180. Running After HA, for the ALS Association and My Dad

In this episode I chat about running again after healing my hormones AND being pregnant as well as running for a purpose: to END ALS. I chat about my dad and the man that he is and why I've never felt so called to do something before. 

Donate to help me END ALS: https://secure2.convio.net/alsa/site/TR/Endurance/Minnesota?pg=personal&px=9354563&fr_id=17628

My Strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/1174334639

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Everything I'm doing has so much more purpose, and I just feel ignited. I feel ignited in a million ways to do this. And I think God did all of these things. He placed the ALS association in my life. He gave me my child. He had that conversation with me when I was going through period recovery. All these things have happened so that I can be healthy again. And he knew that our family would grapple with this terrible, terrible situation. And he wanted to give us hope. He wanted to give each of us hope in different ways, including my dad. Anyway, so I have this kind of multi-layered situation in that I am training for a purpose, but I also have to, and because I feel the privilege now that I have seen these things, but I also come from a background of doing too much and not taking care of myself. And what I will say is that the situation, one, with my child and having her change my life forever, and I will never neglect my body again. But two, seeing what my father's going through, I will never neglect my body again. And three, just the promises I made to God during HA recovery are also very powerful. Welcome to the Knight Fit Podcast. I'm your host, Emily Knight. I'm a running and strength coach whose primary mission is to help runners reach their goals and maintain their strength without sacrificing their true health. On this podcast, we talk about all things health and fitness so that you can stay up to date on some of today's latest research. I host inspiring guests, drop solo episodes where I explore pertinent topics and get to the heart of many of our questions around what it means to chase our fitness goals and prioritize our wellness. So sit back and get ready for an awesome conversation. Hey everybody, and welcome back to the Night Fit Podcast. Hope you're having a lovely Monday so far. Just to set the scene before we dive into running post-hypothalamic amenorrhea and running for the ALS organization, just kind of me chatting about honestly a life update when it comes to my fitness training, my running training, what's going on with my family, grappling with the new diagnosis, kind of just honestly me being able to share what's really going on and how things are going with running, postpartum, but also after having a missing period for a while in my life. Um, and just all those things. And then also what we're dealing with with my dad who is sick. Um just kind of chatting with you guys, pouring out from the heart. But to set the scene, I am sitting at the kitchen table. It is 7 a.m. Lainey sleeps like a dream. I have a little baby monitor next to me. She's upstairs in the bassinet, still sleeping. She usually wakes up around 8, so hoping I can get this pod done in this little hour window I have. And then over lunch today, my husband offered to watch her so I could go to the treadmill at the gym and get a run-in because we got a snowstorm this weekend. Absolutely absurd. Don't know why that would happen. It's March. It's March 16th to be exact. And we got a snowstorm and we got like 17 inches of snow. And it was in the 50s last week. And then by the end of this week, it's going to be 60 again. So I really just think Minnesota is bipolar and doesn't know what they want because dealing with beautiful weather and then a snowstorm and negative temperatures and ice and then back to beautiful weather has just been a lot for my emotions, to be completely honest. And with that, just everything going on in my life. Um, I just want beautiful, consistent weather so I can train and run outside like I want to, because yeah. So that's kind of the scene here. Um, excited to get my run in later today. And um yeah, spend the day with Lainey. That's what I do full-time. I'm a full-time mama, and then I do the podcast, and then I do social media. Had to sadly, just given circumstances with my family and my dad, had to pause my one-on-one clients right now just because I wanted more time outside of motherhood and the podcast and social media to invest back in my family, to be present for my family. And so I think that's kind of a good segue into things, right? Into what's going on in my life. So I feel like it makes more sense to start with the family update, kind of ALS and all those things, and then kind of talk about running as I talk about that, because I've been getting back into it and running with a purpose and even more intention than I ever have in my life. And also not just because my dad is sick, but because I have this perspective of running for the wrong reasons and not having my period and all those things. So it's really just