Meg Fisher is one of the greatest para cyclists in the world. Twenty years ago, Meg was in a car accident that changed her life. She discovered cycling thanks to an energetic service dog, and quickly began competing, gaining sponsors and winning competitions all over the world.
Meg Fisher is one of the greatest para cyclists in the world. Twenty years ago, Meg was in a car accident that changed her life. During her recovery, she fell in love with physical therapy and pursued it professionally. She also discovered cycling thanks to an energetic service dog. Meg excelled in the sport and quickly began competing, gaining sponsors and winning competitions all over the world.
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Meg Fisher:
Behind me is a picture of Betsy the Wonder Dog. She had the skill set to pull my wheelchair and pick the things up that I dropped or turn on lights and just be a great companion. I saw people mountain biking with their dogs and I thought, "Well, maybe if I can relearn the ability to stand and walk, maybe I can bike." I did learn to stand, and I did learn to walk, and I did get on a bike. Betsy was the whole motivation behind that.
Shelby Stanger:
Meg Fisher is one of the greatest paracyclists in the world, and she attributes her passion for cycling to her first service dog, Betsy. 20 years ago, Meg was in a car accident that changed the course of her life. She went from being a Division I tennis player to losing her mobility with the amputation of her lower left leg. It's been a long road to recovery, but now Meg has broken countless records, won every color medal you could dream of, and she's an 11-time world champion.
I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-Op Studio's production. Meg started competing as a cyclist in 2005, when she did a 24-hour mountain bike race for the first time. A few years later, she competed in her first road race. To say that she's good is putting it simply. Meg has won title after title. She's done training camps all over the US as well as in London and in Rio. As Meg travels to camps and competitions, there are two pieces of gear she has to have. One is the bike, of course. The other is a cycling prosthesis. But just like our bodies, prostheses can break or malfunction, which is what happened to Meg right before our interview.
Meg Fisher, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living.
Meg Fisher:
Thank you. Thank you for this privilege to join you.
Shelby Stanger:
I figured we'd just start ... We had to reschedule this interview and-
Meg Fisher:
Yeah, we did have to.
Shelby Stanger:
Tell us about it because that was unusual and-
Meg Fisher:
I-
Shelby Stanger:
Glad you're laughing about it.
Meg Fisher:
Because otherwise it's just so sad. The other weekend I was racing Rebecca's Private Idaho, our friend Rebecca Rusch. It was a 10-year anniversary of her incredible stage race and gravel race in Sun Valley, Idaho. I'd just done the last stage. It's a little 100 miles, and I am very fortunate to have a walking leg, prosthetic leg as well as a biking prosthetic leg. I was out using my biking prosthetic leg, and when I came back to my car to switch legs and get back to walking, my walking leg melted in the car. I've been using prostheses for about 20 years now, and I've never melted a leg. When I told my prosthetist, they just were like, "What?" I needed somebody to laugh with me because otherwise I was going to cry because when I don't have my walking leg, I am pretty limited. Thankfully, my prosthetist in Chicago recognized my need and allowed me to come in and work into a schedule, and they squeezed me in and got me back walking.
Shelby Stanger:
Okay. I have a question though. When your leg melted, that time between not having that and only having your ... It sounds funny when your prosthetic leg ... I'm sorry if I'm screwing this up. Okay.
Meg Fisher:
No, it is. It has to be funny.
Shelby Stanger:
What did you do in between that time going to Chicago? You just had your bike leg?
Meg Fisher:
Yeah. I used crutches, and I used my biking leg because at least I had a little something I could put on the ground for a bit of balance. We only can look through the lenses we have, so I like to say two legs, too easy. I see everybody walking around with their two legs, and you never really think about it. I take walking for granted all the time, all the time, because I'm so lucky to have a comfortable, well-fitting prosthesis. Hopefully I never melt my leg again.
Shelby Stanger:
While Meg is now an accomplished para athlete, it's taken some time to get here. She spent her youth in Alberta, Canada where she grew up riding horses. Her mother was an accomplished tennis player, and early on she taught Meg to play too. Meg got really good. She attended college at the University of Montana in Missoula where she played D1 Tennis. But everything changed her sophomore year when she was driving back to Missoula from spending the summer in Chicago.
