Real Life Runners with Angie and Kevin Brown

441: Waiting, Rebirth, and Renewal: Running as a Form of Devotion

• Angie Brown

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On this special Christmas Day episode of the Real Life Runners Podcast (Episode 441), we slow things down and explore a different side of running — one that goes far beyond pace, mileage, or goals.

Today’s conversation invites you to see running as a spiritual practice — a space for reflection, waiting, preparation, and renewal. Drawing inspiration from spiritual traditions like Advent, we talk about what it means to trust the process, honor seasons of growth (and rest), and show up with intention, not just in running, but in life.

We share personal reflections on how discipline can become a form of devotion, how movement can reconnect us to our bodies, and why some of the most meaningful progress happens when we stop forcing and start listening. Whether you view spirituality through a faith-based lens or simply as a deeper connection to yourself, this episode offers a gentle reminder: your body is wise, your journey matters, and you don’t have to rush to become who you’re meant to be.

As you move through the holiday season — and into whatever comes next — we hope this conversation encourages you to run with presence, trust where you are, and step forward with courage and compassion for yourself.


00:16 Spirituality and Running

01:49 Running as a Higher Practice

06:00 Advent and Running

08:51 Trusting the Process

17:33 Discipline as Devotion

27:22 Body as a Gift

29:43 Unlocking Your Body's Potential

30:21 Shifting Perspectives on Fitness

31:48 The Infinite Game of Health and Fitness

34:04 Embracing Numerology and Spirituality

35:48 The Symbolism of Years and Traditions

39:31 Reflecting on Life's Transitions

46:15 Running as a Devotional Practice

47:03 Meditation and Presence in Running

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Angie:

Welcome back to the Real Life Runners podcast, episode number 441. So if you're listening to this episode on the day it's released, Merry Christmas. It's Christmas Day, and. It really made me want to do an episode that's a little different than some of the things we've done in the past. And talk a little bit more about the spiritual side of running and so running as waiting and rebirth and renewal and how running can be a form of devotion. regardless of. The faith background that you're from. today I am going to be talking about my faith background and also some of the other spiritual backgrounds that I really value. And we're gonna have a really great conversation about just running and spirituality. So no matter what faith background you come from, I would love to invite you to listen to this with an open heart and open mind. I'm not here to preach, but just to offer a different perspective, a couple different perspectives, actually on how you can take running and elevate it. As into something that's even more than a physical practice, so stay tuned. What's up runners? Welcome back to the show. Today, I am a little nervous and very excited to talk about this topic because I know that sometimes when we get into spirituality, people can turn off their ears and be like, oh, this is not for me.

Kevin:

I like that you opened with, you're not here to preach because I think you're here on a weekly basis to preach, just not in the same way necessarily as A priest standing up at a pulpit like that. But you are always here ready to preach. It's just true story often about, perimenopause

Angie:

That's true. Or weightlifting or all of the things.

Kevin:

Bring in the strength training. I do activate your glutes.

Angie:

I do the preaching and the soap boxes. Sometimes I do tend to get up there, but today's really, yes, there's gonna be a little bit, I wanna, I don't wanna say preaching, but just sharing really, I would love to share. some of the ways that I look at running and some of the things that I think that running can help. To elevate in our life because a lot of us, probably all of us see running as a physical practice and there's a lot of physical benefits to running. And we talk about those things all the time here on the podcast. And I also think that if we allow it to running can also become. An even higher practice for us, and that's really what I wanna dig into today. So if you're listening on the day that this is released, Merry Christmas. Today's Christmas Day. And that's really what inspired me as I was going to bed last night, thinking about this episode and thinking about what I wanted to release, knowing that Christmas Day fell on a Thursday, which is our normal podcast release day. What I wanted to talk about, and it just came to me of okay, you've been really wanting to. Start to integrate more of the spiritual side into your business. And so this is a perfect opportunity to do that. And I really hope those of you that are listening, especially if you're regular listeners, I really hope that you don't skip past this episode. I really hope that you listen to this with an open heart and an open mind.'cause again, I'm not here to preach in the sense that I'm not here to convince you of anything but more to share my experience and some ideas and some thoughts that I have both from my background as a Catholic. Also integrating some of the more, like alternative, I shouldn't say alternative, just different spiritual practices like some Eastern traditions and some, numerology and things like that. Because I really see myself as a spiritual person. yes, I do identify as Catholic and have been a Catholic my entire life. And I also appreciate so many spiritual traditions from a lot of different areas. And I think that. When we can appreciate these things and really integrate them into our own sense of God and spirituality, it can make our practice and our experience of all of that even richer.

Kevin:

you are a Catholic open to other. Other traditions. And suggest suggesting there is far more than one way up a mountain. Yes. and there's that's not necessarily true of, of everybody. There's, there are certainly plenty of people out there that are confident that their particular faith to whatever tradition is Is the only way to the top of the mountain. And I think just having that open mind is beautiful. And that's really what we're diving into here. We are gonna open from the Christmas perspective, but it expands from there and it certainly expands a lot from there. When you suggested we're gonna do, a podcast bringing in more spirituality, you're like, are you open to that for the podcast? I'm like, yes. It sounds like a great idea. let's do it when I've. I started running at, at a religious based high school. I ran at a religious based college. Like this has been part of running for a long time for me, so it just, it makes perfect sense.

Angie:

and it's been a part of it for a long time for me as well. I just don't think we've talked as openly about it on the podcast, and that's something that I definitely wanna change because I do think that all of these pieces of us play a huge role in how we experience all of our life and running as a part of that life. Before we dive in, do you also recognize that there is a change in the audio quality because we finally have two microphones set up. Those of you may maybe don't know. For the last 440 episodes, we have been recording with one microphone, and so Kevin and I take turns and stand close, and if you were to. Be a fly on the wall and see me motioning to Kevin to get closer to the microphone so that he can talk. And I don't sound louder than him. we finally have two microphones set up here and I'm so excited about it.

