S3 Ep 26 Fuel, Friendship, And A First Marathon with Karen Goudey

What turns a hard “never” into 26.2 miles? For Karen Goudy, it was a second chance at running, a training partner who wouldn’t quit, and a plan that flexed with real life. We talk through the whole arc—from misdiagnosis and time off to crossing a warm, humid finish line in Toronto—with the practical details most runners wish they knew sooner.

We map out the training backbone that worked: a Hal Higdon marathon plan, three weekday runs plus a long weekend run, and base-building before the plan officially started. Then we dig into the lessons that almost derailed everything: switching to shoes with a different heel-to-toe drop and triggering shin splints, trying to fast into long runs and crashing, and underestimating how pavement pounds feet trained mostly on trails. You’ll hear what actually helped—pre-fueling with steady carbs, sticking to electrolytes like Element and SaltStick, experimenting with gels and waffles, using pickle juice for cramp relief, and leaning on run-walk pacing to protect the legs when heat pushes you to the edge.

The best part might be the people. April Rose serves as coach, pacer, and constant encourager, while a small support crew deploys Biofreeze and cheers at key miles. Out on the course, strangers on bikes offer aid, apartment-window fans shout support, and back-of-the-pack runners become a rolling team, trading pep talks and finishing within seconds of each other. We also get honest about recovery—why yoga and cross-training come first, how to know when desire to run returns, and what to look for in a next target (cooler climates, generous cutoffs, and smarter prep).

If you’re eyeing a first marathon or want to refine your next, this conversation serves up clear, field-tested takeaways: build a base, train your gut, strengthen your core, respect the weather, and find your people. Subscribe, rate the show, and share this episode with a friend who needs a nudge to chase their big goal. Then tell us: what’s the one change you’ll make on your next long run?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Hello and welcome back to Over the Next Hill Fitness Podcast. I'm Carla Coffee, your coach and host for today's program. This program is brought to you by Coffee Crew Coaching. If you need a personal trainer or a

Welcome, Sponsor, And CTAs

SPEAKER_02 0:31

running coach, if there's a 5k you want to do, or you've never lifted weights, or you have some mobility issues, email me, Carla, at coffeecrew coaching.com, and we'll see if I can help you. I might not be able to, but you never know if you don't try. You can also go to the show notes, and there are a few discounts in there that probably are still active, that you can get some discounts on some great products. And if you wouldn't mind uh hitting the five star and give me five stars for this, share this episode, follow the program. If you're listening to this podcast on your favorite podcast channel, you can also watch it on YouTube and follow me there. You can follow me on the socials under Coffee Crew Coaching on Facebook and Instagram. And I think Threads. I'm on Threads as well. Clearly not a lot. But yeah, so please reach out to me there. Uh today I'm going to be talking to Karen Gaudi. Uh we had a real fun uh talk. I think you guys will really enjoy uh listening to her and her amazing training partner, April Rose. Uh, so we all might want to start running with April.

Meet Karen And April Rose

SPEAKER_02 1:48

She sounds like uh she could really do us all a big favor in our running and get us to across that finish line. So let's listen into that story.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

This is probably around mile 20, 21, maybe. Uh, we were passing this other couple, and based on their accents, I'm guessing they were from either Australia or New Zealand. And he was he was saying all the things I'd been saying about this, never gonna do this again, bomb this, f bomb that, you know, just blah, not having it, really hitting a wall. And she was the one giving him the pep talk. And I, as we're walking, running by them, I was like, you know, we were just having a very similar conversation. And so I think, again, there's this camaraderie. I think, especially for those of us that were toward the back of the pack, you know, there's a certain level of keeping each other going because we were sort of leapfrog people, you know, you'd see the same ones over and over again. At one point, toward the very end, I'm gonna come up on this one guy who was walking, clearly struggling, younger guy, younger African-American guy. And uh I I said to him, I came up behind him and I said, Come on, man, you got this. I think we were like probably at like twice mile 23 or 24. We're very close to the end. I'm like, Come on, man, you got this. If I got this, you got this. You know, you can do it. And we sort of slowly jogged by and he kind of sort of jogging again. And I noticed when I got my marathon photos that he crossed the finish line right behind us.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

Welcome to the show, Karen. It's great to have you here.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

Well, thanks for having me on. I'm excited.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

Oh, me too. We'll see how it goes.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

My first time. Oh, well, mine too with you. So there you go. Hopefully, it'll be our first one and only recording. That's right. So let's start with when and why you started running.

