Caitlin Kowalke 00:00:00  I just remember googling like how to start your own business. Literally.

Katy Ripp 00:00:03  I mean, how many businesses by women have been started by that phrase alone? From a business standpoint, and especially as a female. What are some of the greatest things that you’ve gotten out of that?

Caitlin Kowalke 00:00:13  Yeah, it’s just really neat to see people and hear people feel empowered and confident in their daily life.

Katy Ripp 00:00:23  Hey there, fellow rebels. Welcome to #ActuallyICan, The podcast where we say a hearty hell yes to designing life on our own terms. I’m Katy Ripp, a lifestyle coach, business mentor, and serial entrepreneur here to guide you through the wild ride, defying what society expects of us and embracing our authenticity. On this show, we dive deep into taboo topics like death, money, spirituality, entrepreneurship, unapologetic self-care, and personal development, all while swearing and laughing along the way. Expect down and dirty conversations, plenty of humor, and a whole lot of exploration, leaving you feeling empowered to be your truest self.

Katy Ripp 00:01:02  Whether you’re craving a good laugh, seeking unconventional self-care tips, or simply looking for some camaraderie. You’ve come to the right place. We only get this one short life, so buckle up and let’s design yours on our own terms. Ready to dive in? Let’s go. Hey. Welcome. Kaitlin.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:01:24  Hi, Katy. Thank you for having me.

Katy Ripp 00:01:26  Oh, my God, it’s so good to see you. We have such an interesting connection. Really? By just you being a really great coffee drinker.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:01:35  And you having an amazing place to drink coffee and sell great coffee.

Katy Ripp 00:01:40  It works out for everybody.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:01:41  Yes.

Katy Ripp 00:01:42  So Caitlin and I really just honestly met at our coffee shop. I just really loved everything about what you were doing and then stalked you on the side without you knowing. Realize that you were a running coach because I’d see you working in the coffee shop. And I’m always so curious, is like what people do in the coffee shop when they’re there and working. But you have a lovely family.

Katy Ripp 00:02:04  And we saw you raise those little girls. Now they’re in school, which is crazy. We were just talking about how fast time goes. You know, my kids were only six and nine when we know. I take that back. They were five and eight when we opened. 1909. Wow. So to have that kind of, you know, span where, you know, you meet people and just, like, watch their kids grow and all of a sudden, you know, you’re a little bit. I mean, Rose is just a little baby. You know, she’s in kindergarten.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:02:35  I know it’s weird. And then I see I follow you on Instagram, too, and see your kids, and I’m just like, wow, they’re so grown up. You just said your son is about to drive, right? Yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:02:45  Yeah. He’s going to be 16 in May. So it’s a crazy thing to be a mom and an entrepreneur and all those things. So that’s a great segue into why we have you on here.

Katy Ripp 00:02:55  So I would love to get into your story. Tell me a little bit about. I know you were raised by entrepreneurs, so I’d love to hear that you’ve had such an amazing path to get to where you are to. So I think that you have such a great story of, especially as a running coach, that’s just like a very specific niche, like, you know, I’m sure that like at one point or another, you told somebody that you were like, hey, I’m going to be a running coach. And they’re like, how the fuck do you make money at that? Right? Like, is that a thing?

Caitlin Kowalke 00:03:27  I was asking myself the same question when I, when I first.

Katy Ripp 00:03:30  Yeah.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:03:30  Like, how am I going.

Katy Ripp 00:03:31  To do it. Do you make enough money. You know, like but somebody out there doing it. So that means that you can do it too. So I would just love to let you dive right into your story. Give me all the goods.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:03:44  Yeah, absolutely. Well, again, thank you for having me. I’m so excited to be here. But, yeah, I’ll just kind of start, I guess, from the beginning. Ish. Illinois. For anyone who’s not familiar with Peoria, home of Bradley University. Or used to be caterpillar to headquarters there. But. Oh yeah. So I grew up in Peoria, Illinois. I have three brothers, wonderful parents. Kind of had like just a great childhood playing sports, playing outside like all the time, getting beat up by my brothers. Helped build character.

Katy Ripp 00:04:14  Yeah. That’s what we tell ourselves now.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:04:16  Right I know. Yeah. Love them to death. But they were awful. Mean. Yeah. All for it. So, yeah, like, my parents got us involved in a bunch of different sports they never, like, pressured us. They just said, all right, we’re gonna try this. You know, whether that’s through, like, your school or the Parks and Rec department, we’re going to get you in everything.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:04:35  You’re going to try it. If you don’t like it, you don’t need to continue doing it. But the things that stuck with me when we did that were actually soccer. And actually soccer was really the the only thing that stuck. So I grew up kind of playing soccer, you know, in childhood decided or during that point kind of also figured out like, I love to run. So I was a left midfielder for basically my entire time playing soccer from probably third grade into high school. So I discovered I really enjoyed running and I could run for a while. So I was a left midfielder when I played soccer.

Katy Ripp 00:05:11  Which for anybody that doesn’t know soccer, that means you’re running non-stop.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:05:15  Non-stop.

Katy Ripp 00:05:16  Right, non-stop, back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. Yep.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:05:20  Exactly. So yeah, got into soccer. Decided. I also loved running too. So that’s when I kind of made the switch to running track in middle school, because they didn’t have cross-country at my school and middle school, so did track from six to eighth grade, continue to play soccer during that time.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:05:38  But then once I got to high school, I had to make a decision because track coincided with soccer. So I had actually made the varsity soccer team my freshman year. So I just did cross-country in the fall and then did soccer in the spring. And I had a successful first, you know, freshman year of cross-country. And I was like this little like £80 midfielder playing against, you know, women that were wrong, like wrong and like women. I to be frank, I hadn’t even gone through puberty my by my freshman year of high school. So these women were, you know, they were fully women. And I was just this little £80 girl trying to outrun everyone, basically. So it was during my freshman year. So I was going into my sophomore year. So summer going into sophomore year, I decided I was going to stick with running. So I kind of dove into cross-country and track outdoor track in the spring. And so just continued to run. I decided, you know, I probably had a future in running, could maybe help my parents out by trying to get a scholarship for college, running in college.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:06:45  And yeah, it just kind of worked my butt off and ran through the summers and eventually won a state title in cross country. My junior year of high school qualified for state and track and yeah, just ended up having a lot of success in high school, which was really awesome. And my parents during that time were just I’m just so grateful because I look back at that time and it could have gone either way. They could have been really. They could have pressured me and made me feel like, oh gosh, you need to do this. You need to be here. You need to train during the summer. That was all stuff I wanted to do because I wanted to be better. And I really loved the sport. I just loved running. It made me feel alive. It made me feel free, and it was fun to win. So I just continued to work hard at it. But my parents were just so supportive and so encouraging, and we can kind of go back to my parents for a second or what? My dad, he is a second generation restaurant owner.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:07:36  He has always just worked so hard. He actually wasn’t around a lot like growing up, because he was just always at the restaurant working, and I was just so grateful to have him as an example of just hard work and work and dedication and perseverance when things are hard. Like owning a restaurant is not. It’s not easy. And I’m sure you understand that as a coffee shop owner and everything that you guys do. But it was really hard. And I knew that, like, I was I was aware of that. Even as a young kid, like, my parents didn’t really talk about finances or anything like that. But you can just you can tell when things are hard. Like there’s just a whole level of hardship and energy. Yes.

