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SPECIAL EPISODE: 3 Olympic Marathon Trials ‘Hometown Heroes’ Share Their Stories · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I truly love running and it brings me so much joy.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: And sometimes I can get obsessive. I can stress about
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: the watch and what pace I'm running, and you know,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: all of those little things. And if I find myself now,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: if I find myself getting to that point, I literally
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: take the garment off. I might even take the regular
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: watch off and just go and remember why I love
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: it and reconnect to why I'm doing this.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Hey Hurdler's Emily a body popping in to your feed
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: with a really special episode. This is from over the
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: weekend when I was in Atlanta at the Olympic Marathon trials. Now,
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: first of all, running is hard, period. Anyone that breeds
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: any race goes out of their comfort zone and an
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: awesome accomplishment. But to make the Olympic Marathon trials, you
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: have to run insanely fast.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: For men, that.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Means a marathon in under two hours and nineteen minutes
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: or a half marathon of one to four and for
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: woman two hours forty five or half marathon of one thirteen. Basically,
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: these are superhumans and I have the opportunity to sit
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: down with three of them at the Brooks Hyperion House
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: down in Atlanta today. I'm bringing you my conversation with
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Kelly Callaway, Alison Maxis, and Dylan Bellas three all stars,
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: all with really special stories, who really showed up over
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: the weekend and gave it there all. What I love
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: about this is the phrase hometown heroes. These are everyday
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: people you're walking by them on the street that really
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: excel at the sport of running and may not have
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: always crushed it to this level. I get so many
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: questions from you guys. How do I start? How do
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: I stay running? What are your tips your tricks? While
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: this episode is loaded with gems to get you out
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: on the road and keep you safe and healthy. From
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Kelly who's a mom fitning her training into her regular routine,
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: to Allison who's made her passion for miles into her
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: profession with her company Rogue Expeditions, and Dylan who talks
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: really candidly about a personal hurdle that he was able
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: to overcome by incorporating the sport into his life. Whether
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: you're a runner or not, this episode is loaded with
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: the motivation that will inspire.
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: You to be a better version of yourself.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: As usual at Hurdle Podcasts at Emily Abodi on Instagram
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: and Twitter. If you have the moment of your own
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: to share or just want to say hi, you can
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: always reach me over email.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: It's Emily at Hurdle dot us.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: And lastly, a huge thank you again to the team
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: at Brooks for having me down this weekend. It was
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: so fun to be a part of the energy in
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Atlanta and also meet so.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: Many hurdlers that came out to hang out.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: So thank you all for making me feel special and
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: for coming along on this ride with me. Hometown heroes
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Kelly Allison and Dylan Let's get to hurdling.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: I'm clubbing for you.
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: Hey everyone, my name is Emily Abody.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: I'm a freelance journalist and creator and host of a
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: podcast called Hurdle.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: On Hurdle, I sit down.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: With inspiring individuals to talk about some of their highest
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: highs and toughest moments. And I think here today in
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: the Brooks Hyperion House, sitting with these three athletes tomorrow
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: is surely going to.
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: Be a little bit of both.
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: Let's go down the.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: Line and introduce who we have sitting in front of
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: you today. So Dylan, why don't you kick us off?
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Tell me who you are, where you're from and what
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: number Olympic trials if it's more than your first?
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: Awesome?
• 3:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah. My name is Dylan Vellis.
• 3:42
  Speaker 6: I am originally from Ithaca, New York, but I grew
• 3:46
  Speaker 6: up mostly in Denver, North Carolina. It's right outside of Charlotte,
• 3:51
  Speaker 6: and currently I live in flags At, Arizona.
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: This is my very first Trials, so biggest race that
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: I have ever done, So very excited for that.
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: Who. My name is Alison Maxis. I grew up in Denton, Texas.
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: Currently live in Austin, Texas. So I am relocating to Bend,
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: Oregon next month. It's kind of changing locations there. This
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: is my third Olympic Trials. So I was there in
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: Houston in twenty twelve, LA and twenty sixteen and now
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: here in Atlanta for twenty twenty.
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: You're you're a des street beat baby.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: My name is Kelly Callaway. I'm an Army Brats. I've
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: lived all over the place, but I was born in Colorado.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: I'm currently coming from McLean, Virginia, DC, and this is
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: my third Olympic Trials.
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: All right, well, thank you to all three of you
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: for joining us here today.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: For Kelly, we were chatting before the panel and you
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: told me that the marathon is your favorite event because
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: regardless of your talent, you have to do the work
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: to do well.
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: What do you mean by that.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: I mean that all marathoners from you know number one,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: you know, Dozi over there in the corner, to all
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: the way back to the back of the pack. Everybody
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: has to put in the miles. So you're a gritty person.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Everybody is down to earth, and really, you know, there's
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: no marathon diva out there because everybody has to go
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: out there and put one foot in front of the
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: other and grind a way to be able to get
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: on the start line and have a successful race.
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: Dylan, what is it that you love about the marathon distance.
• 5:19
  Speaker 6: I really like the amount of work that it takes
• 5:24
  Speaker 6: to put into it. I think that it's it's not
• 5:26
  Speaker 6: just the physical capacity that allows you to be good
• 5:30
  Speaker 6: at the marathon, but you had to be mentally strong
• 5:32
  Speaker 6: as well, and so I really appreciate, I really appreciate
• 5:34
  Speaker 6: the process in the structure of it really to be
• 5:38
  Speaker 6: able to put it all together every single day, and
• 5:42
  Speaker 6: the way that kind of brings you up and makes
• 5:44
  Speaker 6: you feel and for me, the marathon fits that.
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: Bill Alison, did you grow up a runner?
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: Were you a runner from a young age or is
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: this something that you kind of got into as you
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: got older.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: I got into it at a young age. I can
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: remember in first grade in PEQ. I know that I
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: won the running award that year. We used to run
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: laps around the field and you get a popsicle stick
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: for every lap, and I would win that as a
• 6:07
  Speaker 3: little kid. I did not get into formal racing and
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: running until high school. I actually played basketball most of
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: my childhood, and then sophomore year of high school kind
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: of got convinced to come try across country and quickly
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: found out I was much better that than I was
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: at basketball and kind of went from there. But even
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: in other sports growing up, basketball or whatever, running was
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: always definitely my strong suit.
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: Dylan, what about you? When did you get into running?
• 6:32
  Speaker 6: So I didn't get running get into running n ttil
• 6:34
  Speaker 6: a bit later. I really didn't commit to the sport
• 6:37
  Speaker 6: until I was around seventeen years old, and I played
• 6:39
  Speaker 6: a lot of different sports growing up. Yeah, I mean
• 6:43
  Speaker 6: I got into running more so as a way of
• 6:45
  Speaker 6: helping myself overcome a lot of mental personal issues that
• 6:48
  Speaker 6: I had at the time.
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: I think a lot of people can probably relate to that, right.
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: I'm sure if I asked the audience right now, who
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: runs to get through some hard stuff, you'd all raise
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: your hands, right, yeah.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: I see some hands up. Yeah.
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: So for me, I mean I myself.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: When I started running, it was because I was looking
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: for a way to continue losing weight. I had lost
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: about thirty pounds and I was looking to continue that
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: weight loss with the hopes to lose another thirty to
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: forty more. And so I started putting one foot in
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: front of the other. And when I started doing that,
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: a half mile became a mile, and a full mile
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: became a five k And as I'm sure all the
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: head nodding up here at the panel, you guys can
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: all relate.
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: So I'd love to know, Kelly, do you remember.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: When those first half miles and miles became more and
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: more miles?