SPEAKER_01 3:36

Oh gosh. I've been running really since I was in high school, I think. Um, I was not a s a kid that liked team sports at all. Um, I enjoyed swimming, but for fun, and we didn't really I was at a rural

How Running Began And Returned

SPEAKER_01 3:51

uh public high school in Vermont that definitely didn't have a swim team or any of the more exotic, expensive athletic programs. So if you weren't, you know, playing soccer, basketball, softball, then you weren't playing sports in high school. So I um started running, I think, just for f fitness and fun. And I liked I would be able to think clu things through when I was running, and I don't know, I just sort of did it for all those reasons. And then off and on throughout most of my life, I stopped for a while. In my early 40s, I was misdiagnosed with arthritis and was told I should stop running. So I stopped running for like a decade and then found out back in my early 50s that that was wrong. I do not have arthritis, that was bursitis, and that as long as I'm, you know, careful uh and stretch and do all those things, I could start running again. So I started running again. Um this is pre-pandemic, but more seriously, right around the pandemic, I started running again.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

Okay. So um that was probably like the best news, wasn't it, when they said you could start running again?

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Absolutely. I was like, hallelujah, why didn't I see a rheumatologist years ago? But anyway. That's great.

SPEAKER_02 5:07

And I laugh at you say that um you didn't like team sports because you know um when I've applied for jobs, you know, I always put I'm a team player. I'm really not.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

I'm really not. See, I'm a team player in a work environment, but when I'm on a sports team, I don't want to be trash talked by the other team. I don't want all my teammates screaming at me to throw them the ball. Like that was all just way too much pressure for me as a when I was a teenager.

SPEAKER_02 5:35

Yeah, I would agree with that. Cause yeah. And I don't like I mean, I don't mind losing, but I don't want to be the reason I lost for a whole time. So that's the other thing, you know. It's too much back there. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. All right. So you showed me you've got a bunch of medals in the back. Tell me about your races and what you've done and what you have planned.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

Yeah, so I've um, gosh, so I started running with a running f buddy, my running buddy, April Rose, about five years, four years ago, four years

Building From 5K To Marathon

SPEAKER_01 6:06

ago this past summer. And she was getting back into it. She's uh 18 years younger than I am, um, but wanted to get back into running after having taken a break after having kids and whatever. Um and so we started running together, and she's really been the one, I would never would have occurred to me to run in any races until she sort of got me into that. And I realized it's a lot of fun to do that because you know, there's a crowd usually, at least at the beginning and the end, and you get a medal from it, and there's sort of a camaraderie that we've developed. So yeah, so she so I started running, you know, 5K's, and then she talked me into a 10K. And it's funny because my husband, who used to run, was like, you know, 10K is really far. And I was like, Yeah, I know, I know, I know, but I'll we'll work up to it. Did the 10K, that was a lot of fun. Then we started, then we did a 10 miler, and then we did signed up for a half marathon. So we kind of worked our way up and did a few of those kinds of distances, and I always swore I would never, ever, ever in a million years run a marathon because I've heard what that can do to your body, and I respect my body too much to punish it like that. And then my running buddy uh got lucky a couple of years ago and got a lottery spot for Chicago. So she ran Chicago last fall, and I had total marathon envy after she did that. I was like, dang it, if she can do it, I might be able to do it too. And I I know I'm a lot older than she is, but maybe if I train and whatever. So she and I decided that we made a little pact that I said, if you'll be my coach and you'll run it with me, she's faster than I am, so she could have totally left me in her dust. Um then I'll do it. She was like, Great. So we picked one, we tried to get into New York, didn't get a a lottery spot, and don't really have the financial means to do one of the charity ones. So we um decided to find a marathon that would work in terms of timing and location and whatever, and signed up for Toronto. Oh yeah. So yeah, so we just did Toronto three weeks ago.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

Oh well, congratulations. Thank you. You're first, and you said um your friend's name is April Rose.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

April Rose, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

Okay. So you're amazing. You have to blame everything, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Right. It's all her fault. Exactly. And so on the well, as we were running it, and I was really hitting a few walls, let's just say, she kept me going because they were definitely I needed some pep talks, let's just say.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

Yeah. So so take us from uh day one when you've decided to do it, and then you sign up, right? And then that's when training really starts because reality has hit, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Yeah, like, oh no, what have I done? Exactly. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

Yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean, you can always bail and you're just out a couple hundred bucks, but you know, it doesn't feel good to bail.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

It doesn't feel good to bail, you know, and that's part of what kept me going during the marathon, too, because bailing, I felt like failure was not an option, you know.

SPEAKER_02 9:06

So tell us about your training runs, um, maybe some things you learned during those, things you hated, things you loved.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Yeah, so um, so like I said, because she'd been through it before, I kind of designated her my marathon coach. So we sat down, we signed up in March, I want to say, um, for the marathon. She, you know, found us a VRBO to stay in for the weekend, whatever. And then we sat down with calendars and kind of mapped out. She followed for her

