Leah Avery DPT with Coaching Advice to Avoid Overtraining

"Once I started to really add fueling into the long runs...I realized how much that was helping the next run," shares Dr. Leah Avery DPT.  Leah Avery DPT was a D1 collegiate swimmer, who qualified for NCAA championships and the Olympic Trials (2008). On paper, her athletic story reads as inspiring and exciting for a young athlete. In reality, it was a pressure-filled struggle to keep up with expectations, training, and results. She was ready to be done. When she graduated and started her DPT program, she couldn't have been happier to stop swimming, and start running.  "It wasn't all rainbows from there, though," she adds.  We talk about Leah's story as an athlete, and clinician, and how she got into coaching runners after becoming a parent. From there, we dive into some training practices for runners to avoid overtraining, and REDs. Easy days, deload weeks, and more! Dr. Leah Avery DPT is part of the Lane 9 Women's Health & Sport Directory. Connect with her here! Or follow her on Instagram, @Leahs.Runs.DPT To build the rest of your women's healthcare and sport team, visit Lane9project.org/directory to connect with our dietitians, mental health providers, and coaches.  Lane 9 on IG: @Lane9Project. 

"I weighed more as a professional runner than I did in college, and I ran faster as a professional runner," shares sports dietitian Maddie Alm MS RDN.  You might know Maddie Alm from her Instagram account and podcat, Fueling Forward. She started her journey to becoming a registered dietitian after meeting with a sports RDN in college, as a collegiate athlete. In college, she was feeling exhausted between workouts and training sessions, but as she shares on this episode, "didn't even realize that fueling was important." That all changed with a pretty simple suggestion from the dietitian: Fuelg between workouts! In this case, with chocolate milk.  We don't hate it!  Alm shares her story as a walk-on collegiate runner at CU Boulder to becoming an All-American in her 5th year of eligibility. As she completed her additional dietetics coursework and then internship, she started training with Team Boss and began racing professionally. Now she works in private pracitce helping fellow runners fuel adequately and avoid REDs, while pursuing her own training goals on the other side of elite racing. Connect with Maddie Alm MS RDN on Instagram @fueling_forward.  Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.  Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

" When I eventually figured out my food intolerances and a better relationship with fueling, I brought [my marathon PR] down to 2:44 within a little under a year." Jenny Grimshaw, VP of marketing at EQUIP*, and now a 2:36 marathoner, joins us on the Lane 9 podcast. Jenny is also a mom of 2, and navigating prophylactic surgeries to reduce her risk of breast and ovarian cancers (with the BRCA-1 gene). Her postpartum running experiences have been full of PRs, as she has figured out her own fueling needs, how to balance her identity as a runner with all the other things she does, and has worked with a coach to better balance her training volume and find her confidence as a runner.  Jenny shares: her early experiences with food intolerances and GI distress that were assumed by physicians to be anorexia, but would later be more correctly classified as ARFID the anxiety and panic attacks that she dealt with as a young runner, and injuries that plagued her through college, related to fueling, mental health, and wanting to explore life outside of running why she got into longer distances after her collegiate T&F years the gastroenterologist appointment that changed everything for her how she brought her marathon PR from a 3:13 to a 2:36 (not to say "you can, too!" but to give just one example of how fueling and mental health impact our experiences in sport) why she was drawn to EQUIP, and her role there *EQUIP is a virtual eating disorder treatment company that offers care in all 50 states. They're also part of the Lane 9 Directory. Connect with Jenny Grimshaw on Instagram @jenny_gshaw, and follow her training for her next marathon! Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.  Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

" I think young people often don't get that chance to like take a step back [from sport] and say like, is this working [for me]?" shares Kaleigh Cornelison, who specializes in working with teens and adolescents.  Kaleigh is a licensed clinical social worker with over 15 years of experience working with teens and the adults who care about them. She leads workshops, creative resources, and writes the both, and newsletter for parents and professionals who wanna embrace both the challenges and the joys of the teenage years. She takes a balanced approach to social media use, acknowledging both the benefits and the downsides to how it impacts development, connection, experiences in sport, and more.  This episode covers her experiences in sports growing up, through college, and training for her first half-marathon why she decided to specialize in working with teens and adolescents as a social worker the ups and downs, pros and cons to teens participating in sports—from social connection to identity to body image and disordered eating how social media can both help and harm our experiences in sport (and of course, as a human, in general) how to talk to teens in a way that actually connects with them, especially when it comes to the hard stuff (like disordered eating behaviors) Connect with Kaleigh Cornelison through her newsletter bothandnewsletter.com. And on Instagram @kaleighcornelisonmsw Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.  Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/Directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

