Crossing the finishing line
Crossing the finishing line
Savannah Sachdev on the impact running has on her sex life
If you’ve seen me harping on over on Instagram this week, you will know how excited I am about this interview.
Savannah Sachdev is the only influencer/fitfluencer I religiously follow (on Instagram, obviously, because I’m not cool enough for her TikTok!). She is a runner who has the most insane running streak — she’s at 700+ days now.
Online, she is funny, not smug, doesn’t take herself too seriously, is open and transparent about her journey, her brand deals, her relationship with her body and mental health. And she was no different during my attempt at making her my friend our chat.
Why did you agree to this interview?
When I think of sex, I immediately think of white people. I don't feel like I’ve had anyone to look up to in this space. Also, my immediate thought when the request came in was ‘How will this embarrass my family?’ And I realised how fucked up that was. How many other people must feel like that about talking about sex? So I wanted to do it.
Did you ever talk about sex with your family growing up?
My mum talks about other people’s sex lives so liberally. But with me, she gets embarrassed and shuts it down. Although it’s very much a cultural thing, it’s also because my mum was ostracised as a young teenager. She was sexually harassed but her family saw her as the culprit — they saw her as a slut.
She didn’t want that for me so she came down on me quite hard. I wasn’t allowed to dress a certain way — like no strappy tops at family events, for example — and would be called an attention seeker for dressing a certain way. It did a lot of damage to my view of myself. We are often taught in our communities that if the uncles, or men in general, look at us, it's our fault. It just makes no sense and it's horrible.
You now seem super confident online — when did things change for you?
My breast reduction was a big turning point. I would hide my boobs until I was about 21 because they were so big and I had no one to talk to about my body and how they made me feel. Now, people want to know about them and see them. They feel good on me. They feel fun. I can talk about it.
I posted about the procedure (you can see it in my TikTok highlights) and the response was amazing — so many women asked me about it! It made me realise how many of us are in the same boat, holding on to old shame or fear about our bodies, and we want to talk about it!
I, now, also want to make things more visible — like the fact I have a sex life — so that other brown women can be seen and be validated. I try to do it in a tasteful, not too aggressive way. I put an Instagram story up, for example, that showed my boyfriend’s toe peeping out from my bed. It wasn’t in your face but it was clear that there was a boy in my bed.
How’s your family taken to you being so open online?
I don't have much of a relationship with my dad. My mum has relaxed in recent years after seeing the benefits of my online conversations and how much I’ve changed for the better. She’s coming to the realisation that talking about sex isn’t dirty. So the conversations are happening, but they’re slow.
Has being financially sustained by your online presence changed how you view those relationships?
I say this all the time! It's crazy how much independence it has given me. The fact that I can afford my own rent, to live on my own, means I don't need to lean on my family.
It’s also validation that maybe the way I'm doing things is right and this is the way I’m supposed to live my life — the way they want and tried to teach me isn’t for me.
I, personally, think you’ve done some impactful work with your online presence, like your partnership with SH:24 which encouraged your audience to get tested for sexually transmitted diseases.
I learnt so much from that partnership! They provided a lot of education with the content brief and I realised how much more I, and so many other people, have to learn.
I also wanted to show that sex can be spoken about in a respectful way. When I initially told my mum and my brother about the partnership, they weren’t really keen for me to do it. I told them to trust me. I also explained it was important to me as there could be so many women to benefit from the information — like, did you know, even if you’re in a stable long-term relationship you should get tested as many STIs can take years to flare up? Once it came out, everyone loved it and my mum was so proud.
Before we get into it about running, can you tell me a bit about your living situation?
Steve is my partner who I have been with for five years. We had been living together for a year and a half when I decided to move out. I knew that I loved him, but I needed to learn how to love ‘me’ a little bit more.
I think a lot of girls do that thing where they put their partner’s needs above everything and I was doing that — I was putting him above me. So, I moved to London. I’ve learnt to love myself so much more in the three years since I made that decision, which makes Steve love me more. Obviously, the sex is great because we’re so excited and fired up to see each other after time apart!
We just need to see more options normalised. I shared our setup on my socials and I got tons of messages from girls feeling a similar way who wanted to know how I approached the conversation. Just because one partner wants to move out, the immediate assumption doesn’t have to be you’re breaking up.
OK, so running!
Running has given me so much. It’s taught me how to be more organised so I can always fit it in. It’s given me better posture and made me stand taller — some of that is confidence too! I don’t need anyone to help me carry my shopping and I can do so much for myself. I can show up a little bit better than yesterday.
How has it impacted you most?
You would assume that running would have improved the way I see myself aesthetically, right? But that hasn’t been the main benefit. That’s been my mental health.
I really struggle with my mental health — I’m anxious, I want to be perceived as nice, I want to make sure everyone is OK. I text back quickly, send 18 kisses after any message, and am terrified of putting stuff out. But running helps me to solve what I am feeling in my head.
Everything comes to the forefront when I’m running. I don’t do it to clear my mind, but to think through everything. It makes me more creative, especially doing my thinking away from screens. I tend to go for a run and come back and be like ‘I have this idea for content’ or ‘this is the strategy’.
It’s not perfect and I feel a lot of things and I’m prone to panic attacks. There have been a couple of runs where I’ve become overwhelmed with emotion and have just had to stop.
What about your sex life?
Growing up, I didn’t see brown women working out. I was told not wearing a lot of clothes to the gym or running wasn’t for women. I was told it wasn’t for me. But my family was wrong about exercise. It is for me and it’s been a massive benefit. So if they were wrong about exercise, I realised that they must also be wrong about sex: I was taught that sex was only for marriage and for having kids. But if I had these needs and requirements, then sex couldn’t be a bad thing. And I wasn’t a bad person for having it.
My libido is so much higher when I do cardio. Steve’s too. It makes us crazy! It feels like you should just be tired all the time…but nope! Completely the opposite.
Knowing my body more has also enabled me to express what I want for it more. When I met Steve I was 24 and I hadn’t had an orgasm before. Now, my growth in confidence, my fitness and my capabilities is definitely mirrored within the bedroom.
Steve and I have also recently realised we enjoy watching porn together — there’s a female founded ethical porn site called Bellesa that is primarily aimed at women that we enjoy.
Women often worry about the impact of exercise on their periods and fertility. Is this something you’re thinking about?
It’s important to note that your health is super individual. So what works for me might not work for the next person.
I feel really well — I do still have a period and I've never lost it. I don’t overtrain — which people can think I do as I run every day — but I take my recovery seriously and take long rests in the day.
You have to understand what works for your own body. It’s why I struggle to follow training plans — I know what feels good for me. If something's niggling or when I feel something's off, I pull back. I go for an easy run. You have to constantly be in conversation with your body.
I also do a good job of not talking about food too much online. But I do show that I love food and I’ll eat everything!
[Editor’s note: RED-S, or Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport, has had quite a bit of airtime recently. It was previously called the Female Athlete Triad and one of the key symptoms in female runners is hypothalamic amenorrhea which is the absence of menstruation, hence the chat about periods above. It’s caused by exhaustion, overtraining and lack of nutrition (which is why the diet obsessed fitness world is problematic)]
What do you wish you’d known when you were younger?
I wish I could tell younger me that she is normal. That everyone feels what you're feeling, everyone's going through what you're going through and there's absolutely nothing wrong with your body. The smells, the liquids, everything that's coming out of you… normal.
Thank you for reading! Let us know what you thought in the comments!
You can follow Savannah’s running and croissant hunting adventures over on Instagram and TikTok.