Training Plan And Life Adjustments

SPEAKER_01 9:39

training plan when she did Chicago, she followed one of the Hal Higdon training plans, marathon training plans. So we basically just copied one of those and um mapped it all out on a calendar so that we have a physical reminder of like what we had coming up each week in terms of runs. And then of course, you know, life happens, so you have to shift, you know, the Tuesday run becomes the Monday run and whatever. Um, but basically we were running three times during the week. So typically Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and then we do a long run on Saturday or Sunday if Saturday didn't work, but usually it was Saturday, Saturday morning. Um and and yeah, and you just kind of you just start accumulating. And before that, before we the training plan officially kicked in at the beginning of June, we um started running together more often just to kind of build up base miles so that when we did start the training plan, it wouldn't that wouldn't kick us in the butt quite as hard. And um, and you know, I had some summer vacations that I had to work around. You know, I took a cruise in June, and on that one I was like running on a treadmill, which I hate. And so, you know, did some of that, but definitely didn't keep up with the mileage that I needed to on that. So tried to make up for it a bit when I got back. But you know, things hiccups like that happen, but we still managed to uh to make it happen. You know, I did a I did a run in, I was had a long weekend in New York City with a good friend of mine and I who were celebrating 50 years of friendship with a little girls' weekend in New York, and I ran nine miles along the Hudson and it was gorgeous. It was the most beautiful. I'm so happy I did it because it was the most beautiful run, one of the more beautiful runs I've done. And you wouldn't expect that in New York City, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:20

So yeah. Did you see that pod um park on the Hudson? Yes, I love that one. That's really cool.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

That's great, yeah. What's really cool? I love that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:30

Um out of the way if you didn't know it was there. Like we stumbled upon it.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

Right? So, like I tried to, to some degree, I tried to incorporate, you know, you try you try to make it fun, right? And there's always the camaraderie, right? So we we would one of the things we love about running together is we just we're chatterboxes, we talk, you know, we admire, we take, we stop and take pictures of things. We're like, you know what, we're gonna be running for miles. We might as well enjoy the scenery. So we're running on rail trails, and we're in central Massachusetts, so it's a beautiful part of the state. So we're taking pictures of wildlife, we encountered a moose. Um, on one of the runs that she had to do without me because I was traveling, she encountered a bear. Um, we were taking pictures of, you know, mushrooms and sunrises and you know, all kinds of things like that. So it was just we again, you try got to enjoy the journey. So um her husband would join us for some of the shorter segments. Like he might not do the whole long run, but he would join us for like the last few miles of it or whatever. He might bring their dogs along. So we had, you know, um, we had I don't know. It was a good, it was a good kind of groove we had going on. And like I said, we did have um, we did have, like I had a vacation in August, and what happened there, I made a mistake. I needed, I knew I needed new running shoes. I knew nothing new on race

Scenic Miles, Setbacks, And Recovery

SPEAKER_01 12:56

day, so I got new running shoes in like early August, and I started running with them. But instead of alternating old shoes and new shoes, which is what I should have done, I was just running on the new shoes, and it turns out the new shoes had a significant difference in terms of heel-to-toe drop than my old shoes had. And I ended up on my vacation with shin splints, like a really bad case of shin splints on my right shin. So I I literally just had to like ice it and elevate it for days, and I was terrified that this was going to completely derail my whole marathon plan and that I wasn't gonna be able to run it, and I was gonna have to give up my bib. And you know how you catastrophize in your head around all these things. So I was like, oh my god, I'm not gonna be able to get that 17-mile run-in that I'm supposed to get in this weekend, and blot it up. So yeah, it was just anyway, total panic. But I I did what I I did all the research and did what I was supposed to do in ice and elevated and slowly kind of stretched and tried to like do some recovery exercises and managed with the help of the internet to figure out how to do all of that. Dr. Google, right? Dr. Google, gotta love it, and managed to get um it recovered so that by the time I got home, it wasn't hurting me anymore. Even toward the end of the vacation, I was able to take some like shorter hikes and things, and it was okay. And then started kind of eased back into the running again, and it was fine ever after that.

SPEAKER_02 14:30

Oh, good.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

Knockwood, I managed, I got I I smartened up, ran on, you know, did all that on my older shoes, and then got new shoes that are basically the exact same thing, just the newer model with the same heel-to-toe drop and lesson learned.

SPEAKER_02 14:45

Yeah, those little goofy things that trip you up. Well, I gotta say that I would I would say that most of us don't get to run our training runs with someone every single run. I know that I run most of my runs alone, and then on the weekend I run with my friends, and we do, you know, a long run or whatever, but yeah, because of our our our shifts and they've got children at home, obviously still little ones, and I don't, and so everything is always chaos um in our lives, and we only can peel away on the weekend to uh to do stuff with people or with each other, I should say. So, what was it like learning to fuel on those uh as you a little longer?

