Welcome to ParentData. If you read my newsletter or follow me on Instagram, you know that running is a big part of my life, and I know it’s a big part of many of your lives too. One way I see that is the number of questions that you send me that are about running; running data, postpartum running, running shoes. So I thought we’d try to collect some answers all in one place. I solicited questions from you and I recruited the incomparable Laura Green, funniest running person I know by far, to ask the questions. It’s a fun and it’s a special episode so let’s jump right in, or run right in, I guess.
Emily Oster:
So Laura, thank you very much for doing this. I want you to know that my family is a very big fan of yours and we think you’re very funny, and so I am just thrilled that you agreed to do this, so I’m going to let you be in charge now.
Laura Green:
It’s the biggest compliment.
Emily Oster:
Here you are. Go ahead. Be funny.
Laura Green:
Welcome to the Emily Oster podcast.
Emily Oster:
It’s called ParentData. It’s called ParentData.
Laura Green:
Yeah, but today it’s all about you. So Emily on the run-
Emily Oster:
Right. No, exactly. That’s such a good title. Somebody else should use that for a popular podcast. Whatever, it’s cool.
Laura Green:
Okay. Well, let’s just jump right in. We have a list of questions that were curated from Instagram and then your team put together this nice long list for me and then I chose my favorites. So the first, one of the most popular ones, we want to know your running story. I think that that’s just a great place to start. When did you get into running and when did you get more competitive with it because you’re out there crushing races? We see you. We see you.
Emily Oster:
That’s nice. Okay. So my family was very into running when I was a kid. My dad is, still he’s 80, and he runs every day. He’s not that fast anymore but he’s into it.
Laura Green:
That’s amazing, though. That’s awesome.
Emily Oster:
So when we were little, we would run. I grew up in New Haven, and so there’s a Labor Day race. That’s a very big deal for my family. There’s a 20K and a 5K. And so I think as of six or something, we were running the 5K. I have a picture of my brother at the age of … he can’t be more than five or six, crossing the finish line, stopping his watch because you got to get your time there. And so I ran as a kid and then I ran competitively. I ran in high school on the cross country team and I was okay.
Laura Green:
What was your event in track? Did you run track?
Emily Oster:
In track, I ran the 16 and the 3,200, and I was not that great at them. I don’t remember … I didn’t like track, except I liked the pole vault, the guys who pole vaulted. There was a really cute guy named Josh. Hi, Josh. I’m sure Josh is listening. Hi, Josh.
Laura Green:
Josh and Tim, the pole vaulters. If you’re out there, you have two fans. We love you.
Emily Oster:
And then I spent a long time after high school running as an exercise activity, and I ran in college but not very much. And my husband and I started running together when we got together in college and actually for a long time, we ran together and then at some point, basically when I was going to turn 40, I was like, okay, I’m going to get faster now because I can’t possibly be getting old. And so I started running more on my own and then the pandemic hit and so then I was running a lot because it was like, what else am I going to do? And then I joined this running club because I was desperate to see other humans who were not in my basement and that was the only activity. And so then the last three years, I’ve gotten more into being competitive about it.
Laura Green:
That’s amazing. So your midlife crisis has been incredibly healthy.
Emily Oster:
In some aspects, this aspect of it perhaps, although I’m not always sure. There are times when you’re like, is my knee supposed to feel like that? This is not good for me.
Laura Green:
So it’s been more of a recreational thing until the last few years. What have you done to get faster? Have you gotten faster?
Emily Oster:
Yes, I’ve definitely gotten faster. I did a lot of things, mostly running more. And also, I got a coach and so then she made me run different workouts, and we can talk about that, but I think more or less the answer is trying. I tried to get faster. And because I had not ever really tried that much before since high school, there was a lot of space for fastness.
Laura Green:
I find myself getting very jealous of people who come into running in their 30s and 40s.
Emily Oster:
Yeah, because you’re never going to be as good as you were.
Laura Green:
Never. Never. So that’s why I just keep changing distances because I did a 10K the other day and I’ve never done a 10K before, so then that just counts as a PR. So I just need to keep changing things around. Maybe I’ll hit up the trails.
Emily Oster:
One thing you should know is that my father did some research. My father is also an economist. He did some research back in the 1970s about how quickly people slow down in their running times, and he has a formula for adjusting your time so you can continue to PR as you age.