Kevin:

I love that you see just motion to the microphone as much as it's putting your hand on my back and shoving me towards the microphone. Sometimes we can. You are just generally a louder person than I am. That is true. You're much better at projecting your voice. I need a microphone right in front of me. I talk loud enough to control a classroom, but apparently not loud enough to speak up on a podcast relative to you.

Angie:

it's funny too. I wish I had a camera here to show you guys the setup that Kevin's got. He's got he's literally holding the pop speaker in front of the microphone.'cause Kevin has some hard PS sometimes.

Kevin:

Yeah. No one appreciates this. No.

Angie:

Alright, so let's, with our new. Brand new. Two microphones set up, dual set up. Here we go. Dual setup. we are gonna rock and roll here so there's no Christmas without advent and advent for those of you that are not a part of the Catholic or Christian tradition, advent is the season of waiting. It's the four weeks before Christmas where we prepare ourselves for the birth of Christ. And during this time, there's a lot of talk about staying awake and. Preparing quietly and trusting the things that we cannot see. And this is so perfectly correlated to running, right? Because as runners, we tend to live mostly in seasons of waiting. We have a goal, we set a goal and it's up ahead like Christmas Day, and that goal is in the future, and we have to do a lot of preparation before that date hits. So we have training blocks and we have recovery. There's injury rehab, there's strength building phases, there's plateaus. There's all of these different seasons of waiting, and when we put those things together, the goal is to get us, make us able to hit and to achieve the goal, to run the race that we have set for ourselves. Or maybe if you're not in a race training cycle, that's totally fine too, but there's something that you want to achieve. Okay. And a lot of the time is spent in the waiting, in the preparation, in just doing the thing day after day without seeing the immediate results.

Kevin:

Yeah. This, our priest every Sunday has brought up the idea of staying awake. As one of the big. Themes of Advent, which did not hit very well on this particular Sunday.'cause I had run back to back twenties already, as I was trying to listen to him through the sermon. And I was like, I was

Angie:

even finding myself like my eyes were closing too. And I was like, oh goodness.

Kevin:

I swear God, I'm trying to stay awake. I swear I'm doing the best that I can. It's week

Angie:

four. We're almost

Kevin:

there. but you're right. Like a lot of running. Especially if you have plenty of races out there still, most of your running experience is not spent with a number pinned to you. Most of your running experience is the preparation process. And that requires you to think that eventually the goal is coming. Yeah. But I'm spending my time not at the goal, not at the celebration and spending most of my time, the vast amount of my running, preparing for that.

Angie:

And so we, as runners, we are forced, or we choose, I shouldn't say we're forced to, but by choosing to be runners and by choosing to set these bigger goals that we are not currently capable of, we are also choosing to show up before the results appear. we're choosing to. Train in the dark, whether that's early in the morning or after you get home from work. Because right now it seems like it's dark no matter when you run, unless you run right in the middle of the day. It is

Kevin:

just, it's always dark. Yeah. Always.

Angie:

We are asked to trust. Adaptations that we can't feel yet. And this is one of the biggest things that we do as running coaches is really help people trust the process and help them understand that there's going to be a time period where you're not seeing the results and you sometimes it even feels like you're moving backwards because there are some people that come into our coaching program and they've been doing things a certain way. For their entire running career. And we ask them to start doing things completely different than what they've been used to. And there can be a period of time where there's this adaptation period where the body is literally trying to figure out how to adapt to a different training methodology. And people can see like a little bit, couple steps back sometimes, but we tell people, sometimes that's necessary in order for you to really move forward. And we're asking them to trust us and we're asking them to trust that. Even though it doesn't feel like you're making progress right now, we are rebuilding your foundation and this is going to set you up for so much success in the future. But sometimes that's really hard to do, especially when it's not happening as quickly as you want it to.

Kevin:

Yeah, no, it definitely, it looks like a plateau right now. It may even look like things are going the wrong direction. My watch and I believe some things my watch tells me, but I definitely don't on others, like the race time predictors for the last. Oh, three weeks or so have been going the wrong direction. as I get closer and closer to my race in, in, it's in a month, the, all of my race distance projections are getting slower and slower every single day. My 5K has slowed down like an additional one to two seconds for the last three weeks, which I think. Is it's correct in one sense because it had me projected to be able to run way faster than I could. So I'm hoping that it's moving towards reality, but it's just, it's not. it's not the most fulfilling thing to check your watch and have it tell you are clearly getting slower.

Angie:

Why do you check that? I'm like, surprised that you even check that. I don't even check that on a regular basis.

Kevin:

it's one of the things, I could, I gotta reset part of my watch because it's one of the things that just pops up to me on, I think my recovery in the morning. Oh really? Yeah. Just

Angie:

showed you, it's just there. Oh, I have to go find mine in order. I could, I didn't even know where it was at first. Well,

Kevin:

when I got my new watch, when I got this watch, that was one of the things that I was like, I thought it was, is interesting. I didn't think that it was a correct tool, but I thought it was an interesting tool. Yeah. the HRV, I don't know what it's actually, I do, I know what it's supposed to be measuring. I don't think that it can do a great. Correct job of measuring it. Yeah. But the air that it makes on a daily basis, I feel it's making the same air on a regular basis. And so to see a trend I think is helpful. That's, yeah, that's what I use it for. a

Angie:

lot of these metrics that we track are much more helpful to see trends versus the actual numbers themselves. For sure. Yes. Bringing this back to Advent, it's really about trying to stay awake when it would be easier to quit and trying to stay committed to the process when it feels like, why the heck am I doing this? I know I've woken up so many times at five o'clock in the morning and asked myself that exact question of why do I do this to myself? And. When we tie it back to advent, this is part of what we're asked to do as people of God, is to have faith without proof, to continue to trust that. We, the commitment and the discipline and the things that we are preparing for are coming without that immediate reward. if you wanna zoom all the way out, that's really what the whole point of life is. If you are someone that believes in heaven, the whole point of life is to get to heaven. And so your entire life, essentially is preparing you for something. After this life is preparing you for something that happens after you die. And we're supposed to essentially use our entire life to help us get to heaven. And so that is really preparation without immediate reward. And that hope grounded in consistency and consistently showing up and being the person that God asks us to be or that we want to be or that we think, a good person. Is and regardless of what faith tradition you subscribe to or belong to, all faith traditions tell us that we should be good people.

