403: Running Used to Be My Stress Relief—Until It Wasn’t

Join Running Reconnected Today!

In this episode of The Real Life Runners Podcast, we’re diving into a topic that so many runners can relate to—using running as a stress relief tool, but sometimes this backfires. We’ll talk about the common mistakes runners make that can actually increase stress levels rather than relieve them. The key? Learning to reconnect with your body and adjust training to support—not strain—your system.

We’ll share the power of disconnecting from external pressures (including those ever-present phones!) and how tuning into your body can help you run stronger and feel better.

We’ll also dive into the connection between running and the nervous system, the impact of stress on training, and why this matters especially for women navigating perimenopause and menopause. Plus, we’re excited to introduce Running Reconnected—our program designed for runners over 40 who want to feel strong, capable, and energized by working with their bodies instead of against them. Stick around for a special offer to join us!

Join Running Reconnected Today for 40% off until March 31st!

00:54 Exciting News: Real Life Runners Retreat

02:31 The Importance of Disconnecting to Reconnect

07:16 Understanding Stress and the Nervous System

19:27 Men's Experience with Stress and Running

21:25 The Power of Disconnecting from Technology

23:46 The Phone Distraction Epidemic

24:01 The Importance of Silence and Stillness

24:33 Recognizing and Preventing Running Injuries

26:12 The Balance Between Disconnection and Connection

34:24 Listening to Your Body vs. Technology

36:38 Adapting Training to Life's Stresses

40:51 Introducing Running Reconnected Program

41:52 Special Offer 

Thanks for Listening!!

Be sure to hit FOLLOW on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player

Leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Your ratings and reviews really help and we read each one!

Grab your free Strength Guide for Runners here.

Interested in our coaching program? Check out our coaching options here.

Grab your free copy of the Running Snapshot by clicking here.

Come find us on Instagram and say hi!

Don't forget: The information on this website is not intended to treat or diagnose any medical condition or to provide medical advice. It is intended for general education in the areas of health and wellness. All information contained in this site is intended to be educational in nature. Nothing should be considered medical advice for your specific situation.

