Introduction to Lisa Jackson

SPEAKER_03 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 to help. Welcome to Brian's ROM pod. Welcome back to another episode of Brian's Run Pod, the show where we dive into stories, struggles, and successes behind the miles. I'm your host, Brian Patterson, and today we've got a really special guest joining us. You might recognise her from the pages of Runner's World. She's a writer, a marathoner, a storyteller, and a real gift for capturing the heart of why we run. I'm talking about Lisa Jackson, and she's back with a brand new book coming out in January, and uh called Still Running After All These Tears. We're going to dig into what inspired this new book, how her running journey continues to evolve, and what lessons she's learned about resilience, joy, and maybe even finding laughter in the miles that hurt the most. So, Lisa, settle in and join me for this conversation. And just want to say a big bronze run. Welcome to Lisa.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Thank you so much, Brian. What an amazing introduction. I could live written a bit wide myself.

SPEAKER_03 1:29

Thank you very much. So as I do with most of my guests, I kind of like to kind of go back to the beginning because you grew up in South Africa, is that correct? That's indeed, yeah. Uh where in South Africa?

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Pretoria. And then I spent seven years in Cape Town.

SPEAKER_03 1:46

Oh right, okay. So were you a naturally gifted athlete? And when you were in high school, or were you very much, you know, into your books and was academia the the kind of route that you were going to go down?

SPEAKER_00 2:02

You're absolutely right, Brian. That made me laugh. Um yeah, it was very binary. It was absolutely academic and absolutely not sporty at all. Um I faked athlete's foot for five years, so I didn't ever have to take swimming lessons at school. Um I used to sneak to the back of the rounders' queue so I didn't even have to run, you know, 100 metres. I absolutely detested sport. Always associated it with um humiliation because when I was at primary school, I was uh the only sport we actually did at primary school was neckball.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Oh, right.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

And um there were a gang of girls there who were rather nasty to me because I was so academic. And they would never throw the ball to me, even if I was right under the net, uh, they would just refuse to throw the ball at me. So I actually used to just feel humiliated all the time. Like I always regarded running as something humiliating. So um it actually came as a surprise to me um when I was 30 years old. I went to a race for life, and it was still in the early days of Race for Life, and this was the flagship one in Battersea Park, and everyone was dressed in pink,

Lisa's Early Life and Running Journey

SPEAKER_00 3:01

which obviously is my favourite colour. Yeah, and they were so collaborative, everyone was cheering everyone on. The dads were there with their children on their hips, cheering on the mums, you know, waiting for the bottles of champagne at the end. And I just thought, my god, this is like a sporting activity, but it doesn't feel competitive, it actually feels collaborative. Uh, and that kind of set me on the journey um to doing a half marathon and then doing my first uh marathon in London with my aunt in 1999.

SPEAKER_03 3:29

Right, okay. And since then you've done, is that a a hundred marathons with our is that correct?

SPEAKER_00 3:36

I've actually done more.

SPEAKER_03 3:37

You've done more?

SPEAKER_00 3:38

109. 109. Yeah, and two 56 mile ultras.

SPEAKER_03 3:43

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

So it became a bit of a passion, a bit of an addiction. Uh, but I really wanted to wear the t-shirt of the Hundred Marathon Club. That was my goal. Uh, so I thought it was gonna take me decades to do. And um, I just started speeding up. So in 2012 I did 12 marathons, in 2013 I did 13, and then in 2015 I did 28 marathons, and I launched my book, my um other running book, uh Your Pace or Mine, which is this one. Yeah. I launched that at my 100th marathon on the 16th of April, 2016.

SPEAKER_03 4:14

Right, right. So, what was it that got you to that race for life? I mean, was it just did did a friend tell you about the race for life, or was it just kind of it's a a curiosity? Um, you know, I need to get fit and what better excuse to do this event?

SPEAKER_00 4:33

I was actually working for a health magazine called Zest at the time. Um so we got a free entry. Um, and I just went along just because other colleagues were were doing it. Yeah. So there was no uh real, you know, curiosity about it, uh, but I just thought I might as well. But I actually come from a family of runners. So my father was um a cross-country champion. He actually beat a South African Olympian um in one of the races that he entered. Uh so I come from a sporty family. My mother um was a jogger in the days where we called you know runners joggers. She was a very consistent, she used to run in her little mini skirt up the hill, saying hello to all the neighbours. Yeah. Uh she was a real inspiration to me, actually, because she wasn't fast, but she was really passionate about it. My sister was very sporty, my brother is still very sporty. So yeah, I was the only one in the family who wasn't sporty.

