776. The 2025 State of the Ali on the Run Show

Happy New Year and welcome to the Alley on the Run show. I am your host, Ally Feller, and I am so happy to have you here with me. If you are new to the Alley on the Run show, welcome. I'm not sure I would start with this episode, but hey, it is so great to have you here, and I will tell you that normally on this show, I talk with people who are doing exciting things on the run and beyond.

From professional athletes and celebrity runners to the everyday amateur and back of the pack runner, we are here to celebrate everyone and anyone who enjoys a life on the run. So whether you find yourself running toward something big or away from something that has been holding you back, I am here to help you pick up the pace and that's the gist. That's what we do here. It's a lot of fun.

Every year I kick things off on the show by offering my alley on the run show State of the Union. It holds me accountable or at least I claim it does. I don't know if it actually does. But I do like sharing it with you because I don't know if I've mentioned this recently. But I love you and I value you and you are the reason that I do this. Yes, I am the host, but you are the community. You are the people. You are my people.

So, I'll be breaking this episode up into a few parts into a few fun segments. First, I will give you the alley on the run show by the numbers, some superlatives from 2024, recapping all the good stuff, some of the less good stuff, a bit of reflection on my personal highlight and low light rail from me here, and yeah, 24.

Bit of a doozy, but it I also had some of the highest highs ever. So we'll celebrate those for sure. Then I will revisit my 2024 goals. These are the ones I shared in last year's State of the Alley on the Run Show episode. So we'll find out which ones I pursued, which ones were failures, and failure isn't necessarily a bad thing. And which ones did I totally forget about?

plenty of those every year. Then, of course, we will look forward. I'll share my 2025 mission statement along with a few personal and professional goals that are on my mind right now. So, I'm ready if you are. Let's take a look at the past, present, and future of the Alley on the Run Show.

Part one, we're looking back. This is the alley on the run show in 2024. So in 2024, the alley on the run show surpassed 23 million downloads. We are creeping right up on 24 million, which is absolutely wild. This year, the alley on the run show released 92 episodes with more than 63 different guests. 36 of those were first timers.

And 27 were recurring or returning guests. Now I did not go through and include all of the guests that were on the everything you need to know about New York or everything you need to know about Chicago episodes. Nor did I go through and count out each of the guests from the various panels that I did, but bear with me, we're close enough. I also put out 14 solo episodes in terms of guests.

Nikki Hiltz was the top recurring guest of 2024 making four Allie on the run show appearances this year alone. Nikki is now one of just three guests who have appeared on the show 10 or more times and no surprise Nikki was on so many times this year.

They had the year of their dreams and it was so fun to watch. You know, I'm such a Nikki super fan as for the top spot with 11 appearances on the alley on the run show. They are tied. Deslandin and Kira Demoto take the top two spots.

So, in looking at the numbers, and I know I say this every year, the numbers are never the most important thing. For me, it's the messages that are far more important when I'm looking at the impact of this show. That being said, I just went through some numbers. Now that Apple Podcasts no longer does auto downloads, the numbers are

Kind of all over the place. I don't know if other podcasters find that to be true. I know I talked to Chris Chavez of SidiousMag about this at one point earlier in the year. Also, my podcast hosting platform, Libson, got a completely new and, in my opinion, terrible interface that I barely know how to use, and so I almost never check my downloads now unless a potential or current sponsor asks.

That being said, across the various charts on things like chartable, which also no longer exists, the alley on the run show continues to do well by any and all measures that I think are important. So yay, we're starting off with a win here.

I didn't get back to doing the series that I love so much this year. I desperately need someone to keep me in line there. I skipped love on the run week for a few reasons, though I did do a very love-filled episode with Connor Manson Clayton Young. That was really fun. Let's do some more superlatives by the numbers. So in looking at the most downloaded episodes of the year, do you want top five or top ten?

You can't answer me right now. I'll give you top 10. Starting with the 10th most downloaded episode of 2024, it was the best advice we've ever received, which was me being like, oh crap, I don't have a guest for this week. What can I pull together? And I crowd sourced and

It made me want to do more of those because you're all really fun. Also, I always remind everyone when I do these, keep in mind that obviously pretty much all of the episodes in this section, the most downloaded are going to be from the first half of the year because even if I put out an episode last week that absolutely killed it, it's not going to amass more downloads than something that came out back in January.

Somehow, the best advice we've ever received, which came out early in the year, is in the top 10. Number nine was my 2024 US Olympic team trials marathon weekend recap. I had so much fun being down in Orlando and recap to all the action as I always do after those big race weekends.

8th, Jess McLean's 2024 US Olympic marathon trials recap. You're going to see a theme here. The marathon trials episodes were great for the alley on the run show. Jess McLean, we all fell in love with her all over again at the trials and really awesome to see the year that she had. And I see a bright continued future for her. I love rooting for her.

The seventh most downloaded episode was Love on the Run with Clayton Young and Connor Mance. I can't get enough of those sweet guys from Utah. The sixth most downloaded Emma Coburn on Life Lately, which I'm pretty sure after she became a mom this fall, we're going to need to do another one of those soon. The fifth most downloaded was Jenny Simpson, Soon to Be Marathon. This is when Jenny was on the show before the marathon trials, before she made her debut at that distance.

Fourth most popular, catching up with Molly Cydol. Molly Cydol is always going to top the charts. Any podcast host knows that Molly is podcast gold. And if you remember that episode, you remember exactly why this one made the rounds. The third most downloaded episode was Fiona O'Keefe. And the title here is 2024 Olympic Marathon Trials competitor. This episode came out two days before the race, which she went on to win in her marathon debut.

Second most downloaded Sarah Hall's 2024 US Olympic Marathon trials recap. And the most downloaded episode of the alley on the run show in 2024 was Dakota Lindworms 2024 US Olympic Marathon trials recap.

She is now Dakota Poppain and who doesn't love Dakota Poppain. The biggest day of downloads on the Alley on the Run Show was February 20th, which was the day that Sarah Hall's trials recap came out. After that, it was the day of Dakota's trials episode and of course Molly Cydal's life update back in April. Now, if we're looking at

lifetime downloads, the all time most downloaded episodes of the alley on the run show. That top spot is live with Molly Seidel Olympic bronze medalist. We did a virtual live show. Thank you, picky bars for making that happen. And it was right when Molly had gotten back from Tokyo where she won Olympic bronze. We had so much fun. That has been the top episode since 2020. What was that 2021?

It keeps the top spot, though it does swap occasionally with what is now the number two most downloaded a life update from Ally. That was last year's episode where I shared my breast cancer diagnosis. Love that of all of the interviews I've done. That one is still at the top of the charts.

After that, we've got everything you need to know about the 2022 TCS New York City Marathon. That was the first year that I did one of those monster everything you need to know episodes. So that one remains pretty popular. Fourth most downloaded of all time is Callum Neff, Pacer for Kiro D'Amato's American record when they ran the American Marathon record in Houston.

Number five, Jess Sims, her 2022 Boston Marathon recap. She is a Peloton instructor. The sixth most downloaded is Girl Talk with Molly Cydol and Anush Arakillian. That was our, what is it, Galentine's Day episode. It was sort of the antidote to love on the run week. We did love on the run week and then Girl Talk with Molly and Anush. The seventh most downloaded, Molly Cydol, on returning to racing in 2023.

Again, Molly, podcast gold. You know who else is podcast gold? Kira Jamoto, because the eighth most downloaded was my Eugene Marathon recap, which Kira hosted for me. Nine is Ellie Kemper, marathoner, I always say Ellie Kemper, you know, Erin from the office.

10th most downloaded is Sarah Vaughn after she won CIM in 2021, immediately signed a deal with Puma. And of course, this was her marathon debut after an awesome career on the track running the 1500.

And because I just threw in 11, I guess, for this one. The 11th is everything you need to know about the 2023 TCS New York City Marathon. As for me, so beyond just the downloads, my most memorable episodes of 2024, I thought I would share with you the ones that stand out for me.

It's always going to be Nikki Hiltz and especially this year where Nikki just had such an incredible year at indoors and then of course outdoors, winning the 1500 at the trials, making it to the 1500 meter final at the Olympics, just seeing Nikki out there being so authentically themselves and thriving and winning and running such incredible times.

Such a fan. Such a fan of Nikki Hiltz. And did anyone have more fun at the Olympics than Nikki Hiltz? I don't know. I don't think so. Maybe Alonamar, but the two of them, they could have a good time together. I would love to see the adventures of Nikki and Alonamar. Dakota Lindbergh, Dakota Popane. I'm going to get used to it, I swear. I loved getting to chat with Dakota throughout the year. And again, her story is so incredible and to see her finish third at the trials and be the top

American woman at the Olympics in the marathon and always with that big, big smile on her face. I love her. I'm such a Dakota Lindrum fan. Always love catching up with Emma Coburn. I always love catching up with Molly Seidel, even if she is coming on the show and talking about getting high before doing strength training and mobility work. It's fine. Everything is fine. I wasn't nervous at all putting out that episode.

