426: R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Find Out What It Means To Your Running

We’re kicking off a brand-new series on the podcast all about core values—the guiding principles that shape not just how we run, but how we live.

In this episode, we’re diving into respect:

• Respect for yourself, your training, and your recovery
• Respect for your teammates, competitors, and the sport itself
• Respect in how you handle challenges, setbacks, and successes

You’ll hear how we teach this value to our cross-country athletes, how it shows up in training and racing, and some personal stories from our own running journey—especially how we’ve had to adjust and lean into respect during emotional challenges lately.

Running is more than just workouts and finish lines. It’s about showing up with integrity and living your values every step of the way.

👉 Tune in, reflect on your own core values, and ask yourself: How am I practicing respect in my running and in my life?

00:00 Introduction to Respect and Core Values

00:13 Defining Core Values for the Team

02:51 The Importance of Integrity

03:38 Exploring Respect in Running

04:31 Respect for Self and Potential

11:38 Respect for the Sport and the Process

20:40 Respect for the Competition

24:11 Healthy vs. Toxic Competition

24:45 Team Spirit and Camaraderie

26:34 Using Competition to Push Yourself

31:29 Respecting Your Body and Limitations

33:29 Emotional Challenges and Running

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Transcript

Angie: 0:00

R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Find out what it means to me. So today we're talking about respect. We're starting a new series.

Kevin: 0:08

I did not see the song coming. I did not

Angie: 0:11

see that coming. I did not see it coming. come on. So we are starting a new series here where we are talking about core values, and we recently defined our core values for our cross country team. And we're gonna talk about those five core values and how those apply to us as real life runners. So stay tuned. What's up runners? Welcome to the show today. Did you guys like my little Aretha?

Kevin: 0:54

It was fantastic. I thought I was standing next to Aretha. Actually. that's, that was my first thought was what Aretha is in the room.

Angie: 1:01

In no world has that ever been said ever. so like I just mentioned, okay, we're, did it actually start a little series here on the podcast and today we're talking about, so essentially over last week, we. Started a, a series, I guess with our cross country team, right? a journaling series where we were talking about team core values. And we talk about core values every year with our team. But we did a little different this year, and I really like the way that we. Did our core values this year with our team, and so we're gonna talk about that and then we're gonna take each one, one by one and talk about how those things replied apply to us as real life runners. So we would love to offer these to you. You can take'em and adopt'em if you want. You can just listen and make it, trigger something else in you. but core values are something that are really important to define, and I think that this is something that. Maybe we don't take enough time to actually think about as a runner, like what are my core values really as a human, but then also how does, how do those things apply to running?

Kevin: 2:02

I, most people definitely do not take time out of their day. Yeah. we've got stuff going, most people don't I'm gonna take the next 30 minutes and just really sit down and deep dive into what my core values are as a human.

Angie: 2:11

Unless they read a book by Brene Brown.'cause I definitely did this. Yes. With when I was reading her books, a hundred percent. Yeah. In the middle of

Kevin: 2:17

the book. Then you're like, that seems like the most appropriate activity I should do right now. Absolutely. You pause the book and you go into that guy. You put the book down. Yeah. You've got the list of values to choose from. You work your way through it. But most people outside of that circumstance are not just gonna sit down and take time out of their day. To deep dive into their core values, let alone maybe even. Know how to then take their core values and swing them over into their running atmosphere, their running life,

Angie: 2:41

running atmosphere.

Kevin: 2:42

Yeah, that didn't make any sense. So I went with life.

Angie: 2:44

I like atmosphere though. That's the book I'm reading right now. It's actually very good. I'm looking forward to finishing recording this so I can go read my book. So core value number one that we started with our team was or is Integrity. And I did an entire episode on this and and actually did that episode before. We even thought to do this little series on the podcast. So if you can go back two episodes. I did a solo episode all about integrity because it was excellent. Thank you. Did you listen to it?

Kevin: 3:11

Yes, I did.

Angie: 3:11

Okay, awesome. What was your takeaway? I'll put you

Kevin: 3:14

on the spot. I love listening to you. Like I just, I love listening to you share your wisdom. It's just fantastic.

Angie: 3:21

Aw, thanks Kev. So go back and listen to that two episodes ago.'cause last episode was, we had a guest. Speaker, which was great. We talked about the thyroid and perimenopause and all sorts of fun stuff. so two episodes ago was the Integrity episode, so go check that out if you haven't listened already. Today we are talking about core value number two, which is respect. And when I brought this up to Kev, he was kinda like, okay, how exactly? what's your angle on this one? Because with our cross country team, it's. Pretty under, like it's easier to define respect, right? Respect for the team, respect for your coaches, like you wanna talk about that?

