Getting to Know Your Miles with Moms Co-hosts

In this inaugural episode of the Miles with Moms podcast, we, (your hosts Whitney, Olivia, Shanna, and Tricia -- hi!) share our personal running journeys, the motivations behind starting the podcast, and the challenges we face as mother runners. 

We discuss the importance of community, overcoming limitations, and the guilt often associated with taking time for oneself. This conversation highlights the joys and struggles of balancing motherhood and running, emphasizing that pursuing personal fitness goals can positively impact both the individual and their family.

Takeaways

• Whitney is a certified running coach and founder of a running community.
• Olivia started her running journey five years ago and is excited to share her goals.
• Shanna has been running since childhood and returned to the sport after having kids.
• Tricia is a physical therapist and shares insights on postpartum running.
• The podcast aims to create a supportive community for mother runners.
• Running can help alleviate feelings of guilt and selfishness in mothers.
• Personal running journeys can inspire and motivate others.
• The hosts emphasize the importance of mental health through running.
• Community support is crucial for overcoming challenges in motherhood and fitness.
• The podcast is a platform for sharing experiences and advice for mother runners.

About your hosts:

• Whitney Heins is a mom of 2 kids, a VDOT-certified running coach for moms who run, and founder of the resource, themotherrunners.com. Coming out of a 5-year injury cycle which included a 2:54 marathon and 1:20 half marathon, she is training to run faster as a master’s athlete. IG: @themotherrunners.
• Shanna Birchett is a mom of 6 kids under 8, including twins. She returned to running in 2021 after an 11-year break, running most recently a 2:44 marathon in the summer of 2024. She is the co-founder of Endure 365 running, endure365.com, which offers heart rate-based training plans. IG: @motherhood_running.
• Tricia DeNardis is a mom to 3 young kids and a physical therapist specializing in the pelvic floor, pregnancy and postpartum rehabilitation. After running 10 marathons, Tricia completed her first 50k in the fall of 2024, and is now hooked! IG: @burpeesandburpcloths.
• Olivia Garcia is a mom of 2 young kids, who used to work as a paramedic. She fell in love with running in 2019, despite surviving a marathon that didn’t go according to plan. She’s since cut more than an hour off her marathon time and gunning to break 3 hours. IG: ...

Transcript

Whitney Heins (00:01.144)
Hello and thank you for joining us for episode one and we're gonna get into a very important meaty topic of mom guilt which Yeah, it's honestly it was like a big motivator for me Starting the mother runner. So I'm Whitney Hines. I am a certified running coach. I Founded the website the mother runners calm. I have two kids

and I live and a husband and two dogs and I live in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Whitney Heins (00:35.594)Whitney Heins (00:02.316)
Hi, we are so glad you guys are here to join us for episode zero of Miles with Moms. I am Whitney Hines. I almost just said my maiden name. What is that about?

Olivia Garcia (00:09.496)
Okay.

Whitney Heins (00:17.858)
It's because I used to be a newscaster and I wasn't married then. And so it was Whitney Holmes back then. So anyways, I know it's very close. That's why I picked them. I was like, I can get used to this. All right. So I'm Whitney Hines. I am a certified running coach. I am also founder of themotherrunners.com. I live in Knoxville, Tennessee with my husband, my two school-aged kids and my two dogs. And I have dreams of running faster than ever in my forties.

Olivia Garcia (00:21.613)
my goodness! Very close.

Tricia (00:24.602)
and it's so close.

Shanna Birchett (00:24.697)
That's crazy. Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (00:26.849)
No.

Whitney Heins (00:51.97)
All right, Olivia, do you want to tell us about yourself?

Olivia Garcia (00:58.745)
and I live in Utah. have two kids that I am staying at home to raise and it's been wonderful. My running journey actually only started about five years ago, so I'm probably the most amateur out of this group, but it's just a constant learning journey and that's been super fun. I actually just have been building on each of my goals and they keep getting bigger and bigger and I'm just excited to share them.

Whitney Heins (01:29.612)
Shannon, what about you?

Shanna Birchett (01:31.843)
By the way, she's not an amateur runner. I'm sorry. She went for like a sub four hour to almost like, she's like sub three hour shape right now. So this girl cannot talk. But anyways, I'm Shana Burchette. I almost said my man name. That was really weird. I don't know if I just had that on my mind. My husband would have been like, excuse me. We worked hard for those 10 years of marriage. Yeah, I am a mom to six kids. My oldest is turning nine. Wow.

Olivia Garcia (01:34.977)
NAH!

Tricia (01:35.059)
Great.

Whitney Heins (01:35.574)
you

Olivia Garcia (01:42.498)
Well, thanks.

Olivia Garcia (01:49.253)
Shanna Birchett (02:01.559)
I cannot believe she's that old. Yeah, our house is... Yeah, it's coming out for sure. I relate a lot to what you said. was like, enough is said, I see it. And yeah, I've been running pretty much my whole life, honestly. I started running at the age of five with my family just for fun and then got into the club running scene. That was probably the funnest times of my running career.

Whitney Heins (02:04.436)
So you have a tween too almost.

Whitney Heins (02:10.138)
You

Shanna Birchett (02:29.195)
And then I went into high school running and then took a 11 year break, I guess. I mean, I ran off and on, not like competing or training and had a bunch of babies and now we're back. So we'll see how it goes after that.

Whitney Heins (02:44.063)
and Trisha.

Tricia (02:45.757)
Hey, I'm Tricia. I live in Richmond, Virginia. I have three kids, also nine, nine, six, and almost four. And I also started running when I was pretty like middle school, ran through high school, was supposed to run in college. They dropped the team. So started running marathons on my own in college, which is, what most college kids are really into. But yeah, you do too. Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (02:54.59)
wow. That's awesome.

Shanna Birchett (02:55.001)
That's so fun.

Whitney Heins (03:09.058)
I did it too. Yeah.

Shanna Birchett (03:12.969)
crazy

Tricia (03:14.707)
And then, so I'm also a physical therapist and prenatal and postpartum exercise specialist. So for the past couple of years, I've been at home really working with pregnant postpartum moms, getting back into exercise, exercising through pregnancy, and also specialize in pelvic floor as a PT. So yeah, super excited.

Olivia Garcia (03:22.562)
you

Whitney Heins (03:35.55)
that's amazing. that's going to be so helpful because I am sure we're going to dive into postpartum and pregnant running on this pod a lot. Yeah.

Tricia (03:44.207)
I can't wait. I love it.

Olivia Garcia (03:48.561)
Yeah, I think that's so awesome. I think that's a huge reason actually why we wanted to start this podcast. So basically I had the idea of starting a podcast when Shanna and I would go out for runs a lot and

We spent a lot of time, obviously, goofing around, talking about whatever, but we also were having really serious, deep conversations just about being a mom, being a runner. And sometimes we would just share feedback about things we've heard or simple things sometimes where was like, people would ask us, how do you find time to run? Or how did you come back from running after having a baby? And sometimes I started running so soon after my son and you know,

just how confusing that was. And we would talk about these things. then it was like, we never actually had answers for it. It was really just, I just kind of had to figure it out. And I think then all of a sudden we were like, well, I know that there's resources out there, but how can we get this actually to people? And, you know, her and I, we always banter a lot and stuff like that. And so when people would run with us, they thought it was like fun, you know, and then I was more like, just this fun idea of like, we should have a podcast and do, we should have podcast.

And it really like, it, the tone kind of started changing because we wanted to bring, you know, make a community of mother runners that they could kind of hear this while they're starting their running journey or continuing their running journey. And we wanted to bring this information and that if somebody is just starting to run, they might not know anything about, you know, that they need pelvic floor therapy because it's not normal to go out for your first postpartum run and pee yourself. Like that's not normal.

Shanna Birchett (05:30.838)
Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (05:32.965)
And it has somehow become normalized, you know, so yeah. And so that's kind of how this whole podcast thing even started in the first place. And then it was like, well, we, we are coaches or we don't, you know, there's certain things that we can't really talk about, which is kind of where Whitney, you come in here coach. So

Tricia (05:35.869)
Take time.

Whitney Heins (05:51.074)
Yeah, I started the motherrunners.com in 2019 for the exact same reason that you guys wanted to start this podcast because I was starting to train for my first marathon after having kids and I was experiencing all these challenges and all these just frustrations and I felt like I was struggling alone and I would Google things and it...

the info wasn't there or is very clearly written by somebody who hadn't experienced it. honestly made me feel really bad. Like I was failing because like I would read it and they make it sound so easy or it wasn't there. And I'm like, my God, what is wrong with me? Why am I failing? And so I was like, well, I have a journalism background. I've always loved running. I started running when I was six because my dad was like, she looks kind of fast. Let's, know.

Shanna Birchett (06:27.289)
You

Shanna Birchett (06:45.145)
You

Whitney Heins (06:45.324)
get her into this. So anyway, so I started the website and then I got certified as a running coach a year later, but I have always wanted to do my own podcast. I hosted another running podcast for another running site called The Passionate Runner, I didn't have ownership and it wasn't just on, Shanna and Trisha both were on that. Thank you. But like it wasn't just focused on like mother runner topics.

Olivia Garcia (06:58.957)
Okay.

Shanna Birchett (07:09.565)
I loved it.

Whitney Heins (07:15.194)
And so when I started running with other moms finally, when like the schedule would allow for that, I realized I wasn't actually like, didn't have to struggle alone that what I was going through, so many other women go through and it just made me feel so much better. And like, if you know, we would workshop different ideas and brainstorm if we were having a hard time and it was like truly like a therapy session. And so the website was, I wanted it to be a platform.

Olivia Garcia (07:20.505)
Thank

Whitney Heins (07:40.438)
for other women to not have to struggle alone and to also get the tips and like training advice that they needed to succeed and be their best on and off the roads. But a podcast is so great to do that because especially, you know, moms, we have to run at like weird times, we have to run up and down our driveway, we have to run at like, you know, hours before the sun rises. And so I just think it's such a beautiful medium for us to reach other mother runners and

lift them up, you know, they just have to pop in one earbud and go out. say that for safety reasons, just one, if it's early in the morning that, you know, and we can keep you company on your run so you don't feel like you're alone on the run and you don't feel like you're alone in your whole mother runner journey. So yeah, so it was crazy. Like I reached out to Trisha and Shanna, like, Hey, do you want to do this podcast? And Shanna said, well, my friend Olivia actually wants to do a podcast too.

Shanna Birchett (08:16.66)
Yes!

Olivia Garcia (08:33.177)
You

Whitney Heins (08:36.544)
and I shared with her my idea and it almost beautifully mirrored Olivia's idea that Shanna was like, my gosh, we should get together and try to do this, all four of us. you know, four hosts is a lot and we're gonna try to use each other's names so you guys can distinguish our voices. I think we have very different voices. I'm the Midwestern nasally voice, but just so it doesn't get confusing, because we do have a YouTube.

