424: The Unspoken Secret To Becoming A Better Runner: Integrity

In this week’s solo episode, I’m diving into a concept that doesn’t always get the spotlight it deserves—integrity. Not just in the big, moral sense we usually think of, but in the everyday choices we make as runners and humans.

At a recent business retreat, I had some big “aha” moments about how keeping (or breaking) small promises to myself connects directly to integrity. And honestly? I realized I had some breakdowns in this area that were holding me back. Maybe you’ve felt that too.

Here’s the truth: integrity is the foundation for progress. When we follow through on the little things—showing up for an easy run, fueling well, going to bed on time—it builds trust with ourselves. That trust turns into momentum, which turns into results.

In this episode, I’ll share:
 ✨ Why integrity is so much more than just “doing the right thing.”
 ✨ How those tiny promises we make (and often dismiss) are shaping our running journey.
 ✨ My own struggles with integrity and what I’ve learned from them.
 ✨ Practical ways to strengthen integrity—like practicing radical awareness, starting small, and quickly recommitting when you fall off track.
 ✨ How to celebrate the wins (big and small) while still being honest about where you need to grow.

My hope is that this conversation helps you see integrity not as pressure or perfection, but as an empowering tool you can use to create the results you want—both on the run and in your life.

Because when you live and run with integrity, you build confidence, consistency, and joy that lasts. 💙