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: I remember thinking, So I started running when I was
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: eight years old, kind of a similar story, and I
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: remember thinking I've done a mile when I can't remember
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: where I started. So I was like, I really put
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: one foot in front of the other, and just you know,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: very similarly, I was hungry to run more and longer.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Even as a little kid, I like begged my mom
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: to go out and run five ks and ken k's.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: We had this great picture of her and I running
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: my first ten K. I barfed about a quarter mile
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: from the finish and my mom was like, do you
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: want to stop? I was like, no way, I'm going
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: to keep going because that's just it was. I had
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: to finish it.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: Someone here mentioned that I threw up in one of
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: their qualifying those business this is you No?
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: Oh no, maybe a broken bone.
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: I had a broken na in twenty six Kay.
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, you want to talk to me about how
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: that happened.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Well, that was really tough. So twenty sixteen, I had
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: come back from deployment and had my second child, and
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: I was ready to train and be there for twenty
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: sixteen Olympic trials. It was, you know, I qualified really
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: early in twenty thirteen and I overdid it. You know,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: I was I had a new job, I had a
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: new baby. I was just really stressed out and I
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: was getting in all the miles and the hard work
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: that I had done, very similar to when training was
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: my only job. So I realized something was wrong and
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: I went and saw a doctor did a lot of rehab.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: They told me a soft tissue. So I was like, well,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: I can deal with soft tissue. I can overpower that.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: So I kept you know, I spent all of twenty
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: sixteen Olympic Trials in the trainers, like doing different manipulations
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: and hoping that it would get better. And then I
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: got out on the course and I was running like
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: an injured animal, and my coach pulled me off at
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: five k and it was just devastating. I mean it
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: was devastated. I collapsed on the ground and cried and
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: felt sorry for myself and it was really really hard.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: So I'm happy to be back here. And I mean
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: the bottom line was it was cool to be a
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: hometown here because I went home, went back to my job.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Nobody really cared. And then my kids were just like, Mom,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: you know you're home. They didn't care that I didn't
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: do what my goal, didn't achieve my goal. So and
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: then I really was like I want to get back
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: there for twenty twenty to redeem myself.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: I feel like a lot of us we can identify
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: some of these really tough moments that we've had on
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: the run or on the course.
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: Dylan for you, what would you say has been one
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: of the toughest.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: Hurdles that you've had to overcome on your journey to
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: the Trials as a runner?
• 9:53
  Speaker 5: Wow?
• 9:54
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean so this starts back to when I
• 9:56
  Speaker 6: began running. So, I growing up, I always struggled with
• 10:02
  Speaker 6: depression anxiety as like a very young kid. And it's
• 10:07
  Speaker 6: not something that like, it's something that you have to
• 10:08
  Speaker 6: continuously like work on and develop. And as a young runner,
• 10:12
  Speaker 6: I unfortunately developed from this same depression anxiety anorexia. I
• 10:19
  Speaker 6: lost a bunch of weight and I got really obsessive
• 10:21
  Speaker 6: with it, and so and running was a way for
• 10:25
  Speaker 6: me to help overcome this and to help really allow
• 10:28
  Speaker 6: myself to dig a little bit deeper see myself for
• 10:31
  Speaker 6: who I was. And I, unlike a lot of other
• 10:34
  Speaker 6: runners who maybe use runner running to fuel their anirexia,
• 10:38
  Speaker 6: I actually got into running as a way of allowing
• 10:42
  Speaker 6: myself to look more introspectively and you know, ask myself
• 10:48
  Speaker 6: for greater things. So for myself, my running is very
• 10:53
  Speaker 6: much consistent with how I feel mentally, and so the
• 10:59
  Speaker 6: better work I can do from a self development side
• 11:02
  Speaker 6: of things, the better I am as a runner and
• 11:04
  Speaker 6: as an athlete. So when we talk about overcoming different
• 11:10
  Speaker 6: odds or adversity, you know, one of the things is
• 11:14
  Speaker 6: always making sure that I'm doing the personal work, working
• 11:16
  Speaker 6: on you know, not only my body, but focusing on
• 11:20
  Speaker 6: the tools that allow my mind to be sharp, because
• 11:23
  Speaker 6: that's ultimately what keeps me happy and keeps me moving
• 11:27
  Speaker 6: forward and progressing and getting better not only as a runner,
• 11:29
  Speaker 6: but as a human.
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: Thank you for sharing that.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. I think it's interesting.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: You know, it's really special the longer that I keep
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: up with Hurtle, because I feel so fortunate that people
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: reach out to me to share stories like that. I
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: talk to one young woman in Australia who is dealing
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: with being now in a treatment program for anorexia, and
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: she says to me that her goal is to get
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: through this and a year from now, when she's feeling
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: like a stronger, better version of herself, she wants to
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: train and run a half marathon. And that just tugs
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: at my heartstrings so much because I see so much
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: potential for her and I feel so special that she
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: wants to share her story with me. So, whether it's
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: for her or maybe it's another beginner runner, I'd love
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: to ask you guys. Starting with Alison, what is one
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: piece of advice that you offer to people that want
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: to be a runner but might not categorize themselves that
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: way just yet.
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: I think it sounds cliche, but it's just start. All
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: you have to do is go out and take that
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: first step. And I've done a lot of coaching over
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: the years, including people who are brand new to it,
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: and a lot of it. I think people can do
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: a lot more than they think they can. You can't expect,
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: you know, to be to you know, run a five
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: K day one or anything like that. But if you
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: can get out and just start taking those first steps,
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: it's amazing the progress you can make over and over
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: if you stay consistent. And it's just kind of overriding
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: that voice in your head that tells you you're not
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: a runner or that you can't do it, because you can.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: Anybody can. I've seen that over and over again, and
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: so I think it's just making yourself go out do
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: it and believe that you should be out there, because
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: there's no one who shouldn't or cannot be a runner.
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: Kelly, what's your advice for beginner runners?
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: So I coach a lot of youth athletes since I
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: started when I was eight, I feel really passionate about sharing,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: you know, the sport with the younger generation. And you know,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: I see a lot of the same things where people
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: struggle in the beginning. I think my words of advice
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: that are different from yours would be, you know, get outside,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: because a lot of people think running needs to be
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: done on a treadmill, in a gym, or on a track,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: and I personally enjoy going on trails and going around
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: neighborhoods and just learning the area that I'm in. So
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: that's one of my favorite things to do with running,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: is kind of explore and then get a buddy, you know,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: get out there with somebody else that can you know,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: you can be accountable to, you know, they can be
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: accountable to you too, and get out there. And then
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: the third thing I would say is sign up for
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: a race. It's so nice to have a goal. And
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: then it's you will never be the last person out there.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of people who fear like, well, if
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: I sign up for a race, everybody's.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: Gonna be out there, it will be the last one.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: I've never seen there's a race, usually the last couple
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: people always finished together anyway. But most of the time,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: the people that are out there running are not the
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: last people. There's somebody walking or somebody behind them. And
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: it's really okay to be the last one too, if
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: it's your first five k.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: So I have a confession.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when I was thirteen in my hometown, there's something
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: called the Great Pumpkin Classic, I was the last one
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: with my dad. My dad and I this photo I
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: swear well, like it's not necessarily a haunting photo, but
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: I think it will follow me for the rest of
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: my life.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: And he gave it to me framed this year for Christmas.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: I be cued last year, and so it's a very
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: different time, you know, from thirteen to thirty one. But
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: it's funny we say you'll never be the last one.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: I was like, I remember that time your dad was
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: with you, Dad was with me. I know, last and second,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: the last. I don't know technically who got that honorable
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: last spot. Dylan, what would you say is a piece
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: of advice that you would give to be in our runners?
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 15:01
  Speaker 6: Absolutely, I think I think we've already said a couple
• 15:03
  Speaker 6: of really good things.
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: I think accountability is huge.