SPEAKER_03 5:21

Because listening to, I think you're on run as well, then you said that your father used to run at least two kilometers a day every day. Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

Yeah. Until the very last months of his life. Uh, and it was I was quite surprised to really delve into it and realize that he never ran a marathon. He ran two 50 kilometer ultras. He never ran the Comrades Marathon, even though he trained for it. Yeah. And he called himself a runner his whole life. He was so proud of it. He could still fit into his blazer from high school, you know, throughout his whole life. Um, but he actually never ran that far. You know, he did actually run between two and six kilometers. That was it. But he did it every day. That was the difference.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Yeah. And he loved it. He was so passionate. He always talked about it. You know, he really labeled himself a runner, um, loved um trying to encourage us to do it. I mean, it obviously took him a lot of effort to um make me do it. Um, and he used to ask us every single day when he came home from work, have you been for your run today? Uh and I used to lie, you know, I used to um stuff a book up my t-shirt and go to the end of our driveway, hide between two cars, read my book for 15 minutes, yeah, and then charge up the driveway again. So I'd get a little bit sweaty and then say I'd done my run, and I actually hadn't. Uh I didn't always do that. Sometimes I did actually do the 2K run. But you know, my dad uh really believed in staying fit and healthy, and I think it really um, you know, benefited him in later life. I mean, he was a man who did a a law degree at the age of 72.

SPEAKER_03 6:46

Oh, really? And he was impressive.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

He that's when he graduated, and he he had five um degrees actually, and he was working on his master's thesis actually um just before he died in environmental law.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Oh right.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

So um he's a real inspiration to me, you know, just as someone who carried on doing the things he loved, you know, right almost right until so do you think that's where you kind of got your academia gene from him? And my mother, yeah, from city. No, because both my parents were the first in their generation to go to university. So they absolutely worshipped education, as I do. And I think you know, the whole of life is a is a long education. So my dad um had to write an essay when he was doing his law degree, and he said that he um was uh a lifelong student who'd just taken a break to have a career in a family, and he was just returning back to his you know academic roots. So yeah, I love learning new things even now. Um I'm I'm the least educated in my whole family, actually. Uh would have loved to have had a PhD, but I married I married a man with a PhD, so used to live in his reflected glory. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:51

So I know we always talk about like the uh comparisons between the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere, Southern Hemisphere being very outdoorsy, very pushy, we're very, very, you know, pushing uh sport, and obviously they have very very much success. Um so you felt that in those early days you just didn't get that bug?

SPEAKER_00 8:16

No, um I mean South Africa is beautifully sporty and Go Bocker, you know, just trounced um France. Oh yeah. And I went to see that I went to see them live recently, um beating Japan. That was the trance to Japan. Um I think the problem with South African sportiness really is that we are so excellent at it. And if you're not excellent at it, there isn't as much of an inclusive atmosphere um in South Africa as there certainly is here. So that's what surprised me the most about the London Marathon when I did it the first year. I dressed as a fairy, I had a wand that was full of jelly babies, I had this little tutu. I was so proud of myself, covered in myself in glitter. Um and then there were just loads of people in fancy dress. And again, I was just like, oh my God, because you I have run races in South Africa and very, very few people run in fancy dress. It's actually really unusual. Whereas in the UK, you know, there's such a generous time limit on the London Marathon, you know, the best part is seeing the fancy dress, really. So I think that's what I found really alienating. And that's why, you know, I I really believe my mission is to tell people, you know, you don't have to be fast, you don't have to be fit, you don't have to be sporty to run. Um, just enjoy it. That's all you have to do is want to enjoy it. And you can get a lot of fun from running um by, you know, choosing your fancy dress, running in beautiful locations and things like that. It doesn't have to be about fast times.

SPEAKER_03 9:36

Yeah. So in night before, you know, for training for 1999, the marathon, were you a little bit intimidated by what sort of training you had to do and the type of training you had to do?