this multi-layered state that I'm in right now. Um so let's start with that. My dad, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 2021. And that was a crappy diagnosis to begin with. We weren't ecstatic about it, we were pretty dang bummed about it as a family. And I've talked openly about how in 2023 I kind of suffered with a relapse of my eating disorder because I had a lot of stressors going on. I was planning a wedding, I was transitioning to night fit full-time, and then I was grappling with this, right? And I've alluded to it several times. And when you first get a diagnosis, it sucks. And especially when you're a child and you think about your parents and your family, and these people you saw as heroes your whole life, or the people you look to for just protection, seeing them in pain or seeing them dealing with something that is outside of their control. And honestly, it feels like punishment from God. And I have had, and I could do a whole podcast on how this has tested me with my faith. And obviously, I think anyone who goes through anything really hard in life, it tests you. And I have to remind myself that it's it's not from God. This is not from God, He's not punishing my dad. But at the time, I it was really hard. And in 2023, I was dealing with that, among other things. And then unfortunately in 2025, things just seemed to progress too fast with his illness. And Parkinson's is unique in that everyone's trajectory is different. Um, and some people progress faster, some slower, but he seemed to have a very fast progression, and with that, too, just symptoms that didn't quite align with Parkinson's. And so unfortunately, in 2025, my dad was also diagnosed with ALS. And when I say that that broke us as if like it just broke our hearts, you can't, and anyone listening who's had a parent go through a house health crisis, serious or more minor, you know what it feels like to try to fall asleep at night, to try to be present in your shoes where you're at, and also struggle with just the pain that you feel for this person, this person that your whole childhood or throughout your life just gave you everything, gave you opportunities, gave you protection, gave you love, gave you support. And even if your parent didn't, but they're struggling, there's something so particular about a parent suffering with illness. And yeah, I that was it was terrible, and it shattered us, and it was something out of a movie because you're like, isn't this supposed to happen to everybody else and not my family? Like, isn't everyone else supposed to get sick, not my family, right? Um, isn't this something that's supposed to be in the peripher periphery someone else is dealing with? It's not my parent. That's how I felt because he was now at that point, this past summer, diagnosed with two diseases at the same time Parkinson's and ALS. And both of them, which is just the rarest combination, and both of them wear on you in totally different ways. They take from you in totally different ways, and he was dealing with both diseases, and to leave him with his dignity and all the amazing things that he is, because my dad has been my hero my entire life. My dad is the strongest man I know. My dad built a business completely on his own that thrived. He, my entire childhood, I just remember my dad sacrificing everything for his family. Every single night, he would come into my room and he would just say, I love you bigger than the whole sky, which is something I still use to this day for Laney. After an extremely long workday, he would get home, he would still be in his suit and tie, and he'd give me the biggest hug. And he never missed a sporting event. He'd come straight, he'd leave work meetings, even as a business owner, and he'd come directly to our games, and no matter how far away they were, or how exhausted he was, because he was always tired, but he did not ever put his family on a back burner. His family to him was everything. So, yeah, and my dad, for more context on him, because I want to color this appropriately, because he is just he is just the most amazing man, and he set a very high bar for me when it came to looking for a husband. My dad is very masculine, my dad's very protective my whole life, my whole childhood. He scared the crap out of any boys I was ever talking to. And he's just also the most humble man, the most humble, and he is so gracious and giving. And he never asks for thank you. He never asks for anything in return. But my dad was also a total stud. He was a collegiate athlete, he was a state champion wrestler, he was a baseball player in college as well. He was just multi-talented and so athletic. And I know my athleticism, which I do think believe I am athletic, comes from my dad. He was just such a stud and someone that people knew was just a total jock. But at the same time, he was so brilliant. To this day, my dad is the smartest man I know. He's one of those people that if he were to be on Jeopardy, he would just close it down. He's so smart. He can pull facts out of his head in every different genre of life, whether it's history, whether it's