EP 41 | Jill Angie: Lessons from a Plus-Size Runner

hello everyone and welcome to this week's episode i can't wait to dive into this but before i do i want to tell you that one of the things that can really help my podcast get out to the millions of women that i think need to hear this is for you to actually go to itunes or whatever podcast app you use and write a review at the end of this episode tell us what you think about what jill has to offer us and the other thing that i would encourage you to do is if while you're listening to this episode this is resonating with you or you hear something that you know other friends of yours needed to hear i'm going to encourage you to take a screenshot of this episode and text it to your best girlfriends because i believe that it is through our own vulnerabilities through our own stories through our own truths that we get closer to living a life that feels really good to who we are from the inside out so without further a do i'm going to introduce to you today jill angie jill is a certified life and get this you guys she's a running coach excuse me she's a running coach who wants to live in a world where everyone is free to feel fit and fabulous at any size she started not your average runner in 2013 to help women gain confidence and self-esteem through running she is the host of the not your average runner podcast which again if this episode resonates you need to download her podcast and she is also the creator of the rebel runner road map a revolutionary 30-day class that helps women of all shapes and sizes start running so welcome to the show jill hi i'm so excited to be here thank you well this is going to be a great episode because you know there are just certain things that kim's trouble knows that she has no business coaching on um for example if you ever need to lose weight or learn how to eat healthy you are never going to come to kim strobel for that all right um but the other thing that might kind of fall into that category is i know and believe just like you do that if anybody has the desire to get fit and build their confidence and become a runner or begin to exercise i know firsthand that this is true regardless if you've ever ever walked in a gym regardless if you've ever walked a mile in your life but i'm not always the one jill to tell people that because i'll be very honest i am 30 years into graduating from high school and i still hold the track record at tel city high school three of them three of them all right running comes naturally to me it's easy to me um i'm one of those people that like oh i can't wait to take my run and i know that some of you want to slap me right now through this screen and through this audio but i can't wait for you to hear jill's story because jill is not your average runner so take us back jill tell us a little bit about you um okay i i just love that you are still holding the track record like can we just take a moment and celebrate that thank you jesus freaking awesome i hold the track record at tel city high school i i got that record in 1989 i think um for the 400 meter dash and for the 1600 meter relay and for the long jump oh my gosh and nobody has beat you since then no no like a small little community but all right well so that's actually a great segue because i am pretty sure that until i was in my 30s i couldn't even run 400 meters like i remember in high school we'd have to do the mile and i was always dead last and there was not a lot of running it was mostly walking you know we'd like do those track things and i would be the kid in the back just like making fun of everybody else and not actually doing anything um you're making me laugh because i drove by our high school last week and like they were doing outdoor gym and they were walking laps around the high school and like there was this guy who was a hundred meters behind everyone else and he was cutting like through the grass so you were that person jill were you the grass cutter i was i was the grass cutter and you know what's really funny though is i was pretty i was i mean i wasn't like super athletic but i played tennis in high school i was on the swim team so it wasn't like i avoided sports i just wasn't much for organized team sports i liked tennis because it was just me and the other person right but i hated running i just hated it so much it felt like punishment it just it just seemed like the worst thing in the world and so the irony that you know almost 40 years 35 years later i'm a running coach is not lost on me but well i i know i i love that and really that's why i reached out to you and i've really been anticipating this interview because i think that you are going to give us such perspective i i do believe that so many people want to become runners but i believe wholeheartedly that as soon as kim strobel introduces herself and says hey my hobbies are running and i run 35 miles a week and blah blah blah blah and like immediately they're like i i could never do that i was i was never an athlete i couldn't run around the block and what we know jill is that's not true so i can't wait to hear your journey how how did you go from like hating despising running being in last place in in gym to being a running coach what the heck yeah i mean it's kind of a long evolution and i think even though i hated running i also thought you know because i was like when i graduated from high school i was maybe 15 20 pounds overweight like as you know i like it wasn't any i thought i was terribly fat i thought i was just you know awful and um when i wasn't i look back i like my tiny little 25 inch waist tennis skirt i look at that now i'm like oh that fits one of my legs all right maybe i feel hard on myself but um in all seriousness i really i really really wanted to lose weight and i thought that running