01:22 Defining Integrity in Running

02:29 Personal Stories and Realizations

04:19 Integrity in Training Plans

05:15 Practical Examples of Integrity Breakdowns

06:56 The Impact of Small Breakdowns

08:50 Reframing Integrity and Shame

15:23 Applying Integrity to Running and Life

23:47 Handling Unexpected Delays

24:36 Staying True to Your Training Plan

25:59 Balancing Integrity and Flexibility

28:30 Personal Anecdotes and Life Challenges

31:50 Radical Awareness and Self-Audit

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Transcript

Angie: 0:01

How many times have you told yourself, I'll run in the morning and then you end up hitting snooze? Or I'll start strength training next week, but never actually make that happen. We've all been there and last week I had a huge breakthrough. I was at a business event and we were talking about how these little promises that we make and sometimes break to ourselves really connect to one of the biggest values that we talk about, which is integrity and how integrity plays a huge role in the results that we get in our running and really in the rest of our life. So today we're talking about integrity. I'm gonna ask you some questions and, and they might feel a little confrontational, but I'm here with love and I'm here to help you realize maybe those times that you do have a breakdown in, in, in integrity, because I know I found a lot of. Results and examples in my own life that I wasn't even aware of and how that is going to actually help you become a better runner. So let's dig in. What's up, runners? Welcome to the show today. It's a solo episode. You get solo, Angie today, and I'm so excited to talk to you about this topic So last week I was at a business retreat. The topics that we were talking about, kind of all centered around this idea of authenticity and how we can be more authentic. And one of the topics that came up that really resonated with me personally was integrity. Now I consider integrity one of my top core values. So you can imagine my surprise, like if you were to ask me, you know, before this event, if I was a person of integrity, I would be like, yes, of course. Like my word is very important to me. And when I tell you I'm gonna do. Something. I do it like I'm a person of my word. So you can imagine my surprise when I started to realize all of the times where I wasn't keeping my word oftentimes to myself, sometimes to others, but oftentimes to myself or when it was to others, it was like, oh, it's just this like little thing that wasn't that big of a deal that I just justified. And I started to have a lot of really interesting realizations around this idea of integrity. And so I really wanted to come on and talk to you about this today because integrity is one of those big things that we often think that we have and we might not realize those areas where we are having integrity breakdowns. And I wanna start, before we jump into any of this in the episode, by reassuring you, there's nothing wrong with you if you have breakdowns in your. Personal integrity. We all have breakdowns in integrity, and I will be the first person now to tell you that I do too, even though I didn't realize it. And if you, like I said, if you in the intro, you know, if you would've asked me, I would've told you. Yeah, no, I'm a person of integrity. I keep my word. But I was realizing, or what I started to realize were all those little times that I kind of let myself off the hook and how those little things can actually turn into bigger things down the road. So as you listen to this episode, it might feel a little confrontational. It might feel you might, you might feel yourself having like some defensiveness pop up and I know that started to come up for me as well, and I would just. Ask you to keep listening with an open mind, because I'm here to tell you that you don't need to have shame. This is a spoiler alert. Okay? This is like one of my biggest realizations around it, um, was that you don't have to have shame around this, that these breaks in your integrity are really just opportunities for growth. And the whole point of this podcast and everything that we do here at Real Life Runners is to help you find those ways that you can grow and continue to improve in your running and in your life and in all the things. And part of that is really. Sometimes getting brutally honest with yourself and that radical honesty and really looking, being radically aware of what's going on in your life is the first step. So let's start by just talking about what is integrity. So a simple definition of integrity is doing what you say you're going to do, right? Being the kind of person that you say you are. That means doing the things you say you are going to do. And it also means when you are going. To do them like doing those things when you say you're going to do them. And I think that's one of the areas of small breakdown that I'm gonna go into a little bit more detail. So if you're on the Real Life Runners team, you know that during our coaching call last week. I talked about this because, you know, one of our members came on and asked a question about nutrition. And so I shared this story because she thought she was getting enough protein in, and I said, well, but are you really, like, she said, I'm trying to get enough protein in, and I said, well, are you or are? Aren't you, right? Like there's really no such thing as try going back to Yoda, right? Do or do not? There is no try. Like are you doing the thing or are you not doing the thing? And that's really what it comes down to. Integrity. Like are you doing the things that you say you're going to do? So for example, to relate this to running, if your plan says, okay, you need to run three times a week, or you need to strength train three times a week and you skip your strength sessions, that's a break in your integrity. Right. If you promise yourself that you're gonna fuel properly after your run, but end up grabbing a coffee instead of getting those 30 grams of protein in, that's also a gap in your integrity. And so we, I want you to think about integrity as a training plan. Okay? Right? Like if you think of your training plan and your, your integrity, like a training plan, every missed session is like a missing brick in the foundation. The house still stands, but it's not as strong as it could be. Every single training session that you do adds to your strength, adds to your