Ep #97: The Power of Visibility & Half Marathon Victories

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.

Hey rebels, you are listening to episode 97 of The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. I’m your host, Jill Angie, and today we’re talking about visibility and invisibility and half marathon victories. And I think we’re going to start with the victories because that’s just super fun.

So I just got back from a week in Seattle, and if you follow me on social media or read the blog or anything else, you know for sure that I was in Seattle with a bunch of my clients, but it was simply amazing and I got to watch nine amazing rebel runners all cross the finish line of the Seattle Rock ‘n’ Roll half marathon and it was pretty fucking awesome.

They have been training together since February and I cannot tell you how proud I am of each and every one of them. Now, usually when I’m at a race watching my clients finish, I’m like, jostling around for space and it’s not easy to catch them as they run by, but this time I got a spot five feet from the finish line. It was right under a speaker and I guess nobody else wanted to have their eardrums blown away by the music, but I’m half deaf from all the concerts I’ve been to in my life anyway and the fact that I listen to my music at full blast in my car, so it didn’t actually seem to loud to me.

But anyway, I had a gorgeous clear view of the finish and then I had all of them lined up on my tracking app so I had a head’s up before everybody came through. I got action shots of every single runner, and my absolute favorite was Janine who came up and high-fived everyone right before she finished and I got an awesome shot of that. You can actually see it in this past Monday’s blog post on the notyouraveragerunner.com blog, Rebels on the Run blog.

Anyway, the race itself was pretty epic for a lot of reasons. First of all, everybody finished looking strong and proud. And now, there were some challenges and some struggles on the course, but they did not let them stop them. They did not let any of that stop them and they all finished that fucking race looking strong and proud. They each ran a great race, they really left it all out on the course.

We also had literally the perfect weather. It was probably in the high 50s at the race start, and by the time the race finished it was, I don’t know, maybe low 70s. There was no humidity in the air, it was sunny. It was apparently not typical Seattle weather, but it was just gorgeous. And so I think that helped as well, but it was a tough course.

So you guys, it was like, over 1000 feet of elevation climb over the 13 miles. One hill alone was over a mile long and gained 400 feet. It was a bitch. We actually drove up that hill the day before, which was probably a huge mistake. We drove up the day before and we drove again the day after. This hill was no joke. And of course, with 1000 feet of elevation gain, you also have the commensurate downhills and running steep downhills is not super easy on the body when there’s a lot of it.

It’s one thing to go up a hill and go down a hill and have it be flat for a while, but this was up down, up down, and we were joking about lost toenails but I would not be surprised if a few of my runners did lose them because of their toes jamming up against the front of their shoes. So anyway, let’s talk about the hills a little bit.

The day before the race – well actually, the few days before the race but definitely the day before and the night before, there were a lot of discussions about the hills. There were lots of thoughts, the circumstance is elevation. People had a lot of thoughts about that, and it created a lot of anxiety and nervousness at first. And I knew the hills were going to be really tough but I was trying to keep everybody from overanalyzing and failing in advance because there were a couple moments where I was like, these guys are going to talk themselves out of this race completely.

So we had a lot of discussion about the approach to the hills, what it would feel like, different strategies for getting up, especially that one-mile hill, and the fact that doing a one-mile hill is about 25 minutes, maybe 30 minutes of hard effort. It’s just a really tough workout for 25 to 30 minutes. And instead of thinking about it like oh my god, this is an impossible task, this hill’s going to be the end of me, just think no, I’m just going to do this really hard thing for 25 minutes.

So that was one approach. Some of our runners actually would walk up and I don’t think anybody really ran up the hill more than a little bit here and there. It was mostly walking up the hill because it was a really, really steep hill. It’s the Queen Anne hill in Seattle if you’re familiar with the neighborhood. And so quite a few of them took the strategy of walking uphill for a minute or two and turning around and walking backwards briefly to kind of let their hill climbing muscles rest a little bit, and then turning around and walking straight up again.

So there was a lot of discussion about strategy ahead of time. Eventually they all came up with a group race motto which was #funphotofinish. In other words, have fun, smile for the photos, and finish strong. And that is exactly what everyone did. I am super proud of these badasses because this is one of the toughest race courses I have ever seen and they just showed the fuck up and slayed it.

