Speaker 1: 0:00

So you're thinking about running but not sure how to take the first step. My name is Brian Patterson and I'm here. Welcome to another episode of Brian's RomPod, where we talk about all things running, the joys and struggles and everything in between, and I'm your host, brian Patterson, and today I've got a truly inspiring guest on the show all the way from Australia with the wonders of technology. So she is someone who's flipped the script on how we think about running. And it's not just about chasing PBs or hitting the perfect pace.

Speaker 1: 0:59

Nope, andrea Doney from runwithaslowcoachcom is all about embracing the beauty of just showing up, getting out there and finding joy in the run, even when you're not a huge fan of running itself, which sometimes I'm not. Anyway, andrea's built an incredible community for those who aren't trying to crush every race, but just want to feel good about moving our bodies, finding moments of peace and maybe having a laugh along the way. She has just recently come back from running the New York Marathon and no doubt will get into that later. Plus, she's an award-winning business owner. So lace up, get comfy, because this conversation is one you won't want to miss. So welcome, andrea, to the podcast.

Speaker 2: 1:42

Hi and I thought you might enjoy that.

Speaker 1: 1:49

Oh, that's so cool.

Speaker 2: 1:50

Thank you and hi, it's lovely to be here.

Speaker 1: 1:52

Brilliant. I know this is the second run because it kind of didn't work out whatever, but I'm really looking forward to having this conversation because I think a lot of things that you say on your website do resonate with me, because I'm a 62 year old, older runner who didn't do I'm not doing as much as I used to do but still want to enjoy running. I mean, is that something that you find with some of the clients that you have? And absolutely.

Speaker 2: 2:22

Some of them do come to me because they want to enjoy running. Others have a very diverse set of reasons, which might just be, you know, not happy with the states of their bodies or the states of their minds, or wanting to sign up for a charity race or make their kids proud. There's a lot of reasons, but certainly that's one of them.

Speaker 1: 2:42

Yeah, I thought I'd like to start sort of right at the beginning, from how you began this journey into running. You know what's your story.

Speaker 2: 2:53

Sure, I think you know I'm probably the most surprised out of all your listeners to find me sitting here tonight talking to you, in that I have never really been a runner, I've never really been sporty, I've never been athletic, I've never been interested in this kind of level of endurance or kinetic activity. I was very academic at school. I was into things like ballet and choir and reading and, yeah, never In fact I used to pretend to be sick to get out of the school athletics, carnivals and things like that so mine is not a story of sort of lifelong commitment to the sport of running.

Speaker 2: 3:32

Yeah, and I came to it in part through trauma and in part through accident in my when I was about 40 years old okay, 13, 14 years ago and yeah, it was one of those things that sort of as I'm sure many of us have been through. You know, life throws you a few things that you didn't see coming. In my case it was a series of unfortunate events in no particular order. My husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer at a very young age. He was only 40 years old. Fortunately he's fine now. But in quick succession I had um two other friends diagnosed with various forms of cancer and they both unfortunately passed away right. My husband and I went through a period of infertility which was related to his cancer, which made right about 10 ivf cycles all right, oh, I see unsuccessful and ended in miscarriage.

Speaker 2: 4:25

So you know it was a period of great loss and grief and trauma and also immense financial burden in all of that. And then I did get pregnant and very nearly lost our very precious little baby boy through a very preterm labour. He was born very early so he had a very sort of tenuous start to life. So in amongst all of that, oh and we immigrated, well, we moved from South Africa, sydney, and then from Sydney to Perth yeah.

Speaker 2: 4:54

So I guess all of those things come compounded over time and and when I did finally draw my breath, I found that I was, I just kind of lost touch with myself. I was anxious, I was frustrated, my mental health wasn't in a great place and I guess I was riddled with grief. But also somewhere in all of that was this kind of moment of clarity where I realized that so much of that journey to that point had been kind of a messy one of illness and loss, and I was kind of angry with the world and I felt a bit like a victim. And somehow in all of that, just fortunately, this moment of clarity arrived in which I realized that I was grieving two beautiful friends who I'd lost and had come through this journey of illness. But I was taking my health for granted. So I realized that the one thing that I had, which my two girlfriends didn't, was that in that moment in time I had a healthy body and I was wasting it. I was taking it for granted.

