Annelise Rowe- December, 10 2025 (Edit)
Annelise Rowe: [00:00:00] If I could go back that I would just be more graceful to myself and not have such high expectations, not judge myself so much, not put so much pressure on myself to perform or win or be at my peak the time. Uh, to really embrace the moment and not to try to like, it's okay to not be the best at everything. And I wish that if I could go back, I would really have enjoyed more of the moments and been more focused on the experience rather than the performance or the outcome that I was searching for at the time. So I think having more grace with myself would also have changed a lot of the experiences that I had along the road and some of the things that we talked about today that I just, I put so much pressure on myself growing up that if I had had more grace and been more patient with myself, I think, um. would've maybe found the version of myself that I am today a lot [00:01:00] sooner.
Riley: Today we have Annelisa Rowe. She is an ultra-runner. She's in the military. She's a mom, she's a wife. She is a high achiever of high achievers. And I, I, uh, I asked Annelisa on here because , my wife constantly showing me your social media posts saying, Hey, look what she's doing now. You really ought to talk to this gal. So, uh, Annelisa, welcome to the show.
Annelise Rowe: Thank you. I am very happy to be here.
Riley: Yeah, and listen, I probably will butcher your name. I, I have [00:02:00] pronounced it wrong for years. I found out, so if I mess it up, please tell me. Don't be
Annelise Rowe: Okay. You've already said, you've already said it right twice, so we're, we're on a good track here.
Riley: Cool. Well, tell me this, um, who, who, who are you? Who's Annelisa, where'd you grow up? What did life look like as a kid? I.
Annelise Rowe: No problem. Uh, so I was born in Seattle. Uh, my parents, my dad at the time was in the lumber industry. He did, he, he worked on the, uh, directorial side of things. So we moved kind of all over the country. Uh, we moved kind of at the same regularity as an army family. Born in Seattle, lived in Spokane, then we moved to Arkansas, Oklahoma, Ohio, finally wound up in Idaho. Um, and we have been here since 2002. Uh, I graduated high school here from Eagle High. And, um. Went to college down in California for one year. Came [00:03:00] back and graduated from Boise State with a degree in health education and promotion. Met my husband around the, a year after I graduated, and he and I have been married now for 13 years. Uh, I would normally have to do the math on that, but we just celebrated our anniversary, so, uh, it's an easy one to remember. But, um, we have three little kids. They are five, four, and two. Um, and I work full-time in the Idaho Air International Guard. I have been out there since 2018, full-time. I joined the Guard in 2013.
So, uh, I like to identify myself as a mom and wife first, uh, follower of Jesus, of course, um, military member and an athlete. I.
consider myself an athlete, but TBD on that. So me.
Riley: EBD on that, right? We're gonna, um, when you guys see what she does and, and to be determined, athlete. Yeah. I think it's determined. She's you're an athlete. [00:04:00] Um, yeah. Well, so. Tell me what attracted you to the military lifestyle? 'cause you, you mentioned moving around a lot, so, uh, that is also a military thing, not, not just lumber industry, but, um, so by the time you get to the military, maybe that's not so new to you.
What, uh, what was the attraction there?
Annelise Rowe: When I graduated college, my degree was in health education and promotion. I worked for a local hospital here in Boise and I had, I had a great job with them. I really loved working for the hospital. I worked both at the health foundation and in their health and wellness office. I really enjoyed that. Um, at the time my husband Daniel, was in the Air National Guard, he'd been in for several years.
He joined n Wyoming and then moved out here. He worked on C one thirties and then came out here and worked on a TENS as a jet propulsion mechanic. I'm gonna say that wrong. Um, he worked in, in aerospace propulsion. Uh, he then moved into recruiting. And so I got to [00:05:00] hear all of his stories on people should join the guard, the benefits, the perks of the perks of it, why maybe Air International Guard might be considered to him, uh, superior to some of the other ones like Army or active duty. Um, anyway, I got to, I got to hear his story and that he told to people all the time, because as a new recruiter, you're constantly taking phone calls, you're having meetings. And I kept thinking to myself, wow, that sounds like an awesome opportunity. I want that for myself. And, uh, I asked him about it. I'm like, Hey, Daniel, I could, maybe I could join the guard.
And he's like, no, one, 100% no. He grew up with maintainers and kind of, he had grown up in a different Air Force. It, it was a different military back when, when he started out and when he spent his time in aircraft maintenance. And, uh. I was really in, I was really interested and he was like, you know, you know what?
You're my wife. I wanna keep business and our house separate. I don't, I I really love your job that you [00:06:00] have at the hospital. And so we kind of, we tabled that discussion. Uh, about a year later I interviewed for a position with the hospital and unfortunately was not chosen for that position. I had asked the interview team, I said, what is something that I can do better?
And they said that I needed to expand my resume. I needed to broaden my experience and my, and my range of what I do. And I thought to myself, how can I possibly do that if I keep my job? Uh, like, how, how else can I improve that? I, I already had an education, I already had experience working for that company.
What else can I do? And I talked to my husband about it and he's like, well, maybe, maybe now's the time that we look at you joining the guard. And I'm like, okay, yes. I'm so excited. Uh, this will be perfect. How about, how about I gain some new skills that I don't already have? What about if I'm the first female TP. Operator that the Idaho Air National Guard has ever seen. And he's like, no, completely, completely, no. I'm like, okay, cool. Security forces then that sounds really fun. And he's like, no. He's like, [00:07:00] if you wanna join the guard, you can go personnel or finance. The reason that he thought that personnel or finance would be good for me is that those are curated skills that he would help enhance what I can do at the hospital.
And that, that it would also be a good fit knowing that people who work, uh, in those environments. So I was like, okay, I will take the leap. I will join the guard. Let's go personnel. Uh, so I joined personnel. I enlisted in 2013, the day before Thanksgiving. And in 2014 I went off to basic training. I in basic training.
I was older than your average recruit. So I joined the Guard when I was 27 years old, and I was there with a bunch of other young people in their late teens, early twenties. Um, I found the guard, the basic training, which is the same as Air Force basic training. Um. I didn't find it as, hmm, how do I say it? We had classes of course, but then there were also physical challenges. I was, uh, physically [00:08:00] maybe in a good spot at the time. At the time I was, I was running marathons, running half marathons. And, uh, so I found the fitness part of it to be really fun and the classes and everything like that. Like, I, I had my degree.
I was, I was a good student. I've always been a good student. So I did really well at basic training. Uh, I came home and immediately began looking for opportunities to commission because that was something that I had had in my mind that I wanted to do. And, uh, when I applied for a commission, there were three opportunities open. there?
were logistics, security forces, and, uh, finance. And my husband was like, yeah, perfect. A finance commission. You could be an officer in finance. That'll be great. I was picked up in Security forces, of course. Um, you had, uh, we had talked about it previously, but, um, I applied for my Security Forces commission.
I was one of 19 other applicants. And our, the guard here did it a little bit differently. We had a really inventive and unique commander at the time who was [00:09:00] very creative with his selection process. So we had to do a formal board where we sat in front of a bunch of officers to interview, but we also had a physical challenge where we had to rock up a mountain local to us, which is table rock. Uh, we had to do a physical challenge at the top of table rock. We got smoked, uh, by the cadre. And, uh, I was the top performer at that challenge. And so I did not get necessarily picked for the commission because of my physical performance, but that was something that our commander knew at the time that our squadron needed. And so that among. My other qualities, like my, way that I interviewed my leadership experience, my prior, uh, health and wellness background, he was very interested in that. So I got picked up for a commission in security forces and, um, you initially asked what attracted me to the, to the military and I just definitely gave you a very long description of that.
And so I don't totally bore you, I don't wanna go too far into it, but maybe I'll let let you ask your next question. I think I went [00:10:00] longer than you expected on that.
Riley: No, no, no, no, no, no. You, you did great because I, you touched on some other things that we're, we're gonna talk more about as the episode, uh, moves on table rock. Now you said you rucked up table rock. Um, for those who don't know the term ruck, what does that mean?
Annelise Rowe: Uh, so we were in uniform. We had a backpack loaded with 35 pounds of gear in it, plus water. Um, it's basically, it's, it's a, it's a hike. Uh, it's a hike with a loaded backpack on. And so we did that to the top of table rock. I don't remember the distance. It's not terribly far. Uh, and we did it as a team, so it wasn't a competition to see who could get to the top. The cool part about. Interview was, it was more, how does this person work together as a team? If one of these people falls behind, or if one of the people is unable to complete a portion of the fiscal challenge, does that person carry on to achieve their own finish? Or do [00:11:00] they help the other person with them? Uh, so that is a r and then also a little bit more about what we did.
Riley: Yeah, so just to, did table, I had to hike table rock three days ago. And, uh, for that's a, that is a, it's like a landmark in Boise. It's a, a nice trail up it, but it's a steep sucker. And when you're carrying weight, uh, most people have to take several breaks going up. That thing. And I, uh, it's, it's about 1.7 miles, roughly from bottom to top.
But it climbs, if I'm not mistaken, close to 900 feet vertical in that. Time or in that distance. Right? so it's, you know, it's not a super hard hike, but it's you carrying weight and, and trying to make it up. That thing most people can't do it.
Annelise Rowe: It was interesting because we warmed up at the bottom of Table Rock. We then rocked up it as a group. We had certain stops [00:12:00] along the way that we had to memorize bits of intel, um, and work together as a team to solve problems. When we got to the top of the mountain, that's when our cadre came out and we began a 30 minute, basically a smoke session.
So they had us take our ruck and hold it above our head, and the last, like, see who could hold it up there the longest. We then had, uh, plastic weapons, um, and force that we would use in our position. And we had plastic. We had to, we had to hold them out like this. Um, on top of our hands. We had ones where we had to just hold it out like this.
I have pictures I could send you if you'd like to see it. Uh, but it was a physical challenge and some of our people, after multiple minutes or multiple, uh. Attempts at doing this. They were having issues holding that 35 pound rock up over their head for an extended period of time, or they would get fatigued.
And it's hard to hold your arms out here with like a plastic, essentially weapon along it. Uh, people [00:13:00] got fatigued and so it was hard. And at the, when they're telling you, and I mean, it was, it was fun. I thought it was fun, but like they're screaming at you. You're sweating. It's the middle of summer. And when your teammate is having a hard time getting their ruck over their head, are you going to stand there with the ruck over your head watching them struggle or is that when you go over and help them get it up and then get your own backup? So it was a, it was an awesome challenge. Really cool. Um, I've never seen do an interview for a job like that before and our. Idaho Air National Guard has never interviewed anyone like that since, uh, because it was a very taxing, very demanding interview. And I give massive kudos to the commander who had the brains to come up with it.
And then also, uh, the dedication to pursue it because it was, I think, a really cool way to be picked for a job.
Riley: Yeah. Why do you think they've gotten away from that?
Annelise Rowe: Um, the part of it could be [00:14:00] possibly seen as maybe like a form of hazing, um, or it. How do I say this? A lot of times officers don't need those kind of skills to be able to lead a squadron effectively. Our commander at the time saw a gap in the physical abilities of the squadron. The, the officer previous to me who had been selected for the role ended up washing out of the school because he was unable to complete the physical requirements demanded of the job. And in the schoolhouse, they do very similar things. Uh, so it's like team Rucks or team six mile Rucks where you have to go along, uh, like a, a very hilly course and you actually compete against each other. So he was trying to mirror our interview to be similar to what the schoolhouse was gonna be, to make sure that?
whoever could make it through the interview would hopefully also be able to make it through the schoolhouse. And, um. A lot of the times as an officer, we, we might, we sit behind a desk, we manage people, we lead briefings. We are the voice for our [00:15:00] squadron. We manage the resources and budget. We don't necessarily need to be able to ruck up the mountain and do very hard fiscal things. Uh, but in the military, I think it's really cool to that be part of the culture.