endurance, adds to that foundation, and if you're constantly skipping sessions, or maybe you're just skipping the things that you don't really like to do that much, right? But those things are in your plan for a reason. Maybe that's a reason that you haven't gotten on a formal training plan yet. Maybe you're someone that just likes to go out and run and you don't really like to follow a plan. Ask yourself, is it because you're afraid that you're not gonna follow it? Is it because you're afraid that you might miss some of those sessions and then you're gonna feel bad about it? And I'm here to tell you, there's nothing that you need to feel bad about. These are just things that we need to be aware of because these are areas of growth, right? And that's such a beautiful thing. So. When we have these breakdowns in integrity, these are areas that we can look to in order to improve upon, which is so fantastic. Right? So for me, I know that when I noticed if I ever had a breakdown in integrity, I would see it as like a, a major shame, right? Like, I was ashamed that I wasn't doing the thing I said I was gonna do, I wasn't being the kind of person that I said I was going to be. And I had a lot of shame around that. And so I, there were a lot of things that I just kind of chose not to look at. And so one of the things and I that I realized last week at my business retreat was a lot of the little subtle breakdowns, the little things that I kind of let myself off the hook for. So for example. I say I'm gonna be there. This is actually one of the things that happened last week when I was at this retreat. So, um, I stayed at a, a different hotel from where the retreat was actually being held. And so I was kind of happy about this. Well, number one, I booked this hotel on points so I didn't have to pay outta pocket for the hotel, which was amazing. And that's thanks to my friend who taught me about traveling on points. Go. Go check her out. Her name is Kelly Butler and you can find her on Instagram at the Points Maven. That's her Instagram handle, the Points Maven. Um, but she's teaching me all about how to travel on points, so this was super cool because I got this hotel for free. You know, I booked on points. Um, so I got to walk to the retreat every morning, which I saw as a benefit, right?'cause I knew that I was gonna be sitting in these retreats all day long. You know, we sit for a very long time, like eight plus hours a day. So to have that extra movement, I was actually seen as a good thing. So, um, I told my friend that I was going to meet her at her hotel at 7 45 so that we can walk from her hotel over to the retreat hotel. That meant that I had to leave my hotel at, I mean, the goal was to leave at seven 30. Okay. Because I, I checked it out on Google Maps to see how long the walk was, and Google Maps suggested that, I think it was like a, a 17 minute walk or so. I was like, okay, I could definitely do that in 15 minutes. So instead of leaving at seven 30, like I thought would be a good idea. I ended up leaving my hotel at like 7 36 or 7 37. So I had a pretty good idea that. I was not gonna be able to make it there exactly by 7 45.'cause I don't think I could turn like a 20 minute walk or a 17, 18 minute walk. I forget exactly what Google Map said into an eight minute walk, right? That would require a little bit. And I had a backpack, right? Because I wouldn't have mind jogging there for a little bit. Um, but I had a backpack and I had all my stuff with me for the day. So I texted her when I was leaving the hotel and I let her know that I was leaving the hotel, but I didn't tell her like when I was going to be there or how late I was going to be number one, because I wasn't sure, but also because I felt bad that I was leaving late. So I ended up showing up at her hotel at seven 50, so I was five minutes late. Which, and she was like, oh no. And I, I walked in, I said, I'm so sorry I'm late. And she of course said, no, not a big deal. It's all good. And then we walked from her hotel over to the retreat hotel and it was fine, right? Like, she didn't seem upset or seem mad or anything like that. So it was like those little things had this not had, you know, been brought up like that day. It was so interesting that it happened that morning, right? And then we kind of got into this whole integrity conversation that day. But I, I felt a little bit bad about it for being a couple minutes late, but I was like, oh yeah, it's, it's really not that big of a deal. Right. So how many times do you let yourself off the hook like that? Because I know I do it for sure because I tend to not always be on time, but I'm never very late, right? Like, so time is definitely an area that I can improve upon in this way. Um, so when I say that I'm gonna go be somewhere at a certain time. Often, not always, but often I am like two to five minutes late. Like it's not very late and nobody really cares. Nobody ever says anything, but maybe people do care. And actually I, I shouldn't say nobody cares'cause my husband cares, Kevin cares. I know he's not on this episode with me, but. It stresses him out. And I've kind of brushed it off in the past thinking, you know, it's not a big deal. It's only two minutes, or it's only five minutes. Like we're never 15, 20 minutes late for things. Um, but I realize in this whole process, in this whole event, how those little things do add up. Because the little things like skipping your warmup. For your run, showing up five minutes late for a running date. These small leaks add up because if you skip your warmup every single time, that's gonna lead to stiffness and that's gonna lead to a lack of mobility and that can then down the road, lead to injury. These things stack up over time. So if you skip your strength workout or if you skip like one of the exercises in your strength workout because maybe it doesn't feel great, so you're like, you know what, I'm just not gonna do that one. That can lead to slower progress or an injury because now there's a hole in your training. If you're on the real life runner's team and you're following one of our plans. You know, all of those exercises are very intentionally programmed. I do not just give you exercises for the sake of exercise and not all strength training is created equal. All of the strength programs inside the Real life runners team are created intentionally to address the exact muscles and strength and stability