Strength Training for Trail Runners

So welcome everyone.

I'm Carly.

I'm going to talk about cross training for trail running today, as we have alluded to, but I'll start with a little bit of an introduction to me first.

So like I mentioned, I'm a holistic health coach.

My focus is on strength, nutrition, and health behavior change.

And like I had mentioned, my background's in psychology.

I did not have like a plan A or even B or C or D of winding up in the fitness space or owning my own business.

I actually started my career in financial consulting.

But I was an athlete my entire life growing up.

I was a competitive gymnast.

I played soccer, softball, tennis.

I can't sit still.

So I did all of the things.

And then I kind of fell out of sports when I graduated high school, went to college.

And then it wasn't until I met my one of my best friends who became my husband that I started lifting with him in college and caught the lifting bug and then eventually fell into competitive powerlifting after graduation.

And I really started coaching because as I was powerlifting, I was also like starting to climb the corporate ladder in financial consulting only to find myself completely miserable and jump between a whole bunch of different corporate jobs, none of which felt like a great fit.

And as I was experiencing all of this career turmoil underneath that, powerlifting and like strength and nutrition and just fitness in general was kind of the only thing that kept me anchored.

And so after job change, I don't know, six, I decided I cannot make just like another kind of half-assed change where I'm just going to do something else that probably isn't going to work.

And that was when I like fully jumped into the deep end and decided this is the thing I want to do.

I'm super passionate about it.

It's the thing I would do if nobody paid me to do it.

So that felt like the right path.

And a huge part of what shaped the coach that I am is the experiences that I've had in health and fitness.

So kind of being my own guinea pig, seeing especially like the mindset and the all or nothing challenges when my coaches would praise me for being totally perfect and never consider the mental toll that it was taking on me.

So I really strive now to be the type of coach that I wish that I had when I first got into it.