or organizational stuff. It all goes directly to treatment and research. So they encouraged me to join them and I did, and I'm doing it again.

Speaker 1 32:47

So we will have a link on the podcast and on my website for site so that people, if they want to come on and donate to your cause, they'll be able to do that. We'll offer that out and it's an awesome thing that you're doing there as well. There's just so much giving in your world.

Speaker 2 33:04

you know your whole life Well that's really awesome and I feel like this is important because there's cuts to federal funding for research and in my world and in the world of everybody I know, cancer is just getting more and more abundant. I guess that's a terrible word to use, but people are being diagnosed younger and younger and with all different kinds of cancers, and we need that.

Speaker 1 33:34

We will definitely get that link up. And again I wanted to thank you for coming on the podcast. And again, who says selling toilet paper isn't glamorous? Thanks, a lot, thank you, mike.

Speaker 2 33:46

I appreciate it. Thank you, okay, bye.