Welcome to episode 210 of the Women’s Running podcast. I’m your host Esther Newman and she’s your other host Holly Taylor. On this podcast we talk about health, politics, stuff on TV and what we ate last night. Occasionally, we talk about running.

• This episode is sponsored by Runna. For a FREE two-week trial of Runna, just use the code WOMENSRUNNING and fill your running boots.

We have a special guest for you today in the shape of the very brilliant Helen Thorn, you lucky things. Comedian, author, amazing runner, and now triathlete, we’re lucky to count her as a Friend of the Pod. She is dialling in from her holiday in Cornwall, especially to join up with us to shout about the London Vitality 10,000 which we’re running together on September 22nd – and you can run with us if you’re quick! We’ve been told that there are a few spaces remaining to run in our Smiles for Miles wave, which we’re running with Helen and Bryony Gordon firmly at the back of the pack, and we’d love to have you with us. We’ll be celebrating in Green Park before and after, and it won’t be the same without you!

Before and after our chat with her, we’re trying to do our best with our strength training, and I do my thing of offering lots of unwarranted advice to Holly while not actually doing any exercises myself. When we come back in the room after Helen we have a chat about the books we’ve been reading and listening to. Lots of ideas here for those of you who listen to books on runs, and please give us all your ideas too!

Now, don’t get annoyed at me repeating this, it’s my job: right now you can get your first six issues of Women’s Running for just £6! Go to womensrunning.co.uk, click on SHOP, and use the code SS24 WRPOD at the checkout. Or just go here.

• This episode is sponsored by Runna. For a FREE two-week trial of Runna, just use the code WOMENSRUNNING and fill your running boots.
• Run the London Vitality 10,000 with us!
• Subscribe to Women’s Running – join us today to save loads, it's only £6 for 6 issues
• Setting up your own podcast? Try Zencastr – we’ve been using it for ages and LOVE IT
• Download a FREE mini mag to help you run 5K! Go to womensrunning.co.uk/run
• Buy a Pod Squad t-shirt!
• Do join us on Patreon so you can come and chat in our new Pod Squad community on Discord! Go to patreon.co.uk/womensrunning
• Email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories

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Welcome to episode 209 of the Women’s Running podcast. I’m your host Esther Newman and she’s your other host Holly Taylor. On this podcast we talk about health, politics, stuff on TV and what we ate last night. Occasionally, we talk about running.

• This episode is sponsored by Runna. For a FREE two-week trial of Runna, just use the code WOMENSRUNNING and fill your running boots.

We’re back after a bit of a break (that hopefully you won’t have noticed, but obviously the timings of the last few podcasts have been all over the place). We’re both sounding rough as badgers; me cos of a virus, Hol cos of a two-day hangover. All very standard.

We talk through all of Hol’s debauchery. We also talk about my running in Cornwall and France, which results in a proper Poo Story, which I’m sure you’ll all sympathise with. Listen out for Hol’s top tips on sharing a bathroom btw!

In our new Pod Squad segment, we talk to the glorious Marte from Belgium, who ran with us in New York, and also again at the London 10K and AGAIN at Endure 24. She talks to us about how she got into running, and her favourite races so far.

Now, if you’re not already a subscriber to Women’s Running magazine, this is your lucky day, cos this is our best ever offer. Right now you can get your first six issues of Women’s Running for just £6! Go to womensrunning.co.uk, click on SHOP, and use the code SS24 WRPOD at the checkout. Or just go here.

• This episode is sponsored by Runna. For a FREE two-week trial of Runna, just use the code WOMENSRUNNING and fill your running boots.

 Subscribe to Women’s Running – join us today to save loads, it's only £6 for 6 issues

• Setting up your own podcast? Try Zencastr – we’ve been using it for ages and LOVE IT

·      Download a FREE mini mag to help you run 5K! Go to womensrunning.co.uk/run

• Buy a Pod Squad t-shirt!
• Do join us on Patreon so you can come and chat in our new Pod Squad community on Discord! Go to patreon.co.uk/womensrunning

Email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to episode 200 of the Women’s Running podcast. This episode is sponsored by Runna. I’m your host Esther Newman and she’s your other host Holly Taylor. On this podcast we talk about health, politics, stuff on TV and what we ate last night. Occasionally, we talk about running.

Whoop whoop! It’s our 200th episode and we are celebrating in style with a drink and a bowl of peanuts and a little look back at some of our favourite moments over the last year or so. I start on a slightly cross note because of a convo I’d had at the weekend, where I was asked a question that I think sets the tone for our entire podcast.

But once I’ve shed that baggage we’re on to the fun bit. What have been our most favourite pods over the past year or so? We start with a margarita, and end with an Aperol Spritz and in the middle of all of that we chat about our favourite bits, which includes the hang-glider face-off, Canal Boat Amy, the Paris Half with the Pod Squad massive, our trips to New York, and lots of toilet talk.

Now, do please come and join us on Patreon – you can get a ton of extra Pod Squad benefits from just £2 a month, including newsletters Live podcasts and you can join our exclusive Discord forum filled with wonderful runners just like you. Go to patreon.com/womensrunning to find out more.

Now, if you’re not already a subscriber to Women’s Running magazine, you need to stop what you’re doing right now and sign up, cos I think this is one of our best ever offers. Right now – and only until the end of August - you can get your first six issues of Women’s Running for just £6 – that’s a pound an issue! Go to womensrunning.co.uk, click on SHOP, and use the code SS24 WRPOD at the checkout. Or just go here. Six quid! That’s how much ONE issue costs if you buy it in Sainos. And I know I’m biased, but it’s BRILLIANT.

• This episode is sponsored by Runna

For a FREE two-week trial of Runna, just use the code WOMENSRUNNING and fill your running boots.

 Subscribe to Women’s Running – join us today to save loads, it's only £6 for 6 issues

• Setting up your own podcast? Try Zencastr – we’ve been using it for ages and LOVE IT

·      Download a FREE mini mag to help you run 5K! Go to womensrunning.co.uk/run

• Buy a Pod Squad t-shirt!
• Do join us on Patreon so you can come and chat in our new Pod Squad community on Discord! Go to patreon.co.uk/womensrunning

Email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories

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This is a very special episode indeed, so it makes sense to release it on International Women’s Day. To be fair, in a roundabout way, we celebrate women in every episode, but this one has real significance.

We recorded a portion of this episode live in front of an actual audience. This was in Paris, an hour or so after we ran the Paris Half Marathon with 50 Pod Squad listeners, thanks to Sports Tours International. We gathered together with a glass of something chilled in a not very glamorous room filled with laundry, which felt very on brand, to congratulate each other and talk about our races. Here is all our excitement, our tears and our thoughts – we’ve also written our full review of the Paris Half. 

Holly talks through all her favourite bits and her worries - as she says herself, she was absolutely dreading it, with a run up and training regime that had been hampered by Covid and anxiety and various things that had derailed the running she had wanted to do. With only an hour’s long run in the bank, she was having a full scale wobble. So find out how each of our half marathons went, from start to finish, and discover the clever ways we kept ourselves motivated en route, thanks to the wisdom of sports psychologist Josie Perry who joined us as well.

And also here, find out how bloody brilliant it was to meet up with, and run with, 50 brilliant women – we suggest you do this as soon as you can to be reminded of how wonderful we all are. 

This episode is sponsored by the lovely people at Yeo Valley: try the Organic Kefir, it’s proper lush

Do join us on Patreon for exclusive newsletters, free monthly Live chats, and Patreon-only episodes!

Read our full review of the Paris Half Marathon experience with Sports Tours 

Grab yourself a copy of Josie’s book, the Ten Pillars of Success, and bag some of her motivation for yourself

Book yourself a race with Sports Tours International!

Join the 1% Club and they’ll plant trees for every day you’re active – you’ve nothing to lose!

Do please email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories

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In this episode we’re covering everything from anxiety and post-covid concerns to half marathon techniques and long run disasters.

New coffee addict Holly is buzzing about caffeine, but also about our Paris half marathon coming up in just a few days. We’re both enormously excited, but also extremely nervous. Holly’s training isn’t where she’d like it to be, so we figure out some easier Jeff splits for her (find out more about walk/running) and she tries to calm her anxious brain a little.

I’m also worried about my training – London is fast approaching, and I’m not sure I’m where I need to be in terms of strength or technical training. I completed a long run at the weekend, and I’m 90% happy with it. You will have to discover if the remaining unfortunate 10% has anything to do with Runner’s Trots by listening right through, you lucky lucky people. Honestly the things we do for this podcast...

This episode is sponsored by the lovely people at Yeo Valley: try the Organic Kefir, it’s proper lush

Do join us on Patreon for exclusive newsletters, free monthly Live chats, and Patreon-only episodes!

Drop off some food this February for Food Bank Run – there are families out there who really need our support

Join the 1% Club and they’ll plant trees for every day you’re active – you’ve nothing to lose!

Do please email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories

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Holly opens this pod giddy with a recent purchase – while I’m not entirely positive that she’s target market, I am absolutely NOT judging.

Moving on to actual running, Holly has made the decision that she’s going to definitely walk/run Paris, and all her confidence has come back in droves, in no small part due to all the messages she received after the last episode. She had been feeling so stressed and so ill, and was so unsure about everything. But she has now faced up to her anxieties, and is both pragmatic and excited about Paris.

We have a chat about nutrition for the half marathon – Holly does well these days at eating before she runs, but she hasn’t practised running and eating at the same time, so I’m here with all the tips on what she can practice with, without impending doom. We talk about what our A goals and B goals are for both Paris and London.

We talk about the possibility of running a race while drinking booze at the same time – we’re aware food and wine races exist. But I can’t help but wonder here, does celebrating en route mean you then can’t celebrate post race? Tricky tricky.

