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Running Towards Joy with Stephanie Case · Mind Over Mountain

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Hi, everyone, This is Cheryl strad Welcome to mind over Mountain,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: where I have conversations with women about the epic and
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: interesting things they've done in their lives and their sport.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: My guest today is ultra trail runner and human rights
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: attorney Stephanie Case. She's run some of the toughest races
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: in the world over some of the most challenging terrain.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: I talked to her about how she endures over those long,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: hard miles, about her journey to motherhood, and also about
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: her unexpected viral moment. Let's get into my conversation with Stephanie.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Stephanie Case, Welcome to mind over Mountain.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: to chat today.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm so excited to talk to you too.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: I just think, obviously you have done so many things,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: You're such an inspiration to so many of us. But
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: really right off the bat, but I want to tell
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: you how you first came to my tension. And I
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: think I'm not alone in this. I think a lot
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: of people You went viral last year, didn't you through
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: the very mundane universal act of breastfeeding?
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Yes, how else do I put it?
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: Your boobs your boobs. That's what people are obsessed with boobs.
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: I no one was more surprised than I was when
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: it happened. Out of all of the weird and crazy
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: things I've done in my life. I was like, this
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: is what goes viral. But you know, I ran with it. Literally.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Well, it was a really cool thing, and so maybe
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: we should back up and explain to our listeners what
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: the heck we're talking about if they don't know. So
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: last year May you were competing in the Ultra Trail
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Snowdonia in northern Wales, right correct, one hundred race through
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: all kinds of wilderness and difficult terrain and all of that.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: And along the way at those rest stops, we're all
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: the other competitors just fed themselves and drank water and
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: maybe had a tiny rest.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: You were breastfeeding your six month old daughter.
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: Correct, Yet, at races like this, there are various checkpoints
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: throughout the course, and you were allowed to receive assistance
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: at the twenty kilometer and the eighty kilometer checkpoint. But
• 2:20
  Speaker 4: I knew that that period in between those sixty k
• 2:23
  Speaker 4: were going to be way too long for me to
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: go without feeding my daughter. I hadn't been able to
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: wean her yet, and so I asked for a special
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: permission to be able to not receive aid, but to
• 2:35
  Speaker 4: be able to give aid at the fifty kilometer checkpoint
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: as well. And this was my first race coming back,
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: not just after pregnancy, but after going through a few
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: years of a pretty difficult journey with miscarriages, pregnancy loss,
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: infertility IVF. So it was a pretty big day for me.
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: And this photo that went viral was a photo of
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: me up at one of the checkpoints, bastfating my daughter
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: while I'm trying to shove a piece of watermelon into
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: my mouth. And it was probably the most normal, mundane
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: thing for me in the race, because it was just
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: a part of my day, you know. It was the
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: way that I had trained, It was something I did
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: every day with my daughter. I just happened to be
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: running at the same time. So when it went viral,
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: it was a real moment for me to kind of
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: sit with that and try to figure out why. I'd
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: be interested to know your thoughts as well. But I
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: think for me, the reason why it went so viral
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: is because it showed me pursuing my passions, you know,
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: doing something that some people would think was extreme, but
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: it was just so deeply a.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Part of me and my identity.
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: And while I was quite clearly being a mum and
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: doing all of the things that moms do, and those
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: two things were not own as being in conflict.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: And I think it for a lot of.
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: Women, it gave them permission to be able to know
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: that it's okay to do the things that you love,
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: the things that make you feel happy and whole, and
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: you don't have to give up your dreams.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: And big ambitions when you become a mom. But it went.
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: Viral for I think positive and negative reasons. There was
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: a big cohort of people that.
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: Said, oh, this is great, this is super inspirational, and
• 4:31
  Speaker 5: then there was this subset of people, and it was
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: both women and men, who saw that as being selfish,
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: as being irresponsible, that I was being reckless, and I
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: even had to clarify with some people.
