I Burned Out As A Running Coach While Doing Everything Right Part 3 of 3 Ep. 189

I burned out… as a running coach.

In Part 3 of this 3-part series, I’m getting to the source behind my burnout and how I climbed out of it, and still climbing. 

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SPEAKER_00 0:14

Welcome to LGO. My name is Lisa, and this is not just a podcast about running. This is a podcast to empower women to fitness and health and everything in between. Because let's be honest, ladies, this journey could suck if we don't get our shit together. Okay, welcome back to the ELAGO podcast. My name is Lisa, and I am your host. So this is part three of my burnout series. And honestly, this is probably the hardest episode for me to record at four in the morning. Because this is the part where nothing was technically wrong, wrong with me. Um, but everything felt wrong. So the tests were normal. The blood work was normal. It wasn't alarming. I mean, I learned a lot of things about my blood work. I learned a lot of things about the tests that were done on me. And I thought to myself, oh, this is something that I want to do on a regular. Nobody could point to one big medical reason why I suddenly felt exhausted, disconnected, and unlike myself. But I knew something had changed. And for the first time in a in a very long time, I stopped running. Yeah, not completely. I didn't stop moving my body because I knew how important that was. I didn't stop coaching. I didn't stop showing up for life, but I stopped doing the thing that once brought me joy. And that was terrifying because for once ever I said to myself, maybe I need to not do elego. Maybe this is not for me. All the years that I worked hard for this, maybe I needed to let go. So that's where I was. I think people assume burnout looks dramatic, like a collapsing or quitting everything, or having some major breakdown. But honestly, for me, burnout looked like slowly losing connection to the thing I love the most. Like if I was to put it in like a movie, if you were to watch me in a movie, it would have been my slow decline of not running. Because running used to feel freeing, it used to feel empowering, it used to feel like my space. And then suddenly it started to feel heavy. Long runs started to feel impossible. And like I said, first I couldn't get past like nine miles, then it then it was eight miles, and then six miles was like almost impossible. And when something that once made you feel alive starts making you feel defeated, it messes with your identity. Oh my god, did it mess with my identity? Especially as a running coach, especially as a running life coach, where I'm teaching women how running is to free you, to calm you, to distress you. And I was feeling the opposite of all of those things when I ran. People expect coaches to always be motivated, always disciplined, always strong. But coaches are human too, and I think I forgot that for a while. So after realizing I couldn't keep going the way I was going, I started focusing on rebuilding myself, not performance, not pace, myself. And honestly, that shift changed everything. The first thing was the sleep. Like I thought to myself, what is the one thing that I can totally change? And it was getting more sleep. And that meant going to bed early. I wasn't getting enough sleep. I was literally getting four hours of sleep a day. I had to be at work at six. I woke up at four because my dogs woke me up at four. And sometimes I didn't get to bed until 10, 11 o'clock at night. That was insane. So the first thing was going to bed early and trying to get at least seven hours of sleep. Now, mind you, I really should be getting eight or nine hours of sleep. But I said, okay, let me at least get seven hours of sleep. Okay. Not scrolling in bed, not staying up late and watching TV, not trying to squeeze productivity out of every second of the day because that's what I was doing. Just starting with getting into bed and resting and getting enough sleep. That was probably the biggest game changer because I didn't feel my usual menopause uh vertigo. I didn't get those little dizzy spells I would get as a woman going through menopause that I would occasionally get. And I felt a little bit more energized when I got more hours of sleep. Then I started looking at my nutrition and realized I was eating way too much carbs because I started to count my macros. And I know a lot of dietitians and experts are like, oh, don't do that. Don't tell me about macro dieting. But you know what? If you don't know, you don't know. What you don't know, you don't know. And I did get a dietitian to help me out, to be honest with you, to help me eat more protein. But I wanted to know exactly what I was eating. And when I did my macros, I was like, oh God, I'm not even eating enough protein. And I wasn't doing the appropriate timing of the carbs and the proteins before my workouts and after my workouts. I wasn't really focusing on me. And I was eating way too much carbs. And I know, don't get me wrong, runners need carbs. I get it, but there's a thing where you over-carb. And my body needed that balance. It was more carbs than proteins. I needed fuel that actually supported recovery. And that is where protein comes in. I needed protein, I needed nutrients, I needed consistency because there was absolutely no consistency in