Kevin:

yes, they do.

Angie:

It doesn't matter if you believe in Jesus or Buddha or Hinduism. There's so many different religions out there. And the, and this is one when Kevin mentioned earlier, my belief system is there's multiple ways up the same mountain. the point of our life, I believe, is to be a good person and to contribute to humanity and help other people. And that's really what all of the major religions that I'm aware of. Teach their people as well. There's just different ways that they teach them to do that.

Kevin:

Yeah. There's all, there's different terminology. there's different quote unquote finish lines, if you will. But it's all about just being a good person. Because being a good person will have positive revolt results for you. Whether those results are immediate or down the road, whether being good today is gonna lead with goodness coming back to you tomorrow. Or whether it's gonna be. Goodness coming back to you many years down the road, goodness is coming. So you have to keep putting goodness out to the world. Running rewards are coming as long as you keep continuously putting in the work, and sometimes it's not the easiest thing to be happy and joyful and kind to the people around you. Yeah, sometimes it's difficult, just like sometimes it's difficult to get out there and get in the training run. Or the strength or the speed session or whatever it is. They're not always the easiest text. Yeah. It'd be great if it. Always is. It'd be great if everybody around you is just man, that person is a ball of joy, and I just want to be joyful with them. I teach high school. everybody around me is not necessarily a ball of joy that I'm like, man, that person is just light unto the world. but they can be, and I can have a positive attitude towards them. Just like I can go into the gym and lift up heavy objects. It's just not necessarily the easiest task for me to do.

Angie:

Yeah. And I think that doing the hard things, especially doing the things that we don't want to do, really teaches us how to wait with discipline and with trust and with hope. And we say running, but this also applies to weightlifting too. When you're lifting the weights, you're not actually seeing bigger muscles. Then it takes weeks and months and truly years. Especially when we get into, the age group over 40. It takes longer to sometimes see the results that we want to see because our body just doesn't respond the way that it used to. It doesn't recover as quickly. It doesn't adapt as quickly, and that's okay. Nothing has gone wrong here. And are you willing to continue to put in the work if the results are delayed, if they're, if they take a little longer than you had hoped for?

Kevin:

that's part of enjoying the journey itself, right? rather than only. Being excited for the reward. Yeah. You have to actually be fully committed to the process. And say, the process is what I'm here for. The reward is coming, but the process is what it is. And that, that's what advent is. It's fully being aware and awake in the process of preparation. And accepting that the reward is something in the future. And that happens so much in running. When you run a race People are like, you cross the finish line and people start thinking of what the next thing is. That's because the ultimate reward is just off in the future. As long as you can really enjoy the part of preparing for it. Yeah. You can really have a long, very, Promising very fulfilled life of training.

Angie:

Yeah, and I don't think that means that we need to enjoy every single day of training, just the same way that when hard things happen in our lives, we're not asked to enjoy all of it. But it's this overall sense of joy and it's getting through some of those times. That are harder and that we don't wanna do the things because overall we enjoy the process. It's not necessarily about enjoying every single day. Maybe there are some days that don't feel like very joyful or very, enjoyment filled. And that's really where discipline comes in because discipline, I feel, can sometimes get a bad rep. And people don't like the term discipline. And I think that probably comes from when we were younger as kids and our parents had to quote unquote discipline us. It's usually. correlated to something negative like we have to be disciplined when we do something wrong, and then there's a punishment and consequences. But I'd like us to look at discipline through a different lens, at least in this episode. And maybe if you like this, you can use this going forward, but discipline does not equal punishment. Discipline is not just about control. What if we looked at discipline and what if you start to see discipline as a form of devotion to something greater than yourself, whether that's running or your spiritual journey and your re relationship with God. Discipline can be a form of devotion because it keeps us on a certain path that we want to be on in order to achieve a certain goal.

Kevin:

Yeah, like I, I was. Really kinda curious where you were going with this one. Discipline as devotion. Yeah. But in order to be a good person, you have to be a good person when you don't necessarily want to. In order to succeed at running, you have to keep putting in the training when you don't necessarily want to. That's discipline. That is devoted towards the ultimate goal. that's what you're working with. Is you're not doing something wrong. You're not, you don't have to go do the hard thing because you did something wrong and now you have the punishment. You're. Choosing the hard thing because that's the path that you're choosing.

Angie:

Yeah. Which is very interesting as Catholics, right? Because I feel like Catholics get a bad rap for being more about punishment and guilt. Like Catholic guilt is a saying for a reason. And I know growing up there was a lot of that and,'cause I grew up, I started Catholic school when I was in fifth grade. I went to public school before that and then started Catholic school in fifth grade, went to a Catholic high school, went to Notre Dame. So I did university and Catholic university and. My relationship with the Catholic faith really transformed throughout all of those years because in the younger years it was a lot about the guilt and using some of the rules and the laws and how we had to memorize the different rules of the church word by word from the nuns at the school. Did you guys have to do that too?

Kevin:

Oh yeah. Yeah. The nuns were all about memorizing the things. Yeah,

Angie:

and so like it was much more about like the. by being by the book, right? knowing the information, knowing what's right, what's wrong, and then as I continued on my faith journey and got in into high school and then college and started to experience my Catholic faith in a different way. I started to see, okay, it's not just about doing these things because I'm afraid that I'm going to be punished or I'm afraid that I'm gonna go to hell if I do all these things, or if I sin sinning is really take some, doing something that takes us away from God. And I've really been able to really reframe my whole view of what sin is.'cause I was very much like against sin. This sounds really weird. this. I was very much against sin for a long time and like calling things a sin. But now I see it as, sinning in and of itself is like, because like people would say, okay, that's a sin and this is a sin and it's like trying to put labels on things. But a sin is really just something that's bringing us further away from God. And some of the choices that I make in my life, I know they're taking me further away from like the purpose and my. Mission in life and the path that I'm supposed to be on. And so discipline is really devoting myself to becoming the best version of myself and being a child of God and devoting myself to showing up in a way on this earth that. Will help to bring me and the people around me closer to God. And that's really what discipline allows me to do. It's not necessarily about you have to follow these rules and it's black and white and this is a sin and this is not a sin for me anymore. It's how does this choice affect. My path, and is this going to help me move in the direction that I wanna go?