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  Speaker 4: That I was not carrying my daughter through one hundred
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: kilometers through the Welsh countryside while women. But it was
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: interesting for me that, you know, even in twenty twenty five,
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: we still have these ingrained notions about what new moms
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  Speaker 4: look like, what they should be doing, and this baked
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  Speaker 4: in belief that we have to give everything up and
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  Speaker 4: we are only a quote unquote good mom if we
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  Speaker 4: sit at home, take care of our baby and kind
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  Speaker 4: of reject or ignore anything that we need to do
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  Speaker 4: for ourselves to make us feel healthy and happy.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: There are a lot of women I know who just
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: sort of do it all. And they do it all.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: You know that in some ways that extraordinary work of
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: women and work of mothering is actually the most ordinary
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: work of all. And I felt like that that viral
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: moment is what was captured in your achievement.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: That's so interesting.
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  Speaker 4: I think you're right there where Yes I was in
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: a race setting, but you could have swapped out the
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: background and given me different clothes and I would have
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: looked like ninety nine percent of all of the moms
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  Speaker 4: in their kitchens or in their living rooms or you
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: know wherever. Just multitasking. That's all I was doing, was multitasking.
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: And that is something that I think every mom knows.
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: You know, you're not You're never doing just one one
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  Speaker 4: day have so I know, I'm like, wouldn't it be amazing?
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Is it? Like that would be maybe a great mother's day,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: Like you just get to do one thing on this day,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: like you're not you have to keep track. But I
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: feel like i'd have to have something sucked out of
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: my brain, you know, because as I said to my
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: husband one time, you know, he does all the grocery shopping,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: and then he'll always feel like, you know, it's like here,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: you know, we need to make a list.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: We need to make a list. And and I.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Shouldn't say he does all of it. He does like
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: ninety percent of it. But the ten percent of the
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: time that I do the grocery shopping, I never need
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: a list because, as I said to him, I am
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: the list. I'm like a walking, talking list. And yes
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: I remember, so like it's not totally you know, a
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: gender thing. It's an astrological thing too, But.
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: The amount of things that we constantly keep up in
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: our brain and it's it's not even you know, imagine
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: if we had a chance to do just one thing.
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: Imagine if we had a chance to do just one
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: thing and be present doing that, just one thing. Because
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: whatever I'm doing, I'm already thinking about the next thing.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: I'm already jumping ahead. And so our brains have this.
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: Ability to carry maybe not the most officially.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I definitely have a bit of mom.
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: Brain, but we have disability to carry so many different
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: things at the same time, but also across time, time zones,
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: different time periods, And yeah, I think that that's what
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: that's what makes moms so amazing, but also why we
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: need to give ourselves some legal room and a bit
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: of permission to mess up sometimes. And that is something
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: that I also got out of this viral experience.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: It's the amount of pressure that moms are under.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: And yet, I mean, I'm totally with you, like this
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: idea that we have to sort of celebrate mothers of
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: all sorts and all the different choices they make. And
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: yet you right away, I mean it sounds to me
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: like postpart of me were like, I want to get
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: back to this thing that I love and that I'm
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: good at, and that is running a long way over
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: a very difficult terrain. What was driving that? Why did
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: you decide to train for the Ultranodonia so soon after
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: becoming a mother and what was that experience?
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: Like it's always since I discovered it, you know, ultra
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: running specifically over it was about twenty years ago. Now
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: it has become just such a big part of who
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: I am, how I relate to the world, how I
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: deal with stress, and I would structure my whole year
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: around my race calendar, and you know, weddings, funerals, important
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: life events. Everything would be subordinate to the running and
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: the training. It was more than just a sport for me.
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: And then when I found out I was pregnant. It
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: was right after i'd come second place in this one
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: hundred mile race in Colorado, and I just flung back
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: to the Middle East, where my job was, and I
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: was floored. I didn't think it was still possible for
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: me to get pregnant, and I didn't realize how much
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: I wanted it until I was faced with that moment.
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  Speaker 4: And you know, it's fine if you're forty and you
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: don't really feel the need to become a mother, but
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: if you suddenly realize you want to become a mother
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: at forty, it's a lot. And I unfortunately when you yeah,
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: I was forty and I was so excited, but but
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: I miscarried.
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  Speaker 2: And suddenly that old life.
