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Welcome to GetFilt Babe, where we're not just building bodies, we're building confidence, consistency, and the life we love. I'm Abby Stark, a mom, nurse, and fitness lover with a passive mother. If you've ever wanted to start your fitness training but didn't know where to begin, or you're tired of starting over every Monday, you're in the right place. Here we build holistic fitness habits that actually fit your life. We talk about how to start, how to keep going, and how to fix the life gifts. You're capable of so much more than you think. Sometimes you just need the tools, the strategy, and a little support to prove it to yourself. And around here, we do not need feet. So grab your caffeine, place up your sneakers, and let's build strength, confidence, and a life you feel amazing in. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to the show. I'm super thrilled to have you here today, and I'm really excited to dive into what I have planned. Today I really wanted to dive into my last race. Something I've been doing in my adulthood is finding races that I really enjoy. One of them that I've recently discovered is the women's epic race. If you listen to my last episode with Maddie, we talk a little bit about the women's epic race. It was all because of Maddie that I was first inspired to do the race. So let me tell you a little bit about the Women's Epic Race. They have multiple different races. The one that I've been doing is the OG Brighton race at Brighton Ski Resort. It's three miles up a mountain and three miles back down. So it's close to a 2,000-foot elevation gain up in the high mountains of Utah. I first found out about that race through Maddie. She posted about how she did the race. Fun fact, she actually won the race. I saw her win it on social media and she posted a picture of her holding her son afterward. And I was so inspired when I saw that image of her holding her son after she had just completely slaughtered this race. At the time I was pregnant, I have always been someone who has loved and enjoyed fitness. Before I was pregnant with my daughter, I was doing a lot of strength training, counting my macros. When I got pregnant, I had to kind of take a break because I was so sick with my daughter. I was halfway through my pregnancy when I saw Maddie run this race. I was truly inspired. I was like, you know what? If Maddie can do this race, then so can I. It's something that I can come back after pregnancy and do. I remember that day in July being pregnant and I was committed. I was committed that the next year I was gonna come back and I was gonna run that race. I remember registering in January of 2025. I was only about a month postpartum and definitely not back to exercising, but I had faith in myself that I would be able to be ready by the time the end of July came around. I signed up for the race. Something nice about the Women's Epic series is at least for the Brighton race, they provide you with a training plan. And the training plan is about 12 weeks long. So I signed up January and then fast forward, I get the training plan. And about 12 weeks out from race day, I start training, and I had not been running at all postpartum. I had started doing strength training and some mobility, but I hadn't been running. And I started running again, and boy, was it rough. My body felt heavy, my legs felt like they couldn't move. I felt literally like I was shuffling around my park across the street from my house. It was kind of a rude awakening, and I was a little bit anxious. I was like, I don't know, I don't know how this race is gonna go. Well, I just stuck with the training plan. I followed it almost exactly. I did a lot of hill training, I did a lot of speed training, endurance training. My sister was amazing and ran with me. It was a very good experience. Then race day came up and I felt really prepared. I ran the race and parts of the course felt super difficult. And I remember my quads burning and feeling nervous about how the rest of the race was gonna go. About a mile going up, there was someone with a sign that said, if you can survive childbirth, then you can survive this race. Now, a little backstory. I had a really rough delivery with my daughter. She was not tolerating labor at all. I was not responding well to medications. Her heart rate was dropping a lot. We both were struggling really bad. My OB said that he would only give us two more hours, but it got to the point where I didn't feel confident anymore in having a safe delivery. And my daughter clearly wasn't doing well. So we decided to do a C-section and it turned emergent very quickly. When I saw that sign, I almost started crying right there on the course because I do feel like mine and my daughter's lives were on the edge of mortality in the afterlife. And we survived that. And I was like, you know what? That really is probably the hardest thing I've ever done. So if I can survive childbirth, I can survive this race. It just kind of lit a fire in me and tall butt up that mountain. And I remember getting to the top and being like, downhill's my strength, let's hit it hard. And I turned around and I went for it. I didn't stop to take a picture at the top. I didn't get the electrolyte drink. I rang the bell. But otherwise, I was just like, we're going. And I think I pushed myself a little too hard because I had noodly legs. And as soon as I got onto the cat track, which, if you're not a skier, that's the flat part on the mountain where you can traverse across the mountain rather than up or down it. So when I got to the cat track, I totally ate it and I just supermanned it straight into the dirt. Literally didn't even know what happened, just a perfect cloud of dust all around me. And it's like, okay, I gotta, I gotta reel it in a little bit and pace myself so I don't hurt myself. But, anyways, after that, I calmed it down a little bit, but I still pushed myself