Uh, the pros are always so fun, right? Like the Yared Nagus episode was such a highlight for me this year. I feel like I had a sweet spot in the fall where it was like Yared Nagus and then Phoebe Robinson, the comedian, and then Lauren Peterson, who that is one of my all time favorite conversations. Uh, she's the political speech writer. I was fascinated by that one. Uh, Katie Stillo from the Today Show. She's the food stylist. I loved that episode. I still think about it all the time. She's one of the

Very few people on Instagram that I think I watch every single story she posts and I respond to everything. Should I not? I'm a big, big Katie fan. I just think she's so cool. I think she's gorgeous. I think she's funny. For some reason, I like the sound of her voice a lot. Is this weird? Should I be admitting this? Kate Gunderson. So Kate Gunderson, the flight test engineer.

That is the episode I was probably most nervous for other than, of course, Gabby Thomas at Carnegie Hall. I was super nervous to interview Kate Gunderson because, you know, I've talked about this before, but to me, she just has such a different skill set. I've stopped saying she is smarter than me because I know I'm not supposed to talk that way, but she has

a brain that works so differently than mine. And I find that fascinating and intimidating. So I was nervous for that one. I loved that one. I would jump at the opportunity to get to interview her again and definitely would love to get to meet her in person and hang out with her and Kate take me flying. Let's do that.

And then to close out the year, one of my personal favorites was that monster two-hour episode with Jenny Simpson, where we talked about her career. She talked about running the seven marathons, seven continents, seven days.

talked about the New York City marathon and her journey in the marathon. And of course, talked about retiring from professional running and what that's meant to her. And Jenny is such a, again, I know every podcast host will agree that Jenny is one of the best people to interview. She's so thoughtful in everything that comes out of her mouth, which I aspire to be that way. I like to speak without thinking. Whereas Jenny,

really articulates exactly what she wants to say. And I admire that. I'm never going to be that person, but I love that she is. As for the ones that all of you loved, this is where I see it in the posts and the reposts and the shares and the comments and the messages and the Facebook group. And so

the everyday runner episodes. They get the most love. The marathon women get the most downloads. No doubt about that. And this year with the marathon trials, those episodes were far and away the most downloaded episodes. But in terms of the ones that people are really passionately talking about and wanting more of, it is the everyday runner episodes. And this year that was

Katie Stiello, it was Anne Keene, it was Kate Green, Lauren Peterson, Emily Palmer, the crime reporter that we all think is badass and are maybe also a little worried about. Emily, are you safe? And of course, I have to mention the episode. So many of you loved the Logan Aldridge episode. That was a fun one.

Runners that I loved getting to know this year. Like I said earlier, there were a lot of people I interviewed for the first time, and that's always fun for me. So Gabby Rooker, Amanda Vestry, Wainie Kaladi, McKenna Myler, Jess McLean, Rachel Schneider-Smith, Emily Mackay, Chrissy Gear, Betsy Sena,

Jess Hall, Matt Senterwitz. That was actually a favorite of mine too. Those are just a few of the first time guests on the show, but those are the ones that really stood out as people that I was so excited to get to chat with and have on the show for the very first time. So always, always, always grateful when people agree to make their alley on the run show debut.

I was a part of 12 live shows this year. You know that live shows are my favorite thing to do. I recapped this recently through the outfits. I did the outfit post on Instagram looking back at my live show outfits because I work from home every day. I wear a bathrobe most days that I'm working. I'm wearing a bathrobe right now. Thank you Dana for my barefoot dreams robe. It's my favorite thing.

So for me, live shows are just such a fun reason to get to wear something that I don't wear every day, to get to change out of my robe. And so we went to Richmond for the River City Half. I did the New York City Half live show with Emily Sisson. I hosted a panel for Ufos.

At the Boston Marathon, I did a live show at the Expo with Emma Bates and Jenny Simpson, did a live show with New Balance and Mebka Flesge during Boston weekend, and then got right back on, I was gonna say back on a plane, but wasn't back on a plane. I drove to Boston and then I flew to Eugene to do a live show with Emily Halman as part of her To the Gorge book release, which was really special to be a part of.

I was the guest on Set the Pace Live at the Brooklyn Half. I also hosted a Brooklyn Half Live show with New Balance and Emma Coburn.

We did Ask Ally Live at the Akron Marathon. I went to Chicago where I hosted a live show birthday party with Emily Sisson and special guests Emma Coburn and Joe Vassard. And then we wrapped things up in New York City where I got to go live with Gabby Thomas and the next day with Kira DiMato. So that was the year in live shows. Two of my proudest moments, people always ask what I'm proudest of. So two things that immediately came to mind for this year. I don't know why these came to mind, but

First is I was pretty proud that I had Fiona O'Keefe on the alley on the run show just two days before she won the Olympic Trials marathon in her 26.2 mile debut. Fiona's pretty quiet. She doesn't do a ton of interviews. She flies pretty under the radar and I...

to have her on the show because why wouldn't I have her on the show? And then she won the whole dang thing. And so many people were like, Ali knew something we didn't know I didn't. I was just going through the list of people who were on and I was interested and intrigued by Fiona's story and her training. And so no, I mean, I got kind of lucky there, but I'll take the credit. I will take the credit. And then the other one is I had Elizabeth Smart on the show this year and Elizabeth has in.

incredible and insane story about being kidnapped, you know, Elizabeth Smart's story and if you don't, you don't need to hear it from me, but I had her on the show and

In preparing for it, I made the decision to not talk to her about her kidnapping. I knew that parts of that because that's a huge part of her life. I knew it would come up. I knew we would talk about her safety because that's something she's passionate about. But I didn't want to bring her on the show and have her rehash what it was like being kidnapped and being rescued. And I mean, she's told that story.

how many hundreds of times and I wanted to really focus on the running part of her story and I know that for some people listening it was probably like wait are you not gonna talk about it and

If there's something, I've learned so many things over the past two years, but a big thing that I've spent a lot of time thinking about is when you've been through something hard, people want to hear about it. And that's totally fine. That can be great. Awareness is a wonderful thing. It can also be re-traumatizing every single time. Maybe not. Maybe you get to a point where you're so used to telling your story that you can just tell it.

I can only speak to my own experience, but after being diagnosed with cancer last year, everyone wants to ask me about, especially about being diagnosed. What was it like when you were diagnosed? I've done so many interviews where people want to go back to that and they want me to relive it and they want me to talk about it and I get it. And as a podcast host, I've done it. I've done it so many times. And so I think going through that,

really helped me look at how I ask questions and how I interview people and how I talk to people about the hard times they've been through. And of course, we want to hear about the lowest moments and the hardest times and how they got through them, right? That's the good stuff.

And it is a huge emotional undertaking to ask someone to constantly relive the worst days of their life. And so I think I've tried to be a little bit more, what is the word I am looking for at 10, 15 at night? It's not gonna come to me and then I'm gonna be so mad when I think of it as soon as I lay in bed and however long. Intentional, is that the word I want? Let's go with intentional. Yeah, I've tried to be more intentional about

how I'm framing these stories and can I do some of the lifting? Can I maybe recap some of their story in my intro so that that person doesn't have to do it and so Yeah, I'm proud of I'm proud of that and I did get a few messages from people being like

you know that that appreciated how that interview was set up. So I of course am going to thank the sponsors that make it all possible and this year's roster of sponsors was I'm just so I'm I'm beside myself and I'm

I'm super grateful for these partnerships and relationships that at this point have been going on for years and so to you can be very new balance sidekick gutter tracksmith lagoon Adidas the Eugene marathon and Volvo cars

Thank you for being a part of the Alley on the Run Show in 2024. Let's keep going. Much like in 2023, the Alley on the Run Show this year was focused on, let's say, fun, survival, and ease, if I'm being honest. It was, again, as you heard by the numbers, it was a lot of return guests. It was plenty of last minute, oh, I don't have a guest for this week. Shoot. Hey, insert friend here. Can we chat?

And I don't love that. I don't, I don't not love those episodes. I always love getting to chat, especially with my friends, but I hate knowing that my priorities have been such that I can't be fully creative most of the time. And in 2024, still a lot of my time and energy had to go elsewhere. It's just how it is.

This is the point where I'm always like, oh, this episode's going to be way too long. But this is the formula. This is what I do. So my personal and professional highlights. This is a retrospective, a look back at 2024 beyond the podcast.

