Run Like A Woman Challenge - Day 4

It’s Day 4 and you’re still here! That’s awesome! Please take a minute and just say thank you to yourself for sticking to it and not giving up. 

DAY 4: INTENTIONAL RUNNING 

Not every run should feel the same, and no, I’m not talking about good days and bad days. If you’re a runner, you know that some days just feel better than others, and that’s always going to happen. That’s not what I’m talking about here.

I’m talking about your effort level.

Some runs intentionally need to feel easy. Some runs need to intentionally feel hard. Some need to be in that medium range.

And you need to know that before you even head out on your run. 

Pushing hard on every run won’t make you faster, and especially in the second phase of life, you’ll usually end up feeling worse, getting slower, and possibly even getting injured because you’re overdoing it.

Plus, your hard days need to be balanced with enough recovery so that you can actually reap the benefits. 

So many runners are breaking themselves down with hard runs and hard workouts, but not actually gaining anything from them, and that just breaks my heart.

In today’s live training, we will be talking about effort levels in your running and how to make your running more intentional (yes, we are finally getting to the running part!)

ACTION ITEMS:

1. Before you head out on your run (or after), perform this set of running drills. Running drills are a great way to dynamically warm up before a run or can be used as part of your cool down. They help to naturally improve your mobility and your running form also!
2. While you are on your run today, rate your effort level, On a scale of 1-10, how hard does your run feel? Check in with yourself at the beginning, middle, and end of your run and give yourself an overall rating for the run from 1-10.

Click here to record your results and check off another bingo square!

