Ep #98: Your Questions Answered: Building Up Your Mental Endurance with Jen Lamplough

Welcome to The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. If you’re a woman who is midlife and plus sized and you want to start running but don’t know how, or if it’s even possible, you’re in the right place. Using proven strategies and real-life experience, certified running and life coach Jill Angie shares how you can learn to run in the body you have right now.

Jill: Hey rebels, you are listening to episode 98 of The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. I’m your host, Jill Angie, and I am here with my favorite co-host of all time, Jennifer Lamplough.

Jen: Hi.

Jill: And we are so freaking close to 100 episodes. I’m just dying. We have a really big episode planned for the 100, which I think airs on – let me look at the calendar – it airs on July 11th. Oh my gosh.

Jen: So exciting.

Jill: Fabulous. So that’s going to be super fun. But today we’re going to talk all about endurance and it’s a big topic, yeah?

Jen: Very big topic.

Jill: Means so many things to so many people. But the reason we want to talk about endurance, and we have some listener questions and Facebook follower questions that we’re going to answer, but the reason we wanted to talk about endurance today and make that the focus of our Q&A episode is first of all, we start half marathon training in Run Your Best Life in just a couple weeks. Starts very soon. And that’s going to be an epic class because we’ve done the 5K, we’ve done the 10K, and now we’re heading into half marathon.

And so we’ve got folks that joined us for the 5K course that have just been following along and are now actually poised to start training for their first half marathon. And it’s going to be run the same way all the other classes have been, which is going to be like, live dedicated coaching calls just for those folks and lots of really awesome training material. Not just a training plan, but like fueling and nutrition and strategies for slower runners really because nobody coaches the back of the packers, right? I feel like it’s ridiculous that – there’s a fucking lot of us and nobody pays any attention.

Jen: I know, and we’re where the party’s at so why wouldn’t you want to be with the fun people in the back?

Jill: Right? I know. I do not understand this at all. So our training programs are geared towards the back of the packer. The person who’s not running an eight-minute mile. The person who’s running a 12-minute or 14 or even an 18 or a 20-minute mile. That is kind of the sweet spot for us as coaches. So that starts in just two weeks from this episode. It starts middle of July. So if you want to get in on that training, obviously it’s going to be off the hook, and so you can do that at runyourbestlife.com.

But then also – this is my favorite part. That training starts in July and it ends at the very end of October, which is perfectly positioned for the Rock ‘n’ Roll half marathon weekend in Savannah. So that’s that very first weekend in November. And so what we’ve decided to do is like, we’re just going to take the whole Not Your Average Runner crew down there for those races, but we’re going to do a retreat for the two days before.

So October 31st and November 1st we’re doing a retreat for our Run Your Best Life people only. So you have to be part of Run Your Best Life to join the retreat and it’s going to be like, incredibly amazing. And it’s like, very, very reasonably priced too. We wanted to make the cost of the retreat sort of a no-brainer for people. So we’ve priced it appropriately but you have to be a member of Run Your Best Life to go.

I think we’ve got almost 75 people that we can have. I think we have to cap it at 75 people or maybe it’s 100 people. I’m not sure. So it’s going to be a lot of people there and I just – what are we doing? We’re going to be coaching people, we’re doing – if you sign up for the VIP ticket you get a private photo session with my photographer, which is ridiculous.

Jen: Do a little cooking class probably, a little cooking demo maybe.

Jill: Yeah, it’s going to be awesome. Enell is going to be there doing bra fittings, we’re going to try and set up a ghost tour because it’s Savannah. There’s going to be a lot of coaching. We’re going to go on a group run together too. I keep thinking about all the fun things that we’re going to be doing.

We’re doing a gear exchange too, so everybody’s going to bring down their stuff that they don’t use anymore and sort of have a gear swap. But basically, Jen and I are just going to be there coaching everybody for the whole weekend and then there’s a half marathon and a marathon on Saturday and a 5K and one-miler on Sunday in beautiful Savannah.

So if you want to come to the next retreat that we’re having, you’ve got to be a member of Run Your Best Life. I would just join now because we will train you to run that half marathon. So you will be running it with all the people you’ve been training with for the four months before.

Jen: I can’t wait to see everybody and hug everybody and you know who I really can’t wait to see are those people who joined for the 5K course and that was like, their first foray into running and then to watch them and run with them in a half marathon is going to be so incredibly cool. I cannot wait to see that.