• 15:06
  Speaker 6: Finding someone to run with keeping you accountable, whether that's
• 15:10
  Speaker 6: a coach, whether it's some online program, or you know,
• 15:13
  Speaker 6: just having your friends and families support you. I think
• 15:15
  Speaker 6: that's really really big. I also, you know, I also
• 15:19
  Speaker 6: believe that you have to kind of start slower. So
• 15:24
  Speaker 6: I think we a lot of times when we get
• 15:26
  Speaker 6: into something new, we just want to dive in and
• 15:28
  Speaker 6: then we just fully commit to it. But that over
• 15:31
  Speaker 6: you know, that over committal sort of perception or idea
• 15:35
  Speaker 6: is something that can get you into trouble. You know,
• 15:37
  Speaker 6: once you start running into an injury, or you get tired,
• 15:40
  Speaker 6: or you're sword, it's much easier to give up. And
• 15:43
  Speaker 6: I think we anybody can see that with anything that
• 15:46
  Speaker 6: we do. Anytime we do something new, it's something that
• 15:49
  Speaker 6: is it's very difficult to make a habit out of it.
• 15:52
  Speaker 6: So start slower, do a little bit less than you
• 15:55
  Speaker 6: think you can do, and then just try to stay
• 15:57
  Speaker 6: consistent with that.
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: That would be my big thing.
• 16:00
  Speaker 6: And then, you know, lastly, I think with it's a
• 16:03
  Speaker 6: lot of it's a perceptual thing. So a lot of
• 16:04
  Speaker 6: people think like I'm not a runner because of this,
• 16:07
  Speaker 6: or I didn't grow up running, or running doesn't come
• 16:09
  Speaker 6: naturally to me. But I think it's it's less about
• 16:13
  Speaker 6: what other people think, but or and it's more so
• 16:16
  Speaker 6: how you think and how it makes you feel. So
• 16:18
  Speaker 6: if it makes you feel good and you like to
• 16:19
  Speaker 6: do it, I definitely recommend that you create the time
• 16:24
  Speaker 6: for it and don't worry about what other people thinking
• 16:26
  Speaker 6: because or yeah, because nobody is. Nobody's out there judging
• 16:30
  Speaker 6: you for trying to better yourself. And I think that's
• 16:34
  Speaker 6: that's something that we have to keep in mind when
• 16:36
  Speaker 6: we're trying to do something new and do something better
• 16:37
  Speaker 6: for ourselves, is that you got to do it for
• 16:39
  Speaker 6: yourself and not for the approval, the accept or the
• 16:42
  Speaker 6: acceptance of other people.
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: And if they are judging you, then they're not your
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: people exactly.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: I think it's interesting touching on Kelly what you was
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: saying earlier about the injury. Oftentimes, if you're injured and
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: you call yourself a runner and then you can't run,
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: you feel like this lost sense of identity, right, You're like,
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: this is.
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: Who I am? What am I supposed to do?
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: I feel anxious, I feel not myself. Obviously, injury a
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: huge hurdle in running. When you guys think about the
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: tough runs the runs that feel impossible, the runs that
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: make you think, oh, I just like cannot show up
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: and do this again tomorrow. Where do you go to
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: either mentally or do you have any personal tricks that
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: you use to get you through that really hard stuff?
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: Alison kick me off.
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: Sure, in a race setting, I actually have a kind
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: of a unique technique I use in a marathon. I'm
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: pretty much always going to go through some period of
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: time like that, and I actually always make sure when
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: I go into a race that there are some kind
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: of plans that evening, a happy hour, dinner whatever, some
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: kind of meeting up with people. And when I kind
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: of get in that desperate I can't go on point
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: in a marathon, I honestly sit there and I think
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: about that moment meeting up with those people and how
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: it's going to feel to say I didn't finish versus
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: how it's going to feel say I did it, I
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: got it done, and I persevered. And it may sound silly,
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: but in that scenario, it's always enough to kind of
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: remind me that finish line is always worth it, and
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: that there's hills and valleys in every race and every
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: tough run. If you just keep moving forward. It's going
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: to get better. It always does. And at this point,
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: I've been running for I don't even know, over twenty years,
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: and so a lot of that helps is that I
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: can kind of look back and say, Okay, in twenty years,
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: it has never been so bad that I could not continue,
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: and just kind of trusting that that it's going to
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: get better and.
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: Wan a metaphor for life.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of you could probably agree that
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: a lot of the things that we experience on the
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: run they teach us how to show up in other
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: aspects of our lives, for sure. So Dylan, what would
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: you say, what do you lean into when it comes
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: to that tough stuff to keep you going through the
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: hard runs?
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: Yeah? So I think the work starts before you run.
• 18:45
  Speaker 6: I think that you have to be able to put
• 18:47
  Speaker 6: yourself in a good mental head space before you even
• 18:50
  Speaker 6: tackle that run. If you go into it thinking that
• 18:52
  Speaker 6: you're not going to be able to do it or
• 18:54
  Speaker 6: it's going to get hard, I'm going to run away,
• 18:55
  Speaker 6: I when you get scared, and that's exactly what's going
• 18:57
  Speaker 6: to happen. So I do a lot of personal work
• 19:00
  Speaker 6: when it comes to meditation. I've seen therapists. I've seen
• 19:03
  Speaker 6: a lot of people who I talk to on a
• 19:05
  Speaker 6: daily basis to try to get my mind in that
• 19:08
  Speaker 6: optimal place to where when I reach a point of
• 19:11
  Speaker 6: high stress and high demand, I don't have to think
• 19:15
  Speaker 6: about it.
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: I already have that reaction.
• 19:17
  Speaker 6: So I personally, I do a lot of you know,
• 19:21
  Speaker 6: this sort of insightful meditation practice where I get my
• 19:25
  Speaker 6: mind in these uncomfortable places and allow myself to be
• 19:29
  Speaker 6: better at concentration, be better at focus, so that when
• 19:32
  Speaker 6: you're running, you can you get into that same form
• 19:36
  Speaker 6: of that headspace, those wavelengths, and you're better able to
• 19:40
  Speaker 6: Instead of getting really stressed about it and blowing up
• 19:43
  Speaker 6: and having a really bad day, you can slow it
• 19:46
  Speaker 6: down a little bit in your mind mentally and really
• 19:48
  Speaker 6: direct your focus in the right place.
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: Kelly, how you get through the hard stuff.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: So I similarly try to get ahead of it. One
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: thing that I do is I print off the race course.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: I look for place that will be challenging, like hills
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: or obviously anytime past mile twenty, you know, things like
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: the places where it'll get challenging, and I physically write
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: on their on mantra to tell myself so I get
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: ahead of those tough hills, those really tough places where
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: I know I'm going to grind, and I could go
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: to a negative place and be like those hills sucks,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: I want to stop. Instead of doing that, I automatically
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: go to the mantra, and so I use that and
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: I visualize my race, and as I'm going through the race,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: I say those positive things to myself. And it could
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: be anything from like you go girl to like explotives.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter what it is, you know, whatever keeps
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: you going at that time, and that's really helped me
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: along the way throughout a lot of tough races. I
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: flashed back to Boston in twenty eighteen with the terrible Yeah,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: it's like you were. We survived, right, But I really
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: relied on those positive things and a lot more than
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: I thought I was going to have to because the
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: conditions were so bad. But we could have stopped, you know,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: just like a lot of people did, and we didn't quit.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: And that's because we did that mental work up front
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: and stayed positive throughout that.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: You mentioned mantras and mental work for any of the
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: three of you. Do you have any specific mantras that
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: you go back to continuously or does it kind of
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: depend on the race And are these things that you
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: work through in your training or again do they just
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: come to you on race day.
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: I would say one which is in line with kind
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: of the trick that I described before is finish line
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: is always worth it. That's always in my head. And
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: then honestly, just forward motion. That's it. I've done a
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: little bit of ultra running, kind of dabbled in that,
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: and that comes in very handy in those situations when
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: you really just have to keep moving forward at all costs.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: But that works really well in a bad spot in
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: a training run or a race or anything like that, because,
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: like I said, it always comes around and gets better.
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: So forward motion is.
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: Probably less of a mantra but more of an action.
