Running through the menopause transition can be challenging. If you feel like throwing in the towel sometimes, you’re not alone. This week’s guest, distance runner and blogger at runandbebrave.com has faced it all: injuries, setbacks, poor sleep, fatigue, vanishing motivation, hot flashes, and all the joint pain that accompanies the musculoskeletal syndrome of menopause. Through it all, she found a way to keep going, and she believes you can, too. She talks all about how this week.

Normi Coto, PhD, is an English teacher by day and a writer by night. She writes about running, writing, prayer, rhetoric, and mindset. A runner since 1983, Normi ran through three pregnancies back when running was misunderstood almost as poorly as women’s health. She has run 6 marathons, and is most proud of qualifying for Boston twice, running it once (2001), and finishing her first 50K ultramarathon in 2023 in Washington D.C. at the age of 54. Normi’s PhD dissertation was Persuasion by Word of Foot: A Rhetorical-Ontological Inquiry into Barefoot Running as a Health Practice–a practice she has found helpful for resolving her own stubborn running injuries. 2024 was her hardest year yet when she ran straight into menopause. But she’s still going. You can learn more about her and her work at www.runandbebrave.com

Resources:

Running and Menopause: The 9 Ways I Made It Through the Roughest Running Year to Date, blog post here

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