Episode 176: Sasha Wolff - Still I Run

<p><a href="https://www.instagram.com/stillirun/" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sasha Wolff</a>, founder of Still I Run, and I were connected through my friend, Lindsey Hein, of <em>I'll Have Another</em>. This episode comes out right before National Run for Mental Health Week and Still I Run's 10-year anniversary on October 10.</p><p>During this episode, we talk about:</p><ul><li>[1:00] How much Still I Run has changed since Sasha was on Lindsey's podcast</li><li>[3:00] Being hospitalized for depression and anxiety in 2011, and the conversation in a Best Buy parking lot that got her there</li><li>[6:00] Building a "mental health toolkit," choosing running, and the first run home from the hospital </li><li>[7:00] What a week inside a mental health hospital is actually like</li><li>[10:00] Digging into the science behind running and mental health, and searching for a group that didn't exist</li></ul><ul><li>[13:00] Finding out we both have daughters named Sloane (Ferris Bueller fans unite)</li><li>[16:00] Her husband's promise to get her to run a marathon, the Dopey Challenge, and how Maya Angelou's "Still I Rise" became a tattoo and then Still I Run</li><li>[17:00] Pitching local TV and turning "a girl and her Facebook group" into something bigger</li><li>[18:00] Selling hand-stamped jewelry in church basements and donating every dollar back to the hospital that helped save her life</li><li>[21:00] Being one of those "nerdy running couples" </li><li>[22:00] Running through three pregnancies, and what going off her medication cold turkey taught her</li><li>[25:00] Trying to run a race every month of her first pregnancy, and her daughter arriving early on race day</li><li>[26:00] Meeting the first Still I Run member in person, the first World Mental Health Day 5K, and the Still I Run tattoo that told her this was really something</li></ul><ul><li>[30:00] The Starting Line Scholarship (now Mental Health Runner), and why it has always been free</li><li>[32:00] Why running is therapeutic, but it is not therapy</li><li>[36:00] Becoming a New York City Marathon charity partner in 2022, and leaving the corporate world to go all in</li><li>[39:00] Year 10: a new mission and brand, and why everybody has mental health</li><li>[43:00] 380+ ambassadors, run chapters across the country, and the "pace protectors" who promise to be last in a group run</li><li>[45:00] Cold emailing Women's Running, and keeping reminders of the good around you</li><li>[47:00