Welcome to Episode 82 of Seasoned Athlete with Robin Legat!
In this episode, I have Selene Yeager, host of Hit Play, Not Pause: A Feisty Menopause Podcast. We talk about her life as an athlete, fitness writer, and author. She also shares her no-nonsense tips to maximize your fitness through perimenopause and beyond.
We discuss:
- Selene’s Career From Fitness Writing To Biking
- Selene’s Book With Dr. Stacy Sims
- Hit Play, Not Pause: A Feisty Menopause Podcast
- Women Specific Triathlons
...and more!
Listen to the full episode:
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Here are some highlights:
Selene Yeager’s Athletic Life Story
“I started playing sports in high school. When I was coming up, there weren't really any of those club sports that you could do when you were younger,” Yeager said. “So we just did what kids did, just played around the neighborhood, and then when I got into high school, I tried to run cross country because that's what my brother did. I vomited the first practice, hated it, and I said, ‘This is the worst’ Then I decided that I wanted to do something else, and I played field hockey and stuff,” Selene said. “I was a front wing, left wing, and I did that pretty well. Actually, I got a scholar athlete to Penn State. I did not play at the collegiate level because that was like a job. But I always ride my bike everywhere. I never knew that people raced. I didn't know anything about any of that growing up. But I was one of those weird kids that would just ride everywhere even when people were driving, 'cause I just really thought it was cool.”
Selene Yeager’s Road To Fitness Writing
“I was a writer first. I graduated and I was a medical writer actually, which was kind of horrible. I wrote for titles like ‘Infectious Diseases in Children,’ things that were not awesome,” Selene said. “I really wanted to do consumer facing. I was very interested in that, and I kept sending resumes and they kept sending me very lovely rejection letters. Then at some point a headhunter picked up my resume in that pile and found me, so I got hired to write. And at the time, they had their own book division, it was like a machine, like the writing Mill, and we would all just crank out these books And then I fell in with the bicycling crew and at the time you could internally freelance. You can't really do that anymore. But at the time I could freelance while in one division for other divisions.”
Writing For ‘Ask The Fitness Chick’
“Then I got so into it, they hired me at first to write their fitness column, hence the ‘fit chick' thing. It was ‘Ask The Fitness Chick,’ Selene said. “So I did all this sort of ancillary things, offseason training and very light bike training things. Then I decided that I wanted to pursue that a little further, and I got a coaching license. Since then, I've gotten a nutrition coaching certificate, so I was always pursuing just a little bit more so I could be more of a service to the reader. It just sort of evolved over time that way, but again, I never imagined that 20 years later, I'd still be contributing at that level. It's been a really great ride and I still very much enjoy it. It's changed over time. So it's not like I'm doing the exact same thing.”
What Selene Yeager Has Learned From Previous Challenges
“A lot of it was trusting the process and going all in on something. I would never do it [Conan] again, because it was a tremendous strain on my household,” Yeager said. “It was a ton of strain on me, it was a joke to some people, but I know people who get divorced and lose their job in pursuit of Conan. I know them well, and I had no desire to be one of them. So if I hadn't made it to Conan, we would not have been doing it again anyway, but I think there's real value in sinking yourself fully into a goal at least once, a big goal. A big scary goal. And you can tell your family, this isn't forever. This is gonna suck sometimes, but I am all in and I need you to support me.”
How Selene’s Book With Dr. Stacy Sims Came To Be
“It was with Dr. Stacy Sims, for those who don't know. I can't take credit for all the science, but I had gone to a coaching Summit,” Selene said. “In short, the book is about training to work, training and eating. That's important to work with your female physiology. Dr. Stacy Sims, I saw her at a USA cycling coaching Summit, which has traditionally, in years past have been just a big boys club. You can see the same guys talking the same stuff, a couple of women here and there, but this woman got up and a friend of mine, he said, ‘You should go this year, I think you're really gonna like this woman,’ so I sat and she got up and she started talking about women's periods and I was like, ‘Who is this person talking to this room of mostly men, talking all about women's periods and how it affects their regulation and their blood plasma levels, and it was amazing. When she walked out the door, it was like the Messiah had walked out, like everybody just got up and started following her. And I stood in line and I said, ‘You need a book and I can write it.’ And she said, alright, okay.”
