Ep #171: Setting Audacious Goals with NYAR Ambassador Amy Loewenthal

Welcome to The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. If you’re a woman who has never felt athletic, but you still dream about becoming a runner, you are in the right place. I’m Jill Angie, a certified running and life coach and I teach women how to start running, feel confident, and change their lives, and now I want to help you.

Jill: Hey Rebels. So I am here today with a magical human being. Her name is Amy Loewenthal, and she is a cycling, a runner, a triathlete. She’s a very accomplished athlete and she is also a Not Your Average Runner ambassador. And we are going to talk all about her story and her thoughts on being a not so average runner and we’re going to have some fun today, so welcome to the show, Amy.

Amy: Thank you.

Jill: I’m so excited. So let’s just dive right in. Can you tell the listeners some interesting facts about yourself? A little bit about yourself so we can get our conversation started.

Amy: So I guess I would say I was a reluctant runner, slow to come to running person. I come from a background more of cycling, and I guess I was fairly athletic in a way. When I was a kid, I played racket sports. I grew up in New York City, and the big racket sport there is they play on a handball court, which is basically a cement wall. And it’s also played with a wooden paddle, called paddle ball.

So there were a bunch of guys in their 70s and 80s that used to hang out at the paddle ball courts and they sort of adopted me. I have a great love for men of that age, and they’ve been the most encouraging of me as an athlete throughout my life. And now I’m not so many years behind being that age myself, so that would be interesting. So I was active, I played on the high school tennis team, and at the point that I went to college…

Jill: Me too. Yeah, tennis team. That was fun.

Amy: And at the point that I went to college, I just became very sedentary from then on. And I guess I should also say as a teen, I went on a couple cross-country bike trips, one through – not across the US, but one across Michigan and Wisconsin, and one all through New England, and sponsored by hosteling association. And I loved those things.

But then as I said, by the time I was in college, I just became sedentary. I put on a lot of weight. I took up smoking cigarettes and was more in that lifestyle for about 15 years. And I had a suspicion that I needed to really reset how I thought about myself. Because it’s not like in my parents’ generation where people smoked cigarettes and they didn’t know that they were killing themselves.

I mean, it was pretty clear I’m doing something that’s toxic. And so I need to kind of think a little bit more about what is this about? I’m doing something that I know is going to kill me, and how do I understand that? How do I support that?

And I just – I felt that if I were to quit smoking, this whole curtain of denial would be lifted, and I would need to fully embrace a path of taking good care of myself. So it was pretty intimidating. Sort of like, we’re going into an all or nothing situation. I’m not taking good care of myself and as I make these changes, it’s going to lead to more and more health and it’s kind of a frightening idea to me.

Jill: Can I ask a question? So when you say I’m going to make these changes, it’s going to lead to improved health and that was a frightening idea, why was that frightening to you?

Amy: So I mean, I knew that if I quit smoking, that it was really moving away from this denial. Why is it that I think it’s okay for me to be not treating my body well? This was the question I needed to confront. And once I quit smoking, quitting smoking was an answer to that. It’s like, let me – this is not good for me, I’m going to stop doing this.

And then my consciousness would expand. Okay, here’s some other things that I’m doing that are not good. I’m not eating in a healthy way. I’m not taking time for myself, not doing a lot of good personal care, and I’m not really dealing with my feelings. So it was kind of like, there’s going to be this whole cascade of self-care, which means a lot of changes. And I think change is always scary.

Jill: I agree. But I’m just glad you clarified that because I think there’s a lot of people that can relate to having those thoughts, like if I do this thing, then I’m going to – what’s that story? If you give a mouse a cookie? Like if you give a mouse a cookie, he’s going to want something else, and if you give him that, he’s going to want something else.

So anyway, I appreciate you sharing that it felt scary because you thought well, if I quit smoking, I’m going to have to do all these other things. Sorry for interrupting, but I was just very intrigued by your response to that. Okay, so we quit smoking.

Amy: I quit smoking and lo and behold, I started eating better. But I guess the other thing was that I would sing. Singing was something that I loved to do. And a problem that I had from having been a smoker was that I didn’t have enough wind to finish a line. So I’d take a cheater breath, like you’re halfway through the phrase and you get a little bit more air.

So I thought this is a great opportunity now that I’m not smoking to rebuild my lungs. And I thought about what were some ways I could do that and I thought about some kinds of exercise that I liked when I was a kid, including bicycling.

So I got on a very heavy bike, mountain bike that I borrowed from somebody, and I rode a mile. And I said wow, that was good. I had a friend who biked a little bit more than I did, and I said okay, what do I do next? And she goes, well, two miles.