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: That I had just wasn't enough and I felt that
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: whole and I was just desperate to get pregnant again.
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  Speaker 2: And that is an.
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: Awful place to be in and friends and acquaintances and
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: work colleagues and just well meaning people. They wanted to help,
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: but they wanted to find a reason for why this
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: had happened, and they immediately latched onto the running.
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  Speaker 2: And there's no research to say that there's that kind
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: of a link. But you know, we live in a.
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: We live in a world where the amount of studies
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: that are done on women and the amount of studies
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: that are done on women running at this kind of
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  Speaker 4: a level and these kind of distances is minimal.
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  Speaker 2: It's getting better, but it's minimal.
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  Speaker 4: And so doctors, public, even you know me, we tend
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: to revert to the kind of most conservative idea. And
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: so even this tiny little doubt of whether it was
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: running had potentially contributed to the loss just made me
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: completely look at running differently again.
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  Speaker 2: Every time I went.
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: To go lace up my shoes, I thought, oh, is
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: this the thing that that has prevented me from becoming
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: a mom? And so it just changed my relationship with
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: running for the next few years.
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  Speaker 2: As I got.
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  Speaker 4: Pregnant again, miscarried again, and the second time, because I
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: had pulled back from running, people said, oh, do you
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: think it's the stress of your job, right, and my
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: job was the other thing that was so core to
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: my identity, and I thought, oh my god, I can't
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: have anything now. And so when I finally got through
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: this experience where two miscarriages, three rounds of IVF, I
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: finally had a successful pregnancy and my daughter Pepper came
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: out into the world, I thought, now we are getting
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: back to what we love and what we know that
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: we can do, and that's running. And so I had
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: so much motivation. It was just to be able to
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: move and feel like I feel like me again.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: When you went into the Ultrasnodonia. Who didn't set out
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: that day to win or even place?
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: Is that right?
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: No? And that was really important to me because I
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: had seen other women really struggle coming back after your childbirth,
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: and you just don't know what it's going to be like, right,
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: And I didn't want anything to take away from the
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: joy that I would feel on that day.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: And so what did happen.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: You're stopping along the way, You're you're meeting up with Pepper,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: and presumably your husband's bringing Pepper to you.
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: By the way, Pepper the best name ever. I love
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: that she's spicy.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know my own. My daughter who's twenty, also
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: got a little spice. But her name isn't Pepper, think
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: good good thing. I didn't name her Pepper because she
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: just came out spicy.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: I'm there sometimes you don't know.
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: By the spice of my daughter.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: That's a good thing.
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: We raised daughters to be, you know, I think loud
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  Speaker 4: and empowered.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: Right, So you've got pepper in your arms and a
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: watermelon and the other And I wonder if you agree
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: with this. It's it's in some ways really in contradiction
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: to what we learn a lot. I think about, like
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: how it is that that you win something that it
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: has to you know, you have to have that that
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: mission in your mind, that intention and your narrow focus. Yeah,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: it's like you've got to keep your eye in that
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: ball and that ball is winning.
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: You know, when you come into a checkpoint, you're normally
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: coming in, you're coming out, you're being really fast. But
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: if I was stressed, then Pepper would pick up on
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: that stress and there's no way she would offend. So
• 13:51
  Speaker 4: I had to get out of race mode every time
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: I came into the checkpoint. So I think if I
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: had been in the first wave, if my goal had
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: been to win, I don't think I would have. I
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: think it was actually the key to me doing so
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: well is that I ran with joy, and I ran
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: without this pressure, without this anxiety of trying to prove anything.
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: I was tapping into that thing about.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: Running that just makes me happy, just moving freely.
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: I had a whole day to myself out on the trails,
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: and maybe a night I didn't know, but a whole
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: day to myself where I got to sea Pepper.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: But I didn't have responsibilities.
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: I mean, it was just such a gift and it's
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: definitely how I've I've tried to approach racing. I think
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: there are others in the sport that do super well
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: when they focused doggedly on a goal and they train
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: for it, and they go on races in order to win.
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: I can't do that. I am very focused on training.
