Jessica Drakul is a 45-year old adult-onset runner who ran the 2024 Boston Marathon, set a personal best time of 3:40:11, AND re-qualified for next year’s race. Despite it being a warm day that proved challenging for many runners, Jessica maintains that it was only the second hardest thing she’s ever done. The hardest thing? Getting sober 18 years ago.

After a 7-year struggle with alcohol addiction from the ages of 19-26, Jessica had her first day of sobriety on January 11th, 2006 – about 5 weeks before her 27th birthday. In this episode she recounts the ways in which alcohol impacted her health and relationships, and brought her face-to-face with her own mortality.

Running didn’t seriously enter the picture for Jessica until the pandemic when she found herself with more time to get fit. Since then she has run dozens of races including the 2023 Manitoba Marathon, which she completed in 3:41:49 … close to one hour faster than her first one in 2021! This qualified her for the 2024 Boston Marathon and we think it’s safe to say that nobody had a more complete Boston experience than Jessica did! She toured the city, met the influencers & Olympians, bought the merch, did the shakeout runs, watched the Red Sox in Fenway Park, ate the carbs, and even brushed up on her CPR!

Jessica gives back to the Winnipeg running community in numerous ways. She serves on the board of the Manitoba Runners’ Association, is an ambassador for WFPS Run, and participates in many local run clubs.

Connect with Jessica:

• Instagram: @drakul_runnings
• Email: jessica.drakul@gmail.com

Connect with Carolyn & Kim:

• Email us with guest ideas: inspiredsolescast@gmail.com
• Inspired Soles Instagram
• Kim's Instagram
• Kim's Facebook
• Carolyn's Instagram
• Carolyn's Facebook
• Carolyn's website

We love hearing from you! Connect with us on Instagram @inspiredsolescast or email guest ideas to inspiredsolescast@gmail.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend, subscribe or leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

Adam Neiles is a 27-year-old Strength & Conditioning Specialist at Testify Performance in Winnipeg. Over the past 7 years, he has trained everyday athletes, pro athletes, and everybody in between to reach their performance potential in their chosen sport(s) while reducing injuries along the way. A graduate of Kinesiology at the University of Manitoba where he was also a linebacker on the football team, Adam is currently working his way through a Masters in Exercise Science while training for his first marathon.

Adam’s foray into long distance running began less than a year ago when he decided to train for the 2023 Manitoba Half Marathon. Although he felt like dying and wanted to die, he pressed on and finished in a very respectable 1:47. A few months later he crushed a 44-minute 10k at WFPS and figured the only thing left was a marathon.

In this conversation we delve into:

• Why he wanted to run the 2024 Manitoba Marathon
• How he has trained
• Whether or not his approach to strength training has changed, and
• What his goals are for race day.

Even though the training for football and distance running might be very different and perhaps a shock to Adam’s system, we think he’ll feel right at home this Father’s Day as he completes his final 100 yards on the same turf that the Winnipeg Blue Bombers play on in Princess Auto Stadium!

Connect with Adam & Testify Performance:

• Adam's Instagram: @adamneiles
• Testify Performance: https://www.rinktestifyperformance.ca/lifestyle-training/
• Testify's Instagram: @testifyperformance

Connect with Carolyn & Kim:

• Email us with guest ideas: inspiredsolescast@gmail.com
• Inspired Soles Instagram
• Kim's Instagram
• Kim's Facebook
• Carolyn's Instagram
• Carolyn's Facebook
• Carolyn's website

We love hearing from you! Connect with us on Instagram @inspiredsolescast or email guest ideas to inspiredsolescast@gmail.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend, subscribe or leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

Stuart Chutter is the first trail ultrarunner we’ve had on the show who is also a regenerative farmer from Melville, Saskatchewan. We were super curious about how a person finds the time for both farming and ultrarunning, activities that each require significant commitment, time and energy for success. So we invited Stuart to come on the show to talk about both his passions.

In this episode, Stuart tells us about how he started running and ended up in Melville as a farmer. We discuss the “Five Principles of Soil Health” and the “Bag of C’s” that he mentally carries on a run, as well as the dual application of each to both farming and ultra running. As we talk about his running philosophy, we move into a conversation around Stuart’s recent experience pacing his friend and recent guest Evan Birch during the 300 mile Speed Project from Santa Monica, CA to Las Vegas, NV which could be a whole podcast in and of itself.