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Transcript

0:23

All right, welcome to the day four run like a woman challenge. I'm so glad that you are all back here with me 18 degrees. Oh my gosh, tell me how cold it is where you are right now. It's beautiful here in Florida. It's in the 50s. I would say but this morning when I woke up, I will tell you I had to fight a lot of resistance in my head because it was in the 40s. It was A number, the temperature began with a four and my little Florida body is not used to that. 26 degrees. 16 and sunny in Iowa. 18. Oh my gosh. You all are so brave. I have so much respect for you winter runners that bundle yourselves up and head out in the fall. Frosty, frigid winter, so lots of love and respect for you. I had, I can never figure out what to wear when it's cold, because I don't like leggings, but I did wear leggings on my run this morning. 28 in Virginia, feels like 14. Thank you, Sharon. See that, and that's what it all comes down to, right? It's always a trade off. There's always that trade off in life, is I don't have, The cold temperatures that you all have, but I have tropical surface of the sun temperatures in, in the summertime, especially in, July and August 28. Feels like 22 in Ohio. So I actually hated running. I'll tell you a little bit more about my story later today. but I actually hated running. So I never ran when it was like cold and I just had a hard time getting out of my dorm and going to the gym when it was that cold because everything was so frosty. anyway, lots of respect to you winter runners. Okay. So what did you guys find, with those strength tests, and have you noticed that, okay, possibly some of these weaknesses could be linked and could be connected to the way that running feels for me? Is, are you starting to make some connections? with the strength that you have, the weaknesses that you might have, and you're running. I hope that you're starting to start to see some of these connections, right? I know that the cross sit to stand test was tough for a lot of people. The single leg sit to stand test was tough, right? And again, these are not tests to make you feel bad about yourself in any way. These are tests to help you start to see areas of improvement. And that's a beautiful thing, right? if you had nowhere to improve, don't you think it'd be boring? Like, why are you doing it in the first place? Like we always want to find room for improvement. And I think that's really why all of you are here. That's why all of you decided to join this challenge. Was because there is some area of your running, of your health, of your fitness, of your strength that you want to improve. Yeah. Showing where I need to focus. That's a good thing. Exactly, Cindy. I love that. That all goes back to intention, right? Yesterday you started to find some of those weak spots and started to see, okay, maybe that's why when I go out on my run, my knees get really achy. Maybe I don't have enough strength yet in my hips or in my leg muscles to support my body for 10 miles or 13 miles or whatever you're asking yourself to do, or even three or five miles, right? I know a lot of people that tell me, They're able to run shorter distances, but as soon as they start to increase the length of their runs, that's when they start to notice those aches, those pains in their body, right? And that's because your muscles get tired. You fatigue. So not only does your body fatigue, but your individual muscles that are controlling your movements also fatigue. And that also plays a role in that movement control that we were talking about yesterday. So yes, we need to build strength. We also need to build stability. That's remember we talked yesterday about the three different areas of strength and three different types of strength training that we need to be doing in this next phase of our life. But really any phase of your life as a runner doesn't matter if you're 20 years old or if you're 65, we all need to focus on building strength, improving stability, and improving our power. Okay, because those are the things that are going to make you a stronger runner. Those are the things that are going to allow you to hit those PRs, if that's what your goal is, to run longer distances, if that's what your goal is, to decrease the aches and pains, if that's what your goal is. Alright? We need to build in all three of those areas in our strength, and then of course, our overall mobility as well. So as you're learning this week, every single day this week, what is one of the big words that we've been using throughout the week? What is one of the big words we have to do what we have to do moving with what? Running with what strength training with what intention? There's the word good You have to be intentional with your movement and with your training So every time you practice mobility every time you perform a strength workout every time you go out on a run You need to know the intention behind that what is the purpose of this workout? How does this workout? Fit into The big picture of my training and helping me to achieve the goals that I want to achieve. And there's a lot of runners that go out and they don't really know. They just I'm going to go out for a run. They don't have a specific purpose or a specific intention, or maybe they're following a training plan that they downloaded on an app or off the internet, and they don't really understand what the intention for the workout is, it just says, and there's a lot of training plans out there that don't even tell you the intention, it just says, Run four miles or run six miles. It doesn't tell you how hard those should be, how easy they should be, like what it should feel like. And that's really the goal of today. Okay, today we're going to be talking about what running should feel like in your body. You need to know because there are different types of runs. And not all runners know that. They just think, okay, I'm just gonna go