Kevin: 3:57

Yeah. I mean with the high school kids, putting in a value of respect is actually remarkably important because it makes sure that they understand the seriousness of what this is. We wanna make sure we're having fun out there. But there's a level of respect that needs to be brought to all the whole circumstance. Like whether it's in practice, before practice, during a race, everything should have some undercurrent of respect to it. So it made a whole lot of sense. I said, how are we pulling this out of a team full of high school kids and adopting it to say like us, like how would I apply respect? I thought you had some wonderful thoughts and that's what we're diving into in this episode.

Angie: 4:28

Yeah. And you also had some wonderful thoughts to contribute.

Kevin: 4:31

Thank you.

Angie: 4:31

so the way that we're gonna start is really respect for self and that, because this is automatically where my brain went, is I think of this as running is a way that we can show respect for ourselves, or that we can not show respect for ourselves. And so it really depends on how. We look at this, so are we showing respect for our body by giving it the rest that it needs, giving it the recovery that it needs, giving it the fuel and the nutrition that it needs. Because when we restrict our food, that can, could be a lack of respect for our body. Like it depends on if you want to think of it that way. That's how I. Have chosen to think about it recently because I've been trying to break out of diet culture in my brain for so long that I now see fueling as a. Very tangible way for me to respect my body and give my body the fuel and the nourishment that it needs.

Kevin: 5:25

Yeah, no, all of that makes perfect sense, and that's clearly a level of respect. It's a respect for yourself to make sure that your, it goes, it dives into some of these kind of meld together, but it is a way of respecting what you're putting into it. It's not just about going out for a run, but then respecting your body to make sure that you are, an overall healthy individual, not just someone who. Who goes and runs and then has the rest of their life.

Angie: 5:48

exactly. I see running as another way that we can respect our mind or that we can work on our mindset. This is,'cause Kevin was kinda like, how does this differ from integrity and. All of these things are connected. Even when we were going through it with the cross country team. oh, I, we didn't even tell them like what we did differently this year. Yeah. With the cross-country team. So basically the coaches, Kevin and I, and we brought in another assistant coach this season as well. We got together and I came up with the five ideas of what I thought might be good, and we as coaches decided on these are gonna be our five core values. And then we took those to the team and I gave them a definition of what I thought that meant, or what we as a coach coaching staff, thought that meant. And then asked them, what do you guys think this means and how does this apply to you in. Your everyday practice, like in practices, in meets in running, like how does this actually show up? And a lot of them started off by trying to give us the answers that we wanted to hear. Yes. Definitely trying to

Kevin: 6:50

give the correct answer.

Angie: 6:51

Definitely trying to give the correct answer. And I'm like, okay, but what does that actually look like? And they were like, doing the right thing. And I was like, but how do you know if you're doing the right thing? Like what is it? If I took a video camera. And I love this test. If you took a video camera and started filming someone, how would you know that they were showing respect or integrity or the other three that we're gonna talk about in, in future episodes? Like how would you actually see it? And so that this is like where it starts to get really good, oh, they would be. Here on time, right? Like we talked about being on time as a big thing. and you guys know that if you listen to the Integrity episode, that was one of my big things about being in integrity as well. That's also respect for self, respect for the team, respect for your running buddies that you are. Going to meet on a group run, possibly. being on time is a way to show respect for all of those things.

Kevin: 7:41

Yeah. So getting them to actually explain how they would show these things I think is gonna get a whole lot more than these are our values. it's more like the office culture where you're told values. They go in like a poster on a wall. Yeah. And then you never talk about them again. Trying to have kids let us know what. Actions would actually represent these values, gives them something to go for. alright, yes, respect, but I'm gonna do these things and then people will naturally sense the respect coming from that.

Angie: 8:07

Yeah. So another way that I think that we can choose to respect ourselves or not would be. With the thoughts that are popping up in our brain with our self-talk, mainly, like a lot of us can be really mean to ourselves. Like our brain, our brains can be very mean to us. So we can either encourage ourselves and tell ourselves how great we are, or we can tear ourselves down and tell ourselves, I'm slow, I'm lazy. I just I should really be doing this The way that you talk to yourself shows a level of self-respect as well, whether or not anyone else hears it.

