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THE STRENGTH ISSUE

FIT GIRL SUMMER 20 Training Tips from the Fastest U.S. Women CHILL OUT What to Know About the Heat and Your Health NEW MOM MANUAL Your Real Guide to Running Post-Baby

LIKE A

BOSS SUMMER 2021 | DISPLAY 10/04/21

womensrunning.com

EMMA COBURN ON CHASING BIG DREAMS AND LIVING IN THE MOMENT

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10 Run This Town A look at Austin, Texas 12 What We’re Reading Tianna Bartoletta’s Survive and Advance 13 Trends Running goes red, white, and blue 14 Sustainability Reducing race waste 16 How She Gets It Done Para-athlete Kym Crosby

training block 18 Pro Tip A workout from Nikki Hiltz 19 Body Work What’s up with wonky legs?

20 The Masters Handling heat as you age 21 Coach’s Corner The key to race day confidence 22 NextGen Hone these hurdles

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: HANNAH DEWITT (2), BRAD KAMINSKI

eat 23 Stack a Super Smoothie A how-to plus three recipes 27 Eat Your Age Nutrition know-how for every decade of life 35 Summer on a Plate Embrace the season with a grilled corn, nectarine, and burrata salad

13 move 36 20 Top Athlete Tips Learn from the best with these 20 running rules to live by

live 47 The Mother Club Running pre- and post-baby

THE STRENGTH ISSUE

56 My, My, Migraine The reality of running and pain

FIT GIRL SUMMER 20 Training Tips from the Fastest U.S. Women CHILL OUT What to Know About the Heat and Your Health

features 60 Emma Coburn A look into what makes the Olympic steeplechaser such a superstar 68 Our Favorite Olympic Moments An unforgettable photo essay

NEW MOM MANUAL Your Real Guide to Running Post-Baby

LIKE A

BOSS

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in every issue

EMMA COBURN ON CHASING BIG DREAMS AND LIVING IN THE MOMENT

ON THE COVER:

Emma Coburn

06 Editor’s Letter

PHOTOGRAPHER:

Brad Kaminski

82 Parting Shot

Women’s Running ISSUE #120 1548-2413, a publication of Outside Interactive, Inc., 5720 Flatiron Parkway, Boulder, CO 80301, is published four times a year: Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. For subscription inquiries, please call 800-336-5653 in the U.S., 386-246-0108 outside the U.S. or email womensrunning@pcspublink.com. For reprints, permissions and licensing, please contact Wright’s Media at competitor@wrightsmedia.com or (877) 652-5295. Periodical Postage Paid at San Diego, California and additional offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Women’s Running, PO Box 463093, Escondido, CA 92046. All contents of this publication are © Outside Interactive, Inc. and Women’s Running magazine, 5720 Flatiron Parkway, Boulder, CO 80301. U.S.A. All rights reserved. Warning! It is not advised that you participate in the sports and activities described in Women’s Running unless you are highly knowledgeable about the risks involved, are in proper physical condition and are willing to accept all risks associated with these sports and activities. Women’s Running disclaims any responsibility for injury or death incurred by any person or persons engaging in these activities. Use the information in this magazine at your own risk and always consult a doctor before attempting any exercise program. Women’s Running makes no warranties of any kind and expressly disclaims any warranty regarding the accuracy or reliability of information contained herein. The views contained in this magazine are those of the writers and advertisers and do not necessarily reflect the view of Women’s Running’s ownership.

SUMMER 2021 WOMENSRUNNING.COM

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editor’s note

Stronger Together

It reminds me of a quote in one of my favorite books, Ego is the Enemy: “What is rare is not raw talent, skill, or even confidence, but humility, diligence, and self-awareness,” writes author Ryan Holiday.

There’s a certain kind of joy in vulnerability, because of its power to connect us; by helping us feel like we’re not in it alone. It’s an important thing to remember—that people want to help. You just have to let them know what you need.

Speaking of community: At Women’s Running, it’s our mission to initiate the important conversations and deliver the stories, service, and inspiration you want most. We’d love to know: What kind of stories do you want to read right now?

How can we help support you? Tell me on Twitter and Instagram at @jen_ator.

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WOMEN’S RUNNING SUMMER 2021

J E N AT O R EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

BRAD KAMINSKI

Back in May, I got to spend some time out in Crested Butte, Colorado, with our cover star Emma Coburn. I witnessed a deep, I’d-do-anything-for-you kind of love between Emma and her mom, who was diagnosed with stage four cancer in December 2019. I watched Cory McGee with her teammate Aisha PraughtLeer, gently challenging how Aisha was talking about herself and breaking down a disappointing race together. These women on their own are the epitome of strength. But this unit they have created—it makes them all even stronger.

Today more than ever, we’re seeing female athletes shift the standard definition of strength: from stoic and shut off, to ego-less and open. Tennis great Naomi Osaka opening up about her mental health struggles. New mom and 2020 Olympic Marathon Trials winner Aliphine Tuliamuk candidly sharing her postpartum journey on social, never hesitating to publicly ask her fans and followers for help and advice along the way.

Sports inherently bring out our vulnerabilities. They require us to step up to the proverbial plate and risk striking out. It’s why the relationships built through them are so strong. Years, even decades, after competing, those bonds remain because you were in the trenches together. You understood what the other was putting on the line. I can still vividly remember the look on my Ohio University lacrosse teammates’ faces in college during a grueling morning of 22 x 200-meter field sprints. Those women, that group, we pulled each other through—and I am forever stronger because of them.

Asking for help. Leaning on others. These are things I struggle with, a lot. And I know I’m not alone. Many of us internalize the idea that by raising a hand, we’re admitting that we aren’t as capable or as strong as we thought. Maybe sometimes it’s a bit of impostor syndrome, a fear that we’ll be “found out” for being less than perfect or unable to do it all. But the best athletes in the country—and the world—are showing us a different way.

They’re showing us a path forward by leaning in instead of walling off.

Of course, working through challenges on our own—embracing that in-the-moment struggle and discomfort—can be incredibly fortifying. But humans need connection to thrive.

We are not built to go it alone. Letting people help you isn’t a sign of defeat, it’s a sign of maturity. A sign that you know you can go farther, and get there faster, when the weight isn’t yours to carry alone.

warm up T H E L AT E S T I N C U LT U R E , N E WS , A N D T R EN D S TO G E T YO U O U T T H E D O O R

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I R U N T H I S TOW N 1 0 S C I E N C E S AYS 11 TRENDS 12 SUSTAINABILI T Y 1 3 HOW SHE GETS IT DONE 14 8

WOMEN’S RUNNING SUMMER 2021

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WHAT WE ’R E R E ADI NG 11

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I RUN THIS TOWN

Two joggers run past Buford Tower in Austin.

AUSTIN Cate Barrett, 31, has lived in Austin, Texas, her whole life. The Haute Volée runner and 2:43 marathoner shares why runners love living there.

BY M A L I S S A R O D E N B U R G

DID YOU KNOW? The summer heat in this Texas city is no joke, with highs averaging from 92 to 97 from June through August. The summer of 2011 saw 90 days of 100-plus degrees.

But don’t let the heat discourage you: summer paces may be slow, but the heat training pays off immensely. “You won’t see the fruit of that labor until the first 60-degree day, and then it feels like you’ve been shot out of a cannon,” Barrett says.

WHY AUSTIN? Besides the appeal of being able to run year-round, Barrett loves how active the city is as a whole. She feels connected to running even on her days off. “It’s like everybody knows what that sport looks like and has an idea about it even if they’re not runners. It’s easy to feel connected to it,” she says.

The running groups in Austin are active and plentiful, offering something for everyone. “People identify really strongly by their group,” says Barrett. With those allegiances, it’s not uncommon for friendly competition to arise. “But people move between the different groups, and I’ve

found all of them to be welcoming.”

MUST-TRY RUN ROUTES The trail around Lady Bird Lake (or Town Lake to Austinites) is the place to go. The 10-mile loop is continually upgraded with new amenities, says Barrett. If you’re looking for a variety in distance, bridges along the trail can shorten the run to a loop of three, four, five, or seven miles. “It’s the

heart of downtown,” she says.

POST-RUN RITUALS Good food and drinks are easy to find in Austin. Barrett recommends Taco Flats for Mexico City–style street tacos for fueling after a run. Their frozen mezcal margarita is one of her favorites: “It’s a little sweet and a little smoky.” Or, you can do what Barrett and her husband often do: Divide and conquer to grab tacos from Taco Flats and coffee from Caffe Medici right across the street.

BEATING THE HEAT The three rules of running in Texas heat: run early (like 5:30 a.m.) or late; hydrate well (drinking fountains are plentiful); and pull back on intensity. Barrett’s favorite way to cool down after a run is a quick swim in the Barton Springs Pool. The natural spring-fed pool stays a cool 68 to 70 degrees year-round. The beautiful body of water is full of vegetation, fish, and even the endangered Barton Springs salamander. “If you had to hit one place in Texas, this would be it,” she says.

Located right off Lady Bird Lake, you could begin and finish your run there. “It’s just the most refreshing way to start your day or end it,” Barrett says.

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WOMEN’S RUNNING SUMMER 2021

JON HICKS (TOP); GETTY IMAGES (BOTTOM)

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W H AT W E A R E R E A D I N G

S C I E N C E S AY S

Survive and Advance We sat down with new author Tianna Bartoletta.

In June, three-time Olympic gold medalist Tianna Bartoletta published her first memoir, Survive and Advance. The sprinter and long jumper started blogging in 2017, when she escaped a toxic and abusive marriage. Her posts showcased her natural talent as a writer and glimpsed at her history and hardships.

Survive and Advance is the whole story, raw and real.

WR: Who did you write the book for? Who do you hope reads it?

TB: When I literally wrote the last word, I was like “Oh, this was for me.” But I do hope [it helps] anyone who has gone through anything, so that covers a lot of us. Someone who is an athlete that’s trying to do something very difficult, and that doesn’t mean elite athlete. That means the person training for the 5K, the person coming back from an injury, like the table tennis athlete with a bum elbow. This book is for them.

This story is: Something happens, you come back. Something else happens, you come back. You can do it. You can put one foot in front of the other and next thing you know, you’re surviving.

WR: What was it like for you, putting the whole story down on paper?

TB: There were parts that were fun to write and remember and relive and laugh about. And to be completely honest, there were parts of my story that I completely omitted the first time around. This is why I’m so grateful for my best friend, Charles Ryan, because I read the book out loud to him before I submitted it to my publisher. And he looked at me and said, “For real, you’re just going to not talk about that.”

And it was just too hard. I don’t want that on paper. I don’t want people to see that part of me. And he said, “This is why you’re writing.”

So when I thought the book was complete, I actually had to go back and write some of the more painful moments more truthfully.

I fell apart several times, feeling very re-traumatized. I had a lot of nightmares during the writing. Writing was like therapy, but it also required therapy to get through it at the same time.

WR: What does “survive and advance” mean?

TB: You do what you’ve got to do to get to the next level, next round, the next thing. Right? So that doesn’t always mean your b e s t p e r fo rmance ever. Even if it means you got in by the skin of your teeth, you got in, and that’s sometimes all you need to do. On the track, I’m notorious for barely making it out of qualifying on the long jump and then winning a medal the following day. It doesn’t matter. You just need to survive and get to tomorrow.

WR: What was your favorite part to write?

TB: I loved writing about the high school stuff because as an adult, I only was remembering the traumatic parts. Just the funny stuff that I did and the stupid things that happened or that I tried to get away with in high school. It was “Oh, you were so dumb.” That was really fun for me to write and remember, because I don’t have a team anymore. I don’t even have a training group. It was fun to look back on those times.

WR: Has the book helped you close those previous chapters and look forward to this next Olympic year differently?

TB: This one’s a tough one to answer because the healing process has not been linear at all for me. I just recently kind of hit a valley. Physically, absolutely. I feel like I surprise myself on a regular basis in terms of what I do in training. But mentally I’m still kind of struggling with, “Can I do this, or am I enough?” Just the insidious residual effects of mentally going through it for so long. And I’m trying to rewrite and overwrite those tapes, but it’s very hard.

And I think it’s coming out in my performance.

There’s a lot of pressure and I wonder, “Can I get back and can I do this? ” —M.R.

JOIN OUR BOOK CLUB! Available exclusively to Women’s Running and Outside+ members. Read the book with us and join in discussion on our private Facebook page. Get all the info and sign up at womensrunning.com.

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WOMEN’S RUNNING SUMMER 2021

News You Can Use We read through the latest scientific articles so you don’t have to.

1. 3–6mg of caffeine per kg of body mass is the most effective dose to improve exercise performance.

The takeaway: Caffeine benefited endurance athletes the most (an 8-ounce cup of coffee has about 95mg of caffeine).

2. Runners with weak outer thighs have higher injury risk.

The takeaway: Calf, knee, and Achilles injuries were highest reported, but all injured runners had relatively weak outer thighs. Add lunges (front, diagonal, side, and pivoting) to your strength routine.

3. Running shoes made with graphene foam last twice as long with 25% greater energy return than shoes with EVA foam.

The takeaway: Carbonplate technology has been getting lots of attention, but graphene may be worth seeking out when buying your next pair of kicks.

4. Nature sounds can decrease pain, lower stress, improve mood, and boost cognitive performance.

The takeaway: Try taking your next run (or walk) in a state park sans headphones.

5. Exercise may protect you from severe COVID. The takeaway: Consistently inactive people had a greater chance of being hospitalized, admitted to the ICU, or dying from COVID complications. —M.R.

COVER COURTESY CG SPORTS MANAGEMENT

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TRENDS

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PHOTO CREDIT HANNAH DEWITT

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SUMMER 2021 WOMENSRUNNING.COM

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S U S TA I N A B I L I T Y

Runners throw trash and cups in the road along the marathon path during the 34th Los Angeles marathon.

Here are three ways you can help make races more sustainable.

BY M O L LY H A N S O N

Putting on a running event produces a lot of stuff: Paper cups and bottled water, metallic space blankets, pinned numbers, heaps of plastic-wrapped bars, packets of energy gels, tons of banana peels. Races also require a shocking amount of energy and carbon emissions. Consider the production of race swag (cheap T-shirts, sweaters, hats, and medals). The extraction and processing of raw material to manufacture and deliver these to and from races requires energy, natural resources, and greenhouse gas emissions. And in the case of massive events like marathon majors or destination races, there’s the fossil fuel emissions of hundreds of thousands of people traversing the globe.

As global temperatures reach new heights and pollution continues to devastate our ecosystems, it’s past time for race directors to take concrete steps to make races greener.

Running events contribute to a sliver of the environmental problems eroding our health, infrastructure, and society, but they represent a collective way of thinking that must rapidly shift if we are to enjoy any such events a decade from now.

Here are three ways you can help make racing a more sustainable activity.

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WOMEN’S RUNNING SUMMER 2021

1. Speak Up Communicate to event organizers that issues of sustainability are critical to you, says Keith Peters, former executive director of the Council for Responsible Sport, a nonprofit helping groups measure the environmental impact of their events.

“Most of all, let race organizers know you’re aware of and appreciate the efforts that they’re making, and if you have constructive criticism or suggestions to make, go ahead and do that,” he says.