• 21:56
  Speaker 6: So I believe Eliogi came out and he's you know,
• 21:59
  Speaker 6: he's talked about how it's important to smile when you're running,
• 22:02
  Speaker 6: and then there's all sorts of research and articles that
• 22:04
  Speaker 6: came out about like smiling and running and it sounds
• 22:06
  Speaker 6: like the silliest thing. But recently, when I've been hurting
• 22:10
  Speaker 6: and these big workouts leading up to today, I find
• 22:14
  Speaker 6: myself forcing myself to smile and you know, looking silly,
• 22:20
  Speaker 6: but honestly, it has night and day changed the run.
• 22:22
  Speaker 6: So that's one of the things that I've I've tried
• 22:24
  Speaker 6: to focus on when it comes to racing now. It's like,
• 22:26
  Speaker 6: even if you're hurting, even when it's really hard, especially
• 22:29
  Speaker 6: when it's really hard, try to smile. You might get
• 22:32
  Speaker 6: an extra few percentages.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: I wrote on something for runners well, not all that
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: long ago, and in the article, I found some research
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: that says when you cheer on other people, it actually
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: gives you a boost as well and your performance.
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: I can it can make you perform a little bit better.
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: So just on that smile notion and keeping things positive,
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: it definitely can help pay off there on the course.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: You mentioned you go girl, But do you have any
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: other mantras that you lean into on the road.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: My dad always said hard work pays off, so I
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: go to that, and then I always think of my kids.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: I've got two daughters and little dog, and so they
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: you know, I never want to disappoint them, but I always,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: you know, want to make them proud and they'll be
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: out there on the course tomorrow. So I always think
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: of them and go back to you know, just making
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: those girls proud.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: I'd love to for a second reflect on the race
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: that got all of you to this very specific Olympic trials.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: I know we have a couple veterans up here in
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: front of us, but talk to me about what it
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: was your experience on the race day that got you
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: here and why you reflect on that, hopefully in such
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: a positive.
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: Light, and anyone can feel free to go first.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: I'll start. So I first qualified in Austin Marathon in
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: twenty eighteen, So that was two years ago, and that
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: day was really special for me. So I had been
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: a pacer at the Austin Marathon for years where I
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: would never race it because it's hilly and hot, and
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: in twenty seventeen I got talked into racing it for
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: the first time. It was pretty terrible experience. It was
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: extremely hot, extremely humid. I did win it, but it
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: was the slowest, most painful race of my life. Casual
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: of course. Yes. Then then I got talked into coming
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: back in twenty eighteen. I said yes, you know, after
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: a while kind of the pain fades and you agree
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: to anything. So I went back in twenty eighteen. I
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: was not planning to qualify for the Olympic Trials there again,
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: this is my third round, so I was pretty sure
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: I would qualify at some point. I was aiming for
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: CIM later that year, but I wanted to run Austin.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: It was my hometown race. I really really liked the
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: people that put it on and it just kind of
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: made sense. So I jumped into that race. And I
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: was actually only a few days back from guiding some
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: trips in Patagonia. I had flown in I think three
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: days beforehand jumped into this race. The weather was better
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: than usual but not great, and it was just kind
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: of one of those magic days, I think it being
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: a hometown race, seeing so many friends and family on
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: the course, and energy was just really really good. And
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: somehow mile twenty came around and I still felt great,
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: so I was able to keep pushing and pushing, and yeah,
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: I ended up running two forty three on that course,
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: which was six minutes faster than the year before. And yeah,
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: I got that qualifier, which I was absolutely not expecting.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: So to be surprised with it and to be able
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: to do it in my hometown course just really really
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: meant a lot. Dylan, what about you?
• 25:17
  Speaker 6: Yeah, so from twenty sixteen to twenty eighteen. I spent
• 25:21
  Speaker 6: the better part of those years injured, so I just
• 25:24
  Speaker 6: had a lot of issues with consistency and being able
• 25:27
  Speaker 6: to put together training. I switched coaches at one point,
• 25:30
  Speaker 6: mostly just dude, because I moved from from one place
• 25:33
  Speaker 6: to another, and I made a promise to myself that
• 25:38
  Speaker 6: once I moved that I was going to do everything
• 25:40
  Speaker 6: possible to get my body back in the correct rhythm again.
• 25:43
  Speaker 6: So I mean I needed to do strength training every week,
• 25:46
  Speaker 6: so I committed to two days every week. I saw
• 25:48
  Speaker 6: PT two days every week. I saw chiropractor one day
• 25:50
  Speaker 6: every week. I just like I had no money.
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: But I was going to say an impressive roster I had.
• 25:56
  Speaker 6: I had very little funding, but I knew that this
• 25:59
  Speaker 6: was the goal that I wanted to achieve and I
• 26:01
  Speaker 6: needed to correct some imbalances. So during that year I
• 26:05
  Speaker 6: was able to finally put together.
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: About eight weeks of.
• 26:09
  Speaker 6: Positive training leading up to the California International Marathon in
• 26:13
  Speaker 6: twenty eighteen. So going into that race, I really just
• 26:16
  Speaker 6: wanted to turn my mind off and hop in the
• 26:19
  Speaker 6: pack of people and just get in qualifire. I didn't
• 26:22
  Speaker 6: care what I ran. I just wanted to run two
• 26:23
  Speaker 6: nineteen or faster, and so over the course of that race,
• 26:27
  Speaker 6: it was probably one of the easiest races I've ever
• 26:30
  Speaker 6: done in my life, because there was fifty guys that
• 26:34
  Speaker 6: I was just in this pack with and I ended
• 26:37
  Speaker 6: up feeling really good, and I really did not start
• 26:40
  Speaker 6: to feel like I was racing a marathon until about
• 26:41
  Speaker 6: twenty three miles into the race, which was incredible, and
• 26:44
  Speaker 6: during that time, I was calculating what I needed to
• 26:47
  Speaker 6: run that last five k because at this point my
• 26:49
  Speaker 6: mind was starting to say, hey, you don't need to
• 26:51
  Speaker 6: really go that fast.
• 26:52
  Speaker 5: You know, you can.
• 26:53
  Speaker 6: Slow down just a little bit and still get away
• 26:55
  Speaker 6: with it. Unfortunately I was I had over a minute spare,
• 27:01
  Speaker 6: and so I didn't mean to, but I took those
• 27:05
  Speaker 6: miles a little bit easier coming in. And then as
• 27:08
  Speaker 6: you at California Nationally, around the corner and there's like
• 27:10
  Speaker 6: two hundred meters left and you can see the finish line,
• 27:12
  Speaker 6: and so at this point I had new I had qualified.
• 27:16
  Speaker 6: I didn't care what place I was in because I
• 27:18
  Speaker 6: was like fortieth or fiftieth. There wasn't really not too
• 27:20
  Speaker 6: much incentive there. But once I turned that corner and
• 27:24
  Speaker 6: like I'm getting chills like saying here right now. But
• 27:26
  Speaker 6: once I turned the corner, I saw the finish line
• 27:29
  Speaker 6: and I was just in tears. I like, I couldn't
• 27:33
  Speaker 6: I couldn't control myself. I was just I ran really
• 27:37
  Speaker 6: really slowly going into that finish line. I just soaked
• 27:40
  Speaker 6: in as much as I could. I've got you know,
• 27:43
  Speaker 6: if you look at the photos from that race, I'm
• 27:45
  Speaker 6: just like full out, like crying, and I've finished the race.
• 27:49
  Speaker 6: I went like straight to my bag, I grabbed my phone,
• 27:54
  Speaker 6: I called my mom. I was like, I did it.
• 27:56
  Speaker 6: I did it, and I was just like, man, I
• 27:58
  Speaker 6: don't know it was. It's it's overwhelming to me. Still
• 28:01
  Speaker 6: feeling it, and I've run faster since then. But that's
• 28:04
  Speaker 6: that's the day that like, I really was able to
• 28:06
  Speaker 6: see somewhat of a potential in a lot of years
• 28:09
  Speaker 6: of hardburg payoff, and I was I was really proud
• 28:12
  Speaker 6: to do it.