out. And run and all runs feel about the same they head out and they push themselves about the same on every single run on every single workout, but that's not the best way for us to train. We need to have specific intentions behind our runs. Is this a speed workout? Is this a recovery run? What is the goal for this run? Is this run? Am I going to try to focus on my cadence? Am I focusing on my running form? Am I doing hills? Or other things. What am I working? Am I focusing on my fueling strategy during this run, right? If you're running longer distances, like a half marathon, or beyond, some of your runs, You're gonna go out for a run, but the main purpose of it is to test out your fueling. Test out what to, that you're able to take in. How often should I be taking in fuel? What type of fuel do I like? How's my body responding to this? How do I actually coordinate this whole thing? Do I, can I take fuel while I'm running? Or do I need to stop and walk and take fuel? Like, how does this whole thing work? Especially if you've never done it before, right? And that's why they call it training. All of these things are practicing, right? I think there's so many runners that think, running is so simple, right? Because you've been doing it since you were, what, two years old, right? One and a half, two years old. Running is simple, but that doesn't mean it's easy. And if you want to become a better runner, running is a skill that you can improve, right? And I think it's really important for us. Like yesterday, we started talking about we've been talking about, I've been like putting little mindset shifts in throughout the week, if you've noticed, right? We started talking about on day one, the biggest mindset shift that we need to make, which is building over losing and strong over skinny. And I think a lot of people, you guys were all on board with that one, which is great. Yesterday, we talked about shifting our mindset and really adopting that mindset of being a runner and being an athlete. And being intentional with our training, right? We've been talking about intention, obviously, all week long. And today, I want you to be intentional with your running. And we're going to start to shift your mindset around how you view your runs as well as we go through today's live training. Alright? And one of the things that we really need to understand is that your runs should feel different from one another. Not every run should feel the same. And I'm not talking about the good days and the bad days. Because if you've been running for any length of time, you know that sometimes you go out on a run and some runs are better than others, right? there are some runs you feel unstoppable and you, are out there and everything feels good and you finish your run and you feel great. And then there's other days that don't feel so great. That you just have to get through and you're like, at least I checked the box. And that's great. That, that's part of all of this. That just, life, you don't feel great every single day. But there oftentimes are good points of every day. Or maybe there's highs and there's lows of every day. But when we go out on our run, the intention behind our run should be different. I'm talking about your effort level here is how hard are you pushing yourself? On any given day because some runs need to intentionally feel easy Some runs need to intentionally feel hard and some need to be more in that medium range because a lot what people Think is oh if I just push myself more if I just push a little harder, then i'll get faster But that is not true at all. It's one of the worst things you can do It's going to lead to more pain more injury. It's probably going to lead to you actually getting sore slower, which is the opposite of what you want if you're going out and pushing yourself hard on every single run. And it's definitely going to make consistency much more difficult. So I would love to know this can be a romantic partner or it can be a friendship, all right? Do you have a relationship with another human in your life that is an important human in your life? We all have one, right? So I want you to think about that person, and I want you to think about your relationship with that person, and answer this question. If that relationship was hard all of the time, or even moderately hard, All of the time. How long would that last? Do you think that you'd still be in a relationship with that person if every single day was hard? Oof. Yes or no? If every single day being with that person was hard for you? I don't think so. Exactly. So how many of you Like, you, we understand this when it comes to another person. We know it won't always be easy, right? We know that especially if you're in a marriage or in a romantic partnership, you know it's not always going to be easy. That's why we take the vows that we take at our wedding, right? But it should feel easy and supportive. most of the time. Because if it feels easy and supportive most of the time, that gives us the strength to get through the hard times. When they inevitably pop up. Things are going to be hard. Life is going to happen. Things in the relationship are going to get tricky, right? But if you're battling every single day, just on, normal everyday matters, when those hard things come up, you're not going to have the strength to deal with it, right? So how many of you recognize that you also are in a relationship with running. Have you ever thought of that before? Have you ever realized that you are actually in a relationship with running? So if you are going out and every single run feels hard, how long is that gonna last? How much enjoyment are you gonna get, right? How many people here think that they have a problem with motivation? Because this is one of the most common things that I hear from people. I really want to run. I just need more motivation. Or I just wish I was motivated. Not with running with dishes. Okay, how many, what about strength