Olivia Garcia (09:02.713)
Yes.

Whitney Heins (09:05.504)
but that way if you're listening, you know who is who. But yeah, so that's kinda how we got here and Trisha was totally on board too, right?

Tricia (09:15.019)
Yes. Yeah. like being on a pod or hosting a podcast was never even on my radar until you reached out to me. Like I had been on other podcasts before and always loved being a guest, but it never like crossed my mind. But when you came to me and just proposed what you had in mind, I got so excited because that has always been the main focus of my whole Instagram account. And the reason I started that was when I was pregnant with my second, for those reasons, there's

Shanna Birchett (09:20.729)
Same right here.

Tricia (09:44.519)
there's just not a lot of information out there. And even with my background of being a physical therapist, even I didn't know like what to expect and what is okay and what is not in terms of running and exercise during pregnancy. And so in sharing my journey and experience both during pregnancy and postpartum and how running fits in with the craziness of motherhood, that has just like really like fired me up just to spread that.

word to other moms and help them not feel so alone. So when you approached me with this, I was like, yes, like this fits in perfect to everything that I do. Yeah, so I'm so excited for this. think all these moms are gonna love this and hopefully you'll love us.

Whitney Heins (10:31.171)
think so too. And I love that we all have like the same mission and our Instagram handles, our Instagram accounts, mean, are all kind of all in the similar vein of we're in this together and you can do it and it is possible and it's gonna look different in like the different seasons of life that you're in, but like...

We are here to lift you up in like whatever season you're in. And so, yeah, it's a dream come true for us to be recording this episode zero, because it's been something that I've like wanted to do for a really long time. So thank you for being here. So in this episode, we want to talk a little bit more about our journeys, our histories, because I think we all have.

Tricia (11:11.891)
this rolling.

Shanna Birchett (11:13.838)
I know.

Whitney Heins (11:22.588)
varied backgrounds and the hope is that with four different hosts, the, you listening at wherever you are, you're in the car line or early in the morning or doing the laundry, whatever can relate to one of us, if not all of us. so, yeah, I want, I want to use the rest of our time to just kind of talk a little bit about our running journeys and who we are.

And yeah, so that you can get to know us, always feel free to reach out or miles with moms podcast on Instagram. But yeah, sorry, I had to think about that. I'm like, did I add, it's all new. We all just started this this week. So it's not like stuck in the brain yet. yeah, don't, Trisha, do you want to get the ball rolling with your running history? I know you said you started

Shanna Birchett (12:04.008)
Yes.

Olivia Garcia (12:15.057)
.

Whitney Heins (12:17.526)
when you were younger.

Tricia (12:18.664)
Yeah, and you know, I started running for all the wrong reasons. I, you know, was in that awkward pre-teen age and I was like, gosh, I need to be smaller. I need to be skinnier. And that's why I started running and it snowballed and I have a long history with eating disorders. So really it was all for the wrong reasons. But long story short, it ended up...

actually really helping me in my recovery with running because one of my doctors used it as kind of a bribe. Like, hey, if you start putting on weight, then we'll let you run a little bit more. So it became like this, you know, such a huge passion and love of mine, but it actually helped me in massive ways out of eating disorders. And so I've had...

Olivia Garcia (12:49.477)
you

Shanna Birchett (12:55.385)
Listen.

Tricia (13:07.795)
I could go on with my running story for so long because there's so many ins and outs of it. But started running longer distances in college, ran my first marathon, qualified for Boston, ran Boston. And then it just like, I just ran all these marathons repeatedly up until I had kids. And then I was like, this is, 10 total. yeah.

Shanna Birchett (13:21.75)
Cool.

Shanna Birchett (13:29.729)
Like, like how many? I want to know how many. That's crazy.

Olivia Garcia (13:33.311)
wow. Wow.

Tricia (13:37.191)
Yeah, I've only run one marathon after kids and then most recently have gone into the ultra trail world.

Olivia Garcia (13:46.923)
I'm just crazy.

Shanna Birchett (13:47.843)
Cause, cause marathons weren't long enough. Yeah.

Whitney Heins (13:48.534)
to get to how you landed there.

Tricia (13:50.597)
Yeah, okay, so very bizarre, weird story with my running is that, so I ran all these marathons, like running was just who I am and such like a central focus of my life. And that was kind of stripped from me a couple of years ago, very suddenly, where I would go out on runs and have a sensation that I was going to fall. And through a lot of doctors visits,

brain scans, all of these workups that took a couple years, I was finally diagnosed with a vestibular disorder where my vestibular nerve in one ear, which is in charge of your balance and coordination, they think was impacted by an inner ear infection. And so it pretty much wiped out that nerve. And what happens is the nerve doesn't regenerate, but your brain can compensate for the loss to a degree. So I have 65 % loss. It's like totally gone.

and so through a lot of the Stibular PT, I was able to start regaining ability to run. It was very weird, even when it was at its worst, where I just would feel constantly dizzy, worse when going outside. And the only way I could run was holding onto a stroller or running on soft surfaces. So I would go and run around soccer fields, like 13 miles around a field. So I really, yeah, yeah.

Shanna Birchett (15:14.935)
That is crazy.

Olivia Garcia (15:15.097)
Yes.

Tricia (15:17.824)
Like another level of crazy which brought me to ultras because someone was like hey if you are that nuts Like this is what you should do

Shanna Birchett (15:26.958)
Let's go.

Whitney Heins (15:27.106)
Because there's like those backyard altars, you remember, that became popular during the pandemic where people would just run for like miles and hours in their backyard.

Tricia (15:30.29)
Right!

Tricia (15:34.771)
Yeah, like, look at them. always like, yeah, like stroller running. always was really big into stroller running with my kids because from the moment I became a parent, I did a lot of solo parenting. And so the only way I could run, I didn't have a treadmill at that time. I didn't have access to a gym. The only way I would run was with strollers. And it was the only way that my kid, my first kid would sleep because he was just.

Whitney Heins (15:39.618)
you

Shanna Birchett (15:40.089)
smiled.

Olivia Garcia (15:47.897)
yeah, that's huge. I totally get that. Yeah.

Tricia (16:04.711)
Yeah. This is only way you'll sleep. will run all day. So stroller running, like it has, I have such an appreciation for it because it was the only way I was able to do any kind of running a year ago, two years ago. And it's still like to this day, I'll still push both my girls in the double stroller and my son will ride his bike. And it's just like the best Bonnie experience and time that I have with them.

Whitney Heins (16:06.029)
Same.

Olivia Garcia (16:09.183)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (16:27.321)
That's awesome.

Tricia (16:34.225)
And it kind of brings the best of both worlds into the mix. know, my love of running, my love of my kids. but yeah, so ultras, I ran my first 50 K trail run, which was literally straight up a mountain, the beginning of September. And I was like, yes, like this is amazing. It's just, it's such a different vibe than road racing. Like the people there's better snacks.

Shanna Birchett (16:47.362)
my gosh.

Whitney Heins (16:47.414)
Gosh.

Shanna Birchett (16:56.857)
Crazy.

Olivia Garcia (16:59.0)
Yes. I've heard that it is totally a different vibe. That's awesome. Yeah.

Whitney Heins (17:01.237)
Food is really good at ultras. Yeah.

Tricia (17:04.159)
Yes, it is. It's totally different. Like everyone's just so laid back. Even at the start of the race, like, you know, a road marathon, you're looking around, everyone's like in their own zone. This is like, people are just like hanging out, chit chatting. They're like, okay, go. So here we go. guess. Yeah. So I was, I'm totally sold. I have other plans.

Shanna Birchett (17:14.541)
Yeah.

Whitney Heins (17:14.791)
totally.

Olivia Garcia (17:16.073)
Mm-hmm.

Whitney Heins (17:21.014)
Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (17:21.145)
That's wild!

Shanna Birchett (17:24.526)
Crazy.

Olivia Garcia (17:27.949)
That's awesome. That's so fun. I always I yeah.

Shanna Birchett (17:29.045)
Hahaha.

Whitney Heins (17:31.732)
Yeah, I'm like the opposite of that right now. I'm like, maybe one day, but I'm like, I have like things to get done.

Olivia Garcia (17:41.453)
That's how I feel right now too. I always thought that I would be an ultra marathoner. Like I thought that's where I would be because before I had kids, I was so into hiking with my dogs and I like had all the coolest hiking gear and I just thought it was the best. And when I had my son, I bought a cool hiking backpack and I was like, this is going to be my jam. And so I had my son, this is a really quick segue. And I signed up for a 15 K like trail run with my husband.

Tricia (17:57.745)
Yes.

Whitney Heins (18:00.469)
Yeah.

Tricia (18:04.659)
you

Olivia Garcia (18:10.201)
Okay, I got started and it starts just in a parking lot kind of and I was like, I've got this, like it's nine miles. I like went up to where it starts in the actual mountain and I was convinced I tore my hamstring instantly. was like, it's over. My husband's like, my gosh, you have run marathons and it was the first step. was like barely made it off the pavement and it was, it's over.

So I'm like limping up this mountain. We're not even a quarter of a mile in. And anyway, it took me so long and my husband was just like powering through who's not a runner at all. And so you come back down the mountain. I thought I was lost the whole time. So I decided I was going to take pictures on the mountain, all this stuff. And so whenever they pop up, I just laugh because I'm like, what was I doing? Like, this is crazy. And so then I roll down the mountain and I'll...

Shanna Birchett (18:42.441)
my gosh.

Olivia Garcia (19:06.157)
stuff and then it does end on a trail and I actually caught up to my husband there because he's not a road runner and so we ran the whole thing in together which was great but he was like hours ahead of me so I don't know what he was doing but it was so funny like and so anyway I just went past that trail again and like where it ended and I thought that we were like in this crazy mountainous area but we weren't I just wasn't familiar with it I live in that town now so it's just and so I've never signed up for another one and I don't know if I hope because

I can convince myself that I injured that hamstring so quickly. That was crazy. It was so steep. So.

Shanna Birchett (19:39.545)
That's so funny.

Tricia (19:40.998)
Yeah, yeah, that was this one. It was like 7,000 feet of elevation.

Whitney Heins (19:44.45)
I'm just picturing you, I'm just picturing you like throwing yourself on the trail like it's over Like what is over the race you're running your life like

Shanna Birchett (19:46.627)
That's crazy.

Olivia Garcia (19:47.469)
I'm

Tricia (19:52.179)
That's not I feel. My wife? A little bit.

Olivia Garcia (19:52.673)
It was like, yeah. It all felt like it was over. It was so steep. I know that the people next to me were like, what is she doing? But I.

