Connecting the Dots

Connecting the Dots...with a coach from Canada (Christy McFadden)

• Adam Leishman • Season 1 • Episode 34

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Tune in as we explore Coach Christy's transition from a corporate career to becoming a beloved figure in the local running scene. Hear her thoughts on coaching, community building, and empowering women in sports. #WomenInSports #RunningCommunity #CoachLife

Speaker:

Week 34. Since I turned 49 and decided I'm going to do this every week and chat to somebody I find interesting or I want to know more about or I just like them. This person I met the very first day I turned up to Moreton Bay Road Runners and they're just, their, their passion for the running community and coaching and just wanting the runners around them to have a good day and get better is just, you'll see what I'm talking about. Let's go meet her.

Speaker 3:

This is Christy. Hello. Now I know you as Coach Christy and you were the, when I joined, I joined what is coming up two years ago at the Moreton Bay Road Runners. Yep. And when I first turned up to a Tuesday morning session, you were the first person I met.

Speaker 2:

Ah, very nice.

Speaker 3:

And and I remember saying to you I just, you know, I, I, I followed Liam at the park run as a pacer on the weekend before, and I was here to get paced. And then I went down the path of everyone talking about marathons and you get sucked in. Game up that dream. I always love to. Start chatting to somebody about what they do. But yours is going to be a multifaceted question and answer because what you do now is not doesn't encompass everything that interests me, but let's start with what do you do now? Like for work wise? Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Well now I'm a full time run coach and support worker and own this Airbnb as well. That's in my backyard. So yeah, but a year ago I was made redundant after working in corporate for a very long time. Senior leader as a data analyst. So completely different to what I do now. I didn't even know the world of support work existed. And yeah, I kind of stumbled into that and I absolutely love the coaching side of things. And then I love the support work that I do. And it's just, I don't know, it's so different to crunching numbers and doing data analysis stuff. So what's the, What is it? Oh God. You know, it's funny. My sister just said to me recently. She goes when people ask me what you do I always said she's like Chandler. No one knows what she does Anyway, friends, a little bit of a friends reference there, but I worked for a bank. So we would like, say during COVID, we would try to help customers and we would try to predict who we thought might default on their home loan. For example, if they were, look like they were in a bit of strife, that sort of thing. There was lots of APRA, so regulatory type reporting as part of that role as well. Before that I worked at Virgin, so I was working with Velocity. Members and you're trying to, you know, target the right marketing campaigns and that sort of stuff to those customers. So a lot of analysis, programming, I'm a bit of a data geek, actually, which kind of fits into the coaching as well, because I love data and there's so much data available these days.

Speaker 3:

Made redundant? And then you've gone into a more commercial sense of coaching, I guess, because you've been coaching for a long time.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I had to go back and get my certificate out and it was 2010 that I got my certificate. My actual certificate. Before that I was even mentoring athletes and that sort of thing. So I've been coaching a long time, but never in the paid sense because I had a good corporate job that was paying the bills and that sort of thing. And you know, it was a weird time last year because you're like, do I go back to corporate? Do I go for a different role at the company? And I went, you know what? I don't know. I was kind of just feeling a bit unsettled in corporate and kind of like, there's got to be more. It's a lot more to it out there than just the money and anyway, it wasn't just about the money. I did enjoy what I did. But it was a big decision to move away from that and a risky one at my age and, you know, single mom on my own and paying the bills and that sort of thing. But I'm not, I'm not keen enough to go back yet. And it's been over just over a year. I just ticked over a year that I've been out of corporate now. Yeah, wow. Yeah, very different.

Speaker 3:

Sorry. You now do, and it's called Christie's Run Coaching. Yeah, you can tell I'm not a marketing person, I'm

Speaker 2:

a data

Speaker 3:

person.

Speaker 2:

Very original.