training, right? Some of you think, okay, I'm not, I don't have a problem with motivation when it comes to running, but it does maybe with strength training, right? Or with some other, piece of thing that you should be, maybe it's with nutrition, right? Maybe it's with some other area of your health or fitness. But if you've ever thought to yourself, I have a problem with motivation, have you ever considered that maybe you're making things too hard? Have you ever considered that it's very difficult to be consistent with hard things every single day? Now that doesn't mean we can't do them. we do hard things, right? As runners that, that's one of the things that we like to say. Inside of our coaching program all the time is we do hard things, right? I do hard things. I can do hard things. it's a great mental tool to use. It's a great thing to, can, because there are sometimes things are tough. Right? There are some times that things are hard. But if you're trying to do hard things all the time, it makes perfect sense that you don't have motivation, because you can't have motivation all the time. Willpower is fleeting. You cannot willpower your way through life. You cannot willpower your way through running. You cannot willpower your way through your health and fitness. Why would you want to? Why would you want to, right? There's lots of ways to get healthy. Running's not the only way to get in shape. So if running doesn't feel good to you Why are you going to continue it? Now, please don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to tell you not to run. I want all of you to be runners, right? I just want you to start to change your relationship with running. I want you to start to change the way we view running. I want us to see that running should feel easy most of the time and can feel easy most of the time when you're doing it right. I used to think of running as a chore, a means to an end to stay healthy. I used to hate running. I played volleyball, basketball, and softball growing up in high school. I was a three sport athlete. And running was punishment. I hated running. I thought runners were crazy. But that's because I wasn't doing it the right way. It's because when I went out, running was boring and it was hard. It didn't feel good in my body and I wasn't wearing the right shoes. And look, there are so many things, but once I changed my relationship with running and started to understand, Oh wait, I'm doing this wrong. If I just started doing it a different way, then it can start feeling better. And guess what it did. Now I'm here teaching you guys, right? Wild how this works. If you asked me 20 years ago, or, let's see, I've been a runner now for 20 years, God, Lord have mercy, 30 years ago, right? If I would be a running coach when I'm in my 40s, I would probably have laughed in your face, right? what? No, absolutely not, right? But here I am, and I freaking love it, and I freaking love helping all of you To feel better and to see the possibilities and to see that it can be such a beautiful thing and it can bring so much joy and amazing people and experiences into your life. so amazing. let's talk about that relationship with running then. How many of you have ever heard about effort level training? Those of you that are on the team, obviously, you guys all know about it. So go ahead and feel free to put those yeses up in the chat. Effort level training. How many of you have ever heard of zone 2 training? If you follow fitness influencers and health influencers, maybe you've heard of the term zone 2 training. These are not the same things. All right, but it is what most runners do. It's what it's one of the reasons that people don't like running because if you're going out and pushing yourself at that moderate effort level, if things feel moderately hard every single day, again, it's going to be hard to keep, stay consistent. It's going to be hard to stay motivated. People can do it for a chunk of time, right? That's why there's a lot of people that do bucket list marathons or bucket list half marathons because you can willpower your way. through anything really in a short, for a short period of time, right? The change becomes when you want to do something consistency consistently for a longer period. And I'm hoping that all of you are here because you want to run strong for the rest of your life for as long as you want to. And that's the goal. what we need to understand is we need to understand how running feels in our body. We need to understand effort levels. And effort levels is a fantastic tool. There's something called the Rating of Perceived Exertion, or RPE. It was developed by a, I think he was German. His name is Borg. It was a Borg perceived rating of exertion scale. And essentially, what you do is you ask yourself, on a scale of 1 to 10, that's the modified version, because the original version actually went from 6 to 20, but modified version is from 1 to 10. So on a scale of 1 to 10, how hard does this feel? And you can use this tool in your running, in your biking, in your weightlifting, all sorts of different ways that you can use it. And a lot of people, when I talk about this tool, they're like, this isn't, that's, isn't that very subjective? And it's yes, it is because it's how it feels in your body. And that's exactly what you need to tune into. yeah, but that, it's so subjective. It can't be actually accurate or reliable, but actually they found that it is. All right, research studies have looked at the rating of perceived exertion and compared that to other physiological metrics like heart rate, like respiration rate, like VO2 max, like all these other things. And they've compared RPE, how hard does your run feel, to these other metrics. And they've found that RPE is actually a very valid and reliable way to measure how hard your runs are. You're actually better at determining how hard it is, probably, than you realize. And so how cool is that, right? Because you don't need