We're tired of women talking to women about being harassed about all of the things we deal with because we know already and the conversation now needs to push out beyond that in particular our male counterparts.

What is shaken Emily and body here you are listening to another installment of hurdle moment from hurdle a wellness focus podcast where I connect with everyone

from your favorite athletes to top experts and industry CEOs about their highest highs toughest moments and everything in between.

We all go through hurdles in life and my goal through these discussions is to empower you to better navigate yours and move with intention so that you can stride toward your own big potential and of course have some fun along the way.

Today's episode I am bringing in my girl Jesse Zapo. She is a performance coach for Adidas runners as well as the founder of girls run NYC and I would be remiss if I didn't say that right off the bat I hate how relevant the topic of our conversation is today.

I had Jesse come into the studio to record a couple of months ago shortly after we sat down for a forum panel discussion on runner safety here in New York I had Jesse come in we chatted one on one.

And as this episode was slated to run this week as I was editing this episode I caught the news that a 26 year old woman was shot during her run on Monday at night January 30th in Nashville Tennessee and I just sat here at my desk beside myself.

Because it's like you want to ask like when is this going to stop and the answer is there is no answer.

When we had the conversation about runner safety back in 20 or 22 it was shortly after the murder of Liza Fletcher and Liza as we say in this conversation was not the first person to lose her life on a run and certainly not the last.

And so in today's conversation as I said a little too relevant this week we talk about a lot of things when it comes to runner safety we talk about how the two of us as New Yorkers feel about running right now both alone and in groups we chat about how you can be more safe on the run and maybe tools that the both of us are using.

We also address the topic of allyship and what it can look like for people to come together regardless of gender woman men non binary folks coming together to show up for one another on the run to make our communities safer.

It's a timely discussion it's an important discussion and I'm so grateful for jussies time and truly insightful takes on how we can take care of one another on the run.

Make sure you're following along with hurdle over on social it's at hurdle podcast I am over at Emily a body if you want to chime in on this if you have a listener question that you want to share I'm all ears the link to leave me a voice message and share a question is in the show notes.

Also a note I'll be hosting another panel discussion on runner safety the week of L.A. Marathon on March 15th more details to come but if you're local save the date and with that let's get to it let's get to hurtling.

Today I'm sitting down with Jesse Zappo how are you doing I'm doing well thank you your voice on so nice on podcast is anyone ever told you you have a nice podcast voice um actually know well I send voice notes to people and people like that so I'll see okay well Jesse Jesse is your full last name Zappo.

It is not so Zappo was my dad's nickname it became kind of a family nickname my childhood name is Jesse when I got into my first career as an art therapist I everyone knew me as Jessica Zappo technique which is my full name and then my little sister said I'm going to make you a Facebook account you should get on Facebook and I said okay but I don't want my

professional folks to find me on Facebook I want to keep it separate so it's like let me use my childhood nickname Jesse Zappo and then that's where the running community found me and knew me as Jesse well I'm glad to have you whether we go full last name or our partial last name we are here today to talk or continue our conversation on runner safety you know for those of you that maybe out of the loop I hosted an event over New York City

Marathon weekend and Jesse was a part of that dialogue and we chatted on runner safety especially in the wake of events that have happened recently Jesse herself is the Adidas runners performance coach and captain and also the founder of an organization here called girls run NYC and so because so many of you reached out to me and said that you wish that you could have been a part of that

conversation or listened in on that conversation I asked Jesse if she would do me the honor of joining me in the studio so we could kind of wrap about it and talk about some of our takeaways but also bring forth some of that information

I'd love it if you could give but the hurtlers a little bit of information about you and your journey with running because obviously it's not like one day you raised your hand and you said I want to be the runners performance coach for Adidas so talk to me a little bit about that.

Yeah thanks so I think people reach out to me a lot and ask like how did how did you get to where you are that's interesting your woman your performance coach you you know work in the community space it was not a linear path by any means I think my journey definitely started

I was a teenager my ran track and field I played volleyball I had a sports affinity and background growing up also was one of eight children so a lot of the time I was playing with my siblings and

...