Nita Sweeney started running at 49, and it started with sixty seconds of jogging in a hidden ravine with her dog. She was severely depressed, out of shape, and convinced her neighbors would laugh at her. She's now a marathoner, an ultra runner, and the author of Depression Hates a Moving Target.

We go all the way back: an Ohio farm childhood, a father who measured everything, a law career that eventually broke her, and the year she couldn't work at all. Then the Facebook post from a high school friend that got her off the couch, and everything that came after it.

Nita talks about why she needs a race on the calendar to keep moving, the three things she checks whenever she feels off, and why the running community turned out to be nothing like she expected. If you're at the beginning and wondering whether it's too late, start here.

Nita's website: https://nitasweeney.com

Her books: Depression Hates a Moving Target · Memorial: The Year My Dad and I Stopped Keeping Score · Make Every Move a Meditation

Everything from the show: https://linktr.ee/evanblakeney

Instagram: @evan_blakeney

Follow the show so you don't miss the next one, and come say hi on Instagram @evan_blakeney.

This episode includes discussion of depression, suicidal thoughts, and psychiatric hospitalization. If you're struggling, you can call or text 988 in the US to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, any time.

Just Keep Running is hosted by Evan Blakeney, a runner figuring this out alongside you. Nothing here is medical or coaching advice.

Episode Tags

running, beginner runner, marathon, ultra running, mental health, depression, couch to 5k, running community, Nita Sweeney, running coach, meditation, starting running later in life

Until Next Time: Just Keep Running

Heads up before you listen: Fitz shares a specific calorie formula in this episode that's worked for a lot of her clients. It's a simplification — it doesn't account for height, age, sex, or how much you're training. If you're training for a distance event, talk to a sports dietitian before cutting calories. Under-fueling is genuinely common in endurance runners and it'll wreck your training before it does anything for your waistline. I'm not a coach, a doctor, or a nutritionist — I'm a guy who started running and wanted better answers than the ones I was getting. This is a conversation, not medical advice.

Fitz Koehler has yelled "GO!" at more starting lines than most people alive. She's the voice of the Los Angeles Marathon, the Publix Gasparilla Distance Classic, the OC Marathon, the DONNA National Marathon to Finish Breast Cancer, and about thirty other events a year. She's also a breast cancer survivor, has a master's in exercise science, and built a before-school running program called the Morning Mile that's now in more than 400 schools across America, Canada, and Japan.

This one runs long because I kept stopping her to ask follow-ups. No apologies.

We get into:

• Why she taught her first fitness class at 14 years old — after quitting a job at Cinnabon
• The one sentence in a research journal that changed how she thinks about weight management
• Why she thinks your Garmin is overestimating your calorie burn, and what I started doing about it
• Her claim that roughly 60% of marathoners could still lose 20+ pounds — and why that's not a discipline problem
• How a conversation with a friend about her kid's school turned into the Morning Mile, now in 400+ schools
• What actually happens when you ask a school to let kids run before class (the pushback is weirder than you'd think)
• Why kids stop loving running somewhere between age 3 and age 12
• Her hard line on kids and marathons — and the growth-plate reasoning behind it
• The four pillars of fitness most runners are only doing one of
• Why your knees hurt when you run — and why the problem is usually your hips
• The glute medius test she says 97% of runners fail
• Why you should never strength train the same muscles two days in a row
• Why she told me to stop running seven days a week immediately
• How race announcing became a full-time career, and the 40 minutes she had to improvise when a car broke onto the course
• Her three favorite races to announce, and why the back of the pack has the best energy

If this one was useful, leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. It's the single biggest thing that helps other beginner runners find the show.

Come say hi on Instagram: @evan_blakeney

FIND FITZ: Website: https://www.fitzness.com Morning Mile: https://www.morningmile.com Instagram: @fitzness Podcast: The Fitzness Show Books: You Supercharged: The Exact Formula for Fitness, Weight Loss and Longevity · My Noisy Cancer Comeback · the Healthy Cancer Comeback series

FIND ME: Everything: https://linktr.ee/evanblakeney Instagram: @evan_blakeney Facebook: facebook.com/evan.blakeney.9

Until Next Time: Just Keep Running

PJ Glassey has spent almost 40 years testing what actually works in strength training, and it led him somewhere weird: racing up skyscraper stairwells. In this episode, the founder of XGYM breaks down fast twitch vs. slow twitch muscle fibers, the exact exercise protocol he used to increase a triathlete's stride power, why tower running might be the best cross-training a runner can do, and how to tell a legit study from a bogus one.

We cover:

• PJ's path from teenage bodybuilder to founder of XGYM's time-under-tension training method

• How to actually evaluate a scientific study — and how to use AI to fact-check one

• Fast twitch vs. slow twitch muscle fibers, explained for runners

• The suspension lunge protocol PJ used to increase a triathlete's stride power

• Tower running: what it is, why it's low-impact, and how it builds hill-running strength

• Ways to replicate tower-running training without a stairwell (Jacob's ladder, stairmaster technique, versa climber)

• Anti-aging: why quad strength predicts your mortality better than grip strength

• Red light therapy: what's real, what's marketing, and how to vet a device

Note: PJ shares a personal VO2 max result from his own training log. It's a compelling anecdote, not a controlled study — worth keeping in mind as you listen.

Connect with XGYM

00:00 Welcome & guest intro

00:38 How PJ got into fitness (skinny kid → bodybuilder → trainer)

07:58 Why he founded XGYM in 1998 (less time, less injury, less bulk)

11:21 How to evaluate a scientific study (and use AI to fact-check it)

21:06 Pivoting to running: what PJ has learned training runners

23:16 Stride frequency vs. stride length — the only two ways to get faster

24:20 The suspension lunge protocol (built a triathlete's stride power)

31:24 Fast twitch vs. slow twitch, explained simply

38:22 What is tower running, and why is it the best sport you've never heard of

41:07 Why tower running builds hill strength without the joint damage

47:53 PJ's VO2 max results from anaerobic training (his own data — not a study)

49:24 Suffering as a trainable skill (“best at suffering,” not best-conditioned)

51:50 Replicating tower-run training: Jacob's ladder, stairmaster, versa climber

55:47 Tower running stories: stairwell hacking, team records, the community

1:01:12 Anti-aging: comfort zone expansion, quad strength vs. grip strength

1:04:00 Practical steps for people starting from pain or sedentary life

1:05:12 Red light therapy: what matters, what's marketing

1:09:34 Where to find XGYM, the brain type test

1:11:20 Wrap up

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Guest — XGYM

Until Next Time: Just Keep Running