SPEAKER_01 15:31

That's the other that was another lesson um that I had to learn because one of the other things I started doing about a year and a half ago was intermittent fasting. And so shorter runs I would do fasted, and I made the mistake of with my longer runs thinking that I could start them fasted and then just bring fuel and fuel, you know, around mile five or six, and that that would be okay. Um, but then I ran into which one run is it was it was a one- I think it was one of my longer ones. I want to say like an 18-mile run or something. Or no, it was I don't think it was one of the it was anyway. I figured out at one point that like, oh no, I know what it was. It was a 12-mile run, and I shouldn't have been struggling on a 12-mile run because I've done half marathons before. But I

Fueling Lessons And Hitting The Wall

SPEAKER_01 16:26

really hit a major wall on one of our our 12-mile long runs. I was trying to figure out why, like what is c was causing it. And my running buddy said, said, you know, I think you might want to try fueling differently. And I did a little research on it and was like, mm, yeah, she's probably onto something there. Because what happens is if you don't for the longer runs, if you don't even if you're used to fasting for like a four or five or six mile run, if you don't pre-fuel and the fuel doesn't get into your system in time is for what I figured out in hindsight. Anyway, so I figured that out, started toying around with fueling before a run, and once I started doing that, then it like I was fine. But that that really kicked me in the butt hard on that run, and I had to learn that lesson the hard way.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

Yeah, yeah, and that is um when I first started running marathons, that was the thing that I had to learn, and probably all of us, because you hit that wall. You know, for me it was like right around mile 17. I would hit the wall. And once I figured out I just you can't catch up. You have to stay ahead of it. And once I realized that, um, and I had more of a I always say like a steady drip of fuel, right? Because I do a little bit on each, you know, like I don't know, every couple of minutes, just like one piece of candy or whatever. Then I I don't hit the wall anymore. So that was really, really helpful for me. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

It's it's amazing how there are just so many things that you don't at least I don't didn't think about necessarily until they bit me in the butt.

SPEAKER_02 18:35

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and uh unfortunately that's how we learn a lot of things. Right? You know. Oh, that would never happen to me, and then all of a sudden you go, Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_03 18:46

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 18:48

Yep. So you ran um in Toronto. Mm-hmm. Tell us uh about so you said that you had, you know, she had to kind of get you over some humps. Oh yeah. What were do you remember like the mileages and and why you felt that way and what she said that made you go?

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Well, let's see, yeah. So a few different things were going on. So also while all of while the marathon was happening, for just prior to that, my brother, who normally lives in Alaska, had come to Massachusetts to have uh heart surgery. And while he was recovering from heart surgery, he had a massive cardiac arrest. And uh yeah, so he had he was in the cardiac ICU at Mass General. Um, and I had but he had planned his whole surgery around my marathon. So part of what was motivating me at the marathon was all right, you know what, he's in his own marathon right now trying to survive. So you can't like you there's failure's not an option. Like the least you can do is is follow through on your marathon. So I had that kind of going on

Toronto Marathon: Heat, Pain, Grit

SPEAKER_01 19:52

in my head as well, um, which uh helped. But I uh um I think I was doing really well. I've you know, I've got some, you know, a little bit of arthritis in my lower back, you know, probably should have done some more core training than I actually did. So, you know, race day, things were a little stiff, but anyway, my left leg really started to bug me at about when, I don't know, right around mile, probably right around mile 15. My left hip and my quad, like the whole thing was just kind of mad at me. Um I had we had our support squad had come to meet up with us um at we had given them designated places to meet up, and the support squad was my husband and her sister and daughter were there to like with signs and also with supplies. We needed them to cheer us on. And so we had um biofreeze with my friend. So I managed to like kind of slatter some biofreeze, sprayed some biofreeze all over that left leg and kept it going. But I definitely was feeling it. Um, you know, so that was at mile 11 that they met up with us, and then the half marathoners peeled off, and I kind of waved longingly in their direction and wished I was one of them. And then hit mile 15, and that's when it really got hard. And but I basically she was energetic and chipper and just kept saying, nope, you you can do this. Come on, we can do hard things. Like, you know, you can do this. We, you know, we've trained for this, like we got this, you know, just kind of kept reminding me of all the hard work we put into training. And that again, failure was not an option. So um uh it was funny though, at one point. So I would kind of I would sort of get past that, and we would do we were doing some walk-run as well, you know, that helped. Doing some run, walk, run um definitely helped. I probably should have done more of that earlier on and saved. But when I looked at my laps, I actually did okay. Like the first more than half of the race, I was keeping up a pretty solid pace. Um, so that was good. And it wasn't like I went too fast at the beginning. I think I just needed to like maybe spread out my energy a little bit better. But anyway, um at one point, after she'd been giving me another pep talk, this is probably around mile 20, 21, maybe. Uh, we were passing this other couple, and based on their accents, I'm guessing they were from either Australia or New Zealand. And he was, he was saying all the things I'd been saying about this, uh, never gonna do this again, F bomb this, F-bomb that, you know, just blah, blah, blah not having a really hitting a wall. And she was the one giving him the pep talk. And I as we're walking, running by them, I was like, you know, we were just having a very similar conversation. And so I think, again, there's this camaraderie. I think, especially for those of us that were toward the back of the pack, you know, there's a certain level of keeping each other going. Because we were sort of leapfrog people, you know, you'd see the same ones over and over again. At one point, toward the very end, I'm gonna come up on this one guy who was walking, clearly struggling, younger guy, younger African-American guy. And uh I I said to him, I came up behind him and I said, Come on, man, you got this. I think we were like probably at like twice mile 23 or 24. We're very close to the end. I'm like, Come on, man, you got this. If I got this, you got this, you know, you can do it. And we sort of slowly jogged by and he kind of started jogging again. And I noticed when I got my marathon photos that he crossed the finish line right behind us. And then I had and I saw him at the end right after we'd gotten our medals or whatever, and I was like, all right, you did it, yay, you know, kind of thing. So again, I think there's this camaraderie that you have with the people that are sharing in the pain.

