Track Club Babe Kim Clark Is Running for Good

Kim Clark's 110,000 Instagram followers know her as Track Club Babe. Kim microblogs daily offering inspiration, encouragement, and rock-solid training advice learned over years of running. Fun note: The Run to the Top was the very first running podcast she listened to! Kim ran her first marathon in high school. It was a six-hour disaster but she survived. Years later, in her late 20s, Kim decided to train seriously for another marathon and record her journey. Today she has a 3:11 PR and a massive following of runners. Kim is a former human rights lawyer turned commercial real estate agent in her hometown of San Diego, CA, who creates her social content each evening. She's done a ton of research throughout her running career and has of course had her ups and downs and is happy to teach and share her positivity with her online community. In this episode, Kim shares her story along with some great running knowledge including what she eats to fuel and recover, training mistakes she's made, over-training, and her thoughts on weight loss as it pertains to runners. Enjoy listening to running influencer @trackclubbabe! Questions Kim is asked: 3:42 When I invited you to be on the show, you said the sweetest thing about how this was a full circle moment for you. Can you explain? 4:49 You chopped almost three hours off your marathon time. Tell us about your journey. 7:59 What made you want to start a blog and give yourself the nickname Track Club Babe? 9:45 What were some of your early training mistakes? 12:57 What do you eat now before running? 14:08 You have a really big following on Instagram and you give training advice and things that work for you that people just absolutely eat up. What do you get asked about the most? 15:34 Your running journey hasn't exactly been perfectly smooth so I would love to hear about some of the times you've had plateaus and you broke through them. 20:14 Results are addictive when you get big PRs. You just think, "Well, if I just do a little bit more… " But clearly there's a breaking point. 26:26 One post of yours I noticed recently was about weight loss to get faster. Can we talk about this? 30:37 I think it's super helpful to spread that message that thinner is not faster so I'm really glad we're talking about that. 32:57 Let's talk about food. What's your favorite recovery food? What do you like to fuel up on when you're in marathon training? 33:53 With your Instagram following being so big and working on your blog, are you still working as a full-time realtor as well? 35:25 What's it like during COVID with no races for you? 37:01 How did you get through all the mental baggage of taking time off from running? 39:11 What's next for you? Questions I ask everyone: 42:36 If you could go back and talk to yourself when you started running, what advice would you give? 43:20 What is the greatest gift running has given you? 43:55 Where can listeners connect with you? Quotes by Kim: "We all love to run and no matter why you're running, whether it's just for the joy of it or competitively, it makes it more fun when it feels a little bit more effortless and you can go a little bit longer and a little bit faster, and it just makes it more fun." "I think the internet's an awesome place for just teaching you so much, and then just being connected with so many runners around the world helps so much to read from their experiences, learn from them." "I figured out how to qualify for Boston and I figured out training for me. The key for every person is just figuring out what is going to connect for you and your body and for where you're at." "There's so many things that you can be doing that have nothing to do with weight that are going to move the needle on your speed, and that's what we should be focusing on and not just being so obsessed with weight, which honestly, if you want to try to be frail and run fast; that's not going to work either. You want to be under-fueled and try to run fast; that's not going to help you." Take a Listen on Your Next Run Leave a space for libsyn link Want more awesome interviews and advice? Subscribe to our iTunes channel Mentioned in this podcast: Runners Connect Winner's Circle Facebook Community RunnersConnect Facebook page RunnersConnect Focus Classes email Coach Claire Follow Kim on: Instagram We really hope you've enjoyed this episode of Run to the Top. The best way you can show your support of the show is to share this podcast with your family and friends and share it on your Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media channel you use. The more people who know about the podcast and download the episodes, the more I can reach out to and get top running influencers, to bring them on and share their advice, which hopefully makes the show even more enjoyable for you!