November 2017

#285: Running and Fertility

Sarah and co-host Amanda Loudin have a candid conversation with Dr. Elizabeth “Betsy” Barbieri, a doctor of reproductive medicine at Oregon Reproductive Medicine and a mom of three young kids, about running and fertility. The conversation starts off with a few laughs with a tangent about pregnant celebrities in US Weekly. The good doctor talks about hormonal shifts which can affect a mother runner’s cycle. Betsy gives advice on dealing with the stress of trying to conceive and why it’s important to continue running in moderation if it’s a sanity-saver. The conversation covers miscarriages and running—and why to banish any guilt. Like so many care providers, Dr. Betsy encourages women trying to conceive to not be afraid to seek help. Then Sarah welcomes Anissa Brown, a—spoiler alert! —mother of three children, who shares the amazing tale of how she “won” her twins via a 5K race! (And the help of the Footsteps for Fertility Foundation.) A must-listen story!!

First up, Amanda and Sarah laugh about backpacking and marvel at some standout runners (Shalane! Kathrine!) at the 2017 New York City Marathon. The expert interview begins at 11:24.

To dive into your DNA, visit 23andme.com/AMR

To save $50 off a Burrow sofa, use promo code AMR at burrow.com

For $30 off your first week of HelloFresh, enter promo code AMR30 at HelloFresh.com

*If you’re digging our podcasts, we’d be super-grateful if you’d take a minute (because we *know* you have so many to spare!) to write a review on iTunes. Many thanks.

**Also, the quickest way to get our podcasts is to subscribe to the show via iTunes. Clicking this link will automatically download the shows to your iTunes account. It doesn’t get any simpler than that. We’ve also joined the Acast podcast network, download their app to hear our podcast and many others like it!

You Need a Hat! And You Need a Hat!

We’re channeling our inner Oprahs as we head into late fall. One of our favorite things is hats, those blessed portable porches that keep the rain off of our faces and our hair our of our eyes. Shopgirl Sarah has gone a little hat crazy this season. She can tell you about it:

I’m going to admit: I have such fun helping design the hats in the Mother Runner Store, sometimes I go gonzo, introducing more than maybe we should. At least this time, I diversified, making two designs of  three types of hats: trucker, running, beanies. (Plus a re-order of our popular BAMR visor!) 

I adore flowers! After seeing how beautiful our original flowered trucker hat turned out, I knew we had to design another one. The design inspiration I gave BoCo Gear (the company we work with to make all our hats) was a field of California poppies and lupine because they remind me of the exquisite hillsides I ran past when I lived in San Francisco about two decades ago. It was when I first took up trail running, and I would always stop in my tracks to marvel at the orange and purple flowers bobbing in the breeze amidst the tall grasses that grew up after winter rains.

We don’t just have truckers, though. Running hats are on our noggins, too.

SBS designed this beauty because she wanted a black hat spiked with her favorite color (blue) that proclaimed she’s a mother runner. She proudly sported it in Twin Cities Marathon–and on pretty much every run since!

For those BAMRs who want something a little more subtle, the BAMR* takes one to know one hat is like a secret handshake, letting badass mother runner acknowledge each other at races or on runs. We love the regal purple color with accents of bright blue.

Last (but decidedly not least) we’ve got BoCo performance beanies! This black beanie is scattered with countless grey versions of our signature “mother” tattoo. Adding pops of color are an aqua stripe and the another mother runner logo printed on the front, outlined in royal blue.

On dark, chllly runs, you need a bright spot, so we boosted the colors in this performance knit running beanie. This pretty aqua-blue beanie boasts an oversized version of our shoe logo in bright pink. Encircling the hat is a pink stripe. On the front (or wherever it lands!) it reads “another mother runner” in pink on a white circle, outlined by teal green.

With all of these hats, we hope you found your favorite, too!

BAMRbassador Applications are Open!

mother runners

The OG BAMRs, SBS + Dimity

Our tribe of two (Dimity + Sarah) has grown by leaps and bounds during the past 7 years. We’ve logged a lot of miles, we have shared pooping stories, we have retreated, and we have pushed ourselves to do more than we ever thought possible, proving that we are even more Bada$$ than we thought before. And we know that there are so many more BAMRs out there who would bask in all the warm and fuzzy feels we’ve gotten from this Tribe.

Which is why we are asking you, our loyal BAMRs, to become BAMRbassadors for Another Mother Runner.

Yes, you heard that right. We are finally opening applications to accept our Freshman class of BAMRbassadors, which will matriculate in January 2018. Yippee! This has been a long time in the works. We are THRILLED to tell you more about the program and how you can become a part of it.

The Deets:

As a BAMRbassador, we will ask you to help us promote our beloved Tribe through the following action items:

  • Post about AMR and its partners on social media
  • Help out at AMR events (e.g., parties at target races, AMR booths at race expos, BAMR cheer stations at races, etc.)
  • Spread the word about sponsor products on behalf of AMR
  • Other fun opportunities (that will be revealed later)!​

We expect these activities will take between 6-10 hours per month of your time. Please note that this is NOT a paid opportunity, but you will be handsomely rewarded with swag from AMR and its partners, as well as the love and appreciation of Dimity and SBS!

If YOU WANT TO FILL THESE SHOES, please fill out the application now!  They are due December 1, 2017. We know it’s the busiest time of the year, so we are giving you several weeks to turn in your homework. (And if you wait until the night before, we won’t judge.)

We will review all applications and ambassadors will be announced by December 15. In the meantime, we will be in touch if we have questions about your application.

Good luck!