Holly is loving her new BAM kit

We also talk about Revvies, Bounce and Tribe – nutrition fit for queens

Do join us on Patreon for exclusive newsletters, free monthly Live chats, and Patreon-only episodes!

Drop off some food this February for Food Bank Run – there are families out there who really need our support

Join the 1% Club and they’ll plant trees for every day you’re active – you’ve nothing to lose!

Do please email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories

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Welcome to episode 131 of the Women’s Running podcast. I’m your host Esther Newman, and she’s your other host Holly Taylor. This episode is all about illness and recovery, because Holly is firmly in the doldrums, in terms of her physical training, but also her overall health and the impact that’s having on her mental health.

So it turns into a bit of therapy session between us, to which you are all cordially invited. Holly is finding herself enormously stressed about our impending half marathon, she’s worried about her training having taken a tumble, she’s worried about pleasing people (or not), and she’s also worried about not doing it.

Because if only it was as easy as saying she didn’t need to run it – which I do say, and she needn’t, but her conflict is caring for her mental and physical self vs that part of her that really wants to be wearing her medal with the gang on the finish line. So we talk through how she encourages that first part of her to also be that second part of her. It’s tough.

She’s also worried about not being Top Form Holly when we’re in Paris. As she says: “Because I’m worried people won’t love me”. I’m positive that all of you are with me, when I say that EVERYONE will love her even more when she makes it there, but she needs a lot of convincing.

Go and get coached by Runna – it’s just ace

Enter our competition to win entry to Ultra X Scotland and a night’s stay in a luxury hotel for two

Do join us on Patreon for exclusive newsletters, free monthly Live chats, and Patreon-only episodes!

Drop off some food this February for Food Bank Run – there are families out there who really need our support

Join the 1% Club and they’ll plant trees for every day you’re active – you’ve nothing to lose!

Do please email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories

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Welcome to episode 130 of the Women’s Running Podcast, sponsored by Runna. Holly is talking health and mental health. Both have taken a bit of a pounding over the past month and it’s overwhelmed her training and exercise schedule, no matter how hashtag-be-kind she’s been to herself.

I’ve had a big old menopause symptom and it’s made me feel like SHIT, so I fess up all of it, which has taken a bit of courage because we know that not only do you lot listen but so do our bosses! Anyway. I wanted to share, because we need to talk about this stuff. 

We also talk about being given the fear by Martin Yelling, using the mantra “this is my race”, troughing on vegan croissants from Paul’s, Aunty Praline makes a guest appearance, there’s a little bit of Paris nonsense, and we have loads of lovely emails from listeners including one that’s a little bit shady to a competitor. And we’re keeping it in.

We also make time for a quick mention for Food Bank Run, which would be great to do in February – link below. And also the wonderful 1% club, being run by Earth Runs (link also below), who will plant a tree for every day you’re active in 2023.

Now. Do sign up to be a patron. If you’re in the Cheer Squad tier, you’ll be able to listen to exclusive monthly podcasts – which we’ve decided to call the Extra Mile – created specifically so you’ve always got a bit extra to listen to on your long runs, in which we promise to do our best to talk about anything *apart from* running. The latest one was released just this Tuesday, do go and have a listen.

Go and get coached by Runna – it’s just ace

Do join us on Patreon for exclusive newsletters, free monthly Live chats, and Patreon-only episodes!

Drop off some food this February for Food Bank Run – there are families out there who really need our support

Join the 1% Club and they’ll plant trees for every day you’re active – you’ve nothing to lose!

Do please email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories

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Welcome to episode 129 of the Women’s Running Podcast. This week, we are sponsored by Runna. We have a LOT to talk about today. We’ve got to cover off training for the Paris Half, insecurities about that training, motivations for running in the first place, menopausal symptoms and, lastly, figs.

So first of all we chat about Holly’s training for the half. She’s having all the wobbles about Paris, post Covid. Her long runs haven’t quite hit the mark, although she has been doing some cross training, and she’s really worried about how things are going to go on the day. I try and soothe her fears, but I’m sure you guys can do that better than me!

I talk about menopause a bit here, because I’ve realised that periods and hormones (or lack of them) have been having an effect on my training. We talk through as many symptoms as we can before we run out of time – I’m fully aware that there are more, but also that a number of these can affect our lives and our running. And that it’s important to remember that they are wildly diverse and sometimes it’s difficult to join the dots between all these different things. Have a look on Women’s Running womensrunning.co.uk for great advice on menopause and running.

Lastly: are figs vegan? An expert weighs into the debate and we are, obviously, delighted. This, and more hot topics, including the ever present Veganuary wind situation, are discussed in detail. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

Find out more about Runna and download the app!

Do join us on Patreon for exclusive newsletters, free monthly Live chats, and Patreon-only episodes!

Do please email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories

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Welcome to episode 128 of the Women’s Running Podcast – this episode is sponsored by Runna. We launch right into it, with some vegan nonsense, but then very quickly we move on to the National Running Show, which we attended at the weekend in Birmingham. We had an absolute blast, we saw so many of you Pod Squadders, and are just giddy with the happiness of it all. We talk here about just some of the brilliant people we met, about Holly getting the spooks in her hotel room, dog biscuits, flapjack, and lots of wine.

We eventually get on to our own running, and how our training is going. Post-covid it’s been a bit tough for both of us. In terms of the upcoming Paris Half, Holly is really worried about where she is, and whether she’s not as strong as she was ahead of the Bath Half last Oct. BUT she’s been doing strength training and mobility, and I have a sneaking suspicion that she might actually be in a stronger place on the start line of the Paris Half.

I’m also feeling a bit uneasy about where my running is, so I whinge about that for a bit. We also talk about Strava etiquette – which I am terrible at – and also how we shouldn’t measure ourselves by our Garmin stats. Tricky, tricky.

Find out more about Runna and download the app!

Do join us on Patreon for exclusive newsletters, free monthly Live chats, and Patreon-only episodes!

Do please email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories

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This episode is again bought to you by the powers of Covid. I’ve picked it up for the first time, unfashionably late to the party as ever. Apologies here for covid coughing throughout. We talk through health anxiety, symptoms, and worrying about the unknown. We also have a chat about the guilt of missing out on training through illness.

Moving on from covid, we talk about our ongoing experiments with veganism, which are mostly positive with a few tofu pitfalls. This, unsurprisingly, segues into a discussion on bowel habits and then IBS – not that either of our experiences with IBS have anything to do with veganism.

Speaking of food, we have a big old chat about a new campaign called Food Bank Run. I spoke to Sarah Donaghy recently, who set this up, and it’s genius. I’d love as many of us as possible to sign up to doing this. The idea is that we all go for a run in February, when demand is at its highest, to drop off some food at a food bank to help people who desperately need our support right now.

Why don’t we do our first Food Bank Run as a Pod Squad thing. I suggest we all go for a run in the week beginning 6th February. So that means we’ve all got a whole week to do a run of whatever length you like and drop off one or two things to your local foodbank. My nearest food bank is just a few minutes away – it’s easy to check online if you’re not sure. There’s more information in this podcast and in the links in the show notes if you want to find out all about it.

Thanks to Wassen for sponsoring this episode. Go to Boots to discover the full range of Wassen powders!

Find out more about Food Bank Run

You can check here to see what’s needed in your area

Do join us on Patreon for exclusive newsletters, free monthly Live chats, and Patreon-only episodes!

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Welcome to episode 126 of the Women’s Running Podcast. I’m your host Esther Newman, and she’s your other host Holly Taylor. This episode is our first chat since Christmas so we’re a bit giddy with it. Hol has had a bit of a cruddy start to the new year, and it’s mostly Covid based. It’s obviously knocked her training a bit, and she’s been worried about the Paris Half as a result – something I think that will resonate, with so many of us getting bugs at this time of year. If you need help with that, we’ve got lots of info on how to get back to running after illness.

I gave her a load of advice the day before which I’ll put here even though we don’t go into it much, as I think lots of us will have woken up on the 1st a bit worried about the half marathon training ahead of us. So first of all I said she can come to Paris and not run it! Shock horror! Of course that’s fine. And the same is true of any race, from parkrun upwards. Or she could always come to Paris and Jeff like all the best runners. Running for 5mins and walking for 30 seconds is a brilliant strategy. And let’s all bear in mind the reasons WHY we’re running that half in Paris – because it’s not to knock minutes off our PBs, it’s to be a tourist and to meet up with the Squad and to have fun! It’s certainly not to get stressed about it beforehand.

We talk about running in Jan and Feb, and kudos goes again to RED January for keeping us moving in the most miserable of months. I talk about my running, I’ve now started my London Marathon training and I’m absolutely terrified, all over again. It doesn’t feel like a very long way away, and my training plan looks really scary right now.

On top of all of that, we talk about periods, wasps, Pilates and on-screen bums (you can find Holly’s right now on our Insta grid). We also have huge NRS gossip from last year, and Holly divulges a massive scandal that has rocked her world, and it involves pine needles.

Do join us on Patreon for exclusive newsletters, free monthly Live chats, and Patreon-only episodes!

Come along to the National Running Show in January, and say hello!

Thanks to Wassen for sponsoring this episode. Go to Boots to discover the full range of Wassen powders!

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Happy new year to all you lovely listeners! We start off today as usual, with me complaining – this time it’s about my back pain, which went a bit crazy just before Christmas. All good now, though. Aside from that, it’s a corker of an episode as today we’re talking to Laura Barnhouse, nutritionist, PT and friend of the pod.

We’re after a bit of a health rejig in January, even if we are all perfect already (which we are), so we hauled Laura in to help us do exactly that, and to talk about this January diet culture, and body image generally.

