What's The Rusch

In this second episode of our special birthday series, Rebecca Rusch explores the theme of redefining success and identity. Over the past year, What’s the Rusch has become a space for honest conversations about what it means to grow, change, and find purpose beyond the finish line. This episode features stories from athletes and leaders who have reimagined what achievement looks like, let go of old expectations, and found new meaning in their journeys.
Featured Guests & Clips:
Caroline Buchanan
Caroline opens up about building her identity both on and off the bike, navigating reinvention, and learning to define success on her own terms. She shares how she’s found purpose beyond podiums by mentoring others and embracing new challenges.
Kate Courtney
Kate reflects on what it means to define success beyond the podium. She shares how she’s learned to measure achievement by effort and growth, not just results, and how her work with the She Sends Foundation is helping to expand opportunities and redefine what winning looks like for herself and the next generation.
Allen Lim
Allen shares how growing up as part of an immigrant family in Los Angeles shaped his sense of identity and belonging. He reflects on how the bicycle, the Olympic movement, and the power of community helped him redefine what success means—not just as winning, but as connection, dignity, and inspiring others.
Alexandera Houchin
Alexandera talks about how her identity has evolved and so has her sense of responsibility. She shares how her early drive to right past injustices and give voice to her family story has shifted toward embracing her own presence and authenticity, and creating space for others to do the same.
Key Themes:
Redefining what it means to succeed
Letting go of old expectations and embracing new identities
The power of community, mentorship, and giving back
Finding purpose and meaning beyond traditional measures of achievement

Join the Conversation:
How has your definition of success changed? What does identity mean to you? Share your thoughts with Rebecca on social or by leaving a review.
· Thank you for being part of this journey and for celebrating a year of meaningful conversations with us. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe to What’s the Rusch wherever you listen to podcasts.

Episode Summary:
To celebrate one year of What’s the Rusch, Rebecca Rusch brings together some of the most honest and courageous moments from the past year. This special episode is all about embracing vulnerability, slowing down, letting go, and sharing the real stories behind the highlight reels. Rebecca introduces and reflects on powerful clips from four guests who have opened up about their struggles, growth, and the lessons they’ve learned along the way.
Featured Guests & Clips:
Stacy Sims
Stacy shares her experience of moving to New Zealand, facing postpartum depression, and reaching a breaking point that led to a suicide attempt. She talks about the importance of support systems, rebuilding, and the need to reach out for help—even when you feel you have to be stoic.
Jess Kimura
Jess opens up about the loss of her partner, the overwhelming grief that followed, and how she found herself again through surfing and allowing herself to be vulnerable. She discusses the pressure to appear tough in her sport and the relief of finally letting herself be seen.
Rush Sturges
Rush recounts a harrowing experience in Nepal, surviving a massive earthquake while on a river expedition. He describes the trauma and PTSD that followed, the physical symptoms he endured, and the long journey of healing through therapy, mindfulness, and learning to listen to his nervous system.
Chris Burkard
Chris reflects on a transformative darkness retreat and the power of being vulnerable with others. He shares how opening up to a stranger after the retreat changed his perspective, and how he’s learning to bring more honesty and connection into his everyday life—not just during extreme adventures.
Key Themes:
The strength in sharing what’s real, even when it’s uncomfortable
Navigating grief, trauma, and mental health challenges
The importance of support, community, and self-compassion
Redefining what it means to be strong and successful

Connect with Rebecca:
Website
Instagram
LinkedIn
Substack
Blood Road
Brain Storm Podcast
Join the Conversation:
What does vulnerability mean to you? How have you learned to let go or ask for help? Share your thoughts with Rebecca on social or by leaving a review.
Thank you for being part of this journey and for celebrating a year of meaningful conversations with us. If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe to What’s the Rusch wherever you listen to podcasts.

Episode Summary
In this episode, Rebecca welcomes Dr. Jaimie Lusk, a Marine Corps veteran, clinical psychologist, and endurance athlete, whose life’s work bridges the worlds of trauma recovery, adventure, and community healing. Their conversation moves beyond the surface of resilience, exploring what it means to truly thrive after survival. Together, they unpack the messy, beautiful process of listening to your inner wisdom, honoring the body’s need for rest, and finding clarity through movement and nature. This episode is a deep dive into the art of staying open, even after life cracks you wide open, and the power of community in the healing journey.
Show Notes
Rebecca and Dr. Lusk explore:
The difference between surviving and thriving and how to recognize when you’re ready for more than just getting by
How Jaimie’s experience as a Marine and psychologist shapes her approach to trauma, moral injury, and complex grief
The role of nature, movement, and adventure in building resilience and self-trust
Why healing is never a solo endeavor, and how community and purpose fuel recovery
The importance of tuning into your “inner knower” and honoring intuition, even when it runs counter to external expectations
Practical ways to integrate mind-body practices, from breathwork to outdoor experiences, into daily life

Transformative Insights
Healing is a practice, not a destination—one that requires both fierce compassion and honest self-reflection
Sometimes the nervous system needs space and movement before words can land
True resilience is about staying open and choosing connection, even after hardship
The “script” of toughness can drown out our real needs; learning to listen inward is a radical act

Vulnerable Moments
Jaimie shares her journey from the battlefield to the therapy room, and how her own healing informs her work
Rebecca and Jaimie reflect on the challenges of letting go of high-performance identities to embrace rest and recovery
Both discuss the ongoing process of moving from impenetrable strength to authentic vulnerability

Practical Wisdom
How to use nature as a co-therapist: simple ways to bring the outdoors into your healing process
Tools for checking in with your intuition and honoring what you need in the moment
The value of community, mentorship, and shared adventure in sustaining long-term growth

Personal Growth
Jaimie’s evolution from “mud-loving kid” to Marine, psychologist, and advocate for...