2024 got off to a rough start. But I will say by November, it took a major turn for the better. That is what I want to remember most. That is what I hope I remember most. But to go back to January, January was one of the worst and hardest months for me. February wasn't great either.

I know that physically I thought I looked okay coming out of chemotherapy. I remember being like, I don't look sick. I'm doing okay because I see myself all the time. But looking back when I went back and was just going through my favorite photos in this new photo update, which terrible, terrible. No one likes the photo update on the iPhone.

Oh, but I was going back and looking and oh my gosh. I looked sick. I did. I had lost my eyebrows. I lost my eyelashes. I had bald spots all over my head. I went for that run in the winter with my neighbor Molly and my hair got matted and we ended up having to chop it off. It was awful. I lost more hair in the month of January than at any other time and that was so frustrating because

I was done with chemo and I had done the cold capping and I thought that the shedding would stop even though everyone told me you keep shedding for like six months after chemo. But of course I think that's your story, not mine. But yeah, January is when I lost most of my hair. January is when I was also dealing with a tremendous amount of stress.

I hadn't shared it publicly yet, but Annie's dad and I were going through a divorce and at that point we were still living together and I maintain that that was the single hardest thing I have done in my whole life. That period of time for me was awful. So yeah, January, February, November, December, it was just, it was a hard time and I struggled and

It's not part of the reason that I struggled, but I was struggling in a way that all of you didn't know, right? And I wasn't ready to share that. I shared all the cancer stuff. I shared plenty of my sadness with you. But it often did feel like I was sort of living a double life as someone who does share so much online and who

talks all the time. And I was getting messages all the time. Hey, we haven't seen him on your posts in a while. What's going on? You're always thanking your friend. Well, yeah, that's what was going on. And again, I always say that I'm not going to get into details. That is all personal. But as I've shared just a little bit more,

The reason I do that is I think just to give a little bit of context and maybe, I guess, more simply to offer a reminder that you really don't know what people are going through. Even people who share a lot of their lives online, you don't know. You don't know what's happening behind closed doors. You don't know how their hearts are feeling.

It's really, it's not easy, but I can get behind a microphone and talk for an hour. I can do that. I've gotten really good over the past two years at compartmentalizing. I know it's so lame, and so many of you probably roll your eyes so hard every time I reference Taylor Swift by now, but when the song I can do it with a broken heart came out, I have never felt so seen. And it's not because I was going through life with a broken heart.

Just, oh my God, I'm so sad. No, it was, oh my God, my life is falling apart, but I'm putting on a happy face because I'm doing a live show for 600 people at the New York City Marathon with Ellie Kemper right now. And you don't know it, but my life feels like it's falling apart. And so I think it's just this reminder to everyone out there that you're probably going through something that's kind of hard that most people don't know about, right? Well, everyone is. So maybe let's all move through life with more kindness and compassion.

Okay, this went on a spiral as we tend to do, and by we, I mean me. Okay, let's see, a low light that I remember from last year's episode is that I talked about how I didn't have plans to be at the marathon trials, and I was super bummed because I was going through chemo, and I didn't have my life together at all at the time.

Everything was falling apart. So I certainly wasn't making plans to be at the trials and then finally it was a few weeks out and I decided to go anyway. I went as a fan and as a spectator and I had mixed feelings about that about being in Orlando and not working and I'm glad I did it. No regrets. I had so much fun. It was a great weekend.

Made the most of it. I hosted an impromptu meetup on the lake down in Orlando, and so many people came, which was so cool for so many reasons. Obviously, yes, of course it's cool that you listen to the show and you're part of this community and you wanted to meet me. But let's zoom out a little. How cool is it that so many of us descended on Orlando to watch a race where we personally did not know most of the people racing? A lot of people went not knowing any of the people racing.

We went because we're fans of the sport and we're fans of these athletes and so we went to Orlando for sports. I'm a sports person. I've always wanted to be a sports person. Here we are. We're doing it. I remember a night and because I'm doing personal and professional and I was going through my photos as I found a picture from a night back in February when I went to a Taylor Swift to sing along.

and it was in New Hampshire and I went with some girlfriends and it was one of my, I feel like it was one of my first solo nights out, which I get, that's not true because I've done plenty of girls nights in my life, obviously, but just with everything with the cancer and with the divorce and all of that.

it felt like a big step to get dressed up and go out and it was weird and it was empowering and I'm glad I did it and if you're gonna go out and try to have a weird and empowering night a Taylor Swift thing along is a really great way to do it so that was really fun

I celebrated seven years of The Alley on the Run Show end of February. So February in general, like I said, February was hard. Personally, it was hard. And at the end of February, Annie's eye moved out. And that was obviously a lot of things. And that was a hard day for me. Yeah, just.

hard. And then soon after that, I finally shared that in a very, you know, pretty brief and mostly vague Instagram posts just shared that I've I used the word divorce basically and said that that was a part of my life. And I hated sharing that. But I also kind of had to rip that band aid because I was sick of getting questions about it.

So did that. And it felt like a weight was lifted just in having it out there of like, okay, now I don't have to answer all of these. Well, I didn't answer them. I ignored them. I ignored all of the questions in the comments and the prying and the nosiness. I get it. I get it. I do. I get it. But if people aren't talking about something, there's usually a reason. So you can ask all you want, but

Rarely is someone gonna be like, you know what? I'm finally ready to talk about this because a person I don't know commented on this I don't know I don't have the words yet for all of that but It did feel like a weight was lifted just in terms of doing my job and having a public facing profession and at least having that out there so

Yeah, life looked different. That was like a new, another new chapter moving forward and I shared that on Instagram and then got on a flight to Richmond. Annie and I went to Richmond, Virginia for the River City half where I was doing a live show with Kira Damato. I ran the 5K while I was there. Turns out I

One, my age group, I have a plaque, so that's exciting for me. Kira won the half marathon, so of course she did. But I won my age group in the 5K, and so we're the same. My cousin Jackie came with her daughter, and my friend Zack and Connor came, and I did end up having strep. I didn't know it at the time, but about halfway through the meet and greet after the live show, I started to feel weird, and the next day I couldn't get out of bed.

I sat in Kira's sauna and fell asleep for like three hours. I was I was so sick, so sick. I ended up getting strep three times in the spring. It just kept coming back. It was so bad every time. I'm like best friends with the people at urgent care. And so yeah, spring physically was rough. And I know what you're thinking. Well, could it be the stress?

I think so. I think so. I was feeling a lot of various stressors at the time. So yes, we went to Virginia. I got strep, but I will never forget Annie doing the sound check for the show. It was so cute. Her out on stage with her cousin Emerson and just being adorable.

Later that month, I ran the New York City half. I was running then, which was great. Other than the recurring strip, I was pretty healthy and able to run. So I ran the New York City half on a whim. I signed up. I was able to get a bib thanks to my relationship with New Balance and New York Roadrunners. I'm fortunate to say that.

I'm sorry. So ran the New York City half. I got to stop in Times Square. They had me do an interview for the ABC seven broadcast, which was cool. But mostly that was a great weekend where I got to go to New York to a live show with Emily Sisson, run the race. And I just felt like I was living my normal life again. I wasn't doing cancer things and divorce things. And I was just being me. And so that was really nice.

So the heiress tour, Taylor Swift's heiress tour, was released on Disney at some point. And I kept waiting to watch it because I was like, I'm not ready. I'm not ready. And that's another big moment from this year for me is one night in March when I had Annie for the weekend. And we said, we're going to watch the heiress tour tonight. And it was

awesome. She loved it. We went through a phase where we were watching it every night that we were together. After she finished whatever show she got to watch at night, we would watch like five minutes. She would pick the era. She almost always picked reputation. And we would just watch a couple minutes and have a dance party and go to bed really happy. And I hope those are the moments that I remember the most when I look back on 2024.

We started celebrating holidays differently this year. I didn't have any for Easter, so we celebrated Easter weekend early with family in the middle of an ice storm with no power. We lost power so many times this spring, and I learned how to use a generator. For all of the hard things, there were plenty of wonderful things. Using a generator is not a wonderful thing. I don't know why I'm going on that tangent,

Empowering I'll use that word learned how to use a generator pretty proud of myself I Continued throughout most of the year. I was up at Dartmouth every three weeks going to the cancer center for my Herceptin infusions This is part of my immunotherapy treatment and so every three weeks I would see the oncology team and get labs and hang out in the cancer center and I hated it hated going up there every three weeks and

And I really got to know and grew to love the people there. It is weird that I miss them so much because I'm not there every three weeks now. I miss my friends from the infusion center that took such good care of me during such hard days. And so that's a weird thing to miss the worst days of your life. But it's not the days. It's the people. That's obvious.

