Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / 350. Your Life's Not On Pause: Tips For Overcoming Injury & Finding Light In Difficult Moments With Content Creator Lydia Keating

Transcript

350. Your Life's Not On Pause: Tips For Overcoming Injury & Finding Light In Difficult Moments With Content Creator Lydia Keating · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Right now you are enough and like you don't have
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: to feel like you're on pause. Right now you can
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: live and it's okay. What's going on? Everyone? Emily A
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: body here.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: You are listening to episode two hundred and fifty of Hurdle,
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: a willness focused podcast where we talk to inspirational people
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: about everything from their highest ties and.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Toughest moments to essential tips on.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: How to live a healthier, happier, more motivated life.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: We all go through our fair share of hurdles.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: My goal through these discussions is to empower you to
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: better navigate yours and move with intention so that you
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: can stride towards your own big potential and of course
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: have some fun along the way.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: You know what's so funny?
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: I say this is episode two fifty of Hurdle, and
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: technically it is it is the numbered two hundred and
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: fiftieth episode of the show, but there are actually eight
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: hundred and thirty one total episodes in the feed, which
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: is insanity if you think about it. I have been
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: doing this for over seven years now, and oh my god,
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: there have been so many learnings and takeaways along the way.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Speaking of learnings and takeaways, I've been debating letting go
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: of the intro. I feel as though it's funny and
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: podcasting just like any other industry, there are waves and trends,
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: and for a long time, I feel as though every
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: show had an intro, and now a lot of people
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: are just jumping right into it. I would love your feedback.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: I'm going to put a poll in the Spotify of
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: this episode. Do you like an intro?
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Do you care? Are you unphased? Hit me up? Give
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: me the lowdown anyway?
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Today episode two fifty talking to Lydia Keating. She's a runner,
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: she's a writer, she's a content creator. You probably follow
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: her on TikTok and I could not be happier to
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: have her in the studio this week talking about something
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: that is very near and dear to my heart, and
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: that is injury. I've dealt with injuries. You've dealt with injuries.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: She's dealt with injuries. I recently wrote an essay that
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: went live on Wondermined about the injury that I experienced
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one which made me defer the London Marathon.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: It was an abdominal strain, we'll call and I was
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: devastated at the time because I had never had to
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: do anything like that. But what we chat about today
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: is that these injuries, although they may be difficult in
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: the moment, really do teach us something and give perspective
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: to life as a whole. Lydia herself navigated a really
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: difficult injury at the top of last year, sacrel stress fracture.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: She talks about how that all unfolded, what it meant
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: for her and her body, and what it's been like
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: on the journey back to recovery now prepping for the
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: London Marathon later this month. We also swap stories about
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: what it's like living and working and training in New York,
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: and Lydia gets really honest about the challenges that went
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: hand in hand with being down and out and how
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: she felt as though for a bit of time there
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: she lost a part of her identity, something that I
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: can definitely definitely relate to. Love this conversation, Appreciate Lydia.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: I think she is hilarious and talented and smart and wonderful.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: And if you are not following this woman yet, go
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: ahead and slam that button. I always put the social
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: links for my guests in the show notes. Speaking of
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: the show notes, also in there, you can find the
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: link to the Daily Hurdle subscriber channel over on Instagram,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: as well as the Weekly Hurdle Substack.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Both of them are great.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: Places to engage with the community, but the substack in
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: particular comes out every Friday and gives you so much
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: of the same inspiration and motivation you love from the show,
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: plus things that I'm loving, reading, wearing, doing, links, et cetera,
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: directly in your inbox every Friday. Again, all of those
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: links to get in on the goodness are in the
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: show notes. With that, let's get to it, let's get it's.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: A hurdling.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Today, I am sitting down with my friend runner, writer,
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: content creator Lydia Keating. How are we doing today, Lydia,
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Hurdle.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Thank you. What an honor to be here. I've been
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: a fan of the pod for a long time. This
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: is such a long time coming.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: We've had We've had public facing conversations at other points,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: but never one that has been recorded for this purpose.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that people are lucky to hear and witness this,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: but I you're you know, it's funny because I saw
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: Jaki Chow the other day and similarly to him, You're
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: someone who I've been like all over the world with
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: with running, and like our paths have crossed in so
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: many random ways, and so I feel very lucky to
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: be sat here in New York talking to you about running.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: We're here in New York, We're here where we belong. Well,
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: I feel so lucky to be here with you too.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: How are you doing really right now?
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: What do you I really? On like a scale of
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: one to ten, I'm probably at a seven. I did
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: candidly just get back from a run that I like
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: just didn't block out enough time for. So I was
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: supposed to do eight and I only did four. But
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: my body felt really good. But you know, I'm in
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: the thick of marathon training where everything in my life
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: kind of revolves around running. Right now, it feels like
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: so a run where I don't hit my goal, even
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: if it's just supposed to be a chill run, feels
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: like disappointing to myself. But I need to kind of
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: move past that because I'm fine. I'm fine, I'm fine.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: What I heard you say, though, is that it felt
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: good despite it not being what it was quote unquote
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: supposed to be.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Yes, that's such a fair analysis. Yeah, exactly.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I know that that can be really tricky though,
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: because you're like, but I didn't do what I.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Was supposed to, and sometimes the smart choice is not
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: to do what you're supposed to, right, But yeah, I mean,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: I'm feeling generally so proud of my body these days,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: which I'm curious, like it's I mean, it's so hard
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: to tell through the internet, but it feels like from
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: watching everything you're putting out online, it's like, I feel
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: like you seem like you're on a roll too. But
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: we both came back, have come back from periods of
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: time where we weren't on rolls. Yes, So I'm just
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: generally I am actually doing really great because I'm feeling
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: proud of my body.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: I love that. I love to hear that. For some
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: context for the hurdlers. Right now, you are training for
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: the London Marathon, and you foreshadowed where we're going in
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: our conversation today. I asked you to come in because
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: I've been really mulling over on what a gift it
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: is to feel like I have full access to my
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: body right now, especially after coming back from a place
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: where I was really navigating a slew of back to
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: back injuries, something that I know that you have a
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: lot of experience with. Whenever I get vocal talking about
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: my past with injury, I get a slew of messages
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: from people that are feeling so alone on their journey,
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: dabbling with whatever it is that they're dabbling with, And
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: so I was like, Yo, let's jam on this.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, It's it's a fine line, like as someone and
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you feel this way as someone
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: who's built a career off of the portrayal of running
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: as super fun online, I feel like I give myself
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: limited space to talk about my injury, to reflect on it,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: but it truly is something that I've been thinking about
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: constantly over the past two years. Last year, obviously I
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: was thinking about it all the time because I was
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: actually injured. And now I keep having a similar thought
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: to the one you just said about just so much
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: reflection of how having full access to my body is
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: such a gift. So when I have an amazing run,
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: paradoxically I'm thinking about my injury because I'm like, I'm
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: thinking about how I'm not injured and how good that feels.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: But I don't want to drone on and on on
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: social media and on my various platforms about the injury
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: because I guess I fear of like I don't I
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: don't want to be a drag, But whenever I do
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: mention it or kind of reflects on it, I do
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: get a slew of messages from people, and a lot
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: of the times I don't know if you've experienced as
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: pregnant women who are like, I'm not injured, but I'm
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: very pregnant right now and the loss of like full
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: access to my body is something that's really hard. And
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: especially recently, I posted kind of like a comeback video
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: where I'm like, this was me a year ago and
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: this is me now, And you know, I had a
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: couple pregnant women be like, this makes me so excited
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: to be back to myself once I give.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Birth, totally and please the things that they go through. Yeah,
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: having that experience rival any comeback story that there is, Yeah, totally.