fancy equipment to ask yourself. How hard does this feel on a scale of one to ten? You don't need a fancy gps watch. You don't need a chest strap around you, right? Plus a lot of those devices Have a margin of error this little device on my wrist as much as I love it Has an error. It's not always right. There's sometimes I look down at it and I'm like, You think my heart rate is what right now, right? it, there's errors. And there's a margin of error. So if you're someone that's trying to stick to heart rate based training, which is what zone 2 training is, okay, those of you that have heard about zone 2 cardio, that's a heart rate based measure. All right, there's, the, they basically come up with different zones based on your heart rate, and there's different ranges, and your, based on your, what your maximum heart rate is. They say that you should be doing a certain amount of time in this zone versus this zone, right? So Zone 2 has become very, sexy in the whole fitness world right now. And there's some good things to Zone 2 training. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna totally knock it. What I am going to knock is people's dependence on their device. Because when we depend on devices, we disconnect from ourselves. So I would much rather you learn how to connect to your body and start to sense that effort. Because number one, it's more accurate. I think it's much more accurate. there are plenty of times that I go out on an easy run, especially in the summertime. I know, let's see, who is it? One of you in the chat already said, yeah. Today it was a five because it was 39 degrees, right? So your body is working harder. Okay. Just to stay warm. My body in the summertime works much harder because it's so hot outside Just trying to cool down, right? So my heart rate, even if I am running at an easy effort level, at an easy pace for me My heart is working much harder because my body is trying to cool itself. Multiple things happening, right? So effort level becomes much more Accurate and reliable when I'm just asking myself. Okay, like how hard does this feel right and there tends There's a another phenomenon called cardiac drift where your heart rate tends to increase It during the course of a run. It's usually lower at the beginning of the run and increases over the course of that run, especially in hotter weather that increases a lot, too. But when you go by effort level, you can still ask yourself, Okay, this is still feeling fine. This is still feeling easy, and that's a good thing. All right, so I want you to. That's why you're. action item for today was going out and assessing on a scale of 1 to 10, what does this feel like? I want you to start connecting to your body, start to see what that feels like. Alright? once we start to be able to sense that, then what do we do with it? What do my training need to look like? There's something called polarized training or the 80 20 rule. Which basically says, most of your runs need to feel easy. Most of the time, and some of your runs need to feel harder. So if you want to improve, keep the majority of your runs at an easy effort level. We're talking like a level 2 to 3 out of 10. And then do some at a harder level, a harder effort level. So anything above a 2 or 3. That would fall into the hard range. And obviously, it becomes more nuanced than this if you're, especially if you're training for specific races and, you have to do, more race specific types of training if you have a race goal in mind. But for general health and fitness, run easy most of the time, run harder a couple times a week, one or two, a couple times a week, and you're going to be in pretty darn good shape. So that's really one of the ways that I learned to love running as well. So I just told you, I used to hate running, right? Because all my runs felt hard. All my runs felt boring. And I'm like, why do I just have to go out and do this for 30 minutes, 45 minutes, 60 minutes, whatever it is. It was so boring to me. And then Kevin tricked me into liking running. So my husband is a. For those of you that don't know Kevin, my husband is a runner. He was a division run runner ran at the University of Notre Dame as well. but he, I watched this guy and he like loved running. I was like, who is this person? Why is he so crazy? But then he made me a plan and it. was, it was fun and we started, I started to do interval types of train runs where I would like speed up and slow down and I was like, and I, go harder for a minute, a couple minutes and then I'd slow down and then I get a walking break and then I do this, right? And I was like, this change up of my effort levels, which I never knew that running could be. And all of a sudden running was fun. And I, and then I'll, and again, then I started to see myself improve. So this mentality of, I'm a slow runner. I'm just a slow runner. That's also a reason I didn't like it, because I was good at a lot of other things, right? So why would I do this thing over here that I'm not very good at? I'm slow over here. I'm just not a good runner, right? I just put myself in that box. I decided I was a slow runner. I decided I wasn't good at running. And then I used evidence to prove it. And then all of a sudden, I started running differently. I started doing different things. I started seeing improvement. And all of a sudden, the box that I had put around myself started to break down a little bit. I started to think about, what if I could get faster? And that's, for me, that's how it started. What if I could? That sense of curiosity. And I would love to offer that to all of you today. If you don't yet believe That your goal is possible if you question it just start to start with well, what if it was? What if I could run a half marathon? What if I could run a 50k? What if I could get faster? What if I could PR? Wouldn't that be cool? It just opens you up. It's a possibility. Instead of saying I can't, I'm slow, it sucks, it hurts, whatever it