Now, you would think that they’d be like, okay that’s it for me for the summer, but no, not for these rebels. Today, the day that this podcast airs actually kicks off the first day of Ragnar training for the Run Your Best Life team and most of the Seattle half marathoners are on that team. It’s going to be super fun. Sweaty, dirty, buggy, sleepless fun. And so that is in September, so we kick the training off today and we run that race in September and good lord, I cannot wait to show you all pictures of that. It’s going to be unbelievable.

So the other thing is that next month in July, July 15th to be exact, we kick off the next round of half marathon training in Run Your Best Life. So if you’ve been holding off thinking I want to join Run Your Best Life but I want to wait until half marathon training starts, boom. Now is the time. So it runs from July 15th to the very end of October.

If you want to join in that class – and again, that class is going to use the exact same training process that I used for the rebels that just finished this badass race in Seattle. So if you want to join that class, you sign up today at runyourbestlife.com. The way it works is the class is included in your monthly membership and membership is $39 a month. That’s all it is. And then that class is included along with everything else that we do in Run Your Best Life. It’s all part of it.

And so if you sign up now and you start training now, you’ll be all set for a late October, November half marathon if you train with this group. And it is, again, the same training plan that the Seattle rebels used to finish that race with all those hills. It totally works and oh, one more thing before we start talking about visibility. Not Your Average Runner is also headed to Savannah, Georgia for yet another race-cation around the Rock ‘n’ Roll race series.

And that race is the first weekend in November. There’s a half marathon, a full marathon, and a 5K that weekend, and then on Thursday and Friday, which is October 31st and November 1st, we’re actually doing a Run Your Best Life retreat. So this is a different style retreat than we’ve done in the past. you have to be a Run Your Best Life member to get all that stuff, to get the half marathon class and to be a part of the retreat. So just make sure that you join up and train with us.

And honestly, whether you run in Savannah or not, the half marathon class that starts on July 15th is perfect for both beginners and more experienced runners because it’s not just a training plan. It’s all the other stuff that you need to think about, including fueling and speed work and hill work and race day strategy and working on your run-walk interval ratio. Just everything. And it comes with live coaching calls to help you implement everything you’re learning and solve problems, and just pause the podcast right now, head over to runyourbestlife.com. Sign up, let’s do this thing, okay? Okay.

So let’s talk visibility. What even does that mean? And actually, I recently gave a talk on this very topic at the Skirt Sports ambassador retreat and it’s really kind of an important one. So I thought I would share it here as well. And I know you guys know, you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, but at Not Your Average Runner, we don’t just want women to get up and running for their health.

And I mean yes, improved health is a side effect of running. I’m all in for that. But our main goal is really to help women build self-confidence, stop negative self-talk, and start thinking differently about their bodies, and basically to show up in their lives in a whole new way. And one of our primary tactics to get there is to encourage every single woman that we work with, every single woman that listens to this podcast or reads one of our books is to be seen while she is running.

To show up to races, show up on social media, show up at the gym, on the trails, show up in running stores, be visible in the running community. Be visible in the community, period. The whole community. And be an example of what is possible.

So dictionary.com, which is my go-to whenever I want to know what a word actually means defines visibility as the state of being able to see or be seen. So how does that apply to women in sports and specifically, women in running? Well, I define it as the act of allowing yourself to be seen by others, and not all just perfectly posed in an Instagram photo that took you like, a million tries to get right so your double chin doesn’t show and all your cellulite is covered. That’s not allowing yourself to be seen.

Visibility is allowing yourself to be seen doing things like running, swimming, jumping for joy, and by the way, the Skirt Sports ambassadors all do – they do all these amazing Instagram pictures where they’re jumping, and I have not yet figured out how to time my jump with my camera, with the timer on my camera so that I can – usually I catch myself landing or pre-jump or whatever.

