In this episode, Claire Bartholic shares how running as part of a self-care routine can ultimately help feelings of burn-out and overwhelm.
Listen to the episode in the podcast player below, or find it on Apple Podcast or Spotify.
Tips on how to recharge and refresh through running
Daphne:
Welcome to the Teacher Career Coach Podcast.
Claire:
Oh, I’m delighted, Daphne. Thank you for having me.
Daphne:
I know we have connected in the business world just at a business conference, and I knew I was so excited to bring you on because what we’re going to talk about today is something that I think a lot of people struggle with, is when you know that something is important to you, how do you prioritize it? Especially something as important as your mental and physical health. And so you are completely passionate about running and you teach other people how to implement running routines into their life and how to just get started, I’d love to hear what made you passionate about running and what made you decide to start sharing your knowledge with others?
Claire:
Well, running has come in and out of my life several times. It hasn’t always been a constant, so I did a little bit when I was a teenager, I trained for a half-marathon in my 20s to get over a breakup, and then I got back together with the guy and stopped running, and then I found running again in my 30s. I was getting ready for my high school reunion, I wanted to shape up a little bit and started running. And I’ll tell you that I hated every step that first year. I did it because it was a means to an end. I knew that I could just run out the door, get in shape, and by the time the reunion came and went about six to eight months later, I was like, “Well, what do I do now? I’ve built up all this fitness, I don’t want to just go back to the couch.”
So I decided to train for the half-marathon that I did in my 20s, and I ended up beating my time over a decade later and I was like, “Huh, this is starting to be fun. I’m starting to be accomplished at this.” And then I was like, “Well, if I can run a half-marathon, let’s try a marathon,” and I thought that I could just go straight to the Boston Marathon because a friend of mine was doing it and I was like, “Oh, I’m just going to go to the Boston Marathon.” Well, you actually have to be pretty fast and qualify for that by running another marathon, so I eventually did that, it took a couple of years, and just ended up falling in love with it. Fell deep down the rabbit hole and became pretty good at the marathon and just had an almost obsession of getting better and better learning everything I could.
And along the way I became a coach and ended up doing really well in the marathon. But after I had reached my big, big goals, I actually found that I found more joy helping others reach their big goals more than I ever did myself. And so now I don’t race anymore for myself, but I get to do it through all of my clients and my athletes, so that’s my real passion today is helping other people really accomplish big things even though they are usually moms or dads or full-time, whatever they do, professionals. When they have a sense of accomplishment that’s like nothing else.
Daphne:
I see so many similarities in those people, people like yourself who love coaching and educating with this audience of teachers. It’s people who really like walking someone through a really complicated process. And before we get into marathon running, just talking about baby steps, for some people in this audience, probably the majority of them, they are facing burnout. What are some of the mental and physical benefits of running that you think could particularly help those who are facing burnout?
Claire:
Yeah. So the thing about running is that it’s simple. It’s not easy, but it is simple. So you can put on a pair of shoes and you can go out the door, and if you run in the morning before work, you feel accomplished before the kids get out of bed, before you go to your job. It’s like making your bed in the morning. It’s something that you just do and it makes you feel like, “If everything else goes wrong, in my day, at least I’ve done something.” Not everybody has the time to run in the morning or the ability, so running after work is a really good way to stress release after a busy day. So there’s something special about running that is different than a lot of other sports.
I’ve worked with hundreds, probably thousands of runners at this point. And those who come from other sports like biking or swimming, you don’t get the same sort of runner’s high. You don’t always get that. Now, I’m not saying you’re going to have a runner’s high every time you go for a run. A lot of your runs are going to be hard and miserable, but sometimes you really get just this mental cleansing. It’s your time to be by yourself. No one’s asking you to do anything. Nobody’s pulling on you saying, “Mama, mama, mama.” You have time to yourself to either think or listen to a podcast or listen to your music. It is just all for you. And that’s super important.