Katy Ripp 00:08:17  And yeah, I mean, you can. You know, kids are intuitive so they can pick up on shit that’s going on at home. And like.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:08:23  Employees and like stuff going on in employees, like. Like that’s there’s just a lot to balance.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:08:28  And so yeah, he just worked his, his tail off. He tried to get to everything that he could in terms of our events, but it was really my mom who was driving us around all the kids around, taking the kids to their sports and trying to be at every single event and, you know, encourage and support us in every way. So my dad was more kind of behind the behind the scenes, just working his tail off to help support his family, provide for his family. And my mom was kind of on the front lines, being there, supporting us, encouraging us. And they were a great team and I’m just so grateful for them. But to kind of go back, they just were so supportive. They never pressured any of us. Like, you have to stick with this. If they saw us succeeding at something, it was just, you know, how can we help you? And the big thing too, is they wanted us to have fun. And I think my mom really just understood.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:09:16  Like, if I am just here to support and encourage, they’re going to feel like no matter how they do that, we’re here and we love them no matter what. So my both my brothers were wrestlers in high school. They had a lot of success in high school. One of my brothers went on to wrestle at the University of Illinois. My little brother Dom went and played football at Illinois Wesleyan. So wow. I think it just goes to show when there’s a drive, their kids are showing a drive and passion. All you really need is just someone like being there to support you and say, hey, I got your back. No matter what happens, we’re gonna love you. Just keep having fun. So.

Katy Ripp 00:09:53  You know, we see our in our generation or we see a lot now, especially because we’re in the Middleton area. It’s such a big school, big area. I think it’s different than it was. You know, you could really easily be a three sport person when you were in high school.

Katy Ripp 00:10:06  When I was in high school. Well, I mean, you sort of have to choose your path now when you’re ten years old, like, hey, you have to be on club teams if you want to make the varsity team. Not all of them. And I’m generalizing here, but it is very competitive. It’s really competitive and they really don’t. I mean, sometimes kids just don’t get a chance to try a bunch of things, right? Like had you not been able to try something else, you might not have known that you loved running, which, by the way, can we talk about running for just two minutes? Yeah, because.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:10:38  I love.

Katy Ripp 00:10:39  It. Yeah. I want to give me some coaching advice. I will never forget when I was like 20 years old, 21 maybe. I worked in a high school and I worked in like a resource center where kids would come and test with me. And I probably a very similar girl to you. Her name is Sarah. I’ll never, ever forget this.

Katy Ripp 00:10:59  She was a track star. Yeah. Track and cross country. Like, she could really do both, right? And I said to her, I said, Sarah, I hate running. I just I hate it. How do you love it? She goes, everybody hates to run. It’s what you get after it that makes it worth it and makes you want to get out and do it. And it’s always stuck with me. She was like a 16 year old little tiny thing, like a little fairy. And I was like. And she was like, everybody hates running, Miss Keswick. And I was like, oh, really? I mean, it kind of opened up this like, oh, I am just like everybody else. It was the cutest thing. That’s adorable. Tell me about the running part of it for you. Like, how did you I mean, obviously you were good at it, so that also helps, right? Like, if you suck at something, it’s real hard to, hard to like.

Katy Ripp 00:11:45  Continue it. Right? But was it ever hard for you? Was it ever hard to get up and go for a run? Or is that like an innate skill that you have? Do you think do you think that there’s a talent there, or do you think that everybody can get there?

Caitlin Kowalke 00:12:00  I think it’s a little of both. Like my mom, actually. So my mom is she’s 67. She still gets up and runs every day.

Katy Ripp 00:12:08  Has she always?

Caitlin Kowalke 00:12:09  She didn’t get into running until she was in college. It was like when that was becoming like a fad. It was more like a fart. When she was in college at ASU, started running. Then she actually ended up getting into marathons after she left college. And yeah, so I think it’s a little bit of both. There are definitely days where I’m like, I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to run. I think that’s normal. And I know I’m sure I had that, like during high school, too.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:12:35  I think there were also times, you know, when I knew my friends were going to go to like the dance after parties, you know. And I.

Katy Ripp 00:12:44  Sure.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:12:44  Yep. And this was the other thing. Like my mom never told me. Like you shouldn’t go. You can’t go. I just knew, like, hey, I have a meet the next morning or whatever, like. Or, you know, I need to get up and run the next morning. And I kind of had to miss out on some of those things. But that was all. All stuff I just felt. I don’t know, I kind of like, weighed the risks and the rewards like, what am I going to get out of this? Like, I still get to go to the dance, still get to go have fun with my friends. Do I really want to, like, not, you know, do I only want to get four hours of sleep or five hours of sleep? Do I want to be in a position where I can run my best two weeks from now? So I just felt like I had a pretty good understanding of that.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:13:25  And I think that just goes back to like, my parents and just how supportive they were. And I don’t want to like, overuse that word, but I just felt like my parents, they’re just wonderful, and I feel like I credit them with a lot of what I’ve been able to accomplish.

Katy Ripp 00:13:40  But at the same time, you had to get your own ass out of bed. Yeah, right. Look, you know, even if they were like, hey, Caitlin, like you said you were gonna run. It’s okay if you don’t. But you said you were gonna run. Like you still have to get up. I can tell you, in high school, I was not like looking about my performance two weeks ahead of time. Anybody that knows me in high school, we were just, like, living day by day. Yeah, yeah, but there is. I think that there is something really powerful in, you know, equating what you can do and really knowing what you can do in that.

Katy Ripp 00:14:14  You know, really that’s a pretty mature mindset at that age. But then taking it and equating it to business ownership. Yes. Right. Like we have to do shit we don’t want to do all the time. Right. And so we can get into that in, you know, a little bit. But tell me a little bit more about what now your past high school. Then you go and run in college.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:14:37  Yep. Yeah. So after I won a state title in my junior year of high school. So in cross country I started getting, you know, some interest from colleges. Long story short, I was kind of between University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Illinois. And the reason I was looking at University of Illinois to was my mom went to law school there. My brother Jimmy wrestled at University of Illinois, so he had just graduated by the time I was going to be going in. He had already graduated. But, you know, there was a history there, family history there.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:15:06  So, yeah, so it came down to University of Illinois and University of Wisconsin. And I just remember going to Madison, like driving into the city. And we were coming up on John Nolan and seeing the Capitol. And it was just like, I want to be here. This is awesome. I hadn’t even been on the campus yet, and I just driving in. It was just it was amazing. I also liked that, you know, it wasn’t too far from home. It was like three hours from Peoria, and Champaign was a little bit closer, and I just felt like this was going to be the way for me to really spread my wings. And, yeah. I just had an amazing experience. A great visit. I ended up meeting the head coach and clicked with the team, clicked with the coach, and ended up coming here the following fall and just had a really wonderful, idyllic college experience, had wonderful teammates, had some success on the track. I won two Big Ten titles my final year at UW.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:16:00  I had really worked for those titles because, like, I had a lot of failure during my time too. Like I wanted to be an All-American and cross country. That never came to fruition. I ended up bombing at nationals every single year for four years in cross country. I had, you know, good seasons, did well in the Big Ten, in cross country. But my big goal was, hey, I want to be an All-American in cross country. It didn’t happen. And I was like, devastated my final year in cross country. But I had five years because I redshirted track my freshman year.

