Dr. Regina: Olympic Dreams, Late-Night and Dinner at Home | Takeout and Talk
I honestly couldn’t tell you how Dr. Regina Martínez Lorenzo does it. The Miami-based emergency room doctor has just finished a shift at her local hospital when she sits down for our call. It’s one I’ve been anticipating for weeks and waiting to schedule to best accommodate her jam-packed itinerary.
Because, in case you hadn’t heard, Dr. Regina isn’t your typical MD - she’s also a WO, Winter Olympian. She made history during this season’s Games in Milan, Italy, by becoming the first Mexican woman to ever compete in cross country skiing, a sport she only picked up five years ago in the midst of her intensive medical training. So yes, you read that right - someone now tasked with saving lives on a daily basis was able to participate in one of the world’s largest, and most prestigious, sporting events after beginning her journey post-COVID lockdown. And she did so representing a country that, ironically, rarely sees snow. Iconic doesn’t even begin to describe this young woman.
Even after a seemingly draining work day, Dr. Regina is all smiles in her scrubs when we meet virtually. She tells me that she’s excited for us to eat together because, if all goes according to plan, she’ll head off to train soon after. I should note that it would be around 8pm ET (if not later) when she does that.
Either way, to help prepare her for her workout, she’s ordered butter chicken with a side of white basmati rice and garlic naan from Miami’s Golden Chariot Indian Restaurant. Meanwhile, I, a non-Olympian who skipped the gym, have ordered a tostada salad with pollo asado from Little Chihuahua in San Francisco. And I’m not ashamed to admit that my decision was based solely on craving that deep fried tostada shell.
We almost immediately bond over the fact that we’re both prone to getting “hangry” if denied meals at a particular time. Thankfully, we’re each in a good place as we start off by, naturally, talking about food, like the Mexican caldos and sopas of our childhood that bring us warmth and comfort. But what does an Olympic athlete need to eat to be physically prepared for the challenges of competition?
“I’ve learned to listen to my body, and it’s amazing how it will ask you for what it needs,” Dr. Regina says. “I don’t really follow a strict diet. The thing that I mainly try to count is grams of protein to make sure that I’m hitting as close to my goal as possible. Because that’s how you build muscle.”
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And as a doctor, she’s obviously more acutely aware of how to respond to her body than most. For instance, she shares that, while in the midst of her Olympic competition in February, she knew that she had to slow her pace in order to conserve enough energy to finish, which she did. But that didn’t fully protect her from the overall stresses of skiing and the dreaded “pain cave.”
“One of the things that I learned helped me a lot is, like, focus on every movement. Like, make sure I plant my feet the right way; make sure that I put my poles in the right location. And if I focus on every movement, I stop focusing on the pain, and I start focusing on the task and like everything I’m doing at that time. Because it hurts - it is so painful. Cross-country skiing is so freaking painful. It’s just you against the hills, and you against the elements and the nature and the cold and the snow pelting at your face or whatever. And like you against your mind and you against your body. It’s a really surreal experience.”
And it’s a surreal experience that she only gets to share with a select few. If you’re looking for some inspirational, feel-good content, you should absolutely watch the video of Dr. Regina crossing the finish line to warm embraces from her international colleagues - it’s the kind of sportsmanship you hope surfaces during these grueling match-ups.
But there was something else close to the finish line that energized the Mexico City-born skier.
“It was cool because when I heard screaming and cheers in Spanish, I got out of my head and was, like, present in the moment,” Dr. Regina says. “I’m used to hearing people cheering, but that’s never really for me, or it’s just in general. And hearing cheers in Spanish, I was like, ‘Those are for me, like that is only for me,’ and that was awesome! That’s what got me out of the moment, out of the pain cave. And I would look and smile and just be so grateful and so thankful to be there.”
I tell her she should be telling everyone - shouting from every snowy hilltop - that she’s an Olympian! And if all goes well, it may be “two-time Olympian” Dr. Regina Martínez Lorenzo come 2030.
“Imagine what can happen in four more years.”