Ep #194: Half a Lap Around the Track to 50K with NYAR Ambassador Stormi Campbell

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 this week with a fabulous Not Your Average Runner ambassador, Stormi Campbell. And we’re going to talk about her running story and all things running. She just told me that she could literally talk about running forever, so that’s what we’re going to do today. So Stormi, thank you so much for being with me today.

Stormi: Thank you so much for having me. I literally cannot tell you about how many times I’ve dreamed about having this opportunity to podcast with you, so this is very exciting. I like to believe that I manifested it after your interview with Cassie Parks. One of the first things I wrote down was like, be on the Not Your Average Runner podcast.

Jill: Oh my gosh. Okay wait, so I cannot believe you said that because literally the interview that I did right before you today was with Cassie Parks.

Stormi: Oh my god. And I’ve been listening to her all week. Her podcast with Jenny, I’ve been listening to her all week and just manifesting. And I literally will sit in the car and just drive and tear up being like, man, my dreams are coming true. And then to have this, that’s just totally inspiration right there.

Jill: That’s so fun. Her episode isn’t coming out until July. I have a lot of interviews that are scheduled out, but oh my god, that blows my mind.

Stormi: That’s perfect. That is just really honestly – that’s totally inspiration right there. I think that’s total kismet.

Jill: Okay, so now we have to talk about manifesting on this call as well. So we’ll get into all of it, but first of all, I want to help people get to know you so can you tell us a little about yourself and maybe how you started running, what role does running have in your life. All the things.

Stormi: Okay. So first off, I am a 29-year-old mom of two little girls. I homeschool them so I’m home with kids all the time, so you can imagine how that is draining emotionally and mentally. And I’m married to someone who’s in the Air Force, so we move around a lot, which has afforded me some really cool opportunities as far as running goes.

And honestly, running for me, like I said, that’s my peace, that’s my me time. That’s what separates mom, wife, whatever, from Stormi. This is the thing that Stormi does. And my kids are involved with me in running and that’s super special, but it is something that is mine. And that’s really cool.

Jill: I love that. So can you say more about that? When you say it’s something that’s mine, why is that so important to you?

Stormi: When my oldest daughter Lily was born, she was premature. So my entire world revolved around making sure that she was eating properly and taking care of her and gaining weight and she had a whole lot of health issues growing up in her first few years. So I quickly realized that I was like, I need something that’s me because I’ve quickly slipped into this mom role of being just so submerged in motherhood that I didn’t know who I was anymore.

And I didn’t like that. I didn’t like how it made me feel. And I didn’t like the person I was. I struggled a lot with postpartum depression. And it really – it gave me time to stir in my own head and think about the things that I wanted. And it gave me some space so I could really come back and appreciate what I was getting to do as her mom. And now what I get to do as both of my children’s mom.

Just as a human, as a wife, as just being on this planet, I get to observe the universe on foot I think as we were intended. And kind of just be in my body and very present, very – because I can be very forward thinking or very backward thinking, worrying about what they’ve got to do, what’s been done, and running is centering myself and making myself more present.

Jill: I love that. What you just said about experiencing the world on foot, I think that’s so powerful. Because how much of our time do we spend behind the wheel of a car, or in front of our screens.

Stormi: And it moves by so fast.

Jill: It does.

Stormi: I mean, you can’t even look at it. You can’t even appreciate it. So I mean, and there’s so much I wouldn’t have seen had I not run in the places that I’ve gotten to run. So I’m forever grateful that I got over my own self and decided to try it because now I can’t imagine my life without it.

Jill: Well, let’s talk about that a little bit. How did you get over yourself to start running? What was it like for you before you became a runner, what were some of the thoughts you had, and how did that shift for you?

Stormi: Well, it really started as the idea of punishment. I did a lot of sports growing up. I wouldn’t say I was super fit but I was relatively fit as a kid. I did a sport every season. And every one of those sports, running was the punishment. I distinctly remember they said if you’re going to be on the cheer team, you’re going to have to run a mile.

And I was like, a mile? I have to run a whole mile? I don’t even know how far that is. So my mom had actually gotten in her minivan and gotten the odometer reset and drove our neighborhood to see what loop would be a mile. And I ran that to practice.