So by April, you know what April is, April is Boston Marathon Weekend, which gave me so much life as it always does. I was super sick. At this point, my Crohn's had started to flare super badly. I had started my hormone therapy as part of my breast cancer treatment and that medication mixed with stress and Crohn's and being off my Crohn's medication because of cancer treatment. I think

my body and then all the strip. My body was just done. And so I was super sick Boston Marathon weekend, but I still had a really beautiful weekend. There was a lot of love and friends and great professional opportunities. My mom came not to see me to see her celebrity crush Rob Gronkowski, who was the Grand Marshal.

And I got to interview him when he arrived at the finish line. Uh, I think the moment that I will remember most from Boston 2024 is the moment from the end of the new balance show with Meb Keflezky.

meb had a heart out. So I had to make sure he got off stage at a certain time. And then I was like, instead of ending the show, let's keep talking. And so I kept talking. And as soon as I did, I just burst into tears. And I know there was something special about that one. All every live show is special in its own way, but

There was something about that crowd. And maybe it's the way the room was set up that I felt really close to everyone. I wasn't away from you on a big stage. I was right there. And I just remember feeling super loved and super supported in that room. And it just felt different. And so thank you to everyone who came to that.

And then afterward, I wish I remembered her name, but I'm absolutely terrible. A little girl came up on the stage and I turned around and she hugged me. It was someone's daughter and hopefully you still listen to the show and you know that I'm talking about you and your daughter.

She gave me a big hug and it was such a special moment. Just the sweetest little girl giving me a hug and of course it made me think of Annie and I cried and I'm getting choked up now. So let's move on. Boston Marathon weekend ended with a turkey flying into my windshield. I think I've talked about the turkey strike plenty.

And then very sadly, right after that, my grandmother died. She had just turned 100. And we had all gone down to Florida to celebrate her 100th birthday. And so that is my dad's mom, grandmom, Vera. And so obviously, that's a tremendous loss and is sad. Sad then and is sad every day, not to have her here.

And she lived to be a hundred. And for her hundredth birthday, we were all there to celebrate. And so I feel really lucky, obviously, so lucky. Both my grandmothers lived to a hundred. My mom's mom, honey, is still alive. Still crushing it. And so, you know, someone left me a one-star review on iTunes.

saying that I talked more about my car getting hit by a turkey than about my grandmother dying in my Boston Marathon recap episode, and that I was more stressed about the turkey strike than my grandmother dying, to which I say.

To which I say so many things, it's just always fascinating about what compels people to finally leave that one-star review. But I will let you know I cried plenty about my grandmother dying. I just didn't do it on my podcast because there's a time and a place for things. And the time and the place to talk about the turkey strike is on the podcast. That's important. Obviously, I'm being sarcastic here, but like, come on, people.

So let's see, after Boston, I flew to Eugene, Oregon. Love me some Eugene. For Emily Hellen's book release of To the Gorge, which you should read if you haven't yet, I would highly recommend the audiobook. Emily narrates it herself, and that is the way to hear this story. Our friend Sarah came, and Emily's brother, Jameson, surprised her, which was one of the highlights of the whole year that was beautifully executed. We got to stay at the Mount Tom house. It was just

it was awesome and i was crazy sick that weekend i ran the half and i was i was in so much pain i was so sick i was in so many porta potties it wasn't fun it wasn't like it's okay because i'm out here and then we hosted a dinner at the mount tom house afterward which

hasn't gotten enough attention for me. That was awesome. I was so sick and I didn't want people to know I was sick, but I was running. I probably went to the bathroom 15 times during that dinner. I wasn't present at all with the people who came and I feel terrible about that to this day because the event was amazing. The people at the Mount Tom House created such a beautiful

evening and experience and I just was so off my game that night because I was so sick. I was in so much pain. My pants were unbuttoned because my stomach was so distended. So to the people who came to that dinner, if you are listening,

I would love to do that again. And it was such a special group of people. And I loved having a very intimate environment. I just hate that I was such a mess for it. I was such a mess. I turned 39 in 2024. I got to celebrate with a stay at the incredible Cliff House Resort up in Maine, courtesy of Katie Burke, who treated Annie and me to two nights at Cliff House. I was really, really sick. I mean, my Crohn's Flair, it really got bad in March.

It was unlivable by April. And finally, by November, it started to subside. So right now, my stomach's pretty good. But it was a rough year for the Crohn's, though it kind of took a back seat because there were plenty of other stressors. But yeah, Crohn's real bad this year.

I was supposed to run the Brooklyn half. That was going to be my one year since diagnosis and I was going to run the half with my girlfriends and it was going to be a whole big celebration and instead I was so sick that I could barely get through any part of that weekend. I did a live show with Emma Coburn and New Balance and that was great. I was really nervous sitting up on stage that I was going to have to run off and use the bathroom and we had a whole contingency plan in case that happened.

And then instead of running the race, I hung out at the finish line and then did the show with Beck's and Zach Clark afterward. But yeah, that was a rough weekend for me. I was really sick. I was super depressed. It just hit me really unexpectedly. I don't know if it was the weight of it being a year since my diagnosis or frustration at the state of my stomach, but I was

Brooklyn Half was one of my absolute lowest points of this entire year. So it's not definite, but I actually, for the first time in like 10 years, I think I'm going to take this year off from Brooklyn Half weekend. It's tempting to say, I want to go back and I want to make it right and I want to have the great weekend.

But I actually might skip it in 2025, not definite, but then summer, sweet summertime. We had a taking back summer, kind of summer. Last year, I was recovering and going through surgery for most of the summer. And so this year, I got to swim. And Annie really learned how to swim this year, which is so fun when your kid can swim.

Annie had her first dance recital on the big stage, which is the stage I used to dance on, and it's just so awesome watching her have a blast up there. I was the eighth grade graduation speaker at Annie's school, which was a really big honor. I love getting to do local stuff like that, and I think it was pretty well received, so that was a cool thing to get to do.

I went to New York City to be a part of the New York Roadrunners mini 10k broadcast. It was an all women broadcast team and I appreciated the opportunity to be the finish line reporter. Again, I was super sick. I was running for bathrooms all weekend. I got to interview Amanda Vestry. She was the top American woman that day and I got invited to the post race pro athlete lunch, which was really fun. The food was amazing.

So thank you, Sam, Dorian, and Christine for having me at your pro athlete lunch. I felt very cool that day. Actually, I didn't feel cool. I felt like a total outsider, like what am I doing here? But also I had a lot of fun. It was great. So yeah, summer, we did have a really great summer. I started on SkyRizzy, my new Crohn's medication, which seemed to take forever to kick in, and I was starting to get really discouraged. But here we are, December 30th, and I think it's working.

We took a trip to Pennsylvania, me, Annie, my parents, my brother, and his whole family to celebrate Honey's 100th birthday. And again, the whole family was there. It was super special. And went right from that to the Boston 10K, which I was the start and finish line announcer for in the pouring rain. But we had a blast. If you were there, we had a blast, right? That was actually a high of the year, which is laughing at the

absolute mayhem of the downpour at the start. I took Annie to Disney World, which was amazing. I was so sick the whole time, but it was amazing. And then for our second vacation week together we threw an epic pool party at home, which is basically all I want to do is throw parties and fill this house with love.

We went to the Stone Zoo. We went to Santa's Village. We went and stayed at the Loon Mountain Club for a night. We rode the Mountain Coaster at Gunstock so many times. If you come to New Hampshire in the summer, go to Gunstock. Ride the Mountain Coaster. I spend a lot of time thinking about how grateful I am for my friendships and my relationships. Annie started kindergarten. She is thriving in kindergarten.

I went to New York City for the 5th Avenue Mile weekend, which was work and play. I got to go to Chris Chavez and his now wife, Carrie's wedding, had an absolute blast for a hot pink dress. My mom and Annie came for the trip. I worked the 5th Ave Mile broadcast, which I love the 5th Ave Mile.

Annie ran the kids race. We went to Ellen Stardust Diner. We got to see lots of friends, including Courtney Wayman, Emma Coburn. Let's see, we went to the American Girl Store. We wrote a petty cab, which is what Annie wanted to do more than anything. We went to FAO Schwartz, so that was a really great weekend in New York City. Ellie, my dog, she turned nine, had the usual celebration, meat and cheesecake, all the gifts, all the presents, and went for a nice hike.