science, whether it's I don't know, um, math. Like he's just so brilliant. And he has all this dad wisdom. And it's because he's an avid reader, he's an avid writer, he is curious, he's always been interested in learning. He's also an amazing artist. My dad can draw and sculpt and paint and craft things. My he made this painting for me when I was a child that said, like, Emily is because I also love art for context. That was something my dad and I shared, and he painted me this image of me painting a gallery full of paintings as a little girl. And he said, Emily fills a whole art gallery with her beautiful artwork. And I had that framed in my room growing up is this painting he made for me, and he made one for each of us kids, and there's four of us. And gosh, I could just talk about my dad all day because he's just that incredible. He's just that incredible. And yeah, like I mentioned, my entire childhood, when I think of my parents, both of them, I pick they're both always there. No matter what I was doing or what I wanted support in, he's just always there. And he's always in my corner and he's always uplifting me and pushing me and making me into the woman that I am today. And a huge reason that I'm able to have this podcast and this business is because my dad was a very successful entrepreneur and business owner. He started his own company that absolutely thrived. My dad has nationally recognized awards in the industry that he's in. Um he's on boards across the country. He's been um nominated and elected for so many things. And my dad is just he's just amazing. He's truly amazing, and he's gifted, and I'm getting emotional because seeing somebody what feels like be punished this way in the golden years, shortly after retirement, when they're supposed to be doing so many wonderful things with their life and enjoying their freedom, finally their freedom from work. Because my dad has worked tirelessly to provide his entire existence. It sucks. There there's no words for it. It freaking sucks. And I'm just grateful at this time for the family that we have, the siblings that I have, the bond that I have with my two brothers and my twin sister, the bond that we have, and the way we've been able to come together during this time and be present and help and help my mom navigate through this because it's unimaginable what she's going through. It's unimaginable what we're all going through, but more than anything, what my dad is grappling with and what he thinks and feels. And yeah, I just wanted to speak a little bit about my dad too, because it's one thing to just talk about well, my dad is sick, my dad has this disease, but to talk a little bit about who he is and um to thank him too for the life that I have. He's given me so much, he provided so much. He is the reason I am a fighter, he's the reason I am so driven. My mom is obviously amazing as well, and many of these traits come from a mix of the two of them, but he's the reason I am stubborn and I fight for what I believe. He's the reason I am able to be confrontational, he's the reason I am athletic and a runner, and he's the reason I am so many things passionate, well-spoken. My dad is just incredible. And I know God has greater plans for him than I can imagine, than any of us can imagine. And um yeah, so when my dad was diagnosed, I felt this kind of restlessness, but also helplessness. You don't really know what to do other than be present. And about a month ago, over a month ago now, my dad got pneumonia, and we didn't know until he r was rushed to the ER, and he was practically he things weren't good, okay. And we found out he had pneumonia, and we found out his breathing was suffering, and we were in and out of the hospital for over a month every day. And that was really hard. I have a newborn child. I am trying to get, you know, be able to focus on my baby, but your dad or your parent is suffering, and it was just this emotional roller coaster of he's getting better, no, he's not, he's getting better, no, he's not. And it was so hard. And we love him so much. And I saw things I wish I hadn't seen. Things happened in the hospital that I wish I had not seen. And this passion from diagnosis through this experience as of late in me to do something in the helplessness that I've been feeling has led me to want to raise money for the ALS Association. And I kind of reached out to them. I asked if that was something that was possible. They originally were like, hey, so there's a big Twin Cities marathons, half marathon, 10 mile, 10K in the fall. And I was like, hey, is this something I can do? Can I run for you guys? And they're like, actually, no, the half marathon's full. And that's the event I wanted to do. I'm not quite interested in the marathon yet at this juncture. Um, and she's like, but let me look into this. I gave her some background on my story and the situation, and she looked into it and she was able to secure a spot for both me and my husband to raise money for the ALS Association. And that was amazing. And so now I'm training for the October half marathon for the ALS Association, and I'm so proud