And I probably got a third of the way there and I was like, this is awful, I hate this. And from then on, that was my whole attitude. And so then but my grandmother had always say like, you would be such an awesome runner if you would just try it, if you would just try to run. I’m like, no, it sucks, I hate it, it’s bad, I’m bad at it and it’s bad.

Let me just go lift some weights. I was good at lifting weights. I was naturally really good at that, so I was like, yeah, no, I’m just going to lift some heavy stuff. And then not long after I had my oldest daughter Lily, my grandmother passed. And she was one of the most special people to me. And I kind of was like, she really wanted me to try this.

So I think I’m going to give it a try because I had wished I had before. And I was like, I think I’ll try it. And then I got my stroller, which was not a jogging stroller. It was just a standard little stroller that you can hitch the carrier in and I was like, alright, I’m going to put the baby in there and I’m going to go try to run. And it was hot, we lived in North Carolina. It was muggy. And I could not even make it all the way around the track.

Jill: Wait, you had the stroller on a track? Like a high school track?

Stormi: Yeah, it was the base track. I drove to base and I was like, okay, I’m going to try it, go run. In my mind I was like, I can do a mile, even though I hated it, I had to do it for school, I can do that. Never mind that it’d been five years since I had graduated. Running at that pace and just had a baby not long before that, so it didn’t occur to me that that was a limitation until I got out there.

And it was like, this is bad like I thought it was. I remember this is bad. So I was like, well, I can either give up or I can try. And so I was like, I just want to make it around the track. And so I kind of got there and was like, alright, we’re going to work to make it around the track. And that first day, just halfway around the track and then walked the rest of the way and got back in our car and left.

So literally ran probably less than a 10th of a mile and was just like, okay, and then walked back and was out there less than five minutes. And then kind of came back for more and I was like, I’m going to sign up for a 5K. I’ve never done one, I’ve signed up for free ones and never did them, and I was like, I’ll accomplish a 5K and it took me an hour to do that 5K.

Jill: How did you feel after you finished though?

Stormi: Oh god, I wanted to cry. I was so excited. You couldn’t tell me shit. I was like, I am fucking Michael Jordan. And I didn’t know who any runners were. You couldn’t have told me about Men Keflezighi, or Usain Bolt, anybody. Like, Kathrine who? Kathrine Switzer what? Don’t know her.

Wouldn’t have known anybody, but I was just like, I’m a runner. And so what I think was really powerful is my husband had met me the last half a mile and ran with me and with our oldest in his arms, ran with me. And he hates running more than I did. He hates it. So I was like, he thinks I can do this, that’s awesome, okay, I’m going to do this. And so then from there it was just like, alright. And I ran and after that I was like, a Spartan, alright, we’ll do a Spartan.

Jill: Oh my god, you went from 5K to a Spartan.

Stormi: Well, it was a 5K Spartan. I was like, well, I lift all the time, that’s fine. I can lift. I mean, again, so wrong. I was so wrong. But it’s very funny, I have this conflicting thing in my head where I’m very insecure and don’t think that I can do things, but also you can’t tell me shit.

Jill: You’re like, nobody gets to piss on my dreams except for me.

Stormi: Yes, exactly. Don’t tell me I can’t because I will, I’m going to do it if you tell me I can’t. But I can tell me I can’t all day and that’s usually what happens when I can’t…

Jill: So tell me about the Spartan sprint because first of all, explain to everybody who’s listening if they’ve never heard of what it is, explain what it is. And then let’s hear about your experience because you know, you’re kind of badass.

Stormi: So a Spartan sprint is supposed to be about a 5K distance but probably every quarter to a half mile they have an obstacle. And these are like, money bars, or jumping over a wall, or throwing a spear, or climbing a rope, or just something really wild. I mean, literally an obstacle. And if you don’t complete the obstacle, you have to do 30 burpees.

And lots of burpees were had that day. But the first obstacle for this one was not something you could burpee. You had to get over this wall to even start the race. And so I had these huge, massive burly guys lifting my 200-pound ass over this wall so I could get started on this run.

