Abby Jimenez Saved My Sydney Marathon Training

Coach Christine shares how she tackled Sydney Marathon training during a chaotic summer filled with caregiving responsibilities, relocation, and constant travel, discovering that romance novels became her unexpected training partner and source of resilience.

• Trading structured training schedules for flexibility and adaptability
• Finding companionship in audiobooks during solo runs in unfamiliar places
• How to pair different types of runs with the right audiobook experiences
• Reviews of Abby Jimenez's books including The Friend Zone, Happy Ever After Playlist, Life's Too Short, Part of Your World, and Say You'll Remember Me
• Learning that training success doesn't require perfect circumstances
• Using library apps, Spotify Premium, Chirp, and other platforms to access audiobooks
• Finding community and support when training feels overwhelming

Would you be interested in a book club that combines running and reading? Imagine listening to the same audiobook during training and connecting with fellow runners afterward to discuss. If that sounds like your vibe, let me know - drop me a message or join the Stride Collective and say you'd love to participate!

Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing a Different Training Season
• 1:30 Summer of Uncertainty and Chaos
• 3:16 Finding Joy in Disrupted Structure
• 5:28 Audiobooks: The Perfect Running Companion
• 7:37 Abby Jimenez Book Reviews
• 21:00 Finding Community in Unpredictable Times
• 24:43 Book Club Proposal and Closing

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hey, rockstar, welcome back to Extraordinary Strides. I'm Coach Christine and I like to think of myself as your guide to the miles, the mindset and sometimes the messy middle of life, because, let's be honest, there's been a little bit of messiness in life going on right. This past summer, as I embarked on the Sydney Marathon training season, I thought this is absolutely nutso. My training season was like nothing I had ever experienced before, because usually I love myself some neatly color-coded calendars. Literally, I have a color for practically everything, including my runs. I thrive on structure and I think that's something that a lot of us runners and marathoners particularly love. You know, we love our tempo Thursdays, our track Tuesdays, our long run Saturdays, strength in between. It's like a rhythm we can count on.

Speaker 1: 0:51

But this past summer, after I had already signed up and committed to the Sydney marathon, I was not sure that I should even toe up to that start line, much less even consider training, because life was just not the type of season that would lend itself to structure. There was no rhythm, life was totally off script. I have caregiving responsibilities for those of you that know me rather well and that means that I need to frequently kind of just head on out and be there to help my dad with navigating different things throughout the day or day-to-day household responsibilities. But there was also a relocation for work. There was lots and lots of travel and I had to deal with training in unfamiliar places with terrain that I've never experienced before and I couldn't always plan for. Sometimes, to be honest with you, I didn't even know where I was going to be training or I'd be packing my bags and not sure exactly what that training week or weekend would hold in store for it. So, with that said, it was definitely a lot of uncertainty. I questioned my sanity every single step of the way. I wasn't really joyful about the aspect of training during a time where there was just so much unknown. There was a lot of anxiety as to what would happen and how I'd navigate this different states caregiving for my dad and how I would still run a business and be there for my clients and my athletes, and I love you guys so much.

Speaker 1: 2:24

Thank you, hopefully you guys didn't notice anything. That was super, super weird. I, if you're working with me one-on-one, I want to know if you think that you could. You could tell that something was a little off. Um, and obviously you guys know, if you listen to extra extraordinary strides. I didn't even have a weekly podcast, which since the very beginning of the podcast that has never happened. But there was just some times where I just couldn't get to the production. I didn't even have my setup. There was no way I could travel with it. It was just a really crazy summer.

Speaker 1: 2:56

But I know I'm not alone. So many of us have those kind of seasons where we question is this the right time? And I can tell you that that's one thing of talking it over with your coach or your running buddies it's to. Basically, you're the one who's in control. You've got to make that decision, nobody can make it for you, and you ultimately know if it's the right season for you to do that kind of training.

Speaker 1: 3:16

I will tell you that I look back at this particular training season as such a wonderful gift because it gave me the opportunity to realize I didn't need to have the usual structure that I love, that I could still make my speed work happen even on incline, or that I had to embrace a few actual real trail running kind of experiences. I had to learn a new running community or running communities, I should say but I also didn't have my usual running group to run with. So this summer I had an opportunity to really delve super deeply into a beautiful little world that I was able to transport myself to, and I'm going to say that it was the book and worlds of Abby Jimenez. Because, my friends, last year, when I was training for MCM, marine Corps 50K, I was on my thriller era, but this particular year things felt a little bit more intense. I didn't need intensity, I needed something that kind of allowed me to really just feel all of the feels.