September 17th, that was one of my big days of this year. That was the day of my final infusion up at Dartmouth. My friend, my best friend Michael came to be with me and she brought shirts that we bedazzled and

As you know, because I've talked about it, New Balance, outfitted the entire cancer center staff with a pair of 1080V14s, and so I got to feel like Santa Claus going in there for my last infusion, and my parents came, and at 10 o'clock the night before the infusion, a car pulls up in my driveway, and it is Christine Burke, Mary Wittenberg, it's Connor, it's Phoenix, sorry.

Connor Nickel, Erin Feeney, if I'm going to use full names, let's use all the full names. They all came up and surprised me all the way from New York City to come to my final infusion. So it was a big emotional day. It actually was a really hard day. Yeah.

Akron Marathon weekend. I was back in Ohio this year. Everyone there is so nice to me. Ohio, they make them different in Ohio. Everyone's so nice and the weather is wild. Annie lost her first tooth and then her second. I got hair extensions.

On one of the absolute worst days of my year and honestly of my life, I got a video from Carissa Bodner, the founder of Thrive Cosmetics, which is my favorite cosmetics brand, telling me that they had named a product after me. I don't know what the takeaway is there about the timing of that. You tell me, but that's a 2024 highlight for sure and such an honor.

And then went right to Chicago, Chicago Marathon weekend. It started out rough. I had some personal stuff going on at the time. But by the end of that weekend, thanks to some amazing friends, I was fully brought back to life. I did that live show with Emily Sisson on her birthday. Emma Coburn and Joe Bossard came. We had a blast.

I signed a deal with Volvo. That is a life highlight. I took a trip to San Diego for some work and some play. Annie was a witch for Halloween. I was a black cat. Ellie was a bat. Why am I doing this? This is supposed to be the state of the alley on the run show. And I'm like, this is my Instagram in.

In retrospect, but we're almost there. New York City Marathon weekend. That weekend brought me fully back to life. No surprise that all it took to bring me back to myself was the New York City Marathon.

Carnegie Hall, Volvo, Chelsea Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Alona Mar, Casey Neistat, Randall Park, Phoebe Robinson, there were so many huge moments that weekend and so many magical little moments and I will cherish the 2024 TCS New York City Marathon experience for my entire life.

I was part of the broadcast team on ESPN. It was everything and it was awesome and I had the most fun that I had all year and some of the most fun that I've had in my whole life. Really great weekend. Came back from New York, voted for Kamala Harris, whoa, whoa.

From there, took a quick trip to DC with Annie to do a White House tour. We got to do a tour of the West Wing, which was very, very cool. We went to the top of the Washington Monument. I got to be the speaker at my dad's Rotary International Club meeting on one Wednesday morning, and that was really another just cool local honor that I appreciate.

I flossed every single day. I did my Peloton meditation every single day, sort of. I did lots of little Peloton strength classes at 5.30 in the morning in my bathrobe. Sometimes in the bathroom while Annie was sleeping in my room and I didn't want to wake her up. That's the highlight reel. Some of the lowlights. There's some more lowlights. Should I do more lowlights? Let's keep it real, whatever. I'll do a couple more lowlights. We'll keep them work focused. All right, some lowlights.

I did not hire someone, again, slash still. I continued to drown in my correspondence, emails, texts, CMs. It's all completely out of control. I hate that. I feel like I'm never going to get back on top of anything. It's embarrassing. I'm not proud of it. But here we are.

I haven't sent out any fun merch or surprise and delight packages, which I've been saying I want to do for the past two years. I didn't have the consistency with the series content on the show, like the everyday runner and all the things I always say that I want to do. I'm super behind on the admin in the Facebook group. Just can't keep up. Didn't do a good job on Patreon. And I'm not saying all this for you to be like, no, you did great. Like, no, this is, if this is my performance review,

Mine is just a little more public, I guess, than most people's, and I'm doing it myself. But yeah, I'm being honest. I didn't do a good job on Patreon. People spend money to support me on Patreon, and I think I only put out three or four bonus episodes there this year. That's not enough. That's not good enough.

i want to do more there and i'm i'm chalking twenty twenty four up to still being a rebuilding year you know i think it would have been nice to have left hard stuff in twenty twenty three and said you know what now it's behind me and with the flip of a calendar a google calendar tab it's all good but life just doesn't work that way it is not that neat and tidy and

Sure, plenty of things can change on January 1st or on the next Monday of whatever. But the reality is that life keeps happening. And so, you know, 2024 was still hard in a lot of ways. And it's going to take a while to claw my way back from some of the stuff that derailed my life and my career in a lot of ways. I'm working on it. I'm doing it. I'm going to do it.

I still don't feel like I have adequately thanked all the people who have showed up for me in the past two years. I didn't keep up with the newsletter at all, despite putting it on my to-do list every single week. I did put it on my to-do list every week, so does that count for anything? But, you know, I ended the year by putting out a newsletter and saying it's back, so.

I either just made myself out to be a liar or it's back. The everything you need to know episodes this year, everything you need to know about New York, about Chicago, about Boston. I love doing those. And in 2022, when I introduced them, they were awesome. There were so many segments and so many guests and they were so well planned and well thought out.

And then in the past two years, they got lazy and sloppy. They didn't feel comprehensive. They didn't feel current enough. It was mostly repeat content done at the last second. And I just wasn't proud of them. And so this year, I just need to plan further in advance and freshen those up and make them as valuable as I know they can be because I know a lot of people listen to those.

I did not attend the era's tour. Well, I regret this for my entire life, maybe. I shared before that my dear friend Emily Halnin had surprised me by getting us tickets to the final show in Vancouver, that December 8th show.

the last night in Canada I renewed my passport for it and everything and then I found out that Annie's Dance Holiday Show was the night before her holiday show was the evening of December 7th and

It was never going to miss her show. And at the time, I couldn't wrap my head around, how do I do both? It was just logistically more than I could deal with with Chicago and some personal things. And I know I'm being so annoying and vague, but you get it, right? And then New York weekend and my health and

Yeah, so I just I wasn't able to do both. I will never regret being at Annie's show. I, you know, if you are a parent who does not get to have your child with you every single day, I think that is one of the hardest things in the world. And I already feel like I have to miss

too much and I was sure as hell not missing watching that little girl up on stage. And so that is the decision that I made and I absolutely stand by it. And you know, they filmed that last one. And so I think we're going to get another, whether it's bonus era store content or a documentary of some kind. And I actually, the last two nights, I did stay up and I watched the live stream of her last two shows in Vancouver.

It's fine. And yes, was Taylor great on stage? You bet. You know who was really great on stage? Annie Cristiano. So yeah, mostly I survived. I survived. Yeah. Long story short, I survived. There's been some hard stuff and I am not done yet. Let's keep going. Let's start looking forward.

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Okay, I said we were going to look forward, but real quick, we're gonna look back because on every episode or every annual episode that I do here, I talk about my goals. And so let's look back. According to last year's state of the alley on the run show episode, these were the things that I said I wanted to do in 2024. I'll give you a simple check or no check.

Number one, keep showing up. Sure as hell did that. Check. Hire someone? No check. Bring back the newsletter.

Let's give it a potential check. Figure out what to do with Patreon and stick to it. No check. Get Robin Roberts on the Alley on the Run Show. No check, though I didn't try. Get Joe Bosshard on the Alley on the Run Show. We got Joe Live. Big check.

feel like myself again. My old self or a new self, I'll take either one. Okay, first of all, I think this is really sweet. Kind of want to go give 2023 alley a big hug. I'm getting there. I would say parts of me feel like my old self, parts of me feel like a new self, parts of me are maybe still a little lost in the abyss, but they're getting there. And I feel more like my best self right now than I have in the longest time. So

Check. Figure out what I want to do with Patreon. Okay, cool, I put this one on there twice, so I get to say no twice. Get my inbox under control. I don't know what inbox I'm talking about, but nope. Allie on the run friendship bracelets. Okay, I'm close on this one. I just have to email this guy George and tell him to place the order. They are designed, they're ready to go.

I just need to say, yep, print them or whatever. Also, big shout out to New Balance because I ran this idea by them and so at all of my live shows this year, New Balance did have your doing great friendship bracelets made that we got to give out at all the live shows. So that's awesome. As usual, New Balance, making my dreams come true.

Take a vacation. Okay. Some of you might say, yes, Ali, you took a vacation. You took Annie to Disney World. So, okay, check and anyone with little kids knows that it's less of a vacation, more of a trip. That doesn't mean it's not great. It's great. What I need is a vacation. I need to go lay at a resort healthy.

and do nothing. That's the kind of vacation I need. So no check. Hike more. Yeah, I actually did. I hiked a bunch this year, not quite to the extent that I would have liked to, but I hiked a lot and I took Ellie on a lot of great hikes. Read more.

