I think just understanding that you don't have to tightly wrap your identity around what

you are doing right now or what you have always done.

I say this all the time. Self-comparison is the biggest thief of joy and we where we go on virtual trail runs with interesting guests that are going to help us become better runners, enjoy the time on the trail and in turn that will hopefully make us better human beings. Today today we're gonna talk about the changes that happen as we age. You may feel that you've gone through some changes and you may feel, I am not human, I'm an alien. Are you really? We'll discuss that on this episode. This aging athlete episode is brought to you by Scarpa. Scarpa running shoes give me the support, cushion, and traction that result in the confidence to keep going. They're durable, responsive, and built for the kind of terrain that lights up my soul. As a 20-year veteran in the sport, I'm stoked to have found a brand that harkens back to the climbing and high alpine mountain era that has stood the test of time.

If you want to learn more, the US site for Scarpa is us dot Scarpa SCARPA.com. You know the drill, there's racks of running apparel all promising performance, but feeling like the same recycled gear with a different logo. So why consider John G? Because they're not just another brand in the Sea of Polyester, John G makes gear built for real runners. Tested on trails, designed with intentional details, and made to move with you, not against you. But here's what really sets them apart. Every purchase helps fund clean water projects around the world. So when you lace up in John G. shorts or weatherproof jacket or any of their gear, you're not just gearing up for your own next run. You're fueling something bigger than yourself. It's comfortable, performance, and purpose stitched into every mile. Check out the gear that will set you apart at JohnG.com and has a bonus for listening to TRN you can get 10% off your order by using the code TrailRunner. Runners love data, but too often our watches drown us in numbers without giving us real insight. That's where a maze that changes the game. Their smart watches aren't just sleek and durable, they're loaded with advanced training metrics that will actually help you recover smarter, run stronger, and live healthier. From long battery life that keeps up with your Ultras to personal insights powered by cutting-edge health tracking, a maze fit is built athletes who expect more from their gear. And the T-Rex 3, it won't break the bank. You'll not only be impressed with the price, but how long the battery lasts? Check it out at amazefit.com slash trail. And right now you can get 15% off the T-Rex 3. And here's the best part. We've got an amazing announcement coming up on our September 12th episode. Something that could change the way you think about your training tools. Trust me, you won't want to miss it. Welcome to another edition of Trail Runner Nation. My name is Scott War. And I'm Chris E-Mail. And we're missing Don. He actually entered a 5k recently and we're expecting him back after just a short amount of time But he took a wrong turn and he just texted me. He's at mile 47 of his 5k Race and so unfortunately he's not gonna join us today, but Chrissy is here, Chrissy male, who is joining us on this aging athlete series. We start this off by talking about what does it mean to be a trail runner in your 20s, your 30s, your 40s, and beyond, how do these decades of movement shape our bodies and our minds, boy, can it shape our minds, right? Even our identities. This is the fourth in the series of, we're not sure how many episodes we'll do. Chrissy may be adding more. Originally we thought six, but it may even be more. It's a mini series that we're hosting here on Trail Runner Nation, and of course it's being hosted by ultra running legend Chrissy male. She's an American ultra marathon runner renowned for a ton of different things, including a couple finishes and wins at the UTMB. She go look a wrap. Look at our website, ChrissyMail.com and just see all of her amazing accomplishments. This series we're gonna be releasing about every five to six weeks. We're gonna explore what it means to grow older in this sport that we love. How do we train smarter through these aging years? How do we fuel better? How do we recover better? How do we stay motivated? We know that as you're aging, your motivation can wane. And what we can do to enjoy the sport we're doing, we're going to talk to veteran athletes and sports scientists, strengths coaches, dietitians, experts from every corner of sports. And they're going to help us understand how our bodies adjust to this aging thing that we're all doing. Today's expert is Saline Yeager, and she is a best-selling health and fitness journalist who locks the talk as a certified personal trainer, a minipause coaching specialist and a former All-American Iron Man triathlete. She's the host of Hit Play Not Pause podcast and the author of Fisty 40 Plus newsletter where she helps performance-minded women thrive through midlife and beyond. Selene is a co-authored book like Roar and the next level was Dr. Stacey Sims and was recently inducted into the gravel cycling hall of fame. Congratulations. Do you get a medal for that or a plaque or a, or maybe a new bike? You get so much rad stuff, not a new bike, unfortunately. But you get, you do, you get a gene vest, denim vest with a big ol' patch on the back, you get a giant wooden carved award, you get hat, you get all kinds of cool stuff. It was super cool. Wait, an or? A wooden or? No, it's not an or. It's a very large award. It is a count of carved word. I was just like how am I going to fly home with this? I just had to sort of put it in. It took up most of my luggage, but it was very cool. It's a very cool organization to put that on. You know, Chrissy is doing a lot of the back end work on this aging athlete series. Chrissy, I'm going to ask you the first question. Why and how did you meet Selene? And why did you think she'd be a good guest on this aging athlete series? Right on. Actually, I've never met Selene. This is pretty great to hear her voice and see her face. I've listened to her many times on HitPlayNotPause. She provides this awesome platform for women to come on and share their story of going through the Perry Menopause and Menopause transition. And the questions she asks are incredible and so relatable for a woman that's facing these changes and maybe not knowing or having anybody else to chat with. I have a great group of girls and we reference these podcasts all the time. So you're in our ears a And roar in next level, those two books were instrumental. When I started getting curious, I was like, hey, what's menopause going to do to this athlete body? I came to find out through roar that my hormones have been affecting my athlete body this entire time. Like didn't know that before. And then I was looking at these changes that would be coming. So I just watched on to your voice, Dr. C. C. Sims. And we had Dr. Kelly Casper's been on last week. Those were some of the first voices I found. So when this series came to be, I went for my A list and it's been so awesome. So I'm really excited. We have all these topics that we've been dividing our original six episodes into. Now I'm feeling confined by those six and wanting to push out and ask more questions and invite more guests on. We'll see where this evolves to. But with all the people that you've talked to, Selene, I felt like mindset and motivation would be like, you've got your experience, which that's where I want wanna open up this to, and whatever other nuggets you've pulled from the people you've had, the opportunity to chat with. So that's how I kinda saw this coming to be, and then I'll start with more of the communication piece because I love how you've opened your platform and provided voice for a lot of women, and then us to be able to connect through listening to other people's stories. What drove you to that moment? Was it your own experience and feeling like you didn't have any resources so you started creating them or where did that all start, that communication piece? Yes, that is my podcast, the newsletter, that whole arm of my career which started in 2020 is very, it's from my own life. It's pulled from my own experiences. So I did not start racing on a semi-professional level until I was 39. I have always been very active. I played ball sports as a kid. I ran track. I took up running at some point in college as one does. you know, and afterwards because it's just easy as something that you can do. And I always, I always enjoyed it though I don't like running on the road at all. I have always been a trail runner at heart so I feel very at home here. And when I was 39, I read an article in triathlete. I was also a mountain bike racer but we'll get to that. And when I was 39, 38 at the time, I read an article in triathlete, something that I might have written called 16 weeks to Iron Man. And I was dabbling at that point as many people were in the 2000s when it was very popular to get into triathlon. And I thought, oh, I can do 16 weeks. I could totally do 16 weeks. I mean, my husband was even out there working in the yard,