And then it ended up being five miles. They lied to me. That’s two more miles than a 5K, are you kidding me? I was so mad. But then I jumped over that fire, and again, you couldn’t tell me shit. I was like, yeah, I jumped over fire bitches. So I could not be bothered after that. But it was definitely hard and a lot more work than I put into it and a lot more work than I thought it was. So I have a lot more respect for obstacle course races than I did before I started.

Jill: Yeah. Oh, they’re no joke. They’re no joke for sure.

Stormi: No. And I had only run probably two or three official 5Ks prior to that. So just completely out of my realm. I was like, well, I’ve run a 5K before, I can do this, this is fine.

Jill: What’s a couple walls and monkey bars.

Stormi: Yeah. I was like, monkey bars, kids do those, that’s fine.

Jill: And the thing I love about that is because I’ve done one obstacle race and I just remember like, I swear to god every single obstacle was something from the playground in grade school that I hated. I’m like, it was just literally the stuff of nightmares for me.

Stormi: Yeah, because I was the kid that hid under the slide and hung out in the shade talking to my friends, talking about fairy rings and stuff like, let’s go catch a fairy. Didn’t do anything athletic on the playground. I was like, that’s not what this is for.

Jill: Yes, exactly. So it was – those obstacle runs, they’re physically challenging and they’re mentally challenging and they’re emotionally challenging. There’s a lot.

Stormi: Lots of childhood trauma comes up when you’re out there.

Jill: Exactly. Like okay, the only thing that was missing from the one I did was having to climb the fucking rope. I’d get, I don’t know, six inches off the ground and I’d be like, that’s it for me.

Stormi: Yeah. I’d jump and like, jump as high as I could and grab on and immediately let go.

Jill: Slide down and get rope burn all over your body. So you’re just like, yeah, that sounds great, let’s sign up for a 5K plus all of my childhood nightmares all wrapped into one. Love it.

Stormi: Yeah. Because again, you couldn’t tell me anything because I was like, that’s easy.

Jill: But you were powerlifting. So let’s talk about that because you’re super super strong. Some of the powerlifting achievements that I’ve seen you post in the Run Your Best Life group, I’m like, damn, that is goals. So I think it’s interesting because a lot of people think that running and intense weightlifting don’t actually work together, but they really do. So tell us all about your powerlifting and how it has impacted your running.

Stormi: They really used to be – honestly, they felt separate. Like separate things for me because I did start in high school powerlifting. We had a weight training class and it was my favorite class. I wouldn’t have ever considered myself a jock. I kind of was a little weird and nerdy, even though I cheered. Everybody would come up to me, like, I can’t believe you’re a cheerleader.

And so I was like, thank you. But it was something completely separate to me because again, the running was the punishment and the lifting was the reward. If I lifted something more than a guy, I was like, fight me bro. So that kind of carried over to when I did start running, I was like, well, if I’m going to do a Spartan, I do need to get stronger. So then I was just like, well, we’re going to lift some weights.

And it comes and goes. I do a little bit here and here. Not having access to a gym lately has really just completely put a barrier between me and weightlifting. I did buy a two-piece bar but that broke in half when I was doing a lift and I was like – so we’re going to have to see about getting me a single piece bar.

But I had actually competed right before everything shut down, competed in my first weightlifting competition. And that was just a completely different experience and humbling in a lot of ways, but also you think all these – especially the men, you’re like, all these bros, these bros are going to be big and they’re going to have a lot of opinions about the way you lift.

And they were the nicest bunch of men I have ever met in my entire life. They cheered when my little, tiny scrawny arms – because I am a leg lifter. My arms never have been very strong. I could work out arms every day and they would still just be trying to push up 100 pounds.

But my legs can – they carry me really far, so they are hella strong. So when I could barely push the 85 pounds, they’re like, you got this, you got this, even though they’re benching 200, 300 pounds after me. They’re just cheering me on and being so just welcoming and loving. I think there were only two women in that whole competition, me included.

One other woman. So it was just such a cool experience and I can’t wait to do it again because I really think that it gave me more of an opportunity to see what my body can do because I think that that’s so cool. Because especially as women, we’re kind of reduced to baby makers and sandwich makers. And nah bitch, I’m a record maker.