• 15:01
  Speaker 4: I've become a lot more focused on training now that
• 15:03
  Speaker 4: I'm a mom. But when I stand on a start line,
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: that's the celebration of all the work that I've already
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: put in. So that's where I can put all of
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: the stress and the pressure on myself in training if
• 15:16
  Speaker 4: I want to. It's maybe not awful but you put
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: in the hard work on training. When you get to competition,
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: you are just there to enjoy all of the hard
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: work that has already.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: Come before you.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think what you're saying about that
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: kind of joy and you know, doing the work before
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: you get to that start line, and so then the
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: start line everything that happens after that is I think
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: ultimately about relaxing, which we always do best when we're
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: you know, like you know, you're posing for a picture
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: and you're say like smiling that she's Those smiles are
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: never as good as the smiles you just have because
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: you're actually laughing, right. And I think that this this
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: has proven true and pretty much every aspect of my life.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: Certainly in writing. Then you know, when I can relax
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: rather than think, oh my.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: God, I've got to do write something really great or
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: I've got to perform really well here, I always like,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: don't do my best because I'm not relaxed. I think
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: that's that's really true. And you know you've said a
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: couple of times that feeling that you get from running
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: that is a kind of wholeness, I guess, or a
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: sense of oneness. I'm wondering how how can you do.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: I know it's beyond words. Really, it's a very difficult
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: thing to describe. But I'm wondering if you can describe
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: to us what that is to you.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't grow up as a sporty person.
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: I think I grew up with a lot of insecurities.
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: I still have insecurities, but when I am running, it's incredible.
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: It's this feeling of being feeling like you're so powerful
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: and so strong while being so intensely vulnerable at the
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: same time. And I just love those two different sides
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: because it makes me feel so alive, and everything that
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: I experience out there I can bring back into the
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: rest of my life. I definitely wouldn't be able to
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: do some of the work that I've done, or.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: Even engage in certain.
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: Social situations if I didn't have the running behind me,
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: because I know that I can do hard things. I
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: have proven to myself through these physical, tangible experiences that
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: I can do things that I know other people can't do.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: And I still don't know how.
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: I mean, some of the races I've done, people say, oh,
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: that's crazy, and I'm like, I know, I don't know how.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: It happened, right, but.
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: It's some people have, you know, therapists that they go to.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: I have my mountains, and.
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: That's the best way that I can kind of connect
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: with the core of who I am. And literally it's
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: also a coping mechanism. I mean, I can just see
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: like black gunk coming out at the top of my
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: head and just littering the trail behind me as they move.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: I often say, you know, fast legs, still mind.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: Fast legs, still mind. I love it.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: You do difficult and challenging work. As you say, you've
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: often worked in war zones and lived in them. So
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: it was in Afghanistan where you first founded your nonprofit
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Free to Run.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: Ye, how did that come about?
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Tell me how you got that idea and some of
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: the women who were involved in it at the very beginning.
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: I'd love to take credit for the idea, but the
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: idea came from the Afghan women, and it's a crazy idea.
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: You know, Afghanistan is not the place where one would
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: think would be an ideal location to start a women's
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: running program outdoors. So through my work, I had gotten
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: to know some women at a local shelter, and it
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: was a shelter for women who'd experienced domestic violence. So
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: these are arguably the most restricted women potentially on the planet.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: They are facing war, and they are facing violence in
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: their own homes on top of pretty severe gender discrimination
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: in Afghan society, and they couldn't go outside.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: The person of what they'd been through right.
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: Exactly exactly, And the older women who were there, they
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: had remembered times before the Taliban had come to power,
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: the first time where they were able to go outside
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: and do sports freely, and the younger women and the
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: girls they had never had that chance.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: So when we got to know each.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: Other and they heard about my writing, they immediately asked,
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: you know, how we want to do that too, How
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: can we do that too? And it was it was
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: crazy to me because I had made all these assumptions
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: about what would be important to them. I thought, if
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: they're living in a war zone, they're going to be
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: worried about safety, about food, about education, money, the basics
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: of life. And I didn't consider that the freedom to
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: be able to run outside is a basic of life,
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: and it wasn't something that they wanted after all of
• 20:44
  Speaker 4: those other things could be met.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: They wanted it now.