And so our, our security forces does a great job of making sure that they're really physically fit and they do a lot of cool challenges and I wish that that was more part of the process, but it's just, it's not a very standard way of doing business.
Riley: Yeah. Yeah. I could see kind of both sides of that coin, right? 'cause overall military, everything needs to have a certain physical readiness level.
Annelise Rowe: Right.
Riley: working on computers all day, does that, you know, how does that really help? Right. I I see both sides of that for sure. Um,
Annelise Rowe: Sure.
Riley: so you talked about, um, prior to the US recording here in a previous conversation, the events that led to cybersecurity.
Now, I, I wanna, I wanna make sure that when you're using terms, 'cause [00:16:00] I'm, I'm not always hip on the, the military jargon. Um, you used a, uh, an acronym earlier, T tpac, is that what you called? It one of the options.
Annelise Rowe: Uh, TAC P, that's our tactical air control party. Sorry about that. Uh, you get so used to it that you don't necessarily realize that you're doing it sometimes.
Riley: Yeah. But there's more on like me in the world. So we, we have to, I'm gonna ask those questions. So, okay. So that was one of the
Annelise Rowe: a moron, I promise.
Riley: you, ended up, uh, you ended up picking the cybersecurity kind of. field and I, I, I would like to know kind of what, there were some factors there. Again, you mentioned like, to talk to the audience about that.
Annelise Rowe: Sure. Um, so I. I loved commissioning into security forces. I thought that that was probably where I was going to spend the rest of my Air Force career. And I, so I joined Security Forces in 2016, right after I commissioned that, that was the job [00:17:00] that I went into. And I got to spend five years there. And during that five years, uh, I had one baby and then had another on the way.
And that proved to be incredibly difficult. Uh, security forces, they don't work. Typical shifts, they work 24 hour 24 7 around the clock, and they work shifts. So they have, uh, typically morning shift, night shift, mid shifts, sometimes depending on the base. And, uh, that.
proved to be very demanding for us as a family.
So I did not work. I didn't do shift work. I worked the back office schedule and back office. They do typical Monday through Friday work. Um, but there were constant calls around the clock. There were phone calls during the middle of the night. There were emergencies that I had to go out to the base for on the weekend. Uh, You typically sacrifice your holidays because you're going out to either spend it with the people who are working or to take them, uh, maybe like treats or special things, uh, to say thank you, to thank them for working the holiday. Security Forces was just a little bit more demanding for [00:18:00] us as a family. I knew that I needed to deploy in the career field, and as a Security forces officer, you deploy typically for six to 12 months. So I knew that I was going to be going out of country at some point away from our family, and with one tiny baby, another one on the way, and possibly more in the future. I knew that it was probably time for me to make a change in the career despite the fact that I loved security forces.
My goal, similar to when I joined the military, was to maybe step outside the career field for a little bit, broaden myself somewhere, and then go back to security forces in the future. That didn't happen, and I'll get to that in a minute. But, uh, the place where I went next after Security Forces was the Inspector General Office.
And what I did with the or Inspector General, uh, I was their director of inspections. So I led and planned all the inspections that we did throughout our wing. I was also, I oversaw compliance. Uh, we have certain inspections that we have to do every year, so I helped lead those. I also, um, at the same [00:19:00] time, the, so the interesting thing about the Guard and not a lot of people talk about this, that we have a large community of members, but only some of us are full-time.
So in the Guard, you can be either full-time or part-time. I am one of the full-time members, say we have, uh, 1300 ish members and that about 400 of us are full-time. So. My full-time job is different than my job on, say, drill weekends. When I was in Security Forces full-time, I worked for The Wing in a different position.
I was the WING'S chief of information protection, which is like a big, long, fancy phrase for saying that I did security clearances for the base and I, uh, fingerprinted members. And I also was in charge of classified information protection, making sure that none of our classified information was leaked out to the outside. So I did both security forces and information protection concurrently.
From Forces and I went into the [00:20:00] Inspector General's office, um, I also took on a different job full-time. So at the time I then stopped doing Chief of Information Protection. I worked Inspector General and then I was also a special projects officer for The Wing. I got to have a lot of visibility with our Wing leadership. I got to do anything from coordinating our TAG leadership day, which the, our TAG is the AD in general. So I would do his leadership day. I would, I got to coordinate Boss Lift, which is where we have civilian employers come out and we get to show them around, uh, the Wing.
We have an honorary commander program where civilian. Well prominent civilian members in the community get to be a commander for a number of years with us. So I got to coordinate a lot of very cool things, and I got a lot of great exposure to the Wing and to the Wing's leadership during that time while I was there in that role, I'd been there for two years, and we had had our second baby during that time.
And then we also were expecting a third. Um, during that time I was approached [00:21:00] by our cyber commander and his superintendent, and they said to me, Hey, do you have any interest in cyber? And my first reaction was, I laughed and I'm, I'm embarrassed because of course, this is where I'm at now. Uh, but when they asked if I had any interest in cyber, I was like, no, 100% no, I'm not smart enough for that career field. And a, it turns out that I am maybe smart enough for that career field, uh, but b uh, cyber is more than just. and cybersecurity. And so I was very excited that they asked me. My initial reaction was absolutely not. I, I don't computer, uh, I don't, I'm not great with computers. I've never been great with computers.
However, I have constantly been, uh, I used to write my own website when I did a blog, uh, like write the code from my website. I've done, I've been in the social media space for 14 years now, so I'm pretty familiar with tech [00:22:00] just not necessarily computer basics. Uh, so I told the cyber commander and a superintendent, no, I'm not interested. They reapproached me later and they said, listen, are you Sure.
you're not interested because we have a gap in our leadership that you, I'm, I'm a captain right now. And, uh, they said, we need somebody who has proven leadership experience. You don't necessarily have to be a cyber expert or bring this, bring a bunch of cyber experience to the table.
You need to be able to learn it though. So if we can teach you cyber, would that appeal to you? I was very intrigued at that point because the doors that cyber can open in the future, for instance, for life after the military, can be huge for me. And that's something that, um, like it's always kind of in the back of your mind as a military member, like, what am I gonna do next?
Granted, I have, I have a ton of years until I'm ready to think about retirement. But at the same time, if I can have a skillset that is translated well into the civilian world, that's very appealing to me. In addition, [00:23:00] I knew that as soon as we had our third baby, the idea of maybe going back to security forces and working extremely long hours or, uh, possibly shift work or the idea of an overseas deployment that could be six to 12 months, being away from three tiny children at home, leaving my husband it all full-time.
That sounded very daunting to us. And the cool thing
Riley: Sure.
Annelise Rowe: is that we do mobilize or we deploy. We do that every couple years, uh, but our cyber mobilizations are here, so I get to do that here in the state of Idaho. Normal work hours, normal schedule, everything like that. So it doesn't throw our family off too much. The one downside for me and why, I thought maybe that I might not want to pursue cyber at the time is because I did have to spend a year out of state, uh, through two different, I had to go to two different states and spend it at two different trainings. Uh, but that was, that was intimidating to us because knowing that I was gonna have to leave our family and leave our little kids with my husband to do
Riley: Okay.
Annelise Rowe: uh, sounded like a lot of work.
Now, I know that [00:24:00] in the military people that's extremely common. Uh, the spouses are always leaving, they're always deploying That something that we know when we sign up and we're typically very eager to do. But for normally, most of the time it's the husband who leaves and the mom is the one who stays home full time most of the time. Not always, but most of the time. And so for us, the idea of leaving our three tiny kids, and I am very. Set in my ways. I'm not necessarily, uh, I was gonna say controlling. That sounds bad. Um, it's not controlling, but I like to, I like to manage our household. I take great pride in managing our household. I really enjoy raising our kids and I love being here and keeping the house as it is. Uh, so the idea of leaving for that long was, was scary to me. Um, but in the end, the idea of leaving for 12 months of training, gaining a new skillset, rather than maybe going overseas for something like that was [00:25:00] in the end what, what kind of sold us on the deal.
So, um, I made that transition into cyber in October of 2023. I went to my first training for that in July. I spent over the last year and a half, I've been gone for 12 months and I just actually got back a month and a half ago from, from that year long training.
Riley: That leads to a, a few questions, but something you said there about kind of being nervous to relinquish. Yeah. We can not call it control, but really relinquish managing your household. Right.
Annelise Rowe: Mm-hmm.
Riley: What parts of that made you nervous? What, what, what was going on there?
Annelise Rowe: I always take such a sense of pride in being maybe the one to do so many things. Uh, I am kind of the, like in our, in our household, I'm the one who does the inside of the house. I do the laundry, [00:26:00] I do the cleaning. I always thought that I did the primary of the child raising. It's not true. But I always would take that and say that that's, that's what I did. And letting go of some of that, knowing that I was going to miss things, knowing that I was going to miss holidays, uh, that was really hard for me to wrap my head around. Um. when you remove yourself from the equation like that, you have to let other people in and you have to let other people help.
And I always just wanna do it all myself. Um, we ask our kids like, we'll, we'll get them a special dessert, like say a dairy queen blizzard, and we'd be like, Hey Cameron, can I have a bite of that? And she's like, no, it's, oh my. And they, like, I have videos of all three of my kids being like, it's all mine. And for me, our life, my kids, our house, my husband, it's all mine. And so being able to give some of that up a little bit was very hard for me. And while I was gone, uh, my in-laws actually moved in to help Daniel [00:27:00] with the kids, with the schedules because he still does work full-time. He still had to get two of our kids to school every day and the third one to grandma and grandpa's house.
So they were extremely selfless in the time when I was gone to step in and help and that. Despite how grateful I was for it, that made me nervous having two other people in our house living here for almost a year. Uh, I wanted to own it and say like, no, we did all of that ourselves, but I had to concede and ask for help because we needed it during that time.
Riley: That's really interesting to me.
Annelise Rowe: oh, sorry. What were you gonna say?
Riley: No, go ahead. Finish. Finish what you were gonna say.
Annelise Rowe: Um, you had asked too, what also, like another thing that made, um, me nervous to leave and when I left the original time for school, my first school portion was seven and a half months long. My second school portion was four months long. So total it was, it was a year. [00:28:00] And when I initially left for school, our daughter was 13 months old. Um, she was our, our third baby. And when I left I was still breastfeeding. Uh, she was not yet walking and I knew all the things that I was going to miss. So I did end up missing her first steps. I ended up, uh, stopping breastfeeding when I left. And that was very bittersweet for me because I knew that she was gonna be our last baby.
And so missing out on some of those final moments and some of those big milestones were hard. Um, I was school, my husband called me one night and said, Hey, I have something to show you. Uh, and. When he turned on FaceTime and I joined the conversation, it was my oldest son reading him a book, and that was the first time that I'd ever seen my son read anything.
And he was reading this sweet, adorable little book to me on FaceTime and I'm so glad that I got to see it, but I really, really wanted to be there in [00:29:00] person. And, uh, I experienced the same thing when our daughter took her first steps. We, husband called and said, Hey, I have Something to show you. I was right in the middle of studying.