Kevin:

I think you really would've enjoyed the religion as it, it came through the perspective of my high school. Like I went to a Jesuit high school, which is like a much more liberal view of Catholicism. Yeah. it's still Catholic, but it's a lot more, I don't know. Nebulous of the concept. there was, obviously there were rules involved in the school. It was still, it was an all boys high school, so there was, there were things that were good and things that were not, but it was much more about are you doing in general the things that are gonna make you a better person? Are you. Growing and improving yourself. And that's what training is, right? Yeah. are you conti, are you in general doing things that are moving you in the direction that you would like to be moving? if you miss a day of training, you're not feeling good, you feel like you might need a little extra recovery, that doesn't mean that you're not training anymore. Does it? Oh, you've done it. I, no, you can't run a marathon this year. You missed that Tuesday. that's not how it works. the same thing with our general existence. Oh, you were mean to that person. On that Tuesday, so you're completely off the path towards God, right? that's not how it works. it's about, are you generally staying on the path when you see that you've stepped off the path, do you quickly move back towards the path? Yeah. that's what the devotion aspect is I'm generally trying to follow this plan, Sometimes I get off of the plan, how quickly can I recognize that I'm off the plan And move myself back where I was, where I wanted to be.'cause I already made the choice. This is the path I'd like to take. So then it's just a matter of recognizing that you're, you've accidentally chosen a different path and you've taken several steps down a different path you might want to head back.

Angie:

Yeah. Because whatever spiritual. Religion or practice you subscribed to or subscribed to, you chose that, right? Like I was born a Catholic, I was baptized a Catholic, but I did choose to get confirmed. And granted I was a teenager at the time and I was doing what I was supposed to do at that time.

Kevin:

Did you get confirmed with the whole risk of your eighth grade class? Yeah. Yeah. There, how much choice is really involved in that process. But

Angie:

at the same time, I then went to a Catholic high school, which I'm not sure how much I chose that, or that was chosen by my mom, but I did Cho choose to go to Notre Dame for sure. That was my choice, 100%,

Kevin:

definitely.

Angie:

And then plenty of times along the way there. Do I, am I choosing to go to church? And of course, as an adult you have all of the choice, right? Like we chose to get married in the church. We ch we choose to go to church every Sunday. We chose to baptize our kids in the church and go to church as a family every Sunday and really instill that tradition in them. So there was plenty of steps along the way where I was choosing this thing. So when I choose to be Catholic, that means that I'm choosing the path that. Catholics tend to walk. And that does not mean, at least for me, that I believe every single thing that the Catholic Church teaches. There's plenty of things that the Catholic Church teaches that I disagree with, and I think that's okay. And some people would will tell me that's wrong and that I have to believe everything that the Catholic Church teaches if I'm gonna call myself a Catholic. But that's just not how I believe it. And so when we. Make that choice of, okay, I'm gonna call myself a Catholic, or I'm gonna call myself a Christian, I'm gonna call myself a Buddhist, whatever it might be. That's the path that you're choosing that you think is going to help you get closer to God and live a good life. And that's the same thing with running or with weight training and with your fitness journey as well. You're choosing to be a runner. You're choosing to be a strong and fit person. And with those choices comes. The discipline to live differently and the devotion to do that thing. And if you don't like the word devotion, you can replace it with the word commitment, because that's really what devotion is. Devotion is being fully committed to something, to a pathway, to an outcome, whatever it might be. I like to look at it as being devoted to a path versus just an outcome. But that is going to require you to live differently than other people. It's going to require you to sometimes wake up at 5:00 AM if that's when you can fit your runs in. It's going to require you to go to bed at 9:00 PM and not go out for drinks with your friends, because that's what you've chosen for yourself. That is, those are the goals you have. That's the lifestyle that you've chosen. And sometimes it does feel like you're choosing the narrow path, but you have to maintain. That, that faithfulness in the small things, both in your spiritual journey and in your running, in your fitness journey, because discipline is really not about forcing results, and it's not about doing the right thing and not doing the wrong thing. It's about really choosing your path and then practicing who you're becoming because the path that you've chosen is essentially the best path that you believe will help you become the person that you want to be.

Kevin:

Yeah, no, that's a perfect way of summing that up. Like when I was in high school, we had a prayer group and every prayer group was made up of a handful of students. And it was essentially, it was you and your friends that organized themselves into a group, but there was a leader and you had to have a member of the adult faculty, staff, whatever. We had one of the guys out of finance. He was a practicing Buddhist. And he was the leader of our Christian life community.

Angie:

I love it.

Kevin:

And his whole thing was, look, I don't necessarily have the same faith that you guys have, but it's okay. Like he was all about the paths up the mountain. Yeah. I think it's very much a Buddhist feeling towards it, is we're all doing the same thing. And it's all just a continuous process of making sure that you are generally following the right direction. Which, he was great about taking a group of like awkward high school boys and being like, yeah, we can all have a conversation about this. And it's all generally moving in the same direction.