Transcript

0:00

So if you're like a lot of runners, you may use running as a way for you to handle or relieve stress, but also if you're like a lot of runners, the way that you're running and the way that you're training could actually be adding more stress to your life instead of taking it away. So today we're gonna be talking about some of the mistakes that runners make when trying to use running as stress relief or as a mental health tool. What you can do to make sure that running is actually helping you with your stress levels instead of just adding more. So stay tuned. What's up runners? Welcome to the show today. If you are listening to this on the weekend that it's released, which is March 27th through the 30th, I we are both in St. Augustine, Florida on our very first real life runners retreat and I am so excited about this. We're obviously recording this before the retreat, but when this episode comes out, we will be on the retreat. I'm so excited. Yeah. Partying it up. Spring break 2025. Spring break, 2025. There you go. So a retreat has been something that has been on my heart for years and years, and I am so excited that this is finally a reality and we are having. Women come in from all over, not only just the United States, but actually traveling internationally for this retreat, which blows my mind and I'm so excited to get together with these amazing women this weekend. Yeah. I'm really looking forward to this one. But you especially, I am very excited for the retreat, but I'm very excited to watch the retreat come into existence that you have been wanting for years. I know, and like part of me is like a little nervous because I have been. Thinking about this for such a long time, I want it to be amazing and wonderful, and I know that it will be I really, truly do know that. I just wanna also make sure that it meets my expectations and everyone else's expectations, like they're taking time away from life. investing in themselves to come down to this retreat. And I wanna make sure that it's a wonderful experience. It's like Christmas vacation where you bring build up big events in your head, like every anniversary and holiday and birthday. I don't know what you're talking about. Exactly. So today we are going to be talking about. The bonus and the benefit of disconnecting because that's what we're gonna be doing over the course of the retreat. But it's more than just disconnecting. It's disconnecting to reconnect because sometimes the best way for us to truly reconnect to ourselves, to our bodies is to first disconnect. And we talked about how disconnection is something that. So many runners and so many humans are having an issue with nowadays. And I think that this is one of the underlying things, or really one of the core underlying things that is leading to so many running injuries and so many problems in a lot of runners, is that they're disconnected from themselves and especially we as women. In perimenopause and menopause, we feel even more disconnected because all of a sudden our bodies are going through all of these changes that makes us feel disconnected from the body that we once knew. Our body's not responding in the way that it used to. We're not like training doesn't feel the same, running doesn't feel the same. What the heck is going on with this body? We feel very disconnected, and that's really why. We named our new signature program Running Reconnected because the whole point is to help you reconnect to your body, to yourself, to this next phase of your life and decide who you want to be as a runner moving forward in your life. And that really connects to the retreat and what we're gonna be doing. Over the next few days here, because sometimes, while I believe that disconnection is a major problem, sometimes we need to disconnect from certain things in order to reconnect from our body, and that's really what the retreat is allowing us to do this week, which is disconnecting from. Kind of the outside world from social expectations and social media and to-do lists and all of these things, which can be very powerful to help us to regulate our nervous systems and reconnect to our body versus disconnecting from yourself, which can be very dangerous. And I think there's two different ways that we can use disconnection. And that's really what we're gonna start to explore more in this episode. I think this is fantastic. It goes back to back in college, one of your college jobs of working tech support for the campus where, what is best job ever, but what is direction number one, anytime somebody calls up and says their computer is not working correctly, what is the first piece of advice that you give them? Restart your computer. Restart the computer because you probably have, and it fixed. The majority of issues because you have a million programs running in the background that you don't actually need to have running. Yeah. And we all do this. We have so many things online that are constantly bouncing around in our heads. They're like, programs running the background of your computer. You're like, why is the computer going so slow? And it's oh. Because there's literally. 55 tasks running that the computer's doing that you aren't even aware. Same thing happens inside of our heads. We've got all of these things going where there's a million things bouncing around inside of our head. If you just take time to disconnect and bring back on the ones that you would. Actually to be on the ones that you are consciously being like, yes, this is the system I need back online. This is a system I need back online and I don't need that system back online right now. Being able to disconnect allows you to actually have a solid connection where you intentionally want to bring it 100%. I think you said that really well and. I think that we, if you ever had this experience where you've gone to a retreat or spent time in prayer or in silence, you know that is what can happen. But I think that there's a lot of runners that are unknowingly doing the second type of disconnection, which is disconnecting from yourself and from your body, and then using running as a way to try to find themselves again as a way. To try to relieve that stress that we're feeling, but we're trying to disconnect and so there's, it's not really working right. And there's a lot of women out there, a lot of runners out there that say, running is my therapy and running is a part of my stress relief because it is a time for a lot of people that you're actually out there by yourself and it's up to you, depending on if you are a runner that runs with no, nothing in your ears. There's a lot of people that. Listen to us out on their runs, which we appreciate you all listening to us, but if you haven't run recently without anything in