Katy Ripp 00:16:31  Sure.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:16:32  Yeah, yeah, one more year. And I just really wanted to put my head down and get some stuff done. And it was in my final season, an outdoor track. I well, indoor track. I won the five K indoor and then the ten K outdoor in the spring, so was able to walk away with two Big Ten titles. And yeah, it was just it was really proud of myself because I had endured a lot of failure and let my TI.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:16:58  I felt like I let my team down a lot, you know, in those NCAA races and cross country, it just felt like, man, I really, really failed my team. And so I kind of carried that into my final year and really wanted to go out with a bang. So I ended up having a good final year. And then it was after I graduated. I wanted to kind of explore coaching because I really enjoyed, like when younger girls would come on recruiting visits to UW. I really enjoyed like being involved in that process. My coach would have me come along and some of my other teammates and we’d kind of explain to the recruits like, hey, why did we choose UW? What do we like about it? And I really enjoyed. I enjoyed that, like I enjoyed talking to the girls, like answering their questions and just giving them my experience and and then trying to convince them to, hey, come be on our team. Come here. It’s awesome here. Yeah, I really liked the coaching aspect, and I felt like I maybe had a future in collegiate coaching.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:17:55  So stuck around for a bit while I also worked. I worked a couple part time jobs right after I graduated, so I could still explore the coaching realm because there was no paid position, so it was just a volunteer position. I ended up working at my coach’s wife’s running shoe store. I was also a hostess at Fleming’s. Oh yeah, steakhouse, and then did the coaching. But also while I was doing that, I was trying to pursue a professional running career as well, so I was kind of training on my own, ended up running a couple races and got some attention from, women’s running apparel company based out of Seattle, and they ended up asking if I would want to basically run for them, and they would be willing to provide me like a living stipend. So it wasn’t a lot, but I was like really excited about it. I’m like, this. Yeah, this is a dream. Yeah, absolutely.

Katy Ripp 00:18:47  Yeah.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:18:48  So, you know, they paid my rent, gave me basically enough to live on so I could continue to train and race and represent them and different races around the country.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:18:56  So long story short, I decided during that time that collegiate coaching wasn’t something I wanted to pursue. I felt like there were just a lot of like, politics, which ends up for sure, like ended up being true, like of the NCAA, just in general. Like it’s a very political thing.

Katy Ripp 00:19:14  Yeah, there’s still bureaucracy in all of that, right? Like, I mean, there it’s it’s a business. Yes. No matter what. Like it’s still corporate. Yeah. And unfortunately the product or people.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:19:24  Exactly. That’s 100%. And I also remember I had a light bulb moment, one of the paid assistant coaches at UW, he came into the office. I was waiting for the head coach to come in. I think we were going to go to practice and the assistant coach walks in and he said, Caitlin, are you pretty serious about wanting to pursue coaching on this level? And I said, I think so. And he said, well, do you wanna have a family one day? And I said, yeah, I do.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:19:49  And he said, you’re gonna hate it. He literally just said, you would hate this. And I really appreciated that honesty like that was it really, really opened my eyes because then I started looking around and I’m like, there are really no female coaches. Like on the collegiate level. At that time, there really weren’t many. There were maybe a couple, maybe a handful of female coaches. And at that moment I understood why. I’m like, these women want to have families and they want to not to say that they couldn’t do that while still being an awesome coach, but it just wasn’t conducive to women at that time, which is creepy. But I knew I did want to have a family. I was dating my now husband at that time, and I knew that we wanted, you know, I wanted to get married to him and have babies. And so that was part of the reason I put that on the back burner, and then just continued to kind of delve into the professional running realm and really enjoy that.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:20:40  Had a lot of fun. I got to go train out in Flagstaff, Arizona, up at altitude for, you know, four months at a time. And it was just it was incredible. I got to go race and cool places. But then there started to become a point where the running, which, you know, I had done from a very young age and really, truly loved, started to become my job. And it felt like my job, it was my job. But, yeah, there was a part of me that started to lose the joy of the process and just the joy of the sport. and it was, I think, just due to, hey, you have to perform like, because, yes, I get this stipend to live on, but if you want additional money to pay for other things, like you have to perform well in these races because these are prize money races. And if you want to win a couple grand, you really have to perform and you don’t want to disappoint your sponsor.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:21:32  So there was just an added pressure that I had never really felt before, and I think that started to take a toll. I ended up having a couple of injuries, like Achilles tendonitis. I had a stress fracture and I had never dealt with bone injuries in my life.

Katy Ripp 00:21:46  That was one of the questions I was going to have is, you know, it sounds like you were fairly lucky most of your career to not have any injuries because that, you know, with the professional sport. Yes. I mean, just look at any football player out there, right? Like, I mean, with any kind of professional sport, there’s going to be injury. Right. And yeah. Yeah. So it sounds like you were pretty lucky. But also it’s easy from an outsider. Right. But when you start saying like it started to feel like a job and then there was injury. Yeah. It like those things are connected. Exactly. I mean I believe that that kind of mindset thing is connected to our body.

Katy Ripp 00:22:22  I completely agree.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:22:24  And I think that’s what was happening. Yeah, I think it was both a physical and emotional breakdown in many ways. Yeah, I just remember getting the results of my MRI that showed I had a stress fracture in my fibula. And I just like, how does this happen? And it was kind of right at the peak of my career. And I just remember being devastated by that. So then, you know, then you have to come to terms with like, the recovery process. Okay. There’s no running. You’re not going to be running. This is your job and you’re not going to be running for, you know, however many months I think I couldn’t run for at least two months. So then that’s more time. You’re you’re no you’re just in your own head. And running also was my outlet. Yes, it was my job. But that was like that was how I, I stayed, I felt like I stayed happy. It was like part of my life.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:23:07  I just love to run.

Katy Ripp 00:23:09  And I mean, really, that’s why people run. Like that’s why my little Sarah said to me, she was like, it’s the feeling afterwards that like, makes the difference, right? So I mean, really, when you’ve tied your job now to your mental health and your physical body, I mean, that is a lot more stress than people. I would think, you know, it sounds great to like, go out and run and make money doing what you love. Right. There are downsides to that. Really? Yeah. When you start making and this goes for anybody, when you start making your hobbies, when you start making your passions, your job. There are times that it does feel like a job right there. You know, when you and you said it best, when your performance is tied to your bottom line, it is really difficult to separate those two things.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:24:01  100%. Yeah. Yeah. So I did recover from those injuries. And then during my time running professionally for, well, I qualified for the Olympic trials.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:24:13  So that was the 2016 Olympic trials that were happening in LA. So for anyone who’s not familiar with the Olympic trials in running or at least in the marathon, so USAtf has a so that’s the United States Association of Track and Field. They have a standard that anyone in the country can try to hit. So for the marathon, I think between 2014 and 2016, when I was running for whistle, the marathon standard was a 245 marathon.