Shanna Birchett (19:55.353)
you

Whitney Heins (19:59.554)
you

Tricia (20:04.723)
You

Shanna Birchett (20:05.561)
You run any incline runs with Olivia up any major hill and you'll hear some colorful words come out of her mouth. She'll do it, she'll do it and she'll do a good job at it, but she will cuss her whole way up to the top. You're good at them.

Olivia Garcia (20:14.999)
You will. Yeah.

I will, I will. I don't know what it is with Hills. I act like I've never seen him before every time. Like, I called my husband.

Whitney Heins (20:28.054)
You guys like live, you have mountains everywhere around you, don't you?

Shanna Birchett (20:30.881)
Yes, yes. And she's at altitude now too. So she's really getting a dish for her money right now.

Olivia Garcia (20:33.167)
No, I most definitely do.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The other day I had Shanna come up here and run with me and we were both so out of breath and we were like, I was like, this has got to be on hill. This has got to be like a six person. It was dark. We could not see. Yeah.

Tricia (20:40.209)
Just out there just cursing the entire time you run.

Shanna Birchett (20:54.39)
It was dark. It was like it was like 6 a.m. In the morning It was dark and we were both was like breathing hard or like why are we breathing so hard and then we come back the other direction and we're fly we're going like 640 pace and we're just flying we're talking and I was like That's why we were out of breath. We were running up a mountain

Olivia Garcia (21:06.851)
flying. Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (21:12.313)
You

Tricia (21:13.617)
Hello?

Olivia Garcia (21:15.833)
Yeah, it's true. just, I called my husband in the middle of my last race and which is not a hilly race. And I have just, look at the course map just every once in a while to remind myself of it. And, but I did call him at mile 17 and I was like, it's so hilly. Through my air pods. It wasn't, I just, I just get really dramatic over them. I don't know why, but.

Whitney Heins (21:18.156)
So funny.

Whitney Heins (21:41.994)
All right, so trail trail running not not in the near future for you So how did you get into? How did you get into running and then can you talk a little bit about like because your your husband's a firefighter, right? So that's I mean, I feel like that's a very important piece of the puzzle of you as a mother runner so

Shanna Birchett (21:48.814)
Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (21:55.779)
Mm-hmm.

Olivia Garcia (22:01.918)
Yeah. so gosh, got into, I feel like I tried to dabble in running for exercise so many times and I would do that like classic four mile attempt and have to walk it for so many, so much of it. Cause of just the whole, you run so fast and then it's like, I'm so bad at running. And I remember my first run that I like went and I, I was like really prepared for it because

At the time I was working as a paramedic in Las Vegas and I worked private ambulance and I wanted to get onto a fire department for just obviously financial benefit and all that stuff. But you have to be very physically fit to get onto a fire department. But one of the things is running. So I went to the desert on a trail run and I just failed so miserably. And I was out there forever because it was like I just couldn't figure it out. And it was just so frustrating.

Whitney Heins (22:32.48)
Wow.

Olivia Garcia (22:58.881)
So at the time though, had my, Peloton bike and they had just started to release audios of, like just run coaching and they make like a playlist for you. And so I tried, I tried again, I didn't take my dogs. didn't go on a trail. got running shoes and I was like, I'm just going to give like a 20 minute run a shot. And the whole thing was like, it was really great. It just was like Striders is when you, you know, increase your pace, their form, focus, accelerations, and just breaking it down like that helps so much.

And I felt like I went for that run and it was just 20 minutes, but it had walking included already in the program and that helped so much. So I signed up. My husband's friend was like, does she want to do a half marathon in Irvine? And I was like, yeah, let's do it. And I was like three months later. So I just wrote myself up this little plan and.

It kind of just got me hooked on racing. I was done with that race and I didn't have a time goal. I did not know that there was such a thing as a time goal until like the night before someone was like, well, what time do you want to finish? And I was like, I don't know. Is that a thing? And I just like, I had no idea, but it was so simple. You know, it was just like this really simple thing that going out and running this race and it was in the brain and I love rain and it was in Southern California. So

Whitney Heins (24:01.942)
Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (24:16.889)
I just fell in love with racing and I was like, I want to do a half marathon every month, which didn't end up happening. But I signed up for a marathon then and I didn't have kids at the time. And I thought I was going to go run Salt Lake marathon and get a Boston qualifier and then hopefully run Boston the next year and kind of be done with the marathon. Cause after I ran Salt Lake, it was so painful. I ran in a turtleneck and again, I was just really, I thought I was going to run a 330 and be done. And I didn't, ran a 418 and

Shanna Birchett (24:40.697)
Congrats.

Olivia Garcia (24:46.745)
I was so frustrated about having this 418 time because I was locked in on this time. Then I went and I ran Mount Charleston, which is a very downhill race. I got a much better time. All of a sudden, I started feeling like, I feel like I love this racing thing. I ended up then though, a couple of months later, I was pregnant. I continued to run. just had a really hard time running while pregnant because I didn't really know.

Well, I didn't know I was pregnant for a really long time. And so was really confused of why I couldn't run anymore super well. And that was crazy. So jump forward to it now that I have my two kids and my motherhood journey of like figuring out how to run has been so, so much trial and error. Like, you know, I've been, I've forever been having to split up my runs into like 15 minute increments and then 20 minutes and then, I always can run at nap time.

Whitney Heins (25:20.482)
Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (25:45.635)
and then nap time all of sudden changes and you're like, so I solo parent a lot. So always at least for two days out of the week, sometimes like two and a half, three days. And then sometimes it can be up to like four to eight days and that kind of thing. So it's always been figuring about how I can fit this in for me. And now as the kids have gotten older though, they get it. Like it's so funny that they like have this narrative of like, are you gonna go run this morning?

Whitney Heins (25:47.138)
Mm-hmm.

Olivia Garcia (26:14.935)
because I think they know that also I come back being fulfilled and that they got some time to go play without me interrupting them and being like, hey, can you pick this up? Or do you guys want breakfast? Blah, blah. I give them all their snacks and their breakfast I'll set up and then they can just kind of zone out for a little bit. And it's been so sweet though to hear even, my son was at gymnastics class the other day and he's like, they were running across and he goes, my mom's a runner. And I was like.

Whitney Heins (26:18.272)
Mm-hmm.

Shanna Birchett (26:23.929)
you

Shanna Birchett (26:43.767)
That's cute. I love that.

Tricia (26:43.832)
Aww.

Whitney Heins (26:44.55)
my gosh!

Olivia Garcia (26:44.845)
so true. I am, you know, and it was just so funny and like, not that I'm defined by that, but it was really, it was just so heartwarming to hear it, you know, and it was something that he's proud of. it's just really become a part of our life that I run and a lot of times I have to do it in the stroller. And the one thing about stroller running for me is that my daughter, is just, she never stops. She never, never, never stops. She never stops talking.

She never stops moving, she never stops asking for things. And when she's in the stroller, she is at peace. And it's the only time that she does not ask for anything. Like she doesn't need to watch a phone, she doesn't need snacks, she just sits there and she just enjoys the world around her. And it is so nice. Like you said, it's like this bonding experience. And she asks all the time to go for stroller runs and I don't always love it as much because if I can sometimes opt, yeah, yeah, so.

Tricia (27:18.749)
Yes.

Whitney Heins (27:19.265)
Shanna Birchett (27:20.441)
That's so cool.

Tricia (27:27.922)
Awesome.

Great.

Whitney Heins (27:38.134)
You just want to zone out sometimes.

Olivia Garcia (27:43.033)
Because my son, does require a lot of snacks and things like that still. So yeah, so a lot of my, my journey with it has just been, it truly is trial and error. And there was no like how to guide on when you can do it. Like it's not always at four AM. Like I don't, I can't, my kids will wake up. They'll just know she's on the treadmill. Yeah. Yeah. Really? Yes. Yes.

Tricia (27:45.691)
Yeah.

Whitney Heins (28:04.854)
Yep, that was my thing. Still, yeah, now it's the puppy. It's like, doesn't matter. Even if I sneak out, it's like the puppy wakes up and then everybody's up and then everybody's cranky when I come back from my great run and I'm like, hey, I had a, Yes, it's such a buzz kill. Okay, Shanna, what about you?

Shanna Birchett (28:07.043)
Yeah. Yeah.

Shanna Birchett (28:15.235)
Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (28:16.011)
Yes. Yes.

Tricia (28:20.455)
Yeah. It's amazing how that happens, isn't it?

Olivia Garcia (28:22.104)
Yes! Mm-hmm.

Tricia (28:27.442)
You

Shanna Birchett (28:27.545)
It really is. Yeah, so I mean, I got into running obviously, like I said, at a really young age. I come from a family of eight kids. I'm six of eight. And my mom was, my dad was military, so he was deployed quite a bit through my childhood pretty consistently. And yeah, my mom was a trooper. I have so much respect for her now being in the position I am now.

which is funny because I was probably her hardest kid, honestly. just, yeah. But yeah, so running is kind of just like my, I feel like it was my way of like separating myself from a group of siblings, right? Like it just, it became my identity, really, truly. It was my identity. And I thrived off it. I loved the competition as a kid.

I loved that it was totally in my power and in my control to become whatever I wanted to be in that sport. And I loved that. And yeah, I just, took off in it with it in high school. I always, mean, at a really young age, I always looked at it as like a really long-term goal. You know, how, how far can I take this? Can I take it to the LA level? And of course, you know, God has another plan. The world universe has another plan.

Olivia Garcia (29:35.777)
you

Shanna Birchett (29:49.473)
Yeah, I walked away from collegiate running and that was a really, really tough decision for me. But it came with a lot of pushback too, cause you know, everybody around me was like, what is she going to do in college? And yeah, I just, feel like my running was incomplete at that point, but the feeling that I got was like, so at peace with it. Like I just knew I needed to listen to myself and know outside voices and yeah, here we are. You know, I got married and I had a bunch of babies and

Being back in the sport is a little different as a mom to six kids. I relate to so much of what you say, Whitney, with the wife guilt and the mom guilt is what you guys have discussed too, Trisha and Olivia. I felt like both of those coming back into the sport. Even though my husband was always very supportive, he was the one that got me back out the door. I still, every day I'd be out there, I'm like, what am I doing? I am a 30 year old woman, well.

Olivia Garcia (30:40.121)
You

Shanna Birchett (30:49.529)
31 almost 32, but at the time I was a 30 year old woman. have kids at home. I beat my youngest was six months old. Like why, why am I thinking that I can open some magical door to these dreams like at 30 like, you know, and yeah, the guilt was really real real. And so I'm just like, I'm grateful that we're doing this podcast because I feel like there is a lot of us that carry that guilt and that shame and that

like am i wasting my family's time? am i wasting my family's finances? am i wasting my time? like could i be doing more significant things with that time even though it's like an hour to two hours by yourself right? most of us at 5 a.m in the morning. but you still feel it like it's still so real and so yeah i'm just i'm glad to be here because i hope that other moms while they're listening to this while they're folding the 15th load of laundry

Whitney Heins (31:37.659)
yeah.