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: Well, Well, before we get into talking about what your
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: personal experience has been with injury, why don't we provide
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: some context about why it is that running right now
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: is such a big part of your life and what
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: it is that you're doing and focusing on in the
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: day to day.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So I would say running is a big part
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: of my life right now for a couple of reasons. One,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: I have this race coming up, the London Marathon that
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: I was supposed to run in twenty twenty four but
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: had to defer because last year I had a sacrel
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: stress fracture. So that has kind of been this like
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: lighthouse that I has been directing my life over, the
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: London Marathon being the lighthouse that has been directing my
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: light or my life over the past couple years, honestly.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: And then the other reason why running has always been
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: important to me is for mental health reasons. And I
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: know you kind of have spoken about this too, And
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: I read your article about you recovering from that injury
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty one and how the thing that caused
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: your injury, which is running, is also the thing that
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: you use to make yourself feel better, and how confusing
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: that is to be, Like the thing that helped me
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: is now the thing that hurt me. And because of
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: that thing, I don't have access to the thing anymore.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: It's like kind of, you know, confusing. And then I
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: guess the third reason is that it is my job.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: I'm a content creator who focuses a lot on running.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: It's not the only thing I focus on I but
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: I do share a lot of running content, and I
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: would say these days it's eighty percent of the type
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: of content I put out. I go through phases where
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: sometimes it's more food, sometimes it's more I don't know, lifestyle,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: but recently it's really been running. So yeah, the intersection
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: of all those things, my mental health, it being literally
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: my means of income, and then also wanting to candidly
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: pr at the London Marathon is why it is probably
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: the most important thing in my life right now. And
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: so on a day to day level, have a I
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: actually only run. I think I have four runs a week, okay,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: and then two lifts and so one off day, one
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: off day.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, how does it make you feel that running is
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: such a cornerstone in your life today?
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: It makes me feel really proud. I was a college athlete,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: and because I was a college athlete, I was also
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: there for a very serious high school athlete. So just
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: I've been an athlete my whole life, and in my twenties,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: I've gone through phases where being an athlete has been
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: more a muted part of my identity. But I feel
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: really proud right now that running, that I'm such a
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: strong runner, and that I do feel kind of, honestly
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: the fittest I've ever felt as a runner at I
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: just turned thirty, which I know is still so young, okay,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: but that I feel the strongest and fittest I've ever
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: felt at thirty compared to you know, twenty three.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: What do you attribute that to, being the strongest right
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: now in your body at thirty.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Well, it's simplest following a training plan and being inconsistency.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, it really does boil down to that. I
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: started working with a coach shout out ned because I
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: wanted to train for London doing it by the book.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: I had this injury, the sacrel stress fracture that really
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: shook me. It made me question what I thought I
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: knew about my body and what I thought my body
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: needed to prepare for a marathon. And so once I
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: once I was feeling better and I no longer know
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: healed from this injury, I really wanted to work with
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: someone who was an expert and training plans and and
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: you know, preparation for a marathon, and I'm not that, like,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: I'm not a running coach. I've run seven marathons, But
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: like I said, I started to be like, wait, do
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: I actually know how to train for a marathon? Because
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: the injury. The little backstory of it is that it
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: was kind of related to my New York City marathon
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: training in twenty twenty three.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Well, let's dive into the backstory because I think that's
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: really helpful context for getting us to where we want
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: to go next. Yeah, So what was it was that
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: a single event that made you realize something is really
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: going wrong in my body?
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: Was this accumulation of discomfort over time? Yeah? No, it
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: was a single event and it was it was after
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: the New York City marathons. So in twenty twenty three,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: the fall of twenty twenty three, I ran New York.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: It went relatively well. I did not feel like I
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: was in optimal shape, and I knew that. I actually
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: we saw each other in Budapest. Yeah, and we were
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: all you me and OTTA were running all running New
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: York and I like couldn't hang with y'all when you
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: were doing your long run. And that was just a
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: little window into like how my fitness and my preparation
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: was really not there, and I was, you know, to
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: put it bluntly, I was being sloppy about it, and
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: I was getting cocky with it, like I was like,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: I've run marathons before, I'm gonna be fine. This is casual.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: I wasn't going for a time, and that was kind
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: of That's always been my ethos with running, and the
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: way I've shared running on the internet is like this
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: is for fun girls. And you know, I was a
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: college rower and took racing and fitness so seriously, and
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: running was really the way I healed my relationship with
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: working out. So I almost had an aversion to ever
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: taking running seriously and it's all well and good to
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: be chill and fun about running until you're injured. Like
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: there's a level of seriousness that you have to like,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: you know, approach it with to be healthy and to
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: be safe about it. So that's where I kind of
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: like lost the plot a little bit. So I ran
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: New York felt okay all things considered, like considering how
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: poorly I prepared for it, And then about two months
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: later it was actually January one, so New York is
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: early November. In January one, I went for two loops
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: in prospect. I was kind of getting back in the
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: saddle after taking some time off post marathon, and I
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: felt like a dull ache in my lower back. And
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: I've had back issues in the past with like disk
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: stuff related to rowing, but this felt, you know, notably different.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: It was. It was really it wasn't sharp, but it
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: was lingering. I was like, hmm, I'm just gonna I
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: finished the loop. I felt it like half way through
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: the second loop, but I finished, and when I got
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: a sandwich, like, it was still kind of lingering, which
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: was weird to me. Next day, I did a lift
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: because I but I still felt it, and then I
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: eventually I went to a PT because it just wasn't
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: going away, and she had me do She was like,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: does it hurt to put on pants? Because that's like,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: I guess, a kind of an at home hack for