• 20:47
  Speaker 4: And so I thought, if they're asking for that, and
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: they're brave enough to want to see if that can happen,
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: then I need to do whatever I can to try
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: to try to make this work. And so I spent
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: year talking to other organizations to see if they could
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: incorporate outdoor sports programming, and no one wanted to do it.
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: There was some sports indoors, but really ad hoc and
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: nothing really going on systematically outside.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: But it was that act of having.
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: A woman move freely through public space, these spaces that
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: they had been pushed out of, that I knew that
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: that would change not just those women but everyone who
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: saw them, and change the ideas that they had about
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: what roles women canon should be playing in society.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: So it kind of started from there.
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: It was really actually I'd moved on from Afghanistan to
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: su Sudan and I was in my tent in Susudan
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: putting together these plans and getting the funding for free
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: to rent to start, and I launched the organization in
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: between the deployment of SO Sudan and Gaza cleared to
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: Afghanistan and started just this simple hiking camp over a
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: week with twelve women, and then it grew across the
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: whole country.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: I love that you started off with hiking, my own
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: personal favorite sport, you know, And I think you're right this.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: You know, movement is essential and elemental, and I think
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: most of us when we think of what are our
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: basic needs, you know, it's like food, shelter, water, But
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: really there is something incredibly essential and powerful about freedom
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: and freedom just on a bare minimum physical level. And
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: now so Free to Run has now spread to other
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: countries and is doing work in various places around the world.
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: Is that right?
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we are actually still operating in Afghanistan, despite the
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: fact that the Talaman took the country back over in
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: twenty twenty one when we had to evacuate our staff.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: And shut down our operations.
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: We are We're able to restart very much underground, but
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: we are taking advantages of those cracks in the regime,
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: those little moments of light where we can find opportunities
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: to safely get women back outdoors.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: And we have expanded to Iraq.
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: Iraq is now our flagship program where we're working with refugees,
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: internally displaced persons, ethnic minorities. It's it's quite a quite
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: a robust program, and also working with a local partner
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: on programs in the West Bank and Gaza.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: I'm such a believer in in that that that idea
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: of like the when we challenge our bodies and do
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: difficult things with our bodies, like just pure hard, you know,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: calling upon both our strength and our grit and also
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: our courage. You know, whether it be run a Marazon
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: or run a five k or run a mile, or
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: hike a trail or go hiking for a day or
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: fill in the blank. You know, what's hard for us
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: is relative to to you know, our level of fitness
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: or or mental state or whatever. It doesn't really matter
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: what the achievement is specifically. What matters is that we
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: are physically teaching ourselves that we have the capacity to
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: do and to be strong and to be brave. And
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: I think once you have that, it's always with you.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: You know, when people ask me about my hike on
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: the PCT, like what's the most you know, what's had
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: the biggest impact on you? It really is just that
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: it's like me, that feeling I had at the end
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: of my hike when I looked back and said I
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: did that, and I didn't do it perfectly, and I
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: wasn't the best hiker or the fastest. I wasn't the champion,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: but I did it and it was one of the
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: hardest things I've ever done. And it's teaching me that
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: I can do a lot of hard things over and
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: over again. And I think that that's really such a
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: powerful mission of free to run.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: So thank you for that work.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: Oh thank you.
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: I mean I've I've learned so much from these women.
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: I remember when we had started running programs and we
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: were building up to a ten k and they heard about,
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: you know, two hundred and fifty kilometer ultra marathon I
• 25:07
  Speaker 4: was doing, and I said, oh, why don't.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: We do that?
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: And I was like, no, no, well we'll do that,
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: but in a few years, you know, not now.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: And they said, well, why can't we do that now?
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: They had no.
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: Plums about signing up for a two and fifty k
• 25:22
  Speaker 4: ultra marathon. And you know, the first team, the first
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: team who did was two Afghan women. I ran alongside
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: them and they finished. They didn't win, but they finished.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: My blood.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: That has taught me so much.