and I finished the race. And I finished my race at about an hour 29. And I remember crossing the finish line, and I don't know what it is about having kids, but ever since I had my daughter, finishes at races make me so emotional. I don't know what it is, but I get to the end of the race and I just start crying, and it doesn't even have to be me. I'll cry for you too. So I was just tears coming down my face because I was just so proud of myself for pushing myself to get to this point. Part of what made me so proud was I went through not only having delivered a baby via emergency C-section, so I recovered from major abdominal surgery. But if if any of you have ever had a kid, you know that you're not sleeping, the baby is eating all the time. It's a haul, it's a lot of work those early days. I was reflecting back on everything that I went through training for this race. I got through the newborn phase. My daughter thankfully had started sleeping through the night around four to five months. She was amazing to tolerate all the runs I would take her on. It looked kind of like getting my daughter to sleep so that I can rest and perform well. And all the times that I had to stop and adjust my schedule to feed her and adjust my schedule because she pooped. And then I just think about this sweet lady who lived nearby me who sold her running jogger for 40 bucks on Facebook Marketplace. Oh, that was a tender mercy because I don't know about anyone else, but starting a family makes you so poor. So that $40 jogger gave me so much freedom and liberty to go and run every day with my daughter. I can't even begin. And shout out to my daughter who would take her morning nap every day in that stroller. I was reflecting on all of that, and it just came compounding together. It's this great sense of pride. I was so proud of myself, and I wanted to show myself that I could push past the barrier and do something hard postpartum. That having a family and being a mom didn't have to define or stop who I am physically, that I'm capable of doing whatever it is that I feel like I want to accomplish. I I remember hugging my husband, and it was just the greatest sense of accomplishment. And I left that race very in love with that race and what it showed me. So I committed in my mind that I was gonna do it again next year and I was gonna recruit as many more girls and women to do the race with me. The year passes by and I tell myself, I want to beat last year's me. Now I know I was seven months postpartum, so there's still a lot of recovery to be had. If anyone tells you that you're recovered after six weeks, don't listen to them. I feel like the postpartum recovery process takes a year plus. But that doesn't mean that you can't do anything until a year plus. It's just that it's a slow process of re-strengthening muscles, retraining muscles, regaining mobility. All that you can start around six weeks or sooner postpartum, but just know that it's a process that your body takes time to improve and strengthen and get better. Anyways, I decided that I wanted to be myself from last year. And something that I didn't do with my training last year was strength training. I kind of dropped strength training because it just felt like too much to be running and doing strength training and taking care of a baby. I just had to drop something, right? Okay, so I was like, I'm gonna go back to strength training. I like running, but not enough to do it year-round. So I'm just gonna go for walks with my daughter in the morning, do strength training, and then I'll start running again when the spring comes back around again. So that's what I did throughout the year, especially after the new year, I've really tried to focus on getting at least 100, 130 grams of protein a day, taking my strength training seriously, pushing myself to failure, and being committed to doing at least 30 minutes three to five times a week. Now, I will say that it wasn't a perfect process, but I did my best. And I will say that I noticed a difference. And this is why. When I started running again in the spring, running felt so much easier and so much lighter than it did the year before. Okay, that right there was shocking to me. I was expecting it to be the hard grind all over again, like it was the year previous, but it wasn't. I felt strong, I felt light, I felt mobile, and I can only attribute that to the continuation of strengthening and stretching my body throughout the year. Well, I was super excited to feel how much easier running was this year. I still had to slowly build up my miles, but it wasn't as painful or as fatiguing on my muscles as it was the first time getting back into running. Well, I started training, and this year I decided that I wanted to keep strength training on top of running. But again, I still have my daughter and now she's even busier toddler. And so I was like, okay, I can't do both in the same day, but I wonder if I could do something where I could still include strength training and running and still be prepared for race day. Essentially, my split looked like running about three times a week and then doing strength training about two to three times a week. And sometimes I did run and strength train on the same day, but my run was very short those days. So it just kind of depended on the day and what the week looked like. I really wanted to make sure I was at least keeping strength training in my week. So I did that. I was eating at least 100-130 grams of protein a day. I was trying to keep my calories around 1700. I think some days I ate more, sometimes less. I just tried to really listen to my body. And I feel like the biggest difference I did aside from keeping strength training was not stressing it so much. So if I missed a strength training or if I missed a running workout, I just didn't sweat it. I was like, you know what? It is what it is, and I know that I'm stronger than I think I am. If it might suck a little more, but whatever. I