Speaker 3:

And and before that you were a coach to Moreton Bay Road Runners. Yeah, yeah, and I still do

Speaker 2:

that. I'm

Speaker 3:

guessing at some point that came from a knowledge of running yourself?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I have a little bit of background in running. So, I started running my second year uni. This is going to show how old I am now. But I've been running, I think, for about 32 years now. So Way back when running wasn't a cool thing to do. There wasn't running clubs everywhere. There was no fancy watches. You kind of just do it. I did it cause I didn't want to put on the university 10 pounds or 20 pounds or whatever it was. I wanted to stay fit and healthy. I was always athletic, but not a runner. So yeah, I took it up in my second year uni and joined varsity. By my fourth year, I did masters as well, so I was in university a while. So I, I ran for varsity, but I wasn't very fast. I was the slowest on the team, but I still did it. I loved it. Wow.

Speaker 3:

What's your favorite distance?

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's

Speaker 3:

a tough one, Adam. What was your favorite distance? Because I guess it's one of those things that changes over years.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I've evolved as a runner. I think, When I was younger and faster, probably my best performance, I would say it was at the marathon distance. I've never been super fast at 5k or even 10k. But I'm pretty proud probably of my half and marathon time. I think I'm a better long distance runner, which is funny. Cause I was a sprinter in school. Like I'm talking very late when I was young. But. Probably that half marathon to marathon when I was a fast road runner, well, fast ish, whatever you, whatever you call defined fast. Well, let's define it.

Speaker 3:

What were your

Speaker 2:

My PB in the marathon is 328. So I wanted to do that sub 330. It took me a few goes. But I did it Melbourne maybe 10 years ago now. So kind of once I did that, I was like, like, I don't really care if I go sub 325 or like, I kind of was like, well, you're fast enough. And then you just start to go further and further and hit the trails. And yeah, and what

Speaker 3:

about your half?

Speaker 2:

138.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Wow. Okay.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. And so a lot of trial work now.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So I have done, well, I did cross country varsity. So it's sort of trails. And then a buddy of mine who was turning 50, this was back in 2009 said, Hey, will you come and do it's called six foot track marathon, which was actually 45 and down in the blue mountains. He said, will you come and do that for my 50th? And I said, yes. So I had no idea what I was in for. And that's kind of then when I started. So even though it was 16 and a half years ago that's sort of when I started trail running. And then obviously that's not all I've done in the 16 years, but on and off, I kind of keep going back to that. And yeah, I love that aspect of it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Wow. I've got to ask, you have an accent, so, where, where's the accent from? So I'm Canadian,

Speaker 2:

not American, I'm Canadian.

Speaker 3:

And how long have you been away from there or here? Have you only ever lived here and there?

Speaker 2:

Well, I lived in the States. Okay. I lived in the States, in North Carolina for a year. I did not get a Southern drawl while I was there, but so I lived, that's kind of where I started my career as a programmer. And then I went, Hmm, I don't think this is what I want to do forever. Let's go travel. And I got my working holiday visa and moved to Sydney and then got sponsored to the company I worked with there and stayed in Sydney for four years. And then I went back to Toronto for five, had the kids there, and then went, you know, I hate winter. I love running outside. And now I've been in Brisbane for, since 2008. So I've kind of spent most of my adult years, I guess, in Australia. Cause I just, I love it here.

Speaker 3:

you've just been on holidays back to there. Yeah. No, there was no moment where you're like, Oh, I could move back. No, right.

Speaker 2:

Especially this time of year when it's freezing cold. I was like, Oh yeah, no, I'm just such an outdoor person. I hate the treadmill. I was on the treadmill a lot while I was home because it's so cold and yeah, no, this, this feels like home. For me now, and this is where I've raised the kids and yeah, awesome.

Speaker 3:

Yeah Coaching why? What do you enjoy about it?

Speaker 2:

I think for me I love The the social side of things I love seeing people It doesn't matter if they're training for a 5k or a marathon or an ultra. I love the Seeing people achieve their goals, right? It doesn't matter the time, that satisfaction when they cross that line and whether I'm there or they send me a message going, Oh, Christy, you know, this has just been incredible. I'm so proud that I've achieved this goal. But then there's this whole social side, like with Morton Bay Roadrunners, when I was coaching, whatever, 15 years ago, I'd be lucky to get three or four or five people show up on a Tuesday morning and now we get, you know, 25 to 35 people. And I love that. I love meeting new people. I love everyone has a story. Everyone has a background how they got into running or what their goals are. And it's just. It's the diversity of work, like I said, whether it's someone who's never run a step before and they come to me and they want to learn how to run 5k or they want to do their first ever marathon or whatever it is, it's, the, the work is so satisfying personally and it's just so diverse, every athlete's different and there's a whole psychology to it as well I find people come to me because They want to be coached by me. It's not otherwise they just go on the internet and find a coaching program.