We talk about the whole concept of women and weightloss – the feeling of taking up too much space in the world, and feeling like we have to address that. We talk about how times have changed in terms of the pandemic, and what that’s done to our sense of self and our looks and weight. Again, we talk about school experiences having such a negative effect, both on our perception of exercise and also how we perceive food and our bodies.

The really useful bit here is that we ask Laura’s advice on how to have a healthy relationship with food and eating, which leads her on to talk about our motivations for getting healthier, and where those motivations come from, and how important it is to figure that bit out first if you’re striving for a healthier life and attitude. Really clever stuff that will help all of us this January, no matter what our goals are.

Win a pair of Brooks Ghost 14 GTX, worth £140 by entering this podcast-only compo!

Do join us on Patreon for exclusive newsletters, free monthly Live chats, and Patreon-only episodes!

Come along to the National Running Show in January, and say hello!

Follow lovely Laura on Facebook  

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Welcome to episode 199 of the Women’s Running podcast. I’m your host Esther Newman and she’s your other host Holly Taylor. On this podcast we talk about health, politics, stuff on TV and what we ate last night. Occasionally, we talk about running.

This episode, we explore the idea that running is something we can do to give us energy, as much as deplete our energy. We also talk about running in the heat, with some actual science that we read on the internet to back up the way that we feel after running when it’s unexpectedly hot.

We’ve got some lovely emails from you here to discuss, with all sorts of continuing chat about annoying Guardian columnists and yoga class etiquette. There’s been lots of chat on Discord about the things we’ve been talking about. Do join us on Patreon at patreon.com/womensrunning so you can chat with everyone in our chat room, as it is a LOT of fun there at the mo.

The one thing we needed to talk about in this episode, we forgot to mention until the very end, which is the extremely exciting news that we’re going to be running the Saucony London 10K on Sunday July 14th, and to make it even more exciting, we’re launching a competition in partnership with SportsShoes.com to offer ten lucky winners a free race place AND a bunch of kit to wear on the day. Go to womensrunning.co.uk/saucony10K or enter here.

If you’re not already a subscriber to Women’s Running magazine, right now you can get your first six issues of Women’s Running for just £6! Go to womensrunning.co.uk, click on SHOP, and use the code SS24WRPOD at the checkout. Or just go here.

• This episode is sponsored by Revive Active. You can get 20% off the whole Revive Active range at ReviveActive.com using the code Run20, which you can use right up until 31st July.
• Subscribe to Women’s Running and you’ll get your first six issues for £6! Offer code: SS24WRPOD
• Enter our competition to win lovely kit and a race place to run alongside us at the London 10K.
•  Setting up your own podcast? Try Zencastr – we’ve been using it for ages and LOVE IT
• Buy a Pod Squad t-shirt!
• Do join us on Patreon so you can come and chat in our new Pod Squad community on Discord! Go to patreon.co.uk/womensrunning

Email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories

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This episode we have the wonderful Molly from the Simply Vegan podcast (and also from our company, so we know her well and have got hugely drunk with her – we are mates!) to chat to us about all things plant-based before we head into Veganuary. We start off by discussing our past drunkenness, but quickly move on to actual food.

We discuss what we’re eating for Christmas – even though this is, as we all know, what Holly refers to as our ‘perineum episode’. So our tenses are all over the place while we discuss the stuff we eat, which allows me to talk through the legendary reason why I love sprouts so much. But it also means we can ask what actual vegans eat for Christmas, and – whisper it – it doesn’t actually sound that bad.

Then we cover a ton of must-know topics for those of us facing Veganuary: such as, can we eat figs? And is vegan cheese any good? Molly then explains how to make tuna out of chickpeas, which blows our tiny minds, and talks us through her favourite vegan meals to give us a bit of inspiration. Importantly, she tells us what puddings and sweet things are intentionally vegan or accidentally so.

But we also have a small ulterior motive here, as Molly joins us because she is going to be running the London Landmarks Half Marathon in March, and she wants our advice on running, so we eventually get on to some running chat, answering a few of her worries and questions about her training up to that first half marathon. And for podcast keeners, you’ll be able to hear me and Holly over on the Simply Vegan podcast at some point in January gassing on at length with a load of training tricks and tips for our favourite vegans.

Listen to the Simply Vegan podcast for more of Molly!

Check the Vegan Food and Living website for tons of recipes and fun vegan stuff

Chris Packham discusses the importance of wasps

How to check if your booze is vegan on Barnivore

Win a pair of Brooks Ghost 14 GTX, worth £140 by entering this podcast-only compo!

Do join us on Patreon for exclusive newsletters, free monthly Live chats, and Patreon-only episodes!

Come along to the National Running Show in January, and say hello!

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Welcome to episode 123 of the Women’s Running Podcast. I am your host Esther Newman and she is your other host Holly Taylor. We start today with Bake Off, which might seem like a bit old hat, but we’re talking about new things, I promise. Then, obviously, we move on to favourite TV comedies, before eventually settling on Christmas. Because, like it or not, it’s Christmas and there is no rest for the wicked. Or the runners.

While we loosely chat about the running we’ve been doing (which adds up to very little indeed because of various injuries and tattoos, for some reason), we are giddy with excitement about the main event, which is our Great Big Christmas Quiz! We’ve drawn up a set of Mr & Mrs questions for each other – and get this, some of them include actual references to running! To be clear, neither of us are drinking in this episode, even though it sounds like we have been. Copiously.

A quick reminder here that we’re going to be at the National Running Show in January in Birmingham at the end of January. Do please come – it would be lovely to see a friendly face or two. We’re on stand P20 right in front of the Inspiration Stage, on which I’ll be chairing some menopausal chat at 11.30 on the Saturday. I mean advice-drive menopausal chat, rather than just general chat from menopausal women... So that just leaves me to say, have a very happy Christmas, enjoy all the fun and festivities that it brings, and we shall see you on the other side!

Win a pair of Brooks Ghost 14 GTX, worth £140 by entering this podcast-only compo!

Do join us on Patreon for exclusive newsletters, free monthly Live chats, and Patreon-only episodes!

Come along to the National Running Show in January, and say hello!

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Welcome to episode 122 of the Women’s Running podcast. I am your host Esther Newman, and she is your other host Holly Taylor. We’re kicking off with some advent calendar content, just so Hol can eat some chocolate live on the pod.

Meanwhile, I’m being a Moaning Myrtle cos I’ve done my back in, and take the opportunity to talk about it here at great length (Anna McNuff did something similar last year and has brilliant advice about injury prevention). While it’s not a running injury per se, it’s worthwhile bringing up because it has stopped me in my tracks. And while one part of injury is how you recover best from it and prevent it from happening again, the other part is the mental distress from not being able to run, and I’ve got the latter half of that for sure. So lots of Injury Sadness.

But the main part of this pod is about food, as we’re staring January in the face, and lots of us will be having thoughts around this. We are getting our lovely nutritionist Laura Barnhouse on to talk to us about food, fuel and body image in the first week of January, so there will be actual expertise then.

Quick content warning here, as we talk about food, control and disorders at length here. We talk about the food we should be eating, and how we’re supposed to get our heads around the whole body neutrality thing, so we pre-empt all of that by talking through our histories with eating and diets. We talk about food and control, body image, and the complex relationship between food and emotions and relationships. I think we discover quite a bit about ourselves in this episode. More expertise in January. Next week, we have the Women's Running Podcast Christmas quiz! Hurrah!

Win a pair of Brooks Ghost 14 GTX, worth £140 by entering this podcast-only compo!

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Welcome to episode 121 of the award-winning Women’s Running podcast! I am your host Esther Newman, and she is your other host Holly Taylor. We recorded this on the 1st December, so we’re in the middle of some strong Advent content. We then slowly move on to our very excitable chat about our big award win. We are chuffed to bits that the Women’s Running Podcast – this podcast you’re currently listening to - has been voted Podcast of the Year for the second year in a row, and we have a lovely pink award, and two very large hangovers to show for it.

Then we finally move on to running. We talk about running a 5K round Battersea Park, which we did last Wednesday evening for SportsShoes at the RunThrough Chase The Moon event, which we thoroughly recommend, with lots of high vis and bright lights and nice snacks. We also talk about our slightly epic journey back to Bath afterwards. 

I talk about a big fat new year’s resolution with my running here, but it’s not what you might think – it’s not distance or pace or number of races or anything like that. Holly is also gearing up for her new year’s resolution, and it’s also not what you might think either. Lots of surprises here today.

And then we have a bloody huge announcement about food, because we’re going to do Veganuary with our friends over on the Simply Vegan podcast, and we’re a bit scared about it, because Holly loves her cheese, and I love my bacon. But we’re getting our own back by helping them train for a half marathon, which is around the same time as Paris, so we’re all going to be training together, powered by Shroomdogs and  Facon. What larks.

Join us on Patreon for exclusive episodes and newsletters from me and Hol!

Use this to train for a half marathon by time rather than distance

It’s not too late to join us in Paris!

Buy yourself the best Chrimbo present in the shape of a Women’s Running membership

Interested in the Simply Vegan podcast? You should be! It’s here.

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Welcome to episode 120 of the multi-award winning Women’s Running Podcast. We don’t scream about it here, because we recorded before we knew, but we have won Podcast of the Year at the PPA Independent Publisher Awards last Friday – for the second year in a row! We are giddy with it, and will chat about it to DEATH in the next podcast. For now, we’re talking about being ill, not washing our duvets, and how marvellous our Podcast Live was last week. New date for the next one coming soon!

We talk about Raynaud’s (which I suffer from), and running in the cold and dark. We asked our lovely patrons on the Live about how to motivate ourselves to run in the winter, and they came up with some ace suggestions which we go through here. We start talking too about when we need to start our training for the Paris half marathon, which is slightly sooner than Holly thinks.