was the way to do that i thought running would help me so i kept trying over and over and over again and failing and you know trying and failing and trying and failing and then i don't know gosh i was probably like the mid to late 90s and i was trying yet again and i think couch to 5k the couch to 5k program had just come out and i thought this is it this is the secret right and it wasn't because by week three they want you to be running like five minutes at a time it's ridiculous okay stop right there jill because i'm so glad to hear this i have been giving bad information out then because when people come up to me after like a like a workshop i've given or a speaking gig they're like so i've never been a runner where do i start and here's my answer jill because i really don't know right because it came out i'm like oh google couched a 5k couch to 5k oh this is good so you're telling me no that's not the answer keep going well i think it's the answer for a small part of the population but for anybody who's over 25 and maybe a little bit overweight or you know like somebody who's at a normal weight or maybe just a little bit overweight and somebody that maybe already has a little bit of athletic ability i think it's the perfect program and if you read and i'm not going to get into the whole history of it but if you read about it i mean it was created with the best of intentions and it is responsible for getting millions and millions and millions of people into running the problem is there's a lot of people that it doesn't serve very well because it advances too far too fast and it also expects that within eight weeks you'll be running a 30 minute 5k and that's just not especially if you're like like me and you're 50 years old and you're 100 pounds overweight like it's just not happening yeah so you tried that program you failed at it within week three yeah or whatever okay and but i i it like triggered something in my brain that like okay well maybe i could just keep running and walking and running and walking and not aim to run the entire 5k let me just see what happens when i do that and like that was like the light switch for me that if i just did a run walk approach that i could go a lot farther i actually could go faster than if i just tried to run straight through and then i felt a lot better and i started noticing myself being able to you know keep my you know keep my breathing under control like it just all started falling into place because i just failed at it and failed it and failed at it so many times finally the light bulb went off and so i did that for several years and um and then i but i was still very very overweight at one point i think i was at like up to about 272 pounds and i'm not a tall person so um i decided i was going to do this thing called the the breast cancer three-day walk where and i think it's run by susan coleman i'm not sure um who it's run by now but it's basically you raise all this money and then you walk 20 miles you sleep in a tent you walk 20 more miles you sleep in a tent and then on day three you walk another 20 miles so you do 60 miles total okay and i was like i weigh 272 pounds i should probably train for this [Laughter] i should probably make an effort because at that point i would like i would go and do like you know a mile or two with my run walk but i wasn't going 60 miles so i hired a personal trainer and i was like i got to get this weight off i'm going to do this 60 mile walk and she's kind of looking at me and she's like all right but she was like the sweetest person and um so so we worked on strength training we worked on yoga for flexibility and so forth and i was not losing weight but i was gaining confidence i was feeling a lot stronger in my body and the day of the walk came and there was this huge rainstorm thunderstorm mudslide and they canceled two of the three days and i swear someone was looking out for me because i was not ready for that i had i was totally unprepared i was terrified um and i only had to walk 20 miles and i was like all right i can do this i can walk 20 miles so i did the final day i did the 20 mile walk um i was just miserable i felt awful and i was like i'm never gonna do that again and what i meant was i'm never gonna do that 30 to that 60 mile walk again but then what i realized what i actually meant to myself was i'm never going to show up that unprepared again and so i talked to my trainer after the event was over and i said look i want to do a big athletic event i want to do it the right way i'm probably not going to lose a bunch of weight like let's be honest but like i still think i can do this i'm signing up for a triathlon so i signed up for a triathlon the next year so it's like it's not enough for you just to take on running you want to do biking and swimming oh my gosh and at the time i was married to an ironman triathlete and so i was kind of like um okay it looks like fun yeah i don't know what i honestly i don't know what i was thinking but i was like i need to i need a redemption and i don't want to do a 60 mile walk with camping um i'm gonna do this triathlon and so i really threw myself into it and i i trained i did so much strength training i trained really hard with the running the cycling and the swimming and i had been a swimmer in high school so it wasn't like i didn't need to learn how to swim i was a pretty strong swimmer but the cycling like that was what i'm gonna put my feet in these shoes that are gonna get stuck to the pedal and i like i fell off multiple times i still have scars from falling off my stupid bike because i forgot i was clipped in but i did it and i cried i crossed that finish line i was like second to last i cried and i cried and i cried all the way home and i realized like this is a thing that like and i was the fattest