So if you follow any of the Skirt Sports ambassadors, you know what I’m talking about. These girls are on point with their Instagram jumps. But visibility is allowing yourself to be seen doing things – things where you might not look perfect, but that represent your life and your passions, instead of curating everything has to look just so. Just fucking show up and be yourself doing the things that you love to do.

And visibility is pretty much my mission in life, and it’s not just for myself to be seen, but to help other women get comfortable with it because it’s important. It makes a difference for women who are just starting their fitness journey to see other women that look like them, doing the things that they want to do, or maybe even doing things that they couldn’t even imagine doing.

Because when they see that, the wheels start to turn. They start to think differently. They start to see possibilities instead of barriers. Now, I promise this is related, but have you seen the movie Free Solo? It’s about Alex Honnold, whose name I just probably butchered. And he was the first person to climb El Capitan, which is a really, really tall cliff face without any safety equipment. And he did this in 2017, so like two years ago.

I watched that movie and I was riveted. It made me want to try rock climbing immediately and I just thought wow, it would be really cool to be on a rock wall sort of plotting your next move, slowly working yourself higher and higher, feeling that rush of accomplishment when you get to the top and you realize, oh my god, I did that. And I would do it with safety equipment, obviously. I’m not going to free solo, I’m not going to climb without it.

But I watched that movie and I was like damn, that is amazing what the human body is capable of, and I’m thinking that looks like fun. I wonder if there are any rock walls near me. And I started looking them up, and then my brain was like, wait, he’s got 4% body fat, he’s all muscle, he’s built for stuff like that, he’s 33 years old, he’s been doing this his entire life. You are way too fat to even think about it.

My mind just went to all these places. My inner Winona, my inner mean girl said if you go to a rock climbing gym, there’s no way they’re going to have harnesses in your size, they’re going to tell you to go home, they’re going to look at you and say you’re over the weight limit, we cannot hoist you up there like, the wall will come crashing down, people will get hurt. All of these scenarios, and I just knew I’d go home feeling embarrassed and defeated so I just put the whole thought away and I thought well, that’s nice for this really ropey thin guy with all the muscle, but it’s not for me.

And then guess what happened? I saw a picture of my friend Mirna Valerio climbing a rock wall on Instagram. And I could hear the – like that tire squealing. Suddenly I was like, wait, what? What? This is a thing that I can do? I’m not going to climb El Capitan, I’m not going to free solo, but I would like to go to my local rock wall and just try it, just take a lesson and see if I like it, but I didn’t bother because I thought, that’s just crazy, I’m delusional.

But then I saw Mirna and I thought oh, fat girls can climb. And by the way, she’s rocking that rock wall, and one day I hope that she and I can go climbing together. But I just didn’t know we were allowed to, and this blows my mind because here’s me, I’m always like you can do anything you want to do, don’t ever let anybody tell you not to and still, I had this mental block that I’d never seen anybody climbing that wasn’t rippling with muscles, visible muscles.

I literally had no idea it was possible, and then I saw somebody else like me doing it and I said wait a minute. That’s possible. So you guys, this is why visibility is so important because you never know who’s watching and what you do matters so much, especially if you’re a not so average athlete. Because no matter what it is, what the thing is, it’s very hard to step out of your comfort zone to do something you’ve been told is only for other people.

Or more accurately, to do something you’ve never seen yourself represented doing, especially if you’re fat, my friends. The world does not quite know what to do with fat athletes, and on a daily basis, I see articles on the internet where people are just like, stop glorifying obesity by putting fat athletes in races and putting them on the cover of magazines and stuff, which is bullshit. I’m not even going to go there. We all know it’s bullshit. We don’t need to give any more brain space to that.

But the world really doesn’t know what to do with fat athletes, and I’ve been a fat athlete, a fat runner for many years. When I first started, there weren’t too many people out there like me. That was in 1998. I did a 5K. I was the biggest person there in a race of maybe around 500 people. Fascinatingly enough, not last, which I think probably everybody thought I would finish last but I literally ran the whole thing. I didn’t stop to walk once. That was 20 years ago. That was many years ago. 1998.