unknown 23:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 23:38

What what is that saying about misery loves company? Misery loves company. Yep. Yep. Yeah, yeah, that's so true. When you're um, you know, right there towards the end. It's one of the things I like to say when you know someone's walking, I'm like a 5K. You've got, you know, like if it's where you were at 23, you got a 5K left. Yep. You do 5K's in your sleep. Come on, let's go.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

Yeah, you know. Yep, exactly. Well, that's

Camaraderie At The Back Of The Pack

SPEAKER_01 24:04

and that's what uh that's part of what my running buddy had to keep reminding me of is like, come on, we've trained for this, you can do this, yes, you know, whatever. And I think that it helped that she wasn't struggling too.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

You know, I think if we'd both been struggling, it would have been harder. But she, you know, and it was there was oh, and the and Toronto was great because they were people, even for those of us that were definitely, you know, some of the I wasn't the very dead last. I was there was still like 70 plus people behind me according to the stats. But at the same time, I was close to last, and I was definitely pushing the time limit. Um, but uh there were still people cheering us on, you know, which I I was impressed by because I think by then, I should think by then the crowds would have gotten bored with the whole thing. But uh and there was a young woman who had was out on a bicycle along, you know, bicycling on the sidewalk as we're running in the road, and and she saw, I think I was walking, or I know I had stopped to stretch at a light pole, and she's like, you know, can I help you guys? Do you need anything? And she had in her little bike basket this sort of like, you know, all these little supplies to help out people, you know, energy gels and biofreeze and whatever. Yeah, I was it was really sweet. She was just sort of her own little, you know, marathon support crew for those of us at the caboose end of things. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:20

Traveling aid station. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

Yeah, I mean, like and all this, and then as I was running by in this one spot where we're kind of heading up a ramp, like an overpass sort of thing, I heard someone shouting, and I look off in the distance. There's a person inside their apartment up against their plate grass window, like shouting like, Yeah, you guys kind of thing. And they were like, and I looked around like it was just us. It wasn't like there was a big crowd or anything.

unknown 25:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:44

I often want those people to just kind of show up on my practice runs, you know. Yeah. I was thinking um that I I wonder, had your um friend April, had she been having trouble, that that probably would have turned it around for you and you would have become the cheerleader and forgotten about your pain. So she may have had some little niggles or whatever, and but she was so busy encouraging you. That's a good point. I hadn't thought about that. Yeah, because I I know for me, if I can um find someone to encourage, I forget about my problems. Yeah, you know, because I'm concerned with them. So that could have been the case for her. Mm-hmm. So had she switched it around, then she could you could have encouraged her and you would have forgot about your pain.

SPEAKER_03 26:36

Mm-hmm. Yes. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 26:41

You cross the finish line and then you immediately signed up for another marathon.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

No, no, no. Oh no, heavens no. No. Tell us. In fact, my running buddy kept an assisting. Oh, come on, you want to do another one, you'll want to do another one. And I was like, mm-hmm. I think this might be a one and done for me. Okay. Uh uh, but we'll see. You know, I mean, I've learned never to say never because I always said never a marathon, and here I have done a marathon.

SPEAKER_02 27:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

Um, and I do know, I guess what I in hindsight, what I would do differently next time in terms of, you know, certain things anyway. Lots of lessons have been learned and I think will continue to be learned. I think my next I haven't started running again yet. I did a little research on running on the sort of marathon recovery and thought about it. Um, but I've what I've seen is recommends just doing other stuff, cross-training. I noticed my hips are super tight. Like I've always had pretty tight hips anyway, um, but they're really tight now. So I've been working with like I just took a yoga class yesterday. I have a kind of a one-on-one yoga instructor. Um and so, you know, just trying to like ease back into it. From what I saw online, they recommend, you know, but giving yourself anywhere for at least a couple of weeks, but as much as a month to kind of recover, do other cross-train, swim, bike, do other walk, do other things, and then ease back into running again.

SPEAKER_02 28:06

Um Yeah, I had mentioned to somebody um they were saying they didn't uh feel like running, maybe that was you, I can't remember, online. And I, you know, I said

Post-Race Recovery And Cross-Training

SPEAKER_02 28:18

that when you want to, then do it. Because you get the desire back to to go out again. You know, you start seeing people running going, man, I wish I was running right now. Oh, hey, I can, you know, because nothing's holding back. So when you get that, then then go. Don't rush it if you, you know. Right. For me, uh I'm often ready before my body is. Um, so I have to remind myself, no, you need to take another week off or whatever. Right. Yes. But yeah, when you get that desire back in your brain where you're really Jonesing to get out there again, kind of like that feeling of when they told you you could run after not having run. That's you know, yep, it's time.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

That's when you know, yeah. And I do I do feel that a little bit. Like I'm definitely like my running buddy and her husband and a neighbor of theirs were going for a run this morning. And I was t I was gonna potentially join them, except that I had this whole thing with my cat who disappeared last night and got picked up by animal control that I've been dealing with this morning. So I use that as an excuse not to go for a run this morning. But um, but I do feel like I I will definitely get back to it. Like I I'm not I'm not definitely not quitting.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

Good.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:24

So um afterwards, I've seen, you know, like some of the little memes and stuff of people looking up the stairs, like I gotta climb that flight of stairs. What was that like for you? Were it were you like going, oh man, this is terrible?

