Episode 160. Own Your Fitness

🌟NEW EPISODE🌟Episode 160 “Own Your Fitness”. I recorded this episode of Coach Bennett’s Podcast in my hotel room in Sydney, Australia. So, you know what that means... that means this episode is a straight up banger. And this episode is once again inspired by you! Specifically, all of you that I’ve been talking to at Book Tour stops. Owning your fitness is essential to running the right way because owning your fitness is all about the present. Too many runners run the run that’s meant for their ghosts of running future and running past. Well, your ghosts can inspire and influence the work you need to do but your ghosts can’t make the investment of work you need to make. That’s why we’re talking about this topic on this episode. We need to start respecting the one and only athlete that can do anything about anything. And that athlete is the athlete you are. Not the athlete you were. Not the athlete you may one day be. Own this version of you. And you do that by owning your fitness. 

Listen to Coach Bennett’s Podcast anywhere and everywhere you get your podcast fix fixed! 

Oh yeah, if you haven't already bought my book This Is About Running. This Is Not About Running. I'm going to make it easy for you and drop all the links you need to order yours right now. 

US BOOK ORDERS CLICK HERE

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Cheers and thank you for listening to the podcast,

Coach Bennett

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Episode 159. Lessons From The Pack With Queenie Azabeth & Rehana Jade

Coach Bennett shares two stories from the Nike After Dark Tour, sitting down with Queenie Azabeth from Shanghai and Rehana Jade from London to talk about the unexpected paths that brought them to running and the people who have helped them discover what they’re capable of.

Queenie went from bodybuilding and group fitness to finding her place in running, eventually co-founding a run club and taking on the After Dark Tour Shanghai 10K alongside a friend. She shares how running became a space to be with her thoughts, why community can push us beyond the limits we set for ourselves, and how showing up, even when you’re nervous you won’t fit in, can open the door to something bigger.

Then, Rehana shares her journey from road marathons to trail running, coaching, and building a community of women through Club 99 in London. She talks about the friendships and friendly competition that have made her a stronger runner, returning to the site of her first muddy trail-running adventure to complete a 50K. Plus, she talks about the joy working with her Coach Cana (peep her here on Instagram, @canapeek) and why finding people who believe in you can help you accomplish things you might not attempt alone.

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Episode 158. This Is About Running. This Is Not About Running. 

My book This Is About Running. This Is Not About Running. is out in the wild! You can order it online. You can pick it up at your local indie bookshop. You can download the audiobook. You can get one for yourself. You can get one for your friend or someone in your family. You can get one for your teammate or neighbor or someone that you believe needs to read about courage and faith and hope and strength and endurance and Dirty Dancing and running and not running.

This special episode is all about the book. Why I wrote it. How I wrote it.  Where I wrote it. And so much more. I hope you love the episode. I hope you order the book. Actually, I hope you order lots of copies of the book. I'm really proud of it. And I wrote it because of you and for you. 

I hope to see you out there on the Book Tour or one of the (many) races I will be out!

Cheers,

Coach Bennett

SOME COOL LINKS

Order the book in the USA here

Order the book in the UK here

Order the book all around the world here

Listen to the playlist I listened to while I wrote the book here

Check out the amazing artist that created the end papers illustration here

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Episode 157. Goal Setting On The Run With Joan Benoit Samuelson

Today’s a big day: Coach Bennett’s new book, This Is About Running, This Is Not About Running, is officially out in the world. One of the chapters is dedicated to Joan Benoit Samuelson, so celebrating publication day with Joanie on the mic felt like the only way to do it.

Every runner knows the feeling of setting a goal that makes your stomach flip a little. For Joanie, that feeling has never really gone away—not after winning the first-ever women’s Olympic marathon gold medal in 1984, not after 150,000 career miles, and not today. But if you ask her, the numbers aren't the point. The point is the story that happens along the way.

That’s what this conversation is really about. It’s about choosing storytelling over rigid goal-setting, learning to embrace the moments that scare you, and understanding why a runner's journey is rarely a straight line. Joanie opens up about the chaotic weeks leading up to the 1984 Olympic Trials—undergoing knee surgery just days before, trusting her gut on a risky 17-mile test run, and finding the quiet conviction to step up to the starting line anyway.

We get into the critical difference between a workout that feels hard and one where you feel completely flat, why cross-training and balance keep you in the game for decades, and how the sport of running creates a two-way road where every single person has an inspiring story to share. Plus, stick around at the end of the episode for a voicemail from a listener in Seattle on navigating post-marathon burnout and finding your spark again.

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Episode 156: LIVE From Nike: Finding the Joy in Running With Brett Chody, Deepa Ramprasad and Kaytlin Lam

Recorded live in front of an audience at Philip H. Knight Campus) Coach Chris Bennett and producer Emily Abbate celebrate the After Dark Tour and the power of women’s running communities. Joined by Deepa Ramprasad (Senior Director, Nike Road Running Footwear), Brett Chody (Global Nike Running Creator & Founder of Bites Run Club), and Kaytlin Lam (Global Brand Management Specialist, Nike Running), the squad explores how running builds relationships, breaks down intimidation barriers, and creates spaces where every runner belongs.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Running as a Relationship: Coach Bennett highlights how running mirrors an evolving personal relationship—from awkward first steps to finding lifelong joy and routine.
• Overcoming Self-Doubt & Building Community: Brett Chody discusses why starting lines can feel intimidating and how inclusive run clubs give new runners the community and confidence to keep showing up.
• The Energy of the After Dark Tour: Caitlyn Lam shares her journey from dancer to half-marathoner, reflecting on the electric, supportive atmosphere of her first After Dark race.
• Footwear Insights & "Benefits Don’t Discriminate": Deepa Ramprasad breaks down Nike’s core road-running lineup (Pegasus, Vomero, Structure) and emphasizes that premium cushioning and support belong to every runner, regardless of pace or experience level.

