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This one was some serious girl talk—a little bit of over-sharing, perhaps, and some venting: We talk about a challenge a lot of mother runners face but don’t really talk about: how to manage your marriage while training for a marathon. 

In this episode, we openly discuss the complexities of balancing marathon training with our relationships to our husbands—exploring how to find the time and energy to maintain intimacy while managing the demands of family life and training. 

Our conversation highlights the need for understanding and compromise between partners, especially when juggling personal goals and family responsibilities, along with communication & managing guilt when it comes to training. We also talk about redefining success in running and the significance of being supportive partners in both parenting and personal pursuits of our husbands’ too.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Personal Updates

01:00 Marathon Training and Marriage Dynamics

03:46 Balancing Mom Mode and Intimacy

07:27 The Challenges of Nighttime Parenting

11:08 Finding Time for Intimacy

14:36 Communication and Relationship Dynamics

18:28 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

21:32 Navigating Sleep and Parenting Challenges

22:55 The Guilt of Balancing Family and Personal Goals

24:58 Communication in Family Dynamics

27:31 Finding Time for Self-Care and Running

30:31 Adjusting Training Schedules for Family Vacations

32:37 The Importance of Rest and Recovery

35:55 Letting Go of Mom Guilt

39:33 Supporting Each Other's Goals in Marriage

42:09 The Balance of Compromise in Relationships

46:36 Qualifying for Self-Care and Personal Goals

48:30 Redefining Success in Running

51:05 The Pressure of Social Media

53:37 Intimacy and Connection in Marriage

57:41 Navigating Parenthood and Personal Goals

01:02:26 Breaking Taboos: Conversations on Intimacy

01:07:24 The Balance of Family and Personal Aspirations

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 long injury cycle, she ran a 2:54 marathon and 1:20 half marathon in her 40s. IG: @themotherrunners.
• Shanna Birchett is a mom of 6 kids six years apart, including twins. She returned to running in 2022 after an 11-year break, running 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 now runs ultras (& sometimes even wins them!). 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. With a 2:57 PR, she's cut more than an hour off her marathon time. IG: @watch_oliviarun.

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