Speaker 2: 6:04

I was spending all day lying on the couch and eating Doritos and watching daytime TV and feeling sorry for myself, and I don't know why, but that just triggered the idea well, perhaps I should go for a run. That might've been rooted in the fact that my husband has always been a very talented runner. It may also have had something to do with the fact that running at that point in time didn't cost very much. I could just put on a pair of shoes and go out the door. We didn't have very much money, so it was a low barrier of entry and I felt like I had nothing to lose. I would just go and move and perhaps at the end of it give myself a day or a chapter or something where I didn't take my health for granted and I had taken this healthy body and tested it and used it and made a bit of a memory with it, and at least then one day I could say, well, at least I did that, at least I made myself proud. And yeah, that first run turned into several runs.

Speaker 1: 7:05

What was that? What was early days like for running? Because I know some people they would either just go out the door and then maybe do the 3k or and, and then, oh, this is it, it's not first, not for me, I'll do yoga instead, or something like that oh look, there was no ways.

Speaker 2: 7:21

it was 3k I. I was coming off a very low base, so I downloaded that Couch to 5K app and I think from memory it was a 12-week program or something. But I know that it took me exactly double that length of time to do it because I had to repeat each week because I simply wasn't making the progress that the app thought I should be making. So I started with the sort of walk-run intervals and gradually the runs got longer and the walks got shorter. But it was a very slow process, like everything I do, and not a particularly elegant one. But I do know that when I did finally complete that 5K and as I said, it took me a couple of attempts, but when I finally got there, it was perhaps one of the proudest moments that I've ever had, where I thought well, actually I did something hard and I've proven to myself that I've got that ability and maybe things are not quite so bad.

Speaker 1: 8:19

What were you feeling inside, and also from you know mentally, when you were going through that process? Were there any things?

Speaker 2: 8:30

I. I think the overwhelming feeling from that chapter of my life was anxiety so I just I worried about everything.

Speaker 2: 8:38

I worried I just you know there wasn't anything in the day that that didn't scare the jesus out me and I would kind of catastrophize. So, having lost friends and having nearly lost my son and lots of other things, I just felt like I was constantly gasping. So it was that sort of feeling of anxiety too. But then of course, and interspersed with all of that was also a lot of, there were just a lot of critics that mostly lived in my head. You know, who would very loudly kind of chant at me that you know you're too fat and you're too slow and you look ridiculous, and who do you think you are? And everyone's laughing at you. You shouldn't be doing this.

Speaker 2: 9:19

And so there was all of that narrative that was just very, very loud, all of that narrative that was just very, very loud. But fortunately I was able to realize quite quickly that the process of running was one of the best ways I'd ever discovered to quiet those voices. So it was just. It very quickly became a tool to kind of untangle the mess in my head, kind of calm things down a bit, and then I realised that it was a fantastic avenue for me to just cope better with the rest of my life. So I was a calmer mum and I was a better employee and I was a better partner and the house was a bit more organised. So I discovered that I was able to show up as a better person because of the running, because of the activity.

Speaker 1: 10:02

And I always find sometimes my anxiety sort of plays out in while I'm sleeping. I don't know what it is, but it was wake up at the same time and then suddenly there's a multitude of things going in and side by head you know, I worry about this and it could be very small things and they suddenly kind of illuminate into your head, sort of thing. And, like you said, I think you know exercise and I don't know if you found it that you know doing exercise and being active helps with the sleep. You know, Do you find the same thing?

Speaker 2: 10:39

Yeah, it helps a lot with sleep, for sure it helps with everything. And I think it also just helps create a slightly different narrative that, even if the things that are waking you up at night you know are real, there's still that kind of other side of you now that is just somehow more capable and more prepared and more confident and more able to cope, you know able to face it. So when you do get up out of bed, that thing, I don't know you've just got a little bit more armour as you go and face it and stare it down.