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: So all of these adventures, these challenges, these things we
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: might want to do that we convince ourselves, we find
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: reasons to believe that it's not the right time, or
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: you know, oh we can't do it for X Y
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: and said just jump in.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: No, you don't know until you finished, Until you finished,
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: you know, the Pacific Crest Trail. I mean, my god,
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: did I think that you would be able to finish it?
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: When you start?
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: You know, every day of my hike, I thought, okay,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: I'm going to quit because this is all and you know,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: there's always I mean I always think, never underestimate the
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: power of grit, Like it's important to train your body
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: and to do all the things that you need to
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: do to you know, to work up the strength and
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: to avoid injury. Though I will say, for the record,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: I didn't train at all before I sat, not my eye.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: But you know, the world is.
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: A great teacher.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: The trail is a great teacher, as you know. And
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: one foot in front of the other, which becomes both
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: a literal and metaphorical truth, and it's just yeah, it's
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: powerful medicine. As you say that, the way you talk
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: about running is the way I feel about all kinds
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: of physical endeavors I've done, but especially hiking. You know,
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: that sense of a kind of you get right with yourself.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: It is my turn to the trail. So, Stephanie, you've
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: been just like so incredibly wise and everything you've said,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: so I'm just dying to ask you to share some
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: wisdom by helping me answer a Dear Sugar letter.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: Can you do that?
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: I can try.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, I'm going to read it to you and
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: we can talk about it and give advice where we
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: see fit.
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: Dear Sugar.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: I became pregnant last year, and my husband and I
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: were overjoyed. Our joy turned to sorrow when I had
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: a miscarriage eleven weeks into my pregnancy. I am and
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: was aware that miscarriage is common in the first trimester,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: but it still came as a devastating shock to me.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: We shared my pregnancy with a small circle of our parents, siblings,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: and a few close friends, but at the time of
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: my miscarriage, we were only days away from announcing it
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: to everyone in our world. What felt like a time
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: of excitement and celebration bushed completely, and it became a
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: time of grief, one that I often had to explain
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: to people who hadn't even known I was pregnant. Nearly
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: eight months have passed since then, and I've healed a
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: lot I see a therapist regularly and she helped me
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: process my feelings. But there's one thing that I'm stuck
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: on is that I don't know how to take the
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: risk of all this happening again. My husband and I
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: want to have a baby, no question, and my doctor
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: has assured me there's no reason we can't be trying
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: to conceive now, but I keep hesitating for fear that
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: my future pregnancy will result.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: In another miscarriage.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Sugar, I have your quote pinned above my desk that says,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: be brave enough to break your own heart, and I
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: feel like that's what I need to do right now.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: But how do I do that?
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: How can I find the courage to try again with
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: another pregnancy when my heart could be broken again? Deep
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: down inside, I know I will take this risk eventually,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: but will you please help me make the lead?
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: Thanks? Signed Hesitant. Wow, that's a letter.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, you've shared that you had these experiences yourself, Stephanie.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: How did you do approach that after having experienced the
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: losses that you did.
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: I'm just tearing up right now because I just really
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: feel for this woman, and I just have to say,
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: if you're listening, my heart just goes out to you.
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: It is Yes, miscarriages are common, but it is awful.
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: It is awful to go through because you're grieving a
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: future that you didn't get to see and that you
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: didn't get to experience. And it's this horrible club that
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: you don't even realize how many people are in it
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: until you've joined, because there's so much shame and silence
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: and stigma around it still that we don't talk about it.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: So I would what I would say to you, I'm
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: not going to throw statistics at you, because statistics don't help.
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: It doesn't matter how if I say, you know, most
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: people go on after a miscarriage to have a healthy pregnancy.
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: People told that to me, and then I had another miscarriage.
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: So I'm not going to give you statistics because numbers.
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: Numbers do not provide comfort. What I will say is
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: that after you have experienced loss, it is scary.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: It's totally scary to try to dive into that again.
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: I didn't really feel totally comfortable until my daughter was out.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: I could see her, she pooped, I knew everything was working.
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: You know that that little bit of worry and fear
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: did stay with me.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: But here's here's the good news.
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: I would really encourage you to just acknowledge the fact
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: that it's it's going to be scary that things could
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: go wrong.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: Sure they can.