your ears, I would encourage you to try it and just see what it's like because that. Allows a lot of people to actually have some space to think and just to be in their body. But even for those people that do that, that can even start to get very nervous or very noisy if your nervous system is fried. And that's what's happening to so many people and so many runners. And so we really wanna talk about. What stress does to our nervous system, because this is a very underlying thing that we need to address. If you are someone that wants to run to improve your mental health, which I am really loving, like when I'm doing like my challenges and my free classes and I ask people why they run, I. I was expecting a lot of people to say to get healthy, to get in better shape, to lose weight, those kinds of things. But recently, over the last few months, I would say, I'm noticing a lot more people that got into running for the mental health benefits, which is fantastic. And I wanna make sure that you're actually able to gain those mental health benefits by training in a way that's supporting your nervous system and actually allowing you to have those times of calm and of peace and of clarity. Un. In instead of just running so hard and putting your nervous system on overload.'cause we've talked about this for so often that stress on the body is stress. That your body doesn't really know a major difference between the physical stresses, the mental stresses you're putting onto it, mental stresses you're putting on top of physical stresses. You essentially have a stress bucket and all of the different things that show up in your life, whether it's issues at. Work. You've got relationships, you've got under fueling poor sleep and running on top of this. This is all going into the same bucket, not to mention hormone shifts that I'm sure you're going to bring up here in a second. You've got all of these different things that are life stressors that are all going into the same bucket. And then if you're like, oh, I run to help alleviate some of the stress okay, that's a great theory, but if you're running and pushing yourself really hard, that's a. Physical stress, and that stress only has one space to go. That's your stress bucket. So if you're going out and running and pushing yourself constantly, there are times that can relieve some mental stress. But it's not purely relieving the stress. It is bringing some of its own component. It is bringing some of its own stresses to the situation. Which one of the podcasts I love to listen to, he has a go-to saying that is running is running. Therapy is therapy. And while running can be therapeutic, some people need actual therapy, which is a very important D distinction to make here. Like running can be stress relieving, but running is not therapy 100%. And I think that it, like you said, it can be very therapeutic. It can be used as a wonderful tool to help support your mental health. But if you are already super stressed out and you're going out and pushing yourself hard. A lot of runners do. And when I say hard, I think people sometimes mis misinterpret that. We like to gauge our running here on an effort level, scale of one to 10. So asking yourself on a scale of one to 10, how hard did that run feel? And one means really easy, and 10 is super duper hard, and. If you are going out, most runners tend to head out on their runs and they're somewhere between a five and an eight on the majority of their runs, and that is too much for your nervous system. That is too much for your body to be doing on an everyday basis because when you are doing that, you are just accumulating stress on the body. You are creating a more of a physical stress on the body and Kevin said. You have one stress bucket, and so all stress has an effect on you. Whereas if you're going out and you're running at an easy effort level, then you really can gain more of the benefits of stress relief. And yes, while it does feel really good sometimes to go out and run really hard, because sometimes it is really good to just burn off right some energy, that can be very helpful. But if you're doing that day after day, you're really just. Wiping yourself out and putting more stress in your bucket instead of actually relieving it. But then you've got the counter. What if you go out there and you are in fact going at an easy pace, but the entire time you're going at what is an actual appropriate, easy pace, you're thinking to yourself, this isn't good. I'm running too slow. This is not worthwhile. Now you're adding to the mental stress. Yeah. Instead of actually using this nice, easy. Very good for you. Very good for your mental and physical health run. As a stress reliever, you've decided to dump like judgment on top of that and be like, ah, it's an easy run, but I'm not really getting any benefit out of it and I should be going faster. Yeah. And last week we talked about running and age. And you know what, if it's not your age, like a lot of people think that the issue with the training is your pace, your training plan or your age, but what if the real issue is not any of those things, but just that your. Body is too overwhelmed to adapt to the training that you're trying to do because that's a really big thing that we see here. It's not like when we place stress on the body, right? Stress is a good thing. Physical stress is a good thing. If we want to become better runners, we need to run harder, we need to increase mileage, we need to strength train. These are all things that are necessary for us to become stronger runners, however. If we're just placing stress after stress on the body, we're just accumulating stress and we're not actually allowing the body time to adapt. And this is really where the nervous system comes more into play. And I know that, there's, it's becoming a little bit of a buzzword out there. I still think it's something that we are not talking about enough, especially in the running world because. This is what controls everything that happens in our body. It's what controls our body's ability to adapt to the stresses that we place on it. So there are two main states that your nervous system can get into, your sympathetic state and your parasympathetic state. So sympathetic is your fight or flight response. It is the one that increases your heart rate, increases your breathing weight. Rate it is the one it's your stress mode, right? So your cortisol levels are higher when you are in the sympathetic state. That is what kind of primes your body for stress and to how to deal with stress. Whereas your parasympathetic state is your rest and recovery mode. That's when your body can actually adapt and recover from the stress that you place on it. And the problem now is that so many people are spending. A