to work with them and to raise money for them because this disease is honestly disgusting. I hate it. It is quite literally human torture. Um, and if you don't know what happens with this disease or Parkinson's, you can just Google it. And whether you look at images or you do some reading, ALS does things to the body that it should not do, it takes from you in ways that it shouldn't. And the average lifespan after diagnosis is three to five years. And so, yeah, and so yeah, that's something I'll be doing on October, I believe it's the 6th. And if I get that date wrong, I apologize, but that's the half marathon I'll be running. And I've already started, so it's March, I've already started some base training. And as you guys know, I'm about this week, I'll be 11 weeks postpartum, and I've been feeling so good. And so we'll kind of transition into that conversation now just because it feels natural. I'm going to be 11 weeks postpartum this week, and my running has been going phenomenal. I feel so good. I started with run walking for a little while, and that was going well. Obviously, things feel very different when you first start running again postpartum. Um, and you definitely get in your head because you you just feel weird and your pelvic floor feels different. And I had been doing so many kegels and deep core strengthening, which is so different than your outer core. Your deep core is so important with stabilizing your hips and keeping your leg muscles appropriately firing and just kind of supporting your entire body, especially your pelvic organs in your pelvic floor. And so I've I had been doing lots of work with that, but then I went to a PT. She was like, Yeah, you can start a little bit of running, do these moves every day. And I've been incorporating my pelvic floor PT every day, and that was at, I believe, six weeks. And so I started some run walking, doing my PT every day, and it just slowly progressed to a point where I'm able to continuously run miles back to back and feel really good. And there's minimal to no soreness afterward, and the next day I feel great, and that is from God. I truly believe that is from God because the one thing mentally that's helping me kind of cope is the time outside of my family and Lainey. Like Lainey is my number one coping device right now, just spending time with her, see looking at her, playing with her, holding her. I cannot express God did that on purpose. He gave me this child at the perfect time. And um, and that's a whole different thing is talking about, you know, the timing of having a baby and my dad being sick and how complicated it felt and the feelings I had for my in my faith life. And it's complicated but intentional. God does everything intentionally, so she is such a gift. And the second thing that helps me is time to train. I love running. I have loved running ever since I got really good at it, which is a very long time ago when I was young. And it comes naturally to me, and obviously, my fitness is not at all there, to be completely on. If and that's relative, and I say that relative to me and where I've been and where I can go with my my running. Um It's I have a lot of work to do. So I've already started in March this early and postpartum some base training. So just kind of slowly building up my base mileage, going from practically nothing to run walking to hopefully in the next few months building up to, I'd like to build up to like 40 miles a week of running. It's obviously a complicated situation because I have a newborn and I need pockets of time to run when she's not awake, when the weather is nice. Like for example, this morning, if it were nice out, I would have just run outside while she's still sleeping in my husband's home watching her and he's working out from home. And we have the monitor, I would have said, Hey, do you mind just watching the monitor and doing your, you know, because he's already working out from home. Do you mind watching the monitor? I'll go outside. Can't do that. The weather is terrible. It's negative 21 with wind. Um, so I have to wait for the appropriate time to get on the treadmill. And I couldn't go to the gym this morning because it doesn't open until noon because the roads are so bad. And so able to go later, my husband offered to watch her, and then the rest of the week is a lot more dicey because he doesn't have the ability to help as many days. So it's kind of every day I'm just like, when can I run? Can I run? If I can't, that's fine. I'll do strength training at home. Um, but obviously the goal is long term to be able to build up my mileage, get to a really solid base training, and use that to really invest back in this disease that I hate so much. And every time I step out now to train and to run, I just feel so much more purpose with it. Um, my dad was always the biggest fan of my athletics, and he had so much faith in me. And he had more faith in me than I had in me, and he would always talk to me about it. And now when I get up and move, it just feels like such a gift. It feels like such a privilege, a blessing, because movement and training and