A Running Update from WRS Host Cherie; and In My Training Diary: A Refocus on Mental Strength Training
plus, in Recommendations: Tough Girl Podcast, with Sarah Williams
New on WRS: A Running Update from WRS Host Cherie, That’s Me
This is an update from me, WRS host and producer Cherie Louise Turner, about my running, training, and racing. This picks up from where the last episode of the Over 50, Sub 20, 5k Project, Part 9, left off.
As I mentioned in that last episode, I have decided to stop focusing so completely on this sub-20 minute 5k goal, so am just calling these running updates. I still have a sub-20 goal, but it’s not my all-consuming singular focus.
This update covers the time period between mid-March and mid-May 2025. In March, I was in the midst of a break from running, and in this episode, I share details about my return to a formal training program. I’m experimenting with some new approaches to training that I’m very excited about. A big focus on getting more out of doing less, and knowing when to say “enough.”
Feel free to join the journey from here; it’s not mandatory to listen to previous episodes of my running story (which, on WRS, includes parts 1–9 of the Over 50, Sub 20, 5k Project, and two Comrades race reports, from 2022 and 2023) in order to enjoy this one. Previous episodes will provide more context around my running story and provide details about the many lessons I have learned so far.
Come along for the journey.
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: Back to Meditation
I left off in this week’s episode saying that I want to re-focus on mental strength and building confidence. I know I will benefit a lot from tapping into the vast power of my mind. I know this because past experience tells me so.
When I spend concerted, consistent efforts focusing on improving my mental state, I see significant shifts. I have shifted my running self-talk from often negative to regularly neutral and sometime even positive. I have completely revamped how I approach races, in a joyful way. I am making strides toward getting a handle on my lifelong issues around anxiety, which impacts the way I run: an anxious body is a tense body, and a tense body doesn’t move as fluidly and efficiently as a relaxed body.
But there’s so much more room for improvement. So, it’s time to re-commit energy toward developing a more regular practice around the psychological side of running and training.
To note here, I do journal and meditate and pay attention to my self-talk and the like often. I just haven’t been making it a regular, consistent practice. I would categorize the approach I’ve had lately as random and sporadic. I know I’ll see greater benefit by making it more like a training program: regular, consistent, intentional, structured.
So in that vein, I’m starting simple, with 10-minute meditations—laying a foundation of consistency. I have a basic 10-minute meditation soundtrack of singing bowls that I like. For evening meditation, I also really like this 10-minute guided body scan. Week 1 is 5 days of these 10-minute sessions: very doable.
Nicely, these days, I actually enjoy meditation. In the past, it was often a grin and bear it situation: I spent a lot of of time wondering how soon it’d be over.
What I enjoy about meditation these days is that it actually does make me feel better, almost immediately. A big shift is that I’ve stopped trying to meditate the way I think I should be meditating: with a clear mind, devoid of thought. Nowadays, I just let my mind do its thing.
Instead of fighting what arises, I get curious.
Oftentimes I realize that thoughts I’m ruminating over, thoughts that may be causing me stress or that I just feel like I just can’t let go of, actually aren’t that critical. I put things in perspective. I also consider, maybe there’s a different way of looking at whatever situation may be plaguing me. I see the plasticity of thoughts: I can shape and reshape them in ways that feels more useful, more constructive.
I inevitably come away from those short 10 minutes feeling just a bit more refreshed, just a bit more calm, and just a bit more in touch with the fact that I can participate in the quality of my mental chatter, instead of being at the mercy of it.
This all feeds into running and training because as goes my mind, goes my body. Especially over the past couple of years, I have gotten much more in touch with how closely connected my running and mental state are.
Negative thinking, anxiety, lack of self-belief—these all have a significant impact on my athletic life. These are also all areas that I have the ability to change and improve. It feels empowering.
Recommendation: Tough Girl Podcast
The Tough Girl podcast is one of the original podcasts focused on women adventurers and endurance athletes. Host Sarah Williams started Tough Girl in 2015 and is still going strong. To date, she has published over 750 episodes featuring a huge variety of women.
If you are looking to be awed, inspired, entertained, or motivated by women doing incredible things in the outdoors, Tough Girl will deliver. A graphic of some of the most recent episodes gives a sense of how many different types of stories there are to choose from:
Sarah herself is also an adventurer, having taken on many challenges, year after year. She’s run the multiday Marathon de Sables in Morocco, hiked the Appalachian Trail, and cycled from Canada to the southern tip of Baja in Mexico—and much, much more.
Find Tough Girl on all your favorite podcast apps. You can listen here to the current episode:
Coming up . . .
Coming up next Tuesday, the terrific running story of Jessica Mena. Mena has been driven from a young age to see what she is capable of as a runner. These days she’s focused on trail ultras, and she shares the story of running her first 100k, in addition to all that came before to get her to where she is today. That backstory includes running her first marathon at age 12!
The following week, I am really excited to share the running story of coach and runner Becky Croft. Croft is a performance focused runner, and she has developed a specialty in her coaching practice of helping women in their menopausal years, especially women who have gone through a hysterectomy. This focus comes out of Croft’s own experiences, wisdom, and knowledge: she’s turned her own health challenges into a font of knowledge that she passes along to others.
There’s so much to look forward to on WRS! Subscribe to the podcast today so you don’t miss an episode.
And, that’s a wrap. Until next week, I wish you healthy, joyful strides forward.