So I just kept working at it, and then I found a hill and I got partway up the hill, and then the next time I got further up the hill and eventually I got all the way up the hill. And it expanded from there, that I could see moving forward, I could see all of these successes that I was having and I was very motivated to keep pushing at it.

And eventually I realized I needed to get a lighter, better bicycle. That helped a lot. And I began thinking about sort of larger goals to try to attempt. So I was living at the time in the Pacific Northwest, and there was a career path that I was interested in pursuing that I was – seemed a little risky, I was intimidated about, I felt a little bit stuck in my life.

And that was on the one side my professional life, and then in terms of my biking life, I decided to try to put together five years of ever-increasing goals. And the first year, it seemed a little bit out of reach for me, but I learned how to use a calendar and work backwards from the event. And increment up training and it worked really well.

And that first year, I did the event and it worked and I didn’t suffer, and I realized I had trained up well and it was amazing. So it was sort of funny in the second year because I had the same experience, which was like, oh man, this goal is out of my reach, how could I possibly do it?

And so I used the same process and in fact, I had another great success. And even in the third year I thought, how am I ever going to be able to get on the start line and get this thing done? Seems so audacious. And lo and behold. And then the third year, the same process worked out really well.

So probably two or three times in a row, I began to see yeah, there’s a thing, you can train, you can prepare. Your body will adapt. You can take on an increasing load. And so my goals for year four and year five were pretty out there. My goal for year four was to ride what they call the STP, the Seattle to Portland bike ride, which is 200 miles.

The previous year, I had done it in two days, so 100 miles a day back to back. And then year four of my goal was to do it in one day, so as they say, a double century. Riding 200 miles in one day.

Jill: That’s audacious.

Amy: That’s audacious.

Jill: That’s very audacious.

Amy: And something funny happened along the way. Well, not funny at all, which was there is such a thing as having a good skills, good consciousness of how to ride in a group of people. And there are people in bike clubs or just groups of friends who practice, they work on drafting. Different people take the lead to break the wind, and there’s an etiquette of how you rotate.

There’s etiquette of how you warn other people about holes or glass or obstacles in the way. So there’s sort of a group ride think. And when we got on the start line for the event that day, it was chaos. There was a bunch of people that I think they were strong and stupid.

And immediately I was very uncomfortable with what seemed like really chaotic behavior. And in fact, 20 miles into the 200, there was a pile up and I crashed and I got taken away in an ambulance with a separated shoulder. So that was year four. Didn’t quite work.

Jill: That’s awful.

Amy: And one of the things that I realized is that my riding partners and I were not necessarily on the same page in terms of our commitments to each other. They weren’t there when I crashed and to be able to do such a long-distance event, you really need people to train with and to be there with you.

And one of the difficulties that I had is that I was not a light person. I was not the fastest cycling in the world. But I was really quite decent, and I had a little trouble finding people who rode at my speed, which was really a pretty decent speed but not the fastest.

I had trouble finding people who rode my speed, who were interested in doing 200 miles in one day. That seemed to be much more of something for elite riders to do, it was a goal for the elite people to do who rode much faster. And in terms of the folks who rode like me, they weren’t that interested. They thought it was sort of a crazy pursuit.

So it began very difficult for me to find my peer group. I have a lot of funny stories. I met this wonderful guy randomly on a bike ride and it was sort of like I was very forward, sort of like, almost like a proposition. I said to him, hey, I like you, I think we ride around the same speed, would you be interested in training with me to do this Seattle to Portland?

And he said, oh, I’d love to. So he became my year five partner. I had a goal for year five, which was to do an even more audacious ride called the RAMROD, which is ride around Mount Rainier in one day. So it wasn’t 200 miles, it was only 156 miles, but it was 10,000 feet of climbing, three mountain passes. So that was my year five goal. So I ended up doing the year four and year five goals in the same year.

Jill: I love that you didn’t let go of that year four goal. So that’s so badass, right? I’m just going to do them both in the same year. That’s how I roll. No pun intended.

Amy: I mean, the Seattle to Portland ride is relatively flat and a lot of people would use the 200-miler as a sort of last training ride before doing the RAMROD, plus you also have to do a bunch of climbing training, separate from distance.

So we had a wonderful experience and I guess having gone through these five years of pushing myself and seeing that I could accomplish something that was out of reach, just using this method of incrementing up and I could actually become prepared, it really inspired me to make some major life changes, to follow the career path that I was interested in following.