person at that triathlon by far like nobody else even came close to the weight that i was at but i finished and i was like this is a thing if i can do this other women can do this and so i started thinking about like um you know what what is my contribution to the world of sports gonna be like i just started thinking much much differently i was really unhappy in the job that i had and i thought you know what i'm gonna quit my job but i'm gonna open a personal training studio in my house i'm gonna train plus size women to be strong and i'm gonna help them gain confidence and so i spent a couple years like figuring it out and getting certified and then i quit my job and oh my gosh so but i want to back up a minute so you're crying after completing the triathlon but why are you crying i want to understand that it was just like i mean there was it was not tears of sadness it was tears of pride and relief and joy and and to be honest both of my parents had passed away by that point in time but i knew that like i knew that i i wanted them to have known that i that i did that so you know i was crying kind of because i wasn't able to share that with them but it was just a moment where i realized like holy crap i'm capable of so much more than i ever thought i possibly was and it was hard as hell and there were a lot of times that i was miserable but it was all worth it and that like my whole life changed in that moment yeah and that's what i love is you know so many all of us have this potential and i think sean acre gives this stat that most of us are only using 10 of our potential and so it sounds to me like that was a really like a monumental moment in your life where you downloaded almost like a new blueprint for what you're capable of yeah totally and that new blueprint that new belief system and what you're able to achieve changed every area of your life didn't it yeah it really did it really did wow i mean i can't even recognize my life now from the person i was 10 years ago aside from that that one sort of life-changing moment like it just all really came down to that and everything has been different since then i mean it's not like everything just like magically changed overnight right like my brain changed and then as a result of that my reality changed over a period of years but oh i love that your brain changed and as a result your reality changed yeah that's like um i'm writing this down really because that's so good it's like an oprah tweetable moment um but and i love that what you're doing is you work not just with plus size women but knowing that a woman who doesn't fit the normal runner body type gets coached by someone who understands what it takes to get there and also understands what it feels like day in and day out to feel maybe less than at one time in your life or that you weren't capable of that and you know i run marathons and i took this year off because my body gets in trauma so much after one but i have seen evidence of this because i'm gonna tell ya you know i always tell people for as many miles as i run i don't really look like your typical runner either i mean i'm built like a brick house to be honest with you um but but i still look like an athlete you know what i'm saying and when i do these marathons i'm always amazed at the people who pass me and i'm pretty fast jill the people who pass me who are 50 to 100 pounds heavier than me because they've trained their body to do that i mean the bottom line is they're in better shape than i am and so it for me it also has kind of debunked that old belief that like you have to have a certain body type to be an athlete and that is so not true yeah it i mean i think if you want to win the 100 meter sprint in the olympics like yeah you kind of have to have a pretty close body type to those folks but beyond that there's a lot of there's a lot of open room and um and i think that we're not really taught that anywhere like the media and the media is just starting to change and just starting to shift and show bodies of all shapes and sizes because those of us who are athletes in bigger bodies are jumping up and down saying hey pay attention to us and like if nothing else it's like we've got money we want to join these races make them a little friendlier for somebody who maybe doesn't run an eight-minute mile like but hey maybe we can still finish a marathon in six hours like yeah right oh i love that and so and i love that you're just so honest about like you know that this was a really hard journey for you and that you failed at it many many times over many many years but now you feel like you've you you because of that because of the body that you live in and the formula that you've figured out for helping other women do this now you are paying it forward now you i mean i can't imagine what it's like for you to take women who were you 20 years ago and watch them create that self-confidence yeah that's i mean that's pretty amazing to see the the self-confidence bloom in somebody when they like even if it's just like that first run that they go on and they finish and they they did it on their own terms and they you know they they said okay i'm gonna do two miles and i'm i'm you know maybe i'm gonna run for 30 seconds and walk for 30 seconds and i'm gonna do it like that and they get to the end of that two miles and like their mind is just blown because they have the same shift that i had that like suddenly they go from an identity of not athletic i'll never be able to do that to hey wait a minute maybe i'm a runner it's so powerful and you know one of the things that i think that people don't understand and i say this as you know someone who cranks out 35 miles a week but the first like everybody has a different um length for like for me the first two miles they just suck like they are hard and