This children’s book writer and illustrator is the artist behind View from My Run, where she does scenes from along her runs in the same time it takes her to do the run itself. She indicates on her site that she has always been an artist but it took her 39 yrs to become a runner and a bit longer to marry the two together.

Lori was successful in the business world as a Corporate Creative Director and then moved on to a career that blended her passion for art and children’s literature. We discuss the process Lori goes though in developing her books and the amazing process it takes to let the picture build the story with a limited number of words allowed in the genre of writing for children.

As Lori progressed as a runner she found she was using her run time to problem solve in her business life and had a desire to blend the two together. From that A View From My Run was born, where she paints scenes from her runs in the same time that the run took. She has also now worked with the NY Roadrunners Club and others to help runners develop their artistic side.

Today’s Guest

Lori Richmond is a picture book illustrator in children’s publishing. She has appeared on Today, Good Morning America and CNN. She lives in Brooklyn NY with her husband and two sons. She runs and draws her runs in New York.

What you will learn about:

• How Lori jumped, at age 39, from a 20 yrs career in a Corporate Creative Director role to go back to her roots as an artist. She built herself an 18 month exit plan that allowed her to return to a passion of art and children’s literature.
• The process Lori follows in developing a story idea into a picture book where the words and the story blend together into a cohesive whole.
• How Lori considered herself a fitness failure from childhood, but at age 39 she realized she also needed to take charge of her health in addition to taking charge of her business career. She was inspired by her sister and others in her studio that were runners, including one studio mate that wrote the first C25K program. Her first road race was a half marathon.
• We discuss how she blended running and art. Her inspiration was realizing her training was paralleling her art work and how she used her runs to problem solve in her artistic life. A photograph taken on a run across the Manhattan bridge inspired her to paint the scene and then realized that a good side project for her to relieve stress was to paint the scenes from her runs to marry the two together.
• We discuss the comparison trap, how we compare ourselves to others, rather than focusing on how we feel when we are doing an activity. You don’t have to be the best to get something out of it, the joy comes from the feelings. When you run, you have to trust your plan and training. When you do art, or any endeavor, you have to also trust your plan. You have to go forward from where you are, not where others are. Stay with your own compass and where you are in your own plan.
• We discuss how Lori paces her drawing like her running when trying to determine how to finish a scene in the same time as her run duration. She adjusts her strategy to use materials or details based on the time she has. The same applies to race strategy where she adjusts based on the times she is actually running vs a plan.
• How she has found that she sees her surroundings differently now that she is paying attention while she is running vs being so how we are so over scheduled and busy that we neglect to admire what is around us.

Inspirational Quotes:

Children are fearless in their artwork and use their imagination to draw the most beautiful vision they see in their mind. And then at some point we are taught that if it does not look like what you are drawing, it is wrong. When it is imperfect, that is what makes it yours. Concentrate on how you feel rather than what it looks like.

Drawing is visually expressing your idea, and if you communicate, even with as simple as a stick figure, it is a success.

The unfinished ones sometimes end up being the most interesting ones.

Resources:

Last week's episode with Derek Murphy of Marathon Investigation

Tina4Real Podcast 

Running for Real Superstars Community

Support Tina through her Patreon Page

Buy a Running for Real T-shirt, Tank, or Hat

Lori on Instagram

Lori on Twitter

Lori's website

Bunny's Staycation Book

Oopsie-Do Book

A Hop is Up Book

Skelly's Halloween Book

Thank you to Bombas and Bodyhealth for sponsoring this episode of Running for Real.

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Thanks for Listening! I hope you enjoyed today's episode.

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Thank you to Lori, I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the show.