Speaker 1: 11:13

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 11:14

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 11:15

So you've got on that so-called running treadmill, as it were, and then you've kind of taken off, got more confident, feeling a lot better about yourself and whatever. So what was that leap to make thing, to taking it a little bit more seriously, so to speak?

Speaker 2: 11:34

I think it was just it initially in terms of the running progress. It was just this kind of being able to track my progress along my own personal ruler, so going from, you know, two to five k's, from five to ten and so on and and that wasn't a straight linear kind of iteration there were lots of pitfalls and setbacks and starting all over again.

Speaker 2: 11:57

So initially anyway, it was to do with my, my progress as a runner and and how good I felt in that I was. You know I was, instead of being in this kind of churning mess of my own making. I was, I was progressing, I was taking steps forward and I was kind of I really liked that feeling, um, but then of course, out of that really sort of, as the distances grew longer, so did the need for some actual science and some support and insights into what I was doing.

Speaker 1: 12:30

Oh right, so you're getting curious. Yes, yes.

Speaker 2: 12:36

But did you?

Speaker 1: 12:37

find I mean, how often were you running at the time? Were you doing like a couple of times a week, or two or three times?

Speaker 2: 12:47

the time were you doing like a couple of times a week, or two or three times, or I I can't remember exactly, but it would have been probably about twice a week during the week. And then you know the weekend longer run, yeah, which sometimes involves taking one of my children in a pram or pushing him on the bicycle and occasionally running with a friend. But yes, those weekend runs kind of got a bit longer when I could find the time. It wasn't always when you've got a young family. So it wasn't a perfect recipe, it wasn't a perfect pattern.

Speaker 1: 13:20

So how long did it take, from when you sort of started you know this running journey, to say, thinking, well, maybe you know I should maybe investigate you know coaching, running or doing some kind of formal qualifications, because I know you know you are at level three, yes, so obviously you had to start at, you know, level one and or whatever. So how long did that that take?

Speaker 2: 13:49

so I think it was about 11 or 12 years approximately between starting running and starting to think about becoming a coach all right a lot of time, just just as a runner, and as a very slow runner and inverted commas was very bad runner always back of the pack, always kind of coming last, and yeah, on on one of my many runs.

Speaker 2: 14:15

So I started running in my very late 30s. I think I might have been about 40 years old and I think I was probably about 51 or maybe 52. I'm not too clear on the timelines, but that's when I kind of again, I was on a run one day and I had started with a group that had been left very far behind and, as often happened, but that's never really bothered me, I was quite happy to run at the back and it just kind of had one of those thoughts. I was running along the road and I thought, well, I can't keep up with them and they have no interest in running with me and that's fine. But there is still a point at which you know I may be running slowly, but I still would like to know whether I'm doing it well, whether I'm doing it safely, whether I'm doing it with the right kind of progressive load or the right kind of nutrition. I would actually quite like some rigor and some science and also some empathy.

Speaker 2: 15:14

That said that my kind of running, which has nothing to do with really pace but was to do with mental health, I'm alone yes the, the sheer pleasantry of being, you know, moving in the in the sunrise kind of thing, where where is the coach for people like me?

Speaker 2: 15:31

I had this thought that I really need a coach, but I, I need a slow coach. And then I thought, oh, that's a good name because I have a marketing background. So, anyway, long story short, I couldn't find, couldn't find the coach that I, that I needed. And then, as the saying goes, well, if you can't find it, then perhaps you need to become it. And so, of course, there was a whole journey in that too. And finally, confidence to sign up and and walk into that room for that first kind of classroom environment, to do the first of my approaching accreditation, when everyone else in the room, you know, looks like a runner yeah thin and fit and toned and confident, wearing T-shirts with the names of expensive overseas races, and they just kind of look like they know what they're doing, whereas I felt like such a fraud.

Speaker 2: 16:23

But anyway, that was part of it.

Speaker 1: 16:25

Imposter syndrome yes, 100%.

Speaker 2: 16:29

But you know, kind of finding enough courage to say, well, I just want to give this a go, and then very quickly discovering how much support I was receiving from those. Then fit beautiful people in the room who kind of said we're so glad you're here, running needs people like you, oh great, yeah, it was just a really. It was a really great moment and it's. There's been many of them and it's kind of grown from there.