Speaker 1: 4:25

So today's episode is going to be a little bit different. Now for you guys that know me well, you know I love me some reading and running. I think they go together, like PBJ personally. But I will say that I want to give you some of my reviews, because I am not a book talker, I barely know how to keep track of all the social media aspects of things, but I did have an opportunity this summer to delve into a beautiful world that I think you would enjoy as well. So, again, this episode is going to be a little different. I want to give a huge shout out right out of the gate to Caitlin, because she recommended Abby's books in the first place to me. She actually recommended them a year ago and I just got around to it. So, caitlin, thank you so much. You really did help change all of my long runs, my recovery jogs and basically every towel day treadmill grind. That had to happen. So, friends, let's lace up, let's settle in and let's talk about how a summer of chaos turned into a summer of miles and novels and a whole lot of love. That taught me just as much about resilience as marathon training ever could. So now, here's the first thing.

Speaker 1: 5:28

I believe that listening to an audiobook counts as reading the book, and if you have a different opinion, keep it to yourself. You don't need to come here with that kind of negativity. But truly, I really do believe that, as a busy person in this day and age, audiobooks give me a way to connect to something that I 100% fell in love with as an early, early, early child. I credit reading for so much, including the fact that even learning English in my household, spanish was the primary language, so I really feel like I was able to expand my vocabulary and learn so much because of my library, local library. So this is an opportunity. Also a big shout out to all of our incredible librarians that helped to create these beautiful worlds for kids and adults like. But again, with this particular summer I didn't have my usual training buddies, so my training partner became my headphones, my shocks and my subscriptions to every audiobook possibility.

Speaker 1: 6:27

So I'm going to let you know, before we get into some of Abby's books, how you can navigate the world of audiobooks on your runs, because when I first tried this eons ago I didn't love it and I will say audiobooks don't work for every style of run. You have to be kind of really strategic as to which style of runs should really have a bit more of that audiobook type of aspect. So I would say, your long runs, your easy runs, your recovery runs or your warm-up miles or your cool-down miles for those quality sessions like your tempo, your speed, your hills. I still personally am a really big believer in either not listening to anything at all and kind of doing a little bit of mental resiliency during those type of workouts of tempo, speed, track, hills, or listening to really hard driving high BPM to help with cadence and foot turnover. But again, if you're listening and reading and you really want to dive into that world and maybe help the miles go by as quickly as possible, as you have an opportunity to kind of relax into it. You're going to want to do it on your easier paced runs. It'll also help you, in my opinion, to really stick into those zone twos and to just enjoy the journey.

Speaker 1: 7:41

So if you're new to it, I would say again, shouting out to our local libraries Libby, the library app. It's like a gold mine. The only caveat to the library app of Libby once you have your library card, you enter that information is that so many of these books, especially on BookTok or that are popularly reviewed, have very long holds. So you're going to want to put in your holds. Max it out at 10. If you're training for a marathon, you're going to have to put in your holds. Max it out at 10. If you're training for a marathon, you're going to have lots of miles out there and you're going to go through these books rather quickly. So again, that's my biggest tip for Libby and navigating Libby if you tend to have already an audible premium, this is a great opportunity to also watch their sales, because some of these books that are more popular do go on sales more frequently.

Speaker 1: 8:27

I fell in love with Chirp. It's another style like Audible, except that they tend to run more frequent sales, and a lot of the Abby Jimenez books were actually found there. You may not know this If you're listening to this podcast on Spotify Premium. My friend, you have 15 listening hours per month on Spotify Premium. Now, this is the caveat. Don't start a really big book, like I did with the Nightingale, and become obsessed with it like I did with the Nightingale Not Abby Jimenez, but Kristen Hanna, but we'll talk about that at a later time and then run out of your minutes because you're gonna have to buy a top off. If you do, the Spotify Premium Still worth every single penny, I must say, and such a great perk if you already have your Spotify premium.