And I’ve found so much that my sports life helps me with other aspects of my life. And just wanted to say in general, one of the things that I find most valuable in Run Your Best Life is all of the focus on thought work, which I think is so widely applicable.

Jill: It’s so interesting to me too like, I love your example of how year one you thought I can’t do this, but you incremented your way up. And then year two, you had the exact same thought. Because it takes our brains a while to figure out wait a minute, maybe the thought I can’t do this is just bullshit. And I have all of this beautiful evidence showing me that it’s totally possible.

When you were telling me that, I’m like, she was understanding thought work before she came into Run Your Best Life, so I bet that’s exactly why it resonated so much with you because you’d already kind of figured out in your brain that hey, maybe I can’t always trust what I’m thinking to lead me to success. That was beautifully done. I apologize for interrupting, but I just wanted to comment on that.

Okay, so you said that the thought work has helped you not just with your training but elsewhere in your life, and I don’t know if you have any examples that you want to share, or if you’re just like, it’s just magic and my life is perfect now.

Amy: I guess I would just say in general that it’s super helpful to be able to examine your own thought process. And to realize that you regard the world in a certain way, and that’s not necessarily objective reality. And I just feel like it ends up giving you a lot more choices, how you want to see a situation, and you can think about the idea – like the perspective that I take may lead to a good outcome or not. And if I’m looking for a good outcome, maybe I should find a perspective that will support that. So I find that useful in all areas, interpersonal, professional, everything.

Jill: And I agree. And it does – because the CTFAR model that we teach in Run Your Best Life, it’s not just for running. That’s just how the world works, period. And the thought line is everybody has a different set of thoughts, and, what, 16 billion people on the planet, that’s a lot of different opinions, but it shows you that there’s a lot of different ways you could think about something.

And so I’ve been reading this book called The Last Word on Power by Tracy Goss. And actually it’s a book from the 90s that was written to help executives become better leaders and get more success for their companies. But really, this book is 25 years old, it really kind of explains the whole concept of thought work in different words, but in a great way that resonates with me.

And what the author says in the book is that there is one thought that everyone on the planet shares, that every single person born that gets to the point of being able to verbally express their opinions or express their opinions in some way, there’s one thought that we all have, and that is that there is a way that the world should work.

So we all have a belief that things should be a certain way. Now, we totally disagree on the way they should be. Everybody’s got their own. But there’s this one paradigm that we all operate under, and that is that there is one way that the world should work. I found that super helpful to recognize that all of our thoughts and all of our billions of choices of thinking stem from the belief that there’s a certain way the world should work.

And if we can address that belief, if we can look at – because I kind of think that’s a faulty belief. I don’t think there is a way that the world should work. I think that the world is just the circumstance and then we get to decide.

There are ways that I would prefer it to work for sure, but to me, that just sort of exemplified the fact that thought work is the solution to everything because if we all have this one single thought and it all stems from there, it becomes something that you can use everywhere in your life. Sorry, I got off a little bit on a tangent, but seriously, that was just such a mind-blower for me. We all share one single thought and everything else comes from that.

Amy: Yeah. And I guess some of the thoughts that we might attach ourselves to include things about reward and punishment. You know, if I do everything right, then good things should happen, and conversely, if I screw up, or if bad things are happening, it’s my fault, it’s because I’m screwing up in some way.

And I think it’s really liberating to be able to step outside of that paradigm. Just a funny experience that I had that kind of flashed on me is I took a bike ride from where I was living, about – I don’t how far I went. Maybe 120 miles over the course of a couple of days to visit a friend of mine.

And this was before smartphones and GPS and stuff like that was easily available. So I had been using maps and I had plotted out a route. And in place, the local roads, the small roads in some areas have been cut off, being an interstate that gets put through there.

So of course, you don’t want to be riding a bike on an interstate, but sometimes you end up with an unpleasant surprise, which is this quiet little country road that you’ve been on stops existing. It gets interrupted by – there’s a freeway.

And so I had been – I guess this was the second day and I was looking to get where I was going and I was on this beautiful country road that was very hilly and it was going up and down and up and down. On a loaded bike, I’ve got clothing – I was staying in a motel so I didn’t have a sleeping bag and a tent, but I had some saddle bags with some weight on me.

And lo and behold, after 12 miles of up and down and up and down and up and down on this beautiful road, boom, it’s cut off by the freeway. And it was three lanes on each side, and I just stood there with my mouth hanging open, like what am I going to do?