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: I have chills hearing about it.
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: I also think it's so funny because you say, quote
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: I was running really slowly, what is slow?
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: And you're right, I was joking. I was definitely jogging.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: A little job. It was a little six minute job.
• 28:29
  Speaker 6: Maybe I didn't care if I didn't care if it
• 28:31
  Speaker 6: was to eighteen fifty nine.
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: At that point I had a minute despair. I could
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: walk it in if I wanted to.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: I was fine, I love it, Okay, And Kelly, what
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: about you? What about your your qualifying?
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I go back to really friendship and just
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: a cool thing about this sport. I mentioned the twenty
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: eighteen Boston Marathon that was going to be where I qualified.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Turns out that didn't happen. But what I what did
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: happen was I got on the bus and a girl
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: was sitting there with an open seat next to her,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: and I recognize from high school Kira Dematto, and she
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: was Kia Carlstrom back then, but we were like high
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: school rivals. And I sat down next to her and
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god. We had this moment
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: of like, you know, twenty years ago, we were in
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: high school competing against each other, and then in college
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: we competed against each other, and then we just didn't
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: hear from each other for about a decade. So we
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: went out there and we both you know, made it
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: through that Boston Marathon. At one point she passed me.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: At another point, I went like two miles before the finish,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: I passed her. I was like not even conscious at
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: that point. She was wearing a pink, you know, jacket,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: and I just remember like, yeah, like just kind of
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: cheering for when we got to the end, and we
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: were both like happy that we made it, but disappointed
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: in everything else. And I so we parted ways. We
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: were really proud of each other and we made it
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: through that and about you know, two weeks after that,
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: I talked to my coach and she was like, what
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: about Grandma's And I hadn't thought about running in two
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: full weeks. I was so messed up from that race.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: I had hypothermia after where it's my feet were cut up.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: I was just like and normally I'm like hell yeah,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: but I was like I need a minute. And I
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: had to go back and talk to my husband and
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: make sure my family was cool with like a whole
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: nother marathon really quick. Meanwhile, we were moving to DC
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: and everything else. So I did agree to do it,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: and then I also called up Kira and I was like,
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: can you do can you do Grandma's with me? And
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: she was like, I need a minute. She did the
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: same thing and we both decided to do it. So
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: we went up there. My flight was delayed. She got
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: me dinner, she picked up my bib. I ended up.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: I was supposed to be in a hotel across town,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: and she was right there. She's like, just sleep in
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: my room. I slept in her room. Her kids were
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: there in a little playpen, and I was like, hey
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: on my aunt Kelly, and we took I had the
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Elite boss, but she didn't at that time. So because
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: we signed up late, and so we decided to take
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: the train together, which was an experience. So we took
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: the train and it got a little stinky on the train.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: It was a fun experience, but it was kind of stinky.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: There was only one bathroom and it took over the
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: whole train. So we we you know, rode the train
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: and we got to the start line and we knew
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: we were just going to run a conservative race and
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: run together, and so we started out and everything was glorious.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: We got to mile thirteen running right together and boom
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: she took off and I was like, I'm gonna stick
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: with a plan. I'm going to stick with just running
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: a conservative race. And I was like, you go, girl,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: you know, like you have fun. And so I ended up,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: you know, sticking to the plan. And about mile eighteen
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: I passed her and she was not looking good and
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: I was like, Kira, you have to make it, like,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: come on girl. So she she picked it up and
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: I went by, and so I finished with like two
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: forty two. Was, you know, a good race, solid race,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: exactly what I needed to happen, and everything went perfectly. Meanwhile,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: the whole time I was kind of waiting for something
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: to happen. I was running a little bit scared after
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: making it through Boston, but it went beautifully. I qualified,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: but this is my third time, so I was like, yeah,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: you go me, But where is Kira? And I stayed
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: at the line and waited for her and she barely
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: made it. She was like had thirty seconds or something.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: And she came across the line and we were crying
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: and celebrating, and her parents were there and her kids
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: were there, and I was just so proud that we
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: could be together in that moment. And really, you know
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: what the sport means to have like this community of
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: runners and people pulling for each other. It's you know,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: we were rivals in high school and I'd look at
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: her and be like, let me, you know, I want
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: to beat you all the way. You know, flash forward
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: twenty years and I'm just like where, you know, I
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: really wanted her to come across that line. I didn't
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: care who out of us, you know, had the faster time.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: I wanted both of us to be here. So it's
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: really cool. And I just did my shakeout run with
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: her today and it's just a neat journey to be
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: on with a great friend.
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: It's awesome.
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, all three of you have different stories, but
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: it's clear that you all have a lot of feelings
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: about how running, all the feels about how running makes
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: you feel. It just makes you feel some kind of ways.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: So when you think about how you feel after a
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: good run, what is that? How would you describe that
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: post run bliss of sorts?
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: I would just say that feeling makes you feel like
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: you can pretty much accomplish anything. I don't think there
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: much is there's not much that seems that challenging and
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: that difficult in comparison to some workouts we've been through.
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: So I think the feeling after and especially hard effort,
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: really gives you an amplified sense of that feeling that
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: you could take on the world and do anything, but
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: just having that run on a daily basis, I mean,
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: I think you just get that kick every day and
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: pretty much everything else is totally manageable. Once you've got
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: the run done.
• 33:32
  Speaker 6: I'd say I feel clear. I think it's like a
• 33:35
  Speaker 6: it's a structural component in my life. So when I run,
• 33:38
  Speaker 6: everything else goes better. So if I have a good run,
• 33:41
  Speaker 6: I feel good in the morning. I'm able to pursue
• 33:44
  Speaker 6: the next the next tasks in my day relatively easy.
• 33:49
  Speaker 6: And it's really easy to go from from running.
• 33:51
  Speaker 5: And set that up.
• 33:52
  Speaker 6: It's like, you know, just winning the first thing of
• 33:55
  Speaker 6: the day. So you wake up, you go for a run,
• 33:58
  Speaker 6: it's successful, and that kind of leads onto the next
• 34:00
  Speaker 6: thing that you do. And for me, it's you know,
• 34:03
  Speaker 6: going to going to work and being social and talking
• 34:06
  Speaker 6: to people and helping people. So running is a way
• 34:09
  Speaker 6: for me to kind of cycle through those thoughts and
• 34:11
  Speaker 6: allow myself to be more clear when I approach those
• 34:13
  Speaker 6: things that I have coming up in the day.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: I certainly feel recharged after I run. I use it
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: as a time to process my life and stuff. And
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: it's funny how people in my life can see you know,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: even you know, my husband obviously we've been together a
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: long time. My kids know like, hey, mom, maybe you
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: should go for a run right now because you're getting
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: kind of crazy and antsy. And then even like my
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: soldiers on a deployment, I have been like, okay, so ma'am,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: let don't you go for your run. We've got this
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: because I start to get really, you know, I start
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: to kind of get like this and I need to
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: go for that run to process things and come back
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: and be, you know, somebody who's pleasant to work with.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: So it's for me, It really recharges me. It lets me,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: you know, go through and analyze everything that's going on
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: in my day. I come back with better ideas, fresher,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: and you know, just able to accomplish.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: So much more.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: Kelly, you mentioned before pulling the trigger on Grandma's that
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: you consulted with your family because obviously the things that
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: running involves, they can involve great sacrifice for the people
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: around you. A lot of listeners they reach out to
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: me and they say, I feel like I can't run
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: because I just can't make it happen.
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: You need to make a lot of sacrifices to make
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: running happen.