Angie:

Yeah. So when we bring this back to Advent and this time of waiting. It's the waiting before the birth of the savior of Jesus, of this new way of life and of being. And this waiting process can also come with a lot of shedding of the old identity. and I'm gonna talk about different faith traditions or maybe not faith traditions, but different. Spiritual lenses here as well. But I definitely wanted to mention and bring this back to, along the line of discipline. Part of our running as our spiritual practice is really being a steward of the body because I believe that our body is a gift from God. My body is a gift, and when I do the things to take care of my body, that is me. Saying thank you. It's me being in gratitude for the gift that I was given. So if we can see. Taking care of your body as a form of gratitude, not a vanity. How would that change your experience of your health and your fitness? Because I think that so many of us have been taught that a smaller body is better and that skinny is the way to be. And it's coming back now like you're seeing it so much more. In the media of just these celebrities that are so thin, they're just shrinking and they're just getting smaller and smaller with all the different weight loss drugs and things that are on the market right now. And we are taught to shrink and to be smaller. And I just look at some of those people and they don't look healthy. And granted, I don't know what's going on. I am not their doctor. I'm not on their medical team. I don't know what their blood work looks like, but some of those people just do not look healthy. And as a physical therapist, I know. How important muscle is for our health and our longevity. And some of those, some of the celebrities nowadays are just getting so skinny. They're practically skin and bones. Like it is just crazy when you see the. Rapid transformation that a lot of people are having right now in the, yeah. Frequently

Kevin:

rapid, I think is really what's, yeah, what's off-put. and

Angie:

when it's that rapid, I know because of my medical knowledge that a lot of that is going to be muscle loss. yes, there's gonna be some fat loss in there too, but a lot of that is muscle loss and bone loss in the process. When you lose weight very rapidly, that is what tends to happen. That's part of the danger of some of these weight loss drugs that are out there right now. Is that these, the rapid weight loss can cause a loss of a lot of things besides fat in the body,

Kevin:

right? So what you're looking for here is. Taking is your body as a gift and yeah. Whatever your body can do, being just more of a gift. It leads to one of my favorite pre fontain quotes, who was definitely not a religious person from all accounts. But he has that quote that people have to throw on the back of CrossCountry shirts that to give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift. And we all have this inside of us. Yeah. Of whatever our running capability, our physical. Fitness capability is, it's not that we all have to get to the same results. We're not all trying to win an Olympic gold medal. It's that we're all trying to see what can we get out of our body because our body is this amazing thing that we've been given. If we treat it correctly, if we train it, if we feed it, if we see our body as this amazing thing that we have, yeah, and try to see what kind of potential we can pull out of it that is. Responding to the gift that we've been given and saying, look what I can do with this gift. It's, thank you for this. Now look what I'm going to be able to do with it.

Angie:

And I think that's even more important for us to remember as we get over the age of 40, because a lot of us have been raised with some of these punishing narratives, whether it's the spiritual side of things or the physical side of things of like punishment and doing this is bad and there's a right way and there's a wrong way. And really starting to shift into respect and care for our body and training to stay capable and able and strong and present and be able to live the life that we want to live. So for me, I used to live by all these things too. And so I'm not just up here preaching to, to you guys because I know the right way. It's definitely not that at all. I definitely grew up wanting to be smaller. I, I. What I'd been on, lots of different diets throughout my life and different ways of eating and different ways of viewing my body and viewing fitness. And now I've really been able to shift over. Into this lens of caring for my body is one way to honor the life that I've been given. And I wanna do everything I can to stay strong and to be able to enjoy and live this life to the fullest and be there for my family and be strong and able when I'm older. And that's going to require me to look at my body and my health and my fitness a lot differently. And going back to what we were talking about before. With honoring the process and staying disciplined and devoted to the process. I know that building muscle is not a quick process. I know that losing fat is not a quick process, and I'm willing to continue to put in the work because those are my goals because. What else am I gonna do? Also, if you think about it, like what else am I gonna do? Like just because I don't get results in a couple of months and I have to keep working at it. isn't that the point? isn't the process kind of the point sometimes?

Kevin:

Yes. Yeah. it's the same

Angie:

with our spiritual journey. Like you're never like, okay, I am close to God, now I'm done and I'm done and I'm done. it's the same thing with your fitness journey. All of these things in our life, no matter if it's personal development, spiritual development, your body development, like you never get to a finish line. These are infinite games and there's a fantastic book called. The Infinite Game. I think that's the name of it by Simon Sinek, and he talks about the difference between finite games and infinite games. And your health and your fitness, just like your spiritual journey, are both infinite games. The goal is to keep playing. The goal is to continue to grow on the journey. There's never actually a finish line, and we can set these arbitrary finish lines, especially in running with like races or different milestones that we want to achieve, which are all fantastic. But ultimately you're not just going to. Be done.

Kevin:

Yeah. And I always look at the body aspect from a different lenses. I've stopped hitting PRS in a lot of distances. Yeah. And, to go to your infinite game parallel there, it's that the rules have changed. I still need to honor and care for my body and I'm still trying to see what I can get out of it. Knowing full well. That I cannot squeeze the same 5K time out of it that I could 20 years ago. Yeah. that's the interest. Like I really was so happy and so celebratory of the 5K race That I put in, was that a week ago? Is that only a week ago?

Angie:

Oh my gosh, yes.

Kevin:

Okay. Somehow that was only a week ago. It was like,

Angie:

eight days ago, nine days ago. Yeah.

Kevin:

I was so happy about that result and it's not a time that I would've been happy with Like 15 years ago. But it's knowing the training that I've currently put in, knowing where my body is currently at, and. Saying, Hey, alright, here's some new rules that you get to play with. Let's see what you can do with this setup, and how can you honor your body in this current time of your life.