Jill: I could not agree more. Yeah, because they joined in like, February and now they’ve just graduated or they’re just about to graduate from the 10K course and yeah, to see that progression in the course of just 10 months is super fun.

Jen: We sucked them right into that running vortex, didn’t we?

Jill: I know. We’re going to have to do something special for those folks down there. They’re going to have to get some kind of special award, I think.

Jen: I totally agree.

Jill: Yeah. I think we should do a whole award ceremony.

Jen: Oh, I love that.

Jill: Let’s do that. Let’s do that. Okay, so many ideas for awards. My brain is exploding right now. Okay alright, we’ll do that in our next team meeting. But right now, we have a bunch of questions to answer on the topic of endurance. And so – actually wait, what’s the other thing that we’re doing in July in Run Your Best Life?

Jen: The other thing that we’re doing in July…

Jill: It’s endurance month.

Jen: I know. So we’re kicking off our Ragnar training. Is that what you’re talking about?

Jill: No, we’re kicking that off in June.

Jen: Oh gosh, that’s right. What are we doing in July? I can’t remember.

Jill: I know. So yeah, Ragnar just kicked off but July is endurance month. So endurance month, we’re talking about everything related to endurance, mental and physical. So we’ve got like…

Jen: Yeah, I think people think of endurance they think of running endurance, but we’re really going to be probably coaching even more on the mental endurance.

Jill: Exactly. And so okay, well actually, before we get into questions, what does mental endurance mean to you?

Jen: You know, I sort of define it as grit. Like having the ability to sort of work through the mental part of something hard, right? So there’s a great book out there, I think her name is Angela Duckworth and she wrote a book called Grit and I love this book. I saw her speak at a conference I think two years in a row she was at this – it was like a leadership conference I was at and she spoke.

And she talked about – she was a swimmer and she was struggling. She wanted to quit. And so her dad said to her, he’s like you’re allowed to quit but you have to wait for a good day. You have to quit on a good day. You can’t quit on a bad day, and that split my brain in half. I was like, oh my god, that’s such a great way to think about it and to me, that’s what grit is. Like, you don’t quit on the bad day. If you want to quit on the good day, it means you don’t really like it, but don’t quit on the bad day.

Jill: Yeah, that is a mind-blower but so fucking true. And I feel like so many people quit long run training, or distance training after they have a really shitty long run. We should make that a rule for everybody in Run Your Best Life. You’re not allowed to quit until you’ve had a really good run and then you can decide if you really want to quit or not.

Jen: Isn’t that amazing? When she said that, I just got goose bumps all over my body. I was like, that is so true.

Jill: Yeah. Her dad is smart.

Jen: Super smart. I know. She is too. That book is fantastic.

Jill: It is a really good book. I haven’t read that in years too. I’m going to have to drag that out and re-read that one because grit is just such a great way to put – such a great term for mental endurance.

Jen: And it’s kind of a badass term too, like you think of grit, you kind of think tough, badass, it’s a great word. It’s a really good definition of endurance.

Jill: Yeah, well you know that our hockey team mascot – well, not our because now that I’m in New Jersey, I guess we have a hockey team in New Jersey. It’s something, some devil, I don’t know. But all my Jersey listeners are like, cringing right now. I’m such a Philly girl. But anyway, with the Philly Flyers, the mascot’s name is Gritty.

Jen: Oh nice. That’s awesome.

Jill: He’s like this big orange fur ball with googly eyes. It’s really kind of weird. He’s very lovable in a creepy sort of way. But his name is Gritty because he’s got grit because that’s what you have when you’re in Philly.

Jen: I love that word.

Jill: That is a great word. That is a great word. We should do a podcast reviewing that book. Maybe we should invite Angela Duckworth…

Jen: Can we please? I love her. She was great to listen to speak and she’s got – I think she has a TED talk and you just Google her and she’s got all these talks out there. She’s really fantastic.

Jill: Alright, we’ll make that happen. I love that. Okay, so let’s take some questions on endurance from our listeners and Facebook followers. Do you want to go first?

Jen: Sure. So Judy Watkins asked the question, “Your top motivational tip would be…” So what our top motivational tip is. And for mine is to understand that you are the only person who can motivate you. I think we often rely on others to motivate us or other scenarios to motivate us, and the only thing that can motivate you is you. And when you come to terms with that and you really understand that, that’s when you really start to learn how to cultivate your own motivation and it’s very powerful.