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Yeah, absolutely. Um I found it very, very daunting. Um, you know, I'd never run those distances uh before. Uh I will be honest, I didn't do the full training. And I actually never have. I've never actually

Discovering the Joy of Running

SPEAKER_00 10:00

been able to follow a training program 100%. But I was I was pretty good at at sticking to it. I I was just so scared, to be quite honest. I I ran in fear. So um I did get injured. Um I had to walk half of my first marathon from the halfway, I had to walk the rest of it. So I finished in just under seven hours. Um and I really expected blood to be spurting from my feet at the end of my offices in such a bad way. I was so disappointed when I took my shoes off and there was no blood. It was like I definitely thought it'd be gushing, you know, and touring inside of my toes. Um, but uh the euphoria of doing something like that, which I don't think anybody believed I could do. I think my mum probably did believe because she knew my mother had a very, very strong mindset, and so do I. That's what I inherited from my mother. Yes, if we want to do something, we will always manage to achieve it or do it. That that's just what we do. So both of us are plodders, both of us uh aren't particularly talented. Like academically, I'm not particularly talented. There's actually been a test um that I did with um a well-known psychologist. Um and um I came out as the bottom 4% um um of intellectual people. They said in a room of 100 people, you'd be more intellectual than four of them and less intellectual than nine to six of them. So uh wherever I've got in life, um definitely I don't think it's natural ability. I think it's plotting and and working, being prepared to work harder than anyone else. Um I I just and it's a natural, it just happens. I mean, I do find everything I do harder than anyone else, but it's fine. I just know I've got it in me to stick it out. And um marathon running is the same thing. I've just got immense perseverance.

SPEAKER_03 11:34

Right. Or do you think it's like it's me with this podcast? I I mean I'm 63 and I I've been doing it for like a couple of years, but I kind of don't care now what you think, what I other people think, sort of thing. And maybe that's what's kept me going. Was there a little bit of that as well?

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Um, I definitely now that I'm older, I don't I don't hear what people think at all. I genuinely don't, because I just want to be able to look myself in the mirror and be proud of myself. And I actually am, and I tell myself I'm proud of myself almost every day. Whatever I do, I mean, if I even manage to go for a 2K run, I'll come back, look in the mirror, and tell myself, Lisa Jackson, I'm proud of you. If I do something I don't feel like doing, like my tax return or you know, hoovering or whatever it is, I'm always positive talking to myself, going, that was amazing. Well done, you um, you know, keep going. But I yeah, I don't, I genuinely don't care what people think. And it's quite interesting because a lot of people, when they hear that I've come last in 25 marathons, they they start being very pitying of me and they kind of go, oh, never mind, at least you finish. I think, oh, please save your pity for someone who needs it because I don't need your pity. Like I admire myself. Um, I'm so proud of what I've achieved. Um, it it doesn't matter if you come last. It actually doesn't. And people are so nice to you when you do, they make such a fuss of you, it's really quite nice. I've made it by USP to come last. Like if someone's just next to me, I'll say, Do you mind finishing just one step ahead of me so I can come last? Um and I've had so much fun, you know, coming last. In fact, it became competitive. There's this woman called Tire Girl, and she drags um a tire behind her to campaign for you know environmental um things like reusing and recycling and things. And I once claimed I'd come last in a marathon, and she went on social media and said, No, you didn't. I didn't know because although she finished ahead of me, she'd had an hour ahead start. So I was like, oh my god, it was so friendly. I mean, I do know her, she's lovely. And I said, Well, I'm sorry, I didn't know coming last was so competitive. I will have to revise my total. And then I managed to come last in another marathon, so I back put my total back up to 25.

SPEAKER_03 13:35

Yeah. Well, I've never completed a marathon, so you're 100 and whatever ahead of me anyway. So I had to um it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

No, it doesn't. And that's what I say to people, they go, I couldn't ever do a marathon. And I always go, Yes, you could. But I said the critical thing is you've got to want to. And if you don't want to, I don't blame you. Listen, it's bloody hard. It really is. I don't know, I've never done an easy marathon, not once, not even when I was doing a marathon every second weekend. Um, but there's so much joy to be had doing it. Um, and that's what I'd love people, I'd love you to just try it once. Um yeah, I can send you a really easy training program, it won't take over your life. And you do it once, and then you just go, yeah, I want it. Can tick that off my list, or you can say never again. I mean, I said never again, obviously after the first one. But I'll probably say never again after every single one. Um, but then you have little goals that you want to achieve, you know, like I wanted to, my dad and I, we love round numbers. So it was gonna be, I was gonna do five, and then it was gonna be ten. And then when I did 17, I met a man who had the marathon 100 marathon club t-shirt on, and then I wanted the hundred marathon club t-shirt.