Angie:

Yeah. And that kind of brings up something else that I wanna talk about, which if you're listening to this podcast and you're like, yes, I'm Christian, or I'm Catholic, and I'm on board with all of this. Maybe you've never been exposed to some of the things that I'm about to talk about. And if you're not of the Christian faith, maybe you have been exposed to these things. And either way, again, I would like to just continue to expose people to different cool ways of looking at life and of the world. Because you're saying, what about like with where I am right now in my life? What am I able to do? And I think that there's some really cool things that I've been learning about lately, about. The year that we're in and the this point. Of the world that we're living in right now. And numerology is a kind of a cool thing. I don't know if you believe in numerology or not, but I love numbers. I think that numbers and numerology, that's one of the ways that my angels guide me in my life is seeing repeating numbers. And I think that angel numbers are definitely a sign that we can, that we're on the right path. so I think that numerology is like a really cool thing. I know that people out there in like the Christian. traditions sometimes think that these things are witchcraft or other things, but again, I think that they all can serve a purpose and it's really about the intention behind them and how we wanna use them.'cause I use all of these things to get me closer to God and I, when I pray, it's to God and the Holy Spirit and I, my angel guides and all these things. A lot of these things are just different names for the same thing. As long

Kevin:

as it's all helping you be good, right? It's not,

Angie:

it's not I who do

Kevin:

witchcraft. it's fine. I don't think so. It's just cool numbers. Numbers are awesome. Numbers are awesome. That's why I teach math.

Angie:

One of the things that I recently learned was that in numerology, if we are looking at the year 2025, it is what's called a nine year. And basically the reason the way that you figure that out is you just add up the numbers. So 20 25, 2 plus zero, plus two plus five equals nine.

Kevin:

Yes it does. And

Angie:

yes it does. Thank you. Math teacher. You got it. so nine is. The symbol, the symbolic meaning behind nine years are that these are years for completion and for letting go and. There's also other ancient traditions that put different animals associated with different years, like in the Eastern Chinese traditions. So 2025 is actually the year of the snake, which again is more about that shedding and it's more about tuning into your intuition and releasing. Some of these old patterns. So it's interesting that those things coincided. I'm not sure if that just happened or if that was planned or no. How all these things work together.

Kevin:

You get two totally different traditions there. I think it's probably, I'm sure that there is a group of people that are like the fact that the snake and 2025, a year nine, yeah. Line up is such a, a. Huge sign Towards completion and moving forward. Yeah.'cause you've got the shedding and completion. Hitting simultaneously,

Angie:

which is cool. And why not, right? Like, why not take this opportunity, regardless of your belief system to look at things that you can let go of and things that you want to release and shed and. Start with more of a clean slate moving into 2026, regardless of your faith tradition. Wouldn't that be a good thing for all of us to do?

Kevin:

That does seem just generally a good thing,

Angie:

right? so you don't have to believe in all of these things, but I think it's cool that these things do. are, they're both happening simultaneously. And then going back like 2026 is a one year, so if we add up like two plus zero, plus two plus six, it's 10. it's 10. But the goal is to always get to a single digit number. It's

Kevin:

one. So

Angie:

one plus zero is one. And a one year is more about initiation and becoming and new beginnings and a fresh start and a clean slate. And then if we go back to the Chinese. Tradition of the Zodiac there. 2026 is a horse year and horses symbolize courage and strength and forward movement and female intuition. and there's a lot of really cool correlations there too, right? And again, do I believe that there's, it's a horse and this and that. It. It's all super cool, right? And so if I say, okay, I'm gonna move forward into 2026 with horse energy being more courage and more strong and taking steps forward and being more bold in my actions. Again, isn't that a good thing?

Kevin:

It, that seems like a positive thing.

Angie:

Yeah.

Kevin:

like there are people who might be listening to this coming from, our Catholic direction being like, yeah, but on the 25th, did God really get born? Yeah. they might find that odd. but still the idea of we're waiting and we're continuing to try to be the best people that we can in this period of waiting as there's a huge positive, big goal out in the future. That's still just a great. aspect to have around your mindset. Yeah. there are some people that might dismiss all of these things coming out there, but just the fact that it's coming towards the end of the year And the start of a new year, that's a time of conclusion. And then new beginnings. Yeah. that's just what happens at the end of every year. Your brain naturally does that because the seasons do that. it's cold and winter. not here, it's 80 here, but. In places that have all the seasons, it's cold and things are like dying around, and then Spring's gonna come and that's new birth. that's what we've got. It's the wrap up of one year and the start of the next, whatever tradition you're coming from.

Angie:

And so if we wanna tie this back into Advent and Christmas, advent is waiting. That gives way to birth and that preparation gives way to, ooh, the thing that we've been wanting to do, like that action that we've been wanting to take. And so across traditions. The wisdom here is the same, whether it's Christian tradition or numerology or the Chinese tradition or other ones that I haven't mentioned here as well. The wisdom is, okay, let's let go. Let's trust, and then let's move forward with courage. And that's really what Christmas is all about, is really rebirth or just birth period. And then we as Christians every year are asked to go through this period of advent and waiting and preparation in order to. Be born again, right? To be born again in the new Year and that. Is something that's happening to us too in midlife, especially if you are a woman in midlife going through perimenopause and about to shift through the menopause transition. This period of perimenopause is the lead up to a complete change in your body. Hormonally, your body hormonally is not the same after menopause as it was before. Menopause and perimenopause is this waiting period and this transition period that. Essentially can lead to a rebirth of who you are as a woman in the second phase of your life. And there has been in the past a lot of negativity around that. And I, I am starting to see a shift now, and I wanna be a part of this shift to help you understand that. The second phase of your life can be even better than the first. And I don't like to necessarily compare them like better, worse, or whatnot, but you can be, you can still choose to be strong. You can be whatever person you want to be. And that's really what this time of year invites us to do also, is to shift and to really reflect on who are you becoming. And we went through a lot of questions last week. In our podcast episode of kind of closing out the year of 2025 and giving you some really great questions to journal on and reflect on, and so now is a really great time for you. If you haven't had a chance to do that yet, please do. but then ask yourself, who do you want to be? In this next phase of life in how you move, like how do you wanna show up when it's hard? And what kind of a runner and person are you becoming? And you can do this both on the physical side of things and on the spiritual side of things.