Whitney Heins (31:47.083)
Mm-hmm.

Shanna Birchett (31:47.139)
that you feel like is on repeat. My dishes right now are piled up like insane and I did them yesterday. It's just like never ending, but that they can find that solace and that peace like through these conversations, like, okay, these moms get it. This is how they work through it. It's okay. I'm allowed to give myself permission to go out there and spend some time on myself. Doesn't make you a less mom or less wife.

Tricia (31:47.184)
Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (31:48.845)
Okay.

Shanna Birchett (32:11.267)
But yeah, I mean, if anything, it blesses not only you but your family because your mental health is just better too.

Olivia Garcia (32:16.825)
All right.

Whitney Heins (32:18.39)
Yeah, I think that's like such, that's such an important point that I think we get the mom guilt because it feels selfish. Cause it's something that we're doing by ourselves for ourselves. But then when you look forward, you're like, but me being happy, me being in a good mood, me feeling like energetic and motivated and good about myself. And that like impacts everybody in my sphere. And so it's, it's not

Olivia Garcia (32:46.745)
Mm hmm. I know I think that could go on forever. Seriously. Yeah.

Whitney Heins (32:48.542)
Yeah, you benefit from it, but like everybody else benefits from it too. I mean, we maybe we'll just slot that for a future podcast, you know, because we could talk about forever. It's a very, very, yeah, far reaching ripple effect. I think just that hour or two that you take to train and and that is to say too, like there are days I struggled with this when I was like running a whole bunch. There are days when you are tired.

Shanna Birchett (32:56.733)
Yeah. For an hour.

Tricia (32:56.755)
20%.

Yeah, they're really good.

Olivia Garcia (33:08.033)
Mm-hmm.

Whitney Heins (33:16.692)
and maybe you're not your best self and you're like, want to hear, watch your iPad because I need to take a nap. And I had so much guilt for that. But it's like, if that's, you know, every once in a while, okay, that's fine. It doesn't have to be like skittles in sunshine every time where you come back and it's just like angels are singing, you know, like there are going to be days like that when you have a hard workout or you're not feeling well, but like on a whole it's benefits everybody. Well, I'll share my brief.

Shanna Birchett (33:16.889)
Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (33:23.321)
Thanks.

Olivia Garcia (33:30.51)
Hmm. Hmm.

Shanna Birchett (33:34.551)
Hahaha.

Tricia (33:35.1)
it.

Whitney Heins (33:45.248)
Well, it's not brief. it's, it's for I'm 43 years old. I've been running since I was six. So it is not brief. But yeah, I started running, my dad got me into running. And I ran as a kid and ran throughout did not run in college, I talked to my college, my university's coach, and he was like, Well, be the slowest one on the team, but you could walk on and I was like, I'll just enjoy my college career. So it's fine.

Tricia (33:47.638)
Yeah

Olivia Garcia (33:47.679)
You

Shanna Birchett (33:52.377)
So fun.

Olivia Garcia (34:13.205)
you

Shanna Birchett (34:14.318)
Crazy.

Whitney Heins (34:15.148)
But so I ran on my own in college and ran my first marathon in college. yeah, and then I was a newscaster. So I would run like I'd have to go in at midnight. So I'd be like running 10 miles on the treadmill before work at like 10 PM, know. But running's always been there for me. But I never knew what I was doing. So then when I became a mom, like a couple years.

Olivia Garcia (34:33.401)
Whitney Heins (34:41.0)
Later, I became friends with a woman in my neighborhood who had just gotten the OTQ, Olympic trials qualifying time for the marathon. And she and I started running a bunch together and I started being coached by her coach who I had known already, but I was just like, I don't deserve a coach. Cause like back then, it's like you think, you have to be like this super elite runner to have a coach. It's not true. Run coaches can help anyone.

But anyway, yeah, then like I got like, started to learn a lot more about running and started to become competitive. And I ran a marathon and did well. This was in 2019. And he was, my coach was like, let's go for the OTQ. Let's, you know, go for it. was 245 was the time. This is 2019. And he doubled my mileage from like 5,200 a week.

Shanna Birchett (35:28.067)
So cool.

Whitney Heins (35:37.09)
And at the time I was like working full time from home. My son was up all the time. Like I was just like stretched so thin and so stressed and I tore my hamstring but was like, I'm gonna shoot my shot. So I kept training and ran my marathon and was like 11 minutes off the time. So like nowhere close. And that was, I have been, well, thanks.

Shanna Birchett (36:00.409)
but still pretty impressive. With a torn hamstring. No.

Tricia (36:02.459)
or I just...

Olivia Garcia (36:03.293)
Yeah. Yeah.

Whitney Heins (36:03.998)
I should have been like Olivia and been like, it's over! And just like accepted it.

Tricia (36:07.84)
Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (36:08.417)
It's over! Not my hamstring! Hamstring over.

Shanna Birchett (36:11.623)
you

Whitney Heins (36:12.542)
Hamstring is over. So ever since then so it's been five years of me like just kind of being in this injury cycle like trying to get out of that like health stuff I mean like I'm a healthy person. Here's the thing is like I'm a healthy person but like I'm my husband I had this discussion yesterday He's like I'm just trying to survive and you're trying to thrive and I'm like, yes like I want to optimize everything like I want because I want because I I have like this unrequited like love

Tricia (36:12.707)
Yeah.

Shanna Birchett (36:32.941)
Ha ha ha.

Tricia (36:33.67)
Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (36:34.637)
Yes.

Shanna Birchett (36:37.051)
I love that.

Whitney Heins (36:41.602)
for running and like achieving these goals. Like the OTQ time has changed. It's 2 37 genetically. cannot do that. Like realistically, I cannot do that, but I like still really want those times. And so my like, you know, I and my kids see it and like every time I've dealt with an injury, they, you know, I go through like the same process where part of it is like, I'm like, I'll never run again. I just should just give up. And they're like, mom, you were born to

And like they see it and they see, you know, it's like it's that whole like ripple effect. Like they see how we don't give up, how we are, even if they're not on the runs with us, like they are absorbing like everything that we're doing for our health and for our goals. And so, yeah, and they see how like we're in a good mood when we come back, even though, you know, the rest of the household sometimes may not be. But yeah, so that's kind of where, where I am with my personal running journey. Like I'm trying, like I'm coming back.

Tricia (37:33.874)
Yeah.

Whitney Heins (37:40.256)
I've been coming back from a laboral tear this year and it's been a long, you know, like build back, like very patient, always trying to be very patient. But yeah, that's my, that's my running journey. So it's like, you know, the, the trail ultra racing is not where I'm at right now, but maybe one day, not yet.

Tricia (37:59.603)
Yes. I feel like you just downplayed your story over the past couple years too because you have gone through so much but you always keep coming back and you are just like so inspiring and so motivating and I know that even though you've probably had some really hard times dealing with these things like you never let that show like no I mean you're not fake about it you're

Shanna Birchett (38:01.249)
Not yet.

Olivia Garcia (38:01.3)
Yeah.

Shanna Birchett (38:07.488)
Exactly.

Olivia Garcia (38:14.723)
Yes.

Whitney Heins (38:16.689)
Aww, thanks.

Whitney Heins (38:25.19)
really? you're sweet. I feel like every time I do, people unfollow me. Like I do like a, I'm sad, I can't run. And then like, I get like 50 unfollows. Yeah, there you go.

Olivia Garcia (38:25.778)
Yeah.

Tricia (38:30.084)
You owe!

Shanna Birchett (38:34.645)
It sounds like they don't deserve to follow you.

Tricia (38:35.779)
exactly right. Because even though like if you share that, I mean, it's being totally real because who's going to be injured and be like, yes. Thank God. What a great learning opportunity.

Shanna Birchett (38:43.393)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And, I feel like you truly, you truly did try to do a lot of things right. mean, at least recently, you know, you really tried to dial in everything and it's like, sometimes we're just dished, excuse my language, shit. when we don't, when we don't want it, like when we do everything right, like, that's, I'm such a firm believer, like injuries are given to everyone at some point. And it's just, sometimes it's just a matter of when.

Olivia Garcia (38:48.513)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (38:57.282)
Okay.

Whitney Heins (39:03.285)
We're just shit.

Tricia (39:03.293)
Bye!

Olivia Garcia (39:03.977)
Yeah.

Whitney Heins (39:12.77)
Mm-hmm.

Olivia Garcia (39:13.838)
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I honestly, yeah, I was gonna say what you did, Whitney, what you did was you just put a limitation on yourself and like taking down that limitation is.

Shanna Birchett (39:16.689)
But I agree. It may not be genetically in your system to run that time, but grit and determination and discipline go way further than genetically anything. I true that's yeah, go ahead.

Tricia (39:29.564)
Yes.

Shanna Birchett (39:40.441)
I think you're gonna do it. I think it's gonna happen.

Olivia Garcia (39:41.329)
With great and yeah, like that's yeah You've got to take like those limitations down because at least you know, you'll always have known that you gave it your best shot, right? and Yeah, and I like I love to talk about limitations because I think that's as moms that's exactly I think everybody puts limitations on themselves, but I do think that as moms we do it absolutely non-stop

Whitney Heins (39:51.714)
100%. I agree. Yeah.

Shanna Birchett (40:07.263)
Mm-hmm.

Olivia Garcia (40:08.887)
every single day. It's because we put everything else before ourselves and then we look for little pockets of the day to go and run and things like that. And right there, that's a huge limitation on ourselves where really it's like, hey, I'm gonna go run at 7 a.m. Do you have the kids or whatever? So when you say that your genetics might not be there, that's a limitation that is probably very real.

Whitney Heins (40:17.617)
yeah.

Olivia Garcia (40:34.793)
and it could very well be possible, but why not try and outrun it, right? Isn't that, in a healthy way, right? Obviously not to get re-injured and stuff like that, but all of that is such a learning process. you have seriously with injury and a laboral tear and then now coming back from that, that's huge. I mean, it would be so easy to just, I think, you know what? This is just not my season of life, right?

It would just be so easy to say that. So, yeah.

Shanna Birchett (41:04.757)
Yeah, I agree with that.

Whitney Heins (41:06.75)
Well, thank you guys. It's very uplifting. Yeah, well, I just, you know, the sport gives us so much that you just can't like it can't like the benefits far outweigh the

Tricia (41:07.165)
Yeah. Sure.

Whitney Heins (41:21.526)
the negatives of it or the positives outweigh the negatives. So it's like, just really love it too much that I just keep coming back to it. And I get angry anytime somebody I'm wondering if you guys are the same or like, maybe you should try something else, you know, like maybe you should try pickleball or like yoga. And I'm just like, you don't understand. Nothing's like running.

Olivia Garcia (41:24.906)
Mm-hmm.