Jill: Yeah. And motivation comes from your thoughts. Somebody was just mentioning in Run Your Best Life the other day or maybe it was the Not Your Average Runner group but either way, somewhere on Facebook I saw somebody post like, I don’t know what happened, my motivation is just gone. And like, that’s not how it works. Motivation is not like the weather. It does not come and go according to the winds. Motivation is something that we create with our thinking, and if we think thoughts that result in a feeling of motivation, we’ll feel motivated. If we think thoughts that results in a feeling of demotivation or what’s the word? Lethargy?

Jen: Lethargy. Apathy.

Jill: Apathy, yeah, then that’s how we’ll feel. And so Jen, you have some great mantras for thoughts that make you feel motivated. Do you want to share a couple of those?

Jen: Yeah, definitely. And just real quick, in addition to that, what you just said that motivation is a thought, nobody can take away your motivation. You lose motivation because you let that happen. Nobody can take that from you. It’s not a coffee cup and somebody steals it from you and breaks it. It doesn’t work that way. So to stay motivated, I use a lot of them. One of them is my running mantra that really just sort of keeps my brain focused and keeps my inner mean girl silent, and I always tell this story. I stole it from Jayne Williams, who wrote the books Slow Fat Triathlete.

Jill: Oh, love her.

Jen: I love that book.

Jill: We should get her on the podcast too.

Jen: I know. That book is hilarious. But it’s I am strong and I kick ass, I am focused on my task and if you keep telling yourself you kick ass, you’re going to kick ass. I love that.

Jill: Right, you’re going to start believing it. I love that. And something else I want to piggyback that you just said is that nobody can take your motivation away from you. The reason that motivation disappears is because you stopped thinking the thoughts that created the motivation in the first place. And so we talk a lot – and we did a whole month on finding your compelling reason, finding your why. We did a whole month on that in Run Your Best Life.

But basically, the way to stay motivated is to come up with a really compelling reason that you want more than you want to stay in bed and sleep a little bit longer. And then your thought is I want this thing more than I want to stay in bed. And then the other thing – this is something that Jen, that you say all the time to the Run Your Best Lifers is you don’t have to feel like it to go running. There’s no rule that says you got to be in the mood to go out and get your run done.

Jen: Right. I always say I don’t need a tickertape parade every time I do a run. It’s just like brushing your teeth, going to work, do your run. It’s a non-negotiable. And so it’s like yeah, I have this list of beliefs that I read every day and one of those is just that. I don’t need to feel like doing my run. I just do it.

Jill: Right. Because nobody’s in the mood to brush their teeth. Nobody’s in the mood to drive to work. We still fucking do it because we want the results of having a clean mouth and being at work and getting paid, and I think the same thing goes with running. It doesn’t need to be some big huge tickertape parade, right? It doesn’t have to be a party. Life is not always like that, but if you want the result of being prepared for your race, you got to do the preparation.

So Judy, I hope that was helpful to you. I know sometimes we give the tough love and people are like, that really wasn’t the answer I was looking for and I’m like, well, I don’t know what to tell you. But if you want a different answer, ask a different coach.

Jen: Exactly.

Jill: Alright, so the next question, I picked a good one I think. One of my favorite topics. So Lisa Smith says, “My inner mean girl gets really loud when I think about running more than an hour. I’m signed up for a half marathon in October. What do you suggest?”

Well Lisa, I suggest that you join Run Your Best Life so that we can work on your inner mean girl together obviously, but honestly, your inner mean girl is a collection of thoughts. They’re just a bunch of beliefs that you have that you’ve decided are – you’re going to keep thinking. We don’t necessarily make those decisions consciously.

I think the inner mean girl is a collection of all the voices that we’ve heard throughout our lives that we’ve heard repetitively and that some of those beliefs that we’ve taken on board and decided to just keep thinking and practicing. So that’s what the inner mean girl is and yeah, the reason she gets loud when you start thinking about running more than an hour is because you’ve never done that before.

So she doesn’t know what to expect and she’s trying to keep you safe. So I would do a thought download every day and right down every single thing that your inner mean girl says to you, and then just look at it. Just really look at it as if your best friend had just said all that stuff to you. And decide like, are those circumstances or are they just thoughts? And 99% of them are going to be just thoughts and you get to decide whether you want to believe them or not. You get to decide whether they’re helpful to you or not.