Kevin:

I really wish that our priest on Sunday had tied advent into perimenopause. I think that really would've brought. A lot to his sermon. and I def it also definitely would've kept you awake. I know, in the middle of it, if you, I dunno about that. If casually mentioned perimenopause Yeah. Shout out to Father John. Just let that slide right in there. It would've Great. this

Angie:

is, and this is how my brain works and this is genuine. Genuinely why I wanted to even start this podcast years ago anyway is because, oh Lord,

Kevin:

we're all peering inside of Angie's brain. Everybody, hold on. If you're driving, you might be careful. Need to slide over to the side of the road and take a break. Here we go.

Angie:

It's just connections.

Kevin:

Right.

Angie:

and that's one of the reasons, I love connections. I love human connections and spiritual connections, but it's connecting all of these dots because how cool is it that we can have all these dots connected? Because yes, there are these periods of transitions. In our year, in our life, like when we zoom in there, the, there are the periods of letting go and shedding and rebirth. And then when we zoom out, there's those same cycles.

Kevin:

Yeah, I know. It's like a fractal that you keep zooming in and it's always just the same. I'm sorry. I'm a geometry teacher. I know. But like those pictures are so cool that you're like, oh, look at this. It looks like a snowflake. And then when you zoom in on a snowflake, the little crystals on one side Of the flake are identical to the big picture. Yeah. And you zoom in on one of those and it's identical to the big picture. Fractals are the coolest mathematical thing. in my opinion. And they look like snowflakes.

Angie:

So how does that connect here?

Kevin:

Is, it's all the connections. Yeah. Whether you zoom in or you zoom out, which is my favorite running coping strategy also is zooming in and zooming out. Yeah. I can tie all the things together. Also, I can make my brain pretend like it can work as fast as yours, pretend.

Angie:

But it's true though. this is the cool thing, and this is one of the things that we hope that we're. Offering to you to do. Sometimes as runners, we get so zoomed in and we're so just thinking about, oh my God, I just, I missed a training session this week, or I've been so inconsistent and I've missed, oh my gosh, three days this week. But when you zoom out and you look at your training as a whole over the course of the month or over the course of the year, you are a very consistent person. And so how much do those three days matter in the big picture? Pretty much nothing.

Kevin:

Yeah, no. back in college I stopped running for three months.

Angie:

Yeah.

Kevin:

I don't think that's really necessarily still having a drastic impact on me at this point. Yeah. Did you feel guilty about it at the time? If it's probably a positive impact on me at this point. Yeah. And yes, definitely at the time, yeah. I felt awful.

Angie:

And that you would never get your fitness back and you'd never be the same.

Kevin:

Yeah. that's why my. Friend at the time had to, drag me across campus in the middle of the snow and be like, let's see if you can still break five in the mile. Ready go,

Angie:

ready go. But I think that this time of our life and this time of our year really just gives us that time to sit back and reflect and figure out, okay, who do I want to be? Who am I becoming in this next year or in this next season of my life? Are you someone that can say, or that wants to be able to say, I train with intention. I honor my body. I show up faithfully. I trust the process, and this is where I think identity becomes so much more important and so much more valuable than just outcomes, identity, who you say you are and who you choose to be. Will influence your actions. And your actions are what gives you the outcomes and the results that you have in your life. So it all comes from your identity. Your results always come from the person who you that you are. The thoughts and the beliefs that you have, the feelings that you have, the actions that then come from all of those things will give you those results. And so your identity has to come first and then. Those actions and those results help to either reinforce that identity or break that identity down. So it's really understanding who do I wanna be in all this? Who do I wanna become in this process? Why am I doing all of this? And then allowing your actions to line up in a way that's going to help reinforce that identity.

Kevin:

Yeah, it's like you say, there's a lot of paths up the mountain, but you spend most of your time on the path and not much of your time at the top of the mountain. So it's a matter of who do you want to be as you're climbing.

Angie:

Yeah, definitely. And so I think that really the point of this episode, and really what I wanted to explore here with all of you, like with Kevin and with all of you listening here today, is how we can see running as a devotional practice and how we can use this time of year. As a way to reflect on not just our running stuff, but also the spiritual side of things and how our running and our spirituality really can go hand in hand. And there's a lot of people that think that running is a form of prayer and movement is presence. I know that this is something that you. Have experienced for years that I never really had until more recently about, using running as a time for like prayer and meditation.

Kevin:

Yeah. To see running as meditation. You have to actually, I feel like to connect running to meditation, there has to be a level of fitness that allows you to run. Yeah. And not be uncomfortable.

Angie:

and I think that if you're not there yet, and if you don't have that level of fitness yet, then you can do the same thing with walking.

Kevin:

And that's the biggest thing. That's why, that's why both of us strongly encourage walking breaks. Oh yeah. To make sure that runs are easy enough. Because if you can go out on a run that is easy enough, then. It really becomes like all the aspects of easy running are connected to what people tell you when you're gonna sit and do meditation. They're like, focus on your breath. You can hear the sounds outside this happened to me. Yeah. Just the other day, my headphones ran outta juice and so the only sound that I had was the sound of my feet hitting the ground. And my. And that is a lot of meditation and all the

Angie:

cars and other sounds around you. No, I

Kevin:

was in a neighborhood at that point in time, so there were no cars. Okay. It was just the sound of my footfall and breath

Angie:

and birds.

Kevin:

Yeah, some birds.

Angie:

Yeah.

Kevin:

I still have my headphones like hooked up over my ears. Yeah. So it makes, sounds a little bit weird. But. As soon as like the audio kicked off on whatever I was listening to, and I had flipped from a podcast. I was listening to music and suddenly it died on me, and it was like really quiet and just the rhythmic nature of my footfall. And I'd been running for a long time at that point in time. And so it. You know when you've been out there for a while, you can so quickly move into this like meditative process of just hearing your feet hit the ground. I definitely lost multiple hours during the ultra last January. Of like just the sound of my feet hitting the ground, because there are some loops through the woods out there that you're like, I won't see anybody for the next Hour. Yeah. and it happens. And you can just, you can hear your feet and you can hear your breath, and you can try to tune it out and put on music. Please put on our podcast. Give it five stars. Share it with your friend. Let them put on their podcast. Oh yeah. But. Sometimes it's nice to just have that quiet nature where you can really experience your presence moving through the world, and it's, I think it opens you up to being so grateful for what you're currently doing.