needs and power needs of you as a runner. And so if you're skipping, you know what? I don't really like doing jumps. I don't really like doing, you know, the hops on this plan, then you're missing out on the plyometrics aspect of things. And though that plyometrics aspect is what help is going to help you create power, it's gonna help you create more elasticity and springiness of your tissue. It's gonna help build resilience in your tissues. And now you're just missing that. Or maybe you're. Not getting as enough of that as as you need, and that can lead to injury or that can lead to slower progress. Maybe you're someone that cuts your run short. You're like, oh, it's not a big deal. Like it's only 4.9, not five, or it's only 4.7, that's close enough to five. And you're right. If it's one run, not a big deal. Right. We have to be careful here because there's a fine line between. Being in integrity and being obsessive. And if you are like, oh 4.98, I have to hit five miles. Okay. There's a whole aspect here that GPS are often, there's a margin of error. So is 4.98 really 4.98 or is that really 5.02 miles? There's a, there's a margin of error with these GPS devices, right? But if every single run that you do, or the majority of your runs, or 30% of your runs are cut short, that's gonna start to slowly erode at your endurance. If you're doing four miles instead of five miles, that's going to erode your endurance. So you're maybe, you think, and I've even had clients say this to, to me, I'm following the plan coach. I'm coach, I'm doing it. I'm, I'm following the plan, and then I go and I look at their training plan. And they're not following the plan. They're running on the running days, and maybe they're even strength training on the strength training days, but they're not doing the strength exercises that I have prescribed. And I've asked my clients there, and you, you, you clients know who you are and I love you. And there's zero. Judgment around this, right? But some of my clients say, well, I, I don't follow that exact strength plan because I like the, the music and the fast, faster paces of the Peloton workout. Instead, I'm like, okay, but I have no idea what exercises are in that Peloton workout, and if that's actually giving you the things that you need as a runner, right? And this is the thing, so you're not actually following the training plan. Again, no judgment, no guilt, no shame. Just awareness that you're not actually doing the thing. You say that you're running, you're, yeah, I'm following my training plan because you're running three days a week, but your weekly mileage is supposed to be 15 miles per week or 20 miles per week, and you're 10% under that. Yeah. That's gonna erode your endurance. So you're. Doing part of the training plan is really the truth, right? And again, we have to be careful because one run here or there, one strength session, one warmup, and we're gonna get into this later when we talk a little bit about nuance.'cause there's nuance in all of this, right? But what is the pattern? That's really what we have to look at here. Because when we tell ourself that those little slip ups don't matter, those little things, like for me, like being two minutes late, that's not really that big of a deal. I mean, there's, there's a margin of error. Even though we all have GPS clocks now, we all know basically exactly what time it is at all times. But when we say that those little training slips don't matter, we train ourselves to normalize being out of integrity. I'm gonna say that again. When you're, when you have a pattern of not doing what you say you're gonna do, even if it's little, even if it's. One minute late or three minutes late, or it's a quarter mile short, or it's skipping a strength session. If you notice a pattern of it, you are normalizing. Being out of integrity and running is such a good place for us to practice this for the rest of our lives, right? If you wanna be a person of integrity, running is a great like playground. For all of this, running is a great playground for life. You, you can challenge yourself safely in running, you can push yourself out of your comfort zone, where in life it might seem a little bit more scary, but in running you're like, okay, let me play with this a little bit. So running is also a great place to see where we're also letting ourself off the hook where things are breaking down. And again, just to reiterate, there's a fine line between doing what you say you're going to do and being obsessive about it. Okay. This doesn't mean you can never skip a warmup or even an entire training session. We just have to notice what are our normal patterns here and how is that eroding? Whatever it is I'm trying to accomplish the results that I want. Right. So how does this feel as a runner, right? Kind of taking integrity and identity together, because we talk a lot about your identity as a runner, especially inside of our program. Inside the Running Reconnected program, we talk about who you are as a runner and how it is that you wanna show up as a runner and as a runner, you are also an athlete and we need to remember that, and we need to show up and act like an athlete. Are you acting that way? Are you in integrity with your training, with your nutrition, with your sleep, and your recovery? And your stress management and all of these things that play a role in your athletic performance, if you wanna improve your running, all of those things matter. So if you wanna call yourself a runner. You notice that you're constantly breaking promises to yourself about training, about fueling your nutrition, about recovering. Are you really showing up as the runner that you say you are or as the runner that you want to be? And again, take the guilt and the shame. That's not what this is, this podcast is for. We're going to get into how all of this is going to work for you and not against you, right? But when we talk about our identity. How does this tie in, right? I say I'm a runner. I say I'm a strong woman. I say, I'm a person of discipline. Whatever identity you've given to yourself, how do your actions either support that or erode at that? How? Like your integrity, are you being the person that you say you are? Are you being the person that you want to be? Because being out of integrity with training does not mean you're not a runner. So that's not what I'm saying here. Please don't hear that, okay? I'm not saying