Speaker 3:

So

Speaker 2:

yeah, it's fascinating. I love it.

Speaker 3:

What are some of the things that coaching does for somebody? What are some of those things people should consider that would, You know, be benefited to them to use a coach.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think a lot of athletes come to me for accountability. So some people like they lack that. Whatever drive to get out the door. I know you don't because you run every day. But. that they need to know that I'm checking in on them because then they're like, Oh, this is in my program. I have to run today. I have to do this. Other people come to me because they just have no idea how to train. They maybe looked at a program online or whatever it is, but they don't know how to train for a half marathon or a 10 K or a marathon. And they're just looking for that guidance. The thing is there are lots of programs out there and anyone can go in and download something, but it's that one on one, that constant feedback of, I think you can run at this pace. And they go, are you crazy? I can't run that fast. And I'm like, no, just trust the process. You can run that fast. So it's that constant feedback of pushing themselves, you know, a bit out of their comfort zone. And then it's. You know, kids get sick, they get sick, they have a horrible week at work. Like a program isn't going to tell you, Oh, if you miss this run, then what do you do? So it's just that, that constant feedback, I guess, of, you know, okay, well, let's pivot. Then you've been sick, you've got COVID or whatever you've had for the last two or three weeks, you pivot and you go, okay, well now let's go down this direction. You know, some people come to me and just even ask about strength training sort of things, or, They don't know how to prepare, say, especially on a marathon or a half marathon where you might need you know, gel, well, you definitely will need gels and fluids and all that sort of stuff. So it's that, I guess, years of experience that I can bring to the table, lots of mistakes of my own that I've made. And then you, you kind of navigate that because every athlete is so different as well. So you've got to just treat them as individuals.

Speaker 3:

And and trial running, is that something you, Do you see coaching, do people look for coaching in trail running as well? Yeah,

Speaker 2:

absolutely. Yeah, so I just had an athlete, well, it's been a while now, it did Guzzler and yeah, I do all sorts of trails. Trails is probably even in some ways a bit trickier, because you do, especially the longer trails, because you have checkpoints and a lot, greater time that you're out there on your own, you have mandatory gear that you have to carry, especially if you decide to go down in the mountains. So there's a lot more aspects to, okay, you're going to need six gels on this marathon kind of thing. And

Speaker 3:

I guess for somebody that's never done it like me, I wouldn't even, you probably need to carry some stuff for all sorts of eventualities. And

Speaker 2:

even snakes, right? And how do you treat a snake bite? Not that there's that many snakes on the trails, but you know, you got to be prepared for. The case that there could be snakes on the trails. And what if you get caught in a storm on the top of Kosciuszko, which I have 50 percent of the time I've been down there. Yeah. You got to be prepared for those sorts of things.

Speaker 3:

Trails are typically longer than, you know, normal road running.

Speaker 2:

Oh, not necessarily. So there's a lot more trail races that have popped up like the Southeast Queensland trail series. 6K to. I think the longest is around 20 K. Yep. I've gravitated more to the longer stuff. I just, I love being out in nature and I guess you get more bang for your buck.

Speaker 3:

What's the longest distance you've done?

Speaker 2:

I've done three 100 mile races.

Speaker 3:

A hundred and so that's 160 kilometers. 160 hundred 62 162 kilometers. And you've done that three times?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. Wow.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that was a bit

Speaker 3:

painful. They take a while.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. It depends, like, again, it depends on the terrain. So the one that I just did recently was. I would call it a very flat trail run on the Brisbane Valley rail trail. And that I think we did in just over 27 hours. Whereas if you go down to the mountains, I've done one down in the Victorian Alps, like you can appreciate how hilly that is and technical. And unfortunately it got called off with 20 K to go because the weather was atrocious and they couldn't, they, you have to be able to safely be on the trails. And if you needed to get rescued, A vehicle needs to get there and there was a big storm coming and anyway that when I was 44 hours in 140k when we got called. So

Speaker 3:

in those types of long runs like that are you moving most of the time? Are you, is there any rest? Sleeping? No sleeping. No sleeping. So you're just grinding it out?