We cover a lot of ground in this episode (how's that for a dual pun ?!) and we hope you enjoy this refreshing chat with Stuart Chutter!

Connect with Stuart:

• Instagram: @stuartchutter
• Article written by Stuart about running/farming parallels

Connect with Carolyn & Kim:

• Email us with guest ideas: inspiredsolescast@gmail.com
• Inspired Soles Instagram
• Kim's Instagram
• Kim's Facebook
• Carolyn's Instagram
• Carolyn's Facebook
• Carolyn's website

We love hearing from you! Connect with us on Instagram @inspiredsolescast or email guest ideas to inspiredsolescast@gmail.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend, subscribe or leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

**TRIGGER WARNING - This episode has references to sexual abuse.

In this episode, Edmontonian elite ultra runner Priscilla Forgie returns to the show to discuss her contribution to the new book Run for Your Life. This book is an incredible collaboration of short stories written by 13 different runners made possible by several sponsors from Alberta, Canada including Run Calgary, Servus Edmonton Marathon and 5 Peaks. It was within the pages of this book that Priscilla chose to share parts of her personal story that had remained completely repressed for most of her life, unrevealed even to her. In a chapter that reads more like poetry, she elegantly describes her thoughts and feelings as she moves along the trail and how her relationship with running has evolved and relates to healing the trauma of her past. Her writing elicits several emotions, and although she describes moments of darkness, the reader is left feeling uplifted as she speaks about moving into the light.

Priscilla’s goal is to start more open and honest conversations about the topic of childhood sexual abuse and that is the simple goal of this episode. Over the next hour we catch up on all the awesomeness that has been happening in Priscilla’s race calendar over the last year, and move into a very thoughtful conversation on her trauma and healing experience and how one can provide a safe place on the receiver side of the conversation should someone entrust you with their trauma story.

We thank Priscilla for her bravery and her strength as she shares her story with us.

Connect with Priscilla & buy the book:

• Instagram: @prissyforgie
• Run For Your Life: Lessons Learned From Going the Distance
• Our previous interview with Priscilla

Connect with Carolyn & Kim:

• Email us with guest ideas: inspiredsolescast@gmail.com
• Inspired Soles Instagram
• Kim's Instagram
• Kim's Facebook
• Carolyn's Instagram
• Carolyn's Facebook
• Carolyn's website

We love hearing from you! Connect with us on Instagram @inspiredsolescast or email guest ideas to inspiredsolescast@gmail.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend, subscribe or leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

Omena Babalola is an accomplished 55-year old masters sprinter from Winnipeg MB and an absolute force to be reckoned with. Born in Nigeria to two high achieving parents, Omena came to Canada in her early 20s and spent time on Prince Edward Island before completing her MBA at St. Mary’s University in Halifax and following her man to Winnipeg. Omena currently works as a Professional Auditor at Manitoba Hydro and is the Vice President of Athletics Manitoba.

As for her start in athletics, Omena describes what it was like to “be so slow when her mom was so fast.” Despite coming dead last in her first foot race, Omena stuck with sprinting and chose to focus most of her energy on things that would give her the biggest return on investment. It turns out this is a valuable life skill off the track as well.

After taking some time off while having her twins in 1997, Omena was re-inspired in her late 30’s by Saskatchewan-based sprinting legend Carol LaFayette-Boyd, who is over 25 years her senior. Carol gave Omena some positive words of encouragement about her potential, she decided to re-engage with competition and, as they say, the rest is history.

Omena still holds numerous university and provincial sprinting records and has medaled on national and international stages in the 200m as well as the 4x100m relay. In 2023, Omena was awarded female masters Athlete of the Year by Athletics Manitoba.

Connect with Omena:

• Instagram: @omenab7828
• Facebook: @omena.babs

Connect with Carolyn & Kim:

• Email us with guest ideas: inspiredsolescast@gmail.com
• Inspired Soles Instagram
• Kim's Instagram
• Kim's Facebook
• Carolyn's Instagram
• Carolyn's Facebook
• Carolyn's website

We love hearing from you! Connect with us on Instagram @inspiredsolescast or email guest ideas to inspiredsolescast@gmail.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend, subscribe or leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

Jean Fortier is the general director and founder of Québec Mega Trail. He joins us to talk about his running origins and dive deep into the past, present and future of this amazing event.

