I'm Erica Ehm and iRun Because it Keeps Mummy Yummy

By Jessica Aldred

Erica Ehm wants you to know that she’s discovered the secret to long-distance running: “Drink a frappuccino before you run,” she insists. “I’m serious!”

You may remember Ehm from when she became a household name as a hipster VJ on the then-fledgling cable channel Much Music in the 80s. Or you may be more familiar with her more recent media presence as powerful mom-trepreneur and founder of the Yummy Mummy Club (yummymummyclub.ca), an online community of bloggers and readers some 50,000 members strong and growing. What you may not know is that Ehm has been an avid runner most of her adult life, and that the one thing that initially posed the greatest challenge to maintaining her regular training routine - namely, motherhood - now actually serves as her greatest motivation for getting out the door.

When we caught up with the busy mom of two (she has a son, Josh, and a daughter, Jessie), she happily shared her super-caffeinated secret to running success, which she discovered during A Midsummer Night’s 15k Run last summer, Ehm’s first long-distance race since becoming a mom in 2000. The race also marked the first time members of the Yummy Mummy Club banded together to train for an event, but certainly not the last - Ehm is now rallying her fellow Mummies to train for the Disney Wine & Dine Half-Marathon, being held in Orlando in October. Equal parts self-deprecating best girlfriend and inspiring motivational speaker, Ehm also candidly shared the details of her running comeback, and why she feels running provides just the type of “me” time modern moms need to stay happy and healthy.

I’m not, like, the greatest runner or anything. I ran a half-marathon about 12 years ago, and I wouldn’t say it was easy - it wasn’t easy - but it was entirely manageable, because I used to run every day. I sort of casually trained for it. I was with the Running Room, and I ran with a couple of other girls from the Running Room, and we all just chatted the whole way. We didn’t race it, we just ran, so when we finished it, I was like, “oh, I’m a little tired, but that was awesome, that was great.”

But then right after that I had kids, my body got sore, my ankles gave out, my pelvic bone didn’t heal properly right away, so I had all these physical deterrents to running, and then - the time! That was with my son, and then finally after about a year, year and a half everything’s organized so that I start to run again – my ankle’s healed and the pelvic bone’s healed and all that kind of stuff - so I very slowly start running again, but then I’m way heavier so it’s harder to run…and then I’m pregnant with my daughter! And then I went, “that’s okay, I’m going to keep running,” but at three months I started bleeding, and the doctor said to stop running. So I stopped running, and then after five months he said, “okay, you can run again,” and I said, “are you out of your mind? I’m a cow! I can barely sit up!”

I think it was on my 40th birthday - because I had my son when I was 38 - so on my 40th birthday I did a 5k run for cancer, and I remember crying after I finished it, because it was so hard for me to do that 5k race… I was crying because I was so out of shape, and that 5k had become so hard for me, when just three years ago, I had done a half-marathon and it was, in quotation marks, “easy.”

(Last year), I got a tweet out of the blue from a stranger that said “hey Erica, wanna run the (Midsummer Night’s) 15k with me?” And I said, “Okay - it’s not like I’ve run 15k in 10 years - sure!”

Yummy Mummy Club is national, so it’s challenging to do general runs together…The team is more a virtual team, where we complain online about it - “Oh my god, who suggested this run today?” I read tweets - like, Candace (Derickx, another Yummy Mummy Club blogger) will say “wow, that 8k run was pretty tough, but I’m so glad that I did it.” And I’ll look at that and go ‘”ooh, she’s going 8k now…hmmm.” So it’s very good incentive, just to see where your friends are at.

What’s great is that the actual intention of the website is to remind someone that they’re more than just somebody’s mom. And it’s also to remind moms that they are allowed to take “me” time to take time to take care of themselves. Because, as you know, when you have a child it can become so all-consuming that it can verge on being unhealthy if you don’t take care of yourself. So running is a realy great way to be able to exercise on your own time.

I find that when I run, I have way more energy during the day. Over the winter I was finding it really challenging to get out to run, so I bought a treadmill and I’ve used it three times. I like to feel the distance. In Toronto, I live right near the Beltline, which is an amazing place to run, because it’s kind of like an oasis in the middle of the city. It’s a path that’s treed and safe. When I bought my house, I bought in part for its location near the Beltline. But then I realized that my co-blogger - my Energizer Mummy, Rachel McCaig - lives eight blocks from me, and she’s truly the living embodiment of the Energizer brand, ‘cuz she just keeps going and going. I’m so lucky that she likes to run with me, because I’m the slow one. I often say, “can we walk a bit?” and she’ll just keep bouncing beside me.

When we agreed to do the 15k, we started meeting in the evenings to run together. I’m a workaholic, so I find it challenging to take off time (during the day). My favourite time to run is anywhere from 1-2pm on. I don’t like running in the morning. And I also want to spend time with my children, which is from 4-8pm. So she and I managed to squeeze it in throughout the week, and each week we’d go further and further and further, so by the race we’d done about 14k. We had pretty much done the distance. We don’t race it, we just chat the whole time, and it makes the experience so significantly better, for me anyway. I’m sad when I can’t run with her.

I started the website because I had a TV show called Yummy Mummy, which was all about the realities of surviving modern motherhood. Everyone always talks about the children, and I thought, you know, enough about the kids - what about the moms, who are having the biggest physical, emotional, and psychological transformations of their lives? Why is no one talking about that? So I started the TV show, and the show ran for a couple of years, and then when it stopped production, I was like “I’m not done. Someone needs to talk to us, and for us, and about us and with us.”

So I literally started, like, a one-page website. I built it, and learned how to use this web technology myself, and, you know, I’m a TV host, so it was a huge learning curve, but I really was driven by passion to connect with other moms, and to spread the message that you are good enough, you’re not a bad mother, we’re all going through the same thing, this is a very challenging time for all of us, and asking “why are we all feeling so guilty all of the time? Why is it not okay for me to go out and leave my kids for a few hours?“ Because I was experiencing that same feeling - it’s not like I was watching other people. I also was feeling it.

It’s really grown, and it’s grown organically and authentically… Most of the people who work for me are moms, we all work from home, because it’s virtual. We believe that you can have it all, just not all at the same time.

iRun asked, Erica answered

What has motherhood taught you about running?

What it’s taught me is that you need to take the time, and that if you take the time, you’ll be a better mother, and I am… I’m happier, I’m calmer, I run my stress out. Also, I know that I am a serious role model for (my kids.) They’re seeing me getting out there and being physical and independent, so I know that I’m sending such important messages to them in a variety of ways. It’s important that I run for them.

What has running taught you about motherhood?

Motherhood is a frickin’ marathon, there is no question about that. You just have to keep on going and going, even when you feel like you’re going to collapse - you can’t, because you’ve got to get to the finish line. Except that there is no finish line in motherhood, it just keeps on going and going and going! The point is, if that’s the case, doesn’t that just reinforce the concept of taking time to make sure you’re well and strong?

Do you have tips for busy moms trying to fit running into their day?

You have to find the time. You have to make the time, really, that’s all it is. There’s no secret or special way of doing it. I don’t have the answer, because often, I suck - I don’t run, and I know I should, and I procrastinate like everybody else. That said, I think the best thing you can do is get a running partner, because it makes you accountable a bit more, and it makes the process social as well as physical.