Speaker 2:

Grinding it out. You stop at checkpoints, you know, maybe change your socks or your shoes or I typically run all day and you have to get food right? You can't run, well maybe the pros can run. They wouldn't run that long, of course, but maybe they can go more on a liquid diet, but I need, you know, whether it's a sandwich or some noodles or something, I need some food in my stomach. So you stop maybe for 10 minutes and have something to eat. And then as it gets dark, I usually always do a full change of clothes because you're sweaty and gross. And it just, you feel better if you give your face a wipe, brush your teeth, put on a few change of clothes and then go through the night. So,

Speaker 3:

I mean, at this point, I think you're crazy now that I've now that I've had a conversation with somebody. There's this more understanding behind it. That every time you stop to get going must get harder and harder.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, definitely. And that's why they always say beware of the chair. You don't want to sit too long. There was a couple times in that mountain when I think because it was so wet, my feet were wet for the whole 44 hours. We started in the pouring rain. I just, I, they actually have like little sleep stations and I did go down and just lay there for 10 minutes going, what am I doing with my life right now? So I did have just a lay down. You don't sleep because your adrenaline's going and you get sore. But yeah, getting back up out of the chair. After something like that, it's like, Oh God, everything kind of hurts. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And so recovery takes a while after you finish one of these?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Yeah, it does. Usually I've learned to tape my feet, but two of the a hundred miles I've done, my feet were atrocious. And the last one, because of the, or not the last one, the second last one, because of the rain and wet feet, there wasn't, wasn't much I could do about that. My feet were just absolute mess. I don't even want to get into the details of what happened to my feet, but it wasn't pretty. But yeah, like I typically take a couple months. When I say off, I still try to get back running after two or three weeks. I'm a huge advocate, whether someone trains for a half or a marathon, to take a couple of months of downtime where you're not stressed about going out and running, or you just go, well, if I feel like going for a run, I'm going to go for a run. If I feel like getting on my bike or getting in the pool or, you know, Cross training, whatever it is, because for a lot of the time when we're training for events, it's very, very hard mentally and physically. So I, I'm a big believer in taking a couple months a year just to not worry about anything. So. So I'm still a little bit, like this was mid September, and I can still feel a little niggle but it's been nice just having a bit of downtime, and I was in Canada anyway, so good excuse to be a bit lazy.

Speaker 3:

Before we hit record, you mentioned Sydney and Melbourne marathons. Yeah. Expand on that for me. Well, Brisbane.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So my very first marathon I did, I was living in Sydney at the time and hey, let's have the Olympics in 2000. So I signed up for my first marathon, which was the Sydney host marathon. So in, on April 30th, 2000, I don't know if you remember the blue line that that was the marathon course. Yep. That was held in twenty two thousand and then they got, not emailed, they would have sent me a letter because back then I don't think email hardly existed and I could volunteer at the Olympics. So I actually volunteered. I still have my volunteer outfit from the Sydney Olympics and I'm so excited for Brisbane to get the Olympics because my plan, as long as my body holds up, is to run another road marathon, which I haven't done for a number of years. at the Brisbane host marathon and then hopefully I can volunteer as well at that marathon so.

Speaker 3:

And so they have a You call Brisbane like a host marathon, is it before the Olympics? Yeah,

Speaker 2:

yeah. So it's like a trial course. Right. So they get everything right. Okay. At least that's what they did in 2000. Okay. I'm assuming they still do that. Yep. Just to make sure that the course is right and they know where to put the water stop. I guess, you know, it's like a trial for the actual marathon. So, anyway, hopefully they still do that. Because I'd love, regardless, I'll put my hand up to volunteer at the, at the I think

Speaker 3:

the loose rumor for the Brisbane Olympics is it'll be at the Sunshine Coast. I heard that. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Which, anyway, I have mixed thoughts on, but whatever, it is what it is. The sunny coast is beautiful. I can see why they would do that. But so is Brisbane. Brisbane's a great place to run as well. I've done that marathon a couple of times. Yeah.