Meg Fisher:
When I was 19, I was involved in a rollover car accident that killed my partner and first love and left me very injured. I was in a coma, needed some brain surgery, had my leg ripped off, ended up having half of my abdominal muscles removed. The bike became quickly very important to me because when I woke up and saw that my foot was gone, I really questioned how could I get back on the tennis court. Actually I was back on the tennis court before I even had a leg. Sounds like Shelby, you and I might resonate that. I bet you don't sit still very well, right? Do you sit still? I mean, this is the one moment today that you'll sit still just partly because you got to go out on the water before this, right?
Shelby Stanger:
Yes.
Meg Fisher:
I find that I kind of vibrate and just oscillate a lot. I had to find a way to channel that energy and put it somewhere. Before I could walk, I was back on the tennis court on an office chair with wheels just kind of scooting around. I got a job teaching tennis. Then I started working with prosthetists who were able to make legs for me. It became clear that I couldn't make it back to the college level of tennis that I was at and thought, "Well, where can I channel all this energy that I have?" I saw people doing a triathlon and I thought, "Well, maybe I can do that," so I learned to swim and then ... I had to relearn to swim because when somebody takes away one of your flippers, I'll tell you what, it's weird. If the lane lines weren't there, I'd swim in circles. I got to relearn to swim straight, and then I borrowed a bike and I had to relearn how to run.
Shelby Stanger:
There's so much there to unpack. What year was it that you had this accident?
Meg Fisher:
The accident was June 30, 2002. This past June was the 20-year anniversary, and I was 19. I think none of us can imagine really losing any part of ourselves. We always joke like, "Ah, just I'll lose a pinky." Turns out your pinky, very important. Pointer finger, less important. I learned that in grad school people. Trust me, I'm a doctor. You don't really think about ... A lot of us who are athletic, you're going to lose one of your legs. I never would've thought that I'd be where I am today. I couldn't sit up, I couldn't talk, I couldn't see. There's so much I couldn't do for myself. I couldn't go to the bathroom by myself. You want to talk about losing everything. I kind of did. I got a whole new personality. Everything changed. I'm so lucky. I'm grateful. Thank you for letting me be here.
Shelby Stanger:
Of course. I think your story's incredible, and I think I can learn a lot from you. I'm really curious how you think your personality changed. I feel like you probably were always this way and just-
Meg Fisher:
No. Nope.
Shelby Stanger:
No. Not at all.
Meg Fisher:
I was painfully shy. Painfully shy.
Shelby Stanger:
Really?
Meg Fisher:
Yeah. What makes us really special is humans is our frontal lobe, right? It's big, it's meaty. It's not meaty, it's full of brain cells. It's not meat. But anyway, that's where all you're thinking and your personalities come from. I hit the front of my head really hard right around my hairline on the top right side of my skull. I hit it real hard, and my brain started swelling and bleeding, and my pupils were fixed and dilated and I was not breathing on my own. I was very much on my way out. I ended up getting choked by my seatbelt so I had other hypoxic injuries. Your frontal lobe, again is where your personality is. Mine prior to this accident was shy and quiet. Now I can't shut up, which is good and bad for a podcast. I found myself in class in college ... I don't want to talk, but I can't stop myself. Also, I don't have any qualms about standing up in front of 1,000 people. Podcasts, auditoriums. Doesn't scare me anymore.
Shelby Stanger:
Meg's personality wasn't the only thing that changed after the accident. She'd been studying wildlife biology at school. Meg had dreamed of researching and observing big cats in the wild. When she got hurt, Meg was plunged into the world of healthcare, and she spent a lot of time in physical therapy. Every time she learned a new exercise, she thought about how she could share it with her friends and family. Meg fell in love with the profession and decided to change her course of study. You still practice as a physical therapist. How often do you see patients?
Meg Fisher:
I see patients ... When I'm in town. I'll see patients anytime, every time. I'll see people on ... I saw somebody on Sunday, so I have my own business. I do coaching. I do online coaching, and then I also have my brick and mortar physical therapy clinic where I will also do strength and conditioning coaching and then physical therapy. I think any person who has a passion that isn't necessarily traditional, we have to be very flexible and malleable. I am very motivated to help people in any way I can. I find that if I can help people maintain their strength, especially as they age and move through their years, they maintain their independence and happiness.
Shelby Stanger:
Totally true. I actually just hung out with this 85-year-old. She used to be a former professional ski instructor and she used to go windsurfing every weekend, but she couldn't pull up the windsurf anymore so she started surfing. I'm like, "That's amazing." She's 85, and I have a picture of her just full head of gray, kind of standing up on a surfboard, and it's just the most adorable thing. She's just having a good time. I think if we can have mobility of somewhat until we die, that's the goal.