2. Race Local Racing in your community/ region is the most effective way you can reduce greenhouse gas emissions related to racing events. The Council for Responsible Sport doesn’t tell people not to travel, but hard choices will have to be made if we are going to keep Earth from warming more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

Shelley Villalobos, managing director of the council, suggests

that a runner choose one big race (like the Boston Marathon) per year that requires longdistance travel, and then decide to stay in your region for the rest of the races you participate in.

3. Vote with Your Feet Runners can “vote” for more sustainable races by participating in events that are making genuine efforts to become more environmentally responsible.

The Council for Responsible Sport ranks various races for their sustainability efforts and resource management.

“Our race committee feels good about [our sustainability efforts],” says Phil Stewart, race director for the Cherry Blossom 10-Mile Run, which regularly earns the Gold Level Inspire Certification from the council.

“We hope that the runners feel good about it and will maybe gravitate toward our event because of the fact that we are trying to produce a sustainable event. We very much feel like it’s the right thing to do.”

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HOW SHE GETS IT DONE

Kym Crosby

A Day in the Life Crosby’s time is centered on two things: Training or recovering from training.

Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are dedicated to lifting with drills and maybe a bike session thrown in. “Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday are harder workouts, but they don’t last as long,” she says. “It takes, at most, a couple of hours, and those are the intense interval training that we’ll do.”

What about free afternoons?

“For the most part, it’s just trying to recover, so anything that I can do on my own to get myself prepared to come back the next day,” she says. That could mean going on a walk, jumping on the bike to get her blood flowing and the lactic acid out of her muscles, resting in NormaTecs, a contrast

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bath, or icing. “Any recovery tools that I need to do to get me ready to go.”

Sundays are all about doing nothing—and embracing it.

Her Support Team “I wholeheartedly believe that it takes a community to get to where I’m at and where I want to be,” says Crosby. But she leans the most on her husband, Erik Hightower, a two-time Paralympic wheelchair racer, and her mother, Pauline Crosby.

“They can get me out of my head if I need to get out of my head before a competition or if I’ve had a bad day at practice,” she says.

ity than able-body athletes.

Crosby wants fans to understand that Para athletes train just as hard and give just as much. “We are parallel to the Olympics,” she says. “We compete at the same level as Olympians. The only difference is that we have a physical impairment. We still train just as hard, if not harder, than Olympians do. And we have the same goals as them.”

For as much as she pushes herself and she sees her team pushing themselves, she’d like to see more recognition of that in America. “We want to be treated as the hard-working athletes that we are,” she says.

Her Mantra Pushing Herself For Para athletes, there is a clear sense of less visibil-

WOMEN’S RUNNING SUMMER 2021

“Limited sight, limitless dreams.” Since she started running track in high school,

Crosby has found ways, with the help of coaches, to accommodate her 20/400 vision: Looking down while she runs, she can see the contrast of the lines, but if the track is faded or the colors don’t have enough contrast, she’ll run in lane one, where she can see the rail on the inside. And her dreams are truly limitless. “I’m shooting for gold in Tokyo,” she says—especially in the 100 meters, but she’d be thrilled to just get on the podium in the 400 meters.

In the future, she’d like to be a coach and mentor. “I want to be the person that was there for me through my career. I want to be a coach, and not just be a coach for track athletes, but if anybody in life is trying to better themselves and get healthier,” she says. —M.R.

JODI HANAGAN

By the time you’re reading this, Kym Crosby, 28, will know if she’s joining Team USA in the Paralympic Games for the second time. At press time, she only had a hunch: “I feel like this year, I’m so ready to go and I’m so ready to go way faster than I’ve ever gone before,” she says. Running in the 100 meters and 400 meters, she competes under the T13 classification for a visual impairment caused by her albinism.

While the pandemic was hard, Crosby was grateful for the time to rest her body and prepare for big goals: “Having this pandemic happen, it was kind of a blessing in disguise because my body got to rest and recover from that long season in 2019.” And she has been putting in some real work to get ready. Here’s how she gets it done.

training block Nikki Hiltz, one of the top 1500-meter runners in the country, has created a supportive community through their Pride 5K.

F U E L YO U R R U N N I N G G OA L S W I T H T HE FR E S HE S T T IPS AND TRICKS FROM T H E C O U N T RY ’ S B E S T AT H L E T E S A N D E X PER T S .

PR O T I P 2 0 B O DY WO R K 2 1 KEVIN MORRIS

THE MASTERS 22 C OAC H ’S C O R N E R 2 3 N E X TG E N 2 4 SUMMER 2021 WOMENSRUNNING.COM

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training block

PRO TIP

Nikki Hiltz Performs, Authentically Running while pretending to be somebody else has never gone well for them.

BY E R I N S T R O U T

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WOMEN’S RUNNING SUMMER 2021

THEIR ESSENTIAL WORKOUT WHO: Nikki Hiltz, 26 WHAT: The K(ilometer) Workout • 3 x 1K at 3:15 to 3:20 pace with a 200-meter jog between • Four minutes rest • 2 x 150 meters (strides) • Three minutes rest • One “really hard” K (about one minute faster) • 90 seconds rest • Finish with fast 500 meters WHY: “That’s where I gain confidence. I know going into the race, anything thrown my way, I can handle.”

DETAILS: Ten days out from a race, Hiltz likes to make sure the last K is 2:40 or under. Before the 2019 world championships, each 200 meters got progressively faster; the last K at the championships was essentially just as they had practiced. “I’m not a workout artist at all—I race better than I work out,” Hiltz says. “Add in fans, adrenaline of competition, and this makes me believe in myself.”

including putting on a virtual race, called Pride 5K, during Pride Month.

“I really love being coached by a young, excited coach,” Hiltz says. “It’s a good dynamic.”

Hiltz recognizes the platform they have to help younger transgender people, who are the primary target of legislation sweeping across at least 33 states, with more than 100 bills curbing rights to gender-affirming treatment and participation in youth sports consistent with their gender identities.

LGBTQ children already have high rates of depression and suicide and advocates say that these laws will do further harm to mental health.

As the debate about transgender athletes competing in sports rages on, Hiltz would like more people to educate themselves on the current science, the NCAA and elite-level policies for transgender competitors, and Hiltz’s own personal circumstances.

“I’m not planning on taking testosterone or having gender-affirming surgery. I’m just showing up as myself,” they say. “But I never want my experience to be weaponized against other trans people. Everyone deserves a choice. Trans people deserve to show up as themselves in all spaces, including sports.”

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On National Transgender Day of Visibility this year, Nikki Hiltz, one of the country’s fastest 1500-meter competitors, began an Instagram post that changed their life.

“Hi I’m Nikki and I’m transgender,” they wrote. “That means I don’t identify with the gender I was assigned at birth.

The word I use currently to describe my gender is non-binary.”

With that, Hiltz also changed pronouns, from she/her to they/them.

It wasn’t the first time they came out. In 2017 as a senior at the University of Arkansas, Hiltz noticed that living authentically as an openly gay person actually led to better performances. Until then, Hiltz, now 26, couldn’t fathom a pro running career, but an Adidas sponsorship opened the door. They have lit up the circuit in the 1500 meters ever since, qualifying for the 2019 world championships and making it to the final round with a personal best of 4:01.52.

“If I walked away from this season with more races that I was excited to be in and happy to be in than nervous and stressed out about—if I can have fun out there and do my best, it’s going to be a good season,” Hiltz says. “There have been seasons where I’m like, ‘Wow, that was really stressful,’ and I wasn’t really happy a lot of the time. What I’ve learned is that I actually really love this and I am excited about it.”

Besides vying for one of three spots on the U.S. Olympic team, Hiltz has set some other tangible goals for the year: break two minutes in the 800 meters and break four minutes in the 1500 meters.

Now coached by Mac Fleet, they feel more freedom and support to pursue the projects that fulfill them outside of training,

B O DY W O R K

The Mysterious Malady of Wonky Legs The cause of tingling and loss of leg coordination—and how to fix it.

BY E L I Z A B E T H C A R E Y

It’s not really an injury, but when runners suffer the sensation of tingling legs or losing control, it’s often a perplexing—and surprisingly common—problem.

When all or parts of a runner’s leg go numb, tingly, or noodly, those symptoms can signal minor and serious diseases and conditions, including nutrient deficiencies. For runners, including pros like Stephanie Twell, the wonky leg predicament throws a wrench in training, racing, and even staying upright.

Much like “sciatica” or “shin splints,” we’ll use “wonky legs” to refer to the effects—including total or partial numbness, tingling, and loss of control and power—rather than the cause.

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POSSIBLE CAUSES The symptoms, causes, and potential diagnoses of wonky legs vary day to day and from person to person.

“The crucial point is the assessment,” says Ross Dexter, athletic trainer at Southern Oregon University. A thorough evaluation should include neuromuscular and functional assessments and ruling out red flags, such as spinal issues and traumatic accidents. “Find a competent pro who understands athletics.”

Potential causes of wonky legs can include spine and back issues (think: herniated disc) and nerve injury or impingement. The trick with the latter is finding out exactly where the nerve has a problem. If a doctor orders imaging, know that MRIs and high-resolution ultrasounds may help find swelling or abnormality, but nerve pain can be referred to another part of the body. In other words, where you feel it might not be the root of your issue.

Nerves can be injured anywhere, but they often get compressed at specific locations. In the lower limbs, for example, at least five nerves can become entrapped: peroneal, tibial, rural, femoral, and sciatic.

Impingement may occur in the lower legs, back of the knee, and hips and glutes.

“Each of these potential issues are likely connected and may be caused by dysfunction at the core, hips, or feet as compensatory stress patterns,” Dexter says.

Twell, the Scottish marathon record holder (2:26:40), prides herself as an athlete who’s physiologically aware, yet she found an issue bouncing from her hip to her foot hard to pinpoint. “Neurally, things started to switch off for me into [higher] mileage. I knew the pain was more of a chain reaction because I was strong in certain areas.”

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO ABOUT YOUR WONKY LEGS? There is no standard protocol, because symptoms are rarely standard.

1. Listen to Your Body Truly listen to the signals your body is sending.

Tune in with curiosity and openness.

Take, for example, a numb foot.

If your pain does not respond to traditional treatments like rest and ice, that’s a sign it is nerve-related.

Your brain, spine, and nerves are “the information pathway,” Dexter says. “The nervous system is telling you what’s happening … that environment needs to be investigated.”

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outs or races cause drop foot, for example, Johnson advises not pushing through.

Higher efforts, intensity, and range of motion can exacerbate the movement and postural patterns that cause these issues.

3. For Acute Sensations, Ice Johnson suggests calming the nerves with ice (5 minutes on the front and back of the lower spine, at least 15 minutes off, six times a day), gentle stretching, hands-on treatment, and committing to a plan.

She asks her patients to consider before treating the problem: “Am I wanting to do a bunch of stuff because I think that will help? Or am I sensing into my body?”

4. Be Patient Looking at all the variables, Twell noticed exacerbation during the pandemic lockdown, which reduced her daily movement. She has experimented with resting, running on inclines, and altering her training and pre- and post-run routines.

Now, training in Houston six months after her flare-up, she has access to a gym, therapy, and shockwave treatment. “That really turned a corner for me,” she says.

2. Address It Early Lara Johnson, doctor of physical therapy in Boulder, Colorado, has a unique perspective as a runner and clinician. “When we start to notice these subtle problems, it’s best to not ignore it. We’d rather address it when it’s subtle than when it gets to be a big problem,” she says.

If running exacerbates pain or loss of function, cut back on running. If work-

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THE MASTERS

In the Heat of the Moment Why masters-aged runners need to pay more attention to heat acclimation.

BY A L L I S O N L . G O L D S T E I N

Summer running can be a sufferfest.

Relentless heat and oppressive humidity have us squeezing in runs at the crack of dawn or after sunset. For most runners, these efforts to stay cool are all in the name of comfort. For masters runners, they’re a matter of health.

A SLOWER RESPONSE TO HEAT

BIG RACES, BIG RISKS Magdalena Boulet, a 2008 Olympic marathoner and 47-year-old professional ultrarunner, knew that heat regulation would be key when she signed up for the 2018 Marathon des Sables—a six-day, 156-mile ultramarathon across the Sahara Desert.

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Similarly, Lyndsay Tessier, a 43-yearold elite Canadian masters runner, was aware of the risks she would face at the 2019 world marathon championships. The race took place in Doha, Qatar, where the daily high averages more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit with a low in the mid-80s.

“I was decidedly older than everyone else [on the Canadian team],” she says.

“And you can’t outrun the heat. But what you can do is respect and prepare for it.”

PREPARATION MEANS ACCLIMATION Whether you’re training for a hot race or approaching intense summer months, the first thing to do is to acclimate. The goal: Help your body make the adaptations it needs to handle heat, including increased sweat rate, reduced resting core temperature, and expanded plasma volume.

According to research, most adaptations are complete after 10 continuous days of heat exposure. But not all of us have access to the same resources as a researcher, so our acclimation may take longer.

Boulet, for example, uses the last four weeks before a hot race to acclimate. “You have to be very thoughtful that you don’t incorporate this extra stress from heat acclimation during intense phases of your training,” she says. She starts with passive exposure, like sitting in a hot tub,

and increases the intensity from there.

An even easier technique: Wear extra clothes during indoor and outdoor runs.

Begin in whichever setting is colder, working up to multiple layers in the hotter setting.

WHEN IT’S HOT, KEEP YOUR COOL When it’s time to push yourself in the heat, the approach flips. Now you want to stay as cool as possible for as long as possible.

In Doha, Tessier was advised to stay out of the heat as much as she could before the race. She was also given cooling vests to wear before she started, which you can DIY: Wet a few hand towels, freeze them overnight, and drape them over your head and neck for 10 minutes before a hot run.

Or try cooling down from the inside.

Boulet freezes her water bottles and gels so everything she’s ingesting helps to cool her down. And make sure to drink enough fluid. Because once you’re dehydrated, it’s easier to overheat more quickly.

Finally, back off when needed. Tessier credits her top-10 finish with hitting a pace 15–20 seconds slower than what she’d trained for. “That’s where being a master comes in. There’s a maturity where I’m able to calm my ego. I told myself, ‘You’re just going to race the conditions. You won’t race your fitness, per se.’ Respect the heat.

Don’t fear it, but respect it.”

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As we age, every system in our body slows down—including our nervous system.

This system not only tells our muscles to fire, but also alerts us when we’re getting hot, telling our body to cool down.

“When we heat up, we have neural signals that are sent to cutaneous vasculature, or blood vessels in the skin, as well as to sweat glands,” says S. Tony Wolf, a postdoctoral fellow in the department of kinesiology at Penn State University.

In response to these signals, the blood vessels in our skin dilate, or widen, so our blood can get closer to the surface of the skin and release more heat into the air. Meanwhile, our sweat glands release water onto the surface of our skin, which cools us through evaporative heat loss.

Over time, this whole system becomes less responsive: It’s slower to register that we’re hot and send out cooling signals; blood vessels and sweat glands are slower to react. Add a decreased thirst response (another system slowdown) and you wind up with a body prone to overheating and dehydrating more quickly and severely.