Totally. No check. Stick with a strength routine. Yep, check. Good enough. My little arms and light weights classes. Run a half marathon. Yeah, I ran. What did I run? Two half marathons this year. I did the New York City half and the Eugene half. So that's cool.

And finally, continue putting myself out there wearing my heart on my sleeve, believing in big dreams and big love stories and unabashedly telling people how I feel. Again, this is adorable. 2023 alley. You were going through it, but you still had heart. I will give this one a big check.

Yeah. Yeah. I think I did that. So I went back and I was like, I'm curious what I said for the year prior. Like, how much did I accomplish before everything kind of went to whatever it went to? And it was a lot of the same. Hire someone, website updates. By the way, my website has been down and not updated since March. So I got to figure that out. And I will. Branding, making announcing a live show reel.

Work the Chicago marathon. I did that. That's cool. Take a vacation read more a scroll less. So it's all the same I said respond to emails. I said I have an inbox of 700 terrible news to past alley. It's now at 1,194. Oh God a shutter. Who am I? Okay now we can look forward. Oh

the state of the alley on the run show in 2025. So we talked about what things looked like for me and for this show in 2024. In fact, I'd say we talked about it too much. Now let's look forward. Normally, this is the part in this episode where I would read the results of my annual listener survey. Thousands of listeners have completed this survey over the years. And that means so much to me. It means you're invested in this show just like I am. And I really do think that that is awesome. I know I just said it in my

short holiday episode last week, but the fact that you have so many podcasts to choose from and you choose this one from time to time or all the time, whatever that looks like for you.

Never, never, never, never lost on me. I, every time I open my podcast app and I'm scrolling through deciding what to listen on my run or while I'm driving or cleaning, I think about all of you doing that and saying, oh, I choose Ally. And that is so cool. So I don't take that lightly. It means the world.

So this year I again did not do a listener survey, just not in a place where I want to take feedback right now, especially feedback on what was another challenging year. That doesn't mean I don't value your opinions and your voice and your investment in this show. It really just means.

I don't feel like I necessarily put my best work forward this year in a lot of ways, and I don't really feel ready to take on the ownership of what didn't go well last year, nor do I feel ready to make commitments about what the coming year might hold. That's...

Fair. I'm always going to be my absolute toughest critic. Oh, okay. There might be tougher critics out there. I've learned that. But I'm still up there. I still rank pretty high on the list of Ali's toughest critics. And I still want to do better. So just trust that with or without an official listener survey. I am doing the best that I can. I will always try to show up for you for this community and even for myself from time to time. I care a lot. I think you know that I care a lot.

And even if it didn't always look that way from the outside and you were like, oh my gosh, seriously, another episode with fill in the recurring guest blank here. That's me doing my best. I'm also loving those people.

So, you know, a girl can dream, a girl can plan, a girl can make lists. I will keep doing that and this is what I would like to commit to and what I would like to tell you that you can expect from The Alley on the Run Show in 2025. Much like this past year, you can mostly expect two episodes per week. I think that is the sweet spot, a Tuesday episode and a Thursday episode.

In theory, the Tuesday episodes were supposed to be series-specific episodes, so every day runner, friendship fest, pro-parents, and then Thursday would be the classic interview style episode. That didn't really end up happening. That was how I envisioned it, and then it was just kind of two episodes a week, whatever they turned out to be. So I would like to get back into that. I just need to plan better. That should be easy enough.

Roughly one ask alley episode per month. I don't know, people still say they like these. I don't fully get it to be honest, but I read the feedback. You like them.

I will continue doing series episodes. Everything you need to know about filling the blank. I keep saying fill in the blank. Every day runner, 26 questions. I still want to do long run episodes that have segments and that are really, really planned out. I think those could be so fun and I have a vision for them. I just need to plan it. I just need to do it.

I am eager to bring on just a few new sponsors that I know that you will love. There's a few that I am in conversations with and a few that I will be pitching early in the year. So once we've all sort of clawed our way out of whatever time of year this is and are back into those lovely inboxes, I'll hopefully have some updates to share there.

I would like to tell you to plan for more live shows. At least two of which will be in new to me live show cities. One of which I am hoping will be Allie on the Run Show live international edition.

I have talked about this. I've not started planning them, but I have started reaching out to potential sponsors about doing some smaller shows and events. I really do want to make this happen and prioritize it. I still want to do merch. I still want to bring my PRPJs to life. Where are we at on YouTube? Every now and then I get comments from people being like, you should put your stuff on YouTube. I don't know. I don't know. I want to bring on more new guests.

I want to launch a line of custom gutters. And the biggest thing that I haven't done before that I really want to do and that I know I've talked about is I want to do this runner fest that I can picture in my head. And there's a race, I think it would be a 5K.

There's a live show. There's a Taylor Swift dance party. There are the best vibes of all time. It almost happened when I made the decision not to go to Vancouver for there is tour and to stay local. I had actually talked to a certain brand that we all love.

about trying to pull together a party. It was going to be in Boston on December 8th, the day of the last era's tour. And ultimately, it was just way too short of a timeline. I reached out like a week and a half before. So we couldn't make it happen for that, but they're still interested. And so I really want to make it happen.

I do have a kind of big birthday this year, and I'm torn between wanting to crawl into a hole and ignore it, and go all out. And in the go all out scenario, I kind of want to do this event the weekend of my birthday. Would you come to an event like that? I have to check the dates and see what else is happening that weekend. I feel like it's actually a big weekend for events. It's like the first weekend in May.

I will keep you posted, but those are some things that I would like to commit to and stand by in 2025. Oh, and just to go back to the Taylor Swift thing, it doesn't necessarily have to be all Taylor. It could just be general.

Pop stuff. I like the idea of this being a thing that happens a couple times a year and maybe one of them is Taylor Swift and one of them is just like millennial Party and we're we're like to the windows to the wall so that you know what comes next We're going boots with the fur and maybe there's jungle juice with electrolytes in it

So again, I have this vision and if you follow Kate Kennedy who hosts the be there in five podcasts, she does events called track five and she does a live show and it ends with a Taylor Swift dance party. I've never been to one of her events, but I've followed her and and what I'm picturing is a similar vibe, but it's for runners and I had this idea and I was like, oh my God, I should reach out to her and we don't know each other.

That we do have a handful of mutual friends and acquaintances. Uh, and I was like, Oh my God, I wonder if she would want to collaborate because her events, she calls them track five because on Taylor Swift's albums, track five is reserved for like the emotional, like that's the deep cut on every album. Track five is all too well. Track five is my tears ricochet. Like track five will cut you to your core. So her events are called track five. Hear me out. Track five. K.

So it's like it adds on to what she's already doing, but I come in and do the runner component and we do a 5k that then leads into what she does. So couldn't that be awesome? This poor woman who has no idea. I'm talking about her on my podcast, probably like three hours into my podcast, but

With that, every year I share my mission statement. This is the official alley on the run mission statement. It is consistent. I stand by what I've said in the past and every year I add just a little bit to it. So this is the alley on the run mission statement 2025 edition.

I want the alley on the run show to be a place where runners of all levels and abilities can come together to feel inspired, encouraged, and motivated. The show is for all runners with a focus on women runners. As the audience is largely female identifying, the guests in conversations will reflect that.

I want your experience to be in some way mirrored on this show. I want you to feel represented here. I want professional athletes to feel like coming on the alley on the run show is fun and in some way beneficial to their careers. My main goal here is storytelling. It's sharing the stories of those of us united by running, and I want to continue striving to do the best interviews with athletes I care about.

Best. Best to me means my best interview. Not the best way Katie Couric or Robin Roberts or Oprah or Chris Chavez or Let's Run or Louis Johnson will interview someone. I just want to be the best alley that I can.

That will always mean listening. It will always mean growing. It will mean having enough confidence to pursue my big dreams and ideas and enough humility to know that I may fail or mess up along the way. And it means owning all of those truths always. It means continuing to show up for myself, for my business, for this sport, and for all of you.

It means being honest, authentic, unapologetically alley. It means acting with integrity, owning my decisions and my words, celebrating the ones that land and learning from the ones that don't. To quote the great Desiree Linden, keep showing up. That is what I have always done. That is what I plan to continue to do.

And, I know I did this last year too, to quote the equally great Taylor Allison Swift, will you take a moment, promise me this, that you'll stand by me forever.

But if God forbid fate should step in and force us into a goodbye. If you have children someday, when they point to the pictures, please tell them my name. Tell them how the crowds went wild. Tell them how I hope they shine. Long live the walls we crashed through. I had the time of my freaking life with you.

