Girls Run Nash was founded by three women that wanted to create a space in the Nashville running community that was for women, by women. One morning on a long run, Beverly, Cristina, and Rachel were chatting about feeling unsafe while running alone and craving a space where women could run with other women - just like they were doing in that moment. One of them said, “I wish we had a girls only run club in Nashville” and the three of them looked at each other and the decision was made to start one! Girls Run Nash was created to be an addition to the Nashville running community - a space where female runners feel safe, seen, supported, empowered, and surrounded by other female runners.They meet on the third Monday of each month and each event has a 3 mile run or 1 mile walk option followed by a learning experience and discussion relevant to female health, wellness, and running.
May is National Women’s Health Awareness Month and to celebrate, our post-run discussion was about how to navigate training and running while on your menstrual cycle, sponsored by LOLA. We gave away LOLA products and one of our founders led a discussion on navigating training and running while on your menstrual cycle.
During the discussion, Beverly taught everyone about the different phases of their menstrual cycle and how to navigate nutrition, energy levels, and fitness during each phase. As females, we experience varying levels of hormones during our menstrual cycle that greatly impact our energy level. Being able to recognize the points where certain hormones are at their lowest or highest and how that can impact our recovery and fitness is very important for female athletes. Menstrual symptoms can impact the ability to train and up to 50% of elite and non elite female athletes report the perception of decreased ability while training during their early follicular and late luteal phases. High estrogen levels can also impact muscle stiffness causing our recovery to take much longer than our male counterparts.
Women can and should continue to train while on their menstrual cycle. Regular exercise can actually aid PMS symptoms. It is suggested that women track their cycle so they can be aware of when they may have dips in energy levels or increased levels of fatigue throughout their menstrual cycle. Week 3-4 of your period as your estrogen and progesterone levels dip is when women experience the classic period symptoms (fatigue/bloating/etc.). We also informed our attendees about cycle tracking, which is basing your training and nutrition off of your menstrual cycle.
Other suggestions that we shared were large takeaways from Dr. Stacy Sims’ book, Roar. These included recommendations to increase intake of magnesium, zinc, aspirin, and omega-3 fatty acids for 5-7 days before menstruation. It is also recommended to consume more carbohydrates per hour while training - aiming for .45 g of carbs per pound of bodyweight as well as aiming for 20-25 g of protein within 30 minutes of your training session.
Overall, our event was a large success and women enjoyed the community, space to learn more about how to support their bodies, and the Period Care goodies from LOLA!
Partner Post
Blog authored by Girls Run Nash
Photography by Meagan Leigh Photography