SPEAKER_01 29:37

Yeah, so stairs weren't so bad. What I what what I it was interesting, the I'd probably say the most painful part of the whole marathon was after the marathon, the walk from the like party at the finish line back to um the place that we rented, which was, mind you, only like a 15-minute walk. It wasn't obvious, I should say normally probably wouldn't even be a 15-minute walk, but that day was a 15-minute walk. Like my feet just, I think because we've been training mostly on like trails and stuff, the fact that the race was on pavement, I think, made was another kind of thing that we didn't really count for. Probably should have trained a little bit more on pavement than we did. Um, because my feet, which had never ever bothered me on any of the training runs, were definitely I had some blisters, which again I've never had blisters on a run before. Um and just, you know, just they hurt. They ached. They were like done. So I think that that walk back was long and painful, even though it really wasn't long. Um but stairs, I don't remember stairs being too much of an issue. We did have to take some. Um, but yeah, they weren't they weren't horrible. But but definitely like when I if I do a a like if I crouch way down on the floor, because I have pets, so you know, crouch way down on the floor and I go to get up. It's only in the last couple of days that I've gotten to the point where I can go from a on the floor kind of squat to standing without pushing myself off of something, you know, or without using my hands to assist me, basically.

SPEAKER_02 31:18

Well, that's good. You're you're it sounds like almost fully recovered. So good, good job being uh patient with that, with your recovery. Yeah. So if you were to run another marathon coming up, yeah. Well is there one that you have your sights on that you're like, oh, I can I could see myself.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

I don't know. Um my running buddy really wants to do the Marine Corps marathon. Okay. Yeah, but I'm like, but that's DC. Yeah. And I'm trying to I I feel like I need to avoid warm wherever possible and do a nice cool one because the the training runs that were in the cooler days were definitely the ones that I did better on and the marathon day in Toronto was 70 and humid. So that was something else that really impacted the race for me, I think. Um, it was supposed to be nice and cool in Toronto in October, one would think. But it was that bizarre weekend where there was a warm spell that passed through the region and it was 70 and humid, and I was sweating like a beast, and I think that impacted, I think that's part of what caused some of my cramping too, was the electrolytes, even though I was ri replenishing them, so I thought I didn't do a good enough job, I don't think. So anyway, um so so if I so I would probably try to avoid a warm weather marathon

Future Races And Weather Strategy

SPEAKER_01 32:39

for sure. Um so I don't know. I've heard Philly is fun and a little bit hilly, but at least nice and cool in November in Philadelphia. Um I don't know. We'll have I'm I'm not I'm not sure I want to do another one. If I were to do one, I would probably try to find one that was um had a forgiving time limit and um that was in a cooler time of year or cooler climate. So we'll see.

SPEAKER_02 33:09

Yeah. I think in New York, upstate New York, um the wine glass marathon, I feel like that's in the fall. I I want I would love to do that one to to go out there and do that one. Um huh. So wine glass marathon. Yeah. I can't remember what what town it's in. But uh I feel like it's in the fall. Yeah. Yeah. I I wanted to do that one originally when I was doing my states and I did New York, but I ended up doing Buffalo instead. Um so it's funny that you were saying about the the heat this past summer when when we would be on our runs. I'm like, you know, I recall people used to water their lawns, and I would run through the sprinklers, go put my hat in the sprinkler and pop it back in my head. There was none of that this summer. I was so disappointed in my neighborhood. I'm like, how come none of you people are watering your lawns? Right. Oh terrible. Yeah, and but that is nice when you do a marathon and they have um like some one of the aid stations will put up this. There's uh it's like a hoop that you can run through and it it sprinkles water on, it's kind of like a little car wash, and or they'll have buckets of cold ice sponges that you can squeeze or stick your hat in. Yeah, that's always that's always nice for those marathons. They'll do that for yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

They did say uh there was one thing that I was listening to, I was listening to there's a podcast called uh Fuel for the Soul or something like that that has to do with you know fueling for runs and whatever, and they were talking about warm weather marathons and long distance runs and whatever, and they were talking about how you know if you need to go to one of the aids, the next aid station that has water, instead of drinking it, pour it over your head. Like just you know, cool yourself off one way or the other.

SPEAKER_02 34:53

Yeah, yeah. When I ran um Vegas, we started at I don't know, like five in the morning or something, it started at 77 degrees, you know. And so towards the end, when the sun came up and I was hitting those aid stations, I was sticking my hat under their water, you know. I thought, sorry if I'm wasting this, but this is gonna be my head.

