#332: A Conversation with Kim Stemple, Founder of We Finish Together
Sarah and co-host Maggie Palmer have a heart-to-heart with Kim Stemple, a mother runner with an abundance of positivity despite facing down a terminal trio of illnesses. A marathon runner and triathlete, Kim is founder of We Finish Together, a grassroots group passing along medals to people in challenging situations. Kim shares how she’s rewritten the rules about being sick, including running two marathons and a 50K (!!) post-diagnoses. A veteran of two Marine Corps Marathons, Kim gives advice for running what she lovingly calls “more of an event than a race.” Laugh as Kim tells a tale involving cheetah pajamas and Bart Yasso in a golf cart! The inspiration behind Grit + Grace Enduro socks by Balega, Kim talks about the importance of passing on kindness, including in the starting corral of a race. Moments before beginning to record the show, Kim shared with the hosts that she is headed into hospice. Let’s make a spark by showing some extra kindness this month.
In the introduction, Sarah and Maggie touch on a bevy of topics, including Sarah’s mom’s recent move, musical instruments, PBS, and more. The guest joins the show at 17:00.
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Dry Martini: A Sub 2:30 Half Marathon At Last
For five years, I’ve had one major running goal: to run a sub 2:30 half marathon.
Sure, I’ve had smaller running goals, too. I wanted to run the zippiest 10K I could. I’ve had a few races where I simply wanted to finish upright and with a smile on my face. Even with those mini-goals, that 2:30 half has always remained hovering, like the lingering smell of a coworker reheating fish in the office microwave.
The closest I’ve come was last year’s Wineglass Half in Corning, New York. I crossed the finish in 2:32 and felt pretty damn happy with the effort. It is a course that suits me. There are rolling hills and the late-september weather feels like fall. Corning is only two hours from my house, which means I haven’t spent hours curled up like a pill bug in the car or in the air. I know the race logistics by heart, since I’ve run it so often.
Plus, there’s a Wegman’s. (I swear by the turkey subs. YMMV.*)|
*Your mileage/results may vary (explanation inserted by Dimity, who isn’t cool enough to know such phrases).
BRF Lisa and I at the Expo. For the first time in years, I got to leave before closing time. It was weird.
So was Wineglass 2018 finally the year I harpooned my 2:30 whale? This five point list will answer that question:
How I (Finally) Beat 2:30 (!)
(WOO!)
1. I ran hard on the hard days; ran easy on the easy days; and had the wisdom to know the difference.
While the processes of aging and parenting has taken most of the edge off of my need to overachieve, I find it hard to not go above and beyond requirements on my training plans. If the plan calls for speed work, I want to go faster than it says just to show off how compliant I am. I want easy runs to be at faster-than-easy paces because a mile time with a “13” at the front makes me feel like a big fat slacker.
With Coach Christine’s help, I’ve really worked on running the pace that’s called for, instead of the one my ego wants it to be. Which made for a good summer of training.
2. I rested and rested a little more.
For the past two (maybe three?) years, Another Mother Runner had a booth at the Wineglass Expo. And for the past two (maybe three) years, I spent incredible amounts of time on my feet before the race in said booth. I regret nothing, mind, because I got to meet so many amazing BAMRs. But my dogs were always barking by the start of the race. By mile ten, my legs were done.
This year, I ran Saturday’s 5K at “mosey” pace, then had some lunch, and lounged around the hotel room like a might thing that lounges. I read for hours (which I never get to do). I hydrated. I wandered to the lobby and met a few BAMRs just to chat, then went back into lounge mode. It was my dream Saturday, frankly.
I did just a little shopping on Saturday at Card Carrying Books and found this pin. It will now live on my racing hat, since I cannot pin Beyonce herself there.
3. I started slow.
One of my biggest running mistakes is that I start every race too durn fast. Despite ample evidence that you can’t bank time, my body still seems to think it can bank time. This was the year when I didn’t let my starting line excitement get the best of me. Plus: rather than rock out to music, I listened to an interesting-but-not-too-interesting podcast for the first five miles, which made a surprising difference in my pace. I turned the tunes on when it started to get hard.
4. I didn’t take the deal.
And when it got hard, I didn’t take the deal, as Coach Amanda says. I didn’t stop and walk “just for a minute.” I didn’t convince myself that I could make up a 12-minute mile with a 10:30 mile later on (which, for the record, I could never run after having already run ten miles).