QMT is a legendary ultra-trail race, renowned as one of the most beautiful but also as one of the hardest in Canada. Crossing one of the most beautiful places in Québec, it takes runners all the way to Mont-Sainte-Anne, and more than 3,000 racers meet there every year. A place where high-level athletes come to compete, the organization also offers challenges for beginners with ten events ranging in distance from 1-160 km over four days. Founded in 2012 and now in its 12th year, the Québec Mega Trail actively promotes trail running while being a flagship race in terms of safety, sustainable development and constant innovations.

Since 2023, Québec Mega Trail has been part of the World Trail Majors and has been selected to host the 50 km and 80 km events of the 2025 and 2026 Canadian Mountain & Trail Running Championships.

In this episode we talk about:

• Jean’s own running experiences
• How QMT came to be
• The values that guide Jean’s decisions as a race director
• The highlights and the challenges the race has seen in the last 12 years
• How QMT has chosen to remain independent in the international racing landscape in becoming a founding member of the World Trail Majors, an international group which includes some of the most iconic trail running events in Asia, Europe, Africa and North America

Connect with QMT:

• Website: https://ultratrailcanada.com/en/
• Instagram: @qcmegatrail
• Facebook: quebecmegatrail

Connect with Carolyn & Kim:

• Email us with guest ideas: inspiredsolescast@gmail.com
• Inspired Soles Instagram
• Kim's Instagram
• Kim's Facebook
• Carolyn's Instagram
• Carolyn's Facebook
• Carolyn's website

We love hearing from you! Connect with us on Instagram @inspiredsolescast or email guest ideas to inspiredsolescast@gmail.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend, subscribe or leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

Nick Kershaw is a man with a mission. A runner with a background in finance and a passion for international development, Nick joins us from the UK to tell us all about how the Impact Marathon Series came to be and why it is so special. The Impact Marathon Series was born in 2015 from a dream that we could use the simple power of running to uplift communities and empower runners all over the world.

Throughout the Impact process, from the organizations they choose to support, to the way they engage and interact with the projects and the communities, their goal is to take the impalpable and make it real. Nick and his crew have a goal to take their runners on a journey where they can find out what impact really means - the direct impact one can create, as well as how our lives indirectly have an impact that creates ripples across the world.

Over the last eight years, Impact Marathon has raised $1.5 million for grassroots organizations and has built a reputation for creating entirely unique events in some incredible countries.

Connect with Nick & Impact Marathon:

• Website: https://www.impactmarathon.com/
• Instagram: @impactmarathon

Connect with Carolyn & Kim:

• Email us with guest ideas: inspiredsolescast@gmail.com
• Inspired Soles Instagram
• Kim's Instagram
• Kim's Facebook
• Carolyn's Instagram
• Carolyn's Facebook
• Carolyn's website

We love hearing from you! Connect with us on Instagram @inspiredsolescast or email guest ideas to inspiredsolescast@gmail.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend, subscribe or leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.

Jen Shapka is a woman with a mission who seemingly can’t say no…and there are many runners who are grateful she says yes most of the time! Jen has moved a lot in her adult life, and it was the frequent moving that made this now 45-year old force herself to find a community wherever she landed. With two small kids at home, a husband away for work, and no family around, it was tough to get to the gym or join a team (both of which she’d have promptly quit anyway). One day 9 years ago she put on her shoes and went for a run. Or rather, mostly walking with a little bit of running. That eventually led to longer distances, a few races, and the most supportive and fun community. Currently living in Winnipeg - for the longest time ever in one place as an adult - she’s had time to really appreciate all that the running community, and now the triathlon community, have to offer.

In this episode we learn about Jen’s personal running journey that I’m sure many of you can relate to. Her personal journey is inextricably intertwined with her experiences race directing and volunteering for numerous events around the city. Jen talks about who has inspired her and what she has learned along the way. It is an absolute pleasure to share this conversation with you.

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• Website: https://goodphyte.com/
• Instagram: @jointhegoodphyte
• Our previous episodes with GoodPhyte Founder, Amy Golumbia
  • Fighting the GoodPhyte
  • Accessing Your Intuition

Resources we discussed in the episode:

• Find a Manitoba Road Race: https://mraweb.ca

Connect with Carolyn & Kim:

• Email us with guest ideas: inspiredsolescast@gmail.com
• Inspired Soles Instagram
• Kim's Instagram
• Kim's Facebook
• Carolyn's Instagram
• Carolyn's Facebook
• Carolyn's website

We love hearing from you! Connect with us on Instagram @inspiredsolescast or email guest ideas to inspiredsolescast@gmail.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend, subscribe or leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.