Spring Favorites

These past few months I’ve been ... 

Enjoying

• Reading these novels:

  • Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline: What if your husband went missing and a year later you find him as a revival-tent preacher and he has no idea who you are? 

  • Eden Mine by S.M. Hulse: What if you wake up and find out your brother is not who you thought he was? 

  • The Midnight Library by Matt Haig: What if you could experience all the other lives you *almost* lived, if you had made different choices in your past? 

• TV: 

  • Heartstopper on Netflix: The sweetest high school love story you’ve ever seen  

  • Hacks on HBO: The baddest comedian bitches you’ve ever seen  

• Music: 

  • Cusp by Alela Diane

  • Keep It Together by Guster 

  • Hamilton because it will never get old 

• Podcasts

  • I haven’t been listening to too many podcasts recently, but I have been enjoying making one! Check out Don’t Talk To Me Unless It’s About This - the podcast of my musical, literary, and topical obsessions. 

  • Mind Over Miles is temporarily on hold, but if you haven’t listened to the first round of interviews I released with some incredible mother runners, check them out here! 

Growing & Being 

• I find myself toeing the line between always wanting to learn and grow as a person, and letting myself just be who I am. My beloved life coach Darla helps me find that balance, her thing is all about “befriending your brain.” We don’t need to fight against ourselves, but we can befriend ourselves in the process of personal growth. Darla is a rock in my life and I’m excited to share that she has (a) written a book (!!) and (b) is hosting small coaching groups, so if you or anyone you know has ever wanted to dabble in life coaching, personal growth work, or any kind of therapy-esque journey, check this out! 

Eating

• Smoky Beans and Greens Tacos with Aji Verde

• S’mores Bars

• Crispy Baked Chicken   

Moving

• It’s summer which means it’s open water swimming season! If you’re in Portland, The River Huggers puts on a great group swim and can teach you everything you need to know about open water swimming. 

• I’ve been trying to look at the seasons of the year more in relation to my running. I’m realizing I like having an early spring goal so that I *lovingly* force myself to run through the rainy winter, and the summer is actually a good time of year for less running, because there’s so much else I want to do - hike, swim, SUP, bike, etc. It’s healthy to have variety throughout the year, so I’d encourage you to think of the seasonality of your running! 

What’s going on at Tend Athletics

• I love the clients I get to work with, they are always learning and growing so much as runners and humans. You are all so cool! If you want to be notified when I have new coaching spots open, you can sign up for my waitlist here. 

Pedestals

I’ve been thinking a lot about pedestals.

In one of my favorite books, Conversations with Friends, the main character’s best friend says to her, “You think everyone you like is special.” Well I too think everyone I like is special. I hold my friends and loved ones in high regard, and if you’re a celebrity and I don’t know you I hold you in even higher regard! Thinking highly of people is, in part, what it means to love them, but that’s not all there is to it.

When I put someone up on a pedestal, that means I exist below the pedestal, on the dusky, unkempt dirt floor. I look up at my pedestal people and think, “Wow, they’re so amazing.” And then I think, “I could never do what they do. I could never be as good as them.”

In the running world, who do I hold up on pedestals? There’s my friends who are faster and stronger than me, and then there are pro runners like Lauren Fleshman, who I admire for her multi-hyphenate creativity, as she is also a writer, a podcaster, and an advocate in women’s sports. I admire Makenna Myler because she always seems to be having fun in both running and parenting, and she does cool things like PR in a charity mile while wearing jeans.

Holding these people up on pedestals does them a disservice by assuming everything is easy for them, and it does me a disservice by telling myself things are supposed to be easy, and if they’re not, something’s wrong with me.

What’s worse, sometimes I am the one up on the pedestal, looking down on others with my chest puffing out, showing off all my superiority.

So I’m thinking I should just get rid of the pedestals altogether. If we all came down to the dirt floor, and spruced it up a little, I’d just be looking around at a bunch of other humans. I wouldn’t be more or less capable, more or less prone to error, more or less interesting than anyone else.