I think I had a test the very next day. I'd been in school for maybe two weeks. And, uh, he said, I have something to show you. And he flipped the phone around and I watched her travel from one couch to the next, taking these tiny little toddler steps and the smile on her face, and I just burst into tears.
I think I have pictures of both of them, just both the reading the book for the first time and also her taking her first step and then me, on the other hand, on the other end, just. Completely doused, like ugly crying tears. 'cause I was so, so glad that I got to see both of those things, but it was very bittersweet not getting to see it in person.
Riley: Something we don't think about. Right? Because I think we've all experienced those kind of things where we're just like, man, I missed that big event. And, and yeah, I really.
Annelise Rowe: Mm-hmm.
Riley: I, I hear what you're saying [00:30:00] because that's such a hard deal to take a step away from things. Um, you said, you said a lot there. That's really making my wheels turn because you're, you're talking partly about the, the humility of asking for help, which can be difficult.
The, the, I would also put it in the humility category of saying, look, I'm gonna, I'm gonna just trust that you're gonna do these things that I'm used to doing well, and I'm gonna come back home here in months and months and months of being, you know, down, down there for training, and I'm gonna come back to a household that's still functioning.
And there's, so there's some pride in there too, right? That can hit us where.
Annelise Rowe: Course.
Riley: It's like this thing's gonna function without me. And I'll tell you where the, what, what's making my wheels turn here is the first time that I truly delegated something out in my business and the results were better than what I had produced myself.[00:31:00]
It kind of hurt me a little bit. There was that part of me that went, crap, what? I'm not even needed here. Now. That was my goal. That's what I was shooting for the whole time. But then when it happened, it struck me weird. And I, I'm kind of hearing that from you. Like there's a little bit of that crap. Can this thing even function without me?
And you know, sorta it was a, not exactly the same thing, but it's you, were you feeling some of that, some of that pride? Well, up a little bit
[00:32:00]
.
Annelise Rowe: Absolutely it. I thought initially I thought, there's no way, there's no way that, and I feel so bad to Daniel. I'm, I'm watching him work in the yard right now as I'm saying this, and I'm just like, there's, I felt bad because I thought there's no way that he can do it without me. There's no way that he can make sure that the kids are fed and bathed, and lunches are packed and everybody gets to where they need to be on time. the one who does that. There's no way that the laundry's gonna get done, that the house is going to be clean, that the kids are going to be loved on as much as I love them. There's no way. And I came home and was so surprised at. How things had changed, but for the better. So for instance, I got home and [00:33:00] definitely got to pick up some of the things that I was used to.
Like I, I went right back into being the primary person who does the laundry and things like that. But Daniel had completely redone our fridge and our pantry. So basically all the junk food was gone. He had completely redone like the diet that our family was eating, which is great because that's more in lines of like what I eat as a, as an athlete. Um, but the kids were extremely loved on, they had new habits and new procedures for doing things and new ways of automating things that I hadn't even thought of. And he kind of had everything down to a system and it was so smart. Like, why didn't I think of that? Why didn't, why didn't I develop the, that way of doing it?
And how is it that you did this all by yourself? And I was extremely impressed to see not only how. Well, everything turned out in my absence, but how it kind of all changed for the better. And I think that not leaving not only gave me, might sound bad, uh, [00:34:00] leaving not only gave me a chance to breathe for maybe the first time in, uh, it was five years since having children, it truly, like I, I, I got to take a breath. Um, that was much needed, but it also gave my husband a chance to step in and do things the way that he wanted to do it for that little bit of time without my oversight and my telling him, no, you can't do this, or, Hey, we should do it that way. He got to make the decisions and he did such a good job. It was very cool to come home and see how loved and educated and disciplined and smart the kids were his guidance.
Uh, and I mean, like I always say, we're too busy. We haven't been to church in person in a long time. He started taking them to church while I was gone. And so I came home and the kids were so excited to go to Jesus school. Uh, that was something that he re-implemented back into our routine that we've gotten back into.
And giving up the control was very hard, but seeing the [00:35:00] benefit on the backend was com completely worth it, definitely worth it.
Riley: When you're talking about asking for help and that being a difficult thing from your, from your perspective, what, what was hard about that?
Annelise Rowe: I always love having the idea of I did it myself and. I know there are so many people. We, we have such a great support system and they're always willing to help. But I have a very defined idea of how things should be done, for instance, um, how meals should be prepped, how laundry should be put away, how my kids should look when they head out the door and letting other people in to have an influence over them is very hard for me sometimes.
And of, of course, those are just very like basic examples. Um, but [00:36:00] people are so willing to help is what I've learned. They are willing to say, drop off meals or pick the kids up, or come hang with the kids so that?
we can have a moment away or help with the little things for people are so loving and giving and I have a very hard time accepting that sometimes because I always just want to take that and do it myself. Uh, my in-laws especially, they. Are such good people, they have such good hearts. Um, my, my parents, my, like my mom when she helped us when we were gone, it, they know, can see from the outside differently than we see it from the inside. And they know what we need and they want to help. So being able to accept it and say, yes, please, we do need the help this time, uh, is, it's humbling.
But, and again, you have, you have to put your pride aside for a second. Uh, but it's, it's made a world of a difference to be able to say like, yes, I need help. And thank you for helping us.[00:37:00]
Riley: I find that, um, yeah, most people are willing to lend a hand to somebody else, but are much more reluctant to receive that.
Annelise Rowe: Of
Riley: I'm,
Annelise Rowe: course.
Riley: I totally identify with it 'cause that's how I am too. But it, it also makes me wonder why sometimes I, um, were you able to gain a perspective on why, why we're that way?
Annelise Rowe: Right. Uh, Did you say, was I able to gain a perspective on it?
Riley: Did you come to a conclusion like, why, why, why, why is it that we're reluctant to receive help, but very willing to give it.
Annelise Rowe: I think sometimes we don't realize how much we might actually need it.
Uh, I mean, you see yourself in the mirror every day. I see myself in the mirror every day. I know what I look like, but over time I might not necessarily notice the little changes. Um. maybe little gray hairs that I'm getting, or like an age spot on my face, or if I'm looking extremely tired [00:38:00] and weathered because of the little amount of sleep I'm getting or the over training that I'm doing. if I go maybe two or three weeks without seeing my mom and she sees me, she can immediately tell, she can look right at me and say, me, are you feeling well? Because like your eye, it'll like, it may be a little bit swollen. And she's like, are you feeling okay? 'cause I can tell your eyes, don't look right today. Um, or people will see us and be like, man, is everything okay? Because you just look a little different. I say that because people can look on the outside in and see things might not be exactly how they appear from the inside. We can tell you're stressed, we can tell you're overworked. We can tell you're tired. Please let us help. And I think that sometimes we don't always see the way that we are. Appearing to others. Uh, but, but they can, they can typically see it. And so when people are willing to offer help at that time too, um, there's maybe no greater gift than anyone [00:39:00] can give than an active service like that.
Riley: So cool. I I am, I'm impressed with that because, you know, this is, this podcast is again, the reason I invited you on here is 'cause it's about high achievers, right? And. I think that's a common thread. Like we, we think because, you know, 'cause you can run a a 50 k or a full marathon or a 50 mile race that you can do anything.
And, and sometimes it's like, man, we actually have to admit to a limitation. And that's tough. It's stinking tough and it's a common thread between the high achievers that come on this podcast. It's, you know, can do everything but can't always do everything Can we,
Annelise Rowe: Nope. Sure can't.
Riley: and um, I'm gonna switch subjects here just a little bit because there was something that you mentioned, um, off air that [00:40:00] I just thought was the coolest thinking thing and that was the fact that you pursued educating yourself outside of a formal education. Now you had, you had the formal education that the military, uh.
Provided, but in order to, to learn this thing, you grabbed a hold of it yourself and started self-teaching. And I imagine that involved books and imagine a lot of resources. But I want you to talk about that. What, 'cause that is an underrated thing is that self-education. And, uh, can you, can you tell us what that process looked?
Annelise Rowe: You bet. So when I joined cyber, I came in with, I mean, zero cyber experience. I had, I had no cyber defense background, no computer skills really to speak of, other than I could write my own HTML and publish my own Instagram posts. Yay. That's not really necessarily gonna help me succeed in the cyber world.
So, uh, when I was hired, my boss said, Hey, it is October. You are going to school next year [00:41:00] sometime. Your number one thing that I want you to try to do is earn your first cyber certificate. That's gonna be CompTIA's sec plus. And I was like, okay. No problem, no problem. How, how hard can it be? And as soon as I started studying for that certificate, I realized exactly how hard it was going to be. And that's a challenging cert to pursue, especially for somebody who's brand new. For folks who have a background in cyber or computer or cybersecurity, it might not be that challenging for me who understands health and welfare and security forces. It was extremely difficult for me to try to learn that.
So, uh, we didn't have a lot of times in This career field, you can attend like a five day bootcamp or a short training course that will give you the materials needed, plus an explanation, plus hands-on labs that will help you learn the material so that you can go test on it and certify. I didn't have that opportunity this time, and so my commander said, do whatever you need to do, try to learn [00:42:00] this material and certify on this topic before you go. So I headed right on over to Amazon and bought the current SEC plus book. It was 700 something pages, I mean a, like a thick, big manual. And I grabbed a pack of highlighters and some tabs, and I started highlighting, I read that book cover to cover, which is maybe different than how some other people would read it or learn the material.
But for me, I need to be able to read it. As I read, I highlighted and I honed in on the things that I didn't know, especially anything that I didn't know I highlighted. So literally this book was a, like just a rainbow colored, entirely highlighted book. I th I mean, like, I highlighted everything and as I was going, I would highlight and people would come up and be like, highlighting everything.
You know that, right? I'm like, I know I'm highlighting all the things. I don't know. So that's, that's how I learn it. But I can. always. I don't [00:43:00] have a photographic memory, but I can a lot of times remember the things specifically that I did highlight or the things that I didn't. Uh, at the same time, I am very active and so I went to Audible and downloaded as many sec plus books as I could find.
And so anytime that I walked or ran, I was not listening to dance music or pop or whatever, like anything cool beat, I was lit, literally like running and listening to sec plus books. Uh, so my runs were not terribly exciting at the time, but they, I, it helps me retain some of the information. Like I can, I can remember running in certain places and learning about certain topics and what those topics were about just based on the run that day.
So I don't know, that into practice really helped me learn those things. In addition, there were also a lot of quizzes that I found online, um, just on public, a avail, publicly available websites. And so I would take the practice quizzes over and over and over. I finally, four months after [00:44:00] beginning to self-study, the second plus material went and tested on that topic. And I am not kidding when I, I think I took, I started taking the test and I was two questions in, and I was like, oh my gosh, I don't know any of this material. I, I, I don't know this, I've never seen these questions before. Why is it asking me these things? Because I read a book and I think the first two questions of the test were asking me to like, to do something and simulate something in a, in a lab environment.
I'm like, I don't know how to do this stuff. Uh, and so I thought that I had failed right from the start. They did get into more knowledge based questions after that. Um, but when I clicked the submit button, I was like, oh, I, why am I even here? I should've just like, I, I know that I'm gonna fail. I clicked submit.
