Running, Resilience, and Reinvention with Dena Lewis (Episode 233)

Hit Play Not Pause

Health & Fitness, Education, Self-improvement, Mental Health

4.9 • 696 Ratings

🗓️ 2 July 2025

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Like many women, Dena Lewis planned on “fighting through” menopause. She thought she could outrun, out-nutrition, and out-supplement menopause. Menopause–which came swiftly through surgery–had other ideas. Through mood swings, soaking night sweats, hair loss, and a relentless barrage of symptoms, Dena did keep running–10+ miles a day–but she also sought hormone therapy that made the rest better. A lifelong runner and breast cancer survivor, Dena shares how she’s navigated her health and menopause journey. She also speaks candidly about surviving two assaults while running, and how those experiences led her to create Running Mate, a safety-focused app that pairs verified runners with compatible partners based on pace, distance, and time of day.

Dena Lewis is the passionate force behind Running Mate, an innovative app revolutionizing runner safety. After enduring two assaults while running, she embarked on a mission to create a safer environment for all runners. Through Running Mate, Dena offers a reliable platform where runners and mates undergo thorough background checks, ensuring peace of mind for all involved. Think of Running Mate as the Uber for runners, providing a groundbreaking solution to enjoy runs without fear. Before founding Running Mate, Dena forged a successful career in Medical Device Sales and Management, holding various leadership roles over 15 years. You can learn more about her and her work at www.getrunningmate.com

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You are listening to Hit Play, Not Pause, a feisty menopause podcast for active performance-minded women.
0:14.6	I am your host, Celine Yeager. Each week, I bring you advice from athletes, scientists, researchers, and other experts to help
0:21.2	you feel and perform your best no matter what your hormones are doing.
0:25.0	This show is a production of Live Feisty Media.
0:31.1	Hello, strong feisty women.
0:33.8	So, I've been thinking a lot about how we talk about menopause, even five years into this show.
0:40.3	I see women in our hip play not pause group use language like,
0:44.3	I just gave up and run on hormone therapy, or I really wanted to fight through this on my own.
0:51.3	And I feel like maybe we've set up menopause as this adversary to beat into submission
0:57.3	rather than a natural biological change that we will all find ourselves working through at some
1:03.1	point in our lives. And well, it can just lead to unnecessary suffering because it leads us to
1:10.3	view hormone therapy as a last resort, as opposed
1:13.4	to one of the tools that we consider out of the gate when symptoms start sending our quality
1:18.2	of life sideways. So I really appreciated this week's guest, Dina Lewis, for sharing her journey.
1:25.9	Dina thought that she could outrun, outnutrition, and out-supplement menopause.
1:31.3	And, well, menopause, which for her came swiftly through surgery, had other ideas.
1:37.3	And through mood swings and soaking night sweats and hair loss and a relentless barrage of symptoms,
1:43.3	Dina did continue to run, 10 miles a day, which was choking night sweats and hair loss and a relentless barrage of symptoms.
1:50.2	Dina did continue to run, 10 miles a day, which we'll get to that in the show as well.
1:55.0	But she also sought hormone therapy that made the rest better.
2:02.7	A lifelong runner and cancer survivor, Dina opens up in this conversation about how she's navigated her pretty complicated health and menopause journey. And just a heads up, we also wade into some pretty
2:09.1	heavy but really important waters in this episode. Dina speaks candidly about surviving two
	...

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