Brian's Run Pod
Welcome to Brian's Run Pod, the podcast where we lace up our running shoes and explore the exhilarating world of running. Whether you're a seasoned marathoner, a casual jogger, or just thinking about taking your first stride, this podcast is your ultimate companion on your running journey.
Join us as we dive deep into the sport of running, covering everything from training tips and race strategies to personal stories and inspiring interviews with runners from all walks of life. Whether you're looking to improve your race times, stay motivated, or simply enjoy the therapeutic rhythm of running, Brian's Run Pod has something for every runner.
Brian's Run Pod
Hannah's Journey: From Court to Open Road
Hannah Mulhern's journey from collegiate basketball player to passionate runner illustrates how life changes can lead to newfound freedom and mental clarity. This episode highlights the impact of running on mental health, the importance of setting goals, and how overcoming challenges on the track translates into resilience in life.
• Exploring the connection between sports and mental health
• Hannah's transition from basketball to running
• The importance of finding joy in movement
• Strategies for overcoming the awkwardness of starting a new sport
• The role of setting goals in achieving personal growth
• Navigating the challenges of injuries and training
• The significance of community in the running world
• How to embrace discomfort for personal transformation
• Encouragement for those hesitant to start their running journey
Hannah's Podcast
Plus, we have a new feature on the podcast you can now send me a message. Yep you heard it right- Brian's Run Pod has become interactive with the audience. If you look at the top of the Episode description tap on "Send us a Text Message". You can tell me what you think of the episode or alternatively what you would like covered. If your lucky I might even read them out on the podcast.
Instagram
So you're thinking about running but not sure how to take the first step. My name is Brian Patterson and I'm here to help. Welcome to Brian's RomPod. Hey there, runners and go-getters. Welcome back to another episode of brian's run pod and where we lace up our shoes, hit the pavement and dive into the stories that keep us moving forward. I'm your host, brian patterson, and today we've got a really special guest who's taken the art of chasing goals, both on and off the track, to a whole new level.
Speaker 1:Join me today to the incredible Hannah Mulhern. She's a retired D1 collegiate basketball player who found a second love in running, not just for the miles but for the mental clarity and the life lessons it brings. Hannah's journey is all about transformation, how she traded the corporate grind to the mission to inspire others and, as she puts it, do epic shit today. Hannah's the creator and the host of the Do Epic Shit Today podcast, a space where she shares empowering conversations with runners, entrepreneurs, self-starters Her goal to remind us that all that we are capable of way more than we give ourselves credit for. We'll be diving into her story resilience, discipline and how running has shaped her approach to life and maybe, just maybe, she'll inspire you to take the next epic step into your own journey. So grab your headphones, hit the trail and let's get into it. Hannah, welcome to the podcast. I thought you might like that.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, that was awesome. Well, yeah, thank you so much for having me on. That was so beautifully said. Thank you, that intro was lovely.
Speaker 1:Thank you, it's all right, no problem. Beautifully said, thank you. That intro was lovely. Thank you, it's all right, no problem. Um now, uh, like I do with most of my guests, I kind of like to start right at the beginning, sort of maybe um high school. You know what was your relationship like with, with exercise and running. I know you're quite tall, so um was, and I know you went to um you you did basketball at quite a high level at a college level, so was exercise always part. You know about your um journey. You know, growing up, yeah.
Speaker 2:So yes, I'm very tall, I'm six two. So growing up I wasn't always kind of the, I didn't always stick out, but probably more middle school it was like, okay, she's, there's tall, and then there's Hannah tall, like we're talking a full head above everybody else, and so growing up people kind of saw my mom and recognized my mom is 6'1".
Speaker 1:Oh right.
Speaker 2:Recognized and my biological father is like 6, four, six, five. So it was just looking at the two of them and just kind of like, okay, they're probably going to have a tall offspring of just the given. And with that sort of background I think a lot of coaches and people that had sports teams kind of kept on the back of their mind, um, as like oh, hannah's going to be really tall, and that sort of put my foot into the assumption that people were going to assume I played a sport. It wasn't like you know, does Hannah want to play? It's no, she's tall, she's going to play. And luckily for me, I actually really found playing sports quite fun. It was very much what I did after school every day on the weekend. So it was, you know, soccer, um, t-ball and volleyball, um. I dabbled in horseback riding, so anything to kind of burn off that energy. I was a pretty energetic kid and my mom was like let's just put her in a whole bunch of sports, cause she likes to do that.