Meg Fisher:
I mean, the human experience is more similar and shared than it is dissimilar. Those obstacles we all have, they may have different names or be different, slightly, but fundamentally they're roughly the same.
Shelby Stanger:
What are some of the tenets of physical therapy specifically that you wish you might have been told when you had your accident and that now you tell all of your patients?
Meg Fisher:
There is no change without challenge. I think that's something that kind of blows me up on the inside every time I say it is that we all want these things. You name it. I use things as very vague because just name it. What do you want? Do you want to sleep more? Well, you've got to change something to get that done. If you want to be stronger, well you've got to pick up heavy things. You've got to pick up of it a lot. Or you want to be faster, want to be more financially, I don't know, mature ... I don't know, you name it. I always think about, "Well, what do I want, and what am I willing to sacrifice or change," or, "How can I continue to go after what I want?"
Shelby Stanger:
So growth doesn't occur without change.
Meg Fisher:
Yeah, and that's uncomfortable.
Shelby Stanger:
What are we willing to sacrifice in order to go after what we want? How hard are we willing to push ourselves? We only make progress when we jump over the hurdle of what we think we're capable of. When we come back, Meg talks about getting into cycling after her accident, the toll of competing on a global stage and how her motivation has changed.
It took Meg some time after the accident to find a new outlet for her energy. Tennis wasn't an option and she tried triathlon, but eventually she just clicked with cycling. Once she settled on the sport, Meg excelled at the highest level. She competed on national teams and became sponsored by brands like Cannondale and SRAM. Early on in her cycling career, Meg competed in mountain biking and road racing. She even medaled in the Paralympics in 2012 and 2016.
It all started with Betsy, the Wonder Dog. Early on in her recovery, Meg was paired with Betsy to help her with day-to-day tasks. Betsy was a three-year-old Border Collie mix, and just like Meg, she needed an outlet for her energy. Meg saw other people mountain biking with their dogs and became determined to do the same. After Meg learned to stand and walk again, she took Betsy out to the trails.
Meg Fisher:
She was faster than me at first, and so I wanted to be as fast as my dog. It turns out, if you get as fast as a three-year-old Border Collie Heeler mix, you get faster. I met some friends on the trail that made a new community outside the tennis court. Ended up doing 24-hour mountain bike racing. I ended up being the first para athlete to ever do a XTERRA off-road triathlon and then made the national teams on the para triathlon side and then moved over into para-cycling.
Shelby Stanger:
This may be kind of a weird question, but can you tell me a little more about your prosthesis?
Meg Fisher:
I have a below knee amputation. I have three-and-a-half inches of my tibia, which isn't very much. That's a very short lever arm. I have a very long prosthesis, and I use a prosthetic ankle component. It's sort of kind of like hiking around in a ski boot, and so walking's not my favorite thing. I can do it. Yes. I can run. Yes. I can hike. I mean, I've summited Cotopaxi twice, I've run half marathons. But it takes more mental energy. We talk about the neuroscience of movement. It takes me a lot more thought, takes me more effort. It's physically harder for me to do all that movement.
It just gets emotional sometimes because I want to be me. I don't want to be para. I don't want to be anything other than just seen as who I am. I hide from the word amputee. I don't identify as an amputee because I don't ... Because I'm Meg, I use a prosthesis. I use a prosthesis. It doesn't use me. Bikes have been hugely empowering in my life because I found the bike because it doesn't hurt me. The bike has this really cool technology. It's called The Wheel. It's basically like a wheelchair. Who goes faster on a bike? Everybody. You can roll. You can carry stuff. It's less demand on your body. It's a much easier muscle contraction for me. I can explore my limits. I can get out into those quiet places in the woods. I can get out on the road. I can really push myself and try to find my limit and then often move beyond it.
Shelby Stanger:
You fell in love with the bike, but talk to me about the decision to start competing in racing because I know not every race has a para category.
Meg Fisher:
After my injury I raced able-bodied because I didn't want anybody to think of me as different. I wanted to be who I was prior to the injury. I wanted to be as good as. When I went to my prosthetist and I kind of had these ideas of like, "Oh man, let's do this, that and the other. Isn't this going to be great?" Very calmly they told me, "Sweetheart, you'll never be as good as you were." I was just like, "What do you mean?"