majority of their time in a sympathetic state, and that's from training, that's from the world around you. That's from all the stuff that's going on in your life. Because again, one stress bucket, stress is stress. We are spending so much time in this sympathetic state and we are not. Allowing our body to get into that more parasympathetic state where we can actually adapt to the training and to the stress so that our body can actually get stronger than it was before. Yeah, you point out that sometimes your body is literally just too overwhelmed to actually adapt to what you just did. If you just went out and did a hard lift session a designed hard workout run, and then you finish it up. By taking a selfie and posting it onto social media, and then right after you post it, you start scrolling through social media that is not putting you into the recovery mode. That's not allowing you to then adapt and join these things because scrolling through social media is definitely a way to move into flight or flight. It can be. It is for a lot of people, it is for a lot of people. I think it depends on what's on your feed, right? And that kind of gets into are you being choosy with what you're exposing yourself to? Because I do think that scrolling on social media can be a way for some people to go into chill mode. Not everybody. It depends on what you're looking at. It depends on how well you've. Structured your feed. Yeah. But if you post something yourself, if you have the response about, Ooh, I posted that. I wonder if anybody's gonna put likes onto it. This is my issue with Strava. Yeah, that's a, is people posting things to Strava and then waiting around, hoping that they get kudos off of this thing is. That's not helping you actually reap the benefits of any of those things. Yeah. If you finish a run and then go out of your way to put yourself into a more stressful situation. That's a poor setup. Yeah. Like it really, you're not going to gain the benefits, certainly not maximize the benefits from whatever the workout is that you just did. Yeah, I agree. And I think that. I've noticed for sure that scrolling can definitely make me feel stressed. There's sometimes that I can use it to, to disconnect and whatnot. But I do feel and part of it also is the stress that I'm adding on top of me scrolling on social media, like that idea and that thought of, I shouldn't be doing this right now. Like I shouldn't be. Wasting my time doing this. I should be doing something else. I need to be, I need to shut this down. It's meta stress, right? And so it's the stress on top of the stress, right? So I think that's a really big part of it as well. But going back to this idea of. Nervous system dysregulation. Some common symptoms that we see, and this is like a checklist that maybe you can go through mentally to see, okay, am I suffering from some sort of dysregulation here? So one of the biggest things that we see is fatigue. Okay? Especially fatigue. That lingers, even though you're getting quote unquote enough. Sleep. There's a lot of women that I talk to that say, oh, I don't understand it. Like I'm getting eight hours of sleep, but I still wake up exhausted. Or I'm going out and I just feel tired on all of my runs. Not just some of the runs, but all of my runs. I'm feeling more tired. You notice that you are maybe in bed for eight hours, but you're not actually sleeping that whole time. So you're waking up during the night, especially in that two to 3:00 AM window. That seems to be a very common time, or I should say two to 4:00 AM. For a lot of women in perimenopause and menopause, we tend to wake up around that time. If you're noticing recurring injuries or new aches and pains that just don't seem to go away increased levels of. Soreness before I should say after your runs, but that kind of linger throughout the week. Your body's just always sore and achy. If you're noticing increased gut issues and mood swings and brain fog and some of those, this is where it gets tricky because these are all symptoms of perimenopause and they're also symptoms of a dysregulated nervous system and. Those two things are for sure connected, right? It's not like it's one or the other. It's oftentimes that perimenopause and the changes of our hormones lead to an increased nervous system dysregulation because of the effect that estrogen has on our cortisol levels, because cortisol is that stress hormone and estrogen helps to keep. Cortisol levels more in check. So as we lose estrogen during perimenopause, those cortisol levels stay elevated and lead to our bodies being more in this chronic state of stress. So one way that I like to think about this is driving with one foot on the gas while you have the emergency break on, like it just doesn't work. Like you're trying to do more, you're trying to go faster, you're trying to do speed work and do strength training and do all the things that you hear us talk about here on the podcast. But if your nervous system is stuck in stress mode, if it's overloaded with stress, that's basically like your foot being on the brake or having the emergency brake on, you're just not gonna get very far no matter how hard, like how much gas gas you press, like how hard you press on the gas pedal. You're not getting very far and your fuel economy is terrible, which is why you feel exhausted all the time. And it also connects to, you have to make sure you're fueling yourself. Yeah, one, take your foot off the brake would be super, super helpful, but under fueling is massively connected to this feeling of being tired all the time and trying to regulate that in the middle of perimenopause is also a challenge of making sure that you're fueling appropriately because you're not sure exactly what's going on with. Like hunger cues for one. But you're getting this message of, oh, should maybe I don't need to be eating quite as much during this. I if you're putting on weight, you're like I wanna pull back on calories. But under fueling the exercise that you're doing is taking away from the ability to actually adapt to that exercise itself. Yeah. That is definitely pushing on the break. So you have to be providing the fuel also. So it's not about doing less, it's not about, taking your training down a notch. It might be, that could be a piece of it, but it's about really understanding what your body needs right now and understanding how your nervous system plays a really big role in this. And obviously we just talked a lot about perimenopause, which applies to all of our women listeners. And this also applies to you if you are after menopause as well, because after menopause, your body is done producing estrogen. So we still have some of these same issues. But Kevin, I would love for you to speak a little bit on the