SPEAKER_03 14:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

So um, that's how it works.

SPEAKER_03 14:40

Do you I mean, some like me, I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with running. Um, and that sometimes, you know, I'll go out running first 10, 15 minutes, it's kind of flinky. Why on earth did I do this sort of thing? And uh and then other times, you know, it's not so bad, and then you get that sort of endorphin rush, that kind of thing. Is that is that how what your relationship has been like over the years?

SPEAKER_00 15:05

Oh, it's definitely love hate. Definitely love hate. In fact, um a friend of mine, he's an amazingly um talented Czech ultra runner. Right. And they call him the Czech um uh Forest Gump. And he's run around the whole of um Iceland, he's run from north to south, east to west, uh, Renee Kujan. And when I went to visit him in Prague with my husband, he made a massive sign to welcome us at the airport that said, welcome running haters. Um because he just couldn't believe that my husband and I could dislike running as much as we did, and yet run comrades and as many marathons as we did. So I'd say that I've learned a way to gently ease myself into every run because before I did find it absolutely abysmal, like just awful. I used to talk about the toxic 10 minutes, which is the first 10 minutes of every run, and now I walk for the first um five minutes, and that has made it that's a gain for me because by the time I start a good thing. It has changed it because you know your body needs time. I didn't realise that movement is what releases synovial fluid, which actually you know stops the friction between your joints. Yeah, so you've got to do a warm-up. And now I always thought I don't have time to do it, it's optional, it's not optional anymore. I won't do a single bit of running without a warm-up first. So that's totally changed me. And I also tell myself, look, if you if you're out there and you're doing the walking and you're just really not feeling it, because I don't believe in fighting yourself, I just don't. Like if it's really just not working out, just go home. It's fine. But at least then I've gone out for five minutes and out back. So I've done a 10-minute walk. So um just even playing those little mind games, saying if you really find it that bad, you don't have to do it. I've I've never actually gone home after 10 minutes, but I like having the option to do it. So definitely love hate. Um, and it's interesting to me, you know, running much longer distances, how, and that's why something I used um when I was helping my husband with his terminal cancer, yeah, is that you can feel utterly, utterly horrendous at one minute and just just you know, question your life choices. Think you could be at home on the sofa, eating pizza, drinking beer, and instead you're out here battling a headwind, cold, miserable, whatever. And then something will happen, like you'll meet an amazing other runner, or you'll see something really beautiful, like you know, a murmuration of birds, or you'll just spot a flower, or something will happen, or sun will come out from behind a cloud, and all of a sudden your mood will completely change. And that's what running teaches us is life changes and life never stays the same.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:30

Um, and I found that really helpful when I was supporting my husband, because if I felt really depressed or really sad or negative, um I'd think, well, you're not going to feel like this permanently. Just not. None of us ever stay in exactly the same place emotionally. And running taught me that.

SPEAKER_03 17:46

Moving on in terms of um your running career, so you started writing about running. So how did that start? And I know you've you've you've contributed to Runner's World, as

Writing and Running

SPEAKER_03 18:00

well as written three books. Um but how did that start? And you know, that was obviously quite, you know, they always say there's a book in every every one of us, sort of thing. But um you, you know, to make to make that first step, putting pen to paper or putting fingers to typewriter type type the computer, how did how did it start?

SPEAKER_00 18:21

Well, um I was working on a health magazine at the time called Zest.

SPEAKER_03 18:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

And um I had some personal training sessions with someone who introduced me to walk-running. Um, so I already started to think, wow, this is really an interesting way to run. I've never thought about being able to walk because I always thought walking was giving up or failing. And then when I ran the Paris Marathon uh 10 minutes faster than I'd run my second marathon, the Edinburgh Marathon. Uh, and in Paris I walk-ran. I just thought I discovered a secret. Now I didn't know anything about Jeff Galloway at that point at all. Um, and I just thought, my God, I've got to write a book about this because all of a sudden I feel I've unlocked a secret to speedy recovery. Because when I ran all the way, it took me three weeks to be able to walk normally again. And at the time, I just can understand, yeah. Yeah, I I thought I'm gonna, if I carry on like this and I want to do a few more marathons, I might end up in a wheelchair, you know, by the time I'm 40. So I was really worried about the damage I was doing my body. And then when I was able to recover after three days um after Paris, where I'd walk around the whole way, I just thought I've discovered a secret and nobody knows about it. And this was before the Couch to 5K program as well. So this was the original, the book I wrote before with a colleague was called Um Running Made Easy. And it sold 110,000 copies. Um, but it was full of beautiful, colourful illustrations, um, very easy fill-in sections, inspirational stories, you know, done in a very much a magazine format. And most running books in those days were quite boring and very, you know, sort of girl in crop top ties, lace laces kind of pictures, whereas ours was really fun, colourful illustrations that anyone could relate to, not just the slim and the fast. So that book did really well. Um, and then I mean I've written seven books actually, you know, I've written other books as well. Yeah. But I've written three running books. So my next running book, um, I wanted to write about my journey to joining the Hunter Marathon Club. Yeah. And somehow we came up with this amazing title, Your Pace or Mine, which is such a perfect title. I don't even know how we got there. Um, because it is just everyone can run at their own pace. Like, you know, I really admire fast runners. Honestly, I can't tell you how much I admire them. I love watching them, but I'm never going to be one of them.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