C OAC H ’ S C O R N E R

Nerves are Natural, but You can also Race Without Fear Taking risks can actually help manage your race-day anxiety. What do you have to lose?

BY H E AT H E R S T E P H E N S

Those moments before the gun goes off; our hearts racing, palms sweating, adrenaline coursing through our veins.

This feeling is natural when we sign up to challenge the body and the mind. But it’s important to differentiate between the typical race day jitters and the excess anxiety and fear that only holds us back.

I’ll never forget my first road races after college track. I wasn’t telling a soul that I was racing. I signed up, wrote my own training plan, executed hard workouts before work, and then when race day came around I followed my race routine and felt excited and ready to run fast.

Unlike racing in college, I gave myself full permission to take chances without the fear of failing. Heck, if I failed, I’d be the only one to know. My goal? To beat my local competitor, a U.K. Olympian. When the pace got hard at mile three, I decided to take the risk and match her moves. That day I pulled away from her with a mile to go and never looked back. It was the best feeling, racing without fear. It made me wonder why I hadn’t dialed in this fearless racing formula earlier on. I’ve developed four ways to run with courage, even when race-day nerves are high.

Create race goals.

Whether you’re working with a coach or training on your own, come up with a raceday strategy. Part of this should be setting

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an A Goal, B Goal, and C Goal. Your A Goal should be your big, scary goal: the one that results from taking a big risk. Your B Goal should be a strong second: If it’s not your A-day and you can’t execute your risk, you still aim for a strong performance. Your C Goal could be as simple as completing the race. The C Goal serves as a reminder that it’s OK to not always have a perfect, A-goal day.

Write down your “why.”

Remember why you are running and racing. It’s different for everyone, but at the core for most is that running is something we get to do, rarely something we have to do. Sometimes a simple check-in with your “why” is enough to move our fear from the driver’s seat to the back seat.

Dial in your race-day routine.

Creating a rock-solid routine can help ease excess anxiety. A week before racing, write down what time you’ll wake up on race morning, what you’ll have for pre-race nutrition and hydration, what you’ll wear, and when you’ll warm up and do strides before the gun goes off. A routine helps us to set our intention and simultaneously creates a sense of calm and confidence.

Give yourself permission to take a risk.

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Failure at its worst is failing to try at all. When we ditch the fear of failure, we give ourselves permission to try hard things and surprise ourselves with success.

Sure, we might have lower margins of error in some races, but identify the races where you can take a risk.

Don’t hold back and see what happens. The experience will only allow you to grow in your running.

Heather Stephens competed for Syracuse University and began her coaching career at Georgetown University. She’s now a private coach for Rad Running, based in Seattle.

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NEXT GEN

What’s a Wicket?

Mini hurdles can improve technique.

BY E L I Z A B E T H C A R E Y

TRY THE WICKET DRILL Ramos recommends including wicket drills consistently during at least one annual training cycle, sprinkling them in a rotation of other neuromuscular and speed training tactics (such as short hill sprints, staircase or stadium runs, box jumps, or single-leg hurdle hops). Include them as part of a warm-up or as supplemental work at the end of a workout, one to three times a week.

Start the drills at about 70 percent effort, working up to 95 to 97 percent.

Initially, do a few repetitions, progressing frequency and intensity with each session. You might even want to start without the wickets, using athletic tape or another flat marker to familiarize yourself with the drill and to adjust your spacing. The first few times using the wickets can feel uncomfortable, until you learn how to do them correctly. No biggie if you knock a wicket or three over.

It’s all part of the process.

• Equipment: Measuring tape, something to mark distance with (athletic tape, cones), wickets, wicket spacing charts (available widely by searching “wicket spacing charts” online—start with “high school” or “beginner”), optional phone video camera to assess form • Location: Try to find a smooth, clear runway of at least 80 meters (a track straightaway, long flat street or trail, or similar).

• Set up: Mark “0,” for the first wicket.

Then, referring to the charts, mark off each wicket distance.

• Mark the run-in steps: Mark half way

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between the first wicket pair with athletic tape, another “0.” From there, move backward, marking off each wicket distance with tape.

• Place wickets on their marks.

• Warm up; then run in (about six strides, or approximately 10 to 20 meters, or 4 to 5 seconds) to the wickets.

• Run through the wickets, aiming to land between each with good form. Run out up to 30 meters (or 5-plus seconds). Recover for a minute or two then repeat.

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Wickets, also called mini or speed hurdles, are short, rectangular-shaped training tools. They’re much smaller and more forgiving than the hurdles on a track.

Competitive athletes and coaches alike praise them for improving force production, ground contact time, speed, and form.

At Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan, Morgan Fuerst likes wickets because they’re quick to set up and can help improve running technique. She was introduced to wickets as a 200- and 400-meter sprinter, but still touts the benefits since she’s moved up in distance. Fuerst qualified for the 2021 NCAA Division II track and field outdoor championships in the 1500 meters and the 4 x 400-meter relay.

“Using wickets helped me reach my desired leg cycle,” she says. “They helped with a higher knee lift and more effective cadence. I felt more confident in my stride.”

Wickets can be used for a variety of drills (running, hopping, and jumping), but a common method, popularized by sprint coaches, is the wicket drill. The focus is max velocity, emphasizing what happens between the hurdles (stepping down) rather than over the hurdles.

Angelina Ramos, University of Nevada Las Vegas cross-country and track coach, uses them with any athlete not trained on running form. “A lot of distance runners, because we tend to not have as exaggerated of a forward lean, lose front-side mechanics and fall into overstriding and heel-striking. We lose the efficiency of our footstrike, of our free elastic energy.”

She uses wickets to decrease ground contact time, boost foot speed, and improve front-side mechanics, like your knee lifting up and in front of you, not just hanging out below your hips and behind you.

“The time we spend on the ground has to do with balance, glute swing through, hip extension, proper form,” Fuerst says. “The more you can decrease that ground time, the less chance you have for injury.”

eat Build Your Best Smoothie Chill out this summer with delicious smoothies that aid training and pack an impressive nutritional punch.

moothies are an easy, foolproof way to pack extra nutrients into your diet. And when solid food is not the move after a hot, sweaty run, smoothies come to the refueling rescue. “Smoothies are an excellent post-workout option for runners who experience lack of appetite post-workout, as they provide fluids, carbohydrates, and protein all in one,” says Angie Asche, registered dietitian.

Here, how to stack a smoothie for the best texture, flavor, and nutrition, plus three recipes from Asche’s new cookbook, Fuel Your Body: How to Cook and Eat for Peak Performance.

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ICE CUBES:

Opt for around 6-7 to help thicken and up the chill factor without diluting flavor.

ADD - INS:

1-2 teaspoons of spices and up to ½ cup of Greek yogurt.

PROTEIN POWDER: 1 scoop. Watch out for sweeteners, which can change the taste significantly and cause GI discomfort.

NUT BUTTERS OR SEEDS: 1-2 tablespoons.

These supply much-needed fats, which help with fullness.

FRUIT: 1-2 cups. Go frozen here for the best texture, flavor, and for heft: The weight of frozen fruit pushes down the leafy greens, making sure they blend seamlessly.

GREENS:

2 cups. Spinach is mild; branching out to kale or collard greens is a great way to mix it up.

LIQUID:

1½-2 cups of liquid of choice: milk, nondairy milk, coconut water.

Pouring the liquid first helps lubricate the blades, keeping everything moving for a smoothie that’s thick and mixed throughout.

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Berry-Beet Smoothie MAKES 1 SERVING

Cooked beets blend much more easily than raw. You can find precooked beets in the produce department at most grocery stores.

1 1 ½ ½ 1–2 1

cup unsweetened nondairy milk or 2% milk cooked beet, chopped cup frozen blueberries cup frozen pineapple chunks tsp. honey scoop protein powder of choice (optional)

Put the ingredients in a blender in the order listed. Blend on high until smooth.

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PE R FOR MANCE TIP

Beet juice has been shown to help improve stamina and shorten recovery time between training sessions. This could be the result of increased blood flow, allowing for greater oxygen delivery to your muscles thanks to the nitrates found naturally in beets. For the most benefit, drink 30 minutes before your workout.

eat

Coffee and Cacao Smoothie MAKES 1 SERVING

This is Asche’s personal favorite smoothie. “I’ll have it for breakfast most mornings when I’m in a rush. I typically add a scoop of chocolate protein powder to it for more protein,” she says. If you prefer a stronger coffee flavor, use more coffee and less milk.

1

cup unsweetened vanilla nondairy milk or 2% milk 4–6 oz. cold-brew coffee 1 large frozen banana 1 Tbsp. creamy almond butter 3–4 Medjool dates, pitted 1 tsp. cacao powder

PE R FOR MANCE TIP

Caffeine levels in the blood peak at 45 to 60 minutes post-consumption, so this smoothie is ideal about an hour before your training session. Choose caffeine from natural sources like coffee or tea that don’t contain excess sugar or artificial sweeteners.

Put the ingredients in a blender in the order listed. Blend on high until smooth.

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Gut Health Berry Smoothie MAKES 1 SERVING

1½ 1 1 ½ ¼ 2 1 ½

cups unsweetened nondairy milk or 2% milk cup fresh spinach (optional) small frozen banana, chopped cup frozen strawberries, raspberries, or blueberries cup unsweetened coconut milk yogurt Tbsp. ground flaxseed scoop plant-based protein powder of choice tsp. ground cinnamon (optional)

Put the ingredients in a blender in the order listed. Blend on high until smooth.

PE R FOR MANCE TIP

Intense exercise can lead to significant changes within your gut microbiome.

Probiotics and prebiotics help keep your gut healthy by promoting the growth of beneficial bacteria. Ground flaxseed and berries provide prebiotics (fiber), and unsweetened coconut milk yogurt is fortified with probiotics (bacteria) to make this smoothie an excellent option to promote optimal gut health.

Recipes reprinted with permission from Fuel Your Body: How to Cook and Eat for Peak Performance by Angie Asche, MS, RD, CSSD, Agate, May 2021.

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eat

Age-Proof Your Nutrition Running your strongest at any age requires a solid fueling plan. Full stop. But as your body and lifestyle change through the years, so does your optimal nutrition strategy.

Here’s how to maximize fueling at any life stage.

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BY CINDY KUZMA PHOTO ILLUSTRATIONS BY ERIN DOUGLAS

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eat hen Los Angeles– based registered dietitian nutritionist Yasi Ansari begins working with a new client, she first asks them to describe how it feels to run, lift, or otherwise train with a fueled, strong body.

Then, she has them imagine they didn’t eat enough before a workout or competition.

“Most of my athletes are able to give me real-life examples of times they felt they were ‘hitt ing the wall’ or needing to put more effort into every movement when they didn’t eat enough,” says Ansari.

The exercise instantly reinforces her key message: Food provides strength, both physical and mental. “Adequate nutrition is just as important as taking care of your mental health, proper training, sleep, and hydration,” she says. “It’s all part of the recipe that sets an athlete up for success in their sport.”

When it comes to fueling, many aspects remain constant through all the miles and years. But as we progress through the stages of our lives—from eager high-school runners to wise masters athletes—our bodies undergo a series of changes. Hormonal shifts, metabolic adjustments, and lifestyle developments mean the way we fueled at 18 won’t necessarily work when we’re 64.

Fortunately, women runners can evolve their eating habits through the years to unlock even more of food’s fortifying forces.

“For women runners, it’s not about removing things or taking them away, it’s actually the opposite,” says Reshaunda Thornton, a St. Louis–based registered dietitian and author of Play to Win the Food Fight. “Food is enrichment, and good nutrition is the ultimate gift you can give to yourself.”

Ansari considers many factors when working with athletes in addition to age: budget, access, and sensitivities around food and training play a role in their optimal strategy. No matter your age, however, a few key principles are unwavering.

First, eat enough. Runners burn hundreds of extra calories per day, says Michelle Barrack, registered dietitian and associate professor of nutrition and dietetics at California State University, Long Beach.

Fail to replenish them, and you run the risk of a condition called low energy availability, in which your body lacks resources to function fully. Over time, it can harm your muscles, bones, hormones, fertility, heart, and mental health, a constellation known as relative energy deficiency in

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sport (RED-S) that typically requires medical treatment to reverse.

Remember: You need all three macronutrients (proteins, carbs, and fats) to live well and perform your best.

Carbs are the fuel that powers your muscles, brain, and heart, says Sakiko Minagawa, a registered dietitian for the division of sports medicine at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Dublin, Ohio, and Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier. Protein helps build new muscles. And fats fight inflammation and ensure proper hormonal balance.

Runners’ bodies also require plenty of micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) to absorb the stress of training.

The best way to get there? A variety of fruits or veggies on the menu for every meal and snack, says Lauren Antonucci, registered dietitian nutritionist and author of High Performance Nutrition For Masters Athletes. (If you’re eating 30 or more different plant foods over the course of week, you’re likely covering your bases.)

And finally, you could take plenty of pills and powders, but it’s better to employ what Ansari calls a “food first” approach and get what you need from your diet. A registered dietitian nutritionist, preferably one who works with athletes, can detect deficiencies and recommend supplements as needed.

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eat I N YO U R T E E N S t this age, girls’ bodies are changing fast. Besides the outward signs of puberty, they’re building bone and muscle at a rapid rate. In fact, you amass about half the strength of your skeleton during this decade. All this requires considerable energy.

Unfortunately, this goes hand-in-hand with rising social pressure to shrink and restrict. Perceptions about limiting carbs stand in direct opposition to runners’ needs, Barrack says. Misinformed coaches, falsely equating lighter weights with faster times, may overlook warning signs of low energy availability.

In a new study in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, Barrack and her colleagues studied food logs from 72 high school cross-country runners, 60 of them female. A startling 60 percent of the girls, compared to 30 percent of the boys, met criteria for

A

low energy availability. Many also fell short of the recommended amounts of carbs, calcium, vitamin D, potassium, fruit, vegetables, and grains.

Young athletes can refill their tanks, and doing so comes with a big upside for girls in particular. The changes that accompany puberty can temporarily alter performances, leaving many girls frustrated. Some even drop out of running altogether, feeling like they don’t belong anymore, says Lydia Nader, sports dietitian with the Illinois Bone & Joint Institute.

But the more they tend to their nutritional needs, the better they’ll fare.

“We can teach the younger generation how much their nutrition can play a role in that change of their bodies, and that it’s not a negative thing—it’s something we can use to our advantage,” Nader says. “If they understand that and feel empowered, it can make such a big difference with [girls] staying in sports.”

T i p s f o r Yo u r Te e n s EMBRACE CARBS. No runner should fear this vital macronutrient, which your body converts into the muscle fuel known as glycogen. But social pressures and packed schedules place teens at high risk for falling short. Distance runners typically need about 6 to 10 grams of carbs per kilogram of body weight— as much as 400 to 600 grams per day total—for moderate to high-intensity training, says Michelle Barrack, registered dietitian. Getting enough also wards off mental fatigue, allowing young runners to perform better in school as well as on the track or race course.

RECOVER RIGHT. Starting a practice or run wellfueled means athletes can train—and, eventually, compete—to their potential (and maintain a better mood while doing so). And eating afterward seals the deal, jump-starting the recovery process. Aim for a mix of carbs to replenish the body’s glycogen stores and protein to start repairing and rebuilding muscle.