men's experience because you are a man in your mid forties and you obviously aren't dealing with the loss of hormones like I am and like other people are in our. Community, but like it definitely still affects men. And you def definitely still have a lot of stress on your plate right now. Like how do you notice that affecting you and other males in this? Age, there's, or time of life I should say. There's still the idea that, you pointed out last week you took my argument completely apart and said that my testosterone level is not drastically reducing, but it is lower than it was when I was in my mid twenties. Yes. That is a clear argument that it is lower and a lower level of testosterone is then going to affect metabolism. Men, especially men in their forties, are gonna start on. Start putting on more weight. And so depending on what kind of a running background you've got, you might go to one of there are a lot of guys who ran competitively through high school and college that may have never had an eating disorder, but definitely had some disordered eating. They have some issues around food and if they're not looking the same way that they were in their thirties, they're like maybe if I just. Eat a little bit less or maybe if I just ramp my training up. And both of those are not necessarily gonna be your appropriate option. Yeah. Because one, if you're not fueling the work, you're just gonna be exhausted all the time. I would think that, sorry to interrupt you, but like you said, eating less or ramping up training, I feel like men. Tend to default to the second one, like just ramp up training some more? Yes. What would you say? Yes, but that's because disordered eating is, I think, generally more prevalent in female population, but it is, it certainly exists in the male population, especially if you are a competitive distance runner throughout high school and college. It is. It's in that population more than it is across like your average male population. Yeah. And I mean you cannot stop fueling yourself. It's just that is a hundred percent foot on the gas and foot real hard on the brake. It's just not gonna work. Yeah. So one thing that both men and women can do to help with nervous system regulation is this idea of. Disconnecting, but disconnecting in a way that is supportive of your nervous system, not disconnecting from your body, not disconnecting from your needs and your effort level and what your body's trying to tell you, which is that negative kind of disconnection that we were talking about, but really disconnecting from. The hustle and bustle, the stress and choosing to take some time to sit in stillness and silence, in order to reconnect to yourself and to a higher power and to the world around you in a different way. And I think that this is so interesting because we are just, our lives are so filled with technology now, which can be so helpful. It is like the ways that technology has improved our lives. We can list, that list goes on for a very long time. But it also has gotten to the point where. There's a device in your hand almost at all times, right? How many people actually sit in silence and just take time to sit and do nothing? I know that for me, that is something that's very difficult to do. Like it's something that I've been literally working on, like literally working on not having my phone, taking 10 minutes a day to just sit in silence and not do anything. Not. Be, productive, per se. And it's it's getting better. And I do notice that this is definitely improving a lot of different things. And I think that's one of the reasons why this retreat became such an important thing for me to do, is to really allow. Women to have this space to disconnect from the world in order to reconnect to themselves. The times that people choose to just live inside of their own heads when a phone is so easily available to, to provide them distraction from any sort of thoughts inside their own head. People used to stand in line at a grocery store. People used to stand in line at places, and all they could do was stand in line. Yeah. Or talk to the person next to you. I'm really curious, this is off topic, but like how much are like those impulse purchases right at the checkout line? How much did those disappear over the last five to 10 years? Yeah. As people are staring at their phone instead of being like that piece of candy and that magazine and that pack of gum and those mints. Yes. I actually really need all of those things. Yeah. People aren't even looking up. They're staring at their phone. Like the number of times I've gone to the grocery store. And watch the person not realize that the person checked them out, asked, how are you doing? Because they're too busy staring at their phone. Yeah. Like I'm curious. Someone should run a, run the numbers on that thing. Yeah, that is a very interesting thing, but. Silence and stillness and taking the time away from the stress is so important that, and I think that this is one of the big components to why so many runners do get injured. And granted, runners have always been getting injured, right? So you can't just say oh yeah, it's the phones that are, that's leading to more of this. Just like you can't say it's the phones that are. Leading to all of these things. It's a combination of a lot of different things. But if you're staring at your phone and you trip over a rock, that is the phone's fault. That would be the phone's fault, but. Oftentimes, it's one of those situations where if you don't slow down, if you don't listen to your body, now, it's going to force it on you later. It starts with a feather and then it's a pebble, and then it's a rock, and then it's a boulder. Unless you keep, actually stop and take time to listen. And that's what happens to a lot of runners is, you don't usually, unless you, trip over a rock and fall on your face. You don't usually get a huge injury just out of the blue like that. It's something that starts really small. It starts with a little niggle, like you start to notice a little ache or a little pain and it, then it goes away, and then it comes back and it lasts a little bit longer. It's usually. Running injuries are repetitive use injuries, which means they don't just pop up out of nowhere. They develop over time. And if we don't start to pay attention, if we don't reconnect to what our body's trying to tell us, because pain is a signal from your body that something is off. And so if we don't listen and we just try to ignore it and disconnect from it, it's going to eventually be forced upon us. So it's injury, it's illness, it's burnout, it's. Seizures, which is obviously a very extreme form of it. I got pointed, but which one would you rather choose, right? Would you rather choose to actually connect to your