and I opened the window, and I'm like,

I think I'm gonna do the Sireman thing,

because you know, it's four months. You did a shot, yeah. And I had done sprints in Olympic, and maybe a half at that point. And then I got into it, and I realized that the swimming part of the workout all hyperglyphics I could not read I didn't even know what the work

else I didn't know what I even meant I was not a swimmer in that way I had never

done a structured swim workout. So I hired a swim coach. Her husband was an Ironman coach. I sent them all of the stuff they asked for and they said, you could qualify for Kona with your bike times because I was a bike racer at that point. And I was just like, oh, I don't want to hear that because I just won 16 weeks Iron Man. I did not.

And that became a year to Iron Man. I started to get a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a

little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a picked up by a semi professional mountain bike team here in the East Coast and I spent the next

Nine years racing around the world racing Cape Epic and Brazil, Israel, Cuba, BC, all over the world as a semi-professional mountain bike racer. And then I got into gravel racing, obviously, the gravel cycling hall of fame. And through it all, I've come in and out of my love affair with running. And as well, I'm sure talk about got into it a little bit later. So that has been my whole trajectory. Everything was going swimmingly, getting into where I am with menopause until I hit about 48. And I felt like somebody had just turned the power down. On me, I was at a race in Cuba, and I was went to punch up a hill, and I thought, that's weird. I don't, where's my power? I, I, that's not reacting the way I'm used to. And there was a succession of changes that happened very quickly around that time, along with the power of the body composition changes. I was having massive anxiety. I always have a little bit of free floating anxiety. That's my personality. But we're talking wake up at three in the morning, world coming Breathing deep talking myself off some imaginary ludge that I didn't even understand First thing and to sweat like a sprinkler system and I didn't I was still having menstrual cycles and all I knew about menopause was like you stop your period and maybe you have some hot flashes whatever and I was working with Stacey on a revision of Ror, and we were talking about maybe doing a 40 plus book. And I was just like, I think we need to do that book. I don't know what's happening. And at the time, I did not understand that our ovarian hormones, like estrogen and progesterone, affect our moods, they affect our muscles, they affect our cardiovascular system, they We affect literally every cell in our body, we have receptors in every cell of our body. And when those hormones go on a rollercoaster ride and then nose dive precipitously as they do when we get to late perimenopause, it affects every system in your body. And that's what I was going through. And I thought I have been a professional health and science journalist for 20 some years

and I had knew none of this. This is unbelievable. And then when I went to try to find help for myself, all the advice was, well, you should exercise. And I was like, no, I don't know if I can start well. But I was just like, no kidding. You know, check on it. I should exercise, right? you're probably exercising more than the average person.

It was ludicrous.

So being a member of the gravel cycling Hall of Fame, Selene, the next obvious step is ultra running. And we, Chrissy said that you've trained and run your first ultra, which race was it and how did it go? I will never run 100 miles. I'm going say that right now. But I do, I do really enjoy, I really enjoy Trail Running. I always have. And this past winter, I've usually had some cycling event in early spring that has made me train through the mid-Atlantic winters, which is very difficult. And I was sitting there last fall going, I do not want to ride my bike in the winter having to do that. What can I do? And a couple that puts on a gravel cycling race in Patagonia, Arizona called the Spirit World, launched a trail running race in the same place.

I don't know if you've been to Patagonia, Arizona, but it's a town of like literally 800 people. It's tiny, but it is very close to the Mexican border. So the bike race runs down, rides down the Mexican border and back, and she was putting on a trail run called the Day Dreamer. that does the Arizona Trail, which was really, really, really amazing.

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