exercise and training for an event, which sometimes feels grueling, is such an honor. It is not everyone has that honor anymore. Not everyone can just get up and go run a mile. Not everyone can get up and have a snack and run out the door or lift heavy. Those things are privileges and we don't see them that way. Especially in America, I feel like exercise and training and just isn't seen as a privilege anymore when it really is. But that said, you know, this conversation too is multi-layered because I obviously have a complicated background, and that's part of this conversation, is I have a history of overtraining and I have a history of having a missing period, and that's unique. Not everyone has that perspective. I do. So while one, I see it as a huge privilege to be able to do these things, and I'm excited and I love training, and it's an outlet for me, and I have feel so much purpose because I'm raising money for the ALS Association. Speaking of, if you want to donate, um, I'll put the link directly in the bio of this specific episode. And then it's also in my link tree, it's always on my Instagram link tree. Please help help us raise$10,000. My husband and I for the ALS Association, we're well on our way. Um, if you feel inclined while listening, please um we'd be so grateful and my dad would be so grateful. And I can tell you directly, not to segue from what I was talking about, but this money does help people. It helped my family directly, not this$10,000 that we're raising, but the ALS Association was able to support my family at this time because living with ALS is not cheap. It is very difficult to do, it is very expensive to survive. So if you feel inclined to donate, even a dollar makes a difference in helping someone else's life. And only 31,000 people in the US have this disease. That is how rare it is. And my dad, as I mentioned, has two. It's just anyway. Um, so I will put that link in the show notes and I appreciate you. Thank you. I see every person who donates, and it means the world. So thank you so much. And you can obviously do it with an anonymity if you prefer that, but um, thank you. Anyway, so I have this kind of multi-layered situation in that I am training for a purpose, but I also have to, and because I feel the privilege now that I have seen these things, but I also come from a background of doing too much and not taking care of myself. And what I will say is that the situation, one, with my child and having her changed my life forever, and I will never neglect my body again. But two, seeing what my father's going through, I will never neglect my body again. And three, just the promises I made to God during HA recovery are also very powerful. So I have all these different motivating factors playing into my life that are allowing me to take care of my body appropriately as I ease back into running. My fueling strategies are different, my rest days, my sleep has been amazing. Just the things that I'm prioritizing, especially as a mom who's breastfeeding, to make sure that when I'm training, I'm training for the right reasons and I'm taking care of myself. I'm eating enough so that I can breastfeed and run. I'm eating enough so that I can sleep well. I'm eating enough so that I can tend to my child all day while training for this half marathon. I'm eating enough so that I feel good and that I enjoy the process and I have energy and it's fun. This is no longer a form of punishment. It's no longer me trying to look a certain way. Everything I'm doing has so much more purpose, and I just feel ignited. I feel ignited in a million ways to do this. And I think God did all of these things. He placed the ALS Association in my life. He gave me my child. He had that conversation with me when I was going through period recovery. All these things have happened so that I can be healthy again. And he knew that our family would grapple with this terrible, terrible situation. And he wanted to give us hope. He wanted to give each of us hope in different ways, including my dad. And for me, these are ways he's planting seeds of hope in my life and also just pruning me to be a better person. As a mom and as someone who loves running and athletics, these things are just yeah, they've they've been good. Um and all of this said, how has running been going? It's been going great. I've been able to ramp up my mileage slowly. I my longest run so far is just over nine miles. It was 90 minutes long. I want to improve my paces. I talk a lot about I want to PR this half marathon. I want to run the fastest I have. And that is a true goal of mine. Um, it's been a long time since I've raced. I'm not sharing what my PR goal time is because I think it's relative to everyone. And given that I am postpartum, and given that I want to give myself grace and know that I'm momming full-time this summer, and hopefully I'm gonna learn how to use the jogger, which I'm excited about. Just lots of things to evolve. I'm not gonna share the time, but I do want to train hard and I want to get to a place where I'm doing speed workouts and I'm pushing myself and I'm shooting for the