So I looked at my map and really, the option was to go back 12 miles up and down and up and down and up and down and restart and go a different way, and I just felt a little stubborn. I didn’t really want to do that. And I looked carefully at the three lanes and the other three lanes and I saw a little ways down, there was a divider, there was a fence, but I saw that there was a gate.

And I thought maybe there was enough room for me to figure out how to slip under it and slide my bike under it. So I stood for about 10 minutes until I could cross the three lanes. I stripped my bike down, shoved it under, put the bags back on, waited about another 10 minutes before I could cross the other three lanes.

And then I rode on the shoulder of the highway for half a mile, and then I was able to get off. But the thing that’s funny is that the thought that had been disturbing me this whole time when I was riding was I’m never really sure where I’m going to stop for the night because I have a certain distance to cover and a hotel or a motel, where’s the next one, did it happen too soon or is it too far? How do I gage where I should plan to spend the night?

Because I would hate to be too exhausted and not be able to actually get where I had intended if it was too far away, but it would also make the next day’s distance too long if I stopped when I found a hotel, if I still had strength. So this was the thing that had been plaguing me. This was my biggest worry as I was riding.

Actually I guess maybe I did this ride in three days, so I spent the night somewhere twice. So this is my major anxiety. What am I going to do? Where do I stay tonight? How do I know if it’s too close, too far? And so I just had to laugh at myself because I came into this situation where the road was cut off, there was six lanes of freeway to get across. And was I worried? Not in the least.

To me, it was just kind of like, okay, here’s the situation, okay, here’s what I’ll do. Here’s my choices, here’s what I’ll do. And it really left me with a strong feeling that I can rise to an unexpected challenge. That I don’t necessarily need to be ready for everything. If I’m ready for most things, that I have a capacity to just deal in the moment with something that’s an unexpected challenge.

And I feel like that’s also part of the thought work and this idea of resilience. Mental resilience. Being able to say wow, okay, here’s a surprise, but I have choices and I’m enough in myself, I have enough resources in myself to be able to figure out how to cope.

Jill: Yeah. Because you have this belief, one of your paradigms that you hold true, which is simply just a strongly held thought is I have the capacity to handle unexpected occurrences. And when you believe that and then something unexpected happens, you’re like, alright, well, I’ll just pull on that skill, rather than holy shit, what am I going to do?

It’s like, oh no, this is just what I’m going to do. And that is thought work right there. That is a perfect example of like, thinking the thought I have the capacity to deal with this, the emotion is calm, and then the action is figure out a path forward. Versus what am I going to do, the emotion is worry, and the action is usually to just stand there watching traffic for four hours while you magically wait for a bridge to appear.

Amy: And I think that’s really stood me in good stead. A little later I guess we’ll talk about my half marathon. But I went into that with a sense of calm, which was oh well, the thought occurred to me, what if I have a problem? What if I get tired? Well, I can always just walk.

Jill: Well, so let’s talk about your transition to running and how you became a runner because I know that you’re using these concepts as a runner, which I think is super powerful. So can you share a little bit about how you started running and let’s kind of talk about that. And I really want to hear that story about your half marathon because I know it’s a good one.

Amy: Yeah, so I came from biking. And I moved to New England and I had a friend who was a bike pal of mine. And in her workplace, they are challenging each other to do a sprint triathlon. A local sprint triathlon. And she said, hey, do you want to do this with me? And I said well, that sounds like fun, I’m going to need to learn how to run and how to swim.

Jill: But you know what, you’re somebody who can figure things out.

Amy: So I tried to train up using Couch to 5K, and it was really hard. And I failed the first two times, and the third time I finally understood that if you were going to be able to run three minutes or five minutes or eight minutes, you needed to find a pace at which you could run three or five or eight minutes, as opposed to running at the pace I could hold for 30 seconds.

So this is – I don’t know how to communicate this any clearer to people, but this is a thing that I want to say to people over and over again is like, the reason that you can’t run three minutes or five minutes or eight minutes is that you’re going way too fast. I know you want to go fast, but you can go fast for only a short period of time. So I guess…

Jill: Slow the F down.

Amy: Finding a sustainable pace was finally like on the third time that I got that, and I really – I didn’t like running. I thought it mostly sucked. It was hard. It felt unpleasant. And I did the triathlon with her the first year. And the swimming was psychologically challenging, the bike was fine, and the run, I made it through. It felt hard.

And when I finished the triathlon that summer, I said well, good, I guess I don’t have to run anymore. Got that done. But I began to think about it and one of the things that I had experienced when I was doing lots and lots of long distance biking, in terms of the training volume, I would almost always get some kind of an overuse injury, like a strain of a hamstring was a common one that I would get.