body, take some time to disconnect from the world and connect to your body, or have an injury force on you or an illness or something that's forcing you to take time off and not do the thing that you wanna do. Alright, so now I'm gonna do like the thing you like the least is ask you something that's not on the the outline here. I don't mind it at all. I just let's go, because this one's pure opinion. I'm not asking you to cite a study from your memory here. Yeah. Okay. Runners, especially when they're in a race. One of the things that allows runners to excel is to actually disconnect. Yeah. From the pain signals of their body. The pain is your legs are screaming at you. You've been at mile two of a 5K before and you're racing it, you legs are screaming. I cannot continue to run. Yeah. And you have to send the message back down to you are going the appropriate pace. We're not slowing down and we're gonna finish with a kick. Yeah. Is the whole idea that you have to pick and choose when to tune into your body and when to mentally overcome it. There are times when you can listen to the signals coming from your body and be like, all right, I should slow down today. But there are other times where you get to mentally flex your mental muscle and say, actually, I get to be in charge of what the voices are saying right now. Yes, what exactly is your question? You're saying that part of the issue of running is helping us disconnect from our body. But I think that very high it's any sort of competitive running. You have to somewhat disconnect from your body. Yeah. So the question is, which is racing? Bad for your health? Not at all. I think that the problem is not disconnection because disconnection can be helpful at times, and I think the scenario that you just described is a perfect time. That disconnection can be a very positive thing and can be very helpful. Because we know as runners, our body's always going to be yelling at us in some way, right? It's going to be telling us to slow down. You're going too fast, or I'm not gonna be able to keep running because I'm really tired, and you're just gonna have to keep pushing through. If you're in a marathon, the goal is to cross the finish line. You do not wanna stop and just walk off the course at mile 18 because you're feeling tired. Yes, you do. You really do. Actually, you do want. But you're not the goal is not to do that, right? The goal is to get yourself over the finish line. And so I do think that it is very helpful at times to be able to do that. The problem is how often that, that is happening and that so many people are doing that on a daily basis with every single run or every single workout, or maybe not even every single one, but. 50%, 60%, 80% of the time they're disconnecting from what their body's trying to tell them. So I think that it can be very helpful to disconnect in short spurts and in specific circumstances. But overall, we need to be very connected to our body to understand what is going on globally with our body. You could argue this really connects to that whole 80 20 principle, is you don't need to disconnect from your body on every single run. You probably should. Tune into your body on most of the runs and make sure that you're going if you're running by effort and you're supposed to be going off on an easy effort day Yeah. And you immediately throw on music or a super entertaining podcast and you are finding it difficult to tune into your body, then that might not be super beneficial from you. You might, from time to time need to actually check into your body, but if you. Never check in with your body. It's gonna be difficult to race also. Because at some point your legs are gonna be screaming, whatever's gonna be hurting at you, and you need to have the mental tools that you can try and actually handle the situation. But I think that we. I, it's like we've overtrained the idea of gridding through the workout so that we can go hard through the race and you just, you don't need to build it. Every time you're out running, you need to sprinkle in some workouts where you're like, alright, no music, no anything. Let's just see how I can mentally get myself through this workout. But for the most part. I think we've gone done a pretty good job recently of this workout needs to be a moderate effort. I'm not going so deep into the I'm not, carving into the pain cave. I just, I want a run that's moderately difficult and finding that effort level sometimes comes with I. Putting some music or a podcast on and just finding a flow state. Yeah, I think that, again, that's very beneficial. A lot of times, like I run with podcasts all the time, and then there are some days that I don't like, and there's other people that don't like running in silence, and that's totally fine too. I just think that we need to be spending some time in silence. It doesn't necessarily have to be on a run. I personally like to do it. More on a walk than on a run on, on my runs, I'll usually run with friends, and so we'll be talking and just chit, chit-chatting and whatnot. Or I have a podcast and sometimes I do runs without anything, but that's pretty rare for me. But I do spend time outside of running then silence. So I'll walk without my headphones on or I'll just sit, like I said, I've been trying to spend 10 minutes a day in silence where I'm not. Listening to anything or trying to consciously think about anything specific, like I just allow myself to just be, and a lot of it's been like sitting outside on the patio and enjoying the weather and just noticing the sounds and the breeze and the sights of my backyard and the birds and those kinds of things. It's just practicing being in the moment and noticing what's going on. And I think that we can do that in lots of different ways. So you don't have to do this on a run, but that is a good tool that you can use now and then. You like really using the run for more of a meditative type of experience, don't you? It de it depends on what I'm going for. Because now that most of my driving takes place with our daughter in the car, like to and from school. I don't I can't listen to the podcast that I like to listen to with her in the car. She would hate it. Like it's not that it's inappropriate, it would just drive her nuts. So that is really coming through almost entirely listening to that podcast through running. And so I've been listening to it on most of my runs. But then I'll shut it off and I'll do strides and drills in silence. Because I have. For a long time, I never liked to listen to anything on my runs. I really enjoyed the quiet peacefulness of going out for a run. Yeah. And then when we started having really little kids, that was when I started listening to music more on my run. Now I can go either way. If I