I’m reminded of a phrase I heard in a guided meditation, “I am just as worthy as anyone else.” I’m not less worthy than others, and I’m also not more. What would it mean to value the ordinary, in myself, and in others?

Mental Training for Runners: free workshop in Portland!

Intuition, courage, patience, confidence, humility, curiosity, contentment … We run to grow within, but these mental skills are much harder to develop than strong glutes. So how can you train your mind like you train your body?

In this free workshop, you'll learn how you can start training your mind like you train your body. We will go through a few mental practices together and you'll leave with more ways to keep training mentally on your own.

Thank you to Team Red Lizard and Bridgetown Physical Therapy for co-hosting this event with me!

Please RSVP here! We’d like to know how many people to expect.

Wednesday June 15, 6:30pm

Bridgetown Physical Therapy 1500 SW 1st Ave #150

Masks optional

Free

My April Favorites

This month I’ve been ... 

Enjoying

• Music:

  • It’s About Damn Time by Lizzo 

  • Best Behaviour by Chelsea Jade 

  • Lola by Maude Latour

  • Free by Florence + The Machine

  • Playing all songs by Sufjan Stevens on shuffle - great as background music and actual listening 

• Making another podcast! This one’s all about my literary, musical, and topical obsessions, and it’s called “Don’t Talk To Me Unless It’s About This”

• I was obsessed with Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens and I think that was the fastest I’ve ever read a book 

• I reread Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney and it was just as thought provoking the second time around 

• This episode of “We Can Do Hard Things” that was technically about the enneagram, but in actuality was a mind-opening look at the difference between treating people how you want to be treated VS treating people how they want to be treated 

• Two self exploration resources:

  • Ceremony Space by April Jay - A free community for people interested in a range of healing and reflective practices like seasonal ceremonies, creative workshops, guided meditations, and more 

  • The Befriend Your Brain workbook and group coaching programs by Darla Millstein - both of which start with the premise that you don’t need to be fixed

• The Oregon Tulip Festival in Woodburn:

Eating

• Chicken, Leek, and Rice Soup - simple and delicious 

• Carrots with Labneh - I haven’t actually made this and it frankly looks pretty involved, but I had it at a restaurant recently and it was so delicious! I’m going to try one of these (one) (two) recipes. 

• I’m in a bit of a cooking slump, so if you’ve got any favorite recipes to share, please send them to me! I’ll share any out in the next monthly wrap up newsletter. 

Moving

• I have 3 more weeks until I run the Smith Rock Ascent 25K, which is the race I’ve been training for since the fall. My goal is to purely enjoy it. I’ve been very flexible in my training this month to adjust for travel or working out with friends/family who’ve been visiting, and it feels good to not hold too rigidly to a schedule. I’m taking a few days off of running right now because my foot’s been hurting. I’m nervous about that and at the same time telling myself what I tell my clients all the time - It pays off to be conservative early on with aches/pains, and try to find some joy in the variety of cross training in the meantime! 

What’s new at Tend Athletics 

• If there’s one thing I want you to know about it’s ​The Runner’s Mastermind. I’m really excited about this small group mental training program that I’ll be running throughout the year, with the first cohort starting in June. The mental side of running is where all the interesting stuff happens!

• ​You can find one of my Mental Training Plans for sale on Final Surge: use code TENDATH25 for 25% off 

• I wrote this article for The Trail Sisters blog and this is the first time I’ve had my writing shared on another site so that feels exciting for me! 

• The Mind Over Miles Podcast:

  • Alisa Harvey: It’s All Just An Experiment. Lessons from a Masters Runner with multiple World Records! 

  • Makenna Myler: Who Do I Want to Be When I’m Struggling? (my most listened to episode!) 

  • Claire Maxted: The Give and Take of Adventures and Business As a New Mom 

Using the Buddha for Evil

(I recently published this story where I ask myself the question, “Does being present mean I don’ t have any desires?” It’s on the Trail Sisters blog and I’d love for you to read it!)

