Women in Running- Camille Herron (Part 2!)
Last week I wrote about this podcast with the amazing Camille Herron. One of the things she talked about was how much she wanted to win the upcoming Western States race- the biggest 100 mile race in the U.S. Camille recently set some big world records, and she said she felt very fit and fast. She was very clear about her intentions to win Western States, so I was a little surprised and disappointed to see that she ended up placing eighth. I wondered what had happened. WELL, this episode of the Strides Forward podcast explains it all. Camille talks in general about menstrual health, and specifically about how she got her period literally in the middle of Western States. She had to deal with nausea, cramps, and of course the bleeding- but she wasn’t complaining. 100 mile races are all about problem solving, so she said if she hadn’t had to deal with getting her period, she would have had to deal with something else. She also talks about the importance of having regular periods, and says ever since she was a teenager she understood that she needed to eat enough to offset the energy she expended by running. She also talks about being on oral contraceptives for years, and the convenience of that, but ultimately how she went off them because she felt it was harming her health and performance. Camille obviously runs a LOT, and she looks really, really thin- so it was nice to hear her talk about the importance of eating enough and keeping her period. I never ran enough to lose my period, but I do have a little story of my own related to that subject. When I met my husband, I was already 34 years old. We got married a year later and I knew I wanted to have a baby pretty soon. I was also running a lot back then. My husband and I ran two marathons together, and I was seriously considering doing a 50K race. I was doing long runs every weekend- and meanwhile we were trying to get pregnant. I was getting my periods, but very sporadically. I never knew when it might come, and it was impossible to predict when I might be ovulating. We tried unsuccessfully for a while, and then I had a birthday and turned 36. At that point I had a mini panic attack- I thought about how we weren’t having any success, and how it was only going to get harder and harder, the older I got. I made the decision to cancel my plans for the 50K, and I kept running, but immediately stopped doing long runs. One month later- I was pregnant with my precious son Paul. I don’t really know if it was a coincidence, or if stopping my long runs was what it took to convince my body that I was ready to have a baby. The funny thing is, I always thought it would be a temporary detour from my dream of running an ultra, and that I would surely come back to it. Now I think of the Robert Frost poem “The Road Not Taken,” where he comes to a fork in the road, takes one path and saves the other for another day- “Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.” Can women run ultramarathons and also have babies? Absolutely! Could I have done it? Hmmmm. Could I still get back to that fork in the road and take the other path? We’ll see. The Strides Forward Podcast is stories about running, told by women. There’s another episode with Camille about winning the Comrades Marathon, one with Courtney Dauwalter, and many more. The episodes are around 15-30 minutes long- I normally like longer podcasts, but these are a nice length if you want something you can listen to in one sitting. Check it out if you want to hear some inspiring stories! I’m linking up with My First 5K and More, Running With Attitude, Run Laugh Eat Pie, Runs with Pugs, and Zenaida for Fit Five Friday! Have you had any issues with your period and running? Did you run while you were pregnant?