But I was the only fat person there. Same thing, my first triathlon in 2010 was about 5000 women at that race. It was a women-only triathlon. Again, I was the largest person there. But now, fast forward another 10 years, you see all shapes and sizes at races because running and triathlon are really starting to become more inclusive and welcoming to slower or fatter athletes. And it’s nowhere near where it should be, for sure, but progress has definitely been made.

But you would never know it from the publicity photos. If you go to any race website, you will notice that people of size are not really featured. So imagine that you’re someone who thinks maybe you want to start running, you check out the website of a race and all you see are people who look very traditionally fit and athletic. Nobody who looks like you. And you think I don’t belong, and you decide not to do it.

And PS, it’s the very same thing with the rock wall, climbing wall websites. So it is easy for someone with a non-traditional body to feel isolated in this world, and even more so in the world of athletics. And without an encouraging word from somebody who’s already walked in your shoes, it can feel very overwhelming and impossible, which means that there are these amazing humans out there missing out on what could be a great source of joy to them, such as running or cycling or rock climbing or surfing or yoga.

That’s why it is so important to do what all of us are doing, which is to be an example of what is possible, to hold out a hand to an aspiring athlete who’s questioning herself because her body looks different. Now, here’s the thing; showing up and being seen isn’t always easy, especially if you’re someone who has a lot of negative self-talk.

But honestly, even if you’re somebody who regularly puts herself out there in tank tops or runs in your sports bra, talks about running at the back of the pack, because opening yourself up to other people’s opinions and judgments of your body and your life is something that we are taught that oh, if other people say mean things to me my feelings have to be hurt. And you know, if you’ve listened to this podcast for any length of time, nobody else can hurt your feelings. You’re the only person that can do it, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have habitual thinking about I don’t want to open myself up to other people’s criticisms.

Now, this is something that I face literally daily when I post pictures of myself on social media and I say hey, fat chicks can run. There are people out there that think this is a terrible idea. They’re like, you are fat, you should not run, but you should lose weight, and how do you lose weight? You exercise. There’s this totally circular shitty logic out there that people have, that they think you shouldn’t run if you’re fat but you should lose weight but you should run to get skinny. It’s dumb.

But there are people out there that think it is a terrible idea for me to run, that they think oh, you should lose weight first or you should stop pretending it’s okay to be fat. You should stop encouraging other people to be okay with being fat. They also think I shouldn’t swear so much. They think I shouldn’t have the political opinions that I have or any host of other things.

You guys, I get some pretty crazy emails, you would not believe. People get very angry with me. I had one person one time where I sent an email out about how I’d gone to see Michelle Obama speak the night before and this woman emailed me to say that Michelle Obama, and I’m quoting here, Michelle Obama and her husband tried to ruin this country, stop sending me this bullshit.

So people have opinions and they feel okay expressing them to me, which is awesome. But my point is when you allow yourself to be seen, when you put yourself out there, people will see you and they will have opinions, and they might actually share them with you. And I get that that’s a little bit scary, and it’s also the risk you take when you become visible.

But it’s still really important. It’s important for people to take that risk. And this is also about so much more than just our appearance. One of the biggest challenges for the women in my Run Your Best Life community is coming out as an athlete and when I say coming out as an athlete, I mean admitting to people yeah, I’m a runner, I do this thing.

And even if they do come out as an athlete, they often – at least in the beginning, they try to clarify it so people understand they’re not a real athlete. They say things like oh, I’m a runner but I’m really slow. Or, I’m a runner but actually I do run-walk. Or – this one gets me in the gut every time – I’m a wogger because I walk and I jog. Please, anybody who uses this as a personal favor to me, please stop. Stop calling yourself a wogger. It sounds like something you’d find in a fantasy novel. Just no.

But I also hear oh, I’m a runner but I only do 5Ks. It breaks my heart a little bit every single time when I hear this because what is happening – we think I’m just telling people the truth, I’m just making sure that they understand I’m not as awesome as they think I am. Like, people argue with us or people give us compliments and then we argue with them. They say you’re awesome, no, not really. Why? Why do we do this?