Daphne:
Yeah. The mental cleansing is a really interesting way to put it, it’s perfect. I’ve never thought of it that way. I was talking to my therapist about running because I know that we talked about this actually at the business conference where I met you, but that is a goal of mine to start running again after I have the twins. And we were talking about I didn’t want to put a number, a healthy weight number. I just wanted to feel a certain way and be able to accomplish some physical tasks like I wanted to run a specific set of miles, that’s my goal. Instead of I want to be at this perfect body weight because I have somebody image issues that I think a lot of people can struggle with. And she was asking me, “Well, what is it about running that is motivating you to choose that because a lot of people can choose it specifically out of punishment even though they don’t enjoy it?”
Claire shares how running can help your mental stamina in other areas of life
And for me, it’s part of that mental stamina of, “I know I don’t like it at the beginning,” and all I have to do is write down on a scale of one to 10 how yucky it feels. And then by four weeks of doing it, I can see, “Oh, it’s getting easier and easier,” and I feel really accomplished and proud that I pushed myself through something that was challenging until it actually became fun. And it’s really good for me specifically with an ADHD brain to be able to shut it off during yoga or Pilates. I need to train my brain muscles to slow down and be able to chill in those moments, but running matches what’s going on with my anxiety, and I think that that’s why it’s such a really important task for me. And it sounds like you also agree that it’s really mental. Have you seen the mental stamina piece of it starting to translate into other aspects of your own personal life or your client’s lives as well?
Claire:
Oh, for sure. You get to a point once running becomes a habit, and I will go back just a little bit about what you said. Walking is a great way to transition into running, so if you want to be somebody who is in the habit of running, I would say start with walking. If you want to go run three miles eventually someday, start with a 20-minute walk or walk however much you can, five minutes, 10 minutes. Walking is the best way to supplement your running or to get into the sport. But it absolutely transforms the way that you lead the rest of your life. First of all, if you feel good, you’re going to be a better mom. You’re going to be a better teacher. You’re going to be better at whatever you do if you’re feeling good. And when you get back from doing a hard thing, especially running, you feel good that you did something. That’s a sense of confidence and a sense of pride.
And if you get to the point where you’re into racing, training for a big race and then crossing the finish line, we’re not being paid for this. All we get is a stupid t-shirt and a medal, but it feels so accomplished. You did something hard on your own. And I actually had one of my own athletes on my podcast a couple of months ago, and she is this very accomplished runner, super busy job, two kids, husband, the whole nine yards. And I asked her what running had given her, and she actually said, more time. And I was like, “What? How do you train for a marathon with your busy life and family and get more time?” And she said, “Well, because I am forced to do some time management skills to get my running in. Running is such a priority for me that I sit down with my husband on Sundays and we schedule, okay, I’m going to run then and you’re going to watch the kids and vice versa.”
And so everybody in the family sits down and says, “Okay. Well, what do you want to do this week?” And by prioritizing her running, everybody else gets to prioritize their things too, and they fit more stuff in than had they not planned. So you don’t think that adding something to your life can actually give you more time, but for this particular athlete, that’s exactly what it did, and that happens over and over and over again. If something is important to you, you prioritize it, and that means you have to schedule everything else that you’ve got to get done.
Claire talks about how to fit running into an already-busy schedule
Daphne:
Yeah. I feel like so many people claim that they don’t have time to add something like this to their schedule, and that’s me. I’m so many people, I’m that person. How do you respond to that? How do you help them look at their schedules? What types of things have you seen people be able to take off of their busy plates in order to add a new habit?
Claire:
There’s always some amount of time to get some exercise in. What are you doing in your down period? Are you scrolling on Instagram? Are you binge-watching Netflix? If you love to binge-watch Netflix and you want to be a runner, either go to the gym or get a treadmill and binge-watch Netflix while you’re running. Do some things at the same time. Treadmill can be great if you have little kids because you can’t always leave the house when you have little kids, but if you have a treadmill, you can be at home and your kids can run around and you can say, “This is mommy’s time to run and I’m going to be on this machine for 10 minutes, half an hour, an hour.” There’s ways to get your fitness in, whether it’s running or anything else with the life you currently have. You don’t even necessarily have to give anything up.
