INSPIRATION ALERT! This Busy Mother of Two Runs Even While Menstruating
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Like all moms, Danielle Plainview is a busy woman.
In addition to raising two young children, the 39-year-old marketing manager is an avid gardener, an amateur musician, and a regular volunteer at a local food pantry. On top of all that, she’s also a dedicated runner—a passion that she pursues even while menstruating.
“Honestly, I never considered it a handicap,” said Plainview, referring to her body’s regular sloughing off of the uterine lining. “Also, I can be a fairly stubborn person, or so I’m told. So when it comes to my training, I’m not going to let something like menses get in my way.”
Plainview, a veteran of nine marathons and “at least 100 half-marathons and 5Ks,” said she’s been running almost as long as she’s been menstruating, and tries to take both in stride.
“My marathon training plans are typically three or four months long, so, as a woman of child-bearing age who isn’t pregnant, it’s inevitable that menstruation will overlap with some of that training.”
That means doing long runs, recovery runs, and even tempo runs and speed work while blood and tissue travels from her uterus through her cervix, and out of her body via her vagina. Twice, Plainview said, she ran marathons either while menstruating or immediately after.
Most runners would find daunting. But not her.
“I just try to go with the flow,” said Plainview with a shrug. “Period.”
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