Okay, I am at the point in recording this episode, which I do in little segments at a time where I have to look up the Roman numerals because that's how I label each segment. And so that means I've been going for too long, but I did put out an Instagram Q&A box.

saying, hey, I'm doing my state of the alley on the run show episode. Is there anything you definitely want to hear about? I'm going to move some of those questions over to the newsletter, maybe into a Patreon episode. Maybe that's what we do. Maybe we do ask out, but I know people like ask. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing with Patreon, but right now I did go through and pick out about, oh my God, like 15 of the listener Q&A questions that I wanted to address here as our final segment. So if you're up for it, let's do it.

Most of these are anonymous, but the first question, and of course it's such a good question, comes from Kyle Merber. Hi, Kyle, miss you. He said he asked, why do you think your listeners enjoy listening? And I actually feel weird answering this one myself. I think

Think a big reason I think a lot of people have been with the show for a long time I know a lot of you started with me back when I was blogging and taking mirror selfies at the dance spirit office a lot of you saw me through my first real adult breakup and now my second You've been with me through a lot and so

I don't ever want to give myself too much credit, but I do think that, and I know this because I'm a podcast listener. Um, we like to get to know the host. We like to know who we're hearing from. We like to know what to expect. Um, so I think people keep coming back. People I think come here for the guests and the big names. And I think the people that stick around, stick around for the everyday runner. And that's what I love. And I hope that those people,

Keep coming back. Keep showing up. So I think people enjoy listening, maybe because they know what to expect.

I think people keep coming back and enjoying listening because the show, and this is what I always hope, I should put this in the mission statement. I say this about my live shows, is that I always, at the end of a show, I want people to leave feeling better than how they came. And that always looks different. That might mean you came in feeling stressed and now you feel lighter. It might mean you came in having a bad day and now you feel like you're having a good day. You might have come in nervous about your race and now you feel confident.

Whatever it is, I always want to leave people feeling better. And so I hope that's why people enjoy listening and why they keep coming back. There's, like I said earlier, no shortage of running podcasts.

I want to be like, I don't know, you tell me, but that feels wildly self indulgent. So do me a favor. If you enjoy listening, go leave a five star rating and a written review for the alley on the run show on iTunes, Apple podcasts or Spotify. How about that, Kyle? I turned it into a call to action and I feel like you'd be proud of that.

Okay, what you're most proud of, what you're letting go of, and what you're giving yourself grace on as you look back on the year. I am most proud of where I am right now. I have been working my butt off in therapy. I have been doing the work, and I am really proud of that. I really thought that this year was going to play out pretty differently for me than it has, and that's based on absolutely nothing.

But I think especially personally, I just predicted that things that I was going to want things to go differently this year. And instead, I actually have really just kind of let life take the reins. And I've tried to ride the wave, the good ones and the really rocky ones. And I am

And I don't think I've like thought about this really or said it. I'm really proud of the work that I've been doing. And I'm really proud of the person that I'm working on being. I'm really proud of the ways I've taken accountability and ownership for parts of my life. And I'm really proud of the way that I am.

better. I feel like I'm better in so many ways. And I feel like I said earlier, after New York, that I don't know that it lit a fire or reignited a spark or whatever fiery phrase we want to use here. But yeah, I

Not every day, not all day, every day, not all the time, but when I look at where I am right now, compared to where I was three months ago and six months ago and a year ago and two years ago, like, I don't know.

I'm doing it. It's not linear. It's not all shooting stars headed upward. I have no idea what I just said, woman in STEM.

But yeah, I'm proud of doing the work and standing on my own two feet and leaning on the many, many, many, many, many feet and arms around me. I am surrounded by such an insane amount of love and support and generosity. And I have humbled myself by asking for help and accepting help and

And being just stubborn enough to want to know that I would be okay without that help. And I don't know that that's true, but yeah. I am doing the work. I think I used to see people writing words like healing.

And I probably rolled my eyes. I was probably judgy. I was probably like, okay, that's woo-woo, whatever. And now I'm like, oh my God, healing is so powerful. Healing is so great. Everyone should heal. What I am letting go of. I don't know. Trying to ever regain control of my inbox.

What I'm giving myself grace on. Nothing. Very hard on myself. Yay. Great answers. Oh, I was supposed to do this at the very beginning of the episode.

And now here we are toward the end, and she's probably not still listening, but Dawn, Dawn Ebbits, Dawn, if you're listening from Hopkins to New Hampshire to Exeter, do you want to be my friend in real life? Dawn's daughter, Leanne Cherick, has been on the alley on the run show a bunch of times, and Leanne is from New Hampshire and her mom lives near me.

And I just think we should be friends. And Don has been a wonderful supporter of the alley on the run show. And so Don, if you are listening to this, I love you. If you're not listening to this, Connor, Nickle probably is and he'll make sure that you heard this shout out. So love ya.

How do you keep it together with everything that's gone on in your life therapy? And I don't, I don't come on, come on, what is keeping it together mean? That I'm like just barely doing enough to say I'm doing my job, that I can get on stage and have fun. It is fun. I love getting up on stage and having fun. And yeah, I mean, I actually haven't cried in a while, which is nice, but like,

I've been a mess for two years. I've been a mess. I've been the worst version of myself actually. Yeah, I mean.

I don't think in the past year, I've been the worst version of myself. I think I've been working really hard to be the best version of myself. But God, the worst version of myself, I've seen her. I've spent time with her. She's terrible. I'm not proud of the person that I've been at certain times in my life. So I think how do I keep it together? I have a six year old daughter. I have to show up for her. I have a nine year old dog. I have to show up for her.

I can't ever completely fall apart or if I do, I do it late at night and I let myself and then I pick myself back up in the morning and I keep going. That is your only option. Your option is to keep going so you keep going and some days it's messy and some days it's hard and some days you don't think you're going to get through the hour or the day or the week and sometimes the nights are the hardest and sometimes the mornings are the hardest. I always found that mornings were the hardest.

Granted, I went through a phase where I relied pretty heavily on Ambien at night so that I could sleep and then I would wake up and have to face the day and that was the hardest thing. So in terms of keeping it together, there is no other option. There is no secret plan C or secret option C as Emily Auster says. The option is to wake up, do your job,

Show up for yourself and for the people who need you and keep doing that every day and eventually there's going to be a day that's not quite as hard or there's going to be at least a break in the day or the sunshine's gonna come through for just enough time that you can get through the darkness to get to that next bit of sunshine because there will be more sunshine. You just keep going. It's not always going to suck, I promise.

What surprised you the most this year? I don't know. But I would say I'm surprised and delighted by where I'm at right now. It feels really good to be certainly not fully healed from all of this stuff. Certainly not feeling like I'm fully on the other side of various things. But yeah, I'm good. I'm happy most days and most of the time. So yeah.

What are your run goals for 2025? Any races planned? No. Um, and I didn't really talk about my year on the run, but I ran, uh, what, like two, five Ks. I ran the five K in Virginia and I ran the five K in Chicago. And I ran those two half marathons and I think that was it. Um,

Yeah, let's see. I have a document on my desktop called races that I rarely update. Okay, so the two halves. And yeah, because I didn't end up running the dash in New York, which was sad. See, I ran four races this year, two five Ks, two half marathons.

Yeah, but no. Um, okay. So 2025. No, I have no racist plan. I have nothing on the schedule. I'm not training for anything. Um, running is, is not a top priority right now. I mean, getting out and running for my health and for my mental health, that's important to me. That'll always be important to me. Super happy. My stomach is letting me even with, you know, handful of bathroom stops on any given run, but, uh, no, no racist plan for 2025. Shoot me a message. What should I do?

I'd like to run a 5k, I'd like to run a bunch of 5k's and I'd like to run some half marathons. I do not envision myself running a marathon in 2025, but half and below, let's roll, let's have some fun. Would love to hear more banter with you and your friends just catching up that I think would be great for Patreon.

What is the most fun way the show has changed this year? Uh, I would just say I think I'm getting more comfortable talking about things that are uncomfortable for me. I don't know that that's like the most fun way the show has changed, but I guess that's an evolution that I've noticed even in the episode with, uh, Lauren Peterson, the political speech writer and granted Lauren and I agree on things, right? So.

It's not like I was bringing on someone with super different political views, but even just knowing that it was a political-ish episode. Again, we weren't pushing an agenda by any means, but she, Lauren works in the political space and we were talking about her job and

I was not at all nervous to put that episode out. I knew exactly what was gonna happen. I knew people would love it because Lauren is awesome and badass and a great storyteller and the episode was so fun and was one of my all-time favorites. And I knew that there would be people who as soon as they heard who she worked for, were going to write off the entire episode regardless of what was said. And that's exactly what happened. The former group much, much, much larger and more vocal than the latter.