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: what you can tell how you can test. I'm not
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: a physical therapist. If you're listening to this and trying
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: to figure out whether you have a sacle stress fracture,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: go to a doctor or a PT. Yeah, she asked
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: me whether, because I guess if you put all your
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: weight on one leg and you in it really hurts. Yeah.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: That's usually signs of something bony. Yeah, that's how she
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: put it, and I was like really resistant to this.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: I was like, no, no, there's no way. I am like
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: I eat, like I'm not restrictive with my diet because
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: a lot of the times, what I've been told is
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: fractures in your sacrum or your hip. They're different from
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: when a fracture a stress fracture shows up in like
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: maybe your lower leg or something down there, because usually
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: the lower leg stuff is super traceable, Like a stress
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: fressure shows up in your lower leg when you've all
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: of a sudden uped your mileage the week before by
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: like twenty miles, but in the hips in the back. Again,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: this is everything I've been told by medical professionals. But
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: it's like that is stuff that a cruise over time,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: and usually it's related to diet, not getting enough sleep,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: just not taking care of yourself across multiple different you
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: know metrics. Right, So eventually, you know, I had like
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: as someone who's self employed, had to go to war
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: to get an MRI, got the MRI and yeah, oh,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: when the doctor refused to do an MRI of my sacrum,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: she was like, if anything, it's a hip and I
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: was like, well, I feel it in my back and
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: she's like, no, no, if any there's no way it could
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: be in your back. But the MRI happened to the
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: imaging happened to capture my sacrum just like you know,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: by happenstance. And the radiologist was like, nothing in the hip,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: but signs of you know, you could see a stress
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: fracture in her back. So I was told to be
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: totally sedentary, as sedentary as possible, like not even walking
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: for about three months, and then could start incorporating a
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: little bit of very mild like I could get on
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: a stationary bike for twenty minutes, could do some band
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: exercises that was like the strength training I was doing. Yeah,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: so that was another kind of like three ish months
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: of that. I will say my PT is extremely conservative,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: like I probably could have gone through this like maybe
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: a smidge faster, but I wasn't able to start running,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: and by running, I mean thirty minutes or thirty seconds jog,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: four minutes walk that type of running, so barely a
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: run until I believe it was end of May June
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: of twenty twenty, so about six months.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, from diagnosis to getting back to moving in the
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: way that you really wanted to. When you first got
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: that news about the sacral stress fracture, say that five
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: times fast, tough.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: How did it make you feel. I remember it because
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: it was on Valentine's Day. I got the news, So
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: remember the bad run was on January one. I didn't
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: get the diagnosis till Valentine's Day and I got the
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: call from the doctor and she called me personally, and
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: I think because she had in our appointment. She's like, yeah,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: I don't expect anything to show up with this MRI,
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: so as far as it goes like and as I'm concerned,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: you can run whenever you want. So she basically gave
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: me the green light to run. And then I think
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: she saw what the you know, the notes from the radiologist.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: So she called me and she was like, yeah, you
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: don't want to run. There's a stress fracture showed up
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: in the MRI. Doctors. It's kind of frustrating because it's like,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: come on, you can't don't just acknowledge that, like this
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: was exactly the opposite of what you said. But I
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: started I hung up the phone, I said thank you,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: and then I started crying. And I was standing on
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: the street in Williamsburg. And this was because like, quite honestly,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: my heart wasn't the way my heart is in London
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: right now. And if I found out, like, oh my gosh,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: I can't even talk about it without like getting emotional.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: If I found out I had an injury now and
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: couldn't on London like kind of like what you talked
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: about in your article, of all of this work and
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: all of this dedication to this race, like feels lost.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: That's not how I felt when I found out I
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: had a stress fracture last February, because my heart wasn't
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: in London in the way it is this year. But
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: I did feel very worried about my job because I
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: had a year long contract with a running brand and
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: I'm like, what am I supposed to do if I'm
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: supposed to be pumping out running content for this brand
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: and I can't. I can't. I can't even go for
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: a walk. My doctor is telling me be sad. So
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: that was kind of where my That's why my stomach
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: kind of dropped because I was like, oh gosh, what's
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: going to happen to my job, which I know isn't
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: really relatable for listeners, you know, but.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: It's entirely understandable, right because so much of what we
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: do every single day is related to are income and
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: the means that we have to execute.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: Period.
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: Despite it not being something that all the people listening
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: to this can relate to.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: They can relate to this idea that.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: Life was one way until you got that phone call,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: and then it was different for you, at least for
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: the next few months.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: In the aftermath. Yeah, you know, I got the MRI
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: and I but I had been feeling pain for all
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: of January. So even before the phone call, I had
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: stopped running because it was painful. I couldn't run. But
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: this was this was the call that kind of everything
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: was different in terms of my perspective of like what
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: the next several months would look like.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: You bring to light a really important discernment that I
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: address often when people come into my messages, and I'm
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: sure in the intro to this episode I'll reiterate my qualifications,
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: but just to do it again here, I'm a certified
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: personal trader, a certified run coach, I have a Level
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: one precision nutrition cert Those are relevant to the movement
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: side of things. And then I'm also a certified professional coach,
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: which you can liken to a life coach. So when
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: I talk about exercise and activity, I do have at
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: least some sort of a safe foundation for us to
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: have the context of this conversation. Yeah, I say that
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: because oftentimes there are going to be certain injuries, so
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: to speak, that you can have. And I say that
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: with air quotes that are injuries you can exercise through
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: in a safe way while managing your load. Then there
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: are going to be injuries that you experience that pain
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: increases while you are moving. That is always a bad sign.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: And that is something that I will say. And it's
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: so interesting that both of our stories involve the London Marathon.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: When I went through my deferring of the marathon and