And what I noticed is that when I was training for the triathlon, with the biking and the running, it just seemed like I had built more sturdy legs, more complementary muscles. And I thought that was a good thing, and I also thought women of a certain age, they advise us to do impact, load bearing activities to stave off osteoporosis.

And certainly bicycling doesn’t do that for you. So I decided reluctantly that I would keep the running going, and so the second year of running and training for the triathlon, the running mostly sucked. I had some moments that it felt kind of good. Did the triathlon again.

Third year, I started to have more moments in running that didn’t suck. I’d come home and tell my wife like, hey, it didn’t suck today. And I don’t know, at some point I turned a corner. And I just started liking running and started feeling good to me.

The other thing that I noticed is that it was much easier to get out for a run than to get out on the bike. That I could run in a lot of different conditions, where I might be more hesitant to go biking, just put on the shoes and the hat, and get out there, instead of dealing with all the gear for biking.

So it slowly became more of my default to run. I had started doing a couple of 5Ks locally and another sport that I play is pickleball, which is like a sort of smaller court than tennis. It’s more often played doubles, but you can play singles. You have a wooden or a graphite or a composite paddle and a ball that looks a little like a whiffle ball. It’s popular among seniors, but it’s actually also like a pro sport.

Jill: Wait, are there any pickles involved at all?

Amy: No, it’s a name that the guy invented it made up to be humorous.

Jill: Oh, that’s so funny.

Amy: No pickles involved.

Jill: I thought there would be pickles involved. There’s no pickles, okay.

Amy: Sorry, no pickles today. But there was a wonderful social scene around all these pickleball players and one day I showed up wearing a t-shirt from a 5K that I had done. And there was another woman who was also wearing the same t-shirt. And I said, oh, did you do that? And she said yeah, and I was like, the last one over the line.

And I said oh, I doubt that because I was the last one over the line. And so we decided we’d try to run together. And we became running buddies, and she went to – she participated in a run club where she was the last one in the run, but they were a nice group and they were supportive.

And so I started doing that with her, so there would be two of us coming in 20 minutes after everybody else. And there was a third person who was around our pace, and so we found each other and became running buddies. And so the one with the t-shirt, Jen, shows up in a story about the half marathon that I did.

So I mean, I had been running – I was aware of some different podcasts and was listening to Not Your Average Runner and thought it was good, thought it was funny, thought it was smart. And I don’t know how many times I heard at the end, the little bit about the Rebel Runner Roadmap and it’s time, you can join the Rebel Runner Roadmap.

And I was like, huh, interesting. And then at some point, things aligned for me and I was like, you know what, I want to find out what that is. That sounds like what I’m looking for. I want to do this. I guess because even though we were with the run club, I don’t know that I felt like I got a lot of coaching on technique. It was more like okay, we’ll go run. We’re going to run, go run, have a good run, see you when you finish running.

And I think one thing that has always been on my mind is how to prevent injuries because several times I had to sit out a season because I tweaked something. And in particular, I was interested in learning more about technique and good practices. And I thought, this Rebel Runner Roadmap I think could really help me get smart about how to prevent injuries and learn about breathing, learn about good form.

And so I joined and I thought it was fantastic. And I benefited a lot from everything, all of those things, plus the thought work, and I got very excited and thought well, okay, let me – I really want to keep this going. And so I joined the Run Your Best Life.

So at the end of Rebel Runner Roadmap, you, Jill said, so Rebels, what’s your goal going to be? And I was like, well, I’ve run a 5K, I’ve run a 10K, so gosh, what could I possibly do? And I’m like, well, let me set a modest goal of 10 miles. And you’re like, oh come on, you got to give me more. 10 miles, do a half marathon girl, do a half marathon.

And I was like, huh, well, I don’t know, I wouldn’t definitely rule it out, but a half marathon, what’s that like? What could that be? That’s a thing that people do, and I just don’t know if I’m there yet. And you said well look, the training plan for a half marathon, the long run is going to be 10 miles. So you’ll get your 10 miles, and then you can do your half marathon.

So the town where I was at the time had a very famous marathon and half marathon. And my friend Jen, my running friend Jen had done the half marathon for two years. The first year I accompanied her on part of it with my bike, as a bike escort. And then the second year, I ran the last seven miles with her. I ran her into the finish.

And I knew every mile of the half marathon course there, which was beautiful. And I was kind of like, well, well, well, maybe I would do it. I know it’s going to happen at the end of September and yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe. On the 4th of July, I decided to try just to see what it was like to run 10 miles. And I thought well, if I could do that then it would kind of – I could see how to get from there to a half marathon.