I have this joke with my therapist that I use the Buddha for evil, against myself. I know very little about actual Buddhism, but, like your average idiot, I like to try out life lessons and mindsets I don’t totally understand, like the ever popular, “be present.”

The Buddha (says wise ol’ me) is present. He is untainted by frustration or discomfort, and he truly enjoys every moment, regardless of any shit storm raining down. 

When the Buddha wakes up with a pain in his foot, the foot that’s been so injured in the past and has finally been feeling good, he isn’t bothered. He’d breathe and say, “It’s fine, I am present, I accept all things, I flow.” 

Warming Up In Life

Last week I spent three days by myself in Astoria, Oregon. But this isn’t a story about how magical my little solo retreat was and how omg you just have to go have some “me time.” 

There’s a pattern to my solo travels: I’ll be really excited to go, and I’ll have a great time on the drive out listening to music or podcasts and enjoying the scenery - moving from city to farmland to rolling hills to coastal mountains to river towns all the way to the salty cool air of the coast.

And then that first day I always end up feeling off. I feel lonely, I question if I should have brought someone with me, I feel unsafe and nervous sleeping alone in an unknown place. I get anxious that I’m not spending my time the “right” way. Am I relaxing enough? Too much? Should I get some work done? Am I planning out my days too much? Not enough? Is it a waste of time to watch 3 episodes of Inventing Anna and go to bed late? Should I set an alarm? It would be a shame to sleep the day away! 

By the second day, I’m settling in and enjoying my time alone. The thoughts of doing vacation “the right” way still linger. I allow myself to have ideas for the day without planning out every hour of it. By day three, I can’t believe it’s over and I’m wishing for another day or two. 

I realized the transition period I feel the first day is like warming up for my runs. I usually run in the morning, and the night before I’m always looking forward to it. But in the early hours of the morning, I’m often wishing I was sleeping and not doing bridges and squats on my carpet as I look outside at the dark, rainy morning. As I take those first creaky run steps, I may still be questioning my choices - the amount of layers I wore, the music I did or did not pick to play, the route I have in mind. And yet somehow, it all comes together and even if the run doesn’t feel great, I am always happy and grateful I did it. 

I follow a set routine of exercises for my running warmups, and this has gotten me thinking - where in my life could I create intentional warmup routines like I have for running? When I travel solo, is there something I could do to help me embrace the warm up period? My body needs to get its blood flowing and for the muscles in my glutes, shoulders, and core to start firing before a run. What do my mind and body need to warm up for time spent alone in new places? 

I don’t know what it will be, but for my next solo trip I’m going to test out some kind of warm up activity. Thankfully not all warmups require squats. 

Claire Maxted: The Give and Take of Adventures and Business as a New Mom

Claire Maxted is the woman behind Wild Ginger Running, a UK based running platform that helps trail and ultra runners get advice and inspiration via weekly films and podcasts. She is also the author of “The Ultimate Trail Running Handbook,” and the host of an annual training camp in the Peak District of England.

We talked about the challenges of running your own business as a mother and sharing parenting duties, and her experience staying adventurous with a baby in some ways, and having to drastically alter her life in other ways.

This interview was done as research for the book I’m writing about the mental lessons learned and practiced in running and motherhood. I’m sharing these recordings so you can come along in this book writing process with me!

Learn more about the book, my running and mindset coaching, and The Runner's Mastermind here.

Original music by Joseba Brit.

Are my only options good or bad?

A client of mine recently tallied up the minutes she spends on all the “extra stuff” she does to support her running - strength, PT, warm ups and cool downs, rolling out and stretching at other times of day, yoga, etc - and she compared this to the number of minutes she spends actually running. 

I wanted to see how these numbers compared for me, and on average I spend about 3 1/2 hours each week on the “extra stuff” and a little over 4 hours running. 

For both of us, it takes almost equal amounts of the extra stuff to support our running. One way to see this, and frankly my default view on this, is: It’s so frustrating that I can't just run! Why do I have to do all this other stuff?! It didn’t used to be this hard.   