It popped up that I passed the test and I burst into tears. I have done this twice, so this has happened two times. Uh, but. I burst into tears. I'm sitting there [00:45:00] crying in the testing facility like a dork. Um, and the, the person who comes, like the facilitator for the test comes up, is like, ma'am, are you all right? Um, are you really upset about your score? And I'm like, no. Passed. I passed this test. Like I, I
Riley: This is a happy cry.
Annelise Rowe: are not so much, it's a very happy cry. I think the tears happened for a couple of reasons, because a, I was able to self-study and actually learn the material to the point where I could pass the test. Also, I always thought that I wasn't smart enough to be in this career field. And every time that I do something like this, I'm proving myself wrong and I have very high expectations for myself. So when I'm able to actually surpass one of those expectations is it's a big, that's like, that's a big pat on the back, right?
Um,
Riley: Mm-hmm.
Annelise Rowe: I was also really excited to be able to tell my colleagues like, Hey, I am the first. Non prior service. So somebody who doesn't have the background in cybersecurity, I'm the first to be able to do that in our squadron [00:46:00] who passed the cert through a self-study method. And to me that, that was a big deal.
I was really, I was really excited for that. Um, I mentioned that this has happened twice. Well, I was at my last school, I took another certification. , What I got was the certified Forensic Analyst certificate, and it's the SANS Institute for Technology.
So I ended up getting the certified forensic analyst certificate that came along with that and. When I did it, that is a, a very challenging, from what I hear, a very, very challenging certificate to pass.
We ended up taking a five day class on that through the schoolhouse that I went to, and it's interesting because I again, had to bring self-study back into it. We had an instructor in person, not only an instructor, but we had the person who developed the course material. He was one of the authors of the class who came to teach us.
I'm, I mean, a very prominent figure in the cybersecurity realm, and I could not [00:47:00] understand the words that were coming out of his mouth. I am not an audio learner. I, I performed very poorly in a classroom when I'm just listening to things. And so if I'm listening to somebody talk and talk and talk, especially if it's about something that I completely don't understand, I just, I kind of go blank and I don't process any of it. We would then, during that class, they gave us books. I read the books. I read each of the books that we were given cover to cover. They were completely tabbed, completely highlighted. Uh, people didn't necessarily understand. They're like, why aren't you paying attention to the instructor? I'm like, I'm so sorry, but I don't understand him.
He's so, he's like, to me, next level, smart, like, so smart that I, I'm like, my comprehension is like way down here. I'm not, I'm not getting his comprehension up here. So I decided I'm gonna read the books. I ended up doing very well in the labs. Each of each of the books had corresponding labs that went with it.
I did really well in the labs. I [00:48:00] could not understand the way that he was teaching the course, so I
Riley: Okay.
Annelise Rowe: a significant amount of time outside of class for that one studying as well. I took that test. also ended up passing, cried like a baby. There was, I was testing next to somebody and afterward he came up and was like, oh, I don't wanna ask, but how did you do?
Because I heard you crying. I'm really sorry. I think you failed and don't beat yourself up too much. And I'm like, no, I passed. Um, and again, it was one of those feelings of like, wow, I actually did this. I, like, I actually passed and I was crying because it was just such a relief for, for feeling that way Now. Um, I know typically in the military and everything is such a big deal and tears are not necessarily celebrated, but I, I think it is okay to relax your bearing sometimes if you're so extremely excited about something or very sad about something. But I cried like a baby. I was proud of myself.
Riley: I love it. I think that's so cool. You're, um, the self-teaching thing, you [00:49:00] know, I, I get that question a lot in my electrolyte business. People ask me if I have a nutrition background or nutrition education. I'm like, no, not at all. It was all self-taught. But that the resources are out there if you're willing to go dig for them, ask the right questions, um, and learn how to learn.
The resources are there. You don't, it doesn't always take a formal education and it's cool when those resources are available, but man, self-taught, I just admire that. 'cause I think that is the, like I said before, underrated and sometimes people just will opt to not learn something rather than go self-learn it.
Annelise Rowe: I knew when I went into cyber that I was going to have a very, very hard time with the subject matter. I, it's completely out of my wheelhouse. It's not anything that I excelled in in school. Um. I don't, I didn't even take in college any, any classes in computer science or anything like that. And when I was in my schools, uh, in the last school that I went to to get my A [00:50:00] FSC, which is your Air Force specialty code of 17 Sierra, which some, sorry, acronym soup, but that's to be a cyber operator officer. when I was in that class, there were six of us. I was the only one without a computer science background or major in college. Uh, we even had a person in our class with a master's in computer science and a PhD in computer science. And I was one of six with my like and wellness background. So, um, I knew that this course material was going to be extremely challenging for me.
I will probably, self-admittedly, like I will always be one of the least experienced people we have in our squadron. Um, but that doesn't mean that I don't have other skills that I can bring to the table. So I bring. Like I bring a leadership background to the table. I bring a desire to serve and help others.
I bring a fitness background to the table and those are things that I feel like I can leverage [00:51:00] in my ability to be a good officer within our cyber squadron, despite my, maybe not lack of computer skills because I'm not gonna downplay it too much. I definitely have the skills to pass the courses that I needed to pass. Uh, but I'm not as adept in that topic as some of my colleagues who are extremely smart and have had a significant background in that.
Riley: Do you think that, um, I find it pretty common with people that they feel. What we'd call imposter syndrome. Right. You're in a field that's not necessarily you're an expert in, but you see all these other people that you view as experts, but I bet if you asked most of them, they would also feel the same way.
Right. Do you experience that imposter syndrome?
Annelise Rowe: Oh,
Riley: I.
Annelise Rowe: yes, 100%. Uh, what I am describing right now is imposter syndrome. Uh, and I have a couple colleagues who are like, listen, [00:52:00] stop downplaying it. You are smart enough to do this. Um, and do keep downplaying and saying that maybe I'm not smart enough to do this, to do this. Um, but did graduate. Um, both of the schools that I went to, I did end up with honor graduate certificates. And so like, I'm actually, how say it, the material is very, very hard for me to learn. But once I learn it, I excel at it. And so, um, I think that I'm not maybe as experienced or as adept at this material as some of my colleagues, but only because some of the people I.
work with are. They work in like nuclear science facilities or they are
Riley: Okay.
Annelise Rowe: programmers for massive companies. I mean like, say USAA or Wells Fargo, like very, very big companies, they're the lead cybersecurity people, or they're data analysts or data data scientists in say Germany. Things like, [00:53:00] they work on such a scale that seems unfathomable to me. However, uh, they might look at me and say like, I feel the same way about something in the fitness world.
So, um, it, think imposter syndrome is extremely re real in this career field and I definitely struggle with it. Um, but you have people like you who identify that and you're like, Hey, uh, maybe you're struggling with this. Yes, that's 100% the case, almost all of the time.
Riley: I think it's, I think it's awesome 'cause I've never met someone who's just driven, that ever has felt not, not imposter center. Right? They, they all feel that everybody, and it's a, it's really comforting to me 'cause I, um. Uh, years ago I was, I was getting ready to hire in our, in our lubin oil business. I was ready to hire my first employee, right?
And so I started interviewing, um, business owners that I knew that were, that had long-term [00:54:00] employees, that were just good at keeping people and, and really motivating their staff and just, they were good leaders. And that was a common thread with all of them. Every single person. I, I probably, I took I think 40 people, 45 people to lunch and just said, Hey, what do you do to keep employees?
And, and that came up in every conversation.
Annelise Rowe: Okay. It's
Riley: so cool.
Annelise Rowe: the thing about that. If I talk to somebody who maybe doesn't have a very large knowledge base in cybersecurity and I speak about 5% of the things that I know, but that I know really well, they might think that I know all of this information, but really I've only touched on a little tiny bit of It However, if I'm talking to somebody who's already in the career field and they already know all those things and I make even the tiniest blunder, they might think, oh, maybe this person really doesn't know what she's talking about. So I think the key is finding people who are like-minded and having like equally balanced conversations, but also trying to learn from those people.
But also, yeah, of [00:55:00] course anybody who's not in cyber, if I start talking the tiniest little bit about cyber, they might think, wow, she's an expert in this. She knows really what she's talking about, and really, I might just be telling you everything I know. so it just kind of depends. Um, but it's de, it's definitely something that people in our career field do struggle with.
Riley: That's a really interesting. That's kind of, that's how con artists pull stuff off, right? Is they, they sound smart. They, they share this stuff that makes the uneducated person go, oh, wow. He knows everything. And then the next thing you know, they're, they're scamming you outta something, you know? But it's, uh, yeah, what you're saying is you've got way more knowledge than you give yourself credit for, and you're only intimidated by people who you perceive to have more.
Right,
Annelise Rowe: Correct.
Riley: man. Um, let's, let's move on. 'cause I, I could go on this for way too long and I, I, I just think the subject matters so [00:56:00] Cool. You're known by, on online for your fitness stuff, right? And so I want to kind of move into that zone and what.
What you do, what's your kind of, what's your favorite thing? Tell, talk to the audience about that.
[00:57:00]
Annelise Rowe: Well, I consider myself to be a hybrid athlete, so I love to run, but I also love to hit the gym. And I was, if you, if you were gonna ask me to pick one, I would say like, no, you need to figure out a way to let me balance both of them, which is what I'm trying to do
Riley: Hmm.
Annelise Rowe: now. So, um, when I had children, I took a break from running.
I, I kind of grew up with a running background. Um, I, started running with my mom when I was in fourth grade. She entered me into a fun run and somehow I won it, uh, as a little fourth grader. I think I won the, the one mile run and that like sparked my love for running. So I ran middle and middle school.
I ran it in high school, I tried cross country and that was a little bit too far for me, which is great. Uh, just knowing where I'm at now. But yeah, cross country was a little bit too far. So I got [00:58:00] into running when I was a kid. When I went to college, I only wanted to go to a college where I could be a runner, and I wasn't quite fast enough to be recruited to any D one school.
So I got recruited to a D three school down in California. I put so much pressure on myself as a kid running that it became to the point where it wasn't as much fun for me anymore. And so when I went to college to run, and that was my primary focus, I found that I really didn't love the sport as much as I thought I did, or that I liked doing it for fun, but I don't like doing it in a competitive way. So I ended up returning home to school and I went to Boise State. That's where I graduated, and I did cheer. I, I was on the cheer team there for a couple years. That was extremely fun. I completely tabled running, put it on the back burner and stopped. Um, but then I also graduated college and stopped. Cheering stop being so active and immediately gained a bunch of weight. Um, I found myself active for the first time in my life and my [00:59:00] mom picked up on this and was like, Hey, why don't we run a half marathon together? I'm like, that sounds kind of fun. Something to train for. Let's do it. We ran a half marathon together. We then shortly transitioned and ran a full marathon together, and that was so cool. I have, I had pictures of the two of us every single week. We would on our long runs, take a picture of us in our ridiculous matching outfits. I really like matching people I work out with. Um, we would take pictures in our matching outfits.
We would go through that whole thing, and that really got me back into the running space when I joined the military and went to basic training. I also lost a little bit more weight and got into a more fit, more fit shape than I had been in, in a long time. And I got fast, uh, fast, like average, fast, not like fast, super fast, but average fast.
Anyway, I ended up. It's gonna sound stupid. Uh, I ended up breaking a record at basic training. Um, I ended up getting their, I was their fifth fastest mile and a half time ever [01:00:00] run at basic training. So I got onto their leaderboard there and I came home and I was like, Ooh, I like running again. I like running.