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HYDRATE. Runners need more fluids than most, given how much we sweat. Establish healthy habits early by aiming for half of body weight in fluid ounces of water per day, sports dietitian Lydia Nader recommends. Swap in a serving or two of an electrolyte-enhanced beverage daily. Minerals like potassium and sodium improve fluid absorption and ward off muscle cramps.

BONE UP. Tween and teen girls need more of the bone-building mineral calcium than any other age group—1,300 milligrams per day. That’s about three to five cups of dairy foods or equivalent calcium-rich choices, such as kale and fortified juices, each day, Minagawa says. If your gut can tolerate it, dairy offers an advantage: It contains branched chain amino acids such as leucine, which enhances muscle rebuilding and repair. (Other good sources of leucine include eggs, chicken breast, and tuna, Barrack says.)

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eat I N YO U R 2 0 s A N D 3 0 s t this stage, runners’ lives diverge in a few different directions.

Some train more intensely on college teams, in pro groups, or as recreational racers. Others shift their focus to work or family, logging miles on the side for physical and mental well-being. “For some people, it might be their peak, and they’re running their highest mileage and longer distances,” Minagawa says. “For others, it actually might be less because they now have a full-time job or full-time parenting.”

Regardless of your lifestyle, your body’s still building new bone, at least until your mid- to late 20s, Ansari says.

The food you eat contributes to this construction project, leaving you with stronger scaffolding for the rest of your life. Proper fueling also regulates your hormones, powerful chemical messengers that guide everything from your menstrual cycle to your mental health to your muscle growth.

Pregnant, or trying to be? Continuing to consume a variety of macro- and micronutrients prepares your body to grow another healthy human. Once you’re expecting and while you’re breastfeeding, your overall energy needs—and requirements for some vitamins and minerals—increase even more.

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DITCH DIETS. Some runners aim for a specific number on the scale, or a “race weight.” Starting with this goal in mind can be counterproductive: One 2019 study found collegiate athletes who aimed for a thin physique had 89 percent more injuries than those who didn’t put a priority on being lean. Instead, focus on eating a wide range of foods that make you feel strong and healthy, Antonucci says.

TRACK YOUR CYCLE. Reproduction is often one of the first functions that shuts down when you’re underfueled, making your period a powerful gauge of your energy intake. Keep tabs on your cycle, and if it’s erratic or halts altogether (and you’re not pregnant), talk to your doc or an R.D.—you might need more fuel, or specific foods to support your training and life.

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When things are flowing normally, nutrition tweaks can help you work with your hormones to get the most out of your training, Nader says. For instance, increasing nutrients like magnesium, zinc, and omega-3 fatty acids around the time of your period can decrease inflammation, easing PMS symptoms.

ADD IRON. Your body needs iron to build two key proteins, hemoglobin and myoglobin, which transport and store energizing oxygen. Women lose this vital mineral each month in period blood, and runners leech iron through each strike of their foot on the ground. While teen girls need it too—about 15 milligrams daily— adult women’s recommended intake increases to 18 milligrams. Double those amounts if you’re vegetarian or vegan, because plant sources aren’t absorbed as

easily. Better yet, get your blood tested once or twice per year; ask your doc to check your ferritin levels, a measure of iron stored in your tissues (benchmarks vary, but many sports dietitians place the cutoff for low levels at 50 micrograms per liter).

POWER YOUR PREGNANCY. Your body needs even more energy to grow a new human, and if you’re running through your pregnancy, it’s more important than ever to ensure you’re eating enough, Minagawa says. Your iron needs roughly double to provide oxygen to your baby—aim for about 27 milligrams.

In addition, adequate folate intake prevents birth defects. Good sources include beans, peas, dark green leafy vegetables, and fortified foods, and your doc may recommend a supplement.

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T i p s f o r Yo u r 2 0 s a n d 3 0 s

eat I N YO U R 4 0 s ost women begin the transition to menopause in this decade.

In the phase called perimenopause, your period may start to become irregular—some months heavier, some lighter, and the interval between them may increase or decrease.

Along with this comes a decrease in estrogen and progesterone, hormones that regulate far more than your monthly cycle. Masters athletes may experience hot flashes, sleep disruptions, and changes in their cholesterol levels, with LDL or “bad” cholesterol rising and HDL or “good” cholesterol dropping.

While runners at every age develop injuries, masters women have a few unique risk factors. Since one of the

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biggest risk factors for a new injury is having one before, old patterns of weakness or imbalance may haunt you.

And lower estrogen levels decrease the strength of your bones, making it extra important to shore up your stores of calcium and vitamin D. On average, women experience a loss of muscle mass from their 40s on. In part because of this shift in body composition, our metabolic rate tends to slow, to the tune of 1 to 3 percent per decade.

But there’s good news for runners: The best way to offset the negative effects of all these changes is to keep moving. Dialing in your nutrition now can both directly affect your short-term performance and recovery and also keep you running strong and healthy for years to come.

T i p s f o r Yo u r 4 0 s PRIORITIZE PRE-FUELING. In earlier years, you might have rolled out of bed and into a run. For masters athletes, however, Antonucci strongly advises against fasted workouts. Without fuel, you’ll fade faster and recover more slowly after; start energized and you’ll finish strong and bounce back more quickly. Ideally, you’d get a meal with protein and carbs about one to three hours before you head out—this prevents surges of the stress hormone cortisol, slows muscle breakdown during your workout, and speeds repair afterward. But if you’re starting early, at least ingest an easily digestible source of carbohydrates (a banana, sports drink, or piece of toast) beforehand.

FOCUS ON FATS. By the numbers, your dietary fat requirements don’t necessarily increase with age, Antonucci says. However, the downsides of falling short multiply as time passes. Fats keep you feeling full, regulate levels of hormones like estrogen and progesterone, and fight the inflammation that builds up from training and other life stresses. About 20 to 35 percent of your daily calories should come from fats, and most from polyunsaturated sources like vegetable oils, fatty fish, and nuts.

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POWER DOWN. Sleep problems are common but not inevitable as menopause nears. Ward them off by meeting your daily protein needs—a bedtime snack with casein, a protein in milk and yogurt, does doubleduty by helping you drift off and enhancing muscle recovery, Antonucci says. An ounce of tart cherry juice before bed may boost levels of the sleep hormone melatonin, and a cup of decaf tea containing the amino acid L-theanine can also help you drift off.

EAT FOR HEALING. When injury puts running on hold, it’s normal to fret about lost fitness and weight gain, Antonucci says. But cutting calories can slow your comeback and bring down your mood, which, let’s face it, is already low when you’re sidelined. Shift your perspective to ways you can preserve muscle mass and enhance recovery: for instance, getting 15 to 30 grams of protein every four hours, or amping up your intake of omega-3 fatty acids. In a recent study, supplementing with fish oil slowed muscle loss in women who had one of their legs immobilized for two weeks.

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T i p s f o r Yo u r 5 0 s

UPGRADE YOUR CARBS. Aim to meet at least half your carb needs with high-quality sources, selecting items low on what’s called the glycemic index, a measure of how quickly a food spikes your blood sugar.

Think wild rice instead of white, quinoa instead of pasta, and loads of veggies, Nader recommends. Not only will you have energy for your workouts, you’ll also pack in more of the other nutrients you need— including fiber, key to heart and gut health.

SCALE BACK ON SUGAR. The latest dietary guidelines recommend Americans get less than 10 percent of their daily calories from added sugars, those not found naturally in foods like fruit or grains. While research suggests people of all ages tend to overdo it, menopausal women’s metabolisms may have the most to gain from cutting back. In addition, though natural sugars from fruit come packaged with other nutrients, Nader still sometimes suggests older athletes limit themselves to one or two servings per day, and eat them in the morning or soon before or after a workout.

or the average woman, menopause—which officially kicks off when your period has stopped for 12 months—occurs at age 51. As this natural, biological change continues to unfold, many masters athletes find that what’s worked for them in the past requires adjusting.

For instance, gels and chews that once powered you through a long run might now upset your stomach. In part, that’s because your body has a harder time metabolizing simple sugars such as fructose. In addition, menopause makes it harder to use the hormone insulin to turn blood glucose into energy, Nader says.

Over time, these shifts can leave you prone to bonking—and also increase your risk for health problems like type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome.

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So while carbohydrates remain the essential fuel source for activity at any age, masters athletes can benefit from being more picky about their sources, Nader says, including seeking out more complex carbohydrates.

Without your monthly blood flow, your iron needs may decrease, but your body’s ability to absorb other nutrients—including B vitamins—declines.

And the ongoing decrease of estrogen and progesterone continues to decrease your bone mineral density.

If all this sounds like a big bummer, take heart. “Lower metabolic rates, decreased lean body mass, losing muscle strength, slowing pace—yes, those things will sometimes happen,” Antonucci says. “But the bridge between physiology, performance, and nutrition is really exciting. There’s a lot we can do to help prevent or delay some of those so-called inevitables.”

WOMEN’S RUNNING SUMMER 2021

SECURE YOUR SKELETON. Your daily calcium requirement bumps back up to 1,200 milligrams after age 50 to protect your bones. Increase your intake to four or five servings of dairy or the equivalent—and don’t skimp on vitamin D, either, which increases calcium absorption. Aging reduces the rate at which your skin produces vitamin D in the sun, and food sources are few; in many cases, your doctor or a dietitian may recommend supplements.

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I N YO U R 5 0 s

SWITCH UP YOUR FUEL. If you’re going longer distances and find yourself running on fumes—or in gastrointestinal distress—try a more balanced source of mid-run energy, Nader suggests. Test out gels that include a bit of protein and fat, such as those made by Spring. Or experiment with balanced, solid foods like Clif or Picky Bars, homemade protein bites, or sandwich squares.

eat I N YO U R 6 0 s + ore women than ever are running as so-called senior grand masters—think Japan’s Mariko Yugeta, who ran a 2:52:13 marathon last January at age 62. With work and family responsibilities shifting, you may have more time to train, meaning your golden decades can represent some of your prime running years.

Combining your miles with strength training gives you the best odds of offsetting the ongoing decline in muscle mass, Antonucci says. For best results, support those resistance moves with

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more protein, more often.

Your hydration needs begin to shift too. For one thing, your sense of thirst may no longer reliably tell you when it’s time to drink. Your kidneys work less efficiently at filtering urine. All this combines to increase your risk of dehydration—and, if you do become parched, it’s harder to restore your fluid balance.

And though running reduces your risk for chronic conditions like heart disease and diabetes, genetics and other risk factors mean athletes aren’t immune. In some cases, medications you take to manage these conditions require additional nutritional fine-tuning.

T i p s f o r Yo u r 6 0 s AMP UP THE ANTI-INFLAMMATORIES. While there’s no evidence running causes arthritis or knee pain, some older athletes do experience aching, especially if they have a history of injury. Calm flares with antioxidant-rich foods like berries, healthy omega-3 fats from foods like walnuts, and natural supplements like turmeric. Yes, your doctor may sometimes prescribe or recommend the short-term use of pain-relieving drugs like ibuprofen or naproxen. But food sources work holistically to address the root causes of inflammation with fewer side effects.

FIGURE OUT YOUR FLUIDS. The amount of water you need depends on the climate, your training, and individualized sweat rate. Step on a scale before and after a short workout, and keep track of the fluids you consume during it. The weight you lost, plus fluid consumed, is the amount you need to replenish. Do this several times per training cycle, especially as the weather changes.

PACK IN MORE PROTEIN. The older you get, the more of this muscle-building material your body needs to thrive, Ansari says. Runners in this age range should aim for closer to 35 grams per meal, and at least one protein-rich snack. Research suggests spreading protein throughout the day best improves muscle mass.

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CHECK YOUR MEDS. Certain blood pressure and heart medications make it harder to stay hydrated and maintain the proper balance of electrolytes. Proton pump inhibitors for stomach problems reduce the absorption of some vitamins and minerals, including calcium and magnesium. Read labels carefully, and check with your doctor, pharmacist, or dietitian about planning your diet around your pills.

BOOST YOUR B12. Vitamin B12 makes red blood cells and keeps your brain and nervous system buzzing along, but your body absorbs it less efficiently with age. As a result, close to one in five older adults runs short. Because it’s only available in animal products, vegetarians and vegans face an even higher risk. Get your blood levels checked, especially if you have symptoms like weakness, mood changes, or numbness in your hands and feet.

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All the Maps in One App Use Gaia GPS to ditch the crowds this summer. Download maps to find new routes in places far beyond the reach of cell service.

gaiagps.com

eat

Grilled Corn, Nectarine, and Burrata Salad MAKES 4 SERVINGS

Grilling the corn and green onions gives this salad a smoky component that pairs beautifully with the sweet-tart flavor of peak-season nectarines and creamy burrata.

3 2

ears corn, shucked Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, divided 3 green onions, roots trimmed, left whole 1 cup halved cherry tomatoes 4½ oz. burrata or fresh mozzarella cheese, torn into bite-size pieces 1 large nectarine, pitted and cut into thin wedges ¼ cup basil leaves, torn 1½ Tbsp. apple cider vinegar ¼ tsp. each sea salt and ground black pepper 1. Preheat a greased grill or grill pan (with lid) to medium-high. Brush corn with 1½ teaspoons oil. Place corn and onions on grill, cover, and grill until onions are charred on one side, about 3 minutes. Transfer onions to a cutting board. Rotate corn and continue to grill until kernels are bright yellow and charred in places, about 10 more minutes.

2. Chop onions and transfer to a serving platter. Hold a corn cob vertical to a cutting board and slice kernels off with a sharp knife. Repeat with remaining corn, and add to platter with onions. Discard cobs.

ANGUEL DIMOV

3. To platter, add tomatoes, burrata, nectarine, basil, vinegar, salt, and pepper, and toss. Let salad stand for 10 minutes. Drizzle with remaining 1½ tablespoons oil and toss to combine.

This recipe originally appeared in Clean Eating.

For more delicious healthy recipes, check out cleaneatingmag.com.

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20 PIECES OF THE

BEST RUNNING— AND LIFE—ADVICE EVER The nation’s top female distance runners tell us all the training tips, pieces of advice, and bits of pure wisdom that have helped them improve along the way.

BY ERIN STROUT

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We always assume that the most talented runners must have a few secrets to their success.

What do they eat? How far do they run every week? What’s the magic workout that leads to making national teams? Do they take a nap every day? What about lifting heavy weights?

How many massages do they really get?

It turns out that, generally speaking, these athletes aren’t keeping much from us. They possess the gifts of the right genetics, a lot of discipline, and the ability to fi nd joy and meaning in what they do. But like the rest of us, they’ve also spent years figuring out what training philosophy, lifestyle, and routines lead them to better performances and more productive training.

We asked 20 of today’s top female distance runners what advice has made a difference in their careers—and which they would pass on to runners everywhere. Maybe their tips won’t lead us to the Tokyo Games, but their shared experiences can inspire us to personal records and the motivation to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

1. The performance is within you.

Marielle Hall, 2016 Olympian

HEATHER MCWHIRTER

AGE: 29 HOMETOWN: Portland, Oregon EVENTS: 5,000 meters (15:06.05) and 10,000 meters (31:37.45) Hall, a member of the Bowerman Track Club, doesn’t always feel sharp amid the fatigue that comes from the big mileage the group puts in together. She has to trust that the speed will come out of the aerobic strength they’re building.