Kaya Turski’s story isn’t just about medals or firsts, it’s about what happens when the thing you love most gets taken away, and you’re forced to meet yourself without the helmet, goggles, and identity that once felt impenetrable. Kaya shares how pain shaped her from the very beginning, starting with a catastrophic crash at 18 that led to emergency pancreatic surgery, and how a lifetime of impact, whiplash, and chronic symptoms eventually pushed her out of competition before 2018, whether she was ready or not.
In this conversation, we explore what “Fly Always” really means when you can’t do your sport the way you used to, and how Kaya has rebuilt her life through honesty, values work, and learning to create space for herself and others. From the moment she told her coach, “I’m done…pull me out,” to the dark, quiet years of healing back home in Montreal, Kaya walks us through the hardest kind of courage: the kind that looks like surrender, asking for help, and choosing self-care on an 8/10 pain day.
Show Notes
In this episode, Rebecca and Kaya explore:
How rollerblading and skateparks became Kaya’s foundation for freestyle—and why she taught herself to ski at 17 by taking the Greyhound to Whistler every day
The misconception that elite freestyle athletes are fearless—and why fear is part of staying alive on “hundred-foot kickers”
The difference between chosen pain (growth) and unchosen pain (life, injury, heartbreak)—and why the second one is where “the real work” begins
The crash that sliced Kaya’s pancreas in half, the ICU in San Francisco, and being told to leave skiing behind before her career even began
How chronic headaches, cumulative impacts, and undiagnosed concussions became an invisible war that forced retirement a year before 2018
The moment at Worlds in Spain when Kaya finally said, “I surrender…this is enough,” and made the call to stop
Why identity can get dangerously fused to performance—and what it takes to become “more than one thing”
The question Dr. Mike Gervais asked that cracked Kaya open: “Why are you here on this earth?”
The real meaning of “Fly Always”: create space, take the leap, inspire—and why “creating space” starts with honesty
What “flying” looks like now: self-care, hard conversations, sitting with pain instead of escaping it, and “standing in the center of the fire” with yourself
How mindfulness “micro-breaks” and Rebecca’s “brain breaks” help regulate the nervous system and bring you back steadier, brighter, more present
The six-year healing chapter: moving back to Montreal, low capacity, and rebuilding from a dark period—one phone call at a time

Transformative Insights
Pain has layers. There’s pain that expands you (chosen) and pain that humbles you (unchosen)—and the second one asks for a different kind of strength.

In this episode of What’s the Rusch, Rebecca welcomes explorer-author Craig Childs, a man whose life is spent listening deeply to the land. Known for tracing ancient migration routes, following water across vast deserts, flying through curtains of Virga, and biking into the darkest sky in America, Craig’s work reveals a world still full of mystery for those willing to pay attention.
This conversation moves through ghost-lit writing rooms, ritual landscapes, long bike journeys, serendipity, and the internal shifts that only happen when we slow down enough to let the world permeate us. Together Craig and Rebecca explore why immersion, not arrival, is what transforms us.
Show Notes:
Immersion as the Pathway to Truth
Why Craig must be in a place—feeling the ground, light, wind—for the story to reveal itself
How walking ancient routes or biking across deserts becomes a form of listening
The difference between reading landscape through photographs vs. letting it enter your body

Hemingway’s House & the Ghost of Influence
Craig’s three-week writing residency in Ernest Hemingway’s preserved home in Idaho
The strange, creative tension of living where Hemingway lived—and even feeling watched
How inhabiting another writer’s space reshaped Craig’s awareness of language and simplicity

Energy, Memory & Mystery in the Natural World
The ineffable sensations some landscapes hold—ritual sites, ancient paths, places marked by loss
How intention sharpens awareness of what we cannot explain
Rebecca’s story of biking 1,200 miles along the Ho Chi Minh Trail to reach her father’s crash site, and the unexpected peace found there

The Wild Dark: Riding Into the Night
Craig’s decision to bike—not hike or drive—from the brightest sky (Las Vegas) to the darkest sky in Nevada
Understanding the Bortle Scale, and how each night revealed an entirely different sky
What humanity loses when we stop looking upward—and the questions the night sky asks of us

Creative Curiosity & How Stories Choose Us
How Craig selects each new book subject: serendipity, timing, emotional bandwidth, personal readiness
Why some stories (such as those rooted in trauma) demand discernment, and why he sometimes says no
Moving from archaeology, to animals, to geology, and now to mountain lions

Internal Exploration & the Dialogue Within
The constant internal conversations that unfold when moving across landscapes