Andi Ripley should be angry. But she is filled with gratitude.
Andi has a lot of running talent and was just getting started when she suffered serious injuries that have since stunted her competitive running career. But Andi was able to see the beauty in this disappointment and re-focus her priorities.
Starting her running journey at the young age of 8, Andi embarked on a competitive running career that carried her through college. After welcoming her first son, she embraced stroller running and unstructured training, making an impressive marathon debut with a time of 2:55—only to later discover she was pregnant. After the birth of her second son, she became coached by her husband, Zach, also an incredibly fast runner, and achieved a remarkable 2:43 Olympic Trials qualifying marathon time—with bilateral hip labrum tears.
Andi ran the Olympic Trials and then underwent surgeries for both hips but has battled injury ever since.
You might think she’d feel frustration over her untapped potential, but Andi chooses to view her challenges differently.
In this episode, Andi shares how she:
🌀Embraces the beauty of her need to pivot, shifting her focus from personal records to helping others find joy in movement through her coaching and support.
🌀How she navigated this transition, honing in on what she loves about running, and replicating it in other faces of life.
🌀Achieving “unhurried” healing.
Alongside her husband Zach, both Olympic Trials marathon qualifiers, Andi co-hosts The A to Z Running podcast, which I highly recommend.
RESOURCES:
@atozrunning
@andiripley
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Whitney Heins is a mom of 2, a lifelong runner, a VDOT-certified running coach for moms who run, and founder of the resource, themotherrunners.com. When training for her first marathon as a mom, she found a dearth of information related to running and motherhood. She also felt extremely isolated as a new mom. As a former TV journalist and a freelance writer she decided to use her skills to fill the void with an online resource and community, called The Mother Runners. Whitney also recognized a need for run coaches who understood the demands of motherhood, so she also became a running coach—unearthing a passion for helping moms reap the rewards and empowerment of running. Coming out of a long injury cycle, she ran a 2:54 marathon and 1:20 half marathon in her 40s. She lives in Knoxville, TN with her husband, two kids, and three dogs.