“I remind myself that I’m really just trying to dust off layers and unveil something that’s already within me that I’ve been working toward not just this year, but for the last four years—and four years before that. You’re not starting from a blank page every time something goes right or wrong. You have all those years that add up and they all contribute. It’s within, rather than something you have to search for outside of yourself.”

You’ve been here before.

Ajee’ Wilson, 2016 Olympian and American record holder AGE: 27 HOMETOWN: Philadelphia EVENT: 800 meters (1.55.61) The 800 meters is considered one of the toughest events on the track. It requires a unique combination of endurance and speed, plus a knack for strategy.

“On the second lap, it’s time to tap into the idea that you’ve been here before, you know what it feels like, and you prepared for it in those last reps in workouts and training. It’s not new. It’s not foreign. In life, running, and training, I know that I’m making deposits to draw from later.

You have to kind of fuel, nurture, and grow your resilience. If you don’t have those experiences, it is that much harder to get it done when the hammer gets dropped with 50 meters to go.”

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3. Stop the comparisons.

Emily Infeld, 2016 Olympian and 2015 world championships bronze medalist AGE: 31 HOMETOWN: Portland, Oregon EVENTS: 5,000 meters (14:51.91) and 10,000 meters (31:08.57) It took many years of training and many unfortunate injuries for Infeld to get it right, but a decade of professional running has taught her that what prepares her for her best performances isn’t always the same as her Bowerman Track Club teammates or competitors. Maybe it’s more cross-training or a different workout.

“I remind myself that I know that I can get there, it just might not look the way it would look for someone else. And that’s OK. The comparison in this sport is going to happen. It’s hard not to when there are numbers involved and it can seem prett y cut-and-dry. But knowing that at the end of the day, you just have to focus on what you need and then compete when the time comes. Maybe it’s hard when you have an off day and the last thing you want to see on your Instagram feed is 15 posts about ‘the best workout of my life.’ But sometimes you have to do a litt le less and keep plugging away.”

4. Just keep going.

Jenny Simpson, 2016 Olympic bronze medalist and 2011 world champion AGE: 34 HOMETOWN: Boulder, Colorado EVENTS: 1500 meters (3:57.22)

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Don’t be so stubborn.

Colleen Quigley, 2016 Olympian AGE: 28 HOMETOWN: Portland, Oregon EVENTS: 3,000 meter steeplechase (9:10.27) We all get stuck on what the training schedule tells us to do. We want to check that box. But what if that’s not the best thing, long-term? Quigley is not immune to this quandary.

“It sounds cheesy but I’m really trying to be smarter and listen to my body. If it’s a four-mile shakeout run that I’m slogging through and feeling like absolute garbage, is that really making me better, or am I just doing that out of stubbornness and because other people are also running that mileage today? In reality a 40-minute swim is probably going to be better for me overall and help me recover better. Be honest with yourself and how the work is really affecting you.”

COURTESY LULULEMON.

When the pandemic made planning nearly impossible and eventually led to the one-year postponement of the Olympics, Simpson struggled with how to proceed.

She’s a planner and it was difficult to plot out a schedule when she had no idea when she would compete. So she followed a different kind of plan: “Every day, just wake up and say, ‘I can keep going.’”

“Because so many things had been unreliable on the calendar, it’s been so much more useful for me to say, ‘I can keep going,’ and not have to rely on the light at the end of the tunnel. Somebody I know in the military told me, ‘You don’t need a plan, just be prepared.’ There does feel like a significant, yet nuanced difference between the two.”

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6. Practice your weaknesses.

Molly Seidel, 2021 Olympian AGE: 27 HOMETOWN: Flagstaff, Arizona EVENTS: Marathon (2:25.13) Seidel’s marathon debut was at the 2020 Olympic Trials in Atlanta, where she placed second to make the Tokyo Games. A big accomplishment, though she still had a lot to learn, primarily about how to take in nutrition during the 26.2-mile race. So she used the extra year to her advantage, preparing for the London Marathon and figuring out how to stomach the fuel.

“I was still teaching my body to take carbohydrates while I’m running. I noticed such a difference during the London Marathon in the last stages of that race. When I actually had enough carbs in

my body it felt amazing. It seems like such a basic thing but for someone coming from the track, I was so ill-prepared in Atlanta, to the degree where I was a little bit lucky that it didn’t go worse.”

7. Trade in your stress for joy.

Sara Hall, second-fastest American marathoner AGE: 38 HOMETOWN: Flagstaff, Arizona EVENTS: Marathon (2:20.32) and 10,000 meters (31:21.90) Hall loves the marathon—not just the event, but the preparation. So when she decided to head back to the track to compete in the 10,000 meters at the Olympic Trials, she figured she’d only have to focus on it for

four months. Thanks to the pandemic that turned into more than a year. She made the best of it, mixing in two marathons, including the second-fastest in American history.

“When I first decided to do the track, I knew I would feel stressed about being behind the other women. I mean, I already wasn’t good at track like five years ago and now the U.S. distance running is the best it’s ever been. I was setting myself up for just feeling anxious and like I had to do something superhuman. But I decided that I really needed to focus on the process and enjoying it— whatever the outcome is I’m going to lay it all on the line and have it be what it is.

But it wasn’t going to be worth it to me to go after it if I didn’t enjoy it. I’ve never run on the track since I became a 2:20 marathoner, so I should always keep an open mind to what’s possible.”

Take it easy.

Josette Norris, breakout middle distance runner

KEVIN MORRIS

AGE: 26 HOMETOWN: Charlottesville, Virginia EVENTS: 1500 meters (4:06.17), 5,000 meters (14:51.42) After graduating from Georgetown University, Norris took the pandemic year to grow into her pro career and gain more consistency in her training. It’s paid off with impressive breakthrough performances throughout the beginning of 2021, shooting her to the short list of Olympic contenders. The biggest factor she believes is her ability to do nothing.

“I’m obsessed with making sure I have fuel with me at a workout, for right after.

I think I’ve had a chocolate milk every day for the past five months, which is a litt le concerning. And I’m really good at doing nothing between my runs. I don’t have a very busy schedule—I’m very comfortable with just laying on the couch all day to recover. I’m not the best napper, but watching TV, I can get my heart rate pretty much as low as you could get to take a nap.”

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10. Find your coaching match.

Elle Purrier, 2019 world championships qualifier and indoor two-mile American record holder (9:10.28) AGE: 26 HOMETOWN: Montgomery, Vermont EVENTS: 1500 meters (3:58.36) and 5,000 meters (14:58.17) Part of Purrier’s success is the luck of good coaching, she says. From high school to college to her pro career, she’s had coaches who have been conservative with her progression in mileage and intensity, which will only add to her longevity. She’s now led by Mark Coogan, coach of the New Balance Boston group.

“Each one that I’ve had at the stage of my life was what I needed. Mark has so much confidence in me—I really needed somebody who just didn’t overthink it and told me to just get the job done and believed in me. He’s just really chill. It’s fun to have a coach who’s not really uptight or anything. I am really fortunate to have him as a coach.”

11. Workouts don’t define you.

Molly Huddle, 2012 and 2016 Olympian

Try something new.

Raevyn Rogers, 2019 world championships silver medalist AGE: 24 HOMETOWN: Portland, Oregon EVENTS: 800 meters (1:57.69) While preparing for the 2020 Olympic Trials, Rogers knew she had to work on her race tactics a little more, after a year away from competition. So she told her coach, Pete Julian, she wanted to try the 1500 meters—not an event she often races, but one she knew might teach her a thing or two.

“I hadn’t done well tactically in the races before that and I wanted to get comfortable running in a group. Most of my workouts I train by myself, so I learn a lot in my races. What better way to get out there and really be among a group of women, just seeing how to maneuver in this pack instead of getting so comfortable and in my habit of settling in the back. There was so much pushing and scratching and tripping. It was like a video game. This was clearly an out-of-body experience trying to finish that race.”

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As Huddle, the five-time 10,000-meter national champion, has gathered more years of experience, she’s noticed that her workouts don’t necessarily reflect what she’s capable of in a race. Sometimes when she has a disappointing session, she remembers this.

“I have a lot of workouts that most people would be surprised that they aren’t more impressive when you compare them to my race performances. That’s just how I am. I go to a different level in races. It always makes it hard to trust your fitness because mine doesn’t look that impressive until the adrenaline’s going and I’m at a race, tapered and fresh. Remember that you have to trust that and it’s just how you are as an athlete.”

EWEL SAMAD/GETTY IMAGES

AGE: 36 HOMETOWN: Providence, Rhode Island EVENTS: 5,000 meters (14:42.64), 10,000 meters (30:13.17, American record), and marathon (2:26:33)

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Find your people.

Dani Jones, NCAA champion AGE: 24 HOMETOWN: Boulder, Colorado EVENTS: 1500 meters (4:04.26)

BAILEY NESS/NEW BALANCE

Graduating from the University of Colorado and signing a professional contract during the pandemic could have been a rocky start to a career, but Jones found a group of experienced athletes and a coach who made the transition almost seamless. Joining Joe Bosshard’s training program alongside 3,000-meter steeplechase world champion Emma Coburn has set the rising middle distance star on the right path—and surrounding herself with supportive teammates gives Jones confidence.

“Having a training group has been important—being surrounded by people who are better than me or who have experienced more than me, I think that’s just been a big part of my growth this past year.”

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Drink up.

Kim Conley, 2012 and 2016 Olympian AGE: 35 HOMETOWN: Flagstaff, Arizona EVENTS: 5,000 meters (15:05.20) and 10,000 meters (31:35.88)

KEVIN MORRIS

Yes, you too could become a two-time Olympian even if you’re slightly dehydrated. It took a consultation with a sport performance nutritionist in 2020 to realize Conley really needed more liquid in her life, beyond her propensity for coffee, tea, and kombucha.

“The biggest and most obvious thing the nutritionist found, which I was a litt le taken aback when it came to my attention, was that I wasn’t really hydrated enough and I needed to get more electrolytes. On top of the coffee in the morning, the kombucha at lunch, and tea in the afternoon, I was maybe drinking two glasses of water. Now I’m prett y much always drinking 40 to 50 ounces of water a day. At fi rst I gained water weight, but I have been feeling really good.”

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14. Step back to step up.

Elise Cranny, four-time NCAA championships runner-up AGE: 25 HOMETOWN: Portland, Oregon EVENTS: 1500 meters (4:02.62), 5,000 meters (14:48.02), 10,000 meters (30:47.42) Like most of us, Cranny has experienced injury setbacks and other unplanned hiatuses from training or racing. Consistency is king in progressing toward our goals, so she’s learned to let patience lead her decisions. This tactic has resulted in achieving big milestones, like her 10,000meter debut.

“This past year we’ve had to take a step back from racing a ton and really focus on honing mental skills that I needed to

work on just in practice. I needed to try different racing strategies and work on my confidence. Looking back, I feel grateful for that time to try new things and get a whole other year of consistency as a younger athlete.”

15. Rely on gratitude.

Karissa Schweizer, indoor 3,000-meter American record holder (8:25.70) and 2019 world championships qualifier AGE: 25 HOMETOWN: Portland, Oregon EVENTS: 5,000 meters (14:26.34) and 10,000 meters (30:47.99)

Club, found much of 2020 a litt le disappointing and disorienting. But in the midst of the uncertainty she focused on how fortunate she felt for what she had in life and in running.

“Just not knowing what was going to happen and, heck, for a litt le while not even knowing if the Olympics were going to happen at all, we just always talked about not taking any opportunities for granted and taking advantage of what we have. That’s really important. A full year of just training and time trials was difficult and it wore on me, but it made me grateful for the opportunities I do get and hopeful for the years to come.”

Like most Olympic hopefuls, Schweizer, another member of the Bowerman Track

Be the best you.

Courtney Frerichs, 2016 Olympian and 2017 world championships silver medalist and American record holder

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AGE: 28 HOMETOWN: Portland, Oregon EVENT: 3,000-meter steeplechase (9:00.85) When you train among some of the world’s best women at the Bowerman Track Club, it’s easy to feel like you’re sometimes falling short (even if you are one of the world’s best, too). Frerichs finds a sense of calm by looking inward instead of comparing herself to her training partners. She finds confidence in putting forth her best every day.

“You could be in the best training program in the world, and if you don’t believe in it, it’s not going to work. After 2017 I really started to feel like everything had to go perfectly in order to get back to what I’d done [at the world championships]. [Coach] Jerry [Schumacher] told me that all he ever wanted was for me to show up and be the very best Courtney I could be that day—that was all he could ask for. It really helped me to focus more on gett ing the most out of each day for myself versus feeling like I had to look like somebody else.”

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Set your intentions.

Shelby Houlihan, 2016 Olympian and American record holder in the 1500 meters and 5,000 meters

17. Define success in several ways.

Nikki Hiltz, 2019 world championships qualifier AGE: 26 HOMETOWN: San Diego EVENT: 1500 meters (4:01.52) On a perfect day, Hiltz is pretty sure they can make the Olympic team. But on an imperfect day, they still can fi nd success. In other words, Hiltz has many

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ways to reflect on performances and find fulfillment in their work, whether it’s a race result or supporting organizations advocating for LGBTQ youth through the Nikki Hiltz Pride 5K. “I love my events because there are really cool time barriers like breaking four minutes [in the 1500] and two minutes [in the 800 meters]. My goal is to break both of those. And I want to make the Olympics, but I also am excited to live authentically and see where that takes me, both on and off the track.”

In 2016, just a rookie pro runner, Houlihan wrote her goal on the bathroom mirror: I will be an Olympian. She didn’t really believe it was possible until it happened. Now she is sure to set her intention for the year and put it somewhere she’ll see it every day.

“In 2019 it was, ‘I will hurt more.’

I would line up for a race and repeat it in my head. This year, it’s ‘I am better.’ Just to get my confidence up. It changes. I pick something that resonates with me in the moment and makes me feel fi red up. I try to write stuff that I can start believing in.”

AMIE SQUIRE/GETTY IMAGES

AGE: 28 HOMETOWN: Portland, Oregon EVENTS: 1500 meters (3:54.99) and 5,000 meters (14:23.92)

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Happiness can make you fast.

Rachel Schneider, 2019 world championship qualifier AGE: 30 HOMETOWN: Flagstaff, Arizona EVENTS: 1500 meters (4:02.26), 5,000 meters (14:52.04), 10,000 meters (31:09.79)

CHRISTIAN PETERSEN/GETTY IMAGES

Running can’t be everything, all the time. Schneider has discovered that the more joy she finds in life outside of training and competing, the better she performs on the track.

“The most important thing in my peak performance is just being happy outside of running. I don’t know if that’s super cliché, but I’m a way better runner when I’m just happy.

Through the pandemic and what’s considered a high-stress time when an Olympic Games is on the line, I just try to kind of keep things in perspective and find joy in the process of all of this. Let go of the things that you can’t control and just show up the best that you can on the day.”

Adapt and adjust.

Aliphine Tuliamuk, 2021 Olympic marathoner

So you win the Olympic Marathon Trials, the Games are postponed, and all the major marathons are canceled for a year.