Kevin: 8:41

I think that this type of respect flows into the next one that you have of identity respect. Of owning the fact that you are a runner. Yeah. Regardless of pace, regardless of mileage, regardless of whether you run races or not, regardless of all sorts of things. You are still a runner. And that leads to being able to have a more positive mindset.'cause there's a lot of people that have negative mindset of oh, I, it's okay if I take a walking break here'cause I'm not a real runner. It's okay if I take a couple of off days because I'm not a real runner. Yeah. You are a runner. Have that level of respect and have that respect for yourself. Drive the positive mindset That you can bring when you go and work out.

Angie: 9:19

And I think that kind of along those same lines too, is respecting your potential. And I think that's a really big piece of this as well, is if you don't believe that you have any potential to improve or to get better as a runner, it's going to be very easy for you to blow off runs or training sessions like you just mentioned. Versus if you say, I know I have some potential, or at least I think I do, or at least I'm willing to. Look for some, right? I'm willing to believe that I have potential.'cause maybe for you right now, it's hard for you to believe that, especially if you've been getting older, if you've noticed maybe that you're slowing down if things aren't feeling the same way that they used to. It can be harder to believe this sometimes, but do you believe in willing to look, willing to be open to this fact, right? That could be another way to look at this as well, I think there is respecting your potential, and then there's also respecting the limits of where you currently are right now. If this makes senses, and this is a tricky one, it's a, yeah, this is a tricky one, right? Because in some ways you do have to respect your limits. If you are currently running five miles a week, it's not a good idea to just jump into running 30 miles a week. That is not the smartest choice if you want to stay injury free, right? There's. Definitely potential. You can definitely get to that down the road if you want to. Yeah. But going from five on week one to 30 on week two would not be the best way to do that. So you need to respect the limit that you know your body has right now and respect the potential that you do have the room to get there.

Kevin: 10:56

Yeah. respect the timeline that running takes. This is not a quick process. if you are like, oh, I really wanna push for a pr, if you're running a, a. Four hour marathon, you wanna run a three and a half hour marathon. That's not happening next week. there's some time involved in that. There's some training necessary for that and. Respect your limits. Know what you're willing to put into this of whether you're willing to put in the work that is going to change you from being four to three and a half, from being three and a half to three, like these are difficult jumps to make. Do you have the bandwidth to pull that off? Respect what it's going to require and will you can see the potential respect, whether you can fully honor all of that potential with other things going on in your life.

Angie: 11:38

And I think that ties next nicely into our next section was, which is more of the section that you really wanted to add to this podcast, which is respect for the sport. And part of what you know to tie into what you just said is respecting the process. I think that's a huge part of running is understanding that. There's more that is, that you are capable of that progress is unfortunately not linear, but you have to respect the process. You have to put in the work if you want to see a return.

Kevin: 12:08

Yeah, you, there's no cutting corners and getting success out of distance, running, like it's just, it's not gonna work. If you want to get solid results, you have to put in a good amount of time and effort. I forget what the exact line is out of once a runner, but there's something about the only way to actually improve as a runner is day by day ever. So gradually removing one molecule at a time, the very hard rubber from the bottom of your soles. that's what it's like if you want to get better, there's, you have to actually go put in the work step by step. that's how you do it. Sure. There are ways to get around this. There are certainly shortcuts and you look, you take it to professional athletes. There may be some people that are finding some shortcuts towards certain things, but the best way, legal

Angie: 12:55

or illegal,

Kevin: 12:56

that's what I was perhaps alluding to. Yeah. but. The way to actually truly enjoy it. And, we could, we're not gonna dive into a Supers shoe discussion, but I feel like regardless of what the time on the clock says, you can enjoy the process and decide whether you are fully investing in yourself to try and see what that potential is. Whatever. Extra stuff you're doing on top of it, whether you're buying into various stuff that you see on social media of this is the magic pre-race, or the post-race, or the post exercise, or whatever the things are. Making sure that you just generally take care of yourself without searching for some perfect magic bullet that you're just. Taking care of yourself and, respecting the idea that this is a slow process and it's a journey of improving as a runner while you improve as a human, I think is my take.

Angie: 13:47

Yeah. you went big with that one. Thank you. Yeah.