No.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

Uh, and then my, you know, excellent point is how slow I am, and I still do it. So um I loved writing that book because I included, I think, over a hundred stories of the people I'd met along my journey to the hundredth marathon. And running with, you know, an eight-year-old who fell over twice on the Thames Path and still finished up bleeding from, you know, his elbows and his knees, or you know, cancer survivors, um, just inspirational people and to showcase their achievements, you know, alongside my own, um, was just such a such a privilege. Um, and then this book came about um because I was I lost my running mojo, uh, not having the t-shirt to aspire to anymore. Um, I also um had a kind of health issue where I lost the ability to run more than 200 meters. I I just I was running very consistently and I could not run between two lampposts. And to this day, I don't know if I had COVID and I didn't know it. Right. Or I had a very bad reaction to the COVID booster shot, my third shot. Um, but my running just went downhill and I'd entered two marathons that I wanted to run in my husband's honour. And I was doing a lot of uh stretching work in yoga and I did a lot of hinging forwards, and all of a sudden one day I hinged forwards and I got stuck there at home. And I was like a bent over like a boomerang with the most agonizing um back injury. I can't even tell you.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

I couldn't go to the loo, I couldn't drive or anything. And thankfully I had an appointment booked already um with an osteopath. I went to see her, had to go by taxi because I couldn't drive. And she said, I'm really sorry to have to tell you, but you're gonna have to stop running. Not permanently, because I know how she means to, but you can't enter those marathons and you cannot write for the foreseeable future. So that's when my running came to a complete dead halt. So already I'd been running a lot less because I wasn't doing marathons anymore, and I was looking after my husband. But I used it, you know, during his illness to help me to um get through some of the really tough times when I was very, very stressed and also very angry with the way some of the medical professionals behaved. Um and then I was also very frustrated when I tried to get my running mojo back because you know, to go from being someone who can just knock out a marathon casually at the weekend and probably do it next week and the week after that and the week after that, to suddenly go to someone who couldn't even run between two lampposts. Um I felt like it was another bereavement actually.

SPEAKER_02 22:51

It was quite scary. It was quite scary.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

It was scary, it was devastating. And, you know, I'd lost um my father, my husband, and my sister in the space of 17 months. And then to lose the one thing that I felt sustained me was actually quite terrifying. And I just couldn't believe how hard it was to get it back. Uh and then I just decided I had to accept. So a lot of Buddhism talks about acceptance, and what I had to accept was I was no longer the runner I was before, and I had to start right from the bottom. So I set myself the target of running a mile, which I successfully did. And I just took in the atmosphere, I was running along Worthing Beachfront, I saw a beautiful um sight of a rainbow powering one of the wind turbines out at Rampion Wind Farm. Um, and I thought, wow, you know, uh this is what running's about. It's about getting outdoors, appreciating nature, um, being at one with your body, um, breathing, you know, heavily. And I just came back feeling such a sense of success and achievement. And I built up quite soon after that um to doing a park run. And then um I did the uh New Forest half marathon. And then it's taken it took me, you know, quite a while to build up to doing a marathon again, but I did my first one uh um this year in Brighton. And the first one in seven years, actually.