Tuliamuk wasn’t about to let her life plans be put on hold. She wanted to start a family, so she forged ahead, gave birth to daughter, Zoe, in January, then made her careful way back to training for the Tokyo Olympics, starting with strength and cross-training.

“A lot of athletes push back having families because they don’t know how it’s going to happen. You don’t know if you’ll come back. Having examples of people who came back quickly [though carefully] will potentially alleviate that stress. I’m rooting for myself to have a really good experience, if for nothing else than to inspire other women to choose to have families and continue to pursue their running goals.”

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KEVIN C COX/GETTY IMAGES

AGE: 32 HOMETOWN: Santa Fe, New Mexico EVENT: Marathon (2:26:50)

live Welcome to the Club You could say pregnancy and postpartum is The Great Equalizer. Behind Instagram feeds and Strava records, elite and everyday runners alike tend to meet at the same crossroads: where running intersects with motherhood. And the setting, while wonderful, isn’t always so scenic. Women’s Running consulted with doctors and physical therapists and Olympians and moms all over the country to share what you can truly expect from the sport you love in pregnancy and postpartum. Joy, strength, and healing ahead—all unfiltered.

BY CASSIE SHORTSLEEVE ILLUSTRATIONS BY QUEENBE MONYEI

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What to (Really) Expect from Pregnant Running Knowledge is power.

These physiological changes show up long before you have a bump.

It was August 2019, six weeks to the day after I delivered my first daughter.

I had just been granted a clear bill of health from my ob-gyn at my postpartum follow-up appointment and I set out to run what would be the most uncomfortable, awkward, and, at times, painful 0.8 miles of my life.

Discouraged, standing in front of my house with stains on my shorts and a little baby who couldn’t even hold her head up inside, I thought to myself what far too many women think after returning to running postpartum: No one told me it was going to be like this.

We’ve come a long way from the antiquated (and incorrect) advice to skip exercise in pregnancy. Today, The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) recommends it throughout pregnancy’s nine months and even suggests that some women can return to light movement within days of delivery. But there’s still a lot that needs to change, not the least of which is that, for new moms, there’s next to no guidance on navigating one of the biggest bodily changes of your lifetime.

Moreover? Between congratulatory words and postpartum medical “clearance,” there’s often not space to talk about what’s actually going to happen: leaking, muscle aches, frustration, patience, and is-this-normal questioning. And that has real consequences.

“When we don’t talk about what it’s really like to be a mother and a runner, it becomes easy for our brains to make up their own stories,” says Erica Burger, an integrative psychiatrist in Northeast Iowa. Those stories might go like this: Olympians run throughout their pregnancies, it’ll be easy! Or: My husband’s co-worker’s wife told me she hasn’t run in years, I’ll never run again. “Stories” set you up for unrealistic expectations and stress, Dr. Burger explains.

I wholeheartedly agree that motherhood makes you stronger. But there’s powerful strength, Dr. Burger reminds me, in being vulnerable and honest with ourselves and others. It’s through vulnerability and honesty that we thrive as mothers and as runners.

At 14 weeks postpartum with my second, I crave my return to running. I crave that feeling, the one you get when you’re in the middle of glorious miles. It’s kind of like motherhood—you can’t quite describe it.

I’ll get there.

And with the help of this guide—which includes everything from navigating don’t-even-think-about-hugging-me pregnancy boobs to pelvic floor rehab—so will you.

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FATIGUE. Besides growing a baby during your first trimester, you’re also growing your placenta, the organ your body creates to sustain your baby. This means your energy levels aren’t going to be where they used to be, says Sara Tanza, a pelvic floor physical therapist in Aptos, California.

But fatigue isn’t permanent. The bigger you get, the more energized you might feel, because you don’t have that demand of kick-starting growth of both the placenta and your baby.

SORE BOOBS. Breasts go through a lot of changes as hormones increase to prep for milk production, says Celeste Goodson, a pre- and post-natal trainer and founder of ReCORE Fitness. “This often causes sensitivity the first trimester and heaviness or fullness in the last half as they increase in size.”

NAUSEA. Blame the hormones. Usually, nausea settles after the first trimester (vitamin B6 can help). Some people actually feel better after they’ve exercised.

If nausea is getting in the way of your day-to-day, you’re not able to keep any food or water down, or you’re losing weight, call your doctor. Hyperemesis gravidarum (HG) is an extreme form of vomiting and nausea in pregnancy. Prescription meds can be helpful.

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Running while pregnant made me feel like a total badass. It’s as if I was given super human strength for nine months even though I was carrying an extra 34 pounds .” —MARIANA RAMOS, A MOM IN MONTREAL, QUEBEC OUT OF BREATH. File this under th e -fe m a l e - b o d y-i s-a m azi n g: “Because of increased progesterone in first trimester, the body takes in 10 to 20 percent more oxygen per breath,” says Goodson. As pregnancy continues, blood volume also increases at least 50 percent, so your heart has to work harder to pump all of that blood. Plus, in the third trimester, your belly may push against your diaphragm.

The result of all of this? You feel winded. Sometimes, really winded.

Like, “Where did all my fitness go?” winded. The good news is that, when you’re pregnant, easier workouts can have a similar physiological effect as harder ones because your body is working overtime, says Tanza.

and pelvic floor work (think: clamshells and squats) will help build muscle and control in key areas and lower your risk of pelvic injury.

Watch out! Anemia, aka low levels of red blood cells, can also cause shortness of breath and fatigue, so have your levels checked if you’re worried.

MUSCULOSKELETAL ISSUES. Due to hormonal changes, ligaments in your pelvis can loosen, even early in pregnancy, to prepare your body for birth, Tanza explains.

You might experience joint pain because of it.

As your pelvis and hips widen, making room for baby and to take on more load, you might notice other muscular and physiological imbalances, too. Stabilization training, which includes hip, core, glute,

DID YOU KNOW? Walking uphill doesn’t put as much stress on your pelvic floor and pubic bones, says Tanza.

Pregnancy hill walks, anyone?

Form tip! Focus on picking up your knees and feet when running during pregnancy. As your belly grows, your body struggles to flex your hips as much, which can lead to weak hip flexors. Sending the knee through its full range of motion helps you maintain strength and (hopefully) avoid pain, says Tanza.

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Own Your Run Feel your best mentally and physically in any trimester (including the fourth).

HAVE ONE-LINERS FOR THE OPINIONATED

FIND THE BRIGHT SIDE

Assuming you’ve been given the A-OK by your doctor, exercise is healthy and recommended in pregnancy. But that doesn’t always stop the unsolicited advice. These one-liners should quiet the haters commenting on your workouts.

Whether it’s your mile times getting progressively slower or a painful one-step-forward, two-steps-back recovery, there’s no way around it: Running while pregnant or postpartum will likely, at times, be frustrating.

Seeking out in-the-moment joy and giving your body some love can help.

“Running in pregnancy, I realized that I was doing the best thing I could possibly do for myself and my daughter. I remember thinking, ‘These are the things I dreamed of and I’m doing them both at the same time,’” says Harper-Nelson.

What to say: “The best I feel all day is when I run.” It’s what two-time Olympic medalist and mom Dawn Harper-Nelson used to tell people about running during her pregnancy.

Why it works: People really can’t argue with your lived experience, says Dr. Burger. Plus, it’s empowering to speak your mind. Think about other people’s comments like sunlight, she suggests: You can either absorb it or shield it.

What to say: “I appreciate your concern, but I’ve discussed this with my medical provider.”

Why it works: It quickly signals that it’s none. of. anyone’s. business.

GO WITH THE FLOW

“I thought that because I was an athlete and because I was young, my body would ‘bounce back’ quickly.

Everyone says, you’ll be back to your old self in no time. I was not feeling myself until at least five or six months after having my daughter.”

—Olicia Williams, an American 800-meter runner and Olympic hopeful and mom

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“Every pregnant person who wants to stay active will benefit from a really flexible mindset,” says Tanza. “It doesn’t matter what your experience is going into it.” She’s seen amateur runners run their whole pregnancy and professional runners not be able to. Pregnancy and motherhood teach us that you can’t always be in control of the outcome.

That certainly was the case for Harper-Nelson. “I was terrified to get stretch marks—terrified, not nervous.

I thought that if I got them my tummy would never be beautiful again and when I saw one, I cried so hard. I even set my phone up to record myself because in my mind I felt that it made no sense that I was getting that sad about stretch marks.”

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Is it the baby blues?

It’s common to notice mental health changes on the journey to motherhood (about 80 percent of moms experience what’s called the “baby blues,” feelings of sadness, worry, and fatigue in the two to three weeks after birth). But around 15 percent of women develop a perinatal mood and anxiety disorder (PMAD) such as postpartum depression or anxiety. If your symptoms get in the way of your day to day and last beyond the first few weeks after delivery (or crop up in pregnancy), check in with a mental health provider. Postpartum Support International has a directory of trained professionals at psidirectory.com.

FUEL ACCORDINGLY Breastfeeding? Aim to eat about 500 (or more) additional calories a day of easy-to-digest, nutrientdense foods. You’ll need the extra calories to support yourself, your baby, your milk supply, and your workouts (phew, that’s a lot).

Pro tip: Pumping or feeding right before you run gives you the biggest window of time—and helps you sidestep any uncomfortable issues such as engorgement on the go.

BE PATIENT—THEN A LITTLE MORE PATIENT When Harper-Nelson’s body needed more time to heal postpartum and she was getting frustrated, she

reminded herself: “It’s OK.” (A line her husband gave her.) “There’s this mindset of it’s enough time, but it’s not always enough time. When I became ‘mommy Dawn,’ my body needed more time and that was OK. I just wasn’t letting myself feel that it was OK.” Feeling bummed? Life happens in seasons and it’s going to be lopsided at times, especially as a mother. Use the time to work on something else— flexibility, mobility, or your pelvic floor. After all, a return to running isn’t about coming back fast, it’s about coming back strong. “It’s like the tomatoes in my garden,” says Tanza. “I want there to be tomatoes, but there can’t be tomatoes right now. I have to water them, prune them, take care of them, then in August there will be tomatoes.”

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Avoid the Comparison Game We get it: It’s never an easy pressure to fight against, but it can be even more challenging during pregnancy and postpartum. When but-she’s-doing-this-already thoughts start creeping in, these tips will help you feel your best.

HONE IN ON YOUR PURPOSE “Running isn’t about being the best. It is about enjoying your body and what it can do,” says Danielle Cotter, a perinatal therapist, mom, and runner based in Bloomington, Indiana. Thinking about why you run (and that “why” might be different now) helps you avoid comparing, because it gives movement a deeper meaning in your life—not someone else’s.

PINPOINT PERFECTIONIST TENDENCIES Feel like everything has to be a certain way in order to feel “successful?” Take note of when these thoughts come out and when you start comparing yourself (to yourself in other pregnancies or to others), suggests Dr. Burger, who’s also an avid runner. Doing this can help you find triggers (someone else’s times) and solutions (running without your watch).

“I have moments where I’m like, Oh, I’m feeling like old Dawn.

But I remind myself that I’m a new version of ‘old Dawn.’

I’m mentally stronger.

I had to allow myself patience to re-learn myself.

I was definitely a student of my body before I had my daughter, but I know more details about this body now than I did before.”

—Harper-Nelson

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CLEAN UP YOUR FEED “Your identity is going to change once you’re a mother. Find women in real life, on podcasts, in books, or on social media who speak honestly and candidly about what motherhood is really like,” suggests Dr. Burger. Here are some positive mom influences we can totally get behind: • Book: What No One Tells You: A Guide to Your Emotions from Pregnancy to Motherhood • Podcast: Ali on the Run • Social media: @alysiamontano (Instagram) • Social media: @dearsundaymotherhood (Instagram and Facebook)

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Your Return-to-Running Checklist

You can stand up from the ground without using your hands

In 2019, researchers out of Ireland and the U.K. published some of the first recommendations for postpartum running.

To allow the body to heal, those guidelines suggest waiting 12 weeks before lacing up. “It’s a guideline, not a set rule,” says Goodson. If you’re working with a women’s health professional, you might be able to start earlier. Once you’ve confirmed you don’t have a diastasis recti (a separation of the abdominal muscles that’s normal in pregnancy but can linger postpartum) and that your pelvic floor functioning is normal, consider this at-home postpartum readiness exam from Tanza. If you notice any “red flags” hold off and connect with a pelvic floor physical therapist.

You can do a full pelvic floor contraction and relaxation You can walk for double the amount of time you want to run You can jog in place for one minute You can jump on one leg 20 times per leg You can do 20 side-to-side jumps You can do 10 single-leg squats on each leg You can do A-skips and ankle dribbles for 30 seconds each

Running Red Flags Here are the symptoms and signs that it’s time to put the breaks on running.

• You leak urine or feces while running, which could be a sign of pelvic floor weakness.

• You feel heaviness or “poofiness” in your vagina or rectum, a potential signal of prolapse (when your pelvic organs descend down). Remember: Common does not equal normal. Research suggests prolapse impacts 50% of people who have had a vaginal birth.

“In my experience, that number is higher,” says Tanza.

• You have pain in your pubis symphysis (a joint in the middle of your pelvis), SI joint, or tailbone, potential signs of pelvic floor dysfunction. (Quick anatomy lesson: The tailbone, pubic bones, and “sitz” bones are all major sites of attachment for pelvic floor muscles. Pain in these areas can be signs of pelvic floor dysfunction as muscles might be yanking those areas, says Tanza.)

• You notice “coning” or “bulging” between your ab muscles when you sit up postpartum, a potential sign of diastasis recti, a separation of the abdominal muscles that’s normal in pregnancy but may not heal on its own postpartum.

LET IT GO Postpartum, many moms need to strengthen their pelvic floor (that’s where Kegels come in). But with some pelvic floor issues (pubic symphysis or tailbone pain), relaxing your muscles (imagine your vagina or anus opening and let go of your low abs) is key. “Think of your pelvic floor like your quad. It needs to relax and be strong,” says Tanza. Putting a (clean!) finger inside your vagina or around your anal opening can help you feel whether or not you can inhale and feel the muscles relax and exhale and feel them contract.

Manual treatment and biofeedback with a pelvic floor physical therapist can help you re-learn this skill.

Butt wait. Managing constipation is super important and helpful postpartum (especially if you’re breastfeeding, which is dehydrating and can put you at an increased risk for poop problems). “When you have harder stools, that puts more weight on the pelvic floor,” says Tanza. Straining due to constipation can also contribute to hemorrhoids (a common and sometimes debilitating PP reality). Making sure you’re bearing down properly (think about relaxing and opening) can help get you back on track.

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“What My First Postpartum Run was Really Like...”

Repeat after us: Every. Body. Is. Different.

Ensure a Smooth Maiden Voyage with the Run Stroller More pushing? Here’s how Amanda Nurse, an elite marathoner, run coach, and mom of two in Boston sets up clients for success when jogging with baby.

• Wait for full head control (around 6 months).

• Feed before you go.

• Time your run around a nap or play time.

“I felt so proud. I had low expectations and far exceeded them.”

• Set reasonable expectations (to simply be able to get out and move with your baby, for example, instead of setting a specific distance).