On the 4th of July, I started in the late afternoon because it was a hot day and I ran a loop out into the country and then as it was getting dark, I came back into town and was running around the lighted streets and the fireworks were starting to go off, so it was very fun.

And okay, I got my 10 miles. So I was like okay, well, I could kind of see this. I could kind of see this. And I had not fully committed to do the half marathon at that point, but I was tending to thinking in that direction. And then lo and behold, it was canceled due to COVID.

So I thought well okay, maybe I would just run a half marathon sometimes later when the weather got cooler because the training runs were really hot. And I’m like, hey Jill, what if I just push this off? And you’re like, no. You’re like, it’s good to do hot training runs because who knows, no matter what day you do your event, it could be hot, so get used to it.

And I was like, okay, alright. So I was sort of all but committed at that point, and I needed it to kind of come together in my mind, to line up in some way. So in the Jewish tradition, when we wish each other well, may you live to be 120. And my 60th birthday was approaching in the middle of September and it just struck me, well, I’m going to turn 60. That’s half of 120. So wouldn’t that be epic to do a half marathon on my half-life birthday?

So then I just – okay, here’s the whole concept, it all lines up, I’m committed, I’m training, following the training plan. I moved to a different place, and so I had the opportunity to scout out different areas to do the half. And it was going to be self-supported pretty much.

So I like the concept of creating loops from my car. My car would be the hub, and I could stash any extra things I needed, more drink, more food, bug spray, sunscreen, anti-chafe, change of clothes, whatever that I could keep coming back to the car as needed.

And so I could go on these quiet rural roads, and I live sort of between a semi-rural area and an actual metropolitan area. So I have a lot of choices, which is fun. So I found this area that I could go on roads about two and a half miles, and then swing back on a rail trail, and that made a five-mile loop.

And there was also some pretty three-mile loops on roads, could always do it out and back. So no matter what the training schedule called for, I could come up with a combination that would work.

Jill: Because you’re somebody who can deal with any circumstance.

Amy: Also just five plus one mile out and back, that makes seven. Five-mile loop plus a three-mile loop, that makes eight. So it’s very modular. So the day came, my birthday was nearing, I picked out all my best stuff and was pretty excited. I was calm and I felt very amused with myself.

Like I was just kind of thinking about it and sort of chuckle, like I’m going to do this thing. And I’d been listening to audiobooks from the library, and I found one – I found an audiobook from the library, which was 100-year old man who on his 100th birthday, he escapes from his assisted living place and goes on these adventures. Like this is perfect, I’m turning 60 and he’s turning 100.

So I listened to this audiobook, so that was pretty funny. So you know, my wife had been interested in trying to support me and she had asked me to show her my route, and I explained to her that once I was on the rail trail she wouldn’t be able to access me from her car.

So her concept was that she would just hang out in the parking lot and greet me when I came in. And I was really pleased that – I mean, she always wishes me well but she’s not always so involved in this kind of stuff, so I was very pleased that she was taking an interest in it.

And she had to work in the morning, so she was going to be there a little bit later on. So it was the day and I geared up, ready to go and set, and I head out on my first five-mile loop. And so I’m running on the street and then I turn on to the rail trail, and so I’m at mile four and I see these people standing on the side of the path with signs that say go Amy, go. I’m like, that’s so funny, what a coincidence because that’s my name too.

Jill: What a coincidence.

Amy: So there’s somebody else out here doing an event, somebody else that is doing a virtual version of an event that they wanted to do, and how cool. And I guess I should also say these people were wearing masks. Everybody’s wearing masks.

But it takes me a minute and I sort of come into focus and I realize it’s my friend Jen, my running pal Jen, who’s come an hour and a half. And her husband. And they’re there to cheer me on. It was such a surprise and of course I stopped my watch and chatted with them briefly, and she’s like go, go, go.

And so I caught up with my wife in the parking lot at mile five and I was like, did you set this up? And she’s like yeah. And it all began to occur to me, that’s why she wanted me to show her the route and so on. Anyway, it was good and it was fine. The day started getting a little warmer when I took a second loop around.

Mile nine was really kind of deflated around mile nine, and again, I just said to myself, well, whatever. If you got to just stop and camp out for a while, you can do that. If you need to walk, you can walk. It’s your thing, nobody’s going to close the course, they’re not going to take the finish line down because there’s no finish line. It’s just you. It’s just you. You do it.