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: the injury that made me put it off for a
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: year back in twenty twenty one, I could not run
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: without pain. And it wasn't something that I thought to myself, Okay,
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: I'm going to get to a place where I can
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: grin and bear it and just see what happens. It
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: was like, No, when I run, it hurts more. And
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: I know that moving for life is my major goal
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: here and I cannot do something that's going to put
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: that in jeopardy for a long period of time, right, Yeah,
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: So I really appreciate what you said. You were like, Okay,
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: I noticed that this hurt when I moved. That's your
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: body saying please don't do this to me. Yeah, No
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: matter how hard it is to listen to that, it
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: is saying it for a reason.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Period.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So knowing that you were feeling, albeit not the
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: same way as if you were to get this news
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: right now, but frustrated and scared considering that this impacted
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: your livelihood, Yeah, how did you segue from that victim
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: mindset to getting to a place where you were a
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: little bit more willing to accept your circumstance.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: For me, my relationship with running and fitness and it,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: to be fair, has shifted since the injury, but I
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: have always felt like, gosh, so I hate that I
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: have the type of brain that needs this like daily
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: pump of endorphins to operate normally. Like I'm like, it
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: must be so nice for someone to just move about
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: the world without having to like need exercise. I you know,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: I think probably everyone could benefit from exercise, whether they
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: have a normal But I've been very open about like,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: you know, some of my struggles with mental health, and
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: I just am someone who needs that, you know, pump
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: of endorphins from movement every day or at least six
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: days a week. Yeah. So when I got this news
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: that I literally was not allowed to pursue any type
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: of movement that could give me that regular pump, it
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: was kind of like, Okay, this pressure I put on
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: myself to take care of myself in that specific way
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: every day aka movement is no longer an option. So
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: now I have all this time freed up. And at
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: the time, I was working on a novel, which I'm
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: no longer working on. But I was like, let me
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: try and dedicate this all of a sudden, big app
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: of free time I'll have every day working on creative
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: projects that always feel like they take not the fully
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: the back burner, but the middle burner, because for me,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: end of the day, priority will always be get the
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: workout in. Yeah. I think that was a little bit
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: naive of me to think, like, Okay, here's the shift,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Like I can't work out, I'm going to now dedicate
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: all of that to creative time because the end of
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: the day, it's true that not working out sometimes made
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: me less creative, less productive, because I did go into
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: a bit of a gray slump. But I think the
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: story of telling myself, hey, now, don't view it as
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: like you can't do this, view it as all this
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: time has opened up for you was a helpful thing
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: I kept returning to, even if in practice it wasn't
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: quite as simple as that.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: If that makes sense, Yeah, but even getting to a
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: place where you can at least attempt to adopt that
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: mindset is something that takes.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Many a lot of time.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right, So to at least recommend that to you yourself,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: to be negotiating with that inner voice and say, okay,
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: maybe you're not fully on board with the idea that
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: this is happening for me, but I know that I
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: can make the best of this time.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: I think that's really impressive. Yeah, well, thank you, I mean.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: And also I think the finding developing a new routine
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: to fit into the new parameters of my lifestyle was helpful.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: So I would go to a coffee shop that was
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: very close walking distance, so you know, barely a walk,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: and that's where I would try and get some writing
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: done in the morning. And it was like a place
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: to go a reason to get out of the house.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: Like those little hacks helped me a bit through the
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: healing process. Yeah.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: I like the idea of setting up some sort of
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: a new schedule or a new routine for yourself. And again,
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: you have to get to a place where you're willing
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: to let go of the things that you can't control.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: And that doesn't mean that there's not going to be
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: feelings that's around that, yeah, frustration, anger, et cetera. But
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: understanding that holding on and harboring those feelings isn't doing
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: anything for you.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: I found that that.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: Was the first step to me personally moving forward. It
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: also is important to feel those feelings as well. Yeah, right,
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: you have to go through the period of mourning. You
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: have to go through the period of allowing yourself to
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: experience that disappointment you don't work hard at something for
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: it not to go as you'd hoped. Yeah, and knowing
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: that movement is such an integral piece to your everyday puzzle.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: There's going to be sadness that comes with being told
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: that you can't do what you want to do.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: There was another part of it that and I think
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: this is like really coming from like toxic college athletics
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: where like, even though I had an MRI that was like,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: you know, show had the imaging of a stress fracture
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: and you know it was irrefutable, I still felt like
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: I had to like almost perform disappoint Like I was
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: so truly disappointed, but then I felt like I had
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: to perform the disappointment a little bit almost. I think
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: probably because I'm like, my career is so public facing,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: and I think that a big part of the healing
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: journey was like letting go of that a little bit, like, oh,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: I'm allowed to be happy and like, even though this
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: is disappointing, if you know, and this doesn't have I
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: don't have to view my current self like last year.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: The current injured self is like the version of lydia
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: that can't be the best version of lydia. I can
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: still be the best version of lydia with what I
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: have now and with like what I'm capable of now.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: It reminds me of that all it takes is all
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: you've got, But what you have on different days is
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: going to be different, just like what you have in
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: different seasons to offer is going to be different, and
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: you're in a different space. As we talk about the
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: marathon this month, and you were at this time last year,
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: and I mean obviously at the beginning of twenty twenty
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: four when you experienced that injury. Yeah, talk to me
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: about the comeback for you. You mentioned that about five
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: and a half six months later after that January one,
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: what is going on here? You were finally experimenting with
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: some walk running. I know that you told me that
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: your ideal split is about four days running two days lifting.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So at first, what did that come back look like?