Speaker 1: 16:54

All right, so just going on that course. I mean, is it something that you know? Is it kind of? How long does it take? Is it like a couple of months? And then you know you have to do.

Speaker 2: 17:09

Well, here in Australia, through Athletics Australia, we could do the Level 1 course, which from memory was, I think it was, one day in a classroom and then a fairly comprehensive assignment that you had to do, plus you kind of had to complete these online modules. So there was quite a few videos you had to watch and yeah, but in all in all it probably was just a couple of days. And then, yeah, I did level two and ultimately level three in sort of performance coaching. That was a bit more intensive. So I think that was two days in the classroom for the performance coaching part. And then I did a sort of another two days intensive in in touch in coaching trail and ultra runners, and again, each of those two days also came with assignments and modules, and so you know, maybe a couple of weeks all in.

Speaker 1: 18:11

But then we are required to kind of maintain that through various modules and things online and also some strength and conditioning coaching and other forms of professional development. I know when I a million years ago when I did the YMCA, did you have to find people to do the coaching with and was that sort of a practical modules?

Speaker 2: 18:24

Yes, we did, and certainly for the level one coaching, I think we needed to have eight hours of coaching experience, which I didn't have. So that's actually when I went to market initially and I just put a note in my local community Facebook group. I said I'm looking to coach anybody who wants to learn as a beginner runner and I will coach you for free in exchange for this experience. And fortunately I got a wonderful response from the community and a lot of women and a couple of men signed up and I actually did more than eight hours in the end. So it gave me the experience and the confidence that I needed and got me through the course. And then, once I felt qualified and confident enough, I started charging for the coaching. But in fact a lot of my clients today were in that early group.

Speaker 1: 19:17

That must have been really encouraging, because you must have thought well A I'm not the only one and B I feel that I can help people and, like you said, I think there's no better coach than going to someone who's kind of been along the same journey as yourself. Absolutely, you can really identify.

Speaker 2: 19:44

People sign up for coaching for many reasons, as we touched on earlier, but weirdly it's often not got a lot to do with running. It's got a little bit to do with running, of course, to do with running. It's got a little bit to do with running, of course. But my clients will obviously be coming, will often be coming, because they're looking for an outlet to, you know, improve physical health or mental health, or just get out of the house for a couple of hours or be able to take part in the company fun run without looking like a fool. And then they have a lot of emotional needs around that running. So Certainly there's a physical component and I don't mean to make light of that, but honestly, the work we do, most of the work we do, is on mindset and confidence and learning to back yourself and, you know, learning to treasure those runs and all those sorts of things. So, yeah, not just physical.

Speaker 1: 20:33

Yes, yes, yeah, not just physical, yes, yes, yeah. I mean, when you were going through that coaching process just to go to go back on that, did you feel that you had this kind of thirst, thirst for knowledge and, um, you know, you were just finding out so much more about the sport itself like as you like you talked about.

Speaker 1: 20:53

You know strength and conditioning. You know how that's important. You know injury prevention and the different types of running. Whatever was it kind of like a you know, I don't know pandora's box of loads, loads of things coming out to out of you, but you were just like just taking it all in it was enormous.

Speaker 2: 21:12

I mean, I very much wanted to know how to support the runners like me safely and scientifically, but I would often feel that I would be like pulling out a string and then this whole thing would unravel. So you kind of go in with the question of, like you know, why does my ankle hurt? And then suddenly you discover that you need to know the physiology of the leg. And it's not just the leg, because it's never just the ankle, but it's also the whole muscle chain up the leg and the glutes, and what are they all called? And then what kind of exercises should you be doing and what shouldn't you be doing, and what's the nutrition to support that and what's the research? And it just kind of keeps coming.

Speaker 2: 21:51

And then of course, it's all bound up in very impressive sounding jargon and acronyms and you just don't know. You keep frantically Googling or watching YouTube video after YouTube video. But I've always found it really, really fascinating. I've always been curious and I've always been academic, so it was just wonderful just to be able to keep learning and to find all these tools that ultimately you can reinvest in supporting people who just want to be present and validated and supported safely to, whatever their finish line is.