even though i know i can go out and run a 20 mile run i'm gonna tell you like the first two miles my brain is like this feels terrible and like i don't think i'm gonna make it to mile three or two whatever and then your body like acclimates and it gets into this very natural rhythm and i feel like so many people they give up in that hard stretch because they don't know that it does change whether for some people it takes them a mile to get acclimated some people it takes some three miles for me it takes about you know two miles and then my body gets into this natural rhythm and it becomes easier but i feel like nobody knows that yeah i i think i i did a podcast called the first mile feels like ass or something like that that's a great title chill i can't remember if that was the title of it but i say that to my clients all the time they'll they'll have like a a training run and they'll be like oh my god after the first mile i felt so awful i just came home i'm like you know the first smile feels like ass why would you quit after a mile oh that is you missed the best part you missed like the best part of the run but and i forget that every single time for me it's actually about 20 minutes right so it's about like a mile and a quarter for me and and it's just like suddenly the flip the switch gets flipped and it feels good and yeah it's a thing and it's yeah our bodies are just like like no one's body is like yes let's suddenly ramp all up up the systems and yeah go this hard effort your brain your fight or flight mechanism is like we're not being chased what like what is happening there are no cougars there are no damage tigers right exactly your brain is like what is happening so it's normal well and you know like my ho like i've had to learn a lot as i've aged you know the last couple of years i am starting to have like shoulder issues and tennis elbow and then my um achilles tendon and different things and so even though i can go out and run all these miles jill i've started to do yoga and i'm in a class with like 70 to 80 year old women who are doing planks for longer than i can hold like i'm sitting there jill and my arms are shaking so badly because my core is not very strong so i'm working on that i'm i just have you know alex um um from ae wellness alex ellis yeah so like literally i just paid her um 300 dollars because she's like kim literally i can teach you 15 minutes of stretching to do after every run and you're not gonna have all of these pain problems in your body um and so i think the moral of that story is for a while i was like hey i feel great like i'm 44 and i feel 28 like i was one of those lucky ones that i always felt like i was in a youthful body and then all of a sudden it's like i'm starting to have all these pains and i have bursitis now in my hips and um and so i'm having to learn to do some things differently now if i want to continue to get the effects and i think a lot of what you're talking about is saying like we all just have to create some space within us and say hey let me see if i can't change my belief system around this yeah no it's very true and i think that's a lot of people are like why are you a life coach like what's what's a life coach and why you know yeah let's talk about that yeah well and they come to me and they're like just teach me how to run i'm like i can totally do that and i will do that for anybody i'll teach them to run but like i think running is the gateway to really unlocking our own confidence our own self-esteem our own self-love and i think like because of all the especially if you're plus size or if you're somebody who's you know i get women that come to me their 50s and their 60s i actually had i have one client bless her amazing amazing heart 76 years old and i i trained her to run her first nurse or her first half marathon and like she's like am i the oldest person you've ever like trained for a half marathon and i said yeah officially you are and she's like well i'm at the slowest i'm like absolutely not oh my so so like you took a 76 year old and trained her she has i want that woman must be amazing like to have that goal at 76 yeah and i think like that's what i love about the combination of life coaching and run coaching is that you know if you come to me if you come to me and you think you can become a runner like i'm i might not be the right coach because i specialize in women who believe that running is gonna be too hard for them they're either too fat too old too out of shape to uncoordinate whatever it is um i think that the thought the the mental [Music] bs that you have to get past in your own brain to become a runner when you have a belief that it's just not something for you like it teaches you i teach you how to get past i'm not putting this the right way i'm teaching i teach you how to get past your own bs so that you become a runner and then the tools that i teach can be used elsewhere in life and so like a lot of my clients are like oh well hey i did a half marathon maybe i could ask my my boss for a promotion or maybe i could quit my job and start my own company or like it's just mind-blowing how much like doing a simple run [Laughter] and getting past the thoughts that prevented you from doing it like once you learn how to do that with running you can do it anywhere so i think that's what's so amazing like running is definitely the gateway to you know it's people think like oh i'm so much more confident because i'm a runner and i'm like well yes but you're a runner because you worked on your confidence yes it's like an inside game right yeah it totally is yeah that's what i tell people all the time you know i'm like you know the work that i do with clients is in sometimes it's such a simple thing that we teach them right like you teach them how to run so to speak or i