No matter how much like a used car salesman my brain behaved, my inner BAMR reminded me that a) the temperature in the upper-40s was perfect for me, b) the course was ideal, c) I would never be better rested, and d) I can do hard things. The only deal I took during the last two miles was a promise that I would never run this fast for this long again. We’ll see if that holds.
What also helped was a dude who was a little older than me who was also running at the same pace I was. I tucked in behind him when my focus started to wane and just let him pull me along.
Thanks, random dude.
Reader: I rang it.
5. I emptied the tank.
The finish line at Wineglass is deceptive. You round the last corner, see the big banner, and sprint for it — but it never gets any closer, not even after you cross it. I swear there’s an inter-dimensional portal somewhere in those three blocks. Regardless, I channeled my inner Sarah and ran as hard as I could at the end. I didn’t pull down a Meb-like pace but finished respectably. And knew I’d given it all I had.
A PR deserves Dunkin’.
I’m still riding my PR high days later. I’m also stiff and sore and emotionally depleted. Last night, I nearly burst into tears when I came up one potato short (not a metaphor) while cooking dinner. Totally worth it.
If you’ve recently PR’ed, what contributing factors would you add to the list?
On Moving Days + Running Routes
My five-person family in fall 2016 in front of the sixth member of the clan.
Today, my 92-year-old mother moved out of the home where my sister, brother, and I grew up; the home where she and my father lived together for nearly 55 years. To put the momentousness of this event in context, let me quote my brother from a recent email: “In some way, the house was like the sixth member of our family.”
While I’ll miss the historic charm of my ancestral home (built-in beehive bread oven; wood-burning fireplaces; a front-door key the size and heft of a baby’s forearm), it’s more the surrounding roads and running routes that I find my mind drifting toward the past few weeks. Those rustic-suburban roads, deeply wooded with few houses, were the starting point of my running journey. They’re where I got my first taste at the exhilarating sensation of digging deep and finding out I am stronger than I thought.
In high school, I began to leave behind my bookish childhood and take some steps into the physical realm. After growing bored of doing the Jane Fonda workout album (yes, an actual album that required flipping over midway!) and “get a better butt” exercises from Mademoiselle magazine in the basement, I ventured outside to run. The most obvious route was a 3.7-mile loop around the nearby reservoir. Stepping beyond our home’s split-rail fence, I’d debate whether to head clockwise or counterclockwise—either way resulted in a steep climb in the final mile and many long rollers in the middle. (So many hills in Connecticut!)
Runfie in front of one of the mid-run rollers. Is Connecticut the “Keep Climbing” state?!
The house is on a road called Trinity Pass, so-named because it cuts through three towns (+ two states), perched at the top of a hill cut out by glaciers eons ago. Massive boulders jut out of the leafy landscape, crossed by countless stone walls built centuries ago by colonists. But the history that’s most vivid to me is charging up that final hill as a college student, telling myself if I stayed “strong” “strong” “strong” (a longtime power-word for me!) all the way to the top, I’d make the best boat on the rowing team when I returned to campus after summer vacation. (Spoiler: I did.)
I fell into a lovely routine with my Dad in the mid-1990s: I’d run seven miles to the pool where he swam daily, then we’d ply laps side-by-side. He’d give me a head start before starting his drive to the rec center so we’d arrive at the pool around the same time, then I’d drive us home post-swim. The pool was near my elementary school; as I ran, my mind would often drift back to childhood memories, including coming in last in just about every field day event except for the wheelbarrow race.
Kids + I tell ourselves it’ll be fun to stay in an AirBnB next time we visit Grandma…but we also know it’ll be different than coming home to this gem. (But, hey, maybe AirBnB place will be in flatter part of town!)
Then, of course, there’s the outrageous-to-some move I pulled on a marathon training run in Connecticut that remains a vivid memory even to some of you: the time, when on an exceptionally hot and humid 13-miler, as I traipsed a route that was post-apocalyptic deserted (no sign of life anywhere!), I chugged water from a half-empty bottle I found by the side of the road. While I didn’t finish that run feeling strong, I proved I can be resourceful, too. (And a bit nasty—same for peeing-through-my-capris on some of those stone walls lining the bucolic backroads.)
Like my years growing up in an 1836 Greek Revival house in Connecticut, these runs made me the mother runner I am today. I’ll miss both the house—and my old stomping grounds.