moon. Um, because I wanted my dad always, like I said, believed that I was so capable. And it's been so long since I really tested that theory and I really saw what I'm capable of. And this feels like a really great way to honor him and to give back. And so that's just something I'm really looking forward to. But yeah, the the mileage has felt good, the back-to-back running days. I'm running three to four days a week right now, and that's been really steady and has been feeling really good. And then I'm strength training, prioritizing that to the utmost, prioritizing recovery, rest days, sleep, all the essential things, as well as fueling, obviously, being at the forefront. And I'm just proud of my approach to all of this right now, and I'm proud of the way that I'm viewing running and how I'm doing it and how I feel and how my body is adapting to the return in mileage. And yeah, so things are just going really well, and I have a list of, and I talked, you know, on all my episodes, I talk about how to maintain your hormones and train hard, and I have all of those tools in my toolkit now. Now that I've been through this experience, so I plan to do so. And if you're interested in following along on my training journey, the workouts I do, the runs, my mileage, you can do that on my Strava, which is Emily Knight, and it's the same image on my Instagram profile. People have had trouble finding my profile because there's so many Emily Knights in this world. So I'll put a link to my Strava in the show notes as well. But yeah, so things have been going well, and I'm just excited to see how things go. And I also I wanted to talk about the fact that I do want to get my period back within the next six months. When you're breastfeeding exclusively, which I am, she's only getting breast milk. It can be harder because you have prolactin in your body, but I do hope to get my period back. I've been using the Anito Fertility Monitor and kind of watching my hormones sporadically. It can take time, but things do look like they're trending in the better area. It takes a while for your body postpartum to have a cycle again, but I do want to get it back even while training. That is a high priority of mine, so I'll be very sensitive to fueling and just taking care of my body in all the right ways. And yeah, so that is critical to me. And so you can follow along with that too. I'll be very transparent on my Instagram about how my hormones are looking, how I'm eating around training, things like that. If that interests you, just be sure to follow me on Instagram. But yeah, so I think the big things are just eating before and after my training, eating during my runs now if they're 60 plus minutes or a really hard run, and focusing on those carbohydrates, always having carbs before sessions, having full meals if I have enough time to have a full meal, um, making sure I'm getting food adequately and appropriately throughout the day, not going long periods without food, eating before and after pretty much any movement, even if it's more low-key. Just really being in tune with those things and the things that I've learned through the process and never dipping back into a state where I'm underfed. And then with that too, just taking care of my body. I'm not at all focused on my weight during this training. I'm focused on eating enough to support myself, to support what I love doing, to support my goals so that I can do something good for this ALS Association, as well as to breastfeed. Um but yeah, I just I wanted to talk about all of that, running after HA, running for the ALS Association, running for my dad, and to kind of color you guys on what's going on in my life. And I feel like I haven't had all the same time lately to just be on the socials, and I have been scrolling so much less, it just interests me way less right now. And I've just been really pouring back into what matters, which is family and my faith and my training in a personal way, doing it for myself and the ALS Association, and to honor my body like God wants me to. All of this said, I just have a lot more purpose in my life right now, and I wanted to update you guys on what's going on. This is a shorter episode because that's really all there is to say right now, and I hope you can join me on this experience and join me on this journey as I do this and I run for a purpose. And I appreciate you guys, and I look forward to chatting with you guys next time. Lainey is starting to kick her feet around, though I bet I have another 20 minutes. Um, but I appreciate you and I hope you enjoyed this episode and stay tuned for another great episode next week. And like I said, if you feel so inclined, the donation link is in the show notes. My Strava link is in the show notes if you just want to follow along with my training. And I appreciate you guys being here and um have a great rest of your week. And if anyone else is going through anything like this, please reach out to me. I would love to hear from you and connect and just support one another because this is unprecedented and very difficult, and we're not alone. So God bless you guys.