What you’re doing when you argue with somebody who pays you a compliment or when you’re arguing or when you’re kind of self-deprecating yourself is you’re not allowing your brilliance to be visible to others. And when you dumb down your own brilliance, when you dull your own shine, people don’t see what’s possible for them. Or they hear the message that you can’t be proud of every accomplishment.

When we believe there’s only one acceptable way to be an athlete, we are not just limiting ourselves, my friends. We are limiting everyone around us. We perpetuate the myth that sports are just for the genetically gifted and that is bullshit. Complete and total bullshit. I’m speechless even saying it. So if you want to influence others to explore athletic movement, you need to show up with all your brilliance on display. All of it. Flaws and all.

I cannot tell you how many women have emailed me or messaged me to say that they had no idea it was okay for fat girls to run until they saw me. And now they’re running their first 5K or their first half marathon or whatever. It’s way more than the negative stuff I hear. Probably 100 positive messages for every single negative message.

That is the power of visibility. Have you ever had someone approach you and tell you that you’re an inspiration to them? Doesn’t it feel awesome to know you helped somebody else do something awesome for themselves? I just used the word awesome a lot in that sentence. But doesn’t it feel good? If somebody comes up and says I saw you doing this thing, I thought maybe I could do this thing, and then I went out and did it and my life is different as a result, you feel pretty good when you do that.

But here’s the best part. For every single person that takes the time to let you know that your actions had an impact on them, there’s probably 10 more that don’t say anything. They just see you, they get inspired, they take action. You never know who’s watching, you never know who you are inspiring. So let that brilliance shine. Yes, there will be people who have opinions that you don’t want to hear, but there are so many more people out there that need to see what you’re doing.

So I want to challenge you now. How can you impact even more women? And for sure, posting on social media is awesome. Showing up and doing your thing unapologetically, it makes a big difference in the world. Be an example of what’s possible.

But what if you took it one step further and reached out to someone that you can see is struggling, or somebody who’s uncertain? Maybe mentor a new athlete. Invite a friend to come for a run or a ride with you, and when they protest and say I won’t be able to keep up, just promise them that they will and then make that shit happen.

Here’s another example. I was just talking with Betsy Hartley, who you may remember from episode 68. And we were chatting in Boulder last month about this running store in her hometown of Bend, Oregon that wants to serve the plus size market. They reached out to her and said we want to serve the plus size market but we’re struggling to get women in the door. We carry those sizes. You walk in the front door and there’s a 1X to 3X rack right there.

But the women won’t come in. And the reason the women aren’t going there is because they’ve never felt included and accepted in running stores in the past. So this is yet another opportunity for you to be visible. Go to a running store, shop there, be seen doing it. This does two things. First, it educates the store owners that all bodies can run, that all bodies are out there buying running shoes and other gear, that all bodies have money to spend.

It educates the store owners that their client base is maybe a little different than they think it is, and it sends a message to everybody who follows you, everybody who sees you, everybody who’s watching you that it is safe to be in this space, that you are welcome here. You never know who’s watching, and I’ve said this like, 10 times but it’s true.

You guys, we cannot wait for the media, for store owners, for race directors, we cannot wait for them to open up the space for us. Inclusivity begins with you showing the fuck up, making room for yourself and then inviting everybody else in by being visible. So I want you to be bold about it. Change starts with you. Show up every single day with that intention, that there’s somebody out there who needs to see your badassery.

She’s just waiting for you to show up so that she can see what’s possible for her. That woman is out there waiting for you to shine bright, so sign up for that half marathon, take a lesson at that rock wall, show up and do something that fat girls aren’t supposed to do because you don’t know who’s watching and you don’t know who you’re going to help. And it could be a lot of people.

Alright, I have another idea for you. Join us in Run Your Best Life. Become part of the revolution. You guys, we are making an impact on the world. We are doing it one woman at a time and remember, we are kicking off the next round of half marathon training in just a couple weeks. So if you get in now, you can meet all of your revolutionary badass rebel runner sisters. Settle in, and get ready to be an example of what is possible for everybody in your life.

So you just go to runyourbestlife.com to sign up for that and that it is for this week, my rebels. You can find all the transcripts and links and everything for this show at notyouraverageunner.com/97 and I will talk to you next week.

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.