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: Always go wrong, but dive in to the joy that
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: you know could be there. And if you get pregnant again,
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: tell everyone. I want to pick up on this point
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: where we have this social convention not to tell people
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: were pregnant until after twelve weeks, and you mentioned that,
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: and then when you lost your baby, you know, no
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: one even knew that you had gone through this thing,
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: so that support system to be there for you and
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: rally around you when you grieved was not there.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: When we don't tell people were pregnant.
• 31:36
  Speaker 4: I mean, yes, there's discrimination in the workplace, so putting
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: that aside, but we don't tell people were pregnant. We
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: are just protecting other people from the discomfort that they
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: might feel if you miscarry. But you are denying yourself
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: that support system that you might need. So when I
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: became pregnant the second time, I was scared. Of course
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: I was scared, but every day I told everyone right away,
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: and every day that I was pregnant was such a
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: celebration of like, yes, I've done this and I'm pregnant,
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: and it made the second miscarriage feel awful. Sure, but
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: we we can cross those bridges if and when we
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: have to come to them. What I didn't want to
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: do was spend this time worrying about trying to get
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: pregnant and if something could go wrong, and then worrying
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: through the pregnancy, because I would have denied myself that
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: chance to have that bit of joy.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: When you go through IVF.
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: There's this acronym, there's this phrase called poopo, which is
• 32:41
  Speaker 4: pregnant until proven otherwise. And so you know, my first
• 32:45
  Speaker 4: round of IVF failed, my second round failed. I went
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: into it just knowing that it was going to fail,
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: worrying it was going to fail, and then it did
• 32:52
  Speaker 4: and there was there was no joy. It was a
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: horrible experience. So in my third IVF, I went in
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: and when they put in that embryo, I was poopo.
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: I was pregnant will proven otherwise. And I had the
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: best time until.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: I got that pregnancy test.
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: So I think to balance out, you know, the downs
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: that we may feel that may come and the chances
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: are slim, but again, statistics will not come for you.
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: Right now, we need to dive into the joy that
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: is there, and that's the possibility of pregnancy, and that's
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: the possibility of having a baby and setting up that
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: support system. So tell everyone, Tell everyone you're trying to
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: get pregnant. Tell everyone you are pregnant. Tell and if
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: bad shit happens, then then you'll have people there to
• 33:42
  Speaker 4: rally behind you.
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: I think that's wonderful advice.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: And what I'd add to that hesitant is, you know
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: the meaning of that quote You've got to be brave
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: enough to break your own heart is about something like
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: this moment you're in right now, which is you have
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: to acknowledge that there might be suffering along the way
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: that sometimes you know, doing the best things, the things
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: that we know we want or we need, hurt us.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: And so you taking a step toward the direction of
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: having this baby you want could end up being something that, again, yes,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: puts you in shock and grief and devastation. But the
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: greater risk is not walking in that direction. The greater
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: risk is turning away for fear of suffering. And everything
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: we've talked about in Sport and Life today on this podcast,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: on this podcast, I think on every episode is that
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: both suffering and beauty is part of life and you cannot,
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: you know, get to the finish line without having enduring
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: a lot of difficult things. And so if you can
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: sort of maybe the word I'm working toward here is acceptance,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: except that it's going to be scared. You're taking a risk.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: Your heart might be broken again, and your heart also
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: might be filled.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: It might be you know, you might.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Get exactly what you want and dream of, and there's
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: absolutely no guarantee of anything until we try. And it
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: is about walking in the direction of your biggest dreams
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: every day, putting one foot in front of the other
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: at whatever pace you go.
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: It might be slow like me, or.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: Fast like Stephanie, but hesitant. We can't spend our lives hesitating.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: We have to spend our lives moving forward.
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: And gosh, I mean, I don't know if you'd feel
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: comfortable doing this, But find me on Instagram and tell
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: me how it turns out, because I am cheering for you.
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: Include me in that group of your support system.
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: I have so many you know, reaching out to me.
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: You know, going through this how it's how trying to
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: go through this process. It really is how. And we
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: may get worse for ourselves and when we do it alone.