People always try to keep your expectations low, but I think people with their language and the way that they approach you, they kind of say, "Just chill out a little bit. You're never going to be as good as you were. Just be happy with what you have." A little bird inside of me was kind of like, "F-you. I'll show you." My mobility is not guaranteed. I never know when it's going to go away. I mean, I literally could take a step today and be on crutches tonight. I don't know, I could accidentally leave my leg somewhere and it gets melted and then I'm hooped again and reliant on other people to give me my mobility back.
Shelby Stanger:
So wait, you race gravel now. Can you tell us a little bit ... We've had a couple gravel racers, but gravel's still kind of new to a lot of people. Can you just tell us a little bit about what it is, how it's different?
Meg Fisher:
I think gravel is what cycling wants to be. If you think about road racing, it's actually a highly sanctioned event. Gravel on the other hand isn't regulated. It's the Wild Wild West. You can do what you want, you can be who you want, you can ride what you want. If you want to ride a fat bike in a gravel race, go for it. I don't know why you would, but some people, that's their joy. Good. Do it. If you want to ride a road bike in a gravel race, sounds awful, but sure, go ahead, do it. We're the party. We're where it's at.
I've really leaned into gravel because that's my roots. Like I said, gravel and mountain, when I regained my kind of independence and functionality was mountain biking with my dog, Betsy. However, there is no para mountain biking nationally or internationally. There is no para gravel. Well now there is partly because I've made it so.
Shelby Stanger:
Can you talk to me about the word para-cycling or para athlete? Because I've heard a lot of different words used. Challenged athletes or adaptive athletes, and I've noticed you're not using any of those. It seems like you're being really specific about your language.
Meg Fisher:
I lean into that word versus adaptive or challenged or disabled or handicapped, and that's kind of my perspective because disabled means ... The prefix, dis means not, or the opposite of and able. So you're telling somebody that they're not able. Especially when it goes into events or so forth, there's no room for a disabled category. We're all very able.
I choose the word para because that's a pretty common ... It's a prefix. It just means alongside. I am competing alongside you. We are doing the same thing. Scientifically, I'm actually doing more than my able-bodied colleagues. I'm working harder. I'm doing the exact same course, but it's harder for me. This concept of having a para category, I really like that. Para surfing, that's a thing. There's the Paralympics, it's alongside the Olympics. There's paraprofessionals, there's parachutes, there's parallels, parallelograms. I really like that word. I would love for there to be para categories in every competition. People need to understand that that's normal. It's okay to have a physical impairment. It's not something that needs to be hidden. It also needs to be something ... It doesn't necessarily need to be celebrated, it just needs to be there for people to see themselves reflected.
Shelby Stanger:
Though Meg is a para athlete, for many years she competed in able-bodied race categories partially because para categories didn't exist for her and partially because she was just as good as the able-bodied athletes, no stranger pushing herself beyond what others say is possible. She did it when it came to relearning to walk, and she does it when she bikes in elite competitions.
Let me ask you this because you've competed at the highest level. I'm curious about your philosophy on pushing yourself.
Meg Fisher:
Well I think ... I'll be quite honest ... How did I get so good? Or why have I found so much success? Honestly, it's fear. I don't like to admit that. I wish there was something more eloquent or beautiful, but I was afraid. I wanted my family to be proud of me. Of course, they're proud of me. They don't care what I do. But the story I told myself is that maybe I'll disappoint them or when you put all this sacrifice into whatever passion it is that you choose because you're taking time away from your family, you're taking time away from your house, your partner, work. There's a million things we can do with our time. I always was afraid that I wouldn't be good enough. I was afraid that ... Oh, I'll cry ... That I wasn't going to be good enough, that I wasn't going to be fast enough. I was just afraid, and so being afraid enabled me to go into some very dark, hurtful places.
I think a lot of endurance athletes are very familiar with what it feels like when everything in your body is telling you to stop or slow down or just pull the e-brake. But leaning into that pain. I got really good at that because I was so afraid, and then once I was winning, I was afraid that I wouldn't get to keep winning. There's not a lot of resources or there weren't a lot of resources for para athletics back then. I raced on the national team for about anywhere from 800 to maybe $1,000 a month. That was my stipend, and that was significant to me because I didn't have many resources. I knew that if I didn't win, I didn't get paid. I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to keep doing what I loved, I wouldn't get to pay my rent, I wouldn't get to buy food. Fear got me a lot of places. Now that I'm older, I'm less fearful. But that's how I got good was that I was afraid.
