Welcome to episode 258 of the Women’s Running podcast. I’m your host Esther Newman and she’s your other host Holly Taylor. On this podcast we talk about health, politics, stuff on TV and what we ate last night. Occasionally, we talk about running.

After a lot of blather about cordless vacuum cleaners (it’s the content you’ve been crying out for) we talk about our pace and fitness dropping off post-marathon. We also talk about the difficulty of trying to create goals that aren’t necessarily about pace.

We then move on to the gym, exploring the differences in experience and price for a gym memberships. There’s a HUGE variety, which we sort of knew, but goodness, not everyone is paying 30 quid a month, it turns out! Then we move on to gym class intimidation or gymtimidation if you will. And we lead into children and sport, and the concept of being “good at sport” – something we’ll get back into in a forthcoming pod. We thought there was nothing to talk about, but it turns out that there’s a lot!

If you aren’t a patron yet do join us on Patreon for just £2 a month, through which you can join Discord, our forum just for you, our gorgeous Pod Squad, to meet up, chat about running, TV, books, menopause, and anything else you like. You also get to come along to our Live Pods! To get access to Discord, all you need to do is head to patreon.com/womensrunning and join us for just £2 a month.

Lovely extra bits

• Subscribe to Women’s Running – and you can save 50%
• Sign up to the Westonbirt Half (or other distances), and check out the other races from Relish Running while you’re there
• Get tickets to our live event ahead of the Bath Half 2026!
• Setting up your own podcast? Try Zencastr – we’ve been using it for ages and LOVE IT
• Do join us on Patreon so you can come and chat in our new Pod Squad community on Discord! Go to patreon.co.uk/womensrunning
• Email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories

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