Laura Green:
I love that. Like a handicap?
Emily Oster:
Yeah, exactly.
Laura Green:
I’m into it.
Emily Oster:
You can continue to have an age adjusted PR. So think about that.
Laura Green:
So what advice would you have for someone who’s just getting into running at any age but just they’re a newish runner? What advice would you give them?
Emily Oster:
I think mainly that it’s fun. I really like to run. The competitive part makes me nervous and has all kinds of slightly less positive aspects, but overall, if you do this some, it will get easier and it is a really good way to just be outside. It seems like it will be awful sometimes, but actually it’s really nice.
Laura Green:
So you love your data, and the people listening to this podcast, I assume, love data as well. How have you used data to improve your running, improve your performance? What metrics do you pay the most attention to?
Emily Oster:
So the main thing I learned from my running coach is that you should pay attention to your heart rate in addition to your paces. So I pay attention to how quickly my mile pace, whatever, how fast I’m running, but then also, how high my heart rate is for that pace. And this is the new innovation that I’ve discovered in the last year. Other people I think did know this before but it was new to me. There’s a difference between a 730 mile at 147 heart rate at a 730 mile and 171 heart rate, and that’s an important piece of data. But mostly, I just look at times or whether I can do the workouts that I’m assigned.
Laura Green:
And do you have trouble ever just ignoring it and being like, “You know what? I’m just going to go on feel today,” or do you just love the numbers?
Emily Oster:
I never go on feel. People are always saying, “Oh, go on feel.” What is that? That’s really hard. So I will often get like, okay, go on feel, do an aerobic run. I can’t do that.
Laura Green:
That’s not how your brain works. Yeah.
Emily Oster:
That’s why I have to run with other people because when I run with other people, it’s much better because they just say … They go on feel, but I don’t. I like numbers. Do you run on feel?
Laura Green:
Oh yeah. I don’t usually run with a watch. I have no watches on right now. When I’m not specifically doing a workout or training for a race, I go no watch. I will record it on Strava in my pocket, on the phone, just so I know what mileage I did that week. But yeah, I just go out there and I’m like, “Okay, this should be threshold. This should be aerobic. This should be chill. This should be a recovery run.” And it’s just kind of-
Emily Oster:
Yeah, I don’t do that. Also, I will run back and forth on the block to get to an even number.
Laura Green:
Will you?
Emily Oster:
Absolutely. Yesterday, my watch messed up and I ended up basically just running back and forth, and then our neighbors were there with their dog just running back and forth. I was like, “I’m trying to finish.” It was my cool time. It was two miles. It was like 1.9. It doesn’t matter. It’s a cool down. What is this? But I was just like, I got to hit two.
Laura Green:
Yeah. There are times where I’m like that, but there was a stretch where, I’m not even intentionally doing it, I was hitting 0.99 on three runs in a row and my friend texted me and she goes, “I think you’re a serial killer.”
Emily Oster:
I totally agree. That’s so messed up.
Laura Green:
How do you walk in the door? How do you just walk in the door?
Emily Oster:
How do you do it? I think that’s really creepy and weird.
Laura Green:
Okay. Well that actually … I’m going to skip around a little on these questions. Your heart rate, do you do that on your watch? Do you have a heart rate monitor?
Emily Oster:
I do it on my watch. I know that people say the heart rate monitor is better and I’m sure that’s correct, but we haven’t gotten that extreme.
Laura Green:
Yeah. I’ve only used it a few times in my life, and it is really helpful because it’s much more accurate, but every time I strap it on, it makes me feel like I’m a Coburn or something.
Emily Oster:
Right, exactly. It’s like what exactly am I doing? It looks like …
Laura Green:
Do you have any other running accessories or gear that you really love that you can’t run without?
Emily Oster:
So one thing I want you to understand is that recently, my husband allowed me to devote an entire cabinet in our family room to my running stuff.
Laura Green:
Wow.
Emily Oster:
It’s love. And so I have my different shoes in there. I’m going to have to go with the … I like the super shoes. Who would not like the super shoes? But the other thing I really like is this anti chafing stuff.
Laura Green:
Okay. What do you go with?