Speaker 1: 22:29

So do you think you went down the sort of the rather than the performance route, the sort of the physiological biomechanics of running that interested you more?

Speaker 2: 22:41

Yes, I did, but I did it too, because I found that the majority of the running conversation and the coaching conversation was around supporting performance athletes. But the assumption is that those performance athletes are the ones at the front of the pack.

Speaker 1: 23:02

The ones on the podium yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:04

So all the kind of narrative is around how to get the best out of your athletes, and it's just assumed that best means faster, stronger, higher, thinner, and that's all very, very true. I don't mean to take anything away from that, but in my experience, performance for me was simply how do I run a half marathon without making my iliotibial band hurt?

Speaker 1: 23:31

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:46

And what is the performance that is required in my body, which is older and bigger and doesn't come with that kind of base fitness or the innate talent or those kind of kinetic fluid I need to do, and what kind of progress can I follow? That will mean that my performance is also a good one, but in quite a different realm. So I was interested in that and also I think part of me wanted to challenge the educators or the people that were sitting in the coaching syllabuses.

Speaker 1: 24:14

Peak performance doesn't always have to be about winning no no, oh, yeah, yeah of course, yeah, I mean, I think probably most runners. It's about you know, your, your self-evaluation and you're you know you're trying to perform against yourself, I think, more than more than anything. So, for sure, yeah. So when did you start the you're running community? So you, you've obviously felt that there is. You know you've gone through the different stages of you know, being qualified. Um, no doubt you've you thought. Then you know there's a market for it here. So when did you really take that seriously?

Speaker 1: 25:01

I think I started coaching in about october of 2021 oh right, okay, so just sort of you know latter stages of covid, as it were.

Speaker 2: 25:12

Yes, yeah, sure that was, you know, part of the many challenges. Yeah, but it's all been quite recent, so I've really only been coaching for a shade longer than three years, I think.

Speaker 1: 25:29

Right. And then how did you approach that and start taking up or getting the running community up and running?

Speaker 2: 25:38

Well, I think, as I said initially, it was because I offered to coach for free.

Speaker 2: 25:42

Oh, right, I was able to bring in the sort of 20 or 25 or so people who were eager to get that kind of experience and together we completed an eight or 10 week program that got everyone to running about two kilometers for the first time in their lives.

Speaker 2: 25:59

But I think alongside all of that is that I'm fortunate in that I have a marketing background, so I was quite good at promoting myself and having something like a name like the Slow Coach, it's very clear to the market who should be considering my services, clear to the market who should be considering my services. So, yes, so I had this sort of quite a large base of clients initially, but then once I started charging, that dropped down quite dramatically and then kind of had to rebuild a little bit more slowly. But that's fine, that was always the intention. And so I started coaching in person here where I live in north of Sydney. I started coaching two mornings a week and I built up to having between sort of five and 10 people in each of those groups and then over time I also started coaching online as well and that's kind of been able to draw in clients from a bit further afield. Well, and that's kind of been able to draw in clients from a bit further afield, so all over australia and new zealand and at various points.

Speaker 1: 27:02

Oh right, okay, so you're doing online as well.

Speaker 2: 27:04

Yes, oh, brilliant, oh, and I do have a client in canada and I have had clients in the states and switzerland fantastic yes, that's amazing it ebbs and flows a little, but I do have online clients all over the world.

Speaker 1: 27:20

Well, as is normal with most of my interviews, I split it into two parts. I'm sure you'll have enjoyed listening to Andrea's journey into running. Andrea's narrative is one of courage and creativity, navigating the path from Sydney to an international stage. Her marketing acumen played a crucial role in building a brand that resonated with those who might otherwise shy away from competitive athletics. The second part of our interview is no less exciting, which will be next week, as she describes audiences like coaching people from the other side of the world. Also, her infectious description of running the New York Marathon. Thanks for listening Until next time. Bye, bye.