We’ve had an email in that we’d like to discuss from a listener who is recovering from anorexia, so we chat about that – not from a medical perspective, but we chat about injury, strength training and overtraining, touching a little bit on RED-S, more of which in a future episode.

This leads us on to chats about our own struggles with body neutrality, and body. We end by confessing our favourite body parts – and this is where you will instantly (because I will) be googling the phrase Thigh Brow.

Links

Join us on Patreon for exclusive episodes and newsletters from me and Hol!

Use this to train for a half marathon by time rather than distance

It’s not too late to join us in Paris!

Buy yourself the best Chrimbo present in the shape of a Women’s Running membership

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This episode we have a special guest in the shape of Claire Maxted, co-founder and formed editor of Trail Running magazine, the owner of the Wild Ginger Running YouTube channel, and the author of the Ultimate Trail Running Handbook, so she knows a thing or two about trail running! 

We talk here about PE days again, because I’m slightly obsessed with them, and how they can give us such a negative experience of sport and movement, and as we chat about here, it’s not necessarily the sport itself that makes us hate it, but all the other peripheral stuff  like communal showers. 

The big reason I got Claire on here was to try and persuade pavement pounder Holly on to the trails. If you’ve never randomly decided to head down an unknown footpath, it takes a lot of courage to tread the path less travelled. Claire is here to instill us all with a bit of trail confidence, and my favourite tip she gives us here is about navigation which can feel like a bit of a dark art, but as she said the easy way to discover a path is to run down it and then we can run back again! Claire is a joyful, enthusiastic trail runner, and it doesn’t take long to persuade Holly to try something new, and hopefully you’ll get some of that enthusiasm too.

And then we eventually discuss Bake Off and what actually constitutes a flan. We get in a bit of a muddle about summer pudding, bread pudding and bread-and-butter pudding. No haters, please.

Links 

Join us on Patreon for an exclusive podcast

Watch Claire’s fab films on trail running

And you can also buy her brilliant book from the same place

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BIG shout out to join us on Patreon to chat to us on our Podcast LIVE on Wednesday 23rd November at 7pm (GMT), exclusive to patrons on all levels. 

We start with Bake Off, obviously, but the issue here is that Holly hasn’t seen the most recent episode, and so I have to lie to her and tell her that everything is okay and Janush is definitely still in it. She knows now, it’s fine, but I just needed to make sure *you* knew that she knows and I’m not being a bad person for mentioning it here. She’s fine, by the way, although we’re both firmly in denial. Then we’re on to the main meat of the podcast, which is the kit we’re loving right now. We do this every year around this time to give you some ideas of kit that we like in case you might want to circle a few things for your own Christmas lists. So we talk through our favourite tights, tops, bras, shoes, and various other bits and pieces. Please note: this episode is not sponsored by any of these brands, they are genuinely the bits that we have loved running in, working out in, and just slobbing about it.

Links

Ful:ki leggings, the hoody from Thought, the brilliant On Cloudneo, get a pair of Monkey Sox! (Better still, get a FREE pair when you subscribe to Women’s Running), I swear by these pants by Nixibody,  this brilliant top by BAM, the Maaree Solidarity, the Shokz headphones 

The Sweaty Betty Powers, leggings from Salomon, the HOKA Kawana, running tee from Runr, good value headphones from Edifier, holly’s bra from Sportjock 

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This episode is sponsored by Sweaty Betty. In this episode, it’s the morning after I’ve been out-out. I’ve been to see the Scummy Mummies and begin this episode retelling a joke that’s too rude to repeat here. After a long section on hair removal, for which I make no apology, we have a bit of a chat about what we’re up to. And then we decide to go back to the beginning to discuss where we’ve come from and where we’re going. This is a little bit like one of those Insta squares where people go, “ooh I’ve got a million new followers, I should introduce who I am!” – and that’s exactly what it is, without the million followers. We want to properly introduce ourselves and explain how we’ve got to where we’ve got with our running and our lives and how we view sport and our bodies. All of this colours what we want to do next – our goals and ambitions with running, so there are a lot of uncovered secrets and honesty in this episode about how we felt about exercise and all sorts through school, university and beyond. We end with the advice we’d give our younger selves, and how we’ve devised our own life philosophies, which we’re obviously extremely pleased about.

Links

Pre-register for the Women’s Running Podcast Paris Half Marathon (aka Pod Squad Go Mad in Paris) right here. Come join us! We can’t wait!

Join Holly and me this January by taking on RED January – you dn’t have to run every day, you just have to MOVE ever day, and you can print out a lovely calendar to pop on your fridge and tick off as the month goes on.

Please support us on Patreon and you’ll get some lovely patron-only perks, including an exclusive newsletter from me and Holly, and invites to patron-only zoom chats with us too!

Thank you for listening. Email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories, as we’d love to include them. 

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This episode is sponsored by Sweaty Betty. We start off by talking about herbal teas and Hoovers, because that’s the way we are. We then move reluctantly on to running. Holly is planning her first 5K post half marathon, and I have some ideas about keeping her running oar in so to speak. At this point we chat about the Paris Half on March 5th 2023, as this will be her biggest motivator when it comes to winter running. This is big for us as we want you to join us! We’ve partnered with Sports Tours to organise a nice discount and a load of other benefits to try and get as many of you along with us as possible. All you have to do is pre-register for just £50 – that £50 is then fully refundable against the price of the package. Full details of the packages will be released on November 24th, but as a guide package prices start from £219, based on two sharing, without flights (but flights are super cheap at the mo). The package includes accommodation in central Paris, support from expert Sports Tours reps, a shake-down run, a pasta party, and post-event drinks with us featuring – we hope - a live podcast recording! Plus everyone that joins us will receive a limited edition Women’s Running Sports Tours hoody! It’s almost too exciting. Link below!

We also talk about other things we can do to keep our fitness up through the winter. I touch on SAD and depression, so please be aware of that if it’s triggering for you. Full disclosure, I find winter very hard in terms of my mental health, but one thing I found extremely helpful this year was signing up to RED January – having a calendar to tick things off was very grounding, and helped move me through the month. And I truly believe that building new habits in terms of my fitness has prevented injuries and has made me a better runner. I reckon you should all do that with Holly and me, too, and this is a bit easier as it’s free. Sign up below.

We finish with the obvious bake off chat.

Links

This episode is sponsored by the very lovely Sweaty Betty

Pre-register for the Women’s Running Podcast Paris Half Marathon (aka Pod Squad Go Mad in Paris) right here. Come join us! We can’t wait!

Join Holly and me this January by taking on RED January – you dn’t have to run every day, you just have to MOVE ever day, and you can print out a lovely calendar to pop on your fridge and tick off as the month goes on.

Please support us on Patreon and you’ll get some lovely patron-only perks, including an exclusive newsletter from me and Holly, and invites to patron-only zoom chats with us too!

Thank you for listening. Email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories, as we’d love to include them. 

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This episode is sponsored by Wine52, which is thoroughly appropriate. Today’s episode is about one thing, and one thing only – and that’s Holly’s half. Mine too, but mine is nowhere near as important. We start this conversation the day after the Bath Half talking about French school songs and novelty loungewear. But then we’re into the meat of it, with Holly talking through her nerves, her carb strategy and how she felt on the morning of the race. She was really nervous ahead of the day, but she used all the mental strategies that we’ve been talking about over the past few weeks. There’s a lot to talk about in terms of race days throwing curve balls at us – the weather was warm! And that had an impact on our running and our hydration, so there are a lot of learns there, but not least that you have to expect the unexpected. She is so proud of herself, and I am so proud of her. It’s my first race after the London Marathon, and it was actually okay – slightly painful but okay.

It’s also time for our Big Announcement about what we’re going to be doing in March 2023, and we’d like to involve you. I was hoping to share a discount code here, as you’ll hear on the pod, but we’re not quite there yet – next week, we’ll have it for sure, and it’s better than I thought! More details to come. And of *course* we finish up with some intense Bake Off chat.

Links

Claim your three whole, proper sized full bottles of wine from Wine 52, and you just have to pay 8.95 to cover the cost of postage.

Please support us on Patreon and you’ll get some lovely patron-only perks, including an exclusive newsletter from me and Holly, and invites to patron-only zoom chats with us too!

Thank you for listening. Email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories, as we’d love to include them. 

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Welcome to episode 198 of the Women’s Running podcast. I’m your host Esther Newman and she’s your other host Holly Taylor. On this podcast we talk about health, politics, stuff on TV and what we ate last night. Occasionally, we talk about running.

We have a lot to talk about - mostly because we’ve been out to see Janusz from The Great British Bake Off talk about his new cook book, and had a very fun time indeed.

We’re then talking about maintenance running and fitness. Plans are beginning to emerge for a possible marathon in February 2025. Question is: should we both do it?

Then we talk about a few more controversies; namely Joe Wicks’ menopause workout and a bit of a internet talk there. Before we move on to An Incident in my yoga class. It’s all fun and games.

Now, do please come and join us on Patreon – you can get a ton of extra Pod Squad benefits from just £2 a month, including newsletters, Live chats, and you can join our exclusive and very lovely Discord community filled with wonderful runners just like you. All of that and you’ll always be the first to know about trips like New York! Go to patreon.com/womensrunning to find out more.