is, right? It's impairing menopause. I guess just this is just how it's gonna feel from now on. Nope. What if it could feel better? What if I enjoyed it more? Wouldn't that be cool? Whatever it is that's holding you back, whatever that obstacle is, let me know in the chat. what is one, what are one, what is a thought that you're having that, of that potential obstacle? What's getting in your way? What's your brain telling you? Yeah, but, you're like, I want to do this, right? A lot of you shared your goals at the beginning of the week in that welcome post in the Facebook group. You shared the goal that you have for 2025. On a scale of 1 to 10, how believable is that goal for you? And if you're not a 10 hell yeah, I'm gonna do that. no, it's already done, right? If you're not a 10 out of 10, that's telling me that there's something in your way. A what if. Yeah, but, I want to run a marathon, I want to PR my half marathon, but, fill in the blank. There we go, I have the knee issues that are holding me back. Power to the transformed runners of the world. Nobody else has any obstacles? Nobody has, your brain's not telling you anything? Oh, here we go. There he is. I'm scared of the hard work. Oh, yeah. Having issues. Before, I'm too old to start. What if I get hurt? I never ran before. Everybody's telling me I'm too old. Yeah. Yeah. You want to listen to them? Or you want to listen to you? You want to listen to me? Because I'll tell you. If you hang around with me long enough, I'm going to brainwash you into believing in yourself. Be careful. Be careful. I'm going to brainwash you into believing that anything is possible if you hang around with me long enough. But I wonder if I can actually hold that goal pace. Yeah, I have this goal, this race goal. I want to run a four hour marathon. But I don't know if I can actually do it. That seems like a long time to hold that pace. I say I'm too old as well. Yeah, I'll get hurt. My legs are too heavy. Yeah, I will get hurt. Yeah, and when you're hearing that over and over again from family and friends, it starts to seep in. Unless you have tools to create a boundary, right? That's where a lot of these mental tools come in. I proved them all wrong. Yeah, you did, Cindy. I love it. Borrow the belief of somebody else if you need to. Borrow, use somebody else as inspiration. That, and that's one of the big things that I want you all to see. you're in this challenge because you're either in perimenopause or menopause. the I'm too old card? that's a card that comes up. From now on. maybe I'm just too old. Maybe my body's feeling like this because I'm just too old. Maybe I should switch over to a lower impact activity. Maybe I shouldn't be doing this. Maybe this goal isn't for me. I'm dumping the naysayers. You're kicking them off the bus, Lisa? She's violently kicking the people off of her bus. But that's what I want you guys to see. Is that running is a skill that can be improved. Running is something that can feel better in your body when you start to honor your body, when you start to connect with your body, when you start to make most of those runs feel easy. And yes, that means you're going to need to run slower. That's another big hurdle that comes up for people. I'm already a slow runner. I don't want to run slower. Anybody ever have that thought when they hear about this? I know I used to have that thought. I heard, you got, you have to slow down. I was like, that doesn't make any sense. I want to run faster. It doesn't make any sense to slow down. And that was like what Kevin was telling me. you have to run slower. I was like, but I want to get faster. This makes zero sense. It doesn't make sense. I'm sitting here telling it to you. it doesn't make logical sense. But it works. So are you willing to try it if it works? Are you willing to try it? I've got. I've got thousands of runners that I've worked with. I've got research studies. I've got lots of evidence saying that this works. But the hardest thing is what is for you to start believing it and to actually have the Confidence to slow yourself down. I say that very intentionally the confidence to slow down Because we think we're judging ourselves, right? I can't run slower. What will people think? What will people think if they see me on the side of the road? What will my running group think if I slow down? Can you be confident enough to slow down? You and do something that's right for your body, if it means that you're gonna get faster. People, I had a hard time with this, for sure. And that's one of the things that held me back from running with other people. I didn't want to run with other people because I considered myself a slow runner and I didn't want to slow other people down. And once I finally did start running with people, It took me a little while. At first I was trying to keep up with everybody because I didn't want to slow anybody down. And once I was able to release that, and just run the way that I needed to run, now I don't care. If my friend wants to run faster when we're out on an easy run, I just let her go. I hang back and do my own thing. And then I beat her in the races. It's, and I'm, I don't say that to brag in any way, but it's like, Okay, you want to run faster on your easy runs, or do you want to hit your race goals, right? These, this is the choice. you can choose either one. There's, neither one is right or wrong. Which one matters more to you? Some people, it matters to them to just keep up with their running friends. Okay, that's fine. And sometimes I do that. Sometimes I make that choice. Even though it's supposed to be an easy run, I know I'm pushing harder than I, my run, the intention for that run was, but that's okay. I choose that intentionally. I'm gonna, I'm gonna hang out, I'm gonna run with my friends, even if that means I'm going a little bit faster today. That's fine. And then I just know that I need a little bit more recovery afterwards, right? I need to, I might need to