And when you think about running more than an hour, I would just say like, alright, go out and run for an hour and 10 minutes. Prove her wrong. And then the next time go do an hour and 20 minutes. Prove her wrong. Eventually you’re going to get to the point where it’s going to be like, you know, every single time I think I can’t do this I go out and I do it and I prove her wrong. Eventually the whole thing just sort of falls apart.

And the other thing is very similar to what Jen just said about I don’t need a tickertape parade. Your inner mean girl can say whatever she wants. You don’t have to believe her. All that shit is optional. You can still go out and do your run with all of that raging inside your head. It probably won’t be super fun, but it doesn’t mean that you have to stop. What would you add to that, Jen?

Jen: I was laughing because I was thinking when you said join Run Your Best Life and we’ll work on that inner mean girl, and I know that we’ve been working on new t-shirt slogans and I thought our t-shirt slogan should be inner mean girl slayer.

Jill: Oh my gosh, I love that.

Jen: Like Game of Thrones, like instead of king slayer we’re inner mean girl slayer.

Jill: I love that so much because so we did launch a few new ones too. One of them says determined as fuck. It says determined AF. It’s like, the polite way to say it. And now I can’t remember what the other ones – another one says rebel runner. One of them says I showed the fuck up for myself today. And there’s one more and I can’t remember what it is, but I think we should probably do inner mean girl slayer. We do have one that says my inner mean girl can suck it or something like that.

Jen: Yeah, my inner mean girl can suck it. No, everything you said, it’s like we have this collection of thoughts and you’re right, in different voices. So if somebody in your life has told you the same thing over and over again, you hear them talking to you in your head and they become that inner mean girl voice. And so that’s where the mantras come in really handy because the mantra can really quieten down an inner mean girl because it’s almost meditative and your brain just wants that regular – the cadence of it, the words, the things.

I did an entire 10K race saying my mantra over and over again for the entire – it took me an hour and 20 minutes and I said my mantra from the first footfall to the last footfall and it saved me because it was a Chicago lakefront race in February and it was 10 degrees and snowing. And let me tell you, it was – that was my first race back when I came back to running and started working with you.

That was my first – it was February and I was like, what am I doing out here? And so literally, the entire time – and it really quieted down those nasty thoughts that are saying you should quit, why are you doing this, this is crazy, you can’t do this, you’re not strong enough, you’re too cold. All those things. So the mantra really helps with that.

Jill: Yeah. Well, and that’s a great point because when we talk about this in Run Your Best Life about thinking on purpose rather than just letting the toddler run around with the umbrella in the house, that’s just like letting your thoughts run amuck, letting your inner mean girl go. Like, thinking on purpose is actually saying like, no, this is not – this is what I want to think, repeating it to yourself over and over again. And when you’re consciously steering the ship of your thoughts, the other stuff can’t manifest because you’re literally putting your hands on the wheel and saying no, this is the direction that we’re going.

Jen: And if you let a toddler run around a house with an open umbrella, shit’s going to get broken and so it’s kind of the same thing. It can really derail you and we talked earlier about creating your own motivation. That’s where you lose motivation is when you let those thoughts take over.

Jill: Yeah, exactly. Those thoughts are motivation killers for sure. Love that. Okay, alright, do you want to pick one now?

Jen: Sure. This is from Wendy Jones and she says, “Love your podcast. After finishing two half marathons in 2018 I took some time off during the holidays and couldn’t seem to get started again. Now I’ve found your podcast and I’ve fallen in love with running all over again. Thank you.” That’s amazing. Now the question. “I love the run but I hate the stretching, and I think that lifting weights is boring.” That’s how she wrote it and that’s how I’m hearing it in my head.

“But I’m tired of sore knees and ankles and tight calves, and at 53 plus, I know that I need to do everything I can to take care of my body so I can run for many years to come. I’m worried that I’m risking injury with this stretching avoidance. Would love your advice on the most efficient way that I can do the work so that I can get back to the run.” Oh, you know this is one of my favorite topics, right? My favorite topic.

Jill: And it’s really like, it’s not specific to endurance. This actually applies to everybody, but she’s looking to do another half marathon and this is – I mean, this is pretty incredible.

Jen: What I always say, in order to do the running, you have to do the strength. I mean, it is like you have to do the mental work, you have to do the physical work, and the part of that physical work is strength and stretching. And this isn’t stuff that has to take hours. We’re talking a couple of days of strength a week and a little bit of stretching after you’re done. Even just a little bit will go really far.

