Caroline Carpenter

Athlete of the Month

Caroline Carpenter

Coach: Christine Fischer

Event: Marathon

Interview with Caroline Carpenter

Hi Caroline, welcome to The Axe, how are you doing today?

Hey! Super excited to be here - I’m good roughly a month post-Chicago Marathon so getting back into the swing of workouts again!

Can you give the audience a little bit of a backstory on your running? (when you started, why you started, where you're at now)

Yes, so this is a bit of a loaded one! I have no background in competitively running, I grew up competitively horseback riding- jumpers- so getting into running seriously was definitely not something on my bingo card. I really started seriously running post-college so about 5ish years ago. I decided to put my name into the 2019 NYC Half and got in so that kinda started the journey. I was desperately searching for something to fill the void of riding. I’m a competitive person by nature and running seemed to help give me what I was looking for in that sense. I ran the half and immediately decided I wanted to run the NYC marathon pretty much the next day. Let me tell ya, I had no idea what I was doing! I’ve come a long way since then, in all aspects of running. I remember getting on the bus to Staten Island for my first marathon and laughing while thinking in my head “How the heck did I end up here?!” After that though, I was fully hooked. I wasn’t, and still am not, a runner who just wanted to check the box to say they ran a marathon so, in a sense I’m thankful I didn’t hit my time goal immediately.

Did you ever coach yourself, if so, how was that?

I would use the term coach loosely but, I did! When I first started doing races I found plans online and would just run as fast as I could pretty much every run I did. As you can imagine, that was a pretty interesting way to go about things. I didn’t do any specific workouts, I certainly never did strides - I’d literally just run. I’m pretty sure the first time I trained for a marathon my longest run was 24 miles long, and I did a 7 day taper. I ran 4 more marathons after that one without a coach and, they went fine but definitely not great. Having a coach makes a huge difference, you develop a level of trust with one another and it takes a lot of the guessing out of training.

Why did you choose to work with Christine? How do you two work together?

Well now I couldn’t imagine not working with Christine but, what drew me to her honestly was having another woman coach me. No shade at all to working with the guys but, I felt like she was going to just kind of understand what it feels like to be a 20 something year old female runner. Our relationship is something I’d never trade, I absolutely adore her. Our weekly calls can usually turn my entire day around. She’s just so positive and honestly is sometimes more confident in my running than I am which is huge. She pushes me to believe in myself, and not be so hesitant in races. I tend to be overly conservative - we’ve been practicing a lot of “don’t think, just do”. There’s so much talk in running about “finding you why” or having a why – it’s nice to have a coach that is part of your why. When races get tough, one of the things I’ll think of is wanting to make Christine proud!

What do you love most about running/training?

It sounds weird but I love the routine, I love a big training block, I love the discipline and I really like the challenge. I think as runners part of us like the monotony of training and building fitness. It’s also just so good for your mental health to get out and just focus on moving your body. Sometimes easy run days become almost meditative because you’re just clicking along. You’re also just completely reliant on yourself, you get out what you put in. I’m also fairly obsessed with the super shoe technology so, I always find that part interesting!

How has training been going for you, have you made a lot of progress since working with Hammer & Axe?

Tons of progress!! Like I said, I had never done workouts before and I ran 4 marathons prior to working with HAX so big progress has been made. I had a big half marathon PR in March then we jumped into a marathon with a short build, and we had a PR there too!! Going into the Chicago marathon I think we both thought was going to be a really great race. The build was awesome, I started working with a nutritionist to work on fueling (shoutout Maddie Riley) but unfortunately around the 14th mile, I took a tumble which really sucked. Not the day we were hoping for but, you can’t have 3 PRs in a row and running is an incredibly humbling sport like that! The first race I did after working with HAX was a half in Florida and had a 10 min PR running a 1:42. That was only after like 3 months of working with Christine.

Are you currently training for anything? If so, what are your goals for those races?

Yeah! Christine and I always have something cooking! I think I’m going to try and focus on speed/strength this winter. We’re looking to do a couple 5ks/10ks and then probably some halves. I really hate running outside in the cold NY weather so, a spring marathon could be tough if I can’t get myself to face the cold. I’ll definitely find one for this coming fall. I think though, the goal ultimately is a BQ. I’m hoping doing some shorter-distance races and focusing on speed work will help get me there!

Anything else to tell our readers, Caroline?

If you’re even remotely debating joining Hammer & Axe training, I couldn’t recommend it more. Investing in yourself is always going to be worth it. And remember, running is supposed to be fun – it’s so easy to get crazed about paces and BQs, but always keep it in fun! And always, believe in yourself!

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