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Throughout pretty much all of the summer, I was doing
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: very very light running. By by the end of the summer,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: by like August, I could comfortably go on a three
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: mile run and I had that kind of confidence in
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: my body back then, I was like, Okay, I can
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: do this. And then come September, I wanted to start
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: following a sort of training plan. But this is where
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: I was having that kind of like insecure moment of like,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: what does the training plan even like look like? You know,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: I thought I knew what it looked like to to
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: get fitter, but now I'm worried if I make the
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: wrong move, you know, I'm back at square one. Yeah,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: So that's when I reached out to Ned and asked,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: like I you know, he was very he was privy
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: to my situation because I had tried to work with
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: him at the beginning of twenty twenty four when the
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: injury started and we couldn't do any work together. So
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: he crafted a training plan that was super super light,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: but it was just something to get me back into
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: the rhythm of you know, following a plan, having a
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: schedule that like slowly and incrementally is subtly getting you
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: know a little bit you know, bigger and bigger and bigger. Yeah.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: And it's it's crazy to look back on like September
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: to now because I every week maybe got like one
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: mile longer, like really really minor, and now I'm you know,
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: running like this week will be a fifty mile week
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: for me, which for I know, people run much bigger weeks,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: but that's a for me, that's a lot of mileage,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: a lot of mileage. Lie. Yeah, yeah, And I didn't
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: like that's been such a subtle change. And it really
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: is a lesson in how if you want to see
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: big changes in yourself, you just make small, small changes
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: every day, every week, and that it adds up and
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: I I feel so different, and I like look different,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: and I can like, you know, I've been getting so
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: many people have been giving me like this doesn't sound
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: like I'm shooting my own horn, but just like compliments
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: of like, oh, you look so healthy, and it doesn't
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: feel like they're like commenting on my body in like
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: a gross toxic way, but like I think that I
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: just feel like I've transformed. But it's been a transformation
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: that has been like you know, many many months.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: You know what's interesting on the you look so healthy note.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: I think that when you get to a place where
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: you feel really good and confident and strong in your body,
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: it radiates in so many bigger ways than just your physicality.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: And so your look is bigger than your actual like
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: definition of the word look. It's the way that you present,
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: the way that you show up, the way that you
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: are now engaging with your audience. They can see this
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: excitement within you. Yeah, and I think that's really contagious
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: and really beautiful thing. And I really love what you
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: touched on talking about the buildup of this training plan
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: rate knowing that you didn't want to add on too
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: much too soon, which can be a really big faux
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: paus coming back from injury. Conventionally, the wisdom is that
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: adding no more than ten percent overall each week. So
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: if we put that into context, if you're someone who
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: is going out and running a five k once a
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: week and you want to suddenly increase your mileage, then okay,
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: ten percent of a five k is zero point three
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: one miles. So now you're only running at most three
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: point five the next week and then maybe almost four
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: the week after that, right, And it takes time, especially
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: when you're starting from zero.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Ten percent of zero isn't a lot. Yeah, Yeah, so
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: you have to.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: Slowly incrementally build. And it sounds like that that's something
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: that worked really well for you. Yeah, worked super well.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: And I mean I also want to just like mention
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: something that I kind of from earlier, where part of
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: the injury and being injured is like accepting this, this
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: is what you have right now, and your body is
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: healing and you're gonna look and you're gonna feel different.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: And I feel like letting go of expectations of what
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: I should look like and what I should feel like
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: was a huge part of that recovery process and it
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: has allowed me to go into this training block, which
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: has now been you know, many months long without any
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: of those shoulds, because I feel very just like we're
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: kind of exploring what's ahead.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: Taking a break from today's episode to talk to you
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: about the newest sponsor to join the Hurdle portfolio, and
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: that is Lagoon. The secret to performing your best every
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: day is optimal sleep, and the easiest way to optimize
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: your sleep is with a Lagoon pillow that is perfect
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: for you. Listen, it is no secret that I am
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: all about my sleep. It is extremely rare that I'm
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: not getting at least eight hours a night. But what
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: I am now dialed into is getting the best quality sleep.
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: It's not just about the amount of time that you
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: spend in bed, but the quality of that time. And
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: when you think about how to up that quality, your
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: pillow can make a major difference. This is the thing
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: that you lay your head on for eight hours a night,
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: and if it's not exactly right for you, it can
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: lead to endless tossing and turning, or worse, waking up
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: with that super annoying kink in your neck every morning.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: I have been there. I know that you have been there.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: Let me tell you that cank no longer a thing
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: now that I'm sleeping.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: On Lagoon pillows.
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: With Lagoon, you can dive into a deep, restorative sleep
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: with their two minute quiz that unearths your perfect pillow.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: I myself am an otter, if you know you know,
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: and some of the benefits that I've experienced since I
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: swapped out my pillows. I have more restorative sleep, so
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: I wear an or ring, and I see that the
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: amount of deep sleep and rem sleep that I am getting,
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: both of those numbers have improved, something that I have
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: been working on for years. I refuse to get off
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: of my soapbox on this sleep is the most important
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: way to recover. It is a gift that you can
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: give yourself, especially if you're putting in that hard work
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: during the day. You owe it to yourself to get
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: the best possible shut eye at night, and I am
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: doing that with the help of Lagoon. Waking up to
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: my morning routine has never felt better. You have got
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: to try this. Head on over to lagoonsleep dot com.
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: That's l A g o O N s l e
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: e p dot com slash hurdle and take their awesome
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: two minute sleep quiz to find your pillow. Match Today,
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: you can use the code Hurdle at checkout for fifteen
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: percent off of your first purchase. Again that website lagoonsleep
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: dot comlash Hurdle use the code Hurdle at checkout for
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: fifteen percent off your first purchase today. While we are
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: talking about things that have made me feel better in
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: my body, the right amount of hydration and electrolytes is
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: an entire game changer, and that is where Element comes in.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: Element is an electrolyte drink mix and sparkling water with
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: everything you need and nothing you don't. It's got the
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: perfect electrolyte ratio to optimize your hydration without any of
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: the sugar, artificial colors, or other dodgy ingredients. Right now,
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: my morning Shagar bottle is the cornerstone of my morning routine.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: Hydration always important, but as I was preparing for this
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: weekend's cherry blossom ten miler, there was not a day
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: that I wasn't making sure diligent with my electrolyte routine.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: Get in on the Element game today. I'm a big
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: fan of their orange and watermelon flavors. Also, oh my god,
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: it is grapefruit season spring. You took a little longer
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: to get here than I wanted. I forgive you head
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: on over to drink element dot com slash hurdle. That's
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: drink l m nt dot com slash hurdle to get
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: a free sample pack of all of my favorites with
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: your purchase today. Again that link for you special to
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: Hurdle listeners. Drink l mnt dot com slash hurdle to
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: get a free sample pack with your purchase today. You
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: talked about the concern that you had with getting injured
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: and impacting the way that you work, the content that
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: you created.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: What happened with that? Yeah, I was a little bit
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: candidly in between a rock and a hard place because
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: I did have certain like deliverables I had to continue
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: delivering on with specifically Running brand that I love, and
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: they were very very understanding. Let me make that clear,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: Like they were not like no one was mad at
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: me for being injured. If anything, I was the most
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: mad at myself. But I still had to make Running
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: related content, so I kind of got creative with it.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you feel this way as someone
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: who puts themselves online in this like realm of fitness,
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: but sometimes you just don't want to put your body
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: on the internet. And I think as I was, you know,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: feeling less and less confident in my body. And I