And everything that Wendy said is right. She’s risking injury, and if you’re worried about taking time off and having to “start over,” every time you do that, you’re derailing yourself. And so to take full care of yourself, you have to do those things and figure out a way to do it that you like. It doesn’t have to be lifting weights. There’s lots of ways to do strength training that are not in the gym lifting weights.

So you could go to a class, you could jump rope, you could do squats upstairs. There’s all sorts of things you can do that are strength related that can actually be really fun. And once you find the key for you, it’ll click and you see the change in your running, especially for me with glutes and abs are really important for me in strength training because I’m chest heavy and so on long runs I start to bend and lean over. And if my core isn’t strong enough then I really do that and I get really sore.

And I could potentially injure myself, so I always really focus on my core to keep myself upright and then the glutes because I always want to be firing from my glutes as opposed to my calves. And because I have – I tend to have tight calves and so I really work on strengthening those muscles so they fire first over the calves.

And I mean, I can’t talk enough about strength training and I will say everything I’ve read, everybody I’ve talked to who are experts on strength training, every doctor, strength training is the key to anti-aging. So if you want to live a long time, if you want to run for a long time, if you want to not fall down and break your hip, you need to do the strength training and it really, really makes a huge difference.

Jill: Yeah, that’s a great point. So Wendy, I have a few words to share with you. So one thing that you said in your question was I love the run but I hate the stretching, and I think lifting weights is boring, and I want you to know that you’re coming at that like those are just facts, but really I hate stretching and I think lifting weights is boring are thoughts that are creating a feeling of maybe resistance or disinterest when you think about stretching and lifting weights.

So of course, if you’re thinking it’s boring, it’s going to be boring. But if you start thinking in a different way like I wonder how I can make this interesting, or lifting weights get me closer to my goal or lifting weights makes me a stronger runner, if you keep thinking the thought lifting weights is boring, you’re going to be bored as fuck. That’s how it works.

So it starts with changing your thinking about stretching and strength training because you can white-knuckle your way through it and force yourself to do it, but you’re going to be miserable. I’d rather have you enjoy yourself or at least feel like while you’re doing it like this is something that is good for me and I’m motivated to do it because I know it’s important.

So that’s one piece that I think you need to adjust your thinking about the strength training and the stretching, or you’re always going to be arguing with yourself. Now, as far as keeping it efficient, there’s a lot. You can Google and there’s a resistant band workout that we share with our Run Your Best Life members. It’s on YouTube, and we can share it in the show notes too.

It’s a really, really good workout that takes maybe 15 minutes. Twice a week, and all you need is a resistance band. You can do it while you’re watching Netflix. So strength training doesn’t need to be, like Jen said, it doesn’t need to be hours and hours in the gym. You can take a class and those are super fun. You can go to a boot camp. You can just do body weight exercises around the house. It doesn’t have to be boring.

The only way strength training is boring is if you decide it’s boring. So I want you to work on your thinking around it and then twice a week for maybe 15 or 20 minutes, so it doesn’t have to be a big deal. Stretching for sure, if you hate stretching, you might be doing it wrong. So I would start looking for some different videos on stretches for runners. I would also add in some dynamic stretching before you start running and then save the static stretching, which is where you hold a pose, save that for after the run.

And the dynamic stretching is going to help you feel a lot better when you’re running as well. And so if you Google dynamic stretching routine for runners, again, you’ll find a million different routines that come up on YouTube. But yeah, you are risking injury by avoiding it, and it really doesn’t have to be – it’s a few minutes after each run. Doesn’t take long.

And if it’s hurting you, you’re doing it wrong. If it’s hurting you, you’re pushing too hard into the stretch and you probably need to back off a little bit. Do you have anything to add to that, Jen?

Jen: Stretching is one of my favorite parts. I’m always…

Jill: I know, me too.

Jen: I’m always bewildered when people say that they hate stretching because I’m like, oh god, that’s like the best part.

Jill: Feels amazing.

Jen: And if you learn – if you go to a restorative yoga class, you don’t have to go every time but you learn a few of the poses that really work for you and just do those after your run, it could be one or two poses like legs up the wall or pigeon pose, even supported pigeon pose, those stretch out all those muscles. Those right running muscles, and I mean, you just feel like a rubber band’s been released.