Emily Oster:
It’s like the squirrel, the nut butter, Squirrel Nut. It’s good for it not chafing. I have a lot of other random stuff in there, different hats, I don’t know, gels. I got my whole gel situation.
Laura Green:
Do you listen to music or podcasts?
Emily Oster:
I listen to both music and podcasts. I have the Shokz headphones that you also like. Ali on the Run gave me some Shokz headphones. It’s a gift for being a guest on her show several years ago and I love them.
Laura Green:
There’s no going back. Yeah. I recently snapped mine in half by accident.
Emily Oster:
Oh no.
Laura Green:
They were at the bottom of my bag. That’s a classic Laura story. I tend to break everything. And it’s really hard to break them, and I found a way. So just for a week while I was waiting for a new pair, I had to put the ones back into my ear and it’s nasty. I can’t believe I ever ran with earbuds in my ear.
Emily Oster:
And then they’re all swick wet.
Laura Green:
They’re really wet and in the middle of an east coast summer, they’re like pools of sweat in there.
Emily Oster:
It’s not good.
Laura Green:
That’s not good.
Emily Oster:
It’s not good. It’s not good. The other thing I really like is a foam roller. I love my foam roller.
Laura Green:
You’re one of the few out there. Everyone should be foam rolling, but most people buy them and then they just sit in the corner of their room like mine.
Emily Oster:
I like my foam roller.
Laura Green:
Well, okay, so actually you were talking about being able to hear the city around you, your neighbors around you. Do you ever feel unsafe, and what do you do to help calm your nerves or improve your safety while on the run? Especially you’re an early morning runner sometimes or all the time.
Emily Oster:
Yeah. So I think there are two different parts of safety. So one is about cars. I worry a lot about cars, and I have a lot of different lights, arm lights and other lights that I think are very important for not being hit by cars. And then I run in places that I know where I know the other people who are running. I am near where I live. There’s a boulevard and people run there all of the times of the day and it’s the same people. So I see the same people all the time, and I’m lucky that it is quite a safe area overall and, I don’t know, I try not to do things that seem unsafe.
Laura Green:
Do you use the Strava thing where you can send a beacon to your husband or anything like that?
Emily Oster:
For better or for worse, my husband has location tracking. My husband and I share location tracking so he would know. He knows where I am at all times and including when I run.
Laura Green:
Great. Okay. So I’m going to end this portion with some of your favorite things. So we already did running accessories and gear. What has been your favorite race?
Emily Oster:
The Boston Women’s 10K last fall, and I’ll tell you for several reasons. It’s very flat. It was the first race in a long time that I actually felt great the entire time. I felt good, and I was running fast, but I felt really good. And also, because it’s almost entirely women, the porta-potties were so clean. It was an amazing porta-potty experience.
Laura Green:
Emily, I just went to a women’s run out in Snohomish, and I did some standup the night before at this pump up party, and the whole thing was about how women’s races are better and why. And the first one, I was like the porta-potty scene is going to be so nice tomorrow. Just you wait.
Emily Oster:
It was so nice.
Laura Green:
So nice. They’re cleaner. The lines are super efficient because we’re so fast. We’re so used to having to pee as fast as we can. No one is in there wasting our time.
Emily Oster:
No, totally. So that was great. That was a great …
Laura Green:
Can you say your time?
Emily Oster:
42:07.
Laura Green:
Nice. Is that a PR?
Emily Oster:
Well, I had never run it before, so yeah, I never run a 10K.
Laura Green:
Here we go.
Emily Oster:
On a PR.
Laura Green:
That’s flying. So as someone who trains in Boston, pancake flat for the most part, you have to actually seek out hills around here and I don’t, I usually just am lazy about it.
Emily Oster:
You just run on the river.
Laura Green:
Yes, exactly. So this race that I did on Sunday was also incredibly flat. I think my Strava at the end said there was 30 feet of elevation gain over six miles, but I didn’t see that yet. And I was talking to my friends and debriefing after and I go, “Didn’t you feel like we were going uphill both ways?” And they were like, “What are you talking about?” I am the worst hill runner. I used to live in San Francisco and now I have absolutely no hill legs left in me. Boston has killed them.
Emily Oster:
I do not like hills. I like the East Bay bike path and Providence, it’s just flat. Sometimes my coach is like, “You could seek out some additional hills.” I’m like, “But why? The East Bay bike path is so nice.”