you're not a runner. I'm just saying you've been handed an opportunity. Running has given you an opportunity to realign with the person you say you want to be, and that's what it's all about here. And that's what I was talking about before, about separating integrity from shame, and this is one of the big breakthroughs and realizations that I had last week at this business event that my coach helped me with because yes, I have a coach, I have a business coach, he's amazing, and he helped me understand, okay, a. If I break my integrity right, my old pattern was when I noticed a break in my integrity. I used to feel shame about it, and then I, of course, I wouldn't wanna look at it because no one wants to feel that way, right? And so instead of seeing that break of integrity and linking it directly to shame, he, he essentially helped to cut that cord for me. Help me to see that these two things do not go hand in hand. Just because you are out of integrity does not mean that you have to feel shame around it. And that was like one of those like mind blown moments for me because I very often, I, I don't wanna say always'cause I don't like using words like always and never, but very, very often. Would feel a sense of shame or guilt or negative emotion around a lack of integrity. So now, instead, and what he offered to me that I'm now offering to you is that. A breakdown in integrity or a lapse of integrity are those little moments of where we're not being our word. We're not doing what we say we're going to do. These are now feedback. These are now moments of opportunity to grow and to become more of the person that we wanna be. We realize it. We become aware of it. We then set that intention of like, okay, wait. Hold on. I wanna be a person of integrity and then we act, we take aligned action towards that thing, right? So instead of saying, oh, I skipped my strength day, so I'm just lazy, or I bailed on my long run so I'm never gonna be consistent, or, you know, going down these shame spirals, we can instead look at these breaks of integrity and say, okay, I didn't get enough sleep today, or I missed my strength session. Why? Why did that happen? What led to that and what needs to change next time so that I do follow through? Right? Missing one run is not going to ruin your race, okay? If you're training for a race right now and you miss one run, that is not going to affect your race at all. Unless you pile shame on top of that and because then when you feel shame, you're not gonna be motivated to go out and and do it. This is the thing that I think we get so wrong as humans, and I do this all the time. Well, I used to do this, I should say, I shouldn't say I do it all the time'cause I've done a lot of correcting self development throughout the years. Years. But I used to think that, okay, I can just, if I feel bad, like I can't feel content or I can't feel satisfied because then I won't. Do the thing that will help me get better. And what I've realized is it's the opposite. We can't shame and guilt ourselves into improvement. When we feel shame and we feel guilty, we end up going downwards. We don't do the things like we might be able to like grit our teeth and just willpower through for a short amount of time, but it's definitely not going to lead to any sort of long-term sustainable change. What is is realizing, okay, there's a breakdown here. How can I use this as opportunity? So next time when that strength session hits my calendar, I am going to do it. I'm going to make sure that I schedule time into my calendar so that I know exactly when I'm gonna do my strength session, or I know exactly when I'm gonna do my run. I am going to wake up five minutes earlier so that I can leave my house five minutes earlier so that I can get. To my run on time so that I'm not making my running group wait for me. Right? How can I get better? Because if we pile shame on top and top, that's gonna lead down the road to continuing to, to repeat those patterns and then possibly quitting altogether. And we don't, we definitely don't want that, right? So. What does integrity in running and strength training and just your overall health and fitness look like? It looks like showing up on time for your runs, most of the time. Things that you can control versus things that you can't control. We have to keep that in mind too. If you leave on time and you're supposed to be there and then you end up hitting a bunch of traffic, that is something that's out of your control. That is not necessarily a, a break in integrity. However, if you do realize that you're going to be late, text your running buddies and let them know. As soon as you know, let them know. And that's the other thing too, is it's not like, okay, I, I'm out of integrity then. Well now that, that sucks. And that's just, that's just what it is. Right. At the point when you realize you're out of integrity, you can then say, okay, what can I do about this right now? Right? Can I text somebody and let them know that I'm going to be late? Can I, uh, reschedule my strength workout to some, uh, another time later in the day or another day this week? Is there something that I can do and is a good idea for me to do also? Right? It looks like doing the warmup in the mobility, even when you're tempted to skip it, it means following through on the strength session, strength sessions you say you're going to do and following the strength exercises that are in your plan if you're working with a coach, right? Because if you're working with any coach, whether it's us or any other coach out there. I highly doubt. I know we definitely don't do that, and I doubt that there's any other coach out there that just throws random stuff at you. Most coaches really genuinely care about the success of their athletes and their programming things very intentionally. So if you choose to work with a coach, do what your coach says, right? How can you expect to get the results that you want if you're not doing what your coach says? Pause. I'm gonna leave a a long pause right there, right, because it's really important. So do what? You say you're gonna do, do the things on your plan. Okay? It means eating the protein that your body needs after training, not just the convenient snack. Sometimes things happen and you don't have the protein right there and readily available. So yes, it is easier to grab a snack or it is a better idea for you to grab a snack versus grabbing