Yeah, I think I'm just glad that, and I don't always nail it, but I've gotten better at, I think it's the integrity piece, right, of the product I'm putting out and knowing or anticipating how it might be received and being able, willing, and ready to stand by that.

If you could do one thing from 2024 again, each year, what would it be? Oh, gosh, it's all of New York City Marathon weekend. That would be the professional and the personal. I mean, it's all the same to me, I think, but maybe Annie's dance recital weekend back in May, her first recital on the big stage. That was awesome. I loved that day. Thoughts on the state of run flu answers and whether you'd have them on your show.

I mean, God, this is where I'm like, everyone just needs to calm down. I get it, I get the frustration, I get it, and just like unfollow. How much is it affecting you? People love to hate influencers. I've realized in talking to some of my friends,

They'll bring people up and I realize I don't really follow many people who are strictly running influencers. Maybe like one or two, but I feel like, you know, I follow podcasters. I follow people that I would consider content creators, maybe like YouTubers, but in terms of people who are influencers on

Instagram or TikTok and they're just specifically running influencers. I don't know. There is a woman that I followed her for a bit because she had so many followers and so I felt like I had to. I was like, well, everyone's following her. It might have been to see the fashion jogger. She's beautiful, adorable, cute outfits. She's fast.

And everyone follows her. She has like, oh, she's like millions of followers or something. And I was like, oh, well, if everyone's following her, I should too. And I'm sure she's perfectly nice and perfectly lovely and wonderful. I have nothing bad to say against her, except that I think the content just kind of wasn't for me. I found myself skipping past it, right, when it's like the daily recaps of the runs and stuff like that. I don't follow a lot of accounts like that.

So I don't really have hot takes on Run Fluencers. Everyone always wants me to. I've had people on the show that I think would identify as that. You know, Molly Hernandez comes to mind. She's your running BFF. And I had her on the show because I follow her and her stuff makes me happy and she just seems like in

a very positive and upbeat and fun person who had a cool story about how she started running. And so yeah, I have nothing against run fluencers in general. I think if you do, my question is why?

If there's stuff annoys you, unfollow. If it's a frustration that they are getting bibs and things comped, yeah, that happens in every industry. Like, hate to tell you, go to Fashion Week, look in the front row these days and tell me who's in the front row. It's influencers, or at least in the second and third rows.

It's everywhere. It's every industry. It's happening. It's the landscape now. And so I say, as always, curate who and what you follow and make sure it's people that make you happy and make your life better. There is no reason to follow people on social media who aren't making you happy and making your life better.

So I'm fine with running influencers. I'm not fine with people who aren't good people, but that has nothing to do with running influencers. That's who I won't have on the show is people that give me the ick or that don't have vibes that I mesh with or that I've heard are not good people or that I've seen are not good people. They don't come on the show. But just because they get paid to post about running on Instagram,

I don't have a problem with that. Was there a particular moment this year where you thought I'm going to make it through this? Oh, it's a really cute question. And I've actually had a lot of these moments. And the first one that comes to mind was actually about a year ago after Annie's holiday show. So this, the one that was this year, the same weekend as there is tour. When she had that show last year, the holiday show.

I brought her to the show and then she went with her dad after. And so I was driving back home to the house we all lived in. I was driving back here by myself. And I remember expecting to leave that show just devastated of like, I just got to watch my daughter on stage doing this really awesome thing. I'm so proud of her. And I don't even get to leave with her. Like I don't even get to celebrate with her. I'm going home alone and that sucks.

I thought that I like I prepared for it and I was just like just know like you're probably gonna have a shitty rest of your night and Instead I was so proud of her and it was such a special and fun night watching her perform and have an absolute blast and I got to give her a big hug and a kiss until I was proud of her after and then she got to go and have a really fun night with her dad and I remember driving home and listening to music and singing and

and being like, I'm going to be OK. This is hard and I'm going to be OK. And there were a lot of moments this year when I realized I was dancing again. Like, yes. Oh, and I didn't even talk about this, that I got back to dance class this year. I did tap classes this summer. I was proud of myself for that.

And it was really fun and there were moments so many moments this year where I noticed myself dancing around my kitchen or dancing in stores and I was like, oh man, this part of me has been gone for so long and it feels so good to dance in my kitchen again.

So yeah, there are a lot of those moments and there are more of those every single day and I love those moments and they're not forced and you can't ask for those moments. Those I think just kind of happen. And so if you are going through anything that's even remotely challenging right now, I hope that those moments are coming for you soon and I hope they knock you off your feet in the best possible way.

Do you feel similar to the pros about the what's next question? I do. Yeah. Have you noticed that I have not been asking that unless I've already talked to the guest offline and I know what's next? Um, I try not to ask that because it's brutal. So yeah, I have really felt that after the Carnegie Hall show with Gabby Thomas, everyone was like, how are you going to top this next year? How are you going to top this?

It's so much pressure. I mean, it's so silly. Like, you know, I know it's not exactly high stakes. It's not brain surgery here, but it does. There does feel a pressure to outdo myself, to one up myself, to set a higher bar for myself, whatever it is. So yeah, I got to start looking into Radio City.

Someone said to me, they're like, now you gotta get Madison Square Garden. I was like, are you kidding? I was like, if I'm going any bigger than Carnegie, which I'm not, let's be clear. I can't, like, I love that you all have so much faith in me and that people say this all the time and you're all very kind and so supportive. I cannot sell out Radio City music hall.

This is still a very niche thing here in a very niche industry. So, you know, I have enough self-awareness. That being said, Madison Square Garden is not the dream. Radio City music hall would be the dream because that's where the Rockettes perform. I love Radio City. I live for Radio City or Lincoln Center. I would happily go to Lincoln Center, you know, if I had to.

So yeah, I do feel similar about the what's next question. I don't mind it with running stuff. If people are like, Oh, what's your next race? Like I'm not a pro. So I don't care. But yeah, in terms of like live shows and stuff like that. Yeah, I do. I do feel similar, but I don't mind it. Cause I think it comes from a really good place. So yeah.

How do you keep going? This is kind of similar to the one that was above. So at the risk of being redundant, I will just remind you that is your only option. I'm giving you that as your only option. Keep going. Keep waking up. Keep even if it's just going through the motions. Keep breathing in and out. You know how to do that. You've been doing it your whole life. It's actually hard to forget how to breathe.

Even if they're just little shallow breaths, keep breathing, keep going. You can and you will and you've got this.

All right, all right, all right. How much did I actually even just talk about the state of the alley on the run show? I feel like this took all sorts of very personal detours that I will no doubt regret not editing out. I cannot leave you without one very, very, very big thank you. And that is to my editor, Tyler Hansen. Tyler.

What are we on? Episode 776. Tyler has been with me since episode one. Actually, episode zero. We did an episode zero. That was an introduction to the show. Tyler works tirelessly to put these episodes together. He turns them around in

hours. He is so upbeat and positive and encouraging and it's funny because I haven't actually seen Tyler in person in about

Gosh, Tyler, what's it been? Five years? I mean, certainly since pre-pandemic. But we talk like every day about podcast things. So Tyler, for all that you do, for the show, for me, and for all of us, thank you so much. I hope I got the Roman numerals right in editing.

all of these segments. You are the best. I appreciate you. I could not do this without you. I would not do this without you. So Tyler Hanson, thank you for being my editor. You are the very, very best. Thank you to all of you for listening. Man, you made it to the end here. Thank you for indulging me on this one.

Like I said, I need some way to get all of this out of my brain and somewhere that I say I can be held accountable and this always feels like a fit, but then I don't revisit any of this. I really, maybe I just need an old school vision board. I need to put this episode on a vision board. That should work. That'll help the inbox.

Whether you are a longtime listener or you're new to the show, I'm really, really happy to have you here. I would love to know what you thought of this. And if you have any 2025 goals and dreams of your own, maybe we can collaborate on them. How can I help your dreams come true?

Let me know. Find me on Instagram. I am Ali on the run one. I'm in the Ali on the run show. Best running front space book group. The newsletter is Ali on the run dot sub stack dot com and patreon is patreon dot com slash Ali on the run. You know I have big goals and plans for all of those things. I didn't talk too much about the newsletter because opportunity

but it is scheduled to go out Friday morning. So, allie on the run.substack.com, make sure you subscribe. It is free, hits your inbox, every allegedly Friday morning. Follow along. That always helps rate and review the show on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Make sure you subscribe to the show, turn on those auto downloads that way you never miss an episode, and let's have some fun this year.

Thanks to our sponsors, thanks to You Can for being here for another year on The Alley on the Run show, looking forward to sharing all kinds of good stuff that's coming up. But for now, that is all for this time. Here's to you. You're doing great, by the way. And here's to 2025. Thank you for joining me on The Run.