I like competing. Let's do this. So I would, I started competing locally in the half marathon and I did a full couple full marathons that I competed in as well. And when I say compete, that's me just trying to run against myself and run as well as I can. Uh, not necessarily being anything that would like win a top spot at a major marathon or anything like that, but locally, like I, I did pretty well. And, um, I also at the time was struggling, um, was I gonna talk about, we'll just go ahead and say it. Um, at the time I was also struggling with an eating disorder and so I was running a lot, struggling with an eating disorder. Um, was a really hard, um. Point in time, and the only way for me at the time to get my life back in control was to stop running and to focus on myself so that I could get rid of the eating disorder [01:01:00] behaviors that I was exhibiting. So I took some time off running. I also, um, became healthy again for the first time in a long time in about a decade. And when I became healthy again, um, my husband and I were able to get pregnant with our first baby. And so we then had three babies in really short succession. And during that time, I wasn't running at all, but I had started going back to the gym. And the gym was kind of where I found my love for fitness again. And before I had really only just done running that, that was kind of the, at like where I grew up. I was a runner. And then through becoming healthy again, moving past my eating disorder, um, having babies, I started going to a gym and really found. Both myself, but also a community of people. And for me, the gym that I go to, is it like, it is completely a family. I know that everybody says that, and it might sound cliche or cheesy, but it's not at all. We are truly a family. Uh, I go to the 5:00 AM class most often, and if I ever [01:02:00] miss a class, I get like three texts like, Hey, where were you today?
People checking in, seeing where I'm at. Uh, we show up and we push each other and we sweat alongside each other, and we really have some great bonds that we have formed. So when I got back into running this last year. I think I took, took like seven or eight years off of running and then got back into it and kind of went right in full throttle.
Um, I picked running back up when I went down to Mississippi for my trading. Um, I had left my gym behind. I was in a new place. I went to a local run club and I think that I showed up at Run Club, I ran the fastest female time that anyone had ever run at Run Club, uh, on their little three mile course. Um, so I made their leaderboard like the very first time that I showed up and they're like, Hey, there's a race next weekend. Do you wanna do it with us? I'm like, no, I'm not interested. I don't race anymore. I don't do that. to say, I went to the race, won it. Um, and then that kind of kicked off my whole running journey again.
So, uh, [01:03:00] let's see. I was gone in Mississippi for 16 weeks, not 16 weeks. It was seven and a half months. I did 16 races in that time. Um. Once, several of them are placed very high in them. I qualified for the Boston Marathon while I was down there and really found a love for running. When I came home from Mississippi, I was so excited to get back to the gym, but now I was also training for the Boston Marathon, so I had to try to find a way to balance both of them.
I ended up hiring a running coach because I knew that I wasn't quite smart enough in programming my own runs to be able to do that myself, to run as fast of a time as I wanted to run in Boston. And he said, okay, what is important to you? Because I see that you work out five to six days a week. I see that you wanna run five days a week, probably gonna have to say, take some time off the gym.
And I was like, I will run and train for Boston. Excuse me, if I can take no time off the gym. I need, the reason I'm hiring you is to be able to integrate those two together because I love it so much. [01:04:00] Um, so if you had to ask me to pick. Which one of those I liked? I would say I, you need to find a combination for me.
Like I need to find a combination that, so I can do the two of them together. Hybrid athlete, I identify
Riley: Yeah. Yeah. That actually has brings up some questions, but I, I would like to know more this, um, eating disorder you talk about what was it and what, what do you think was the underlying factor there that that caused that?
Annelise Rowe: Um, growing up I was always very active. Uh, I was, I've like never, I've never talked about this. Um. the, the public. I guess I've talked about it a little bit, but like, it, it's easy to talk about something with like a picture and words underneath it because you can curate those words to say exactly what you wanna say, to speak about it uh, to [01:05:00] someone knowing that?
other people are going to see it is maybe a little bit different.
So I'll tell you as much as I can. when growing up I was always very active, uh, but I also put a lot of pressure on myself. I've always kind of had a negative self-image and I've always been very self-conscious. I grew up cheerleading and running, and both of those sports require you to typically be a smaller person, maybe muscular, but, but usually smaller. Um, I was always very athletic growing up, and I had, like, I was a Tumblr on the cheer team. I was never a flyer. Uh, I'm terribly afraid of heights, so anything higher than shoulder height was completely off limits for me. Um, but I remember when I was a little kid, I was maybe. Fourth or fifth grade at the time. And uh, I was at a cheer tryout and somebody said, Hey, Annalisa, like put her up on the pyramid, see if she can do it. Um, and I remember one of the coaches saying like, no, she's one of the bigger girls. She needs to do some of the [01:06:00] other. Like, she needs to either tumble or dance while, while they're doing the stunt or she needs to be on the bottom of the pyramid.
She's never gonna be on the top 'cause she's a bigger girl. I was a little kid, I was tiny. Um, and that really affected me. I remember that. I remember being at tryouts as a child and seeing the other parents be critical and talk about our bodies and talk about how they were changing. And I, I mean, at the time, like I wasn't even, I wasn't even old enough to have a cycle back then. And, uh, I always looked at myself with a critical eye, maybe how I felt. Other people always looked at me when I joined the Air Force. Um. I am not blaming my eating disorder on the Air Force. However, there's a very regimented style of eating there and I took it to the next level on my own. Um, they feed you three meals a day and I mean, you have, when I went, when I went through basic [01:07:00] training, it was like you go through the line, get your food, you sit down and as soon as the table next to you is getting up, you have to be getting up. As soon as
Riley: Right.
Annelise Rowe: at your table starts getting up, you have to be done. I would maybe be three or four bites into a meal and I would be having like forced to get up from the table. Now since changed that mentality and so you no longer have maybe two or three minutes to eat. You have supposedly unlimited time to eat.
I would love to go back to basic training and see what it's like now or to be able to have any kind of influence in that space because. Being completely rushed through my meals and being as active as a per of a person, as I am. I was definitely very, very under fueled when I went through basic training.
I was also running a lot. We were doing a lot of fitness stuff. Um, I came home from basic training, very skinny and, uh, malnourished. I would've gotten more food if I probably would've let myself, but I was also very much like, I'm gonna basic [01:08:00] training. I'm going to eat super foods only, like protein and vegetables and rice and potatoes and nothing else.
Like I didn't have any of the pizza or the French toast or the delicious things that they serve. They serve great foods at basic training. I'm a, I'm a big fan of Air Force cafeterias, but I didn't let myself eat that stuff. And so I was eating a very limited diet, but also eating very fast, very small portion.
So when I came home, it was very hard for me to transition out of that. Um, I did come home and went back to a normal style of eating with. My husband and my family and normal things. And I started to gain weight again very, very quickly. And that was hard for me to realize. So I began a kind of like a binge purge cycle, unfortunately, um, that would be like restrict, restrict, restrict, and then binge, and then purge. Really gross. Really terrible, really awful. I, uh, so I had my eating disorder for four years, and I had periods of being very tiny. And then I also had periods of being larger in my mind [01:09:00] than what I would like to be. Uh, for instance, at the height of my eating disorder, um, when I was still in it. Um, I weighed more than I did when I was pregnant with my, with my babies, uh, just because of how unhealthy I was being in my eating habits. And, um, what I was doing is. Extremely unhealthy and definitely not an answer, and not anything that I continue to do. Um, it def it, it for sure got to the point where I realized that I was, I was hurting myself, um, by doing that. And that I, we also really wanted to have kids. We wanted to have babies, and I knew that I was extremely unhealthy and that that wasn't something that I wanted to do when we had children.
So, um, I remember being in an extremely low point. I had had a significant amount of alcohol, um, and I had just gone through like a binge birth cycle, and I remember having a terrible breakdown. Uh, we were on vacation too at the time at, and I was like, I'm, I'm done with this. I'm, I'm completely done. And, uh, that was [01:10:00] in 2018. And since then, I have not done anything related to those behaviors at all. Um, and in fact, I've. Figured out that one of my triggers to some of the poor eating behaviors was, um, my consumption of alcohol. So in, let's see here, was January 1st, 2024. So 11 ish months ago, I gave up alcohol entirely. Um, I knew that that was maybe a catalyst that would kind of not necessarily trigger my behaviors because I haven't done anything relating to that in seven years. But, um, it would trigger my, my thoughts and my thoughts would go into maybe an unhealthy space sometimes, uh, when I would consume alcohol.
Also, I work out so hard, like I work out extremely hard. There's a bunch of new studies coming out about how alcohol can affect you and your progress, aging, uh, cancer, things like that. And I was like, you know what? be done, be done with alcohol. So, so last year I gave up alcohol and haven't had even a sip since.
And I am, [01:11:00] uh, like 20. 21 days away from being a year alcohol free. So that's a big deal for me too. Um, and
Riley: That's awesome.
Annelise Rowe: deal as well for my husband 'cause he was very supportive in that. and also, gave it up with me. So it's, it's made a big deal for us. Made a big difference, I guess.
Riley: I think it's impressive. I, um, yeah, over the years, talking to people who have had, it doesn't sound like you really had an alcohol struggle necessarily, but man, it's just like I'm having a hard time seeing any silver lining to that stuff. I, I haven't been a drinker since I was, gosh, 20 years old. I haven't had, had, uh, had alcohol myself, but it partly because I got to see the effects of it on my family members.
I was like, man, it's devastating.
Annelise Rowe: Mm-hmm.
Riley: and so yeah. Kudos to you. Good job.
Annelise Rowe: I didn't mention it much. Um. I think besides for the times when [01:12:00] I was pregnant, um, especially during COVID, uh, alcohol became like a very big part of our daily routine. It was like, get home from work, have a drink, get home from work, have two drinks. Um, I would get to the point almost where I would be like angry if I got home and there was no happy hour.
And I, it started very much as a social thing for me, but then evolved into, not that I needed it, but just that I really, really wanted it every single day. And besides for the times of being pregnant, um, I could, like, I could count on the, like on my fingers, the number of times that I didn't have alcohol versus the times that I did. And, um, I just knew that it was a force in my life that was becoming more of an idol and that was controlling me more than what I wanted to have. And so I knew that that was an influence that I just needed to get rid of.
Riley: That's a great way to put [01:13:00] it. You know, just that recognition that it's, it really isn't there for your own good. It's, it's causing more damage than it's,
yeah. Yeah. I hear, I hear you. Um, that's, it's some scary stuff. 'cause when you, when you, I come from a, a household where my, my stepmother in particular was just, she was a heavy alcoholic and it was, you know, slept. Dead drunk by six o'clock in the evening and that way my entire childhood. And, and I got to see what that looked like.
And so, yeah, like I said that, I'm excited to hear you've, you've given that up just from, again, my experience. You know, it's, it's terrible.
Annelise Rowe: Both, uh, both myself and my brother don't drink any alcohol at all. Uh, we, we did grow up with somebody, um, actually several of our family members, um, who struggled with an alcohol addiction and, uh, still do, and [01:14:00] which is why I won't mention them. But, um, seeing the effect that it has had on them has been enough that we, we both realize our tendency to also go down that path.
And so we both, we both said, no, I am done with it and I don't want anything to do with it, and at the person I am as a result. So, it's good to be, it's good to be where we're at right now.