Shelby Stanger:
I'm really glad you shared this because I think there's a lot of people who've been on this podcast, including myself, who have used fear as motivation to get to where they are. But I don't think it's always helpful. I think eventually we get to the place where we're like, "Okay, you have two choices. You get to use fear of not being good enough or having other people's approval or you can choose joy and love." It's a choice. It's a hard choice to make at the time because you're so in your tunnel vision. But I'm curious, because I know that you must have changed ... One, you retired from professional cycling. Two, you have a job where you get to give to others and pay it forward every day, which must feel so rewarding. What's your motivation, and what's the process been like to change your motivation?
Meg Fisher:
Oh well, I mean, raise your hand if you've been through divorce.
Shelby Stanger:
I just won't get married.
Meg Fisher:
Right. We all have different ... I had the most amazing partner for a lot of years, and I owe a lot of my success to her. We actually got engaged after the London 2012 games where I won a gold and a silver. Then we took the Chunnel to Paris, and she proposed in Eiffel Tower at sunset. So I got to come home with a gold, a silver, and a diamond. It was the greatest story and part of my motivation to be so good back then. She was sacrificing so much for me that I wanted to give my best and win, so I really tried to win. In those four years between London and Rio, I got my doctorate in physical therapy and continued to race on the highest level and win more world championships because I just wanted to be good enough.
She was the person that was most important that I wanted to impress. Then a couple weeks before I left for the Rio camp, I'm so grateful she told me, but she's like, "We're not in a good place, and I think our relationship needs to change." I was devastated, absolutely devastated. I went into Rio so sad. I almost didn't go, but she told me to go because I'm like, "Do I stay? Do I go? You're important to me. This relationship's important to me. What do I do?" She's like, "Go."
That first day of competition is the 3K pursuit, and it's historically a very painful race because it's you going as hard as you can for three kilometers. I remember I made it into this bronze nothing round. There's the gold, silver round in the finals, and then there's the third place nothing round. The national team didn't think I was going to podium in that race. They'd actually asked me to focus on different races, but I'm going to do the best I can while I'm there. Somehow I'd earned myself into that third place nothing round.
I was racing this other Kiwi rider who's incredibly talented, and I was losing to her ... If you watch the YouTube video, I mean, I was losing to her by a lot. But I remember thinking, "I didn't come this far. I didn't lose my family structure to not win." I won, and I cried and it wasn't from happiness. It was like, "I have given so much to this sport. I've sacrificed. Missed weddings, missed funerals, missed work. I sacrificed all of this." I have this bronze medal, which I'm incredibly proud of, but it's also a reminder of everything I sacrificed and lost to get there.
After Rio, I did retire because it wasn't worth the sacrifice to me anymore. It was at the time ... I have no regrets. It was a huge privilege to get to wear Stars and Stripes and represent your friends and your family and your community and your colleagues, your team. It's huge. Now I race for much more joy. I'm grateful for that. You do have to choose. What's going to keep you going. There were a couple years where I didn't race, and I'm actually back to racing professionally, but I do it differently. It's from a completely different place.
Shelby Stanger:
Advice you can give to people listening to this show who just want to live more wildly.
Meg Fisher:
I think my advice is to remove the subjunctive tense from your language. It's like, "Well what do you want? What do you need?" Focus on those things, not on the shoulds or the coulds or the woulds because that all refers to something that either has never happened or may never happen. Kind of distill it down. What do you want, and what do you need to do to get to what you want? Don't talk about what you should do, what you could do, what you would do. When you reframe, if you want a more wild life, what do you need to do to do that? To have that?
Shelby Stanger:
Meg talks a lot about how the language we use can empower us. It makes a lot of sense. The way we talk to ourselves matters. It influences our perceptions of who we are and what we're capable of. Imagine what your life looks like without any shoulds, coulds, or woulds. For me, life sounds simpler. There's less room for criticism and burnout. There's more clarity and opportunities to be proud of the things I've accomplished.
Meg Fisher, thank you so much for coming on Wild Ideas Worth Living and sharing your story and perspective with the world. I'm so happy you're able to get in with your prosthetist in Chicago, and I loved hearing about how you've become the world champion that you are today. If you want to learn more about Meg, you can check out her website at gomegfisher.com. You can also follow her on Instagram @megfisher. That's M-E-G F-I-S-H-E-R.
Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, written and edited by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Peers Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. Our senior producer is Chelsea Davis, and our associate producer is Jenny Barber. Our executive producers are Paulo Mottola and Joe Crosby. As always, we love it when you follow the show, rate it and review it wherever you listen. Remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.