nothing. Okay? But plan, pre-planning, right? Setting yourself up for success. And here's another thing that. Integrity looks like integrity also looks like taking an off day when your body needs it instead of just pushing through because your schedule says so. So make sure you hear me here. This is super important because I know I just said in a couple breaths ago that integrity looks like doing the things on your plan, and which is a true statement, and it's also integrity also looks like. Listening to your body, honoring your body, and adapting your schedule accordingly. Life is not perfect. You are not meant to be perfect. You are not going to follow your training plan perfectly, 100% of the time. That's totally okay, and it does not mean you're not in integrity. Okay. What it does mean is that it's giving you an opportunity to adjust opportunity for growth, opportunity for listening to your body, to gaining that self trust with yourself that maybe you're trying to develop in, in this whole process. Maybe that is the highest goal, is to love yourself and to take care of yourself and to make yourself more fit and sometimes. We have to look at the big picture because sometimes taking the off day is more in integrity than doing the the thing on your calendar, just because it's on your calendar. This is where that nuance comes in. It's not always black and white. Integrity is not always black and white, it seems like it is. Right. It would be much easier if it is because I just, I said throughout at the beginning of this episode and throughout this episode, integrity is doing the thing you say you're going to do. That seems very black and white. Either you did it or you didn't do it right, but we all know that that's not how life works. We all know that. It's not that simple. So it's about understanding that you can be a person of your word and it's okay if your word changes as long as you are staying true to yourself. As long as you are staying true to the person that you say you are, and say the person that you say you're going to be. So if I tell you that I'm a runner and I'm an athlete, that means taking care of my body. We zoom out, right? If we're zooming out, we look at the big picture here. The most important thing for me to do is take care of my body and in order to, and build muscle and get stronger, right? And that's what I wanna do. So in order to do that. I need to take appropriate recovery and sometimes in life things happen. The number of people that have been at my house today between insurance adjusters and appliance repairmen because yes, those of you that have been following along, I'll give you a little, a little tangent, little life tangent for you right here. Um, yeah, so it's not enough that we had to rip out our entire guest bathroom. Because of mold. I shouldn't say guests. It's, it's the girls. My, my two teenage daughters. It's their bathroom. Um, we had to, we had a leak and we ended up having to rip out the whole bathroom. They found mold. It was a whole thing. Um, so I've had to open insurance claims and as if all of that wasn't crazy enough. That's been going on for almost two months now. And we just started the reconstruction today, so that's been one of the things that has come here. So if you hear any like banging or anything in the background, I apologize. I tried to use a sound filter, so I think we should be okay. But, um. Or dog barking because she's been going crazy. So today has just been one of those days where it's like, oh. So in addition to all of that,'cause the reconstruction came, the insurance adjuster came back, um, and then, um, we also had our dishwasher decided to die. So now we have to get a new dishwasher as well. So. So fun, right? Um, my mom was over and she did, gave me the whole, when it rains, it pours, you know, she kind of laughed and I said, hold on. I don't like to think of it that way. I, I don't wanna think that, you know, when one bad things happen, it's just inviting all the bad things to happen. No, thank you. That is not what I wanna bring in. That is not the energy I want. So I just told her I'm looking at this as an opportunity for a fresh. Start, right. A clean slate. This is just, this is, um, shedding the old and bringing in the new Right. That's, that's how I wanna look at it instead. But, um, anyway, there's a lot of stuff going on. So the reason I kind of got into that tangent is there's things going on that are kind of stressful, right? Quote unquote stressful. It could definitely cause stress. So. There are gonna be things that I might have planned that I want to do that aren't gonna fit in or that, you know, the insurance adjuster ended up having to change his time on me today, and the reconstruction crew showed up this morning and I was, I didn't know what time they were gonna be here. So there were adjustments need to be made because real life happens. So it's not that. I'm out of integrity. If I miss something or if I adjust something because again, I'm zooming out. I'm looking at the big picture here, and I'm also noticing, okay, with these extra things that are happening, there might be extra stress. That affect that is affecting my body. So it might be a better idea for me to skip a training session this week. I'm, I'm not planning on doing that yet, so I'm gonna see how, how the week feels. But if I'm feeling really tired and really exhausted and really worn out, then skipping something might be better for me overall, we're gonna see, or maybe taking a speed session and downgrading it to an easy run. Might be a, a good idea for me because that is in integrity with my bigger, long-term goals and vision of being a strong and healthy runner and athlete and taking care of myself and not getting sick and not getting injured. Okay. So I'm hoping that makes sense. I would, like, if I was on the coaching call right now, I would, I almost was like, does that make sense?'cause I love to kind of get feedback in real time from my, uh, my clients. Um, so things that you can do. Number one is radical awareness. Audit yourself. Right? Are you over promising because this is a. A trap that a lot of us fall into. We say yes to so many things that we end up over promising, and there's no way that we can stay in integrity and do all of those things. Or if we do all of those things, we feel completely exhausted and wiped out at the end of the week or at the end of the month. Right? So are you over