Kevin: 13:49

I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go to pre and drop. My favorite quote of running also though, go for it Is to give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift. He didn't say to get anything less than a gold medal is to sacrifice the, to sacrifice the gift. He said to give less than your best. Like he went to the local prison and founded a running club in the prison. Those people weren't out there winning medals. That wasn't what it was about. Yeah. Don't get me anybody wrong. He wanted to, but that wasn't the point. Oh, he was ultra competitive. But that the point was, how much can I squeeze out of myself? Yeah. And it wasn't about, He was certainly chasing medals and times. But it was purely how hard can I squeeze myself to get everything out of myself.

Angie: 14:32

Yeah. And I think that really ties back to cross country too, because when we just had our first race of the season over the weekend as well, and when the girls were standing there on the line, some of them were just happy. Some of them were excited, some of them were genuinely very nervous. And a couple of them, I looked at them and I said. Look, and then actually I said this to the whole varsity team. I said, you don't have control over the number on the clock. You do have control over the effort that you put in. So if you cross the finish line and you can tell me, coach, I gave my best effort today, that's all we can ask of you. I am going to be proud of you no matter what. No matter what that clock says. If you look at me and you say, coach, I did my best today. That's all we want. And that's respect. And I think that we as runners. Giving our best every single day is a part of respect, and that does not mean that you give 100% of everything you have on every single given day. You give what? Is available, I think to you like, because sometimes your best is 20%, sometimes your best is 40%. And so if you're giving that amount, technically you are giving a hundred percent. Giving everything I've got. if you think of it that way, but sometimes,'cause I think that we can mistake this though with giving my best effort means pushing myself to the limit. And that's not what it means. if you are. Schedule says Today is an easy day. It is your job to go out and run level two outta 10. Keep it nice and easy. Your best effort would be to actually maintain a level two run, not to try to push it faster, not to do an L five or an L seven or an L eight, just because you can. Yep. Respecting the process and giving your best effort on that day means My effort today is supposed to be an L two, so I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna run an L two.

Kevin: 16:27

And maybe you're mentally not fully there and you can't hold yourself in an L two and it gradually slips up to an L three. That's how it might slide. Okay. But that doesn't mean, but that's normal. That's completely normal. Yeah. But that's very different than. I feel great, and so instead of L two, I'm gonna bump this thing to an L five and squeeze more out of it. That's just ignoring the process. Yeah. That thing, if I push harder all the time, it's gonna happen. These, sometimes I've got the capacity to be like, Nope. Let's make sure this is nice and comfortable. let. And focus and check in periodically to make sure it's comfortable. And sometimes I don't. Sometimes the answer is, let's take it out comfortable put on a podcast or music and just flow through the thing. Yeah. And if the times pick up, if the paces pick up, sometimes I finished the run, I looked at my heart rate. I was like, those last two miles were a little harder than they should have been. But I didn't have the mental capacity to slow myself down. I needed to just check out, put on some whatever in my ears, and go for a run on that morning.

Angie: 17:26

Yeah. And I think that's a way that you can respect yourself, right? And I think that's where some of these lines can sometimes be blurred. Yeah. Is am I respecting myself and what I need today or am I respecting the sport and the effort level and my training plan? Because that's a piece of it too, right? Respecting the sport is, if you're following a training plan, is actually sticking to that training plan and doing what's on your training plan because. If you don't do what's prescribed on your plan, and then like, how do you truly expect to get the results, then if you don't get the results that you were hoping for, can you really be mad? Yeah. if you follow it for the most part, and no one's ever gonna be 100% perfect in their training plan, the time we become

Kevin: 18:06

box checkers on our team,

Angie: 18:08

and that's great. and that's fine. I love the box checkers. I like checking boxes as well, but. It doesn't mean that you have to be a hundred percent perfect in order to get the results. I, I think is what I'm trying to say. That's great.

Kevin: 18:17

Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm completely with you. it is very much, it's a balance of respect yourself, but respect what the plan is in order to try and achieve the results as possible. And you have to work those two things together, but both of them, it's a balance of respecting the sport and respecting your own personal body. Yeah. And. Kind of balancing those two levels of respect.

Angie: 18:37

Yeah, and I think that's also what we can add in here as well is respect for what is required. if when you choose to run a half marathon, a marathon, an ultra marathon, whatever it is, whatever your goal is, there is a process that is involved and sometimes, so I'm just gonna take a marathon'cause that's an easy example. Training for a marathon is not just about running training for a marathon is also about strength training, making sure that you're not getting injured. It's doing mobility work, it's making sure that you're eating enough food, it's making sure that you're getting enough sleep. Like all of those things are respect for the process. It's not just the running. So it's about all of those things. And it's also tied back into respect for yourself and for, making sure that you're taking care of your body in the best way so that you can do this thing that you wanna be able to do.