Jill: I love this.

Stormi: I can deadlift 285. I was outfitting a bunch of those guys. And PR’ed that day.

Jill: That’s amazing.

Stormi: Yeah. It was so cool. And again, it was all – I was in their group. I wasn’t separate from them and that was really cool.

Jill: So I think it’s so interesting that you mention that you had that experience, that you were unsure about how the other more experienced – and I’m not saying that they were more experienced but, in our minds, we’re like, those are the real lifters, those are the bros.

Stormi: Especially when they’re ripped and I look like this.

Jill: Right. But then your experience of that was like, there they were, cheering you on, and I think that happens in the running world as well. As a plus-size runner, sometimes you have this feeling that the real runners are going to be annoyed with me, they’re not going to want me there, and it’s like nothing could be further from the truth.

Because I think when you are super into a sport, you just want everybody else to love it as much as you do. And you don’t care if they’re running a 20-minute mile, a 10-minute mile, or a five-minute mile. You’re just like, no, you’re a runner, and we’re runners, and so we cheer for each other. And I think it’s so awesome to see that that translates to other sports as well.

Stormi: Oh yeah. And it was – again, like you said, feeling that way in the running community. I actually had a man stop me after a race one time and tell me, he’s like, I tried keeping up with you the whole time, and he’s like, I finally kind of caught up to you today. He’s like, you’ve been my goal.

And I’m like, completely shifted the way my brain was thinking about that. I was someone’s goal. Whereas I’m looking ahead, they’re my goal. And so the sporting community in general is – there’s a lot of shitty people in the world, but I mean, the good people, they’ll find you. Give them a chance, they will find you and they will love on you.

And they will make you feel like you are the world’s best runner. And they’ll remember your name and they will high-five you at the finish. I mean, the absolute best people I’ve met in the running community. Run Your Best Life included. Again, they’re the best friends I’ve never met so just awesome, awesome things running has brought.

Jill: Okay, so let’s talk achievements in general because you’ve run some pretty far distances, so I think you need to tell everybody what your longest race distance to date is.

Stormi: That would be a 50K. But it was technically a little more than a 50K because it was a four-mile loop and I did eight loops. So that’s about 32.

Jill: 32 miles. Damn.

Stormi: But we’ll stick with 50K because that’s what the car magnet I’m getting says.

Jill: But for anybody listening, if you’re thinking about how far is a marathon, well, a marathon is 26 miles. So you’re basically like, I’m going to do an extra 10K on top of my marathon. That’s basically what it is. Tell us all about that experience.

Stormi: I think that that was probably the most rewarding things I’ve ever done as far as running goes. My husband likes to laugh at me because I make friends any time I go running. Because I’ll talk to a brick wall, I’ll talk to a tree, it doesn’t matter.

And so I met some amazing people, I met – I have several friends now on Facebook that I met on that race, but the thing that really got me was the fifth lap and something that I heard on a podcast that really stuck with me was you’ve run a really long way but you still have a long way to go, and that is how I felt.

I felt like, I have just run 20 miles and I still have 12 to go. That’s almost a half marathon. I’ve run 20 miles and now I have to go run a half marathon. That’s so much. My husband had just pulled up right as I was coming into the shoot and I just saw him and I cried on him for a minute, and told him I was like, I don’t think I can do it.

And he held me and he’s like, give it another lap, give it another lap. And see how you feel, and if you feel like quitting you can quit, it’s okay, there’s no shame in that. And he’s like, I think you’ll feel better if you do another lap. And I was like, okay. So I hugged my kids and looked at him and I was like, I hope this isn’t the last time I see you because I felt like death.

But he was right. I gave it another lap and I walked it. I did, I walked it. But the thing about distances like that, especially if it’s trail running, you’re going to walk it. The people doing 100Ks, they were also walking. Any of the people who were there doing it, very few of them were running the entire thing because one, the trail doesn’t always allow that, you can’t run up a literal physical wall of dirt.

You have to climb. You have to get on your hands and knees, and there was one – you knew you were about a third of the way through with the loop once you got to this little wall of dirt that you had to climb up. And by the eighth lap, moving your legs in that way just felt like you had sandbags for arms and legs. And so that was – you can’t run in those conditions. So that really honed in the concept that taking walk breaks does not mean I’m not a runner.