Dimity + Sarah

#284: Dietitian Discusses Nutrition for Runners

Sarah and co-host Adrienne Martini tuck in for a discussion about nutrition for runners with registered dietitian Jackie Dikos. As she does in her upcoming book, Finish Line Fueling: An Essential Guide to Runner’s Nutrition, Jackie offers advice for simplifying food and nutrition. In answering questions culled from mother runners, this dietitian talks about carbs to eat on a long run and great whole food choices after a workout. Find out her thoughts on Keto diets, as well as her recommendations for lean protein choices. She details the advantages of going through “windows of fasting” and gives suggestions for eating as you age (happens to the best of us!). Sarah gets Jackie to unpack her euphemism “healthy digestion.” At end of convo, Jackie talks about best supplements for runners.

Before being joined by the guest, Adrienne and Sarah talk about Halloween and a #motherruner gathering in NYC on Saturday, November 4. (Email for details: BAMR [at] anothermotherrunner [dot] com) The informative interview start at 20:40.

To save $50 off a Burrow sofa, use promo code AMR at burrow.com

For $30 off your first week of HelloFresh, enter promo code AMR30 at HelloFresh.com

*If you’re digging our podcasts, we’d be super-grateful if you’d take a minute (because we *know* you have so many to spare!) to write a review on iTunes. Many thanks.

**Also, the quickest way to get our podcasts is to subscribe to the show via iTunes. Clicking this link will automatically download the shows to your iTunes account. It doesn’t get any simpler than that. We’ve also joined the Acast podcast network, download their app to hear our podcast and many others like it!

Always in Progress: A Chat with Mirna Valerio

It’s no secret that we at Another Mother Runner love ourselves some Mirna Valerio. We’re talked about Fat Girl Running, obstacle races, and singing opera on epic trail runs. Mirna’s book, A Beautiful Work in Progress, has been out since the beginning of September and we finally had the chance to catch up with her about some of the topics she wrote about.

(And if you’re interested in winning your own copy of Mirna’s Beautiful Work, we have two to give away. Scroll down for details about entering the random drawing.)

The first question is an easy one: how has the book been received?

“I’ve been astounded at the reaction of people that have been reading; it’s been amazingly positive and encouraging. It’s been really cool to have people reaching out and writing me these long emails about how my book has affected them in some way or how it has motivated them to start a fitness routine again.

And now for the more difficult questions…

As a runner of color and one who is plus-size, you stand out on the trail. How do we help the running community grow more inclusive and diverse?

With the big road races and events, they are more diverse. But in terms of the trail running community, I think representation matters the most. There’s a small cadre of folks who do trail races and we see each other all of the time because there are so few of us — but it is a growing community. It’s growing quite slowly but it’s still growing.

People who are running the events are aware of the fact that “hey, this is a potential area for improvement.” There was a race director who recently reached out to me and asked “how can we do this? How can I be more invitational? How can I get more people of color to come to my races? Because I really do want it to be truly inclusive.” I think that awareness is a huge step, then some action needs to be taken.

There are some organizations – Outdoor Afro, Latino Outdoors, Black Girls Run, Black Men Run  — whose primary purpose is to get people of color out into spaces where they normally wouldn’t feel like they were entitled to be or they just didn’t feel like they belonged. The fact that I was on the cover of a magazine is not lost on me. That was not lost on other people. They were like, “Finally. Somebody who looks like me.”

And not just necessarily in terms of race but in terms of body type, too. I would love to see more differently abled bodies on the covers of magazines or just being covered in general, without the stigma of difference. Let’s not go the route of “you’re such an inspiration.” That’s tired and old. People just want to be out there, be represented and, see themselves. Because seeing is believing.

You write about the expectations put on women to always be on-duty for their partners and kids – and how that contributed to you winding up in the ER thinking you were having a heart attack. Why do you think we feel compelled to do it all?

It’s engrained in us. It’s a social norm that we take on literally everything, because we’re expected to that is the way our society is designed. For example, if you look at the workplace, it is not designed for men to take off months or even years after the births of children. Our society, in America anyway, does not accommodate the family. For a lot of us, it’s more economically feasible to take on everything and for your male partner to go out and work. In that, a lot of us lose because we’re expected to do so much we lose the sense of who we are and what we’re good at, because we’re only taking care of children or we’re only taking care of our family.

Even if we do work outside the home, we still have all of those responsibilities. I’m thinking of my mother’s generation and generations before them, where the women did everything, even though they had full time jobs. They didn’t have time to go out and go do a run. Or if they did, it would see like they were being selfish. You should be using that time to take care of your children or your family or your house.

One of my husband’s friends drove my husband and I home from the hospital after we’d had our son. He asked, “What do you do again?” I said, “I’m a teacher.” He said, “That’s good because you’ll get to stay home with the kids during the summer.” I said “What? I love my son but it is not only purpose in life to take care of the house and the home and make sure that everybody is fed and clothed.”

I really try to fight against that in my life, even though that was the reason that I fell ill. I didn’t even realize I was so busy because I was thinking, “I’m working. I’m doing really, really well at my job. I also am the primary caretaker, even though my husband is here.” For everything, I was like: it’s just easier if I do it myself.

I didn’t even have time to step out of myself and look at what my life had become. It’s really hard when you are consumed with everybody else’s well-being to even think about your own well-being. It takes practice. It takes people pointing out to you. It takes a shift in our paradigm of who women are, what we do, what we can do, and what we don’t need to do anymore.

Mirna will be signing copies of A Beautiful Work in Progress on Saturday, November 4 at the New York City Marathon Expo. To win your own copy, in the comments below (and by November 8), tell us the title of the last book you enjoyed.

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