Speaker 1: 9:14

When I first learned about it, I really didn't understand it. So it's not. It's a style where you don't buy the book, you don't own it in your digital library. You're almost kind of casually borrowing the book, if you will, from that incredible content library that Spotify does have. However, you don't have to return it by a specific time. You just are capped out on your listening hours, unless if you buy what they call a top off, they also give you the opportunity if you're consuming tons of books through them, where you can get more time, more listening time, for a higher premium on a monthly subscription basis. I kind of ran the numbers and personally didn't think that it would work for me. Also, everand it's three books per month and that's pretty great in terms of your audio book consumption Also has eBooks. For this conversation, for the record, I am focusing only on audio books because I really do feel like it is the beautiful companion to running, especially our long runs when we're in training for anything endurance wise. So I will say, pairing your workouts with the right style of training, run with the style of book is going to be really instrumental for you.

Speaker 1: 10:24

So let's talk a little bit about Abby Jimenez's books, because I straight up fangirled this summer. I did not read them in order. I know lots of people who have read them in order. I know lots of individuals who want to read them in order. I'm going to share them in order just because I think that that is something that we love is structure, again as runners. So I want to let you know about in order, but I'll also kind of give you a little bit of a heads up as to where I read it along in my journey. I didn't know what I was embarking upon when I first started with my very first book, which for me, was right out of the gate so pivotal because it just it was Say You'll Remember Me, which is actually her latest book, and I just so happened across it, remembering that Caitlin had told me about this author.

Speaker 1: 11:12

But the books all start with the Friend Zone Came out in 2019. The main characters is Kristen and Josh, and they meet in what I can describe as like a masterclass of banter chemistry. I'm not going to give you any spoilers in this, but this particular book, I think, is the funniest of all of Abby's books and they are all super funny. It's more of a rom-com genre, but she layers in a lot of emotional depth into her character bases, really does an incredible homework of hitting with some really pivotal poignant points on her characters as well.

Speaker 1: 11:52

However, with the Friend Zone, just be prepared. Be prepared that you're going to want to read the second book in that series right shortly after to right the wrongs of the Friend Zone. I will say again this is the type of book where you will laugh out loud during your runs, and I truly do mean laugh out loud. I can't tell you how often I did. Thank you, okay. I mentioned it already, I'm gonna say it again. If you're reading the friend zone, be prepared. Please have the happy ever after playlist immediately queued up. You're going to need it and in this character she starts to. This is where you start to really see how beautiful the author like weaves in all of her connections, of the world that she builds. So you're going to meet Sloane and Jason.

Speaker 1: 13:57

Now you've met Sloane in the friend zone, but we get to hear more from Sloane's perspective. I love how Sloane and Kristen are best friends, kristen being the main character from the friend zone, but they're very different. I think, if I was to say whose personality style I'm more like, I'm more like Sloane, but I gravitate toward people more like Kristen, which is kind of apropos Again, with this particular book. I'm just going to straight up, let you know there's a lot that talks on and touches on the process of grief and healing and the role that music specifically music, hence the name of the entire book but music and creativity, and maybe sometimes our fur babies, will really play a really big role in helping us through those tougher times.

Speaker 1: 14:48

I think with this particular book again, this is more of this is my long run companion. I would also say you could listen to it with progression runs as well, because there's some great opportunities for you to spice it up a little bit if you need to on your runs. My training takeaway from the happy ever playlist was that sometimes joy sneaks in when you're not looking just like those negative splits. I am tearing up just talking about this because, again, these books were so beautifully nuanced and they had so much to them and I just I want to share them with you guys. I really would love for you to read them all and if you have read them and you feel the same way, reach out to me If you think absolutely you hate these books and you don't know why you turned into this conversation. I promise I'll be back next week with a completely running related conversation, but still, today we're going to talk about Life's Too Short this one. Caitlin even sent me a disclaimer because she knows that I lost my mother to ALS, so there is a bit of a spoiler alert there. I was supposed to say spoiler alert first.

Speaker 1: 15:56

I can tell you that this book really does touch on quite a few things that I think a lot of us as runners will relate to, because the vibe is influence or energy of like let's just make life happen, truly like there's nothing that we should wait on. If it's something that we desire to do, use the good China, wear the new shoes, sign up for the big bucket list races. Those are the big training takeaways, definitely, but there's also this really great parallel between two main characters of kind of opposites. Attract energy, which I particularly love. I would say that Life's Too Short is a fantastic one. Again for recovery runs.