Laura Green:
Totally. Why would I do that? Okay. Who are your favorite running pros? Do you follow the professional scene?
Emily Oster:
I do follow the professional running scene. I’m going to go with Molly Huddle because she also is here, and I like to pretend that we’re friends. I never followed professional sports, but it’s so easy to start pretending people are your buddies and you’re like … because you know all about them and you’re like, “Oh yeah, Keira was doing this, this way.” And my husband is like, “Do you know her?” No, no, but I Instagram DMed her once. She did write me back, so I think we’re basically related now. So I’m going to go with Molly Huddle because I like her, and she will Instagram DM me back. And I like the Emily Sisson. I don’t know. There’s all these Rhode Island people, Rhode Island guys.
Laura Green:
Okay. Favorite podcasts, favorite music? What are you listening to? I think I already asked you this.
Emily Oster:
So I listen to a lot of short portions of a lot of different podcasts, so I’ll be like, I’m interested in listening to podcasts, but I actually don’t like listening to podcasts while I run and so I’ll get 10 minutes in and I’ll be like, I’m bored with this. But it’s not that I don’t like them. It’s just like I can’t focus.
Laura Green:
Yes, yes. It’s a different mindset.
Emily Oster:
And then I like a good Taylor Swift playlist.
Laura Green:
Yeah. I don’t know how you guys do Taylor Swift, but are you doing her more upbeat songs?
Emily Oster:
If I’m racing, I have a whole elaborate playlist of loud songs with Eminem and the Weekend, all the bam, bam, bam, Paper Planes, M.I.A., I don’t know. It’s like a whole thing. When I’m just running normally, yeah, I’ll listen to just whatever, Taylor Swift, but I’m not trying to go fast. I’m not trying to pump up. I’m just trying to chill out.
Laura Green:
Have you ever run a marathon?
Emily Oster:
No, but I am signed up for CIM.
Laura Green:
You are?
Emily Oster:
In December.
Laura Green:
December? Oh, how thrilling. That’s so exciting.
Emily Oster:
Yeah. I haven’t told this … He doesn’t listen, so it doesn’t matter. But I haven’t told my husband that yet. I did tell him I was going to California for that weekend because I’m also giving a talk at some university and so I told him I was going to be gone and I told him that there was a race related thing, but he doesn’t know that much about running and so I’m not planning to surface it for a while.
Laura Green:
Hey, talk about a great porta-potty scene. CIM. My best porta-potty scene I think I’ve ever had.
Emily Oster:
Okay.
Laura Green:
Yeah. It’s because the size of the race, it’s so manageable and they have more than enough porta-potties, so it’s not like, oh, these massively long lines that are in soggy grass. I think my friend dropped me off at the start and I went to the bathroom three times in 15 minutes and then got on the start.
Emily Oster:
I can’t wait. Okay, good porta-potty.
Laura Green:
Okay. Injury prevention. Do you cross train, strength train and do you have data to back it up?
Emily Oster:
I think it’s pretty clear that people should strength train. I don’t know how much of that has been injury prevention and how much is just that’s helpful for going faster, but I don’t do it in a very reliable manner because it’s super boring basically. I’m just going to be honest. I definitely am supposed to be doing that and doing more stretching and I just like to go run and I don’t like to do other things.
Laura Green:
Have you ever had any injuries that have been nagging for a while where you had to take time off?
Emily Oster:
So I got injured less summer. I have very bad bunions on my feet, and so sometimes with the wrong shoes then you overcompensate. And then I had a whole foot thing, which finally I had to go to PT, which I had never done before. Actually, PT is great. I would really recommend people go to PT. This is the first they might be hearing of this. So I would say it’s really great. And that eventually I fixed. I have this very long-term injury to my hamstringing from my last pregnancy. I pulled my hamstring running when I was 37 weeks pregnant and it has never totally healed.
Laura Green:
Is it up near the insertion near your butt?
Emily Oster:
Yeah.
Laura Green:
Oh, I’ll talk to you when we get off the podcast. I have some ideas for you.
Emily Oster:
Okay, great. I forgot that you’re also a PT. Okay.