Jill: Hell no.

Stormi: Walking four miles of a 32-mile race does not make me any less of a runner. So I walked quite a bit of it towards the end because I was like, I really just want to take it in and appreciate it. And my biggest goal was to finish under 10 hours. And I did it in 9:45. So I did that goal and I just felt – again, you couldn’t tell me shit.

Once I finished it, it was like I felt like I could float. I had to drive an hour and a half home and I was like, I don’t care, I don’t care if I got to drive an hour and a half home with these kids in the car, I just ran 32 miles and lived.

And it was really hard too because the night before I didn’t have any Wi-Fi, I didn’t have any cellphone service. I was out at the campground that they were having it at, and I couldn’t contact anybody, couldn’t talk to anybody. I didn’t know anyone.

So none of that camaraderie – it was just me and my thoughts. And that’s hard. That’s hard when you’re in the middle of the night before something big and it’s just you and your thoughts. And I genuinely believe that without thought work I would have gone crazy, having been anxious and being worried about what I was going to do.

Jill: How did you shift your thinking during that time? What were the thoughts that you were having and where did you end up that got you to the start line and through the race?

Stormi: 32 miles is too far was the main thought, you’ve only done 26.2, there’s still a whole 10K, a lot of thoughts about tripping and falling. And what’s weird is that all of the excuses and the thoughts that I was having are really hard to kind of conjure up because I did it. So I mean, all those negative thoughts that I thought kind of seem irrelevant and hard to grasp now because I did do it.

But the things I was thinking to overcome them were things like, I’ve done the training, you are allowed to walk and still be considered a runner. We had a very generous time cutoff. I was like, even if you’re out there until late into the night, you can – you have your headlamp, other people will be out there, it’s not going to be just you. Really, you can always put one more foot in front of the other.

That’s one of the biggest things that I can tell myself. I can tell myself it’s one foot in front of the other, you can always keep walking, you can always keep moving forward, even when it hurts, even when it’s scary, even when it’s tough. I was really worried about night running because of bears, which I’ve already had an encounter with and I don’t want to do that again.

So I was just like, mostly fear was the – thoughts of fear. What if, what if, what if. But then I was like, you’re not out there yet. You don’t know. What if worrying about what if is not going to change it and worrying about what if is not going to mean that it’s going to happen. It doesn’t have to happen. And stressing yourself about it is just going to make the run suck.

So that was – really honestly, you were in my head. I had actually downloaded a bunch of the podcasts so I could listen as I went to sleep because it was really quiet. And I’m like, I’m used to ruckus and kids and I’m like, this is so quiet. I don’t have anyone talking to me before bed, and so really, I would sit down and I would kind of write things down and just kind of meditate and be like, you’re here, you’re here now, take the opportunity to appreciate where you’ve come. Because never in my wildest dreams would I ever…

Jill: Right? From the person who did half a lap of the track to suddenly – not suddenly obviously. It was a lot of training and work that went into it, but if you look back at that woman who did a half a lap of the track and went home, if you could talk to yourself today, that version of you, is there anything that you would say?

Stormi: You are going to be amazed at what you can do. That’s what I would tell her. I would hug her and be like, you are so much more capable than you give yourself credit for. Because I mean, that self-doubt especially as a woman is just so prevalent in our day-to-day lives. And to have accomplished things that I never dreamed of is just – I mean, again, the coolest thing in the world. But I probably wouldn’t have told her about having to pee in a canteen.

Jill: Those are things she…

Stormi: She doesn’t need to know that. And it was cold. It was below freezing that night, so hot body parts next to cold things is not a good thing. So don’t recommend using your metal canteen to urinate in when you’re having – the night before your 50K because that was almost – what is that movie? A Christmas Story where he licks the pole. It was almost one of those situations.

Jill: Things to think about for sure.

Stormi: So if you’re in the woods and you have to pee, just go down to the dark woods. The bear is probably not going to bite your butt. You’re probably okay. Just risk it.