Riley: Let's talk about the person you are now, because I, I. I wanted, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put up here on the, on the screen your Strava stats. Okay. Um, so people can kind of see what, what your training looks like, because I don't think you gain any perspective. I'm looking at it on another screen right now, but it's, uh, and this is up till I, I don't know the date you posted this, but year to date, you'd had 1,728 miles of running.
Right. You'd have 107 hours of strength training. Right. I [01:15:00] want, I want people to put this into perspective, right? Uh, the US is about 3000 miles across. So you've run more than halfway across the United States just in, in training, right? In one year and not even a full year. Um, talk about what your training looks like on a day-to-day basis.
Like you, you mentioned you like to hit the gym around 5:00 AM. How many days a week do you do that? What is. Running schedule look like? How do you guard your schedule so that you can make sure and fit all this in?
Annelise Rowe: Sure. Um, I like to joke that, uh, I live my life, like my work is a hobby and my job as a full-time athlete, and I, that's how I kind of think about things sometimes. But clearly running and going to the gym does not pay the bills. In fact, it costs a lot to, to do that stuff. So, um. My full-time training schedule looks like, um, between five and six days a week I hit the gym. [01:16:00] And the gym that I go to is a group fitness gym. So it's dedicated scheduled classes and each day has a different focus. For instance, a leg day, a chest and triceps day, a cardio day, et cetera. Um, I do that five to six days a week depending on what the schedule is like that week. And then I, in addition, I run between five and six days a week. Uh, typically the only days that I don't have two workouts are on leg day, and then most times on Saturdays, I have a long run that I do on Sundays. That's typically the only day that I'm not lifting as well or using some kind of weight or doing a class at the gym. So in order to get this done, uh, because I also write, I have three little kids and I have a full-time job.
And it, it is a very, it's a demanding schedule and I also, I'm extremely protective of our family time. So the evenings are very much reserved for dinners and spending time with the kids and spending time with my husband. Uh, [01:17:00] we really guard that really closely as, as well as our weekends. And so for me looks like I get up at four o'clock, well, four 10 in the morning and I am at the gym from five to 6:00 AM then I get ready and help get the kids outta the door.
In the morning I leave for work myself at seven 20. I get to work at eight o'clock and at 11 o'clock I am out either on the track or on the road running at work. Um, this is the schedule that has worked best for me. So I have kind of nailed it down to a science where. Typically Tuesday through Friday, while I'm at work, I am running midday. And what I love is run during my lunch hour. And so during the time that people are heading to Chick-fil-A or, uh, like, I don't know, like Doug's Burger Den, heading to Idaho Pizza for, for an hour to to, to snack lunch. And I'm hitting the pavement. And so people [01:18:00] are like, oh, hey, what'd you have for lunch today?
And I'm like, I ate pavement for lunch. So, um, I have kind of nailed it down to a science. I change extremely fast out of my uniform. I get into my running clothes, I go do the run. I head back, take like a three minute shower and get dressed and go back to work. The cool thing about being in the military is that every day at work, my hair is like slicked back, right?
It's like a slick back down ponytail, um, or a bun. I don't have to pick out what I wear to work and nobody really cares what I look like at work anyway. So, um, I can go very quickly a run shower and head back to work, uh, without really having to redo my hair or anything. So it makes it really easy. Um, and then it gives me the whole rest of the day to finish work and then the whole evening to myself.
So I do that, uh, between five and six days a week. You're probably thinking, Hey, I heard you lift five days a week or five to six days a week, and then you run five to six days a week. So when do you take a day off? [01:19:00] Spoiler alert. I haven't found that hack yet, so I don't exactly, I don't exactly have days that I take off.
Um, but at the same time, I feel like I've gotten my schedule down to a pretty decent balance. So there are days when I don't run. There are days when I don't lift, and, um. I've made it work. I like, I, I make sure I eat enough food to balance my fuel. The one thing I underperform on is sleep. And that is a constant battle for me, but I am definitely working on it. So that's
Riley: Yes.
Annelise Rowe: fit it in. That's how I guard that time
Riley: You, um, talking about guarding the time. Right. And you, you'll, you'll get people who will ask for things during those time windows and it's really easy for, for people to go, well, you know, I've got, I've got a run schedule during that time. It's, and we say schedule and quotation marks, and it's like, well, I could go do this other thing.
But it sounds to me like you protect that.[01:20:00]
Annelise Rowe: pretty well. Uh, one of the reasons why I chose the lunch hour is that it's usually a time that people protect for themselves as well. So almost everybody I know in the military anyway, they, they all take a lunch from 11 to 12 and. They usually, they don't, they either eat at their desk and work or they go out somewhere or they go do a group lunch somewhere.
That is typically a protected time for them as well. that.
is like their break from the day their, their midday reprieve where they get to just kind of turn their work brain off for a little bit. So I'm like, well, if this is a protected hour for them, I can make it a protected hour for myself as well. Um,
Riley: I love it.
Annelise Rowe: are definitely days when we have midday meetings or we have things That go over and, uh, thankfully, um, my husband is extremely flexible and he helps me with that as well.
So, um, for instance, tomorrow I'm gonna tell him like, Hey, I have say a hill workout, and that's really hard for me to do at lunch because we work on a base and there's no hills on base. [01:21:00] So I'm like, Hey, I will go to the gym in the morning and then I need to run in the afternoon. Is it okay if like, I miss out on an hour of family time?
Can you help with the evening routine for that? I don't do it often, but. That's kind of like one of the workarounds that we do. Or for instance, like if there's meetings or things during the day. Thankfully I have an extremely understanding boss and he knows usually what I'm training for. Like, I'm not, I'm not just like doing all of this for nothing.
Like I am actively training for, say, the Boston Marathon this next year. And so he knows that I have some really big goals and the things that I have to do to achieve them. So he's, he's been very flexible in understanding with that as well.
Riley: That is pretty cool. Do you, um, do you, you mentioned this hill run, right, which we have just legendary trails in our foothills around here, so that's, uh,
Annelise Rowe: Mm-hmm.
Riley: hills in Boise is easy to do, but you mentioned, uh, this, this routine on your schedule. How often are you doing hill runs?
Annelise Rowe: Uh, for me right now, it's one day a week. [01:22:00] So, um, like in looking at the running specifically, I usually, I have one long run, day a week, and long run can be anything. It's usually 10 miles and up. It kind of depends on what I'm training for at the time, whether it's a 10 k, half marathon, full marathon, ultra marathon, just the long run duration depends. Um, and then I have two speed work days a week. And so one of those looks like speed intervals, which could be mile repeats or 800 repeats or 400 repeats. It, it is often on the track, but sometimes it can be just time based and that's typically training at goal pace or faster. And then I have one hill workout day a week.
And then typically to make up the other two or three is like a couple zone, zone two runs?
So like much slower, easier paced. runs that are like, they vary in duration and time.
Riley: I love it that you can call zone two a run. 'cause for me, zone two is like a, a brisk walk.[01:23:00]
Annelise Rowe: Well, I, I mean, some, some days they're faster than others. It kind of depends on how much sleep I've gotten and, and how fueled I am and how, you know, right. It's some days it's a 10 minute mile, some days it's an eight minute mile. It just kind of depends,
Riley: Yeah, no, I'm impressed with that. You had, uh, you had mentioned long runs being anything, 10 miles plus, uh, for the non-runners in here, how long does 10 miles take you typically?
Annelise Rowe: uh, depending on the pace of somewhere between an hour and an hour and a half, depending on, on how, how fast I'm running. So if I'm
Riley: Yeah.
Annelise Rowe: um. If I'm running an eight minute mile, then it would take me say 80 minutes. Uh, so right, like an hour, an hour and 20, maybe an hour and 30 depending. Um, but most often for say 10 miles, it would be something faster.
So it would usually be a
Riley: Yeah,
Annelise Rowe: time than that, but it just kind of
Riley: so this is.
Annelise Rowe: and how the workout is. written. [01:24:00]
Riley: To give people that idea of, uh, you know, just how long these workouts take. I, it's a lot of dedication. You're, you're talking about, you know, you've got an hour of lifting weights in the morning, and then you're, um, you doing a run, which is another, you know, 45 minutes to an hour on typical day for lunch hour.
But then bam, you're hitting these long runs where that's, it's taking up, you know, hour and a half, two hours. Um, Alisa, what is the longest run you've ever done?
Annelise Rowe: I have run 50 miles. I ran 50 miles one time. Uh, this last August. Um, it was the Wildcat Ultra down in Florida. I trained for that, kind of like I would train for a typical marathon, uh, but it was at much run at a much slower pace than what I'm typically used to. And I don't know if anybody here has run in the Florida heat, but the heat and humidity down there in late August can be absolutely terrible. We were blessed that day with rain, uh, which some people thought that was a blessing because we didn't have the [01:25:00] Florida like 90 degree heat and 95% humidity. However, I thought the rain was a curse because I think I ended up losing six toenails in the process. And I mean, like. them. Like my feet were completely waterlogged. when I peeled my, my socks off, some of the skin on my feet peeled off. It was pretty gross. I'm not gonna be sharing feet pics. Don't ask, because I, I, I can't share them. They're, they're really, really terrible. Um, my feet are still recovering from that run last August, and it has been, it's been four months.
So, um, anyway, 50 miles is the longest that I have run.
Riley: That's a, that's a funny thing that, that people don't realize. They, um, toenails, losing toenails. That little, that little rub that your toenails do on the inside of your shoe for 50 miles of repeat, you know, pounding that you lose toenails. Um, I've got a coffee mug that, that says something about that, you know, um.
I run because who needs to 10 toenails anyway. Something like that, you know, it's a [01:26:00] common thing.
Annelise Rowe: It's true. In
Riley: Um,
Annelise Rowe: running has gotten a lot easier since I lost them. Um. I mean, they'll grow back eventually. But, uh, also the, the rain that day, I mean, my shoes and socks were just soaked and that run the 50 miles, it took me 19 hours. So, Um,
to be in wet shoes and socks for that long of a time, it, it just kinda, it destroyed every, everything down there.
So,
Riley: ugh. Sounds terrible to me. It sounds terrible. It, I, like the ultra running idea is really cool to me. I, that is something that I would, um, I, I spent the last decade seeking a juujitsu black belt. Right? And so that's been my physical outlet for the most part. With some mountain biking, a little bit of running in there.
But getting back to the, the long distance running for me is, is very attractive. I, I think the, the. I think the prospect of doing ultra runs, especially in the backwoods, you know, kind of [01:27:00] mountainous ultra runs is very, very appealing. Um,
Annelise Rowe: It's, it's been, it's been really fun getting into it being a trained half and full marathoner for nearly, uh, I mean the last 15 years. Um, transitioning into the ultra space is very different, where you can actually take a break and stop for a little bit. Uh, you look around and the people next to you might be sleeping between laps or, uh, out on the course.
It is not. I love about ultra running is you're not necessarily celebrating the speed in which you ran it. You're celebrating the distance that you accomplish.
Riley: right.
Annelise Rowe: I think that it's, it's a really, it's a really fun place to be, especially if you're not maybe focused on going super fast, but more about enjoying the experience.
Ultra running is definitely the place to do that, and it's, the vibe is different. The people are different, and the, the entire atmosphere, it's, it's very, very [01:28:00] enjoyable even when you're super deep in the pain. Ca.
Riley: What advice would you have for people who are, who are just getting started in this idea of, of running especially, um, you know, you've done it since you were a kid, and so maybe talk to people about what that means if they're, you know, they're an adult and they're sedentary and they're going from, you know, couch potato to runner, what, what would that look like?