Jill: Yeah, that’s a great way to put it, like the release of a rubber band. It feels so good. Alright, so get out there and stretch and strength train, Wendy. It’s important. Alright, I think we have time for one more question. So, I’m going to pull this one from Rebecca. She says, “Hey Jill, podcast groupie here. With your help, I’ve become a real runner in the past eight months and I freaking love it. Four weeks ago, I started a running club at work with your jumpstart plan.”

Yay, oh my god, if you do not have the jumpstart plan, go to notyouraveragerunner.com/sixweekstarter and it’s a free six-week plan that’ll get you started. “And at the same time, I signed up for the Big Easy half marathon in November.” I love that you went from jumpstart plan to half marathon.

“Of course, that’s also the week my leg pain started and now I’m in a walking boot due to a stress fracture in my tibia. Not being able to run is killing me and now I have all these shit thoughts about how I’m going to have to start all over when I actually am allowed to run again. Help. Can you do a podcast talking about how to mentally survive and recover from a sidelining injury? I’m about 60 episodes in so apologies if you’ve covered this topic and I didn’t see it in the topic list.”

So we are just going to cover it right now and I mean, Jen’s going to have a lot of thoughts on this because she’s done some injury recovery. But the best thing is the mental survival is you’re going to have a lot of thoughts of oh my god, I’m never going to be running again, this is awful, I want to be doing the thing. You’ve got to manage those thoughts. So we’re talking about doing thought downloads every day and looking at the shit thoughts that are causing you to feel worried or concerned or whatever it is.

And just recognize that accidents happen. Injuries happen. You didn’t do it on purpose. It just – shit happens. So wishing that it was different is not a useful use of your brain space. Wishing it was different makes you feel resentful, and then you’re just – you don’t show up for yourself in a way that helps you recover quickly.

So wishing it was different is not going to work for you. It’s not going to get you through it. Being afraid that you’re never going to run again, again, that’s not helpful. You’ve got to focus on thinking that creates feelings of determination to get through it or maybe peaceful. I love peaceful because if you’re thinking the thought this is all happening the way it should be, I’ll get there when I get there, you’ll feel a lot more peaceful and then you show up for your rehab a lot differently.

So the mental survival, it’s all going to be about managing your thoughts and getting yourself out of that rabbit hole that we all want to go down when we’re thinking this is terrible, I wish it hadn’t happened. We can’t change the past, so that’s a complete waste of your thinking. And the recovery piece, do everything your doctor tells you for sure, and don’t try to get back out there too soon because you could reinjure yourself. Okay Jen, have at it because you’ve had quite a few injuries to recover from. Like significant broken bones and stuff.

Jen: Yeah, I had a really bad ankle break in 2012 and then last year in May of 2018 I broke my right foot, which I never thought I was a clutz before but apparently, I am. About every five years. But one of the things that really sticks with me about injury and when people say oh, I’m going to have to start over, Gretchen Rubin talks about this in – I think it’s in Better Than Before.

And she talks about how you have to look at it, when you’re building a habit, instead of saying I’m starting over, I’m just taking a pause and then I’m going to kind of pick up the habit again. And you might not be endurance-wise where you were before or distance-wise where you were before, but you’re picking the habit back up. And so okay, right now my habit is to run, maybe do some strength training and some stretching and to make sure my nutrition is on point and do my mental work.

Well, the only thing you can’t do in that list of things is run right now. So just because you can’t run doesn’t mean you can’t do all of those other things. So go do some strength training that’s only upper body. Keep doing your mental work every day. Keep eating healthy because then you’re still doing all the things and you’ve just paused the running. And then when you’re cleared, you just pick the running right back up.

Jill: I just can’t even – that was so perfectly said because literally, that is the circumstance. The only thing you can’t do right now is run. That is the circumstance, and I feel like that so clearly lays it out. Go do the other things.

Jen: Yeah, it took me a couple of injuries to get there. When I broke my ankle, I was at my probably peak endurance. I had lost a bunch of weight; I was at like a – I did a half marathon at about 12-and-a-half-minute mile. I was top shape and then catastrophically non-weight bearing for three months. Broke my ankle. I mean, it was a big deal.

And you know, for a while I was like okay, I’m still going to eat healthy and I’m still going to do this, and I didn’t do the mental work and so it started to spiral. And I completely – everything went to shit because I let all the things go to shit except for the things – so I should have done all the other things that I could with a broken ankle like eat healthy and do my mental work and do some upper body strength training, do some stretching. That sort of thing, and it would have been a lot easier to pick back up where I left off as opposed to having to start over.