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: So I'm curious to know.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: I mean, obviously, aside from the sacrifice of time with
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: your family, what would you guys say has been maybe
• 35:33
  Speaker 2: one of the biggest sacrifices or shifts that you've had
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: to make in your schedules to make a journey like
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: this possible for yourself, Because a lot goes in to
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: showing up on the starting line here in Atlanta.
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: I kind of.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Don't think of it as sacrifices as much because I
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: love it and I gained so much from running. But
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: when I really analyze it like that, you know, I mean,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: there are weeks where we're not going to the museum
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: or I'm not going to to you know, be able
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: to volunteer at my daughter's swim meet because I've got
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: to go and get that twenty two mile run in.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: But on the flip side, when I'm out there doing
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: that twenty two mile run, my kiddo's stand out there
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: with a water table so I can practice, and the
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: neighborhood kids like jump in, So you know, I think
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: I gain a sense of community from that. I mean,
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: I'm sure I could probably party a lot more, have
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: a lot more fun, but I don't think that's who
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: I am deep down inside, So it feels less like
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: a sacrifice that I will say. You know, I do
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: consult the family because it's you know, I mean, it's
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: a team effort. My husband goes out and puts water
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: bottles out there for me and then takes care of
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: the you know, my kids while I'm doing all all
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: of those things, and they really make it happen. So
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: it's a huge team effort. I have my parents throw
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: in to you know, babysit and come and watch kids.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: My in laws have even done it before the first
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: time I ran, sim my father in law came to
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: watch my kids and he knew nothing about MARATHONI I
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: left spry and ready to go, and I came back
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: and couldn't walk up and down the stairs. It was like, why,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: I don't get it. So it's just it's a real
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: team effort.
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: I would agree with what Kelly said. I don't really
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: think of it as sacrifices necessarily, because again, the payoff
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: and the benefit what we I think most of us
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: get out of running is so great. For sure, there's things,
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: I mean that get a lot less sleep than I
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: could otherwise. They're social events, things like that over the
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: years that I guess, in a way, you do sacrifice
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: in order to reach that level of training. But again,
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: I think if I were to look at the converse
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: situation not running, I think everything else would not work
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: out as well or go as well. I think running
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: is a catalyst for basically being able to take charge
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: of everything else in my life. At least it's a
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: very necessary component of my life. So I would say
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: some sleep here and there. I don't have kids, so
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: I've got a lot less to juggle for sure. But
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: I have had those years where I was putting in
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: one hundred mile weeks, working full time coaching, and a
• 37:58
  Speaker 3: lot of that was just grinding through it. As I've
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: gotten older, I've learned a lot more about balance, about
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: getting enough sleep, taking care of myself, because I've realized
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: I want to be able to do this for a
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: long time. I don't necessarily need to do as much
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: as possible at all times. I want to be able
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: to do enough for as long as I can. So yeah,
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: that's kind of yeah.
• 38:16
  Speaker 6: I think it just comes down to a matter of
• 38:17
  Speaker 6: priorities and where those lie. So where where can you
• 38:20
  Speaker 6: give your energy and how much time of that energy
• 38:22
  Speaker 6: can you give And that's different for everybody. So some
• 38:25
  Speaker 6: people only have a certain amount of time to give
• 38:27
  Speaker 6: to running, or to give to their job or whatnot.
• 38:30
  Speaker 6: So it's important that you find, you know, where that
• 38:33
  Speaker 6: balance is. Again, it's not going to be equal, but
• 38:35
  Speaker 6: it's important and kind of like saying, you know, like
• 38:38
  Speaker 6: like the lady said here, it's I think it's it's
• 38:40
  Speaker 6: not a sacrifice. You know, running is definitely something that
• 38:43
  Speaker 6: has elevated a lot of other things. I sleep better,
• 38:46
  Speaker 6: you know, I'm definitely going to sleep earlier, I take
• 38:48
  Speaker 6: care of myself more.
• 38:48
  Speaker 5: I'm more cognizant of that.
• 38:51
  Speaker 6: I tend to eat betther I because running is you know,
• 38:54
  Speaker 6: is very uh, it's like a very singular activity in
• 38:57
  Speaker 6: some senses, it's important important to make time for those
• 39:01
  Speaker 6: social times or family time and to create specific designations
• 39:06
  Speaker 6: for when and where those priorities lie and when and
• 39:10
  Speaker 6: how much energy you need to give to them. So
• 39:11
  Speaker 6: I think it's just a good way of being able
• 39:13
  Speaker 6: to Running allows you to break it down in a
• 39:16
  Speaker 6: way that you can actually see those and make it happen.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: In this era of the highlight reel, I mean obviously
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: I just asked you all about like that best race.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: But I think so often in this highlight reel era
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: where people are often comparing ourselves to one another on
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: Instagram and social media, so much of what we see
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: out there is the good stuff. I'm curious to know
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: what has a quote unquote failure been in your running
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: journey or a particularly difficult time that you truly learn
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: from and then became a better runner because of this instance.
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: So right after I graduated college, I moved. I went
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: to school in Florida, moved to Austin, and I really
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: wasn't planning to pursue any kind of professional or elite
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: running or anything like that. Although I did run in college,
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: I wanted to race locally, so I moved there. I
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: found a coach and was kind of training with a
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: little group five k ten k type stuff, and pretty
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: quick within a month or two of moving there, I
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: actually ended up with a pelvic fracture, and so that
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: injury put me out for a year. So I was
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: about twenty one twenty two years old at this point
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: and didn't really know what was going on. By the
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: time it got diagnosed as a stress fracture. It was
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: pretty it was several fractures at that point, didn't really
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: have a doctor that had dealt with that, so I
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: just kind of tried to cross train through it for
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: six weeks and figured it be fine. I just made
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: it worse in the end. It was a full year,
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: and it probably took six or eight months before I
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: realized I needed to do absolutely nothing for a while.
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: But this thing was never going to heal. But there
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: was a large portion of that year where I was
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: pretty sure I would never run again. Didn't really know
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: what I was going to do. Started looking at the
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: rowing team things like that, trying to find some kind
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: of outlet for myself. But I really in my mind
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: that was probably going to be it. Of course, it
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: got better, you know, it always does. I had a
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: great coach at the time who kind of, you know,
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: talk some sense into me. Reminded me that when she
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: was my age, she didn't even know what running was,
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: and she now has a few Masters World records things
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: like that. So the time passed, and honestly, I look
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: back at it now, it's a very very important experience
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: in my life. For one thing, it made me the
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: following year I actually picked up and moved to Thailand
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: for a year, moved to Asia, something I had always
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: kind of wanted to do, but something I don't think
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: I ever would have done if I were training kind
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: of in that routine and in that grind, because you
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: don't break that routine. But because I couldn't run, I
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: didn't know what else to do. I use that as
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: a catalyst to go totally change up my life. Basically,
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: moved to Asia, taught traveled for a year and that's
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: kind of been a catalyst for everything I do now,
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: which is owning a run travel company. But beyond that,
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: it also taught me that I can still be like,
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: I can still be myself and I can still be
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: a good person with out running. You can take running away.
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: It doesn't change how what people think of you, It
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: doesn't change who you are, and it will come back.
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: But it kind of taught me that running is not
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: the only way that I can define myself, and that
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: was very important, especially at that age.
• 42:14
  Speaker 6: Yeah, so during very similar to what you just said,
• 42:19
  Speaker 6: and that so during my heavier years of you know,
• 42:23
  Speaker 6: basically food restriction, anorexia, and mental illness. Like when those
• 42:27
  Speaker 6: years got really bad, I had to relearn a lot
• 42:31
  Speaker 6: of different things, basically what was normal, you know how
• 42:36
  Speaker 6: what's the right mindset of thinking through things how I
• 42:39
  Speaker 6: should be physically, And so this took a lot of time,
• 42:41
  Speaker 6: took a lot of doctor visits. I had a lot
• 42:44
  Speaker 6: of issues that had to be controlled before I could
• 42:47
  Speaker 6: really pursue running and be decent at it. And so
• 42:52
  Speaker 6: those strategies that I had to learn in those settings
• 42:55
  Speaker 6: allowed me to be able to.