SPEAKER_01 35:12

You've got to do what you've got to do, you know? Like, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 35:17

So was there a um during your uh training and stuff, were there fueling options that you found that didn't work for you, or you had some favorites that you can tell the listeners that you know, I recommend this or this didn't work for me?

SPEAKER_01 35:32

Um well see, I experimented with a few things. Um I don't love the Yukan gels. There's sort of uh there's a flavor to them that I don't love, but I've discovered that if I put the Yukan powder, the unflavored powder in a smoothie and had that had that before, you know, like in the morning before a long run, um, that that would help excuse me, that would help to uh keep me going. Okay. Right. So uh 'cause my my running

Gels, Electrolytes, And What Worked

SPEAKER_01 36:05

buddy swore by the you you can stuff as like good for you know fueling you, not giving you the big spike and dip, but giving you a nice even bit of energy. So I and she gave me the powders to try because she didn't like the powders in water, but then I saw on the packet that they recommended putting in a smoothie, and I tried that, and that worked pretty well. Um I also um experimented, I had saw I saw on the website of the marathon that they were going to be giving out like you know goo brand stuff. So I thought, well, I've used some of those before, so why don't I experiment with some more of those? And they make a kind called Roctane, which is like their longer distance. Don't love the flavor of those, but like there's an odd, excuse me.

SPEAKER_02 36:52

Yes. Uh you see me sipping my coffee, at least you have water. Sorry, some all of a sudden I have a tickle in my throat. That's okay. Yeah, I've um I've I used to do the Rock Tane and uh and the goose and and I've tried the uh the you can. For you for me, the you can um the consistency, I think, for me was kind of weird. I was I struggled with the the way it felt in my mouth.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

Yeah, yeah. So it yeah, so I've tried a few different um things like that. I'm trying to think what were the ones that I that I grabbed. So I tended to like I liked the regular goose well enough, and those were the ones they were going to be handing out at the race. Turns out I ended up not really taking any of the race ones. I just packed my own. I did experiment a little bit with pickle juice because of the whole cramping thing. So I got these little pickle juice shots, and uh um I'm not sure why or how they work, but they do work. It's a pretty temporary fix, but it does work.

SPEAKER_02 37:48

Yeah, I um my husband saves all the pickle juice for me through the summer and I just drink it out of the jar. I love it. Uh I don't really care for pickles, but I love pickle juice.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

Isn't that funny? Yeah. Um though the the the actual electrolyte stuff that I love, love, love and that I use all year round now um is element. Oh yeah. Yeah and I get the raw unflavored kind, and I'll just keep that in my water. Um you know, especially when I was training. I just even when on the days when I wasn't running, I just always keep trying to try to keep my electrolytes up. Sure. Um and uh yeah, so that stuff is is great. And I would, you know, I put that in my in my whatever I'm drinking a lot of the time. Um so yeah, I just have them on a like a subscription at this point because I go through so much of it. I did like, I have to say, I did like the um one of the things that Goo makes that I did like, and I had that as like my sort of mid-run fuel, was um they make energy waffles. Oh and they had some of them are caffeinated as well. So I experimented a little bit with that, which I found to be helpful. And then the salt stick um makes tablets of electrolytes, so I had they're like little pills that you chew them, you whatever, you just swallow them. They're like they look like little, you know, magnesium pills or whatever, but they're saltstic. And so I had those in my pouch with me, and just um periodically would take one of those, and actually helped out some other runners with some of those too, because I brought extra. So I was I was I was dealing saltstick on the run, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:28

So uh one of my friends that I run with, um, I had always had the capits like you're saying that you swallow first for uh salt uh pills. And she had one um she gave me because I had forgotten mine. This was cut several years ago, but it was a chewable, but she didn't tell me it was a chewable. And it's huge. And I'm I'm trying to swallow it. I find I'm like, how are you swallowing that? She's like, oh sorry, it's a chewable because I'm like dying.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

Oh yes, yes, yes, those who do chew. And I do like

Goals, Gadgets, And Motivation

SPEAKER_01 40:01

the chewable ones too. I do too. But yeah, sometimes it's just easier to be able to pop the other ones than to chew anything or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 40:08

So don't try to swallow those people.

SPEAKER_03 40:11

They're they're really good.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

And don't try to chew the other ones either, because I don't think they would taste like it. Yeah. Gotta get it right. Right? Absolutely, absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:20

So you don't have your eye on anything, any marathons in the um coming up future. Do you have anything?

SPEAKER_01 40:26

So nothing yet. I haven't registered for anything yet. I do want to, I think at some point, register for, like I said, either for a 10 miler or a half marathon or something to give me another goal to work toward. Yeah. For now, I s I sort of Um, I think once I get back into running again, I'll just use some of the Garmin challenges to keep me going. We we like to joke my running buddy and I and her husband and whatnot, because we all have Garmin devices on whose Garmin is nicer and whose Garmin is meaner, and because they we all have different models and it's just funny because like my Garmin will say that we've done like a half mile more than her Garmin will say we've done or whatever. And I'm just like, well, mine's nicer. Yours is just crabby, you know, or or yours is stingy or whatever. Turns out hers is probably more accurate. But um anyway, so yeah, so we we use those challenges sometimes to keep us on the straight and narrow if we don't have an actual race that we're training for.