Katy Ripp 00:24:42  So which, by the way, is fucking fast. I mean, I ran a marathon in six hours.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:24:50  Hey, you ran a marathon, though. You’re a very.

Katy Ripp 00:24:52  I ran a marathon. I ran a marathon. And I am not.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:24:54  A professional of people who run a marathon. So you remember.

Katy Ripp 00:24:58  That? Yes, but that’s fucking fast. Well, so it is 26 miles fast.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:25:06  So yes, it is. It is wild. But it’s amazing because a lot of women hit that time. So I think I want to say there were maybe 400, somewhere between 300 and 50, 400 women.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:25:17  I could be wrong. Who qualified? So you had to run under two hours and 45 minutes in the marathon, and you have a couple of years to hit that standard. They come out come out with a standard, usually like the following year after an Olympic year, and then you have X amount of years to hit that standard. If you hit it, then you get to go to, you know, the host city. In this case, it was LA to try to make the Olympic team. So top three women make the Olympic team. In 2016 when I ran in LA, I think I was 26th or 28th and then, but it was going into that race, I knew that it was going to be my last race as a professional runner. I just was like, this is a good time to just hang it up for now. It doesn’t mean I can’t go back and, you know, try to get the OTC again down the road. But for now, I just need to take a step back.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:26:10  I’m going to just part ways from my sponsor. They were they were amazing. I really had a great experience with them, but it was just on me. I just was like, I just needed to take a step back. So I had a good race in LA, but it was a good last race for the time being, so let my sponsor know. I was just gonna kind of focus on me and wasn’t going to continue to run, and I needed to start looking for. In my mind, I saw it as a big girl job because I didn’t have health insurance. I was on my mom and dad’s health insurance, and I just felt like I needed a little more stability in my life. Running professionally was fun, but zero stability, zero like predictability. And I was like, I need I need a schedule. I need to like, I need health insurance. I need these things in my life. And then I can still run and do it on my own time and have fun with it and get back to loving it for just for what it is and what it brings to my life.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:26:59  So in 2016, that’s when I started looking for jobs and actually, like, ended up being kind of a hard process because I had an awesome resume, I had an awesome resume, you know, went to UW, had some success there, you know, did well in school, but it was hard because I didn’t have any real life work experience. So when I was submitting my resume to these places. I didn’t get a lot of callbacks, and I think part of it was just due to lack of real life work experience. I think they saw. Oh, that’s cool. She’s a professional runner, but what is she going to bring to us?

Katy Ripp 00:27:35  Which is really unfortunate because the skills that you learn from sports. Yeah, equate to the business world. Right. In such a parallel that it’s hard to believe that more people that are hiring don’t recognize that maybe they will or maybe, you know, maybe the right people do. But again, to have the kind of discipline to get up and do that every day.

Katy Ripp 00:27:57  Yeah, that’s like who you are as a person, right? They say like how you do one thing is how you do everything. Yeah. I do not love that saying because I don’t love that. I like how I do one thing, it’s how I do everything. But it’s so freaking true. Yeah, I don’t love it. Yeah, but it is really true. And you know, when you think about the discipline it takes to run professionally or run in a, at a collegiate level that you did. It’s quite fascinating.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:28:23  Yeah, I appreciate that. But yeah. So I ended up getting a call back from a financial advising company. I was out of Fitchburg. It was more just like an administrative role. I was just going to help with, you know, the lead financial advisors insurance for their clients. So it was like an insurance coordinator position. And I’m like, all right, let’s do it. It’s an easy commute for me and it has good benefits. So I ended up taking the position and I didn’t have a bad experience there.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:28:49  I when I started working, I got along with my bosses. I got along with, you know, my coworkers. So it ended up being a fine, you know, first job for me. Yeah. But once I started, I really, like, knew that this wasn’t going to be something I wanted to do long term. So that’s when I started thinking. Went back to like coaching. I just had this pull like that was just always there. Like in my gut. I just felt like I wanted to do something in the coaching realm. So that was when I started googling, like it was just on a weekend. You know, it was after a work week. And I just remember googling, like, how to start your own business. And I just just.

Katy Ripp 00:29:27  Like.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:29:28  Literally.

Katy Ripp 00:29:29  It’s like literally one of my keywords and all the coaching I have is like, give me all the people that are on the weekend saying how to start your own business. I mean, how many businesses by women have been started by that phrase alone? I would love to know the answer to that.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:29:45  I know, and I print it off. I have it because I just saw it like cleaning out our boxes. I should have pulled it up for this interview, but I printed it out. I printed out like how to start your own business, all this different steps and I have them all crossed out, minus a couple at the end.

Katy Ripp 00:30:01  But oh, I have the goosebumps. I love that so much.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:30:04  And so after that initial Google search, I basically just said, like, I’m going to start my own business. I can do this. I had heard like my the woman that was coaching me, actually, when I was a professional runner who I lived with in Flagstaff when I was training up there, she had her own run coaching business, so she and her husband had started their own coaching business. It was remote. They were able to do it from their home. And I just remember like asking them questions like, how does this work? And being really inspired by what they were doing.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:30:33  So when I started thinking about what I wanted to do, I’m like, well, why can’t I do that? I can do that. And so I just felt like I have the experience I had a good following to on social media at the time. My Instagram ended up getting removed for whatever reason, but I had to like, restart.

Katy Ripp 00:30:48  Oh, seriously?

Caitlin Kowalke 00:30:49  Yeah, yeah, it was weird. It got deleted. But during that time when I was launching my business, I think I had like 3000 Instagram followers, and that came from, you know, the people who followed me through was the women’s running apparel company that I was running for. So they would share stuff about me and then people would follow me. So I had a good following on Instagram. I felt like, okay, if I get the word out, I can get some people, you know, who might be interested in working with me. And then so yeah, I just was like, I’m going to start my own run coaching business went through kind of all of the steps that Google had put out for me.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:31:22  Yeah, and it took me about like 4 or 5 months to, you know, think about like, okay, what am I going to name it? How am I going to do my website? Like, I did everything on my own. And it was very overwhelming. There were times where I’m like, I have no idea what I’m doing, and my website does not look great, but I’m gonna just I’m just going to jump in. I’m going to do it. So it was in July of 2016 when I announced that I was starting my own business, and right away I got like five people who were interested, and I was charging like $115 a month. And I felt like it was just a great, like, little side hustle I could focus on and, you know, still have my job that offered the benefits and the stability that I needed. But this would be like my passion project, and this was going to be the thing that was going to fulfill me. And that’s exactly what happened.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:32:09  I really enjoyed it. I got to work with people outside of the state. I had a couple people from Philadelphia area. I had someone in California. Now I have people all over, like the Midwest and basically all over the country. So it’s grown every year and I just love it. So I’m kind of getting ahead of myself.

Katy Ripp 00:32:27  But yeah, one of my questions is like, you know, started out as a side hustle, right? Like quote unquote side hustle. Was it ever like at the beginning? Was it always like, hey, this is always going to be a side hustle? Or was the goal to replace your income with what you were making at the financial place and doing this full time?