What advice would you give?
[01:29:00]
Annelise Rowe: Sure. Uh, you know, I think that. Whether if you, if you're starting from the couch and wanting to get into running, I think that walking personally is one of the most underrated physical activities that you can possibly do. Getting to a point where you can walk efficiently and effectively and enjoy it is definitely the first place that you wanna start before moving into the running space. it comes to running, you don't have to have fancy gear, you don't have to have fancy clothes, you don't have to spend a lot of money. It, you have to have a nice pair of shoes. In my opinion. The shoes, to me, are the critical piece that if you go to your neighborhood sports store and pick out a cool pair of bright shoes or a pair of shoes that your neighbor Joe had and he said that they're really comfortable, that does not mean that they're gonna be a good foot, good fit for you and your running style or your foot. [01:30:00] Um, I think that. For somebody who's just getting into it, investing in a good pair of running shoes that you have actually gone to. Like go to a local running store, talk to somebody. Have them analyze your foot and your gate, and your training goals and your past and what you're training for, how you've trained, um, kind of all of it.
And then try a bunch of different things. If you pick out a pair of shoes that are neon yellow, um, and look sweet, but you don't actually run in them before you leave the store, like it's probably gonna set you up for failure. So my biggest advice is get a pair of shoes that are very comfortable and that match your training goals.
So, uh, for instance, like I, I have a couple pairs that I run at, like, I have, I train in Adidas, I train in sny, I train in Puma, new Balance. Uh, there's probably another one in there that I'm missing. Um, I have 16 pairs of running shoes and they all. [01:31:00] Do different things, but if I want to
Riley: Wow.
Annelise Rowe: go get a pair of hokas and do a speed work in workout in them, it might not be as effective as if I trained in the pair of Adidas that are right from my feet. So I think that shoes play a big, big role, and people ask me all the time, like, oh, what shoes do you run in? And I'm like, I don't wanna tell you what shoes I run in because I need you to go to the store and see what works specifically for you and your goals and your feet. So, um, was a long, uh, of tangent, off topic slightly, but get to a point where to start out in this, you want to get to a point where things are comfortable, where things feel good.
You don't have to spend a lot of money. You might need a new pair of shoes. Um, but make sure and invest in the shoes that are actually right for your training and your body. then what is enjoyable for you. For, for instance, like you have mentioned the Boise trails multiple times. Um, [01:32:00] if trails are close to you, if they're in your wheelhouse, if that's something you'd like to do, go For that. If say, biking is because you've say had like a, a knee replacement or hip replacement or running is not, uh, necessarily in your wheelhouse right now, that's okay. Um, to people at work all the time. It's like, man, I wish I could run. Like, I'm not as great of an athlete as you as whatever, but like the guy talking to me about that is extremely talented at Juujitsu, you had mentioned juujitsu and, um, I think that people can bring their own talents and their own skills to the table.
Um, but you just have to make sure. that you're enjoying it as you get into it. Because if you're not enjoying it, it's not something that's going to stick with you or that, that you will want to continue doing moving forward.
Riley: For sure. I think that's great advice. You know that it's not the same experience for everybody, right? If you're, uh, if you're starting and you weigh 300 pounds and you've got a lot of of weight to lose, the running's gonna look very different for you. [01:33:00] You know, it's probably gonna start with some walking and, you know Yeah.
The formula is gonna be different, right.
Annelise Rowe: and too, for that, like for somebody who's just starting out and maybe, maybe running a solid mile is not gonna work for you right away, or two miles or 10 miles, which me, I'm like, yeah, that's a short, long run. But for somebody that might be beyond the farthest that they've ever gone in their entire life
Riley: Right.
Annelise Rowe: So I, I think that, um, like interval running intervals is, is really cool. something where you say. Jog for a minute and then walk for two minutes and then move up to, and try to do that say for 30 minutes. And then work to the point where you can jog for two minutes and walk for two minutes. Or you'll get to the point eventually where you can increase your jogging time, lessen your walking time to the point where it feels comfortable. Um, I mean, I work now in a, in a place where like I'm training for speed and I'm training for things. And you and I had talked [01:34:00] prior to beginning the recording that like you are not quite as interested in it if you can't gamify it. And for me,
Riley: Yeah.
Annelise Rowe: things I love about my training is being able to. Do something that is challenging. I don't personally like to program my own workouts. That's why I go to a group fitness gym. They lead me through the workouts and they have coaches who specifically tell us what to do. It's not me doing it, it's me putting it in their hands and saying like, okay, coach me in this. I hired a running coach because I didn't want to do that for myself. So every single workout that I get is something that he created for me that I can challenge myself and try to do. Um, I treat it kind of, kind of like a game, kind of like a personal challenge just to see if I can do exactly what they want me to do.
Riley: I think that is amazing advice. I, I want people to hear that because when you're talking about sometimes the hesitation to do any type of workout is, I don't really know where to start. I don't know what kind of [01:35:00] weights to lift. I don't know what exercises to do. I don't know. I don't even know how to get started in this.
And, and having someone where you can get advice and say, Hey, make me a program. Um, when I first started running, I had a friend that did that. He made a little running schedule and he gave me the schedule. I just followed what he did and it made it easier, uh, to not be so reluctant to just go out and do it, you know?
'cause I had a plan.
Annelise Rowe: Absolutely. The cool thing is that there are so many people online who do this now. There are also so many different apps that you can use and, um, no matter really what your training goals, whether it's weight training or running training or walking training, there are platforms that you can use. For instance, like I, I run with a Garmin watch, and Garmin has training programs, or you can hook it up to Strava that works
Riley: Mm-hmm.
Annelise Rowe: and they have training programs.
I hired a physical. Person. He's somebody I've run with before and he's a very accomplished ultra runner. And so he was somebody who I hired, but like, it's not terribly [01:36:00] expensive to do it. And then it takes the guesswork out of it for me. It takes the planning out of it for me. It saves me a ton of time. Uh, and then I'm not necessarily only accountable to myself. I have somebody else who's keeping me accountable every day, so that, I really appreciate that part.
Riley: That's, that's, yeah, the accountability. You mentioned that a couple times with your group workouts in the, at the gym, and then you mentioned that, you know, having a coach there, it is easier to get your butt off the couch and go do a thing if you've got somebody you're gonna have to answer to. Even if it's just that phone call, Hey, aunt Lisa, where were you this morning?
You know, it's, it's like, oh, I better get there. So, yeah, good advice. Um, can we switch gears to some lighter questions?
Annelise Rowe: Yes. Let's do it. Yeah.
Riley: All right. So, uh, this podcast is called the Go Earn Your Salt Podcast, and I wanna know what that term means to you. Go earn your salt.
Annelise Rowe: Uh, so in fact your salt.
electrolytes are [01:37:00] so good. Um, I,
Riley: Thank you.
Annelise Rowe: I, I use, I use electrolytes myself through my training. It's really important to me to be hydrated and, um, when go earn your salt to me is like, are you doing to show up for yourself every day to like prove to yourself that you can do hard things to prove to others that you can do hard things. And what is it that, when you.
have a good workout, what, what is it that shows that you had a good workout? Is it maybe the pump after or the sweat? Um, for us at our gym, we get extremely sweaty after a workout. There are always people coming in. To the class behind us and they're like, oh, today must be a good day. 'cause you are sweaty and what is like the main component of the sweat?
It's the salt, right? so every single day that I get to show up and I work hard, I am earning my salt. I am earning that sweat. I'm earning the pump, I am doing [01:38:00] the work to earn my goals and the things that I'm training for. So that is what that term means to me in a very, very physical, actual sense.
Riley: Love it because I, yeah, I think, uh, especially when I'm talking to athletes on here, that's, they just get it. I love that you're, uh, talking about people recognizing the sweat as a significance of the, kind of the achievement you've done there that day or the difficulty of the workout. And, um, you know, on the juujitsu mats, we see that all the time where I, I joke that people have to put wet floor signs up around me 'cause it's, I just leave a puddle.
Right.
Annelise Rowe: Mm-hmm.
Riley: Um, um, question partially just for me, but something that people maybe don't think about when it comes to consistent athletic endeavors is, uh, what is the best laundry detergent to keep your, uh, athlete close smell. Reasonably good.
Annelise Rowe: I'm a, I'm a big fan of Tide. Um, that is what we use in our household, but it [01:39:00] has to be like the tide with the really good scented stuff. Um, I don't even know the brand that we have right now, but we have like the little scent beads that, like you add the little beads to the cup and then put it in the washer. Um, I should know this 'cause I'm the person who does all the laundry for our household, but, um, mostly I
Riley: Funny.
Annelise Rowe: whatever my husband buys me at the store. Um, I sweat a lot at the gym. smell really bad at the gym and I have never had issues with Tide, so there you go. They should pay
Riley: That makes me happy to know. 'cause I, um, yeah, that's a, that's a constant struggle, right? Is uh, if you've ever had it go wrong, you can take a, a very pleasantly scented soap, but if it doesn't get the stench out, then this pleasant scent and the mix of the, of the stink, it's just like a, it's a blend that's not happy.
And if, uh, if tide's working for you, I may give that a shot. 'cause I, yeah. Always looking for that.
Annelise Rowe: Yeah, there, there are times you put [01:40:00] something on and you're like, Did, I wash this? Yes. Like I know that I washed this, but you're, the salt must have been so good that it just didn't all come out that time. So,
Riley: Did, uh, have you ever experienced that where you just have to take an article of clothing and just throw it away? 'cause it's, it's unrecoverable.
Annelise Rowe: yes. Multiple times. Um, and in fact, I had mentioned shoes earlier. Um, after my 50 mile race, my pair of shoes was so trashed. Um, I held onto them for sentimental value, but I have not really run in them since because I could not get the Florida red dirt stains out of them. But everybody looked at those shoes and they were like, just throw them away. Those shoes are done. They are, they're, they are done. And I'm like, no, they've only got like a hundred miles on them. I know that I can get like four more hundred miles on these bad boys. But, um, yes, speaking of things to throw away specifically, uh, shoes are definitely one of them that You get to a point where you're like, no, I just, I have to be done with these.[01:41:00]
Riley: You know, maybe a little bit off question, but do you, you, you mentioned shoes, 3, 4, 500 miles. What do you typically get out of 'em? How do you keep track of that? I.
Annelise Rowe: Uh, so I use, I, I have a fitness app and I have two apps that I track things on because I'm a little bit extra when it comes to that, but, um, I track it through my Garmin app. I also track through Strava. I track what shoes I do, what workouts in, so they automatically add the miles on to there for me. I only do that if I'm.
Walking or running in a workout. Um, but I usually see shoes perform very well all the way through 400 miles, sometimes 500 depending on the kind of shoe. There are different shoes now, so some of them have maybe nylon plates in them, or carbon plates or carbon rods. Some of them are non plated. Typically the non plated shoes are usually a little bit softer and they might not last as long.
Um, alternatively, the carbon inflated shoes are typically supposed to be more for like racing or high performance. And so you might get, say two to 300 miles out of them. The reason when I know shoes are bad is I.
start to [01:42:00] experience pain in my feet, knees, and ankles. And that's when I know it's usually time for a new parrot when running no longer feels good in that particular pair of shoes.