You just really have to look at what you’re doing and plan. And if you do have a spouse or a partner or somebody to help you, obviously that is a huge, huge advantage. And ask your partner, “Hey, I really want to get fitter. Is there a way that you can help me out? Is there a way that you can help me do this?” And don’t be totally selfish. Ask your partner what they need from you, work together on this. But if you don’t have an hour in your day, then there’s probably some priority shifts that you might want to make in your life because it’s super important for your mental health and your physical health, your longevity. You will be better at your job, at your relationships, at your entire life if you are fit and healthy.
Daphne:
There are so many times that I tell myself I am running a business, I have other priorities. Eventually I’m going to have two little babies running around. It is going to be challenging, and not everybody is going to start at the exact same timeline or be in the same level of fitness, but knowing that baby steps and incremental changes can also help as long as there’s consistency behind it and not making excuses because there are so many times that I just feel honestly tired and unmotivated, but I’m making excuses where I say, “Oh, I don’t have time today to do that,” and then I look and I’m like, “Well, if there was two full hours, I bounced between tabs on the internet and looked for a chore to do instead of doing that thing.” And one thing that helps me also is I force myself.
I used to have a calendar that I would just put an x mark down, “Okay, the day passed and I worked out, here’s an X mark,” and be able to see, “Okay, I want to jog five days a week,” that was my goal back then. And so having that physical reminder of, “Oh, shoot, I need to do it today,” would keep it front of mind for me to do that. Do you have suggestions for people like myself who may be feeling tired and unmotivated of how to pick themselves up in that moment and encourage them to run because I usually feel a heck of a lot better afterwards?
Claire:
Yeah. So motivation comes and goes, and if you’re going to rely on motivation, you’re not really going to get very far with your running. So you need to throw that out the window and focus on habits and systems. Habits and systems are how you get things done with your fitness and with a whole lot of other things in your life. So do you tell yourself, “Ah, I just need to be motivated to brush my teeth?” No, you don’t. It’s a habit that you do at least twice a day, hopefully, and it’s something that is part of your routine. You don’t feel like yourself if you haven’t brushed your teeth. It’s something that you always do. So if you want to be a runner, you’ve got to make it something that you always do. And then there’s little tricks that you can do to. . . The one’s called habit stacking.
So let’s say you have a good habit that you do all the time, you want to attach the habit you want with that habit. So we could say brushing your teeth. So every time you brush your teeth, maybe you put your running shoes on and you go run a mile or something like that. I mean, maybe that’s not the example that you want to use, but what you want to do is you want to make it in your schedule so there is no other option. So usually that’s first thing in the morning for the vast majority of runners because, “We don’t feel like running, it’s raining, it’s too hot, it’s cold outside, it’s whatever.” But if you can get up and just knock it out first so you don’t have time to argue with yourself, that is much, much better than being like, “I’ll run sometime today probably,” and then your whole day gets away from you.
So if you can’t do it first thing in the morning, a lot of people can’t, or it’s dark out or it’s not safe to run outside early in the morning, then you’ve got to find a way to block it out another time. So make an appointment with yourself to do it just like you would do any meeting that you have for work. Just for like anything else you just put it on the schedule and you do it. And when you do have little babies when they come, you’ll have to think about ways that you can get your time. So they won’t be able to go in the jogging stroller right away, that will be a cool option later, but you’re going to have to come up with something else, so maybe that’s childcare. Hopefully you have somebody, maybe it’s childcare at the gym. That saved me so much when my kids were little is, “I’m going to put them in childcare and get a break,” because as wonderful as babies are, you need a break mentally and physically, and going out for a run can be a great way to get that.
Daphne:
Yeah. And I heard you talking some about habit stacking. Have you read The Power of Habit? I think that’s what it’s called.
Claire:
I don’t know if that’s what I’ve read, but no, I don’t think I’ve read it. But I’ve heard it from several psychologists, and I steal that and use it all the time.