And I was like okay fine, I just keep trotting along. And mile 10, I saw my wife again and it was time to do a road loop three miles, and I asked her to follow me in the car because I had a handheld bottle of water and it’s like, here, you take all this stuff and then just drive like a quarter mile down the road and I’ll run past you. And if I need something I’ll signal. So I had actual pro-bike support.

Jill: That’s awesome.

Amy: Which was nice. So probably 11.5, I just thought I’m ready to be done and took a little caffeine GU, which I think helped. And so just shy of mile 13, I came circling back to the parking lot and Jen and her husband and my wife were cheering me on. I’m like, wait, I’m not done yet. I have to keep going. So I ran past them a little ways, and then circled back in at 13.0 to run towards them, the last 10th.

And my wife was videotaping me. And every other time that I’ve done a shorter event and in training, I like to sprint out that last bit to put it all out there, boom. And so I engaged my legs to sprint this last 10th and I got this massive cramp in my calf and I was just like, stop the camera.

So after I kind of massaged it a little bit, I tried doing that last 10th, but it was great. It was a great experience and afterwards we went out to an outdoor place for food and beers. And it’s just – I felt like it really put an exclamation point on turning 60.

Jill: Yeah, I absolutely love that. Okay, so for your 120th you’re going to do a full marathon, yeah? I think that’s the math. You’ve got 60 years to train.

Amy: Maybe 120 steps, how about that?

Jill: Well, so what’s next for you? You’re somebody who sets pretty audacious goals for yourself. What’s the next thing? What’s germinating in your mind about the next big goal?

Amy: Well, a goal that I had had for this year was I wanted to do an Olympic length triathlon and…

Jill: I highly approve of this.

Amy: It kind of – the idea of doing a triathlon this year that had to be organized and self-supported, it kind of – it didn’t make that much sense, except I met a lovely person, Julianne in Run Your Best Life, who said I’m old and I want to do a triathlon. And I’m like, I’m old too, I’ll show you how.

So I actually made a little triathlon for the two of us and she came to my area and I kind of did it – we were doing it as the event, but also as a demo and I was sort of coaching her through it. But that was just a sprint length. And that felt like – so my wife and her daughter came with us and they watched our bikes while we were in the water and while we were running.

I mean, it was a little tricky to try to self-support a triathlon, as you can imagine. There’s a lot of equipment and details, logistics. So the idea this year of doing a self-supported Olympic length was – it just didn’t seem realistic.

So I guess that would be my goal for next year is to do an Olympic length. And I’m not so compelled to try to run a marathon. I mean, again, I wouldn’t definitively rule it out, but it’s not calling to me right now. What I would like to do is work on running speed.

So I feel like I spent a lot of time this year learning how to run at a sustainable pace over a really long period of time, find a pace that I could run for hours and hours and hours. And I’d like to go back to working on a fast 5K. So I think a couple years ago, I hit a sub-36-minute 5K and I felt very good about that. And I’d like to get back to that and if I could go even faster, that would be cool.

That’s what I’d like to come back to. I have a very funny story about that 36-minute goal. So my pal Jen and I, we signed up to do a 5K. And she had pulled a muscle and I was just getting over a chest cold by the time the event rolled around. And we decided we would just walk it because you could walk or you could run. You signed up differently.

And a pal of mine who is an Ironman, she’s really amazing, she was running it. So Jen and I went to the registration desk in the morning and we said, we have our timing chip and everything, we’re all set, but we need you to understand, we’re not in the running category. We’re going to be in the walking category. They said okay fine, no problem, just crossed us off one list and put us on another list.

So we did our walk, took us, I don’t know, whatever, an hour, whatever, however long it took us to walk the 5K. And then the runners were getting ready. So I saw my friend and said to her, hey, tell me what your pace is because I want to come and watch you cross the finish line.

And so she told me about what time she thought she would be coming in. So I went down to the finish line and saw her cross and was very excited, I was cheering for her. And then it was the awards time. So we went to the awards thing and they said, and in age group such and such, first place, running the 5K at 25 minutes, Amy Loewenthal.

No, I walked it, it took me an hour. And they’re like, Amy Loewenthal, come get your medal. And I was just like, it’s a small town, so I was trying to hide. They’re like, Amy Loewenthal, come up and get your medal. I came up and I was like, but wait a minute, you don’t understand, I wasn’t even a runner. Just take the damn medal, okay.

So eventually we figured out that I had walked with my timing chip down by the meter to greet my friend when she came in, and it recorded my time as 25 minutes. So later I was able to rectify it because I mean, first off, I shouldn’t have gotten the medal. And if you think about it, they were giving medals to the first three, so the person number three got completely squeezed out.