promising? Are you thinking or wanting or saying that you're going to train six days a week when your schedule realistically is allowing for four? It's important for you to get radically honest with yourself and radically aware of your limitations because everyone has limitations in their life. We also have opportunities we to look at those quote unquote limitations and say, should I let this limit me? Or, you know, do I wanna kind of offload some of this other stuff to actually make time? For my training and for the, the things that I actually wanna do here. Okay, so audit that. See where, what are you saying that you're gonna do? And is it realistic for you right now in this phase of life? And if it's not realistic, do you wanna change what you say or do you wanna change some of the circumstances in your life to open up the, the ability to do more of the training that you wanna do? Okay? Because you can choose either one. Another tip would be to start small. Okay. So like one commitment at a time to see, okay, where am I breaking down? Where am I seeing a pattern of breakdown, and how can I change that? How can I commit to something else? So for me, I am committing to being more on time, being on time. And not letting those little two to five minute windows happen. So that might mean that I have to leave five to 10 minutes earlier than I thought I was going to, and that might mean that I might get somewhere early and that might mean I might waste, quote unquote waste time. This is one of the things I realized is that one of the reasons that I am late and ke if Kevin was here, he will, he would confirm this with you. Sometimes if I see, okay, I've got, I've got five minutes to work with here, I've, I'm a very busy person. I like to be productive. I like to get things done. And so what will happen, what I'll do is if I have a five minute window, I'll try to sometimes squeeze in a 10 to 15 minute task into that window, which clearly does not work right, and then ends up meaning that, okay, now I'm not leaving on time. Now I'm late. And so that, that kind of starts the cycle and k to go. I actually started to, um, touch on this a little bit earlier about how it doesn't really bother me, but what I did realize is that it does bother Kevin. You know, it does really, and it also bothers our, my daughter, especially my older one. The younger one. Um, it, it bothers her sometimes, especially if it's for her, right? She's, she's, uh, I've noticed she's starting to pick up some of my bad habits of like being a couple minutes late for things. Um, so that's probably not good either. So I do want to start fixing this and not trying to squeeze a 10 minute task into a five minute window to then make myself five minutes late because it's only five minutes, right? Like, it's all these little ways that we justify. So notice where. In your life, you're justifying notice where you might be having these breakdowns in either time or integrity time's an easy one because I think that there's a lot of things that will give us the opportunity to let us know like how, what our relationship with time is. And it doesn't mean that you can never be late. To things, but it means if you say you're going to be there at a certain amount of time, at a certain time, that's when you should really try to show up. Um, or I shouldn't say try, right? We already talked about that too. See how I, uh, catch myself in these things. Um, because it's do or do not, there is no try. So, um, the next thing I would say would be to recommit fast. So if you miss a session, don't spiral. Just get on back, get back on track tomorrow. That's the key. Don't let this become a pattern. Never miss the second day unless you're sick or something like that. Of course, that's a different story, right? But if you miss a session due to life or due to a lack of commitment or due to poor planning, whatever it might be, do not miss your session the next day. Never let yourself miss twice unless you really need it, like we talked about earlier, with recovery and all that stuff. Okay? Um, so. And then another thing that you can do too is point out all the good things, right? Like we talked about, noticing these breaks of our integrity. But also notice when you do keep your word, notice when you do, keep those promises to yourself and build that up too. Right, because every single re repetition that you do in your strength training, every single mile or kilometer that you run out on the roads or the trails, is a promise that you are keeping to yourself. That is a kept promise. That is proof that you are in integrity, and integrity builds strength. The same way that training does, rep by rep, run by run. Every time being on time. After being on time, right? Everything that you do in your life, you can either be building up your integrity and being the person that you say you are and doing the things that you say you're going to do, or you could be breaking it down. So just start to notice it. And then when you notice those things, start fixing it, start changing it, start becoming more of that person, because integrity is the foundation of who you are in your life, in your training, in your running. And breakdowns are not failures. They're not reasons for shame and for guilt, and for spiraling into negativity. They are feedback. And opportunities for growth and every promise that you keep to yourself, even showing up on time for your run, even hitting the mileage that's on the training plan, you might think it's not a big deal. It's a big deal because that strengthens your identity as a strong, consistent runner. So don't only pay attention to the times that you missed. Pay attention to all of the times that you actually followed up, that you actually showed up, that you actually followed through with yourself. So. This week, choose one training related promise to honor to yourself. Maybe it's your warmup. Maybe it's five minutes of mobility before bed. Maybe it's your strength session. Maybe it's your bedtime. Maybe you say you wanna get in bed at 10 o'clock and you, you always end up in bed at 10 15 or 10 30, right? Keep that promise to yourself. Pick one and feel what it's like to be fully in integrity with yourself as a runner, as a person, as a human. Okay. See what that feels like for yourself, and I would love for you to reach out and let me know how that goes. You can email me, you can reach out on Instagram. Um, I would love to