Caitlin Kowalke 00:32:47  To be frank, when I started it, I just thought this was gonna be my side hustle. This is how I’m gonna save money. Yep. This is going to be, you know, funds we can use for maybe, like a vacation or something like that.

Katy Ripp 00:32:58  So, yeah, lots of businesses start out.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:33:01  Yes. So I never really had any intentions, like at least in the short term of, you know, making that my full time job. So I started my business in 2016, got married to my husband in 2017, and then I got pregnant in 2018 and so still doing the side hustle, still working at the financial advising company and I just felt like I had a good balance. I would, you know, do my work during the day, you know, go to the office. I would actually take like my run coaching calls during my lunch break. Yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:33:33  Yeah. I mean, the hustle, hustle, hustle.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:33:36  And I had a half hour, so why not? I’m gonna do it. Yeah. So. And then I would work. When I came home, I bought my first big purchase as a business owner, was a desktop and worked on that. And our little like, we had a townhouse there was like a closet that I basically set for, like my workstation.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:33:56  That’s where I worked. I did it on the weekends. It was fun. You know, my husband had a job. He was kind of working on the weekends, too, so I felt like it wasn’t really taking time away from us. So it worked out great. But then I got pregnant with my oldest, Rose, in 2018. And then it’s kind of crazy how these events unfolded, but it always is.

Katy Ripp 00:34:16  Like, these are the greatest stories of.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:34:18  All.

Katy Ripp 00:34:18  Time.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:34:18  Oh my goodness. Yeah. So I had a great pregnancy. Like I was very fortunate to have a, you know, pretty easy pregnancy. But towards the end there, you know, we had to really make sure we had like childcare all lined up. So we had locked down an in-home daycare provider, I think like four months before I was due actually maybe even further out from that to be honest. But she was like five minutes away from our house. It was on my way to work. I’m like, okay, this.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:34:44  We can do this. This is great. And then it was actually after she was here, I just, like I just fell in love. I’m like, how do people go back to work after having kids? Like, it was awful. Just like thinking about being away from her. I’ve never experienced anything like that. I just really loved being at home with her and kind of, like, got really sad at the thought of someone else being with her in, like, these early moments. And so I still like grappling with that. And actually, about a month before I was supposed to go back to work during my maternity leave, our daycare provider that we had locked down emailed me and said she can no longer watch our daughter. And I was like, okay, well, now what do we do? My husband, fortunately, had just started his own business the prior year, so he was in lawn and landscaping. And so he had the flexibility in the winter, which is when my maternity leave was ending to stay home with her.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:35:41  So that was kind of like our backup. But I’m like, what are we going to do when he starts working again? So we kind of had a short term backup plan, but it turns out that that woman we found out later on was accused of child abuse. So I’m just like, so grateful that that actually happened, that she couldn’t take Rosen. Like, had we gone to her a couple months earlier like, that could have been our daughter like that could have been our daughter who was hurt by her. So I’m just so grateful. And it breaks my heart that someone is dealing with that. They’re still dealing with the repercussions of this woman’s actions. So that’s really sad. But that was kind of the turning point in my life when I just started, like, started doing like crunching numbers. And we’re like, it doesn’t make sense. For even if we were to find another daycare provider. Like, I don’t make enough money to warrant sending her off. It’s just like a break even.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:36:30  So, yeah, we just decided, like, it makes the most sense for me to stay home. So I put my two weeks notice in after I, you know, had gone back. I think I was there for like two weeks and I just was like, sorry, I can’t I.

Katy Ripp 00:36:44  Yeah, I think that’s a very common story. Yeah.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:36:47  So that was when I decided to just dive headfirst into my business and just focus on growing my business while being at home with my daughter. So that’s how. Wow. Life.

Katy Ripp 00:36:57  Yeah. I mean, aside from the child abuse part of that. Yeah. That’s awful. Yeah. But also, when you first started telling me that, I had kind of a smirk on my face because, again, you know, watching from the outside, looking in. I just believe that things do happen for you. To you, in ways that allow you to be ambitious and try something new. And if you are listening, and if you are open to it, you know.

Katy Ripp 00:37:28  Right. We we get to a point where these failures, quote unquote, or these lessons or these things that are sort of like before this action and after like these before and afters of like this particular thing happening changes the trajectory of our lives. Yeah. But we have to be open to that. And it sounds like you are already laying the foundation for that. And the universe was just like, here you go. Here. Yeah. Like, if you’re open to this, I’m going to give you this particular situation where you can now move forward. Yeah. So speaking of moving forward. Yes. Now you’ve got roles at home. You know, this is probably where we met. Like, we started connecting. And you know, when I hear 2018, I feel like it was like two years ago. It’s actually like fucking seven years ago this year. Yeah, well, I mean, it just feels like the pandemic didn’t happen, right? Like just that. It’s just so crazy that it it just a lot has happened in 5 or 6 years.

Katy Ripp 00:38:27  Yeah. Tell me about like, how things have grown. So your business is called Fearless Feet Running. We’re going to make sure that we have all of your information. And, you know, if this resonates with anybody and wants to start to run or we’re going to get into that in a little bit. But tell me about, like, the story behind the business name and like your coaching philosophy and how do you support runners like at what levels are you. You know, because I hear Professional Runner and I’m like, oh shit like that. She’s not she’s out of my league. I’m not that runner, right? Like, eventually I want to run again. Yeah. So tell me about like, all levels. Name all of that. Like, give me all the business. Give me your elevator pitch. Basically.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:39:08  Sounds good. I can do that. So the name Fearless Running actually kind of stemmed from, like, how I approached, like, my races. I wanted to go into my races, whether that was in high school or college or, you know, when I was running professionally.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:39:25  Just like wanting to be fearless, like not fearing the outcome. Yeah, I think it goes back to to my upbringing. My parents, I knew, would love me no matter what if I ran well or if I ran poorly. I think they just hoped for me to go to the start line without any expectations, like on myself, because I knew they weren’t expecting me to perform one way or the other. They just wanted me to go have fun. So if I could just approach the start line in a fearless way, like feeling fearless, I would be free of any like, expectations. And I wouldn’t fear failing. And I feel like in those moments you have some of your best races, like the best outcomes when you just don’t worry about, like, whether you’re gonna fail or not. So that’s kind of where the name came from. So fearless. I wanted to implement fearless somehow, so I felt like fearless feat. Was kind of funny and it worked. So running was born, and when I first started, I think in my first year I think I had eight athletes.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:40:24  And now so we are and I’ve had to kind of grown to scale because I know some people who do what I do have, like assistant coaches, which is great, but I want to be the sole coach. I want to be involved in everyone’s process. And not to say that people who have assistant coaches aren’t. I just that’s just not where I want to take my business. At least right now. That might change a year from now or two years from now. But so I’ve kind of had to grow to scale. And also, like when I started, I was still working the full time job, so I had to kind of have an athlete cap. So I think in my first year I capped it at ten, but I had eight, so it worked out great. And then I’ve just grown every year. So what I offer is what I call as long term coaching. So it’s like a four month minimum commitment. And this is for anyone who wants to train for a race for a half marathon, a marathon.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:41:18  I’ve worked with a couple ultra marathoners, though that’s not necessarily my specialty. It’s more like road running. So marathon distance and marathon distance are my specialties, but I also work with people who want to train for like their first five K or better their 10-K time. so these are just like people, average people, like normal people who have day jobs and who have kids and who are like me in terms of like, you know, being at home with kids or who have busy schedules. So all ability levels, which is really fun for me because I love hearing different people’s goals and helping them accomplish those goals, you know, despite what they may be going through in their lives. Like, I’ve worked with a couple of women who have used running, you know, as an outlet, like during a divorce. Or, you know, who just are looking to do something for themselves. And that’s been really rewarding, too. But women and I do have a couple actually male athletes. So that’s been fun too.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:42:17  But most of them are women, and most of them are women who want to challenge themselves and try to either better their half marathon time or qualify for a Boston Marathon or, yeah, take a couple minutes off their 10-K time. So it just depends on the person and who you ask. But I work with all ability levels and everyone has different goals, but it’s really enjoyable for me and I love working with all of my athletes. There’s like not one person that I have on my athlete roster right now that I don’t enjoy working with, and that’s really like I feel very grateful for that. Like I would call all of them friends. So it’s pretty fun because a lot of these athletes I’ve worked with for years, so it’s been an ongoing relationship with many people. Some people choose to just do like the like the four month minimum and want to train for like a half marathon or a marathon. But then I have others who just I’ve worked with ongoing for years, and that’s been really, really fun and rewarding because I’ve been able to see them through like marriages and babies and.