Kevin: 19:26

So signing up for things that you can actually put in the appropriate amount of work for. Don't sign up just for things because they sound good. It goes back to the entire principle of core values. Don't say this is a core value if you don't actually find it important, don't sign up for a race just'cause it seems like a good idea. Don't suggest Oh no respect. That's gonna be one of my top core values. if it's not, there's, in the book you alluded to. There's a list of what, like 80, 90 core values? Yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot. Like we have five, there are other ones to choose. There's

Angie: 19:55

a lot of really good ones to choose coming down, narrowing down, that's the word I'm looking for. Narrowing down your core values is a really hard process. I remember when I read this book, however long ago that was, I asked you to do this exercise with me, and you're like, these mean the same things. I don't understand what the heck is the difference between this word and this word. And I'm like, they're the same. It's just which one you connect to more. Yes. which one defines that thing for you?

Kevin: 20:17

Yeah. it's all about finding like freedom

Angie: 20:18

and independence. Yes. They basically mean the same thing, but they're also kinda different. Yeah.

Kevin: 20:23

And but you look of a definition online. Yeah. And it might be different than the way that you define that in your heart. And that, I think, is what makes core values really important, is they're not just words that somebody else suggests. They're words that you can connect to. Yeah. And put actions to.

Angie: 20:37

Yeah. Absolutely. All right. The fourth. The fourth thing, but the next thing we wanna talk about is respect for the competition. I think this is actually a three. So it's respect for self, respect for the sport, and then respect for competition. And competition. We don't just mean the other people that you're running against, quote unquote, against.'cause I think that as real life runners we, we often look at racing differently than elite or. Quote unquote more competitive runners. But I think that this is what we're gonna be talking about right now, right? Yeah. It's like what exactly is competition? It doesn't mean that you're just going out and trying to beat other people, which is kinda the way you used to look at running from your days in cross country. And that's, what we tell our runners right now in cross country is it is a team sport and. Our goal is to beat the other teams. yes, we want you to go out there and run your best, but the goal is for us to beat as many other runners out there as possible so that we can get a better team score and do better in that meet.

Kevin: 21:35

Yeah. And within the context of a race. Yeah. That really helps inspire people. It's very difficult for that to be,'cause

Angie: 21:41

they're high school kids too,

Kevin: 21:42

right?

Angie: 21:43

Yeah.

Kevin: 21:43

So you tell somebody when they can see the finish line. I need you to beat that person in a red shirt. I need you to beat that person in the blue shirt. And they'll go do it as best as they possibly can because they're into the competition. We got other people that are less into the competing against others, and they're going as hard as they can. You tell'em, I need you to catch that person in the shirt. They're like, yeah, I'm gonna go as fast as I can. And if I pass. A person in that colored shirt. Great. Yeah. But if not, eh, then I don't, they really don't care. This is as hard as I can push myself right now. And they're not gonna find an extra, there's no more juice to squeeze just because there's somebody three steps in front of them. Yeah. There's just not.

Angie: 22:19

Yeah. And I think there's, we as real life runners can use other people in races as competition. Like we can use those. You've done this, I have done this, I've done this both. To, just stay, like I've given myself a target and said don't let that person get away from you. So I've let this person in front of me pull me along mentally. and then, yeah, I also have tried to beat others towards the end of the race as A way not. Because I have anything against them by any means, but just as a way to push myself of I'm gonna, I'm gonna beat that person now. It's just a way, like you said, to try to get a little bit more juice out when you're pushing yourself to your limits there.

Kevin: 22:54

Yeah. But I think that an interesting way of looking at this, like on our team, respect for the competition, we talked about respect for your teammates, work really hard for the other people on your team. As real life runners. Everybody who signs up, like we will go back to your marathon. You could pick a half marathon, one of these longer races. People are shelling out a decent amount of money for this. Yeah. To all go for the same goal

Angie: 23:14

and some traveling outta town.

Kevin: 23:16

So what creates a team other than people who are all United doing the same activity towards the same goal at the same time? Yeah. That's a team. yes, there's whatever place you finished in the race, but technically you are all teammates out there. Yeah. Striving for the same goal.