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: know this is like contradicting what I was just saying
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: about like acceptance, but hey, you can accept and still
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: some days wake up and be like, I really just
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: don't want to put a video of myself doing my
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: physical therapy online right now because I know I don't
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: look the way I did a year ago or something
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: like that. So that was something I really struggled with
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: where I didn't want to put my body online. And
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: even though I the type of content I could realistically
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: make was like in re recovery content, which is still
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: like running adjacent, even though I wasn't actively running, I
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: had like an apprehension to to to do any sort
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: of fitness content because I wasn't feeling I wasn't feeling
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: fit and I wasn't feeling like an athlete. But I did, like,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: for example, I went to Eugene Ore again for Olympic trials,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: and that was more like making content about what Olympic
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: trials are and hyping up you know, professional track, which
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: luckily has nothing to do with me and my body,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: you know, so there was like there are ways to
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: make content around running that had like where I don't
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: have to stand in a front in a spandex in
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: a sports bra in front of my phone, you know,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: talking about this, that and the other. So yeah, there
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: are either's just there were little creative ways. Sometimes I
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: kind of had to fudget a little bit. And like
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: if there was a shoe that came out that you know,
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: they wanted content around. Like once I got to a
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: point in my injury where I could take a couple
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: jogging step, like where I was doing the thirty seconds
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: of jogging four minutes of walking, and I had to
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: make running content. I would make content as if I
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: was on a run. And I don't know if this
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: sounds misleading, but I had to highlight the shoe and
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: so yeah, I wasn't going on a three mile run straight,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: but I was going on a walk run where I
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: did a little.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: I think that that's also so relatable though, right, we
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: talked so often about this concept that perfection isn't relatable,
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: vulnerability is relatable. And so although I hate to hear
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: that there were moments that you felt uncomfortable in your body,
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: that is the human experience. There were points during my
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: injury come back that I not only didn't want to
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: show up on camera in my body, I didn't want
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: to show up anywhere in my body. I stopped going
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: to certain things because I didn't want to have my
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: photo taken in put somewhere that I didn't have any
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: control over.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: Totally. I felt so.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: Dialed in to controlling the controllable, and there was so
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: much that felt like was bigger than me, and so
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: by being strict on my boundaries, it at least made
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: me feel like I had the upper hand somewhere.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's so fair. I think if I
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: could go back and like tell injured Lydia any advice,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: it would be like your life and who you are
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: is not on pause right now, Like I think sometimes
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: I fell into that mental trap of like, Okay, I'm
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: I'm healing, I'm in my healing era, and this is
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: just going to be a blip in like the if
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: my life is a continuous line, it's just going to
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: be this little gap and then life continues. And that's
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: not true. Right Like life was going I was living
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: like those are days in my life, and I wish
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: I hadn't kind of felt like I was almost like
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: hibernating and I was gonna come out of this like,
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: you know, a beautiful butterfly, which o ky I do
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: kind of feel like a beautiful butterfly now, but like
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: I was, I wish I could go back and tell
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: injured Lydia like you are, like right now, you are enough,
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: and like you don't have to feel like you're on
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: pause right now. You can live and it's okay, entirely relate.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: And it also speaks back to what we were talking
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: about about how you told yourself like there are other
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: things that I can do right now, but there is
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: still some level of frustration and like, but these creative
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: things don't excite me as much as this other thing
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: that I really want to be doing. When you can
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: get to a place where you do some of the
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: work and have a little bit of grace with yourself
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: and understand that although it's not what you want, it
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: can be happening for you, it's a really beautiful place
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: to be, but it's not an easy one to get to, period.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: And so I believe that we have these opportunities that
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: are disguised as hurdles to teach us who it is
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: that we are foundationally at our core and then help
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: us progress through the challenging moments as they arise as
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: we continue on. Right, So I can say wholeheartedly that
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: between the abdomen injury that I sustain that made me
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: forego the twenty twenty one London Marathon, and then the
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: years of dealing with nagging planter fasciitis, I have so
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: much of a better grip on reality and what these
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: setbacks do for me. Now as I move forward and
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: I go through challenging moments, I think I survived all
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: the challenging moments that got me up to this point,
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: and I can survive the ones that are up ahead
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: of my path.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that's beautiful, And like how it just has
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: made you this resilient person to your point though and
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: to your resiliency, it has done that for you, and
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: it also instills in you eventually a sense of confidence,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: feeling like this beautiful butterfly.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: Because, as you said, you were talking about the good
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: runs and the bad runs, and on both of them
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: you think about the injury.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah right, Yeah, you go back to.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: This place reflecting on the experience that you had, and
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: it's a period or it's an experience that's rooted in gratitude.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: It's not an experience rooted in fear. But you only
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: get to appreciate it from a gratitude perspective once you
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: put in the work to understand that this thing happened
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: so that you could be where you are right now.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And I think, like, obviously it's possible to
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: be grateful for Like if anyone's listening who's never been injured,
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: I truly believe that, Like you can go for a
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: run and practice gratitude and feel that gratitude deeply without
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: having had this history of being deprived of running. But
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: I do think that going through a period of time
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: where you couldn't run does make that gratitude almost instinctual,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: Like what I talk about, like when I'm on my
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: long runs, like I'm not actively being like be grateful Lydia.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: It just comes so naturally because I know how Lydia,
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: only you know, three hundred days ago, would have just
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: killed to be where I am now. So it basically
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: makes that gratitude more effortless.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you a wild statistic. Between thirty
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: seven and fifty six percent of runner's experience and injury annually. Wow,
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: I know that's how I reacted when I first read
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: this statistic. I'll cite this and i'll cite it in
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: the show notes, so you can check out this paper.
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: But it really shed some light on how so many
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: of us feel that when it happens, you are so alone.
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: And I'll covey out this by saying that there is
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: a wide spectrum of running injuries. So a running injury
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: could be something like plant fasciitis, or it could be
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: a sacral stress fracture, right Like, there's a very wide
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: spectrum of what runners can navigate. But there are so
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: many people that are either running through something or working
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: with something. And so for anyone who's listening to this
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: who has gone through a period where they have felt,
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: as we have felt super alone. Super Like everyone gets
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: to do this and I don't get to do this.
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: Know that you're not alone. I understand that it's kind
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: of part of the process. I feel like, especially as
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: we get older, now there's so much more that I
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: have to be cognizant of that I didn't necessarily need
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: to think about when I was in my twenties.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, now i'd be curious to know, when you are.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: Doing this work, you have your four days a week
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: of running, your two days a week of strength training.
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: What else is a part of the routines that you
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: can make sure that you're taking care of you in
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: your body and doing what you can to negate injury.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: Moving forward, Yeah, I have gotten very serious about my sleep.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: I think I look back on, you know, the period
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: of time that led up to the injury, and I
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: think one of the factors really was not getting enough sleep,
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: and kind of it was coming from this place of
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: wanting to be hyper productive. And so even if I
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: was going to bed at midnight, still setting my alarm
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: for you know, six, because I was like, oh, I
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: got to get up. And I've always had this tension.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: This is a bit of a tangent, but I've always
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: had this tension of my most creative hours are from
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: like six am to eleven am. But those are also
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: the hours when I have my most focused workouts. So like,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: what do I prioritize the creativity or the working out?