Shanna Birchett (41:29.017)
you

Tricia (41:32.753)
Yeah. yeah.

Shanna Birchett (41:32.98)
I hate it.

Shanna Birchett (41:37.48)
Pickle ball

Tricia (41:38.043)
Wrax! Yeah. Yeah, I got that so much over the past couple years.

Olivia Garcia (41:38.617)
Yeah, it's so true. It's so true.

Shanna Birchett (41:43.811)
They don't want to see me on a pickleball court. I have no coordination. was straightforward. Exactly. Same. Same. Yeah.

Whitney Heins (41:45.216)
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I run because I am not coordinated. Just see me dance and you see it.

Tricia (41:52.499)
And I just want to be by myself. Like I don't want to play a f***ing sport. Or I want to run with other, like moms that run.

Whitney Heins (41:56.67)
Yes, that's true too.

Olivia Garcia (41:57.369)
I know. I know.

Whitney Heins (42:03.102)
Yes, who get it? Totally, totally. Well, this has been a what I think it's been a wonderful first episode or episode zero. And I love learning more about you guys too, because we've all connected via Instagram, but we've never met in real life. And so like, this is super fun.

Olivia Garcia (42:04.127)
Yes, exactly. Exactly.

Olivia Garcia (42:20.557)
Mm-hmm.

Olivia Garcia (42:25.043)
Yeah, it is. This is perfect.

Whitney Heins (42:27.011)
Yeah, and I want to thank everybody who tuned in to our episode zero. Thanks for making us a part of your day or your run.

Whitney Heins (42:39.468)
Okay, I'm gonna.

Olivia Garcia (42:45.485)
Yeah!


Olivia wait Olivia. Yeah, do you want to tell us about yourself? So you'll really want to introduce ourselves So, you know because there's four voices on this podcast. So I'm Whitney. This is Olivia

Olivia Garcia (00:35.992)
I'll go next. Yes. I'm Olivia, the one who keeps pausing forever. I live in Utah. I have my two kids that I stay at home to raise. I also have a dog and a husband here. And yeah, I am.

Whitney Heins (00:59.788)
Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (01:04.408)
I just started my running journey about five years ago, so everything has just been learning little steps along the way. yeah, I'm excited to talk about this topic. I think that this one, think we widely cover as mothers in general, but especially as mother runners. And the reason that it falls into this running category is because running does take up quite a bit of our time, especially when we're training for these long distances.

Yeah, I'm kind of excited to dive into this and kind of how we deal with it, where it pops up and like a couple things of how to maybe overcome it too. Yeah.

Whitney Heins (01:41.922)
Yeah, yeah, me too. Trisha, what about you?

Tricia (01:45.442)
Yeah, so I'm Tricia. I'm a mom of three. I'm a physical therapist, prenatal postpartum coach, and exercise specialist. And yeah, I can't wait to dive into this because I feel like it's something that no matter how hard you work on and rationalize why you shouldn't feel it, all of us have it at one point or the other. And if we don't have it, then someone else on the internet will make us have it. So.

Shanna Birchett (02:08.597)
Ha ha!

Olivia Garcia (02:09.926)
Such a good point! Yeah.

Whitney Heins (02:11.639)
Such a good point.

Shanna Birchett (02:14.953)
Hi, I'm Shanna Burschette. I also live in Utah. I do not like to claim it as my state though. I grew up in California. So I don't know if I want to claim that either, cause they hate both of us. So I am a mom to six kids. I feel like I need like a special title. So I guess like I'm a professional butt wiper. don't, I feel like I need something on like my resume on here, but yeah, my oldest is...

Whitney Heins (02:23.547)
California girl.

Olivia Garcia (02:23.672)
Well, I don't claim it either I just live here

Tricia (02:28.715)
I'm

Tricia (02:37.506)
Yes!

you

Whitney Heins (02:42.328)
you

Olivia Garcia (02:42.473)
No!

Shanna Birchett (02:44.247)
eight and my youngest is two and so we're still in the diaper phase unfortunately but we are slowly getting out of it but i'm super excited yeah that must be it when she's wiping her own i'm just kidding

Whitney Heins (02:52.408)
Can I just say that I think about you all the time? No, that sounds so weird.

Tricia (02:56.704)
When your wife is in bus or what?

Whitney Heins (03:02.56)
she's right now whenever I'm doing like a little thing for the like the the lunches or making the meals or laundry, dishwasher, school forums, like all that stuff in my mind I'm always like Shanna has to do this three times the amount that I'm doing it like it's just like all those little things like they coalesce into taking up so much time.

Olivia Garcia (03:03.857)
Shanna Birchett (03:09.231)
Thank

Shanna Birchett (03:20.787)
It's so wild, though.

Olivia Garcia (03:21.633)
time too.

Whitney Heins (03:26.445)
And but I'm like always thinking I'm like this is taking up so much time and it's stupid. It shouldn't be taken. Then I'm like Shanna has to do this like three times. So sorry. I just had to say that.

Shanna Birchett (03:26.571)
Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (03:32.076)
Hmm.

Shanna Birchett (03:34.527)
No, it's wild because to me I'm like motherhood is busy. Like regardless of how many children you have and I see this to so many people like they're like, how do you do it six? I'm like, how do you do it with three or two with a husband gone all the time? Like that is harder. Like, and so I, you know, we all have our own hard, yeah, I mean, I feel like the mom guilt is the perfect topic to start this whole podcast off of because we are all.

all of us here are mothers. We are pursuing our own businesses or our own outside goals or whatever outside of our family. And that takes a lot of guilt to overcome. Honestly. I know personally for me, getting back into running a 2022, that was my biggest hiccup. The whole first year, honestly, I feel like it's gotten better as time has gone on. We've gotten into a habit, but that first year every, would

come home crying. Like I would have middle of the day, midday crying sessions in my car as I'm picking my kids up in the pickup line. And I'm just like, what am I doing to my family? What am I doing to my kids? What am I doing to myself? Like, this is crazy. And so I'm excited to dive into this. I feel like this is going to be a great topic that so many of us resonate with.

Whitney Heins (04:51.032)
So I want to ask you, Shanna, you have a very popular Instagram account. people see you, your mom of six, people see you succeeding as a runner. Do you get pushback from people who are like, who's watching your kids? And how much time are you taking to run? Because I know the rest of us probably get that too.

Shanna Birchett (05:07.785)
Yeah.

Shanna Birchett (05:17.143)
Yeah, I know we've all probably had those comments given to us. Absolutely. It's wild some of the comments I read. It's like, who's watching the kids? And I'm like, there's two parents under this roof. What are you talking about? And we get the comments like, wow, that's a lot of time to spend on yourself. And that's so crazy to me because I...

Whitney Heins (05:29.688)
Ha!

Whitney Heins (05:37.418)
my gosh.

Olivia Garcia (05:42.328)
you

Shanna Birchett (05:42.549)
I would feel like any type of health in general is a good thing to invest in. We have one body. We have literally one body that's going to raise those children the rest of their lives. And we're here to live too. We're not just here to survive. And I think that was my biggest shift in my motherhood was realizing motherhood was not meant to be survived. It was meant to thrive. It was meant to live. And...

bringing running back into the picture of that to have something for myself was truly a blessing. It flipped the motherhood script for me and made me realize like, just because I was given all these children, it doesn't mean that God was saying, hey, let's put all your things on hold, all your personal things on hold, but hey, let's bring them together. Let's mesh them. Like let's make this a family unit, a family thing. You cheer them on, they cheer you on. Like that's the whole point, you

But yeah, it's unfortunate that we get those comments and I know each and every one of us here are gonna have to share some of these ridiculous comments that we've heard.

Whitney Heins (06:46.552)
just love the way that you said that. Yeah, we're not trying to survive motherhood. We want to thrive. That's so true. And we have one body. exercise, study after study shows that exercise is the one thing you can do to optimize all aspects of your health. And so why wouldn't we want to be healthy in our best selves for our kids?

Olivia Garcia (07:00.588)
you

Whitney Heins (07:09.662)
and like showing them too, like that it's great to go after those big goals and, but it's hard. mean, that guilt is, it's always there. That voice is always talking.

Olivia Garcia (07:24.918)
crazy how I think of, so when I was pregnant with my son, my husband and I, made an agreement that, because he was getting really into pickleball at the time. Pickleball takes up two hours, pretty much on the dot, which is great, but that's a long time. And so I knew I was going to be having this baby and that he was getting into this new sport and all these things. And so right off the bat, before I had the baby, we were like, we'll each give each other two hours a day, which is

a really generous amount of time, think. you know, because I'm not going on two hour runs every day. And so I started, I went out for my first run after having my baby and I was feeling so guilty. And I just remember I was like, this is crazy. And I always felt guilty for being gone. And it was unnecessary and so like,

Shanna Birchett (07:56.247)
That's awesome.

Olivia Garcia (08:16.098)
I would lock in on that and it helped with my running quite a bit because I can lock in on this thought of like, why was I feeling so guilty for being gone? So I started switching it to the treadmill and only doing it during his nap time. And so then I became this nap time runner. Even if my husband was home, then I could go tend to the baby. It was like getting a little bit out of control. So once I was able to just step back outside of the house and relinquish some control because I had left a job. I loved being a paramedic. I absolutely loved it.

but I just couldn't fathom being away from my son for so long. And so when I quit working, I felt like I had to give everything to my son. I had to be his everything. Nobody else took care of him. Like it was me. Really? And it was like, I felt like because now I'm a stay at home mom and also professional butt wiper or domestic engineer. How about that one? Yeah. That's what my husband calls me and I'm like, thank you. And

Whitney Heins (08:55.362)
Mm-hmm.

I did the

Shanna Birchett (08:59.763)
Yeah.

Shanna Birchett (09:07.447)
domestic engineer

Whitney Heins (09:09.098)
Yes.

Shanna Birchett (09:12.919)
That's awesome. Should have thought about that one.

Tricia (09:13.452)
You

Whitney Heins (09:13.536)
You

Olivia Garcia (09:15.362)
But I heard this like, bye-bye word. It's the same. It's just worded nicely. Yeah, honestly same. But I think that I just took on this role because I felt so guilty just all the time for all of it. I was loving being at home with my son. And so then when I did step away, I felt so bad. And then it bled into right when I had my daughter too is I had signed up for Chicago.

Tricia (09:18.05)
like that.

Shanna Birchett (09:20.446)
janitor of the family.

Olivia Garcia (09:44.778)
in the lottery and I got in and I was so excited and I started training and then I realized Chicago was going to be when I was six months postpartum and I was just not, and she didn't take a bottle at all. And so I would have, we didn't have a really, and so like it's, was so crazy. I would go out for these runs and my husband would bring my daughter, the baby to me, which was wild to think about now, but like that was just how it was. She just never took a bottle. And so there was no game plan for the marriage.

