Welcome to episode 252 of the Women’s Running podcast. I’m your host Esther Newman and she’s your other host Holly Taylor. On this podcast we talk about health, politics, stuff on TV and what we ate last night. Occasionally, we talk about running.

We have a LOT to talk about in this episode, so hold on to your hats. First off, a couple of trigger warnings: in this episode we talk about weight and weightloss, there’s some chat about mental health and anxiety, and we also talk about women’s safety while running, as well as online trolling.

Weight and weightloss

Hol’s been going through it a bit, so we talk about that a little bit. And then we want to talk about weightloss, because lots of our Inner Circle have prompted us to. If you also want to kick off some conversation starters, you can join our lovely Inner Circle through Patreon – details in a bit. We kick things off by talking about how we personally feel about our own weight, and how that intersects with our running lives.

Abuse of women runners

After a small reality TV interlude, we talk about this story that ran in the Metro last week, about men spitting at women runners. We’d been involved in the story and contributed some stats. So a very grim story to report on, but it doesn’t end there, because then we get into the comments under the story itself. It’s all a bit shocking – do please get in touch with your thoughts on this or anything else we talk about in this episode. Email as ever is wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk or if you’re a patron just message us on Discord.

Join us on Patreon

Speaking of which, if you aren’t a patron yet do join us on Patreon for just £2 a month, through which you can join Discord, our forum just for you, our gorgeous Pod Squad, to meet up, chat about running, TV, books, menopause, and anything else you like. You also get to come along to our Live Pods! To get access to Discord, all you need to do is head to patreon.com/womensrunning and join us for just £2 a month. It’s worth every penny.

Lovely extra bits

Subscribe to Women’s Running – and you can pick up 6 issues for £6
Read the story in the Metro here (NB: all comments I read out have now been taken down)
Sign up to the Westonbirt Half (or other distances), and check out the other races from Relish Running while you’re there
Get tickets to our live event ahead of the Bath Half 2026!
Setting up your own podcast? Try Zencastr – we’ve been using it for ages and LOVE IT
Do join us on Patreon so you can come and chat in our new Pod Squad community on Discord! Go to patreon.co.uk/womensrunning
Email us at wrpodcast@anthem.co.uk with any questions or running stories

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Ep 252. Weightloss, anxiety, safety