Jill: So what would you say though for somebody who’s like, that’s all fine and good for Stormi because she’s a special unicorn. This is what we always think. Somebody who’s done the thing, we’re like, well, you just – there’s just something special about you.

Stormi: I still think that about people.

Jill: There’s very clearly something special about you but what do you have to say to somebody who’s thinking like, okay, yeah, I can’t do that, that’s too much for me. Because you had those exact thoughts.

Stormi: I genuinely still have them as you know, and I’m putting this out into the podcast ether. My big ultimate scary goal is to run – to qualify for Boston. Not just run Boston, to qualify for Boston. And I still have those thoughts almost every day like, those people are special unicorns. They are not fat people; they haven’t had to deal with thyroid problems their whole life.

And so it’s not that the thoughts go away, but I guess the thing I would say is start small because you don’t go – typically, there are some people who, again, you get a thought in your head and you’re just like, you can’t tell me shit. And they’ll go and do it because again, you can’t tell them that they can’t. And their brain just are like, yup, let’s go.

But sometimes we get in our own heads and so you just got to start small. Start with what you can do. Start with a lap around the track. If your goal is to ultimately run a 5K, well, a third of a 5K is a mile. Run a mile.

Jill: Start there.

Stormi: I mean, Rome was not built in a day, as they commonly say, so it’s like, you’ve got to start – lay the groundwork. Do the work when it sucks. The other day I did not want to get up and go workout. I did not want to go run. I was like, I’m just going to lay in bed, this is cozy, this is comfy, we’ve got a hard week coming up because my husband’s surgery, I was just like, I just want to lay in bed.

And I was like, nope, Boston qualifiers don’t lay in bed. Boston qualifiers get up and go. You got to get up and go. And if your goal is to run a 5K, 10K, a marathon, a 50K, 100K, runners get out of bed. And sometimes they don’t and it’s okay and you don’t have to beat yourself up, but I was listening to someone the other day and they said how you do anything is how you do everything.

And that’s not to say that if you don’t do something perfectly that you’re imperfect in all things, but showing up as your best self every day is how you will continue to show up. If you show up when you don’t feel like it, if you finish the run when it’s shitty, that’s the integrity, that’s the thing you’re made of, that’s the runner. It’s not the movement. It’s that person inside of you who’s doing the consistency, that’s the runner.

Jill: I love that. So we started this interview kind of talking about our common interest in law of attraction and manifestation. So how has that impacted your running? How have you brought that into your sport?

Stormi: Well, I’m not super consistent with my journaling, future self journaling, but I do try to take time once a week to write to her and write about her and be her, sit in her for a minute. But I started writing just about probably – gosh, it was probably a year and a half ago I started future self journaling.

And it was small things that was like, I am fast, I am strong, I am – things that I wanted to feel about myself. And then eventually it became more detailed like I’m a Boston qualifier. We have bought a house. This house has x, y, and z things. And it really covered every aspect of my life.

But when I future self journal about my runner future self, I have this vision in my head. She’s consistent with her yoga, she’s consistent with her diet, and if she has a bad day, she doesn’t go off on a binging spree, she just says it’s okay, we’ll come back tomorrow and it’s a new day, and one day out of the whole week is not going to ruin us.

And she gets up for her workouts and she is inspired by the runners that she sees, and she is happy and content with where she is, and she’s a badass. So much of that I can think of myself now and feel that now. And that was the big thing about law of attraction for me is realizing that all of those things that I wanted for my future self, I get to feel them now. I get to be her now.

Jill: Right, because you get to experience it if you’re thinking the thoughts, you get the emotions regardless of whether it’s been achieved or not. I absolutely love that.

Stormi: Yeah. I am strong, I am strong. I am fast, I’m faster than I was. An hour to do a 5K, I don’t even touch 40 minutes anymore. Now it’s 35, 36-minute 5K and that’s consistent. That’s after injury, that’s after coming off of a big huge training cycle of slow running for a 50K.

In a video I had shared on Instagram, I’m able to run at 10 miles an hour and not fly off the treadmill. And I can run 10 miles an hour, not fly off the treadmill, I couldn’t do that before. I am fast. I am badass. I ran 50K.