Whitney Heins (09:56.78)
Same! Yes!

Shanna Birchett (09:58.207)
Yeah.

so hard.

Olivia Garcia (10:14.88)
supposed to come to the hotel and then she was like, if she screams, you'll be back in what four hours. And I was like, I don't know. And so I was doing all this marathon training and then I didn't end up running the marathon I deferred. And like, I still think about all that time I spent away from my daughter and like, she is a Velcro baby still she loves her mom, like it didn't traumatize her. But for some reason, I think of it nonstop. And I was allowed to have that time. And so sometimes I think about like,

Shanna Birchett (10:22.551)
See you.

Olivia Garcia (10:45.312)
this two hour window that my husband and I gave each other, like two hours is nothing compared to the whole rest of the day, right? Like we have all these moments we can share with them. Like studies show if you just spend 15 minutes with your child one-on-one that they'll benefit from that. And here I was feeling so guilty for stepping away for doing something for myself. And I still do all the time, even with it being in their narrative of like, mommy's going to go for a run, you know? And like they love when I run on the treadmill. They think it's the greatest thing.

And for some reason, I still feel guilty about doing it. It's completely inevitable. I don't know. It's like how we're wired.

Whitney Heins (11:22.648)
It's I totally am I your story mirrors mine so much and yeah, my daughter my neither one of my kids took the bottle but my daughter like I worked for the first year of her life and the people the daycare were like we've never seen anything like it like she will starve herself and wait for you like no we have like professionals come over to try to get she's a redhead. So you know, she's feisty. But yeah, she just what like I mean.

Shanna Birchett (11:28.311)
It's so crazy.

Olivia Garcia (11:29.336)
That's crazy.

Olivia Garcia (11:43.744)
Yes. Yeah.

Shanna Birchett (11:49.313)
So cute.

Whitney Heins (11:52.44)
Yeah, so I felt and like she would wake up from her, I would go during nap time, she would wake up from her nap like ballistic and my husband, like every time my husband would call me, like you gotta come back, she's hyperventilating, you gotta come back. I'm like, my God. And I already felt so guilty and then that is like every run was just completely riddled with anxiety of like, what's gonna happen? Is she gonna wake up? And so yeah, and then that's kind of morphed now, like my kids are fine. My kids are 10 and seven and they know that.

Olivia Garcia (11:54.402)
Mm-hmm.

Olivia Garcia (12:04.49)
Mm-hmm.

Whitney Heins (12:20.512)
Mommy's a runner and they're all about it. But now it's it's like kind of wife guilt of like, well, I want you to have your time too. Cause I really need this time to do my thing. And so like, if you're not taking your time, cause I don't care what you do, if you're not taking your time, like then I feel bad asking for my time or I always feel bad no matter what, inconveniencing other people.

Shanna Birchett (12:27.594)
Yeah.

Shanna Birchett (12:33.629)
Yes.

Olivia Garcia (12:35.368)
Yeah.

Whitney Heins (12:47.544)
you know, and it's like, it's hard to find that window even early in the morning, because like somebody is going to wake up to not inconvenience. And then even if I do, then it's like, then I'm tired. And then I'm kind of cranky. And then, you know, and it's just like hard to find like the perfect window. I don't know. And then I feel like society is just like, with moms are supposed to be like completely selfless. So if they do anything for themselves, and

Shanna Birchett (13:10.933)
Yes.

Whitney Heins (13:12.532)
it's bad and it's wrong and it's taking away from your kids when really it's like, just because you're depositing into your bank doesn't mean that you're taking that like money out from their banks, you know, like in fact, it's quite the opposite.

Tricia (13:28.546)
Yeah, and I feel like it does, like it ebbs and flows depending on where you are and how old your kids are. Because I feel like I went from a point where, and I still do get up at ridiculously early hours of the day, so I don't impact my kids as much. know, inevitably somebody is up early. But no matter.

Whitney Heins (13:48.322)
Right. And you just fold them into the workout so beautifully. We see it on your Instagram.

Olivia Garcia (13:48.846)
Yeah.

Tricia (13:53.314)
And that took a while to figure out like I can either fight this or and resist it or I can just rope them in and make them work out with me. And now like Olivia and I somebody had said earlier it's like once they see that consistently then it just becomes part of their life and they don't even question it. It's like mom's running, mom's sweating again. Like this is just this is normal. And then they like

Shanna Birchett (13:56.343)
So crazy.

Olivia Garcia (14:02.712)
Yeah

Whitney Heins (14:02.84)
Ehh

Shanna Birchett (14:17.291)
Yeah.

Tricia (14:22.762)
My kids will always like be racing each other or like trying to out push up one another. It's like, you see how that just folds forward. But yeah, I think that like spousal guilt is huge too. And I feel like that's a big thing that I have dealt with for sure. And it's very important. feel like Olivia, that's amazing that you two have agreed like, hey, you get your two hours, I get mine.

Whitney Heins (14:48.982)
Yes, I wish I would have done that earlier.

Olivia Garcia (14:51.34)
Yeah.

Tricia (14:52.244)
Yeah, I think that that is key because if you don't have that agreement, then there will inevitably be some, you know, some feelings that are had about that. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. And if it's not fair to either spouse really because

Shanna Birchett (14:52.981)
Alright, smart approach.

Olivia Garcia (14:57.592)
Yes. Yes. Resentment. Yes.

Shanna Birchett (15:06.263)
What are you alluding to?

Whitney Heins (15:09.516)
feeling is resentment right you don't resentment would be huge yes

Shanna Birchett (15:13.92)
that meant.

Tricia (15:20.864)
If you're giving the other one shit for taking the time that they really need for themselves, then it makes it so much less enjoyable. Right?

Olivia Garcia (15:28.12)
my gosh, exactly. With the two hour thing, like as it sounds like a perfect system, it's kind of just like something that we can use like, well, hey, we did agree to this because obviously like all of my, don't go for two hour runs. And if I was to go for an hour long run and then sit on the curb, like,

Whitney Heins (15:29.012)
It does, it does. Yeah, it's like, because then you don't know what it's what you're walking into once you get back.

Tricia (15:35.135)
Right, yeah.

Shanna Birchett (15:35.755)
Yeah.

Whitney Heins (15:49.058)
Olivia Garcia (15:57.176)
I would definitely hear about it. would never be like, why weren't you, you know, like, and all of my runs, to be honest is, and I tell Shanna about this all the time is I have to be back pretty much on the dot so that my husband can leave and actually have his two hours because he plays pickleball or if he's golfing, like that all relies on other people where my running isn't necessarily unless I have a planned run that I schedule like five days in advance, like, Hey, just remember.

Shanna Birchett (16:18.572)
Yeah.

Whitney Heins (16:19.106)
Right.

Olivia Garcia (16:25.88)
Saturday I'm running for two and a half hours you know and so with that I have to remember like that I can't have this much I can't resent that he gets to go and do this all the time because to him it's like hey I'm gonna go play you know 6 a.m. tomorrow and it's like I would have loved to run at 6 a.m. like was I even a consideration there but he's like well can you go run on the treadmill at 5 because he knows that I would only have 60 minutes to run

Whitney Heins (16:45.484)
Hmm.

Olivia Garcia (16:52.908)
So there's always like these little things that you have to figure out and because resentment, it will just slip in so fast. And especially when your partner has a hobby or if he doesn't, then that's where the guilt comes in. Cause you're like excited and loving things and you like having all these like big goals and you're like pumped about it you want to talk about it all the time, right? Like, and like being excited about something. And then when they don't have that it's

Shanna Birchett (17:06.239)
Yeah.

Whitney Heins (17:06.71)
Mm-hmm.

Whitney Heins (17:14.794)
Mm-hmm.

Tricia (17:16.012)
Great.

Shanna Birchett (17:16.279)
you

Olivia Garcia (17:21.816)
great it is so crazy to because you're like like me I'm like hey do you want to run a 5k you know and now he's trading for a 5k which is awesome but it was like literally this thing I had to like because otherwise it's just me talking about marathons absolutely non-stop you know and

Tricia (17:39.074)
Sure.

Whitney Heins (17:39.288)
See, but the antidote is listening to us talk or having mother runner friends who feel the same way. And then you can just talk about like, yeah, it does actually in studies do show that like talk, like surrounding yourself with other women, like like-minded women, it does really help with the bomb field. But I think like your point like about the communication is so it's so important, but it's still so hard because it's like, how do I word this so that it doesn't?

Shanna Birchett (17:42.289)
Yes, I was just about to say that.

Olivia Garcia (17:43.224)
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (17:59.095)
Because

Shanna Birchett (18:01.824)
Yeah.

Whitney Heins (18:08.202)
trigger that reaction that I know it's going to trigger.

Olivia Garcia (18:10.09)
Yeah, which is so odd as the primary caretaker of your children that you're asking permission to take time to yourself because it's not like we're asking to go get massages every single day for an hour, which would be amazing. I know it's my massage hour. You know, it's weird that we feel like we have to ask for permission to just go do something that we love.

Whitney Heins (18:24.438)
That would be amazing. Let's normalize that.

Olivia Garcia (18:37.526)
You know, and that we could put that we could potentially pass on this passion to our kids, right? Like, and it's so strange to ever hear like, well, I don't know if body blah would let me do that. And it's like, you have to let yourself go do it. that's like, I'm going to go run at 6am. Here yet. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Tricia (18:57.622)
Yeah, not a question. I'm a grown-ass woman and this is what I'm doing. Yes, respectfully so.

Shanna Birchett (18:59.474)
Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (19:02.474)
Yes, exactly. Respectfully.

Shanna Birchett (19:02.591)
Yeah.

Whitney Heins (19:02.956)
feel like two tools. Yeah, yes. I'm a grown ass woman. Like I'm an adult. I don't need to ask your permission.

Tricia (19:09.334)
Maybe.

Shanna Birchett (19:09.597)
That's respectful!

Olivia Garcia (19:11.606)
Yeah!

Whitney Heins (19:13.368)
telling you what I'm doing. I have said like, well, I did listen to the book of boundaries, which I think could be helpful if like this is hard, like, this is what I'm doing. And then it tells you like, like, green, yellow and red of like, how to how willing are you to make a compromise if you're if you want to run at 6am.

Tricia (19:15.424)
Yes!

Shanna Birchett (19:36.887)
Cool, that's awesome.

Whitney Heins (19:39.416)
but your partner wants to go play pickleball, then it's like, okay, then what are you okay with? Like, okay, are you okay running on the treadmill at 5 a.m.? Are you okay with changing your long run to the next? Like, I don't know, it's a pretty good, and then if like, if you do really struggle with communication and it like just blowing up every time, then it's like, okay, I think talking to a therapist, a couples therapist would be worthwhile. And I know, sorry, this is kind of like more.

from like mom, because the mom guilt makes you feel guilty every time you go out the door, but it also like makes you feel guilty that somebody else is having to watch your kids. And it's like.