SPEAKER_02 41:20

Sure. Yeah, I'm like our thing tells me I'm I'm unproductive. I'm like, you don't know me. You don't know me. I'm not unproductive. Seriously. So do you have any words of wisdom for maybe somebody who has never been their first marathon or is like on the fence about it?

SPEAKER_01 41:39

Yeah. I would say train as long as you train, and what I would recommend, what I think I was a little lazy about and would do differently next time, is do more strength training. So don't just train runs, but incorporate some good core. Especially if you're somebody who has any back pain, then especially if you have back pain be when you run, like core. Strengthen your core, um, do some, you know, do some more strength training. I think I should have been doing more of that

Advice: Strength, Core, And Methods

SPEAKER_01 42:13

in hindsight. Um, then the run marathon would have been easier, and I probably would have, you know, finished it a little quicker with a little less pain if I had done more strength training. So um, but I would say as long as you train for it, like we started our training plan kind of late May, early June, and then the marathon was October 19th. Um, so you know, follow a training plan, have an accountability buddy if you're like me and you need somebody to keep you on the straight and narrow. Um, incorporate, though, I'd say at least a couple of workouts a week that are strength training workouts. Um, that's where I was a little too lazy, I think. Um but yeah, and go for it.

SPEAKER_02 42:55

I like that. Yeah, I definitely go for it. But yeah, strength training is huge. I have uh an athlete currently that she doesn't do the strength training I give her. You know, I mean I can't make her. She nope, you know, you can't. You can't my part of the the job she hired me for, she has to do her part. So exactly. But yeah, but yes, strength training is huge. Nice to hear it from other people besides me just harping people.

SPEAKER_01 43:23

It really is. And one of the other things too, I did a workshop a couple of years ago on qi running. Um, so especially if you're an older person, and that's where core is super important. So if you the more you can incorporate, because I would find that when I was struggling, if I would tighten my core while I was running and try to remind myself of some of the chi running techniques, then I would it would take some of the pressure off my legs.

SPEAKER_03 43:47

Interesting. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:49

One of my friends found a Qi running book in one of the free libraries in town. I have not yet read it, but I have it. So I'll look forward to that.

SPEAKER_01 43:58

Yeah, I think, I think again, they've got some, it's a it's a great method. Um, that and the run walk run, the Galloway method. Yeah. Um, those are all good, I think can be good things. And the other thing that I love is if you haven't read any of Martinus Evans, the slow AF run club guy, he's so inspiring. And, you know, and I just love that his whole his whole approach is that everybody can be a runner. Anybody can be a runner. You don't have to have a certain physique or have a certain, you know, be a certain age or any of that. Like you could anybody can run. And I just I love that sort of embracing of of it being a community for everybody, regardless of how much you weigh, or how old you are, or you know how fast you are or not. Exactly. Exactly. And you know what? You're getting it done one way or the other. And I love there are some people that I follow on social media, and of course I can't think of their names right now, but that are, you know, slower runners. And I just love that they're getting it done.

SPEAKER_02 45:02

Yep, yep. Yeah, the running community is uh is a pretty fine community.

SPEAKER_01 45:07

Yeah, and I I think that it's it's getting less, you know, there are still those people that will try to like, you know, shame you if you don't do things a certain way or whatever. There are still going to be those purists in the running community, but I think you know, more and more and more people who don't necessarily fit the profile of what we used to think of as a runner um are are getting involved in running, and that's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 45:31

I agree.

SPEAKER_01 45:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:33

Well, on those wonderful words, I think we'll wrap this up. I do appreciate your time and being on the show. And uh my pleasure. Oh, I'm excited. I'll look forward to talking to you again after you do your next one.

SPEAKER_01 45:46

Ah, we'll see about that.

SPEAKER_02 45:49

Don't hold

Inclusive Running And Community

SPEAKER_02 45:50

your breath.

unknown 45:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 45:51

All right. Thanks, Karen. Bye-bye. Thank you. Bye-bye. All right. Well, thanks everybody for listening to uh Kieran and I have a nice chat. Uh how did you like the new commercial? I used to have that on the radio, and I said, hey, you know, I paid for that. I'm gonna plug that into the podcast. So I hope you enjoyed that. I thought it was fun and kind of plugs me a little bit more for my coaching. Uh so yeah, don't forget to follow and rate the show. Share it if you think there's somebody that would like to hear this uh information. You can go back several episodes. I've talked to several professionals, uh uh Jeff Galloway being one of them.

Closing Notes And Final CTA

SPEAKER_02 46:31

So you can look for his episode in there as well. And thanks again, and we'll see you soon.