adjust my schedule for the rest of the week, and that's fine too, right? But you, it always goes back to making that choice and doing things with intention. Yeah, it's a Strava comparison game, have to get over that. I can say that I have since working with you. Yay, charity. That's awesome. My story exactly. I thought I held my friends back, but when I slowed down, some of them slowed down with me. Others ran faster and that was okay. Absolutely. Mel Robbins has a new book out. I haven't gotten it yet, but I know her theory. I don't know those of you that know Mel Robbins. she's like a life coach and a speaker. She's got a podcast. She's all over the place nowadays. She's got something called the Let Them Theory. That's her new book. Let them. Let people be whoever they want to be. Let people do whatever they want to do. Go ahead, just let them. That's part one. And the second part is let me, right? We can let people, let them be who they want to be, let them say what they want to say. Let them. But then let me also. I also get a choice with how I want to respond, right? I get a choice on what I want to do. I don't have to do that just because they're doing it. I don't have to react. Because they're upset. I don't have to change my running plan because they want to run faster. The let them theory, Rebecca. I believe is the full name of the book. But if you just look up Let Them by Mel Robbins, you'll find it. So let them! Cool! When you start to do all these things, it's not, it becomes, you'll start to soon see that this is not just about running. You're going to feel so much more empowered in the rest of your life as well. When you start to release the judgment against yourself, when you start to release the importance of other people's opinions, when you start to stand in your own power and do the things that are right for you, take care of your body, connect to your body. You're gonna start to see that this is about so much more than just running. Running is a piece of it. Running is a beautiful thing. I will forever have gratitude towards running because running has taught me so many things in my life, but it's about becoming the stronger, more empowered version of myself, and that's really what I want for all of you. That's really what all of this is about is perimenopause. And menopause are, perimenopause is a transition into our menopausal years. Which is the rest of our life. How do you want to live those years? How do you want to feel? How do you want to show up in your life? Do you want to believe that it's just like my best years are behind me? Or do you want to say, what else can I accomplish in the time that I have on this planet, right? And that's what I want for all of you. That's the Kool Aid I want you to drink, right? I want you to drink the personal growth and personal development and personal empowerment Kool Aid because that's really what all of this is about. And we can make you a better runner too. Because becoming a better runner, becoming a stronger runner, starting to break down those barriers physically. It's gonna start to break down some of these other things in your life as well. And that's where it gets really exciting. Yeah, exactly, Charity. And the beauty of peri and postmenopause is now it's easier not to actually care what others think, right? we've talked about that this week as well, our BS filter kind of goes down. Yeah, what else? It's that curiosity, right? Tapping into that curiosity. What if it was possible? What else is possible here, right? What do I want to chase? What do I want to do? What do I want those goals to be? It becomes a playground. And that's really what it's all about. And that's why I named my program Press Play. Because I don't want menopause, that just seems, like, why are we, why would we pause life, right? How can we get, you just had that realization, didn't you, Lori? Why would we pause life, right? let's play. what if the second half of your life was a playground? Where you got to just experiment and see what do you like, what do you not like, what feels good, what doesn't feel good. How cool, right? Let's press play, not pause. That's what I say. Alright, y'all. what questions do you have? Oh, I didn't talk about running drills either. running drills are a great way to incorporate mobility. Okay, that's why I gave you guys running drills today. so I would suggest you do them either before or after your run. You, they can be a way that you can use, running drills as a dynamic warm up. They can be used as cool down. I usually use them as a cool down, to be honest, but you can use them either way. and, they're a great tool that you can use and have in your toolkit. Where are the drills? Right here, Heather. Okay, they're also in the Facebook group. So if you're in the Facebook group, you can find the link there as well, and I will send out an email after this, recording finishes to processing, with that, and they're also on the Challenge Replay page also. You're welcome! Alright, does anybody have any questions? And then also, don't forget, after you Do the day for activity make sure you fill out this little form here and air table little survey form So that you can get another entry into our prize drawing at the end of the week The prize drawing is actually gonna be next week Because I want to give people plenty of time to make sure that they get through all the activities Okay, so just FYI So I say at the end of this week But the prize drawing is actually gonna be at the end of next week Okay, tomorrow is day five, which is wild, okay? Thank you guys all for being here with me, whether you've come live or whether you're catching this on the replay, this has been so fun, I love this, or if you're catching the replay on the podcast, I love doing these challenges, I love connecting with all of you every day. Tomorrow is the most important day. All right, tomorrow is the day that we're starting to put everything together. So that you can