• Plan a flat route close to home.

• Pack accordingly (diapers, wipes, water, sound machine).

• Perfect your form. Staying upright or slightly leaning forward allows you to push from your glutes and core instead of your arms. Maintain a loose grip on the stroller or alternate hands.

—Sarah Chapin, a mom in Boston

“Halfway through my run it felt like my insides were about to fall out, which was extremely unsettling.

An ob-gyn discovered I had prolapse. It took several months before everything felt normal and before I felt really comfortable working out again.”

—Stacey W., a mom in Winston-Salem, North Carolina

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s gre at t o r a w t I . un f re e

live “Glorious. My cardio wasn’t what it was pre-pregnancy, but I was expecting the worst so I was pleasantly surprised. Leaked milk everywhere the second I stepped into the shower, though.”

—Kiera Carter, a runner and mom in New York

“I felt 100% discouraged as a former ultrarunner who ran 13.1-mile distances in pregnancy. I had complications, including fourth-degree internal tearing. After a year postpartum, I still cannot sneeze without peeing. I would have gotten more pelvic floor help by now if my insurance had covered it. I’m looking forward to any paths forward that are best for me athletically. It’s an ongoing journey between myself and my relationship with my new body.”

“When I tried to take off sprinting, it just felt like I was dragging. There was no ‘pop.’ Normally, when I say ‘go,’ my body goes—there’s not a question, I’m a sprinter.

But I remember looking at my husband afterward and just crying.”

—Dawn Harper-Nelson

—Pamela Huff, a mom in Boulder, Colorado

e m o s again and have

e .” —Kyndal Michel Marks, a mom m i t in Ci me n

ci n n

ati

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c i n o r Ch s e n i a r g Mi Tried To e m p o t S When everything else failed, doing nothing helped me deal with my migraines and become a better runner.

GETTY IMAGES

By Malissa Rodenburg

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M

My therapist asked me if I noticed that when we need to take a time out, the universe fills the space we occupied.

Not in a “life is moving on without you” way. More of a “life has got your back” kind of way.

I hadn’t noticed.

Could I think of a time, she asked, when I stepped up because someone else couldn’t? I could think of dozens of times. So, why didn’t I think the world could do that for me?

We were having this conversation because I was having a medical crisis. It’s not what I was working through in therapy, but I wanted to let her know I wasn’t feeling well that day.

In fact, I hadn’t been feeling well in months. And then I broke down crying.

I have been having migraine headaches since middle school. And in the past 15 or so years, they’ve ebbed and flowed in their intensity and frequency. An MRI formally confirmed the diagnosis: The images showed white matter lesions, consistent with migraines.

According to the Migraine Research Foundation, nearly a quarter of every household in the U.S. has a person with migraines. Acute migraine attacks account for approximately 1.2 million emergency room visits per year. For women, it amounts to 18 percent of us (6 percent of men). It’s most common in people aged 18 to 44.

“We think that hormones are playing a big role in migraine, but it’s not a one-to-one correlation,” says Dr. Rebecca Wells, professor of neurology at Wake Forest School of Medi-

cine. Some women are so convinced it’s hormone related that they will have a hysterectomy to solve their migraines, even though that is not a recognized or recommended treatment, Dr. Wells tells me. But at the heart of that is the idea that these women are desperate to rid themselves of pain and get to the root of the problem.

Headaches are ranked in the top 10 most disabling conditions by the World Health Organization. True to my nature as a runner, I’ve always prided myself in being able to push through the pain. When doctors and specialists have asked me, “Do your headaches interfere with your daily life?

Are there things you’re unable to do because of them?” I would smugly respond, “If I let migraines stop me from doing things, then I wouldn’t have much of a life.” As if that made me stronger. In truth, I was in denial and not taking care of myself.

My body let me know that with a barrage of headaches worse than I’ve ever had starting in May 2020. They felt like there was something inside of my skull trying to push its way out, like a constant jackhammering.

I tried my hardest to fight through them, but they would flatten me out.

Every little move made the pain worse. I used to have one or two a month, but now the migraines were striking multiple times a week for days on end.

Trying Harder The headaches started interfering with my running, which was my only real reason to go outside during the pandemic.

I tried to decipher the distance I could run without getting a headache, or the specific parameters.

At first, I was confident it was any run over eight miles that was triggering them. So I would dial back my training a litt le.

But then six miles would give me a headache. Then four. Eventually I couldn’t run an easy mile without getting a migraine that would last for days.

Knowing there was nothing I could do made my own anxiety worse.

When a headache came on I would try ice, heat, a cold compress, stretches, sleeping , medication, caffeine, massaging my neck, essential oils. Nothing ever worked.

Researchers have studied women like me, those who develop a n x iet y around physical activity and eventually avoid it to prevent migraines. It can lead to an actual fear of exercise. One study found that anxiety surrounding migraine pain can lead to depression.

Dr. Samantha Farris, director of the Rutgers Emotion, Health, and Behavior Lab, studies exercise anxiety in women with migraines. The prevalence of fear among the

women she studies is shocking.

“The thing that was most surprising is that most of the patients, nearly 80 percent, reported that they intentionally avoid highintensity forms of exercise like running or biking.”

Anxiety and stress are common migraine triggers. “Worrying about the fact that you might get a migraine can increase stress and tension in the body, activating physiological processes in the body that can increase the likelihood of a migraine,” says Dr. Farris.

What triggers a migraine attack is different than the cause behind the disease. What causes a migraine is not fully known (some doctors think it has to do with an imbalance of chemicals), while triggers of certain attacks can be pinpointed.

“We don’t think any headaches are caused by stress,” says Dr. Wells. “We think of migraine as really a genetic condition, genetic disease, that some individuals are more likely to have than others.

And then there are certain factors that may predispose an individual to a migraine attack.”

Dr. Wells also recognizes the let down after stress can trigger a headache, happening a day or two after the stressful event. That just adds to the complexity of the trigger. “We really need to further understand this relationship between stress and headache. A lot of people perceive that stress triggers headaches, but how physiologically that’s going on, we’re trying to understand that,” she says.

I was certainly stressing myself out. I would lay on the couch, phone in hand, reading everything I could on how to make the pain go away or prevent it from happening.

I read about the central nervous system, which includes the brain and the spinal cord, hoping I could pinpoint what was askew with me, as if there were a Wiki page that would point out which one of the 100 billion neurons in my brain wasn’t firing correctly.

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When I couldn’t get a clear answer and the pain was becoming unbearable, I would start to cry. The congestion from crying would only add pressure and make the pain worse.

Which made me want to cry more. There was no break in sight.

The greatest minds in the world don’t know what truly causes migraines, because there is still so much to be known about how the brain works. There are theories and treatments that seem to work for some people, but not for others. Dr. Elena Becker-Barroso, editor-in-chief of The Lancet Neurology, has called issues around brain health like migraines “the greatest challenges of societies in the 21st century.”

I started tracking everything about the headaches (when they started, when they stopped, their intensity, what I ate, the weather, when and how I exercised, how much water I was drinking, what supplements or medications I took, my menstrual cycle), trying to arm myself with all the information I needed. No pattern emerged except for the fact that they were happening a lot. I had 22 migraines in 34 days before I stopped keeping track. This went on for months. When I couldn’t fix my head on my own, I sought out some of the more traditional routes.

I made an appointment for a video call with my physician. In the 15 minutes allotted to me, she suggested that I wasn’t actually having migraines and that exercise would help. While research shows that exercise can be effective in preventing attacks, she didn’t take the time to hear about how physical activity was triggering my anxiety or how my desperation to run was adding to that stress.

Dr. Farris agrees: “Exercise, especially moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise, is actually recommended or advised for individuals with migraine as a management strategy for headache. But we know that individuals with migraine are significantly less active than those without migraine.”

When I couldn’t get an appointment with my overbooked neurologist, I turned to alternative approaches: acupuncture, yoga, massage. The acupuncturist asked me to think back to my earliest trauma, then placed the needles and left me be.

The massage therapist was appalled at the tension in my neck and shoulders. She was a runner, too, and talked me through breathing techniques to try while running, all while forcefully working the knots out of my neck.

I hired a sports dietitian to take a look at my nutrition. Maybe I was missing something, or not eating enough, or eating

All I wanted was to go for a run— my biggest stress reliever—without pain.”

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something I was sensitive to.

And while there were some serious lapses in my diet, including unintentionally underfueling, fixing that didn’t stop the headaches.

Research has connected migraines to hormones, but not all migraines are hormonal. During reproductive years, up to 43 percent of women suffer from migraines and 72 percent of migraine sufferers are women. So I saw my gynecologist to adjust my birth control, hoping that could help. The new pill had fewer side effects than my previous one and helped me feel better in other ways, but didn’t stop the headaches.

I was looking for a cure I wouldn’t find (there is none).

Or an explanation of why my brain was the way that it was; why couldn’t I live normally? All I wanted was to go for a run—my biggest stress reliever—without pain.

Dr. Farris worries about women avoiding really critical parts of their life out of fear. “There’s this concern that higher intensity exercise might trigger or worsen an attack and therefore avoiding it seems like a reasonable decision, except that avoidance can really shrink your world. People, especially those with migraine, avoid all sorts of triggering factors, whet her food , d if ferent e nv i r on me nt a l s t i mu l i , strong light, sound. Exercise is one of those triggers that people often are very fearful of,” she says.

The truth is, people with migraine must learn to live with and accept some amount of pain in their lives. “There are things that can be done to decrease the likelihood of having an attack,” says Dr. Wells. “But it’s important to recognize that sometimes attacks are going to happen no matter what you do.”

When Giving Up Gets Good All the time and money I spent on trying to figure it all out helped put into perspective how little I was taking care of myself before, even if they were all dead ends.

When I opened up about my migraines in therapy, my therapist cracked the issue wide open. She asked: Have you ever considered doing nothing?

I felt vulnerable and curious learning about something new. Aren’t we supposed to do things to solve problems?

But maybe my obsession was making the problem worse.

Her advice: Next time you get a headache, cancel all your plans. Stop what you’re doing.

Do nothing.

That’s the basis of some of Dr. Wells’s research into mindfulness and migraines.

Not doing anything is part of mindfulness, she says. “This concept of non-doing, because so much of what we do, we’re trying to do, and go, be, and function.” When she leads a meditation she likes to say: “We’re human beings, and yet we’re constantly going and doing, and we can just be.”

Dr. Wells is working to find out exactly what is happening in the body that allows mindfulness to impact migraines the way that it does. “Mindfulness can really teach new ways to respond to stress,” she says, “which is really the most commonly reported migraine trigger.”

She describes practitioners of mindfulness becoming curious about their pain instead of combative and angry, as I had become. “Mindfulness teaches a nonjudgmental way of turning toward pain,” says Dr. Wells. “With our research, we found that mindfulness decreased pain catastrophizing.Paincatastrophizing is a magnification of painrelated thoughts.” Along with

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Common Migraine Triggers for Runners

approaching pain with curiosity, she recommends “not taking any one experience we’ve had as complete truth about what might happen in the future.”

Independence Day was a few days after talking with my therapist and having my epiphany. I was determined to celebrate how I wanted.

That meant starting the day with a run, and I wasn’t going to let fear of a headache stop me. I laced up and went out for six miles at a nearby wildlife refuge. We had plans in the afternoon to see friends for the first time since the pandemic started at a small backyard BBQ. I was feeling good.

The headache started 20 minutes into the party.

For the first time I tried not to be mad about what I was missing or guilty for tearing my husband away from the fun. I had a genuine mindset of self-care.

We went home; I laid back and did nothing. Within 4

hours the migraine was gone, where it would normally take anywhere from 8 to 36 hours to dissipate. That evening, I was able to watch fireworks going off in the distance with neighbors. I felt such a sense of calm and gratitude.

That’s been my mindset ever since. I dialed back my training. I added in more cross-training and began cycling more. If I needed to miss a workout, I didn’t beat myself up about it. I went back to basics and started a couch to 10K program that felt painfully easy for a long time, but I stuck with it. I started meditating each morning.

Focusing on the mindbody connection to treat migraine is not woo-woo hype. “By saying that mindfulness is helpful, we’re not saying the migraine is all in your head. On the contrary, we think that mindfulness may target some of the pathophysiological aspects

of migraine to make it less likely to happen, or to make you be able to handle it when it does happen,” says Dr. Wells.

And she doesn’t think it should replace other helpful treatments: “We think of mindfulness as a treatment modality in addition to everything else. In our research, people were able to continue all of their medications. This was not an either/or, this was an and.”

It’s been more than a year since the headaches started getting bad.

They’re not cured: I still get one or two every month with no obvious cause, but instead of being mad at my body and mind for not doing what I want them to do, I take it as a cue to let off the gas.

I can honestly say that I am a stronger, faster, and fitter runner than I was a year ago. And it took nothing more than doing less.

If you’re worried about highintensity exercise causing a migraine, you may tend to avoid exercise altogether, according to Dr. Samantha Farris, director of the Rutgers Emotion, Health, and Behavior Lab. “Starting to slowly approach those things rather than avoid them is a really fundamental way to start building up confidence, rather than letting the fear or the anxiety do the talking,” she says. Sometimes a run may trigger a migraine, but understanding what about your run is triggering could give you more confidence to keep at it.

“Exercise can be done safely, and I think part of it is building up that tolerance. What we do know is that triggers—things that might actually cause migraine— can actually become stronger when you’re coming into less contact with them.” Instead of avoiding the run, learn how the following triggers might be affecting you.

According to Migraine Trust, exercise can set off a migraine if: • YOU DON’T WARM UP. Starting exercise suddenly puts your body in an immediate demand for oxygen, shocking the system.

• YOU DON’T FUEL PROPERLY, causing your blood sugar to drop.

• YOU BECOME DEHYDRATED. • YOU ARE PUSHING PAST YOUR PHYSICAL ABILITIES. Find a training plan and don’t try to progress too quickly.

• YOU EXERCISE INFREQUENTLY, causing your muscles to be stiff and achey.

• YOU RUN IN HOT CLIMATES OR HIGH ALTITUDES. • YOU EXPERIENCE A MINOR BLOW OR HEAD TRAUMA during exercise, causing a concussion.

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Determined, f it as ever, and with a renewed purpose and dire c tion, Olympic me dalist and world champion s te eple chas er Emma C oburn has her own road map and vision of suc c e s s . by

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Jen Ator

BRAD KAMINSKI

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2019 world championships in Doha, Qatar

But there wasn’t time for that. As her mom began the first of what would be many rounds of chemo, Coburn did her best to stay focused. After all, the Olympics hadn’t been canceled yet (that would happen in March 2020). But as their family would learn, cancer doesn’t move in a straight or predictable path. “There would be days where it would be bad news and we would be really sad,” Coburn says.

“But [my husband] Joe kept reminding me, as did my parents, that the thing that brings my mom the most joy is my running; that’s my contribution to her joy.”

That perspective gave Coburn’s training cycle a completely new focus.

She was working for more than medals at this point; she was doing it for her mom. That made it easier to flip the switch when it was time to practice.

She wasn’t going to let her sadness be an excuse to slack off.