teach them how to create more self-love in their life which like you said it's those one little thing that one little thing that causes like a ripple effect and you're right next thing you know they're asking um they're telling their partner what they want more of in their marriage they're going after the job promotion they're starting their side hustle um they're taking time self-care time for themselves every single day like that piece of running the act in itself has this massive result in so many other areas of your life yeah it does and why do you think cause i love talking about self-love jill how does it bring you more self-love oh gosh that's such a great question i think i mean running doesn't we just talked about how running doesn't feel great in the beginning and i feel like when you work your way through the first mile or the first two miles to get to that point where it starts to feel good like that in its in and of itself is an act of self-love right like yes like doing something that's uncomfortable because you know the payoff to your well-being is going to be so great so like that like it it like reminds me of my self-love every single time i put my shoes on because now that's like something i say to myself like oh you know i go running because i care about myself i don't run because i'm trying to lose weight i don't run because i'm trying to like win races or anything like that i mean that would be awesome if any of those things happen i'd be down but like that's not why i run running for me is just it's just the ultimate act of self-love and it's also it's kind of interesting because a lot of the women i work with are moms and they either have you know most of them i would say have like they don't have like teeny tinies but they have like either little ones or middle school aged or whatever and for them going for a run feels at first like they are being selfish and like they are taking time away from their families and so like when i can get them to see running as an act of self-love and when you love yourself you're so much more effective with your family i'm sure you teach that over and over i love that 100 and here so here's my question jill too so you specialize in working with women who believe that running wasn't something they could ever do because either they felt overweight or they feel like they're too old or they were never an athlete um or whatever that might be so what is your secret to helping these women like tell us your secret like i know there are people like we're gonna we're gonna show people like hey if you want to be coached by jill this is where you go but like still like what are some things that my audience members like they're i could just hear them they're like jill tell me what to do where do i start what's the secret how do you make this work and i think the secret is giving yourself permission to do it the way it works for you give us some examples of that well because i think that the reason i struggled so long with running is because i thought i had to run for three miles without stopping and once i gave myself permission to run a little bit and walk a little bit i'm like oh look at that now i'm training for a marathon right like so because you've run a marathon jill i actually i have not i trained for the philadelphia marathon i my that 20-mile training run was one of the best experiences of my life i like i finished that 20 miles i was like i cannot believe i just did that that was amazing and then on race day it was sleet and ice and snow and it was like 30 degrees and by mile 13 which like the race the philly race goes out and comes back at the half mile mark and half marathon mark and then goes out and back again and i was like i'm covered with blisters i'm cold this is not how i want to this is i don't want to experience the next 13 miles like this that i just decided i was done so i was like all right i'm going to do it in 2020. let me cover it let me yeah but let me just clarify to the woman who's sitting across the camera from me right now who could not is it fair to say you couldn't run a block at one time in your life oh yeah totally so a plus-sized woman who couldn't run around the block now a plus-size woman who has gone out and run continuously for 20 miles well ron walk but yes i mean that's freaking amazing jill i mean that's like five hours of run walk exercise non-stop i'm super proud of that i mean it is it's amazing and you know even even with me i was like a sprinter and i remember the first time somebody said hey you should do a half marathon and i'm like oh my god my five mile runs kill me like i'm just dead i could never do 13 right and then i did a half marathon and then somebody's like oh you should do a marathon and i'm like oh my god that was pure hell like i probably didn't even have a quarter of a mile left in me after the half marathon and of course now you know eight marathons later so it's such a mindset thing jill it's such and i know that's what you work on is you work on the psychology and the mindset behind it while also helping them honor what feels good to them yeah and i think um that's one thing that i do teach my clients is like don't be afraid to fail right because because i had a you know i had a moment of reckoning with myself like on marathon day when i got up and it was sleeting and i was not prepared for that at all and um i thought i might not finish this race today and then i said to myself and that's okay because uh the year before i had been badly injured well it was plantar fasciitis and uh it banned syndrome and like a torn meniscus so it wasn't like i got hit by a car but like my body was just sort of like like pretty angry with me and so i i had not run for several months and then i started running again in march and the marathon was in november so i