RECESS: Juliet & Kelly Starrett on NCAAs, Healthy Aging, Dean Potter, and the Meowfia

From The Ready State Podcast by Kelly Starrett, Juliet Starrett

May 8, 2026 · 34 min · Episode 190

About this episode

Juliet and Kelly Starrett discuss their personal experiences and insights on health, movement, and parenting in the inaugural episode of RECESS.

Welcome to the first episode of RECESS, a new, more personal series from us, Juliet and Kelly Starrett. In these shorter, looser conversations, we’re pulling back the curtain on what’s going on in our lives, what we’re learning, what’s making us laugh, and what we’re thinking about across health, movement, longevity, performance, parenting, and everything in between. In this episode, we talk about Kelly’s experience coaching Cal Women’s Water Polo at the NCAA championship and what it’s like to compete at that level. We unpack the “bronze medal mindset” and some of the biggest lessons we’ve learned from elite sport. We also dive into the Dean Potter documentary and reflect on our own experiences in 90s extreme sports culture. Plus, we share why we’re concerned about nicotine being normalized in wellness and what stood out to us at the Stanford Healthy Aging Conference. And of course, we get into some lighter moments—including Kelly’s definitely-not-a-cat-group: the Meowfia. What You'll Learn in This Episode Why we’re still debating whether Kelly is in a cat group What Kelly learned from coaching at the NCAA championship How we think about loss, silver medals, and the bronze medal…

People in this episode

Hosts: Juliet Starrett, Kelly Starrett

Topics covered

NCAA championship
healthy aging
extreme sports culture
bronze medal mindset
nicotine in wellness
parenting

Keywords

NCAA
healthy aging
Dean Potter
bronze medal mindset
extreme sports
nicotine
parenting

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Cal Women’s Water Polo, Stanford Healthy Aging Conference