Another viewpoint I could try, the more positive one, is: I do all this stuff so I get to run. How cool that these funky little warm up drills and me doing squats in my living room allows me to run. 

A third viewpoint, what I’ll call the neutral one, is This is how it is. It doesn’t need to be a drag or to be exciting, this is just how running works. 

When I’m looking at something I feel negatively about, it often feels phony and unattainable to just Have a good attitude! Look on the bright side! That’s when I like to try out a neutral view, because not everything has to feel good or be something I really love doing. Some things just are. 

If I didn’t do all the extra stuff like my PT, I could probably run more with all the extra time I’d have, but I know that would only last so long before I would get injured. Compared to an injury, a few extra miles this week does not sound even mildly desirable. I mean really, how much of my time do I need to spend running anyways? 

#Goals

(Credit: Kaamran Hafeez/The New Yorker Collection/The Cartoon Bank) 

I really enjoy following along on other people’s business and creative  journeys (like Nicole Antoinette and Chloe Benjamin), and I want to do the same and share more “behind the scenes” of my own work. So today ... a look inside my recent quarterly goal review. 

I use The Full Focus Planner to set annual, quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily goals (sensing Russian nesting dolls anyone?), and if that sounds excessive and obsessive, it probably is. And I love it. 

I met all of my Q1 goals, which of course was very satisfying, and it also made me wonder if perhaps I need to set some bigger “reach” goals. 

1. Finished website updates  

2. Posting on Instagram at least twice a week 

3. Released the Mind Over Miles podcast with weekly episodes 

4. Sent out this weekly email newsletter

5. Created a mental training freebie 

6. Created mental training plans for sale on Final Surge 

For Q2, my goals are: 

1. Running Coaching Goals:

   1. Fill at least two cohorts of The Runner’s Mastermind 

   2. Host 5 meetups or events with running clubs in Portland or for the general public 

   3. Reach goal - I want to write about mental training for Altra! I love their shoes and athletes, and this is a brand I’d love to work with.  

2. Writing Goals:

   1. I took most of Q1 off of working on my book on running and motherhood, and now I’m back with a commitment to do at least 2 hours of work on the book each week. It feels daunting to have such a blank slate, and I’m working on starting even when I don’t feel ready. I listened to this Magic Lessons podcast (Ep. 209)  this morning and holy wow, it had every piece of creativity advice I ever need to hear in it. This will be something I regularly re-listen to as I work on this book! 

   2. In support of my growth as a writer, I’d also like to do morning journaling three times/week, a half hour of research reading once/week, to keep writing this weekly email, to publish one article/quarter on Trail Sisters (I have my first one coming out later this month!), and to keep putting out the Mind Over Miles podcast. 

3. Habit Goals:

   1. I am trying to bring more excitement and pride to everything I do. It can be all too easy for me to get bogged down in feeling like I’m not doing enough or “this is never going to work,” and those thoughts are bullshit! I know when I do certain things - check social media and email less often, and not until later in the day, use pomodoro timers for focus, take walk breaks - that I absolutely feel more focused and excited about my life. 

4. Running Goals:

   1. Surprisingly, I don’t really think of running goals much these days! I’m doing two 25Ks this spring: The Smith Rock Ascent and The Timberline Half Marathon (both with friends!), and my goal is to enjoy them at any pace, and to keep taking care of myself so I can stay running consistently.

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Makenna Myler: Who Do I Want To Be When I'm Struggling?

Makenna Myler is a professional distance runner for Asics who has lived all over the world, now trains in Utah, and she qualified for her first Olympic Trials after becoming a mother. We talk about being coachable, having tough conversations with teammates to create a healthy competitive culture, your circle of control, training in tune with your hormones, and our shared love of ridiculous holiday cards.

This interview was done as research for the book I’m writing about the mental lessons learned and practiced in running and motherhood. I’m sharing these recordings so you can come along in this book writing process with me!

Learn more about the book, my running and mindset coaching, and The Runner's Mastermind here.

Original music by Joseba Brit.