Speaker 2:And um um, you know, she's fairly athletic, so she's, she's decent there. So sports and, you know, exercise, were always something that I grew up doing and felt very comfortable with right. Um, and then, just as I got older and I started just being so much taller than a lot of people, yeah, it was just more of okay and, uh, it was just kind of what basketball just kind of took form, because that's mainly a sport that you're. You see, height being a favorable factor. I do think, though, if, like, a volleyball coach would have gotten to me first okay, would have played volleyball.
Speaker 2:Um, it wasn't like basketball was the end-all, be-all. It was just what my friends were playing and I had a really passionate basketball coach who was like you are tall, let's make you into a weapon. Like let's go and like fired me up and saw so much potential yeah so that's kind of why basketball took more of the realms there and other sports started to fall off.
Speaker 1:Uh, but yes, to answer your question exercise has very much been a so just to to hone in, because I know I've heard of this before um, when I interviewed a uh, an olympic athlete, stewart hayes um, he was in the 2012 triathlon uh gb team, but he said how he got into sport was because he had this excess energy. And basically his parents said we, you know, and he wasn't able to sleep and you know, there's he was. It was a complete nightmare for his parents. So basically, they got him to do swimming. And so were you that kind of kid? Where did you have this kind of excess energy that you had to burn off?
Speaker 2:um, I definitely have at some of this day, don't like sitting. Still, I can get there, like if I burn myself out, like I've had a, you know, a long run or a crazy day. I'm okay with being on the couch, but I've always had this like, let's do something, let's let's go outside and explore, let's go um run on the beach, let's go look for shells. I grew up on a small beach town called Cayugas in California. It's teeny, tiny, like maybe 11 or a thousand to 1500 people, and what my mom would always and I would always do is go look for shells. We were always walking, we were always biking somewhere, we were doing something. So I don't think I was like an energizer bunny level, but, like you mentioned before with the the Olympic athlete you referenced, but I was just the kid who was. You know, you weren't going to put a book in my hand or a like a show on the tv and I was going to sit there. It was going to be okay.
Speaker 1:I need to be stimulated by movement yeah, oh, that's good and I suppose um did the weather help? I mean, was it kind of? I mean, I'm kind of stereotypical, thinking that California is kind of you know, 52 weeks of the year sunshine, sort of thing, so you've always you've got no excuse to be not going out.
Speaker 2:I would, for I don't know, for folks who aren't familiar with, like the California landscape. There's Northern California, which is, you know, the San Francisco area. There's the Southern California, which is like the LA, the San Clemente, the San Diego's well, that's lower Southern California and smack dab in the middle is the central coast and that's where I'm from. So the weather was, you know, cloudy, sunny, we had a little bit of of a mix, but it wasn't anything where it was like pounding rain all the time or snowing or anything of that sort. I was very fortunate to have kind of the beach as my backyard and a mom who understood my, my, my passion for movement and kind of like let's get her outside and do something.
Speaker 1:So were you an only child, or or did you? Do you have siblings?
Speaker 2:I'm. Uh, so my mom had she was a single parent for quite a bit. She had me at 22, all right, so it was just kind of her and I for a bit. And then she remarried or got married for the first time and had my brother when I was 10. So I'm the oldest sibling by 10 years, so I had a very special relationship with my mom.
Speaker 2:So, it was just her and I kind of exploring and doing things together and then, as once my little brother entered the picture, you know, I got to have a buddy to do stuff with. Like that was kind of my like, you know like around and go do stuff Exactly, yeah, yeah. But to put it into perspective, at one point I remember my mom put one of those exercise trampolines in my room. Yeah, I could jump, just because, like I mean, you know, like you talk about the movement, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so I would jump on the little trampoline with my brother and we were just kind of like getting going out and collecting bugs and dirt and plants and we were always kind of exploring, uh, but yes, only child for 10 years and then my brother came in make sure it was awesome so, before getting to the running, which is yeah the object of the podcast.