Jill: So you’re just like, you’re literally looking throughout your life for evidence to support your beliefs and creating more evidence on purpose.

Stormi: Exactly. Because that’s really what it is to me is like, if I want to be those things, find it where it is in your life. Find it where it’s true because you’re drawing those wants from something. You’re drawing that desire to be that person from somewhere and you can always find the evidence of being that person.

And so just that to me was just – when you had had Cassie on and she had talked about it, I was just like, I get to think that about myself? I get to do that – to me, it was just about running. Like I could do the thought work on running. And then having you two talk about that in a way just completely opened up my mind and my life to be like, oh okay, we can do it in everything.

And so that’s just the coolest thing. And then so the thought model getting applied to me life, I was like, oh, this is just going to change the world for me. And it has. I mean, I can literally do the model in my head about stuff and be like, we don’t have to think that, we do not have to feel that way about this shit. And it’s beautiful and it’s wonderful and so freeing. I get to be who I want to be and that’s it.

Jill: And it helps you really drop that dependence on approval from other people or having certain things so that you can feel good. You recognize I can feel good, I can be happy in the body I have right now, and then it only gets better from there.

Stormi: Yeah, I mean, I just bought my second crop top yesterday. And I am currently rocking said crop top. It is not – obviously sitting down it’s not super visible but I didn’t even think about it. I was just like, this is my now – put it in my basket. And we’re wearing it and I feel super confident. I’m like, I got a little breeze going, it’s great. And I’m like, this is going to be awesome. This is great. And whatever anybody thinks, none of my business.

Jill: That’s how I feel about bikinis now. When I wore my first bikini, I was like, nobody told me it was so much easier to pee when you’re wearing a bikini because you don’t have to take the whole suit off. I’m like, I have been making my life so inconvenient so that people wouldn’t know I’m fat. And it’s not like a one piece makes you look any slimmer. So I’m like, oh, alright, well, it’s all bikinis all the time.

Stormi: If anything, a one-piece kind of smushes everything out. I don’t know. It’s coming out this way and you know, I personally like wearing shorts to the beach because I chafe really bad. And so it gives me the protective layer. But I’m like, if I wanted to wear a thong bikini, there are all these men out here wearing banana hammocks and they’re not young men, they’re not thin men. And do they care? Absolutely not. They do not care at all.

Jill: We all need that kind of confidence.

Stormi: Be as confident as a man in the banana hammock at the beach.

Jill: Exactly. I love that. I love that. So I just have one more question for you. So you’re an ambassador for Not Your Average Runner, which means that you are talking to people about how awesome it is, telling people about your journey as well. But I’d love to know what it means to you to be an ambassador for Not Your Average Runner.

Stormi: Well, one of the things I said I think in my application was our times are so hard right now. And it was in the middle of COVID, I think we had just gone into lockdown. And it may have been right – I think it was right around the same time as the murder of Ahmaud Arbery.

And I was just like, people need something joyful. People need something to give to themselves right now. And this is joyful and this is important and it’s fulfilling and the group that we are in is loving and caring and there’s no judgment and there’s – like I said, the thought work that we do, we are so free of just any barriers between us and what we want.

And if anything, now more than ever we need that. And that still holds true because I mean, we’re still dealing with racism and bigotry and hatred and hurt and agony and we’re still dealing with the ramifications of COVID. We are still in political turmoil despite a change of regime. We’ve got so much going on in our lives and in our world and we need something that brings us joy, we need something that fulfills us and fills our cup so we can go out and be advocates for those things, so that we can stand up for what we believe in, so we can be strong for our families, so we can make it through another week of virtual schooling if that’s what you’re doing.

Everybody looks at me and like, you homeschool all the time? Oh my god, how do you do it? And I’m like, it’s a completely different thing. I don’t have a school to answer to like that. It’s not – I don’t envy you. So I think that that’s what this brings. It brings – first of all, it brings women together who feel like – who want to be that runner.

Because inside of me, I always wanted to be that athletic person. Even when I felt like running sucked, I saw other runners and I was like, man, I wish I could do that, I wish I could run three miles and be like, yes, this was awesome. And it takes these women for feel that for so long and says we have a place for you.