got this and we're gonna keep going. The other thing I did differently was on my Saturday long run days, I would hit the trails up the mountain and just head straight up the mountain and then run down rather than just going for a long seven to eight mile run on Saturdays. I incorporated those different things this year and I didn't sweat it too much. I think it's very good to not add to the stress because if you're a mom or if you're working full-time and you have lots of other responsibilities, we don't need the extra stress on our shoulders. We just need to keep moving forward and feel proud of ourselves, right? I didn't stress things as much, but it did make me a little bit worried about how race day was gonna go because I was a little bit like, oh, whatever. This is my plan. I stuck to it pretty good, but I was also like, whatever. Especially towards the last few weeks before race day. I missed some of my long runs because my husband was out of town, and it's not easy to take a toddler up the mountain, right? I it was a little rocky, but I had stuck to the plan, probably for sure, at least 80%. And you know what? The bottom line is that I climb that mountain and I show myself that I can do this. Race day comes and I try to stick to my normal thing, eat my normal food, just kind of keep it just like another running day. I find my friends that I was able to recruit. I recruited my mom, my sister, my sister-in-law did it with me the year before, and I got her to come back. I got another friend, and then there was a couple of other friends that were there that I didn't necessarily recruit, but I love that they were there. So it was so fun to gather with all the girls. My in-laws were there, my daughter was there. It was a great day. The gun goes off, and we head up the mountain. As we're going up the mountain, I'm realizing that they kept the course the same. So I was like, cool, I've done this before. As we're going up the mountain, I realize that I'm remembering different parts of the course. And I'm remembering, oh, this part was really hard for me last year. Oh, I remember this part. This part sucked. But I just did it just fine. And I could not believe how much stronger I felt this year. And it just, ooh, it it went like sparks through my body. I was so excited about the fact that I had just climbed all these hills that I remember doing the year before that really kicked my butt. But this year they felt a lot smoother. That was an amazing feeling. And I kept thinking, okay, push off your knees one step at a time. And the last hill before you turn around is so steep. And I knew it because, right, the course had been the same. And I remember looking at that hill and thinking, you're mine, because I am not gonna let you take down this amazing race that I'm having. And I put my head down and I pushed off my knees and I just went up one step after another. Before I knew it, the hill was over and I was already at the top. And I could not, I could not believe that how much better this race had gone. And of course, me and my competitive nature was like, not stopping, I'm turning around. So I rang the bell, ran around it, and headed back down. And I paced myself on the way down. I told the cat track, not today. I'm gonna stay upright this time. I started just allowing gravity to carry me down. The downhill is my strength. So I allowed gravity and my strengths to carry me down. As I was going down, I just kind of hit this point of euphoria. I must have been having a runner's high after climbing that mountain because it's three miles up, 2,000-foot elevation game, right? I remember feeling like I was flying. Kind of how you imagine running in heaven would feel like where it's not hard, you're flying, you're going fast, and it's free, and ooh, so happy. I was like, this is the race of my dreams. And I've never had a race like that before. Literally, I've never had a race like that. To give some context, my parents would put me on 5Ks when I was a kid, and then I ran track in junior high. I ran track through high school, and I also did cross country in high school. I've done other triathlons. I've done a lot of races, okay? And I've never once felt like I was flying during a race. I've always felt like I was the slow one fighting for my life to keep up with the fast people. That's how I've always felt. And I would have dreams that I would actually get my legs stuck and run even slower. The fact that I felt the complete opposite was a dream come true. I never have ever felt like I was flying in a race before. I was so thrilled to have this feeling of flying as I was going down the mountain. Then the terrain starts to go uphill a little bit and flatten out. My legs were gassed from going up. It all came crashing down and it felt really hard. And I was like, holy crap, am I gonna be able to finish this? I feel like garbage now. I thought I was gonna pee my pants, I thought I was gonna throw up, I thought I was gonna crash out. And I had to come back and remind myself that I am capable. I am strong. Just breathe and pace yourself. So I did, and I kind of came back to it, and I was able to let gravity carry me down once I got back to the downhill. Something about the women's epic race is when you register, you put in a little blurb that you want them to announce when you cross the finish line. Last year, I think I did Yeehaw, and people do cool things like she's a mom who just finished dental school, and there's others where they're like veteran of 25 years. People put funny things, they put inspiring things, and they announce it when you cross the finish line. I had registered for this year's race back in January or February. I could not remember at all what I had written down for them to announce at the finish lines. I remember coming down that left stretch and thinking, I I wonder what I put for them to announce when I cross the finish line. I guess I'll find out. I get to that last hill and I'm pushing