Angie: 23:33

and along those lines, this is one of the things that we told our team as well, is no one's here is going to be mad at you if you beat them in a race. let's take that off the table, right? We are all here to make each other better. And so you beating your teammate,'cause we've had this in the past where we've had. Kids that were faster than their teammates, but they didn't wanna pass their teammate because maybe that teammate was older than them. that teammate was a senior and they're like, I don't wanna pass the senior, but we're like, no. You have to go pass the senior. You gotta go now. Like this is your job to pass the senior because. That's going to make the team better, it's gonna make you better. It's gonna make that senior maybe push a little bit harder to keep up with you. And that is a level of healthy competition versus more of a toxic competition or a toxic comparison. there are people out there that don't wanna get beat that. Do have a complex and want to be the fastest on the team or don't like it when other people pass them or beat them in a race. That would be more on the toxic level versus healthy competition. Where I love when I see runners passing maybe one of the runners is feeling strong that day. And she goes to pass either her teammate or even someone on the other team. I've seen this, and this is one of the things I love about cross country, is it really is, even though we are separate teams all competing against each other, there is this level of comradery between runners and you see this all the time in, real life runner races. Essentially.

Kevin: 24:58

There's a level of respect on the cross country level also. Yeah,

Angie: 25:02

there is for sure. And so it's like. When I see people pass and they're like, come on, let's go. Like they bring that other person along with them because they're, again, respect for your competitors. let's do this. let's beat the course too. Yes. Together. Let's beat

Kevin: 25:16

the course together. That's a great way of putting it. the number of people on our team that this was their first race or, they're not some of the fastest kids in it, and they were towards the back and it was like, it wasn't still a huge pack of runners. It was like. Runner and then 10 steps, and then another runner, and then maybe 20 steps and another runner. And I was finding like our kids and kids from other teams and I could hear the other coach yell out and cheer for their kid and then I'd cheer for our kid and I was telling'em all. I'm like, that kid on the other team, that's your new best friend for today. You two are running this race together. Yeah. Go catch up with, you know that kid's name? Like I would listen to the other coaches, I'm like. There's no reason for the two of you to be running five steps apart from each other. Yeah, go next to each other. This is your name. That's his name. Go run together because it's gonna be a whole heck of a lot easier if the two of you are together in this thing.

Angie: 26:08

So funny because so many times the cross country kids are more of like the introverted, quieter, so much personalities. You're like. Go make friends with this kid as you run with them

Kevin: 26:18

so much, but yeah. But you don't have to go and chat with them the entire time. Yeah. But the difference between running five steps behind them and running next to them, even if you never say a word to them. Is. That's gonna make a difference. It's gonna make a difference in both of the outcomes of that race,

Angie: 26:34

right? And so I think that's where you can use other people to help you respect yourself as well, right? Like you are running against yourself as much as you're running against other people. And sometimes we can use other people to beat yourself and I don't know if that is. Along the same lines of respect of beating yourself, but in a way it can be, because going back to what we were talking about before with our negative self-talk is like we want to beat down our negative self-talk and show ourselves and find evidence and prove to ourselves, Hey, I can do this. I'm not going to let the self-talk win. And sometimes doing something that you didn't believe was possible, whether that's in a race or just on a normal training run. Can be that boost that you can do to show greater respect for yourself.

Kevin: 27:21

Yeah. does that

Angie: 27:21

make sense? Yeah.

Kevin: 27:22

No, it's completely, but there's so many other people in competitions. That's the last, ultra that I ran. I love that it was such a big loop course because I was passing other people, whether I was lapping them or crisscrossing.'cause the course went back over itself. So sometimes I would pass people from behind, but sometimes we were just running opposite directions. Everybody was cheering for everybody. Yeah. That was the thing. And then, I don't know, with however many miles to go, some guy passed me and I'm like, oh shoot. I'm pretty sure that guy actually just passed me in the race. Yeah. And I tried to keep up with him. Like he dragged me to probably a few minutes faster. I'm like, this is good. I may have been able to go faster and now this guy is here and I'll try and go with him and see happens. And it turned out I couldn't stay with him, but it was something. And afterwards, I wish that he was still at the finish line, but I think he got in the car and drove away.'cause it was. Starting to rain. it was, but it was great. And then the woman who won the overall, I heard her coming up behind me. That certainly gave me a boost for the final quarter mile. I would not have run that final quarter mile as fast as I did if I didn't hear her coming up behind me. Yeah. And her pacer cheering her on for the entire last mile of the race, like he was screaming for her. So yeah, respect for everybody else who's out there putting in the work and trying as hard as they can.