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: So you've got us in your corner.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, we're wishing you the very best of luck. So
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: what is next? Are you training for any upcoming races
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: or what's going on with you?
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: I am indeed actually next weekend I have a one
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: hundred and twenty six kilometer race with about seven thousand
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: meters of climbing in a Grand Canaria. So I will
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: be flying out to the Canary Islands next week and then.
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: I'm working on a big project. Right now, it isn't confirmed.
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: I'm still working on the funding, but hopefully by the
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: time the podcast has come out it will be confirmed.
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: But I would like to break a world record in
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: Antarctica this year, and not the women's record. I want
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: to break the overall record for the fastest hundred miler.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: So that fastest hundred miler in Antarcipca. Yeah, okay, I'm like,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: can we explain whe a little bit? I mean I
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: was sort of like wrapping up and now it's like, oh, okay, yeah,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: I'm just going to run like a million zillion miles
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: in this crazy environment that most people can't survive in.
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: So like, what do you mean how do you how
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: do you do that? How do you wear? Does just
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: look like just like a thirty second description.
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: Sure, so this is a race in Antarctica that you
• 37:26
  Speaker 4: can do a fifty k or one hundred k, but
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: they allow runners to be running in loops on the
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: ice for twenty four hours. Now. A couple of years ago,
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: two men were able to reach one hundred miles within
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: those twenty four hours, but.
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: No woman attempted it. Last year, a man broke that hundred.
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: Mile record and did it in twenty two hours and
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: forty minutes or something. Now, I want to put women
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: on the map because I'm tired of seeing records only
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: being held by men. And it's also a bit of
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: a response to all of those people when I had
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: my viral moment last year who said that I should
• 37:59
  Speaker 4: be sitting at home taking care of my baby and
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: that I was selfish doing my own things. I kind
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: of want to clap back, really in a really big
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: way and go to one of the most extreme places
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: on earth to prove that women can do it and
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: get the overall record.
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: Stephanie Case, you are already on the map.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you this right now, but I
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: believe you can do this, and I'm going to be
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: rooting for you, and afterwards you need to come back
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: here and tell me and all of us all.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: Oh good, got it?
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: It sounds like some amazing fun.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: I hate the cold as well. I'm Canadian, but my god,
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: this will be a challenge.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, you're gonna have to pull out your Canadian you know,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: cred card and bundle up water cup. That is incredible.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: And really we'll all be rooting for you and thinking
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: about you. So keep us all posted. And I just
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: want to thank you so much for coming on mind
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: over Mountain and sharing your.
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: Powerful words with us.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Keep running, dear heart, and keep on putting one foot
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: in front of the other.
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: Other.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: Well, thanks for.
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: Setting up this forum, and you know, thanks for being you.
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: I've followed your writing. I was telling your producers. I
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: was so excited when I saw that you followed me
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: on Instagram. I was with my nieces. I blurted out,
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: oh my god, Cheryl's following me, and my niece six
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: years old, said, who's following you?
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: She just someone stalking me? So behind you exactly?
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, tell her I promise not to stalk you on Instagram.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: I would be so honored.
• 39:32
  Speaker 4: Thank you for what you do and for continuing to
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: lead the way.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: And I hope to see you and sham any oh
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: me too. Yeah, I will absolutely look you up next time.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: I'm back to that beautiful place that is your home.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: All right, Happy Trails, Thanks so much for listening. If
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: you'd like to submit a letter seeking advice, you can
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: send it to me at Dear Dear Sugar at gmail
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: dot com. And don't forget to rate, review and subscribe
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: Fani Trail's see you next week.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: Minover Mountain with Cheryl Strade is an iHeart women's sports
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: production produced by Britney Brown and Rodney Brown of Barbara
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: Jean Productions. Supervising producer is Kaylin West at REALM. Associate
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: producer Amaya Brathwaite. Our executive producers are Molly Barton, Jerry Carreta,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: Grace Views and Jesse Katz. Our theme song is composed
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: by Gramoscope Music. Don't forget to rate, review and subscribe
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts, Happy Trails, and I'll see
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: you next week.