Daphne:
Yeah. So I believe in Power of Habit. If not, I’ve read a couple of habit books, but I believe in Power of Habit, they talk about it. And even just the idea of putting out your workout clothes, like, “Okay, it’s the end of the night,” and I put that right next to my bed, and now it’s annoying for me to see it without using it or something that you can do to add friction beyond actually not doing what you’re supposed to do. And another really good book that has helped me with motivation and especially motivation when it comes to working out is, I think it’s Mel Robbins, The 5 Second Rule.
Claire:
Oh yes, I’ve heard her say this.
Daphne:
And so if your brain has more than five seconds to talk yourself out of something, then you’re more likely going to stay unmotivated or feel too tired to do it, but if you shock your brain within that first five seconds of, “Oh, I should go and do this thing,” and this is something that me and my husband have been doing, it’s not jogging. It’s bare minimum walks with the size that I am right now and some knee issues through the pregnancy, but the second I say, “I know I feel better after we go for a walk, let’s go for a walk,” we don’t give ourselves five seconds to hesitate, even though we both don’t want to and we’re binge-watching something. So if you count down 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and you don’t let yourself get to one, you just do that thing, it can break that negative habit of talking yourself out of it of, “Oh, maybe I should do the dishes instead. Or maybe I feel like what can I do to talk myself out of it?”
Claire:
Yeah, that’s perfect. Another one that I like is called temptation bundling. Have you heard that?
Daphne:
No, but I want to hear it.
Claire:
So that is when you save something that’s naughty or exciting, something that you want to do, you save that for when you have to do the hard thing so like exercise. So maybe it’s like some juicy true-crime podcast, or maybe it is binge-watching Netflix that you’ll do on the treadmill or whatever. And you have to tell yourself, “Okay, I am going to totally binge this podcast or this show, but I can only do it while I’m running,” and you’re not allowed to do it when you’re just at home and tired and you’re just like, “Oh, I just want to watch that show.” It’s like, “Nope, you can only do it when you’re doing the thing you don’t want to do as much.”
Daphne:
Okay, I already figured out what mine’s going to be.
Claire:
Yeah.
Daphne:
Mine is absolutely, I feel guilty, and I’m not going to use the brand name, so they don’t come at me. But I feel guilty using the grocery delivery service and being charged a small fee for grocery delivery. However, it does save me 45 minutes of time and it does feel really convenient to have it dropped off at my house. So in the future, I can make a little return on time investment and say, “I’m going to go for a jog, and at the end of it I get to use this,” and it kind of balances it out.
Claire:
Absolutely.
Daphne:
That, I think, is going to be a good motivator for me.
Claire:
I love it. We have to play all these games with ourselves. We really do. And it’s something that I don’t… We’ve got to stop this monkey brain of ours because our nature is to eat food and sit on the couch. That’s what we have evolved to do, is not spend energy, not do hard things only when it’s like a dire emergency. And now in this society of plenty that we live in, we have to go against our nature in order to stay healthy and be strong, and fit and have a long life, so we’ve got to play some of these games to trick our minds.
Daphne:
Going into those who do have a limited time for jogging or for running. Do you see that short intensive runs like sprints or interval training are more effective to help build stamina or are longer, slower jogs better? Or does it really just depend on what the person’s preference is?
Claire:
I mean, yes, to some extent it does depend on your preference a little bit, but it also depends on what you are trying to do. So if you are somebody who is starting from scratch, no real fitness right now, and you’re trying to build fitness from practically zero, then you really do need to start with easy jogging. Build up your aerobic system first. All the high intensity stuff, sprinting, plyometrics, jumping and all that stuff, that is good for you, but you can only do a really small amount of that. Your lungs can develop and your muscles can develop a lot faster than your bones, tendons and joints. And so if you’re spending all your time jumping, which is what running is and your bones, tendons and joints haven’t had the time to develop properly to handle the load, you’re going to get injured and you’re going to be right back on the couch.