A Second Book With Dr. Stacy Sims
“We are working on a followup book because we included, as you know, one chapter on menopause, '' Selene said. “That was 2016. I was perimenopausal, but still competing at a pretty high level, and still doing stage races all over the place. I thought I was really on top of everything. We were starting to hear rumblings from women that one chapter really was not sufficient, and they started a hashtag, ‘forgotten athlete.’ She was like, ‘Oh, okay, we know now,’ but I get it. One chapter is not a whole lot. With a big topic like that, where you could literally write a whole book on it. And I was like, ‘Okay, let's write a whole book on it.’ And so we started to.”
Hit Play, Not Pause: A Feisty Menopause Podcast
“They were gonna do a webinar, and they asked me if I'd speak for Dr. Stacy Sims livestream media team. It's a women owned media team, they're awesome women. And they were telling me I should do a webinar. It's like there should be a podcast. And they're like, ‘Do you wanna do it?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, of course. And I had been podcasting before and I really like the format and I thought it would just be so perfect.”
Lifting Heavy Is Great For Women
“I want to say I'm sorry for every woman I've ever told back in the 1990s, ‘Lift light weights 20 times. Tone your muscles.’ We still fight it, and we know so much more now. ‘Cause at the time, we were getting so much of that information of strength training from the bodybuilding world,” Yeager said. “That's where all that information was coming down from. They're getting it from physical therapy or body building. It was still very confusing, but we know now that you can deadlift or squat an awful lot of weight and not turn into a body builder because it's on a neuromuscular level. You're waking stuff up. That's really important to keep your muscles strong and connected and your neuromuscular health. You do that by lifting heavy stuff. Your muscles need that stimulation. Especially as you lose estrogen because you're losing those messengers like your body is not getting the signals that estrogen would normally give it. So you have to help it out.”
Triathlons Used To Be A Purely Man’s Sport
“I think we're living in a really, really good time for that. Honestly, my world is heavily cycling obviously, but I think triathlons have many great entry points because you can do a sprint triathlon that's even very women specific. You can pick and choose and find when it has a ton of women and there's a ton of women in triathlon, period, I would just say get a swim coach because it will really help you if you're like most people and afraid of the water. And that can help you a lot. But for cycling, like when I first started, it was a sea of men, and it was pretty intimidating, if you weren't just bold enough to sort of step into it. I could see why you wouldn't, but with the new kind of cycling that's very popular in this country, especially his gravel,” Selene said.
“All it is is ride events on mostly unpaved roads, so there's a lot of lovely things about that, you're sort of out of traffic, you don't really need a team. It's not all PR, a lot of people are just in it to just experience. And sometimes they're quite long, like 200 miles, but they almost always have shorter options. For the one in Kansas, you can do 25 miles, you can do 50, or you can do a half distance. But the community at those events is incredibly welcoming, it's an incredibly welcoming community, you'll see tons of people who look just like you. There are communities you can find online, like women gravel, you can just Google any of that, and you'll find all of these places online that you can ask questions like, ‘What kind of tires do I need,’ 'cause you don't know, you get so much stuff.”
Stay Within Yourself
“I can't claim this is my own creation because it's not. It's actually in a Public Enemy song of all things, but I have had it written on my whiteboard for the past 20 years,” Yeager said. “It's ‘Don't let a win go to your head or a loss to your heart,’ and I try to live by that in everything. When I am successful in my career, I don’t let that go to my head, and if things are bad, don't let that go to my heart. That keeps you just sort of even looking at the hit and just putting one foot in front of the other without, again, staying within yourself. I keep saying that, but I try to live by that.”
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If you want to stop feeling old and start living BOLD, register for ‘Age Like an Athlete’ webinar on October 15, 2020. Click here to sign up.
You will learn...
Why exploring your athletic potential at any age can be life-changing in every way
What messages and stereotypes about age you need to let go of right NOW
What's the first step you need to take to set you on a new athletic journey at any age or fitness background
What key mental, emotional and physical shifts to take to age like an athlete!
Connect with Selene Yeager here.
Listen to Hit Play, Not Pause: A Feisty Menopause Podcast here.