Angie: 28:30

Yeah. Because when we look at competition, like respect is really giving your best effort not diminishing someone else's. Yes. It's not about you saying anybody else is less than, or you being better than anyone else. It's saying. I'm gonna respect myself and you by giving my best effort. Because if you slow yourself down, like our, on our cross country team, yeah. If you slow yourself down, that's not actually showing respect for your teammate. No. That's not giving them a level of respect. It is more respectful, I think, to, for you to give your best effort and invite them. To come along with you. And if they can't that day, then so be it. That's okay.

Kevin: 29:12

Yeah, a hundred percent. And we had that happen on the team, this week of two girls that were running together and one started, you could see her, she had the side stitch and it was like, you have to leave your teammate. She's got a side stitch and is struggling. Yeah. And the other one pulled ahead. And by the time it was at the finish line. The one with the side stitch that had disappeared and she was back. But would she have been able to do it if the other one didn't pull ahead? Yeah, don't slow down for the teammates who's got the side stitch and struggling. Pull ahead because you need to go chase down some more people and see what you got. She's gonna give the best that she possibly can. Don't waste her effort by slowing yourself down. Yeah, she's trying really hard. You should be trying really hard. Also, don't slow down and be like, oh, I'll just, I'll stay with you. That's not helping, that's not respect for the sport or your teammate.

Angie: 29:56

Yeah. It's like I told the girls at the starting, I think it was at the starting line, it might have been a practice, but at one point last week, I said, rising tides raise all ships.

Kevin: 30:05

Yep.

Angie: 30:05

And they all looked at me like, huh, what are you talking about, coach? And that's really what we're talking about here, is that like. When we all rise together, like rising tides, when we push ourselves higher, all ships rise up, right? And that's really what we're inviting ourselves to do by respecting ourselves and by respecting our competition, by respecting the sport, we are showing up in a different way. And I think that it's really important. We would just invite you to reflect on this week and say, figure out where am I res doing a good job, respecting myself, respecting, running, and respecting all of these different areas of my life. And by all means, please take it outside of running as well, if you wanna, of course, apply it to other areas. And then also get honest with yourself and say, okay, where am I not respecting myself? Where am I not respecting, running? how can I show up with more respect? In my running, in my fitness, in my health, in my life. be a cool opportunity for some introspection.

Kevin: 31:05

Yeah, of course. And it like respect goes beyond running, even within running, where can I respect myself in my overall health? Because that is why I think a lot of us are here is overall health. Yes. It's cool to have the times on the clock get lower. Yeah. But respect my overall health. Yeah. And fitness.

Angie: 31:21

Yeah. And this was definitely something that I had to do last week as well. So when we go back to when we were talking about respecting our limitations. Last week, I tweaked my back and actually it was, I guess like a little over a week ago at this point, like a week and a half ago, I tweaked my back and so I did have to respect my body and what my body was telling me. As much as I didn't want to pull back, that was what I needed to do. so I had to pull back on my strength workouts and luckily. It lined up with a deloading week, which was nice'cause I was supposed to pull back anyway. so I pulled back on my strength exercises so I didn't go as heavy. I did not, I modified some of the exercises, a couple of the exercises that I know were. That tend to aggravate my back more, are more likely to aggravate my back. I took those out for the week. I did some extra kind of core work and some extra mobility work because that was the way for me to respect my body in that moment and what my body was trying to tell me. Yeah.

Kevin: 32:21

appropriate adjustments that are still moving your overall health forward. Yeah, but you're not stringing yourself. You're not so tied down to what the schedule said that you have to do these certain exercises. There's a level of respect for your overall long-term health. That getting in, certain exercises that are just going to prolong your back issue is not actually respect for your overall health.

Angie: 32:42

No. do you feel like you've had an example recently where you've had to do this too?

Kevin: 32:47

last, I do this almost anytime. I don't get enough sleep over the course of a few days. if I can see that I'm lacking sleep e. One day outta the week. Every once in a while it's okay, we're up a little late, but I need to make sure that I get in my run. And the only time I'm gonna be able to get it in is if I get up and run before school. But I won't do that back to back. Like it gets to a point where it's like, all right, I've done this too many times in a row. I'm not getting enough sleep. So I was not aiming for an off day tomorrow. Maybe I'll be able to run at practice, but probably not, and that's gonna be okay because I need to make sure that I get enough sleep. Yeah. sleep is one of my biggest priorities, honestly.

