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The Running for Real Podcast

Tonya Russell: When Does Running Culture Become Toxic? - R4R 291

The Running for Real Podcast

Tina Muir

Sports, Running, Mental Health, Health & Fitness

4.71.3K Ratings

🗓️ 18 March 2022

⏱️ 61 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Journalist Tonya Russell has written for publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Self, The Atlantic, and Marie Claire. She’s also a runner, coming back from a series of injuries. In this episode, she talks honestly about being a Type A runner, toxic positivity, and the emotions that being injured evoke.

For complete show notes and links, visit our website at runningforreal.com/episode291.

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"Thank you" to Tonya. We look forward to hearing your thoughts on the show.



Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to Running for Real, a global community with a shared love and curiosity for running.

0:14.1

Together, we reconnect with the reasons why we love to run and discover ways it helps

0:21.6

us become better people, whether it's the quiet moments of a morning run while the

0:26.1

rest of the world still sleeps or befriending the strangers next to you at the start line of a race.

0:31.4

We are here to connect with others who see running as the common thread that we use our lives

0:36.0

together. Come join me, Tina Muir, as I talk with people from all walks of life, united by a love of running.

0:47.4

Hello my friends, welcome to episode 291 of the Running for Real podcast. Thank you for joining me

0:53.8

today. I'm excited that you are here and excited to introduce you. If you don't already know

0:59.9

my guest today, she has, I mean, you're going to get to hear in this episode how

1:07.1

impressive a writer that she is in that what she's been able to do in two years of being a journalist

1:13.5

and who she writes for and the kind of things she's been writing for. I am excited to welcome

1:18.3

Tanya Russell to the podcast today. Now, Tanya is a writer for the New York Times, Washington

1:23.8

Post, South, the Atlantic and Mary Claire. And we talk today about her writing. We also talk about

1:31.5

not getting pigeonholed into one area. But we also talk about some points that she has covered

1:39.2

in articles primarily about. We have a bit of a conversation about toxic running culture,

1:44.8

about toxic positivity, so things that obviously sound negative, but how we can move past that

1:52.6

and find ourselves in a place of balanced, joyful, grounded running rather than being this

2:01.7

highly strong, really stressful, tense thing. And Tanya is currently injured, so she is feeling

2:08.4

these emotions strongly and looking back on what has been happening. And also went through a

2:14.5

bit of a traumatic time with her early running journey, which we cover today. So I think you will

2:19.8

find that Tanya is very honest in a way that few people are able to do. I pride myself on being

2:27.7

one of those people, but I think you're really going to appreciate that. We talk about the first

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