Speaker 1: 16:41

My training takeaway really is to do the things Really. Own in on that. Our bucket list is meant to be actually lived and checked off. It's not meant to be placed on a list that we never get to or that we wish upon a shooting star, really going after our desires and goals, because life can be a little too short. I think you're going to laugh on this one Again. Abby weaves in some adorable animals into all of her books, so I think that you know, if nothing else, you'll have a little bit of extra for baby love to get you through it. Next on this list part of your world. It's actually one of the last books that I read. But part of your world came in. Oh for the record, I should say, before we go into part of your world friend zone, happy ever after playlist and life's Too Short are all kind of a trilogy into that section of where the no-transcript.

Speaker 1: 20:45

And last but not least, which was the one that I first read, say You'll Remember Me. I am going to tell you about my experience with Say You'll Remember Me and how I knew this was a special author and long story short. This was at the very beginning of the summer, really still at this point in my training, thinking I don't know that this is the right idea for me where I'm at right now. I know that I, financially, have committed. I know this is something that I want to do, as somebody who has their six majors and then has the seventh one that just came out really wants to pursue it, but I don't know if this is just the right time for me.

Speaker 1: 21:17

However, sayla remembered me following Samantha and Xavier and there's a little bit of miscommunication trope as well A whole lot of that actually but I recall distinctly the run that I was on and in this run it was about. It was an easy run, maybe 75 minutes long, where I was transported completely into this world, felt so connected to Samantha and her responsibilities as a caregiver, so conflicted for these two main characters as to what they were trying to achieve with the long distance relationship. Remember, I'm traveling all the time here now too. During all of this, and in that run, I rolled my eyes. I was so angry that Samantha was depicted as kind of being needy or asking for something specifically that she wanted help with, thinking girl, get it together, you can do this, you are a woman here, you roar, kind of thing.

Speaker 1: 22:12

And then, within that same run, just a gut punch of a plot line that kind of got dropped into it, where I got to see, truly, that my biggest training takeaway was you can't do it all and that sometimes you do have to ask for help and that it is important to lean into your community, whether it's online, virtual, if it's again in person or you're creating your own world. But truly, how? It's not something that you can do everything flawlessly, and that's okay as long as you lean into doing your best and having those people in your life that you can lean on when things do get tough, so you don't need perfect circumstances. Hello, that's exactly what I felt Like. I was so connected to that you seem to keep showing up for those moments that matter. I mean, again, this is such a big, strong, powerful book for me Okay, my friends. With that said, she has also read in a few short stories the Situationship Worst Wingman Ever and the Fall Risk. They're adorable. Also really great opportunities for you to maybe have a quick glimpse into her world, if that's something that calls to you.

Speaker 1: 23:20

But with that said, I do want to say thank you to Abby. If you ever hear this, I so appreciate it. Her characters kept me company when structure fell apart and life demanded flexibility, so they reminded me that community. So thank you for your patience and dealing with me and my scatteredness this past summer, and joy and presence and resilience matter just as much as splits and mileage. So if you're training or your life feels a little unpredictable, a little messy, I'm going to suggest you queue up Abby's World on Libby Chirp Spotify Premium, audible wherever you want. Let these stories keep your heart steady, mile after mile, and, of course, lean into the Extraordinary Strides podcast community, the Stride Collective, because we're here for you every single part of your training. Once again I want to thank you, caitlin, for the perfect recommendations. I really so much appreciated these Friends. That's a wrap on today's episode. Again, I know it was a little different part writing reflection, part book review but that's what Extraordinary Strides is all about. Training just isn't about splits and workouts. It's about life, mindset and the things that keep us steady when everything else feels a little unpredictable.

Speaker 1: 24:28

So now, some of you may not know this, but I used to run a book club called Get Literati. It was all about glowing up with personal development books. I loved it. But here's a question for you Would you be interested in a new kind of book club?

Speaker 1: 24:38

Maybe we resurface Get Literati but have a little bit more fun with it, one that combines running and reading, just for fun. Imagine listening to the same audiobook during trainings and hopping on to chat with your fellow runners afterwards. So a little lighter, a little bit more playful, but still full of community. And of course, as runners we're going to connect those running takeaways, no matter what the book may be about. Now, if that sounds like your vibe, let me know, drop me a message, respond to me on the episode note link or just drop into the Stride Collective and say, yeah, I'd love to do this. Until next time, though, I want to thank you so much for being part of my world. Letting me be a part of your world. Keep running strong, keep fighting joy in the chaos, and maybe again, if things are a little heavy, queue up one of Abby's books or another rom-com that makes you smile. I'll see ya in the next stride. Bye.