• 42:57
  Speaker 5: Apply that to running.
• 42:59
  Speaker 6: So, knowing that I have more so of like an
• 43:03
  Speaker 6: addictive personality, it was important that I didn't just replace
• 43:06
  Speaker 6: one thing with the other. So it meant that and
• 43:10
  Speaker 6: you know, I would go overboard and you know, basically
• 43:13
  Speaker 6: jump ship with restricting myself for you know, beating myself
• 43:16
  Speaker 6: up internally to the point to where you know, I
• 43:20
  Speaker 6: I'd be almost immobile, I couldn't function.
• 43:23
  Speaker 5: It was important that I didn't just take that sort of.
• 43:26
  Speaker 6: Obsessiveness and you know, again addictive traits and just apply
• 43:30
  Speaker 6: it to running and call it good health. So I
• 43:33
  Speaker 6: had to make sure that I could relearn a lot
• 43:36
  Speaker 6: of things that you know, in daily life, but also
• 43:40
  Speaker 6: in relation to my running, because I needed to make
• 43:43
  Speaker 6: sure that I didn't just you know, take those and
• 43:47
  Speaker 6: replace it with something else. And that's something that we
• 43:49
  Speaker 6: all often tend to do when it comes to when
• 43:52
  Speaker 6: it comes to mental illnesses, or it comes to anything
• 43:55
  Speaker 6: that's really like hits you really hard in life. It's
• 43:58
  Speaker 6: you have to just make sure that you're doing the
• 43:59
  Speaker 6: right things and taking the steps, and that's a continuous
• 44:01
  Speaker 6: flow of taking those steps forward.
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: Kelly, what about you?
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: So I mentioned my experience in twenty sixteen. I didn't
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: know it was a stress fracture, and I knew that
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: I had failed, and it was really hard for me
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: to go back. I was teaching at west Point at
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: the time, and I taught the last class of women,
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: all women at West Point, in hand to hand combat,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: and so those ladies were so all behind me, ready
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: to cheer me on, and I was really I didn't
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: even know how to go back, you know, to that
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: I felt so ashamed of my performance. I didn't at
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: the time. It took like two weeks for me to
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: get an MRI, so I didn't even know what was
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: wrong with my body. I didn't have the picture to
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: tell me definitively that I had dropped out of the
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: race for a Grade four stress fracture. Not just because
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: I felt bad, and it was really hard for me
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: to go back and face those cadets who really looked
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: up to me, you know, and it took me a
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: while to re even share the story. I just kind
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: of breathed by it. I was really still focused on
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: coming back and focused on recovering from my injury. And
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: eventually I was a part of the women's mentorship group
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: at West Point, the Corbin Forum, and we were starting
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: to do stuff kind of talking about the highs and
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: lows of Instagram. It hits the kids at West Point
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: really hard, because you know, they they're they're doing some
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: really tough stuff and they see their friends out in
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: college traveling and climbing mountains and doing cool stuff on Instagram.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: So sometimes that social media really hits the hard. We
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: were thinking about ways of you know, sharing kind of
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: the lows too, and I've realized that I didn't share
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: my lows with them, and so one of our meetings
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: I shared with about, you know, twenty five of the
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: female cadets. We were all sitting there and I shared
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: the story of the twenty sixteen trials and how I
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: had failed and how you know, like what that meant
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: to me what that did to me, and you know,
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: we all kind of cried together. Everybody else shared some
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: of their failure stories too. I mean there were people
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: that I looked up to and cadets that I just thought,
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: you know, they've never made a misstep in their lives
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: who shared some of their experiences and failures too, And
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: it was really a powerful experience. It brought us all
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: closer together, and it also showed me. I mean I
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: organized it thinking I'm the teacher, I've got this, you know,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: but I learned probably more than the cadets did from it.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: So now I'm not, you know, I'm I'm embracing that
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: and learning from it and moving forward and having a
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: blast here at twenty twenty, and like really making sure
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: that it's fun and I remember why I do this sport,
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: because I truly love running and it brings me so
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: much joy. And sometimes I can get obsessive. I can
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: stress about the watch and what pace I'm running and
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: you know, all of those little things. And if I
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: find myself, now, if I find myself getting to that point,
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: I literally take the garment off. I might even take
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: the regular watch off and just go and remember why
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: I love it and reconnect to why I'm doing this.
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: Also, I think opening up and letting go of that
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: story and sharing that story and what a burden released
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: off of your shoulder, something that you felt like you
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: were probably internalizing absolutely.
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: For so so long.
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the point I think one of the most popular
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: questions I get. And obviously my definition of fast personally
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: is different than Dylan's, which is different than everybody else's.
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: But a question I get from a lot of big
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: beginner runners who are trying to find their version of
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: fast is how did you get so fast?
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: So the question I have for the three of you,
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: in an appropriate time, I.
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: Would say, is what do you think was the unlock
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: for getting fast?
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: And I'll share a quick story.
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: I sat down with a man named NOx Robinson, and
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: he is a run coach in New York City, and
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: he told me, reflecting on my personal experience at the
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: Boston Marathon, he said, when you let go of the
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: runner that you believed that you were, when you stopped
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: believing that Emily is a nine minute and eight forty
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: five minute pace runner, and you opened up to the
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: possibility that you could be faster, you left her behind
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: and you went to reach for something new.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: And I thought that was really special.
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: So I'd love for you guys to share, what is
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: the thing that made you understand that you were fast?
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: How did you get fast?
• 48:10
  Speaker 6: I think for myself, it was just putting the time in.
• 48:14
  Speaker 6: I did not start as a good runner. I was
• 48:17
  Speaker 6: not very good in high school. I walked on to
• 48:20
  Speaker 6: a college. I didn't even race in uniform until my
• 48:23
  Speaker 6: third year.
• 48:25
  Speaker 5: I wasn't.
• 48:26
  Speaker 6: I wasn't someone who you would be that you consider, Hey,
• 48:29
  Speaker 6: i'd be sitting on this stage and talking to you
• 48:30
  Speaker 6: about running right now. But that wasn't something that I
• 48:34
  Speaker 6: really was concerned about.
• 48:35
  Speaker 5: I wasn't.
• 48:35
  Speaker 6: I didn't care about what other people thought. I really
• 48:38
  Speaker 6: just wanted to be my best and continue being better
• 48:42
  Speaker 6: I was. I was really driven by the self transformation
• 48:46
  Speaker 6: that came from running and the amount of.
• 48:49
  Speaker 5: Work that it took.
• 48:49
  Speaker 6: It was something that was challenging, but it really fed
• 48:53
  Speaker 6: into that desire, that kind of fire I had to
• 48:56
  Speaker 6: continue being better, And for myself, it was just putting
• 48:59
  Speaker 6: in the time, trying to take it as slow as possible,
• 49:02
  Speaker 6: taking the correct steps, and of course there's a lot
• 49:04
  Speaker 6: of I made a lot of mistakes along the way.
• 49:07
  Speaker 5: Too.
• 49:08
  Speaker 6: We all go overboard at some point, find out what
• 49:11
  Speaker 6: we are capable of, well we're not capable of, and
• 49:14
  Speaker 6: continuing just to try and you know, break that down
• 49:19
  Speaker 6: and figure out what it is that's going to continue
• 49:21
  Speaker 6: moving us forward, even if there's minor setbacks. So for myself,
• 49:24
  Speaker 6: it was really just putting in the time, staying focused
• 49:27
  Speaker 6: on that day, and just having this long term mindset
• 49:30
  Speaker 6: of like, Okay, I'm not very good right now, but
• 49:33
  Speaker 6: if I continue to commit my time to this, my
• 49:35
  Speaker 6: energy to this, I'm going to be good later. And
• 49:37
  Speaker 6: so that was something that I really put all my
• 49:39
  Speaker 6: money on, was that everything that I do today is
• 49:42
  Speaker 6: going to affect me a year, two years, or.
