Ep 107. Anxiety, mental health, marathon training, heckling

Welcome to episode 107 of the Women’s Running podcast. I’m your host, Esther Newman, and she’s your other host, Holly Taylor. So in this episode it’s a bit of a game of two halves – despite our podcast dropping every week as normal, we’ve actually had a bit of a break, it being the summer holidays and all. But while I’ve been not-eating Cornish pasties, Holly has had a very different time of it. As candid as ever, she talks about the swerve in mental health she’s suffered over the past fortnight, and the tools she’s using to help bump her back up again. She also talks about how while she had once used running as one of those tools, this time around it’s been less helpful for her (all that said, we know that generally speaking running can be a brilliant support for our mental health). On my side of things, I’ve been training for the Great North Run in September and the London Marathon in October – I’ve just about kept up with my plan while on holiday, but I’ve found the change in terrain and the second heat wave very challenging. And while ostensibly I’m on track, my mind is spiralling with all the things that *could* go wrong, and also all the reasons why the bad runs were bad, and why the good runs were good, and how all these things are going to affect my races negatively one way or another. Please tell us how your training is going! We also talk about some emails we’ve had in on the back of our chats about heckling, and they’re really shocking. And again, do please let us know if you’ve had experiences like this – I think talking about it like we began to do during our We Will campaign is one of the best things we can do to raise awareness that this happens and how we feel as a result. Links This episode is sponsored by SportsShoes! Search London Marathon at sportsshoes.com and use the code WRPOD on all orders over £50 claim 10% off. Please support us on Patreon and you’ll get some lovely patron-only perks, including an exclusive newsletter from me and Holly! Get your hands on your first issue of Women’s Running magazine for just £1. Just enter WRSS22POD at the checkout . Thank you for listening. Email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories, as we’d love to include them. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.