Sports
Pietra Palma on Running Phases and Letting Go of Pressure
Between Christmas traditions and her husband's routine, the influencer reflects on easing pressure and finding athletic maturity.
Pietra Palma details how her relationship with running shifted over the years, moving from performance pressure to a more balanced practice. The runner also reflects on injury breaks and keeping couple workouts uncomplicated.
The relationship with sports is rarely linear. Between periods of extreme excitement, excessive pace demands, and mandatory breaks due to injury, athletic maturity in running often arrives when performance expectations give way to lightness. In a conversation on Girls Who Run, a show from the Stemma ecosystem, Pietra Palma shared how her phases in running revealed the importance of respecting one's own pace and season.
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The Christmas tradition as a benchmark for evolution
To illustrate how her mindset changed over time, Pietra charts a chronological timeline starting from a family tradition: a morning run on December 25 with her father after Christmas Eve dinner in the countryside. In 2022, right after getting her first pair of dedicated running shoes, covering 6 km mixed with walking at an average pace of 9 min/km brought an immediate sense of accomplishment, even without a watch or metric tracking.
The scenario changed by Christmas 2023. Already settled into a training routine and pursuing longer distances, Pietra struggled with the uphill route and grew frustrated with her performance. Excessive self-criticism for failing to maintain her pace after dinner and in intense heat highlighted a lack of maturity at that moment, when unnecessary pressure overshadowed the joy of a family tradition.
A shift in attitude took hold over the following years. In 2024, after completing her first half marathon in June and dealing with injuries, she approached the Christmas run without rigid goals, comfortably holding a 7 min/km pace. By 2025, the joint workout took place at an 8 min/km pace, matching her father's strategy—as he trained for an ultramarathon while keeping his heart rate below 140 bpm—alternating jogs and walks without any fixation on the clock.
Injury break and returning without pressure
Stepping away from long distances happened gradually, accelerated by a weakened immune system and a rib injury that required two months of complete rest. When resuming training, the previous dynamic no longer brought the same excitement. Instead of forcing an uncomfortable routine, Pietra worked with her coach to adapt workouts into short blocks of fast running alternating with walking.
Her husband's training and contrasting approaches
The process coincided with the start of training for her husband, Stê, who decided to sign up for the Meia Maratona do Rio after being inspired by Pietra finishing her race. Following his preparation, the influencer noticed a striking contrast: a complete absence of anxiety regarding workout times—even at 3 p.m. on a Saturday—nutrition, energy gels, or starting line logistics.
This simplicity highlighted how information overload and the push for optimization on social media often strip away running's spontaneity. In daily life, their difference in pace—with him running around 5 min/km and her at roughly 6:50 min/km—led the couple to prioritize running side by side only on the treadmill, preserving each person's individual, introspective space on the road.
Letting go of the niche and overcoming guilt
The transition also required patience to deconstruct internal pressure tied to content creation. Accustomed to sharing her fitness routine online, Pietra dealt with moments of unease watching other athletes progress while her own practice slowed down. Maturing through this took about a year to solidify the understanding that connecting with her audience goes far beyond training logs and weekly mileage.
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