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Episode 155: Own Your Pace With Intisar Abdul-Kader

Every runner has a moment when someone else sees something in them before they see it in themselves. For Intisar Abdul-Kader, that moment came in a school gym, when a PE teacher who also happened to be her science teacher told her the team needed another runner for the mixed 4x400 relay. She trusted him, she ran, and she never looked back.

This episode covers a lot of ground including track in Abu Dhabi and cross country in the woods outside London after her family moved when she was 13. A multiple sclerosis diagnosis three days after her 23rd birthday, and the walk, then the jog, then the 5K, then the marathon that followed. She's now completed all six World Majors, run largely on the strength of ballot entries she didn't even realize were building toward that goal until a stranger told her so in a Chicago hotel lobby.

We talk about what it means to run as a hijab-wearing Muslim woman on the world stage, why doing less is so often the harder and more important choice, and how she measures a good run by nothing more complicated than whether she'd go back and do it again (her answer, every time, is yes).

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@intysar

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Your Running Glossary With Coach Lydia O’Donnell

What do "tempo," "fartlek," and "recovery run" actually mean? Coach Bennett is joined by Nike Running Pacific Head Coach Lydia O'Donnell to break down the running terminology that can feel intimidating to new runners and explain why it doesn't have to be.

Coach Lydia shares how her mom and high school coach sparked a lifelong love of running, why community has shaped every step of her coaching career, and how her own experience with RED-S inspired her to co-found FEMMI, a global women's running community focused on education, confidence, and sustainable training. Together, Coach Bennett and Coach Lydia discuss the importance of understanding your body, building confidence through running, and why easy runs are just as valuable as hard workouts.

They also dive into the purpose behind recovery runs, tempo runs, intervals, fartleks, and long runs, plus Coach Lydia shares the workout she dreads most and the one pair of shoes she never travels without.

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Cheers and thank you for listening to the episode,

Coach Bennett

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Episode 153. Telling the Story of a Run Using 80's Song Titles

What can I say? I love 80's music. I love telling stories. And I love running. Seems like the perfect combination to give myself the excuse to mix them all up together for an episode of Coach Bennett's Podcast. This one was a fun one to make and because I love all of you so much I decided to make a companion playlist that you can listen to on your runs or in traffic or while you cook or party or shower or dance. No need to thank me for creating your new favorite music playlist. Just promise me that you'll share this episode with someone you care about and share this sport of ours with them too. 

Cheers and thank you for listening,

Coach Bennett

Listen to the companion music playlist here on Spotify

Get those PRE-ORDERS in for a signed copy of my book in before August 1st here

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Every runner has a starting line that didn't look like a starting line. For Lilia Martinez, hers looked like a dance floor. Ballet first, then tap, then jazz, the thing that finally stuck because it gave her room to move without a script. Running wasn't the plan. It showed up later, the way a lot of meaningful things do, in the form of a New Year's resolution with roommates and a half marathon she signed up for without fully understanding what she'd agreed to.

That's basically the whole theme of this one. Saying yes before you feel ready. Lilia talks about training through the Nike Run Club app, learning the sport from scratch with a coach on the other side of a screen in Mexico, and slowly building the kind of belief that doesn't stay contained to running. That belief turned outward into El Barrio Running, the community she co-founded in New York City two years ago that's grown from six runners to fifty showing up most Saturdays.

We get into structure versus freedom, dancer versus runner, and the imposter syndrome that convinces so many people to add a qualifier to their own accomplishments. I run, but I'm slow. I run, but I've never done a marathon. Lilia's answer to all of it: maybe the run doesn't need a qualifier. Maybe showing up is the whole point.

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@liliamas_

@elbarriorunning

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INTRODUCING: The After Dark Tour Series, Embracing The Starting Line With Emily Abbate

Every run is a new version of you. That's the thing nobody tells you when you're standing there in your first pair of running shoes, wondering if you're allowed to call yourself a runner yet. You are. You already are. You were the moment you decided to lace up, not the moment someone else decided you'd earned it.

In the first episode of our After Dark Tour series, I’m sitting down with Emily Abbate from the Hurdle podcast. Emily started running in 2008 the way a lot of us do, hoping to improve her health, and ended up gaining so much more — self confidence, happiness, and a new passion. We talk about the difference between running for a goal and running for your soul, why community is the thing she wishes she'd trusted sooner, and why a hilly and humid course in LA turned into one of her favorite race memories ever.

We also get into what I think coaching actually is. Spoiler: it's not building something that wasn't there. It's uncovering something that already was. If you're new to the sport, or new to After Dark Tour, or just need a reminder of why you started, this one's for you.

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@emilyabbate

@hurdlepodcast

 LISTEN TO HURDLE, here.

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