So I was like, no, take me off and person three can get their medal. But to me, one of the worst things about it was I didn’t want it to be on my record that I had run a 25-minute 5K when I was just trying to break 36. Because then when I hit my 36, I would be all like celebrating, people would go I don’t know why you’re so happy about that, you’re really degenerating, you used to be able to run it in 25 minutes.

Jill: Oh, that’s so funny. I love that. I love that. Well, I’m glad you got it rectified. But what a fun experience too. Sort of putting yourself in the space of receiving a podium finish, right? Sort of being able to visualize well, this is what it’s going to be like at some point in my life when I do come in first place in a race.

And in this age group, there are a lot more chances. There’s fewer people over 60. This is why I cannot wait to turn 60 because I’m like, oh yeah, bring on the medals.

Amy: I know. And I used to be – the old age of my age group, now I’m the youngest in my age group.

Jill: Yes, you’re very well placed to start medaling. I love this.

Amy: I’ve also been – I’ve done very small events. Like I did the super sprint triathlon. I was the only woman who did all three events. Everybody else was just doing one part of the triathlon. So I won, I won the women’s.

Jill: Yay, that’s so fun. That’s so fun. I love that. Alright, well that was an amazing story. I love your half marathon story. I just love everything that you’ve accomplished throughout your life, like how you’ve evolved as an athlete, and how you’ve evolved your brain along with it. Because that’s how we become better is to kind of think our way into it and I love how you’ve embraced that. Before we close up, do you have any advice for somebody who is thinking about starting to run, especially if they’re a not so average athlete?

Amy: So I would say I guess two really fundamental things. One is that you really have to honor your baseline and not be embarrassed about where you’re starting from. And that what you’re – you’re not looking to start on a particular rung. You’re just starting where you are and what you will like to do is ensure your own success by factoring in what are gentle increments you can do so that you can keep having the experience of succeeding.

And to be patient with that and to really appreciate where you started and appreciate every little bit of progress that you begin to make. I think that’s really important. And I think the other thing is I don’t know how to say it in a way that other people could learn from it, instead of them having to make the same mistake over and over and over again.

But if you want to figure out how to run for five minutes in a row, you have to find a pace that you can sustain for five minutes. It’s almost impossible to convince people to learn how to run slow so they can run long. And I think what’s really sad is we would tend to sort of turn in on ourselves and say if it’s not working it must be because I am not – I don’t have the body or I don’t have the spirit to be able to do the thing.

And in fact, I think a lot of times, it’s like you’re missing some technique, or you’re missing some training concept. And it’s just sad, if there’s such an environment where our default is oh, it’s me. And so I think it’s so important to find supportive groups, to find groups of people who are not the average athlete, not the average runner, to say here’s a bunch of role models for you, here’s a bunch of relatable people, and that let’s help you analyze what it is that you need to start where you are and to go forward in a way that ensures success.

It’s really powerful and really an amazing antidote to sometimes we find ourselves in a segment of society that would prefer to sideline us. And instead of hanging out in that kind of place, come to a place where people want to honor you and want to support you and want to help you progress the way that you want to progress. I think it’s extremely powerful.

Jill: It is. That’s exactly why I created the Rebel Runner Roadmap and why I created Run Your Best Life, so that there’s a place where you can be around the right people to help you. And I think that’s the magical thing that I’ve found. When I’m in the right room, when I’m around the right people, I am so much more effective than when I’m trying to do something in the wrong room or in the wrong group of people.

And I think that’s one of the most powerful things about Facebook to be honest is it’s very easy to find your people and connect with them. But that’s just a great point. Find your people and then there’s no limit to what you can accomplish. So fun.

Well, thank you so much Amy for joining me this morning. And it’s just been a pleasure watching you blossom as a runner. And I know you came to me already a runner, but it’s been really fun to watch you evolve and to watch how thought work has impacted your life and to understand how – because you’re a very giving person, and I just love how you’re super supportive and super helpful of everybody that crosses your path so that they can be successful, and I think that’s one of the – like I said when I introduced you, I said you’re going to meet a magical person today, and I think that’s one of the most magical things about you is how giving and supportive you are to others, so I appreciate that a lot about you. So thank you for joining me today. It’s been a pleasure.

Amy: Thank you so much.

Oh, and one last thing. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, you have to check out the Rebel Runner Roadmap. It’s a 30-day online program that will teach you exactly how to start running, stick with it, and become the runner you’ve always wanted to be. Head on over to rebelrunnerroadmap.com to join. I’d love to be a part of your journey.