• This episode is sponsored by Revive Active. You can get 20% off the whole Revive Active range at ReviveActive.com using the code Run20, which you can use right up until 31st July.
• Subscribe to Women’s Running – join us today to save loads, it's only £3.50 an issue!
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• Download a FREE mini mag to help you run 5K! Go to womensrunning.co.uk/run
• Buy a Pod Squad t-shirt!
• Do join us on Patreon so you can come and chat in our new Pod Squad community on Discord! Go to patreon.co.uk/womensrunning
• Email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories

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 Today we have a very special guest in the shape of Charlie Watson, who you might know better as Runner Beans. Charlie was one of the first runners I followed on Instagram many, many years ago, and her enthusiasm and realism when it came to training, goals and nutrition have been fundamental to my own running journey, so we were thrilled to speak to her here. Charlie has had an adventurous journey so far, from aspiring marathon runner, to NHS employee in the face of the pandemic, and she has also very honestly documented her journey to parenthood, of which she touches on at the end of this podcast. To begin with I ask her, now that she’s just completed her 16th marathon, does she still have the fear when she steps on the start line? We also talk about how she got into running in the first place, and how she moved into her new career as an NHS dietition – a sidestep that is in fact entirely linked to her running. Both Holly and I are desperate for advice ahead of Holly’s half marathon, so we quiz her here on training and nutrition, and if there are any shortcuts we can take ahead of our next goals. I think you all know the answer to that one...

Next episode: Holly's half marathon debrief!

Links

This episode is sponsored by Merrell! All podcast listeners can get an exclusive 20% discount off all Merrell Orders over £50 at SportsShoes.com. Just use the code OUTOUT20 at the checkout on any Merrell products.

Sign up to Charlie’s free, monthly Rise & Run from the Westin. 

Both Charlie and I stayed at the Westin London City ahead of the marathon – you can’t get a better location! Check it out if you’re running in April, or just planning a visit to the Big Smoke.]

Follow Charlie on Instagram.

Check out her brilliant book, Cook Eat Run – the best cookbook for runners.

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First things first – I need to give you a big old trigger warning here, as we’re chatting about pregnancy and I also bring up the topic miscarriage. Please stop here, if this chat isn’t for you.

This episode we welcome our third, very beautiful, wheel in the form of Kate, who works with us on Women’s Running and is – SPOILER – up the duff. We wanted to bring her on as she is a personal trainer and a runner and a pregnant person, and we thought it would be wonderful to combine all those things and talk about running and pregnancy.

Kate talks us through her experiences with training and pregnancy through the first and second trimester. Her experiences will not be applicable for everyone – they’re certainly not the same as mine – so I’m not asking her about these as guidance for pregnant people, it’s just what she has experienced and how she has managed her training. As a sensible woman and through her experience working in fitness, it turns out that her saving grace was the trusty Couch to 5K app, which she used when she started running again after her morning sickness had subsided.

I talk about the miscarriages I went through before having children – so if this is triggering for you, do please avoid this episode. I only wanted to bring this up because my experience was that I gave up running and exercise immediately when I got pregnant because of having those miscarriages and wrongly assuming one had something to do with the other, while Kate has continued to exercise and is reaping the rewards from that.

Kate has also some sensible words on eating and pregnancy, and how that it has actually been a refreshing thing for her, to be able to see food as fuel.

Speaking of fuel, we end with Bake Off. Obvs. Oh and we start with conkers. Standard.

Links

This episode is sponsored by Merrell! Use OUTOUT20 at the checkout at SportsShoes.com on any Merrell order over £50 to receive an exclusive 20% off. 

Please support us on Patreon and you can join us for our SECOND Live event on Thursday 20th October for a chat on Zoom!

Get your hands on Women’s Running magazine for half price, and bag yourself a pair of exclusive Monkey Sox running socks! Just enter X22WRP at the checkout.

Thank you for listening. Email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories, as we’d love to include them. 

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This episode is about one thing and one thing only (with a few tangents): the London Marathon! We’re speaking here at 10.30am on a Monday morning, the day after the London Marathon and this is the first chance I’ve had to talk to Holly about it all. There is so much to discuss! We talk about the sleepless night beforehand, the famous people I had pep talks from, and the surprises along the way. The actual running was almost just a secondary part to a day that I’ll remember for the rest of my life. I had specifically downloaded an audiobook purely for its distraction techniques, but as I divulge here, I didn’t listen to any of it (aside from the sexy bits). Instead I was entirely distracted by the experience itself – the sights, the crowds, and managing my running. Please bear with me here: I’m extremely sweary, but emotions are high, and mostly high because I’ve finished it, but also because I loved it. I can’t wait to do it again. And a very big shout out to you, our wonderful podcast crew: I had so many messages of support and so many donations to my sponsorship page, that I felt lifted by all of you. You made me cry, but in a very good way. We also, in this episode, discuss Holly’s latest running adventures. Two weeks out from her half marathon, she’s had a little wobble over the weekend, but I hope I’ve seen her right. Finally, it’s been the third episode of Bake Off and we have had a few thoughts about that, which we have to talk about now that we are the unofficial Bake Off podcast (with a bit of running on the side).

Links

This episode is sponsored by Maaree, makers of the most wonderful running bras in the whole wide world. Fact.

Please support us on Patreon for exclusive weekly newsletters!

Get your hands on Women’s Running magazine for half price, and bag yourself a pair of exclusive Monkey Sox running socks! Just enter X22WRP at the checkout.

Thank you for listening. Email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories, as we’d love to include them. 

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Welcome to episode 111 of the Women’s Running podcast. I’m your host, Esther Newman, and she’s your other host, Holly Taylor. We start this podcast just as you might imagine, with a full debrief of the first episode of Bake Off. Then we’re on to the boring running bits:  we talk about preparing for the long runs, and the psychological tricks our minds play on us.

I am SO proud of Holly, her long runs have been going spectacularly and she’s surprised herself with how brilliant she’s felt during them, and after them, recovering quickly and well. We talk about pace – we still haven’t quite got to grips with this yet! And we remind ourselves to focus on our ‘why’ – which is very different from our goals. My goal is to run all the way round without stopping for any considerable amount of time. But the why is why I’m doing it in the first place – and mostly it’s to prove that I can do it. And in order to do it, that doesn’t have a focus on time, that has a focus on getting to the finish line, no matter what the time is. So I’m going to work really really hard in those first few miles to keep  an eye on my pace and bring it right down, so that I have an easy first half (hopefully an easy first three quarters) so that the last bit isn’t that awful.

We talk about our first ever Podcast Live, taking place this Thursday 29th September, which I just have to get in there. It’s free for patrons, so head over to patreon.com/womensrunning to sign up.

We chat too about the pros and cons of a running coach – and discuss whether they’re for the rest of us and not just for elites. And we talk through a reader email who has some nerves ahead of a race – and we truly empathise with all of that! Next podcast will be recorded the DAY AFTER the London Marathon. Oh em gee, wish me luck!

Links

This episode is sponsored by Maaree, makers of the most wonderful running bras in the whole wide world. Fact.

Please support us on Patreon and you can join us on Thursday 29th September for a chat on Zoom!

Get your hands on Women’s Running magazine for half price, and bag yourself a pair of exclusive Monkey Sox running socks! Just enter X22WRP at the checkout.

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In this episode we welcome back Friend of the Pod, Anna Harding, a woman who has knocked out a number of marathons and ultras. I wanted to get her back to pick her brains about tapering. However, turns out she’s an old hand at the Great North Run, which I’ve just run, so we kick off by talking about that... We talk about the brilliance of the great north run – the crowds, the route, the atmosphere – it was all such an incredible day, and it’s lovely to reminisce.

Then I pick her brains about the taper that we’re in the middle of right now before the London Marathon. Holly is also ramping up her miles towards her half marathon, so we talk about the goals we need to be thinking about on the days of our races, and strategies to keep us sane and moving on those tricky miles. Anna has some fantastic advice on how to tick through the miles, and also some spot on practical advice for these last days before the marathon, with exactly what sort of running and mileage we should be doing in the last two weeks, and what we also need to be doing to give ourselves the best chance on the start line. Two big takeaways here – wash your hands lots to avoid catching any bugs in these last precious days, and get lots of sleep!

At the end of the chat, Anna has some Big News about her next goal race – put it this way, the Loch Ness Marathon is in a week or so, and she’s running it as one of her training long runs. So it’s not that. It’s a teensy bit longer....

Links

Holly and I are doing our first Women’s Running Podcast Live event on Zoom on Thursday 29th September! The small catch is that it’s exclusively for patrons, but the massive upside here is that it’s only 2 quid a month to become one of our patrons. Our Live event is at 7pm on Thursday 29th September, we’d love you to join us. Join us on Patreon, and we’ll send you a link to join us next Thursday. We can’t wait to meet you!

Follow Anna on Instagram.

Do please email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories, as we’d love to include them in a future podcast. 

Get your hands on your first issue of Women’s Running magazine for just £1. Just enter WRSS22POD at the checkout.

Thank you for listening. Email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories, as we’d love to include them. 

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Welcome to episode 109 of the Women’s Running podcast. I’m Esther Newman, your host, and she’s Holly Taylor, your other host. We kick off this week’s episode by talking about corrective eyewear, as you would probably expect. This segment finishes (finally) with Holly explaining how we can all get a “Beers For Life” token from her family. 

We finally get on to running and then chat about distraction techniques on longer runs, which Holly has been using as she’s upping her mileage in her half marathon training. At this point I was still worried about upweighting the Great North Run into a longer run, but that will be all over and done with by the time this comes out, so fingers crossed it all went to plan!

We talk strength training again, as a result of the workout that Holly did this week, which destroyed her slightly. So our main focus here is the dreaded DOMs and how to minimise them, and recover from them.

We also talk about what it’s like to live with people who aren’t as enthusiastic about your running as you are – we’d love to know your thoughts on this. We hope your training and running is going well as we head into Autumn! I personally love Autumn because there’s no danger of me having to wear a vest, so there we have it.

Links:

Find your new favourite bra at Maaree.