Because a lot of times you don’t feel like there’s a place for you. You feel like I’m too old, I’m too fat, I’m too whatever. I mean, there’s so many qualifiers, I’m too slow, that’s another one, I walk too much, whatever. We feel like we don’t have a place that we can go and this is that place, this is that place where we fit in.

And even though not everybody checks all those boxes, we understand the concepts of like, yeah, you feel too old, well I feel too fat. You feel too slow, I feel like I can’t walk. Whatever. And we all come together and we say okay, how do we come past that? And you say you can just change your mind.

You really do. You just say you can just change your mind, and we’re like, oh, okay. And you give us the tools to do that. And then when we come to you with a problem we feel like we can’t thought model our way out of, you say this is how. You give us a path through when we can’t see that.

And coach Jen and coach Elle Dee, I mean, you guys all bring something so different to the table that just combines everything in such a cohesive and wonderful way that honestly, the team of women that you have assembled is just like, the Avengers of the running world. Y’all are just…

Jill: They are rockstars.

Stormi: You guys are just amazing. I mean, the confidence in running that I’ve gotten from being coached by you, the confidence in cooking from coach Jen, I mean, I posted the other day that I made tortillas and again, I made tortillas. They’re not hard, but you can’t tell me shit. I made tortillas.

And Elle Dee, she’s really good at cycling. I’m like, I listen to her talk and I’m like, I want to do that because eventually I would love to do a triathlon. But I’m not very good at cycling. Again, that’s a thought, that’s a thought. I haven’t practiced cycling a lot since being a teenager and seeing her do those things and talk about it.

So all of those together, it’s just like, okay, yeah, you’re good, you get to change your mind, you get to be whatever you want to be, you can be a good cook, you can be a good cycling, you can be a great runner, you can qualify for Boston. And so I just honestly would not have even fathomed the things that I have done without this group.

And I just have to thank you so much for providing that space because it’s honestly just never in my wildest dreams would accomplished the things that I have accomplished. And dreamed to accomplish now without having that space and having a coach to guide me through the thoughts and the fears and the whatever.

Jill: I think what the space that we’ve created with the Rebel Runner Roadmap and Run Your Best Life, what that does is it gives people permission to dream big. And to fail along the way to success. It’s like you get to dream big and you also get to have it and we’re going to hold you because you’re going to fuck it up. You’re going to struggle and you’re going to fail and you’re going to fall down but you’re also going to rise and you’re going to rise more than you fall. And we’re going to be there to hold you through all of it.

Stormi: And I’ve DNF’ed before and sobbed in my bed and now if I DNF I’m just like, that sucks and I’ll be sad about it but I’m like, what’s next? I don’t spend weeks like, I can’t be a runner anymore. I can never run anymore, get emo kid and hide in my bed and like, don’t talk to me, I’m not a runner anymore.

Now it’s just like, that sucks, I might cry a little because I’m sad that I didn’t get the medal or I didn’t do the thing that I wanted to do. But then I’m like, okay, we’ll sign up for something else, we’ll do it again, there’s others and it’s okay. And that’s really just so beautiful and so cool.

And as a 217-pound runner who is a mom and has no time for anything and has to make time for her sport, I get to dream about Boston. I get to dream about Boston and like, I have – people would be like, you have no business about dreaming about that. But I am and I’m going to.

Jill: Love it. You’re like, you can’t take it away from me, I’m going to do it. I love it. Oh my god, so good. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story and the vulnerability that you shared today because people are going to hear this and see themselves in you and kind of realize like, oh wait a minute, that’s a thing I can do, I’m allowed to dream big, I’m allowed to kind of go after those things.

So I appreciate you sharing all of that because I believe that there’s somebody out there who needed to hear everything that you said today. Not just somebody. Probably thousands of women needed to hear what you said today. And boom, done.

Stormi: Yeah. Thank you so much for letting me. I mean, I’ve never felt like I was important enough to share my story at all but if even one person hears this and says I get to think about Boston and that’s allowed, then that makes this whole thing worth it to me. If one more person says I get to be audacious. So thank you so much for the opportunity, to get to share it.

Jill: Thank you. Alright, this is great.

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.