Laura Green:
Oh yeah, but that’s actually not even really why I have some ideas. My husband battled this for three or four years and then he finally figured out what he could do.
Emily Oster:
All right, cool.
Laura Green:
Okay. There’s a lot of questions, well, not questions, a lot of popular questions about pregnancy and postpartum, which obviously makes a lot of sense.
Emily Oster:
Let’s do it.
Laura Green:
Okay. Tips for running safely while pregnant. What are some things that people should really look out for, especially red flags or check in with themselves?
Emily Oster:
Okay. So when you are doing stuff when you are pregnant, the most important thing is to pay attention to whether you are feeling different because some things are just hard to predict and your ligaments get looser, and so listening even more intently to how your body is feeling about what you’re doing is relevant. There are a lot of things though that you get told that they’re basically not supported by data. So it’s nice when people tell you don’t let your heart rate go above 140, which if you are a person who runs, it’s like, what are you talking about? A heart rate of 150 is what you are doing when you are running normally or higher than that. There’s actually really no evidence to suggest that there should be limits like that on your heart rate. It’s okay. It is not compromising the fetus. Plenty of people … We know this both from actual data and also from the fact that a lot of people engage in fairly high intensity of aerobic activities during pregnancy and it is fine.
So I think that people basically should do the things that they’re comfortable with. You should tell your doctor what you’re doing so they know what you’re engaged in, but there’s a lot of benefits to exercising during pregnancy. It makes you feel good. And if it’s a thing that you did before, you probably want to keep doing it and it can be beneficial for getting through labor. There’s just a lot of reasons to keep feeling like you can do it for as long as you want.
You can get a belt. This is also something somebody told me what I did in the second pregnancy that was very good before I got injured, which is you can get a belt that holds your belly up a little bit. It’s very helpful for trying to run.
Laura Green:
Yeah, I highly recommend those belts. I think RevCore is one of the ones that I used, but it didn’t even really help me run very long. I didn’t run that long into pregnancy, but even just for walking around, it lifts the belly up off your bladder a little.
Emily Oster:
Off your bladder. That’s it. That was the hardest. For most people, I think that’s ultimately what does them in. It’s uncomfortable to run and feel like you have to pee all the time.
Laura Green:
Totally.
Emily Oster:
It’s just that’s uncomfortable.
Laura Green:
I know. I would be like, can I just catheterize myself?
Emily Oster:
Exactly.
Laura Green:
What about running in the heat? Say you’re pregnant during the summer, really hot summer. Is there a certain temperature you shouldn’t be out there?
Emily Oster:
Becoming dehydrated when you’re pregnant, you need more hydration because it’s feeding the amniotic fluid and because just in general, it’s good to stay hydrated. And so again, you’ve got to listen. You got to be a little more aware of what is going on. Going out and running 20 miles without any water is a bad idea if you’re not pregnant in the heat. It’s probably an even worse idea if you are pregnant. And so just be thoughtful about this. But thoughtful is different from saying I shouldn’t ever do it. I hate running when it’s hot.
Laura Green:
I know.
Emily Oster:
Of course.
Laura Green:
It’s the worst even when I’m not pregnant.
Emily Oster:
It’s just horrible.
Laura Green:
Okay, return to running. A lot of people take breaks or they’re trying to ease back into it. Do we have any advice for the postpartum return to running?
Emily Oster:
The first thing I would say is, and people ask me, did you get back to running like this right after your kids were born? My kids are eight and 12. They go to school all day. And if I want to go do something on the weekend, they can watch TV in the house by themselves. It is really different to try to engage in a serious way with this hobby when your kids are big than when they are little. And that doesn’t mean you can’t do it when they’re little, but time is just really, your time is more constrained. And so I think understanding that you can come back and you can get something out of this practice of running, even if it is not what you were getting out of it before, is probably the most important thing to recognize.
And so at some point, a few months, a couple of months in when your doctor says things are looking good, you can start running again. But expecting I’m going to come back exactly where I was before may be unrealistic, but it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do it. My kids were eight, 10 weeks old. I would run. It was nice to be outside, nice to go outside and take a small break from them, and it recharged me, but it wasn’t like I was saying, okay, I got to go do a workout. This was like, I’m going to go run three miles at a 930 pace and then come back and feel refreshed. That mental shift and what is this practice doing for me now on the recognition that it may not be the thing that it was doing for me in the past and it may not be the thing it was doing for me in the future, and in this season, how does this serve you?