Angie:

Yeah. And that's a vote also for slowing down on your run. And allowing yourself to be present, because when you're running at that medium pace or harder pace, it's very difficult to be present to anything else other than how difficult it feels in your body. So being able to run at an easier pace and maybe even take walking breaks, can really help you become much more present and be more grateful for the things around you. And I do love moving meditations as well, because sometimes for me it definitely takes a lot of practice. For me to meditate because my brain is going all over the place and I'm just thinking of whether or not I'm doing it wrong or right. And there is no such thing as wrong or right meditation because you're just noticing your thoughts and you're noticing your brain's thinking. And I think that when I'm outside and I can then focus on. My breath or the sounds of the birds around me, like those are all forms of meditation that again, can bring us closer to God and can bring us closer to the person that we want to be. And just calm your nervous system and just get rid of all the hustle and the busy and just allow you to just be. In that moment, and that's really, again, who are you becoming? Are you able to be a person that can just be, that you don't have to be doing all the time? Because we are so conditioned to do. I am so guilty of this. I have a hard time sitting down and relaxing. And not doing anything. it's taken me a lot of practice and I'm still not that great at it. I still feel like I need to be productive. It's that need to be productive, but that's not what this season is calling us to do. God's not asking us to necessarily do all the things, even though it does feel like that in the secular Christmas season.

Kevin:

Yes,

Angie:

Like when we look at the secular Christmas and all the gifts and the things and the cookies and all these things that we quote unquote have to do to get ready for Christmas. S That's not really what. The point in the spirit of the season is the point in the spirit of the season is taking a step back and resting and staying awake and being prepared for what's coming. It's not necessarily making sure that we check everything off of our list.

Kevin:

Yeah. And people like to suggest a lot of Christians like suggest make sure that you keep, Jesus is the reason for the season. Make sure Keep Christ and Christmas, keep Christ and Christmas, it's keep calm and advent. Yeah. I think is really what drives people nuts. Is advent, keep

Angie:

calm and carry on.

Kevin:

Yeah. Like it's supposed to be this calm, thoughtful time of awareness of the world around you. And instead we fill it with doing stuff. Yeah. And it takes away from that presence, it takes away from that ability to understand what's actually happening around you. Because you're just so busy doing all of the things that there's not a time to just pause. And that's why I love going out for runs in the middle of the season. Because you can pause, you can appreciate the light. Slowly because you're running past them instead of driving past them. you can really appreciate the, as close to a change in season as we get down here, you can appreciate these things when it's calm and peaceful outside in a bit of a slower world when you're out and running.

Angie:

Yeah. And I think that really opens us up to then ask, we wanna close out the episode now, with some just questions, maybe some things for you to think about. So the first one would be like, what am I grateful for in my body, like in this season of life for my body? Just how it is right now. Not the things that I was able to accomplish 10 years ago, but what am I grateful for in my body today, right now

Kevin:

that, that's a beautiful question. Question two, where am I being asked to trust?

Angie:

And wait. Yes. And trust the process.

Kevin:

Yes. and that's really what it is. Where am I? Where do I really need to lean in and trust in the process that even if I can't see the progress That I'm trusting in the process.

Angie:

And this was a big thing for me with our bathroom renovation this year. Oh Lord. For sure. Is just like when it felt like it was taking forever and gosh, it felt like it was taking forever and that there were plenty of days that we were not making progress and there was just a big headache. I just kept reminding myself. This is going to be done at some point in time and we will have a beautiful bathroom.

Kevin:

Yes. And

Angie:

at the number of times I reminded myself of that, I can't even count the, like it's gonna be okay. This is not going to go on forever. This will be finished at some point in time and we will have a beautiful bathroom over that. And so where in your life are you being asked to trust that you'll also have a beautiful bathroom?

Kevin:

Another question. What? What kind of courage am I stepping into? Right now, what kind of courage do I need to step into for the next year? what process am I into that is going to require my courage inside of me? In order to stay on that path, to perform, to strive towards that goal

Angie:

and to do things that you maybe have never done before, and do things that maybe other people are telling you shouldn't do because you're too old. Are you sure you wanna do that? there are lots of people out there that are going to tell you that what you want is a bad idea. Do you have the courage to hear the call and to feel the pull and to follow it regardless of what other people say? And that is not an easy task. And I, believe me, I understand it because I've been going through it, especially the last couple of years, and really trying to listen to my intuition and my calls, on what. Direction I'm supposed to be going in this life and with our business and all of the things, and I know without a doubt that I'm here to help more people to feel strong and to feel empowered in their life, both mentally, physically, and spiritually. And that's really what we do inside the real life runners team. And so I'm not gonna make a hard push or anything like that, but if you want a group of people that understand you and you want coaches that will support you in all different realms, and I'm not here to. Tell you that I'm gonna be your spiritual guide necessarily. But I will tell you that there's been a lot of that inside the team as well, which is really cool because sometimes when we ask certain questions or when we invite people to go down certain paths, way more ends up opening up for people than. They expected. And those are all things that we do inside of real life runners. It's a place of intentional training, strength support and alignment, and helping you align with the person that you wanna be and the goals that you want to achieve in your life. So if that's something that you want, head over to real life runners.com/team and check out the information there. We would love to continue to support you in all of this. I just want to give you a little devotion right now, and I want to give you a little prayer and a little blessing for closing out the year now and moving into the year ahead. May you trust your body. May you honor the season that you're in. May you move forward with courage and may you become exactly who you're meant to be. Thank you so much for joining us today and the whole year on our podcast with all the different episodes that we put out. It means so much to us that you are here and that you listen, and thank you for sharing the episode, or leaving reviews or leaving comments, to help us reach more runners. We appreciate all of you so much. And we can't wait to be with you in 2026. So as always, thanks for listening. This has been The Real Life Runners podcast, episode number 441. Now get out there and run your life.