Ep. #402: Running in Mid-life Hits Different, Here’s Why

Welcome to the Not Your Average Runner podcast. I’m Jill Angie, a certified running coach, and your running BFF here to help you start running. Feel confident and love the journey no matter your size. Now, if you’ve ever felt like you just weren’t meant to be a runner, think again. I believe that running is for all bodies, even yours.

This podcast is your warmup buddy, giving you tips, motivation, and the support you need to lace up and get moving. I’ve helped thousands of women become runners, and now I wanna help you. Let’s go.

Hey runner and welcome back to the show, and I am so glad you’re here this week because today’s topic is one that I know so many of you are living through right now, and that is that running in midlife just kind of hits different. So if you’ve ever laced up your shoes and headed out for a run and thought.

Ah. This used to feel easier, or at least I thought it would be easier. Like your body’s a little slower to get going. Your brain won’t stop spinning. You’re wondering if everybody else has it figured out, but you, well, yeah, that’s you. I feel you. I’ve been there. I still go there sometimes. But here’s the truth.

Midlife running is not like running in your twenties or your thirties, physically, mentally, or emotionally. And if you came to running later in life, it hits even harder because you are not just adjusting to a changing body. You are learning something totally new at the same time. So today we are digging into why running in this season is different, why that’s not a problem at all, and what it means to fully own this identity as a midlife runner.

All right, let’s get into it. So the first. Piece of it is that you’ve got more on your plate at this point in your life, mentally and emotionally. Uh, in your twenties, you might’ve been worried about first jobs and hangovers, but in midlife you are managing careers, caregiving, retirement savings, aging parents, teenage kids, hormonal chaos.

And probably a whole bunch of emotional baggage from the past three decades. So yeah, your brain is carrying a lot, and that mental load doesn’t just disappear when you start running. It often gets louder, and you may find yourself trying to solve work problems or plan dinner or reviewing that awkward thing you said in 2009, like all in the first half a mile of your run.

And that doesn’t mean that you’re bad at running. It just means your mind is doing what it does, and the trick isn’t shutting it off. It’s learning how to work with it. I did give you some tips on that in episode 4 0 1, just in case you missed that one. But yeah, you’ve got more on your plate at this point in your life and that is going to impact how running feels.

Now the second piece of this is your body has changed. Your body is probably still changing, but also it’s still your home. Okay? Midlife bodies are different, hormonally, all the things. Period. They’re just different. You might feel stiffer when you start. It might take longer to recover things ache for seemingly no reason at all.

And you might notice that what used to work for you no longer works for you. And that can be very frustrating. But it’s not failure, it’s feedback. All right, let’s make that clear. And the truth is, your body has carried you through decades of living, of stress and joy and heartbreak and survival of diet, culture, and chronic fatigue, and forcing yourself to push through so that body.

Is also still here, and she’s simply asking you to treat her a little differently now, more gently, more attentively, more like a teammate than a project. All right? Midlife running is not about chasing your old fitness levels. It is about building new strength on your own terms that make sense for you right now?

Now. Your body is different. Yes. And if you used to be a runner and you’re still a runner, that’s one thing, but you might be a new runner and not like a slower version of your younger self. You might be the fastest version of your current self, but this is where it really hits different. If you didn’t grow up running, if you didn’t run track in high school or race 10 Ks in college, you’re not getting back into it.

You’re starting now, and that is so powerful. So it hits different because learning to run for your first. For the first time in your forties or fifties or sixties is no small thing. You are building an identity that you were never taught to believe was possible. You are saying, yeah, I can still try something new.

Yes, I can take up space. Yes, I deserve to move my body and feel proud and fuck if I’m 60 years old and I’m deciding to do those things. That’s awesome. And yeah, it might feel awkward or clunky sometimes. That’s normal. Happens to all of us. You’re not behind. You’re just at the beginning of this new phase of your life, and it is never too late to begin.

So the reason it hits different if you’re a new runner in midlife is because it’s really badass for you to be doing this. All right? Just take a moment and recognize how amazing it is. Now another reason. Well, you exercise for different reasons now. Right? That’s a good thing because let’s be real, when you’re younger, exercise, especially running is more about burning calories and punishing yourself for eating bread or shrinking down to be more acceptable.

But now. That’s not why we run, that’s not why we exercise. We do it for our sanity, for a break from caregiving, to reconnect with ourselves, uh, to feel better in our bodies. Right? To remember that you are more than your job title or your gene size. You run, you exercise because it makes you feel alive, and that’s so much more powerful than any weight loss goal or race medal.

Your why has evolved. That is not just okay, that is growth. That is growth. You’re also not here for the bullshit anymore. You know what I mean? Midlife comes with the kind of clarity that is hard earned. But so, so sweet because you stop doing things just to please other people, and that includes how you move your body.

You’ve spent enough years trying to shrink and hustle and prove and perform and be the perfect everything. You’ve spent enough years following plans that weren’t made for you and chasing goals that just didn’t feel right. Now you train smarter, not harder. You walk when you need to. You take rest days without guilt.

You skip the toxic positivity and the no excuses. Go hard or go home nonsense. ’cause you’re not running to fix yourself. You are running to honor yourself and the old rules don’t apply anymore because you are now writing your own. And speaking of that, you’re redefining what success looks like. Success in midlife is not necessarily about pace or distance, alright?

It’s about showing up when your brain says I got too much other stuff to do. It is about running with joy instead of judgment. It is about finishing. Your workout, no matter how it felt and thinking, I did that for myself. I did that. For me, it is about saying I am still here. I am still trying. I am still growing.

All right. Even if your run is mostly walking, even if you forgot to start your GPS, your tech doesn’t recognize that it happened. It still counts. It still counts. Okay. Redefining what success looks like in midlife is so important because you are not the same person that you were 20, 30, 40 years ago. So why would you be trying to follow the rules that you followed then when you are a completely different person?

All right, so running in midlife hits different. It should hit different because you have lived a lot. You have learned a lot. You are still showing up, still pushing forward, still claiming your space. So whether you started running yesterday or you’re working towards your hundredth half marathon, right?

You belong here. Your run is valid, your journey is enough. Now if this episode felt like your story, if you’re nodding along thinking, uh, yeah, that’s me. I would love for you to come join us in. Run Your Best Life. Run Your Best. Life is my running community for plus size midlife women who wanna run strong.

Now and for many, many years. Okay. We have got training plans, we’ve got mindset tools, and we have a crew of badass women who get what it means to be a beginner and a boss at the same time. All right, you can join us at Run Your Best life.com. Or I put a link in the bio, sorry, a link in the show notes.

This isn’t Instagram. You can join us at run your best life.com or you can go to the link in the show notes to check it out. I hope I see you there, and until next time, my friend, please run your way at your pace in your body and I will talk to you soon.

Real quick before you go, I’ve got a fun challenge for you. Take my exerciser personality quiz to find out exactly what kind of exerciser you are and how to make running feel easier and more enjoyable.

Just head over to not your average runner.com/quiz to take it and get your results. That’s not your average runner.com/quiz.