“What makes me a good athlete is I really only worry about the things I can control, and I think I was able to handle my mom’s cancer the same way,” she says. “I am not a doctor. I can not create a new chemo cocktail that will cure her. My mom was doing her part, fighting and going through chemo treatments. My siblings have kids and they bring joy in other ways.

My dad is a super supportive partner for her. So I’m going to control what I can control, and that entails me running well and spending more time in Crested Butte.”

That fortitude and forward momentum didn’t surprise her mom. Annie has been watching her daughter in action for the past 10 years as a professional runner and has seen that strength time and again. “She can marshal all that emotion and harness that energy and use it, versus there’s people that you know they’re so good

MARTIN RICKETT/GETTY IMAGES

efore the world was saying “COVID,” and Olympic hopefuls were hearing “canceled,” world champion steeplechaser Emma Coburn was dealt a different c-word: “Cancer.”

In December 2019, her mom, Annie Coburn, was diagnosed with stagefour colon cancer, news that rocked her tight-knit family.

Just a few months before, Coburn, 30, had run a personal best of 9:02.35 to take silver in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the 2019 world championships in Doha, Qatar. The 2016 Olympic bronze medalist was looking ready to add another medal to her collection the following summer in Tokyo. And just like that, her world was turned upside down.

“I live a very charmed life. My parents spoil me, I have a really amazing husband, I have great friends, great family; I’ve been generally injury-free and I’ve had a successful career,” says Coburn. “I’ve had a couple other hard things pop up here and there, but this was the first big thing that I had to tackle. If it was a friend of mine going through this, I think I would expect them to crumble because it is such a heavy weight.”

COURTESY EMMA COBURN (3)

It was a slow build. It probably wasn’t until her second or third year of college that she was really like, ‘Oh, I’m OK at this and I should run with confidence and have big expectations.’”

and you know they can run so fast and you see them and then they just collapse in a moment of pressure,” Annie says. “And she just doesn’t choke. She just holds it together. I don’t know how she does it.”

Especially considering that wasn’t always the case. Coburn wasn’t your typical childhood phenom. “Emma was a momma’s girl,” Annie says. “She would hang on my leg and shy away from looking at you. She was just really so sweet and so lovey dovey and not competitive.”

Born in Boulder, Colorado, the family moved to the small mountain town of Crested Butte when Coburn was 7 years old. By middle school, she was a three-sport athlete—crosscountry, hockey, and track—following in the footsteps of her older brother, Willy, and sister, Gracie. “Three kids in four years, they shared a lot of stuff,” says Annie. “She started her first track meet, I think in sixth grade, wearing Willy’s old basketball shoes—and she won. And then she just kept winning.”

While physically gifted, it took Coburn some time to find her footing on the track. “In high school, she was dropping out of races and figuring out ways to get out of stuff,” says Coburn’s husband and now coach, Joe Bosshard.

The couple first met in high school in 2007, after Bosshard’s family moved to Crested Butte.“She hated it. She was a nervous wreck and really not a confident athlete at all.”

Her parents, her coach at the time, and Bosshard did everything they could to help ease Coburn along. “No one pushed her too far to where she just got overwhelmed with the whole thing,” says Bosshard. “It was just the right amount of pressure, just the right amount getting in a little over her head, working through the disappointments. But it didn’t happen overnight.

It was a slow build. It probably wasn’t until her second or third year of college that she really was like, ‘Oh I’m OK at this and I should run with confidence and have big expectations.’”

Fast forward to today: Coburn is the most dominant steeplechaser this country has ever seen. She’s an eighttime national champion, winning every year since 2011 (except 2013, when she didn’t compete). She won the 2012 U.S.A. Track & Field Olympic Trials at 21 years old, making her the youngest individual runner on Team USA at the London Olympics, where she finished eighth in the 3,000-meter steeplechase in 9:23.54. Four years later at the 2016 Rio Olympics, she set an American record (9:07.63) to win a

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QUINN RONNEY/GETTY IMAGES

2016 Rio Games

COURTESY EMMA COBURN (3)

bronze, becoming the first American woman to win an Olympic medal in the event. She went on to win the 2017 world championships (9:02.58), setting another national record (since taken

by Courtney Frerichs in 9:00.85) and again making history—the first U.S. woman to win that title.

The 3,000-meter steeplechase may be the most peculiar, if not the hardest, distance running race out there. It’s an intense compromise of strength, speed, and endurance that entails running nearly two miles at a furiously fast pace while negotiating 35 barriers—seven of them in front of a daunting water pit. Oh, and these barriers are not the lightweight aluminum hurdles that tip over when you brush your knee against them, either.

At 30 inches high and 220 pounds, they are unrelenting obstacles. Clip a toe and you kiss the track. Hit your shin and, well, that’s going to leave a mark.

While men have been competing in the event since 1896, the steeplechase didn’t debut in the women’s NCAA national championships until 2001 and the Olympics until 2008. At first, college coaches weren’t willing to sacrifice their fastest runners to the obstacle course, which created a bit of a stigma—it was seen as the one you do when you can’t keep up in the ultra-competitive 1,500 meters or handle the sustained grind of the 5,000 meters.

One thing’s for sure: If you’re going to pick a crazy event like steeplechase, you can’t get rattled too easily. Nerves are a recipe for actual disaster. So how did a sweet and mostly timid child with racing anxiety happen to stumble into the hardest event and become the best in the world?

“I think I’m just very relaxed,” Coburn says. “Which is funny because I hate being late, and I am very efficient with how I do things, and I don’t think in my resting life people would describe me as a relaxed person. But in how my head and heart process running and racing and training and victory and defeat, it’s very evenkeeled and relaxed.”

She can really keep herself steady. She’s probably the best athlete that I’ve ever seen at that.”

That’s her greatest strength as an athlete, Bosshard says: emotional control. “She can really keep herself steady. She’s probably the best athlete that I’ve ever seen at that.”

Aisha Praught-Leer, an original member of the professional training group that Bosshard and Coburn created at the end of 2016, calls Coburn “unshakeable,” with an enviable ability to create a tactical plan and stick to it—whether it’s the toast, coffee, and glass of Nuun she has every morning or the race strategy for the world championships.

“She has this ability to see what she needs to do and get it done,” PraughtLeer says. “She makes every single thing happen in a way that is really not easy, but she makes it look easy. It’s so special. I’ve rarely ever seen anything like it.”

While most high-performing athletes are plotting in four-year cycles, Coburn refuses to buy into the philosophy that the Olympics should dictate her every move. It’s a kind of present mindfulness that allows her to focus on just the next step, another important skill for a steeplechaser.

“I’m definitely a ‘live in the now’ type of athlete,” she says. “We have track competitions all the time. We have a U.S. championship every year and I want to win that every year. I

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want to be PRing every year.”

Another source of Coburn’s strength is the carefully curated circle of friends and family with whom she and Bosshard have chosen to surround themselves. “You’ll see it with any great athlete or CEOs, the company they keep is one of the most important things,” Bosshard says. “That’s what you have to do in this profession.

There can’t be a lot of things that are pulling you away or weighing you down, adding stress. You need to be surrounded by a group—whoever, family or friends—that are right in your corner.”

FROM TOP: MATTHIAS HANGST/GETTY IMAGES, DAVID RAMOS/GETTY IMAGES

2017 world championships in London

COURTESY EMMA COBURN (3)

In fact, “Team Boss,” their unbranded group based in Boulder, started by accident. Praught-Leer and Coburn were simultaneously looking for new coaches and training opportunities. After Coburn left her longtime college coach, Mark Wetmore, Bosshard agreed to coach her. Praught-Leer moved from the Oregon Track Club Elite in Eugene, Oregon, to Colorado to join them.

Over time, they’ve added an array of distance and middle-distance stars, like marathoner Laura Thweatt and 1500-meter specialists Cory McGee and Dani Jones. Kate Grace, 2016 Olympian in the 800 meters, is the most recent addition, defecting from the Bowerman Track Club this year.

“The biggest part of why it works is that we’re true cheerleaders for each other...we’re also able to be grounded and seek the best from each other,” Coburn says. “It’s not all fluffy B.S. stuff, it’s real. We expect greatness from each other, but we also laugh a lot and have a lot of fun together.”

It’s been nearly five years since Coburn last stood on the podium in Rio, clutching her first Olympic medal.

Where she may have felt nerves in the past, now Coburn feels purpose.

“The point I’m at in my career now is I’m still just as hungry to achieve whatever goals I have, but it’s no longer the only thing I’m looking at in life,” Coburn says. “I feel a lot more grounded and peaceful. I think a lot of that just comes with age, and experience, and trust—I trust that my body and mind know what to do when I get on that starting line and I don’t have to think about it outside of that.”

And she should, because physically, she’s ready. “She’s just in a good spot as an athlete, kind of in the prime of her career,” says Bosshard. “Recovery is fast, 10 years of high-level training, not getting beat up from the workouts.

You just see it—her body’s on top of it.”

As the summer unfolds, Coburn’s goals are what everybody would expect: win the U.S. Olympic Trials, break nine minutes in the steeplechase, and claim her spot on the podium in Tokyo.

Get out there and crush it. And if you blow up, what does it matter? She has all of us and we’re not going anywhere. So enjoy it, drink it up, love it. This whole thing has already been such a ride. It’s all gold to me.”

“Those are the things I’m actively thinking about and working toward,” she says. “The gold, if I’m preparing and I’m checking off all those other boxes, that’s in reach. But that’s not going to be my definition of if I’m a valuable person or not.”

For better or worse, that kind of clarity of purpose is what many have gained in their own ways through this pandemic and through other personal challenges, like Annie’s cancer diagnosis. Coburn’s job now is to show courage in her running—that’s what makes her mom happy, which is more precious than any medal.

“That is something that this whole cancer journey has been so fantastic in the weirdest, ghoulish-y way.

She can see the perspective. This is a joyful thing,” Annie says. “Get out there and crush it. And if you blow up, what does it matter? She has all of us and we’re not going anywhere. So enjoy it, drink it up, love it. This whole thing has already been such a ride. It’s all gold to me.”

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PHOTO CREDIT

Once every four years (or five…thanks, COVID!), our sport takes center stage.

The world’s most talented runners, jumpers, and throwers capture the awe and adulation of fans everywhere. Years of training and sacrifice come down to fractions of seconds between an Olympic medal and a lifelong dream dashed. The spirit of the Games is always on full display around the track. Here is our incomplete list of some of our top moments, because, let’s face it, we don’t have enough pages to include them all.

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FROM TOP: ULLSTEIN BILD/GETTY IMAGES; BETTMAN/CONTRIBUTOR

HISTORY IN THE MAKING. At the 1928 Olympics in Amsterdam (above), women were allowed to race the 800 meters for the first time—an important barrier broken for increasing the distance then thought “safe” for female athletes. But when the competitors appeared a little too taxed from the effort at the finish line, officials took it as an excuse to eliminate the event again for women until 1960, at the Rome Games. It was there that Wilma Rudolph (below, left, pictured with the women’s 400-meter relay team) became the first woman to ever win three gold medals in track and field. She also became a pioneer in civil rights and women’s rights.

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TONY DUFFY/ALLSPORT/GETTY IMAGES

1984, LOS ANGELES. If you’re ever feeling uninspired, just watch the footage of Joan Benoit Samuelson winning the first gold medal for the women’s inaugural Olympic marathon. The moment she runs through the tunnel into Olympic stadium, distance running forever changed for all of us. Along with the 50 other athletes who raced that day, she proved on the biggest stage that women could run as far and fast as they wanted.

When Samuelson broke away from the pack at mile three, she never looked back… and none of us have ever since.

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WOMEN’S RUNNING SUMMER 2021

RON KUNTZ VIA GETTY IMAGES SILHOUETTES, LEFT TO RIGHT: FOCUS ON SPORT/GETTY IMAGES; DAVID MADISON/GETTY IMAGES; FOCUS ON SPORT/GETTY IMAGES; GILBERT IUNDT; JEAN-YVES RUSZNIEWSKI/TEMPSPORT/CORBIS/VCG VIA GETTY IMAGES

FLO JO, THE ICON. Florence Griffith-Joyner showed us that fast can be fashionable.

The quickest woman in the world captured attention for her one-legged designer tracksuits and outrageous long nails (paving the way for other trendsetter athletes, like Serena Williams). At the 1984 Olympics, Flo Jo won silver in the 200 meters, but her breakout really came in 1988: She set the 100-meter world record at the Trials (10.49) and came home from Seoul with four Olympic medals—three gold and one silver.

Griffith-Joyner died in 1998 as a result of an epileptic seizure.

SCOTT BARBOUR/GETTY IMAGES

RESURRECTING U.S. DISTANCE RUNNING. When Deena Kastor won the bronze medal at the 2004 Athens Games (in triple-digit heat), it was a sign that Americans had a chance to compete on the world stage again. After U.S. distance running languished in the 1990s, coaches Joe Vigil and Bob Larsen decided to bring the athletes with the biggest potential together in Mammoth Lakes, California, to train at high altitude with the goal of winning medals. It worked. Kastor came away with that bronze while Meb Keflezighi ran to the silver.

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP RIGHT: MARTIN RICKETT/ PA IMAGES VIA GETTY IMAGES; STREETER LECKA/GETTY IMAGES; OLIVIER MORIN/GETTY IMAGES

TEAM USA. Nothing at the Olympic stadium is more thrilling to watch than the relays—the collective effort, the pure speed, the potential for disaster. And for those of us who grew up playing team sports, relays caught our attention (and our hearts) every single time. Carmelita Jeter (top left) and the 2012 women’s 4 x 100-meter relay didn’t disappoint, setting a world record in 40.82. Then in 2016 (opposite), Allyson Felix missed the baton handover as she was bumped by a competitor. The team was given a second chance to qualify for the final, competing alone on an empty Olympic track in a surreal time trial. Tianna Bartoletta, Felix, English Gardner, and Torie Bowie (opposite, top) went on to win gold from lane one in the final.

FROM TOP: ADRIAN DENNIS/GETTY IMAGES; JEWEL SAMAD/GETTY IMAGES

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WOMEN’S RUNNING SUMMER 2021

IAN WALTON/GETTY IMAGES

SPIRIT AWARD. Not every memorable moment is a win. American Abbey D’Agostino (at right, now Cooper) and Nikki Hamblin (New Zealand) tangled up and fell during the 5,000-meter preliminary round. The aftermath became a worldwide illustration of the “Olympic spirit” as they helped each other up and cheered each other to finish the race. D’Agostino left the track in a wheelchair and had to have knee surgery.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: IAN WALTON/GETTY IMAGES; DAVID RAMOS/GETTY IMAGES; JOHANNES EISELE/GETTY IMAGES

U.S. RUNNERS SHINE IN 2016. The Team USA women made big moves at the Rio Games. Emma Coburn became the first American to medal in the steeplechase (bronze) while Jenny Simpson (at left) was the first to medal in the 1500 meters (bronze). The American women swept the 100-meter hurdles and Delilah Muhammad (below) took gold in the 400-meter hurdles. Shalane Flanagan, Desiree Linden, and Amy Cragg (above) all finished in the top 10 in the marathon. And the legend Allyson Felix became the only female track athlete to ever win six gold medals, tied with Merlen Ottey as the most-decorated with nine Olympic medals total.

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