my eating at all. Because I was eating on the go. Um, and some days I wouldn't even eat dinner because I was so tired that I would just go to bed and not eat dinner, which meant my runs the next day were not optimal. So the eating was not consistent. Besides having too much carbs, it wasn't consistent. Then I added a stretching immobility portion to my workout. Something that not a lot of people think about. Like, you know, you have your lifting, you have your long runs, your speed runs, but not a lot of people bring up stretching and mobility as part of your workout routine. And this was actually emotional because slowing down enough to stretch forced me to realize how disconnected I had become from my own body. I was so focused on performance that I stopped listening to my body. But above all, the hardest decision was not running the marathon. Remember, I was training for a marathon. I was training for the Chicago Marathon in 2025. This was hard because it was a charity run. I've already had people giving money, and it was hard. It was hard to step down from it. I felt like a failure, to be honest with you, because I was doing that charity run for people that I knew that have overcome cancer. My aunt, who was in the throes of cancer, of uh, you know, going through chemotherapy, and here I was quitting the training, and I felt like a fucking failure. That's when I realized how even though I talk about being a running life coach, that people truly saw me as this coach, they didn't see me as a person, a person who sometimes has lows and maybe very low lows. And sometimes they see you as the symbol, the motivator, the strong one, the leader. And I think some people had an image in their head of who I was supposed to be. So when I told some of my clients I wasn't running the marathon, I honestly expected support. And some people absolutely gave me that, but some reactions completely surprised me. There was disappointment, and I was actually pretty hurt by that because I did not expect that. I didn't expect someone to be upset with me that I decided not to do a marathon that I was training them to do and I was going to run with them. And I even asked other people, like, maybe it's me. You know, I asked other people and said, hey, you know, um, this was the reaction. Maybe I should have pushed through. Should I should I have pushed through as a coach? And when people were like, Absolutely not, you can't do it. You're physically burned out. And that's actually a shocking reaction. It made me realize something really important. Some people were more attached to the version of me that performed than the actual human being behind it. And that forced me to ask myself a hard question. Am I building an empowerment community? Or am I just building a space where people still expect women to sacrifice themselves to inspire others? Because empowerment should include rest. Empowerment should include boundaries. Empowerment should include saying, I need to take care of myself right now. And if people can't handle that, then maybe they were attached to an unhealthy version of me, not the real me. That was maybe one of the hardest things to go through. Because then I started thinking, oh God, they're gonna talk about me. They're gonna say I'm not a good coach, they're gonna say shit about me, and they were already saying shit about me. Look, people talk, people talk, and it travels. And that not only bothered me as a person that has a business, but it bothered me because I'm like, didn't we instill this? Like, isn't that the whole point of LAGO? Is for this empowerment and um support? Isn't that the whole premise of this community that I'm building? I also think women carry this unspoken pressure to always hold everything together, to push through, to keep performing, to keep producing, to keep smiling. And if we slow down, people get uncomfortable, especially when you're known as the strong one. But strength is not destroying yourself to meet people's expectations. Strength is being honest enough to say, you know what, this pace is hurting me. And I had to let go of people's assumptions about me. I had to stop trying to prove that I was endlessly capable. Because the truth is, I am a coach, but I am also human. I am allowed to struggle, I am allowed to rest, I'm allowed to evolve, I'm allowed to fuck up, I'm allowed to. And honestly, I think that makes me a better coach now, not worse. And I think that when I am honest about saying those things to clients, to future clients, to people, I think that makes me feel like I'm coming from a place of authenticity. So going back to the burnout, did anyone ever say to me, Oh, by the way, you're burning out? Or, hey, you know, we did all your tests and the diagnose is burnout. No, nobody said that. And I don't think there was one single culprit because I was also post-menopausal. That is a huge, huge undertaking. And I don't think women truly understand that. I think they know, I think they they now that we're in this like generation talking about menopause, more women are talking about HRT, hormone replacement therapy. You don't know how big of an impact that makes on your life, your mental health, who you are as a woman. No idea. And I can honestly say when I have had women in the past come on to the ELIGO platform talking about menopause, and they spoke with such conviction and