• 49:45
  Speaker 5: Ten years down the road.
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: Alison, when you started running, did you ever think that
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: you would say the sentence I came in first in
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: that race.
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: No, definitely not again. I've run for a long time.
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: I was always a good athlete. But I, like Dylan said,
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: I think everything's consistency. If I were to look back
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: over the course of my whole journey as a runner,
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: it's just been the fact that I've been out there
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: doing it day after day after day. It's something that's
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: as ingrained in my daily routine as brushing my teeth
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: or something like that. It's something I've always done, so
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: I think that's where a lot of that came from.
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: But no, I mean, I ran in college, but it
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: was D two. I was decent in those circles. But
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: really my breakthrough was kind of post college.
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: Again.
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: I had no plans to race professionally or anything like that.
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: But after that injury, I moved to Asia for a year.
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: I came back and kind of fell into this team
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: in Austin, and the coach there they were creating kind
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: of a post collegiate development team, and he literally came
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: up to me and said, you're really not fast enough
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: to be on this team, but I can't recruit any girls.
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: Unless I have some girls. You might be an okay,
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: marathon or do you want to be on this team?
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: And I was like, Okay, I don't know if that's
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: a compliment or not, but let's try it. So I
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: just kind of started training and started ramping up my
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: leage and just doing the work day and day out,
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: and it began to pay off. And you know, a
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: year later, it qualified for my first Olympic trials, and
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: here I am twenty years as it's been now.
• 51:08
  Speaker 4: That was in twenty twelve, probably thirteen.
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: Eleven was eleven, So yeah, tw nine years later, still
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: doing it. But I would say in terms of racing
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: and kind of a few like breakthrough races I've had
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: really came from when I made myself race rather than
• 51:23
  Speaker 3: worry about pace. I think we all get very fixated
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: on actual paces and plans and strategies. And I had
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: a few opportunities where I just stopped looking at that
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: went into it because maybe there was someone I was
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: competitive with, or the race itself, you know, I was
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: trying to make prize money, whatever it was, or I
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: just let go of those paces and just ran the race,
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: and all of my movements were dictated by whoever the
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: people were that I was racing, And in those situations
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: I ran much much faster than I ever would have
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: imagined or would have done if I were just fixated
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: on pace. So I think a lot of that, yeah,
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: is just letting go of the watch and the numbers,
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: and you can really do a lot more than you.
• 51:58
  Speaker 5: Think you can do.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: So for me, I think about a few times where
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: first in high school, I switched high schools from I
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: moved from Texas to Virginia halfway through high school. And
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: when I got to Virginia, my new coach he believed
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: in me and he gave me a plan to get
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: better and that was huge. I mean I got a
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: lot better. I then ran at NC State, you know,
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: arrived with like I'm awesome. I was number one on
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: my team, quickly got humbled and had to learn to
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: really work. And then I remember the race where I
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: believed in myself. It was running you know, the mile
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: at the Duke Invitational, and there were some of the
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: girls on the team that were they were Kagas. They
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: were awesome, super fast ladies, and they intimidated me. They
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: were upperclassmen. And during that race, I had the opportunity
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: to pass them, and I did and I ended up
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: beating them, and it was it was huge for me
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: to believe in myself that I you know, I could
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: have held back, and I could have said, well, they're
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: faster than me, they have faster prs than I don't
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: deserve to be up there. But instead I believed in
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: myself and I pushed past what I you know, them
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: and what I thought, you know, was really just a
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: mental barrier that I had. I put them in on
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: this pedestal and you know, that was my pr race
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: in college and it was just fantastic. And then moving
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: forward into the marathon. I got the opportunity to join
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: the World Class Athlete program for the Army in twenty ten.
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: And when I got there, I started having some really
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: good workouts and we had another girl on our team
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: and she had way faster prs than me. Again, and
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: my coach was like, hey, you're pretty good workouts. You
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: might be able to be Emily, And I was like really,
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: And we went out there and did a race and
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: you know the same thing. I had to reach into
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: that same place because I put her on this pedestal
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: I had seen her for years and just believing in yourself,
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: not letting those you know, mental hang ups get you,
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: and like putting other people in a place where you
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: know you're going to hold yourself back.
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: It's so special what happens when you become your own
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: hype man?
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: Right, Yes. Yeah.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: So the way that I wind down the podcast on
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: the show, I ask my guests to reflect on some
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: of the tough times that we talked about and what
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: they would do right now if they have the opportunity
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: to offer themselves one piece of advice. So right now,
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: what I want you to do is, I want you
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: to visualize this race. I want you to visualize Saturday
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: and you're running and you hit one of those tough moments,
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: one of those moments that you have to really dig deep.
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: You have an opportunity right now to offer yourself one
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: piece of advice to push through and get everything that you've.
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: Been working for. What is it that you tell yourself personally,
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: I would just remind myself to have fun. This is
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: such a special experience to be here, to be part
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: of it. Everybody on that start line has worked so
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: hard and is so excited to be there, And any discomfort,
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: any of those periods in the race, it's fleeting, it's
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: going to pass, and just the honor of being here
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: is so great. So really, just remember to have fun
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: and really soak in the experience all of it, whether
• 54:59
  Speaker 3: it's good point or a bad point in the race.
• 55:03
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you can't avoid pain.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 55:04
  Speaker 5: The marathon is a hard event.
• 55:06
  Speaker 6: You're gonna be out there for two hours plus and
• 55:09
  Speaker 6: it's gonna take everything that you have to be able
• 55:12
  Speaker 6: to have the most successful day that you want to have.
• 55:15
  Speaker 6: So if you expect that it's gonna be easy and
• 55:18
  Speaker 6: it's gonna be a breeze and you're gonna do well
• 55:20
  Speaker 6: and you're gonna make a team, it's it's unrealistic, you know,
• 55:24
  Speaker 6: to really be able to achieve something that is bigger
• 55:27
  Speaker 6: than yourself or you know, something that is up to
• 55:30
  Speaker 6: your standards, it's gonna take a lot of vulnerability and
• 55:33
  Speaker 6: it's gonna take a lot of stress and strain, and
• 55:35
  Speaker 6: you have to be ready for that. I'm a big
• 55:38
  Speaker 6: believer that you have to be able to make the
• 55:41
  Speaker 6: decisions before they happen, so you can visualize the race,
• 55:45
  Speaker 6: you can visualize how it's going to go. But it's
• 55:46
  Speaker 6: good to do that mental prep to be able to
• 55:50
  Speaker 6: you know, know that, hey, the pain's gonna come, but
• 55:52
  Speaker 6: I expected it to come instead of my mind, you know,
• 55:55
  Speaker 6: going into it's going into fight or flight remote.
• 55:57
  Speaker 5: You know, I want to be able to fight rather
• 55:59
  Speaker 5: than fly away.
• 55:59
  Speaker 6: So you know, if I had to tell myself something,
• 56:02
  Speaker 6: it's just to you know, to stay strong, but to
• 56:05
  Speaker 6: expect the pain, and for lack of a better term,
• 56:08
  Speaker 6: you know, pain is temporary, but we have to expect.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: It, and I would tell myself and will tell myself
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: to be grateful. I'm really grateful to be out here,
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: grateful to be healthy after such a long journey of
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: you know, coming back from injuries and dealing with other stuff.
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: I am so stoked to be out there with this
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: incredible field of the best women in the nation, you know,
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: running alongside the best men in the nation out.
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: There as well.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: Just really be grateful for this incredible experience.
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: Well, I know we will all be out there tearing
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: you guys on on Saturday if you want to follow
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: Hurdle at Hurdle podcast also at Emily Body on Instagram.
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: I'm so excited to watch all of you another hurdle conquered.
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: Catch you guys next time. Toy in my hair.