Laura Green:
There were a lot of questions that were just personal anecdotes from people just being like, “How do I get back into it? It’s been three months or it’s been six months or it’s been a year and I still haven’t gotten back into it.” And I just want to give them a hug.
Emily Oster:
I know. I know.
Laura Green:
That’s all I felt when I was reading these. And I was like a lot of the professional African runners, those marathoners that have babies in the middle of their careers, they don’t run or certainly don’t train at a hard clip for a full year. That’s part of their culture. They take an entire year off. And I really take that seriously, and I am nowhere near their caliber of athleticism. But what are your thoughts on that six or eight-week post checkup? Are you like, okay, yeah, definitely you should start getting out there or do you feel like that’s a little bit … I don’t know. I just feel like the messaging … What do you feel about the messaging of it in the United States?
Emily Oster:
I think the messaging is just too sharp. There is too much of like, okay, before six weeks, nothing, and after six weeks, okay, you’re basically like everything is totally fine. It’s the same with sex. It’s like before six weeks, definitely not, but as soon as you hit the six weeks mark, get back to it. And the truth is some people are ready to have sex a little bit before that and some people are not ready to have sex for a really long time after that. That’s regular. And I think the same is true here. There are going to be people who are going to say three or four weeks in, I’m ready to take a long walk and that’s going to feel okay. I don’t think that’s real typical, but depending on how you’ve delivered and how things are going, that could be true.
And there will be many people for whom six weeks is like, are you kidding me? There’s still blood coming out of there and everything is leaking and I’m not sleeping. And the idea that you’re going to use 20 minutes to go outside and run as opposed to take a nap is a total insane fantasy. And I think that we’re just too sharp. There’s too much of before and after and not enough of everyone is going to do this in a way that works for them and that is comfortable with what their circumstance is.
Laura Green:
Yeah. What about post C-section? Are there any other things to take into consideration?
Emily Oster:
So C-section, in some ways, the recovery is on average a bit longer, but the distribution of recovery across the two experiences is not that different. So I guess one way I often think about it is the best case scenario of vaginal birth, it’s super smooth. There’s no tearing. Then that is going to be on average a much faster recovery than any C-section. You could be walking out of the hospital holding your baby five hours later like Kate Middleton was, and that’s not going to happen if you had a C-section. But there are ranges of experiences with vaginal birth that can be very prolonged recovery periods. And so I think that again, there’s not a sense in which there’s an answer of for sure, vaginal birth, six weeks, C-section is eight weeks. That is not reflective of the variety of experiences people have.
Laura Green:
Right. Your core, no matter what kind of birth you have, your core is still just some mashed potatoes. Your organs are just floating around in there.
Emily Oster:
I don’t think that’s technically accurate.
Laura Green:
They don’t know which way is up.
Emily Oster:
We aim for facts on this podcast. I don’t think your organs are floating around.
Laura Green:
That’s what it feels like.
Emily Oster:
It’s what it feels like. And putting aside, the other thing about this is it’s not just physically what’s happening in your nether regions. It’s also what is happening in your house. What is your capacity to do various things? And I think when we give people this impression that at six weeks, you should be back to a regular, it does a real disservice to the actual experiences that most people are having at that point.
Laura Green:
Right. And the effects of the hormones. So if you are nursing in any capacity, either pumping or breastfeeding, chest feeding, how long does it take for your hormones to regulate?
Emily Oster:
Infinity. Until you’re done and then a while after that. Yeah.
Laura Green:
Yeah. Because they say three to six months, but how does that affect you and your running?
Emily Oster:
My sense is that the endocrine system is not actually that well understood and that there is a lot of uncertainty about how different hormones affect even things like your risk of injury and where exactly are these resources being pulled from. And we know that with something like breastfeeding, people’s experiences of how their hormones respond, even in terms of do they gain weight or do they lose weight? And people have really … Some people have quite unusual reactions like emotional reactions to breastfeeding. There’s post weaning depression, there’s during breastfeeding depression, there’s all kinds of stuff that goes on that we just don’t have a great understanding or ability to predict.
