I’m Olivia.
I started my career as a newspaper reporter, covering commercial real estate for the Dayton Business Journal. I loved reporting because it forced me to learn how to interview anybody about anything.
In 2016, I pivoted into content marketing and launched Olivia Barrow Communications.
I’ve put my interviewing skills to good use while helping B2B companies in the software testing, construction accounting, fractional staffing, government relations, and concrete manufacturing industries develop and execute content marketing strategies.
In my spare time, I love reading fiction, running, snowboarding, rock climbing, drawing, and cooking. I’ve completed three marathons, two 50Ks, and one Ironman. I occasionally publish personal essays (mostly about running) on Medium and I’m working on a novel.
Personal Essays
Want to get notified when I publish a new essay? Follow me on Medium.
Pain is Just French Bread
Olivia Barrow • Sep 15, 2024 • 21 minute readFive days before Ironman, I was scared I wasn’t even going to be able to start. I woke up with a tickle of a sore throat. Telling myself it was nothing, I went to my regular Wednesday free fitness meetup, November Project Madison. But as the day progressed, so too did my symptoms. I started sucking on zinc lozenges and shut down my computer early that day, spending the evening reading quietly and heading to bed around 9. By Thursday afternoon, I was panicking.
My parents were due to arrive in a few hours, driving up from North Carolina to catch the entire Ironman experience — from the athlete briefing to the red carpet — and my body was wracked with aches from head to toe.
I messaged all of my clients that I would have to close down shop earlier than I had planned…
Pickle Juice and the Perfect Race
Olivia Barrow • Jan 22, 2022 • 11 minute readI did not think of myself as a runner prior to March 2020, which is to say, before COVID ground communal life as we knew it to a halt, I considered myself to be a writer, a climber, a business owner, a misfit, an extrovert, an aspiring novelist, a recovering perfectionist, a collector of accomplishments, an appreciator of sunrises, and an owner of exactly one pair of running shoes — all before I called myself a runner, despite having run more than one race of a mind-numbing distance.
But when my climbing gym closed indefinitely, my co-working space went on hiatus, and my social circle shrank into a grid of animated rectangles on my aging laptop screen — all in the space of two weeks, running became my solace.
I filled the eerily quiet weekends with long runs in the woods…
I Ran a Half Ironman. Here’s What Was Going Through My Mind at Every Point.
Olivia Barrow • June 25, 2024 • 13 minute readIt’s 7 a.m. on Monday, the morning after completing the Milkman Triathlon, a half-Ironman distance race, and my first ever triathlon. I wake up, feeling incredibly sore from the backs of my knees up to my butt, as if I’ve overextended every muscle and ligament on the backside of my body.
“Was it fun?” my wife asked. “Or is fun the wrong word?” she qualified, seeing me search for an honest response.
When it comes to endurance sports, fun isn’t always the right word, when you’re thinking about how far you are from the end the entire time. But somehow, I’m still addicted to them.
Homeownership, a.k.a. The Existential Fear of Water Penetration
Olivia Barrow • Jan 15, 2022 • 3 minute read“Any more house pictures?!” my best friend texted me on a Wednesday, five days after my wife and I moved into our first house.
We — two women legally married in 2020 — are officially property owners. You could call us Landed Lesbians, if you’d like. (Actually, please don’t.)
On the night of our closing, we sat on the floor of our new bedroom eating burgers from the tavern next door and learned the history of our home. Almost 100 years ago, this neighborhood was built to house employees of the Oscar Mayer sausage factory, a half-mile to the north, then the fifth-largest packing plant in the country.