hear how that goes. Okay. One more announcement. We've got, I've got two new resources that I've created for you guys because I am all about, like, one of the things that I've noticed right now in the world of social media and even just regular media all over the place, is there's so much junk information out there. And I am someone that I think this is me being integrity. I, I feel like I'm a very practical person and I can cut through the junk and see what is kind of the fluff and the stuff that's out there that people are doing that is not really going to move the needle versus the things that are actually matter. And I think there's a lot of people out there that are focusing on those small little things without addressing the really big things that are going to make, you know, 90% of your results versus the last like one to 5%. Okay, so I have decided to create two new resources for you. The first is a secret podcast. So you can go over to real life runners.com/secret. To get access to that secret podcast, you're just gonna put your name and your email address and then you will, um, get sent the link to that secret podcast so that you can listen either on our website or um, in your favorite podcast player. There's instructions on how you can add that to your favorite podcast player, so you can listen to that on Spotify, on Apple Podcast, wherever you like to listen to your podcast. Okay. So real life runners.com/secret. That would be what I would suggest. Everybody goes do. So go check that out. Okay? Download that secret podcast. There's seven episodes. They're short episodes, they're all around 10 ish minutes. Some of them are like 11 minutes. Um, the longest one I think is like 15 minutes. Um, so you can either listen to them one at a time or you can binge all of them on your next run. Okay? They're all available for you as soon as you sign up for that. So that's the first thing that's gonna give you the four essential ingredients that you need as a runner to injury Proof your body After 40. And I know that's a really big claim to make, and you guys know that. I can't guarantee that you'll never get injured, but what I can guarantee is that if you have these four essential ingredients in your training. You're gonna notice, and part of this is going to be understanding that when those little aches and pains pop up, there are signals from your body that you can start to address before they turn into an injury. Okay? So that's what I mean when we injury proof. It doesn't mean you're never gonna experience an ache or of pain ever again. It means that you're gonna understand what that's trying to tell you. Okay? So go check out that secret podcast. That secret podcast is completely free. Um, go check it out. The second resource that I've created is our 30 day strong runner kickstart. Now this is kind of the next step after that podcast. You can do the, you can jump right into the kickstart. You don't have to listen to the podcast in order to join the kickstart either. Okay? But the kickstart is going to give you the exact daily action items that you need for 30 straight days to help build that strong and injury proof running body. It's going to give you the exact strength training exercises that you need, the exact running, and your plan is going to be personalized to you to meet you where you are right now. That is so important You're, it's not everybody gets the same plan. That is not what happens here at Real Life Runners because you are an individual and someone that is currently running 20 miles per week should not be on the same plan as someone running five miles per week. So we have to start you where you are. And so part of that, this kickstart is help helping you figure out where that is, that radical awareness that we were talking about in this episode, so that you get really clear on what's going on right now. We create a plan for you that gives you all of your strength exercises, all of your running days, your rest days, your recovery. So that you can feel stronger in 30 days. Okay. You are going to reduce some testing at the beginning, some testing at the end, so you can actually see how your strength improves during this time. And the biggest thing here is that you're gonna understand how to integrate strength training and running in a way that's actually gonna help move you forward and give you results. Because there's a lot of runners out there that start to add in strength training, and then they're sore for their runs. And their runs don't feel good or they. Run too hard on their runs, and then they're actually breaking down the muscle that they're trying. They're working so hard in the gym to try to build, so you have to train in a way that these two things compliment each other. Instead of fight against each other. And that's really what that 30 Day Running Kickstart is going to do for you. So if you wanna sign up for that and get all that information, you can head over to real life runners.com/kickstart. Um, or you can go to your running plan.com and you'll get all the information about the 30 day Strong Runner Kickstart over there. Um, so basically you can buy the 30 day kickstart, like a one-time fee for that, or you can actually get it for free when you join the Real Life Runners team. So there's two ways that you can get in on that kickstart. Pick the one that's right for you. You know, if you don't want to join the membership, you can just. Purchase the kickstart, but I would highly suggest that you just join the team. You get the kickstart for free, and there's no commitments on the team. The team is month to month. So if you decide you're gonna do the 30 day kickstart and then you don't wanna continue after that, that's totally fine. Okay? So check that out over@yourrunningplan.com. I can't wait that we're gonna kick off live September 1st. If you're listening to this episode after September 1st, you can still join. Not a problem. Um, but yeah, I'm super excited to kick these things off with you guys. Thanks so much for being here with me today in this solo episode. I loved kind of sharing my insights, um, from that business event and. Integrity and all the good things.'cause these are things that I, I love to talk about because they really make such a huge difference in your training and really the rest of your life. So as always, um, this has been the Real Life Runners podcast, episode number 424. Now, get out there and run your life.