What happens when you stop playing small and start telling the truth—to your coach, your body, and yourself? Claire joins us to share how she left a stable HR career and built a life around running, breathwork, and positive psychology, not as separate practices but as one coherent path to purpose. Her story is not a straight line; it curves through divorce, self-development, and long miles that taught her to trust the process and let go of outcomes.
We dig into how a holistic approach to training transforms performance, especially in midlife. Claire explains why sleep, strength work, hydration, and nutrition are non-negotiables; how breathwork improves oxygen delivery and steadies the mind before the gun; and why a 3:19 marathon at 49 felt less like defying age and more like aligning body and mind. She coaches online with a mindset-first method—reframing limiting beliefs, documenting the messy weeks, and proving that consistency beats intensity when the goal is confidence as much as pace.
Beyond the finish line, the conversation opens into what running reveals about life. Claire talks candidly about trekking to Everest Base Camp, finding clarity to end a kind marriage, and making the hardest call with honesty and care. She shares the lonely parts of marathon prep, the joy of flow on a cold morning in the Peak District, and the power of saying “I’m alive” at the top of a hill. Clients tell her they’re not just faster; they’re braver at work, calmer at home, and kinder to themselves when plans change.
If you’re curious about holistic running, midlife performance, mental resilience, or the courage to stop hiding, this one’s for you. Subscribe, leave a review, and share this with someone who needs permission to trust the process—what truth are you ready to run toward?
Course Content
Organisation
This learning is avaibale in Onlinevents FREE Student Hub. Access Curated Content From Onlinevents ProfessionalDevelopment Library to Support Your Training & Professional Growth
Presenter
Malcolm Stern has worked as a group and individual psychotherapist for more than 30 years. He was a co-founder of Alternatives at St James’s Church in London and runs groups internationally.
He is the author of Falling in Love / Staying in Love (Piatkus 2004) and Slay Your Dragons with Compassion ( Watkins 2020). He co-presented Channel 4’s relationship series, ‘Made for Each Other’ in 2003 and 2004 and sailed on the ‘Rainbow Warrior’ with Greenpeace in the 1980s. The book he is currently writing is an exploration of the shadow and its necessity in our evolutionary development.
To become equal to the dream sewn within us, our heart must break open and usually must break more than once. That’s why they say that the only heart worth having is a broken heart. For only in breaking can it open fully and reveal what is hidden within.” – Michael Meade
This is a series of podcasts based on the premise explored in Malcolm Stern’s acclaimed book of the same name, that adversity provides us with the capacity to develop previously unexplored depths and is , in effect , a crucible for self reflection and awareness. Malcolm lost his daughter Melissa to suicide in 2014. It slowly dawned on him over the following few years that he was being educated and an opportunity was being presented where new insights helped him forge a path through his grief and despair. As part of that cathartic journey, he wrote “ Slay Your Dragons with Compassion ( Watkins 2020 ) where he was able to describe some of the practices that had helped him shed light on a way through the darkness.