Angie: 33:22

Yeah, absolutely. Think about it for yourself. like the, Kevin and I have definitely had to adjust things over this past week. We had, a loss. We lost our beloved doggy, last week. And those of you that are a part of our real life runners team, you know what happened, you know the story. And that was a super traumatic experience, especially for me. It was traumatic for our whole family. but it. I definitely had to honor what I was experiencing emotionally last week as well.

Kevin: 33:51

Oh. My training week was completely just based off of emotions. Yeah. It was like, I'm gonna go out and do a speed session today. Nope. I am sad. Yeah. It's gonna be an easy run. And then it was like, I'm gonna do strides. And then I started running and I was at like an anger point of grief. And I was like, Nope, not strides, I'm just gonna run. Fast as I can right now until I can't breathe anymore. Yeah. And then it was just like heaving, like on the other side of our neighborhood. It, but that's what my head needed. Yeah. Not necessarily what my body needed. No. that was not some

Angie: 34:21

that needs to take priority. Yes. It was

Kevin: 34:23

not a great training week. No. It's what I needed.

Angie: 34:25

And I think that's where really a way that we can respect ourselves as well, is I did the same thing. Like I modified my training, not just for my back things, but also emotionally, normally my Tuesday runs, I wake up at five, 5:00 AM and go train with my friends. And I did not do that last Tuesday because, it happened on Monday night. the accident happened on Monday night and I just. I couldn't like, and so I went out and I ran three miles on Tuesday by myself and cried my entire run. And that is, it was not a good run, but running, and this is wild, a couple episodes ago about what, a month and a half ago we had a guest on my friend Shiel, and she talked about processing grief and running is a way to move emotions through the body. And man, did I put that into practice on that run. But I really had to respect, what my body was asking of me and what. Running was allowing me to do

Kevin: 35:17

Yeah. Running allowed. And you got something out of that run. Yeah. I was going to run on Tuesday. and I don't think you came to practice that day, I think that you were home. No, I did not. Yeah. And I told the other assistant coach on the team, I go, yeah, I was gonna run today, but I'm sad so I'm not. And that was it. that was the full thing. Yeah. Like I just, I'm, and I'm not

Angie: 35:36

doing that today. Yeah. And that, I think that's important that like when. We are sad. And that doesn't mean we never run when we're sad, but it means that you know yourself. And that was not the day to do that.

Kevin: 35:49

No, that was gonna be too much. Yeah. That was just gonna be too much.

Angie: 35:52

And for me, it was like I, I just needed to get out and move my body. I needed to run, I needed to walk, I needed to scream at the sky. I was upset, I was angry. I was all so many different emotions. Tuesday I think was one of the hardest days of my entire life up until now, and it. Respect for myself meant giving myself the space to feel all the yucky feelings and to feel all the things that I needed to feel. And running was a part of that for me. And running was not a part of it for you that day, but not that day, but was other

Kevin: 36:22

days. Yeah. I worked through all those various emotions in different runs through the rest of the week. I just, I didn't have anything in me Yeah. On that Tuesday. Yeah.

Angie: 36:30

you had to work all day too. And I, it was afforded the space to

Kevin: 36:34

Yeah.

Angie: 36:35

Like I did some work, but I minimized it.

Kevin: 36:38

I literally have no idea how I taught that day. Yeah. I'm not sure what the kids learned. Yeah.

Angie: 36:42

I dunno. But anyway, thank you guys. Thank you to everyone that reached out and, Said such wonderful, nice things and sent your love and your prayers. Whether or not you actually sent a message, maybe you just thought of us or sent prayers or love. we appreciate it. It's been a really tough week for our family. but we're getting through and, There we go.

Kevin: 37:00

respect.

Angie: 37:01

R-E-S-P-C-C. I hope

Kevin: 37:03

you're gonna sing some more. Where's yours? I have no, you're

Angie: 37:05

not gonna, you're not gonna bring in?

Kevin: 37:07

Nope.

Angie: 37:07

Come on.

Kevin: 37:08

no.

Angie: 37:10

Alright. Sounds good. All right, you guys. as always, thanks for joining us. If you haven't yet, please leave us a review, share this podcast with a friend. Let us reach and help more runners out there. And as always, this has been the Real Life Runners podcast, episode number 426. Now, get out there and run your life.