anger that this was happening. I didn't understand, totally did not understand that. But now, shit, I I fucking understand. Like, like a train coming at you and not even realizing you're gonna wake up one day and be like, what the fuck happened? So could it have been my postmenopause? Because there's pre-menopausal, now we got perimenopausal, seeing those changes, and then you're going through the menopause, and then there's postmenopause, and there's those different stages, you're feeling different through all those stages mentally and physically, and almost asking yourself, am I going crazy? Because that's exactly how I felt. So could it have been that possibly? Was it my low vitamin D? Did I did I have some deficiencies because I wasn't eating right? Possibly. Was it a lack of sleep, chronic stress, emotional exhaustion, years of constantly pushing? Absolutely. I think it was a culmination, and I think a lot of women are walking around functioning in that same state without realizing how depleted they really are. Sometimes burnout isn't one catastrophic event, it doesn't go like boom. Sometimes it's death by a thousand tiny stressors, and that's pretty much how it felt last year going through it. So, where am I now? I'm healing, I'm sleeping more, I'm taking supplements, I'm easing back into running slowly, I'm listening to my body instead of fighting it, and maybe most importantly, I'm letting go of people's expectations of me because I don't need to earn my worth through suffering. Let me say that again. I don't need to earn my worth through suffering, and neither do you. I can honestly say that I'm seeing a huge improvement when I'm sleeping more. And by the way, sleeping is not like, oh, I'm gonna catch up on sleep on one night from the years of not sleeping. No, it's not one day of sleep, it's gotta be days and months of sleep and maybe a whole year of good sleep to catch up on your lack of sleeping. So am I getting there? Absolutely. And I noticed a difference. I'm noticing my pace is getting better, is improving. I'm noticing I'm not tired on the days that I run. I'm noticing that when I am tired, I stop and I do something different, like lifting or stretching, or maybe just meditation. Have you thought about that? I'm listening to my body. It's very hard to teach people how to listen to your body, because if you have somebody who chronically doesn't want to do the work, but they want to do the work, but they also have to listen to their bodies. That's very hard to teach. And the only person that can teach that is yourself. You have to know who you are, you have to be realistic. Am I stopping because I just don't want to do the work? Or am I stopping because I'm truly fucking tired? That's a very hard thing to learn about yourself because you got to be real. I gotta tell you, this whole experience, I had to look at myself in the mirror multiple times and just be real with myself. Am I burning out? Asking myself, am I burning out? Shit, I'm burning out. I need to take care of me. If you're listening to this and you've been feeling exhausted, disconnected, overwhelmed, or guilty for slowing down. This is your reminder that rest is not weakness. Sometimes slowing down is actually the beginning of healing, and that's where I'm at. I'm healing, and I'm learning so much about this phase, so much more that I can now help other women who are going through it when they're hitting that wall and recognizing those signs. I am more aware than I have been in a very long time in recognizing those signs, and telling women you have to look at yourself in the you have to look at yourself in the mirror and be real with yourself and raw and honest. And I don't mean tear yourself down, just look at yourself. Is this what I need to be doing right now? Is this healthy? Am I being healthy in my thinking? Am I being healthy in my journey? That's a big, big lesson that not a lot of people are doing. So I think so. That is pretty much it where I am with my. Burnout, I am in the process of healing, and I don't think this is something where it's like I am done healing, I am done with my burnout situation. No, I don't think it's ever a period. I think it's a constant work on recognizing your signs that you're burning out, constant work on recognizing or seeing the constant work of listening to your body, asking the questions. Is this me just not wanting to do the work, or is this me really, you know, I'm depleted? It is a constant work on myself, and it's a constant work that I think is worth doing. So I want to thank you so much for listening to my three-part series, my burnout series as a coach. And if this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who needs it. Share it with another coach, whether that's a running coach, a personal trainer, a life coach, because we are all human beings, we are not perfect, we're not the almighty, the all-knowing. I mean, we know a lot, we are experts in our industries, but we're human. And sometimes we have to take a step back. So if you know of someone that would resonate with this so that they can give their permission themselves permission to stop performing and start taking care of themselves too, then share this episode. And and if you missed part one and part two of my burnout series, check it out. You can go through the journey with me. And until next time, bye, I think.