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: And I was like, well, if I get up early enough,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: I could do both, you know, I could get the
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: workout in and the creative time and the result of
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: that was sacrificing my sleep. So that's something I'm prioritizing
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: a lot. I always have had a pretty balanced and
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: diverse diet, but I think I just think about it
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: a little more like if I'm hungry for a snack
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, I could have cheese or an apple,
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: I feel like I often reach for the cheese now
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: because I'm like, I'm going to getting that calcium. I
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: really think just the consistency, like, never in my life
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: will I do the BS thing that I was doing
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: at the time of Oh, I missed four of my runs,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: but I'm just gonna like do a fifteen mile er
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: this weekend because this is where I should be on
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: the marathon training plan, even though I haven't done any
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: of the income mental build up to that letting.
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: Go of should Yeah, how did your community receive I know,
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: we doubling back to what you were saying about creating
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: content in a different way and then that slow onboard
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: back to where things were before you got injured. How
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: did the community receive your injury and how did that
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: ultimately impact you as a content creator?
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: I when I like formally announced it, I would say
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: I got so many dms about people also in the
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: middle of injuries, people who had recovered from injuries. So
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: I remember that day where I like I cause I
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: kind of kept it under wraps for a little bit
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: because I wasn't really sure how I wanted to present this,
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: Like did I want to hide it? Which wasn't the
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: right move, but like, you know, that did cross my mind.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: Do I just like kind of pretend to all as
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: well and not mention this. So I got an influx
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: of people, you know, sharing their issues with injury, and
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: and that's all great because there's a bonding period. And
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: I I did end up writing an article for Off magazine,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: which is on publication about injury, and part of that
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: I interviewed some people in my community who were going
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: through injury, and that was a nice way of like
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: actually connecting with people in my community. But end of
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: the day that was only like three girls. And so
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: I do think that there were chapters to it. Like
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: the initial announcement, I felt like not alone at all.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, my gosh, hundreds of people are
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: experiencing it's not a sacred stress fracture, but they're experiencing
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: this injury and they feel isolated too. And then a
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: couple of days go by, and then a couple of
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: weeks go by, and ultimately it did impact my content
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: in a way that like I wasn't. I clearly wasn't
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: super happy, and I really have a hard time presenting
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: as happy on the internet when I'm actually not. And
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: so I think I mean not to be like talking
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: engagements or stuff. But I do think over like last year,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: my engagement was low because I wasn't. I think people
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: follow me maybe to feel inspired to run to to
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: maybe get them at the door. I know for me,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: I have creators who when I'm not feeling motivated, I
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: go to their Instagram and I watch a couple of
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: their running videos. I'm like, Okay, let's go, let's run.
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: And maybe I was that for some people, and so
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: I clearly stopped being that, and so it was it
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: was not a great year in terms of how my
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: content did.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: Either, someone comes to your page and maybe that is
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: what they see, someone that is getting out the door,
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: that is running, that is bringing color to their experience.
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: But when you look in the mirror, Lydia, what is
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: it that you see looking at you now or then
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: whatever you want now?
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: I do see like someone who I'm such a positive
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: feedback loop girl. So this is like partly why seeing
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: like the games actually manifest as like faster times feeling
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: strong that like when I see that, I'm further motivated.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: So right now I feel I'm in the middle of
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: this positive feedback loop. And so when I look in
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: the mirror, I do see someone who inspires me and
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: someone I'm proud of, but that's not a constant, Like
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: I don't always feel that way about myself. How did
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: you feel when you were in the thick of the injury.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: I definitely struggle with like not speaking kindly to myself,
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: so I felt I definitely felt a fear like this
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: is the thing about injury. I also think you feel
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: like this when you're sick, when you're hungover. You're like,
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: I'm never not going to feel this way, Like it's
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: so hard to fathom not being in this low or
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: less than state. So I think when I looked in
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: the mirror, I had troubles imagining a version of myself
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: that could ever be fully healthy again and ever be
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: like an athlete again.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: What does success look like for you right now? And
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: I ask this multifaceted Yeah, I want to know what
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: success looks like for you right now in the context
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: of your career, and how it feels like for you
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: in the context of your career, and then I want
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: to talk about what success looks like for you when
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: we get to the London Marathon finish line. So let's
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: start about it in the context of your career.
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: Emily, that's a great question. I've been thinking a lot
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: about it myself. I think for me, success looks like
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: being able to take care of myself. I don't need
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: to be like rich rich, but just being able to
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: take care of myself and feel like financially safe. I
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: think that's like one pillar of what success looks like
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: for me. I also think it looks like fine figuring
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: out a way to blend my two passions, which really
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: are running and writing and and oh gosh, it's like
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: the most cringe buzzy word but in storytelling, you know.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: And I have some ideas for how I am. Yeah,
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: there's some ideas that are percolating that I'm really excited
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: about kind of embarking on in the next couple months.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: But whether that be writing a collection of essays that
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: are kind of in this template of the races I've
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: run or my running journey over my twenties, I'm not sure,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: but finding a blend of those two, yeah, that's what
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: success looks like. And then also feeling deeply connected to
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: a community, and whether that be a community of runners
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: or a community of who knows, but I think just
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: feeling like I belong that also is what success looks like.
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: And helping people in a way and any any way
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: I can. But figuring out, like exactly where are my
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: strong suits? And helping people.
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: I really resonate with wanting to feel like you are
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: doing good. I really resonate with wanting to be involved
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: in community. I'll never forget the one time that I
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: read something negative about myself on the Internet and then
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: I never went looking for it, and again, good for
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: the comment was I can't believe that Emily Body actually
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: thinks that she's helping people.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: Oh my god.
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: And I know that the right people that are in
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: my community, that keep coming back to Hurdle, that keep
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: coming back to my little corner of the Internet, they're
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: here because they leave that regardless of your platform, we
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: each have the opportunity to help one another. And so
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: that is something that really resonates within the context and
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: through lines of your story as well, because I think
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: about the struggles that you had coming back from injury
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: and not feeling like your brightest, shiniest, most confident self.
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: But even that Lydia, the one that you now can
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: say in retrospect, had so much value just as she was.
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: Even that Lydia could help so many people, and so
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: I think about that. But yes, I really resonate with
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: your through lines of community and wanted to do good
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: in this world. And I love how you speak so
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: beautifully about how it is that you want to feel
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: when we think about success. I also really resonate with
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: some semblance of financial freedom. I think that that as
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: like a big come and through lining goal for so
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: many when we think about success in terms of the
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: London Marathon, how do you want to feel?
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: I want to feel out of breath. I want to
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: feel ideally like not, you know, pain free and you
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: know the nuance of what you're talking about. I know
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: I'm going to be in pain because I'm going to
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: go for it, but I'm not like as in not
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: the type of pain where you know it's the alarms
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: going off like this, I shouldn't be feeling this ideally, Like,
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: on a pragmatic level, I want to feel like I
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: finished stronger than I started. I love that. I don't
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: want to fly and die, and I want to feel proud.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: But I know I will feel proud crossing that finish line,
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: whether I meet my goal or whether I fly or die,
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: Like I know I'll feel proud.