"There's nothing wrong with getting a little out of shape. It's okay! We shouldn't be in our peak or prime all the time," shares Stevie Lyn Smith, sports dietitian and endurnace athlete. Stevie Lyn Smith is a Registered Sports Dietitian, avid endurance athlete, and dog mom. Her mission is to help educate and coach athletes on how to fuel their goals without sacrificing their health and happiness. And, she’s also part of our Lane 9 Directory of Women’s Health & Sport Clinicians! This episode covers: Why she took 4 years off of training for triathlons Her year of racing (and PRs!) in 2025 after that long break Setting boundaries and structure for your own racing and recovery, especially when your social circles are also your training circles Why she doesn't want to hear that you "can't eat more carbs", and HOW to do that Fueling strategies for ultra-endurance endeavors, like an Ironman (of which she's raced 10!) and the importance of taking mental and physical breaks from training for big goals, even if it means you lose some fitness. It's okay! As mentioned: Heather's episode on Stevie's podcast, episode 48 on Real Fuel with SLS.  Follow Stevie Lyn on Instagram @StevieLynLyn, or connect with her through the Lane 9 Directory here. Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.  Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/Directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

"I was the last [athlete] in my recruiting class by my senior year," shares Asia Rawls, aka Coach Brown Bambi, reflecting on the challenges of collegiate athletics and how she stuck with it.  Rawls competed in multiple events, eventually excelling in the 400m hurdles. She ran for Eastern Michigan University (EMU) under coach Sue Parks. In this episode she shares how running changed her life, from a young age, after switching school districts and having more access to sport, all the way into getting a scholarship as a student athlete.  Now, she's the head coach at Machine Athletics (while also working FT in tech!), running with the Detroit-based running group We Run 313, and running World Majors Marathons! Tune in to hear more of her story, why she brings the world of sprinting into the world of distance running, and how running has shaped so much of her story and who she is today. Connect with Asia on IG, @brown_bambi. Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.  Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/Directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

" I mean, half of our cross country team in college, I would say had disordered eating," shares Maddie Barrett, of Joyful Run Coaching.  She's a full time running coach, parent, and recently underwent a double-mastectomy. Maddie is part of the Lane 9 Directory, and joined us to talk about her experiences as a young athlete navigating eating disorder treatment, her time as a collegiate skier and runner, and how she has navigated running and sport through her pregnancy and postpartum. Just last year, she had surgery for a double-mastectomy and reconstruction, and shares her experiences with that as well. Connect with Maddie through lane9project.org/directory.  Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.  Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/Directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

" Eating disorders sometimes even mimic OCD. And by that I mean there is a compulsion that satisfies an obsession or an urge," shares therapist Hannah de Groot, a clinician in private practice at Stride Counseling.  Hannah de Groot is part of the Lane 9 clinician Directory, and joined us to talk about her work in helping athletes navigate symptoms of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and eating disorders. She shares her own sport story, and how she got into this work, as well as what it looks like for an athlete to work through Exposure Response Therapy.  Connect with her work through lane9project.org/directory, and give her a follow on Instagram @stride_counseling.  Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.  Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/Directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

" I believed that what it took to get back to where I was year before was I needed to lose weight, so kinda overnight did a whole 180—was restricting food, was counting calories, just kind of trying to lose weight. But it was all under the guise of being dedicated to my sport," shares Kassidy Johnson, now a Division 1 collegiate sports dietitian.  Johnson is not only a helping collegiate athletes fuel adequately and navigate their fear of weight gain, she's also training and competing at high level of sport as an unsponsored athlete. She's currently training for, and will soon compete in, the US National Track Championships. She recently ran an 800m PR of 2:00.7 after, as she put it, "significant weight gain" post-college.  We talked with Johnson about:  Working full time in collegiate sports while also training and competing at track meets How she knew she wasn't ready to be done running and competing, even when her NCAA eligibility was up and she had no sponsor Her experience in sports in high school, and how a basketball injury triggered what would become years of disordered eating and chronic injuries, while also eventually studying nutrition in college as a student athlete Finding a master's program in dietetics that also allowed her to continue running Why she came back to sports nutrition as a specialty, and what she loves helping athletes navigate  The fear of weight gain that plagues so many athletes/sports (and, our general culture around "health") Nutrition trends she's seeing in college athletics and, of course, bicab.  Follow Kassidy Johnson on Instagram @KassidyJeane.  Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.  Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/Directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!

"... the overwhelming majority of people who identify as women, that run, have at one time had an eating disorder or disordered eating, or at minimum low energy availability. So just assume that 60% of images you saw [on social media] were of someone who is actively not well."  Zoë Rom and Kylee Van Horn RDN join the Lane 9 Podcast with Heather Caplan RDN to talk about why diet culture in running (and in general) sucks, and how athlete identities get wrapped up in performance nutrition, body image, and the next health trend. Rom and Van Horn co-host the podcast, Your Diet Sucks (YDS), to bring history, facts, and nuance to diet and nutrition trends, through their lenses as a journalist and dietitian.  This conversation includes:  Why Van Horn decided to compete as a collegiate athlete How Rom got into running as a "late in life" athlete, on the trails Writing about food and nutrition while navigating personal eating disorder treatment and recovery, and the responsibility that comes with reporting on both nutrition and health for athletes, and eating disorders in sport Where the line is drawn between disordered eating and eating for performance Why they started the show, YDS, together A topic there were nervous to tackle on YDS and a lukewarm take on taking bicarb! Follow @YourDietSucksPod on Instagram, and tune into the podcast! Follow @Lane9project on Instgram, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.  Connect with a clinician near you, and find your full team of women's health and sport providers, by going to Lane9Project.org/Directory. If you don't see what you're looking for, fill out our Athlete Match Form, and we'll find someone for you!