Katy Ripp 00:43:16  Yeah.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:43:17  Postpartum, like I’ve been able to work with them after like after having babies. It’s just like, oh my gosh. You see their family grow. It’s like I have I’m looking at I have like Christmas cards and my athletes and my son and that’s.

Katy Ripp 00:43:30  Yeah.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:43:30  Really, really rewarding. And it’s really fulfilling. So it doesn’t feel like a job for me to be honest. Yeah. It’s like, yeah, this is what.

Katy Ripp 00:43:38  I it’s different than a j-o-b, right? There are pieces of it that are jobs. Right. But I and I call it jobs just because I feel like there’s jobs, there are tasks that we need to do that either we hire somebody to do that we don’t want to do or we do it ourselves. And it’s just things that you have to do to make a business a success, right? But the overarching of it is if it brings you joy, if you can wake up on a Monday morning and not want to scratch your eyes out, I think you’re winning.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:44:07  I love your Monday, you know, love Monday emails because I feel the same way. Like I love Mondays. Yeah, you know, my kids are at school, I love my kids, I love them, but I love like, okay, get them off to school. They’re in their teens and I’m in my routine. I get to do what I love. I get to have some coffee, get to go work at the coffee shop or wherever. And it’s just it’s so fun. So yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:44:29  Tell me about the running part of it, because I’m always fast. So I was, I, I call myself a runner only because I run.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:44:38  If you run.

Katy Ripp 00:44:39  You’re a runner. I agree with that. I think that we need to get away from. Well, I can’t run. Well, yes you can. Actually, you were meant to run. Our bodies were meant to run. So one of the things you said about like helping people through divorce, right. Or or the really the like, emotional and the mental rewards from running.

Katy Ripp 00:45:01  Can you speak to that a little bit? If somebody has never run in their life. I do feel like there’s many of us, myself included, and I ran a half marathon. I run a full marathon. Yeah, I have run multiple five K’s. I have done the couch to five K program over and over again. My ultimate goal in my whole entire life is to run five miles consistently. You know, on a weekly basis, 2 or 3 times a week. That’s just like one of those goals out there. Am I working towards it? Not necessarily. But you know, it’s like a thing out there for me. And I think that there’s a lot of women that we just had an event on Friday night. And Melissa O’Hurley from her athletic club was talking about like, just find something you like and maybe it is running and you just don’t know it because you’re scared, right? So tell me about some of the rewards around. Oh, you know, we’ve all heard of the runner’s high.

Katy Ripp 00:45:54  We’ve all heard of the physical benefits of running. We’ve also all heard about the injuries of running. So that also is like an easy no no no. I don’t want to get hurt. So I don’t want to blow my Achilles. I don’t want to, you know, I don’t want plantar fasciitis, whatever it is. So those are easy excuses like of no, no, no, I can’t do that. I’m too old, I’m too fat, I’m not enough of this or too much of that or whatever. Can you tell me about some of, like, the actual mental emotional benefits that are like beyond running? Tell me about that, because I know that I’m assuming you have a very great philosophy on this.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:46:33  One of the biggest things that I can hopefully speak to on behalf of my athletes, the biggest thing is just overall self-confidence. Like someone setting a goal like a, you know, maybe it’s a mom who is busy, she’s got kids, or maybe she’s coming back from giving birth.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:46:55  She’s kind of in the postpartum phase and she feels like, oh my gosh, this like, how will I ever be able to get back to where I was, you know? Maybe she was running, racing half marathons prior to getting pregnant. And you know, maybe she had a tough labor. And she’s, you know, she’s in her postpartum phase and everything just feels hard, like things are out of reach. And then, you know, maybe setting a goal, maybe she sets a goal, which, you know, this has happened with a number of my athletes where they set a goal for like six months from then and, you know, to run a half marathon or nine months from then or a year from then, and they end up, you know, taking baby steps, they don’t do anything stupid because you can do, do some stupid stuff, you know, if you return to running too quickly and that’s a really big thing. And I think that’s an important thing about having a coach too, is to help rein you in when you want to go because you’re like, okay, I’m not carrying a baby anymore, and I can technically run, but that doesn’t mean you should run right out the gate.

Katy Ripp 00:47:56  Just because we can do things doesn’t mean we should do them.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:47:59  So that woman may set that goal for running a half marathon six months from then, or a year from then. That might be more realistic, but. And then they achieve it. And they were able to get through like one of the hardest parts of training. And maybe even their life, like postpartum is not easy. You know, it’s not an easy phase of life. So, you know, the fact that I’ve had a number of athletes who have been able to do that, set a goal, achieve it, like their confidence in themselves after that is just through the roof. And I feel like that just stays with them. That doesn’t go away. You know, you carried a baby, you gave birth to that baby and you know, you were able to set and achieve a goal. And there’s just so much to take from that. I think it’s self-confidence is the biggest thing. But that’s not just like I’m not talking about just women who have given birth or anything like that.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:48:49  There could be other circumstances in their in their lives that are hard or goals that they want to achieve that they feel like that were impossible. Like maybe there was someone who, ran a four hour, ten minute marathon and they really wanted to get that Boston qualifier. You know, and they had to take 30 minutes, you know, off their time to hit that peak. I’ve had people do that. And just the amount of confidence that they’re able to gain from not just the result, but like the process and like doing hard things, getting out of bed every morning and going before, you know, going to run before you work, coming home, taking care of your kids, like doing all of the things, maybe running after the kids are down, going on the treadmill. Like the people I work with are just so inspiring and they keep me inspired in my own daily life. Yeah, because everyone’s busy. Like, everyone has their own stuff going on. Anyone can make an excuse. We all make excuses like I’m guilty of it too.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:49:43  But you know.