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: I think that's something else that injury has really instilled
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: in me is having such a grand appreciation for the journey.
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: I do hard things like sign up for these silly
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: little reasons because of the journey to get to the race.
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: Injury reminded me of the opportunity that's within the journey,
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: because if I just wanted to show up to a race,
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: I could show up to a race, but then I'd
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: probably end up with a sacrel stress fracture. If I'm
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: not training for the race, you.
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: Would actually can't confirm confirmed, probably won't work out well.
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: So there is just something so beautiful and something that
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: you clearly mesh with, vibe with, understand in the process
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: and what it does holistically for the rest of my life.
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: And that is why I continue to show up. Yeah,
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: I love what you said. About like, you sign up
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: for these races not because the race itself will be hard,
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: but because the journey getting there and like committing to
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: being able to fully show up, that will be the
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: hard part. And I think about this so much with
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: how many people sign up for spring races, and what
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: that really means in practice is like just getting through
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: the dog days of.
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: Winter, the dog days. I was running through the wind
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: this morning. Oh my girl. It was the first time,
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: honestly in a long time that I was like in
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: the middle of a rap and I thought to myself, like.
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: What if it's like this on Sunday? Just keep going?
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: And then I was like, this is awful. Yeah, this
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: is awful.
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: But all these awful moments, all these difficult moments, all
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: of the moments that remind you that you're human, they
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: happen for you so that you can keep doing the
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: hard ones as they come.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, totally.
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm so happy that we were able to wrap
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: about this a bit. I know what's on the horizon
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: for you after this? What's your next pick goal?
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: After London? My goal is to get super strong and
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: yoked through the summer and the fall, and then dream, dream,
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: dream race would be Tokyo in twenty twenty six. I
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: love that for you, and I hope to like approach
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: it with a similar like super consistent running schedule, but
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: like coming from the base of muscle that I plan
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: to build over the summer. In this fall, I hope
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: like I'll even see, you know, bigger strides. Yeah, I'm
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: kind of on honestly, like this, I'm feeling motivated by numbers,
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: which has never been an experience I've had with running.
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: So as long as that's still bringing me joy, I'm
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: going to keep doing that until and if it gets stressful,
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: then I'm just going to go back to having fun
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: but in a safe way.
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: A complete random side tangent before I let you go,
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: But I have to ask you about this as you
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: sit here with me. When did you know with content
• 57:19
  Speaker 2: creation that it was enough for you to do it
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: full time?
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: Gosh, that's a good question. So I started doing content
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: when I was living at my parents' house, so I
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: was living rent free but making content money for like
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: a year and a half. I probably wouldn't have been
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: able to live in my own apartment in New York
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: for that first year and a half where I was
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: making money from content, but not enough probably to sustain myself.
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: But I was saving a ton. It was probably like
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: two years into the content career where like the consistency
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: of brand offers was coming in enough. But I'm now
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: at a phase where I'm like, I need to diversify
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: my income sources because I don't want to be I
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: don't want to be relying on offers only to sustain myself,
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: Like I need to have also weighs like more reliable
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: ways because the market, you know, we're with the new administration.
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: You never know what's going to happen with what these
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: brands are willing to spend, and I don't want to
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: be at the whim of brands only totally understandable.
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so was the looming TikTok band something that
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: like really hammered that in for you.
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: Actually, I was kind of feeling a big sigh of
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: relief with the TikTok ban, even though it's the platform
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: where I have like one point something million followers, and
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: it's it is the platform where I got my start.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: I fundamentally believe TikTok and I experienced this as like
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: a user that it's not good for the collective. Yeah,
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: I think it like does something to our brains that
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: these other apps don't quite do. I mean, like you
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: can fully get in a doom scroll on Instagram, but
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: it's different. So for me, it was a relief of like,
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: I think this is better for everyone. If I take
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: a financial hit, I'll find a way okay, like all
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: will be well. And then when it freaking came back,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: I was like what, I was like, waite a minute,
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: but I it's so funny.
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: I don't think any other creator with one point something
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: million followers.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: Is like, well I can be kind of be okay
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: without TikTok. Well, my engagement's pretty low on TikTok. So
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: there was another like selfish part of a relief of like, okay,
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: well I can just kind of finally part ways with
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: that and in a way like it's no longer going
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: to be a stress of like oh why or why
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: aren't my tiktoks performing as they used to? So there
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: was another part of me was like just one last
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: less platform to worry about in an era where I'm
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: like do I do YouTube shorts? Do I do this?
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: Do I do that? I'm like just focus on one yeah. Wow.
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: So many intricacies that go with being an online content creator.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: Seriously, I don't know if anyone cares about them, but
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: it's fun to talk to you with someone who gets
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: it well.
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: I think it's I think it's just so impressive to
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: see what it is that you've built. It's so interesting
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: always to hear different perspectives on what's working, what's not working,
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: How someone even with a following of your size, can
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: be like, my engagement isn't popping off like it used to. Uh,
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: And I do believe that it is three these moments
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: where we have opened and honest conversations like this. Again,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: perfection isn't relatable, vulnerability is relatable, and there are people
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: that are striving to do what it is that you
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: do on your quote unquote bad days, right, and so
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 2: to have a voice and to be someone that people
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: can look to as this relatable figure, I think it's
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: such a great opportunity and it's so impressive what you've
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: built for yourself.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: Thanks, Emily. I feel so blessed to be having a
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: conversation with you about it.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, my girl, before I let you go, Yes, right now,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: you have an opportunity to offer yourself a piece of
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: Advice on February fourteenth, twenty twenty four.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: Knowing what you know now, I would tell her, you're
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: going to need to rest for the next couple months,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: and that's okay, And there will be some days where
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: it's harder, and there will be some days where maybe
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: you're a little relieved that you get to rest, but
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: you will get through this and you will come out
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: the other end stronger.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: So just be patient, Just be patient. Lydia, where do
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: they find you on the platforms?
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: Give us your info? Okay, well, after I just shot
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: on my TikTok, don't follow me there, but it is
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: Lydia L one two one. My Instagram is where I
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: am most you know, putting out most of my content,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: and that's lydia LU one two. My substack is lydia keating,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: and then the substack is called daddy storlax I don't
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: know why and yeah, and then my YouTube is lydia
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: keating and all.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: Of this will be linked in the show notes. I'm
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: over at Emily a Body and at Hurdle Podcast Another
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: Hurdle Conquered. Catch you guys next time.