feel like I'm behind and I'm really interested in the podcast, I'll listen to a podcast. Otherwise, I do enjoy going out with. Just with nothing, just heading out, especially like on a dark morning. Oh, it's really nice. That's also male privilege, but I do enjoy going out in the dark of a run with no headphones and just going off and running for, I don't know, 45 hour, something like that. Yeah, I'm glad that you. Acknowledge the male privilege that is inherent with that statement. Which, but I also think it's important for us, if we are running in the dark to not have headphones, that is a very important thing for safety reasons, more especially for women. Yeah. I mean that, that's front of mind. I've just been helping people with training planes that are new to our Yeah. Our group also. And they're like, I and I can't run in the morning. Or late in the evening. It's just too dark. And that's a real thing that we women have to really be aware of. What does this look like when it comes to running? Because we want you to be able to use running as a way to help with your stress levels and not just one more stress in your bucket. Something that's just continuing to wear you down. So what does that look like? Number one, ask yourself. I think it's just about starting to reconnect and starting to check in with yourself more if you're not doing this already. So before a run, you can ask yourself like, what am I feeling right now? How is my body feeling? Do a body scan. Notice if there's any aches and pains, if there's any soreness or stiffness that you've got going on, definitely make sure you're doing that dynamic mobility warmup before your runs and then check in again with yourself. After that mobility and see, okay, how am I feeling now? Because for a lot of runners, once you do that dynamic mobility, your body's feeling a lot better and it's a lot more primed for the run, but take stock on what is your energy level? How are you feeling? What's going on? And then do the same check-in after your run. When you're done with the run, do I feel better or worse? Do I feel more tired? Do I actually have more energy? Do I feel about the same? It's normal for you to obviously feel tired if you go out and run five miles or three miles or 10 miles or whatever it is to feel a little bit tired, but. You shouldn't be completely exhausted and completely drained on a regular basis. Yes. If you're finishing every run with the need to lay down on the sidewalk, you're pushing too hard on all of your runs. That is the sensation that if you need to lay down at the end of your run, that's like a once every two, three, maybe even four week difficulty level of a workout. It's a periodic check-in. But it's also, it's a personal check-in. One of the features of my watch that I am still, and I've had this for a while and I'm still not sure my thoughts on it, it lets me know how my run is going. So I don't know. Is it your like performance condition? Yes. Thank you. My performance condition is what it calls it, but it doesn't tell it to me until I'm like somewhere around five to seven minutes into the run. I love that. It doesn't tell it to me 30 seconds in. Because the last thing I need is to have just started the run and my watch to be like gonna be a bad day. Yeah. Like we talked about this Yeah. Last week on my watch gives me a sleep score. I like to wake up and start moving around. I don't check what my watch says. My sleep performance was the night before until I'm like an hour into the day. And then I go through and I find the numbers. Interesting numbers to see if you can follow patterns, but I don't let my watch dictate. Did I sleep well or not? I don't let my watch dictate. Is the run gonna be good? I like that it shows up five minutes in and then I'm like, huh? Minus two. You are wrong. Like my watch gave me a zero. On the day that I run a hundred miles back in January, I was five minutes in and my watch beeped at me and I joked with the guy that I was running with. I'm like, ha, my Garmin says that I'm at a zero in terms of performance. Looks like I'm not making it to the finish line. And we both thought it was hysterical. He goes, oh, I don't even want to see what mine is today. Yeah. Because it's'cause it's irrelevant what it is. This is the task that I'm gonna go do today. You know when it's, when we say check in with yourself, actually check in with yourself. Don't use technology to let you know how you're feeling. And I think that's another piece of the disconnection that a lot of runners are experiencing is that they don't know how they feel. They don't know what a run is supposed to feel like or what the goal of the run is. They just do what the watch tells them, and they just do, okay, my heart rate is this. And so if I'm looking at my watch constantly throughout my run, and if my heart rate is too high, I have to slow down, and if it's too low, I have to push and they're letting this external device. Disconnect them from their own bodily sensations and how they feel. And when you can reconnect to your effort level, when you can reconnect to how your body's feeling and learn how to adjust, you are going to make so much more progress than just allowing some sort of external device that isn't even that accurate to dictate that for you. And I think that this is really. Connected to the idea of in adjusting your running intensity based on the other stress in your life. And this is one of the things that we talk to our runners about every week and when they're curious on, okay, I've got all these things going on, what should I do with my training plan this week? How do I. Make sure that I'm getting all my runs in. Should I do two runs on one day? Should I go hard? Back to back what should I do here? And sometimes the answer is, you need to let go of a run. You don't need to get that in. You need to miss a run because your life is so stressful and you've got travel and all these other things going on. Or sometimes the answer is okay, you've got a hard run on your schedule. But you're feeling just fried mentally because of all the things that you've been dealing with this week. Instead of doing that hard run, make it an easy run instead, like it is very important for us to learn ourselves and our bodies and what works for us so that we can adjust our training. Based on what else is happening in our lives because the training in the right is not the only thing. It's an important thing for a lot of us. But if you do a really hard workout on top of a nervous system that's already fried, it's just going to push you closer to. Injury and burnout and illness and all of those things that none of us wanna experience. And maybe that is too far of a jump for some people listening right now of, I know I feel fried and so I should