Speaker 3:

So support work. Coaching people running and Airbnb. We're sitting here in front of this wall, which I, I, as soon as we walked in here, I went, this looks amazing. And you spoke about how it took some time. How's, how's the Airbnb going?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's, it's surprisingly really good. I wasn't sure who would come and stay, and I'm pretty picky because it's in my backyard and I want people that are quiet. And but yeah, I've opened up in mid September and While I was overseas, my daughter looked after everything. She's a great little cleaner and that sort of thing. So it's just a loft bedroom, one bathroom, you know. It's a

Speaker 3:

great space. It looks, I would, I would say it looks like the brochure. I feel like I'm at a proper B& B. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. A

Speaker 2:

lot of blood, sweat and tears went into this place. And this wall I

Speaker 3:

love.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Yeah. I'm pretty proud of, I always built it like, I was going to live in here someday. So that might be the plan where I go and travel more than I'm at home. And I can, you know, come and stay out here while I rent out the house. And yeah, so it's going really well.

Speaker 3:

So tell me about the future, what's going to be the future for well, the coaching business?

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm a huge advocate of women in running. I have been a bit frustrated over the years when I turn up to, you know, the longer distance runs, like the hundred kilometer, a hundred mile runs, and it's me and a handful of other women and lots of men. So, you know, I'm always advocating for women and especially in those longer distances. I'm, I have a few theories maybe of why there's not as many women, but you know, I guess if I can just do my little part to get more women involved in the sport, see that it is possible. Like. I'm a single mom, I can still, I know my kids are a bit older now, but I get, I've still been able to manage that balance between you know, all the training that goes into it. And I think just that confidence, like I just wish women sometimes would have a bit more confidence to say, yeah, I'm going to go for a hundred miles or a hundred K or whatever it is. So I'd love to see more women in the, in the sport. I, last year I got the job at Mary McKillop, which is an all girls school. So I think it's important to see more female coaches. In that sort of setting I felt a little bit sad that my, I didn't coach when my daughter was there. She's like, mom, I've all I've ever had was middle aged men coaching. And I don't know, I just think it's important for women to be more visible in coaching roles. And yeah, I'm a huge advocate for getting more and more women into whether it's trail running or the longer stuff or whatever it is. So that's, I'm quite passionate about that. Yeah, I'd like to do more trail running camps, so I kind of did a trail running workshop for people that have no clue about trail running and want to come out. Yeah, and the support work, I don't know, I just, I love it and I, I don't see myself going back to corporate anyway, not unless my financial advisor comes back to me and says, you're never going to be able to retire, and I have to go back, but I, yeah. I think I'll be all right. It's yeah. And then personally, I've signed up for Honslow or Hounslow, which is down in the blue mountains. One of my absolute favorite places to run. That's in September. 44 kilometers, I think with 2, 500 meters of elevation. So I'll be hitting the serious. Hills and trails and stuff like that again this year and maybe plans to go to New Zealand next year for some more trial stuff I love racing over in New Zealand.

Speaker 3:

I believe that the benefit of New Zealand is nice nice night No snakes nice night

Speaker 2:

So not like it's funny how it's obviously in your back of your head all the time when we run here and you always have Your snake bandage and there would be like climbing up, you know grassy slopes and there's no snakes in here I don't have to think about it So huge advantage. And if you run down the South Island, you can just fill your water bottle up in the creeks if they're, if they're like glacier or really freshwater creeks.

Speaker 3:

So,

Speaker 2:

yeah, it's beautiful running over there.

Speaker 3:

Awesome. Well, thank you very much for chatting with me today. No problem.

Speaker 2:

Thanks, Adam.

Speaker 3:

Thank you. I can hear a storm brewing inside.

Speaker 2:

It's going to turn nasty soon.

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Adam Leishman

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