Katy Ripp 00:49:44  We all have the same 24 hours in a day.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:49:46  Exactly. But everyone’s figuring out a way to make time for the thing they love. And that’s like the biggest things. The people I work with. They love it. They love running, and they make time out of their day, whether that’s in the morning before their kids are awake or it’s when they’re at school, or it’s when, you know, at night after they’re done working, you know, a busy job. They make time to do it because they love it and they want to succeed. Yeah. So I think I may have veered I may have veered from here. That’s okay.

Katy Ripp 00:50:15  No, no, no that’s fine.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:50:16  I think the biggest thing is, you know, self-confidence. That’s like the big, big, big thing because that goes outside of running and that might go into your dating life or into your work life or confidence as a parent. Like there’s just so many aspects to that that I think are beneficial, just so many ways.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:50:34  And then, yeah, just obviously like the physical benefits, like a lot of these people that I work with, my athletes, they want to run for a long time. They’re not just in it for most of them aren’t just in it to run a marathon, you know, train for four months and be done. These people want to run for as long as their bodies will let them. So you just think about all of the physical benefits, the emotional mental benefits, like people feel good after running and that’s not a coincidence. That’s your brain.

Katy Ripp 00:51:01  Yeah. That’s chemical.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:51:03  Yeah. This is what we were made to do. We were made to move our bodies and, you know, so yeah, the mental, emotional, physical benefits, you know, building muscle, you know, strengthening our heart muscle, like, these are all things that are going to stay with us for life. And yeah, it’s just really neat to see people and hear people feel empowered and confident in their daily life.

Katy Ripp 00:51:24  So yeah. Thank you. So we’re recording this in January and we hear lots of New year, new you, which I think is total bullshit. And we’ve been talking about this for a while. Like it’s not New Year, new you. You were just as cool on December 31st as you were on January 1st or January 13th when we’re recording this. But there’s probably a lot of people out there that do have a goal of running a race or starting to run. I mean, for me, when I was running regularly, the amount of time I got to myself that was like it was the solitude. Especially when I had little kids, just like my husband would come home from work and I’m like, peace. Yeah, let me go. Guys are yours. I’m going for my long run today. Goodbye. So if somebody has a goal right now or a resolution of like, hey, I want to get in, you know, not necessarily just get in shape, but, like, actually start to run.

Katy Ripp 00:52:22  Yeah. Do you have advice for somebody that’s just starting? Yeah. Not necessarily just starting you know exercise but actually just like wanting to run a race.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:52:31  Yeah. Big thing is don’t do too much too soon because that’s how people get hurt.

Katy Ripp 00:52:35  That’s the hardest thing. Yeah.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:52:37  So I would say start with baby steps. Maybe set out your goals for just the week instead of the whole month or the whole year. Let’s just start with the first week. If you’re, you know someone who is active but maybe isn’t and has some experience running, but isn’t running regularly. Maybe just start for twice a week? Hey, I’m going to try to get out twice a week this week and maybe do that for a couple of weeks until you are consistent with it and you know, you have proven to yourself you can do it. And then from there maybe start three days a week, maybe the next month. That’s when you go to three days a week and you just stay there and then, you know, just kind of keep building and maybe don’t ramp up to six days a week or seven days a week.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:53:16  Yeah, but maybe then increase the amount of time that you’re on your feet. So maybe you are doing three days a week for 30 minutes. Maybe if you are feeling ready for an added challenge, you know, maybe you make one of those days your longer run day and increase that incrementally. So yeah, don’t do too much too soon. Give yourself grace. But also like set realistic goals in the beginning. Don’t say, you know, I’m going to get out there five days a week. And that just goes back to doing too much too soon. But and then the last thing I would recommend is throw away the Garmin watch or the Apple Watch. Oh, yeah. Go on like a stopwatch or like time on your phone. Because some people get really discouraged if they look at their pace and they might say, gosh, I’m so slow. Like, what am I doing? I don’t have a chance. Like, so just throw that out. Just use like a manual stopwatch and go for time and just enjoy being outside in nature.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:54:07  Breathing in fresh air. Or if it’s on the treadmill, enjoy moving your body and be proud of yourself for starting. But yeah, I would say get rid of that GPS and just go for time. Go for time, baby.

Katy Ripp 00:54:19  I love it. Is this something like people could get when they get coaching from you, right? Like, what do people get when they sign up for coaching with you?

Caitlin Kowalke 00:54:27  Yeah. Basically constant feedback. So I have a platform that I use. It’s called V2. That’s the training platform. And what you see is so you’ll download if you’re working with me, you’re going to download the video to app. And you basically have your training calendar and everything’s written out for you. So if you’re training for A5K or a 10-K or a half marathon, I upload your training week basically the week before. So it’s all kind of in real time. I don’t put the whole like month of training out because that sometimes can be can be a little overwhelming for people. And from a time perspective, for me it works to just do it every week.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:55:00  So you’ll see your training for the week. You have the ability to like, leave notes and comments on how you run went. Some people leave comments on every single run and that’s great. I respond to it. Some people just leave notes on their one hard quality session, which is like their speed workout or their long run. But I’m always giving feedback and always just providing encouragement. And you know, if people have doubts or if they have questions, I always tell them, hey, just shoot me a text. It’s easier to just, you know, chat that way. But we also have monthly check ins, so one 30 minute call a month, and I do that with all of my athletes. Wow. I have 40 athletes now. So I’ve grown from.

Katy Ripp 00:55:39  Oh my god Caitlin that’s crazy. Easy.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:55:43  So one of the big things I implemented was like using something as simple as like the Calendly. You know, I just got like I think during the pandemic, I added that in, but that was like a big step for me because I’m like, okay, this is cool.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:55:56  Now my athletes have the ability to schedule their own, you know, saving me time, but they have the ability to schedule their own calls. So I just have to, you know, plan out my calendar accordingly. But yeah, I have a 30 minute check in with all of my athletes every month, and then they’re getting real time feedback from me in the app. So it’s kind of like a it works almost like a text message where you get notified, like if I leave a comment. Oh, sure. Yep. You did your run today, and I get to see all of their real time like data from their Garmin watch or their Apple Watch. So it shows me like their average pace. You know, it shows me their average cadence, max elevation. Like, was this a hilly route? I get to see all of those fun things. So even though I’m not there with them in person, I get to see all of their data. I could see their average heart rate.

Katy Ripp 00:56:40  Which means you get to see all the improvements too, right? Yes. Like their heart rate dropping or their blood? Yeah. Their vitals improving. I think that that’s so cool too, I. Those are sort of the like they’re not intangible, but like those little winds that you don’t like, people don’t really pay attention to because we’re looking at the scale or we’re looking at our time or we’re looking at, you know, things that that society would like us to measure against instead of, holy shit, you’ve just lowered your blood pressure and or your heart rate so you can now live longer. Like, yep. I mean, we have to love our lives to want to live longer. So there’s, you know, there’s some foundational work here. And, you know, you can start just by loving Mondays. And then when we love Mondays, we can start to love the rest of our lives. But yeah, that’s cool that you can see that. And then you can sort of that kind of feedback to people you know about themselves.