Speaker 1:Um, so you got into basketball. I mean, I played basketball when I was in um senior school or whereas you were high school, um, and it was one of the uh the exercises, if not, I mean I think it was. It was very much down to we had a really good coach who played at a national league level, um, and his enthusiasm, I think, really helped. But, um, obviously, basketball um in states is very much at a different level. So how, um going into the collegiate level? I mean, what was your? How did you feel um about you know, sort of basketball, that at a college level?
Speaker 2:yeah, I, because I think a lot of college basketball comes from high school, like there's there's definitely a difference in level, but the relationship and pass off from high school. There's definitely a difference in level, but the relationship and pass off between high school and college is so not sensitive, but it's such an interesting time.
Speaker 2:And so in high school, like I mentioned, my basketball coach in high school got to me very passionate hold your tall, let's turn into a weapon. And my closest friends played so for me it was just a no brainer turn into a weapon and my closest friends played so for me it was just a no-brainer to play this sport. And I had an amazing coach Tiny, not tiny, but shorter Italian man. Just this fire and passion for us to be the best versions of ourselves. And that's what he would tell us I'm looking for you to be the best version by being 1% better every day. 1%, I don't need 20%, I need 1%, and we're here. In a year You're going to be 365% better.
Speaker 2:He was just one of the greatest coaches I've ever had the opportunity to work with, and so he recognized that I had the ability to play in college and I was a very humble player. I would get these accolades and, you know, do break records, but I was never cocky, I was never disrespectful, I never thought my shit didn't scream, didn't stink to be my friend, but like I was very grounded, um, and so I wasn't even really doing much to further my career in regards, like you see players playing travel ball and submitting videotapes to these head coaches. I wasn't doing that because it was just a foreign concept to me, like remember, tiny town, minimal people. You have a high school coach who's got this passion and he actually sent videos to other head coaches on my behalf. I didn't know he was so were you on a?
Speaker 1:were you, were you taken on a scholarship then? I was oh, right, okay yeah.
Speaker 2:So I was taken on to a scholarship um, and when you get to the d1 level, it's that that decision is. So you're 17, 18 and you have options. And I was fortunate enough to have options to play at division one on scholarship. And I looked at d2 and I was like, if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do it and we're gonna go, we're gonna do this to the full experience. So I, you know, removed the d2 options. It was like here's my d1.
Speaker 2:It was, it was quite the process, but you're so young yeah when you're handed this kind of like okay, pick a school, we're going to be for the next four years and your parents can act as a guide. But it really comes down to you. Know what? What's a major that you're interested in? What's the things that are important to you as a player? Right, is it important to you to have really close camaraderie or is it maybe more important to have a little bit less camaraderie? But it's a really cool academic opportunity. All of that comes into play.
Speaker 2:And so I ended up staying a bit closer to home and went to a Division I college called California Polytechnic. It's Cal Poly, san Luis Obispo, smaller D1 school. That was, I think, perfect for me in regards to not knowing what I was getting myself into, to the intensity of what D1 sports is, because it's a business. When you get Division One, it's no longer about just the love of the game, it's how can we get people in the seats, how can we travel, how can we? It becomes a business. So that's that part was really tricky for years of just kind of coming into that space and recognizing again that I had the physical ability and the grit and termination to be a really good player so I was shooting a thousand shots every day, maybe 4 am.
Speaker 2:Poly is also a polytechnic school yeah, so it's academically difficult.
Speaker 2:So it was just all of the boxes of, like you know, spiritual, mentally, physically, like all of my components of being a human were just overstimulated. And so I'm so fortunate for that experience and what it taught me about I management and hustle and figuring out, like what matters, and knowing how to say hey, I need to slow down. Um, so that way, when my four years was up, I was, you know, first team, all conference, like I worked my ass off. I was on the dean's list but I was so burnt out that I wasn't interested in pursuing a professional career yeah, yeah, could you have done it?
Speaker 1:could you have done that?