really had only trained for like eight months i'd gone from zero to mara and i thought to myself all right well you know maybe that was actually kind of unrealistic but i i also recognized that if i had not set this enormous goal of running a marathon i never would have done a 20-mile run i would have done the 18-mile run and i wouldn't have done the 16-mile run and like that i think that is one of the lessons that i try to teach my clients is set big-ass goals and you know what like it's not even about the goal it's about the person you become on the way there oh wait a minute it's not even about the goal it's about the person you become on the way there and i think that's the other the other secret that i like to to share with people is you know learn how to run on your own terms and i totally teach people how to do that like um and i actually i have a free um a free 30-day training plan that people can download oh you do tell us where to go because my people are gonna be all about that just go to not your averagerunner.com and it's it's right there at the top of the page i call it the 30-day running start and um and it helps you kind of just get started and i promise there's there's nobody that this plan is going to be too hard for like it really it's it's a very like entry-level plan um but so i teach i teach my clients that but then i also teach them to like set really big goals don't be afraid to fail because you're becoming a different person and you know so what so i failed at my first marathon like okay yeah there's plenty more right like i felt at my first marriage thank god for second chances coach i teach people how to increase their happiness levels by up to 40 percent exactly i love that and if upgrading your marriage is part of that i'm all it is it is okay so before i end this here's a question i have for you so i want to go back to little freshman kim because i want to tell you i want to be honest i was like 102 and i was probably 99 pounds when i got that record oh my gosh and then between like my sophomore and junior year i sprouted boobs and not just boobs but like big ass boobs which did slow me down and so i still have these big ass boobs and i can tell you have big ass boobs so lord yes i want to know because i feel like i have to duck tape these babies down do you have like a bra that you recommend you do jill why do i not know this i don't know okay so it's called eno e-n-e-l-l okay and you can go to e-nell.com um and it's basically for anybody who's like a c or a d cup or higher so if you're a b cup it's gonna be too big for you okay okay um they fit they fit a lot differently they're like there's 12 hooks in there okay i've had those things similar ones where you have to hit hook all those things just yeah but you know what like when i i mean i'm like a g cup and they don't move when i run really oh yeah it's worth it it is worth it because i always do that little side glance like i'm running down main and i'll look at myself in the glass and like they're flopping around you know and i'm just like good grief so they have all those little hooks and they keep the girls secure so that that's really good to know because a lot of big breasted women struggle with like sometimes that can just be like well i don't even i can't i can't even find a brawl that's going to help me you know so that's really helpful okay joe where do people go okay so if you decide to order an email just use the code jill ship j-i-l-l-s-h-i-p when you check out you get free shipping jill ship awesome free shipping oh i love it and it's a woman-owned company like the woman that created the company had big boobs played volleyball was like this is the worst thing ever created abroad to hold her boobs down and the rest is history and oprah runs in them oh she does that's how i found out about them oh my i'll drop this in the show notes ladies too so that you have the exact link if you want to order the bra ashley graham also wears them too so oh my goodness okay so if people are like hey i think i might need to hire jill as my running coach or how do they find you uh so you can go to not your averagerunner.com and sign up for the free 30-day training plan i do have a podcast called not your average runner um and also three to four times a year i run a class called the rebel runner roadmap and so uh the next opening isn't until january but if you go to rebelrunnerroadmap.com you can get on the wait list and as soon as it's open i'll send you an email and invite you to join so and this episode is probably not going to go live until february so when will you run the next that's a good question i think the next one oh my gosh it's on my huge calendar in the living room uh i want to say the next one's in march okay but they'll still be able to go on that wait list link oh absolutely they can yeah yeah yeah that's fantastic totally thank you i have loved this conversation i knew that i would for those of you who are listening take a screenshot of this send it to your girlfriends write us a review on itunes tag me or jill jill are you on instagram i am not your average runner not your average runner i'm kim strobel joy tag us we want to know what you thought about this episode because i love jill i just love your honesty like you just lay it all out there and that is so refreshing because you are saying so much of what some of us are feeling or others feel but are kind of afraid to talk about the elephant in the room so to speak and i just love how you naturally do that thanks and i have so many quotes i think you're a great quote speaker i've written down so many things here like it's not even about the goal it's about the person you become in the journey fantastic thanks so much for being here welcome thanks for having me it's been my pleasure English (auto-generated)