Welcome to episode 261 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.

We start with some hot service station chat, and also some controversial service station chat. But then we quickly move on to the highlight of Holly’s holiday (that’s hard to say) in Berlin, which is something she would always do, but something I would never do. I’ll leave you to guess what it is.

We talk about my Cornish holiday and my new wetsuit. If you fancy finding wetsuits a joy rather than a trauma, then check out the range at Orca. Mine is a beautiful orange thing and I love it more than my children.

We do eventually get around to running – we’ve both been doing a bit of escapism on our holidays, which I thoroughly recommend. But even though I’ve been escaping, I’ve still got a lot to complain about. Don’t cancel us just because I’m horrible about pretty much everyone, I think it’s hormonal.

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%

· Find your perfect holiday wetsuit from Orca

• 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

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to episode 260 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.

In this episode we’re joined by Renee McGregor, who as well as many other amazing things, is our August cover star – make sure you pick up a copy of Women’s Running from all good shops now to read our interview with her. Renee is a world renowned sport nutritionist and eating disorder specialist, she’s an ultra runner and a trustee of Black Trail Runners. Author of Fuel for Thought.

We chat to her about some of the themes we were talking about a few weeks ago: about how runners can fuel themselves well, warning signs to look out for in terms of getting the balance between training and fuelling right, and the complexity of figuring this out when you’re going through perimenopause. We also touch on how things have changed for women; how society influences our view of ourselves and our shapes, and the impact of weightloss jabs. It’s one of those must-listen episodes.

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%
• Pick up Renee’s brilliant book Fuel for Thought from a popular selling site, or from the publisher directly, and find out more about her.
• 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

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to episode 259 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.

Today we’re talking about how we’re managing our running in the recent heatwave at the beginning of July. And we have *some* resolution to the – I’m sure by now – extremely dull London Marathon chat.

We need to remind you at this point that if you’re up for running the Bath Half with us in March next year, do please sign up, because if you do, you can then come and join us at our live event the night before, which will be filled with fun and giggles and perhaps a few tips on how to survive the Half the following day. Make sure you pick up your tickets to come and see us (they’re only a tenner) from Eventbrite. Google Women’s Running Bath Half event if the link doesn’t work!

I also bring up a controversy – tell us what you think about marathons having time penalties if they’ve got lots of downhill! Then we get on to PE at school – what are your experiences, what do you think of the PE provision we have these days for kids?

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

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to episode 257 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.

We’re still debating whether or not we should do the London marathon - yawn. We talk about regrets from our 2025 marathon, and what we’d do differently. We also chat about sports watches – Holly is just tipping into the possibility of actually committing to one.

Our sandwich filling this issue is Laura Fountain, part of the WR family, friend of the pod, Run Tester, and run coach, and many more qualifications besides. We wanted to drag her on this issue cos Hol is very interested in Hyrox, and Laura not only knows what it is, she’s actually done one, and has all the info and lots of thoughts on who else should participate. She tells us it’s way more inclusive than it sounds, and that it’s brilliant for women, despite what you might see on social media. It still hasn’t quite pushed it into must-do for me, but Hol still remains Hy-curious.

Oh and spoiler: Holly’s Lemsip did NOT work, as you’ll discover in the next episode.

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

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to episode 256 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.

We’ve got a bit of a Glasto recap, and then we’re talking about surviving the heat – how running makes us feel in this weather, and how we need to listen to our heart rates.

We revisit our London Marathon chat – should we or shouldn’t we? Holly is still undecided, I’m beginning to be swayed… We’ve had lots of messages from you guys telling us what you think about us running it, but also about how you feel about media places at the London Marathon. All very interesting, and we don’t feel told off, which of course is the main thing.

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

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to episode 255 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.

TW: for a section of the podcast from about 50 minutes in, we talk about weightloss and eating disorders and weightloss jabs in light of some messages that we’ve received after our past few podcasts.

We start with the hot topics of this week: namely, what would persuade us to go to Glastonbury. And from one ticket ballot to another, we then talk about London Marathon ballot – over a million people applying for just 17,000 places. We talk about the people who succeed at ballot, and those who are given a place by other means – and we also talk about whether we should or shouldn’t sign up to it again.

We revisit our past podcasts about weightloss and eating disorders with a few emails from you lot that adds information and experience to some of the main things that we’ve spoken about. Do please keep on sending in your emails and messages, as we think this is a conversation that will run and run.

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.

• Subscribe to Women’s Running – and you can save 50%
• Read the story in the Metro here (NB: all comments I read out have now been taken down)
• 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

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to episode 254 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.

We’re interrupting our recent very serious run of podcasts with nothing of any serious note whatsoever. We’ve been swanning around that London (almost) winning an award, and we have lots of stories, some of them toilet-based.

We talk about our running over the past few weeks, and the kit that has enhanced it – which leads us on to super shoes: do we deserve to wear them? Do they help slower runners? Does anyone care? Do you think they’re not for you? Tell us! Email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk or over on Discord.

Speaking of which, 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 pick up 6 issues for £6
• Read the story in the Metro here (NB: all comments I read out have now been taken down)
• 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

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.