Speaker 2:I had. I had interests and offers from um overseas coaches that wanted me to play professionally overseas and to me, the and I don't think every person's journey is like this I think there's, you know, if you have parents who've played over in division one or you have more of a an understanding of how it's important to have that balance. Not everyone's experiences like this, but when I got to the end of my career in college, I was just like I've given this sport everything that I have and I'm ready to try something else. And that was it wasn't even that hard of a decision. It was just like I've given this everything and I'm ready to move on. But I think it's not that easy for some, but yeah.
Speaker 1:So, moving on to running, yeah, that's running. So did you come late onto the sport? So obviously, you know you left college and maybe went to got onto the job market big wide world sort of thing and so was it a case of that. You wanted to. You know the stresses of working in the corporate environment. You felt then had to be another outlet. But you know you've worn the T-shirt when it comes to basketball and team sports or whatever, and you thought maybe there's something else. Is that the kind of the narrative?
Speaker 2:It wasn't necessarily so. On my junior year of college, I and I have openly talked about this because I feel like it's something that isn't talked about enough is I was, like, diagnosed with stress and anxiety, so I was on medication to help manage that stress.
Speaker 2:And so, since since I finished so that's junior year I stayed on my anxiety medication and I recognized, once being done with basketball, that I really liked the movement. Take the ball away, take the pressure of the stats, take all of that away. I liked the feeling like going back to being a kid. I liked moving my body, and so for I graduated in 2017, I did a little bit of running, nothing like serious, like a two mile rock, like run around my neighborhood just to move, and then I would go box at like a boxing gym and then I would go swim or surf.
Speaker 2:Um, but it wasn't until COVID, actually, when all of the gyms had shut down, where it's like, okay, you know, we know the importance of movement for my mental health. All right, let's lace up the shoes and see what happens. Let's go for, you know, maybe a four mile run and then a six mile run. It was kind of that organic process of like. Once you get past, I think, there's a first couple of state of months of when you start running for the first time, where every step is painful. There's that transition period. But really, I think, with maybe a lot of other runners, is COVID not necessarily forced me? I think I probably would have found this sport a different way, just maybe a little bit later. It really allowed me the time and the space to try something new, yeah, which was which was running, because you had no other options, really yeah, because I listened to the um, one of your podcasts about um.
Speaker 1:It's just you talking about tips for new runners and I thought sort of one of the the points that kind of resonated was the fact that you initially thought, well, um, you know, people are going to be looking at me and thinking I'm a bit awkward, and you know this tall girl running along and whatever.
Speaker 1:But at the end of the day, you know, you sort of seem to think well, no they're, they're, they're, they're wrapped up in their own problems, sort of thing, and I thought that was quite interesting. Why would they be looking at me?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think anytime you try something new, it's like God, this isn't normal. You're in your head about it already. It's different. Anytime something is different or new, you're going to be a little bit more uncomfortable and it was just like well, there's always that uncomfortability for a short amount of time, but think about what the payoff can be. My mom was a big person in that. She was like don't negate the potential for the small amount of time that you could be uncomfortable. Don't not do something for this tiny window amount of time where you're going to not like it, because it could completely eliminate what could have happened if that made sense. So she was something who always taught me that, um, but yeah, six, two blonde chick gangly running along like probably looking awkward, like I'm used to being there, being a ball in my hand, and I was just like, holy crap, people are probably staring. And then at some point I was just like and I just stopped hearing because people are just in their own little little world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're not, they'll notice, you sure, but they're like you're in and out, you're in one ear and out the other, it doesn't stick yeah.
Speaker 1:So those initial sort of baby steps or you getting into running, um, was it? You know what was the frequency like? Were you thinking, you know, once, twice, a week? Or did you kind of think, yeah, I mean, I'm gonna really make a go of this?
Speaker 2:yeah, it wasn't probably until like 2021, 2022 or it's like. Oh, like there's races and stuff to do. It was still in 2020, like that. First I I think lockdown happened in California in March and that's when all the gym closed and I actually lost my job. The entire company I was working for laid off a lot of people, and so I had all this free time and so I made it a thing every day where I would. I think my variable was two miles to four miles and then I would go surf. I lived right by the beach in LA. I moved to LA at this time, um, and so it was just, you know, I'd probably say three to four times a week I would be running, when then I would do some sort of HIIT workout, but it wasn't. I never right away put pressure on myself that it needed to be a performance. It was just I'm going to do this. For my mind, and that was the really the core of why I love running still today, I think and moving it was just. How can we?