Laura Green:
Okay. Well, let’s talk about the thing that everyone wants to know more about, incontinence. It’s a big conversation, especially with postpartum runners.
Emily Oster:
Yes.
Laura Green:
So pelvic floor PT. Why is that important and also what else should they be doing?
Emily Oster:
Yeah. So I think the first thing to say is you don’t have to pee on yourself. This is not a thing you should expect to happen. I think that’s the biggest … Putting aside running, there’s a whole thing about incontinence of people saying little leaks are … No, you shouldn’t have little leak. It’s not a value judgment. It’s just like there are things that we can do. So pelvic floor PT.
Laura Green:
Just because it’s common, it doesn’t make it normal.
Emily Oster:
Exactly. So pelvic floor PT has many different tools that can try to address urinary incontinence. A lot of people think, as far as I can tell, that this is just Kegels. And then it’s like, well, why would I go there just to have somebody tell me to do a bunch of Kegels? But actually, I believe this to be a field with many more tools than just that one. And there’s also surgical tools if this is very extreme. So I think the main thing is just to note, yeah, it is pretty typical for there to be some urinary leakage, particularly when you run. And also that pelvic floor PT can help you address this and get more control. Even though I always pee on myself at the end of races, but that was true in … Not always. I sometimes do that, but that was true before.
Laura Green:
That means you just tried really hard. If it happens at the very end, yeah, that’s not incontinence. That’s just-
Emily Oster:
I left it all out there, literally.
Laura Green:
Yes. Have you ever been to a pelvic floor physical therapist?
Emily Oster:
No.
Laura Green:
So can I go on a little soapbox about it?
Emily Oster:
Yeah, do it.
Laura Green:
Okay. I am not a pelvic floor PT. I don’t have that specialty, but I have been, and I have a lot of friends who do it. And people, like you said, think it might just be Kegels or strengthening exercises, but what also could be happening is you could be over contracting your muscles in your pelvic floor and they might not be relaxing in the right patterns. There are so many things that a therapist can figure out, even just through a couple of different appointments that are going to change your life and they can make sex more comfortable if you’re having any pain there. It’s not just about peeing or incontinence. There are so many things that they can help with.
And I find the biggest barrier is just getting the time to go. That’s for me. I know money is involved and I know there’s so many different other aspects that make it difficult for moms to get out the door to go. But my biggest piece of advice is to try and go before you deliver, and then you have this person that you already have a relationship with that you trust and that it’s on the schedule so that after you give birth, it’s already on the schedule. It’s just like a postpartum follow-up as opposed to now I have to get on a wait list or search PTs or whatever. That’s just my high horse.
There’s also a lot of great online resources, but there’s nothing quite like having someone there to just assess you one-on-one to figure out what’s actually going on. Because you could just be doing Kegels and actually your body needs the exact opposite of that.
Emily Oster:
I love it.
Laura Green:
Okay. There’s one question that I skipped that I’m going to go back to, and it has to do with the wicking fabrics and how a lot of headlines recently are coming out about the toxicity in the wicking fabrics, and then there was sports bras and all these different brands that have a toxic level of whatever. So what can you speak to there?
Emily Oster:
There are a lot of headlines that we like to refer to as panic headlines about toxins. It is true that there are plastics in these products, and it is generally true that it would be good environmentally if there were fewer plastics out in our world. But this is not a piece of exposure that is very significant relative to all of the other pieces of exposure, and probably it is not a significant piece of exposure at all. And so I think it’s just almost a question of magnitude. It could both be true that there are these kinds of plastics in your sports bra and also that you should not think about that because it’s actually not very important.
Laura Green:
Okay, good. I like to hear that.
Emily Oster:
Wear your sports bra.
Laura Green:
Okay. We skipped over shoes, kind of. You said that you like your super shoes. I want to hear about your super shoes.
Emily Oster:
Let’s end on shoes because I love my shoes.
Laura Green:
Yeah. Okay. What are you wearing and do you rotate? What’s in your rotation?
Emily Oster:
So I wear the Saucony’s Endorphin 3s to race in. I have these bunions, and so I have a very limited set of shoes that will work for my feet. But I really like Sauconys. They’re super comfortable. And as I detailed in a post at some point, it’s 4% or something on performance for super shoes in general. And then I wear this brand, Hilma, which is a new lady running brand where they have different fits of the shoes, one of which is for wide feet. And I like them a lot and I rotate them around.