So what you want to do is really take it easy, and I would say start running every other day. Don’t go out and say, “I’m going to run five days a week,” that’s usually too much for people. So I would say alternate it with a walk. So we still want to build that habit, but if you’re looking to run a half an hour a day, alternate that with a half an hour walk on your off days and build from there. You want to make sure you’re keeping it easy so that you can still have a conversation. You can still talk. If you’re huffing and puffing, you’ve got to slow it down because you’re not building up your aerobic system.
Your aerobic system is what will get you to be able to run longer easier, and so that’s the number one thing that we want to develop, and that just simply takes more time. So mostly easy running for most people with a little sprinkle of the fast stuff if you want to. Once you have a nice base, then you can add a little bit more. But even if you’re training for a marathon, you don’t want to do too much high intensity stuff because it’s just too hard on your body. Just a little bit goes a long way.
Claire talks about how good nutrition can play into your running routine
Daphne:
How much do you see nutrition playing a role in your energy, motivation, recovery for a runner?
Claire:
Yeah. It’s critical. It’s absolutely critical. So if you exercise on purpose, you’re an athlete. So if you want to be fit, you have to treat yourself like an athlete, and that means paying attention to your nutrition. That does not mean that you have to eat absolutely perfectly clean or totally vegan all the time, or whatever you think of a healthy athletic diet is. You can still eat normally, but you still need to eat intentionally. You need to pay attention to how you’re fueling your run both before, during and after. There’s a lot of details in that, so I’ll give you broad strokes with that.
But you need to fuel your runs so that you feel good and perform well, you have the energy to perform. Fasted running is, some people do it, but I advise against it for a lot of reasons, especially for females. It tends to really mess up our hormones. We feel better when we have a little bit of something in our stomachs. And after you work out, you need to make sure to replace what you’ve lost so that you can build the muscle that you’re looking for and change the body type into an athletic body type if that’s your goal. But if you’re going to spend all this time running, you’ve got to do the other half of the equation, which is nutrition.
Daphne:
Do you see protein being very important to a runner’s nutrition? I know I feel like my basic knowledge of nutrition and working out is always, “Oh, you drink a protein shake if you’re lifting weights or trying to tone up.” Do you see protein shakes or protein being a big part of getting a fit body and being healthy for running?
Claire:
The most important thing that you need for running is first of all, to make sure you’re eating enough across the board. A lot of runners tend to under fuel, and that leads to a whole host of problems metabolically and will really not let you grow as fast as you could if you are eating enough. So eating enough, no matter what it is the most important thing. The next most important thing for a runner is carbohydrate. And a lot of people in our society nowadays are like anti carb or whatever, but carbohydrate is not just rice and potatoes and bread. Carbohydrate is fruits and vegetables, whole grains, all sorts of really, really healthy stuff. That is the fuel that your brain runs on and your muscles run on. Your muscles are full of carbohydrate. It’s actually called glycogen at that point when it’s stored in your muscles, and that is the fuel that powers your muscles.
So that is the number one of the macros, the biggest thing that you need to eat, and the biggest thing that will power your running. Protein is also important because that’s what builds our muscles. So most people, most runners under eat protein, most average people who happen to not be exercising are eating too much protein. There’s not a lot of people that are undereating protein in American society today, but most athletes are usually under doing it, and so you do need to pay attention to that. And there’s lots of different calculators to figure out how much. I preach a plant-based diet, and so people who are plant-based tend to underdo their protein a little bit when they’re athletes. When they’re just normal people, normal people who are not exercising a lot tend to be getting plenty of calories. But athletes, especially when you’re training for endurance events, you really need to pay attention to that. And then there’s fat, and that usually takes care of itself.
Claire shares how you can get excited about running, even if you are starting from a burned out mindset
Daphne:
If there was one piece of advice that you would want to give a[n] audience of potentially very burnt out people who are hesitating to start a running journey, what would it be?