Speaker 1:is it because you had the time more than because I know, um, I, you know, I. I had the time then to go four times a week and do a 10K running program or something like that, but it was because I could go at any time of the day.
Speaker 2:Um, it wasn't necessarily the time, cause I mean, fast forward to now. I have a full-time job, a podcast, and I still make the time to train for a hundred mile or a marathon. The meeks, you make time for what's important to you. So I don't think it wasn't necessarily the time. It was just like I would have still ran if I would have had a job. I probably wouldn't have ran, surf for two hours, done a hit, come back and applied for jobs. I probably wouldn't have had the more. And that was probably the only two months of my life where I didn't have some sort of corporate structure. And so that was my way of creating my own routine and structure of just we're going to run two, three miles, four miles every day, we'll surf and then we'll. But again, there was no program, there was just let's just lace up our shoes and go, run on, run on the boardwalk, and that's pretty much what it was for maybe six, seven months yeah, and what did running teach you at that stage?
Speaker 2:I mean obviously it taught me a lot. It taught me that I'm and something that I still say to this day you're capable of a lot more than you give yourself credit for I was because I came from such a background of sports that involved a ball. There was something wasn't just running, there was a distraction.
Speaker 2:Running was punishment yeah so it was kind of a mental switch of like no, we're doing this because we're going to try something new. And so, never being afraid to try something new, regardless how old you are or how you might feel that you look different than other runners, you know, usually runners are a bit shorter. There's a bit more of a body type for running. I don't think I fit that body, that body type, and I learned to not care. Um, and then something that I still talk about too is when you hit a I'm going to try to run three miles today and you hit that goal. And then you set another one and run four miles today and you hit that goal. That level of goal accomplishment transpires to other parts of your life.
Speaker 1:Good yeah, interesting yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah it, you know, like you think about, like, oh, I could push myself and be professionally or maybe I could could do. How else can I challenge myself and see what I'm capable of it? It translates to other components of your life and that's a really cool perspective to start to see.
Speaker 1:And so that's kind of the beginning of why I started to really like running, because I could see it bleed into other areas of it affecting my life did you follow a particular program or did you um, you know, did you do, let's say you know like long run at the weekend, or did you do any kind of specific types of training?
Speaker 2:it wasn't until 2021 that I signed up for my first race, which was a half marathon. Right, I think it was actually 2022. 2022 was my first half marathon that I signed up for and that entire year and a half was just purely oh, you know, a good. You want to like, you want to have smaller speed, where I I knew, like, you know, like the benefit of a speed workout, because you start asking friends, you start looking up things online yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:so you start researching of like okay, like, if I have a half marathon, how should I prepare? You know, like you start to do stuff like that. But I didn't. It's crazy. I never actually thought about it this way. I never did a program until a marathon, which I did in 2023, of March LA. So before that training block, which I think was started in November of my half no program I have a marathon. Half marathon that's 13.1 miles. Well, I'll run 10 miles two weeks out, cause I think that's what you're supposed to do, right, you build and then you do that.
Speaker 2:But again, no, no program. And I think that was so helpful for me, coming from basketball, where it was so like we doing practice at 5 am, we're doing strength training, we're doing one-on-ones, we're then going to like. That level of structure was so much that I kind of needed to be able to fall into love with running organically and do it on my own right, yeah, did you?
Speaker 1:I mean just briefly going back onto the basketball thing did you? Did you have many injuries there, Because I know it can be quite impact on on these. So I was, and I'm just wondering whether that use the running either exacerbated it any injuries that you did have.
Speaker 2:Interesting enough. So I'm not sure if these, if you're like, so I was a five. So like when you think of a basketball players like I was the, the, the post, one of the bigger players at the key, the two blocks, the bottom yeah, but I wasn't your average five, I was a runner.