Tricia (20:16.566)
Right. And that's what I feel like all of us have gotten that at some point on social media where you're putting that you're out, that you're going out running in the dark and people are like, well, where are your kids? Who's watching your kids? Like thinking, okay, well, you know, most of the time there is another adult that is fully capable. They're capable enough to bring them into this world. You sure hope they can watch them for an hour.

Shanna Birchett (20:17.665)
Get it? Yeah.

Shanna Birchett (20:28.947)
Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (20:40.408)
Right.

Tricia (20:43.03)
But so then that guilt is thrown on you just from people you don't even know. Like, how dare you try to, you know, we're already sacrificing our sleep to get in the things that we love to do and run. Like, why do we need this extra guilt of taking care of ourselves, you know, from them? Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (20:47.554)
Hmm?

Shanna Birchett (21:00.033)
Can I chime in? I feel like sometimes we can put the guilt on ourselves too that isn't actually there. mean, Trisha, I think your situation is far different. So I wanna be very cautious. Like I understand that there's really good communication and the other partner just won't hear it, right? And unfortunately, you have to figure out what's best for you at that point. With even therapy and all that stuff, sometimes things are just unresolved.

Tricia (21:05.568)
Right.

Whitney Heins (21:07.467)
Yes.

Tricia (21:28.352)
Exactly.

Shanna Birchett (21:28.631)
And I mean, two people have to want to, like you said, Whitney, want to compromise and stuff like that. But I feel like for me, because I grew up with a mom with a dad who was deployed so often and she literally did everything. Like she did everything. She was, she took us camping by herself, like every road trip, every, she is amazing. And you know, everything that she has done.

Whitney Heins (21:48.216)
We need to have her on by the way. Can we talk? She sounds amazing.

Shanna Birchett (21:54.175)
has always been a solo mom. And so I grew up with that go-getter, like, I don't want to say feminism, but like that really like independent woman vibe and mentality. Like that's the type of mom I'm gonna, and I really truly am for the most part. Like I will take all six kids to the park or the splash pad for hours. Even my husband was working at home. Like I'm just, that's what I'm used to. And that doesn't faze me, but I feel like I put this unnecessary guilt on myself that my husband doesn't necessarily like feel.

Whitney Heins (22:00.824)
you

Shanna Birchett (22:24.093)
And I will in my head will create it into this situation where it's he's like, I didn't even, I don't feel bad. Like I don't care if you go for your long run on Saturday, like that doesn't bother me. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait, you know, I thought it did, you know, cause I felt like I was taking so much time for myself when it really wasn't. But I feel like as moms, like you said, Whitney, we just expect ourselves to do everything. And I'm realizing the more and more like a healthy marriage and a healthy relationship.

is relying on your spouse and being vulnerable and being okay to rely on your spouse. And that's something that I've struggled with as a mom is relying on my spouse. Like he goes and picks up my kids from school and I'm like, my gosh, I'm not doing everything. So I'm failing as a mom. And I'm like, no, they need that relationship with him too. He needs to hear the finding on the way home too. Like it's good for them to have that memories with him. And yeah, so I think sometimes like for me, the mom guilt is a

Whitney Heins (23:07.67)
Mm-hmm.

Shanna Birchett (23:23.645)
is a thing in my head that I sometimes make worse than it actually is in reality. I, that's something that I have to work on is like being, being okay with myself having that time, even with a supportive spouse.

Tricia (23:40.183)
Yeah.

Whitney Heins (23:40.404)
There are like three things you said that resonated with me, especially like one, like there have been many times where I'm like, I feel guilty about this. And my husband has been like, what are you talking about? Like, it's totally fine. not even on my radar. And like, yeah, it is important for them to like your kids and their dad to like have that relationship and have that time and like.

Shanna Birchett (23:50.506)
Yeah.

Whitney Heins (24:07.254)
for you not to always be there, you know? And then I think also, we as moms, we put so much pressure on ourselves. We have so much on our plate. But then also, I think as runners too, we tend to be perfectionists. And so we're like, we have to have control over everything. And we have to be badass at everything we do. And it's like, no, it's OK if somebody else is making breakfast in the morning. like, you know, yeah.

Shanna Birchett (24:20.523)
Yeah.

Shanna Birchett (24:26.847)
Hahaha.

Olivia Garcia (24:33.304)
Yes.

Tricia (24:36.194)
And even for our kids too, it's like, it's good for them to have that separation from us from time to time. And like one of you said before, it's like, they're like, yes, I can watch TV or I could do what I want. And my mom's not telling me what to do for an hour. It's like, forget that, hey, maybe sometimes they don't want to be with us 24 seven.

Shanna Birchett (24:41.815)
you

Shanna Birchett (24:48.375)
You

It's true.

Shanna Birchett (24:56.639)
Especially when they start entering that pre-teen stage, right? Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (24:57.769)
Yes! Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (25:02.294)
Yeah.

Tricia (25:02.7)
Right. Yeah. We're not cool anyway. And one thing I heard like kind of to cap on Shannon, what you had said is like a phrase that I heard once was, you know, life and your goals don't end when motherhood begins. And so even though we have this pressure, whether from society or that we put on ourselves, we have to also recognize that we're still a person. Just because we become a mom doesn't mean that.

Whitney Heins (25:02.945)
Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (25:06.872)
Yes.

Whitney Heins (25:17.887)
Mm-hmm.

Olivia Garcia (25:18.764)
Yeah.

Tricia (25:30.412)
We have to give everything up. mean, we still have our passions and goals and there's nothing wrong with that.

Shanna Birchett (25:38.603)
Yeah, totally.

Olivia Garcia (25:39.66)
That's probably one of the most important things to recognize is that we are still people like our spouses when we became moms, like they did not lose their identity for the most part, you know, they're still the same person and they don't feel defined by parenthood. Like they're excited to be dads, you know, but they're not defined by this. Like, like I said, with my baby, like I was, I needed to just like everything. Like if I miss him even getting a bottle, I was like,

Tricia (25:53.036)
Great.

Shanna Birchett (25:54.551)
True.

Olivia Garcia (26:09.516)
Well, who gave it to him? Who made it? Like, how long did you heat it up for? And, you know, I was obsessed and it actually, wasn't like I was concerned about how much he was eating. I just wanted to know who did it. Like it was just like an obsession and it was because I felt so bad that someone else was going to feed him. I felt so bad that I wasn't going to be the one that, you know, was providing for him in that moment, which is so silly to look back on because now there's a thousand meals a day that I provide for him.

Whitney Heins (26:12.694)
Hahaha!

Olivia Garcia (26:38.902)
You know, we have like four breakfasts by 10 o'clock. so, you know, it is just like this, it's this guilt that we place on ourselves. And I have that talk with my husband all the time where I'm like, are you okay with me going out for two hours? And he's like, yes, I am very much fine with it. Cause he also probably wants to have one-on-one time with our kids where it's not like me being like, Hey, you should go out and play in the sandbox, you know? And not that I'm that bossy all the time, but I love throwing out suggestions. So it's.

Whitney Heins (26:41.688)
Here we are.

Tricia (26:41.704)
Yeah.

Shanna Birchett (26:54.089)
Hahaha

Olivia Garcia (27:08.724)
It is just like this thing that we, this pressure that we put on ourselves and it's just not necessary, you know, because we are people, we're allowed to take time to ourselves and like we're allowed to continue our passions. and we're allowed to try new hobbies. Like it's not like, because you know, I'm a mom now, I'm not allowed to go try this new class. Like, of course we're allowed to do that. That would be such a silly thing.

I don't know, it's so strange sometimes to look back on certain times too when I've had guilt about something and it wasn't placed upon me, it was just something that I had internally. And I still feel it all the time even when I know that I don't really need to.

Shanna Birchett (27:49.473)
Yeah.

Whitney Heins (27:55.48)
Yeah, and I think if you talk to a lot of older women who are now empty nesters, like I've had on my page, have the why I run, which runs on Wednesdays, and women share the reasons why they run. the older women,

Olivia Garcia (28:10.859)
Mm-hmm.

Whitney Heins (28:16.54)
Several of them have shared like how they've been so grateful for the community because once they're empty nesters, you know, it's easy to lose yourself and your kids and now they have like they have running where they they don't feel alone once their kids leave and I think women who haven't had an identity outside of motherhood.

they've really struggled once their kids have grown. And of course you're always a mom, but obviously it's very different when they're not living in the house anymore. And so I think it is just so important that we are multifaceted people. We are not just moms. It's okay to need your cup to be filled by something else other than wiping butts and making a thousand breakfasts. Obviously we love being a mom.

Tricia (28:55.07)
Thank

Olivia Garcia (28:56.802)
Yes, yeah.

Shanna Birchett (28:58.995)
Amen.

Tricia (29:00.118)
Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (29:00.45)
Hahaha!

Whitney Heins (29:02.07)
Like first and foremost, it's, like you asked me like, what do I want to like accomplish and be good at? And I'm like, I want to be the best mom for Katelyn Eleanor. Like that is like the most important thing, but it's like, yeah. And I also want to do all these other things and have all, you know, like, yeah, no, for you, yes. You know, but, and it's like, that's okay. Like we are not singular beings. Like we have.

Shanna Birchett (29:12.927)
Yeah.

Shanna Birchett (29:19.287)
OTQ. We're not talking about that.

Whitney Heins (29:31.532)
needs and we have like once and like different passions other than you know the domestic engineering duties.

Olivia Garcia (29:42.648)
It's so true. I think a lot of it also...

Shanna Birchett (29:47.263)
Yes.

Olivia Garcia (29:48.894)
because I will say I did not have any mom guilt at all during my last training cycle. My training cycle for grandmas, it went pretty smoothly. I did have to adjust every once in a while. I remember I left a run one time with Shanna. We were doing a midweek long run or something. My husband called twice and was like, Charlotte's throwing up. I was like, I should probably head home. He did not need me at home, but somehow I felt compelled to just go just in case, which is so silly because

Whitney Heins (30:10.636)
Peace.

Whitney Heins (30:16.172)
Right.

Olivia Garcia (30:18.648)
could have finished. Anyways, I'd never felt guilty, but I was also self-coached. With this, I got a coach two months ago, three months ago. I have a new level of, I don't even know if it's guilt, but I feel like a pressure to perform or something. It's so interesting that that was the thing that changed. It's like, I don't know why.

Shanna Birchett (30:38.487)
Mm-hmm.