SPEAKER_03 24:06

Oh, right. Okay. So it I mean, there you you kind of touched on something that I would we'd like to talk about, is that it's basically it's just as much about a mental game as it is a physical thing, because obviously, like you said, you're talking about you're running mojo, you lost that, but it it seems that it was much about you having uh mental focus to get you through starting back from zero and overcoming you know that that event that maybe you know some people would would find that quite scary, that they couldn't run the thing that they loved most, you know, whatever it is, has been taken away from them and life's been dealing them these terrible cards, which is kind of in a way how I've felt this past year to a certain extent, but at least I had my running. Whereas if I didn't have that, you know, then um it it I you kind of feel like, you know, you know, where where can where do I start? And you know, how can I start to rebuild that confidence again?

Challenges and Resilience

SPEAKER_00 25:12

Yeah, it can be absolutely devastating. Um I think what helped for me as well was having goals because after my husband died, and then I lost my dad, as I said, and my sister as well, I found it really difficult to find a sense of purpose. Um, when you've got so much grief going on, the whole world seems to be about loss, and there doesn't seem to be very much left. Um, and I really was really struggling with um just my mental health and just trying to think what's the point of all of this.

SPEAKER_02 25:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

And then having to suddenly realize that I could write a book and I've got an audience already of people who do read my running books and love them. I mean, I get told that very, very often when I'm out running because I actually wear this um flamingo hat uh that I wore to my first comrades, Ultramarathon. So people who recognize me and come up and say, I loved your books. Yeah. Um and I realized that I'd learned so much and gone through so much through my whole husband's illness and looking after my dad who had dementia and um recovering from our sister's death, that I didn't want that to go to waste. And I thought what I want to do is I want to write a running book that's gonna talk to people about mojo loss because it's surprising how many people, really top runners, have gone through mojo loss. So it's something a lot of people don't talk about, and I haven't read a book about that. So I knew that was unique to have that angle. But also, um, this book is a survival guide. So one of the things that happened very early in my husband's illness is a voice, very loud voice in my head, just said the words running will be your salvation. And I I can't explain where those words came from, but they came from somewhere and they haunted me. I mean, they were in a nice way, you know. I I just kept hanging on to that. Um, so when I came to write this book, I really wanted to give people every tool and strategy and technique that I use because I'm a hypnotherapist as well, so I have a lot of training, you know, in mental resilience, etc. And I wanted to give people something in an easy-to-read book because there's a lot of fun in my book. There's I never write, you know, fully serious um kind of technical books. My books are always storytelling, really. Yeah. Um, and I wanted to share with people what helped me get through these traumatic experiences. Because I didn't want any of that knowledge to go to waste because I read literally a meter-high pile of cancer books and mindset books and books on grief um and bereavement. So it's all in a kind of easy-to-understand um, you know, story. But at the back of the book, there's a whole epilogue section. It's actually a very long epilogue section, which is all the things I wish I'd known before I went through certain things. So wow, how I wish I'd known how to speak to medical professionals, what I wish I'd known about grief and how it affects you, what I wish I'd known about regaining your running mojo. So it's a nice handy summary at the back of the book, but the rest of it's told in a story. And there's some very funny sections in the book. I mean, even through my husband's illness, we found a lot to laugh about. Good. Uh, and um now after his death, um, I've done a lot of well, a lot of um speed

Speed Dating

SPEAKER_00 28:07

dating and not a little bit of online dating. Okay. Those has provided the most, I tell you, I now feel I do it not to meet someone, but just to amuse my friends. Yeah. Because the stories that I come out with, I mean, when I tell my paces at a at a half marathon, yeah, um, you know, the stories, and we just we almost can't breathe through laughing so much. So um, yeah, I'm having a lot of fun with that. So there's a lovely chapter called Love Me Tinder that's all about that.

SPEAKER_03 28:31

Yeah. Um and there's this lots of fun and I'll um I'll earmark that one.

SPEAKER_00 28:35

Yeah, no, do. If you have that's what I always say to people, if my book gets too heavy for you, just jump to chapter 27, read Love Me Tinder, and you can come back to the sand bits later.

SPEAKER_03 28:45

Yeah, yeah. In this episode of Brian's

Conclusion and Teaser for Part Two

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Rompod, we dive into the inspiring journey of Lisa Jackson, a marathoner and author who shares her transformation from a non-athlete to a passionate runner. Lisa opens up about her experiences of running marathons. The joy of running in fancy dress and the resilience she found through her running journey. A story is a testament to perseverance and finding joy in the miles, no matter the pace. Look forward to part two next week, where we continue to explore Lisa's incredible journey and insights. Also, we will dive deeper into our new book, Running After All These Tears.