Speaker 2:Five I wasn't going to run through you with my size. I was going to run around you with my speed I always had. I was always fast for a six, two person, um and so because I was always fast for a 6'2 person and so because my level of play was, no five could catch me. So I had a lot of transition breaks. I had a lot of quick movements. My Achilles did get a lot of oh okay, my left Achilles got a lot of by my senior year was in some pain, and so it got to a point where I remember working with my trainer and just being like when you're not playing and you're not in basketball shoes, you're in a boot, I'd put this boot on and then when I'd play, I'd take it off and put my basketball shoes on, which probably wasn't great from like overall body composition because, like, think about your hips move and you didn't have any insoles or anything like that.
Speaker 2:I had um.
Speaker 1:I know, sometimes people put insoles so it doesn't put pressure on the Achilles. You know, you say your foot is kind of elevated a little bit.
Speaker 2:Honestly, what my trainers did and I think it was was uh worked. So they took, like this thick foam and they shaved it down so that my heel was higher in my shoe, yes, yes, yeah, that's right yeah it wasn't like an, like a, like an insole.
Speaker 2:You get your foot shaped. It was just like okay, we're gonna cut the back part of your foot, we're gonna use this, like they did it with like a butter knife or like a red knife, yeah, and like, put it in there just to see if it worked. And I was like it works, it helps. Don't change anything, don't touch anything, it's fine, it works.
Speaker 1:So I did that and had that. I'm sorry to interrupt, but I mean, did it in the running? Was there something you, you know the back of your mind, I have to be kind of aware of?
Speaker 2:Yes, think you, you know the back of your mind I have to be kind of aware of, yes, but because of the slow. So I graduated in 2017 doing a little bit of running, a little bit of boxing, the the achilles came from overuse, not proper stretching, and just, I was a starter. I played every game 40 minutes. Our season was in november to march, so it just puts a lot of and then we're training all year round. So anytime you dial that down which a normal human will usually do, when you're done playing that level of sport, it immediately felt better.
Speaker 2:So, just dialing down how much I was running and then just being mindful, as I have picked up training for marathons, training for ultras and stuff like that, just finding shoes that have a proper heel drop, being mindful there, just being mindful and like noticing, oh, it feels a bit sore today, maybe we do a little bit less miles and we do more stretching. So I've always been kind of aware, but it hasn't been anything, knock on wood. Where it's been a life-altering injury, it's just like okay. Like if that's what I have to deal with is a little bit of a nagging achilles every now and again, then that's okay with me and I see in reinstat then you do quite a bit running on the treadmill, is that right?
Speaker 1:um is, and and you do, uh like quite a bit of sort of strength work. So is that a like a 50-50? What's the sort of like the separation you know, of your workouts in the gym and then what you're doing running outside?
Speaker 2:So yeah, I would say the treadmill. So I usually use the treadmill for two things. One is I don't have access to a track, um, and I want to do some speed work. Yeah, I have been pretty mindful of speed work since training for my doing my a hundred mile or coming straight from that, going into a marathon speed work aggravates my Achilles, and so I've been a bit more mindful of speed work and letting it just my foot heal, yeah, um, but I do use the treadmill for speed work. It's just way easier.
Speaker 2:The second thing is the incline, what you're talking about, and I'll even put on a 30 to 40 pound vest and you know, walk uphill for an hour to two hours, I don't. That recently came into the picture when I recognized when I was doing my a hundred miler and a hundred K training and that's the whole story in itself I was really training for a hundred K is on the being canceled. I sent out for a 24 hour ultra and then got a hundred miler out of it. But basically it was let's get your body used to walking uphill with weight the way when you're in an ultra and you're speed walking with sticks, you're flying, and so I got it down to where I was doing a 14 minute hike up these hills and the mountains and being able to be fast because I was training with so much weight on my shoulders and on the treadmill for one to two hours, so it made me my body a lot stronger. Yeah, it was, it was tough, it was. Yeah, you had to put especially mental space.
Speaker 1:Well, exactly, I think you'll agree with me that hannah's story is a real eye-opener about how life changes can lead to amazing opportunities. Basketball gave her structure and discipline, but running gave her freedom and a clear mind. Through her journey, hannah shows how running became a super important way to deal with mental health challenges, especially during the crazy Covid-19 lockdowns, as she went from being a small town athlete to a college star and finally to a passionate runner. She's opened up about the mental health battles she faced and how running helped her out. You won't want to miss part two of this incredible interview next week, so for now, bye.
