Becoming a Distance Runner - A Conversation with Ellen Wisbar

In episode 43, Chris and Jill talk with Ellen Wisbar, a CPA who started building her running distance over the past year.

Ellen Wisbar grew up on the west side of Cleveland Ohio and has always been interested in sports. She played volleyball and was on the track team in high school. At Miami University she moved on to intramural sports and graduated in 1985 with a Bachelors degree in Accounting.

After graduation, Ellen stayed active by sustaining a gym membership at various locations in Cleveland, running very casually, group exercise classes, skiing, biking, and participating in things like Corporate Challenge at work. Ellen is a CPA so by nature her job is pretty sedentary. At this point, she work in the legal department which requires some travel and no tax season, hours anymore.

In the summer of 2018, she completed a 5k in June for the first time ever without walking. When Ellen told a friend at LifeCenter about it, she invited Ellen to join a running group called Moms Run This Town. The informal running group schedules coffee runs each week, which helped Ellen to start running more consistently.

She ran the 10K Great Pumpkin Run in Akron last October, the Cleveland Half Marathon this past May and then the Akron Half in September.

They discuss:

• How she got motivated
• How she changed from a casual running into a distance runner
• Why having multiple race goals is a good idea
• How she got started running and built up her mileage
• What she brings to eat and fuel during the race
• Comparing different races
• Why she felt this half marathon was more fun than the first time she ran a half.
• Her plans for the future
• Hydration vest

Links mentioned in this podcast:

• Picky bar
  
• The training plan she used
  
• Her running group Moms Run This Town