Riley: So do the math on that people, she did 1700 almost probably by the end of the year. 1900 miles of running and how many pairs of shoes that, yeah, that equals That's great. That's awesome.
Annelise Rowe: he's always, he's always like another pair of running shoes, and I'm like, well. Like I literally ran through the last ones, so,
Riley: my toes are sticking out. Right.
Annelise Rowe: Mm-hmm.
Riley: Well, Alisa, what, um, besides running and lifting weights, what's your favorite pastime? Or do you even have time for another pastime?
Annelise Rowe: Whenever, uh, I mean, fitness is my hobby. Uh, let's see here. I really, I like doing baby books. I really like to read. Uh, in the last two years, um, the only things I've really read are [01:43:00] nonfiction books. Um, don't ask me to name one of 'em. There's so many good ones that I have read recently. Um, I really like books on military leadership.
I like books who are written that are written by military leaders. Um. I like to read a lot. I have not made a lot of time for reading lately. However, I have made time for crosswords, so I like to do those in the evenings sometimes before I fall bed in, before I fall to sleep. my husband and I really enjoy watching shows.
We enjoy pretty much anything made by Taylor Sheridan, so like Yellowstone, Tulsa King, mayor of Kingstown. Any kind of like action forward kind of hardcore shows we're, we're into that stuff. Um, I really enjoyed playing with my kids. Um, they're getting older to the point where like I get to do homework with, with my 5-year-old at night.
We get to read things together. Um, my pastimes and my hobbies have kind of turned into like, what can I do with my family that is fun? So I always turn my own fitness [01:44:00] into like, Hey, I need to run. to five miles today, how can I incorporate my kids? So then I'll be like, Hey guys, do you want to go to the park today?
So we do like a family bike or stroller, run to the park and, uh, incorporate a walk in there. And That's something fun. So pretty much all of my pastimes are, what can I do with my kids?
Riley: That's awesome you said that 'cause that was one of my questions was what, how do you pass this passion onto your kids? And there it is right there, you know, taking these, uh, you run while they bike to the, to the park. That's something we did a lot when our kids were young. I.
Annelise Rowe: Mm-hmm. They get really into, they get, they get really into it. They know like every day when, when they wake up, they're like, mama, did you go to the gym? Mama? Are you all sweaty? Um, mama can I see your, your medals and your trophies? And they each have several of them in their rooms, uh, that they have held onto, like bigger ones that they have like claimed as their own after I finish a [01:45:00] race. Um,
Riley: it.
Annelise Rowe: they, they know kind of the background of it. They, they've only gotten me to see me do a couple races. Um, but they really enjoy doing that. They will, they want to race me everywhere in the house. They want to like race me up the stairs, race me down the stairs, race me through the backyard. Um, they, they enjoy being active and they know that always get my full participation if they're asking to be active in something.
Riley: It's so cool. That is so cool. Um, what's your favorite band of all time?
Annelise Rowe: Favorite band.
My favorite band is currently Iation. Uh, they play, um, I guess like re reggae style music. And I really like that. It helps me un unwind and relax. Um, I think probably the most played band in our house is Fleetwood Mac.
We listen to a lot of Fleetwood, um, lot of [01:46:00] Genesis, Collins. Uh, traveling Wilburys Eagles. We li we listen to a lot of maybe older stuff, plus some reggae and iation mixed in
Riley: Love it. My son, my youngest son just pulled up, uh, some genesis on the we when, when we drive places, he'll play music for us. And that's what he pulled up the other day. That's, that's awesome. Um,
Annelise Rowe: Very
Riley: what,
Annelise Rowe: road trip songs. yeah,
Riley: yeah, for sure. What is, what's something quirky about you that most people don't know?
Annelise Rowe: Um, I have a bouncy ball collection. Um, I have 800 plus bouncy balls in the garage. Um, I started that when I was a kid and I have not been able to part with them. I have parted with all my childhood collections except for that one. And, um, no, my kids do not get to touch them. Those are my bouncy balls. [01:47:00] I'm
Riley: Love it. So you're just talking about the little Super Bowls and
Annelise Rowe: yep, yep.
Riley: it's fantastic.
Annelise Rowe: of them. Most of them are unique as well, so it kind of anywhere I would go. Growing up, I collected those. Um, I guess as an adult I started collecting pressed pennies, uh, like the kind that you would get at, say, an amusement park or a specialty store. And so anywhere that we go, any new city, I try to get a pressed penny in.
And that's one of the only things that I collect as an adult. I enjoy that,
Riley: Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. What's your, what's your favorite food?
Annelise Rowe: uh,
Riley: It can be a naughty food too. You don't have to say like kale or something. It can be something naughty.
Annelise Rowe: mac and cheese 100%. I
Riley: Yeah.
Annelise Rowe: enjoy. Uh, mac and cheese. Yes, mac and cheese, pizza, ice cream. I can go on for days. I, I love food.
Riley: Okay. So mac and cheese. Are [01:48:00] you, uh, do you have a restaurant that makes the best one or is it something you make that's the best one?
Annelise Rowe: No. So I like to experiment with mac and cheese Zzz. Uh, anytime that I see it on the menu, I'm very tempted to get it. probably one of the better ones in town is mixed. Italian does a really good mac and cheese. Um,
Riley: Hmm.
Annelise Rowe: is, um, gosh, what is, um, there's a restaurant in Meridian and I'm totally blanking on.
Oh, cahoots. They have a very good mac and cheese, extremely rich, really good. Um, that we go somewhere with mac and cheese on the menu, I try to grab, to grab some is, it's
Riley: I'm gonna have to go check out that cahoots. I have only eaten there a couple times and definitely I didn't have the mac and cheese, so I'm gonna take you up on that. That's, I'm gonna go have some mac and cheese.
Annelise Rowe: Very good.
Riley: Analisa, what's the scariest moment of your life?[01:49:00]
Annelise Rowe: Uh, oh, that's hard. Um, when I was in middle school, maybe I almost drowned in a pool. We were playing, uh, like we were playing at, at nighttime in a pool. I was, I think I was in middle school. Um, we were all playing a game where we would hold each other up with our arms, and I ended up going under and getting trapped under there.
I obviously didn't drown, but I thought I was going to. Um, I have since become extremely afraid of water. Um, one time. Um, my friends will laugh about this because I, uh, tell the, uh, an unrated version, um. That's a joke at parties. Um, one time I thought I heard somebody break into our house and um, I definitely keep a pistol by my nightstand and I cleared our [01:50:00] house with a pistol and a flashlight, like straight up like they would do in the movies.
Um, because obviously my background in security forces, that's how I was trained. Um, but the version that I tell my friends, um, has one extra detail that I admitted for the purpose of this story. Yep.
Riley: Man, I can imagine, like I, I've never had a, a home invasion, but the neighbors who live right behind me, the two sons that lived there, we had some, uh oh, they were undercover agents showed up at our door one day and they said, Hey, can we go in your backyard? Because we suspect some people were looking for.
In the lot behind you. And sure enough, SWAT team came in the next day and arrested these two guys who had broken into several homes around the valley and armed home invasions, and they arrested 'em right in my backyard.
Annelise Rowe: Wow. That's a lot.
Riley: Yeah, it was wild. It was wild. We were, [01:51:00] uh, actually outta town the day that they came in and, and did all that. So we didn't even get to see it, but we were sure glad to get those guys off the street.
Annelise Rowe: yeah. Thank goodness
Riley: Um, Alisa, what, what advice would you give your younger self when it comes to, uh, you know, just life?
Annelise Rowe: I would tell myself to have grace to be fully present in the experiences and the memories and, um, even today I don't have such a great memory and I wish. If I could go back that I would just be more graceful to myself and not have such high expectations, not judge myself so much, not put so much pressure on myself to perform or win or be at my peak the time. Uh, to really embrace the moment and not to try to like, [01:52:00] it's okay to not be the best at everything. And I wish that if I could go back, I would really have enjoyed more of the moments and been more focused on the experience rather than the performance or the outcome that I was searching for at the time. So I think having more grace with myself would also have changed a lot of the experiences that I had along the road and some of the things that we talked about today that I just, I put so much pressure on myself growing up that if I had had more grace and been more patient with myself, I think, um. would've maybe found the version of myself that I am today a lot sooner.
Riley: It's incredible. That is incredible. Now, you told me not to ask you, but I need to know what, what's your favorite book of all time?
Annelise Rowe: My favorite book of all time is Unbroken. Who wrote that book? I don't think I've ever gotten that emotional. [01:53:00] It's the, it's the story of Louis Zini, a Zini, um, and his like trials and everything that he went through. So World War ii. Who, but who wrote the book? Um, Cool. Everything is telling me about the movie, but I haven't actually even seen the movie, um, by Laura Hillenbrand.
So, um. That book, I think I experienced an entire whirlwind of emotions. It was one of the very first nonfiction that I read that of opened my eyes into that world and how you can still tell a story through something that is nonfiction. And the way that Louis Zini both was a runner as like, as, as a younger athlete, and then went through all of World War ii, ended up coming back and was reunited, uh, with his loved ones. Um, that book gave me the biggest tidal wave of emotions I've ever experienced. Loved it that. Highly, [01:54:00] highly recommend that book.
Riley: Cool. I like, uh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna check that out for sure. Um, tell us, tell us what's next for you, where you go from here.
Annelise Rowe: Next, I am running the Boston Marathon in April, 2026. I'm
Riley: I.
Annelise Rowe: to be training for that right now. work full-time as the assistant director of operations for our cybersecurity squadron. I.
will continue down that path for as long as I am able. I really enjoy a, the work that I do, but mostly the people, the people make that place very special and I'm really passionate about the people who I work with in the Idaho International Guard. Um, as a wife and a mom, I hope to raise my kids well and we have no plans to have more children. So, um, I feel like we're kind of finally for the first time in at least five or six years, finally settling into a pattern and a rhythm, and I'm really excited for [01:55:00] a little bit of stability for our family because we really need that.
So that's what's next for us is
Riley: It's beautiful.
Annelise Rowe: stability.
Riley: Nice. I love it. I love it. I, um, yeah. You guys have had, uh, some rollercoaster over the last few years, it sounds like, and yeah. Hope you get that stability. For sure. Tell us this, uh,
Annelise Rowe: you.
Riley: where, where can you be found?
Annelise Rowe: Uh, so I am on Instagram. My username is Anisa Row. I'm assuming it'll be spelled here in, in the podcast. So it's just
Riley: Sure.
Annelise Rowe: Row. Um, I am also, I have a YouTube channel. It's Ani Sauce. I can provide you that link as well. Um,
Riley: Oh, please do. Yeah.
Annelise Rowe: YouTube is something that I invested in more so in the past. I'm not as current with it except for uploading shorts, which are the same exact things that I upload to Instagram. That's my primary platform. [01:56:00] I'm on threads and I also have LinkedIn as Alisa Rose. So I am in each of those places.
Riley: That's wonderful. We'll, we'll put those all in the description of the podcast so you can see what Annelise is up to. Um, listen, I really am honored that you came on today. I know it's, uh, yeah, you were a little nervous to come on here. You said you hadn't done this before and hopefully it was a good experience for you, but again, I'm really honored and thank you for coming on.
Annelise Rowe: Thank you, RI I really appreciate being invited and having the chance to tell my story, so thank you.
Riley: It's a wonderful story. So, Annelisa, go earn your salt.
Annelise Rowe: Thanks. Ri.
[01:57:00]