Katy Ripp 00:57:32  It’s one thing to see it yourself. It’s another thing to have a third party look at it and be like, no, no, no, look, this has like you are improving. Exactly. Because we are looking for big, you know, big wins sometimes.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:57:45  Exactly. Yeah.

Katy Ripp 00:57:47  So tell me we didn’t get a ton into, like, business ownership, mainly because I’m so fascinated by running myself. So before we wrap up, tell me, like, your favorite thing about owning your own business? I know you talked a little bit about the connection with your clients. I feel very much the same way. I’m a coach in a different way, but I learned so much from my clients. And also I get to like, watch the progress and the successes and the. It’s so inspiring to watch other people really go out and reach a goal. From a business standpoint, I know you were raised by entrepreneurs. So from a business standpoint, and especially as a female, what are some of the greatest things that you’ve gotten out of that?

Caitlin Kowalke 00:58:30  Yeah, like you said, the relationships with my athletes I call like I call them all friends.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:58:36  They’re just great people. I feel really, really blessed to be working with these people. It’s just awesome. But I think the other the biggest thing is the flexibility. I honestly didn’t, even when I left my full time job and started working from home and being a mom, I just remember feeling like, wow, people do this. This is awesome. Like, I get to create my own path. I get to do what I want, when I want to do it. And I just for the longest time, I guess I kind of got to do that when I was running professionally, but this was different. Like this was something I had started, I had created, and then I had my daughter at home and it just felt really empowered. And so the flexibility to be able to work when I wanted, schedule calls when I wanted, and then also still be there for my daughter, it was just the best of both worlds. It was really, really amazing. And so the flexibility is probably the biggest thing.

Caitlin Kowalke 00:59:27  And yeah, and financial independence.

Katy Ripp 00:59:29  Yeah. Good for you. How about biggest challenge for you?

Caitlin Kowalke 00:59:32  Ooh. Biggest challenge. I think I’ve gotten better at it. But balance separating work from life. And I’m sure you get this, Katy, because you love what you do. You love the people you work with, making sure that work isn’t spilling into life at home with your husband or with your kids. I was at a point like when my business was really, really thriving. I wanted to work on the weekends, and I remember my husband, like, was like, hey, this is great. He was so supportive and but he was like, you also like, you have your own business. You can set your own hours if you don’t want to work on the weekend. The problem was like, I love it. This doesn’t really feel like work, so I don’t really need to set hours. I can just like still work on Saturdays and Sundays, but I think that was kind of spilling over into my home life and, you know, it was becoming a distraction for, you know, maybe I wasn’t necessarily as present for my kids or my husband when I should have been.

Caitlin Kowalke 01:00:31  So I was thankful to have him to kind of reel me in and just say, hey, why don’t you, like, not work on Saturday and Sunday like you would be working at a corporate job? So, you know, I have mostly stayed true to that. There are times when I’ll like, go on, you know, VDot to check people’s, you know, their updates to see like how a workout was or something like that.

Katy Ripp 01:00:52  Perfect. Can it’s progress.

Caitlin Kowalke 01:00:55  Yes.

Katy Ripp 01:00:55  It’s progress.

Caitlin Kowalke 01:00:56  So for the most part now I just work Monday through Friday and try to stay away from work. You know, after Friday at 5 p.m..

Katy Ripp 01:01:04  So yeah. And most people that are out there right now listening that are like, oh my God, I could never imagine working on the weekends because I hate my job. Or, you know, like I clock in at 8 a.m. on Monday and I am out on Friday and I don’t ever take this home. And that’s totally cool. Like, if that’s your life and that’s what you want, that’s totally cool.

Katy Ripp 01:01:23  I also have a little bit of a hard time turning it off. And I know you’re married to an entrepreneur too. So as I am and he’s got a little bit less flexibility than I do, but I just like, kind of ebb and flow in and out of work all day long because I also am responsible for the kids, right? Like I’m responsible for the pickup and the drop off and the it’s just the roles that I’ve been. It was a role that I put myself in or I was put in that. I also am in charge of kids doctor’s appointments and dentist appointments and all of those things. And so I have the flexibility to do that. So it’s never an eight hour day for me. It’s never I, you know, go into work at 8 a.m. and I’m off at five like some I and I know my schedule and my body’s rhythm pretty well that like 12 to 3 I’m out. I don’t work from 12 to 3 because I need a nap sometimes and I want to go work out, or I just want to binge on TV or or whatever.

Katy Ripp 01:02:20  That’s my time. But I get sort of a second wind in the evening that all of a sudden I’m like, God, I could work from 6 to 8. And that took me a really long time to get out of the 9 to 5 Work day, even though I was never really in it. The whole society is built around kind of a school day or a school. If you’ve got kids, a school, you know, calendar. So my life has really been built around that for so long. It took me a long time to get out of it and find my rhythm and know that it’s okay to take off 12 to 3, because that’s not my best work, so it’s okay to do that. I don’t need to work eight hours like eight is not a it’s not a number. Like, yeah, if you can get your work done in three hours, who gives a shit if it’s eight hours? Like I don’t work. You know when I say I work full time, does that mean I work 40 hours a week? Absolutely not.

Katy Ripp 01:03:14  I work full time in my own head 100%. Yeah, yeah. Oh, Caitlin, I could talk to you all day long. I love this, and I’m so glad you agreed to come on here. where can people find you? If something resonated here and they’re like, shit, I think I want to start running or I want to get back to where I was or I, you know, want to get a PR? I really need a coach. I need somebody that I connect with, tell me where they can find you, where they can work with you.

Caitlin Kowalke 01:03:42  Yeah. So they can go directly to my website, fearless Speedrun.com. They can also go to my Instagram. My personal account now is private. They can add me, but I have a Instagram page that’s just fearless feet running so you can find me there or add me as a friend. Just follow me on Instagram. My personal page. Caitlin C Kowalski. but yeah, the best place probably is to go to my website and just shoot me an email.

Katy Ripp 01:04:09  Amazing. We will put all of that in the show notes as well, but it’s so good to talk to you. I’m so thankful for you to come on and we will put everything in the show notes for you.

Caitlin Kowalke 01:04:18  Perfect. Thank you so much, Katy.

Katy Ripp 01:04:22  And that’s a wrap on today’s episode. I hope you enjoyed diving deep into the world of living authentically with me. Before you go, don’t forget to connect with me on Instagram. Shoot me a message at Katy Ripp. I’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode and connect with you further. And remember, if you want more details on today’s episode or just want to explore more about designing your life unapologetically, head on over to my website at Katy Ripp. Com. There you’ll find all the juicy details and resources you need to keep the inspiration flowing. Lastly, if you’d like to join me on the show, whether it’s to tell about your experience of designing your own life, to share your expertise, or if you’d like to participate in lifestyle coaching live on air, don’t hesitate to reach out.

Katy Ripp 01:05:03  Your story could inspire countless others on their own path to living authentically. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep living boldly designing your life. And remember #ActuallyICan.