Please support us on Patreon and you’ll get some lovely patron-only perks, including an exclusive newsletter from me and Holly! 

Get your hands on your first issue of Women’s Running magazine for just £1. Just enter WRSS22POD at the checkout.

Thank you for listening. Email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories, as we’d love to include them. 

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Welcome to episode 108 of the Women’s Running Podcast. I’m your host Esther Newman, and she’s your other host, Holly Taylor. Holly’s half marathon training is going well, and she’s tentatively enthusiastic about tackling longer distances with her running buddy, and considering potentially a bit of walk running.

We talk here about strength training, and the stuff we can do to support our running, and make everything easier. I talk to Holly about some simple bits of strength training she can do – and all of them are bodyweight (so no equipment required) and she can do them at home. Equally if she fancies a trip to the gym, she could easily do this using weights or machines at the gym to get a bigger session in. The trick here is to simplify strength training – it doesn’t need to be a billion different moves, and it doesn’t need to be complicated. Divvy yourself up into three sections: arms and shoulders, core (stomach, back and hips), and legs. Then think of three exercises – something like press ups, crunches and lunges. Do them 10 times, and repeat three times. And Bob is most firmly your uncle. Running will be, progressively more easy. And after a few weeks you can add in weights, up your reps, change up the exercises, whatever you like – you’ll find LOADS of strength training on our website.

I talk about my worries about running a half (the Great North Run) when I’m supposed to be running  20+ miles in training for the London Marathon, not 13.1, so I’m having to add a few miles on to it before or after. I want to know if anyone is doing something similar in the lead up to the marathon.

We finish up by talking about the dreaded chafe, and in this instance, specifically boob chafe. As Holly says, “you don’t want your tits to ruin your marathon”. Somehow she makes this an issue that she lays firmly at the door of the patriarchy, and who are we to disagree?

Links

Start your running journey or find inspiration for beating your personal best with Forestry England. 

Please support us on Patreon and you’ll get some lovely patron-only perks, including an exclusive newsletter from me and Holly! 

Get your hands on your first issue of Women’s Running magazine for just £1. Just enter WRSS22POD at the checkout.

Thank you for listening. Email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories, as we’d love to include them. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to episode 107 of the Women’s Running podcast. I’m your host, Esther Newman, and she’s your other host, Holly Taylor. So in this episode it’s a bit of a game of two halves – despite our podcast dropping every week as normal, we’ve actually had a bit of a break, it being the summer holidays and all. But while I’ve been not-eating Cornish pasties, Holly has had a very different time of it. As candid as ever, she talks about the swerve in mental health she’s suffered over the past fortnight, and the tools she’s using to help bump her back up again. She also talks about how while she had once used running as one of those tools, this time around it’s been less helpful for her (all that said, we know that generally speaking running can be a brilliant support for our mental health). On my side of things, I’ve been training for the Great North Run in September and the London Marathon in October – I’ve just about kept up with my plan while on holiday, but I’ve found the change in terrain and the second heat wave very challenging. And while ostensibly I’m on track, my mind is spiralling with all the things that *could* go wrong, and also all the reasons why the bad runs were bad, and why the good runs were good, and how all these things are going to affect my races negatively one way or another. Please tell us how your training is going! We also talk about some emails we’ve had in on the back of our chats about heckling, and they’re really shocking. And again, do please let us know if you’ve had experiences like this – I think talking about it like we began to do during our We Will campaign is one of the best things we can do to raise awareness that this happens and how we feel as a result.

Links

This episode is sponsored by SportsShoes! Search London Marathon at sportsshoes.com and use the code WRPOD on all orders over £50 claim 10% off.

Please support us on Patreon and you’ll get some lovely patron-only perks, including an exclusive newsletter from me and Holly! 

Get your hands on your first issue of Women’s Running magazine for just £1. Just enter WRSS22POD at the checkout.

Thank you for listening. Email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories, as we’d love to include them. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to episode 106 of the Women’s Running podcast. I’m your host Esther Newman, and she’s your other host, Holly Taylor. We’re started recording this at 2.30 in the afternoon, but we immediately start talking about cocktails. Turns out we’re nowhere near as sophisticated as we thought we were. After an enormous ramble on the perfect way to mix a Margarita we eventually get on to running. Holly’s in the thick of her half marathon training, and she’s having issues with DOMs (that’s Delayed Onset Muscle soreness to you and me). And so am I! So we talk about that a bit, and how to recover.

We also talk about the kit we’ve been wearing during the heatwave – I’m still firmly in my leggings and want to know what you wear if you also prefer to run covered up. Meanwhile, Hol talks about her adventures in finding the perfect pair of running shorts.

Then we launch into a controversial topic; weight loss and running. We chat about this because of a stupid thing I heard a fitness instructor suggesting about losing weight before beginning to run. We talk about damaging theories about weight and exercise, how we’ve both been affected by it, and how we need to combat crap advice like this and help encourage EVERYONE to run. Listen here – you do NOT need to lose weight to run!

Then we have just enough time to talk about managing parenting, school holidays and running  and we end with a rant about how we divvy up housework, because it seemed relevant at the time.

Links

This episode is sponsored by SportsShoes! SportShoes’ Running Hub is filled with the best expert advice, from training and nutrition, as well as news on the latest kit. They hope to inspire you to run stronger, better and happier – because it’s no fun standing still.

Please support us on Patreon and you’ll get some lovely patron-only perks, including an exclusive weekly newsletter from me and Holly! 

Get your hands on your first issue of Women’s Running magazine for just £1. Just enter WRSS22POD at the checkout.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to episode 105 of the Women’s Running podcast. I’m Esther Newman your host, and she’s Holly Taylor your other host. We’re both in the thick of our training this episode. Holly is a few weeks into her half marathon training, and it’s going well, albeit hampered slightly by the glorious weather we’ve been having. I’ve been holiday running, which has had its ups and downs. We’re both finding the temperature a struggle, and it’s made me question my fitness and whether I’m entirely ready for this marathon at all. We also talk about our brushes with anxiety recently, and how for the first time in my life it seems, running isn’t quite cutting it in terms of helping minimise my catastrophising, but I have a feeling that the dull book I’m listening to at the moment on Audible has something to do with it. We chat though general anxiety and running, and what we’ve been doing to combat the spiralling. We also take a swerve and chat about hydration and how best to keep on top of that in this weather, and when to start running with a hydration pack. Once we’ve got through that, we also have a chat about heckling, and how it can completely derail our running. In between all that it’s the usual nonsense so hold on to your running caps.

Links

Claim your three whole, proper sized full bottles of wine from Wine 52, and you just have to pay 8.95 to cover the cost of postage.

Please support us on Patreon and you’ll get some lovely patron-only perks, including an exclusive newsletter from me and Holly! 

Get your hands on your first issue of Women’s Running magazine for just £1. Just enter WRSS22POD at the checkout.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to episode 197 of the Women’s Running podcast. I’m your host Esther Newman and she’s your other host Holly Taylor. On this podcast we talk about health, politics, stuff on TV and what we ate last night. Occasionally, we talk about running.

There’s a lot of chat that doesn’t touch on running to begin with, as Holly has had another exciting weekend, and I’ve been having some stressed parenting moments, which leads into some general emotional load chat. Please relate to one of us!

Then we finally get on to some running, and we have questions for you as a result – what do you do if you bump into a runner you know when you’re running? Do you stop and chat? Do you offer to run with them? And, do you also feel horribly visible if you’re spotted turning back on an out-and-back route?

Then we have some running controversies – we would LOVE to know your thoughts on two pieces that I read in the Guardian that seemed to be very anti-running, which we explore in detail. Links in the show notes if you’d like to read them.

Now, do please come and join us on Patreon – you can get a ton of extra Pod Squad benefits from just £2 a month, including newsletters, Live chats, and you can join our exclusive and very lovely Discord community filled with wonderful runners just like you. All of that and you’ll always be the first to know about trips like New York! Go to patreon.com/womensrunning to find out more.

• This episode is sponsored by the Coopah run coaching app. For a FREE two-week trial of Coopah, just use the code WOMENSRUNNING2 and fill your running boots.
• From the Guardian: Sam Pyrah’s piece on fitness being a ball and chain
• From the Guardian: Rod Gilchrist’s piece on running addiction
•  Subscribe to Women’s Running – join us today to save loads, it's only £3.50 an issue!
• Setting up your own podcast? Try Zencastr – we’ve been using it for ages and LOVE IT
• Download a FREE mini mag to help you run 5K! Go to womensrunning.co.uk/run
• Buy a Pod Squad t-shirt!
• Do join us on Patreon so you can come and chat in our new Pod Squad community on Discord! Go to patreon.co.uk/womensrunning
• Email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories

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Welcome to episode 104 of the Women’s Running Podcast. I’m your host, Esther Newman, and she’s your other host, Holly Taylor. We start off by catching up after Holly’s holiday. Has she run while in Italy? I am firmly bating my breath, obviously. We then catch up on everything we’ve been doing in the huge heat that we’ve just experienced. I’ve been running as usual, but I’ve made sure to adjust my running to allow for the heat – taking walking breaks up the hills, and drinking way more water, and so far it’s working for me. But of course we have to talk about sweat because that’s a huge issue right now! And never was a sweat wicking top more needed than around me during the summer.

We also talk about sports and schools, nudged into it by an email from a lovely listener. As neither of us had the best experience at school in terms of team sports, this is a hugely emotive subject for us, and I know we won’t be alone. While tons of you will have had enormously positive experiences at school in PE, there are many of us that haven’t – so many of us were picked last, and felt unequal and unable to compete with the best of them. Thankfully, quite a lot has changed in PE since I was at school, but we still need to consider young girls in whom there is a massive drop off in engagement with sport when they hit puberty. Body shaming, self confidence, and simple practicalities all have their part to play. But so do we! We need to be encouraging our girls to enjoy the feeling of participating – not for the end goal of winning something, but for enjoyment itself. Just like we do. At the end we have a bonus section on a new animal that we hate on our running!