Olivia Garcia (30:46.878)
Necessarily because it's not like I'm taking all of my family's finances and dumping it into running like, you know I picked a race that's not that far away. It won't be that expensive to fly to and But I think the financial impact you're like you're all of a sudden like who I'm buying shoes I'm signing up for races and it's like you kind of just feel a little like it just a little icky about it and it's so silly because you know like in Like what if in my relationship like he has hobbies as well

Whitney Heins (31:04.866)
Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (31:16.76)
And I don't think he feels that same guilt because it's never been really voiced to me. Like, you know, we'll have a New Balance package show up at the door and I'm like, look at that. You ordered new shoes. like, that's it. That was the end of it. Like, yeah, I saw this color. I really liked, I needed new ones where for me, I'm like, hey, I'm going to need new shoes by November 28th. You know, like, because that's like a few weeks out, 10 days out from the race, you know. And it's so weird that I feel like this need to prepare.

everybody for when I need new shoes. But, and so that could just be something like personal to my family, but it was just this interesting shift that happened when I got a coach and it was like, all of a sudden I felt like I was just getting in more serious, you know, so.

Whitney Heins (32:00.268)
I think it's like, it all ties back to feeling like, like you're worth it and you deserve it. like Shanna and I like a while back had an Instagram conversation where I forget what we were talking about, but you said something where you're like, don't be afraid to take up space. And I was like,

Shanna Birchett (32:07.497)
Yes.

Olivia Garcia (32:08.824)
Yeah.

Shanna Birchett (32:19.446)
Yes.

Whitney Heins (32:19.992)
You're totally right. We don't want to run to impact other people and we don't want it to impact the finances. it's like, we're just so afraid of having needs or impacting other people and ask, yeah. But it's okay. We can't just be helping other people all the time. I don't know. Yeah.

Shanna Birchett (32:42.049)
Yeah. Yeah!

Tricia (32:42.06)
Right? Just a recipe for burnout.

Whitney Heins (32:47.222)
And I think with the mom guilt, reframing things is helpful. Like if you reframe it in a way that it is helping other people, if I, you know, if I feel like I'm training really well or I'm set up for success for this marathon because I got these new alpha flies or whatever it is, so expensive though, but you know, I think worth it. You know, like think about like,

Shanna Birchett (32:47.328)
Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (33:08.664)
Yeah.

Tricia (33:08.692)
Thank you.

Shanna Birchett (33:08.821)
They are so spooky.

Whitney Heins (33:13.464)
how that's gonna make you feel and again, like the ripple effect into your family or like I'm taking two hours to go do my long run, but the kids and my husband get to go have like this special time together or whatever. it's like my kids now, they all go to Ace. Like my husband makes them breakfast and they go to Ace. Like I don't know, Ace is the place to go on a Sunday morning. But like, you know, and it's like, so they have this.

Shanna Birchett (33:36.225)
That's so funny.

Tricia (33:37.05)
no. Like the hardware store. It's the hardware store? At first I was like, it must be a gym.

Olivia Garcia (33:39.551)
Any time on the hardware store?

Whitney Heins (33:41.558)
Yeah, but it's like, don't know what, don't know if it's just, I don't know if it's just the hardest at the ACE in Knoxville, but it's got like super cute like gifts and it's got good food and like, so it's like, this is like, this route, right, you guys need to come to Knoxville. ACE is the place, I tell you. Yeah, it's not just to get like nails and a hammer or whatever, but it's like they have this cute little routine that happens when I'm running, you know, and it's like you,

Shanna Birchett (33:41.92)
you

Olivia Garcia (33:44.056)
fun!

Tricia (33:52.29)
What?

Shanna Birchett (33:53.007)
What? I'd be going to Ace! Post log run.

Tricia (33:56.021)
I know.

Olivia Garcia (33:56.056)
I'd be going next too.

Shanna Birchett (34:03.8)
Wow!

Tricia (34:04.556)
That sounds terrible.

Olivia Garcia (34:04.694)
That's awesome.

Olivia Garcia (34:11.041)
I love that.

Whitney Heins (34:11.232)
you're creating space for stuff like that to happen. Otherwise, if you were there all the time, it wouldn't. So, I don't know.

Olivia Garcia (34:14.485)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Shanna Birchett (34:18.231)
I heard this quote the other day too. It was like somebody comparing it to a car. They're like, you'll take your car and you'll do all the maintenance. You'll do the oil changes. You'll change your tires. You'll rotate them. You'll clean it. You'll vacuum it. You'll do all this stuff for your car, but yet you won't do it for your own body. Like your one and only body. You won't give yourself time for your one and only body. And that like hit me so hard. Cause I think as mothers, we are always pouring into other people. Like,

Olivia Garcia (34:45.48)
Mm-hmm

Shanna Birchett (34:46.389)
That is our, I feel like it's ingrained in every single one of us, like is to care for other people. But yet when it comes to ourselves, like sleep, like saying, Hey hun, I am sorry. I am so tired. I cannot do a movie tonight. I'm going to bed. or you know, whatever it be feeling right, like making sure that you're eating, you're eating something wholesome for your body. or like we talked about going for a run, like it goes back to that, like,

Whitney Heins (34:54.936)
There we go.

Shanna Birchett (35:14.301)
us feeling like we are not, like we don't deserve time for ourselves. We don't deserve space. that self-respect, yeah, that self-respect is so important as moms, like to give yourself the self-respect that you deserve that too, you know? We're not meant to just be a little old rags thrown around like.

Olivia Garcia (35:20.404)
.

Whitney Heins (35:21.878)
or fancy shoes.

Olivia Garcia (35:25.025)
Exactly. True.

Tricia (35:36.982)
Yes.

Shanna Birchett (35:37.227)
We have purposes here on this earth too. Like, I don't know. just, I've really just, I feel like I, my mom, she's so great and she's so incredible, but she was one of those moms that poured herself into her kids. Like I look back at all that she's done and I mean, she had a paper route that we would go and run and she would be sleep deprived and a solo parent and still do the run arounds with the schools and everything. And you know, and I just look at where she's at now and she, she kind of, feel like she's trying to figure out.

Olivia Garcia (35:53.076)
Okay.

Shanna Birchett (36:05.889)
who she is, you know? And as a mom, I realized like, I want my kids to see themselves in motherhood too. Like I want them to walk away knowing that their kids were their world, but it wasn't their only world, you know? That it was part of their world. And yeah, I just, feel like as moms, like we really need to start believing that like our kids don't need to be our only thing in life, you know?

Whitney Heins (36:21.282)
Nah.

Olivia Garcia (36:31.768)
That's so true. Yeah. Yeah.

Whitney Heins (36:32.664)
It's a lot of pressure on them too.

Tricia (36:34.57)
Yeah, that is, it's like so important to try to break that cycle of like, yeah, think about how awful that is. It's like your kids look to you and you're like, I can't do anything because I'm taking care of you. Yeah, it's like, so much weight on them really.

Shanna Birchett (36:34.719)
Yeah, yeah, totally.

Yes.

Shanna Birchett (36:44.289)
They get pressure, yeah. Yes. That's such a good point, Whitney.

Whitney Heins (36:48.556)
Yeah.

Whitney Heins (36:52.234)
it's a generational unraveling. It's like each generation of moms is like starting to move away from that, that they're not, yeah.

Tricia (36:54.593)
Great.

Shanna Birchett (36:54.665)
Yes.

Tricia (36:59.626)
Yeah, is. And Shannon, so I'm the oldest of seven. And so, my mom, my dad, yes, cause you're at the bottom of the chain. Yeah. yeah. Well, I was changing diapers when I was six and my dad also traveled a ton. So I saw the same with my mom. mean, she even did daycare in the house for a couple extra kids because seven wasn't enough, I guess. So yeah, it's interesting to have grown up in that.

Olivia Garcia (37:00.807)
Yeah.

Shanna Birchett (37:03.597)
that's so cool. You have a different perspective. You're the second mom.

Whitney Heins (37:03.608)
Whitney Heins (37:10.794)
Yes. my gosh.

Olivia Garcia (37:14.03)
my goodness. Mm-hmm.

Shanna Birchett (37:16.673)
That's so crazy.

Whitney Heins (37:18.466)
you

Tricia (37:28.798)
environment and have seen that like just from our own moms who are juggling so so much. think yeah we learn a lot from being in big family.

Shanna Birchett (37:35.158)
Yeah.

Whitney Heins (37:39.01)
And it's like, and just to like bring it back, it's like you learned a lot from watching your moms and kind of like, you know, I like that, but I also don't want that for myself. And like, that's what our kids are doing. You know, they're watching us, they're watching us go after our goals and taking care of ourselves and being healthy and being able to like, you know, go down the big water slide and play on the monkey bar, you know, like they're watching us.

Olivia Garcia (37:39.096)
Nice.

Shanna Birchett (37:39.319)
That's not true.

Olivia Garcia (37:42.808)
Yeah.

Shanna Birchett (37:52.671)
Yeah. Yeah.

Tricia (37:54.753)
Great.

Whitney Heins (38:08.908)
be able to do that and it's like.

Olivia Garcia (38:10.525)
Yeah, they do. watch everything that we do. Everything. You know, good or bad.

Whitney Heins (38:15.488)
And yeah, and they're gonna take some of it and so, and you know, they may be like, why would anybody ever want to train for a marathon or an ultra? Like, I don't get it.

Shanna Birchett (38:21.111)
Yeah.

Tricia (38:22.306)
Yes. My mom came back and has scrapes on her legs and...

Shanna Birchett (38:30.025)
So awkward.

Olivia Garcia (38:30.578)
Yeah! Yeah!

Whitney Heins (38:32.696)
Well, awesome. This was such a fun conversation. Thank you so much, guys, for being open and honest. And I am so excited about what we're going to talk about next because I think the opportunities for conversations are endless.

Tricia (38:35.234)
This was good.

Shanna Birchett (38:50.57)
I agree.

Olivia Garcia (38:50.594)
that too. Thank you guys. I just want to quickly end it on a positive note though, because I think we can talk about mom guilt a lot, but I think if you just constantly remind yourself of that, it's that cliche saying of you can't pour from an empty cup. I can't tell you how many times I tell myself that just during the week for anything. If anybody can take that away and just continuously remind yourself that.

You are important too. You cannot pour from an empty cup. And we have all proved it time and time again. And so just a quick reminder, it's such a short little sentence and it's a great mantra to just run through your head throughout the day. Doesn't even have to be on a run, you know?

Shanna Birchett (39:38.113)
Yeah, I love that.

Whitney Heins (39:38.476)
Yeah, I totally agree. I remind myself of that too.

Olivia Garcia (39:39.147)
Yeah.

Tricia (39:41.75)
Yeah.

Olivia Garcia (39:41.994)
Yeah, just a little positive affirmation. love it.

Whitney Heins (39:45.176)
You can put it on your phone as like a reminder too if you need to. All right, well thank you ladies. I hope you have a good rest of the day.

Shanna Birchett (39:46.162)
Hahaha

Olivia Garcia (39:50.398)
Yes, yeah, that's so true.

Tricia (39:55.426)
Thank you.