Jill: Yeah, and I think like, just this whole theme of endurance, physical endurance is one thing. I think physical endurance is a lot easier to develop than mental endurance because if you have mental endurance, the physical endurance comes along with it. And mental endurance is something that it’s not just for distance running. It’s for recovery, it’s for having when problems come up in your life. If you’ve got that mental – those powers of being able to manage your mind, there’s pretty much nothing you can’t do.

Jen: And quite honestly, you’re going to recover faster. I really believe that. I mean, I really believe that the power of sticking to what you said you were going to do and not letting the fact that you can’t run mean anything other than you can’t run in this moment. It doesn’t mean anything else other than that, and if you can put that in that drawer in your brain and understand that you’re still doing all these things, that positive mental energy I think helps you heal better.

Jill: Yeah. I could not agree more. And if nothing else because when your brain is in the right space, you show up for your rehab, you show up for all the activities that support your recovery in a totally different way. You don’t go to rehab grudgingly and halfass your way through the exercises. You show and you do them, right?

You don’t try to get away with oh, they told me 12 reps but they’re not looking so I’m only going to do 10. You show up and you do extra and you work harder when you are managing your mind than if you’re just letting it happen, I guess. So good. OH my gosh, so before we sign off, do you have any other thoughts on endurance that you want to share?

Jen: I think just sort of reiterating that endurance is not just physical when we talk about long distance running. And really understanding what mental endurance is and how to cultivate it through the thought work that we do. I’m telling you, it’s miraculous to me and what you can feel like and accomplish when you know how to manage your mind properly, I mean, it’s a total game-changer and it’s like the key to life, quite honestly. And you literally could do anything. You really truly can if you can manage your mind around it.

Jill: Yeah. Nothing else in your life has to change for you to feel better and act differently other than you literally just need to change your mind. It’s amazing. And so this is what we’re going to be doing all month in July in Run Your Best Life. So this episode that we’re recording now comes out I think on June 27th so just in a few days we’ll be starting endurance month in Run Your Best Life, and then of course a week or two after that we will be in the throes of half marathon training.

So if you want to come to Savannah with us and run the Rock ‘n’ Roll and come to the retreat and train with everybody, just go and sign up right now because we’ve created all these tools and all these workshops and so forth on endurance for the members of that group to make sure that they all get through that hump. Because half marathon training, it’s not a joke. It doesn’t happen by accident.

It’s not – like a 5K most people could go out and walk a 5K without training. Not everybody can go out and do a half marathon without training. Most people cannot do that. Half marathon, you need to apply all the mental tools and then you need to do the physical training as well, and the mental tools are what helps you do the physical training, so that’s kind of why we are setting everybody in the half marathon up for success this month by hitting endurance like, right off the beginning. Out the gate, is that the term?

Jen: Out the gate, and doing it in the most supportive environment possible. We are a no judgment zone. It is pure support. Everybody’s doing the same thing. It’s this private space where you can say the gross injury that you have or you did shit your pants when you were running. You can say that and nobody’s going to judge you and everybody else is going to be like oh my god, that happened to me too. I mean, it really is. We always say too, we don’t do perfect. All we care about is that you’re making progress.

Jill: Yeah. It’s a no judgment, no perfection zone. It’s a good place to be.

Jen: Inner mean girl slayers.

Jill: Inner mean girl slayers. I love that. I’m just going to start calling you Khaleesi.

Jen: Please do. Well, I don’t know…

Jill: She wasn’t a dragon slayer. Yeah, I know – no spoilers. No Game of Thrones spoilers. But we have our opinions about how it ended.

Jen: How about Arya? You can call me Arya. She’s an inner mean girl slayer.

Jill: Okay. A girl has no inner mean gilalite, okay so that’s it for this month. If you would like to connect with any of the resources that we talked about in this episode, just go to notyouraveragerunner.com/98 and of course if you want to join us for half marathon training or endurance month or if you just want to hang out with a bunch of really cool chicks and come to Savannah, just join us at runyourbestlife.com. It’s $39 a month so I mean, it’s kind of silly if you’re not.

Jen: For sure.

Jill: If you’re not there, it’s just silly. So alright my friends and my Jen, have an amazing week and we’ll talk to you next week. That’s it.

Jen: Bye.

Jill: Bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. If you liked what you heard and want more, head over to www.notyouraveragerunner.com to download your free one-week jumpstart plan and get started running today.