Hey, it’s me, Coach Katelyn :)
If you have found your way onto this exact blog post, you have crawled down to the depths of the internet to find my first running content! Honestly, at this point I’m not even sure if there will be content beyond this blog… Time will tell! My goal is to use this blog to keep my athletes educated on all things training and sports nutrition AND to keep myself learning. There is so much information in the world of physiology and sport. The information is always changing and updating, so maybee if I am blogging, I’ll keep up on it better and be able to articulate and distill the information into “sound bites” that can be shared with you!
How did I get here you ask?
I know you didn’t ask, but let me tell ya! I was a kid who played all the sports, all year round and loved each one. But the one I fell in love with the most was running; I ran in college as a steeplechaser and then continued with that training for a year after college in hot pursuit of a Olympic Trial's qualifier (which I did not get). This was a fairly intense time in life. I LOVED it and wouldn’t trade it for the world, but being a college athlete is hard. It’s time consuming, you are so fit and working so hard AND you have to be a student. I was underfed and not fueling properly and didn’t have the time or money to change anything about that. The year after college, I did not have a well paying job as my entire life goal was to train for this ONE race. I still found myself eating poorly and not enough. None of this was unintentional, I just didn’t know then what I know now about nutrition, training, and the beautiful and intricate dance they have. I finished that faze of life feeling incredible burnt out and hungry (lol). I stopped running, bought a mountain bike, leaned into backcountry skiing in the winters instead of spending my weekend doing specific workouts and catching up on sleep, got a real job (read as started my own business which had its own hardships), and really leaned into spending time outside with my friends in ways that that was not running. I felt pretty burnt out on running. I had terrible gut problems. I felt like my life was ruled by my gut and my food choices. I ate really healthy and did everything right, but still had endless gut stress.
In hindsight, I think I ran so much and unintendedly under fueled that I gave myself IBS. Cool. I went to Grad school for nutrition thinking that I knew all these great things about nutrition already, only to find out I know nothing (i’ll write another blog post about this in the future and link it HERE), and worked to turn my gut around. I also at this time got really excited about running again. But this time I wanted my running journey to be on trails and in the mountains. This felt way more true to me at this phase of life.
I got into trail running, found success, fell in love with it, and then found a way to make it flow with all the other sports I like doing. What a full circle moments! My multipronged business of Nutrition, coaching, and massage therapy and morphed and changed with me. It’s apart of me and ebbs and flows with my life as my professional and educational iterests change throught the seasons. Now, I help others who either struggle with burn out, gut health, chronic injuries or a running pivot get back to the sport the love and actually fuel well! Not gut stress, not injury, just pure enjoyment! AND it’s all scientifically backed.
Thanks for being here for my journey. I hope that I can help you in some capacity along the way.
-Katelyn