Links

Get your hands on your first issue of Women’s Running magazine for just £1. Just enter WRSS22POD at the checkout.

Please support us on Patreon and you’ll get some lovely patron-only perks, including an exclusive newsletter from me and Holly! 

Email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories, as we’d love to include them. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to episode 103 of the Women’s Running podcast. I’m your host Esther Newman, and she’s your other host, Holly Taylor. In this episode of the podcast, we’re talking to the very lovely Sabrina Pace-Humphreys. But before that, Holly and I chat about ultrarunning and the races we’d be keen to take on. Then we chat to Sabrina, who we’ve had on the pod before but wanted to get on again because of three huge things. Firstly, she’s just completed the very brutal Spine Race and we want to find out ALL about it. No spoilers here, although I wil let you into a little quote she says, which is: “The Spine race makes the Marathon des Sables look like a picnic on a summer’s day” and that’s probably all you need to know. Secondly, we want to talk to her about her book, Black Sheep, which has just been published, in which among other things details the racism she experienced as the only black kid in a tiny village in England. Thirdly, we want to talk to her about the event she’s holding on September 11th this year, Black To The Trails, a day that she has created to encourage more black and brown people to run on trails. She’s encouraging everyone to attend if you’re interested in running trails for the first time, and it’s going to be a brilliant celebration of trail running, with lots of music, food and facepainting, as well as guided runs. Then Holly and I come back at the end to do the quiz that we didn’t have enough time to hold for Sab – Holly is in the hotseat and the theme is ultrarunning...

Links

Get your hands on your first issue of Women’s Running magazine for just £1. Just enter WRSS22POD at the checkout.

Please support us on Patreon and you’ll get some lovely patron-only perks, including an exclusive newsletter from me and Holly! 

Thank you for listening. Email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories, as we’d love to include them. 

Join us at Black to the Trails

Pick up Sab’s brilliant book Black Sheep here

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Welcome to episode 102 of the Women’s Running podcast. I am your host, Esther Newman, and she’s your other host, Holly Taylor. We start today chatting nutrition and supplements. I’m a bit of a fan of things that promise the earth, but I also enjoy taking things that I *know* will help me recover quicker and potentially help me to prevent injuries – along with my strength work of course. So that leads us to discuss all things turmeric and collagen.

We also talk about the shoes that we’re running in, which range from everyday road shoes to brand new, interesting stuff that I just learnt from a company I’d met the week before.

We also talk about something a little bit controversial. This is surrounding the news about Eilish McColgan running the London Marathon. We are extremely excited about the news that she’s joining the elites, but what we found interesting were the comments about the news in more male-specific channels

This leads into a bit of a man slag off, which we thoroughly enjoy, but it is not a general observance so sorry to men everywhere (and here). We also chat about swallowing flies and over-reacting. We end on a miniature quiz, and what’s brilliant here is that Holly reckons that more people run the GNR than the entire population of Newcastle.

Links

If you like this podcast, you will love Women’s Running magazine. If you become a member of Women’s Running Plus right now, you can get your hands on your first issue of Women’s Running for just £1! Just enter WRSS22POD at the checkout.

Please support us on Patreon and you’ll get some lovely patron-only perks, including an exclusive newsletter from me and Holly! 

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Welcome to episode 101 of the Women’s Running podcast. We have a special guest with us this episode, Sophie Coldwell, Team GB triathlete and all-round good egg. She’s also going to be a Women’s Running cover star in August. But before we talk to her we have some important things to discuss, such as the many holidays we’re going on this summer. We also talk about the trainers we’re currently running in, the start of my marathon training, and the nutrition that we’re using on our long runs. I’m a big fan of having electrolytes in my water, something I’m trying to persuade Holly to do. If you’re either a salty sweater or a high volume sweater, in weather like we’re seeing this week, it's really important to consider what you take with you on a run. For my long weekend runs at the moment, I have a litre of electrolytes, and I use Precision Hydration’s highest concentration, and I make sure I drink more of it before and after the run as well. I might even pop a salt tablet if it’s very hot. 

Then we shift gears to talk to Sophie about the appeal of triathlon, what it’s like to perform in front of a crowd, and her hopes for the Paris Olympics. You’ll be pleased to know we’ve devised a little quiz for her too, and it involves squirrels.

We come back after that conversation to chat about the stuff we eat, and the weirdness of people who don’t like food very much, and a tiny bit about our actual running.

Links

Sophie is supported by the very brilliant SportsShoes who have the very best running gear

My favourite drinks are from Precision Fuel and Hydration

Holly has been very much enjoying Veloforte

If you like this podcast, you will love Women’s Running magazine. Right now, it’s our summer sale, which means you can get your hands on your first issue of Women’s Running for just £1! Just enter WRSS22POD at the checkout.

Please support us on Patreon and you’ll get some lovely patron-only perks, including an exclusive newsletter from me and Holly! 

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Welcome to the hundredth episode of the award-winning Women’s Running Podcast! It’s our hundredth episode! We are so thrilled, so we’re having a celebration – this is our second plonkcast, and this time it’s thoroughly In Person. In the actual same room! We pop the cork on a rather lovely bottle of English sparkling, and we start off by chatting through our very favourite episodes. We talk about Josie Perry our most favourite psychotherapistwho made us cry in episode 97, the wonderful Scummy Mummies in episode 90, the legendary Paula Radcliffein episode 77, the astonishing Eddie Izzard in episode 23, the brilliant Tasha Thompson in episode 13, and the hugely missed Deb James in Episode 9. 

Rather shortly after this, Holly gets too drunk and tells us all that she loves us, which is nice, but might have something to do with the fact that her champagne flutes are actually buckets, and by this point she’s on her second.

Then we have two fun things for Holly to do: the podcast in numbers followed by a Podcast Quiz, which we would love you to join in with. If you’ve been counting and are able to tell us the exact number of swearwords that Holly has dropped since her first episode, then do please let us know.

Thank you for being wonderful listeners and for joining us on our journey so far. Do please let us know what you’d like to hear more – you can also tell us what you’d like to hear less of, although if that’s less drinking, swearing and stuff that’s not about running, I can’t 100% promise that we’ll comply. Happy hundredth episode to us, and happy running!

LINKS

If you like this podcast, you will love Women’s Running magazine. Get your hands on your first issue for £1 by entering WRSS22POD at the checkout.

Do please email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories. 

For just £2 a month you can become one of our supporters on Patreon, and we’re working hard to add more rewards for you very soon. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to episode 99 of the Women’s Running Podcast. I am your host Esther Newman, and Holly Taylor is the other one. In this episode, Holly and I are talking about the night before. We were out last Tuesday at the BSME Talent Awards, in which we had been shortlisted for two awards. We didn’t win the one for our podcast (boo) but we DID win the Diversity and Inclusion Award. We got very very drunk, and we are giddy with our win here. Especially as I got to meet my Cbeebies hero Dr Ranj who was presenting the awards. Not just meet – hug. We talk about bowl food, and we talk about booze, and we talk about drunken interviews that don’t really go to plan.

After a little while, we start talking about running. I talk about doing accidental tempo runs, and we chat about the companionship of running with people side by side, and being able to talk like that rather than having to make eye contact, and how that can be so much easier in terms of sharing personal stuff. We talk about the first week or so of my marathon training which is going well, despite my massive hangover, and we discuss Holly having to start thinking about her base half marathon training plan. We also have an email from a listener about a fabulous embarrassing moment that involves actual manure.

Please email us with your embarrassing moments and also famous people you might have seen at parkrun at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk. Speaking of famous people, it’s so worth listening in right to the end when Holly tells us about the most famous person she’s ever met. Be prepared to be utterly whelmed. I think, on reflection, we were still drunk.

Links

We’ve won an award!

Marathon training plans

Half marathon training plans

If you like this podcast, you will love Women’s Running magazine. Right now, you can get your hands on your first issue for just £1! Just enter WRSS22POD at the checkout.

Do please email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories. 

For just £2 a month you can become one of our supporters on Patreon, and we’re working hard to add more rewards for you very soon. 

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Welcome to episode 98 of the Women’s Running Podcast. I’m your host Esther Newman and she’s your co-host, that’s Holly Taylor. We recorded this on that super hot Friday a week or so ago, so you’ll have to forgive us for kicking off proceedings by discussing underboob sweat and cold showers. This week we have a special guest on the show, Anna Harding from The Running Channel, who we’ve had on before, along with a very special appearance by Ralphie the interrupting dog. I wanted to get her on again because she has run many, many marathons. I’m kicking off my London Marathon training, Holly’s kicking off her half marathon training, and I suspect a number of you are in the same boat (or at least I hope so!). I’m having collywobbles about my training – I need tips about how to ramp up, and good things to do mid-week, and what I shouldn’t be doing. I wanted to pick Anna’s brains about what she’s learnt in the course of all her training – and what I can learn from her. I ask her about her mistakes, and what a training plan should look like for someone like me. We also talk about half marathon training, and get her practical advice on what we should be doing, how often, and how far. So we’re doing all that, and we have a special treat for her at the end as we invite her on as our very first proper guest on the Women’s Running Quiz! And we’re not going to stop doing this, by the way, until we’ve had actual complaints, and so far you’ve all been very silent on the matter, so we’re going to Quiz Away!

If you like this podcast, you will love Women’s Running magazine. Right now, you can get your hands on your first issue for just £1! Just enter WRSS22POD at the checkout.

Do please email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories. 

