Annie Rodenfels Live! on WRS; and In My Training Diary: The Art of Holding Back
plus, in Recommendations: Susie Chan's book "Trails and Tribulations"
New on WRS: Annie Rodenfels, LIVE in conversation, about becoming the champion racer she is today
This conversation was so much fun!!
This week’s episode is a special live recording featuring professional runner and 3x national champion Annie Rodenfels, in conversation with WRS host and producer Cherie; that’s me. We sat down at the Tracksmith track house in Boston on Sat., March 22, with a wonderful crowd on a beautiful morning to have this fantastic conversation.
Annie Rodenfels is a born competitor. We get into how she progressed from being a high school soccer player who ran track and field, to a top NCAA DIII runner, and then to one of the best distance racers in the US.
This is not a common trajectory: most DIII runners don’t turn pro, let alone become one of the best in the pro field. Rodenfels has worked smart and hard to get here, developing her strength, skill, and ability. It’s been a years long, step by step process, and all along the way, Rodenfels continues to rise to the occasion.
Among her many professional career highlights, Rodenfels is the 2023 and 2024 5k National Champion, and the 2024 6k National Champion. And she won the first 10k she ever raced, the prestigious Boston 10k for Women, in 2023.
Through it all, Rodenfels’s training, mental game, confidence, and racing style has evolved, and she gets into it all.
You can listen to this episode on your favorite podcast app, like Apple, Spotify, or YouTube, or you can listen here:
From My Training Diary: Not Giving Everything All the Time
It was really nice to see Jinghuan Liu Tervalon put out a new Wings & Spikes post a few days ago. Tervalon and her family lost their home in the recent LA Fires, and this most recent post she wrote about how she’s been feeling lately, in life and running.
One detail of her update felt like it was speaking directly to me: the value of B+ workouts. Mark Coogan writes about this in his book Personal Best Running: Coach Coogan’s Strategies for the Mile to the Marathon. The basic idea is to not give 100% in all of your workouts because going all out too often takes too much of a toll—physically, mentally, emotionally.
As someone who has spent a lifetime giving 110% in workouts, this is just the advice I need to keep close at hand. Coming off of a break that was initiated by massive burnout, I am very keen to not do that again. Being mindful of how I spend my emotional and mental energy is especially important: there is not an endless supply and spending it over and over again at the track, at races, stressing about times and paces—at some point the well goes dry.
So, for the first time in my life, I am committed to doing less to get fit than more. I’m very excited to see how it goes.
I applied this principal to my most recent fartlek session—10 reps of 30 seconds on, 90 seconds off—and it was just fun. I did not care about the pace, I just ran: it felt playful and light. The rest of my running and cross-training is the same—and I’m loving being on my bike once a week with no agenda other than to spin my legs and be outside.
I’m in the building phase right now, so I’m not feeling superfit, but I feel good. And I’m mindful to keep it that way.
Recommendation: Susie Chan’s Trails and Tribulations
I really enjoyed this book, and I use the word “enjoy” purposefully: it was a pleasure at a time when I really needed something fun, interesting, well written, and adventurous to listen to.
I also purposefully didn’t use the word “inspirational” in my description of this book because, quite frankly, I don’t want to do any of the things that Chan has done: she does a lot of really difficult ultras and multi-day running races.
But I’m very happy to hear her tell me about her wild and audacious adventures. There are many!
Chan doesn’t shy from sharing unflattering truths in her accounting of the incredible endurance feats she’s accomplished or the life difficulties she’s been through—there are many of those, too. This makes her far more relatable than you’d think for someone who’s done all of the awe-inspiring things she’s done: here’s a human doing extremely difficult things, and that’s exactly what it sounds like. And, she still chooses to do them.
Yeah, I think that’s what I enjoyed most about this story. I never got the feeling Chan was trying to wow me—but, to be sure, I was wowed. I felt like she was as shocked as anyone by the things she signed up for. And, the experiences were as awful and amazing and terrifying and magical as any real human being would believe them to be.
I loved being along for the ride.
Bonus Recommendation: Maggie Mertens in Conversation with Rose Eveleth
I know, I know—I have recommended Maggie Mertens’s writing (especially her book Better, Faster, Farther) and Rose Eveleth’s award-winning podcast series Tested more than once.
But when Mertens’s published a new post on her My So-Called Feminist Life Substack feed today featuring an interview between herself and Eveleth about World Athletics proposing the return of sex testing for women athletes, and new parameters regarding who gets to participate in the women’s category, I thought, I have to highlight this.
So consider it highlighted:
Mertens and Eveleth have brought clarity and thoughtful insight to a subject that even people who are making the rules about it don’t appear to fully understand—or appreciate. What Eveleth has to say in this interview is important, and interesting.
Coming Up …
Next week’s episode is SO GOOD! I’ve got TrailblazHers LeadHer Alia Qatarneh on the podcast, in anticipation of marathon weekend here in Boston: 26.TRUE on Saturday and the Boston Marathon on Monday.
Qatarneh’s powerful story centers community and leadership and features her experiences running the 2023 Boston Marathon and 2024 26.TRUE, and why she unquestionably signed up to run 26.TRUE once again this year.
Qatarneh’s episode drops Tuesday!
LIVE EVENT ALERT! On Sunday, April 20, 1pm, LIVE on the main stage at the Boston Marathon Expo I will once again be joining my friends Lisa Levin and Julie Sapper of the Run Farther and Faster podcast to co-host a live panel featuring Stephanie Bruce, Erica Stanley-Dottin, and Dot McMahon.
You can hear our panel from 2022, when we were honored to be in conversation with Marilyn Bevans and Maegan Krifchin (the episode published April 22, 2022).
And, that’s a wrap. Until next week, I wish you healthy, joyful strides forward.