understand, okay, all right, now we're start, I start to, I understand that I need to move with intention, I need, I understand that I need to build instead of lose, I need to do strong over skinny, but what does my week need to look like, right? I've got runs, now I've got strength training, I've got mobility, what, how do I put it all together? And also, where does nutrition fit in? Where does nervous system regulation fit in? That we talked, we've been talking about throughout this week as well, right? Because all of those things play a role. And so tomorrow we're going to be putting all of this together to help you move forward. with more confidence in the second phase of your running journey. Sound good? You ladies are awesome. Thank you so much for being here. it's not too late. Okay. If you're seeing this, it's not too late to jump in and catch up on all the challenges and all the trainings. all of the challenges and trainings will be up all of next week as well. So you have more time to go through and make sure that you're catching everything. they'll be taken down at the end of next week. So you've got a couple. A couple weeks to go through it. All right, you're never behind. You're exactly where you're meant to be And then tomorrow i'll be telling you guys a little bit more about if you've liked anything that you've heard this week and you want to continue In my coaching program i'll be talking more about that tomorrow as well Okay, so if those of you that might be interested in learning more about that We will be talking a little bit more about that. Yeah, the bingo card, essentially what you're gonna do is you're gonna just check off. So you can print it out and mark off the squares on your own, or like a lot of times when I do the bingo, I will save it as a photo on my phone and then I'll just use a little like highlighter mark and I'll just mark them off on my phone, and then save them. So it is gonna be an honor system, I will tell you that, I hope nobody wants to cheat on bingo, right? Cause it. The bingo is there really to help motivate you to do the different tasks. I will ask you to submit that bingo card, at the end of the week or early next week. there will be a link where you can submit it. Which weights did you get from Amazon? I got the adjustable 55 pound dumbbells. my most recent purchase. They're 55 pound dumbbells and they're adjustable and they're awesome. Oh, great question. Feelings on weighted vests. I do have feelings. Weighted vests are a good tool. to use, okay? It depends on how you use them. I don't, I would not suggest wearing a weighted vest on a run, on an easy run especially, because automatically if you put on a weighted vest it's not going to be easy anymore, right? But weighted vests can be a great tool to use, depending on how you use it, depending on when you use it. but there has been good evidence that it can help to improve bone density and it can help to improve muscle strength, when used correctly. So again, it's a tool. and that's one of the things I really want you to see is that a lot of these things are tools in the toolbox and that's one of the big things that we get into in our coaching program as well. there's massage guns, there's cold plunges, there's, There's sauna, there's boots, there's weighted vests, there's all these different things that can make things very complicated and very expensive, right? And then there's the things that actually work. Some of those things are good. Some of those things can be good tools, but they're not the be all, end all. Do you recommend taking estrogen? Just wondering your thoughts. that is a complicated question that I cannot answer in a very good way. so I'm going to talk a little bit more about that in just a very quick minute. but again, hormone therapy is something that we do talk about inside the program in greater depth. Long story short, the evidence, I think that estrogen therapy and hormone therapy can be helpful for a lot of women. It does not have the risks that were once attributed to it. There was, back in the early 2000s, the Women's Health Initiative came out and they said that, the hormones increase your cancer risk. And so everybody stopped taking hormones and it turns out that information was incorrect and it was based on faulty, a faulty conclusion from based on the data that they had. but it became a headline and then nobody looked at the study anymore. And they even came out and debunked that many times. it is a very good option for a lot of women. It can be used to help in the transition with sex. symptoms man, symptom management. I don't think it's a, I don't think it's a panacea. I don't think that it's a be all end all. I don't think every single person should be on it. I think, and that's what, one of the reasons that I created the program that I created, because I want to show you that there are a lot of lifestyle choices. Your choices with exercise, nutrition, and lifestyle can. Basically mitigate a lot, not maybe not all, but you have a lot of control over how you feel during this phase of life. You don't necessarily need hormone replacement or hormone therapy. They're, they don't really call it HRT as much anymore, hormone replacement therapy. They're trying to shift over to calling it menopause hormone therapy or MHT. because we're not really trying to replace what we're losing. We're just trying to ease that transition in. Okay, I am not a doctor that prescribes estrogen, so I cannot recommend or not recommend it, but I do think that it can be a good choice for some women, but not everyone. All right. Thank you all for joining me. Please remember that, this is really important. Commit to this. Commit to yourself. Because what you learn this week can, literally change how you feel for the rest of your life, okay? And if you've got friends, invite them to the challenge. It's not too late. There's plenty of, ways that they can catch up on the content. All right? I'll see you all tomorrow. Bye.