Laura Green:
Yeah, it’s this new brand, women owned and it has multiple different … It caters to whatever your foot is.
Emily Oster:
Yeah. What do you wear? What is your shoe situation?
Laura Green:
Oh my, gosh. My shoe situation is out of control.
Emily Oster:
You have so many shoes.
Laura Green:
Currently, I am in an Asics Superblast phase. I probably wear them the most. I also have bunions, wide feet, so I have to go wide with everything. So New Balance SuperComp Trainers go wide, which is nice. But lately, the carbon shoe I’ve been racing in is the Asics Metaspeed Sky. I haven’t tried Saucony yet, but everybody loves that one, the Endorphin 3.
Emily Oster:
I really like them.
Laura Green:
Yeah. Obviously, the Nike Vaporfly or I think I have the Alphafly. It doesn’t do as much. It definitely makes me faster. It doesn’t make me, I don’t know … Carbon shoes are very different for different people, especially some people don’t react that well to them.
Emily Oster:
I know.
Laura Green:
They don’t get that much faster, and some people get so much faster.
Emily Oster:
Yeah. I think it has to do with where your foot is striking. I think I have a quite significant reaction.
Laura Green:
Yeah.
Emily Oster:
The first time I wore these, I was just like, these are cheating. I texted my coach and I was like, “I’m sorry, but I’ve got the cheating shoes.” And she was like, “No, no.”
Laura Green:
How many days a week do you run in a carbon shoe?
Emily Oster:
I work out and I long run in them. And then otherwise, I run in my other things. For workouts, I like them because I like to be able to think about what paces I am going to be able to hit and how that … whatever. For the long run, I think I would not use them, except that the recovery benefits are so big. I recover so much more quickly than I would with the other shoes and so then it’s like, well … I don’t know.
Laura Green:
Definitely.
Emily Oster:
Also, my big thing is I got some high compression socks, which somebody asked me the other day, “Do they have any benefits?” I’m like, “I don’t think so, but I just think they look really cool.”
Laura Green:
So to wear while you’re running?
Emily Oster:
Yeah.
Laura Green:
Yeah.
Emily Oster:
Just like the Keira D’Amato look where you got the really high socks. I’m just going for it.
Laura Green:
I think they feel good when I’m racing. I feel like, I don’t know, my feet aren’t swelling.
Emily Oster:
Right. The whole thing is all in your head anyway. I feel like basically there’s just different ways to get them. I’d be like, “Oh, I’m wearing cool pink socks.”
Laura Green:
All right. Well, since this was a run podcast, we have to end with a running question that’s on every podcast, which is what races do you have coming up and what goals do you have or do you have no goals, which is how I roll?
Emily Oster:
I have two goals. So in the fall, my goal is to run my first marathon. We talked about that and we’ll see if I can do that. And then for the summer, we’re going to do some shorter stuff, and my goal is to beat Mark Zuckerberg’s 5K time.
Laura Green:
Yes.
Emily Oster:
It’s 19:34. My PR is 19:50, and so I think I have some work to do, but I totally feel like I could do it.
Laura Green:
Totally. Especially with those super shoes.
Emily Oster:
Right. No, yeah. It’s like any minute now, I’m coming for you, Mark Zuckerberg.
Laura Green:
Have you done the Falmouth Road Race down in the Cape?
Emily Oster:
I have not.
Laura Green:
It is so hot. It’s a fun race though.
Emily Oster:
It sounds hot. It sounds hot.
Laura Green:
It’s hot. But okay, so I’ll be looking for you on the circuit on the East Coast, on the race circuit.
Emily Oster:
Together, trying to be Mark Zuckerberg.
Laura Green:
On the line, looking like a couple of pro runners with our compression socks, our carbon shoes.
Emily Oster:
Waiting to lose. Thank you, Laura.
Laura Green:
Oh, it was a pleasure talking running with you. Thank you so much for having me.
Emily Oster:
Thanks for listening. If you like what you heard, subscribe to ParentData in your favorite podcast app and rate and review the show in Apple Podcasts. You can subscribe to the whole newsletter for free at www.parentdata.org. Talk to you soon.
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