Claire:
I think when you’re stuck in anything in your life just shifting to something else, some kind of actions, doing something else can really give you a mental break. So if you’re burnt out in your career, for example, which I actually was when I really got into running, I was kind of burnt out, and running gave me something else to focus on, something else to measure success, something else to make me feel good, something else to think about. Instead of worrying about my career, I made a big career shift, and running went right alongside that. So being burned out is challenging because it physically does make you tired, and when you’re tired, it’s really, really hard to take action, but it is the best thing that you can possibly do. So if you just can’t imagine going out and running a mile, don’t run a mile. Just run for five minutes and see how you feel, stop and walk after that.
And then if you feel better after a few minutes, start running again for just a couple of minutes and then walk again. Do a run, walk, run, walk, and give yourself permission after, I don’t know, 15 minutes to turn around and go back home. And set the bar super, super low, set the bar so low that you cannot argue with yourself in five seconds. Just tell yourself you’re going to put on your shoes and you’re going to go out the door for 15 minutes and see what happens. You might end up going out for half an hour, and you might not. You might actually turn around at 15 minutes and that’s okay. But any kind of physical activity is going to make you feel better mentally and of course, physically, and if you do just the right amount, it actually does energize you.
Daphne:
Yeah, absolutely. That’s such good advice. And sometimes I try and use that as my cue, which is super counterintuitive, but if I feel very low, very unmotivated, it’s, “You’re probably not going to get a lot done here. You’re not being very focused, force yourself to go do this other thing and then you come back more focused afterwards.” It’s just how you feel.
Claire:
100%.
Daphne:
And this can feel grim, but I’ve been very honest about my mental health, so everybody knows I definitely work with a therapist. There are times that I just have to put a timer on when I’m working out and say, “I’ve read 30 minutes of working out is going to boost my serotonin, and I absolutely need that right now.” And sometimes when you’re really burnt out, you just need that, and you honestly do feel different afterwards. If that’s your motivation for starting, it’s okay.
Claire:
Absolutely. And as good as running is, and as good as it is for your mental health, I do want to make it super, super clear that it’s not the entire answer. If you do need therapy, get therapy. It is not therapy, it is therapy like, it is meditation like, but it’s not the same thing. You can really, really move the needle quite a bit with your mental health, but it’s not a hundred percent the only thing that you should use if you need help. So I always want to make that clear that it is great for so many things, but it’s just a tool and a really good one, but it’s not everything.
Daphne:
Yes. It’s one tool to put in the many different tools that you may need to be a whole person.
Claire:
Exactly.
Daphne:
Claire, there’s probably so many people who are listening who have learned so much from just this 30 minutes with you who want to see the rest of all the resources that you’ve put out there, where can they best find you to learn from you?
Claire:
Well, I’ve actually put everything that I offer, my freebies, my discounts. I have a ultimate fueling guide for a runner. I’ve got my book, which came out this year if you wanted to get that. I’ve put all of the stuff that you can grab at my website, which is www.theplantedrunner.com/link and that is everything—that and more. And if you just want to follow me and just get running tips, mental health tips and plant-based nutrition tips, the best place to find me is Instagram and I’m @theplantedrunner
Daphne:
All right. Thank you so much, Claire, for being here. It’s always so nice to see you and to talk to you, so thank you so much.
Claire:
This was fun, Daphne. Great to see you too.
Daphne:
I want to give a huge thank you to Coach Claire for coming on and sharing some great information with this audience. If you are interested in more episodes like this on nutrition and self-care, make sure to go back and check out some of our past podcast episodes. And if you haven’t yet subscribed to the Teacher Career Coach Podcast, make sure you do on your preferred platform so you don’t miss any of our upcoming episodes. Thanks again for being a listener, and we’ll see you on the very next episode of the Teacher Career Coach Podcast.
Mentioned in the episode:
- Check out The Planted Runner freebees here and find Claire on Instagram @theplantedrunner
- Our career path quiz at www.teachercareercoach.com/quiz
- Explore the course that has helped thousands of teachers successfully transition out of the classroom and into new careers: The Teacher Career Coach Course (If you are a Teacher Career Coach Course member, you can also sign up for our one-on-one Career Clarity calls.)