For just £2 a month you can become one of our supporters on Patreon, and we’re working hard to add more rewards for you very soon. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Holly and I are delving into the psychology of running and nutrition. We have a special guest with us for much of the episode, Josephine Perry, a sports psychologist who has genuinely blown our tiny minds. Josie got into sports psychology after doing an Ironman, while facing a scary ocean for the swim section. The tannoy shouted out to the assembled athletes: “You guys can’t change those waves, but you can change the way you feel about them” and it switched her brain into gear, gave her a triathlon PB, and motivated a change in career. And it’s lucky for us that she has. We have so many questions for Josie, and she talks to us here about how the brain is connected to our bodies, and she explains the part of the brain, the Amygdala, which is the bit that notifies us about threats. We talk about how this can affect us on the start line of races (a lot, it turns out). And we also talk about sports and exercise addiction, and the unhealthy attachment of sport and food. Holly and I both found this chat extremely revealing, and a little bit emotional if I’m honest. What Josie reveals about the dynamic between exercise, food, and historical unhelpful behaviours and thinking feels like a light switching on. What we need to be doing, it turns out, is discovering what our values are, and making sure we run for those things, rather than as a negative punishment. Sounds obvious – often isn’t. This feels like a really illuminating and important podcast – I hope you enjoy it as much as we did. Please take care here, there are some potentially triggering mentions of eating disorders and sporting addiction.

Links

Do please email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk!

Josie’s book The Ten Pillars of Success

You can get your hands on your first issue of Women’s Running for just £1! Holly and I are VERY excited about this. Just enter WRSS22POD at the checkout. 

For just £2 a month you can become one of our supporters on Patreon, and we’re working hard to add more rewards for you very soon. 

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In this episode Holly and I have a bit of a confession to make, because my Mac crashed halfway through this and we had to re-record what was actually a ludicrously funny half an hour talking about wine drinking. So we hastily recorded another podcast and the first half of this is the result. We start off talking about various skin conditions – and let us know if you can sympathise here. Moving on we chat about afternoon drinking, adapting training plans, and running when we shouldn’t really run. We also talk about running for charity – how it offers us an additional goal but can also give us that additional pressure. And then it’s time for Part 2 of our Esther and Holly quiz. And we are utterly giddy with joy about this, so apologies for our excitement. Holly goes all Paxo on me and is the quizmaster, and is testing my very slack knowledge on everything from running records to running history, and I have to say now, I’m not sure I did very well. Please do the quiz along with me, and let us know who you want us to quiz next on wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk, because this has been my most favourite episode of all time. We also talk a little bit about the next podcast, in which we’re going to be discussing overtraining and sports addiction. 

Links

If you like this podcast, you will love Women’s Running magazine. Right now, it’s our summer sale – hurrah! That means if you become a member of Women’s Running Plus right now, you can get your hands on your first issue of Women’s Running for just £1! Holly and I are VERY excited about this. Just enter WRSS22POD at the checkout. 

For just £2 a month you can become one of our supporters on Patreon, and we’re working hard to add more rewards for you very soon. For the price of a coffee, you’ll join our gang and be first to know. 

Here’s that University Challenge answer that cracks Holly up.

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In this episode Holly and I are talking training plans. Well, first of all, we’re talking about Holly’s very big life decision, of which I will say no more – you’ll just have to listen in to find out more. And *then* we’re talking training plans and running diaries. We talk about how to manage your training and your own expectations when things go slightly off the rails, and we talk about some of the fundamental issues that can affect our running – in this instance, it's sleep. For those of us signed up to an autumn marathon we’re staring the beginning of our training plans in the face – mine starts next week. And Holly’s half marathon training starts just a few weeks further on. Both of us are equally nervous about this – and would love to hear from you if you’re also starting your next training block too. We’re all in this together, right? We talk about how to manage our training plans so that they work around us, rather than being slaves to them, and – just for Holly – I introduce the concept of a reward chart around her training plan, and I’m fully contemplating buying her some gold star stickers to get her started. We also have the pleasure of another embarrassing moment from lovely podder Louise who had an issue with her trousers which again I shall leave you to discover. Oh and there’s yet ANOTHER big revelation from Holly at the end of the podcast – What pleasures await!

Links

Join our lovely Patreon gang!

Then have a look at how dirt cheap it is to become a member of Women’s Running Plus

Run for an hour and we’ll plant 60 trees. 60!

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Welcome to episode 196 of the Women’s Running podcast. I’m your host Esther Newman and she’s your other host Holly Taylor. On this podcast we talk about health, politics, stuff on TV and what we ate last night. Occasionally, we talk about running.

This episode is sponsored by the Coopah run coaching app. For a FREE two-week trial of Coopah, just use the code WOMENSRUNNING2 and fill your running boots.

The sun has finally been out and Holly has been having a joyous weekend, so we talk about all the drunkenness and the singing and the wild swimming that ensued.

 Speaking of drunkenness, we talk about my Eurovision antics, and the hangover I was obliged to run off the following day. A run which included an encounter with one of the dreaded swans. Booze fumes possibly made me brave at this point.

We then move on to YOUR suggestions – covering physio, race ideas, cheap anti-chafe solutions, and mapping apps. This was genuinely amazing – more of these please! Email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any running-related suggestions!

Now, do please come and join us on Patreon – you can get a ton of extra Pod Squad benefits from just £2 a month, including newsletters, Live chats, and you can join our exclusive and very lovely Discord community filled with wonderful runners just like you. All of that and you’ll always be the first to know about trips like New York! Go to patreon.com/womensrunning to find out more.

• This episode is sponsored by the Coopah run coaching app.
• For a FREE two-week trial of Coopah, just use the code WOMENSRUNNING2 and fill your running boots.
•  Subscribe to Women’s Running – join us today to save loads, it's only £3.50 an issue!
• Setting up your own podcast? Try Zencastr – we’ve been using it for ages and LOVE IT
• Download a FREE mini mag to help you run 5K! Go to womensrunning.co.uk/run
• Buy a Pod Squad t-shirt!
• Do join us on Patreon so you can come and chat in our new Pod Squad community on Discord! Go to patreon.co.uk/womensrunning
• Email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories

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This week we have something truly special for you. Firstly, we have a bit of a pooey story to start us off, with which I know we’re truly spoiling you (and it’s not even anything to do with Runner’s Trots), but the main event here is our very first Big Running Quiz. Holly is in the hotseat, while I’m doing my very best quizmaster impression, possibly channelling Anne Robinson. But it’s all for a good reason – running is jam packed with weird lingo and we’re here to demystify with the help of some very silly sound effects and some very rapid googling on my part. Tempo run? We’ve got that covered. Jeffing? That too. We’ve even got a spot of fartlekking in there. Everything you could ever want to know about running, aside from all the stuff you actually really wanted to know, basically. 

We finish on a high with a fabulous embarrassing moment, which is actually a bit of a running annoyance. Do please keep sending these in, along with your embarrassing moments, and the stuff that you listen to on your runs.

Links

Join our lovely Patreon gang!

Then have a look at how dirt cheap it is to become a member of Women’s Running Plus

Run for an hour and we’ll plant 60 trees. 60!

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In this episode, Holly and I begin with a rather burning issue. We’re talking about the dreaded chafe here, and Hol is giving her all in this podcast so we must be supportive, even if her choice of running pants is questionable. We chat through our running, and we’re both on the up in that regard. 

Then, today, we want to talk about the stuff that entertains us while we’re running – in my running career, I’ve moved from music, to radio, to podcasts to audiobooks and I have a LOT of opinions about all of them. Holly seems to have moved in a slightly different direction, but we both utterly love the spoken word, and we chat through some of our favourite things to keep us going during a run. This is the start of something – we would love to hear what you listen to, so we can share that, and so we can selfishly have a few more things to line up on Audible and Spotify. Books, music, podcasts – what does it for you? 

Listen right through to the end because we have what we think is the very best running annoyance so far – a total corker involving parkrun and an MP. I’m saying no more...

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Run for an hour and we’ll plant 60 trees. 60!

Everyone must read Georgia Pritchett’s My Mess Is A Bit Of A Life

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Holly’s favourite podcast, Serial

And my favourite, Adam Buxton

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In this episode Holly and I start by chatting about her very brilliant mug. So it’s all very standard really. Honestly, we go on about it for AGES, so if you want informed running chat you have definitely come to the wrong place. Try that boring podcast over there.  There is a bit of running, I promise, but I’m afraid we then quickly disappear into a little Eurovision love-fest.

But then we have a very special guest – the brilliant Dr Juliet McGrattan, who is a runner AND a doctor, two good things in one. I wanted to talk to her specifically about the perimenopause, and HRT, and running because I’ve been bitten by the Davina bug. I wanted to involve Holly this time cos I wish I’d had this sort of information when I was in my 20s, it’s so important for us to educate our younger girls and women about the menopause in just the same way as we do periods and pregnancy. So we have a lovely in depth convo about symptoms, about running and managing those symptoms, and we talk about HRT – of which I feel very much in the dark and I really wanted to find out more about what it can offer my perimenopausal self. We also talk about what’s great about the menopause, because it’s important to acknowledge that while many of us will have struggles, there are a whole bunch of upsides which Juliet details and which I, for one, intend to embrace wholeheartedly.

Holly and I come back after our meno chat to discuss really important things such as hugely embarrassing moments and whether or not I should do a track half marathon. But more importantly, we have a belter of an embarrassing running story – one that involves a children’s game and A&E. Send us yours please!

 
Tree Hour

Sunday 5th June is Global Environment Day, a day where if you simply sign up through Earth Runs for a 1-hour challenge, to run, walk, cycle or roll for 60 minutes, then for every minute you are moving forward, a tree will be planted for you. Join us to plant as many trees as we can!

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