Our season finale features the incredible Siân Longthorpe.

Running has been an integral part of Siân’s life for the past 35 years. For many years, as a decent club runner, the focus was on training hard to race everything from 5Ks through to ultra marathons – both on the road and the trails – with a marathon PB of 2:35. However, since 2016, racing has largely taken a back seat, with running instead helping to navigate the particularly challenging process of transitioning from male to female. For the past four years, Siân has been a proud member of the ASICS FrontRunner team and primarily runs nowadays to stay fit and healthy – both physically and mentally – keeping her competitive spirit alive by pace-making at local running events, with the occasional race thrown-in for good measure. Here we talk about how hormone treatment affected her running physically and mentally, how she sees her PB's now and how we can do more to help represent and support our transgender brothers and sisters within the sport. We also talk about barriers to participation and dispel some of the myths around safeguarding and what it actually takes to be a trans athlete. This is a brilliant episode, and I hope people will find it helpful - I would like to thank Sian for her braveness and honesty throughout - I'm sure it will really help a lot of people. Helpful resources can be found at Transactual (https://transactual.org.uk/) and Trans Unite (https://www.trans.ac.uk/ResourcesInformation/OrganisationsCommunity/tabid/7258/Default.aspx)

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