it across the finish line. They announce number one two two seven, Abby Stark, proving you can do hard things. Oh my gosh. I didn't know that's what I wrote. Like I said, I'm a crier at the finish line. I started crying, man, because I have become so passionate this year about the fact that we are capable of so much more than we think. Literally, we can be moms, we can raise those babies, we can get them to sleep, we can get through those tough nights, we can feed them, we can play with them, and we can take care of our own bodies and strengthen our bodies and uh accomplish hard things. We can do it all. We can do it all. It may not look perfect, it may not be smooth, it may take a lot of time, but we can do it. When I crossed that finish line and heard them say proving you can do hard things, how that really got to me. Anyways, if you are feeling like you are in the depths of motherhood, in the depths of work, and you have these goals that you're wanting to accomplish. I want you to stop and breathe and picture your success. I want you to know that if I can do it, you can do it. I I want to show other women that they can do it because you can do it and you will do it. You just gotta commit and go for it. Just start. That's the number one thing they say with any kind of self-improvement is to just go for it and do it. And I promise, no matter what happens, you will be so incredibly proud of yourself. You will. After I got through the finish line, I met up with my sister. She's a beast on the mountain, and so I found her. She was already dead. And I remembered that I really wanted to PR my time. And I remember stopping my watch. It had only been a couple minutes. I didn't stop my watch right at the finish line, but it had only been a couple minutes. And I stopped it and it was under the time that I had finished at last year. So I knew for a fact that I PR'd. Then I came to find out that I PR'd by like four to five minutes, which, if you're a runner, that's huge. I learned that strength training really is the bomb diggity. Prioritizing strength training is what kept me at getting stronger, even though I wasn't running every day. Anyways, I was super proud to see that my new training plan that I created for myself had worked and that strength training really does carry us further than you'd think. It applies to all areas of our lives. It applies to playing with our children. It applies to the physical goals that we have for ourselves, whether it be actual strength training or not. It was an amazing race. I was on such a runner's high. I was so happy and proud of myself for that day. It really showed me that we are capable of so much more than we think. That we, if we will commit to being consistent with ourselves, even through the imperfections, we will get stronger. You just have to commit to being consistent. There's an 80-20 rule, right? 80% of the time, you're getting your workouts done and you're eating healthy. 20% of the time is everything else. I really wanted to dedicate an episode to the women's epic race because it really showed me that we are way cooler than we think we are and that we're way stronger than we think we are. And all we have to do is give ourselves just a little bit of attention, time, and consistency. And it comes together. It's so worth taking the time to train and do something that gives you that sense of pride and accomplishment. Something that I think is almost even better than proving something to yourself is teaching your children that they are capable of doing hard things too. I want you to know you can do hard things. I highly recommend picking a race that you can sign up for. It does not have to be the Women's Epic Race. Although I would highly recommend the Women's Epic Race. They have lots of races. They've got two different 10Ks and a half marathon, but it can look like a Spartan. I have friends who do like bodybuilding compet competitions. It can look like a marathon on it, could be a triathlon. It could be anything. I would so strongly recommend that you find something, you train for it, and then you prove to yourself that you can do hard things and that you're capable of so much more. I hope you know how strong you are, and I hope you continue to discover your strength. I plan to continue doing more races that I find enjoyable. It's purely something that I enjoy, and that gives me a sense of pride. I have next in the books to do a high rocks race in September. Super excited to see how that goes. And then I'll probably hunker down and enjoy the holidays and keep strengthening my body throughout the winters. Let me know what races you guys do. Send in your results, send in your accomplishments. I want to hear more about what you're accomplishing. I would love to share your success with others as well. So let's create a community where we are hardworked working women achieving success together. Thank you so much for hanging out with me on Get Built Babe. If you know someone who would be an amazing guest for the podcast, or maybe that person is you and you have knowledge, experience, or story you'd love to share, reach out to me through the link in the show notes or send me a DM on Instagram or TikTok. If you love this episode, please share it with your girlfriends, your sisters, your mom, and anyone else who's ready to do more for themselves. And then join me on social media at Git FiltFase. Let's do the hard thing together. I want to see your progress and celebrate with you. Because after all, consistency will take you farther than perfection ever could. See you next time, babe.

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Hey babe.

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Quick reminder though I am a nurse, this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. This does not replace the advice of a licensed healthcare professional. Take what serves you, do what's best for your body, and always seek professional guidance when needed.