probably go on an easy day, but it's supposed to be a workout. There's no way, like people are gonna get a lot of judgment on top of that if they keep skipping their workouts because their life is so stacked. Go on an easy run and put a couple of strides at the end of it. Take a minute or two between the strides and be like, all right I still touched some speed. It's a bridge. It's not, that's not a go-to result for always of saying, let's put some strides, but maybe Yeah. That allows you to take some of the mental stress off of saying, I missed a workout. Yeah. You can put a little bit of something. That isn't a huge amount of physical stress on top of you. Yeah, so I have two things that came to mind there. Number one, if you are constantly feeling this way and if you're like, oh, if I just did this, if I adjusted my real life, or if I adjusted my training based on how stressed I feel, then I would never do my speed workouts. That's a sign, right? That's a sign that. You're overdoing it in some realm and I would not be surprised if you also told me that you have some aches and some pains and some chronic injuries that you're dealing with because those things are related. And the second thing I would say is, if you do need more of that bridge. Instead, if you are like, have a really hard time giving up a workout for an easy run, give yourself five minutes, right? Go in, do an easy warmup, get go out and do a nice dynamic mobility. Get an easy warmup in, and then maybe start the workout for five minutes, and then allow yourself to pull the plug.'cause sometimes at the beginning of our runs, we don't feel so great, but when we actually get into it, we are, we actually feel better, right? There are those times that you feel really tired at the beginning of the run, but then after one or two miles you're like, okay, yeah now my body's on board. We're going. So get into the workout, see how it feels. If you really feel like you're just. Pushing it even harder than you should be. Then allow yourself to pull the plug on it and just switch over to an easy run. And then yes, maybe add in some strides at the end. Yeah, that's the thing is giving yourself some grace and adjusting based off of your life intensity, because you've only got that one spot where you're sticking all your stresses. So if that bucket is super full. Pouring a whole lot on top of it is just spilling water all over the place. Yeah. I think that's how that metaphor worked. There you go. So again, what we want you to take away from this is that the problem isn't you. It's the way that we've been taught to ignore our bodies and to disconnect and to also glorify overdoing like this constant need for busyness and doing more because we don't need to, especially as we get into this next phase of our lives after 40. You don't need to just keep pushing through and ignoring yourself. You need to reconnect to your body. You need to reconnect to what your body needs and the way that your training needs to look in this next phase of your life, especially if you're a woman over 40 that's dealing with all of the hormone changes and things that are happening in perimenopause and menopause, and that's. Exactly why I created Running Reconnected, which is the new program that we have mentioned a couple times. I think I mentioned it last week. And then obviously I'm gonna talk about it right now, but running Reconnected is that program to help you understand how to reconnect with your body, to your mind, to your body, to your nutrition, to your nervous system, because your nervous system. Is that hidden key that is driving your performance, how you feel, your energy levels and the way that your body recovers. And so if this episode resonated with you and you're like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize how dysregulated I was, and you are ready to feel your strongest, your most energized self, again, I want you to know that running after 40 it. It has to look different than it did when you were in your thirties, in your twenties, but it doesn't mean that you have to slow down. It doesn't mean that you have to settle for just getting older and getting slower and things hurting. That is not what you need to accept, and that's exactly what I teach you how to do inside of Running Reconnected. And because we renamed and re rebranded the program and we have this new focus on nervous system regulation, I am running a special this week until the end of March, you can actually get 40% off of the program. Until March 31st, and I'm doing this because I want to help more women to feel their strongest, to feel their best, to know that their best running days are not behind them, but their best running days are ahead of them. You just have to understand how to work with your body and your nervous system instead of against your body. Instead of constantly putting yourself into stress mode, you have to understand how to flip the switch, how to get your body and your nervous system more regulated and train in a way that supports your body that. Builds strength that builds muscle and how to fuel your body in a way that's going to help you feel amazing and energized and strong. So if you want to learn more, you can head over to real life runners.com/reconnect and you can get all of the information about the program. Over there on that page, if you have any questions, send me an email. I'm happy to answer any of the questions that you have to figure out if this program is right for you. You get 40% off of the program price that gives you lifetime access to the program, and also three months of coaching support inside of our memberships. So I, my goal is really to give you all of the tools and all of the information and all of the. Action steps that you need in order to feel better in this phase of life. That's fantastic. It's a great way to celebrate spring break. I remember celebrating Spring Break 20 years ago. I did not feel amazing. At the end of Spring Break, I physically did not feel amazing. My stress levels were possibly too high, physically, mentally, all of them joining. Running reconnected is certainly a way to have a much more positive end of your spring break. Go for it. There you go. All right. So head over to actually you can even go to running reconnected.com and that will get you to exactly where you need to be and check out all the information for you over there. And as always, if you thought this episode was helpful, I would be so appreciative if you left us a review or shared this with a friend so that we can help more people and more runners like you to feel strong, have more energy and run their life. So as always, thanks for joining us. This has been The Real Life Runners podcast, episode number 403. Now, get out there and run your life.